1.11 Apprentice

"Mom. How do you know if a guy is the right one for you?"

Mab already knows the basics of the situation. Finley's first romance went sour. Mab is glad Finley feels like she can turn to her mother for advice, but at the same time, Mab does not feel qualified to say anything on the subject of romance. 

"I suppose you have to spend enough time together to understand you're on the same page... and don't ignore the warning signs if it seems like you're not. The world is full of people who mainly want to use you to get what they want."

Finley draws in a breath, holding it for a moment, before she asks in an even tone, "What did my father want from you?"

Mab chokes on her pancakes. 

"I know you're my only real parent. You're the only one who's been here. I still think I deserve to know... y'know... what happened. There's context to my life that you haven't given me."

Mab winces. "I know I shouldn't keep it from you forever. But I think you'll understand why I couldn't tell you when you were small. Finley... you understand there are manipulable forces in this world, sciences not yet discovered?"

"Sure? I have... feelings, intuitions I don't know the origins of," Finley dares to say. She doesn't know if she's ready to believe the tales her mother would tell her as a child; the ones about ancestors who could become lost in visions of past and future.

"And you must keep that to yourself, so no one accuses you of being a vampire."

"But I'm obviously not a vampire, Mom..."

"Still. Most people think the only magic that exists comes from vampires. You could get yourself in a lot of trouble, running around claiming to be paranormal."

"But that's what you do, Mom."

"Yes, but... it's just different, okay? I'm helping the community, they're looking the other way."

"Is my father a vampire?"

"No! Wow, no. Well, sort of." Mab's face scrunches up a bit. "I'll tell you what I know."

"Please do!"

"You won't like it."

"Mommmm."

"Your father was a sorcerer who needed me to help him lift a curse," Mab begins. "I didn't realize he had such desperate motives for keeping me happy. I was lonely, and I don't think he felt like he could refuse my affection, because he needed my help and he didn't want to scare me off."

"What kind of curse? When did you find out?" Finley asks.

"I didn't find out until the day we lifted the curse and he died gruesomely in front of me. Its magic was all that kept him alive, long past his natural lifespan, so without it he just kind of... uh... um. Anyway, he was miserable being alive in that state. He hid it well. Or your mother just didn't know how to force him to tell her what was wrong," Mab is so embarrassed, she slips into third person. She goes on to explain what Masterson told her about sorcery and guilds from a lost age, and sacrificial spells and magic that corrupts.

 

Finley doesn't know what to say to all that, so responds with a tight hug.

"I'm not the best role model for relationships." Mab's emotional needs are not what they once were. She's so focused on the task at hand, on looking after the twins and cleaning up the spiritual mess of this place, this town she's grown attached to as her home. Finding love again has not been a priority.

"Are you gonna mention this to Junpei? The stuff about our father being some kind of sorcerer?"

"When he asks, I will."

Junpei told his sister not to worry what anyone at school might think about how Tommy, after being so publicly romantic towards Finley, suddenly dumped her in favor of Diana. Still, when she climbs aboard the bus to school, she's nervous.

Junpei squeezes her hand. "Stop," he says. "Everything's fine."

Her anxiety doesn't evaporate, but it seems lessened.

After school, Junpei punches Tommy in the face. No warning was given.

"Oh my," gasps Kelley Vanderburg, the boy born with gray hair.

"Duuuuude," is all Timmothy O'Dourke has to say.

"You were really mad," Finley remarks.

"It was kinda weird of me," Junpei says.

"You think you were picking up my emotions? Did I make you act out like that?" She tenses. This isn't something they've discussed at any length.

If he thinks the answer is yes, he's aware of her concern enough to deny it. "Nah. I had enough reason to be mad."

"Well I'm glad Tommy was so much of a loser, he just slunk away instead of striking back..."

"Me too. I think I'd have lost a real fight."

Finley laughs a bit, then stops herself. "Mom told me something. I want to talk about it."

Junpei stares blankly while Finley talks about magic and ghosts and people afraid to tell the truth. He continues to stare blankly for a time after. Then he says, "So what should we do about this?"

Finley frowns seriously. "I want to find out more about casting spells."

"I knew it," he sighs. "I knew all this had a point."

"Mom's overprotective of us. It's to our detriment. We're already developing psychic powers we barely know how to control. If she's not going to help us, we need to find out how to help ourselves. The information has to be out there somewhere. We could learn to make our psychic abilities better! Or... even turn them off. If. If we ever need to."

Junpei nods, understanding immediately what she's getting at. "If our empathic connection gets worse."

"Not that I'm worried..." she insists, but she is worried, and her brother can feel it.

He's been picking up a lot of thoughts from her lately. Mostly about Tommy, and all the inappropriate things Tommy tried to do with Finley. 

"If our uncle's ghost was hanging around this town for pretty much ever, maybe some of the other residential ghosts have spoken to him. You know, the ones who never disturb anybody and don't need to be banished? We could go to the graveyard and ask them about stuff," Junpei suggests.

"Sounds like a plan," Finley agrees. 

"We'll go at night, when Mom's working."

"Good. Now, I have a date with Reisa."

"I kind of hate the thought of you dating people while we have a psychic link."

"Not that kind of a date, and you know it!"

Reisa meets Finley at Angela's Scrumptious Nibbles Cafe.

Reisa hugs her friend, prepared for an evening of trash-talking Tommy. To her surprise, Finley isn't interested in that. "I'm over Tommy," she says with a snort. "It's not like we were together for a long time or anything."

"We can still say horrible things about him," Reisa suggests. "Or about Diana."

Finley rolls her eyes. "Let's just say they both got what they deserved: each other."

"So how's it going with you and Leslie?" Finley tries to change the subject.

"Well he's very cute in a ginger kid sort of way," Reisa frowns, thinking very hard about this. "And he's a GREAT kisser. I mean, FANTASTIC. I mean, WOW. But the initial excitement is wearing off, and I'm thinking... does Reisa O'Dourke really sound better than Reisa Facq?"

Finley laughs. "Because that's what this is about."

"That's what it's always been about!"

Reisa has other concerns. She's not given much thought to her future, so her father has taken it upon himself to plan for it. "Dad says he can get me in at the Daily Springs," Reisa explains. "He's been promoted left and right since his old boss died, and now he's practically in charge of the paper and the news station. But I don't want to be stuck working for my dad! That would be so embarrassing! And journalism is... meh."

"But you feel like you can't say no, since you don't have any better plan."

"Pretty much."

"I have no idea what I want to do myself," Finley admits.

"Maybe getting jobs would be less boring, for both of us, if you got a job at the Springs too."

"I don't know, Reisa... besties going into the same career, through nepotism? Is that really what I want to do with my life?"

"I think you'd be amazing at journalism."

"Of course. I'd be amazing at anything."

While Finley pictures working in an office where high school never ends, Junpei tells his mother about the horrors of invasive foreign insect infestations. In an effort to counter potentially devastating deforestation, the local science center is offering money for captured specimens.

"Cool. I'd rather you be an entomologist than a spirit medium," Mab says.

Unfortunately... maybe, as Masterson suggested... Mab does need help. She wants to retire eventually, and she'll need someone to take her place. 

She stops in front of the Shue house, taking a good, long look at it.

When she gets close enough, she can feel something is wrong. Not wrong in the sense that reality can become wrong, and twisted, corrupted, whatever. That's the feeling Mab gets when she holds the Banshee Banisher, the thing with the power to control something the rest of the universe says it should not. No, this house is wrong in the sense that everyone inside is unhappy...

 

The four children Granny Shue adopted are grown up, now. Carlotta, the one in the jungle camo jacket, and Dany, the one in the bucket hat, haven't seen each other since they graduated high school and moved out of the house. Separation has done nothing to improve their attitude towards one another.

Not so long ago, all their fights were about mysteriously vanishing simoleons and borrowed toys and chores left not done. Now they're fighting about who deserves an inheritance, about who has been here to help Granny and who hasn't and who has a good excuse and who doesn't.

Star Shue holds her toddler daughter close, trembling. "Granny may get better."

"And you..." Carlotta turns her anger on her adopted sister. "You brought this... this FREAK from the woods here! Into our house!"

"Gareth is Granny's brother!" Star protests. "He deserved to know his sister has taken ill!"

"We shouldn't be fighting," Gary says finally, lifting his gaze from the table. "She wouldn't want us fighting."

"I'm sorry." Star bursts into tears. "This is all my fault."

"No, it's not. They would still be fighting if you hadn't brought Gareth here," Gary tells her.

"I know." She sniffles. "But... he can't help."

"Our regeneration abilities only work to a point," the 'freak from the woods' admits. "No one is immortal."

"So we've got to deal with reality," Gary surmises. "Gran is not going to get better."

A floorboard outside creaks. Star's impossibly large eyes widen further. "We've got a visitor."

Carlotta straightens up, back stiff, and drags their pointy eared 'relative' into one of the back rooms. "Okay, nature man. You are way too weird to be seen..."

He hisses at her, a quick, raspy noise, but allows this to happen.

Dany says something to Gary about having had to put up with this nonsense their entire childhood. Gary's attention is fixed on Star, who opens the door.

"Spirit catcher!" Star is pleased. "Come in."

"Wonderful," Dany mutters. "Just what we need when we're having family issues. An audience."

"This... sounds like a bad time," Mab manages to say.

"You feel the bad vibes too? I think they're making me sick," Star whines.

"The window was open," Gary observes. "Ms Archer could hear the yelling."

"No matter." Star shrugs. "One supernatural to another..."

"Supernatural?" Mab repeats dully. As special as she might fantasize herself to be, she still swears up and down to everyone that it's all science, that her talents are explainable, observable, repeatable.

Star smiles, tears forgotten. "What can we do for you, spirit catcher?"

"I wanted to ask your mother a question," Mab confesses.

Star looks at her feet. "Our mother's not up to answering questions. Could you ask us?"

Carlotta stomps out of the back room, glaring. "Hell of a time in the morning to be calling on neighbors, isn't it?"

"Sister..." Star chides.

Mab looks away as well. "I wanted to know if she knew any other mediums."

"Why would you need another?" Star asks innocently. "You're such a good one..."

"It's not a matter of skill." Mab finds herself staring at the strangely-dressed, pointy-eared man peeking out of a doorway at her. "There's simply too much for me to handle by myself."

Star follows her gaze. "Maybe Gareth knows someone."

"I told you to stay in there!" Carlotta snaps.

Eleanor—Star's little daughter with Scott Chesterfield—begins to snivel in her mother's arms.

Spotted, Gareth ignores Carlotta's pissiness and slinks over to investigate the visitor.

"I'm more dryad than human," he explains, hearing Mab's unasked question. "And certainly not one of you. I have little interest in the balance of the spirit realm, or bumps in the night that scare house-dwellers..."

Mab feels like she's walked into one of her son's stories about murderous tree spirits. And then, there was the fairy...

Star gives a big yawn. "Houses are not so bad. And this is the woman who got rid of the scary blond man. Remember? She is a hero."

"Scary blond man?" Mab twitches. "I didn't get rid of Masterson..."

Star picks at her daughter's hair. "Well... I'm not accusing you of murder... I just thought... well... umm... I thought you... took care of him. Like you take care of other dead but not dead things."

"An elf wouldn't approve of his experiments," Gareth interrupts. "The colony always assumed you killed him for what he has done."

"The experiments were a means to an end," Mab says, finding her voice weak. "I don't know how much you really know about his circumstances. Ms Shue thought Masterson was out for power, but that wasn't true."

"My sister could see lies." Gareth points a clawed finger at his forehead. "And Masterson was all lies upon lies."

"His real goal was to makes amends for his own perceived mistake, by putting an end to the distortion that caused the hauntings. He was too proud and too distrustful to admit what he'd done. He was also well aware that fixing that mistake would put an end to his unnaturally long lifespan. I didn't kill him. Strictly speaking, he took his own life."

Gareth stares at her for a moment. He's not like Star; he doesn't only have big eyes and sickly greenish skin. His hair is actually some kind of plant matter. The tips of it begin to writhe, on their own, in the silence.

"That's quite an age gap," Mab points out suddenly. "Between you and your sister."

He looks offended for a moment. "Half sister. Isolde and I had different mothers. Her mother was human."

Mab cracks her knuckles. "And I'm... a bit of a ways from an elf."

Gareth smiles at her like she's wrong.

"My mother was also human," Mab says.

"We've got our own problems right now," Carlotta snarls.

"Granny helped everyone she could," Star reminds her, without looking at her.

"I should just go," Mab says.

Star turns to her 'uncle' accusingly. "You will help her, won't you?"

"I've no quarrel with spirits," Gareth says. "I don't care if they are menacing your town or not."

 No one heard Granny Shue creep down the hall, every pained step assisted with a cane.

That is, until she speaks. "You may not care for this town or its inhabitants, Gareth, but I do owe this woman an apology."

Gary brightens. "Mom. You're up," he says, hopefully.

Some of the green drains from Gareth's face. "Sister. You need to be resting, if there's any chance of you getting better..."

"There's not."

Regardless of what Gareth told Isolde's children, he's not at all pleased to see her giving up, and the argument goes back and forth for a moment.

The elder Shue ends up getting kind of mad. Not just about the dying thing, but about how "shameful" her family is behaving, when someone came to them for help. She raised them better than this, she thought.

"They don't owe me anything," Mab says.

"If I hadn't let Aric scare me away from it, I would have helped Masterson long ago, and you wouldn't have had to deal with all this."

"You can't blame yourself for that misunderstanding. And I don't resent my work here. I didn't have to do this, I chose to."

At Granny Shue's insistence, Gareth brings Mab to the rest of his colony, deep in the forest. Perhaps one of them will be inclined to help her with this spirit quieting business.

"You have a problem with me, don't you?" Mab queries. More of a statement.

"Elves and dryads do not get along."

"Seems everyone odd I run into immediately knows what sort of hybrid I am. But if no one had ever told me, I wouldn't have known myself."

"Your soul forms a little differently. It is obvious to anyone sensitive to that sort of energy."

"How's that? And why?"

"I do not know. Your kind is dangerous; that is what I do know." Gareth touches a birch tree with his left hand. The hand merges with the tree, becoming one with the bark. Mab can feel a pulse under her feet, through the grass. "I am sending a message," he explains. "I don't want the children to be around when you show up. And that's mostly for your sake..."

Gareth's message may have gotten most of his clan away from this meeting spot, but it was vague, and neglected to mention he'd be bringing in someone from the human town. So their reaction is still shock.

Accalia Woodard stops whatever light show she was causing with that stick in her hand. "Ms... Archer?"

A figure of some authority, or at least with the attitude of someone with authority, approaches.

"Don't stop what you're doing," she instructs Accalia, before pinning a disapproving gaze on Gareth. "What is the meaning of this trespass, cousin?"

He closes his eyes. "My sister wished I should bring this woman here. She's called Mab. She serves as... that town's... psychopomp, you could say."

Mab wouldn't say it that way at all. "I'm looking for another medium."

"My sister gave a little speech about us needing to be kinder to our human neighbors," Gareth grumbles. "What do you think? Should we just eat her?"

"I think I should have a word with you."

So Gareth and the woman who called him cousin wander off, and Accalia leads Mab aside further. "You don't want to be near them if they really decide to argue," she whispers.

Mab follows her kids' former schoolmate. "What are you doing here? Are your brother and sister here?"

Accalia's expression is one of disappointment. "I'm here to learn the mystic arts of my people. I'd hoped to convince my siblings... and my boyfriend... to come with me. But all they see out here is a forest. They're not interested."

Mab's breath catches in her throat. "What... is that..."

Accalia looks at the spirals gleaming in the sunlight. Vast energy is stored and protected here. Enough for any spell Accalia could ever learn, perhaps. She was told most people are affected by the illusion cast on it, and see nothing but a thick cluster of pine trees. What does it mean, she wonders, if this human can see through it? "That's just a tree..."

Every time Mab turns around, she finds someone staring at her.

The woman who wanted 'a word' with Gareth returns. Custom would have humans paying a wickedly high price for their help, but there's not much they can extract from Mab, who would sooner turn on her heel and leave than do something she didn't want to do.

"We'll lend Accalia to you," she says. "She has ties to your human village. She has much youthful energy and ambition; she will be a good assistant."

"Is she a medium? Is she really up for something like this?"

"We can handle the... hm... weak ones well enough. The human ghosts, though, we've no dominion over those. You must still handle them yourself."

Gareth's cousin motions to the one with the long braid. She stands, ears flicking, and summons one of spirits Mab has been labeling 'minor'. She seemed to pull it from the essence of the forest around her. Mab senses no hostility, no alarm.

It's a sufficient demonstration.

Accalia is not pleased with this assignment, but must bow to the wishes of her teacher... who does not, apparently, believe she's ready to abandon her life in Hidden Springs to begin with. This has been a point of some contention.

It's been a long day. Mab begins walking away.

Accalia runs to catch up with her. "Where are you going? They told me to go with you."

"Is that what you want to do?"

The younger woman scowls. "Yes... of course. Nesswen says this sort of work will teach me focus."

"Seems more like the leader is questioning your dedication to your people."

"That's for me to worry about, not you."

And that's where Mab's apprentice came from.

She wasn't a true medium. Her methods were totally different.

But she'd be a big help.

Finley is angry her mother went to one of her old classmates for this, instead of allowing her or her twin to help out. Mab tries her best to make Finley understand this is for her own good; the life of a medium is depressing. It's not a task she would wish on a child.

"Accalia isn't much older!" Finley protests.

"Accalia isn't a medium," Mab says, gently. "Her methods are different, and I'll still be handling the worst of it."

Without a good counter for that, Finley stomps off to her bedroom.

Mab sighs. It took almost more strength than she had, to overcome her pride and ask for help.

"I bet you felt like this, sometimes," she says.

Though she knows she's alone.

Once the skies are dark and their mother is on call across town, Finley and Junpei sneak out of the house and spend a few hours sitting on a bench at the cemetery, waiting for something to happen. Finley hopes tonight is the night a ghost appears, and the night she proves she can handle this stuff.




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Etc.: The theories behind the Shue household fascinated me. All four of her children are adopted, though Star has Granny's complexion, big eyes, etc, and is clearly meant to be the same, uh, species.