There's nothing to be done about the state of things. There's nothing she can do, anyway. There's just an endless march of event after event until she finds herself trapped deep down under the earth, between living and dead. She is always between living and dead. It's the state of humanity; it's the state of Tiff Sheridan.
She wakes with Andy curled into her and his arms around her, with Kepler near her head, with a thousand things wrong and no way to fix them. Waking up tired is nothing new, but waking up jaded is a terrifying deviation from the norm.
What can be done about it? Nothing.
She doesn't want to solve the mystery anymore. She realizes it with her head on the lopsided pillow, looking up at the ceiling. She just wants all of this to be over.
Drew went to bed at the foot of where she and Andy were laying. Somehow, Aunt Esther ended up in the same bed. It should be comforting— but what about the kicking? What about Kepler touching people's teeth? Maybe none of it matters, when it comes down to it.
She extricates herself from the pile, bringing Kepler with her. She holds him in her arms like he's a stupid little baby. She was the stupid little baby all along. Awake now, he looks up at her. Hope.
She shakes her head. There is no hope here.
Sitting at the table, she slides on one boot and ties it with quick and angry fingers. It's odd to wake up like this— the want to back out, to not want to see things through to the end. It's a "let's get this over with" malaise. There's no joy in the process anymore; there's just an endless knowledge that the only thing to be done is to end it. The next step is the next good thing; the only way out is through.
Chosen One malaise— but she is not chosen. She volunteered. She doesn't even have the right to feel like this.
Tiff pulls on her other boot, shoves her foot deep down into it, tries her hardest to keep quiet in the early morning gloom. She grabs a granola bar from the box on the dresser, grabs a second one based on instinct, shoves her notes into her bag, and scoops up Kepler in the same motion as her jacket. She goes to let herself out, not thinking much more than that she needs to get out of here.
She gets ten feet down the hall with Kepler dozing in her arms again before the door opens. She pauses, not sure if she wants to turn around and risk losing her nerve, or keep going and risk alienating whoever left sleep behind to come after her. Both are selfish. Where, then, is the greater good?
Knowing that she can't keep it up forever, Tiff turns around slowly, with breath caught in her throat. Everything in her screams that she doesn't want to do this.
It's Drew. He's still in his pajamas, holding the keys in his hands. "What the hell are you doing?"
"I'm going to confront the Mystery Lady and end all of this once and for all," she whispers, feeling mostly hollow and kind of annoyed. "What the hell else would I be doing?"
"Well, could you wait?
"I'm just going to walk."
"Tiff, you're being insane."
"I am not being insane."
"You're not walking there."
"Why not?"
"It's like fifteen miles away! At least!"
"You don't think I could walk that before sunrise?"
"You're a lot of things, Tiff, but you're not Superman."
"Superman wouldn't need to walk. He can fly."
"Oh, shut up."
"If that's it, then—" She turns to leave.
"Wait, wait—" He holds up a hand. "Hold on."
"Holding. Not for much longer."
"There's a lot happening. We don't have a way out to the woods to mount our assault anyway. Mom needs the car. We can't take it and we're not walking there, so— I'm going to go get my stuff and find a minute to call Matt and wake him up."
"I'm just... I'm just going to go outside. I don't know what I'm doing. I just know I can't do nothing." She pauses, groans. "Fine. I'll wait. I'll go outside and I'll wait."
"Ten minutes, Tiff. Just ten minutes."
"Ten minutes is an eternity."
"Yeah, well, you're not going into the woods by yourself, so suck it up and hold on."
"Absolutely not. I'm, uh... I'm going to walk to the general store and grab myself some breakfast. I don't want to be inside anymore. These walls are going to kill me."
"Could you get me a muffin?"
"I guess, if they have muffins?"
"Why wouldn't they have muffins?"
"They're not a bakery, Drew."
He pinches the bridge of his nose in the way his mother does. "Fine. Okay. If they have muffins, will you get me one?"
"Yeah, I'll get you one." She pauses, remembering something she forgot. "Will you grab my contacts?
"Why don't you come back inside and take care of that yourself?"
She doesn't say anything. They both know she isn't going to do that.
Drew groans. "Yeah, fine. I'll grab them for you."
"Okay. Don't forget your armor. Or your bat. Or—"
"I'll remember, Tiff. I'll remember."
"Okay. Sure. Thank you." She turns quickly before she can say anything more or worse, and exits the hotel. It's all she can do to keep it together.
Tiff shoves her fists in her pockets and leaves the motel. She clips Kepler to his leash, harness, and her hip. What's the point of pretending anymore? It's winter in Florida. It's hot as hell. She takes off Despina's jacket— or maybe it's Janus's, or maybe it's just hers now— and shoves it down into her bag. She chews on the thought some more. What's the point of pretending to be nice and pious and a good person? Nobody around here respects her anyway. Nobody here thinks she's worth remembering or thinking about when she isn't here. Nobody gives a shit— so why should she?
It's Florida. It's December. She cut the sleeves off her shirt and she doesn't give a shit if the whole world sees the burns on her bare shoulder.
She heads down the street. Alien rats and blasphemy. She is God's mistake— or, rather, she is the mistake gods make. So why shouldn't she show them just how much of a mistake she is? Sword on one hip, and empty place where her ray gun should be on the other. Ray guns, rats, blasphemy— she steps into the goddamn general store to get her cousin a goddamn muffin. If something's going to happen, it had better reconsider. Ray guns, rats, blasphemy, muffins.
She tracks them down: cheap packages of off-brand snack cake blueberry muffins. What do normal people eat? Is this a good thing to call Denny about? She would make her normal bad decisions vis a vis caffeine, but they don't sell that kind of thing here. This town is stuck in the past. It's stuck in its own pasts, and it's only ever the ideal version. It's the one where war heroes come home and don't kill random mystery women and girls don't randomly go missing. It's the version where everyone is straight and normal and there's no need to fix anything because nothing is broken. Nobody gets hurt. Everyone is content.
Tiff slams her purchases down on the counter: a caffeine-free Coke in a glass bottle, two packages of dry, crumbling muffins, whatever the hell Kepler thought was a good idea. She tries to snap herself out of it. Thinking her way out of a thought issue isn't working.
She used to love this place. This used to be home. This used to be the snowglobe she shook before bed. Like the rest of this godforsaken De Santis-controlled state, it was all just nostalgia. There was no going back. Once she's done here, she might never come back at all.
Andy certainly shouldn't. He's had a hell of a time here. He doesn't need to go through more for the sake of being kind, turning the other cheek, and keeping the peace. For his own sake, she hopes the two of them can just... leave. Siblings. Hand in hand. This town doesn't deserve them.
She doesn't exchange any conversation with the cashier. She knows him; she has seen him at church before. He gives her an odd look— the sword on the hip, the rat on the ground, the jaded look in her eye— but says nothing but the total.
She should say something. She should burn this place to the ground. She should go on a classic Tiff Tirade.
Tiff has had customers go off on her about all sorts of things, though. She doesn't need to lay it at the feet of Gregory, heir to the general store. He has enough on his plate, doesn't he? Wars are not won with paying for your muffins.
So she exits and goes to sit at the curb, leans against the side of the building between one establishment and the next, playing the delinquent her mother always warned her against.
It takes a bit of time for Matt to show up. When he does, Drew is already in the front seat. Wordlessly, he hands Tiff her glasses while she climbs up into the backseat. It's not what she asked for. She buckles herself in and says nothing.
The ride goes like that for a while. Silence. Anger. Jaded contemplation. They already have their plan. There's no need to talk it over.
Something to slow down the bone creature. Something to close off the cave once it's inside. Something to bring the truth to light and expose the decomposing bodies in this family's closet. All secrets exposed. All monsters slain. All things as they should be.
Tiff looks out the window. The trees are green. She feels like they should be gray.
Time passes on like the turning of the truck's wheels, measured in songs played to pass the time but not sing along to. Drew's love for that one song by Bullet for My Valentine is outmatched by his own need to clench his hands into fists and unclench them just as quickly. Matt holds onto the steering wheel like he's trying to wring something's neck.
The world is spinning, the grass is green, and the sky is threatening to rain. It's always raining here. It has been this way for years. It has been this way since she came back from her first time almost dying in the woods. Maybe it has been this way for longer.
All Tiff wants is to leave this place and go to the goddamn beach. Stand in the waves, let the tide weaken her knees. Salt on her skin, sun on her hair, peace in the wind and ocean spray. A real, proper day at the beach. No fear. No mystery. Just building a sandcastle with Andy. Just burying her aunt in the sand while she reads. That's a family, right? That's a family.
"We're here." Matt parks under the tree again, slamming the truck to a halt. "Everybody out. We'll suit up properly when we get closer. Ease of movement and all that."
"What do we need to do?" Drew asks. "This isn't one of Tiff's Pathfinder games—"
"I don't play Pathfinder," she interrupts, still looking out the window at all the green. It gnaws at her. It isn't right.
"The fact that you watch Pathfinder streams is a little worse. My point being, we don't have shit like armor we would need to put on and take off, with the exception of what Matt gave me."
"And you got that armor yesterday."
"Yeah, Tiff, I know, I was there. Thank you for pointing out the obvious."
"Listen. My brain isn't working right now." She frowns, still looking out the window. "Cut me some slack."
"You're our expert here," Matt points out.
"I'm not really an expert. I'm just a research guy."
"My point being, we actually do need your brain firing on all cylinders."
"Well, I didn't sleep well last night. Dreamed about... something. None of your business. And I'm not— Things aren't going great. You know that. I can't snap myself out of it."
Matt turns around in his seat and looks at her. She can see it in the reflection on the window as she stares out of it. "We could always push this back."
"We're not going to. I am not going to Christmas and looking our grandfather in the eye. I'm not playing nice with my parents. I can't. I can't do it. Not anymore. Knowing what he's done— I can't stick around. I have to get out of here. And it isn't good for Andy to be here anymore, not with what happened last night. So it's now or never, and I would prefer now— even if I'm more useless than I usually am and, trust me, I'm fucking useless."
"It's up to you, Tiff."
"If it's up to me— and it shouldn't be, because nobody should ever trust me with a decision— then we should go in, take care of it, and expose the truth."
"There isn't much of anywhere that we could expose it."
"Well, we could at least tell Meemaw. Or I could. I'm already the most despised person in this family. Why not just go full ham ice cream and make it exponentially worse?"
"I don't hate you." In the front seat, Drew's voice is quiet, measured. "You're like a sister to me. I don't hate you."
"Yeah, I know," she says, entirely unconvinced and rolling her eyes a little. "You say it all the time."
"But do you get that I mean it? I don't think you get that I mean it."
"A cocky asshole? A murderer? A teenager following the path of the atomic scout? Yeah, sure."
"Shut up and take this." He pops open the glove compartment and pulls out a can. Black and green with a black tab— an apple-flavored energy drink. Drew shoves it at her like he won't take no for an answer.
That's fine. She wouldn't know how to say no, either. She accepts it gently with both hands like it's a relic of her family's past. Maybe it's more an artifact of the shiny new present, coming over and over and over the horizon, breaking through and through and through the trees.
She accepts it gingerly, two hands on a holy grail that makes her feel more loved by her cousin than she ever has by her mother. He knows her— knows she likes the taste and scent of apples, knows she likes the feeling of a can in her hand. He knows her and how she thinks, how she ticks, how she never actually wanted to go to Kansas.
"You should probably drink it." Drew pops open the door. "We'll get out of here eventually."
She sighs, pops the tab. "The only way out is through."
"Then we just have to get through it."
The three of them (and Kepler, under one of Tiff's arms) climb out and greet the day. Now is the time to seize it. She wants to wrap her hands around its throat.
Something rustles. Tiff's head doesn't snap to it, but Matt's does. It's coming from the truck of the bed. Quick as a flash, he moves around the side, plants a hand, and hops up into it. Before he does anything, he gives the two of them a look, like he wants a second opinion. Next to her, in her peripheral vision, Tiff can see Drew nod; she gives Matt a thumbs-up. Without a second more of hesitation, Matt pulls the tarp like a two-bit magician at a worse hotel, whisks it away like a bullfighter.
There isn't a bull under there. There's just a boy.
Tiff frowns around a mouthful of nothing. "Andy, what the hell."
It isn't a question, but he seems to want to give an answer. Caught, he sits up. "I know what you guys are doing. I saw that dead lady and I want to help and I can help. I brought my scouting backpack— I mean, I left it here by accident when Matt took me last week, but same difference— and I want to help. In whatever way I can."
"Absolutely not." Drew's voice is firm, stalwart. "I know I barely know you, but this past week getting to know you has been great— my point being that I'm not willing to put a kid in danger, even if they are Tiff's kid sibling."
"I have to agree with Drew on this one." Matt starts folding the tarp. "I don't want to put you in danger, bud. I care about you too much to let you get involved."
Andy looks to Tiff next— eyes big, eyes huge, eyes she would burn the whole world down for. "Come on, Tiff? Please?"
She sees something in those eyes. A message scrawled in Andy's handwriting: let me be brave.
She could say a thousand things. She remembers when Denny barred her from having a gun. She remembers Mr. Mathew being confused at her own decisions and trying to get her to be normal. But she also remembers Mr. Mathew willingly taking drugs with her in what they thought was the late Cretaceous. No responsible adult is truly responsible. And she barely counts as an adult.
Sighing, because she knows this is a horrible idea, she quotes someone she knows well. "'I'm not going to be able to stop her from participating, but I can sure as hell make sure she's safe when she does it.'"
Drew gives her a confused look. "What the fuck are you talking about?"
"It's— It's what Denny says about me sometimes. I've heard her talking to Aunt Esther. You can't stop someone from doing something they really want to do, but you can make sure they're aware of the consequences of their actions, they have something safe to fall back on, and they have room to grow from the experience and whatever mistakes they're bound to make. But like... not about alcohol or sex, but about hunting monsters, which is arguably more fun."
"Well, you're a virgin who's never had a drink—"
"I'm only one of those things."
"—so why the hell is that your philosophy?"
"That wasn't me, that was Denny."
"That dumbass has some weird opinions about teaching kids."
"Well, she also went to school for it."
"She went to school to be a PE teacher and she dropped out."
"Not because it was too hard! She was almost done!"
"Yeah, whatever."
"Whatever yourself! She's right. I'm right. We're not going to be able to keep Andy from following us—"
Matt completes the thought. "But if we take him with us, we can keep him safe."
"Exactly. Exactly! Listen. Denny has never once been able to keep me from doing weird shit—"
"Who is Denny?" Matt asks. "Is she your best friend or something?"
Tiff remembers a little too late that, in the stretch of time that she has been back in town, Matt never received that particular rant— not like Andy did, anyway. "No, my best friend is named Betty, and she's studying abroad. Denny is—
"Denny is a janitor I went to high school with that Tiff is really attached to for some reason," Drew finishes. "And she is weird. Don't try to say that she isn't weird."
"Oh, I wouldn't. She keeps dog food in her car and I'm not sure why, since she doesn't have a dog."
"Yeah, her mom wouldn't let her have one when we were kids."
"Probably a good idea. Considering."
"Yeah, probably. I'd trust you with a dog more than her."
"Oh, you shouldn't." The last time she meaningfully interacted with a dog, it was a stray at a rest stop somewhere in Louisiana that she fed pretzels to. (That probably wasn't a great idea.) The time before that was when Bongo the purse dog got partially eaten by a discontent harvest spirit and Tiff tossed his body into the woods. "Anyway, we should stop talking about Denny. My point was, we should bring Andy with us, and he can help with traps and things— and, who knows? Maybe this will ensure he doesn't develop a taste for it."