Rain enters Iris's soulscape to talk with her about their future...and possibly the world's.
After a grieving Iris withdraws into her own soulscape, Rigan meets with Rain in her place.
With Rigan's help, Rain enters the soulscape to find Iris but encounters Darling instead, who leads Rain to the graveyard where her answers lie.
Convinced she can't run from her fate, Iris returns to the physical world, having made an important decision.
__________
Written by Steve and Robin Pool
Voiced by Emily Woo Zeller, with Freya Kingsley as Rigan
Sound Design and Editing by DSS (Dissecting Sound & Soul). Sound effects provided by ZapSplat
Intro song “Plastic Stars” by Corey Distler https://soundcloud.com/deadmentalkingpdx
Outro song "Cigni C” by John C. Worsley https://clearsignals.bandcamp.com/
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Copyright (c) 2022 by Uncle Robot Media, LLC
SAYONARAVILLE: MANHATTAN
EPISODE 7: NOWHERE TO GO
INTRO: The following series contains adult themes, strong language, violence, sexuality, and drug use. Listener discretion is advised.
[INTRO MUSIC: “Plastic Stars” by Corey Distler]
In a backroom office, deeper in than should be possible for a building this size, Rain, picayune in her human form at only 5 feet and barely 90 pounds, binged on cookie after cookie from a platter-sized plate sitting on the walnut conference table. As usual, she’d given her appearance a wild vibe, chaos being good for oracular clarity: skinny black jeans, heeled leather booties, the torn fan tee-shirt of a Slovakian punk band, a fade hairstyle with long black bangs ending in crimson tips over her face, and round Lennon glasses.
Ty, Rigan, and Mallory, dressed as normally for a staff meeting, also sat at the table but abstained from the cookies. “So?” Ty, feeling his afternoon slipping away watching Rain have her snack, felt a curt question was appropriate.
Brushing crumbs off her shirt, Rain said, “Change of plan everyone. I know that I was set to give Iris a reading today.”
Looking at Rigan, she continued. “Obviously, that’s going to have to be postponed. But there’s good news for you, Rigan. While exploring her inner world, Iris discovered the answer to one of the questions you brought to the bar yesterday.”
“The identity of our missing soul?”
Rain nodded. “Yep. Remember James Ward?”
“Oh, shit.” Mallory winced.
Rigan nodded. “Yeah, ‘oh shit’ is right. That creep? Was he even residing in the soulscape? I don’t remember ever coming across him.”
Rain replied, “Maybe he was a ‘keep to the shadows’ kind of creeper.”
Mallory added, “Uhg, I can believe that.”
Ty gave the other three an irritated look. “Excuse me. Keeping us on topic, you know who this person was, Rigan?”
“He was Iris’s skeezy neighbor and boyfriend back in high school.”
Mallory snapped. “Seriously!? They dated!? He was seven years older than her, for God’s sake! Her parents were okay with that?”
“Yes, unfortunately,” Rigan turned to Rain and Ty, adding “Just to illustrate his skeeziness for you who’ve never met him, he’d already graduated from law school when he was hitting up our wayward 17-year old.”
“Okay, okay,” Ty interrupted. “I think I get it. He was a creepy dick. Why’s that relevant to anything happening now?”
“He died. Violently. Magically. I saw it.”
“Right. So how’d he become a guest in Iris’s soulscape?”
“That’s not what I’m trying to get at. I believe James had a patron who gave him what he called ‘luck’.”
“James was a warlock then.”
“James’s patron, ‘Uncle’, appeared to be some kind of vampiric demon. He basically powered up feeding off the life force of others.”
Ty’s eyes widened and he looked at Mallory. “Ohhhh...the guy who..."
“He’s a quick one, isn’t he, girls?” Mallory gave Ty a pity glance. “Yes, Ty. I didn’t know he’d died, Rigan. How did it happen?”
Rigan smiled. “You’d like this, Mal. He caught on fire and completely incinerated when he finally got enough nerve to try and feed off of Iris.”
Mallory nodded. “And the world rejoices. Wait, so when you say his soul is missing...?"
“Yes. He’s either been extracted and captured by some powerful force or..."
“He’s free.” A look of fear passed over Mallory.
“I promise you, Mal, I will protect you from him.”
“We all will, Mallory,” Ty added.
Rain pinged a spoon on her plate, bringing everyone back. “I don’t think James will be a problem for Mallory. He’s seemingly forgotten all about you, dear. And we have other, more pressing issues to address.”
Mallory looked hurt.
“I meant that in a really good-news way. It means he’s not going to be your or our immediate problem.”
“Thank you,” Mallory replied.
“So why the team meeting then, Rain,” Ty asked, looking exasperated.
“This morning, while meditating on Iris, preparing for her reading, I saw a possibility.”
“What does that mean?” Rigan asked.
“It’s a possible future. Not to be mistaken for a likely or probable or certain future. It’s an important distinction.”
“I see. I think.”
Ty contemplated protection and countermeasure contingencies. “I take it, then, that this possibility you saw isn’t good.”
With a somber expression, Rain replied, “No. It isn’t good. But I would like to point out that what I saw IS only a possibility. So that means it can be changed, prevented, averted. And we four, along with Ashley Chen, who’s unfortunately not able to join us, need to promise right here, right now, that we will be committed to just that. To protect Iris from whatever threats might steer her possibility towards becoming a certainty.”
“You’re not going to tell us what it is? This possibility?”
“It’s better for you, and for her -- for all of us, actually -- if I keep that information to myself.”
Mallory patted Rigan’s arm. “You’ll get used to things like this when it comes to heading off bad futures.”
Rigan nodded. “Perhaps the best, easiest way to keep her bad future at bay is if we can convince Iris -- if I can convince her -- to restart the Wild Hunt and make us part of it.”
“That might not be a bad idea,” Ty replied. “What would that mean for each of us?”
“The simplest explanation would be to say that we would all share parts of our souls with each other.”
Walking down the bar’s unnatural, long hallway after the meeting, Rain felt a strong need to consult with Iris. But she still hadn’t emerged or reached out to Rigan. So Rigan had agreed to let Rain project herself into Iris’s soulscape. It was a difficult task, overcoming Iris’s formidable defenses against mystical intrusions. Rain needed to prepare by absorbing as much chaotic energy as possible, which meant using the Crimson Bedroom.
Ty pulled Rigan aside. “I feel like I need to prepare you for what you are about to experience. It’s...weird.”
“Weird?” Rigan looked at Ty suspiciously. “In what way?”
Ty thought before answering. “Things like precognition and psychometry require lots of mana, if they are to be really effective and useful for beings who are not gods. That means a high concentration of chaos. Breaking into Iris’s soulscape is going to take a lot. As a result, the room, the...uh...Crimson Bedroom... It’s a little weird.”
“Uh, huh. I see. You mentioned ‘psychometry’.” Rigan fingered a row of mens’ and womens’ swimwear folded on a shelf outside the door. “So Rain’s going to use touch? Does that mean I have to wear something like this?” Not bothering to hide her irritation, Rigan held up a very skimpy white bikini top.
Ty cleared his throat. “Well, see, when we first started offering readings to the general public, we sorta asked the clients to minimize the clothing they wore...thinking that Rain needed a lot of skin contact to get a good result. But we’ve since figured out that full or partial nudity doesn’t benefit the process that much, so, no, we no longer require that. And when did you get shy? I don’t recall that issue from before.”
“Who said it was an issue?” Rigan tossed the top over her shoulder back onto the shelf. “If you no longer need these thin strips of material passing for beach wear, why do you keep them around, my love?”
“Rain’s the one who likes them,” Ty said, neatly folding the tangled mess of white fabric. “I have to be honest, dear. This particular room has a habit of leaving people feeling very uncomfortable.”
“I’m already uncomfortable, and I haven’t even seen it yet.”
“It should be quick. I promise. In and out and nothing bad will happen.”
Rigan gave him a look.
Should she allow this? Rigan wondered whether she had the right to decide for Iris while Iris had left her body? Little about Iris’s previous life had gone her way, and her consent had been rarely sought.
Maybe the worst violation had been being forcibly resurrected or rebooted, whichever had happened. Who the hell -- or what -- thought the world missed her enough to make her come back? Now there was that really bad something that Rain couldn’t talk about. Rigan hoped they could all help poor Iris avoid that mysterious fate, whatever it was. The question in her mind loomed: was this the kind of help Iris would want?
Rigan needed a distraction from her rising anxiety. “Have you found offering people prophecies and portents about themselves to be useful to them? Or is it more of a money thing? Do your clients come away satisfied? Enriched? At peace?”
Ty thought for a moment. “Most people are far more interested in knowing about others and other things than about themselves. Many come looking for answers that will get them off the hook for having to do their own hard work.
“They’ll ask about what stocks to buy or short or which properties will grow in value. Or what businesses they should invest in or whether their current ones will succeed or fail. Where should they look to find some undiscovered chest full of pirate gold? Some fools want to know what future lottery numbers they should pick, not realizing that’s not how this works.
“Some want to know what their kids will be like when they grow up. Whether their kids will be better or more successful than their siblings’ kids or friends’ kids. Whether they will someday go pro, or make partner, or get tenure. Mostly things that come back to metrics measurable in dollars. They do often ask whether or not their kids hate them or will in the future. Not that many are prepared to change to prevent that from happening.
“If clients do ask about themselves, apart from the ‘when will I die question’, as if knowing will somehow subvert it, which it won’t, they want to know things like whom they should fall in love with or whether their current lovers or spouses will cheat. Sometimes they want to know what will happen if they are the ones doing the cheating. They’ll ask Rain if they are gay or straight. Should they join a particular MeetMe group or go vegan? Are they cat people or dog people? Should they attend their high school reunion? Would they be happier changing their careers, ditching their partners, or moving somewhere else? Whether it would be okay to curse someone who’s hurt them or they feel deserves one?
“For personal or spiritual growth, a lot of times it’s only because they want affirmation or bragging rights for their obviously superior character and choices. They rarely ever really listen to what Rain says about those questions. She could just tell them they are cantaloupes, and they’d nod and thank her for her wisdom. I mean, not really. But not not really.
“Self reflection is hard. It’s not a popular topic on the oracle circuit, sad to say, any more than on the therapy one. It’s hard to sit there and listen to the universe agree with you that, yes, you really have fucked up your life or wasted too much of your limited time on things that don’t matter. You haven’t loved or cherished yourself or others as much as you were meant to. Yes, your abusers really are pieces of shit who likely don’t care that they’ve hurt you and never will. You really won’t ever please your parents. You aren’t as smart or athletic or pretty as you were led to believe. Your boss was right to fire you. You’d miss that game-winning shot again if only you were given another chance. Harvard really never was going to take you. You do kinda suck as a money manager or employee or spouse or parent. You are kind of a shitty person. Or whatever pain you feel shitty about really is justified and may not ever get better. I won’t even go into the questions people have about what the Sea of Creation and the higher powers like quote-unquote God might actually think about us.”
Rigan frowned. “Thanks. I guess. Really thorough, fucked up list you have there, by the way. Great bedside manner, too, doc.”
“Sorry. I shouldn’t say things like that. Not my place. I have come to believe that being flawed is not a bad thing, and we shouldn’t need to feel better about that to accept and love our flawed selves. But, still, you cannot believe how much these sessions can try both Rain and me.”
Rigan took the opportunity to stroke, then kiss her husband’s cheek. “You’re very wise. And very sweet, Teth, to care so much, especially for Iris and me.” She turned and opened the door to the Crimson Bedroom. “Okay! Wish me luck!”
“Luck!” Ty called out. “Oh, one more thing. Before you go in, I’m gonna need you to take off your shoes.”
Describing The Crimson Bedroom as weird and creepy, Rigan immediately thought, was a definite undersell. Every inch looked like the kind of decrepit, cheap-by-the-hour motel room that serial killers and bad horror movie directors preferred to shoot things in. A huge blood-red, duvet-covered bed, much more massive than a California King, pushed up against the tackily-wallpapered back wall. Off-the-chart odors -- crazy, clashing, almost impossible-to-categorize -- made Rigan’s eyes water. Ugly prints hung like crucified prisoners along the room’s filthy walls. Frightful lamps with flickering, buzzy bulbs sat atop flimsy, thoroughly-beat-to-shit end tables. An ancient wood-paneled television with bent rabbit-ear antennae tried and failed to show some long ago forgotten program through its rolling picture. Threadbare blood-red carpeting, stained in more places than not, licked at the bottoms of Rigan’s vulnerable bare feet, causing her to flinch with each step. Grime-encrusted trash cans overflowed with empty booze bottles and wadded-up fast food wrappers and, doubtless, Rigan was sure, used condoms. Tiny gnat-like bugs flew in and out of Rigan’s field of vision at regular intervals. Hot, muggy air defied the room’s ailing, rattling window-mounted air-conditioning unit that had zero chance of ever cooling anything again.
Completely unprepared for a germ jungle like this, Rigan cringed and cried out, “Oh my gods! What is up with this room!?! It’s absolutely disgusting! I’ve strode across charnel battlefields less revolting than this.”
Ty, safely just outside the doorway, shrugged. “I agree. It is disgusting. But, unfortunately, chaos is great fuel for Rain. I myself would have preferred to use the extra office down in the basement. Tidy and efficient. But Rain seems to believe the only way she’ll be able to enter Iris’s soulscape is by marshaling the power of this particular room.” He didn’t say that Rain also seemed to like the room’s twisted aesthetic.
“I hate this.” Rigan turned to face Ty. “I might hate you now.”
“If it helps at all, this shouldn’t take very long. Maybe not more than a minute. You of all people know that time works very differently there.”
Rigan sighed and wrapped her arms around her torso. “How do you do it?”
“Do what?”
“How do you live constantly surrounded by things like this?”
Ty started to reply that he actually couldn’t, but he was spared his confession when the room’s other door opened. Out stepped Rain, now appearing as a hunched-over, antediluvian crone completely wrapped in a blood red robe that matched the bed’s stained duvet.
Feng He’Yu -- Rain -- now appeared inhumanly ancient, not surprising to Rigan, and deathly ill, which was. It was as if long, unkind years hung about her like heavy shackles. She dragged herself along on twiggy legs. Her body’s silhouette, twisted like a blighted tree, uncoiled and recoiled with each pained movement. Arms and legs crackled like dry kindling, grinding through their nearly-dessicated joint sockets. Her shallow, anemic breaths had a quiet desperation. Rigan wondered if the woman wasn't slowly suffocating.
Nothing looked right about her pallid, wizened face. Her saggy nose whistled with each forced breath while wriggly lips fought to resist the inward pull of a mouth now devoid of teeth, desperate for something to gum. Thin white wisps of hair, seemingly yearning to be free, lay exhausted across the top of her ashen head, each waiting for its turn to finally drop away.
Rain had become the stuff of old stagnant bogs and deadly outbreaks; dying trees, infested with vampiric beetles, begging for some merciful immolation to wipe out their pain; once-strong iron now rusted through, like a person with accelerating dementia, to the point of crumbling, dusty uselessness. Wrapped around this woman was all of the world’s despair and fear and loneliness and anger that would never, ever be soothed.
The oracle’s eyes, however, remained bright and clear like a polar night, defying any notions of weakness or death. These locked onto Rigan with a palpable force. She took a deep breath and a step back.
“Are you ready, goddess of battle and of crows?” Instead of reedy, wilted whispers, Rain’s voice carried power like a tsunami, sweeping away everything before it. With an impish smile, she said, “I’ve waited a long time to see the inner world of Iris Penner.”
Rain tore away her red wrap, revealing not an old woman near death, but the familiar, young, vibrant, and painfully beautiful Asian form that Rigan knew, full of the life and fire and strength of one sure of carrying the very wisdom of Heaven itself.
“Was all that just cosplay, then?”
Rain answered with a wink.
She was dressed in an expensively stylish blue and white striped, long-sleeved dress shirt and black polyester slacks. Rings of all colors of precious and semi-precious stones lined her fingers, and the nails on her bare feet could have been mistaken for harvested pearls. Her hair had been turned into a sensible, professional, serious black bun. Gone were that morning’s wine-red bangs. “Shall we commence the communion then?”
Rain flopped down and patted the stained, saggy mattress, which brightened wherever she touched it. “This isn’t really real, dear. It won’t contaminate you or ruin your pants. C’mon, have a seat.”
With a look of pride, Ty said, “Ah, Rain, you really do know how to make an entrance. I’ll leave you two to it.”
Rain wandered about awed and overwhelmed as she sought some part of Iris to engage with. The soulscape inside Iris’s tumultuous psyche was a land of frigid, damp traumas, intermittently dark and bright, leaving Rain feeling dismayed and disoriented. An all encompassing sadness and coldness ran deep, manifesting as a measureless gray, vaporous sky seeping rain over a vastly oversaturated, archetypal cityscape gripped by horror vacui. Neon signs, like open sores, plague-spread angry and regretful and lonely and fearful maydays to no one. Countless rain-skinned and trash-choked roads and sidewalks tracked countless routes leading towards the same oblivion. Row after row after row of tilty, fractal skyscrapers stood lifeless, each trapped within a pallid cocoon of unbreakable fluorescent amnesia. Sickly street lamps, popping up everywhere like weeds, irradiated down strobiles of driveling phosphorescence. Overhead, scads of high-beamed cars streaked by, flying, never driving, towards places of escape that would forever remain out of reach. And in the few remaining spaces free from the life-draining, hope-draining chilly glow, pitch shadows hunkered, as if waiting for their turn at easy prey.
Iris’s inner soul was pure cranked-up chaos. Inner peace and tranquility would never stand a chance here. Not under current circumstances, anyway.
Rain knew she was being watched -- she had actually been counting on it -- and unsurprised when she’d picked up a tail: a small, lean woman, features obscured by the dark, proportions roughly the same as Iris’s, in a gaunt sort of way. She didn’t seem to be hiding from Rain so much as hanging back, studying. Like a predator. Rain walked, and Iris’s aspect kept pace. After a few minutes, having moved at least a quarter mile with no discernable progress down the endless road, Rain suddenly stopped and turned.
“Iris?”
The other woman, partly hidden by shadow, tilted her head.
“I’m Rain. Do you remember me?”
After a long pause, the woman began to speak a dialect Rain hadn’t heard in thousands of years -- as far back as the Bronze Age, maybe even earlier. A set of fangs flashed in her mouth when she smiled. In a voice lower, huskier, more animalistic than Iris’s pretty, mid-alto, she made it clear she wasn’t Iris.
“Oh? Then would you please tell me your name? So I know whom I’m addressing? Also, could you use my language when answering, please. Translating can be tiring.”
Another long pause. “I’m Darling. Don’t know why. I don’t think I’m all that darling. Maybe it was given to me as a joke.”
Rain suppressed a grin. She could always see when real love had been given freely, no matter how long ago or how deeply buried. Best not to antagonize Iris’s proxy about it, though.
“Is there...?” Rain suddenly felt the full weight of this coincidentia oppositorum, this unity of opposites. Iris’s endless cityscape felt unbearably claustrophobic. “I came to speak with Iris. Since she doesn’t seem to be here, at the moment, could you take me to her?”
“Yup. I can bring you to where she was, though I don’t know if she’s still there.”
Atop a barren, bleak hill in the center of an old cemetery, with no sign of a city street anywhere to be seen, a cold, wet wind raced past, making Rain shiver. All around lay a vast, rolling field of countless headstones and tombs. Groves of barren trees, bent towards each other in painful-looking crooks, huddled in solemn, gray companionship. They looked neither dead nor alive, perfect metaphors for this moribund scene. Somewhere, out of sight, Rain sensed a nearby sea. Faint sloshing waves and hints of salt hung in the air. Looking back, she saw the arching tops of a familiar broken bridge.
“Brooklyn...?” Rain asked. She hadn’t seen that in any of Iris’s threads. Was she using her power to purposely hide that? “Is that where Iris wants to go?”
Darling nodded. She was a near-perfect, slightly more wild copy of Iris. Rain noted many similarities, though Darling had a more feral look and feel. Her hair was a knife-cropped version of Iris’s layered cut. Her eyes -- Rain had decided it might not be wise to stare into them for too long. Despite wearing only a thin two-tone gray hoodie, bark-brown cargo pants, and worn stomper boots, Darling seemed indifferent to the chill.
“It’s all in my mind,” Rain reminded herself. “This cold. It’s not real. None of this is.” In reality, Rain, who had first opened her eyes in a place surrounded by the highest peaks of the Himalayas, would have hardly considered this cold at all.
This strange, dead landscape that Darling had brought her to in the shadow of a ghostly image of Brooklyn, New York’s very own Land of Ghosts, prompted Rain to ask, “Did she tell you why she wants to go to Brooklyn?”
Darling popped a stick of pale gum, which seemed oddly out of place, into her mouth. “She read it in a book, I think.”
Vague. And a bit evasive. “What book?”
“The one about dead things. Written by dead folk that her friend with the angel feather brought back.”
“Ashley?”
“If you say so.”
“Is Ashley here? Can I talk to her?”
Darling frowned. “No. That one never comes to the cemetery. I think she mostly keeps to the library, back in the city.”
“Why does Iris manifest a graveyard here?”
“She keeps important things here. To make sure she doesn’t lose them. And allies to help in her struggles. Though I think she’s sad that she actually did lose one recently.”
“I’m very sorry about that. She has my condolences. But, you know, graves typically represent grief and loss. Also opportunity. Endings and new beginnings. And symbols of those things which we should let go of. They don’t work well, in my experience, as footlockers or guest beds.”
“Graves don’t have to mean loss or endings or metamorphosis. Nor even actual death. At least not for those who aren’t fated to end up in one.”
“If you’re saying she can’t die, or at least wouldn’t stay dead, I’m not sure I believe that. It’s hard to accept that Iris is some kind of Lazarusian repeat offender. Even resurrecting once is hard to believe. Can anyone escape Creation’s hungry pull indefinitely?”
“You’ve done it for a long time now, haven’t you, sky dragon?”
“I’m careful. I’ve never been close to death yet. And if I did die, I certainly wouldn’t be coming back. Not as me, anyway.”
“That’s true. But Iris isn’t you.”
Rain frowned. A question formed in her mind: was Darling suggesting that Iris was an actual immortal? An Angelic, one of a fabled fancy whose existence was considered as likely as that of Santa Claus, more or less?
But...hypothetically, say Iris were actually one...did Ty already know? Before she’d ever come to the bar?
Darling, motioning for Rain to follow, started down the hill, shouldering a duffel bag that Rain hadn’t noticed before. “Come on! We still haven’t reached our next destination, ‘truth teller’.”
The path across the field was a muddy slog, and Rain regretted having worn Italian leather ankle boots, even as she reminded herself that neither the boots nor the mud was real, just props added for this metaphysical excursion. Still, the sensation of the sticky, oozing ground clinging to her imagined footwear felt real enough. Were there no pleasant places to be found here?
Darling stopped suddenly about 50 yards from a row of graves where two large, black, ghostly birds perched, each pecking at the other in annoyance. Rain recognized them for the dangerous creatures they were: angry, restless spirits of the begrudging dead, taken the form of predatory raptors. They had many names in the world of the living, but here, the dead called them scavs, scavengers. Soul scavengers.
How did two creatures like that come to haunt Iris’s soul? Pushing the question aside, Rain nervously focused her thoughts on a plan to protect herself and her guide.
Darling shouted profanities at the phantom birds, eliciting their ghastly caws as she drew a hunting rifle from her duffel and took aim. With a crack, one bird jerked and fell back, dissolving into an exploding black cloud while the other took to flight. A second shot tore through the remaining spirit, dispelling it to who-knew-where.
The normally composed Rain found herself babbling. “How did...? Where did...? Why...? Why are there evil ghosts occupying parts of...of...Iris’s Self?”
Darling chuckled. “That? Happens all the time here. I must chase off those two jackasses at least two or three times a week. I think they’re maybe drawn to all the soul fragments Iris has collected over the years, stored in the graves.” Taking in Rain’s surprised and troubled expression, Darling added. “Oh, believe me, those scavs along with the wraiths and ghosts aren’t by any stretch the most annoying things. You haven’t even met Penelope yet.”
There wasn’t much in the multiverse that Rain didn’t know or at least have a passing familiarity with. How did Iris contain so many mysteries defying explanation?
“Everything you just said...none of it makes any sense. First off, why is the inner graveyard in Iris’s mind an actual graveyard for beings that aren’t even a part of her? It should be just her -- or you -- being poetic. Not literal. How many other beings actually cohabit Iris’s Self? Including, apparently, corrupted spirits who can’t pass on? And why are these other, foreign entities trespassing in Iris’s sacred space? Without any apparent regard for her well-being, I might add. This situation can’t possibly be healthy. The Self is a sacred construct to maintain and protect the sum parts of a singular individual, even if that individual happens to have many different personas and voices. This is a straight-up possession by hundreds...thousands?...of beings. And while we’re on that subject, who exactly are you? Really? Just what is your connection to Iris?”
Darling seemed to be enjoying the rant. She grinned. “So, you don’t know everything, oracle? Are you sure you’re up to the task of offering aid to our girl? It is possession, by the way. But you are mistaken about which one is doing the possessing.” Replacing the rifle in her duffel, she continued, “Don’t worry about me. I really do belong here. I always have.” She pointed to a grave near the end of the row. “C’mon, we’ve almost reached our destination. I think Iris is over that rise. But, before you catch up to her, there’s something you should see first.”
The two of them stood before a bone-white bleached tombstone inscribed only with a name: Amelie Van Holland. No other details were included -- no dates, no loved one’s sentiments, not even any wishful religious benedictions about being at peace with God.
Rain studied the headstone, looking for dangling threads of fate that would reveal something about this mysterious woman buried deep within Iris’s Self. Rain saw Darling looking with a tinge of grief at the grave before them. “Who was she?”
Darling said nothing. A single tear rolled down her cheek.
“Hey!”
Iris jerked at the sudden shout. She turned and saw Darling escorting a short, smartly dressed Asian woman towards her.
“Hey, Iris! This person, dragon, whatever, came a long way to see you.”
The person-dragon waved. “Hi!”
“Anyway, I’ve been keeping her company and now I’m all worn out, so I’m dropping her off and heading to catch some z’s until the moon rises tonight, bright and full. Maybe she’ll sing to me again if I promise to run down more nasty demons.”
“Thanks, Darling. Have a good nap. I hope you have a good hunt and that dear Selene does sing for you tonight.”
Iris was sitting on a white stone bench before James’s open grave. She signaled to the Asian woman to join her.
“I’m Iris. And you are?”
Rain offered her hand. “I’m Rain. Nice to finally meet you. You and I were supposed to meet this morning topside for an oracular reading.”
Iris thought about it before shaking Rain’s hand. “Did Rigan or Ty send you after me?” Though the tone of her voice was even and calm, Rain could sense its hostility.
“No, coming here was completely my idea. Though they are worried about you.”
“Why would anyone worry about me? It’s clear that I can’t be hurt or killed and that I only hurt others.” Iris stood and stretched. “Don’t you think, Rain, that it would be better for everyone if I stayed here forever and let Rigan live her life again in my body and be with the one she loves who also loves her?”
“I don’t, actually. Not that I’m not rooting for those two. But there are other considerations to make in a decision like this.”
“Why? I know about her and Ty. How they were married a long time ago, in Otherworld, but, due being on opposite sides of an eternal Fey war, they had to flee until they were finally caught. And how she died holding her kind off so he could escape. I know her deep regrets about that. She blames herself that she wasn’t strong enough. I think he carries the same shame and guilt. It’s really hard that I brought them back together under terrible circumstances.”
“You see a lot, Iris.”
“Not really. More like smell and feel a lot. The scents of the earth run deeper and wider than even you could ever guess.”
“I can believe that.”
“I know I should go back. If only to drag James back in here with me. Before he can hurt anyone else. But...if I stay, the world might not be destroyed.”
“I saw it, too. The Powers want you to be the one to trigger the next Apocalypse.”
“It’s because I foolishly married Arawn and got pregnant despite knowing his queen had placed that impossible curse on him.”
“Tell me more about that.”
“It all goes back to why we had the Brooklyn incident, you know, where I and many other people died. There was a man born a long time ago named Oliver Van Holland...or Van Hollen...Von Holbrecht. Something like that. His name’s a little unclear. Somehow, he’d ended up as the avatar for a dragon god who’d been promised that he could burn everything all to hell. Oliver was cruel and selfish. He’d have fulfilled the wishes of the dragon except that he’d fallen in love with an illiterate peasant girl named Amelie. She died a terrible death because she’d given Oliver a reason to save the earth. That drove Oliver mad. He became a monster obsessed by inflicting his own punishment on the earth, which kept him from fulfilling his vow to let the dragon punish it instead. Time and again over the centuries, he’d be called, and he’d rebel. And he’d be punished. Finally, he became weary and agreed to summon his dark master to finish off the earth.
“That’s what caused that terrible day in Brooklyn. And it would have gone through, except that Oliver sensed his beloved Amelie once more. Or her soul, anyway. In me. My baby was to be the reincarnation of his wife. But that bitch Queen Danu and her curse made sure that Arawn would never have a living heir, so poor Oliver learned that his beautiful wife who would have been re-born had been snuffed out again by another self-serving power. It was too much for him, and he broke. The resulting blast literally blew the dragon god from our plane of existence, destroying Brooklyn, and ripping huge dimensional tears all over our world. That’s why things have gone so much to hell since then. It’s my fault.”
“But didn’t you and Amelie actually save the earth? What would have happened if the soul of Oliver’s wife hadn’t been in you that day, even if her birth wasn’t to be?”
“That’s a trick question, isn’t it? You’re the oracle, so you must know already. But my answer is that it doesn’t matter. What’s important is that a man who never deserved his millennia of torture suffered the loss of his beloved not once but twice and I, instead of being a victim of the Apocalypse, like everyone else, will become the next vehicle for it. The Powers blame me for the earth getting a pass. I think they are demanding I take Oliver’s place as the herald to bring it all down like it was supposed to 22 years ago.
“I’ve always known parts of this, but I couldn’t put the pieces together until Ty allowed me to relive the day Amelie died. And I’m actually grateful for that, because now I know what I am. As long as I’m in here, I can never become the cause of the world’s destruction.”
“It’s amazing you know all of this. But do you really believe that staying buried deep inside your soul will keep the world safe?”
“I want to believe it will.”
“This Oliver. What happened to him whenever he rebelled?”
“He...he was usually buried alive for a decade or two.”
“Here me out, Iris. I have a better suggestion for how to keep the world safe from the dragon. Why not come out and embrace everything you are? Rather than fleeing, fight against your fate and change it by facing it head-on, as Arawn and all those who loved you always believed you would. Become the Lord of the Hunt. No, be the Queen of the Hunt. And let us who stand by you become your Hounds.
“It’s fraught with risk, but so is remaining here until you’re found and dragged out. At least this way you’d be in the driver’s seat. Confront your challenges and enemies instead of hiding. I myself would feel a lot more at ease if you and not the Powers determined whether the next Apocalypse comes.”
[OUTRO MUSIC: "Cigni C" by John C. Worsley]
To Rigan’s surprise, the Crimson Bedroom vanished when Rain opened her eyes. The florid setting for Rain’s deep-dive into Iris’s soulscape turned out to be a rather ordinary breakroom, typical of any mundane office.
“You’re back. That was fast. What happened to the Crimson Bedroom? Is it...not actually a real place?”
“Oh, it’s real. Metaphysically. I just had it shunted away so we can have a meeting with the others. I’ve spoken to Iris, and she's made an important decision.”
Just then, Iris spoke. “Rigan.”
“I knew you’d be back. Ready to switch with me, then?”
“Do you...want to tell Ty first?”
“Why would I...? Oh, of course you figured it out. Sometimes I wonder who the real goddess is between us.
NEXT EPISODE: WILD THINGS