Who: Reagan and Rost When: Early evening, Tuesday, Novemebr 21st Where: The cemetery Status: Complete
Since Caius had left her home early Monday morning Reagan had spent her time either in her workroom, practicing new magic from the family grimoire, or at Belladonna, getting it ready for Black Friday. She would be working nearly all weekend, but for once Reagan was looking forward to it. It was Thanksgiving she needed to get through, sitting at a large table with her family without Caius. It wasn’t the first holiday they spent apart, but she felt the emptiness in her chest more acutely this time. The emotions she had been feeling since they last spoke were ones she was doing her best to ignore. If she gave into the crushing despair, as she had when he first lost his memories of her, Reagan knew she wouldn’t have made it out of bed. But the stubborn streak inside of her refused to go quietly and she wasn’t going to let anyone or anything, take her out of commission.
After finishing up her own duties, Reagan left Emma in charge to work the last few hours and lock up. As she drove home she passed the cemetery, noting the gates were still open. Reagan thought of Rost and wondered how he was doing and while she debated stopping to see him, something caught her eye ahead, moving between the angel statues on the other side of the wrought iron fence. Reagan didn’t realize she had stopped until a car behind her laid on the horn and without thinking, Reagan turned into the cemetery to find a place to park. The sun had long since gone down and the air had grown chilly but Reagan wasn’t giving the weather much mind. She was too focused on the figure she had seen roaming about. She began to walk in the general direction of where she had spotted it, her brown leather boots crunching on the leaves that had fallen since Rost last did his landscaping. The cemetery was quiet, eerily so, but Reagan didn’t feel any threats, not even from the angels.
Movement caught her eye to her right and Reagan turned to see someone disappear behind a tree. Only it wasn’t a person. It had been transparent. Ghostly. A dress and long, flowing hair only visible to Reagan before it was gone. She pulled her hands from her coat and quickened her pace to the tree, but there was nothing waiting for her behind the thick trunk. Nothing but heat. She felt it on the air, tinged with magic. It was familiar to her, having been the same heat she felt when Caius and Nate had dug up Abigail Baron’s grave. Reagan held her hands out, drawing the heat into her being. Witches never left their magic lingering in that way, but then, Reagan had never come across the ghost of one before, especially not the ghost of one who still seemed to projecting it.
Turning, she started for Rost’s trailer, hoping he was home, and preferably alone. Stepping up to the door, she rapped her knuckles on it and then looked around again, her gaze scanning the area to make sure she was still alone.
Rost had seen the apparition in the graveyard once or twice now, and he’d felt the heat it left in its wake. He’d of course wondered who she was and why she was there, and he’d more or less figured out that it was related to what Reagan and her men had done. Whether it was Abigail Baron returned to this plane of existence, or something else that had been kicked up, Rost didn’t know, but he intended to ask Reagan soon. He’d just been busy and in a downswing, and he hadn’t found the time to go seek her out. So far no damage had been done as far as he could tell, so he thought it could wait another day.
As it turned out, he didn’t have to. He was at home when she knocked on his trailer door, settled in with a book and a space heater on and a mug of hot spiked cider for himself. The knock was a bit of a surprise, as he wasn’t expecting anyone, and when Rost got up to answer it, he felt even more surprise to see Reagan on the other side of the door. Then again, she had been coming around more frequently lately, so maybe he shouldn’t have been caught off guard. “Hello, welcome,” he murmured as he stepped back and gestured for Reagan to come in.
"Hi." Reagan stepped up into the trailer and slipped her hands into her pockets again. She wasn't sure how long she was staying and she didn't want to immediately make herself comfortable. "I'm sorry. I wasn't planning on stopping by unexpected," she explained. "But I was driving by and saw something odd. I wanted to ask you about it. I'm not interrupting anything, am I?" It certainly didn't appear so. It seemed as if he was alone and he didn't appear as jovial as he sometimes was when she came around.
Rost wasn’t sure how long she was staying either, so he just closed the door behind her and stayed standing for the moment as well. He crossed his arms loosely over his chest and shook his head in an absent answer to her question. He hadn’t been doing much, and he had yet to ever mind Reagan’s company. Rost was pretty sure he knew what she was talking about already, so why beat around the bush? “You are here about the ghost woman out there, yes? Who leaves heat where she walks?” He nodded toward the door to indicate outside in the cemetery.
"Yes." Reagan's gaze ticked toward the door, as if expecting the ghost to appear suddenly now that they were speaking about her. "How often have you seen her? Have you experienced any... problems in the cemetery? Any anomalies?" Was Abigail's spirit malevolent? She supposed she couldn't know for sure that it was Baron, but... well, Reagan was quite convinced based on the brief appearance she saw, and the magic Reagan could feel in her wake. Clearly she, Nate and Caius didn't do enough to keep her in her grave, but then again, maybe they had done all they could. It was quite clear by now that Baron had been a powerful witch.
He was shaking his head a bit at the questions. “Nothing different I have noticed,” he told Reagan. “I have seen her twice now, only glimpses. But I was left feeling hotter than normal and a bit sweaty, like a fever. It is Abigail Baron, yes?” Rost’s tone had turned a bit grim as he watched Reagan’s face. He understood that she’d needed to do what she had done to accomplish goals, but if this turned into a Problem, he hoped she would take responsibility and help fix it. Rost didn’t want his cemetery haunted by some angry, ancient ghost. There were enough problems within his walls.
"If I hadn't been able to feel the magic she left in her wake, I would have said I wasn't sure. But..." Reagan shrugged and bit into her lower lip thoughtfully for a moment. "Given the kind of magic she was capable of when she was alive, it probably shouldn't surprise me that her spirit was released when we took her bones, because I'm sure we cleansed her grave the best we could when we finished. She's powerful, but if she hasn't caused you any problems by now, I don't think you have anything to worry about." It was a problem now, yes, but not one Reagan was ready to remedy. At least not yet. This could be helpful to her. She just had to figure out how first.
Rost looked skeptical. Granted, he’d waited on alerting Reagan to the ghost sightings for a while, but he wasn’t a witch, and he wasn’t the one who had set Baron free or dragged her spirit back to this plane or triggered whatever had happened. Maybe she’d always been here and she was just gathering strength. Maybe she would clear off in a couple of days. Who could know? Not Rost, that was for sure. It didn’t make him feel much better about living on the grounds, though. Maybe he ought to start staying with Greer and Dev until all of this got resolved. “From what you have said about her, I do not know that worry is uncalled for,” he murmured. “Can anything be done?”
Reagan had no idea if Abigail was even restricted to the cemetery. Some spirits were bound, yes, but she couldn't imagine Baron was, given her power. She wondered, for a brief moment, if the ghost could create actual fire, and if so, if Rost was in danger because of it. It was something Reagan needed to look into. The sooner the better. Hesitating for a moment, Reagan glanced around Rost's trailer before she gave a brisk nod. "She can be exorcised by a priest, but given the circumstances, it probably has to be a coven. I'm not sure a religious figure would be able to handle it. But... I don't want to attempt that just yet. I might have use for her. If it turns out my theory is wrong, then I'll take care of the problem."
“An entire coven?” Rost asked, his brows lifting before they furrowed back into worry. If it would take a whole group of witches to expel Baron, then Rost seriously doubted a priest would do any good. Especially not an exorcism-trained one in a small town like this. Rost knew that the Vatican had to sanction exorcisms too, and that would just be a whole mess. What Reagan said about maybe having use for Baron didn’t put Rost’s mind at ease much either. It sounded like more delay to him. He sighed as he moved further into the living room and picked up his mug of tea again. “How do I stay protected until then?” he asked. “Will you give more blessings? I live here, after all. I bring loved ones here. What can I do?”
"I... don't think it's you that she's after, but I'll come by tomorrow and place some stronger blessings on your home. I have agrimony at home that I'll bring along and hang from your door. It deflects hostile magic and can be known to temporarily banish hostile spirits." Reagan was aware that it probably wasn't fair to expect Rost to be all right with any of this, but he was the one who chose to live in a cemetery. Surely Baron wasn't the first spirit to roam this area, and she wouldn't be the last. "There are enough witches in this town to perform such an exorcism," she added, just in case he worried about that possibility. "We're not exactly a coven, but seven witches is more than enough. It might not even come to that. I'm sorry, but I need to do whatever it takes to get things back on track, and I can't banish her until I know she's not useful to me. You know I would never needlessly put you in danger, or your loved ones."
Rost might not be Baron’s target, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t in her way. She might decide she wanted to clear the area of all interference and kill him in his sleep or something. Perhaps it really was time to leave his trailer behind, at least for a little while. He knew Greer and Dev would welcome him with open arms, and he would still take Reagan’s protections, but even in the midst of this downswing, he had more to live for now than he usually did. “I know,” he muttered, though he wasn’t quite sure that he did. Reagan must have had some lofty ambitions to think Baron’s ghost could be useful to her, and Rost didn’t want to get into her way either. It would have bothered him to just be a pawn in all this, but wasn’t that just how all of life was? “Perhaps I will find elsewhere to be during the nights for a while. I thank you for your help, however. Best of luck to you in your endeavors.” Rost took a slurp from his mug. The vodka in it burned in the best way.
She couldn't blame Rost if he was annoyed or frustrated with the situation, or with her, but if there was even the slightest possibility that Baron's spirit could help Caius, she would risk anything to take advantage of it. "It's to help Caius," Reagan explained, since she realized a bit belatedly that it might just sound like Reagan was a power hungry witch and wanted to wring a spirit of her theoretical magic. "He still hasn't gotten his memories back. We're trying, but we're not having much luck. We have a plan but... I don't know if it's going to work. If it doesn't, Baron is plan B. I know it's dangerous, and unfair, but none of this has been easy." And that was an understatement. It was just difficult to explain to... well, anyone.
Rost nodded mildly, unsurprised that the whole thing was still related to what she’d been struggling with for a while. The things people did for love. He couldn’t really fault her that, though in his current mental state, he wasn’t especially interested in her reasoning. His home was becoming a supernatural battleground in ways that were far beyond him trying to keep the precarious peace with the spirits that were already there. The cemetery could be a scary place to live, but he didn’t know if anything else out there was on par with Abigail Baron’s vengeful spirit. “Well ... I hope for you that Plan A works, so you can be done with her,” he offered, not sure what else to say.
It felt as though she was being dismissed, which made sense since she had dropped in on him without invitation. Reagan was well aware that an invitation to drink and commiserate would not always be on the table, as they weren't necessarily that type of friends. Maybe she was just finding new excuses not to go home. The house felt far too empty now, which was odd as she had never really minded being alone in the past. Reagan offered Rost a small smile and gestured towards the door with her hands still in her coat pockets. "Thank you. I'll go." The trailer was small enough that she was at the door in a few steps and she pulled one hand out of her pocket to open it. "I hope you're getting to spend Thanksgiving with your two loved ones, and that you enjoy the day, despite everything."
Rost wasn’t really intending to be dismissive, but he wasn’t in the best mood and Reagan had brought him bad news on top of that. His ingrained hospitality took a backseat sometimes, and all he really wanted to do was drink himself into a brief coma and forget this world existed for a while. He did have people close by now to make him feel better, but Rost didn’t want to bring his stormcloud with him. Ambling the few steps forward required to ‘escort’ Reagan to the door, Rost gave a snort when she mentioned Thanksgiving. “A holiday to celebrate American arrogance and native genocide,” he said with a shake of his head. “I will drink to my fallen nomadic brothers and sisters, but that is all.” He realized he was probably really sounding like an asshole, and he looked a bit chagrined. “Apologies ... enjoy your food and family.”
Reagan had paused at the door and found herself simply staring at him for a moment, her dark brows furrowed, before she turned and pushed open the door to step outside. Slipping her hands back into her pockets to keep them warm, she headed across the cemetery to where she had parked her car. It was probably a bad idea to stop here, but at least she had something to potentially work with. And now she had something to do when she got home. Grab a bottle of wine and start going through some of the books in her workroom while a plan B was formulating in her mind.