Shane gasped, shocked that she could breathe, more shocked at the darkness of night. She groped above and around for a ton of dirt over her, for a coffin or cement or her destroyed body crumpled next to her and felt nothing but early spring air and pillows, along with someone cradling her head in their lap. She could not open her eyes for the tears that poured out. Her body wracked with sobs as everything - breathing, remembering, moving - hurt more than she ever remembered. Every moment alone shut off from humanity, every second since Eliot's funeral demanded its own tear to dissolve. She curled up, fetal, and her tears washed her hands clean of the memories of Virgil's blood. She even surprised herself when she sniffled out regret that she hadn't spent enough time with her grandfather before his death.
Shane became so lost in mourning that she did not realize someone caressed the small of her back. Through her stuffed, running nose, she recognized that scent of cinnamon and vanilla. She rested her head in the lap until she felt she could speak.
"There is no time," she admitted to the night, "I've got to... I need to see Gabe. Right now. I think I figured it all out."
"There's always time, for the taking of toast and tea. Gabe won't spoil much more than he already has."
Shane took to heart the assurance that there was time enough, crying until she felt dehydrated.
"Shane?" asked the familiar voice. Shane opened her wet eyes to finally confirm that Girl was actually there above the surrender of her now soaked lap.
"Yeah, I'm fine now," she stammered the lie. "But there's a lot I have to tell you, too. It was like a dream but…"
Girl did not relax as Shane wished she would. "What's my name?" Girl asked.
She sniffled, unsure of the game. "You haven't got one, I don't think. People call you Girl."
This answer did not sooth Girl. "Fine, easy one. Anyone could get that one. What's your name?"
She wiped her nose on her sleeve. "Shane Emily Valentine the First, captive princess of greater Annandale and protector of the lack of faith?"
Girl smirked slightly, enjoying the characteristic flourish. "All right, that's lovely... One more question." Girl sucking in the side of her lips, seeming to think intently of a question that would trip her up, should Shane be other than she claimed. In a single fluid motion, she removed a lighter from her sleeve, lit it, and applied the flame to Shane's hair. The wick of her pigtail went up in a sulphurous blaze, acrid smoke choking Shane. She tried to smother it with her arms as it spread and consumed the rest of her hair and much of the skin on her head. The fuel exhausted, the fire choked and died. The flesh, crispy and oozing with the heat of the flame, reinvigorated and softened as each of her nerves screamed back to life. New hair slithered from her head again, loose and nearly gray in the moonlight.
Shane felt her head and, satisfied she was whole again, glared. "Could you just prick my finger next time? Because - and let me be clear here - fricking ouch! And," she added as an afterthought, "not actually a question, though it did clear my sinuses. Bitch."
Girl shrugged. "If you weren't you - which was a possibility -- fire would do the trick better than a needle. Always best to cleanse with fire for your whitest whites and Shaniest Shanes."
Shane ran her hands through her restored hair, her scalp elastic like the skin of an infant. "Gabe?" she prompted again.
"Shane you look…" Girl began, reaching out to touch Shane's face. Shane flinched, unsure that there wouldn't be a razor or something likewise abrasive to further tests her identity.
Watching her, she receded. "You set me on fire, it might take a second before I look normal again. I'm not used to fire. Now tell me where Gabe is?"
She could not hear him come behind them, but she felt it in the electrical thrum that meant someone was watching. She felt grateful for this heightened awareness, this familiarity with some pulsation in Gabe's energy, because she couldn't trust her eyes when she turned to look at him. The man before her bore only the slightest resemblance to Gabe. He could have been some misshapen relation just escaped from fifty-year imprisonment in the deepest dungeon of the farthest castle in the more wretched land possible, but not Gabe. He was not merely older, but so old as to have lost any definition of certain age. He skin hung loosely from his bones, some broken, some simply atrophied and withered. He crouched on an ornately carved ivory cane that held him in defiance of gravity. His violet eyes were clouded as with the film over the eyes of reptiles. But in these milky orbs, she saw his fierceness, some physical manifestation that this broken body contained Gabe.
"What happened? Did you catch progeria?" she began to ask, but he held up a warning hand, twisted with broken fingers.
"That will soon be clear to you, I promise. There are only a few avenues this night can take and I would be remiss if any denied you knowledge. But these games no longer befit us, we're better than that. Come forward," he ordered. Without conscious thought, she acceded. He held no spell over her this time, no trick of his mind, no dripping paralysis inhibiting her will. She moved closer because his transformation appeared ghastly and she wanted to examine him closely. The moonlight did a poor job of honesty, but a fine one of atmosphere, bequeathing individual shadows to each crevice in what was once, she realized for the first time, a handsome face.
When she stood closely enough that her curiosity was satisfied, she stopped. Feeling vulnerable, she reached a hand backward for Girl's entwining fingers to reassure her she wasn't alone with this ancient simulacrum of Gabe. If she could touch someone familiar, she would have her anchor. A dervish of thought and emotion spun within her chest, neither one willing to give way to the other.
He coughed phlegmatically, both from necessity and for effect. "She can't come any closer to you right now. You crossed through the threshold, but you did so alone. Hadn't you noticed? She can't even see us. For all she knows, you vanished when you walked beyond that tumble of broken stones. I could promise you her continued ignorance benefits you."
She looked over her shoulder to Girl, who stared blankly back. She did not look worried, simply as though she had fallen asleep with her eyes open. Only then did Shane become aware of her surrounding, of the burned and overgrown skeletons of houses, the barren foundations of what had once been a village.
"Let her in." Shane said. She kept her eyes tightly on his, to see that there was no deception.
"Tall order. But for you…" he opened his fingers as if releasing a firefly. Shane reached out her hand again. Girl grasped Shane's hand in her own, kissing Shane's wrist lightly.
"Now what will Eliot's say to this?" he gloated, then coughed again. A tooth landed between them, yellow and grey from the deadened root. Though Shane took a half step back, closer to Girl, Gabe only looked down at it and stuck his tongue through the new opening in his mouth. His cheek sunk in on the left side from a preponderance of other such voids.
"You are dying because your time is up," Shane stated, meaning it as a question rather than answer.
"Quite right, but what time is that?"
Shane cocked her head, hoping to dislodge any information. She felt more herself than she had before, since she ever had, but her knowledge felt proportionally limited. She really couldn't give herself new information, even in a vision.
Gabe seemed to look past her, to Girl's impassive face. From her peach bell sleeve, she improbably pulled a metal frog, a thermometer, a shining ball and other trinkets. She tossed them to the ground before Gabe, where they mingled with the discarded tooth. All three stared as though to divine a future Shane could not begin to fathom.
The tableau remained, silent and still, for a long time. Shane felt baffled and could not find the Rosetta Stone that would translate the stare Gabe and Girl shared. "But you are missing something?" Gabe asked.
Girl's pursed lips answered for her. He laughed dryly, amusement bordering on another cough. "All the memories you swallow, but you miss what was before you all this time. That you could even draw Shane to Annandale should be your answer, but you simply lack that brightness. Were I you, I imagine this is where I would make some daft allusion to silver slippers." Shane looked to Girl again, looked for a glimmer of triumph or understanding and found none.
"However," he continued, "Shane does not."
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