The devil is right. I was getting complacent. I’ve been content to let things go as they were, not just because it was easier that way, but also because I was scared. Most of the changes in my life have been bad ones. About the only positive thing that’s happened to me is getting accepted into college, and even then that’s had some… difficulties… as we all know. So why would I want to change things when there’s no pressing need?
Future-Ashley could just deal with it, right?
(if you’re new, start here, and if you’re totally lost, this might help)
The devil is okay, for the record. He showed up to one of my exams, standing outside the classroom window with a sign that read “the answer to question 16 is ‘pikaia’” which is especially impressive considering the classroom was on the third floor.
Also I already knew the answer so I think he’s just being an obnoxious shit. That or reminding me of our last conversation. Honestly, it’s probably both. Yeah. I think it’s both.
Fortunately, I have a plan. I went over the details with Cassie and Maria. You’ll notice that Grayson was not included in this. There’s a reason for that. I’ll get to it in a moment. It took a bit of convincing to get my friends onboard with my idea, but it was more because they don’t like the thought of putting myself into danger than any real problem with the plan. We made a few adjustments to it, but overall they reluctantly agreed that it could work.
“I think it’s kind of shitty that the laundry lady isn’t being more helpful,” Maria grumbled. “It’s like when all the other members of your group project aren’t pulling their weight and leave you to do most of the work.”
Yeah guess what happened to Maria recently.
The first part of our plan was in Cassie’s hands. I’d suggested that Maria do it, but that was one of the things we decided to change. Cassie wanted to. She had some things she wanted to ask Grayson about, anyway, and that would give her a good excuse to talk to him.
She’s… doing better than I expected since I told her about Sarah. I think she’s more unnerved than upset. She says it’s hard to be emotional about something she doesn’t even remember.
So with our plan decided on, we went our separate ways to make it happen. We had to time this just right, but fortunately the weather forecast was in our favor. Cassie texted Grayson and asked if he’d meet her somewhere and that she had some questions about the creature that took her memories. I wanted to go with her, to make sure she was okay and Grayson wasn’t going to get upset, but I had to firmly remind myself that they were both quite capable of handling themselves and I didn’t need to be hovering over them. Besides, I had my own task to see to.
I went thrifting.
I have some money saved up from my time as a barista. I’ve been very carefully rationing it, because while my scholarship covers tuition, the dorm room, and a meal plan, there’s always small incidentals that have to be taken care of. Thankfully the thrift store is, well, a thrift store. Being the second oldest in my family I was already used to second-hand anyway, as I got all my sister’s hand-me-downs and then my younger siblings would get those from me when I outgrew them. I wasn’t shopping for myself, though. And what I was looking for was particularly cheap, because it wasn’t the sort of thing your average college student buys.
After about an hour of searching I had what I wanted. I returned to campus with a couple plastic bags in hand and found Cassie waiting in the dorm room for me. She’d also accomplished what we’d agreed upon. Now we just had to wait. I didn’t think it would take long. The flickering man is annoyingly tuned in to everything happening on campus, after all.
“I wish I could go with you,” Cassie said as we sat in our dorm room, waiting for evening to come.
“I do too,” I replied miserably. “I seem to be a lot more successful at this stuff when I have help.”
Then to change the topic, I asked if she found out anything useful from Grayson. Not a lot, she said. He was evasive, but indirectly so. He’d answer direct questions but he didn’t volunteer information. Cassie felt she didn’t know what questions to ask and it left her frustrated.
“I’m not a fan of how close-mouthed he is about this stuff,” she grumbled. “He’s going to need to fix that if you’re going to pursue a long-term relationship with him.”
I mumbled something about how we both had things we needed to work on. Anyway, Cassie didn’t find out a lot that we didn’t already know about the forgetter. Grayson’s term, not mine, so while that skirts dangerously close to being a name I think the administration might already be using it soooo lost cause I guess. Besides its quasi-name, Cassie also found out that its reach extended beyond campus. It couldn’t leave campus, but much like a spider feeling the vibrations from every part of its web, it could trace the connections of the memories it was removing.
If not for these posts, Sarah would be gone from this world in every way. Even her own family will cease to remember her.
With that depressing thought, I checked and rechecked my preparations. Bag of thrift store clothing. Towels. Running shoes. Then I waited until the dorm grew still and quiet, which was about 1 AM. Kind of early, but it’s finals week, after all.
Yeah yeah even with all that talk about complacency I still left dealing with the flickering man up until the last minute.
The laundry lady was in the laundry room when I went down the hall to find her. I knew she would be, and not just because I was looking for her. Maria had loaned me some of her laundry and I’d stuffed it in a washing machine around midnight and then “forgot” to get it out. We weren’t leaving anything to chance.
Don’t worry, Maria knows all about putting it away properly after getting it back from the laundry lady. She’ll be fine.
“I brought you a little something,” I said as I entered the room.
The laundry lady’s head snapped up, her eyes narrowed in annoyance. I suspect she was more annoyed at the fact that Maria had mismatched socks than at my presence, though. I held out the big plastic bag from the thrift store and after staring at me warily for a moment, she peered inside.
“I got a lot of weird things to wash,” I said. “It seemed to be what you like, judging by what you were looking at in that fashion magazine a while back. There’s some linen pants in there, a lot of polyester that melts easily, some shirts with sequins, and oh - yeah, that.”
She reached into the bag and pulled out what I think is a combination muff and purse.
“Are these… weasel tails?” she asked, staring at it.
Yes. Yes they are. Just the tails, dangling from every inch of the muff/purse/thing. Also they’re dyed a deep burgundy. It’s hideous in all the best ways.
“Wow,” the laundry lady said. “I am honestly impressed.”
Gonna add that to my list of accomplishments. Impressed an inhuman creature with my thrifting skills.
“It smells like a thrift store,” she sniffed, holding it up to her face. “I’ll be fixing that.”
“I just… have a hunch you’re rebuilding something,” I said tentatively. “And I felt kind of bad for wrecking it the first time, so I thought I’d help with that process.”
She stared at me long and hard, the weasel muff/purse clutched in her bony fingers. Finally, she nodded curtly. Yes. She was rebuilding her realm. Outside, the light drizzle that had been going on all day tapped faintly on the laundry room window.
“Do you mind if I do the honors of adding this to it?” I asked, hoisting the rest of the clothing still in the bag. “I once heard someone say that human hands were the best to fix what human hands had ruined.”
Just a little something from the campground. But the laundry lady again nodded, this time approvingly, and gestured broadly at the dryer that hung open, waiting to receive Maria’s damp laundry I assume.
“Go ahead,” she said. “I’ll be right behind you.”
“And I’ll get to leave again, right?” I asked.
Look, I was like… 70% confident in our plan. Okay maybe 65%. I just wanted to make sure.
“Of course,” she huffed. “You’ll be a guest in my realm.”
Hospitality rules were in effect. Awesome. I crawled headfirst into the dryer without any further hesitation, clutching the bag to my chest. There was a weird moment of disorientation when it felt like the world was tumbling around me, then the ground opened up beneath my feet. I fell a few inches and landed on my feet. I almost fell, slipping on the soggy laundry underneath me, but a hand latched onto my elbow like the talon of a bird and held me upright.
Ngl I think my heart skipped a beat.
“Sorry everything is so wet,” the laundry lady said absently. “I haven’t accumulated enough laundry to cover up the marsh yet.”
I didn’t care to look under the nearest pile to see what was underneath. The memory of that murky, gray water sent a shiver down my spine and I didn’t want to think about how I was standing directly above it, separated only by a thin pile of fabric. I’m not sure why the mere thought of it unnerves me so much. At least her realm wasn’t in the process of being devoured like it was last time. We stood on a small island, barely bigger than my dorm room. All the other remnants of decaying laundry were gone, leaving behind an expanse of mud broken only by dead, gray trees and patches of water that glistened dully, like a dirty quarter.
“I managed to preserve this much, so at least I’m not starting from scratch,” the laundry lady said, surveying the terrain beside me. “Now go on, add what you brought. The bigger the buffer is between me and the water, the better.”
I didn’t dump it out. Not yet. I was painfully aware that this was where the plan’s success was mostly out of my hands and all I could do was stall for time.
“What’s wrong with the water?” I asked. “Does it have something to do with campus?”
“No.” She frowned, as if she was struggling to chase down a memory. “Well, yes, but not in the way you’re thinking. I just remember… I know… I don’t want to go down there.”
She stared at the shallow pool of water just beyond the edge of the island. It couldn’t be more than a foot deep, I thought. I took a tentative step closer.
“You shouldn’t go close to it, either,” she said.
I froze. The surface of the water hadn’t changed, but as I’d approached it, it felt like it was starting to boil. Like something below the surface was stirring and even with the laundry lady’s warning I found I couldn’t tear my gaze from it, because it felt like there was a face under the water and that in a moment it would turn in my direction and-
“What the FUCK,” a voice said from behind us.
My head snapped up and around. At the top of the island, where the laundry was stacked the highest, stood the flickering man.
When Cassie talked to Grayson today, she did so outside, while it was sprinkling. She asked mostly about the forgetter, but she also slipped in something about how I’d said something about ‘the laundry realm being rebuilt’ recently. I suspect Grayson was responsible for informing the administration about the laundry lady the first time, but I didn’t know if he would do so again. However. The flickering man is keeping a very close eye on both me and Grayson and even if Grayson kept that information to himself, campus’s murderous busybody sure as hell wouldn’t.
The laundry lady heaved a deep sigh and turned to face him. I covertly reached into my bag and removed a towel.
“This is fine, isn’t it?” the laundry lady said with a strained smile. “It’s small. It’s contained.”
“That’s not the issue,” he snapped. “It’s about permission. It’s about what’s allowed.”
Then his gaze slid sideways to where I stood quietly waiting for the impending confrontation.
“What are you doing here?” he snarled, staring at me with unbridled disgust.
“Helping,” I replied, and I upended the rest of the thrift store clothing onto the ground at my feet.
“I’ve had enough of both of you,” he snarled, stepping forward and clenching his hands into fists.
“Oh no, whatever are you going to do?” the laundry lady said with a dramatic roll of her eyes. “There’s no rain here! And - oh look - you’re standing in my realm.”
Yep. This was what I was hoping for. Plan A was going quite well.
“I don’t have the rain, do I?” he asked softly. “We’re still on campus.”
I froze as a raindrop landed on my forehead. This was the gray world. I knew it was. Everything outside of this small island of laundry was devoid of color. But then I remembered something the other staff would say back on the campground. It wasn’t the campground, but it also was. The terrain was the same. It was just… both somewhere else and right where we were at the same time.
“Uh, we should go,” I whispered, edging closer to the laundry lady. “Can you get us back into the laundry room? It’ll have a roof.”
Time to abandon Plan A.
“I could make it out,” she replied grimly, “but I don’t think you’ll make it one piece. He’s standing between us and the exit point.”
My stomach twisted queasily, thinking of the horrible game of tug-of-war I’d witnessed between them. So Plan B wasn’t going to work.
“You should go,” the laundry lady said tightly. “You’ll just get in the way.”
“But-”
The flickering man lunged for me, his hand outstretched at the level of my face, his teeth peeled back in blind rage. The laundry lady stepped sideways and his palm slammed into her sternum and… kept going. It appeared in front of me, straight through her torso and ripping out the back. Her blood trickled off his fingers, transparent and smelling of bleach.
She shoved him backwards with both hands. His hand vanished, leaving behind a gaping hole in her chest. The laundry lady, incredibly, was still on her feet, panting with pain or anger, I couldn’t tell which.
“I have,” she grated through clenched teeth, “the world’s ugliest weasel tailed muff and I’ll be damned if you kill me before I get to wash it!”
I had to get to the exit point. It wasn’t visible, but it was there, she’d said it was there and if I just got around the flickering man, then maybe I could get out of here. I edged sideways while the laundry lady threw herself at the flickering man. They grappled, snarling like wild dogs, and I hurried for the tallest point of the island. My feet slipped on the soggy laundry at my feet and my heart pounded in my chest. I’d accomplished everything I’d come to do except this one last thing. Piss off the flickering man, done. Force the laundry lady to act to defend her nascent realm, accomplished.
All that was left was escape.
Almost there. Behind me, I heard the laundry lady shriek and I hoped it was a cry of rage and not pain.
Then a fist closed in my hair. I was jerked to a stop and tears sprung up in the corner of my eyes as sharp pain ripped through my scalp.
The rain. He could jump from raindrop to raindrop. This was why the laundry lady wanted me to run. She couldn’t protect both of us with intermittent drops of rain falling from the gray, empty sky above us.
I saw in the corner of my eye his free hand reaching for my throat. No taunts. No hesitation this time. He was just going to kill me.
A small flick of the wrist. I could manage that much, even with my insides knotted up with dread and ice forming in my veins. My body didn’t want to respond, but I thought of my mom, of my siblings, of my degree that I was going to earn and the life I was going to have, a life I’d make for myself out of the dust of that future I thought I wanted, the one that fell apart when my ex-boyfriend died - no, when he hit me - I thought of all those things I wanted more than anything and it was like breaking through a sheet of glass, like throwing myself through and all my hesitation shattered-
And I flicked my wrist and arm upwards with strength - real strength this time - and the tip of the towel I held clenched between my fingers snapped over my shoulder and right into the flickering man’s face.
I bet it hurt like a bitch.
He screamed and let go and I heard the laundry lady screaming too, in anger. Then she hit him and I was thrown sideways, losing my balance on the slippery laundry and rolling down the gentle incline to come to a stop at the bottom.
“Through the marsh!” she shrieked at me. “You’ll find a way out!”
She was telling the truth. She had to be, she was inhuman.
Also, I’d brought her a weasel-tail muff which was apparently her new favorite thing in the world so she liked me now.
I stumbled to my feet, landing in ankle-deep water at the very edge of the laundry lady’s island. I spared one last glance to the two inhumans battling at the top. The flickering man had torn the laundry lady’s cheek off, leaving it hanging off her cheek and revealing muscle like cotton batting underneath. She had the towel I’d dropped in her hands, though, and they were sizing each other up warily.
She was buying me time to escape. I had to take it.
Plan C it was. My least favorite plan, because it was the last one on our list. There was no Plan D. This was my last idea for how to get out of here alive.
I turned and ran. Into the gray world, to seek the highest hill. [x]