"Yes and no. I don't, but I'm afraid if I walk away, I'll always wonder what it would have been like."
"Let's do it, then. Regret sucks. Take it from me." She picked up the first box and opened it.
I gasped. There she was. Little me. Little Jayne Sparks.
A tiny sliver of my soul sat in the box, and she was wearing my favorite hoodie and ratty jeans and purple Converse sneaks - the same outfit I'd been wearing when I ran away from home and went to the meeting where I first saw Céline and Dardennes.
"What. The. Fuck, Samantha."
"What?"
"That's what I was wearing when I met you guys." I looked up at her to gauge her reaction.
Samantha handed me my box and picked up hers, quickly opening it up and putting it side by side with mine. My heart leaped into my throat when I saw what her mimicker was wearing.
"Mine too," said Samantha, her voice hoarse.
Neither of us said a word when a few seconds later our two mimickers noticed each other and walked slowly over to the edges of their boxes, staring at each other the entire time. I didn't move a single muscle, not knowing whether this was a really, really bad, bad thing to let them interact or not, but too sickly curious to stop it. Are they going to hug? Throw down? Spit on each other?
Samantha didn't make a move either. We just stood there, side-by-side, wondering what the hell was going to happen.
And then they started moving their hands towards each other, and my eyes almost popped right out of my head and bounced along the floor when I realized what they were doing.
Samantha started singing along with their motions, next to me, in the freakiest most possessed-sounding voice I ever heard. "Say, say, oh plaaaaymate ... come out and play with me ..."
I joined in with her as my memory suddenly locked in on the long-unused tune of my youth, my eyes still glued to the boxes. "...And bring your dollies three ... climb up my apple tree ... slide down my rain barrel ... into my cellar door ... and we'll be jolly friends ... forever mooore ..." We both shut our boxes at the same time, our mimickers slowly backing away to the centers again and sitting down as the covers closed over their heads.
Samantha and I faced each other, both saying the exact same thing at the exact same time.
"My grandmother used to play that game with me."
"Fuck, Samantha!" I shouted, my hand flying up to grab my hair in frustration. "What the hell was that all about?!"
"I don't know!" she screamed back at me. "Are we possessed?!" Her voice had gone up a couple levels to crazy-girl pitch. I was worried she'd come unhinged. I was feeling nearly there myself.
I held out my free hand in a calming gesture, partially bent over with my eyes closed as I tried to get a grip on myself. "Okay! ... Okay ... let's just relax here for a second and think this through." I looked at Sam's face. "Alright? Are you cool with that?"
She nodded really quickly. "Yeah."
"Come on." I straightened up and pulled her out of the pantry, into Maggie's sitting room, making sure to take all my boxes with me. "Sit," I said, pointing to the rocking chair. I pulled the stool over and sat in front of her, stacking the boxes in my lap.
"What the hell was that?" asked Samantha, calmer now but still not un-freaked.
"I don't know, but I think between the two of us, we can figure this shit out. Now ... first ... why are our mimickers wearing the clothes from when we were human?"
Samantha took a deep breath in and then out before answering. "I think we look like what we looked like when the piece was ... extracted."
I grimaced. "Ew. That's gross. That word extracted. It's like alien invasion of my orifices or whatever"
"Gah, thanks for the visual I really didn't need right now. Anyway, if I'm right, then what does that mean?" She raised an eyebrow at me, and I got the distinct impression she already had an answer.
"Well, don't keep me hanging," I said, rolling my eyes. "Spill it."
"Céline."
"Céline what?"
"Céline is the soul collector ... the soul stealer."
I leaned over, my eyes bugging out. "No!"
"Yes! It totally makes sense!"
"How! Tell me! I'm so fucking lost right now!"
"During the interview ... did she take your hands and do some voo doo mojo stuff on you like she did with me?"
I thought about it for a second, taking a trip down memory lane to the day I sat in that interview room with her and Dardennes. And I distinctly remembered her taking my hands while she asked me some questions. "Okay, yeah. She held both my hands for a few minutes."
"Me too. All of us except Jared. Jared and I talked about it after. I think she's doing that and taking pieces of us with her. I remember him being upset when he found out she did that. It made no sense at the time, but now it does, right?"
"Yeah, but why? Why in the hell would she, first of all, do that, and second of all, give them to Maggie?"
"What did she say to you in your little private talk in your room?"
"She said that she'd sold her soul. And that everything was negotiable." I felt my ears burning as the words hung in the air between us. "Oh, fuck a duck. She made a deal with Maggie that she would steal souls for her."
Samantha whispered, "Céline is the soul stealer, and Maggie is the soul collector."
The door flew open with a bang, making Samantha jump up and me fall over sideways off the stool. I held my boxes to my chest and struggled to stand.
"What are you doing in here!" yelled Maggie in her haggie-ass voice. "How'd you get past my locks?" Then her gaze lit on me, and she said, "Oh. That explains it." She waved towards the door. "Get out. Both of you. And don't come back. I find you tiresome."
"Lie!" I yelled before I could stop myself.
Maggie froze and then turned very slowly in place. "What did you just say?"
I gave her my fakest grin ever. "Lie?"
"Do you have any idea how much you just sounded like her, Jayne?" asked Samantha.
"Shut up, witch." I disregarded my partner in crime and focused on Maggie. "Time for truth or dare, Maggie the Haggie. We ask you questions and you tell us the truth."
"What about the dare?" she asked slyly.
"I dare you to not answer me with the truth."
"Hrumph. That's not how I remember the game being played."
"My game, my rules." I gestured to the rocking chair. "Come rest your lumpy bum."
Maggie just stared at us, so I looked over at Samantha. "Sam, feel free to compel her over here as you see fit."
"Are you sure?" she asked.
"Are you, or are you not, holding a piece of your soul in a box right now?"
"You've got a point." Samantha turned to Maggie. "You heard the elemental. Move it, or I'll move it for you."
"A dangerous challenge, witchling," said Maggie scowling at her.
"You taught me almost everything I know. Almost." Samantha stared at her. "Please. Don't make me do it, Maggie."
Maggie waited a few more seconds, probably just out of sheer stubbornness, before coming over to sit in the rocking chair. I pulled up the stool for myself and waved at the other chair for Samantha. She dragged it over and sat down next to me. Samantha and I sat there, the two of us, our four boxes of mimickers in our laps, facing the soul collector.
"So?! Out with it!" yelled Maggie. "I haven't got all day! I have my beauty rest to catch up on!"
"Can you actually sleep for five thousand years?" I asked, smiling devilishly at my joke.
Maggie leaned over, her cloudy eye getting way too close for my comfort. "No ... but I can fix it so that you do." She rocked in her chair and cackled loud, her head thrown back with the joy of it.
I nearly gagged at the wide-open view I got of her gnarly dental work - or complete lack thereof.
"Maggie, why are you collecting souls and having Céline steal them for you?" asked Samantha.
Maggie fixed her beady black eye on Sam. "You already know the answer to that questi
on, girl."
"No, I don't. I know you're a Fate, and I know you use them for dark magic, but I don't know why."
I nodded. I wanted to know the why, too. The hows were too dangerous for anyone to know. We needed to end that practice as soon as today.
Maggie shrugged. "The Fates do as needs must."
"Cut the crap, Maggie," I said, already irritated with her. "Make sense and stop wasting our time. I have a pixie to track down."
"Why do the Fates need to use mimickers?" asked Samantha.
"One cannot accurately control the destiny or fate of a fae without a piece of his soul. It is the way of things."
"But why would you want to?" I asked. "What about free will and choices and stuff?" I hated the idea of Maggie directing my life. I was pretty sure she and I had different values at the very least.
"The fae brought this upon themselves. I am merely doing what I can to save them from their own folly." She crossed her arms over her ample, droopy boobs and rocked, back and forth, back and forth.
"What did the fae do that made you have to do this?" asked Samantha in a much nicer voice than I was capable of using right now.
"Is it story time now, my dearies?" asked Maggie, cackling once again.
We both just stared at her.
"Fine. You two are a couple of wet blankets, anyone ever tell you that? What I do, what I've done, I've done for the good of this world."
"Which is ... ?" I prompted.
"Many years ago, more than I care to count, a young fae girl fell in love with a brash and conceited young fae."
"Céline and Torrie. Yeah, we know this part."
"And this male fae, Torrence Silverthorne we'll call him, was ready to throw his entire life away, his whole future, to be with the one he loved. Or the one he thought he loved."
"So what did you do?"
Maggie shrugged. "I did nothing. But a witch did something. Something that upset the balance. And that's what started this whole mess." She poked her crooked, lumpy index finger at both of us. "The one I've been trying to fix for a thousand years, that you and you have been getting in the way of since the day you walked into my forest!"
"Us?" asked Samantha. "How so?"
Maggie held up her finger and thumb. "I was this close. This close to fixing this, and then you two came along. Now I don't know how I'm going to get it all back." She threw her hands up and then rested them on the arms of her chair.
"Tell us," I said, resisting the urge to reach out and touch her. "Maybe we can help."
She snorted. "Pfft. Not very likely. Everything the two of you touch turns to newt dung."
I frowned at Samantha who was giving me the same look back. I mouthed the word, Youch, at her, making her smile.
"So tell us what you did and how it got screwed up by your lovely granddaughters," I asked, pasting on my happy smile.
"This young fae girl, we'll call her Céline just for the purposes of this story, she went to this witch ..."
"...Who we'll call ... ?" I asked.
"...Red ... or whatever you want, it doesn't matter ... And she asked him for a spell."
My forehead dropped into my hand. "Please don't say it was a love potion."
"She asked him for a love potion, if you will. But maybe it was a bit more than that, because its design wasn't merely based in love. It was the changing of destiny, of fate ... the control of things that should not be controlled by those without the vision or the power to manage the ... side-effects."
"Side-effects?" asked Samantha.
Maggie waved her hand all around her body, face, and room. "Voilà ... side-effects."
I looked over at Samantha my eyes bugging again. "Damn, Samantha. Sucks to be you."
She frowned at me. "Shut up, elemental. Continue, Maggie."
"So the spell was given, the spell was executed, and Torrie failed to follow his heart. But the denial ate away at him, eroded his inner light, until he accepted just a little too much darkness into his soul. He made some very bad decisions, was prepared to make some even worse ones, so it was determined that the only way to manage the situation was to banish him from the Here and Now and fix what was left."
I felt a chill in my bones. "But where did he belong ... I mean, technically."
Maggie shrugged. "Probably here. He did not die as a fae normally does."
I dropped my head into my hands. "Oh, fuck a bag of dicks."
"What'd you do?" asked Samantha.
I lifted my head up, my smile back in place. "Well, I have good news, then!"
"What's that?" asked Samantha, not looking especially excited about what I was going to say.
"I fixed that little miscalculation. Torrie is no longer in the Underworld where he doesn't belong."
"Where is he?" asked Samantha.
"Here. In the Here and Now." I clapped my hands together and rubbed them quickly. "So what else can I help with?"
"As I said," deadpanned Maggie, "you've done nothing but turn my life into goat innards since you arrived."
"Newt innards. You said newt innards," corrected Samantha.
"Are you sure it was newt innards?" I asked. "I think she said newt dung. Yeah, newt dung."
"No, I'm preeetty sure it was innards, not dung."
"Enough!" yelled Maggie. "Do you want the story or not?!
We both nodded.
"Back in the good old days, we Fates rarely intervened in the natural Order of Things. Most fae stayed on track and used only the smallest, most harmless amounts of magic in their day-to-day lives. But this spell ... this one requested by Céline and the one concocted by Red ... it was something entirely different. And we knew that once they had a taste of that power, well, it was only a matter of time before they abused it again and again. Power does that. It corrupts."
We both nodded again, eating her story up.
"And so as bad spells do, this one went south, taking Torrie with it. A desperate and still very much in-love Céline came to us, the Fates, begging for us to intervene. And that's when we saw our opportunity."
"Here's the yucky part," I said, nodding at Samantha. "You watch."
Maggie ignored me. "We agreed to return her love to the proper realm if she agreed to collect pieces of the souls of every fae alive and deliver them to us. And she was nearly there, too! A thousand years in the doing!"
"Seems to me like she went a little overboard," I said, lifting up my boxes. "What ... were these extra credit?" I asked, holding up two of them.
Maggie shook her head.
"Why did you need them?" asked Samantha.
Maggie shrugged. "It is quite difficult to control the fates of others and their use of magic without a piece of them in the spell."
"Why not hair?!" I yelled. "Couldn't you use a lock of hair or a fingernail for shit's sake?!"
"Souls are reusable. We are nothing if not thrifty."
I nearly gagged on that one. "You are so fucking ... evil!"
Samantha stood. "Yeah, this is not right. This is wrong. Souls are sacred."
Maggie struggled to stand too. "Souls are sacred, agreed, but we do not damage them! As you can see they are well cared-for, in individual safe boxes and organized, and each and every one of them is happy and healthy!"
"But their ours," I said softly, "not yours. You can't have them. We won't let you."
She leaned over and stared me down. "And are you going to be the one to stop the power mongers? Are you going to be the one to control the magic? Pfft! Hack-tooey! You can't even brush your own teeth without putting someone into a coma."
I stood up, incensed but unable to come up with the best insult for the situation. This was a first for me.
"Oh yeah?" said Samantha. "Well, at least she doesn't play around with newt balls for a living!"
I held up my hand for a high five. "Sing it, sister," I said, never taking my eyes off Maggie. "Okay, old lady. We've heard enough. We'll be back for those souls, make no mistake. And I'm taking mine with me now. You keep you
r greasy fingers off my soul, you got that?" I pointed at her face.
I started to leave, but Samantha grabbed my arm. "Don't you want to ask her about the pixies?"
"Hell, no. I'll find them myself. I have an idea."
Maggie snorted. "Shall I begin mixing the anti-coma spell now?"
"No!" I yelled at the entrance to her house. "Start mixing the Only-As-Ugly-As-A -Buggane's-Ass-Spell because you need a serious makeover!"
And with that I stepped outside and slammed the door behind the both of us.
"Well." Samantha laughed. "You told her. I think."
"I've had better insults, that's true," I admitted as we walked away, our feet shuffling through the dried, crunchy leaves.
"That wasn't bad though, off the cuff like that. I'll give you a six point five. Maybe seven."
"Thanks. I'll take the six point five. I was only going with six myself."
"Your standards are too high."
"You know what? That is probably the first time I've ever heard that in my entire life."
She laughed but said nothing the rest of the way back to the compound.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
SAMANTHA FOLLOWED ME BACK TO my room where we found the whole Miami crew plus Scrum waiting for us. Becky was on us like flies on poo, beating Spike to the first hug.
"Oh my god, you guys, what happened?" She grabbed me in a squeeze first and then Samantha. Both of us patted her on the back, smiling over her spazziness. Tony waved at me over her shoulder, and I winked at him. His scorched eyebrows and hair were beyond hilarious, but I couldn't muster the laugh it probably deserved because I knew how close he'd come to being much worse off.
Becky wasn't done with us. "Seriously, Céline took off out of here crying her eyes out - that was freaky. And then Anton came looking for you, and so did Red. Don't even get me started on my boyfriend's missing hair. Everyone's in an uproar. We're supposed to bring you to see them in Anton's office as soon as you get back."
"Y'all done stepped in the shit now," said Finn, shaking his head - a cap now on it and pulled down low, probably to mask his lack of facial hair. "I ain't never seen Dardennes so spittin' mad. Ever. Like, never ever."
I rolled my eyes, ready to let him know what I thought about that whole thing, when there was a banging on the door. I looked at my friends in a panic, stepping over towards Spike who moved to stand slightly in front of me. "I'm not ready to go anywhere yet!"