1.1 She's Ready to Believe You

"I am a deposed supervillainess." The caseworker glances skeptically at the young woman in his office, then continues reading from her cover letter.

          My accomplishments include striking fear into the hearts of my enemies, and building a weapon of mass destruction powered by marshmallows. 

          Unfortunately my plan to pull a meteor from the asteroid belt down to destroy Sim City was thwarted, because as it turns out most super heroes happen to live in Sim City. After they destroyed my marshmallow-powered Meteor Direction Beam, I was out of money, and a career change was in order. 

          I humbly ask to join your company's ranks. Having been the Big Bad once myself, I understand what it takes to be a proper groveling minion, and I will not fail you. 

Sincerely,

Mab Archer, ex-villain

"So." He looks her over, then opens a drawer on the side of his desk and slowly, deliberately drops her cover letter and resumé into its depths. "Is this a cry for more therapy, or do you think a prank letter will get you an interview?"

 

"Hey, I'd give me an interview," Mab says with a laugh.

"Not taking this seriously, I see. Alright then. Let's just get through the exercise." He rubs his temples for a moment before continuing, "What do you think you have to offer my company?"

She shrugs and hands over her real resumé. She watches him look it over. She didn't even graduate high school; she doesn't have a snowball's chance in Setra of landing a job.

"Well, as you can see I'm creative." She tries not to stare at his collie-themed calendar. "I have a lot to offer your imaginary company."

"I see no record of you graduating from a school," he says, before she can add anything else. "None of the associated scores indicating what career you might do well in. Obviously you scored badly on your aptitude tests and are attempting to hide it. Why?"

"If you could only give me a chance," she pleads. "You won't regret it. I can't get experience if no one will hire me."

"Stop wasting my time, Miss Archer."

Mab Archer shifts in her seat, growing more uncomfortable as the pretense of interview coaching falls away. This is just another old man who wants to complain about the youth and not help her. "I don't have documentation. I ran away from home when I was a teenager."

"What? For the love of... I need to be told these things. I can't spin gold from straw, here. Nothing in the file about you suggested- never mind. Where is home?"

"In the Barnacle Islands. It's not home anymore."

"How did you get all the way here?"

Mab scowls. The simoleons she stuffed in her pockets when she ran away from home as a teenager have long since been spent, wandering town to town, taking small jobs when possible. Repairing things here, shoveling snow there. When her luck ran out she was arrested for vagrancy and put into this rehabilitation program, where no one knows what to do with her. "Can I just go now?"

"I need to make a few phone calls." What a bureaucratic nightmare. How is he supposed to do his job under these conditions? "Go... go wait with the rest of your group. And send the next one in!"

Mab stands up and leaves without a word. She sends the next young woman in line into Mr. Condescending's office, and prepares to step out of the waiting room, when it begins to rain.

That's right, she reminds herself. The southwest has a lot of problems with the weather control grid.

There were no such problems in Barnacle Bay. It never rained, never needed to. The first time she saw this phenomena, rain, she stood out in it for hours. It was amazing. The second time, it was snow. Even more amazing. But now it's old hat, so she sits right back down in the waiting area and picks up a newspaper.

PERSON NEEDED TO COMMUNICATE WITH GHOST.

That's the entire job description. The rest of the tiny ad is taken up with how to find the employer, and after a second Mab realizes why. He, or she, or the company, it's too vague to tell, is located in Hidden Springs, a town far, far from where she is now.

"Why would a place that far away have an ad in the paper here?" she mumbles aloud.

A few of the other girls glance at Mab, but quickly go back to checking their watches and tucking stray hairs back into place.

I bet I can get to Hidden Springs, Mab thinks, then smiles. As soon as she can grab her bag tonight, she'll make her escape.

And so Mab traveled to Hidden Springs, and met a mysterious man for a mysterious job at an unremarkable little cafe near the little town's visitor center.

One look at the guy interviewing her, and she knows he isn't the owner of the bright yellow truck outside.

He's the strangest looking person she's seen in a while. He's wearing feathers.

His clothes are dark and layered for warmth. The outer layer is threadbare; it has holes in it. His eyes are wide open, forced into strained alertness while the lower lids droop down, suggesting exhaustion. He sits straight and stiff as a post.

"You're Masterson?" she ventures.

She was only given one name to ask for. Masterson.

He looks at her when she speaks. "Yes. And you are the medium."

"Call me Mab," she introduces herself.

She expects him to open with pleasantries. Instead, he gets directly to business: "Convince me of your supernatural powers."

"Well I don't normally talk to people about them, especially in open places like this, b-"

"But you must tell me, if you are interested in being paid."

She slumps back in the chair. If Masterson can show up dressed like that, she can let the professionalism slide, too. "I've been chatting with dead people in graveyards since I was a little kid. Now I don't know what you want me to communicate about, but if your ghost is actually there and not just your imagination I'll do my very best to serve as an interpreter."

"Prove it."

"Okay. Take me to where you think your ghost is hiding, and I'll have a chat with it."

He looks around. "You sense nothing in this room?"

"No." Mab answers flatly. "Just you. And those people over there drinkin' coffee."

Masterson's expression does not change. "Then how do you expect me to believe you?"

"There's not a ghost in here! First of all, they prefer to come out at night. Everybody knows that."

The man is quiet for a moment. He's irritated, for sure, but something gives Mab the feeling that it's not about her.

"Very well. Meet me at the Shady Pines Historical Cemetery tonight. Midnight, sharp."

With that, Masterson rises to leave. Mab tries to stop him.

"Wait! Hey! You can't just expect a lady to meet you alone in a graveyard at night..."

He stares at her, unamused. "Then do not come alone."

"It's Masterson!" Laila Al Fahad, a disease researcher at the hospital in this town, whispers vindictively about Hidden Springs' most reclusive resident. 

No one remembers going to school with Masterson, but elderly, crabby Louis Swete claims to have known Masterson's father, and the local consensus is that Masterson has lived in these mountains his entire life. Though he looks young, he's never out socializing with anyone his age, and though he's dressed oddly, Laila heard a rumor he's wealthy.

Ian Nali isn't interested in Laila's conspiracy theories. "I think you ought to leave that poor boy alone."

"But he's suspicious!" she hisses.

"So's your medical practice." Ian gives a hearty laugh. 

Laila doesn't find it so funny. There's something about the springs deep in the woods, something that heals! If she could locate the source, she'd be rich. But this isn't something she wants to spread around, lest others start looking and find it first.

"Laugh all you want, Ian. But the Winterly boy is doing much better thanks to me!"

Ian snorts. "I guess all he needed was some fresh, clean mountain air and some expensive placebo water."

Masterson left without so much as a goodbye, and Mab finds her schedule empty until midnight. She  has time to take in the sights. The town itself is tiny and unimpressive to her, but it's surrounded by a lush landscape of thick forests and mountains.

Mab feels stupid walking the streets in her "interview clothes", the only "nice" clothes she owns.

Her self-consciousness melts away when she crosses into the grass and approaches the river.

This water flows from its source higher in the mountains down through the valleys towards the ocean, far away.

Perhaps it yearns to be there, to hear the gulls touch the seashells.

Mab can always taste the ocean on the wind, if she closes her eyes and remembers it.

She remembers the ferry boat she left Barnacle Bay on, how improbably fast it was, how it cut through the water and the air and the darkness. She left the islands behind, and has yet to return. Thoughts of home haunt her often, but when she considers going back there, her stomach knots. 

Her bike was freshly shined up to ride to the interview. Now, as the sun sets, Mab takes it up a dirt road.

Nothing stays clean very long.

Here's the lodge she's staying at.

And the view from its back porch.

Mab climbs the stairs to her room and heads for the shower.

It's time to put these stuffy clothes away.

Despite being labeled as historical, the Shady Pines Historical Cemetery was not on any of the dusty tourist brochures in the lodge. Mab had to ask for directions.

Masterson is waiting for her.

"I see you've dressed down for the occasion," he says.

"Nice to see you too, buddy." Poor Mab arrived alone, despite her misgivings. She has no friends here. "Who's that?"

Masterson glances at the woman pretending to play guitar behind him.  "Just one of this village's many moronic inhabitants. Pay her no mind." 

"...Village?"

He makes a sweeping hand gesture, indicating the entirety of the graveyard. "Well?"

"Well what?"

"You may begin."

Mab scoffs, and kneels next to a grave. "Just my luck, no ghosts are out tonight. Maybe they just hate you." If Mab had turned to look at Masterson, she would have seen his emotionless face erupt in brief anger. But she didn't turn. "But! There's a minor spirit here. Maybe I can coax it out."

"Minor spirit?" he questions.

"Yeah. I'm not sure what they are, exactly. I've read a lot of theories. My favorite is they're born naturally from the environment... when a fairy stays too long in one place, and loves that place very much, that place is imbued with their magic. And when the fairy leaves, these, uh, spirits happen."

"The fae are not involved with this," Masterson grumbles.

Mab exerts her will over the minor spirit, and it obligingly manifests itself.

Masterson stands up sharply. 

The air-guitar-rocking woman shrieks and runs away.

"How did you do that?" Masterson demands.

"I don't know. I just kind of... think really hard at it? Extend my feelings."

The tiny energy manifestation brushes against Mab's face, like a tickling mist.

Then it vanishes.

"Take this." Masterson pushes something into her hands. "Capture a spirit for me."

"Wh... what is this?" Something about the device feels... twisted. Wrong.

"It is a prototype." Masterson's voice is cheerless. "I need to capture a ghost. I want you to test my prototype."

"Why do you need to catch a ghost, Masterson?"

"Restless souls and these minor spirits of yours have plagued Hidden Springs for centuries. Most sims are not sensitive enough to see them, but they can see their effects. Poltergeists. Chills. Bumps in the night. It should not take you very long to find someone who can't get a night's rest. I will pay you to test my prototype."

Pay? That's the magic word. "What do you want me to do when I've caught something?"

He writes down his address for her.

Mab returns to her room at the lodge and drops into the warm, clean blankets. She's always been a risk taker, running off to new places with no plan... and often suffering for her mistakes. But this time, maybe, things are looking up...

For the first time in a very long time, she dreams of home.

She's on a fishing trip with her mother. Something about the lake feels unnatural and wrong.

Mab slips in, and drowns.

Her mother calls for her, frantic.

After everything is dark and still, Mab can still hear her mother screaming.

Mab tries to shake off the dream when she wakes up, but something felt so real about this one. She can see a creek running near the lodge, water winding its way downwards.

She left her poor mother and father without a word of goodbye. Perhaps Mara Archer is still searching for her, and internally screaming. 

Mab turns away from the window and paces the room, wondering how she's going to locate someone who thinks their house is haunted.

"Hello!" The newspaper's advertising sales representative greets Mab with an abundance of cheer, pen held ready. "I'm Charles Facq. It's a pleasure to meet you, Miss Archer. What can we at the Daily Springs do for you?"

Mab stifles a laugh. She's unsuccessful. "Uh. Sorry. You just... don't look like a Charles."

"What do I look like?"

"Like... uh... err..." She feels her face heat up. "Okay. Your last name sounds like a swear."

"I get that a lot. Take a seat!"

Mab ends up spilling some of her story to Charles Facq. She tells him about her vagrant lifestyle, her failure to complete high school, and her arrival in Hidden Springs because a person who identifies himself with only one name was looking for a spirit medium, or whatever, and now she's got to test his invention. What she needs now is a client with a haunted house.

Charles is excited to hear someone responded to Masterson's ad. "I helped write that ad! As much as Masterson would let me, anyway. And then I sent it to all newspapers in the country who would print it. That was quite a feat. According to my boss, Masterson asks for something like this periodically. I suppose no one who has answered the ad before fit his standards."

"He probably gets a lot of con artists."

Charles wants so badly to ask Mab if she's a con artist, but he holds his tongue. He's new in town too, as of a few months ago, and he can't afford to offend a customer and lose his job. Instead, he goes over the fees for an ad in the Daily Springs, and suggests wording.

He also suggests she offer free nachos for the first five customers. Everyone loves nachos.

"What? I can barely afford to feed myself right now. And this is a serious scientific..." Mab fishes for the right wording, and quickly gives up, "...thing. I'm conducting science, here."

Charles blinks. "Of course. Of course. Hmm. How about this?"

He slides his notebook over to her. It reads:

SHE'S READY TO BELIEVE YOU.

Mab's lips twitch up in a smile. "That's terrible. But perfect. Charles... do you know much about hauntings in the area? Masterson led me to believe there were many."

"I have heard things." Working for the paper, Charles has had to learn a lot about the town, which he conveys to Mab now. Wild stories of ghosts, aliens and plant people run rampant through the Daily Springs' backlog, which goes back for centuries.

The town was incredibly tiny until the hospital and resort opened up some years ago. It's still tiny, but since the opening of the hospital and some delirious hiker's claim of mystical healing powers of the mountain, rich people have decided this out of the way place is the perfect place to get away from it all. 

Mab is not sure that was very helpful. "Thank you, Charles."

Placing an ad in the paper was a financial risk, but it pays off when Mab is called to the Vanderburg house. The big concrete wall was clearly not enough to keep spirits out.

"Please," Renauld Vanderburg whimpers. "They whisper cruel things, all night long. I feel they've targeted me specifically."

Renauld was a leader of the free world until he retired, and he's loathe to allow this woman dressed like a teenager to enter his house, but she doesn't even seem to recognize him, and at this point it's hard for Renauld to put a price on a good night's sleep.

Renauld's stepson, Sebastian, strolls out of the house to talk to his father. When he sees Mab, he laughs and tells her "good luck". She pauses in the doorway, listening to the conversation between father and son. Renauld frequently calls Sebastian to the house to check up on mysterious noises, and "floating household objects". Sebastian has never seen these objects.

Mab observes the shifting red tint on the floor, aware she's the only one here capable of perceiving it. She knows Renauld Vanderburg isn't crazy. She steps through the door and begins searching the Vanderburg home.



________________________________________________________
Etc.: Welcome to my new legacy! Mab is generation 11 from my last legacy.

I added a couple of sims to the town to help populate it. Charles is an EA premade from the bin. Masterson is a tweaked Mortimer Goth from Sunset Valley. I fiddled with his eyes and mouth in CAS, and changed his hair. Thanks to Melissa for donating a sim with that hair color to me. <3 Though she may cringe to see me put it on a Goth. I obviously cannot be trusted.