Finley finds she can't sleep in her own bedroom. So she curls up next to her brother. Or what looks like her brother, but is really only an empty shell.
Does she feel less alone now? Or more alone now?
Is this only instinct, to protect what can't be protected?
Oliver. Mab calls out with her mind, with as much force as she can.
She has plenty of experience coaxing out ghosts who try to hide themselves. But how can she find one that isn't trying to hide itself? One that just isn't around right now? "I have to try," she reminds herself aloud.
Part of her knows she's off base, coming to this place. Masterson spent too long here, working on a single goal, now complete. There is no unfinished business here. Still, intuition tells her... tells her what? Is there something else she's being compelled to look for?
Mab plops down in the grass. "I don't... I don't know what to do!" she cries to the universe.
"Finley..."
Finley's eyes flutter open. The room is as she left it, and it's still dark outside. And then, her mind adjusts to what her eyes alone can't see.
"Y-you." She sits up, startled. "I know who you are..."
No response.
"I know your face. You're either my father... or his twin brother."
"Aric moved on. It was a long time in coming... but he is at peace."
Finley tilts her head, not unlike a puppy. She was given no names, in Mab's story, but gets the message. This is the ghost of her father. He hesitantly brushes a hand against Junpei's shoulder, and Finley tenses, afraid.
As a medium, Finley senses her father's confusion as an almost tangible thing.
"What happened here?" he asks.
"A fairy," Finley chokes. "They said she shattered his soul, and now he doesn't exist."
This strikes Masterson as out of character for the fae. "From the beginning..."
Finley starts over. She tells him what happened, with as much detail as she can remember. Masterson isn't familiar with djinn, but doesn't bring it up. Not important. The fairy's 'dispersal' spell seems to be what's important.
"You have to help him," Finley pleads. "Or teach me how. My mother told me you were a sorcerer. And that you dealt with corrupt magic..." She hugs herself, and rocks slowly back and forth, realizing how insane she sounds. "Junpei and I wanted to learn magic."
"I was trained for war," the ghost replies. "This isn't something you should pursue."
She lays back down on the bed, fixing her gaze on the ceiling. "That's right," she remembers. As if she'd somehow forgotten in the first place. "You're a murderer, too."
"I was not a good person," the ghost says, pained.
"I feel so terrible." Finley laughs oddly. "So weird. If I could trade, and feel nothing... it... it might be better than this. This ripped up feeling."
No response.
"What did the yellow guy even mean?" she continues. "Calling my brother back? I thought once you moved on, you were just..." Gone. Finley presses her fingers over her eyes. She's too exhausted to cry. Maybe she's hallucinating. Dehydrated. How long ago was it that Reisa brought her a glass of water? How long has it been since Reisa and her family left?
"He meant you're not human," the ghost answers.
"Well... sorry."
"No. Don't. You're perfect." The ghostly voice is breaking, crackling. Getting hard to decipher. "If I could have been a father to you... I would have. Go back to your dream."
"Momma..." the sleeping teen whispers.
Home. Mab can't go in there. She can't rest until she's done everything she can to save her son. But maybe it's a false hope that she can do anything at all; maybe everything the yellow-and-red fairy said was to distract her, to keep her from getting into an unwise confrontation with the purple one.
Mab smacks her forehead lightly against the shutters. She can see her two children in there, one sleeping and the other... not. One innocently snuggled up to the other one. They'd do this when they were toddlers. They'd panic when separated. Though often at odds, they were always around each other, growing up and learning about the world, incapable of understanding what it would be like to experience life alone. Mab tries to imagine how traumatized Finley must be.
"I'll help you through it, Fin," Mab promises. She only hopes this doesn't mean she must let her daughter into her world of spooks and ghosts, where everything is twisted, and every soul met is deeply disturbed, only lingering in the world because of unfinished business, or unnatural influence.
Finley has been jealous of Accalia. That's been no secret. And it's something Mab knows she must fix. There can't be any bad feelings between mother and daughter—not now, not if they're going to recover from this...
"Oliver... please answer me..."
"I hear you."
He was never haunting his dreary castle. All of his unfinished business is here, with Mab and the twins. Mab covers her mouth, suddenly not trusting her voice.
"Yet you are surprised to see me," he comments.
She gets better. "I didn't know if it would work.... ...I, I summoned you... didn't I?"
He nods.
"That's incredible..." she breathes. By mere strength of will, she's controlled this spirit's trajectory. If she had the lifespan of an elf's to practice, her power might be fearsome. "But I can't summon my son."
"Because he has no cohesive consciousness. He cannot hear you."
Mab chokes down a sob so she can glare. "You spoke to my daughter."
"You aren't the only one I heard crying for me to answer."
He's taken her hands to comfort her. It's like holding ice, but it's the thought that counts. She can feel his worry and sorrow, not unlike her own. "You haven't moved on, because of me," Mab murmurs.
"I was forced to surround myself with lies, but caring for you was never a deception."
"Even if you had ulterior motives, you still didn't want to hurt me." She nods to herself. "I need you to stop worrying about me. I need you to be at peace, now. When you fade away... I'll reach after you for Junpei. It's the only way I can think of to get through to the... the... other side."
"But then what?!" she wails suddenly. "What do I do?! How can I put him back together?"
"You will find a way," the ghost says with quiet conviction.
Finley had thought it was a dream, the conversation she'd had with her father's ghost. One moment she was awake, the next she was asleep.
She hoped she would wake up and find her brother's death had been some dream, too. But she woke up to the frightening sound of her mother crying.
Unfortunately, Oliver has no clue how to move on. Most other ghosts don't either; at some point, it just happens. They give up. They let go. Mab's convinced so many to leave the world, sometimes after a little bashing around with the banisher and sometimes with just a chat, but she's never forced someone.
"That's what you think," he says. "But it's not true. You have more power than you know."
The task makes her feel like an executioner. "I don't know if this is right... and... and I don't know how..."
"Yes you do. You've made it happen so many times."
She pulls him closer to her. I'm sorry...
The line between realms blurs around Mab Archer, as it always has.
The ghost is pulled into the etherium. The cosmic soup. Becomes one with it; individuality lost. It's where they all, eventually, go. She couldn't have held on if she'd wanted to or tried to.
The etherium. Held open. Because she opened it. Mab covers her ears to protect against the cacophony of so many echoing voices, memories captured and recorded in one place. They're in her head. It doesn't help. She can't waste time. There's someone her psychic senses have to locate, to will back through...
It's hard to find the pieces when she's looking, instinctively, for something whole.
Finley's head fills with sound.
And a spark.
Like a light-switch flipped back on.
She thinks she senses her brother. But he's not close, at least not in-his-room-close, and she doesn't know where he is. She only knows she can run there, because now he's somewhere. And he was not anywhere, a few seconds ago.
She did not stop to put her shoes back on.
She
has
to
run
Finley wonders where her feet are taking her.
...right, then. The castle.
Masterson finds Mab's son—his son—in the fleeting seconds between existing and not existing.
Junpei's mind is full of gaps. Trying to fill those holes, it constructs something familiar around it.
Finding a stranger in the 'kitchen', and not even recognizing it as a ghost, Junpei tries to scare his father away with vague threats and arm flailing.
"You need to get out of here," the stranger interrupts. "You don't exist here."
Junpei stops his story. He can't remember how he got to the kitchen. He can't remember what he was doing before this. He grasps at random memories, being at school or at home or dozens of other places. He can't settle on a single one, or hold onto it for more than a second. He wants to argue with Masterson, but he can't remember what Masterson just said. "I... uhm... my head..."
Junpei has it for a moment. He knows where he is. He knows this feeling. He's swimming in the ocean, and the rip current is impossible to fight. It's sweeping him further and further away from the shore.
"That's your mother calling you," Masterson tries to explain.
The appearance of a metaphorical door must be a good sign.
Junpei is shoved through it.
One smashed window later, and Finley is wandering around this empty place that never invented light switches.
A mirror.
All this room has is a mirror.
Something tells her what she wants is directly ahead, so Finley paws around for a doorknob or... something... anything indicating she can pass through.
Ah. Brute force. That's the key.
The wooden wall falls away, just an illusion, leaving a stone one to be pushed open.
Weird noises. Bizarre lighting. This door must lead to certain doom.
What a rush. Finley almost feels... alive again.
She proceeds fearlessly.
"Uhm... hi, Finley."
Finley creeps closer, wary of the sparks of energy pouring off of this containment field.
"This is kind of scary," Junpei comments.
Something isn't right about him. He's not all there. But by the second, he's more there than he was before. His presence is more and more recognizable. The machine ticks and whirs angrily. The field must be forcing him back together.
Finley smiles, trying her damnedest not to start bawling. That's the last thing Junpei needs to see right now. "H-hey. I thought you were gone forever..."
Memories begin to click together. Junpei's mind is becoming whole again. "Kneeing that purple lady in the stomach didn't end well for me, did it..."
"N-no. No it didn't."
"Am I dead?" Junpei tries to walk out of the containment field, and receives a nasty jolt of pain for doing so.
Finley doubles over, experiencing it just as strongly. "Ack! Don't do that!"
"Yeah... okay... right." Junpei wobbles, dazed. "Don't like that."
"How are we gonna get you out of there and back to your body?" Finley frets. "What if you disappear again?"
"Ghosts... don't have bodies, Finley..."
"You do! You even managed to screw up dying, you idiot."
Junpei frowns at his translucent hands. He clicks his fingernails together. He feels, but does not feel right.
Finley can see some switches and dials, their design similar to some of the contraptions their mother uses. She's afraid to touch them though. "Where do you think we are, anyway?"
Junpei follows her gaze to the bookcases. "I don't know. Someone pushed me here... ...please go get Mom..."
Finley didn't want to leave Junpei in that place all alone, but fetching their mother is the logical thing to do, so she runs home. As she sinks down in the grass behind their house, she becomes vaguely aware of how dirty her floral-print stockings are getting.
She finds her mother in some kind of a state. Like a nearly passed out sort of state. Bringing back every last piece of Junpei really took it out of her.
"Mom? Momma, get up... Mom... it worked."
"I'm here, honey..." Mab tries to comfort her neurotic child, but this is probably the most justified he's ever been in freaking out.
Finley nervously toys with her bracelets. "What is this thing? Where are we?"
"This is where your father lived, Finley." Or didn't live. Yeah, that sounds about right. "He built this... cage... for his brother, based on research we'd compiled."
"It pressed Junpei back together," Finley tries to explain the sensation.
Mab nods, remaining calm. She understands, now. The field would have been designed to keep Aric from trying to escape. It would have prevented him from simply fading away. All of his containment fields were like that; they were the source of the deeply 'wrong' feeling Mab still picks up, every time she reaches for the Banshee Banisher.
"Do you think it's done?" Mab asks.
Finley stares at Junpei's ghost. Her mother's trying to ask if she thinks he's all there, whole, at least in spirit, if not in body. Mab is putting more trust in Finley's assessment than her own, acknowledging the powerful bond between the twins. "It's him," Finley says.
Mab begins messing with the switches. "We'll get you home, Junpei..."
Accalia greets the Archers when they return to their house.
"So weird," Junpei comments on the corpse version of himself.
"What is she doing here?" Finley whispers to her mother. "And who is that?"
"I am Nesswen," the older dryad states. "A fairy warned me you might be successful in your experiment."
Mab frowns. "Warned?"
Nesswen gives her a bored look. "You have the power to bind this child back to his physical form, without hurting yourself? And to remove the stasis curse currently placed on him?" A few seconds pass in silence. "I thought not."
"Larkspur asked you to help us?" Mab guesses.
"'Asked'? No... I do not grant favors for no reason. I think you should treat this as a warning. One of them knows what you're capable of... and what you're not capable of."
"This spell for example. Gareth tells me it is intrinsically against your nature."
Nesswen instructs Accalia to observe her work. The spell to shove Junpei's spirit back into his physical body looks and feels quite violent. And then, he begins to stir.
Junpei sits up, shaking like a water-drenched cat that just clawed its way out of a bathtub.
Mab is genre savvy enough to stand back, worried Finley was wrong, or Masterson was wrong, or the dryad did something wrong... and disaster scenarios play out in her head about Junpei now being a zombie or insane or possessed by an evil spirit from the other side... but Finley knows she isn't wrong, and sweeps her brother into a hug right away.
"Are you okay?" Mab asks hesitantly.
"I don't feel very decomposed," he mumbles.
"That's good," Finley points out.
"It worked?" Larkspur asks, without preamble.
Nesswen folds her arms, taking up a defensive stance to speak to this intruder on her territory. "I'm sure you've checked with your own eyes by now, little spy."
"I think they'd rather not see me right now."
"What do your masters want with that psychic?" she challenges harshly. "Did you have her child killed on purpose? To test a theory?"
"You are very paranoid, Nesswen!"
She waits. Until he confirms or denies, he is dodging the question.
The fairy lands lightly in the grass, barely disturbing any of the blades. "It was an accident. My daughter is difficult to control," he admits. "Those elf kids shouldn't have even been there."
Nesswen sneers. "And are they leaving? I can't promise they will be safe near this forest."
"Surely you can keep your own in line. You can't risk an incident."
"Yet you bring an incident to my doorstep."
"We're both fortunate Foxglove thought I was here tracking Sarala. She has no idea your colony exists. And she knows nothing of the river."
"All would be forgiven if you would wake the river," Nesswen reminds him.
Larkspur's wings twitch indignantly. "That is far beyond my power," he lies.
Junpei remembers the sensation of being torn apart, only without the pain one would normally associate with such a feeling. Probably because it wasn't a physical tearing apart. Only a metaphysical one! So damn being psychic. There was that, and then nothing. The next thing Junpei knew was a profound confusion. "When I was being pulled back into reality, for a second I really thought we were back in Barnacle Bay. You remember when we went swimming too far in the ocean, and the tides were too strong, and our grandfather had to come and get us?"
"Kinda," Finley mumbles. She's more or less repressed that memory. "Junpei, you were just gone. It felt like something inside me had been shut off."
"Well... I was okay." He smiles. "I mean, I didn't exist for billions of years before I was alive. And it didn't inconvenience me back then. So I guess it didn't inconvenience me yesterday either."
Finley narrows her eyes. "I was inconvenienced."
Accalia decides to meet Vance Shawkti at the cafe.
Her highschool boyfriend has grown his hair out in a failed attempt to hide his giant ears, and instead of pursuing a 'real' career he busks on street corners for money. One would think he and an aspiring mage had nothing in common. But none of that seems to matter; all that matters is how happy she is to see him.
"Stay here with me, 'Lia."
"Come to the colony with me," she pleads.
"Mom... thanks for doing really crazy stuff to get me back."
"Well! You know. Power of love. And I love you lots, kid."
"So! Have you done your homework?"
And that's how everything got back to normal.
...Almost.
__________________________________
Etc.: Junpei's fine. He's not even a zombie.