When she gets up in the morning, she tastes algae on her tongue. She tries not to think about the dreams— about flames crawling up her arms, catching on every bit of her body. She's pretty sure it has nothing to do with Priscilla.
She dresses quickly, almost silently in the dark so she can have a bit of time before they leave to go over her notes again and look for any sort of weakness on the part of the bone creature. She can't think of anything, though, other than the observed weak points in its movable joints. This isn't a Pathfinder game. She can't just Recall Knowledge and get some information from the unknown force that controls the universe. That thing hates her. Why would it want to help?
It isn't like she can test any of the black ichor from her clothes and look for weaknesses to exploit there. The only thing she can think of is that it might be weak to fire due to the fact that it's technically undead— but a necromantic construction, made intentionally or unintentionally and fueled by siphoning energy from the environment around it, is probably going to be different. She isn't even sure that the fire trick would work here. It isn't like she has the supplies and sheer scrap metal to make a flamethrower like she did in April. Her aunt didn't even pack a can of hairspray, so she can't even do it the way Drake always says she should.
Maybe she could filch one from her grandmother. She's always using it to put her hair up for all sorts of events— Thanksgiving, Christmas parties, all sorts of church events like potlucks and Sunday services. Maybe she can ask for some, get it into her greedy little hands.
Or she could just go to the store. That's also an option.
It's a problem she chews on in the car on the drive over. Cud to a cow, the issue lives between her molars.
At least the outside of the house smells like magnolias, and she can smell something sweet and fruity through the screen of the side kitchen window.
She assures herself, this is going to be fine. This is going to be great. She just has to stay away from her peepaw so she doesn't spill the beans and ruin the facadem and it'll all be fine. It'll be a normal Christmas Eve Eve, just like all the years before. She and Meemaw will bake and cut out cookies. They'll wrap presents while Bing Crosby croons over the radio in the corner of the kitchen between festive verses of scripture, sermons of Yuletide giving, and some minor War on Christmas conspiracism. Then they'll drive around town to deliver them to neighbors and congregants, and leave the rest for after dinner on Christmas Eve.
Those cookies were the closest she got to Santa as a kid. She mentioned that off-handedly to Denny one time, that Santa was strictly verboten in her household. Denny just about died of offense.
That's fine, though; Denny is one of those true Santa believers and, according to Miss Jessie, always has been. Tiff never was, but she supposes he's real insofar as he's probably some fae creature intent on dispersing treats and toys to children in return for payment through milk and baked goods or, perhaps, like the Halloween Men, a manifestation or incarnation of seasonal spirit. She isn't sure. She has never met the man. If Drew is right, she never will.
She doesn't even need to knock on the door. Aunt Esther unlocks it again and lets the rest of them in. Tiff takes off her shoes and jacket by the door and heads immediately for the kitchen— where her meemaw is and her peepaw won't be.
Meemaw Hilda is already hard at work in there, with her apron covered in flour and her hands crusted in sugar. Tiff loves the sight of it and, briefly, wishes she had the focus to do things like this. Baking. Cooking. Any of it. Aunt Esther does it all the time, when she's up to it and the work at Jaded Paradise doesn't take too much out of her. It's a scent of comfort and knowing your only real parent hasn't been kidnapped by shadows. Unfortunately, Tiff has never had the focus for it, no matter how much she loves being in the kitchen, with her aunt or with Betty's mom, sitting on the counter and talking, whisk or wooden spoon in hand. It's a type of serenity.
The lab is similar, but that's her playground. It's the place where she's in control, where focus comes naturally and easily, where the whirring of machinery brings her back to life. A stand mixer is a type of machine. A stove is a type of machine. She breathes in as easily as anything.
It's a good experience and a good afternoon. Tiff finds herself laughing more than she thought she could, letting herself go, decorating cookies oddly just because she can and her meemaw thinks it's charming. When her cousin and younger brother show up, they split off— Matt to the backyard to engage in a little good-old-fashioned Christmas roughhousing with Drew (they're just trying to assemble the tree), Andy to the kitchen to join his sister, aunt, and grandmother. It's a wonderful scene, with Meemaw Hilda as a whirlwind of motion, Aunt Esther latticing a pie to freeze and bake later, Tiff alternating between closing hand pies and decorating sugar cookie snowflakes at the table, and Andy slotting in easily with delicate crystals of colored sugar from the bottles in the spice cabinet. Old habits and new co-mingle amid songs and sleigh bells on the radio and stories swapped and laughter shared.
If she doesn't think about it, she finds herself genuinely smiling and happy, maybe for the first time since she got here. When Andy smiles the way he used to, when her grandmother sings off-key— it's enough to get her to understand what they say in church when they say the kitchen is a holy place, a hearth of familial love and care. Even if it's tainted by what her grandfather has done and the church's weird opinions about the kitchen being meant for women, it's still there. It's inescapable. For once, she isn't running away from it.
She holds up the latest completed cookie— a divergence from the norm, a snowflake decorated like a Newtonian atom, with bits of green mixed from a little blue and way too much yellow. Grining, she turns it to show her aunt and Andy.
Aunt Esther nods, seemingly pleased by it. (Good. Tiff doesn't know what she would do if her aunt disapproved.) Andy nods, too, and shows her a little snowman. He didn't decorate it well, but it isn't like that matters. It's Christmas Eve Eve. It's going to get eaten anyway. Some way or another, someone is going to eat it. And they'll love it as much as she does.
Andy, behind his glasses, narrows his eyes at her.
Tiff isn't sure why, at first. She's sure she looks a sight anyway— black t-shirt covered in flour from rolling out dough, glasses pushed up and back into her hair— but that isn't it. After a second, he asks, "I've been thinking about this all day. What happened to your eye?"
"Oh. Well." She struggles in her search for a lie. "Nothing."
"It's clearly not nothing."
"Andy, it doesn't matter." She knows he isn't going to accept that as an answer, but she doesn't have a better one. It isn't like she can tell the truth. He may have heard some of it the day before when she was trying to get him out of the woods, but that doesn't mean she has to explain— and it doesn't mean she has to let everyone in the room in on what's going on. Meemaw Hilda certainly doesn't need to know. Peepaw, wherever he is, doesn't need to know more than he already does. Aunt Esther is probably worried enough about the things that have been going on. She doesn't need to know the details of what she couldn't do.
But Andy knows her tells as well as she knows his. It's a side effect of growing up the way they did. Lying to their parents just to keep the peace means they know— not that he would need some deep, cosmic understanding of Tiff as a person to know she's trying to deflect.
She sighs at his frowning, and can't stand to disappoint him. Tiff leans in, whispers, "I just got hurt. It isn't anything to worry about, I promise. I'm fine. I'm just clumsy." She pauses again. Knowing the kid is prone to worry, she adds, "Nobody hurt me. I promise. It was a gun mishap. That's all."
He still frowns deeper, as if he doesn't quite believe her. (He shouldn't.) "Okay. If you say so, Tiff. I don't think I believe you, but if you say so."
"You could ask Matt. He was there."
"He could be in on it."
Tiff laughs gently and messes up his hair. "You worry too much, bud."
Aunt Esther scoffs, "You're one to talk."
"You're one to talk!"
"Okay, so we all worry too much." Andy flicks the lid of the sugar crystal bottle onto the table. "So what? One day—"
"It'll ultimately be fine." Tiff pauses. "And the universe will hurtle toward its heat death, but I don't think we could fix that."
"You could."
"With what?"
He pauses, stammers, "Hanger."
"A hanger? A plastic hanger?"
"We save the world with absurdism, Tiff! A coat hanger! Wire!"
"I know what wire hangers are used for."
"Tiff!" Aunt Esther scolds, more laughing than angry. (She's right. Tiff should know better than to say that kind of thing in her grandmother's kitchen.) She flicks a fingerful of flour over the table at her niece.
Tiff doesn't bother to dodge it. She just lets it happen, and lets the afternoon creep closer to sundown.
At that point, the baking is done and the decoration is all but finished. The cookies are all but packed up; the pies are set aside to be baked tomorrow.
She hates to admit it, but her aunt was right. She needed this. This is the most normal she has felt in months. Since November, everything has been nonstop Dream World shenanigans and transformations into frogs and fighting zombies and Denny's dad and all of this— Maybe her aunt is right about everything. Even if you're deeply, entirely entrenched in the supernatural, you still have to live your normal life.
Sooner or later, your normal life will catch up to you— or, what it used to be will. Or, what you're scared of. Or, what you still wish you had even though you know you shouldn't. Or the end of all things, the beginning of something horrible.
Her father rounds the corner through a door Tiff didn't know was open while she's struggling to tie a ribbon around a saran-wrapped plate of cookies. She tries not to freeze. She tries not to notice him at all.
That's impossible. You can never truly ignore the elephant in the room. It will only make his presence more known, even as your fingers grow less nimble and more frustrated.
Neat brown hair and thick glasses, a sweater vest and a lavender shirt with no flour: he stands out in a room full of Cains and children. Maybe not enough— if he were somewhere else, he might sink into the background, despite the height and the soft way he moves.
Tiff has often wondered about the other side of her family. She never met them. This is all she has, isn't it? It's a bleak way of looking at it. She knows what they have done— so why does she still want them to love her? What's the point of all this? What is the point of her being around at all? She unties the ribbon and starts again.
To his credit, her presence gives him pause. "Oh. Tiff."
"Hey, Dad." She doesn't look at him. She doesn't know if she can. Is it weird to want to hug him? Is it weird to fear he'll do the same thing her mother did?
"Uh— how have you been?" He asks it even though this isn't the time or place.
"Fine." She tries to say something else, but doesn't get the chance.
Her mother comes in like a determined whirlwind, smelling of floral hand sanitizer and vanilla lotion. "Herman, come on. We're going to be late."
Snapped out of whatever state had overcome him, Herman nods and looks to his son. "Andy, it's time to go."
Andy tries, to his credit, not to seem bummed.
Ruth looks over the top of the counter between herself and Tiff. "I told you. Remember what I told you."
"I didn't do anything." She tries her hardest to keep her voice level. "We were just decorating cookies."
"Don't lie to me."
"I'm not lying. We just decorated cookies and now I'm going to drive Meemaw Hilda around to deliver them. I didn't do anything wrong." Horror of all horrors, she punctuates it with what barely counts as a scowl— which she shouldn't do. She knows she shouldn't do that.
Her father makes sure of that. He grabs her by the shoulders and turns her. He isn't a strong man, but he catches her off guard. He does it quickly enough that she isn't sure what to do. "Tiffany May Sheridan, you do not talk to your mother like that. Apologize. Now."
"I— I'm sorry." She doesn't move, except for trying to take a step back. It doesn't work.
Aunt Esther slams her hands on the table as she stands, before she storms over. "Herman, what the fuck?"
Ruth gives her a level, steeled gaze over the counter. "Esther, don't interfere with him disciplining our daughter. He's right. She can't disrespect her parents like that."
"Absolutely not." She storms over—
And Tiff gets it. She gets that her aunt is strong where Tiff herself is weak, that she puts herself between the two of them, that there's a hand on Tiff's chest just as there's a hand on her father's. Gentle and firm and everything and everything. The puzzle isn't complete yet, but she just stuck a chunk in the middle.
"Knock it off," her aunt seethes, voice level and carrying the weight of years of threats.
Ruth crosses around the corner to the kitchen, storming on bare feet. "You are not going to tell us how to discipline our daughter. You aren't even supposed to be here, you whore," she spits, and the damp little droplets hit Tiff instead. (She flinches. Her aunt doesn't.)
"Call me what you will, Ruth." Her sister's name becomes a curse in her mouth. "But you're not going to talk to my kid that way. You lost that right when you kicked her out."
Ruth opens her mouth to say something, but Esther cuts her off by talking over her.
"And don't call me a whore, you hypocrite. Don't forget we all know you got pregnant out of wedlock, too. While you were skiing, no less. Your hands are just as stained as mine. We're all whores here. Except Andy. And Mom. And maybe Tiff."
Tiff shakes her head.
"Tiff, hon, you're not helping. My point being— you're not better than us, and you don't get to treat Tiff like she's a muddy little pig fit for slaughter. You don't get to treat her the way you used to." She presses Herman's chest, shoving him just a little. "Not anymore. She's not your kid. She's mine."
Tiff knows what comes next— or what should. A raised hand. Discipline. Right?
Wrong.
It never comes. Ruth looks conflicted, then trapped. It's odd. Tiff isn't sure she has ever seen her mother like that.
Instead of responding to Aunt Esther, Tiff's mother turns her head to the side and snaps, "Come on, Andy. It's time to go. Now."
He nods, says nothing. She repeats it and he snaps to attention, looking like he's on the verge of tears.
As soon as the moment began, it ends. Her family is gone, and her family is still there, and Tiff is still half-frozen by the kitchen sink.
Still shaking with rage, Esther looks at her mother— which means Tiff looks, too. More frail and gray than she has ever looked, she's standing by the stove, hands frozen around plastic wrap and ribbon, clutching scissors like a lifeline.
She keeps her voice soft. "I'm sorry about that, Mom. We'll finish cleaning up here, and then, uh... get out of your hair. I'll go find Matt and Drew to help out. I think they're messing around with, uh— with cattails. The tree should be up now, anyway. I'm going for a walk."
Esther doesn't say anything else and doesn't wait for her mother to say anything. She just exits the kitchen and heads for the back door.
And then there are two frozen people in the kitchen who have know clue what they're supposed to be doing.
It takes her a second, but Tiff manages to stammer, "I— I'm sorry."
A moment of silence. Then, "I think it's best if you go."
"Do you want me to clean up?"
Her grandmother shakes her head. "Just go. I'll clean up."
"I'm sorry."
"I know you are." It's not enough.
She nods. She doesn't say anything. Leaving the cookies on the counter, she heads for the front door. She tries not to look at the out-of-place Newtonian snowflake on the plate she had been assembling. She tries not to forget her shoes.