Somehow I got through Tuesday without cutting myself again or making Kaine punch me. Came close on the last one a few times given Kaine and I were both short tempered. I was too distracted to be anything else, and Kaine was pissy I refused to talk to him and kept swearing at him.

Figured. The two of us in a bad mood was not a good thing. We cast an almost palpable cloud over the store, and at one point Jan, our normally mild-mannered, but occasionally feisty, boss told us both to stop being pricks or she'd punt us out on our asses. That at least shut us up for the rest of Tuesday.

It didn't help much for Wednesday and Thursday, though. Kaine and I wrangled in our predictable way, me almost silent apart from snarls, and Kaine prodding and prying until I almost bit him. Jan had to physically pull us apart at that point, and it would have been funny if we weren't both so fucking angry. Still the fact an eighty something shopkeeper had to keep two hot heads in line, and that we were annoying her, was enough to cool us off for a while.

A short while.

The terrible thing was the utter normality of it. Kaine and I were always going at it about something and Jan was always threatening to beat us senseless or fire us, whichever came first. The only thing different in the slowly crawling days was my constant distraction and momentary drops into motionless thoughtfulness. At one point even Jan commented it was creepy how I just stopped talking mid-sentence and started staring right through her when I was struck by a thought I wouldn't share.

But the rest of it…

The rest of it was so infuriatingly ordinary. As if there weren't a killer in Cutter's Bend or a god in the woods, biding his time until I set foot outside of town again, life went on as life did.

Customers came into Jan's, I tried to help them, mostly failed, and was rescued by Kaine who told me to go lift something heavy or find something obscure in the storeroom. In other words, I went to work, did the usual, and went home to an empty apartment to stew.

Which was and wasn't a good thing.

I wanted to be out in the woods but wasn't dumb enough not to realize I was still worn. Worn right down to frayed ends. I was still tired and sore from my encounter with the hunter and recovering slower than I'd like. Though… two days wasn't really all that long. I just hated not being at my peak.

So the enforced resting bit was likely a good thing.

The stewing was not.

Logically I knew there was nothing I could do about the Ritualist without more information. Which neither I or Malcore or Vogel could get until the bastard killed someone again. Logically I knew going out into the woods to look for the god and try to determine just what his part in all this was, and what part he was expecting me to play, wasn't a good plan. Was a stupid plan even if I'd been in top condition.

But logic never got me far.

It was instinct that was my friend. Instinct that Seanmháthair had taught me to follow. Instinct that she'd told me was my gift from the gods.

And instinct wanted me to move to do something. But what that something was had yet to present itself.

Soon…

The innate knowing whispered through me right along with the need to move and to do. What I needed to do would come soon.

But the waiting was enough to make me want to break something. And as there was nothing to break I ended up roaming my house like a caged thing. Not really doing anything. Just pacing.

And thinking.

Though that was often as aimless as my pacing. I would go from thoughts of all that was happening to ruminating on something abstract.

Wednesday it was how much Seanmháthair had still needed to teach me when Cernunnos had taken her away. I knew there was more she'd meant for me to know, but it was hard to teach it to myself when half her books were written in other languages I didn't use on a daily basis. Even her journals were primarily in Gaelic. Between needing to work and the suddenness of all the changes in my life I hadn't had the time to study what she'd left me properly.

That night I'd ended sitting on my bed with many of Seanmháthair's oldest books spread around me, my chin in my hand as I pondered.

Thursday I woke with a book plastered to my face and the wolf carving I wore around my neck hot in my hand. That was the day Jan had to separate Kaine and I. I was on a short fuse and I knew it, but didn't feel like there was much I could do about it. I wasn't angry at anything I could grasp. I was just angry.

Going home and finding the collection of college admittance applications my high school teachers had been pestering me to fill out before the Ritualist showed up and shut them up only made it that much worse. Cornell, Harvard, Yale, University of Georgia, Arizona State… All of them sat there in a drift of papers I'd tossed in a corner to rot shortly after graduating. Looking at them made my teeth grind together.

Law schools, criminal justice schools. Places my teachers had reached out to "on my behalf" when I'd refused to do so myself.

I wanted none of them.

A kid like me had no right to even be staring at applications like these, much less thinking of trying for any of them. But almost every single one of my ex-teachers had been madly advocating I do just that, informing me if it was the money I was concerned with, my ACT score was more than enough to get me scholarships if I looked for them. After all, hitting a 34 out of 36 while mostly daydreaming and mindlessly looking out a window was pretty much unheard of. They were sure I could have done better if I'd just tried.

I hadn't wanted to try. I hadn't wanted the bastards to get in touch with these schools for me. Most likely they'd only done it to get the chance to say one of the two bit nobodies they'd taught had gone to an Ivy League school.

And on nothing but his brains.

"Fuck."

I'd meant to throw the damn things out but gotten them no further than this slipping mound. The Ritualist had distracted me, and then the hunter had distracted me further. And the college applications just seemed like a good thing to take my frustrations out on considering I had nothing else available.

I was just gathering them up, papers sliding this way and that in my arms, when my phone rang in my pocket, startling me and making the whole mess topple back to the floor.

"Gods, fuck!" I snapped into the phone and I should have known that was the wrong thing to say considering who was on the other end.

"Don't you take that tone with me, young man!" Maddie snapped back at me, and I could only sigh, covering my face with my free hand.

"Sorry, Maddie. It's been a long couple days. Didn't mean to take it out on you."

"I don't doubt it," my physician retorted. "I've had a long few days too, thanks to you. So I'd kindly not have you shout at me."

"I said I was sorry, fuck."

A sigh came over the tentative connection this thing called technology forgedbetween us, along with some muttering in German I thought I probably didn't want to decipher. "Why do I bother?" she mumbled after a while, followed by, "You're clear on the rape kit, by the way. If you're at all interested."

"Thought so," I muttered, turning away from the stupid papers I would never use, and wandering toward my kitchen. "You know I'm interested, Maddie. Or I wouldn't have asked. Thanks for checking."

"Oh sure." This was dry and typical Maddie. "What are you doing for dinner tonight, Joel? Have you eaten yet? What am I saying, with your cooking you're liable to starve. Come over."

I propped myself up against the counter near my coffee pot and glared thoughtfully at the side of my fridge. "With your cooking I'm still likely to starve, Maddie."

"Nonsense. Helen's cooking. Besides, I have something to show you. Now get your ass over here, Joel O'Kelly!"

The line went dead in my ear and I couldn't help but think Maddie was one who lamented the antiquity of old telephones. The kind you could slam down with a satisfying clang. All these little disconnect beeps and clicks and just dead silences that came with cell phones had to drive her crazy.