Shadows of the Strange Valley

Tabitha knew this was punishment for her misdeed. No other mage at the Institution had wanted to take the case. Its file had been sitting at the back of a drawer, catching dust, until the Board saw the perfect opportunity to get rid of both undesirables at the same time. As she was handed the report and given her mission, the tacit threat hung over her head like an executioner’s axe: Solve this or don’t even bother coming back.

This is as much retribution as it is a chance at redemption, Tabitha told herself as she boarded the train in San Francisco. A light in the dark!

But like all candles, it burned and waned the farther out East the train sped, leaving behind the green coast, and heading towards her axing block. A place where no one wanted to go, a truly untamable corner of the West, nestled in the North of the Mojave Desert where only those with no choice or sense still remained.

It was days before she reached her station, but not the end of her journey. She was one of the very few to get off and, she was sure, the only one to make for the stage couch, carrying her luggage and the last weak flickers of her motivation. Fairpost was the closest the railroad would get you, before it took an ample berth around the Strange Valley. It was the closest most were willing to come, and Tabitha had yet more land to cross.

The town was subdued, as if awaiting a storm, or waiting out a predator — making itself small, quiet, unnoticeable. Yet even in a place like this, the saloon shone like a beacon, spilling with cozy gold light and the off-tune music of the drunks. The few people she did see out where either milling by the patio of buildings, a step away from shelter, or walking with hasty steps and heads bowed. Tabitha quickened her own pace.

She was the only one to board the stagecoach. It was the last one as the day was nearing its end, too. The burly driver made no remark, but his pitiful look as he loaded her luggage said enough. Perhaps too much.

In the shuddering carriage, Tabitha went over the case’s files yet again to pass the time. Her eyes glazed over neatly typed lines she’d already memorized on the train, yet she repeated them again and again as if preparing for an examination at the Institution.

Dread seeped into her as steadily as the carriage rode on, like poison spreading through her veins. Tabitha wasn’t sure where it welled from — the dreary thing she was put up to, or a primal fear at the dangers she anticipated and the ones she couldn’t fathom. She had wished to arrive before sun fall, a plan that was coming undone before her eyes. The sky was bleeding red, impaled by jutting, rocky mountains whose shadows stretched over miles of barren land. The warnings in the report were not reassuring towards her late arrival either.

But there was more to this unease. It was the place itself — the magic of it, to be more precise. A mage’s training made one acute to magic in ways ordinary people couldn’t comprehend; after all, manipulating magic took understanding it first. It’s like any other science, her mentor once told her.

But none of the magic she’d encountered before felt like this. Wrong, like an instrument in inexperienced hands. Wrong, like a discordant chord, strum on the strings of her very core.

***

When the stagecoach finally arrived, the sun was long gone, the sky drained of its blood red. The driver didn’t linger longer than was necessary, leaving Tabitha standing in the wake of his dust, facing off a town plunged in darkness and silence.

Oddplains, as close to the Strange Valley as it got, a town as big as its main street, surrounded by a sprawling wasteland and looming shadows of mountains. With no other option, Tabitha picked up her luggage and set off in the only direction she could go — forward.

It seemed to Tabitha that her steps on the gravelly ground were as loud as gongs, heralding her arrival to whatever ears were out to listen. The town itself looked like it saw and heard nothing. Tabitha could barely make out anything in the dark of the night — the moon sat behind clouds, as if shielding the town from its light could hide it from whatever danger lurked. Or, in a twisted turn more befit this place, as if allowing the danger to strike an unseeing victim — perhaps a mage that should certainly not be out at this late hour.

The narrow facades of the buildings were all shuttered and boarded up, preventing any flicker of light from passing through. Had she not been summoned here she would have deemed the town long abandoned.

She only needed to find the hotel and she’d be out of this eerie, treacherous night. But none of the sun-scorched painted letters she passed by spelled her destination. Just a few more hasty steps, and she’d have crossed almost the whole town already. It had to be around here somewhere —

Tabitha heard a growl.

At first, she thought she was mistaken. It started as a low hum, lost in the flurry of her own petticoat, slowly increasing in volume and menace, until she could no longer write it off. She froze, quickly adapting to the same tacit tactic of the town.

At the edges of her vision, a shape broke away from the shadows. It looked like the crude caricature of a dog, its legs too long, its back too curved. Grayish brown fur clung loose like a coat from its skeletal frame as it stalked towards her, head thrust forward. There were three pairs of eyes above its grinning, drooling maw, each one of them set on Tabitha with vicious intensity.

She wondered whether she’d be quick enough to reach into her satchel for some potion to repel the beast, but her arms felt like lead, kept still by a paralyzing, ice cold fear. She had no pistol, which would have been useless in her inexperienced hands regardless. She took a wobbling step backwards, as if the minute space added between her and the coyote would make her safer.

The beast took the fear as an invitation to slink closer, and Tabitha stumbled back another step. And again, the coyote advanced while the mage retreated, in a sick sort of dance.

And the creature was getting tired of it.

With a guttural war cry, the coyote lunged at her. Tabitha snapped out of her trance, doing the first thing she could think of. She held up her baggage as shield and the creature collided with her make-shift defense, the sheer force of it sending her sprawling backwards. She braced herself for the sharp pain of teeth plunging into her skin, still hugging her baggage, but it never came. Instead, a loud bang cracked the night like thunder, followed by a pitiful whimper. Then silence.

Tabitha dared to look up. Her savior’s pistol was still smoking — no, she corrected herself as the tall, broad silhouette approached. The gray cloud came from their mouth, like smoke out of a chimney. As the figure sauntered closer, she could make out more details: crooked hat atop ruffled sandy hair, cigar hanging from the corner of unamused lips. The most telling of all, however, was the tin star pinned to his duster’s lapel.

“You shouldn’t have come this late,” the sheriff drawled as way of greeting. He extended a calloused hand and helped Tabitha to her feet.

She patted down her skirt and tugged down on her jacket, trying to regain what ounce of dignity she still had. “I apologize for the late hour, but I wanted to make a prompt arrival. I’m Tabitha Reyes, the mage the Instit — ”

“Yeah, yeah,” the man waved his hand, dismissive of her and all etiquette polite company dictated. “They sent a telegram and all. Have you been briefed on the issue?”

Tabitha nodded earnestly. “I have been thoroughly brief — ”

“Then you knew you shouldn’t have come this late.”

The icy fright from before had started to thaw into hot anger.

“Come.” The sheriff picked up her luggage and headed out without another word. Unless she wanted a second encounter with a six-eyed coyote — or something worse — she had no choice but to follow.

The hotel turned out to be the farthest building on the street, which was, supposedly, good positioning during the day, forcing a visitor to pass by saloons and businesses that may entice their attention or appeal to a need. For Tabitha, it just seemed a lot of hassle to reach the scaffold she’d been condemned to.

The innkeeper was a willowy woman, bent like a wind-blown tree and hollowed out by some grave trouble. She didn’t ask any questions as Tabitha introduced herself and asked for a room. She simply handed Tabitha the key, and as she did so, caught her gaze. And in the innkeeper’s gaze, Tabitha saw the reticent, faint hope of someone who thought they had lost it all long ago.

Before retiring for the night, Tabitha turned to her guide. “I trust I can reach you tomorrow morning at your office to discuss the situation.”

The sheriff took a long drag of his cigar. “Nah. Go find Doc Rebecca. She’s been handling the situation.” Despite the dismissal, it was somewhat a relief to know she would not have to work with him.

Tabitha climbed up steps covered in threadbare carpets to her chamber. It was small and modest but clean, which was more than enough. She forced herself to go through the motions of casting a protective ward about herself, for whatever it was worth, drawing runes in chalk on each four walls before finally stripping down to her undergarments and collapsing into bed and slumber.

Tabitha woke up in darkness to the faint sound of life. Muted steps and conversations, as if a world apart. The room was as dark as it had been when she snuffed the candle and went to sleep, save for a sliver of light creeping through the gap in the boarded-up window, that might indicate any time of the day. She wondered if that’s how prisoners felt like, losing track of time in the hole of a prison that they’d been thrown in and forgotten.

Tabitha sought the aid of her pocket watch, but that in turn was of not much help, but cause of more confusion. It’s hand unwaveringly pointed to one o’clock, which might only be in the afternoon, and that seemed utterly unacceptable of an hour to wake up at. She hastened to dress and find a second opinion.

As it turned out, her pocket watch had gone awry. The old grandfather in the parlor indicated an early nine in the morning, and the waft from the kitchen corroborated it. A hearty breakfast and bitter coffee that did a proper job of waking up all her senses were offered to her before she set out to meet the Doctor.

In the daylight, the town didn’t look any less foreboding. It was frozen in the moment akin that before a storm hit, when dark clouds on the horizon chase the people inside, to safety. But the sky was clear, and the air crisp. The magic, however, made her skin prickle as it washed over her like a chill gust of wind.

Her destination wasn’t hard to find. The ding of the entrance bell was by far the merriest sound she’d heard in this town.

The apothecary was not much different than the ones Tabitha had visited in San Francisco. It held itself to the same standards of elegance and sobriety. The counter that stretched before her was made of dark, sturdy, polished wood, as was the cabinet behind it. The lower half, half-obscured, was made up of rows upon rows of drawers, each labeled in spiky, sharp handwriting; the higher half proudly displayed shelved full of stoppered bottles and tin boxes, framed by arching awnings. It was crowned by elaborate, spear-like spires.

But like a vivid dream that might fool you into thinking you’re awake, there were telling signs that it was not so — the wood was worn off and chipped and the scales rusted.

Wood creaked, hinges whined, heels pattered, and the physician appeared. There was a door Tabitha had failed to notice, just round the imposing cabinet.

The doctors Tabitha had known where either kind-faced, bespectacled, crinkled like a handkerchief old men with wispy white hair or crisp, impatient middle aged men with dark circles under their eyes who liked to snap shut their briefcases.

Doctor Rebecca was neither. First off, she was not a man, nor did she look older than thirty. Her eyes were neither kind nor unkind — they were keen and sharp and a bottle green like the medicine vials behind her. While a loss of hair seemed to be a common effect of stress on most doctors, her red curls had to be subdued in a bun, in which they stayed reluctantly, stray ringlets framing her round cheeks.

“Morning. You must be the mage they sent from the big city.”

Tabitha introduced herself. Unlike the night prior, there were no interruptions. “The sheriff told me to seek you out to discuss the situation.”

Rebecca scoffed lightly, shaking her head, sending the ringlets bouncing. “It’s for the best. The sheriff’s commendable at his job, but his dealings with magic are limited to shooting it out.”

“It’s…a very apt description, I reckon,” Tabitha chuckled. The sound was faint and restrained as she remembered the circumstances of her arrival and clutched her satchel’s belt. “Though I suppose shooting it out has its merits.”

Rebecca folded her arms over the counter. “The gunshot last night was him, wasn’t it? Let me guess, coyote?” Tabitha’s involuntary grimace was answer enough. “Strong, foul smells repel them. They have sensitive noses.” She pointed towards her own nose, small and round and covered in freckles. “Now, supposing you’re not here to buy cough drops, shall we go discuss in the parlor?”

Tabitha followed Rebecca through the unassuming door she came from, through a short hall and into a small yet lovely sitting room. She was invited to sit down at the round table while her host preoccupied herself at the cast iron stove with boiling water for tea.

Tabitha’s hands assembled her files in front of her as her mind tried to corral her thoughts. She had conducted investigations before. Undoing spells and curses and finding the culprits; planning and following rituals to elucidate disappearances and murders. She knew the steps to take, for her tutors had always been very rigorous about the process and resources one should rely on. True and tried methods that will never fail you, her mentor had said. She’d learned magic as rules, an unbreakable, unbendable force to wield. But here it was quicksilver, spreading all around her, slipping through her fingers, slithering all over her skin and slowly seeping into her every pore.

Rebecca joined her at the table, bringing with her steaming cups of tea. As she leaned over, Tabitha was enveloped by the smell of sweet, gentle red roses, undercut by a tangy, sharp medicine scent that, she reasoned, all doctors carried. She splayed her palms on the table, framing the printed report between them. “We shall review the facts before discussing anything else. At the time of sending the report, over the course of a fortnight, two of the townsfolk had mysteriously fallen ill after experiencing nightmares where they feel,” Tabitha hesitated before quoting, keeping her tone even, “’their soul being sucked out of their body.’ Some of which have reported waking up to something shifting in the shadows.”

“A month and a half,” Rebecca corrected, “as of speaking right now, and more than double the victims.”

Tabitha nodded and pressed her palms harder against the table. She could feel the pattern of the lacy doily covering it imprinting on her skin. She inquired about the exact symptoms of the victims — the tiredness, the feebleness, the loss of weight and spells of dizziness and nausea. Rebecca spared her none of the harrowing details, going over the medication she had dispensed, and which seemed to have barely any effect on the sufferers.

“And nothing of such precedence occurred before?”

“According to the town’s elders, no; if it’s any help, I haven’t seen or heard of such a thing in the three years I’ve been here.”

Tabitha’s head snapped up from the report. “You’re not from town?”

A bemused smile tugged at Rebecca’s mouth. “No. Surprised?”

“Not a lot of people venture this close to…” Tabitha trailed off, the implication clear.

“People here need a doctor, too.” The words sat on the sharp edge of a knife, both fact and challenge. One that Tabitha couldn’t argue with, and wouldn’t have had the occasion to either, for Rebecca pushed on, “I take it you are not here out of your own volition?” She held Tabitha’s gaze, her own sharp and incisive as a scalpel.

“I,” Tabitha shuffled the printed pages, her gaze flitting helplessly between the doily, the stove, and the settee, as if any of them might reveal the right words to say. “It’s just how things are done. Only the most experienced mages get to pick and choose.”

Rebecca nodded, letting out a humoring hum. “What you are saying is the Institution sent someone green?”

Tabitha’s fumbling hands halted, and she looked back at the doctor. “I graduated four years ago, so I wouldn’t say so!”

Rebecca was fruitlessly attempting to hold back a smile, and Tabitha realized she was being teased. Yet she found herself smiling back at Rebecca, for she had the same ammunition to fire back with. “You seem quite green yourself.”

Rebecca’s smile only widened. She propped her chin in her palm, leaning forward. Her eyes glinted. “Is it my face?”

It was indeed a very soft featured, rounded face, standing startlingly close to hers. Heat flooded her cheeks, and Tabitha wondered how much her umber complexion gave away. She picked up her cup, cradled it, brought it close to her lips. “It is a youthful face.” She drank, long, then set her cup down, decisively. “Has any precaution been taken, any form of protection?”

Rebecca leaned back in her seat, the mirth leaving her face. “You may have noticed the boarded-up windows,” she answered dryly. “They’re not a usual fixture. And I drew protection runes for each home, though they don’t seem like much help.”

“Runes?” Tabitha couldn’t help her surprise, nor her curiosity. “Do you have a license to practice magic?”

“No, I don’t, but most people around here who dabble in magic don’t either.” The doctor stood firm and undaunted in such a delicate situation, whereas other people may have broken. After all, it was widely known that to the Institute, nothing was worse than malpractice other than a mage with no certificate at all. Tabitha wondered if she had had the same fire in her eyes as she defended her own actions to the stoned-face Board of Mages. “We do what we must do when there’s no one else to help us, whether it’s drawing some runes or stitching a wound.”

Tabitha’s brow shot up then lowered in a deep furrow as another question started to take form. Rebecca eased into a smile as she answered before she could voice it. “I am a certified physician, however. And I really do hope you didn’t come here all the way just to tattle on my use of magic.”

A bitter chuckle started to well up, but Tabitha promptly smothered it. Instead, she shook her head and asked to see the rune.

Rebecca stood up, disappearing out into the hall. Tabitha leaned as far back in her chair as she could. It wasn’t the most proper thing to do, especially as she tethered close to an utterly improper fall, but her interest had been piqued. Her curiosity was rewarded with a glimpse of what seemed to be a workbench. A sensible conclusion would be that the room was her laboratory, but she wondered if there were other magical affairs conducted aside rune-drawing. Rebecca returned with a slip of paper and offered it to Tabitha. The graphite sketch would have been considered crude by her professors, but it was more than Tabitha had expected and far more competent. As far as she could tell by simply looking at it, it should have held well enough against cursed objects being brought within its range, and anyone within its protection would be shielded against the simplest malicious spells.

“Admirable work,” Tabitha concluded, setting it down. “Where does one learn magic, outside the Institution?”

Rebecca ran her index along the cup’s brim, its motion fluid, repetitive, almost hypnotic. Her nails, Tabitha noticed, were kept short and clean.

“Books. Talking with mages. Personal experience. I may not be from town, but I did grow up somewhere on the cusp of what’s considered close to the Strange Valley. I suppose I have always felt…” Her hand stilled. “…attuned to the magic here.”

“But the magic here it’s all sorts of odd and wrong,” Tabitha reasoned, as if someone had just told her that no, in fact, the awfully off-tune orchestra playing was very much harmonious and not a cacophony that was an insult to sound itself.

Rebecca laughed, full, unrestrained, shoulders shaking, stray ringlets bouncing. “Don’t forget wild, too. You’ll get used to it.” She tilted her head. “Or perhaps not.” Her gaze fell on the ward, and any trace of amusement faded away. “What is your plan, Miss Reyes?”

Tabitha tapped a finger on the paper. “It’s hard, not knowing what we’re facing, but we will start with a stronger ward, placed around the whole town. And I would like to conceive traps to have outside the ward’s range. Again, due to the very mysterious circumstances, I’m forced to rely on generalized pattens for the runes. Otherwise, I could have narrowed them down to something more effective. Trial and error must suffice for now.”

The Institution had an arsenal of solutions for the issues that a mage might stumble upon. True and tried methods, for problems already trodden. All the problems involved humans, one way or another. But the likes of what they were facing now — such unnatural creatures and magic were contained to certain places on the map like this one, where people put a pin to know to avoid them. She was blindfolded and grasping at straws, just as the Board had hoped.

“I’ll help you. I may not be formally trained, but I am accustomed to the magic here.”

“That’d be lovely,” Tabitha sketched a smile. The Institution would not approve of it at all, but she was glad to have someone knowledgeable to assist her.

“I would like to talk to the victims themselves, if that’s possible.” Tabitha made to check her pocket watch, the motion habitual, only to let out a quite silly, “Oh,” as she realized her timepiece was just as wrong as it had been that morning. “I’m sorry. My watch seems to have gone awry.”

Rebecca extended a hand, palm up, and Tabitha placed the watch there. She twisted it around, fingers tracing along the ornate etching as if hoping to catch a small detail that may reveal it’s flaw, like palpating a patient may reveal their affliction. She smiled ever so slightly and asked, “Is it one of those fancy, enchanted watches?”

“Institution issued, yes.” It told the time, and so much more — one might even set it to alert you at a certain hour, by letting out a shrill buzzing, a functionality Tabitha had forgotten in her hurry to go to sleep.

Rebecca’s lips twitched higher. She set the watch down on the table and offered her cure akin an amputation. “You can toss it out the window.”

Tabitha stared from the watch to the smiling doctor, then expelled a defeated sigh carrying three accusatory words. “The magic here.” How could she not realize? This magic, that was like a splinter in your finger that you can’t get out: throbbing and searing and slowly festering.

Rebecca spun an index in the air. “It messed with the runes etched into it. I thought you’d be aware of it?”

It wasn’t something usually taught at the Institution. The professors preferred to leave it at ‘anomaly’ and shove it at the back of the metaphorical cabinet, much like they did to Tabitha. Out of sight, out of mind, and certainly out of their hands.

Tabitha took the useless watch and slipped it back in her pocket, ignoring her strong desire to take Rebecca’s advice. “One might have hoped that, even at its worst, this watch would retain its basic functionality.”

“A classical, mechanical watch will do the trick. I believe I have one lying about. Consider it a welcome gift.”

Tabitha summoned a smile. “You’re too kind.”

“Now. Where shall we start?”

First, the patients. Next, the Strange Valley itself.

***

The desert, like the sea, extended endlessly.

The few times Tabitha had been out at sea in San Francisco, she’d always been able to see the shore, and it anchored in her a reassurance that the ship would find its way back to it. Now, entering the Strange Valley proper, she could no longer see the town, and she felt untethered.

It was just over the hill, Tabitha reminded herself. Small, like a child’s toy houses. From afar, it had looked even more lonely.

The scenery had changed as Tabitha and the sheriff rode, from rock and gravelly ground to dunes of sand, and the sun scorched even hotter. Around them, the dunes rose and sloped like still waves.

Tabitha wasn’t sure what she was looking for or what she wished she’d find. Her professors had impressed upon her that meticulous research was the key to a successful investigation, so that was what she was attempting to do. Her traveling companion was merely there to ensure she wouldn’t repeat the coyote incident and had given a few stern words of warning before their departure. Watching the dunes, here and there speckled by bushes, Tabitha wondered where a monster could possibly hide. It seemed all quite in plain sight to her.

Tabitha reigned in her horse and dismounted. A faint glimmer had caught her eye within one of the shrubs, which had looked unassuming at first sight. She crouched in front of it and reached out a leather-gloved hand, pushing past ordinary, dark green leaves towards a most extraordinary fruit. A rounded diamond, gleaming in the sun. “What’s this?”

The sheriff crouched next to her, and his crooked cigar streamed a cloud of smoke right into her face. Tabitha coughed behind her glove.

“It’s a diamond berry. Highly poisonous, so I wouldn’t recommend eating it. When Doc prepares it, she somehow turns it medicinal.” He shrugged, as if the whole process was a mystery he couldn’t or didn’t care to understand.

Tabitha took her notebook out of her satchel and began scribbling away the new information, along with a note to ask Rebecca more about it.

“You here to find that bastard or look at local flora?”

“It’s called research, sheriff. Very vital part of the investigation.” Not to mention, something to preoccupy herself with while she figured out how to solve this mess. She’d spoken with the victims, but they couldn’t tell her more than she’d learned from the report or Rebecca. Whatever had attacked the town, hadn’t done so again since Tabitha’s arrival, and while her traps remained unsprung, she decided to take matters into her own hands and venture out.

The desert, it turned out, had quite a lot to hide. Shrubbery with flowers in iridescent, unnatural colors; scurrying small creatures that looked like amalgamations of different mundane critters she’d seen in biology books. Rocks that leaked strange liquids where fissured. And a creature that was not a rock in fact, but Tabitha unfortunately only found out when it sprouted wings to fly out of her hand.

The shifting sand murmured as another critter scuttled away.

“Help.”

No, Tabitha realized as the sound morphed into one worrying word. It was weak and quiet, but distinctly a call for help. Behind her in the distance, the sheriff was walking at a leisured pace, unaware. She hesitated to wander off, but the next call for help, now injected with a terrified urgency, sprung her into motion.

Tabitha followed the feeble voice down slippery slopes of dunes and found a shivering form huddled in a pile of rags, with a tuft of hair at the top of its bowed head.

“Are you alright?” Tabitha asked, approaching slowly. The figure didn’t move, didn’t answer. It stood perfectly still, and Tabitha halted. A belated warning sprung in her mind. As quick as lightning struck, her fear for the caller turned into fear of them. They — it — looked up.

You might have been able to find something human in that face — there was a mouth, a nose and two eyes. But yellow fangs protruded out of its slit of a mouth, and the eyes were crimson red, as if veins had popped and the blood tainted them. The nose was more of a snout, and the cheeks wallow and hollowed out.

Tabitha yelped and stumbled back. A gnarly, clawed hand lunged at her, clasping around her wrist like an iron shackle. The beast’s thin lips pulled back, displaying rows upon rows of knife-sharp teeth.

She tried to pull her hand away, but she’d sooner lose it than convince the creature to release its grip. The claws digging through her clothes and skin might have hurt more had she not been so focused on the gaping mouth coming at her, fast. Her free hand plunged into her satchel and fumbled blindly around for something, anything.

Her fingers closed around a stoppered bottle. Pulling the cork out with her teeth, she tossed the liquid at the creature. It screamed, a shrill and blood-curdling screech as the acid burned through its skin. It released her wrist, and Tabitha fell back onto the sandy ground. She crawled and slipped and crawled again away on all fours, with the same urgency of the critters she had seen. Two shots rang, and the wailing faded into a feeble whimpering, then silence.

Tabitha didn’t move. All she could hear was her heart pounding in her ears, all she could feel was its frantic rhythm pulsating through each nerve in her body. She could barely bring herself to be grateful that she had found the bottle of acid, that the sheriff got to her in time.

A pair of boots entered her field of vision. “I told you to be careful.” It wasn’t said with disapproval, anger or even concern; it was merely an observation.

Tabitha pushed herself up to her knees. “What…was that thing?” She didn’t dare look back.

The sheriff took the cigar out of his mouth and flicked it a couple times. “A local beast. It can shift its form and mimic different creatures being hurt, to fool other predators. And people like you.” He took a drag, let it out in a wispy cloud. “By the way, you’re bleeding.”

Her blue sleeve was shredded and quickly turning a deeper shade. Her hand was sticky, and the sand beneath was stained crimson. The pain, stinging and hot, was starting to set in.

“Let’s go show it to Doc.”

Tabitha didn’t point out that she could have healed herself once back in her hotel room. It was a welcomed excuse to visit Rebecca.

***

Two weeks into her stay, Tabitha fell into a routine.

Every morning, she’d scarf down her breakfast and bitter coffee and she’d set out on her by now well-trodden route around the town, checking the ward and traps. This morning was no different.

She slung her satchel bag across her chest and left the hotel to the well-wishes of the innkeeper, which got chirpier by the day. She pattered down the squeaky boards of the porch onto the gravel road with brisk steps and raised gaze to scan for any familiar figure.

This morning, however, she found a showdown transpiring right in the middle of the town.

Tabitha’s instincts prodded her to take cover, but she was rooted to the spot, drinking in the scene, not so much scared as bewildered. Something was not quite right. The figures facing off, hands hovering over their guns, fingers twitching nervously, did not take notice of her intrusion. They couldn’t. They were mere ghostly apparitions, translucent, like smoke dancing on the horizon. Tabitha had seen scenes like this before, fractured memories of the past, drained of all color and replaying silently on loop like dancers in a music box, always spinning in circles. They were aptly called echoes, and Tabitha had summoned quite a few of them herself. They were a prime tool a mage should employ when investigating a theft, kidnapping, or murder. But she had never seen one materialize on its own.

Tabitha approached, circling around them, gaze roaming over their pale faces — one twisted in scorn, another warped with fear. Their lips moved frantically, their feet shifted on the gravel, but neither made any sound. She reached out to touch the phantom’s shoulder, as she had done the first time she had summoned one herself. Her fingers lightly grazed the wispy shape, and a chill ran from the tip of her fingers, up her arm in a trail of goosebumps and down her spine, rattling her whole frame with its cool intensity. The first time she had done this, she’d snapped her hand back and her professor had laughed, talking as if to a child that had tried to eat a steaming pastry and was surprised it burned their tongue. This time, she didn’t flinch.

“Curious, isn’t it?” Rebecca called from behind her, and Tabitha whirled around.

She was smiling at her, that puckish and easy smile of hers. She’d forgone any attempt of taming her curls, aside from pinning them back on both sides of her face. It mellowed her already gentle features but couldn’t dull the sharpness of her gaze.

Tabitha returned the smile, and their eyes locked, longer than necessary for a mere shared look of understanding. Even as Rebecca turned her head and it was her freckled cheek that met them, Tabitha’s eyes lingered for a few moments more.

“It’s an echo, though I’ve never seen one occur without a ritual performed. How?” Tabitha asked, even though the answer was obvious.

“Only happens in the Strange Valley,” Rebecca crossed her arms, lips a bemused line. “Out here, memories that have marked a place resurface on their own sometimes. There’s no pattern to it, from what I’ve gathered.”

Sudden motion caught Tabitha’s attention, and both women turned to watch the scene unfold, as it had before. One of the figures, the one with the vexed frown, whipped out his pistol and shot, noiselessly. The other one collapsed to the ground just as quietly, and they both slowly faded, like smoke in the wind.

“What happened, exactly?”

“It was not long after I came here. One of them supposedly cheated at a game of cards. They were both drunk. He was fine after I treated his wound.” She shook her head, and her smile fell back in place. “Don’t be afraid if such apparitions play out in your bedchamber.”

Tabitha grasped her satchel’s belt. “What? Why? Did something occur in the hotel?”

“I’m sure some people may have made some very memorable memories.”

“Oh.” She looked away, warmth creeping up her neck. “I was about to start my morning rounds.”

“I’ll join you.” It wasn’t a question, and to cement that in, she looped her arm around Tabitha’s.

That fragrant, floral scent invaded her senses again, faintly punctured by bitter medicine. They ambled between the long and narrow buildings to the edge of town, but Tabitha’s heart picked up its rhythm like a racehorse. She tried to marshal the thoughts that have scattered at the sudden proximity, and finally found a string to take hold of.

“It’s odd. My professors said the magic here is too chaotic, too tangled, and unevenly distributed. That it seeps into the flora and fauna and corrupts everything it touches, so it’s not worth studying.” Tabitha wondered if it had started to ooze into her, too, little by little, like rain through a leak in the roof.

“Oh, so they found something they didn’t understand. Something they couldn’t tame. And deemed it worthless.”

“And in certain cases, dangerous,” Tabitha added quietly, and Rebecca scoffed.

“What if it’s the opposite? What if you told them the magic out there that they wield is the one corrupted? Distilled?”

“They’d toss one of their hefty books at you.”

Rebecca chuckled. “Would you, too?”

“I’m not so quick to weaponize a book,” she stepped around the subject, gingerly. “I might be open to listening.” She turned to meet the doctor’s gaze, expecting a teasing smile, but finding only an unfathomable expression.

Finally, the smile did come. “What would your professors say about you entertaining such thoughts?”

“They wouldn’t be so surprised,” the murmured words left her just as she realized she’d said too much and did not want to follow that line of query. So, she quickly went on, “Anyhow, you haven’t told me how you got those texts on magic you learned from? The ones you showed me. The Institute is very strict on who can purchase and publish materials on the subject.”

“They are, but they can’t control every single print.”

Tabitha lowered her voice, though she doubted the tumbleweeds were about to tattle on them. Still, it felt somewhat wrong to say it too loudly. “Was it through illicit means?”

Rebecca leaned in and matched her volume. “Is this an interrogation?” She was teasing again, and Tabitha’s pulse spiraled out of control. She snapped her gaze back to their surroundings.

They had reached the edge of the town, and one of the five spots, evenly spaced, where Tabitha had drawn a rune to make up the protective ward about the entirety of Oddplains. She reluctantly broke away from Rebecca to stoop down and inspect her work. Magic flowed and throbbed through the intricate symbols like blood through veins, and Tabitha could feel it like a river’s current rushing past her shins. The ward seemed undisturbed, but she wanted to examine each point of it before saying so decisively. And so, they resumed their walk along the invisible border the magic created. Sometimes, Tabitha could almost see it, silvery, flickering in and out of sight. They surveyed for any sprung trap, too, but they didn’t come upon anything until they had reached the last rune of the ward which, like the others, stood unshaken.

Beyond the ward, Tabitha had drawn trap runes, circular, their width large enough to allow a person to sit within, if they pulled their feet tightly close. And within such a trap, a small critter had found itself confined by unseen walls.

If Tabitha were to choose one animal it resembled the most, it would be a hare. It was much smaller than one, but had the same round, beady eyes and long, twitching ears. Along with the ears, however, it had a very unrabbit-like pair of antlers, and the bend of its legs was closer to that of a cat. Its nose and whiskers quivered as the women approached.

“It’s adorable, in a strange way,” Tabitha remarked, endeared.

“So it’s not all sorts of wrong?” Rebecca retorted, turning Tabitha’s own words against her. And yet the mage could only chuckle in reply.

She stepped forward, past the protective barrier, with ease. The ward was supposed to only hold against magic that may try to infiltrate and allow people to pass. Tabitha had reasoned that, just like the magic-infused little creatures she’d seen, the menace intruding on the town must in turn be magic, so the ward should do its due work.

She set about releasing the poor horned rabbit. It had become agitated with her increasing proximity, so she worked quickly, undoing the rune by retracing its lines and, closing her eyes to focus, snap the thread of magic. Then Tabitha stepped back, giving the animal space. It stood frozen for a moment, watching her with its small, black eyes, one paw folded up. Assessing its situation, nose twitching as if to sniff out the danger. Then it sprinted away, soon to be but a dot on the horizon. Tabitha returned with a smile to her companion, only to freeze much like the rabbit when Rebecca’s hand reached out. Tabitha’s chest rose higher, slower, as her eyes followed the gentle and deliberate motion. Her fingers pushed a stray strand of black hair out of her face, behind her ear, tracing along its shell as they did. A shiver rippled over her skin.

“Beautiful,” Rebecca murmured, and Tabitha’s breath hitched.

“Pardon?”

Rebecca smirked. A devious, cheeky little smirk. “Your hair. It’s very soft.”

Tabitha swallowed, her throat as dry as the desert. “Oh.” She redirected her attention to the runes before her, trying to think past the ghost of Rebecca’s tender touch. “The ward is unperturbed yet again. I wonder if it truly held, or if the creature simply didn’t attempt to attack. Given the pattern we noticed, I reckon it didn’t. But…soon it’ll be due time for it to strike again.”

The words were met with somber silence.

***

A few days later, Tabitha’s estimation proved right.

Rebecca had been waiting for her in the hotel parlor, looking uncharacteristically grim. No words were needed for her to guess what had transpired to make the doctor so dreary. Tabitha could barely gulp down the coffee and slice of bread she’d been offered, but did her best at Rebecca’s insistence, before the two of them set off to meet the victim.

It was the haberdasher this time, Rebecca explained on the way. His wife had come in a frenzy at Rebecca’s house early in the morning, and it was also her who ushered them in now, leading them up the stairs with urgent steps, into the bedchamber where her husband laid ailing.

Tabitha may have mistaken the misshapen shape on the bed for a pile of linen sheets and pillows had it not let out a long groan. The woman rushed to kneel by her husband’s side, running her fingers over his damp forehead, pushing away the feathery white hair stuck to it.

“He’s running a fever,” Rebecca murmured close to Tabitha’s ear. “First symptom that manifests, but luckily it only seems to last two days at most.”

Tabitha steeled herself, clutching her satchel’s belt with both hands, and approached the bed. The woman looked up at her with red, swollen eyes were tears had welled up anew. She dabbed at her face with the wet, rumpled handkerchief and made space for Tabitha, who perched herself on the very edge of the bed, mindful of the man in his bedsheet cocoon.

“Mister Ahlborn? It’s Miss Reyes, the mage.” She slowly took out her notebook and fountain pen. “I have a couple queries, if it’s alright.”

The man looked far from alright. His face was as pale as the sheets, with a sickly yellow sheen, and he was shivering despite the layers he was covered in. His eyes darted frantically about the room, as if they sought something but could not see anything. When she spoke, they briefly focused on her face, and the man’s lips parted, but the answer came belated. And instead of the simple affirmation she expected, the man uttered, each word injected with terror, “I saw it.”

“What? The creature?”

The man nodded, or at least so Tabitha thought — the motion was weak, his whole frame shaken by uncontrollable shivers.

“I saw it!” He reiterated, louder this time. Rebecca and Mrs. Ahlborn had both drawn closer. “I woke up to it running away. Feeling so cold. So tired.”

He paused, but Tabitha couldn’t wait. “What did it look like?”

Mr. Ahlborn met her gaze. It had been jovial, if a little wary, when she first visited the man’s shop. Now, it was frenzied and underlined by deep, dark rings. “It was like a shadow… A human silhouette…Slinking around noiselessly…”

Tabitha furiously jotted down what she could gather out of the man before he spiraled into nonsensical rambling.

As Mrs. Ahlborn stroked his hair and mumbled reassuring words, Tabitha stood by Rebecca, frowning at the looping letters on the page, hoping she might somehow glean more information from the page than the one already written.

“Does it look like anything you’ve heard of before?”

Rebecca shook her head. She had coaxed her hair into an updo, but a few ringlets still defied her, grazing her cheek, her temple, the nape of her neck.

Tabitha sighed and returned to her notebook, tapping the fountain pen against her chin. If only she could think properly. But the chamber was fraught with tension, sizzling in the air like electricity before a storm, prickling all her nerves.

Just like the magic here, she thought, except the magic here had stopped feeling as pervasive and oppressing. This was different. New. The lingering magic of whatever had struck. She hadn’t known what she was up against and she still couldn’t be sure, but now…

Tabitha brought the end point of her pen on the page, hard, in rhythm with the revelation dawning on her. Rebecca glanced at her, expectantly, but as the rush of discovery faded, she hesitated.

She could get creative with the solution, but that was exactly what had landed her here. The Institute would not allow any manner of magic that strayed too far away from their clearly defined methods. Anything else than that was dangerous, sacrilegious and while perhaps not illegal in the eye of the law, it was certainly so in the Board’s view.

Yet if this was her chance to show penitence, with each passing day it felt less and less like punishment.

The Institute had never bothered itself with the fates of towns like this, cradled in the shadows of the Strange Valley, and perhaps she was never meant to help them. It was merely a matter of humbling her. But she could do it, if only she applied herself in all the ways the Institute was opposed to.

Tabitha met Rebecca’s gaze, keeping her voice low. “I can feel the remnants of some strange magic in the chamber. If I could only focus, I might get a sense of it, enough to put it into shape, into…”

“Runes,” Rebecca breathed. “Runes that could actually work against it.”

Tabitha nodded, hugged her notebook to her chest and closed her eyes, allowing her senses to tune everything else out and pick up on the energy in the room. She reached out with her sense, but it seemed to sidestep her. She reached again, and the magic pulled back. She tried again and again, growing frustrated, but it simply evaded her.

She opened her eyes and shook her head. “I can’t. It’s like…yarn, unraveling in my hands, and I just can’t grasp it, I can’t find the end.”

Rebecca placed her hands on her shoulders, steadying her. “Breathe deeply.” Her voice was gentle, her moss-green gaze holding Tabitha’s steadfast. “Close your eyes. And just…allow it to flow over you, through you. Let the…” her lips tugged up, “yarn unravel, and it’ll come to you. This is not the sort of thing they teach you at the Institution, is it?”

“No, this is the sort of thing that gets you expelled.”

“And yet you’re doing it.”

“These people need help.” Tabitha smiled, faintly. “And anyway, you’re not going to go all the way to San Francisco just to tattle on me, are you?”

Tabitha took a deep breath and closed her eyes. When she exhaled, she allowed her whole body to loosen up, to unfurl. This time, she didn’t try to reach out to the magic around her — instead, she simply stood waiting. Listening. She could feel it, a multitude of songs swarming around her and blending into each other, impossible to pick up or focus on one, so she didn’t even try. When something tugged at her very core, she allowed it to pull, and instead of the magic, it was her who unraveled. She could feel it in every nerve, like the beating of a heart. It beat a hectic rhythm, and Tabitha surrendered to its chaos.

And then, she grasped the end of the thread.

Tabitha opened her eyes and wasted no time in scribbling into her notebook, as the magic persisted, deep in her bones. Her hand moved as if guided by the pulse of magic she had felt, tracing a pattern she had not made before.

Rebecca hummed thoughtfully, peeking over her shoulder at the crude sketch of a rune. “That was quick.” She leaned in closer, and a whiff of roses washed over Tabitha. “What will it be? A trap? A ward?”

“Both. Not at the same time, but I think I can use it as reference for both. This could change everything.”

Rebecca placed a hand on her arm, and Tabitha could feel its warmth even through her sleeve. “Shall we go back to my parlor? Brew some tea and figure this out together.”

Nothing sounded more pleasant, especially now that hope had found the courage to bloom in her again. Looking back at Mrs. Ahlborn, soothingly stroking the head of her now sleeping husband, Tabitha knew she had made the right decision.

Now she only needed to see it through.

***

Tabitha looked on at the endless desert and smiled. She wondered if this is how navigators felt when they embarked on their voyages, ready to conquer new waves and discover new shores.

The sheriff had been surprised at how well Tabitha had taken to their trips into the heart of the Strange Valley, or at least, as much as his perpetually disinterested expression had allowed him. They made for a wonderful pair, provided each of them minded their own business. The only thing she wished was that Rebecca might have joined her, but the doctor insisted on continuing her study into some remedy that may alleviate the sufferers’ conditions. The solution had been as mysterious as the affliction itself, but with Tabitha’s help, they were making progress, even if the results were modest.

Tabitha was confident however, as she was about the newly created wards and traps. Rebecca and she had poured over the rudimentary rune Tabitha had sketched, until, like a sculptor, they’ve finally managed to give it shape. They were treading uncharted terrain, carving a path of their own, and while she was fully aware that it may not work as intended from the start, she resolved to try again and again, for progress could only be achieved through trial and error and staunch determination.

And for all this to work, Rebecca had insisted, she would have to learn to understand the magic of the Strange Valley.

And, as she stood on top of a dune, her gaze turned on the horizon where the desert bled into the sky, Tabitha did just as told. The magic wasn’t any less chaotic as it had been when she arrived, but it didn’t feel hostile any longer, as if intentionally plucking all the wrong chords to set her teeth on edge. It was trying to teach her a new tune, however odd, and Tabitha listened and learned. She threw her arms open, inviting the swirling magic to sweep her into its embrace.

“You gonna take flight?” The sheriff’s yell rudely broke through the serenity of the moment. “Come on, let’s get back to town before the night falls.”

***

The uneventful weeks had lulled Tabitha into a semblance of comfort. Some mornings, as she went through the motions of releasing the small critters that had inadvertently got caught in her traps, Tabitha wondered if it were possible the danger had passed.

As she sipped tea in Rebecca’s parlor, she was very much convinced it had. It was a fortnight past the creature’s usual point of striking, and it gave Tabitha hope that if it hadn’t already, it would no more attack. Perhaps, like any other predator, it had changed its hunting territory when it could no longer enter the town. Perhaps a bigger, meaner creature had got to it.

The feeling wasn’t completely unmarred by concerns. For if it simply changed location, another town might soon become its prey; and if the creature merely lurked in waiting, this would prove just a respite. The townsfolk, regardless, had happily discarded any such thought and instead were coming out of their hiding. And, most happily, they were slowly healing.

Rebecca, on the other hand, looked more tired by the day. It had started with faint dark rings under her eyes, until it was her gaze that was dulled like a used scalpel. She waved away Tabitha’s worries as if they were insignificant matters, but Tabitha couldn’t stand to see the doctor wear herself out so recklessly. She maintained that she was not content with the medicine’s results, that she was constantly tinkering with the formula. Indeed, it couldn’t miraculously heal any of the afflicted, but it helped ease their constant weariness and regain their lost appetite.

Tabitha regarded Rebecca, bathed in the afternoon sun. She cradled her cup pensively, shoulders slightly hunched forward, hair haphazardly gathered in an updo. “I’ve visited the first couple people affected,” she said. “They seem substantially better. Most symptoms greatly alleviated, some even gone.”

“That’s good,” Tabitha encouraged, but Rebecca’s smile was strained.

“I just wish there was more I could do for them.” There was an uncharacteristic, helpless frustration in the creased lines of her brow and hanging on every word.

“You’re doing everything you can.” Unwavering, Tabitha reached out a hand and placed it on top of Rebecca’s. Her green eyes widened and flitted down, as if to confirm the touch, before meeting her gaze again. A shadow of that mischievous smile tugged at Rebecca’s lips, and a rush of heat flooded every corner of Tabitha, yet she did not pull away. “I know you want to help everyone, but you must take care of yourself too. Please.”

Rebecca hummed softly, surveying Tabitha’s face. “Thank you for the concern for my wellbeing, but soon you won’t need to trouble yourself with me anymore. I assume you are returning to San Francisco now that the investigation seems settled. After all, you can simply not mention it took a more creative solution to do it.”

She could indeed weave the story they wanted to hear. Then what? She’d return to San Francisco; she’d be welcomed back into the ranks of respectable mages. For all her impassioned defense in front of the Board, she’d return tail tucked between her legs, lending credence to their derisive words. And that was a thought she could not bear. There was yet another reason for her hesitation though, and she stood before her very eyes.

“I don’t know. I cannot go back to their strict notions of what magic should be and how it should be used. But…that’s not all.” Her heart quickened, even as she said the words. Rebecca tilted her head, waiting.

“What else is keeping you here?”

Tabitha squeezed her fingers gently. “You.”

Surprise colored Rebecca’s features. Was her admission so bewildering? Surely, when she leaned in as close as she did, she must have heard the treacherous rhythm her heart beats. Or perhaps, she never expected Tabitha to be the one taking the lead for once.

She squeezed Tabitha’s hand back, a silent reply, as the surprise melted into a longing tenderness, its gentleness making Tabitha’s heart ache all the sharper.

And for a moment they just stood like that, hands held tightly, and gazes locked, until Tabitha’s yearning, rising like the tide, spilled over, and propelled her out of her seat. Rebecca followed, and they met in an embrace halfway. Their lips closed the rest of the distance.

The kiss was tender, slow, and exploring, yet there was a neediness underlying it, in the way Rebecca cupped her face with both hands, in the curl of Tabitha’s finger around the nape of her neck. Holding onto each other, as if any of them might lose the other at any moment.

When their mouths finally parted, Tabitha couldn’t stand to pull back an inch more and instead rested her forehead against Rebecca’s. She could still taste her lips on hers, as sweet as the fragrance that clung to her. They stood in gentle, fragile silence, unmoving, breath intertwined, as if any motion might break the intimacy of the moment.

Rebecca was the first to speak, voice whispered. “If you don’t return now, can you ever go back to the Institution?”

“Perhaps, if I groveled. But I don’t want to.” Tabitha, hand still resting on her nape, twirled a stray ringlet around her index. “I have yet to tell you what brought me here.”

“Oh, was it not the scenery?”

Tabitha went on, smiling. “I haven’t been exactly a model mage.”

“What could you have possibly done?”

She exhaled heavily. “Got creative with a solution.”

Rebecca let her hands fall from Tabitha’s cheeks to her sides, settling cozily in the slope of her hips, waiting for her to continue.

“You see, the investigation, it demanded urgency. My client’s health was deteriorating with each moment. I merely wanted to help her, as quickly as I could…and I did. I disregarded all required steps and came up with my own solution. Yet it was not what it was expected of me, and the only thing that stood between me and revocation of my license was my mentor’s word.”

“So, this was punishment?”

Tabitha touched her nose to Rebecca’s. “Not anymore.”

Rebecca didn’t reply. Instead, she captured Tabitha’s mouth again.

This time, she held onto her tighter.

***

It was late at night as Tabitha stood down to write the letter.

The innkeeper had been in a disposition to talk her ear off up until not so long ago, and Tabitha had gladly allowed her to. It was promising, seeing the light and happiness return to the woman’s previously empty eyes. She seemed to stand straighter every day.

And it was for this reason exactly that Tabitha had decided it was finally time to send word of her decision to the Institution. The town had been freed of its mysterious tormentor, she wrote, and yet I am not intending on returning to San Francisco, or the Institution.

Seeing the words on paper made it definitive. Any doubts she might have had were chased away. She signed her name in big, looping letters and considered the letter with the same pride she had felt holding her Mage’s certificate.

She folded the paper and set it aside, meaning to ask the sheriff to arrange for it to be delivered the next day. She stood up but did not head for the stairs just yet, instead ambling to the parlor window overlooking the town. The lights in the parlor had dimmed while she had penned the letter, and as she leaned against the window, she could see less of her smiling expression and more of the dark-shrouded, sleepy town. It no longer seemed like prey crouched in hiding. It slumbered deeply and serenely, which Tabitha herself should have been doing too.

Something moved in the shadows past the glass.

At first, she thought it was merely the moon peeking through shifting clouds, or the wiry frame of yet another hungry coyote on the prowl. As she pressed her face closer to the window, her blood ran cold.

It looked just as the man had described it — a shadow turned solid, its figure human yet devoid of any other such features. It slinked from the porch of a house halfway down the street, house that Tabitha recognized by its position alone. Rebecca’s home.

She threw her satchel over her shoulder and was already rummaging through it as she burst through the doors. What her fingers sought after, she did not know. She hadn’t quite figured out how to take advantage of magic for such feats of action. While it aided a mage in finding the culprit of a theft, it was still the constables doing the chasing and catching.

The shadowy figure snapped its head in her direction, and abruptly changed course, heading back where it came from, disappearing around the apothecary. Tabitha pushed on, hiking up her skirts. She rounded the building, but the creature had vanished, lost to the night. The desert laid out plain and flat and with no place to hide, yet it was nowhere to be seen. Tabitha didn’t have time to spare for the disappointment of its narrow escape. Blood drummed a hectic rhythm in her ears, yet louder and wilder was the voice screaming at her to go find Rebecca.

Tabitha tried the knob. Locked. She pounded on the door. No answer. She could only think of one swift solution, drastic as it was.

The apothecary’s window display would do wonderfully, she decided as she reached for the chalk. Her hand shook ever so slightly, but the rune came out neatly. The magic spread from the rune like vines, splitting the glass in its wake. Tabitha climbed through the now empty frame, heels clattering sharply on the broken glass. She called out Rebecca’s name, and after a few tries was met by a pitiful whimper of an answer. She fled up the stairs, and there she found her.

She was curled up against the wall, shivering in a damp nightgown that clung on like a second skin. Tabitha fell to her knees next to her, cupping her flushed face, worryingly hot against her palms. Rebecca looked back at her with pained, liquid green eyes, her breath coming laboriously through parted lips.

“You weren’t supposed to see me like this,” she murmured.

“You’re right,” Tabitha tried to reign in her voice. It threatened to dissolve into tears at any moment. “I failed you.” Rebecca shook her head, still cradled between Tabitha’s hands, but she went on, “I promise to you, whatever it takes, I’ll make it right. Now, where’s the medicine?”

Tabitha helped Rebecca back into her bed before rushing to fetch the stoppered bottle from the workshop. She found it on the workbench, among a disarray of papers. She held her head as she drank, then nestled next to her, brushing aside the ringlets that stuck limply to her temple.

When frissons no longer shook her frame, she glanced up with a rueful smile. “It seems you will have to stay longer.” Her voice was barely more than a whisper.

Tabitha snorted softly. “I was going to stay, regardless. I had just finished writing the letter to the Institution to inform them of my decision when…” Tabitha stopped, dug her teeth into her lip. “Did you catch a glimpse of it?”

Rebecca nodded. “As Mr. Ahlborn described it.”

Tabitha sighed. “I’ll catch it. And once I do,” she brushed her knuckles against Rebecca’s cheek. It had cooled down to a more reasonable temperature. “I shall send that letter.”

Rebecca didn’t reply; instead, she rested her head on Tabitha’s chest. The rush had faded, and weariness overcame her. As she tried to fall asleep, she painted runes behind her eyelids, resolute to see this through. She resolved to check on the broken ward in the morning, even if she knew what she’d find.

***

Tabitha could smell the pungent telltale smoke of cigars before she even heard the clang of the sheriff’s boots.

She was crouching down in front of the rune she had started from. She had, in fact, circled the town twice in her verification, and her mind was still whirling around the awful realization she had come to.

“Those runes of you failed yet again, eh?” the sheriff drawled. “What do they teach you at that Institution?”

The runes were perfect. Precisely, confidently, fluidly drawn. She’d get the highest mark at the Institution, if only they were not of her own design.

She huffed, clenched her jaw. “The runes are intact.”

“So? The bastard still broke through.”

Tabitha jumped to her feet and spun around. “So, if the runes are intact,” she snapped, “the creature could not have broken through them. It was already inside town.”

The cigar hung limply from the corner of his mouth, and his brow creased deeply. It was the most serious she had ever seen him since stepping foot in this town. It mellowed her somewhat.

“It is a very concerning revelation, that’s for certain, but we should not alert the townsfolk just yet.” The sheriff didn’t interrupt, so Tabitha went on to detail her plan. Keep quiet on the matter for the moment and conduct a quiet town wide search for the creature — but the man stalked off with big, determined steps, leaving her talking to a trail of cigar smoke.

Tabitha hastened to catch up, fruitlessly calling after the man, who didn’t stop until he reached the middle of the town and, taking out his pistol, aimed at the sky. Tabitha covered her ears just in time.

“Everyone, OUT!”

Quick as soldiers called to battle, the townsfolk, healthy and sick alike, trickled out onto the street, forming an attentive circle around the sheriff.

“The creature is in inside town, so Miss Mage over here and I are going to search the whole of it for that bastard.” A ripple of disbelief and horror washed over the crowd.

Miss Mage over here was fuming harder than his cigar and wished to give the sheriff a piece of her mind — that was, until her gaze fell on Rebecca in the crowd. Her pale face was painted with an uncharacteristic fear, and it made her chest constrict. Tabitha took a deep breath, dug her nails into her palms and bit her tongue. She had to put up with this, for her, and for all these people.

***

“That infuriating man!” Tabitha paced the length of Rebecca’s parlor. The wood creaked, as if echoing her complaints. She feared she’d eventually wear off the boards completely. “He did the opposite of what I told him. I was only going to confide in you,” her tone softened on the word before returning to her diatribe, “yet he went on and plunged the town into chaos. And on top of this all, we haven’t even found anything.” She stopped in her tracks. The fury that had fueled her throughout the day had faded away. Even one more step could drain her completely.

At length, she said, “I’m an utter disaster.” The words were quiet, defeated, ready to be swallowed by the surrounding darkness.

“No.”

Tabitha startled. In the dim light of the candles, Rebecca’s eyes smoldered. With each passing hour since the attack, Rebecca had become frailer and paler, like a porcelain doll ready to break. Hearing the resolution in her voice relieved Tabitha and restored a flicker of her own determination. “We should call it a night.”

Rebecca nodded and heaved herself from the armchair up on wobbling legs. Tabitha wrapped an arm around her waist — it felt small and dainty and oh so breakable — and gently steered her towards the stairs. They walked slowly, Rebecca’s breath coming shorter than normal. She wished she could make it easier for her.

Tabitha was far from athletic, but she had carried her fair share of heavy books back at the Institution, and she figured she must somehow manage up merely one flight of stairs. Readjusting her grip on Rebecca, she slipped one arm under her knees and picked her up. She gasped softly, and Tabitha staggered under the realization that her frail state had made her look deceivingly light. Still, Tabitha regained her footing by sheer determination and slowly headed up the stairs, hoping gravity wouldn’t decide to ruin her plan.

Rebecca protested that she could walk on her own, but her conviction was questionable when her face was pressed against Tabitha’s shoulder.

She laid her down in bed and joined her; as she did, Tabitha reckoned she was loathe to return to her hotel chamber, even after Rebecca had recovered. Recovery seemed so far away, anyway, as she looked at the woman. Her chest rose and fell quickly, sweat beading her sheet white forehead.

“You will be fine,” Tabitha whispered, a reassurance to both herself and Rebecca. She found her hand and twined her fingers with hers.

“I wish it were so.”

Tabitha squeezed her hand. “The others are better, and so you shall be too.”

The smile Rebecca offered in response was bittersweet.

Tabitha watched her until her eyelids were too heavy, and slumber stole her away.

***

Tabitha was dreaming that she was drowning. The freezing water filled her lungs and prickled her skin like a thousand needles. Vicious undercurrent pulled at her, trying to bring her to the unfathomable depths of the water.

She kicked. She kicked her legs and flailed her arms. Her chest felt as if it was about to burst open, but she pushed on kicking and flailing. As she broke the surface of the water, she woke up, gasping, shivering and damp. And although she could feel the sheet tangled between her legs instead of gripping currents, every frantic breath she took still blazed a searing ice-cold track to her lungs. There was something wrong with the very air of the room, something dreadful yet familiar, and as her eyes adjusted to the darkness, she could make it out, a shadow deeper than the ones clinging to the corners of the rooms. Hovering above her like an ominous cloud. It had no eyes within its shadowy form, with seams undefined, continuously slithering and blurring, but its unseen gaze bore into her all the same.

It was draining her. Insidious fingers of magic pulling at her very core. She had to get it off her before it emptied her. She tried to raise her arm, but it was as if swimming against a current. Still, she pushed, and pushed, until both her arms came up, fingers grazing icy wisps of shadow. She gave one more push and now it was her looming over the gloom. Fingers found purchase in the depths of its writhing form and grabbed. It twitched and twisted in her grip, razor-sharp coolness lashing out at her. The Institution did not teach one to grapple with mysterious shadowy creatures, but she’d be damned if she let it go yet again. She needed to trap it, but to do so, she needed chalk and a rune and, most importantly, free hands that she could not spare.

“Rebecca, quick!” She looked over her shoulder but was met with an empty bed. Her fingers, gone numb from the cold, tightened against the creature. It felt more solid now. “What did you do to her, you bast — ” She choked on the word as she looked back at the creature, for the answer lay before her very eyes.

Where the creature had been pinned underneath her mere moments ago now stood Rebecca, wrists captured in Tabitha’s iron grip. Warm skin too hot under Tabitha’s numbed fingers. The color had returned to her cheeks, and the eyes that met hers, wide with terror, no longer looked like dull jade. Tabitha jumped back against the damp pillow. The cold had seeped under her skin, spreading through her veins, settling in the pit of her stomach, and freezing her brain into one single, frantic survival instinct. No matter how much she tried, she could not corral her thoughts to form a logical explanation, because there was no other than the one in front of her.

Rebecca reached forward, moving effortlessly now. Tabitha pulled back, falling off the bed and onto the floor like a sack of potatoes. She ran on weak and heavy legs that did not feel like her own, stumbling and leaning on walls, her dash more akin to the erratic tumble of a bouncing ball. She ran, the soles of her bare feet burning against the rough gravel of the road, until she finally collapsed on the steps of the sheriff’s house. The wooden stairs let out a bone-weary moan that drowned out her own, and made her presence known.

The door swung open, revealing the man himself. Even at this time of the night, an unlit cigar hung at the corner of his mouth.

She didn’t need to say anything. She wasn’t sure she even could, between her ragged breathing.

The sheriff reached back inside the house. “Where’s the bastard?”

Any words she might summon from her dry throat faded in a whimper. Her gaze locked on the rifle, on the hand gripping its barrel with whitening knuckles, on the finger hovering resolutely over the trigger. She pressed her lips into a grim line to keep them from trembling and pointed away with a weak arm.

“You better get back inside.” The sheriff then took off into the night, in the opposite direction of Rebecca’s house.

“I can handle myself,” she murmured, fueled by an inkling of tired anger.

Tabitha waited for her chest to fall in a manner more resembling of calm, forehead pressed against her forearm. She felt cold despite her skin blazing like a fire, pressure pounding relentlessly against her temples. Her soles throbbed, but most painful of all was her aching heart.

She could still not quite make sense of what had happened. Rebecca had been there beside her every step of the investigation. Had she been trying to throw her off the trace? But then, why speak so freely of her magical inclinations? Why help her when she could not make sense of the magic, when she might have let her fumble in the dark?

She looked back at the apothecary. It loomed in the dark, lonely and sad. And, she hoped, holding the answers she craved.

She entered quietly. The house was eerily still and did not seem to rouse even as the floor creaked lightly under her feet. She didn’t even look at the stairs. She feared that if she did, she’d climb them up to find her. Instead, she moved towards Rebecca’s study.

She’d been in there before, many times. Lately, however, Rebecca had been keeping her away from it. Sending her on errands, insisting on shouldering everything herself. She’d assumed the doctor felt disproportionally responsible for the wellbeing of her patients, but Tabitha doubted it now.

She lit the oil lamp on the table, its faint golden glow revealing an even messier scene than the one she had witnessed the night before. Papers and bottles haphazardly strewn across the workbench, open cabinet doors. But her attention was drawn to the leather-bound journal sitting open amidst it all. The last entry was recorded that day, written in Rebecca’s spiky calligraphy, if clumsy and hasty.

Condition: Unstable. Weak. Must feed.

Trial no. ???: Small improvements. Perhaps could get better results, but don’t have time.

The last period was a blotch of ink where the pen had furiously pierced the page.

Tabitha skimmed to earlier recordings, eyes scanning over roughly drawn runes and recipes of potions. Rows upon rows of detailed notes, interwoven with short, to the point reports. She went all the way to the first trial.

Something went wrong.

“I suppose you know now.”

Tabitha jumped, spinning around quick enough to lose balance. She stumbled back against a cabinet; the bottles inside clattered fretfully.

Rebecca stood in the doorframe, her eyes glinting sharply from within the shadows.

“You did this to yourself.” It wasn’t an accusation, merely a conclusion.

Rebecca tilted her head, lips twisting in a bitter line.

“I wanted to surpass modern medicine. I wanted to overlook the guidelines imposed by the Institution. Maladies here, they can be unexpected…I wanted to counter that with better remedies. I’d never dream of experimenting on my patients though, so,” she inhaled, long and weary, “so what better option than myself?” She advanced, slowly, as Tabitha had done with the various little critters that had wandered into her traps. Her eyes flickering over Tabitha, over her face and her shoulders, looking out for the telltale signs that she’d bolt away. Or perhaps looking for acceptance, for understanding. Tabitha found both pulling overwhelmingly at her, leaving her rooted to the spot in a conflicted equilibrium.

“I never wanted to hurt anyone,” Rebecca whispered. “Least of all you.”

Those were all the words needed for one pull to completely overtake the other. “Why didn’t you ask me for help?” She reached out to take Rebecca’s hands into hers. She was met with cold, hard metal.

“I did not want you to think me a monster.” Warm fingers covered her own, guiding her hand from the cool barrel to the wooden grip of the gun. Tabitha was shaking her head before Rebecca could even utter the words. “But I am one. So please, do it. For the town, for yourself. For me.” Her voice struggled to remain steady with each word, like cracks spreading across ice that just barely holds itself together before the moment it all comes undone. “Wrap up the investigation and return home. You can still redeem yourself.” In the dark, Rebecca’s eyes gleamed with unshed tears.

Tabitha wanted to wipe her tears away before they even had the chance to fall. But Rebecca took a step back, then another and another. Putting enough distance between them for Tabitha to take the shot.

She stared down at the revolver in her hands. Held loosely, as if may go off on its own, barrel pointing down. It trembled — her hands trembled. She was choking on her tears, every breath drowning her.

A gun! What a ridiculous thought. Wasn’t Rebecca the one who so flippantly denounced the sheriff’s disposition to shoot at anything magical? Did she have this somewhere in a drawer, did she get it just for this? Had she taken it out before and wondered if she should just pull the trigger?

Tabitha’s mind raced. She couldn’t do it. She couldn’t lift it. She wouldn’t. There had to be something else that could be done. She thought of the succession of trial and error in Rebecca’s notebook, each new failure jotted down with increasing desperation.

Twisted, bitter desperation, because she’d exhausted any route she might take. Tried everything, every rune, every potion.

Tried everything except asking for help.

The revolver felt like a boulder. But it certainly did not feel like a solution.

“You’ve seen the consequences in both of us choosing irregular methods, but don’t keep yourself willfully blind to the good we’ve done. Remember what I told you, what got me here?”

Rebecca’s throat bobbed. Tears glistened on it, wetted her collar. “You saved that girl’s life. But what good have I done, Tabitha?”

“Your concoction is slowly but surely helping people.”

Rebecca’s laugh was strained and wry. “Yes, a solution for a problem I made in the first place.”

Tabitha put down the pistol. She crossed the distance before Rebecca could protest and took her face in her palms. It was flooded with a hopeful bewilderment. “I’m not giving up on you, Rebecca.” She inhaled deeply, but still could not keep her voice from breaking. “I care too much about you. I made a promise to you, and I intend to keep it.” She held her gaze, willing Rebecca to see what she felt. That iron-clad determination, and the tenderness of her affection, which bloomed from her chest and spilt into every crevice of her being.

Rebecca’s hands came up over Tabitha’s. Fresh tears welled up in her eyes. But these were not bitter. She didn’t reply; instead, she surged forward. Their lips collided almost painfully, with urgent and aching need. Rebecca melted into Tabitha’s arms, surrendering to her offer of help with grateful abandon. She needn’t say it, not when her mouth moved so keenly, her warm fingers intertwining with Tabitha’s cool ones.

A raucous shot split the night.

Rebecca jerked back. “Was that the sheriff?”

Tabitha grimaced. “It…was. It’s my fault. But I know how to stop him. How to put this entire matter to rest.” Her limbs were still heavy and her skin feverish, but nothing could trump her boundless determination.

“How?”

Tabitha smiled. “A little bit of illusion work. The sheriff can’t tell a rune from a scribble, anyway.”

***

Later that night, when crimson sunlight crept low on the horizon, Tabitha found the sheriff, cigar by now half-burned yet still diligently puffing away. The man stalked down the street, ready to shoot at any shadows, and she urged him to come where the creature had been trapped in one of her wards. He stoically rushed to the rescue and emptied his barrel on the gloomy cloud. And the creature writhed and squirmed until it dispelled like mist.

“Your ward did work, after all.” Tabitha couldn’t even bring herself to be mad at his tone. Not when she saw the flash of white from within the shadows at the edge of the town. Rebecca’s smile. “Say, will you head back to San Francisco now?”

Tabitha smiled back. She didn’t look at the sheriff as she answered, “No, I don’t think I will. I’ve grown too fond of the weirdness.”