Volunteer (Part 9c: Dissension)

Someone is shooting off fireworks.  They're loud and bright and I wish they'd stop because I'm trying to sleep.  It's not even a holiday, as far as I know.  I'm actually not sure what day it is, but that leads naturally to trying to remember the last thing I did, and suddenly memory comes flooding back.

My eyes spring open and I jerk my head away from the pain being caused to my head, then groan at the different pain caused by my sudden motion and even the dim candlelight of the basement.

"Sorry.  I was hoping to finish cleaning that before you woke up...I am honestly not sure what else to do."  I stare.  Julia is here.  She's holding a piece of cloth and a plastic water bottle.  She's sitting on the edge of a table in front of me, wearing the dress she wore to the performance...except there's something not quite right with it I can't immediately figure out.

I touch my head and wince at the sharp stab of pain, then gingerly feel around the edges of the sore area.

"Yeah, you've got quite a lump.  We really need to get you to a hospital or someone who can do mending on other people, but that's kinda secondary to getting out of here in general."  She glances to my left.  Frostylocks is shackled to the wall and wearing some metal contraption on her lower face that's effectively keeping her from speaking, but which is clearly designed to do significantly more unpleasant things.  Her face is covered with blood, and she is glaring at me with such emotion that I can nearly feel it, like heat.  It occurs to me that I shouldn't really make assumptions anymore.

"It may be my imagination, but it feels hot when she's looking at me.  Is she microwaving my brain or something?"  I ask, without looking at Julia.  She thinks for a moment, then shrugs.

"She never had any abilities like that when I was here, but it's been a while."  She turns to Frostylocks.  "Circe, please stop making Augusta uncomfortable, or we're going to have to start turning knobs on that thing randomly?"  Julia sounded hesitant about it, but the chained woman favors her with a glare for a moment, then turns away.  Whether because she's looking elsewhere or because it was just psychological and her submission helps me, I don't feel as uncomfortable.  About her, anyway.

"So you've spent time here with her.  Was it the plan all along to get me here?" I ask Julia.  I'm trying to be all cool and emotionless about it, but I still can't meet her eyes.  I look down at the metal straps across my legs, waist and chest, holding me to the chair I'm in.  The chair has arm straps as well, but they aren't fastened.

"Whatever you think about me, I would hope that my chaining her up...and gagging her to keep her from turning us both into God-knows-what, by the way...at least suggests I'm not buddy-buddy with her?"  She sounds, not offended exactly, but injured, and resigned.  I consider this, then idly finger one of the metal bands and this time manage to look up at her, raising an eyebrow.  She at least has the grace to look embarrassed.  "Ok, yes...but I just...  We didn't part on the best of terms and I didn't know how you'd react, seeing me...and holy shit, 'Stanzie, the way-"

"Don't call me that."  She looked stricken at my interruption, but rattled on.

"I'm sorry, sorry...just...the way you look, what you did.  You're...kind of scary and amazing, you know that?"  She looked scared, but not like she was afraid for her life exactly, it was something else.  I can't help myself from feeling a swell of pride at her words, too.  I want to gush and admit how scared I was, and how awesome it was at the same time, but this just makes me more angry at her, because these are not feelings I should want to share with her.

"Well, you know, I had to do something when she tried to kill me.  For protecting you, by the way."  I put as much of the bitter confusion I'm feeling into my voice as I can, to the point that I nearly choke on the word "you".  But she isn't as surprised by this jab as I'm expecting her to be.

"I know, I know, that was...really amazingly decent of you considering...everything...I tried to tell you it wasn't important, that you should just tell her, but you couldn't hear me and-"

"You were here?  You were watching me get strangled to death?"

"No, I mean yes, but not like that, I couldn't do anything, I was trying to get out of the case, but the lid was too tight...it's only because you slammed into it that I got out as much as I did..."  I suddenly realize what she means.

"So you were in the case with the other rats.  Spying."

"Not rats, mice...and not spying, I got caught in an Open Conjure like you did..." Now it's her that can't meet my eyes...she's looking down at her lap, and now I'm starting to realize what's wrong with her dress.  It drapes down over the table, but her legs aren't visible below the hemline.  That ought to mean she's sitting cross-legged on the table, except the shape isn't wide enough...and her hips aren't as curvy as I remember, there's an odd protrusion on each side just below her waist.  "I know you hate me," she continues in a shaky near-whisper, "but can you please just accept for the moment that I want to help you?"

I look back at Frostylocks...Circe?...trying to maintain my anger.  Seeing Julia hurt, distressed...it still makes me want to run over and hug her and tell her everything will be all right, which is infuriating.  Of course, the metal straps help counter that impulse in more than the obvious way.  But she wasn't lying...except...

"That wasn't a statement, only the bit about me hating you, the rest was a question.  Say straight out what you want."  She swallows heavily, then raises her chin to meet my eyes, slowly, as if her head has weights on it.

"I want to get us out of here and to somewhere safe where you will get medical help.  I want to somehow make up to you for what I've done.  I want you to f-"

"That's plenty for now," I interrupt, quickly.  I have no desire to hear any variant of the word "forgive" come out of her mouth, and it seemed the rest was true.  "Can you let me out of this?"  She hesitates a moment, looking as if she's going to ask something, but moves to undo my straps without comment.  I stand up and stretch, looking around.

"So, you've been here before, how can we get out?  The door won't budge, there's no room to slip under it, and I can't seem to Vanish from here."

"That's the problem, I don't really know.  Circe could let us out, I'm sure, but if she can speak she might also do...other things.  It's possible if we killed her the spells might drop, but they might not, and if they don't, with her dead we'll never get out."  I look at Circe, still fairly threatening even restrained.  But though I think I might've been able to do it while she was actively trying to kill me, I don't think I could stomach just killing her in cold blood.

"Let's hold off on murder as a solution, okay?"  Julia looks as if I've slapped her again, then nods quickly.  "We've got a bunch of candles here and some things we could use as kindling...any chance we could set fire to the door?  Or the walls, for that matter?  Like the floor, I don't think they're real stone..."

"Test something, a corner of the bed sheets, maybe.  I know that skin and hair can burn down here, but I think the rest..."  I give her a disgusted look.

"God, no wonder you're so messed up if you've been part of her demon-worshipping torture cult, or whatever it is.  Why don't you test it yourself if we're in this together?"  Her expression darkens.

"I know those things because they happened to me, for your information," she says, crossly.  "Also, it's a lot easier for you to move around."  She gathers the skirt of her dress up and lifts it, revealing her legs...sort of.  She is sitting cross-legged, as it turns out, but her legs are bizarrely deformed.  Her entire lower half appears to have been pressed into the squared-off shape of the case she'd occupied, slightly wider than her natural waist and unnaturally flat and smooth on each side.  Her toes shift a bit, but don't actually protrude from the shape, only causing it to bow out slightly for a moment, like she's trapped behind sheets of tight transparent rubber.  "It was a serious pain getting you two restrained like this," she adds, while I stare numbly for a moment, "even while dodging gravity."

I presume it was some side effect of turning back from a mouse while still in the case..."got out as much as I did", she'd said.  I walk over to the bed, picking up a candle along the way, as much to not look at her and have time to think as for practical reasons.  The fact that she was still like that...

"Can you...not fix yourself?" I ask, pulling up the end of the sheets, turning to make sure she's not in my view.

"No...a botched Transfiguration means my imprints are all wrong, I'm not a mouse or myself, I'm...whatever this is, so I can't change from it to anything else.  Might not be fixable at all," she says, sounding surprisingly stoic.  "Needs a custom 'cant, which she could also do, but I assume wouldn't."  Even with all she's done, I feel uncomfortable that I might have contributed to permanently disfiguring her.

"I'm...sorry."  I feel weak for saying it, and shove the candle flame under the edge of the sheets spitefully.  I'm not 100% sure how satin works, if it should burn or melt or what, but after a few seconds it's clear nothing is happening at all.  I briefly test the flame with a finger to be sure, and it's definitely hot.  "You're right, it won't burn."  I sigh.  "So...what else?  I don't have a phone, I don't suppose either of you have one?"

"No, sorry.  Unless you can also Quick Change into some kind of wrist-phone or other wearable-"  For some reason when she says it, it sounds like sarcasm, but I mentally swat myself for not thinking of it on my own.  Before she's even finished speaking, I wave my hand over my left wrist and leave behind a latest-gen smart-watch, but my face falls.

"Damn...that was a good idea, but no signal."  Maybe the walls are real stone.  Julia doesn't respond for a moment, and I turn back to look at her.  She's looking at me strangely.  "What?"

"Where did you get all this fancy stuff, and how much Quick Change practice have you done?  It's been, what, four hours at the most since you got it in the first place?"

"Um...a fair amount...but it's been four days."  Julia looks stunned by this information, frightened, even.  "And what do you mean, where did I get it?  You just saw me get it.  Well, I was around the stairs for the armor, but you know what I mean..."  She waves a hand to interrupt me, shaking her head.

"It's been four days?  You're sure?"  Her face is ashen.

"Well, yeah.  I've been cooped up in my apartment since the hospital, waiting for the demonic influence to wear off or however that works.  What's going on?"

"I don't feel any different...  Have I been making sense when I talk?"  I raise an eyebrow.

"Until just now, anyway...Julia, what is wrong?"

"I...apparently I've spent several days in the Between..."  My eyes widen.

"I thought you said that was a really bad idea?  Did you hear the Whispers?"

"I did...and I did...it was bad, but it wasn't...I mean, I don't think they..."  She looks up at Circe, who has begun to thrash against her chains, struggling to speak.  The older woman doesn't seem angry, though, now her eyes look...pleading?  She's making rather pathetic whimpering noises now.  I sigh.

"I really hope you don't have to pee or something," I say testily.  "I'm not sure we care."  But Julia's words surprise me.

"I think maybe you should loosen her 'gag'...just enough so she can talk?  But not enunciate enough to 'cant?"  I look at both of them suspiciously.

"What, why?  This could just be a trick, anyway," I complain, even as tears begin to run from Circe's eyes.  She really does seem desperate.

"Maybe, but I don't think so...she really wants to talk, and it feels like we need something from her that we didn't before..."  The older woman nods frantically at this.

"Now you're definitely not making sense."

"Just try?  Please?  But be careful, too."  I frown at her, but slowly walk over to the wall where Circe is chained, picking up a sharp-looking curved knife from a stand on the way.  Seeing this, she stops whimpering, now looking both desperate and frightened.  I hold the knife up to her throat.

"I'm going to loosen this thing.  I really don't want to kill you, but if you say anything that scares me in the slightest...and you've already tried to kill me, so the idea of you using magic definitely frightens me...I'm going to freak out, and probably slit your throat.  So short, clear, sentences, okay?"  I don't even try to keep my voice even, I let my hand shake a little like it wants to at the insanity of this situation, which I figure can only make my words more convincing.  When she slowly nods, I use my free hand to release a ratchet catch at the side of her jaw and loosen a knob a couple of turns.  She swallows a couple of times, then locks eyes with me, her words the barest whisper. 

"Thee...ith...caken...gy...ghoid...  Ngutht...kill...noou...oa...thee...ooill...thuaaly...kill...uth..."  Her words are mangled enough that I almost panic and do cut her throat before it's clear it's just tongue-tied English rather than some unknown language.  I 'translate' in my head as she speaks, though complaints from the bump on my head mean I have to consciously restrain myself from furrowing my brow.

She?...is...taken...by...something.  Void?  Must?...kill...now...or...she...will...surely?...kill...us...  I blink at her.  Turning us against each other would be an obvious thing to try in her position.  And yet...she only started freaking out after Julia admitted hearing the Whispers...maybe she really does think whatever the Whispers do to people has happened to Julia.  And her eyes are still pleading, desperate...but I don't really believe her, I don't want to believe her.

But the air didn't twist.

I glance back over my shoulder at Julia, who is watching us, frowning.

"What did she say?"