Content warning: In this chapter, there is some closer engagement with Tacoma's self-harm.
NINE: BACKWOODS REDOUBT
TACOMA
One day maybe Tacoma will get used to this. One day she might have a rhythm, a kind of order to her existence here, although it's hard to imagine what that would look like when at the moment only three living creatures know she's still around, and two of those are pokémon.
This is not that day. Hasn't even been a week yet, after all. The tower is already achingly familiar – she can recite those names in alphabets she can read for twenty-nine floors down – but it isn't home, not by a long shot. She's taken off her coat and boots, thrown her sweater across her sarcophagus at a careless kind of angle; still, she has the feeling that even if she stripped naked and flung her clothes everywhere she wouldn't be able to make this space feel like a place in which someone lived.
The problem is probably that this isn't a place in which anybody lives, really. Back on Tuesday, after she'd bid Jodi goodnight and promised Nikki she'd be back with her in the morning, she decided she'd try and simulate some kind of routine and actually got undressed to sleep for once. She noticed then that the stubble on her legs hadn't grown any longer than it was when she got dressed to catch her train home, which in turn made her realise that her nails were the same length too, and that despite a week without brushing her teeth her mouth still tasted normal, and after that she put her clothes back on and decided to hell with a routine, nothing mattered any more and there was no reason for her to do anything at all.
Dead. You get used to it, and then you notice something else and it hits you all over again.
Who, she thought, unable to care but equally unable to let it go. Why. Harry, Nick, someone else. Thumbs on her neck and lightning in her hair.
They know nothing. They know nothing, still, and in one sense that's fine; Tacoma has all the time in the world now. But lying there, staring at the even stones of the ceiling, she couldn't escape the questions. Who. Why. Repeated so many times now that she no longer bothers with the inflection.
She did not recover on Wednesday. Jodi was out, and Nikki is too used to her depressive bullshit to help her break out of it: she just lay down with the rock, holding it between her claws and whining when Tacoma went back inside. It's something Tacoma feels bad about. They both used to be so restless, and for a while after Tacoma's energy burnt itself out Nikole still was, dragging her out of bed and into the fresh air. Until she realised that there was something wrong with Tacoma beyond the fact that she didn't want to take her for walks any more, and she started to spend all her time just sitting with her, uncertain why she couldn't make her partner happy any more but desperate to do it anyway.
Thursday isn't any better. At this point, Tacoma hasn't heard from Jodi since Tuesday night; she pretended to be asleep on Wednesday morning, aware of Jodi's nerves but unwilling to start that conversation, and while she sensed Jodi's distress when she got back home she couldn't bring herself to ask if she was okay.
After that, Jodi ate almost without breathing for fifteen straight minutes and then immediately fell asleep. The last time Tacoma left the rock, her clock said it was about twenty past twelve. How long Michelle and León will leave it till they come to check on her Tacoma isn't sure, but she's been using the fact that they might do it at any time as an excuse to stay in.
This is not the right thing to do. Especially not after Jodi plunged right into her parents' grief to go and get Nikki for her. That's not nothing, especially not for an empath, and especially not for an empath who's just come out. Jodi did that for her, and she let Nikole wreck her leg on the way home too, and here Tacoma is, refusing even to stick her head out and say hello to the partner Jodi brought her.
She's not making this any better by beating herself up about it. She knows this.
She's doing it anyway.
Time might be passing, or it might not; hard to say, in here. Tacoma waits, scratches at the cut on her arm that is now stuck forever on the itchy verge of sealing up; she listens to Nikki making concerned noises outside, cuts the connection, opens it again immediately, wracked with guilt.
(Who. Why.)
Lothian is up, she thinks. But last she looked, he was just sitting there on the end of Jodi's bed like a gargoyle, completely uninterested in occupying Nikole. Worried about his partner. Like Nikole is about hers.
Tacoma did a course on partnership in her first year, as it goes, on the unique instincts that bind humans and certain pokémon together, but she really doesn't want to think about that right now.
Jodi's mind ripples, like water beneath a falling pebble, and Tacoma puts her eye to the crack to see Lothian stirring, shuffling down to the head of her bed. This is a chance to break the fugue, and Tacoma forces herself to take it: she pushes her head out, making Nikole look up and make a little breathy noise of pleasure, and watches as Jodi grips the bed frame and drags herself slowly into a sitting position.
"Mm," she grunts, scratching Lothian's head. "Hey, you."
Her voice is thin and quiet. She might at this moment be the most exhausted person Tacoma has ever seen.
"Morning, Tacoma," she says, looking up. "Gotta be quiet. Not sure I can do telepathy today."
"'S okay."
Tacoma jerks her head at Nikki, signalling that she should come pick her up. It's been a long time since she last carried her, but these past couple of days Tacoma has rediscovered the old pleasure all over again. Nikki always liked it. Kangaskhan are primed for parthenogenesis and motherhood; those who don't conceive for whatever reason feel better if they have something else to hold – a soft toy, a partner. And it's pretty nice being on the receiving end, too. Tacoma likes physical contact, even if she hates when people initiate it.
"Bit closer, Nikki," she says, and feels the thread connecting her to the rock stretch and sway as Nikole brings her over to Jodi. "How're you doing?"
"Tired." Jodi leans back against her pillows, eyes closed. Something about this position makes the bones of her face seem horribly prominent, like her skin could just melt off her skull at any moment; a second later, gathering up her energy or detecting Tacoma's unease, she opens her eyes again and seems to come back to life. "I'm sorry. I might not actually be getting out of bed today. Definitely not leaving the house, anyway."
"Because of the funeral?"
Jodi sighs.
"Yeah. Because of the funeral. Standing up all day, especially after I already hurt it yesterday" (Nikole's fault, thinks Tacoma, which of course means it's her fault, really, as if she hasn't hurt Jodi enough already over the years) "and the amount of … of everything I had to block out." Lothian moves closer, settles himself at her side with his fuzzy neck pressed up against her chest, and she slips her bony arm around him as she speaks. You could fit maybe two or three of those arms into one of Tacoma's. She isn't sure whether she's envious or worried. "Grief, sure, but everyone staring, and everyone wondering who …. you know, who did it, and their shock and curiosity and everything."
"I'm sorry."
"It's not your fault."
"I meant that it happened," says Tacoma, although this is not, in fact, what she meant.
Half-smile.
"Okay," says Jodi. "Thanks." She scratches her face, then freezes for a second when her fingertips encounter stubble. Tacoma wonders what it's like. The way Jodi's mind feels, it definitely can't be much fun. "Hmph. Anyway," she says, taking her hand away with a visible effort of will, "it was a nice service. A lot of people really care about you. They're gonna be really happy, after all this is done and we can tell them you're not gone."
The terrible thing is that Tacoma believes her. People do care. They care about her, because she's the success story, the Mahogany kid who got the scholarship and soared even as the town fell off a cliff beneath her, and because they don't know what she did, back on her trainer journey. She wants nothing more than to tell them the truth, turn the pride in their eyes into horror, but she never has done, and now she figures it's probably too late. Let them have their moment. Let them celebrate a brilliant dead daughter. To take that away at this point would just be cruel.
"Okay," she says, aware that Jodi is waiting for some kind of response. "I … I don't know how to feel about that."
"I guess that's understandable." Of course it is. Jodi the empath, understanding everything. Makes her skin crawl. "Look, we don't have to talk about it," says Jodi. "The funeral, I mean. If you want, we can just focus on―"
A knock at the door. Tacoma is back inside the rock in an instant, Nikole's dismayed growl echoing in her ears; the next thing she knows, Jodi is calling out:
"Yeah?"
"Jodi?"
Ella's voice. What? Has term ended already?
"Ella?" Jodi sounds as confused as her. "Don't you have school?"
"We all got the day off for the funeral and then they figured there was no point bringing us back just for two days. Can I come in?"
"I, um … sure, I guess."
She's nervous; Tacoma can feel it in whatever it is that passes for her bones. Because Ella might have overheard them? Or because she hasn't shaved yet? It's only been a few days, but Tacoma is beginning to get an idea of the lengths Jodi goes to to avoid people seeing her on anything but her own terms.
The click of the door; a little gasp of inward breath.
"Nikki," says Jodi. "Calm down."
Tacoma presses her eye hastily to the gap and sees the room sway dizzyingly around her as Nikole shoves her into the crook of one arm, the other curling across her vision into a battle stance, ready to slash or punch.
"Nikki!" she snaps, hoping she can hear. Her ghost powers do seem to extend to some kind of telepathy; she summoned Jodi that night, and she got Nikki to calm down the last time she scared Ella, too. "You have got to stop doing this."
Nikole pauses, confused as to where the voice is coming from, but she does lower her claws, and Tacoma just catches Ella's sigh of relief as she moves.
"Sorry," says Jodi, like any of this is her fault. "What is it, Ella?"
"Um … who were you talking to?"
"Lothi. He wanted to know if I was okay."
"Oh. Right, I forgot he can … I forgot."
Pause. Tacoma reaches up to her lips, tells herself not to pick, and picks.
"Did you want something?" asks Jodi.
"Oh. No, I mean – Mum asked me to check on you if you weren't awake by one. Make sure you didn't die or anything."
"That's what she said?"
"Maybe she didn't use those exact words."
"Okay. Well, thanks." Jodi leans out of bed to grip Ella's arm, and all at once Tacoma misses Everett so much it hurts. "I'm okay. Exhausted, but okay."
"Are you sure?"
"Mostly." It sounds like she's smiling. "Are you okay?"
"What do you mean?" she asks, too defensive, too fast, and Jodi sighs.
"Because I'm psychic," she says. "And because I know that me doing … this, you know, it doesn't just affect me."
Another, longer, pause. Ella stares at the floor, nudging something around with her toe. Talk, Tacoma wants to scream. Your sister's still alive! Talk to her! But she stays silent, and so does Ella, and in the end it's Jodi who has to take responsibility.
"C'mere," she says, tugging Ella closer, and as she sits down on the bed and leans with an unexpected eagerness into the hug Tacoma cuts the line.
This isn't for her, she reflects, in the stygian gloom of the tower. Watching would be spying.
She thinks of Everett, for whom she is herself an Ella, a wayward little sister who doesn't know how to talk to him, and she thinks of the funeral he just attended where he saw her burnt to ash, and Tacoma yanks hard on her half-healed cut so that the flesh pops apart again like a bag of crisps but though it hurts like hell there isn't any blood at all.
When she next dares to look outside, both Jodi and Ella are gone, and only Nikole is left. She is delighted to see her, so much so that Tacoma doesn't have the heart to retreat again, and they spend an hour alone in Jodi's room that would be funny if Tacoma wasn't actually living it. Nikki seems to be aware her partner can't get things for herself, so she keeps taking books off Jodi's shelf (about music, mostly, and also one about that Watergate thing that Tacoma remembers vaguely was in the news a couple of years ago) and putting them down in front of her with an expectant look on her face. The kind of thing you'd laugh at on TV, but which in real life is just frustrating.
But it's Nikki, it's her partner, so Tacoma clamps down hard on her annoyance and keeps on thanking her for each one. After a while, she seems to get that they're unwanted and gives up to just lie down with her instead, resting her heavy head on her arm and staring at Tacoma's mouth. (She doesn't like eye contact, and assumes that everybody else is the same because she is even more self-centred than her partner.) Sometimes she reaches out with her free claw, just to make sure she's still there. As if she's afraid she might disappear.
It's not such an unwarranted fear, honestly. Kind of a shitty thing to realise, but there it is.
Eventually, the wait is over. Tacoma hears footsteps – very slow today, and uneven – and the muffled click of Jodi's cane, and then there she is, pushing the door shut behind her and leaning heavily against it.
"Hey," she says, closing her eyes. Tacoma is half afraid of seeing the skull beneath her skin again, but now she's made her face up it's much less obvious. "Sorry. We, um … I think we needed that."
"It's fine," says Tacoma. "She all right?"
"Mostly." Jodi smiles, and the skull fades even further, blanked out by her prettiness. "Thanks for asking."
Tacoma moves to shrug, except of course all she manages to do is wiggle the thread around a little.
"She seemed upset. So. You know."
"Yeah," says Jodi. "I know." Pause. "I need to spend some time with her soon," she adds, hesitantly. "Just us. If that's all right."
It is. Or no, it isn't, there is a huge selfish thing roaring in Tacoma's head for Jodi's attention, rattling its spines against each other and clawing at the sides of her skull, but this is unreasonable and she knows it.
"Sure," she says, certain that Jodi can see the spiny thing raging in her, not knowing what to do except try to hide it anyway. "I mean, she's your sister. Can't really complain about sharing you with her."
"Thanks." Jodi pushes herself away from the door, limps over. Normally she hides it better, but today the pain of moving is written all over her. "Tomorrow," she begins, and Tacoma leaps in before she can finish.
"Let your leg get better first," she says. "And your brain. Dunno what we're gonna find out there, but you should be ready."
"Tomorrow," repeats Jodi. "We'll go tomorrow. Then I think Saturday I might take Ella to Ecruteak. They probably have last year's movies by now."
It takes a while for films to reach Johto; there aren't a lot of cinemas, and not that many people who can afford to attend them. There isn't much of a home film industry, either; the closest thing to Johtonian film is Kantan film, and obviously that means that half the cinemas here don't show it on principle, even though the only real difference between Johtoni and Kantan is the alphabet and intonation.
"That's cool," says Tacoma. "Hope you guys have fun."
"Thanks. But. First – you know. That cabin." Jodi sighs. "I'm not gonna lie, I don't really know how we're gonna find it when the cops can't, but, um, we'll have to try."
"Can you get it from Nikki?"
"Dunno. Not today, anyway. Maybe she'd understand if you asked her." She frowns. "Actually, why didn't Con ask me to do that? You'd think they'd want the help. It's a nightmare finding anything up there even when it isn't snowing."
"No idea. Let's leave it for now." God damn, would Jodi just let herself rest for a bit? She looks like she might die if you asked her to go downstairs. "Where's Ella?"
"Painting. It's okay, she always plays her tapes when she paints; she won't hear us." Something seems to occur to her then: she straightens up a little, gives Nikki a look. "Are you two okay in here? Sorry, I just left you here all day."
"'S all right. Guess I wouldn't mind the radio or something."
"Right. Okay. Um … TV? Sorry, I think if I go outside I'll need to be rescued by Lothian before I get to the end of the drive."
"TV is okay," says Tacoma, relieved at the prospect of Jodi spending the afternoon sitting down. "You like TV, don't you, Nikki?"
The ridges around Nikole's eyes shift into a new alignment, and despite herself Tacoma has to smile. Sometimes Nikole has the patience for TV and sometimes not – but she always knows when her partner wants her to agree with her on something.
"That's a yes," she says. "She likes things that move."
"Cool." Jodi plants her cane, pushes herself back up. "C'mon then, you two. That TV isn't gonna watch itself."
It sure isn't, agrees Tacoma, and so they go downstairs, where Jodi drags her bad leg stiffly up onto the sofa and they watch a Kantan art historian talk expansively about paintings. The broadcast assumes you're watching in colour, unfortunately, but they can still see some of what she's talking about.
Jodi watches with genuine interest, curled against the arm of the sofa with her leg trailing stiffly along the cushions. Next to her, Tacoma listens to her breath, and out of the corner of her eye looks at the profile of her face against the light from the window, a portrait of concentration.
She's really interested, isn't she? In this moment Tacoma loves her more than ever, her brilliant friend who reads non-fiction and watches educational TV with genuine enjoyment, who is the kind of dedicated that Tacoma is fundamentally incapable of being; here is someone who has a future, someone curious to want one and brave enough to accept it, and even if Tacoma has burnt her life to ash the way they burned her corpse yesterday, she might at least be able to see Jodi's turn out okay.
Tacoma lets her disc slip to one side until it leans against Jodi's hip, fog splashing against her side, and apparently without realising it Jodi moves her hand around her back, to rest on the thread of mist between disc and rock and send a little tingle of excitement through what passes for Tacoma's body. How long has it been since she was this close to anyone? Probably not since she and Jodi went on their journey, honestly. Sure, the last time they spoke was probably only five years ago, but they were already almost strangers then.
Nikole watches them from across the room, eyes narrow with suspicion at the way this girl she doesn't know has wormed her way into Tacoma's affections. Tacoma could try to explain, could call her over and tell her again that this is the kid she once tried to dig out from under the mess of ice and stone and shattered trees; if she moves, though, if she speaks, then Jodi might move too and the moment could end, and right now she can't think of anything she's more afraid of than that.
She sits there, watching Nikole glare, and feels bad about the fact that she does not feel bad about this at all.
"You're sure you're up to this?"
"Nikki needs a walk, Mum," says Jodi. "And I … kind of need to get out too. After Wednesday."
Tacoma listens from the dark of her tomb, watching Jodi's lipstick shuffle across her vision as the car shifts the contents of her bag. Nikki's ball is in there too, somewhere. Took some convincing to get her to go back in there, but Tacoma had to try; even if she'd somehow managed to fit through the car door, she'd probably have just gone straight through the floorboards. After all this time, she's almost completely destroyed the old sofa that Tacoma inherited after her parents got a new one for the living-room, and that was sold as pokémon-proof. Cars are much flimsier.
Speaking of that sofa, she probably should've asked Jodi to have a look inside it. There's a hole in the arm that you can just get your hand into, if you try, and this is where Tacoma keeps things she doesn't want her parents to find: cigarettes, weed, a two-hundred-florin note she found in a park once and decided to keep in case she ever needed to put her secret plan of last resort into action. Would've been nice to have that stuff, and as it is she has no idea if she'll ever see it again.
"Okay," says Michelle, the sound of her voice bringing Tacoma back out of her thoughts. "If you're sure. I'll be back at noon, okay? Don't be late."
"I won't," promises Jodi. "And I'll be fine, I promise. I have Lothi and Nikki. It'd be pretty difficult to get any safer than that."
"I know, I know, I just …" It sounds like the kind of pause you leave when you're trying to think of how to finish, but in the end Michelle never comes up with anything. "Have a nice time, chickadee," she says, after a few awkward seconds of silence. "Back here at noon."
"Noon. Got it."
Car door thumping. The contents of Jodi's bag shift over her vision again, so close it feels like they're going to hit her in the face, although of course they never do.
"Bye!"
"Bye!"
The motor growls, the tyres crunch, and then, as the sound fades, there is nothing at all except a vast and eerie silence.
"Okay." Light floods into Tacoma's field of view, making her squint, and a second later it disappears again as Jodi's hand delves into her bag and blocks it out, made unsettlingly large by the weird perspective. "Nikki first."
The unmistakeable sound of a ball opening, and then of heavy paws settling onto hard earth.
"And Tacoma," says Jodi, as Tacoma's view swings around in dizzying circles; a moment later, it stabilises, and she thrusts her head out into the chilly air to find herself between Nikole's claws once more.
She looks around. They're standing in that area of cleared forest just off the north road where people park to take walks in the woods; there are no cars here today, just icebound earth, and beyond the wooden railing that marks the perimeter endless rows of pine trees, their branches almost black beneath the heavy load of gleaming snow.
Been a long time since she was last here. Probably she was exercising Nikki then, too. Summer, maybe, when she was hiding her depression from her family by making an effort to go outside and smile at people.
"Hey," she squinting against the dazzling reflection of sunlight on ice. "So we've got an hour and a half?"
"Yep," replies Jodi. She's wearing mirrored sunglasses that make her look like a movie star, lenses shining with magpie-feather iridescence in the winter light. Tacoma isn't sure if she's ever seen anyone look quite this cool.
"And the cops have been looking for how long now, exactly?"
"Almost a week." Jodi shrugs. "All we can do is try."
"Yeah," sighs Tacoma. "I guess."
The air rushes overhead, and Lothian glides down from somewhere to join them, claws digging effortlessly into the icy dirt. He looks at Jodi expectantly, fanning the edges of his wings; she smiles and waves him away.
"Going towards the river," she calls, as he takes off again. "And be careful! If you knock the snow off the branches on top of us, you are in so much trouble."
He hoots in understanding, or just out of the delight of having wings and space to use them, and vanishes again, into the upper reaches of the trees. Tacoma can't see him, but she doubts he'll go far enough to lose track of Jodi.
"Okay," she says, twisting around as best she can to look up at Nikole. "Nikki? Do you remember being here a few days ago?"
The ridges shift around her eyes.
"Don't lie to me," she warns her. "D'you remember where you came from?"
She sniffs deeply, casts a suspicious glance at Jodi.
"Yeah, sure, Jodi saw. But we need to go back where you came from, Nikki. 'S important, okay? And you like walks, I know you do."
Nikki stiffens a little, recognising the word walk in there somewhere, and as she turns her head towards the woods Tacoma suddenly understands: she didn't believe it, did she? After all this time, all those days wasted in lying in darkened rooms while the light crept cautiously around the edges of the curtains, she just didn't think that this was going to happen. That Tacoma might want to take her out again and wander through the forest.
Tacoma Spearing: literally the worst trainer on the peninsula. She swallows her anger, aware that Nikki will think that it's directed at her, and does her best to smile.
"That's right," she says. "We're gonna go for a walk, Nikki. Back to where my bag is. You remember where that was?"
She moves much faster this time, looks into the woods and points clumsily with one hand. It's not a natural movement for kangaskhan; their forelimbs don't have the same range of movement as human arms, and their hooked claws can't uncurl like fingers can. But she learned to do this watching Tacoma, back when she first started training her properly, and as she does it now it makes Tacoma a little dizzy with nostalgia and guilt.
"Nice," she says, talking around the lump in her throat. "Uh … c'mon, then. But not too fast, okay? Jodi can't keep up with you."
They set off, heading down the trail that goes west towards the river. The light beneath the trees is strange, moving from bright to dim in an instant; sometimes they'll walk through an early twilight, beneath branches so thick with snow that the sun seems to have disappeared, and a second later emerge into a blinding glare stolen from a summer's day. The brightness makes Tacoma's eyes water with something thin and discoloured that seems to be the liquid form of her fog; she blinks it back, but the odd drop escapes and gets caught in the swirling of her disc, to be hurled out into the forest and splatter against a tree.
She hates this. Most of the time she can kind of forget how inhuman she is now, but then something like this will happen and thrust it right back into her face again.
Here in the silence between the snow and the branches, it is hard not to be aware that the killer knew these woods. Knows them, even. And knows them well enough to take Tacoma to the river unseen, to dispose of her luggage and slip back into town without anyone being the wiser.
Well enough, maybe, to stalk a girl who can't run as she travels further and further away from anyone who could help her.
Lothian's here, Tacoma reminds herself. He'd hear anyone coming from the next county, probably. And if anyone did get close – well, maybe Nikki would protect her and maybe not, but Lothian isn't exactly a pushover himself. Jodi was never a strong trainer, but Lothian was the leading light of her team, back before … uh. Before.
Anyway, they're probably safe. No one's coming for them. Why would they? As far as anyone knows, Tacoma and the rock are long gone.
Jodi stumbles, cane catching on a root or a knuckle of frozen earth, and Lothian seems to form out of thin air, thrusting his neck out for her to put her hand on.
"Whoa," she says. "Thanks, Lothi."
He squeaks – it always seems to Tacoma like such a weird noise for a dragon to make, but she supposes that technically he is just a giant bat – and launches himself at a nearby tree, crawling up the trunk as easily as he would over flat ground. After a few seconds, he's hidden by the branches, and a little explosion of falling snow marks his leap back into the sky.
"How does he go that fast?" asks Tacoma, still unsure where exactly he came from in the first place. "Is that like a modified quick attack or something?"
Jodi laughs.
"Not a move," says Jodi. "Just fast. He likes to race my friend Carmine's jolteon. Sometimes he wins, and the jolteon gets so angry I always think she's gonna explode."
"Carmine?" asks Tacoma, feeling the selfish thing in her head raise all its spines again.
"Oh. Uni friend. Telekinesis and precognition. Really powerful, actually, like a 74% on the brain test. Most of us are in the fifties," she adds, realising Tacoma has no idea what that means. "She picked me up with her mind once, which was probably the scariest ten seconds of my life."
"What about when you looked up to see half a mountain falling on you?"
"Okay, whatever, second scariest ten seconds."
Tacoma makes no reply, aware that she probably shouldn't have said that. Jodi has to be uneasy, walking around in the woods with snowy branches all around; what kind of asshole reminds her that this is how she lost her partners and almost her life as well?
Tacoma Spearing, apparently. Figures, she thinks, and retreats sullenly into Nikole's arms as they walk on towards the gurgling of the river.
It's beautiful, and quiet. There's the creaking, of course, and the occasional whoosh as Lothian beats his wings harder than usual; there's the crunch of dirt and sticks giving way beneath Nikki's heavy feet. A couple of birds singing. Tacoma tries to remember what that one that goes whee-ee-oo! is, but the last time she identified a bird was on her trainer journey and she can't figure it out.
And then there's the Rageriver: a huge, pulsing mass of shattered ice and churning water, flooding south from the Lake of Rage to vanish underground into the Mount Mortar caves. When they get close enough to catch a glimpse of it through the trees, they can't help but get closer, drawn to see what it is that's making all the noise, and then when they emerge onto the riverbank trail, they just have to stop and stare. It's a good forty feet across even now, with fingers of ice clutching at its sides. In spring, after the melt – well, there isn't going to be a riverbank trail for at least a few months.
"Wow," says Jodi, taking off her sunglasses to stare. Today, it seems, her eyeshadow is the smoky blue of summer twilight. "I'd kinda forgotten."
"Yeah," says Tacoma. "Me too."
They watch. A branch floats by, its edges blending into the blackness of the water.
Someone threw her body in here, thinks Tacoma. And it floated away like deadwood until Aaron pulled it out.
(Who. Why. Christ, she's sick of this.)
"I don't even know when I was last here," says Jodi. "I usually only exercise Lothi in town."
"Same," says Tacoma. But this is a lie, isn't it, and Jodi cares far too much for Tacoma to lie to her like that, and so she corrects herself: "Or, uh, no. I … haven't been exercising Nikki."
Jodi looks away from the water then, eyebrows raised.
"You said she needed walking," she says. It's not an accusation, not quite, but it's very hard not to take it as one.
"Yeah," says Tacoma, uncomfortably. She can't seem to look away from Jodi's face right now, much as she'd like to. "D'you, uh, know what I do in the tower?"
"No …?"
"I, um, lie on my back. And stare at the ceiling."
Jodi looks at her for a long while. She's projecting a little without realising, or that link between them is open again; Tacoma can feel her pain from over here.
Christ. How does Jodi live with this? It's awful. Tacoma can hardly stand sensing her distress; what it's like to feel this for everyone you ever meet she can't even imagine.
"You don't just do this in the tower, do you."
Tacoma has had a lot of cause to feel ashamed, over the past few years. All the people she's been mean to, all the lies she's told, all the shit she's put Nikki through just because she couldn't make her emotions work properly. But this is something else.
"No," she admits. "I haven't."
Jodi's knuckles are white on her cane. Above her, Lothian comes into view, banking sharply over the river to land at her back.
"Tacoma," Jodi begins, reaching out towards her, but before she can finish Nikki tightens her grip and snatches Tacoma away, taking a too-long step back that leaves her off balance, and then suddenly she bellows and slips and Tacoma is falling onto the slope and rolling down towards the water, the world whirling nauseatingly around her, and in the tower she scrabbles desperately for purchase as if she could grab the roots bouncing past her head―
―and finds something, and grips it, and stops.
Tacoma's eyes are shut tight, waiting for the impact with the water that will carry her away into an underground lake for centuries of solitary immortality. Carefully, cautiously, she opens them again, and sees Jodi's eyes locked with hers.
Jodi's eyes move to the side. Tacoma's move with them, and together they look at the pair of hands locked together on the ground between them.
One small, red-gloved hand. And, gripping tightly onto its wrist – one dark, sludgy purple one.
Tacoma looks some more. The hand is connected to a forearm, far more similar to hers than the face in the disc; it's like the mist has been shoved into the shed skin of her living body, purple swirling beneath the surface around the livid green streaks of her scars. It fades away around the elbow, but it's her hand. Almost just like it used to be.
"Tacoma," says Jodi. There's a stick poking into her cheek, but Tacoma isn't sure she has a hand free to move it. She wishes she had a hand free to move it, but she only seems to have the one.
"Yeah?" says Tacoma.
"I'm not sure I can get up."
The world comes into focus again: here she is, halfway down the riverbank, hand in hand with Jodi. Who appears to have literally flung herself at the ground to catch her.
Holy shit.
"Oh," she says, which is about as coherent as she can get right now. "Right."
A few long breathless moments pass. It's starting to sink in, a little. The fall. The hand.
The scars, right there for everyone to see.
Jodi says nothing; she just pushes herself up off the ground with her free hand, dragging Tacoma up with her. Halfway through the movement, Lothian sinks his teeth into the fabric of her coat and helps her turn over into something vaguely resembling a sitting position, her good leg bent and the other stretched out at an uncomfortable-looking angle.
"Okay," she gasps, letting go of Tacoma's hand to push her hair out of her face. "Okay, thanks."
Lothian's nose twitches, transmitting some kind of message; Jodi reaches out to scratch his head, but he picks up her cane and puts it in her hand before she manages to actually touch him. She lays it on her lap and hugs him close.
"Okay," she says again, looking over his shoulder at Tacoma. "That … just happened."
"Yeah," says Tacoma. "It― are you fucking kidding me?"
Her hand is fading, its substance sloughing away and dissolving on the wind. She concentrates, digging her fingers into the earth in case gripping is what summons it – but still, it fades, and then it is gone and Tacoma is just a head again.
She takes a deep, sharp breath. She's not going to shout about this. She's not going to cry. She's not going to do so many things.
"I'm sorry," says Jodi, trying to shuffle closer. "Tacoma, I'm so sorry―"
"Yeah, well, maybe you shouldn't be," snaps Tacoma, and the things she is not going to do rise within her like a wild skarmory, four hundred pounds of angry steel flying at the world with unstoppable force. "It's just a hand. And I'm just dead."
"No, Tacoma―"
Hand on her disc, the warm glow of Jodi's psionics. Tacoma twists away sharply and slams the mental link closed so hard that shadows pop at the corners of her vision. She's a dark-type, isn't she? She doesn't have to take this psychic bullshit if she doesn't want to. Jodi flinches, clutches at her head, and even as the guilt begins to prickle Tacoma is filled with an acid satisfaction. Look at her, kicking her disabled friend in the brain. Turns out she really is the asshole she always thought she was.
Jodi is shaking. Holding her head like it might break. Tacoma can't see her face but she can hear her breath, thick and staccato. Like someone crying.
The skarmory folds its wings and falls straight out of her mind. What has she done?
"Jodi?" she asks. "Are you okay?"
No answer. Lothian hisses at her, teeth bared and ears forward, and as she shrinks away unfolds his wings and curls them around Jodi the way Tacoma imagines he would around a baby noibat, making a little echo chamber into which to fire his vibrations. She watches anxiously for what might be ten seconds or might be a year, and then Jodi sniffs deeply and Lothian pulls back.
She straightens up, and without looking at Tacoma reaches for her bag for a tissue and her mascara, fixing her tear-smudged make-up. Making her wait. When she's done, Tacoma thinks she might be about to speak but instead she gets out her cigarettes, and a heavy silver lighter with the bell-and-wing arms of Johto engraved on the side. Michelle's lighter. Tacoma remembers Jodi telling her the story back when they were kids: Michelle stole it from her father when she was fifteen, a petty revenge for his liberality with the belt, and ran off with it to offer boys a light and seduce them out of their sugar rations. Apparently Jodi has since inherited it.
Jodi smokes her cigarette for a while, taking care to direct the smoke over the river and away from Lothian, and just when Tacoma is starting to think she'd rather have been dropped in the river after all she speaks.
"That really hurt."
"I'm sorry," she says, immediately.
"I know." Jodi blows a smoke ring, watches it float away. "You can't do that to people, Tacoma."
"I know, I'm sorry, I don't – I'm not even sure what I did …"
Jodi finally looks at her then, and Tacoma wishes she'd just kept looking at the river.
"Me either," she says, "but it was dark-type."
"I'm sorry."
"I know," says Jodi again. "I know." She blows another smoke ring. Two for two. She must have had a lot of practice. There is so much that Tacoma doesn't know about her any more. "Look, I'm not gonna pretend I know what you're going through, but you can't do things like that."
"I'm sorry. I didn't even – I didn't know I was doing it, I was just trying to stop you psychicing me."
"I would've done that if you'd asked."
Four times Tacoma has apologised now, and Jodi hasn't said she forgives her. It stings, but Tacoma gets it. You don't get to demand that of someone. They have a right to their hurt and their anger.
"I know," she says. "I'm not trying to make excuses, I just … I was angry and I messed up."
Jodi sighs.
"Well, you wouldn't be the first person to do that," she mutters, stubbing out her cigarette on a rock. "I should have asked too, I guess."
"No," says Tacoma. It seems fundamentally wrong that Jodi should take any blame for this. Better that it all be on her, just the way it ought to be. "No, I like it when you … I like it. I was being unreasonable."
"I'm not saying you weren't," says Jodi. "Look, Tacoma, I know you're hurting, I know you don't even know all your powers yet. It's okay. But I think we're gonna have to talk sometime."
"About …?"
"About what's wrong." Jodi holds her eye, steady as a rock. "I know there's something you're not telling me," she says, and suddenly bands of ice seem to tighten around Tacoma's chest. "I'm sorry. I should have asked you sooner, but I didn't know how. Now I guess I feel like I have to do it, whether I know or not."
"I can't," says Tacoma. She didn't mean to whisper, but apparently that's what her voice is doing today. "Jodi, you don't understand―"
"Well, I'm gonna try." Jodi folds her arms. "I'm not offering you a choice, Tacoma. We're gonna talk. Soon."
She's right. God damn it all, but she's right. Did Tacoma really think she could run forever? She's not bloody D. B. Cooper, she's just some dumb, angry kid. Someone like her can only hide so long before she's caught and made to stare into the nuclear incandescence of the final judgement.
And after that? God only knows. But she has a feeling that she might be looking at the end of her second chance to find a place in Jodi's life.
"Okay," she says. It makes her feel physically sick to say it, but she gets it out. "Okay."
"Good." Jodi smiles, and just for a second Tacoma sees real warmth there. Thank God. She doesn't hate her, then. Or at least, not yet. "I think you should probably talk to Nikki now," Jodi adds. "She seems upset."
Tacoma follows her gaze and sees her, crouched a little way off on the other side of the path. Eyes down. Ears flat. Jodi's right, she does look upset. No wonder, really; she almost threw her partner in the Rageriver and lost her forever.
It's almost enough to make her smile. Like partner, like pokémon; it looks like Nikki is nearly as good at beating herself up as Tacoma is.
She supposes that that isn't really anything to smile at, when you think about it.
Okay. Time to forget her missing hand, her mean streak, her hurt friend. Time to be reassuring.
She calls out for Nikki to come over, and at first Nikki doesn't want to but she does, and in the end this turns out to be one problem at least that Tacoma can solve.
It's okay. It's not great – Jodi doesn't want to talk, and Tacoma hasn't got the guts to push her – but it's okay, and there are moments when it's even as high as good. When they decide to leave, for instance: Jodi is all set to get Lothian to hover over her and pull her up in his talons, but to everyone's surprise Nikki simply curls her claws into her coat and sets her back on her feet like a child righting a fallen toy.
"Oh," says Jodi, trying not to fall over again in her surprise. "Um, thank you, Nikki. Wasn't expecting that."
"She saw you save me," says Tacoma. "Maybe she doesn't know who you are, but she knows you're cool."
Jodi reaches out to rub Nikole's snout, and Nikole closes her eyes, silent. Kangaskhan only make noises when they're upset, or dealing with joeys too young (or humans too stupid) to have learned what the movements of their facial scales mean. If they can get away with it, they prefer to communicate with gesture and expression.
"She likes it," Tacoma translates, and Jodi nods.
"I know," she says. "I know."
This is about all that Jodi says to her for the next half an hour. They keep going, until the snow on the trail gets too deep and they have to turn off into the woods and trust in Nikki's memory to get them where they need to go. It's slow going, and Tacoma finds herself thinking more than once of the deadline Michelle set, but Jodi doesn't so much as look at her watch, and she figures that if Jodi's okay with this the least she can do is be supportive. Especially after dark pulsing her in the head or whatever it was she just did.
River and birdsong. Footsteps. The smell of pine sap. Odd piles of snow where branches have given way and dropped their burdens to the earth. It continues, until Nikki stops and scrapes one foot along the icy ground, snorting.
"Here?" asks Jodi. Nikki looks at her, and perhaps Jodi can read her mind or perhaps she's just good at reading faces, because she nods and looks around. "Yeah," she says. "Yeah, there's that tree from your memory."
She points at a particularly large pine, broken at the base and now leaning precariously against the branches of three others. How it hasn't been knocked down by the wind yet Tacoma isn't sure; she can see it wobbling.
"And I'm guessing if we went that way, we'd see the river bending," Jodi continues. "So … Lothi?"
He swoops down from nowhere in an instant, hooting his response.
"We're looking for a cabin," she says. "Somewhere close. Can you get up there and look for me?"
He cocks his head on one side, uncomprehending.
"A cabin," repeats Jodi. "It's like … hang on, I'll do you a picture."
Lothian squawks eagerly and leaps back into the air, message apparently received. It's kind of incredible how high he can jump: his wings must be twelve, thirteen feet across when he unfolds them all the way, and he has to be even higher than that to stop them clipping the ground with those first few wingbeats. Tacoma watches him twist upwards into the sky, wondering if Jodi is light enough that she could ride on him, and then drags her thoughts back down to earth.
"We're not looking for my bag?" she asks.
"I mean, we could if you want," says Jodi. "I dunno how I'd explain it to Mum, but we could. I just thought … we don't have much time, so the cabin is the priority."
"Right." Tacoma sighs. "Probably better leave it for the cops, anyway."
She can pick it up when all this is over, right? Minus the weed, probably, but that's fine. Most of what she had left is still safe at home inside her sofa.
"Yeah," says Jodi. "That's what I thought."
Her face is unreadable behind her sunglasses. Nothing more to say. They wait for a few minutes, Nikki scratching restlessly at the dirt and fallen branches, and then Tacoma hears a screech like a falcon's call and tilts her disc upwards to see Lothian circling above, the sun glowing through the thin skin of his wings.
"Looks like we're in luck," says Jodi. "C'mon."
She limps off, following Lothian deeper into the forest, and Nikole lumbers on behind, tireless as ever. She's doing better at matching pace with Jodi now. Was she pulling ahead before just to be mean? It's not beyond the realm of possibility. Kangaskhan are known for their gentleness, but they only really extend it to their kids, and to the trainers they choose. Once when Nikki was half-grown Tacoma saw her catch a blackbird and play with it like a cat toying with a mouse, flicking it over onto its back every time it tried to get up and flee until the poor thing went catatonic and just lay there, waiting to die. Fortunately that was when Tacoma arrived to order Nikki to let it go – and to her credit, she obeyed and never did it again, but she never really seemed to understand why Tacoma had a problem with it.
Something dark appears between the trees up ahead, and Jodi stops.
"Okay," she says, glancing back at Tacoma and Nikki. "I'm going to go knock on the door, and if anyone answers I'll say me and Lothi got a bit lost and could we get directions back to the trail. If they don't, then I'll come get you two and we can, uh … break in." She scowls. "I was trying to find a nicer way to say that but I'm not sure there is one."
"Right." Tacoma stretches up as far as she can, nudges Nikki's chin. "We're gonna stay here a minute, got it?" Nikki nudges back. "Okay. Go on ahead."
Jodi nods and walks stiffly off through the trees. In the quiet, the rapping of her knuckles against the door sounds like gunshots. Tacoma waits, heart in her mouth – what if the murderer lives here? and who would even know where to look if Jodi vanished? – and then relaxes again when she hears her voice:
"C'mon! It isn't even locked!"
Man. Ask anyone who knows them, and they'd tell you that Tacoma is the gutsy one, the one who wouldn't be afraid to break a law or two. Jodi's the nervous one who'd never do this without Tacoma talking her round. And yet – here's Jodi, breaking and entering like she was born to it, while Tacoma hangs back and worries.
"Coming!" she calls, putting as much feeling into it as she can, and concentrates on not shrinking back against Nikki as she brings her out into the clearing in which the cabin stands.
It's smaller than she thought. Windows dark, chimney cold and smokeless. Lothian up on the roof, kicking snow loose for the fun of watching it fall. The snow on the dirt track leading back to the main road is unbroken save for deer or girafarig tracks, and a tall drift has built up against the wall where Tacoma imagines you would park. Whoever lives here hasn't come home in a while.
"No blue Crowne," says Jodi, seeing Tacoma looking. "But this is the place. D'you remember, Nikki?"
Tacoma can tell that she does; she's tensed up, her grip on the stone tightening. She's like Tacoma in that way, as in so many others. Doesn't like to be reminded of her moments of weakness.
"Yeah," she says. "She remembers."
"Cool." Jodi takes off her sunglasses and sticks them in her pocket. "Ready to go in?"
It's nice that she's talking to her again, at least. She probably wouldn't be if she didn't have to, but it's nice all the same.
"Sure," lies Tacoma. "You said it wasn't locked?"
A lot of doors go unlocked in Mahogany, even now in the seventies. Out here, in the literal middle of nowhere, there are even fewer. You're more at risk from wild pokémon than people in the woods, and ursaring tend not to care whether a door is locked or not when they walk through it.
"Nope." Jodi twists the handle and pushes. "See?"
"Right, right." Is it obvious she's putting it off? Yes. Almost certainly. "Okay," she says. "Let's, uh … go."
Jodi nods.
"Lothi? Watch out and let us know if anyone's coming, okay?" The response must be ultrasonic or something; Jodi nods and goes in without another word. Nikki follows cautiously, hunched a little like she's ready to drop to all fours and charge, and in her claws Tacoma shifts uncomfortably. She is starting to discover that dangerous situations seem a lot more so when you lack the ability to run away from them. Is that how Jodi feels, with her leg and her cane? If so, she's even braver than Tacoma thought.
It takes a little while for their eyes to adjust to the dim interior of the cabin, after the sun and snow outside. When they do, they find they can see the whole thing at a glance; most of the cabin is a single room, a bed at one end and a bare-bones kitchenette at the other, and between them chairs around a table.
"What on earth …?" Jodi moves closer, frowning. "Looks like someone was trying to build a bomb or something."
Three of the chairs are stacked high with books; the tabletop is scattered with wires, papers, tiny pieces of metal. Screwdrivers. Pliers. An iron and a few lengths of solder.
Tacoma and Jodi exchange looks. It's not immediately obvious what they've found here, but they've definitely found something.
"There could be an innocent explanation," suggests Jodi.
"Could there?"
"I dunno," she admits. "Let's have a look."
She leans over, carefully avoiding touching any of the bits of machinery, and turns a stack of books to look at the spines.
"Home Electrical Engineering, Circuitry 101, Beyond the Veil: Essays in Cross-dimensional Transference, the Pokédex, The Massive― wait, sorry, that's in Kantan script, I think it's The Mechanics of Rarefaction." Jodi looks up at Tacoma, a question in her eyes. "Pretty eclectic mix."
"Yeah," says Tacoma. "Pretty weird."
If she had a heart, it would be pounding. Cross-dimensional transference? That rings a bell. A lot of them, actually, ringing and ringing in the back of her head like the fire alarm in her halls when her cigarette set it off and the noise sliced so cruelly into her depression that she almost cried.
Jodi's frown deepens.
"What's wrong?" she asks.
"Nothing," says Tacoma. "It's fine. What do the notes say?"
"Are you―?" Jodi breaks off, shakes her head. "Sorry. I won't push it."
"Uh," says Tacoma, unable to think of a response. She really doesn't deserve this kind of compassion. "Thanks?"
"It's fine." Jodi smiles without heart, returns her attention to the table. "So, uh, these look like … notes?"
"Yeah," says Tacoma, glad to be moving on. "What's it say?"
Nikki is holding her out so she can see, but she can't make herself look. She just can't. She already recognises that dark green ink; she doesn't need to look closer and realise she knows the handwriting, too.
Who and why, huh? Well. Here's the goddamn who.
"Hang on." Jodi leans closer. "Some kinda notes? 29th November: I'm starting to – I've started to – sorry, it's in Kantan – I've started to turn the plan into a reality. The calculations have been difficult to work out without the facility – without the faculty computer, but if you … okay, that is way too much maths for me. But I think this is about whatever they were building here?"
She glances at Tacoma again, and now there's no hiding it, wouldn't be even if Jodi weren't psychic.
"I'm sorry, I'm gonna have to ask," begins Jodi, and then Tacoma's resolve breaks and she crumbles like ash falling from the tip of a cigarette.
"It's Nick," she says. "It's his handwriting, and his pen was in the park, and he writes in green ink and he studies dimensions and he knew I had the rock and I don't think he was in Alola at all."
Jodi stares.
"Oh," she says, eyes wide. "Um … shit."
"Yeah," says Tacoma, voice as quiet as distant rain. "Shit."