“We’re close, I can feel it,” Adelia said.

Jeremy couldn’t feel anything except cobwebs on his face. A soft light from the open door at the top of the stairs cast shadows on the damp stone walls of the basement. He squinted, trying to see anything out of the ordinary. Old boxes, a few faded photographs, the smell of damp paper, ordinary things he would expect in the basement of an abandoned city hall. He wondered if the town administrators knew all this was down here when they left. And why did people leave Ardmore?

“You’re close to what again?” he asked.

“Deeds or records of property sales, anything. We need to know who Kenneth bought the farm from. I tried to ask him when Ray…” Her fingers paused on the papers she was shuffling through, and her gaze went soft for a moment. “After Kenneth died, when the other seer was here, we went to his grave and I tried to ask him, but his residue had faded.”

“How do you ask a dead guy something?”

“Sometimes, there is enough left over to…” She looked over at him and her bright eyes shone in the shadows. “It depends on the life, some linger longer than others. With the right circumstance and a touch, sometimes I can contact what’s left.”

“You dug up his body?” Jeremy asked. “That’s enough. I don’t want to hear anything else.”

“I had to, if I don’t find the missing pieces, I’m trapped like this forever, don’t you understand?” She looked back down at the box of papers. “When Kenneth was alive, I couldn’t make him see me because my pieces were missing, and he wasn’t a seer. I was alone, watching him carry that war deep inside. Watching the townspeople cringe at his scarred face. He made it home, but those trenches still got him in the end.”

“Who was the seer?” Jeremy asked.

“A few years after Kenneth, Ray showed up. With him I could… I had to try. But too much time had passed.” Her fingers shuffled through the papers and scanned old ledgers as she spoke.

She moved quickly and he wondered how she knew what was on those pages but maybe it was a Moirai thing, maybe she just knew by touching the paper or could speed read or something. “When was that?” Jeremy picked an old crate at random and flipped through the contents, mostly old logbooks with worn covers.

“I don’t really know. It was a long time ago and I haven’t had anyone other than Pinta and Sinta to talk to in a long time. It’s nice.” She glanced up at him, tilting her head to the side, short hair framing her face. He could just make out a hint of green next to her cheek. “We don’t keep time like you do, but I would say…maybe a hundred years ago, give or take.”

“A hundred years! You’re a hundred years old?”

“Kenneth bought the farm with my gold about a year after he got out of the hospital. The war was just ending in Europe. I think that was about a hundred years ago.”

“You’ve been trapped in that cabin for a hundred years?”

“No, not the whole time. I was able to leave when Ray was here.”

“You better explain this, Adelia.” He touched the bulge in his pocket. “It seems like people around you die a lot.”

“I swear, it’s not me, humans are fragile! I mean, they don’t live very long.”

“You are not making me feel better.”

“During the war, after Logan died, Kenneth was terribly wounded, that’s why they sent him back early. He wasn’t able to go to my home in Czechlo … I mean the Czech Republic, to return my gold and set me free,” she looked back down, sifting through old papers and ledgers. “I’ve never shared this with anyone, but I’ll tell you everything. Kenneth promised Logan he would, but then he got hit by shrapnel. And he didn’t know I was trapped inside, did he? I don’t blame him for not taking me back. Logan was a seer, but Kenneth couldn’t have known, and how could Logan tell him something like that? He wouldn’t have believed.”

“Would you have been free if he took you back?” Jeremy said.

“I would have had to face my Sanctuary’s lord and answer for stealing the gold, but yes, free,” she said.

“Why did you steal the gold?”

“Wait,” Adelia said, holding up a finger. “Here’s a ledger.”

As she flipped through the pages, running her finger across each line, questions raced through Jeremy’s mind. She had to be well over a hundred years old. Was that possible? Was any of this possible? He looked around the damp basement and shook his head, trying to clear it as if the entire day was an illusion. “So, you’ve been in that cabin since—”

“1918!” Adelia burst out. “Kenneth bought the farm in 1918 from Abe Cunningham!” “Three gold pieces, it says, a sum equal to one thousand five hundred dollars. We’ve done it, finally!”

“So now what?” Jeremy asked. He abandoned the box of paperwork in front of him and peered at the old ledger book over her shoulder.

“Now we find Abe.”

“How? He’s dead and gone. He was a person, right?”

“Spending our gold without permission creates a cloud of misfortune or worse.” She stared at the page as if looking back in time, caressing the edge of the yellowed paper with her thumb. “Kenneth had terrible luck as a farmer. That’s what happens when you spend Moirai gold.”

“What happened to him?”

“On a dark night, sitting in front of the wood stove, he finally drank himself to death.”

“He died in the cabin, sitting in front of the same wood stove I used last night,” Jeremy said. A chill passed through him.

“It wasn’t his fault,” Adelia said. “He carried the trenches with him everywhere he went. And we both carried Logan’s death. I wondered sometimes if he could feel my sadness even if he couldn’t see me. I tried to help him…if I just revealed myself earlier, but I couldn’t after he spent my gold pieces.” She was talking to the ledger now, reaching back in time. “I hid inside the gray after Logan’s death, inside my grief for too long and by the time I realized what was happening to Kenneth, it was too late. The pieces were spent. He wasted away, alone… surrounded by demons he couldn’t fight. When he died, Pinta and Nod were born.”

“One rage and the other, sorrow,” Jeremy said, staring at her back.

She didn’t turn or respond, just stared down at the ledger in her hands.

“Where did Sinta come from?” he asked.

“She came years later,” Adelia said, finally turning, eyes soft, a slight smile lifting the corners of her lips. “Born from Ray, when he passed, a good man. He fought on the same front as Kenneth. But instead of carrying his wounds on the inside, he pounded them out through the soles of his feet. He walked across the country until his wandering brought him to us. He could see me right away. We restored the cabin together and lived an entire lifetime there.”

Through the bag in his pocket, Jeremy felt a swirl of sorrow and contentment. “Why didn’t you find your missing gold pieces then?” he asked.

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

“We tried. It was a few years after Kenneth died and the county workers told us the records were lost. Ray talked to everyone he could and searched through what records he could find, but it was like the sale never happened. People remembered Kenneth and his scars, but they couldn’t recall who had lived there before. They should have known. I suspect the gold was weaving some kind of chaos in men’s minds, especially if Abe was hording it. That does all kinds of crazy things. And then the depression came. And…” She looked past him, eyes losing focus as if watching a scene from long ago. “After so much heartbreak, we just wanted to live. So, we did. Pinta and Nod were easier with Ray around. They mostly kept to themselves. Ray was like a salve to all our wounds. He accepted us and the world for what it was.”

“So, how will we find Abe’s final resting place down now? That was a long time ago,” Jeremy said. He tried to imagine life here during the depression but couldn’t wrap his mind around it. Sure, he had to hustle for food on the road and make do, but he was rarely desperate and there was always another town looking for cheap off-the-books labor. She was more than a hundred years old.

“I’m sure hard times followed Abe, even if he spent the gold quickly. But I doubt he was able to. It has a way of pulling people in and not letting go. He’s probably around one way or another.”

Jeremy looked down at the bulge in his pocket and back to Adelia.

“It won’t affect you, you’re not spending it and I gave it to you freely.”

He narrowed his eyes at her.

“If a Moirai freely gives it to you, there is no danger, I promise. And as a seer, even less so. You’re almost one of us. But if you try to spend it or barter with it, make a deal with it somehow, without blessings from the holder, then misfortune comes for you and keeps coming. It depends on the amount but three gold pieces are a lot. If we’re lucky, and he wasn’t, Abe still has it. Most people horde it.”

“You think it’s buried with him? What if he left town after selling the farm?”

“I doubt it.”

“How can you know?”

“Let’s go. We’ve stayed in one place too long.” She tucked the ledger back into its tattered box and made her way up the stairs. Jeremy followed, happy to climb out of the dank, creepy basement but worried about Adelia’s lack of explanation. What was she not telling him about the gold? He trudged up the stairs, glaring at her back. The main floor of the abandoned city hall was just as creepy, but at least there was more light and less mold. A few upturned office chairs lay beside weather-worn desks.

“Will one of these chairs work for Pinta?” he asked.

“No, I don’t sense any power,” she said. “Do you?”

Jeremy scanned the room, willing his new super vision to activate. He didn’t know how to do it, so he tried to concentrate on his eyes, forcing his vision to cooperate.

“Relax, it doesn’t work like that. Just let it happen,” she said.

“I don’t know how to do that,” he said.

Adelia looked at him thoughtfully for a moment before placing a finger on his temple. He flinched but didn’t pull away. “Imagine you’re walking down the road by yourself, the fall breeze carries the sweet scent of wildflowers, your boots make a soft rhythm on the blacktop and the long grass swishes as you pass.” Her voice rolled gently through his mind.

Jeremy swayed for a moment, mirroring the grass in his mind’s eye. There was nobody to judge him or lecture him or control him. He was free to walk forever through the countryside. A blue and green light pulsed out of an old desk drawer, drawing him back into the ramshackle room. As soon as he shifted his gaze, the peaceful scene disappeared.

“What did you do to me?” he asked.

“I just helped you relax,” she said. “You’re very tense.”

“That desk drawer glowed,” he said.

She walked over and stood beside it.

“You better open it,” she said.

The drawer made a shuffling complaint but slid out. At first, he saw nothing except a pile of paperclips, battered pencils, and a mouse nest made of shredded paper. He reached in and shifted it aside to reveal a small silver medallion. He poked it to make sure it didn’t shock him or explode.

“It’s a necklace,” Adelia said.

He picked it up and held it in his palm. The head of a bear was engraved on one side and a snake on the other. It was warm against his skin. A leather cord dangled from a small hole above the bear’s head.

“It’s warm,” he said.

“What color did you see?”

“Blue and green.”

“Some think that the colors a seer sees means something specific, but I think it’s personal for every seer.” She smiled slightly and lifted her hand over the necklace. “It is powerful.”

“How do I know what the colors mean for me?”

“You’ll have to figure that out on your own. Everyone has their own way of seeing the world. And these…” she grazed the necklace with her fingertip. “Are sacred symbols for some Folk in these parts. The bear is strength, the snake is wisdom.”

Jeremy held it up to inspect it closely. It seemed to be real silver, worn smooth in places from years of wear.

“Where I come from, the snake is bad news. You know, the devil tricking Eve and all that.” Scripture echoed in his mind, his mother’s voice, the sound of his father’s strap against skin.

“Someone loved this necklace for a very long time, and they were at peace when they died,” Adelia said. The music of her voice scattered the echoes of his past. Did she do that on purpose?

“What a nice thought,” he said. “More death.” He lowered it back into the drawer by its leather string.

“Wear it. It will protect you.”

“It won’t possess me or explode?” he asked.

She took it from him, rolling her eyes, and slipped it over his head. He tucked it into his shirt. It cooled against his skin and he shuddered, not knowing if it was from the thought of wearing jewelry or the thought of a magical object resting against his chest. The only jewelry his family was allowed to wear was a cross, and even that had to be plain and unadorned.

“Let’s go out the back,” she said. They slipped through a door that led to what once was an alley, but was now more grass than concrete. Between the few remaining structures, he could see the outlines of old foundations where other buildings had stood. “We’ll start in the cemetery.” Lifting her head, she closed her eyes and tilted her cheek toward the clear blue sky. She seemed to grow more substantial in the light. Jeremy suddenly wanted to touch her face, to feel the texture of her skin. “It isn’t far,” she said, looking down the alley. “But I imagine most of Crag’s minions know we’re here, so we’ll have to be careful.” She stepped away, almost skipping and Jeremy hurried to catch up.

“What do we have to do when we get there?” he asked.

“Feel for it.”

“And you’ll know when it’s near?”

She nodded. “Even at my best, I was never good at delicate weaving and I’m horrible with the damn gold. I’m better with big power. I don’t know why. But I’ll feel the missing pieces when I’m near them.”

They walked in silence for a few moments. Jeremy tried to see inside the windows of ruined houses as they passed. Finally, he asked, “Why did you really do it?”

“Do what?” she asked.

“If you’re terrible with this sort of thing, why fuse with the gold, or whatever it’s called? Why leave your Sanctuary?”

She took a couple of steps before answering. “Because I loved Logan.” She looked at him sideways and he stared back, unblinking. “And I had to see the world. I couldn’t spend any more time in my Sanctuary. I was suffocating. You don’t understand. It was the lord of our Sanctuary. He was powerful, firstborn, and overbearing. He kept me locked away.”

“I might understand more than you think,” he said.

She nodded, and he thought of the dream. She was in his room. His sister stomped through her. She knows.

“Isn’t that why you left, to see what was out here?” she asked. “Paths to follow, great cities to visit. I couldn’t sit in that crumbling stronghold forever. I’m meant for more. I know it. But when I left, all I saw were trenches. Death. Suffering. And then Kenneth’s cabin.”

“You really loved him?”

She nodded and drew in a deep breath. He wondered if she actually pulled air into her body or if it was some sort of habit. To form that habit, had she been alive before? Had she been human? She was shaped like a human, unlike the other Moirai. Or maybe Moirai were made different ways. Maybe the emotion she was born from was so strong it created an exact image of the person that felt it.

“When they conscripted him, I couldn’t let him go alone. He had been visiting me in the Sanctuary for months. Our Sanctuary is not like Kenneth’s Cabin or Ardmore. It’s a large stronghold, a labyrinth of halls that humans still use. We live underground, in the forgotten catacombs. Logan found me above ground one day, where I wasn’t supposed to be. I kept it from my lord and the other Moirai. He was my secret. First, I fell in love with having a secret and then I fell in love with him. I swore to protect him.” She looked down at her feet as she walked. “But I failed. I didn’t know about machine guns and poison gas. I didn’t know what humans did to each other. I watched him die, bleeding in a trench.”

They walked in silence, and Jeremy thought about his own urge to escape. He couldn’t imagine war, but he did know what it was like to feel trapped. To have no control.

“You’re crazy,” he said.

She snapped her head up, looking at him sharply.

“Who wants to see cities full of people? We’re all a mess, more trouble than we’re worth. You’ve got it made at Kenneth’s cabin with little colorful creatures that love you and all the quiet time you can get.” He sighed dramatically. “Heaven.”

“Thanks,” she said. “I just traded one prison for another, though.”

“Obviously, I’m right. Get your gold back and run, that’s my advice.” She flipped her head to the side and smiled, short hair waving wildly. Maybe the green streak wasn’t so bad, he thought, but he’d have to ask her about it sometime. “So, what do we do when we get the gold pieces?”

“Once they’re in the bag, I’ll be back to full strength. I can’t even remember what that was like. And then we return the bag to my Sanctuary, I’ll finally be free.”

“Wait a minute,” Jeremy said, eyes growing wide. “Isn’t your Sanctuary in the Czech Republic?”