Matt goes down first. It's almost like he was meant to climb like this, haphazard and on a leash or some sort of makeshift rope, all control and levelheadedness. Gone is the confusion and near-terror at Kepler and whatever the hell Tiff is doing and refusing to explain. It has been replaced entirely by an overwhelming sense that, unlike his cousin, Matt knows exactly what he's doing before he does it.
Tiff has no clue why. Maybe it's the control offered to him by years of dancing. Adrianna needed a partner initially after being put in dance classes as a little kid, and Matt was kind of the only boy of a comparable age who was around and willing. If Adrianna is gone, though, maybe those skills haven't been put to use in a very long time.
Tiff shakes her head to clear it. Kepler jumps into the hole before she can stop him. The gentle squeak followed by soft cursing and the sound of water splashing is her signal that he has landed.
This is stupid. She doesn't need someone to spot her. She just needs to get in the fucking hole with her camera and notebook to figure out what the hell is going on here and how she can remedy it, if it even needs remedying at all.
No, she knows, as she starts her descent. There is no issue to solve here. Nobody has been hurt. Nothing has been destroyed. She doesn't need to get to the bottom of this for the sake of others. More likely, she just needs a distraction.
Maybe it's all the morose introspection and the sigh that comes with it that ruins the moment. Tiff herself might not fall— but her phone certainly does. It tumbles from the pocket of her jacket when she's about ten feet off the ground; it hits the ground and the water coating it. The back pops off with the case, exposing the lithium battery.
She frowns. This is as good a time as any to drop off the wall and let the leash hang. She lands in a crouch and comes up out of it, looking up at the sliver of sky she can see at the top of the hole. There's no salvaging the phone.
Matt gathers it up anyway and wipes off what he can on his jeans before he hands it back to her. "Do you think it's going to be okay?"
"Probably not," she sighs, sticking it in the main pocket of her bag. "It'll be fine. It's a wonder I haven't broken it before now. And if I had tools, I could fix it, but I left those in Lake Wonder. It's... fine. I spent forever without one— I only got it after I moved, you know my mom wouldn't let me have one— so it isn't... unheard of, I guess. It isn't unbearable. It's just going to make this harder. I didn't pack a flashlight— or, rather, I didn't pack batteries."
Matt pats his belt like he's looking for a pouch that just isn't there. He throws his head back just barely and groans. "I forgot my belt."
"You had a flashlight on there?"
"Yeah, and it's not with me."
"Shit."
Kepler slaps the ground. Tiff looks over to him, and he slaps the ground again, then gestures to himself.
She nods, understanding perfectly. He does the same thing when they're camping and she can't find her lantern. "If you're alright with it, Kep, then I would appreciate it? But only if you want to, bud."
He nods.
"Hold on a sec, then." Tiff puts a hand on Matt's shoulder. "Okay. I need you to not freak out when this happens, okay? It's gonna be weird and it's gonna be unexplained, because I'm not going to explain it. I'm not sure how far he's going to go, but— you have to promise me not to freak out. Okay? Do you promise?"
Matt gently removed her hand from his shoulder. "Tiff, I promise. Whatever you've got in store, I've seen my fair share of weird shit. I'll be fine."
Tiff gives Kepler the thumbs-up. It's clear he didn't even need it; he starts glowing immediately. His fur puffs up a little, like he's about to sprout antennae and two more arms, but he doesn't.
Grinning and proud, Tiff turns back to her cousin. "Looks like we don't need a flashlight!"
Eyes wide, skin pale, he agrees, "Yeah, Tiff. I guess we don't."
Darkness stretches out before then, broken only by Kepler dutifully leading the way. The silence, in turn, is only broken by footsteps in the water.
That is, until Matt breaks it. "So... your rat glows."
"Yep. So you walk around the woods with a gun?"
"Yep." He pauses, stays quiet for another few feet. "Why does he glow? Is it the same reason he's so big?"
"That's not my business."
"It's not your business? Tiff, he's your rat."
"I could tell you about me, but not about other people. Not without their permission. Call it doctor-patient confidentiality."
"You're not a doctor and that is not a person."
"I make medicines sometimes. For... werewolves."
"I think that's called being a drug dealer."
"I am not a drug dealer. I only gave them out uselessly once. My point is, I'm not about to spill someone's secrets. That's the kind of thing that could go horribly wrong and ruin a life."
Kepler pauses in the middle of the path and makes a gesture she knows to mean that she should keep talking.
Tiff twists the strap of her bag in her hands. "Are you sure?"
The answer comes in the form of an affirmative nod.
She nods back solemnly. "If it's okay with you, then... Well, Matt, you can't freak out about this. Do you promise?"
He takes in a deep breath and holds it for a second. "Yeah."
"Cool. Kepler's an alien."
Matt laughs. "No he isn't."
"Don't believe me, then. That's fine. It doesn't change the truth."
"And the truth is that your pet rat is an alien?"
"If it makes you feel better, he's also an experiment. Not that it matters. And not that it matters, but he isn't one of mine."
"One of your what?"
"Experiments, Matt. Fuck! I can't keep evading the truth! I can't keep lying by omission! It's so uncomfortable! Kepler is an alien and I hunt monsters but prefer to collect all the facts before making a decision if I can! And I recently came into a bit of divine power but it's mostly just like... a feather boa. It doesn't do anything or mean anything."
"Shit!" Matt trips over his own feet. The gun manages to stay out of the water, but he doesn't. He lays on his back for a moment.
Tiff stands over him as Kepler crawls onto his chest and he holds the gun high above his head. "Monsters are real, Matt."
"No, yeah, I can see that." He sighs, pushes himself up to sitting insistently enough that the action causes Kepler to topple into his lap. "And I guess I already knew. Just not to the extent of this. I... do something similar."
"So we're in the same boat and I can trust that you won't tell Peepaw Zacharias or my parents about any of what I do or am doing or about Kepler? Because Peepaw'll hate me forever and I'll get totally disowned this time? Please?"
"Help me up."
"Is that one of the conditions for you not—"
"I'm not going to tell him, I don't want him to know about this, help me up." He takes one hand off the gun and gently pushes Kepler off his lap; she clasps his palm and pulls. With Matt dripping water and Kepler still glowing, they continue on for a long while before someone speaks.
It's Matt again. "So, when you say you hunt monsters..."
"It's a bit of a misnomer. It's... complicated. I've— I've only ever hunted two actual monsters. One was this, uh... it's hard to describe, actually— and the other was this seasonal frontier-era spirit that had been disturbed by a local chain encroaching on their proverbial territory, so I just... did some civil disobedience... But mostly it's wizards? They never stop."
"We're not so different, then."
"Is Fort Reverence also plagued by wizards?"
"Uh... Witches." Matt winces. "But yeah."
"And nobody told me?"
He hesitates. "Yeah."
"Don't lie to me," she says, over the sound of bells in the back of her head.
"The church hides it, Tiffy."
If there ever was anything to hit her in the chest, that was it. "Oh. I'm going to— I'm not sure what that means and I don't think I want to think about it, so I'm going to change the subject to something way heavier even though I absolutely shouldn't and it'll make everything so much worse, but I have to know because it's going to eat me up if I don't— so, when you say that— and when Andy says that— that Adrianna is gone— What does that mean? Please tell me she isn't dead. If she's dead and I couldn't come to the funeral I don't think I would ever forgive myself. I don't think—"
"I don't know." His voice is soft, broken.
"She's missing?"
"She went to that rodeo the three of us were supposed to go to. She went alone because you were gone and Peepaw wanted me to do something for him. She never came back. I don't know where she is."
"Oh god, Matt, I'm so sorry—"
"Save it. Save it. Everyone's sorry but no one has seen her. All I can hope is that she's okay."
"She's alive. She's somewhere. She has to be." Tiff's brain stops spinning for the briefest of seconds— a disconcerting exercise in silence that she can't parse because she can't even think about it. "When?"
"When did she disappear?"
"Yeah."
"Two weeks after you did."
Tiff stays quiet.
Adrianna being missing could never be a good sign. She was responsible and kind and a little flighty, but she had a good head on her shoulders. Now she isn't anywhere. Tiff chokes down the grief and terror like a pill without water. She shouldn't have asked. All it gave her was more uncertainty.
Tiff swallows again, insistent this time on putting it away. The thing she needs to spiral about is right in front of her: dirt-packed walls stretching out in two different directions.
Silently, she assesses the fork in the road. There seems to be no material difference between the two, not that she can see by Kepler's gentle blue-green light. Something in the back of her mind tells her that now would be a great time to let down her mental defenses. If she could just get a hint on where to go or what to do— if she were just willing to open up her mind to the world. Then all of this could be over so quickly. She could reach out. She could end this quickly. She could figure this out, couldn't she?
But she won't. She gets the feeling that the thought and accompanying temptation don't originate from her. Something wants into her mind. She isn't going to let that happen.
She'll just have to look closer to figure out where to go next. Tiff crouches down on the ground, looks from side to side, assesses the situation.
There's no difference, not that she can see. There's nothing here— no light, no sound. Whatever the case, she has no clue where to go next. There's nothing to guide her.
Tiff looks over her shoulder at Matt. Wordlessly, he shrugs.
Great. So she's stuck in a hole with her cousin and a glowing rat and she doesn't know where to go next. Fantastic. Wonderful. She loves that.
She looks to Kepler next. He knows something, but he isn't communicating it to her. He has, instead, found a root in the wall between the two paths and is trying to climb up onto it. She doesn't have the heart or presence of mind to stop him. As long as he's here, everything is going to be okay. But if Matt doesn't know where to go, and she also doesn't know where to go... Where are they supposed to go from here?
Oh, god, they're going to die down here and it's going to be her fault. And then Lake Wonder will be down a guardian and in danger as a result and their family will fall apart more than it already has, and Tiff won't even get buried because she's in a hole and she's never going to see Betty or Aunt Esther or Mr. Beck ever again, and they won't see her— which might be fine, and—
And the answer's right in front of her. That voice that wasn't hers gave her the answer. And it's so much easier, when she's losing her shit, to also lose her hold on the way she keeps her mind protected. It's so much easier to just let go.
So she does. Or she chooses to. or she decides to stop fighting it. Or—
She sinks to her knees from her crouch, whispers, "I'm going to try something," and closes her eyes. She isn't sure why she decided to pretend to pray. Something about being back in Fort Reverence is making it so much easier to fall back into old patterns of piety and symbolism. Though she will not worship and she will not pray, the posing brings an odd form of comfort and she only finds herself a little disgusted by it. Matt objects to whatever she's doing (as he should), but it isn't enough to stop her.
Tiff clasps her hands and bows her head. She lowers the defenses; she opens the door. Whatever's calling to her, she lets it in.
Two things come to her in quick succession. The first is a flash of something entirely foreign. A long, dark hall stretches out in front of her; at the end, something speaks in a language she doesn't quite understand. In one hand, she holds a sword with a long, barbed blade. When she looks down, her hands are not her own; they are older, pale teal nail polish cracked and peeling, skin smooth despite the creases. The blade shimmers and changes— from dark gray metal to something sleeker, more silver, glowing gently green.
It changes as soon as it comes to her, to something more relevant than someone else's hands becoming her own, teal nails turning black and chipped and chewed-down. She sees a small cavern, dark except for a candle at the center. A young woman with deathly-pale skin, stringy hair threatening to fall out, black pockmark wounds dotting her skin like a ladybug's spots, reading from a book in front of her. The image flickers and she appears younger and more vital— brown hair slick and unwashed, greasy and pulled back; cheeks freckled; nose familiar to Tiff in particular, because it's the same nose she sees in the mirror when bumbling her way through a half-remembered checklist morning routine. She turns a page as if frantically searching, but finds nothing more than blank pages and running black ink. She frowns, turns back to the beginning, and finds nothing but the leather cover of the book.
As she looks, a door off to her left opens and the room fills with light from a soft yellow beam; the girl startles.
Tiff presses further, trying to take control of the vision, trying to push further and see what she needs to see. What she wants to see is beyond the door— who it was, where they were coming from, and why they terrified the girl so deeply. It is that insistence, though, that causes her to lose her grip. No matter how hard she tries to hold on, the vision flickers and fades.
That's the issue with inducing a vision, she supposes. She isn't chosen. The whimsy-driven hands of fate aren't going to show her what she needs to see. All she will ever get is leftovers and scraps from the trash.
When she opens her eyes, her nose is bleeding. Shit.
She didn't pack tissues. It wasn't like Eddy Anderson, whose nose is always bleeding as a side effect of magic, was going to be coming with her on a Cain family road trip. She leaves it be; her head pounds and her nose bleeds, and she leaves it be.
Tiff unclasps her hands and turns to look at Matt. "It didn't quite work. I didn't get exactly what we needed, but I got something."
His eyes go wide when the light from a still-moving Kepler forces him to see her face. "Why the hell is your nose bleeding? Are you okay?"
"Yeah, I'm fine," she lies, still thinking of Eddy. "This happens all the time, I think."
It isn't a lie. It just doesn't happen to her.
"You start praying and your nose bleeds?"
"Well— I don't pray much." Tiff swallows, turns around and out of her kneel to sit on the wet ground, and starts talking before Matt can question her further. "I think we need to go down the left path. There was something about a door opening from the left, so it makes sense that we should go in that direction."
He raises an eyebrow, but doesn't object. "So we go down the left path, then. Any clue what we'll find down there?"
"Uh— Well, some sort of undead, I would assume." She nods, knowing it makes sense as she says it. Everything she has observed and experienced since this afternoon is pointing to that one ironclad decision. She wipes her nose against the back of her hand, but the blood keeps coming. (How the hell does Eddy deal with this?) "She was alive at one point, and now she isn't, and someone killed her down in these tunnels. Whatever this is, it has something to do with that."
"So we go to the left?"
"We go to the left!" Tiff holds out a hand. "Help me up!"