for ariestess.

Gillian has the same dream three nights in a row about a dead deer in Sally's kitchen. She wakes up - in the dream, she means - and goes downstairs with some vague purpose, and splayed out in the middle of Sally's cheerful yellow tile is the rotting corpse of a white-haired buck, its blood crusted and dried into rust. The first night, Gillian gets up and drinks a glass of milk to calm down and then goes back to bed, but on the second, she stops to write the details down in her journal, trying to remember every detail, and on the third, she calls the aunts.

They tell her to put a cup of pink salt in Sally's bathroom cupboard and to hide it so she doesn't find it and throw it away, which Gillian does. They also tell her to cut a tiny hole in Gary's pillow and stuff a quail egg inside of it, then sew it shut again so he doesn't notice, which Gillian does right after the salt. She stuffs basil into every nook and cranny of the house that she can find, and puts dried blackberry in every tin and bag of coffee and tea that they have. Two weeks after their late night conversation, a package from the aunts arrives on the doorstep of Ben Frye's house, wrapped tightly in brown paper and knotted three times over with twine. An ivy plant, from the garden - Gillian plants it in Sally's flower bed, hidden behind her sad little daisies and the small, neglected hydrangea bush, and prays she doesn't notice.

"You've been so on edge this week," Ben tells her softly, that night as they're lying in bed. "Did you and Sal have a fight?"

"Not exactly." Gillian doesn't like lying to Ben, so she doesn't do it. They exist in a nebulous state of knowing and not, acknowledgment and silence. That night the aunts came, Gillian and Sally had come back in from the garden to find the three of them hunched around the kitchen table, their faces pale and serious. They'd stopped talking as soon as Gillian walked in, and ever since then Ben doesn't say a word when Gillian wakes up in the middle of the night and leaves the house to walk to Sally's in her pajamas and slippers, not bothering to even put on a coat. And her little omens of protection, the comforting rituals and altars she puts up around the house - salt on the window sills, dried rosemary in the sock drawer, an uncut piece of charcoal in the little coin holder in Ben's car door - he leaves them all be, and doesn't say a word. "Do you think bad things happen because we will them into existence by worrying about them so much?"

Ben actually thinks about it, leaning back against the pillow and humming a little as he rolls it over in his big, nerdy head. Gilly just loves him so much sometimes. It's crazy. "I think you can make yourself walk into bad things out of anxiety, yes. Self-fulfilling prophecies, and all that. You can subconsciously look for the things you're afraid of, because you're so obsessed with them."

"But what about for other people? Like your family?"

Ben's face softens. "I don't know, sweetheart." He takes Gillian's hand, carefully, like it's a precious, delicate thing. Holding it gently, like it's made of glass. "Part of loving people is living with that fear, I think. Just accepting that worry along with all the good things."

Gillian presses her cheek against his shoulder and thinks about reading Sally's letters on buses and in hotel rooms and in strange houses with new husbands, and how she hadn't worried like this about her sister at all, not even when Michael died, not even when Sally would write pages and pages about her own discontent and restless, angry grief, and then sign it off with a cheerful, call me when you're settled! Love you! Sally was never a person that welcomed worrying, she was always too busy for it. She handled herself and that was that, and if you tried to reach out you were more likely to get a bitten hand than a hug - it's always been that way. Gillian never had a second thought about running away, courting trouble and then bringing it home with her, because Sally could handle it. Sally could handle anything.

In her new life, her second start-again life, Sally is more fragile, and now Gilly's the strong one: the one with her shit together, with the steady boyfriend with the good job and the practical car and the organized dinner plans and the healthy habits. With Antonia and Kylie both away at college for most of the year, and a few weeks every summer at the aunts' besides, Sally is finally free of the weight of maternal responsibility - or at least, most of it. She cries at sad movies, now. She goes to concerts, and stays out all night. She and Gary go horseback riding about once a month at a ranch near the Canadian border, and she's talking about moving, getting a place with some land, so they could buy their own pony, maybe. She wears dresses with no tights on underneath, and she rarely shaves her legs. Last week Gillian had dropped by to pick up some mail that had been accidentally delivered to Sally's house, and happened upon them having sex right there in the living room, the curtains open wide, in the middle of the day. Gillian turned on her heel and ran back to her car, trying to bleach the image from her head, scandalized in a way she hadn't known she could be. Her sister! Getting in on with her boyfriend right there! In broad daylight!

Gilly loves and hates it, is so incandescently happy for Sally at the same time that it bugs the shit out of her. She's always known Sal was wilder than she pretended to be, for the same reasons that she's let it free now: she had people to take care of, a house to clean and a job to keep. Gilly had the luxury of fucking up because Sally didn't; she was allowed to do whatever she wanted because Sally took it upon herself to clean up the mess afterward. Nobody asked her to do it, which is what Gillian always told herself when it would eat at her. But the facts were thus, regardless. Now it's different, and Gillian doesn't know what to make of it. Resents it a little, if she's being honest. But she'd die before she ever said a word. Sally would never forgive her, and Gilly would deserve it.

"Do you wanna talk about it?" Ben asks, kissing her forehead.

Gillian shakes her head. Sometimes she feels restless in this house, with this man in this marriage, but what always stops her from leaving is thinking about the logistics of it: actually packing a bag, getting in her car, driving down the street and away from their life here. Who would feed the rabbits while Ben was at work? How everyone would stare at him, as he walked down the street - the pity, the hunger. The single moms would flock back - offering him casseroles, sliding into the booth across from him at the diner, low-cut tops and sparkling earrings. It turns her stomach, makes her want to grab on with both hands, and so she does - she has. Finally, something she wants enough to fight for. It's a hell of a thing.

"I'll call her tomorrow," she says, "it's late, and I'm just - you know. Fretting."

"You fret so gracefully, it barely counts as fretting at all."

"Flatterer," Gillian whispers, tilting up her chin for a kiss. "You silver-tongued science teachers are all the same."

"You need a bit of silver on your tongue to handle tenth graders," Ben says, and Gillian just loves him oh, oh so much. From his flat forehead all the way down to his hairy toes.

Gillian braces herself for the dream again, but that night it's different: she dreams about Ben, as she often does, in the attic of the aunts' house on Magnolia Street, doing magic tricks with the altar candles Jet keeps in the cupboards by the window. Over and over, he waves his hand over the wick, and it ignites with blue fire, then snuffs out in a wisp of smoke. On his shoulder is that damn bluebird that always gets in the house every April and lays her eggs in the rafters, no matter how many times the aunts have tried to chase it out. She's whistling a tune as Ben does his trick, the same wordless song Ben whistles in the mornings as he makes coffee.

She wakes up before he does, the tune stuck in her head. Stretches out beside him, rolling her legs against his beneath the sheets. Life is a finite shape, a stretch of time with a beginning and an end. The choices you make are permanent, and their consequences will reach out into your future and tug on the ends of your hair, throwing sticks and stones in your path to trip you up. But Gillian's good at running. Even, as it turns out, when she's doing it in one place.

She whistles as she makes coffee, and calls Sally after Ben leaves for work. The phone rings and rings and rings, but Gillian doesn't hang up. It's the reaching out that counts.

Gary's building a treehouse for the neighbor's kid, a mousy little boy named Stephen who doesn't seem to have many friends, at least by Gary's estimation. He comes over to their yard to read on Sally's bluestone porch, because they've got a nice couch out there and an Oak tree for shade, and his family's yard is full of lawn equipment and his dad's old truck, in pieces on the grass. Sally and the mom are friends, they go out for drinks sometimes and come home in the early hours of the morning, stumbling out of a cab holding hands, giggling so loudly it echoes down the street. The dad's away overseas, a Marine or something, but from what Gary's overheard from the porch when the women sit out there with iced tea, talking late into the night, it sounds like the man won't exactly be welcomed when - if - he comes back.

"Is Ms. Owens a witch?" Stephen asks one afternoon, while Gary is sanding plywood in the garage.

"You shouldn't talk that way about a lady, son," Gary says.

Stephen flushes a little. "It's just what the kids at school say. Is it a bad word?"

"Sometimes." Gary leans back on his heels and surveys his work. Good enough for now. "Time for a break, I think. You come on inside and I'll make us some lemonade."

"That's okay," Stephen says quickly, still worried he's in trouble. "I'm not thirsty."

"Your mom will be gone another hour at least, and until then you're my responsibility," Gary says evenly. "You come on inside."

Stephen follows him meekly, eyes glued to the ground.

The girls still have their bedrooms upstairs, but in their absence Sally has expanded - bringing home books and new furniture, switching out the curtains, settling into the house in a way that she clearly hadn't before. Antonia in particular, whenever she's home, seems put off by her mother in a way that gives Gary the impression that this is a new state of being for Sally. Antonia's suspicion expands, of course, to Gary - but he doesn't feel any certain way about it. His family, if they were still alive, would be put off, too. None of the people who knew him in Arizona would recognize him now. Sometimes lives just change.

"Now, sit down and have some of this," Gary says, pouring a lemonade into a glass he's fairly sure somebody swiped from the pizza parlor. "You're not in trouble, Stevie. I just wanna talk to you about what the kids in your class are saying."

Stephen shrugs and takes a gulp. He tips it back too fast, and almost splashes the entire glass down onto his face. "Everyone knows Ms. Owens 'cuz she works at the school."

"And they say things about her?"

Stephen nods, looking guilty. "I don't."

"I know," Gary says, patting the kid's arm. He relaxes, minutely. "But you understand that it's unkind to talk about people you don't know, right?"

"Because it's none of our business?" Stephen pipes up. "That's what Mom says."

"Your Mom's right." Gary takes a long drink of his own lemonade. Sally actually made it this morning, and stuck it in the fridge for later, which is why it leaves him feeling dizzy when he lowers his glass. Lemon and basil, which the whole house seems to stink of, lately. Gary wakes up every morning lightheaded, and hears the faint sound of birds constantly, flapping outside the window, in the rafters, on the roof.

"They said she does magic because she chased off Mr. Hannigan," Stephen says. "They say the bluestones in the backyard light up at night, which I know ain't true because I seen them and they're normal."

"You saw them," Gary corrects gently.

"Right, I saw them."

"Sounds like your friends have pretty big imaginations."

Bolstered by his interest, Stephen perks up a little. "They talk about Ms. Owens' sister, too."

"I'm sure they do," Gary says dryly, and finishes off his lemonade. "Do me a favor, Stevie. You tell anybody who asks to mind their business from now on, and if they tease you about it...well, if Ms. Owens has magic, then she probably knows how to put hexes on people who spread rumors, right?"

Stephen's eyes are wide. "Yeah," he breathes.

"Thank you," Gary says gratefully, and squeezes Stephen's shoulder. The boy swells a little, so desperate for attention that it makes Gary's heart ache. "Not that I'm admitting anything one way or another, you understand."

"Right, yeah." Stephen bites his lip against a grin. "Because if Ms. Owens were a witch - "

"She certainly wouldn't appreciate us flappin' our jaws about it," Gary says, with a wink. Stephen finishes his lemonade in one long gulp, practically vibrating.

Gary takes a nap after Stephen leaves with his mother, which he's been doing a lot lately, lulled into drowsiness by the heat. Summer here is so different from back home, which was dry and metallic, dangerous hot that could and did kill people - but here, here it's just so damn humid, and it presses down on Gary's head like a rainstorm. Sticky heat that just pushes and pushes until you're flat on your back. Even air conditioning don't help much.

Twilight, when Gary wakes up, finds Sal in the garden. He can hear her talking on the phone through the window, and he ambles down the stairs, pouring himself a glass of water at the sink, rubbing the sleep from his eyes. Sleeping in the daytime always makes him feel off-kilter - like he's out of pace with the rest of the world.

Sally raises a hand at him in greeting, glimpsing him through the window. Gary raises his hand back, and watches her for a minute, feeling his heart beating hard against the cage of his chest. Her hair in the dying light, the dark green dress. The timber of her voice through the windows. Some moments will live forever, and you can often recognize them as they're happening, if you pay attention.

"Hey," Sally says, as he joins her outside. She presses a button on the cordless, hanging up her call. "You're awake. You feeling alright? I didn't want to wake you, in case you felt sick or something."

Gary smiles at her, folding himself into the couch on the bluestones. Sally, leaning against the patio table, presses one of her bare ankles against his knee. "No. Just tired. Was that Kylie again?"

"Yeah. She flunked a test." Sally sighs, leaning her head back, her hair spilling over her shoulder. "She's so anxious, though she doesn't like to admit it. She just wanted to talk."

"Just like her mom. Self-sufficient."

"She damn well better be," Sally says, and pushes herself off the table. Leaning over the small flowerbed, she picks away a few weeds, throwing them carelessly over her shoulder. "This damn ivy - Gilly thinks I don't know it was her."

"I've been meaning to ask. Seems like it's been growing pretty damn fast." It's almost halfway up the side of the house, after just a few weeks. Long, curling vines that Gary is expecting to find creeping over their window sill any day now. "Could cut it, if you wanted. I've got time tomorrow."

"No, it'll just grow back. Faster, too, if you try to kill it," Sally says, with such certainty that Gary doesn't even think to disagree. "It's fine. We should just let it run its course, that's the easiest way."

"Alright then," Gary says, after a beat.

Sally levels him with her eyes, wide and dark. One day she's gonna kill him just like that. Just by looking at him the wrong way.

"I'm making beef wellington tomorrow," she announces, and sits on the couch next to him. Curls into his side, like she was born to be there. "Do you like mushrooms?"

"I like 'em fine," Gary says. "Is that the thing with the pastry on the outside?"

"Yeah. It takes a long time - I'm gonna make the puff pastry from scratch."

"Special occasion?"

Sally shrugs. "Gilly and Ben are coming over," she says.

Her eyebrows are furrowed, shoulders tense, though she tries to relax herself when he slides his arm around her. "Bad day?"

"No, I'm just…" she sighs. "Bad feeling."

"Anything in particular?" Gary trusts Sal's bad feelings.

"Not yet. You think I should call the aunts again?" she asks, turning her worried eyes on him. "I know you spoke with them last night, but maybe - "

"Close to eight now," Gary says. "They'll be in bed already."

"You're right." Sally pinches her bottom lip with two fingers. "Something's gonna happen. Company's coming, Gary."

Gary frowns, squeezing her shoulder. Sally's worry is a familiar presence now, just like the shape of her body next to his in bed, and the mysterious little he's found here, in this strange little house. Sometimes Sally will start walking towards the phone before it even starts to ring, and it's always Gillian on the other end. Some nights they'll stay up all night, making love or talking or reading out loud to each other, like teenagers who can't bear to say goodnight, and Sally will make him a "special" cup of coffee in the morning, and Gary will make it through the entire work day without even yawning once. His grandfather's voice is a faraway memory now; sometimes Gary wonders if he'd ever really known what he was talking about in the first place, or if it was just some rotten talk from somebody who probably deserved whatever he got, from whatever woman powerful enough to put him in his place.

"It's probably nothing," Sally mutters. "I'm just being a worrywart."

"Don't say that. You should trust your instincts."

"Hm." Sally takes his hand. "I like that you encourage me."

Gary likes how she says things like that: so plainly. "A little goes a long way, in my experience."

"I kind of thought you'd say something like, 'a lady can get up to some pretty wild things with a little encouragement,'" Sally says, in her truly awful imitation of his accent.

Gary makes a face at her, which makes her laugh the second she sees it, snorting loudly and clapping one palm over her mouth. "You said it, not me."

"And a lady like me always speaks the truth," Sally says, grinning ear to ear.

"Among other things," Gary agrees.

"You sure you don't wanna head to your mom's first?" Gideon asks. Kylie looks at him and thinks about him struggling with her suitcase on the sidewalk, heavy with books and stone from the aunts' house on Magnolia Street. He'd waved off the security guard who tried to help, and glared at her when she tried to pick up the carry-on herself. "She'll probably be pretty mad that you stayed with me."

"No, she won't care." Sally has mellowed, at least when it comes to Kylie and Antonia's independence. Kylie figures it's probably pretty hard for her to enforce rules about spending the night with boys when she's got one of her own. Both sisters had watched in mute shock as their prim and pressed, practically virginal mother had moved in her hot cop boyfriend after a scant two weeks of dating. Neither girl is still entirely clear on the details of what...exactly Gary was even doing on the East Coast in the first place, let alone how he'd ended up in a surprise long-term relationship with their mom. And every time they've asked about it, Aunt Gilly just tells them to shut up and mind their own business. "I want to surprise her, anyway. Her and Aunt Gilly."

"Okay." Gideon never pushes, except when they're playing chess. It used to drive her crazy, how much she could get away with. But now it's nice - like a loose span of rope. It keeps her cautious - aware of how much she's taking. She always has to stay present, in the moment, to make sure she's not pulling too much. "You hungry?"

"Yeah, I could eat."

"Dino's?"

"Sure."

They ride in silence, for the rest of the trip. Kylie leans back, pushing her knees up against the dash, and watches the familiar streets outside the window blur.

On a Friday night, the pizza parlor is packed. A new owner, since Kylie's been away at school, and a new look; it's the new hip place to be. Gideon squeezes into a parking spot way in the back, and opens her door for her.

"Nerd," she says fondly, as she hops out. Gideon rolls his eyes, and deliberately brushes her shoulder as he walks past. Kylie giggles, catching up easily.

As usually happens when Kylie enters a busy restaurant, a table opens up just at the right moment. A young kid who blushes hotly, his skin almost purple, greets them, fumbling with small talk as a busboy wipes down their table. Kylie smiles at him, trying to be nice, and during the extended rambling that results, Gideon calmly reaches up and plucks one of the menus out of the kid's hands and starts reading it, right there at the hostess station.

Kylie grins at him as they sit down, poking her tongue out through her teeth.

"What?" Gideon asks. There's a gentle haze of blue around his face, like an imprint of someone who was sitting there before he was. Kylie reaches out and touches his cheek, and when she pulls her hand away she can see it on her fingers. She rubs it a little, watching it smear into a soft green, smudged on her hand.

"Nothing."

He snaps the menu closed, and pulls the salt and pepper shakers over instead. He's smiling a little, as he carefully unscrews the lids, and Kylie tangles her feet with his beneath the table, watching as he starts to shake little piles of white and black out on the tabletop.

"You never finished your story," he says.

"About Antonia?" Gideon gives a little nod, pushing the two piles together into a thin, careful line. "I think I told you most of it. She was mad at me for like a week but she got over it soon enough. She always forgets she's mad at me when she starts to miss me, it's actually pretty funny."

"It's funny that you get along better now that you don't live together. I guess it makes sense, though."

"Yeah. But she's always in a better mood, when she's visiting our aunts. So I'm not sure how much of it is just that." Antonia calls almost every week now, especially since the Big Breakup, and Kylie will do her homework with her sister on speaker, occasionally chiming in with "uh huh"s and "mhm"s when necessary. It makes sense to Kylie, that Antonia is nicer now that they're far apart. It's always easier to remember how much you love someone when they're not around to annoy you and make you jealous and steal your favorite sweater and then shrink it in the washer because they can never remember what's dry clean only and what's not. "Isn't that how it always happens, though? You move out and get...something. You get perspective."

"Nostalgia." Kylie watches him shake out more piles, scooping the salt and pepper into some sort of design. White, black, white, black. As she looks at it, the lines start to morph, like an optical illusion. She blinks once, then twice, shaking her head a little to clear it. "Hey - Kylie. Kylie?"

"Huh?" She blinks again, looking up at him. He's staring at her.

"I asked if you were ready to order."

"Yeah." She clears her throat, hearing the word come out defensive. "I mean, we always get the same thing. I just figured - "

"Are you okay?" Gideon interrupts. He wipes the salt and pepper away with one hand, irritably, and Kylie almost cries out, her hand moving to stop him. She's not sure why it was important, though, why it mattered at all, what he was doing with it. "I knew you looked tired. We should just get a pie to go, and head back to my place - "

"No, I want to stay." Gideon looks skeptical. "I've been on a bus for nine hours! I want to eat pizza in public and drink Coke and shoot the shit. Come on."

"Alright." He still looks skeptical, but he doesn't push. Of course he doesn't.

Kylie leans back in the booth, and rubs her temple. Across the busy restaurant, she sees a few people she recognizes - friends of Antonia's, mostly, because of course most people she knows in town are Antonia's friends and not hers. In the southeast corner is the kitchen, which they've added a big window to with the remodel, so you can look in on the cooks and watch them work, which has always seemed like a weird, voyeuristic concept to Kylie. How terrible must it be for the employees, to not even have a back room to escape to. No place you can duck into and roll your eyes and bitch about your tables, blow your nose and chug your iced coffee and fix your eye makeup. Just people always constantly watching you, checking in, little kids trying to climb over the backs of the booths and stick their grubby little fingers in other people's food. Kylie doesn't envy them at all.

But of course you watch, even when you can't help yourself. There are four men working, laughing as they cook. Kylie sees one of them shove the other playfully, jostling him gently as they box up food together at the counter by the window. She's thinking about that, about what that kind of obvious, joyful friendship must do to the pizzas, and maybe that's why this place has done so well despite how out of the way it is and how bad everyone felt about Bill's old place going under, when in the space between one blink and the next, she sees a giant deer stroll through the kitchen, its antlers jostling the empty pizza boxes stacked on the racks above the ovens.

Kylie leaps to her feet, jostling the table. Gideon makes an alarmed noise, reaching out with one hand, but Kylie is already pushing her way through the crowd, towards the window. The buck stops short, in the middle of the chaotic kitchen, and turns its great head to look at her. It's enormous - beautiful tawny brown fur, and deep, dark eyes. None of the cooks or servers or anyone else in the restaurant seems to even notice that he's there - just standing in the middle of the kitchen, watching. Kylie stands frozen, in the middle of all the tables, not even daring to breathe. Not wanting it to leave, but not wanting to believe it's there, either.

"Kylie? Kylie, what's wrong?" Gideon grabs her shoulder, and that's it, that's all it takes. Kylie turns her head, just long enough, and when she looks back at the kitchen - the buck is gone. Her breath leaves her lungs so quickly she feels lightheaded, and Gideon wraps his big arm around her shoulders, squeezing tight. "Honey - what is it, talk to me - "

"I - it's - " Kylie stammers, not knowing what to say. Gideon watches her face, and his own seems to transform in some sort of silent, quiet understanding.

"Let's get out of here."

"I'm sorry. I'm sorry, this is so weird, I just - "

"It's fine. Let's just go home," Gideon says, and presses a kiss to her cheekbone. People are staring at them, Kylie notices, as they leave. Gideon doesn't notice. He never notices that sort of thing.

She tries not to think about it too closely, on the drive home. Gideon is quiet, holding her hand the entire way, their fingers laced together over the gearshift. He lives in an apartment above the town square, a tiny little studio above the pharmacy, but it's cheap, and it's clean, and it's quiet. It's heaven on earth, as far as Kylie's concerned, and he sends her up with his key, while he stays down at the car to struggle with her bags. Kylie doesn't even have the energy to argue with him.

She fights with the lock, which sticks a little, but the moment the tumblers turn, she can hear the phone inside ringing. There is a part of her heart that has always been crystal clear, and it seems to almost...vibrate, is the best way she can describe it, when her sister is calling for her. It vibrates now, and Kylie drops her purse by the door and races to the phone.

"Antonia?" she asks, picking up the phone. It's got a Black Flag sticker on the handle - the same one Gideon had on his math notebook, their last semester of high school. "Antonia - are you there?"

"Ky." Antonia sounds harried, and a little out of breath. "Thank God, you're finally there - I've been calling all night! Did you stop to sightsee or something?"

"Shut up," Kylie says, glancing behind her at Gideon's door, which is still wide open. She has a stab of regret - she should have at least closed it - and thinks hysterically about that phantom buck. What if it shows up again? What if it tramples through the hallway and into Gideon's tiny little apartment? It'd tear his furniture to pieces. "What's wrong - is it the aunts? Are they okay?"

"Of course - I mean," Antonia says, stopping short. "Yes, they're fine, in the sense that you mean. Alive, just as grumpy as ever - it's not what you think. It's just - some intense stuff is happening, and I wanted - oh, you should've stayed longer! Of course - the day after you leave this happens - you're so much better at this shit than I am - "

"Antonia," Kylie says, breathing through the urge to yell. Out in the hallway, she can hear Gideon climbing the stairs, cursing so loudly it echoes up and into the apartment. "What? Tell me."

"Mom and Aunt Gilly are going to freak out," Antonia confesses, her voice lowering. "Have they ever mentioned the name 'Vincent' to you?"

"No." But as Antonia says it, it feels like Kylie has always known. A strange name that is still, somehow, intimately familiar. "Who is he?"

Antonia chuckles, and Kylie is reminded again of the cooks, laughing obliviously as the deer invaded their space.

"Sis," she says, "you are not going to believe this."