“So, what the fuck was all that about last night?” Kross asked through a mouthful of watery porridge. We were eating breakfast in the witch’s front room. The witch, or Bobby, had awoken us just before dawn. Apparently, there was no sign of the Sweepers yet.

“I had a nightmare,” I said, not meeting Kross’s gaze. It wasn’t the first time I’d dodged the question, but now the promise of resuming interrupted sleep wasn’t luring her attention away.

“And the girl?”

“Perhaps somehow it… spilled over. You know, because of my gift.”

She didn’t say anything for a while. When I finally glanced away from my meal, the woman was scowling, the intense unpleasantness of the expression amplified by her sharp blue eyes.

“You’re a terrible liar,” she snapped. “What really happened? If you’re lashing out with magic shit in your sleep, I need to know.”

“I’m not lying,” I lied, pointlessly.

“Uh huh.” Kross turned her attention on Mari, who was sat next to me. “What’s your version of the story?”

Mari’s mind bristled under the scrutiny, but she gave nothing away, continuing to eat as if she hadn’t understood she was being addressed. She’d pulled her mask up just enough to eat, but her eyes and true expression were still hidden beneath obsidian black.

“Oh, leave them alone, Kross,” Bobby said, charms and jewelry jangling as they walked in from their bedroom. They were wearing their faded yellow filter suit, with a heavy pack over one shoulder and their glass-dome helmet under their arm. “No one is forcing you to follow them around.”

“Heh,” Kross grunted, spooning in another mouthful of porridge. “Suppose that’s right. Speaking of, you two decided where you’re going yet?”

I had thought about it and come up with as sensible a suggestion as I could. “We keep heading northwest, through the Labyrinth. There’s tribes beyond there that the Sweepers might not dare mess with. Even if they won’t take us in, we can hide out in their territory and the Sweepers won’t follow.”

“What, so like the Velocipeddlers?” Kross asked. “Those pushovers?”

“Or someone like them. Do you have a better idea?”

She shrugged, flopping her head to one side. “Nah, not really. You two are probably screwed.”

“Are you still coming with us?” I considered very carefully before saying what I said next, considered whether I really wanted to sound so desperate. “Your help would be invaluable.”

She shrugged once more. “Sure.”

I cast a confused glance in Mari’s direction, feeling the need to express my doubt to someone.

“Just like that?” I asked.

She set her empty bowl aside and leaned back into the cushions. “Metalhead is after you. He’s after you, and away from his fortress, and seems to be making mistakes. I have a score to settle with that bastard and sticking close to you is the best shot I have at settling it.”

I opened my mouth to thank her, but she cut me off.

“Once that’s done, mind, I’ll be going my own way.”

“That… seems reasonable,” I said. I turned to Bobby, giving them a pointed look up and down to indicate I noticed their change of attire. “And you? Have you decided to come with us?”

They puffed out their cheeks and blew out an exasperated breath, but then offered a smile. “I don’t think I have much choice. You say these yellow robes capture witches, they’ll be here for me soon. Real magic or no.”

“I’m sorry,” I said. “We’ve caused you a lot of trouble.”

“It’s not your fault. Besides, it might be nice to get out and see a bit more of the world. And I really am interested in helping you learn more about your gift.” Some of that eager shine returned to their eyes. “Actually, I already have a lot of questions. For example, can you sense the electricity running through these lights?”

They traced a finger through the air, following a cable hanging from the ceiling that sprouted tiny lights like flowers on a vine.

I frowned a little at that. “No… well, no more than anyone else, I think.”

Bobby’s brows went up at that, and they shared a long look with Kross.

I fidgeted a little. “You know? It’s like there’s a sort of a hum to it? It’s not quite a noise but it’s… a something…” I trailed off. Now that I thought about it, had that hum always been there? Or had I only noticed it once I’d started to see peoples’ minds?

“Fascinating.” Bobby withdrew a notepad and pen from a pocket on the front of their suit and began fervently scratching away. “So, it is tired to electrical current somehow, which makes sense, of course, but how something like that would develop, I have no clue. Tell me—”

“Ah! Ah!” Kross shouted, cutting them off. “We don’t have time for this. Plenty of time to talk on the road. For now, we got to get gone.”

Bobby looked crestfallen for a moment but did eventually click their pen and put their pad away. “Right. Yes. I suppose this can wait.”

Little more of consequence was said until we were packed, ready to leave, and gathered on the ferry once more. Bobby arrived last, having taken some time to put their home into what they called ‘bug out mode.’ I never did find out what that involved, but I’ve always imagined anyone that trespassed on the island in their absence would be met with something chemically complex and viciously unpleasant.

“Is that a rocket launcher or something?” Kross asked while we waited, nodding her head at the Lawbringer. I’d noticed her eying the metal tube all morning, her mind sharpening with focused envy.

“Something like that,” I offered.

“Witchy give it to you?”

“Where else would I have gotten it?”

She shrugged. “Want me to carry it?”

“It’s not too heavy.”

“What I mean is, if we get in a fight perhaps it should be with someone that can actually shoot straight.”

I turned to her, opening my mouth to reject her offer, but the words seemed ridiculous before they could get all the way out. ‘I am the one destined to wield this,’ would have been a laughable thing to say.

“I’ll hold onto it for now,” I said.

She shrugged again, like it didn’t bother her, but I didn’t need to read her mind to know she’d be asking again.

When Bobby showed up, they had a loose satchel under their arm, the contents clacking together as they strode down to the Ferry. With the heavy pack and the bulky suit, the witch was almost comically overburdened. Swaying as they moved, threatening to topple over at any moment.

Kross and I both offered to take some of their load from them

“Um, that would be great, thanks,” they said. “But just be careful. Whatever you do, don’t drop it.”

They handed me the satchel. It wasn’t too heavy, just very bulky. Heeding their warning, I kept the bag at arm’s length. “Right… what is it exactly?”

“Take a look,” they said, and so I unzipped the bag. Inside were seven stubby metal cylinders, a think band of purple paint wrapping around their midsection.

“Are these?”

“Gas grenades. My special blend, though not the nasty green stuff, that’s too easy to kill yourself with… so I’ll hang on to those. Hopefully you we won’t need them, but if we do… just make sure not to stand in the middle of the cloud. The gas itself won’t kill you—you’ll have a real bad day, but it isn’t fatal—the danger is it gums up filter masks.”

“Sounds… horrific,” I said, imagining some bleak future where I’d have to choose between breathing in magic and not breathing at all.

“Sounds great,” Kross chimed in cheerily.

And with that, we cranked the ferry back to shore. We took the time to crank it back the other way, smash the shore-side crank, and leave a ‘not open for business’ sign, and then began our long trek northwest, into the part of the city known as the Labyrinth. Mari and I shared Thunder’s saddle, Kross and Bobby taking the bike.

To my great relief, the first day passed mostly uneventfully. The Labyrinth was more densely packed than other parts of the city, the buildings all squashed between a uniform crosshatch of streets. It would have been very easy to navigate if so many buildings hadn’t collapsed over the years, torn down by creeping vines to barricade the pathways. The tiny minds of wildlife scurried away from the stomping hooves and roaring engine, and I think we even passed a few cowering and confused Loners, but nothing living decided to impede our progress.

It was only when resting in shade of a wall held up entirely by flowering creeper vines, that we heard the very distant rumble of other engines, and my perhaps premature relief began to seep away.

“Do you think we should leave the bike behind?” I asked. “If they are keeping their ears open, it’ll tell them exactly where we are.”

I was expecting Kross to disagree, but, to her credit, she nodded. “Makes sense. It’s going to run out of fuel soon-ish too, I reckon. I’ll find a place to stash it.”

Food was also a concern, though water wouldn’t be an issue as long as we stayed somewhere near the river. Bobby had brought a decent amount of grains and roots that they’d grown in their garden, and I still had some salty dog meat left, but it was a long trip. I resolved to set traps each evening and perhaps hunt a little whilst the others made camp.

Kross could hunt too, and all three of us adults could do a little fishing. We’d be fine as long as we found the hours each day for it.

We continued on foot and hoof, Thunder taking most of the load, and Mari. The pace was much slower, of course, but our minds all rested a little easier knowing our pursuers couldn’t hear us from miles away.

The other benefit was that we could actually hear ourselves think, without the roaring engine assaulting our ears.

Mari remained completely silent, even in her mind, which was murky and unfocused. I felt… embarrassed around her. No, perhaps ashamed is the right word. Guilty? She made me uncomfortable, in any case. She’d seen too much. I’d shown her too much. She’d only just lost one family and through my own recklessness I’d forced her to live through losing someone else’s too.

It was the afternoon before guilt finally won out as the dominant emotion, and I tentatively reached out to her with my mind.

{Mari, are you all right?} I asked.

{I’m better than I was yesterday. No one is shooting at us.}

{I meant about… last night. My memories.}

{Yes. That was… a lot. I didn’t even know it was possible to share so much. It was like I was in a dream. You know? Where everything is familiar, and you have memories that seem real but when you wake up, they all slip away. I once dreamt I had a younger brother, and in the dream, I had all these old memories of him. He’d do something silly, like fall in a river, and I’d think: that’s exactly like Rahze, always so clumsy. It felt like something I’d seen him do dozens of times. But when I woke up, he didn’t exist, he’d never existed, I hadn’t seen him before that dream. I don’t even have any brothers or sisters, so where did the old memories come from?}

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

Once she opened up, she kept going. I listened, letting her get it all out, trying to keep my own mind quiet so as to not interrupt.

{That makes sense.} I sent. {And I do know that feeling. That wasn’t what it was like for me. They were my memories, but there was… something in the back of my mind. I think that was you.}

{No.} Her mind suddenly sharpened to a fine point. {I felt that too. Like someone was sitting behind me, but my head refused to turn. Like there was a third person in there with us. They spoke to me, or you, or us.}

I tried to keep my mind cool, but it boiled over at the implications. Mari had felt Mother’s touch too. Someone else had witnessed her existence.

{You know what that was, don’t you?} the girl asked.

{It’s complicated.} Which was a lie. It wasn’t complicated, just inexplicable.

Her mind jabbed at mine, scenting the secret. {Was it the person you talk to? When you think you’re alone?}

I had begun to sweat inside my mask and had the sudden irrational urge to rip it off for a cool breath of air. {What do you mean?}

{In the tent yesterday, before the Gold Robe showed up. You were talking to someone while you thought I was asleep.}

I couldn't lie to her, that was clear. But I didn’t want to tell her the truth either. Didn’t want to discuss this at all. I didn’t explicitly send her a thought to back off, but at my mind’s retreat, she didn’t pursue.

{If you don’t want to talk about it, that’s fine.}

{Sorry. It’s…} I couldn’t find the right word. Or more accurately the ‘correctly flavored bundle of thoughts and feelings,’ because we weren’t really using words, remember? {Thank you for not pushing.}

She sent a pulse of warm affirmation, and her mind calmed, pulled back its prodding tendrils.

Like you would in a verbal conversation when things get awkward, I began looking around for a change of subject. I noticed Bobby was staring at us, perhaps because they’d noticed my apparently causeless discomfort, perhaps because I was standing in front of Thunder. They’d been glancing enviously at the horse all day, but curiosity and suspicion look very much alike.

{Would you mind if someone else rode Thunder for a bit? Perhaps we’ll move faster if we all get a chance to rest.}

If minds had eyebrows to cock, Mari’s would have. {Are you sure you don’t just want to win some favor from your ‘friend.’}

If minds had cheeks to blush… {No. That’s not—}

Mari cut me off by calling to Bobby—“Vitch!”—and letting loose a sudden string of half-comprehensible not-English. Then she hopped down from the saddle.

“Would you like a turn on the horse?” I translated.

“Really?” Bobby’s face lit up in a white-toothed grin. “That would be amazing! Thank you so much.”

They asked what felt like hundreds of questions about how to mount up, how to make the horse ‘go,’ whether he preferred ear scratches or neck pats. Mari very patiently explained, via me, that for now all they needed to do was how to sit in the saddle and not fall out.

Bobby’s mind lit up with delight and crackled with curiosity. They were a scholarly person, after all, like all those eccentric old teachers from the library, and, to a lesser extent, like me. For them, finding a living horse was like dinosaur obsessed Professor Brown meeting a living triceratops.

Their enthusiasm was infectious, and soon all five of the minds present had warmed with good humor, even Kross’s, though there was a cynical edge to her consciousness like usual.

We’d made good time by the end of that first day, and although the distant truck grew louder towards the evening, it also seemed to be veering away from our trail. This put Bobby in even higher spirits, because it was a sign that the Sweepers hadn’t stopped to repair the ferry and loot the island.

The first night went well too. We made camp as the sun was setting. Bobby had brought a tent of their own, so we didn’t all have to share mine. They and Mari kept watch at camp, whilst Kross ranged for large game, and I set traps for smaller prey. We set about our tasks without any argument or even much discussion, as if we’d camped together dozens of times.

It had been a while since I’d been alone, and predictably Mother chose to turn up once I was finally away from the others.

“I’m very proud of you, Alan,” was the first thing she said.

“Hello, Mother.” I was focusing on setting a snare near the roots of a tree that looked like it might have seen some use by rabbits, so I didn’t turn to face her.

“You’re actually spending time with people, and you’re enjoying it. I knew you could do it.”

Despite myself, I smiled. “Is that all it takes to make your proud?”

“You’re also doing a Good thing and sticking at it. Helping poor Mari and warning the witch about what was coming for them. I’d keep an eye on that Kross though, she could be trouble.”

“I’m well aware. She’s a cold-blooded killer. Bobby seems to trust her though.”

There was an unmistakable grin in her voice. “Bobby?”

My cheeks flushed at the slip. “The Witch. Well, that term might not be entirely accurate now.”

“Oh, so you two are on a first name basis now? Interesting.”

“Don’t be like that.” I’d finished setting the snare, but I still couldn’t bring myself to turn all the way around and look her in the face, so I put a great deal of concentration into packing up my tools. “Don’t read too much into it.”

“Be like what? Read what?” She was teasing me. “Oh, come on, Alan, you’re a grown man, it’s perfectly natural to like the look of—”

“Ah, ah, ah, no! Not discussing this with you.”

“All right, all right. But I’ve been watching, and I’m fairly sure there’s some interest from their side too. You might want to—”

“Mother. Please.” I almost spun around to face her then but settled for zipping my pack closed with extra vigor.

She fell silent, though I was sure it was with great difficulty on her part.

She’d been watching, she claimed. Making the same observations I thought I might have seen hints of. My conversation with Mari earlier that day rushed back, about how the girl had felt Mother’s presence alongside my own.

I shouldered my pack, then took a deep breath and let it out slowly before I began the trek to the next potential trapping site. “There’s something important I need to ask you.”

She followed along behind, boots softly crunching into the wild grass. “You know you can talk to me about anything.”

“What are you?”

She chuckled. “I don’t know what you mean. I’m your mother.”

“I thought I was just insane. That you were a hallucination. I can’t hear your thoughts, so you’re definitely not the same as everyone else. And you never seem to know anything useful that I didn’t already know. And Mari sat through an entire conversation between us and thought I was talking to myself. All that points to you just being a product of my imagination.”

“But?”

“But you where there last night, when the… thing with the memories happened. And you were there to help with that Gold Robe. You’ve interacted with other people.”

“I’ll always be there when you need me, Alan.”

“That’s just not true,” I said, perhaps more bitterly than was fair.

She let out a sad sigh and paused for a long time before answering. If she had feelings, I’d hurt them. “I’ll always be there when I can be, then.”

I stopped in place and drew in a breath. I was going to face her. It was time. “Answer my question then. What are you? Because I know you’re dead, Mother. I watched you die. If you were there last night, you watched yourself die. They— they took a knife—”

The words were almost too heavy to escape my throat. They choked me. But I did turn to face her, my eyes streaming with tears, to finally look upon whatever was left of her face.

There was no one there. She was gone.

I took a long blink as that sunk in, then I couldn’t help but laugh. I shouted into the sky, the trees, the skeletal buildings that surrounded me. “Really? Really? Now? Of all times?

Nothing responded.

She’d be back. Probably when I least wanted her to show up. And I promised myself that next time… next time she’d give me some answers.

I took more time than I needed to finish setting my traps, giving myself some time to settle. When I eventually got back to camp, our group shared an evening meal together. We each contributed a little. Simple fare on its own, but combined it was far more variety than I’d had in a long time.

When we were all satisfied, we turned in, sleepy from a hard day’s travel. Kross would take the first watch. Mari followed me to my tent, and I asked if she’d rather share with Kross and Bobby. The question confused her.

{I’m a strange man you met two days ago,} I explained. {I wouldn’t be offended if you’d rather share with the… not-men.}

I hoped she would force me to explain my reasoning.

She didn’t. She just shrugged. {At least you can understand me.}

Her mind seemed at ease. Perhaps she had finally decided she could trust me.

{Aren’t you worried that the memory-dream-thing will happen again?}

{A little. But I don’t think it would be a bad thing if we tried to do more things with our gift. As practice. I hoped the witch would train me, but they’re not like us. If we want to get stronger, perhaps we need to practice with each other. Not that dream thing. But things that can help us defend ourselves.}

It seemed sensible. Wise, even.

When we’re children, we get frustrated that adults don’t listen to all our good ideas and cutting insights. Often, that’s because they’re genuinely ill-informed and naive opinions. Sometimes, though, it’s because adults are just embarrassed that a child thought of something they didn’t.

I felt that embarrassment in that moment, but I pushed it deep down. Mari must have glimpsed it in my mind, but she’d at least seen me reject the emotion for what it was: irrational, foolish.

{We really need a better word than ‘things’ for these… things. But that’s a good idea.} A thought gave me pause. {We only have each other to test it on though.}

She let that sit for a moment. {Does that bother you?}

{It does. Especially since neither of us really knows the rules about how this works. I don’t want to hurt you.}

{We’ll both come to a lot more harm if we aren’t prepared when we next have to face a Gold Robe.}

{I know. I’ll still do it as long as you’re okay with it.}

{It was my idea. Wasn’t it?}

I nodded. I wasn’t quite ready yet though, so I reached for a new topic to stall. {Was there anyone else like us amongst your Tribe?}

{No. In yours?}

I shook my head. {My gifts arrived after the library burned down anyway, when I was out on my own.}

{Strange. I’ve always had mine. At least as long as I can remember.}

{So, neither of us has really had a teacher before. Guess we’ll have to improvise.} I looked around for something lightweight, safe to drop, and settled on a small tin cook pot. {Make me drop this. Force me.}

She titled her head down to stare at the pot. {I’m not sure it works like that.}

I huffed out a nervous laugh. {Neither am I. That’s why we’re trying to figure this out.}

After a moment, she nodded, and her mind drew back in on itself, the edges smoothing out as she focused.

{Are you ready?} she asked.

{Sure,} I lied.

She nodded and drew in a long breath through her mask.

{DROP IT!} Her mind surged forward like a cannonball, smashing me between the eyes. My vision blurred. My ears rang. I stumbled back.

But I did not drop the pot.

The mental attack hit hard but had slammed my mind back instead of penetrating it.

“That hurt,” I said, trying to shake the ringing out of my ears.

Mari’s mind was soft and hazy with worry. She reached out, taking a half-step toward me before catching herself. {Sorry. Are you all right?}

{I will be. Don’t worry. We knew that would probably happen.}

Hunched over in pain as I was, our eyeline was almost level. The black visor gave nothing away as usual, but her small shoulders shook with adrenaline. {It didn’t work.}

{It might not even be possible. We’ve been forming our thoughts like commands, but if you command someone to stop or get back, and then hit them with a club, is it the command or the club that sends them away?}

{Peter got inside our minds.}

I shook my head, finally straightening up. {But he didn’t make us do anything. It was more like he was searching for something.}

{True.} Her head drooped a little.

Her mention of Peter did give me an idea though. {Could you make the thought sharper? Less power, but more focus? Or maybe you just need to apply pressure more slowly rather than lashing out all at once?}

{I can try. Let me know when you’re ready.}

This time her mind moved slowly, pressing against the outer shell of mine. Imagine someone trying to drill into your forehead with the blunt end of a pencil and you’ll have a rough approximation of the feeling. Unpleasant, but far from truly painful. {Drop it. Drop it. Drop it.}

I tried not to resist, forcing myself to relax. Which is almost a paradox, so unsurprisingly it didn’t work. My mind tensed up and hardened itself with every prod and poke.

{You can try a bit harder if you like,} I suggested.

She did, and the pressure increased. In the real world, her breath was coming quickly, her shoulders shaking. My defenses began to bend, crack, break.

And then, all of a sudden, the pressure was gone.

Mari gasped for air, doubling over as if she’d just run a marathon.

{Are you all right?} I stepped forward, raising my hand as if to place it on her shoulder, but then stopping half-way when I realized it wouldn’t help at all.

{I’m too tired,} she responded. {It drains me so quickly.}

{It’s okay. You were getting close. I could feel it. We can try again tomorrow.}

{No. You should try now.} She reached out to take the pot from me, but I didn’t let go.

Her mind was frayed and thin, like a cloud too sparse to block out any sunlight.

{Are you sure you can handle this right now?} I asked.

“Alan,” she said, surprising me with the sudden switch to real speech. {I can handle this.}

I released the pot.

She took a few more long breaths, then gave me the nod to begin.

{Drop the pot.} I sent the thought, slow and stretched out. Like hot wax it coated her mind, searching for a weak point to pour into. She resisted the same way I had, but she’d burnt off much of her strength already. I didn’t know what I was doing, or how, acting mostly on instinct. {Drop the pot. Drop the pot. Drop the pot.}

The command’s blurred together, a constant hazy buzz instead of the crisp bursts of communication we usually exchanged. The layers of intent built up, suffocating her mind.

My own strength waned, and the real world began to fade.

Mari let out a whimper. I heard the sound but didn’t understand it.

The hard outer shell of her mind cracked, then with a crunch split open, and my attack seeped in.

A surge passed back along the tendril, as if it were a puddle that had finally grown big enough to touch a live wire. Thoughts, memories, images, struck me like lightning. I saw myself from across the room, the red mask looking down at me. I felt Mari’s weariness and pain in my own bones. And all around me, up in the sky and under the ground, more memories and thoughts winked at me like stars. If I squinted, I could see into them.

Grass, and horses, and their riders, the spices of stewing meat, and more specific things too. Mari’s father presenting her with a young colt. “His name is Thunder.” A towering figure with a red mask tearing into a dark hiding spot. A fur-wrapped body lying at the bottom of a cliff, broken and bloody.

{Get out.} Mari’s mind snapped shut, slicing the intruding mind-liquid off.

It hurt. Quite a bit. Imagine your brain being trapped in a closing door. I recoiled back, my vision darkening with pain, and collapsed onto my rear.

She stood over me, her body heaving with exertion, her breaths ragged wheezes distorted through her mask.

{Sorry,} we both thought at each other simultaneously.

“I didn’t mean to do that,” I said. I made no effort to conceal my guilt, letting the hot sickly fire of it wash out of me.

“Nay,” she gasped. {No, that’s the sort of thing we knew might happen. Did I hurt you?}

{A little,} I admitted.

We rested in silence then. Both our minds were full of apology and guilt and embarrassment, and the mutuality of those feelings dampened them for both of us. Sleep crawled up over me like a blanket of lead— as if I hadn’t rested in days.

“Maybe that’s enough,” I said, slurring my words. “For tonight, at least.”

Mari barely managed a nod of surrender, and then slumped onto her bedroll.

When consciousness returned, daylight had warmed the gray walls of the tent to a hot white. Voices were shouting outside, and there was a deep, low, hum about the air. It was familiar, but with the fog of sleep still clinging to me, I couldn’t place it.

The tent’s inner flap zipped open, and Kross’s masked head burst through the opening. “The hell are you too fucking around at?”

“Is it my turn on watch?” I asked sleepily.

“You missed that! Couldn’t wake you up.”

“Then what…” I finally placed that hum in the air, and my blood chilled. The engines were louder than they’d ever been yesterday.

“Yep,” Kross confirmed, reading the fear in my face. “Sweepers got up early today.”