Repose

[The box is simple, only about a hand-span in each dimension, tied closed with string. The label reads "For Richard Greyson". Anyone else in the house will find that they're just... not interested in opening it. They don't want to open it, even if they usually would. It's not repulsive, not worrying. Just... it seems to say that it's for Dick, not them.

Inside are two metal containers, both with tightly fitting lids and both labeled in the same forcefully neat hand (like the owner wants to be extra sure that everything is perfectly legible). One reads "For Easier Sleep" and the other reads "For Clarity of Mind". Each come with brewing instructions, how to bring the water to a boil and then let it cool for a certain amount of time before pouring over the leaves, varying in steep time between the two. The sleep tea has the allowance of up to 2 spoonfuls of honey. Upon opening, that one smells almost thick, heavy - slow, if slow had a smell. There's something a little bitter to it, which is why the honey is allowed. The other smells bright and sharp, astringent, and it makes the mouth water like mid-summer berries.

She doesn't send along a teapot or reusable tea bags as she might for someone else. She knows that at one point, Bruce Wainright had a silver tea set (now in Eddie's possession), and she has faith that it's been replaced since then.

The note included lays on top of the tins and in the same handwriting reads:
I hope this can help.

No signature. Which is probably going to make it tricky to restock, but maybe she has a way to just know when more is needed.]

Who: May and Eddie
What: Lunch. A... date?
Where: By the pond in the park on the north side of town
When: Friday, lunchtime
Warnings/Rating: Unlikely?

Well, their conversation had ended... strangely. But they'd agreed on lunch, and they'd agreed on Friday. May hadn't gotten much sleep the night before (Jeze had been serious about the dancing, and May wasn't as young as she once was), but late morning found her leaving the house to head for the park. Her hands felt incomplete, heading into town without a basket, so she'd chosen a small one - the smallest she had - and had put a few things into it. Even with Eddie promising to bring lunch, that didn't mean she couldn't bring something for him.

She paused at her door, frowning at the basket. This was a mistake. Lunch, meeting with him, talking with him. Becoming so attached in such a short period of time. It was foolish. It was stupid. But she remembered the sound of his voice on the phone and she remembered how he smiled when they planted flowers outside of his house. And her feet were on the road before she thought of anything else.

Usually, when she went into town, it was to drop things off - at Jeze's shop, for people who needed something - or pick something up - the few groceries she needed, things from the hardware store. And when she did that, she wore whatever she'd put on that morning to work around the house and in the garden. Usually oversized, easy to move in, thick fabrics that stood up to the kneeling and dirt. But... lunch at the park wasn't working in the garden. Lunch in the park required something different - even if she didn't have much that was different. But toward the back of her wardrobe, there were long skirts and thick sweaters and scarves, enough to keep the growing autumn chill away. And luckily (through coincidence alone) currently somewhat fashionable. And though the wind tangled it a bit on her walk into town, her hair was wavy and green-smelling from the bath she'd taken that morning.

She arrived at the park before noon, not quite knowing the exact hours of "lunchtime", and found a picnic table near the pond. Setting her basket down on it, she sat and waited for Eddie to (hopefully) arrive.

Plans for Thursday?

[Public]

It almost feels like Halloween is a bit redundant in Repose, hmm?

[May L.]

Are you well?

[Sasha J]

You must have thought I wouldn't notice.

Who: Gwen and May
What: An encounter
Where: May's place in the woods
When: After this
Warnings/Rating: Safe!

Gwen was feeling super low. She knew her encounter with Jason had gone poorly, but she wasn't sure what she could've done differently. Based on the scientist's description of Jason's position within the League, Gwen felt her questions were valid and logical, and this was just another example of her lack of social comprehension of when honesty was okay. Because honesty wasn't always okay, and that was something she'd grasped, but figuring out when it wasn't okay was way harder.

She hadn't seen MJ since MJ had gone after Perry (and she'd deleted her comment to Perry after the bad interaction with Jason, because she kind of didn't want to make things even worse), and she didn't want to bother Flash with more stuff about the Facility. She understood (or she thought she understood) that he kind of wanted things to be lighter and less stressful, and she knew he didn't want anything to do with the League of Evil Evilness.

So, she was kind of on her own, and she didn't really know what to do with the thoughts in her mind. When all else failed, science was Gwen's fallback, and she took the flower samples she'd collected and went out to her orchard. It was starting to get cold, but she was comfortable in her sweatshirt, denim shorts and knee-high wool socks. She worked on the flowers for about two hours, and then she decided that they made no scientific sense whatsoever. It was a mystery, and scientific mystery was totally a good distraction. She packed up, and she intended to maybe catch the bus and head to the library in the Capital, but something led her deeper into the woods. It was super weird, but she just sensed she should go there, and she kept walking until she encountered a house.

[After the flower debacle, May's kept to herself, angry at a town that would do such a thing (and angry at herself for getting involved enough to be hurt by it). There are days when her lungs still ache from Jeze having to pull the poisoned air from her. Even spending long hours in the garden with feet and hands sunk into the earth hasn't completely erased the effects on her.

She's done helping until someone asks. And even then she might ignore it.

But as she's taking one of her evening walks through town to deliver things to Chrysalis, something doesn't sit right with her. She's come to know the rhythms of the place and knows that something has been off for a while. And something feels... wrong... around the art store.

More than anything else, the petty sort of evil invading the town annoys her. The very same night, once it's full-dark and with no one watching, no one seeing, she's back in town after having stopped home to gather up a basket. It's not quite the right moon phase for protections spells, but something is better than nothing, and the familiar actions helps to reassure her mind. Circles are cast around the shop, grains of salt dropped across doorways and around the foundation. She scuffs it into the dirt and presses it into cracks in the sidewalk to make it nearly impossible to fully clear away. The frames of the doors (both shop and apartment) and first floor windows are smudged with oil and resinous leaves, leaving traces of herbal scent behind (nothing unpleasant to those there for innocent purposes). She eyes the other windows as well, but there is a limit to how much she's willing to do, and she's not climbing the building.

It's a bit of protection, it's a slight easing of the mind, it's an attempted ward against nightmares and disturbed thoughts (even if her lingering sick feelings make it imperfect). And in the morning light, it's unpleasant to those with hellish connections. Were she in a better state, the wards would be more than unpleasant, they'd be impenetrable. But as they stand, it's just a nudge away to those touched by hell.]

[She's out the next day with her sprayer again, but the plants have changed. Which she sees and notices and is even more upset about, but unfortunately she gets too close too fast. And she knows it immediately.

In future days, she'll never quite remember how she got back to the woods. And especially not to her cottage. She's seen too much over the years, and some of it starts to come back, twisted and warped. She knows it'll fade - eventually - if she just holds on.

The last three people (the only three people) she contacted on the forum all get the same message:]

STAAY AWY FRIM THEM

[From there, she tries to brew tea, something to clear away hallucinations, but she drops everything on the floor, throws the kettle across the kitchen (at something crawling out of the shadows). With the spores in her lungs and on her skin, she gets herself into the shower and lets it pour over her and her clothes, hoping that the frigid water will help wash it all away.

It doesn't.]

[It's much too late in the year for the little white flowers that bloom overnight in Repose. Spring flowers, or early Summer at the latest, and not local to this part of the world at all, the Star of Bethlehem belongs to the annals of old wives and their tales. "For those who have troubles, for those who are unhappy, for those who have received bad news, a loss, or an accident, the Snowdrop gives them comfort," the saying goes, but keep the pets and children far, far away.

These little flowers show up in clusters throughout the town. As far as Hookerville, as far as the Carnival, and they do bring comfort, yes, but perhaps too much comfort and comfort to too many. But they're just little flowers. They'll bloom, and they'll spread, and they'll be dead before the week is out. In the meantime, the town is coated in comfort and, if you're one of the affected (and not everyone is), the comfort is very comforting indeed. Can being overly comforted be a bad thing, you ask? Oh, you'd be surprised.]

Malware FOUND but can't be deleted. Searching for other solutions??

[Someone is in a very bad mood and refuses to acknowledge why.]

I need candles.

[Frantically typed out, after this.]

Something's wrong with Eddie. I don't know what's wrong but something happened to him and I don't know what to do and can someone please please please help??? Carnival. My trailer. Hurry hurryhurryhurry

Who: Eddie, May
Where: Eddie's cabin
What: flower planting
When: recently!
Warnings: probably very tame

( It was easy to forget how insane the town was from his porch, with trees surrounding him reaching high as skyscrapers, birds waking up with sharp chirps and not a single car passing down his road. )

I don't go to church for a couplea months and it goes to straight to hell.

[By the light of Tuesday's full moon, she does a walk-around of town as the sun sets (mostly unnoticed - those who see her soon forget her), basket handle tucked in the crook of her elbow. It's not her largest basket, but neither is it her smallest.

Her first stop is the cemetery, where she places:
-Snowdrops tied together with a sprig of rosemary at the entrance gate
-A bundle of asphodelus laid between the graves of a once-married couple (one fresh, one older)
-Another couple, on their shared headstone by their two fairly recent graves, a curl of ivy

Tucked in the handle of the door to the trailer behind the Protestant church, a bundle of thornapple flowers. By morning, they are wilted, with the edges starting to blacken badly and rot. The flower shop has no such gift, but there's a lingering scent of them around the door that lasts all day. There's no remaining trace of who may have left them, not even for people good at figuring out that sort of thing, like they appeared out of nowhere. The flowers and the scents keep their own secrets - for now.

The shelves of her things at the town's metaphysical shop are restocked: teas, lotions, sachets. She comes and goes from the back door (outside of business hours), which opens for her without need of a key. Set to the side in the back room, she leaves a different selection of herbs, teas, and one spidery puff of witch-hazel laid on top. She takes in return the small jar of honey waiting there for her. No note is needed.

An unbleached muslin bag is left hooked on the handle of Eddie's caravan office at the circus. For all their usual mischief, the clowns don't even think about touching it. Inside:
-an unwilting (for now) bouquet with a note: Odin's grace. Happy Wednesday.
-a dark, airtight jar of loose-leaf tea. It smells like spearmint and anise and green things. Another note: For hot afternoons: 3 spoons into a large jar, fill with clean water, let on your window ledge the morning before - full-day+ brew. Strain and pour over ice. Best plain but 1 spoon of raw sugar/jar in with the tea before brewing if you're appeasing an extra-sweet tooth. No more or you'll ruin it.

Once her basket is empty (other than the honey), she stops at the grocery store to pick up a few necessities before walking home again.]

[Go here for plant meanings.]