A/N: Made some changes to the last chapter to make everything consistent.

Chapter 20 - Lundeville

Bo glanced at the gas meter for the fifth time. "We need to gas up soon."

"If we can find a gas station somewhere…" Tamsin murmured, frowning at the view outside the car: distant rolling green hills, miles and miles of empty fields with scattered old silos and collapsed barns, primitive wood fences with barbed wires along the side of the road, and occasionally, a rundown farmhouse or two.

They drove past an abandoned billboard. Under the layers of rust, the remaining, flaky advertisement promoted a local bed and breakfast place of "authentic country living".

"We are only half an hour away from Lundeville now. Why is the entire place so deserted? I didn't take a wrong turn back there, did I?"

Tamsin checked her map app on her phone. "No, this is the right road. It's the only road going into Lundeville…hey, look!"

She tapped Bo and pointed at a general store with two gas pumps at the end of a dirt access road so narrow it would barely allow a single car through.

"Is this place even…open?" Bo slowed down the car while staring at the front side of the store, where above its entrance, a chippy red and white sign, "Dale's", was hung. On its front windows, she noticed several aged posters: coca cola, tobacco, beer and ammo. There was also a handwritten sign that read "ICE".

She pulled her car through the access road, barely keeping all four wheels leveled. After hitting two dirt bumps and a patch of pebbles, she managed to park it in front of the first gas pump.

She tried to swipe her card but nothing happened. She tried it again, and the general store's door opened.

A large brown dog with a red collar dashed out, barking.

"Lucy, stahhhp!" An old man came out of the store to call off his dog. With a shotgun in his right hand, and a book in his left, he studied Bo and Tamsin with his left eye - his right eye was completely opaque and not moving.

The dog, Lucy, sniffed Bo and Tamsin cautiously, before she returned to her owner's side.

"Afternoon, ladies, how can I help ya?" The man lowered his weapon.

"We just need to gas up but the pump is not working," Bo explained, showing him how swiping her credit card did absolutely nothing.

"Yeah, the card reader ain't working. You want gas, ya gotta pay cash."

Tamsin rolled her eyes and pulled out her wallet. "Any chance you have a cold drink or two?"

"That I have plenty. Come on in!" The man tilted his head at the store as he walked back inside with a slight limp. "Y'all want soda, water or what?"

"Water is fine," Bo replied. Then, she lowered her voice to a whisper as she asked Tamsin, "should we even go inside?"

"Oh yeah, he's totally human. The second he tries anything funny, Knut will take care of his good eye," Tamsin whispered back as she gave her raven a slight nod.

The old man headed to the large cooler in the corner of the store. He placed his shotgun against the wall, before he slid the cooler door open and started to dig around inside.

While he looked for bottled water, Bo and Tamsin surveyed the inside of the store. It seemed clean but very much outdated, with shelves that weren't well stocked and merchandise brands that were near extinction.

There was a tiny food court on the other side of the store but nothing was being served. The food trays were rusty, and the glass cover was cracked. The menu on the wall indicated that (at least at some point) country chicken biscuits were offered here.

"I'd kill for some fresh, buttery chicken biscuits right now…" Tamsin commented.

"Sorry. We've not served any of that since memaw passed. She made the best chicken biscuits," the old man mumbled, still searching for bottled water. "Where y'all heading anyway?"

"Umm…Lundeville, downtown," Bo blurted while being distracted by Lucy, who seemed to have found her shoelaces interesting.

The old man turned to them and gave them a long stare of surprise. "Downtown Lundeville? The whole town is a ghost town! It has been for the past twenty something years!"

Bo and Tamsin quickly traded a look, before Tamsin cleared her throat and nodded, "yeah, we umm…we know. That's why we are here."

Seeing that the man was getting even more confused, Bo added, "yeah, we are like…we like exploring, you know, ghost towns."

"Ohhhh," the man nodded with a lazy drawl.

"Just how much of a ghost town are we talking about here?"

"It's completely empty," the old man shook his head slowly. "No one really lives there anymore."

"But, the town is there? I mean, Lundeville still exists, right?"

"Oh, yeah, it's there. All the houses and what-not are still there. It's just missing one thing: living, breathing people…" the man muttered as he dug out two bottles of water from the cooler and handed them to Tamsin.

"How much do we owe you?"

The man pondered, then waved his left hand. "You know what. The waters are on the house. I'll get your pump ready for ya."

He walked to the register. His dog followed him while watching Tamsin and Bo closely. At one point, she seemed to have noticed the presence of Knut, even though she could not see him at all. She started barking and the old man stopped her.

Tamsin gave Bo a slight nod. While Bo went outside to gas up the car, Tamsin casually picked up a lighter beside the register and played with it. "I take it that you don't get a lot of visitors here."

"No ma'am. This is as busy as it gets," he told her.

"Why not open a gas station somewhere else then?"

The man lifted his right shoulder. "Honestly, I'd have done that a long time ago, if it wasn't for the monthly check."

"The monthly check?"

"Well…memaw opened this store years ago, and back then we got a much larger farming community around here. Then, some big corp or somethin' started buying up all the land. Those who sold moved away. Memaw didn't want to sell the land but she thought about closing the store."

"What changed her mind?"

"Some guy came over one day and told her he wanted to invest. She didn't believe him at first but…he promised her he'd send over a check monthly as long as she would keep this store open, and…he really did, so we kept this store open."

"I see," Tamsin nodded slightly as she took a sip of the icy cold water. "So…monthly checks huh?"

"Yep, never missed once."

"And this investor guy never said anything about this place not having many customers?"

"Nope, in fact, I've never met him myself."

"Just the checks then?"

"Just the checks."

"Good to know," Tamsin took another sip as she wondered if the old man was delusional. Why would anyone in their right minds want to invest in a place like this by blindly sending a check monthly?

If either of them had any doubts about Lundeville being a ghost town, their doubts had vanished after they drove through one desolate street after another.

"This place is a ghost town!" Bo exclaimed, gaping at the store fronts. None of them was open. In fact, none of them had been open for business in many years.

She counted a hardware store, two ice cream shops, a pizzeria, a steakhouse, a supermarket, three gas stations, and then, her eyes shot wide open at a store sign.

"True Bright Smiles Dental…" she murmured. "Tamsin…I thought you said there was no dental practice in Lundeville whose name contains 'Bright' and 'Smiles'."

Tamsin frowned at the dental place. "I swear the database returned nothing."

"Maybe the database was wrong…?" Bo frowned. Somehow, at that very moment, she had a weird feeling about Lundeville, that this town was very different from what she had remembered.

They drove for another five minutes before they reached the outdoor mall, or what it had left: a lake with algae-filled water, a walking path overgrown with dandelions and clovers, and many empty stores.

From the billboard of the movie theater at the end of the mall, they learned that "The Sixth Sense" was on.

"The Sixth Sense?! That was from 1999!" Tamsin exclaimed. "If this was the last movie in this theater, then…."

"I know…" Bo murmured. She turned around and looked down along the centerline of the outdoor mall. "Like that man from the gas station said, this place had been empty for like twenty, something years. What do you think exactly happened here?"

Tamsin raked her fingers through her hair as she narrowed her eyes at the surroundings. "Honestly, I think the correct question is, what didn't happen here."

"What do you mean?"

"Look at this place, Bo. Everything is abandoned and empty, but do you notice that something's missing here?"

"Yeah, living, breathing humans."

"No. I've been to my fair share of abandoned places. Every place I've been to has something that Lundeville does not."

"What is it?"

"Trash."

"Trash?" Bo frowned in shock.

"Yes, trash. If it's an abandoned store, you'd see broken glass, shelves of inexpensive merchandise that are left behind. If it's an abandoned house, you'd see things like torn linen, garbage, clothing, books. Abandoned offices would have stacks of paper or stationary scattered around…but look at this place, Bo. There's nothing."

Tamsin paused briefly as she grabbed a trash can that was beside them. She pulled the cover open. "See, even this trash can is completely empty…well there are some dropping from whatever critters that have been nesting here but…you get what I mean."

Bo nodded. As she wondered how this could possibly have happened, something occurred to her: what if…this entire place had never been occupied, ever?

But, how is that even possible? This was supposed to be her hometown. She had lived here when she was a kid. Her childhood home should be here.

"Let's…let's go find my childhood home, Tamsin. Maybe…maybe we can find someone there."

Bo's heart dropped the moment they pulled their car into the subdivision where her childhood home was. Like everywhere else in town, the subdivision had been overtaken by animals, birds and plants.

Bo headed down the road, first walking then running. She dashed breathlessly towards a cul-de-sac tucked in a patch of woods along a dry creek.

There, a small cottage house stood. Its cream white siding had faded and warped, with holes, cracks and pests. The gray roof was sagging in the middle, with dark stains, peeling flashing and damaged shingles. A part of the rain gutter had collapsed and filled with dirt, becoming a container that grew crabgrass.

However, the blue hydrangea plant by the corner of the house prospered. Spent flower heads held up bravely in the early fall breeze like sentinels.

"This is the house, isn't it?" Tamsin asked.

"I…I guess," Bo nodded hesitantly.

The house was just as she remembered, but at the same time, it wasn't.

She stepped on the front porch. The wood plank under her foot immediately broke while letting out a dull cracking sound. Tamsin grabbed her right before she got her foot stuck.

"Let's check the parameters first," Tamsin told her.

"Okay," Bo nodded and released Fenrir.

Tamsin commanded Knut to scout the area while the two of them entered the backyard.

"I remember there was a big oak tree with a swing and I love-"

Bo stopped when she did not find the oak tree at where it was supposed to be.

"Someone must have cut it after you left."

Bo nodded. She let out a deep breath and approached the back porch.

Fortunately, the back porch was in a slightly better condition. Even though it let out one dying squeak after another, it did not break while they were walking on it.

Cautiously, they entered the house through the back door, which was already open and could not be closed due to its warped frame.

The afternoon sun leaked through the holes on the roof, illuminating the peeling wallpaper, the rotten wall panels and a family of scurrying rodents.

"No one's here," Bo said after she had checked every room.

"Obviously…"

"The whole place is so empty…I didn't find a single item that's been left behind," Bo pointed out.

"Maybe your mom cleaned the whole place before she left."

"Right. I mean, this house definitely has been occupied. This is my childhood home…."

Sucking in a breath, Bo entered the bathroom next to her childhood bedroom. She stared at the floor tiles near the right wall for a few seconds, before she crouched down.

"What are you doing?"

"When I was living here, I think I once found a loose tile in this bathroom," Bo explained. "I hid a lego figure underneath."

She tried every tile, but none of them was loose.

"It was probably fixed afterwards."

"Was it…?" Bo frowned hard. She had that weird feeling again, that this place, despite it being her childhood home that she had shared with her mother, was strange to her.

Tamsin placed a hand on her shoulder. "Well, now that we have an address, it shouldn't be too hard to pull out some county records and find its past owners. At least we can have a full name or something."

"Okay, let's do that."

Tamsin made a few phone calls. Then she did some search. Eventually she let out a sigh. "Turns out the entire subdivision, as well as pretty much everything in this town, was owned by a corporation named Frank & Gvol Inc."

"Was?"

"Frank & Gvol filed for bankruptcy in the late 90s, and…that's all she wrote."

"What did this company do? Like real estate or something?"

"Nope, it says here that it was a multinational corporation that…you know, did things like consulting and shit. We can probably do more digging about it once we get back to Valhalla."

"So, this multinational corp basically came here and bought a bunch of properties-"

"Not bought. It owned every piece of property here from the start. I guess they basically poured money into Lundeville and built this entire place up."

"Okay, so it built Lundeville with all these single family homes and stores, and then just…went bankrupt? Why did they even build here?"

"It could be like those old factory towns, you know, where they'd build things around a big factory because the employees there would need housing, schooling and entertainment. Maybe Lundeville was exactly like that. They built the town as a long term solution for all their employees, especially for those who moved here."

"Yeah, but…it went bankrupt. Where did everyone go? Did they just move away in one day?"

"I don't know. Maybe some other entity took over their business and moved everyone away. We definitely need to do more digging about this company."

"I guess…." Bo muttered in defeat.

They decided to stay in Lundeville overnight, since they had not explored the other side of the town yet. However, based on what they had already seen, they did not expect to find anything useful.

Tamsin started a small fire in the firepit in the backyard of the house. For a while, they just sat there and stared at the flickered flames quietly.

Bo had her knees drawn to her chest and her arms wrapped around them. "Did I…really live here?"

"Well, we both saw it in your dream. It's the exact same house. You definitely lived here, long before this place was abandoned."

"I just…I feel like…the entire place just feels weird to me."

"Of course it would. It's been over twenty years, Bo."

Bo shook her head, but couldn't shake off that heaviness sitting in her chest.

Tamsin sighed and wrapped her arm around Bo's shoulder. She pulled the brunette close to her and gave her a kiss on her temple. "There is an answer to what happened here, Bo. There has to be. We will figure it out."

Bo nodded, closing her eyes. She let herself melt in the Valkyrie's warm embrace.

"I wonder where my mom went. Why wasn't she with me? Shouldn't she stay close to me when…you know, when I left here?"

"Maybe she was with you, Bo. Maybe she was at first but the three of you somehow had to split. Or maybe, there was something that-I mean, maybe she decided that it would be better if she didn't go with you."

Bo let out a deep sigh. "I wish I could remember more, like why they had to send me away, or where they had taken me. They were talking about a rendezvous place, but all I could remember was the time."

"Maybe another session with Finola would do the trick. During your last visit, after you said the meeting time, you mumbled quite a bit. There's gotta be useful information there."

"What did I mumble exactly?"

"The only word I heard was safari, I think."

"Safari?" Bo furrowed her eyebrows.

As she uttered that word, the vague memories of yellow and green walls, and painted safari animals, flickered.

Gasping hard, Bo stood up. "The safari room…."

"What?"

"The safari room!" Bo exclaimed, waving her hands in the air dramatically. "It's-it's this daycare center that I used to go to! The playroom…it had this safari theme, you know, with painted giraffes and zebras and…."

"Okay?" Tamsin raised her eyebrows.

"It was where they were supposed to meet," Bo said. "Eleven o'clock, at the safari room!"

She took a deep breath and sprinted towards the daycare center, which was the clubhouse at the center of the subdivision.

The nightfall, the rustling leaves and the sound of her shoes crackling on the sidewalk brought back more memories.

It had been dark outside that day, too. It had been close to eleven o'clock after all.

She had been wearing her favorite dress - the sailor collar dress with short, puffy sleeves and blue ribbon trims. Outside that, she had a jacket because it was chilly outside.

Her black Mary Jean shoes had clicked crisply on the sidewalk.

The moon. She remembered the moon. It had been just a lean sliver of pale white hanging lonely in the night sky.

They had passed several houses, and she remembered she had left her teddy behind. She had wanted to go back for it, but her mother wouldn't let her.

"We don't have time, Bo," she warned her. Her voice was shaking a little.

At one point, they had ducked behind a condenser unit. She almost screamed when the fan blades of the unit suddenly started to run, but her mother covered her mouth. She had pressed her hand against her so tightly that it hurt.

Their secretive journey ended eventually at the safari room, where Dr. Olivia Smith had been anxiously waiting.

Following the path she had walked that night, Bo found the daycare center. As she entered the playroom behind the reception area, faded memories poured in.

A two tone wall, yellow and green.

Two painted giraffes, one tall, one small.

Cubby shelves with green and yellow bins.

The plastic smell of the brown floor mats.

A number "2" sticker on the rim of a table.

Colorful letter and number tiles on the whiteboard.

A hyacinth bulb growing in a bulb glass by the window.

A small tv mounted on the corner wall.

It had been a bright, warm room, with anything and everything needed by a group of preschoolers. It was alive. It was vivid. It was nothing like the room she was in right now.

This room, even though it had the same wall paintings and wall colors, was empty and different.

Standing in the middle with her breath held, Bo turned to the door slowly.

For a brief moment, she was three or four again, sitting on the floor mat. A few other kids were nearby, but she tuned them out completely.

She tuned pretty much everything out, except the puzzle in front of her.

She was in a bubble that she created herself, until a soft voice broke it.

"It's time to go home, Ysabeau."

She knew that voice. It was her mother's.

So, she raised her eyes to take a look, and there she was, in a blue dress, with a sunflower brooch right above her left chest, her dark hair cascading over her shoulder.

"We are gonna have grilled cheese today. It's your favorite," she said cheerfully as she came closer.

Bo could practically smell her perfume now. It was a blend of rose, orchid and amber.

Suddenly, her vision brightened. Bo saw her face. She had a heart shaped face. Her skin was fair, virtually no blemish except a few freckles. Then, there were her thin, slender eyebrows, her straight nose, her brown, warm eyes and her full lips….

Bo gasped hard, falling back, just in time for Tamsin to catch her.

Closing her eyes, Bo heard her mother's voice again.

"Say bye bye to your friends, Bo." She held her hand and waved at the other kids in the room….

Bo tried to make out other people's faces, but she couldn't. The longer she stared into those vague figures, the less she could see.

Soon everything faded, including the image of her mother.

Bo was still in the safari room. This time, it was Dr. Olivia Smith who held her hand.

Her hand was cold and sweaty.

"It's all going to be okay, Bo," the elder woman breathed firmly. "I'm taking you somewhere safe."

Everything after that was nothing but a dark blur.

"Bo, are you okay?" Tamsin asked as she stared into her eyes, concerned.

"Yeah… I guess my mom met with Os and then…Os took me somewhere. She said that she was taking me somewhere safe….but where could that be? I mean…did we meet here and then we went somewhere else?"

"What do you remember?"

"Nothing. I remember standing right here…" Bo pointed at a spot that was about three feet away from the wall on the right side. "She was holding my hand and…."

She trailed off, feeling a little dizzy.

In seconds, the dizziness became intense, so intense that she fell to her knees to balance herself.

Suddenly, all her senses were knocked out. It was as if she was about to pass out, but at the same time, she wasn't.

Something flashed. Was it a loud ringing, or was it a bang? Maybe it was not real at all. Maybe it was just inside her mind.

She clenched her teeth and forced herself to keep her eyes open.

"What is going on?!" She bit out at an equally confused Tamsin.

"I don't know…did something explode?" Tamsin gasped hard.

Whatever it might have been, it settled quickly.

Then, out of nowhere, in front of them, a woman appeared. She was maybe in her early twenties, with rusty long hair and freckles all over her face and exposed skin. Her outfit was slick, with a mace dangling on her belt.

Beside her, there stood her Fylgja - a vicious hound.