East of Eden, Part Five

There was very little preparation we could do the next day. Alice can’t practice magic she can’t access, my ability to stifle magic seems more a matter of will than anything, Jackie could spend some time meditating but there was very little else available to her in the cabin, and Rick…well, it wouldn’t take Rick long to load his gun. So part of our plan involved spending today the way we were already planning. Alice and I drove down to the reservoir for the day.

She did the driving, and tolerated Alpha’s quirks for about two miles before she turned back and asked Rick if we could borrow his car instead. Then it was down to Kinzua Beach, where we spent some time swimming and hiking and had a picnic lunch. It was getting later in the afternoon,  shortly before we were to head back, when she finally decided to say what I now suspect was on her mind the whole time.

“Is there an end to this?”

“To what?” I asked. “I mean, we’re only here for a few days.”

“No, I mean, the cult thing.”

“Benedict and Akshainie are actively hunting down ways to ensure there is.”

“But they’re here, John. The cult is here, and we don’t know what they want, and where are Benedict and Akshainie? Did we even reach out to them for help?”

“I did call, actually. Got his voicemail, didn’t even ring. I don’t know where they are, but the fact that he hasn’t called back suggests he doesn’t have reception. But it’s okay. We just have to find their ritual and stop it, and then we can tell them what we learned and let them deal with it. The Vatican’s footing the bill for that.”

“And what happens next time? Or the time after?”

“What makes you think there’s going to be a next time?”

“I’m getting the impression there’s always a next time. With the cult, with Hecate, with ghosts and spirits and ravens and God knows what else. Is there an end? Is there something you want out of all of this, is there something you’re trying to make happen?”

“I told you about this very early on, Alice. I don’t control it, I don’t go looking for it, it’s just part of my life.”

“But what are you doing with it? If it’s a part of your life, are you doing anything to shape what part it has? What your life will look like with it? Are you thinking about what your relationship with all this will look like in twenty years?”

I sat quiet for a long moment, thinking of the best way to answer. I finally realized I had only one real option. “I never thought about that.”

“Why not?”

“I just…it’s always been unavoidable, I guess I just assumed there was nothing I could do about it. And dad did all that work preparing me to keep up his fight, and I just…I suppose I’ve just gotten used to rolling with it.”

“But you haven’t taken up his fight.”

“No, I guess I haven’t.”

“Why not? What is it you wanted that stopped you?”

I stared out over the water. “When you first decided you wanted to go into biology, into conservation, did you immediately believe you had that option?”

“Of course.”

“That’s the thing. It isn’t an ‘of course.’ It makes sense to you because you come from a different world. Yeah, Pittsburgh lost the steel industry, too, but your family’s money isn’t in steel, is it?” I asked. She shook her head. “You grew up knowing that the world was available to you. That any hurdles you faced were of your own making. That if you just put in the effort and got the grades, you could go to school for whatever you wanted and graduate and find a job in your field and do what you love. And that’s great for you, I’m very happy you’ve been able to do that. But that’s you.” I sighed and got up and walked around a bit to keep my head clear. “I grew up with empty steel mills, surrounded by people whose lives were crushed by someone else’s greed. I come from a place where dreams rust and hopes all rely on finding some way out first. I live in a world where things happen to you because you just happen to be there and no one is coming to help, and no one will know what you’re going through, and people assume you chose it because they don’t know that even if you manage to sell your house you won’t make enough money to go anywhere else. I come from a world where there are no real options, no real solutions, just loss and decay and a life you see on tv but can’t ever imagine being real somewhere else. And on top of all of it, I live in a country that dismisses me for the color of my skin.”

“But, John—”

“Tell me. Tell me where in that you think I was supposed to pick up the lesson that I get to decide my own fate, that I get to make this life be what I want it to be, that I can do anything about great powers that want to give me hassle, other than shut them down when they show up and hope it doesn’t bite me too hard in the ass later?”

“I…I don’t know.”

“You know what I would love? You know what would be great? A shut-off switch. The ability to just get a little peace and quiet from all of it sometimes. To have little pockets of my life that don’t have spirits or ghosts or whatever hanging around in it. But I can’t. I can’t turn it off. I can’t get away from it. Even on vacation, it finds me. You know there’s a water spirit in that reservoir right now that wants to fuck me because she can smell my connection to a powerful river spirit and thinks getting entangled with me will make her stronger?”

“Is that why you got out of the water so quickly earlier?”

“Yes! And she’s still right there at the edge of the water, watching me and occasionally calling for my attention. And when we go back to the cabin, there’s the cult to deal with.” I sat down again, and she reached over and rubbed my shoulder.

“Look, I’m sorry. I didn’t realize.” She pulled her hand up to my chin and gently turned my face toward her. “But, barring that. If you never find a way to turn it off. What would you want to do?” She watched me intently, waiting for an answer, and I had to think for a little bit about what that answer would be.

“You know, I do enjoy the investigation work I’m doing. Maybe I could do that. Start up my own practice when I have enough experience to get a license, take cases from humans and spirits, deal with real issues.”

“And interact with the spiritual world on your own terms, deciding for yourself whether or not to take a case.”

“Yeah.”

“Okay. Maybe we could explore that.”

I gave her hand a squeeze, and she smiled. We kissed, then packed up and headed back to the cabin.

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