Phillips Harbour
October 30, 1868. Early Morning.
It's pre-dawn on a cold, grey October day. Beside a stream at the scrub-strewn edge of a fallow field, a coyote drinks while a fox looks on.
The coyote looks like an ordinary beast, as unkempt as the field, with muddy paws and a scarred face. A man might take him for a stray yellow dog, at a glance.The vixen is thoroughly unnatural, even at a glance. Her eyes glow a phosphorescent blue, and black lace clings to the fur of her back, climbing to points on her muzzle, and down her legs. She asks the coyote, What's it like to be a real wild animal?
As if he might know. Maybe he does.
The coyote looks up, the fur on his jaw clumped together as water drips to the stream and splashes small rings in the grey water which slide away with the current. He's fascinated by her appearance, familiar but not, and very much improved as far as he is concerned. He considers his answer, It's very easy. You do what you want the moment it occurs to you. There are some things you might want to think about, but gut instinct is often just as good. Better sometimes, because thinking can be like a maze of prickly pears.
He knows what he means, but a ghost fox-girl might not, especially in the instinct area. He elaborates, There's rules. If it's bigger than you, you run away from it; if it's smaller than you, you can play with it, eat it, oh, do all sorts of things. That's why you run away from bigger things instead of think about them.
The coyote is only a little bigger than the fox.
Now, tricks work both ways, you can play them on bigger or smaller things, but the bigger things still need better tricks. Also, there are habits, everything has something it likes to do. Crawdads dig in the mud and swim along the bottom of streams, deer likes to eat grass while walking into the wind and people collect all sorts of objects they consider important and lock them up. So if you know what an animals' habit is, you can usually find them doing that.
Yotee is sure there's more to him than poking into whatever interests him at the moment, but he's having a hard time elaborating on it. So, he asks a question, Is there anything, like a voice or an inclination you noticed after you counted coup on the fox? That would be your new instincts, do they say anything now?
The ghost-girl-turned-fox watches Yotee patiently as he speaks. She settles down during the lecture, resting her chin against her paws by the damp bank of the stream. I don't know ... I haven't listened to it much. I'm not sure I should. The fox sits up, head cocked to one side, because the point at which you decide not to think about something it's already too late: you're thinking about it. A darkness flashes through her glowing blue eyes. Oh! I know! And she leaps! She lands in thestream before Yotee with as much splash as her splayed limbs can manage, sending a wave of water crashing on him.
Dripping black lace, she rolls backwards in the stream. Marseilles opens her mouth in foxish laughter, watching water run rivulets through Yotee's fur. That's what I wanted. Wait, my instincts are telling me something else now. She backs up a pace, deeper into the stream. I get it .... run away! And she turns foxish tail to flee the bigger coyote.
And he lunges forward, plowing a fan of water towards her as his chest hits the surface. He barks, Yes. Like that! Chasing is good. Chasing a vixen, that's pretty good too. Cold water, not a pleasing, though the shock brings recalls when he was in the stream with Mix.
His fur soaks up the water as he swims after Marseilles, snapping at the lace on her flanks. Clothing is unusual on an animal and he finds it fascinating that hers stays on. What else are you hearing? He barks again.
Run run run run! says the vixen's flashing tail and the white fur on the back of her legs. It's the language of animals, not man: primal and unmistakable, with no need for words. She splashes out of the water on the far side and scrambles up the slick bank. Cold cold cold cold!
The lace clings to her like a second skin, without a visible means of attachment. As she flees, one of Yotee's snaps closes on a fluttering bit of it, and the vixen pulls up short in her flight, yowling. Her head snaps around, eyes a flash of blue, and an aura of palpable menace rising from her. In the haze, Yotee sees the shape of a white stag, and a powerful hoof descending upon him ....
I'm an OPENER! I'm an OPENER! He yelps, evoking the warding power of the correct answer while he recoils in terror. He pushes backwards, tail stumbling his hindlegs. White rings of fear show around wide, miscoloured eyes. It's his turn to run, though he does it more by rolling and falling, squirming through the brush as he tries to get away without taking the time to turn around.
Cold. It seems so much colder now, the deadly chill stabbing through his soft fur and yet he would fling himself into the stream. The two stark embraces closing on him. He whines, belly down as he squirms away.
The apparition melts away like fog, almost as quickly as it appears. Marseilles is there instead, fox-tailed girl and not vixen now, crouching over him. "Oh! I'm sorry, Trouble, I didn't mean to, only you startled me and it hurt, I wasn't thinking, I was just going on instinct -- are you all right? Oh, maybe I don't make a very good wild animal at all."
The coyote shivers, low to the ground, ears splayed, tail even lower. That... He attempts, but he's still quelling his fear, ...That was a very good trick. He gasps a deep breath, It would work on anything.
He stands, quivvering, he's still cold and afraid of Marseilles, and trying not to show it. It was a good instinct. I didn't intend to hurt. I thought it might come off, the lace, I didn't realize it was you.
He tries to wag his tail, he has to force it. I'm fine. He answers finally.
"I'm sorry!" Marseilles crouches by the muddy bank. Clumps of dirt and pebbles stick to the ruffles of her long black lace skirt, to her bare knees and the brush of her fox's tail. She extends one hand tentatively to pat Yotee. Then she bursts out suddenly with, "No it's not! I hate it! It's a horrible trick! I'm a horrible -- thing! I hate being this way!" She holds her chest to her knees and hides her head against her folded arms, sniffling. Her edges blur, the lace of her dress unfocusing, like a watercolor running in the rain.
No! Marseilles! Her dispersion unsettles the coyote, and he pokes his nose against the top of her head in an effort to draw her attention back. He remembers the tiny white flower and the gaping darkness of her house he saw in the photo. He was in the picture along with Marseilles, wasn't he? He can't remember for sure but the imagery, the impression of something dark and impending represents the close of the game very well. You're not a horrible thing. The machine changed you, but it didn't do it right. It changed Mr. Shaft as well. There's a trick to taking something from another spirit, and the machine is wrong.
Yotee knows that trick, and it destroys the other spirit. The machine is more like the Hill was, grabbing indiscriminantly. Alorn did something to the Hill that made it break apart into bobbins and claws, and Yotee wonders now: What did he do? Could I do it? Would it help Marseilles or hurt her?
The coyote whines at her in concern, Marseilles, how can I help? What do you want? He stares at her as if she's a fox in a trap, or two foxes in a trap, or a fox and a girl, or... he's not sure what. He racks his recently emptied brain; this should be a puzzle he can do something about, if only he can find the puzzle first.
"It's not the machine! It's in me, it was always in, it doesn't matter what else is stuck inside me I can't get me out." Marseilles sobs against her sleeve. Within her, Yotee's eyes can see the parts that interwine: the darkness of the house wrapped around her like a cloak, in the black lace that won't let go. But it doesn't just hold on to her; she holds on to it. The girl inside will not let go. They form a tapestry, interwoven, and the fox is part of it too. Sharp canine teeth would gnaw off that tail, if the fox wanted to be free. The thing that was inside the Hill was held together by one force. Like glue keeping a clump of random fragments sealed together. When Alorn dissolved that glue, the rest fell to pieces. Marseilles is more like a jigsaw puzzle, the parts of her grown together and fitted. Knocking them apart is possible ... but it will not keep them from sticking together again if they're fitted once more. And taking a jigsaw puzzle into pieces doesn't make it better than the whole
As Yotee watches, the ghost pulls herself together. Her edges sharpen.The jigsaw pieces grow into each other, making more notches that fit into more crevices. Holding on. "I want to be something else." She sniffles. "I'd rather be like you. Can't you teach me?"
Can he? That is a question, and what he offered. He knows how to change shells and got a lot of practice sharing and holding onto his own recently. Except Marseilles doesn't really have a shell. The coyote has never really thought about it, but somehow she maintains a physical presence without one. He pulled her across, but she got tired when she got too far from the house, yet now she seems able to wander far and wide.
He looks at the interlocked puzzle; she's much better as a whole than her pieces, and he doesn't want to tear her apart. Trouble is quite sure that would be quite painful, and she's suffered enough. Still, perhaps there's a way to re-arrange things! Puzzles go together more than one way don't they? He isn't sure, they're the intricate sort of thing he'd chew and destroy.
Yes. He answers, tilting his head and looking at her with yellow and blue eyes. Now he just has to figure out how to do it. What other things are whole and three parts? Eggs! Yum! The coyote licks his muzzle. Scrambling Marseilles likely isn't the solution. Unscrambling her... how does one unscramble an egg? That seems an even more difficult problem.
If she were a tree... Trees have roots, trunk and leaves. Would that help her, or just be another arrangement that's exactly the same as she is now. Marseilles wants to be like him.
Thinking about himself is exactly the kind of introspection that gets the coyote in trouble. He briefly entertains the idea of sharing his shell with her, but really, it's been through a lot and that might not be the best way to instruct her. I can't change my shape as you have been. I see the darkness, the fox, and you all together. I can show you how to take the parts you want to keep. Or, take them and feed them back to you?
He's hesitant, he's not sure he can, and what would she be if he did? What was St. John, how was it she could have two forms. Would it be possible to use the darkness in a benign way to give Marseilles a human and a fox shell. Yotee feels he has put both forelegs in a bear trap again.
When he thinks back, the coyote can remember other shapeshifters. He doesn't know how St. John, specifically, did the trick. But he remembers a shaman who had two bodies -- what he'd now regard as two shells. The shaman could make one of his shells sleep while the other woke and roamed. And he knew a raven who was sometimes a snake. He even watched that trick once, with feathers melting to scales and beak becoming fangs in a twinkling. It was a very good trick; even after seeing it Yotee still doesn't know how to do it.
Marseilles, though -- as Yotee's observed, she doesn't have a shell. In some sense, the House had been her shell before, he thinks, though it's odd to have a shell that doesn't look like you.
Not having a shell makes changing from fox to girl, as he's seen her do, easy to understand. It's like changing metaphors when he was struggling against the Hill. If Yotee let go of his shell, he could be something other than coyote easily enough. The hard part of her trick is being real, something solid and concrete in the material world. Yotee doesn't know how to do that without a shell, himself. When he saw her doing it before, it seemed a lot of work for her. Now it appears almost effortless, natural even.
She hunches forward, sits on her knees and pets Yotee. "What if ... " Her voice wavers, hesitant and low. "What if I don't want to let go? Of ... any of it. Is that the only way?"
There's always other ways, the coyote replies. Though sometimes they're harder to find. Let me look at you.
He noses her a few times gently, circling, sniffing and staring at every intersection he sees in her. Trouble doesn't nip though, he learned that lesson quickly.
Marseilles sits back with her arms wrapped around her legs while Yotee examines her, her chin propped on her knees. "Okay." Spiritually, she looks like the girl-persona is in dominant, but the other aspects of her influence her. There's also a fourth spirit in her: a very quiet, gentle thing notable more by the cohesion it adds to the whole than by any specific influence it's exerting on her.
You don't have to let go, you might have to adjust your clothes. I can show you how I do that, we'd just have to find another spirit. How do you want to be more like me? He tilts his head, curious about this fourth, unexpected component to Marseilles. He watches it as he questions her.
It's easiest to distinguish the parts in her by their visible signs: the black lace of the dress that was the house, the ears and tail that were the fox, the girl's shape that is Marseilles. Finding evidence of the fourth presence is difficult; it makes Yotee's eyes water to look for it. At his words, the ghost girl nods a little and stands up, brushing her skirt down. She thinks about his question. "Free," she says at last. "I want to be free like you. I left the house but I still don't feel free."
Let's look for spirits while I think about that. Little dark ones, the Hill broke up and it's claws went a tumbling. They will have fetched up any a place. You should be a fox to do this. He cocks his ears, listens and starts hunting. It will require travel towards the hill but hopefully they won't have to go all the way there. The little pieces probably rolled into dark nooks and hollows, the spooky sorts of places visible at the base of trees and in old rocks. Also, places that mice and bugs might live, so it's both a metaphysical and physical hunt for a snack. Along the way he explains to Marseilles what he can see in her, and that's trouble indeed.
Marseilles turns into a fox to follow the coyote, imitating him in the hunt. She catches a baby rabbit before they find anything less tangible. She chases it to its hole in a flash of instinct, snaps its neck in her jaws, and doesn't know what to do with it afterwards. The vixen holds it in her mouth, and mumbles to Yotee, Ummmm. You wan' it?
There's four parts to you. You seem free of the real house now, if not, there is no way you will ever be. Even when I escape a trap, it leaves a mark. And so, the house has left a mark on you; it's still with you in your dress. It's your frightening trick. I see you, and the fox, and a strange peace keeping you together. Yotee was lecturing, he was distracted. He could have caught a rabbit if he wasn't using his brain for other things! He's not about to refuse a free one. Yes!
The vixen lifts her muzzle to Yotee's, trading the off the carcass. She licks blood from her muzzle. But I could always do the frightening trick, she whines at him. Was the house always in me?
Was it? He takes the carcass and tucks in. He wasn't thinking about it much and it was days ago. Yotee isn't sure he ever understood Marseilles' relationship with the house. You need a place to stay, an anchor, a shell. When you lost your first body the house must have become your second. You were in it, now you have made it in you.
So I only got out of the house by taking it with me? The vixen whines again, and shakes her head. The black lace veil trembles over her fur. I feel so different and so the same. I guess that's why.
Yes. Did the house eat her? She was imprisonned, sickly, almost consumed. There was her mother, she died also, and that empty man who was the caretaker. Was he empty when he started or only after much time in the house. The coyote has very few ideas. You took it, I don't know how. If we can find a spirit I'll show you how I take things and that may be helpful for you.
Trouble hunts in earnest, leading the fox and looking for bits of nature, ugly in tooth and claw.
Let's find a spirit, then. The vixen watches Yotee eating the dead rabbit for several long moments, as if she might learn from that, too. Then she bounds to her feet and heads off to hunt with him.
Vixen and coyote spend several hours roaming the hills and forests, searching fruitlessly. After a long and tiring quest, Yotee finally finds senses some spiritual activity. He and Marseilles stalk in that direction, and come upon an odd sight: two men, one woman, a horse, a falcon and a cat, holding what looks for all the world like a seance in a graveyard. In broad daylight. Yotee recognizes several of the participants: Mr. Shaft and Miss Townes, her horse Slate, the cat Islington.
Perhaps every quest isn't meant to be successful, perhaps there isn't anything the coyote can do for the ghost girl besides tear her apart in unhelpful ways. He starts to realize this as the hunt drags on. With so little time left, he can't afford to be serious during all of it. It turns into play. He's already shown her how to splash in a stream, Yotee shows Marseilles how to find the sunniest spot on a hill, where the warmth hides when the day grows long. He shows her the things that wriggle away from upturned rocks, and how to pounce out of a bush with great surprise. He shows her things that foxes should know, how to double back, climb trees and fences, to lose someone, and the correct way to scratch one's ear with a hindpaw so it works just right. Many things which he couldn't imagine she didn't know. So this chance encounter is entirely appropriate once the search has run long into the frivolous.
The two don't see Caliban until the chimpanzee -- who's been watching from the upper limbs of one of the trees -- waves them over to join them.
And with that invitation, Trouble grins at Marseilles, When all else fails, you can always go bother someone else and see what happens.
As the hunt turns from somber to silly, the ghost's own mood lightens. She seems better in a way that Yotee can't imagine having made her by ripping her apart and putting her back together again, no matter how skillfully. She grins a foxish grin at him, and heads for the others, yipping.