1.4 Brothers and Sisters

"I don't know what this town would do without you!" Gabriella Ornales gushes. 

Her appreciation of Mab has improved since they first met; back then, Mab was a last resort. Her services were assumed to be a hoax. Now residents of Hidden Springs look at Mab with respect, rather than sneers and chuckles.

Mab loves her job, though sometimes the late nights can be unforgiving...

She was on an unstoppable painting muse all day, then went out to catch ghosts all night. She blames exhaustion for the nausea that has her vomiting off the side of the sidewalk on her way home. She'll have to change her lifestyle sooner or later. Running on so little sleep is not good.

The real cause of the nausea and tiredness is grounds for far more dramatic lifestyle changes.

"...And the nearest clinic that could, you know... you know... is so far away, I'd be in labor by the time I got there. We were stupid. Ugh! So stupid and careless..." Mab rambles on, trying to ignore the state of her lover's kitchen. She found the door unlocked, and him staring vacantly out the window. This room has grime and dust and looks like it hasn't been used to cook food in decades.

Masterson appears genuinely mystified by her news. "I assumed this could not happen."

"Well I'm not happy to be carrying your child, either!" Mab snaps. "I like you, so no offense, but you'd probably make a terrible father."

"Sorry," he mumbles.

"I don't even know your first name!"

He hugs her gently, not answering the implied question, trying to calm her anger. He'd also prefer it if she didn't have a good view of his face right now, because as far as he's concerned, this is the worst thing that could have happened.

"I'll sell some of my antiques," he promises. "I'll get you enough to buy a bigger place."

At least he didn't ask her to move in with him. 

 Mab is hit with another wave of nausea and scurries to the sink to throw up.

Masterson frowns at the floor anxiously. Has he forgotten his own name? He's had no reason to use it since his brother died, and he's the only Masterson around, but that's no excuse for forgetting it!

As the pregnancy progresses, Mab takes fewer ghost hunting jobs. She tries to relax.

Masterson visits every day to check on her. He's disappointed at this stalling in their research, but he's not going to press the issue.

"It's traditional to smile when one is dancing," Mab informs him.

"I told you I have never danced before."

Apparently dancing is kind of fun once one gets the hang of it.

"I didn't realize you had a cute smile," Mab giggles.

His eyebrows scrunch closer together. "Stop it. I have a terrible smile."

"No! You're adorable."

She's too pregnant to go out on the job, but Mab cannot ignore it when a ghost decides to take up haunting her own home.

Her heart feels like it stops, cold, when she notices the pendant with the four circles hanging from a ghostly chain around its neck. Could this be the monster Masterson has been searching for? In her house? "Wh-what do you want from me?!"

The invader has nothing to say for itself.

Mab wastes no time capturing the presumed malevolent spirit and bringing it to Masterson. The ghost is startled to be caught in the Banshee Banisher, and even more shocked to be held in this cage Masterson has constructed in his home.

It taps on the glass, and makes an otherworldly screeching noise when it receives a nasty jolt of pain from doing so. "What is this?" it demands to know.

Masterson smiles coldly. "New tricks."

"Why does it look like you?" Mab asks.

"It wears Aric's face." Masterson turns to her. "You should leave... I want words with it."

"I'm not leaving. What if something goes wrong and you need my help?"

"She's onto your lies!" the ghost cackles.

Masterson flips a switch. Whatever energy is being charged through that cage, the ghost doesn't like it. "You forget how resourceful I am! The curse may have prevented me from touching you before but now that she's caught you, you will know no end to my fury until you tell me what I need to know."




"Oliver!" it wails. "Stop it!"

Mab blinks. "Oliver?"

Masterson pauses in his tirade. 

That's it. That's the name he was looking for. 

It doesn't matter now, though. "Don't test my patience. You're not my brother. You're just a shadow of him. Don't you see I can set you free of your torment as well?"

The ghost thrashes wildly against the walls that confine it. "No! No! No! No!"

"What exactly is going on here?!" Mab demands. "What haven't you told me?"

"Stay out of this," Masterson hisses.

"I can't! I'm in it!"

"I asked you to leave!"

"I will smash that machine of yours and we will go through this all over again if you don't tell me what's going on."

"You'd do that? After everything I've told you?"

"Why did you need me to go after this spirit?" She jabs a finger at his chest. "With all you've created... why... why couldn't you go after it yourself?"

"He's under a curse," the ghost rasps. It continues to make horrible noises, and claws desperately at its cage. "I will tell you about the curse..."

"You don't tell it properly, Aric," Masterson says quietly. "You're confused."

"Then you tell me," Mab demands.

So he tries to, but only because she is, more or less, now family.

And like most stories, it begins before the beginning.  Far before the beginning.

The country was split by war, in this ancient time. Each side sought for advantages. Magic was a well-known thing back then; benevolent supernatural creatures initially taught magic to humans for honorable purposes, so they could defend themselves against forces that would have otherwise ended them. But once their survival was assured, the humans turned on each other. The mage guilds themselves were at war.

One such guild identified Masterson and his brother as potential candidates for training.

Their father wanted nothing to do with the guilds, and sent their emissaries away. But their mother saw the war inch closer every day. If she brought her twin children to the mages, perhaps they would be safe in the guild's stronghold. And if they grew up before its end, they could have a part in ending it. So she went against her husband's wishes, and gave their children away.

"Now we're less mouths to feed," Aric whispered angrily.

Oliver kept quiet.

They never saw their mother again.

They were brilliant students, as children. But by the time they were adults, one of them was far more interested in sneaking out to taverns and impressing ladies than he was in furthering the guild's causes.

"You're not going out tonight," Oliver warned. "You misbehave, and I'm always the one who's fussed at."

"Tell 'em you didn't see me..."

"I did see you."

The war had not ended. As student mages, the boys were coddled and protected within the halls of their guild. But this time was drawing to a close. Soon they would be expected to fight. Anxious to discover new tactics, Oliver's experiments began.

And they began with Aric.

"I want you to know this hurts a damn lot. Why can't we switch places again?"

"Because you are incompetent, and if something went wrong, you wouldn't be able to fix me."

Oliver was confident in his theories.

But it was called "dark magic" for a reason, and when after repeated failures to perfect the spell failed, and attempts to heal Aric from all of the side effects failed, Oliver knew he'd done something wrong.

It wasn't just the mark on Aric's face, the mysterious corruption no one could remove... it was as if his personality itself had been twisted. 

Aric became interested in magic again. And in the war. There were theories about supernatural creatures he particularly liked; theories about killing them and using their energy to create impossible spells.

"We can end the war," he said. "We can go home."

"They burned our home to the ground," Oliver reminded him.

Aric was not dissuaded. The guild elders confined Aric to a tower, but he found a way to escape the imprisonment hex. Finding Aric missing, Oliver could only hope his brother wouldn't find any powerful creatures to tangle with, and would return from a night on the town drunk as a skunk, like he used to, with tales of impressing women with juvenile magic tricks.

Aric never materialized. But one day, SHE did.

Oliver had never seen an elf before. Elves hadn't approved of humans for a long, long time and everyone knew this. Her name was Nuenvalsen, and the guild elders respected her without question, despite everything. It was a matter of principle. The elves had taught humans magic in the first place.

Looking at her, Oliver felt an innate horror. She was something that looked almost human, but was not human. Some people said elves were beautiful, and captivating, and graceful... but as Oliver's eyes fell upon the elegant curve of her ear, and the unwavering stare from her bright red irises... the only instinct it aroused in his gut was fear. 
 
Unfortunately, he did not listen to his fear.

All Nuenvalsen wanted was to find her sister. Her sister was last seen with a member of this guild. And Aric was the only mage unaccounted for.

The elders ordered Oliver to assist in the search.
 
The search went on for a distressingly long time, but it ended in the area that would one day be Hidden Springs. Rumors told of a rogue sorcerer having gone on a rampage that destroyed an entire riverside village, and everyone in it. 

Indeed, there was no town in the spot on the map where a town was supposed to be. There was only charred earth, and quiet forests and rivers.

When Oliver found his brother, there weren't words or tears enough for his grief. Only a lot of  "Why? Why did you do this?!"

Aric's story was short. He murdered an elf, and used her dying energy to curse an object. A box. She was still trapped in there. Her despair channeled through the box, Aric said, could destroy anything, even reality itself. And so Aric set about destroying the guild's enemies.

Aric couldn't stop himself. Infected with the sickness from Oliver's experiments, Aric needed chaos and devastation, like he needed air to breathe. But part of him knew everything about this was wrong, so in a moment of weakness, or maybe a moment of strength, he allowed himself to be caught in the path of destruction. And it was over. He was himself again. 

"You're not yourself!" Masterson countered. "You're dead!"

Aric's ghost flickered uncertainly, a flame in the wind. "I just wanted to say goodbye. I wanted to say I'm not angry with you, and to wish you luck."

Nuenvalsen said nothing. She was like a lost child, staring out at the water.

Masterson forgot her power. All he could think of was correcting his own mistake.

He was angry with the elves, too; how did one manage to get itself captured by his foolish brother?

"So you attacked her when her back was turned!" Aric interjects.

"All I could think of was a resurrection spell," Masterson admits. "I wanted to save you."

He thought he could trade the elf woman's life for his brother's. It was incredibly dumb in retrospect, and not just because Nuenvalsen was not defenseless. Not just because she used her last breath to curse him, to make him unable to use her energy, and unable touch any spirits, unable to directly harm anyone, until her sister's spirit was freed.

"Witnessing this... I think my brother was traumatized. As much as a ghost can be traumatized. Then again that's the reason they linger, isn't it? Unfinished business. It upsets me to see him here, tortured, thinking he has to protect something from me, and me from something. To this day, he misjudges my intentions towards that box. All I want is to lift the curse."

Mab wrings her hands together, trying to process what has been said. If this is the truth, everything he told her before was a lie. This could be a lie too. "But... it doesn't sound like that bad of a curse."

"I only exist because of it. Her magic flows through my veins just as much as blood. It's inescapably cold. I don't enjoy living this way. I can't sleep. Or eat. Or age. Or die. Or feel any pleasure from the touch of another. Not until the box is open and that elf's spirit is released. Though the way you've treated me has been... refreshing... I remain perplexed that someone as perceptive as you didn't notice there was something wrong with me."

Mab noticed, but she couldn't interpret what she noticed. She won't get caught up on that accusation. There's something more pressing to worry about. "S-so you'll... die. When that spirit is released."

"In every way that matters, I died on the day I was cursed."

So he's been here all this time, searching. He couldn't seek help from the guild; they'd have no sympathy on such a transgression. Ages passed, the wars ended, a new town sprung up. Masterson modeled the home he built for himself to look somewhat like the guild, but nothing could ever be the same... 

"That's not true. You can still affect the world. Your actions matter," Mab protests.

"I'll tell you," Aric rasps.

Masterson and Mab turn at once to look at him.

"Your woman. I'll tell her. But you can torture me all you want and... never... telling... you, Oliver."

Mab doesn't know if she should, but she lets Aric tell her his secrets.

Mab goes into the forest, seeking the spot where the river's waters have carried this cursed box.

She must know if there is any truth to any of this...

The artifact is unnaturally pristine, despite exposure to the elements.

As soon as Mab is near it, she knows it's the cause of all the trouble. It's the cause of the abnormal spirit activity, the restlessness of this town. Its aura is strong, sending steady waves of distress into the etherium. If Mab focuses, even a little, she can feel the distortion of reality around her. 

Mab contemplates her distant kinship with the suffering soul in the box. She never told anymore, but there are elves in her ancestry. What would Oliver even think of that? Would he be disgusted?

"I can't do it." She chokes on her words. "I can't just let you die."

"I am not the only one who suffers because of this unrighted wrong."

He's right. Nuenvalsen's sister is in terrible pain. Aric is in torment. The innocent humans of Hidden Springs cannot rest when they die.

 

"But our children..."

"They'll be better off without me," Oliver says, resolute and without a trace of self-pity. "All I've ever done is lie to you."

He takes the box from her. She doesn't stop him.

He tries to comfort her one last time. He tries once more at an apology. 

It is a moment she will not be able to recall in detail.

How could she be expected to remember what happened before Oliver Masterson opened the box, and the spirit left it, and the distortion ceased, and he fell to his hands and knees, and whatever powerful magic that sustained him started pouring out, dragging along with it all the blood and all the life left in his body?

She's feeling nauseous again.

"I'll go with you now, I think," Aric informs the reaper.

The twins died in vastly different time periods, but the reaper takes them both in one swipe. 

Mab feels alone, once they are gone.

Really, really alone.

I'm alright, she types a letter to her parents on her new laptop, once she's done crying in front of the bathroom mirror. I'm sorry to have worried you.

She can't think of what else to say.

Love, Mab.

She'll print it and mail it in the morning.