His qualities were beauteous as his form,
For maiden-tongued he was, and thereof free;
Yet, if men moved him, was he such a storm
As oft 'twixt May and April is to see,
When winds breathe sweet, untidy though they be.
His rudeness so with his authorized youth
Did livery falseness in a pride of truth.
W. Shakepeare
By the time they made it to the station, there were a line of cars headed the opposite direction. Apparently water into blood was one too many following the plague the year before.
"And the Exodus begins." Crane offered from his side of the front seat. Abbie chose to remain silent, which was the default setting in case of Crane meltdown.
"As if migration will assure them safety." He sneered.
"People like to feel like they are doing something." Abbie said, ignoring her own advice. She hated goading him, or at least feeling as if she were, but sometimes the shit that came out of his mouth was too good to pass up. "I mean, if you had no idea what was going on, wouldn't you take Katrina out of town?"
He studied her then; Abbie wondered what had made him leave Katrina back at the cabin. "What would make the river run red?" Abbie posed to herself, but knew Crane would jump in with his opinion whether wanted or not.
"Biblical plague." Crane fed.
Abbie nodded, she had been considering that herself. "One red river does not an apocalypse make." She managed a glance at her partner while twisting through increasing traffic.
"Firstly, you have managed to misquote Shakespeare, which I can only infer is an intentional play on the present situation " Crane said with the usual fickle finger of fate pointed in her direction.
Abbie sighed; she could smell a Cranetankerous rant a mile away. She wondered if it was some heightened sense of her typical bullshit meter with all new upgrades; perhaps the next step would be seizures before an earthquake.
"And secondly," what else would make a natural body of water turn red?"
"Algae." Abbie added and threw the car into park. "Red Algae is infamous for sporing and turning water colors. There's a pool in Brazil that actually has two separate flows of different colors."
Crane turned to face her as they made their way to the door of the station. "Correct me if I am wrong," he began as if there was a possibility he believed he could be wrong. "But might it be assumed if this algae was the cause of the discoloration, would it not have happened before?"
Abbie shrugged as she opened the glass door and slid into the mayhem. Irving spotted their entrance and moved toward them with the speed of an irate honey badger. "Bout time you two showed up. I keep you around to keep a handle on the madness in this town." He looked between the two of them. "Please tell me I don't owe the great taxpayers of this town a refund for your salaries."
"We're on it." Abbie quipped. "Just need to get to the archives for research."
"People are scared, Mills." Irving added, and Abbie understood the unspoken; that he too was scared.
"Captain," Crane spoke. "I assure you that the Lieutenant and I will do everything in our power to rescind whatever horrendous actions are at play here."
Irving glared at the two Witnesses he usually felt blessed to know. "No fancy speeches, Crane. Just get it fixed."
"We're on it." Abbie clarified, grabbing her partner by the elbow before he made another soliloquy.
But, two hours later the two had nothing. The archives resembled a train wreck and the two sat opposite each other in silent stalemate.
"It's not." Crane insisted.
"Of course it is, what the hell else could it be?" Abbie asked with a dramatic slam of the tome in front of her. She flung herself back into the chair and knew she was settling in to another Crane standoff.
"Lieutenant, you said so yourself; one sign does not a plague make."
Abbie shook her head. "All right, Crane, let's play your game." Crane raised one eyebrow at her, clearly the first sign of a long winded rant gearing up. "What else you got?"
Crane gave the second sign of a rant; he cleared his throat and affected the Smug Grin. Ten minutes into his listing of what it could be, his phone rang.
Abbie listened without interest, she knew the only other person that would call him. He said a few words then grabbed his coat. "We need to go."
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
The scene would have been funny had it not been so surreal and horrifying and even with that Abbie found herself biting her lip and reminding herself that this was yet another bad sign.
Crane erupted from the Jeep as if someone had lit his ass on fire; Abbie launched herself out of the driver's side and moved to the scene in front of the cabin.
"Katrina!" Crane yelled as he waded through the undulating green that covered the wooden porch and spilled over the surrounded lands. The entire yard, and the road was covered in frogs, or toads, or frogs and toads. Abbie wasn't sure. She was sure, however, that this was a second sign.
She had called Irving on the way and had asked if there was anything odd going on. "You mean aside from the river turning to blood?" he asked in an even tone.
"Yeah," Abbie had punctuated. "Aside from that."
Irving confirmed that, no there were no other reports of any sort of oddness. In fact, he noted that the phenomenon had in fact, dissipated. It was that bit of information that pressed the gas pedal harder as they made their way to the cabin.
Crane had already made his way up the steps and through the front door. Abbie was a bit slower, choosing to not leave puddles of green pulp in her wake as she moved.
Maybe I am not in such a hurry to save the princes today. Abbie wondered to herself.
But the scene that greeted her as she entered the cabin nearly made her double over in laughter. Only nearly. She knew better than to make light of a situation that Crane would obviously be panicked in. Someone had to keep their head.
Katrina stood on top of the wooden slat table, her demeanor the classic pose of a fifties housewife finding a rat scurrying across the floor.
Well, there were frogs (toads?) covering every inch of the cabin floor.
Abbie holstered her weapon and turned from the scene of Crane trying to coax his wife off of the table. She tried to assess the situation as an outsider.
"What do you mean, they just showed up?" Crane asked the frightened woman standing on the table.
"They rained from the ceiling." She asserted still bearing the grimace of fear and revulsion. Her hands animatedly mimed as she spoke. "I had no idea…."
"Rained?" Abbie asked with a pointed look at her partner. "You mean they came out of no where?"
"That is what I said Miss Mills." Katrina answered. She had finally taken Crane's hand and was allowing him to carry her off of the table.
Crane seemed lost as if he had not considered what to do once getting his wife off her perch. Abbie had visions of ivory towers but chose to keep her thoughts to herself. Instead she cleared the jumping frogs (toads?) through a path and lead them back out to the car.
"We need to get to the archives." Crane said.
"Crane, this is a second sign. It's the second plague." Abbie accused as she started the car. "You ready to talk Plague with a capital 'p'?" Abbie was fully aware and conscious of her goading, it was fed by irritation and the residual feeling of having stepped on living amphibians.
Crane wisely chose to not feed the animal gestating in his partner's voice. He held onto Katrina and sighed. "We will cross that bridge when we come to it, Lieutenant." he insisted from the passenger seat. He turned to check on his wife again, she seemed a small child curled into the far corner of her seat. He himself could no longer deny the issues surrounding her miraculous appearance. He had to know; the fate of the world was at stake. One man's happiness could not outweigh human existence.
"Then we'll burn it."
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXx
"We need to question her." Abbie insisted. They had made it back to the archives in record time. The two sat at their desks as Katrina characteristically chose to nap on the couch in the far corner. Crane had lovingly placed one of the old blankets over his wife. He was aware of the validity of Miss Mill's assertion; what he was unsure of was hearing the answers. "I will do it." He answered.
Abbie nodded, "You've been saying that since day one. Four weeks later and the Biblical plagues are manifesting."
"We don't know that for sure." Crane insisted defensively. In truth he had every inkling of something nefarious with her return. She wasn't the same. The four weeks of Katrina's return had shown a steady decline in his belief that everything would be fine.
Abbie blew a harsh sigh between her lips and shook her head. "When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains," Abbie insisted. "Must be the truth. If we were on the other side of this, Crane you would see this entirely differently. You are too close to this."
"There is a fair amount of impossible in our day to day, Lieutenant." Crane fired back, irked by her accusations. "And might I veer you away from fiction into fact; in completing a hypothesis, the one with the fewest assumptions should be selected. We don't know what brought Katrina back from Purgatory, and we cannot assume that this is directly associated with my wife. "
"She put her foot into the water and it turned to blood." Abbie hissed.
"She had put her feet into that river at least a dozen times before that." Crane insisted. "And we deal with the impossible every hour of every day. Is it not possible that this is mere coincidence?"
"How many times have you reminded me that coincidence goes out the window when the two of us are involved?" Abbie retorted. "And the cabin, just the cabin, is riddled with toads."
"They were frogs, Lieutenant." He challenged.
"A toad by any other name—"
"Still makes a ghastly wet crunching noise when stepped upon." He finished, eliciting the hard won smile he had been trying for. He loved that, loved her smile. He had not seen one since…But that was something he pushed out of his mind. "And you are yet again misquoting Shakespeare." He missed this, their easy arguing and manner, even when they did not agree, neither one of them took it personally. Both of them understood they had to work as one, to be as one. He had to admit to himself that she, this tiny woman, had the power to render him an idiot with just a few words.
But, more than anything that he missed of her he had to admit to himself that he missed his friend. He missed them.
Abbie nodded. "All right, Crane." She got up and grabbed her coat. "I'm gonna go check in with Irving. I will give you the room. " She offered him her patented 'get it done' glare before turning toward the door. "Call me when you two are finished."
He nodded and experienced the same apprehension he always felt when she left. Sighing, he wiped his face with his hands and stood. It was a mission, and he had to treat it as such. There was no getting out of it; Miss Mills had given him a directive and a good soldier always completed his mission.
She was still asleep when he moved to sit next to her reposed frame. She was truly beautiful but even he could no longer deny the need for answers. Her recent frailty had puzzled him; Katrina had always been one of strong opinions and stronger will. She barely spoke of anything other than frivolities and objects of impermanence since her return. '
He realized, too, that he himself had undergone a change in many ways; perspective, knowledge and something else. Something he, who had always considered himself of considerable intellect, could not find a name for.
Crane had long realized that waking her gently was the best course, he took her small hand in his and kissed it gently with a slight but insistent utterance of her name.
"My Love," Katrina breathed as she opened her eyes. "What is it?"
He sighed then, knowing this was going to be a difficult mission to complete. "Katrina, we need to talk."
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXx
"So, you left them to it, then?" Jenny's voice taunted from a distance." Abbie had hoped that Jenny would return her call from earlier, what she didn't expect was the speed nor the sudden return to town.
"Yeah," Abbie answered rubbing away the headache that had begun in the back of her eyes. "Apparently they need to talk."
"I should say so," Jenny said. "Biblical plagues aside, it's been four weeks and we still have no idea how she got here."
Abbie smiled, it was so good to talk to her, to be able to have this free and easy conversation with a sister she had missed out on for too long. They were indelible in each other's lives now, and she needed it more than she would openly admit. "True."
Jenny paused before she spoke. "So, how are you doing Abs?" Jenny asked hesitantly.
"I told you, I'm fine." Abbie answered.
"You know when you do that little sing song thing with your speech patter? Yeah its kinda your tell. It means you're not fine but I should stop asking."
Abbie smiled. "You know this, and yet you still push."
"Yup." Abbie could hear the smile in her younger sister's voice. "Its what I do. Listen, Abbie Its ok to be jealous."
"Excuse me?"
Jenny sighed on the other side of technology. "I mean, you two are close, before Katrina showed up you two were closer than most if not all married couples I have known."
"I don't know where you are going with this," Abbie said, feeling a pul in her chest she was not ready to deal with. "But I wish you would stop pushing."
"Whatever, Abbie. If you need to talk, call me, and let me know what's going on? I would like to have a little warning before all hell breaks loose."
"Quite literally, But like I said, it seems to be a localized phenomenon."
"Yeah, that doesn't make me feel a whole lot better about this. You be careful, Sissy." Abbie smiled at the affectation of a nick name she hadn't heard since….before. She must really be scared. Abbie pondered. "Some of those plagues are really nasty. And watch that last step; it's a real loo-loo."
Abbie clicked end and sat at her desk; Jenny's food for thought left her ravenous