starsmisalign (starsmisalign) wrote in birthrightrpg, @ 2020-12-21 17:00:00 |
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Entry tags: | celeste henry, james hutchins |
Blessed Yule
Who: James/Celeste
What: Ruminating
Where: Searchlight, James and Celeste's Place
When: Winter Solstice
Ratings/Warnings: Mention of violence, death
The mailbox at Hutchins Auto collected the limited paper mail for the business: a few hand-written checks from elderly customers, catalogs for the reception area, the local paper, utility bills, and the like. It also caught some of James’s personal mail. As he walked to the residential trailer behind the shop, James stopped at his porch steps and sat down. There was a pale blue envelope in the mix, square and oversized like a holiday card. He recognized the handwriting, and the familiar way of addressing him as ‘Jay’, as belonging to his mother. This time, she had added the name ‘Celeste’ alongside his. He tore the flap and pulled out a card, which featured an exaggerated drawing of the earth tilted on its axis, the northern hemisphere pointing away from the sun, and the words ‘Obliquity is the Reason for the Season.’ James smiled at his mother’s wit and opened it to read the contents:
‘Blessed Yule. Remember that the longest hours of darkness contain the energy for spiritual regeneration. The moon gives birth to the sun. With love, A’
James rubbed the dip underneath his mouth with his thumb, wondering what had caught Arnette’s attention, and set the stack of papers on the step between his shoes.
Celeste usually woke up early. She dutifully set an alarm on her phone on days she was supposed to work, but the brunette always woke up before it went off, anyway. It was usually sunlight that did it. Despite the distance of miles and years from Moab, there was something encoded in her internal body clock that never fully faded. Except for the week after the spell. Then, her mind had clung, exhausted, to sleep.
She awoke like this now, looking over at James’s empty side of the bed. Yawning, Celeste got up and dressed, a lazy affair that ended with her pulling on one of his t-shirts because they just felt better in the morning. Morning. The brunette looked at the time on her phone. That word was stretching it, but she didn’t have anywhere to be that day.
There was a quick search around the trailer for James. She peeked out the window and saw him sitting on the porch before edging the front door open and joining him on the stoop. “Anything good?” Celeste asked, pressing her chin against his shoulder and eyeing the mail.
He tucked the winter solstice card within the torn flap of the envelope and handed both to Celeste. “It’s better than an electric bill.” James rested his hand on her knee. There was something about seeing her wearing one of his tshirts that made him happy. It was freshly laundered but he knew if he pressed his nose into the fabric, he would still be able to pick up the fragrance of his soap, the way he could smell her shampoo on the pillowcase when she rolled out of bed. The way those familiar things came together, and were part of living with her, was what got to him.
James picked up his mug of black coffee and offered her a sip. There was more in the pot in the kitchen. It was almost lunch, so he was drinking it more as a method of warming up and keeping his mind on task than waking.
Celeste accepted the card with one hand and the mug with the other, taking a long sip of coffee before handing it back to James. Reading the card, she raised an eyebrow. “It’s weird seeing my name on something like this,” she told him, then paused. “It’s weird seeing my name on mail at all.”
The brunette snaked her arm around his, looking up at their surroundings, mentally turning over thoughts like rocks until she found the one she was searching for. “I’m worried that I don’t feel worse about what I did.” Celeste glanced up at him. “The spell,” she elaborated, perhaps unnecessarily.
James breathed deep. The lack of a deep emotional reaction didn’t worry him. In the same way that people processed death at different paces, they sorted through their role in one a piece at a time. To him, Celeste’s handling of Caleb had been smart, clean, carried out at a distance, and necessary. But he didn’t like the scrutiny she was turning on herself and he wondered about the root of it. He traced the outline of her knee with his middle finger. “Did you love him?”
It was quiet and still behind the auto shop,and in the mobile home park nearby, so it was possible to hear the low, whistling wind of the occasional car on 95, and the scuttle of a lizard by the skirting of the trailer. James set the coffee mug behind him, weighing down Arnette’s greeting card.
Had anyone ever asked her if she loved her family or not? Ever since losing her younger brother, Celeste had begun thinking of them as one, distasteful monolith. After a few beats of silence, she spoke up. “No. Not at all.”
The brunette paused, her eyes watching James’s finger. “I suppose it’s easy to separate it in your mind. It was what needed to be done, so I did it, full stop. It wasn’t out of anger or fear, though I did feel those things, to a certain extent.”
He took that in. People could get close, live with you, get to being a part of your daily life, but it didn’t mean you loved them or owed them anything. His relationship with his mother’s man Joe was like that; James despised him. He didn’t premeditate it, but when it came down to needing a sacrifice, it was an easy decision to make.
“But you’re worried.” James studied her cheek and jaw. “Is it because you think you could do it again?”
When Celeste had told him how she handled it, James had said, “Okay,” asked if she was alright, and otherwise kept his mouth shut. A spell like that wasn’t easy, no matter how it looked on paper. It relied just as much on the inner workings of Celeste as it did on the ritual itself, or anyone could do it.
“If I had to, yes.” Celeste looked down at his hand before taking it in her own, fingers interlacing with each other. “And that’s exactly the way he felt about me, I know. I guess that’s what makes me pause and take a step back.” A loose piece of her dark hair wavered a little in the breeze, and she tucked it behind her ear.
“No matter how far away from that place I get, that’s just how we think.”
James adjusted to make room for her fingers. Their wrists lined up. “It’s not a bad way to be. He took it too far. Some people can’t make hard choices, or do one bad thing because down the road, it’s the lesser evil. They get stuck on a set of principles. They never adjust. That’s not you, and I’m good with it.” There was a quality of her that made James think of surviving, not just because of her family’s doomsday prep, but because she was sharp, watchful, and decisive. Celeste had a good heart. She just wasn’t willing to let somebody take advantage of it.
She could feel the incremental sense of relief that came with being understood. It was still strange sometimes, getting used to it. Celeste gave his hand a squeeze. “I’m good with it, too,” the brunette told James. A semi trundled past in the distance. It would be easy to believe the hard part was over, especially when she was alone with him. And she was too tired to think about it now, or to attempt to stumble over the landmines hidden in her extensive family tree.
“Does she usually send you stuff? Cards and things,” Celeste asked, her eyes falling back on the envelope from Arnette.
James tossed a backward look at the paper stirring in the light breeze. “No,” he said, going back to his coffee. A part of him wished it was alcohol. He set it between them in case Celeste wanted more. “She usually calls. That’s an omen.” It was calmly stated. He was accustomed to his mother’s patterns. A call came in the aftermath of something her dreams missed. A written warning meant there was time, as if she was watching the clouds roll in ahead of a hurricane on the coast.
“Oh, good,” Celeste nodded, a wry smile tugging at one corner of her lips. As if on cue, she picked up the mug and stole some more of his coffee before setting it back down. “I don’t suppose she ever adds what it’s an omen of?”
“She’s not much of a game player.” James rubbed the stubble on his jaw, thinking that it was time to shave. “If she didn’t say, it’s because she didn’t see enough detail or she knows she can’t stop it.” He sorted through the other mail and took out the shop’s copy of the newspaper, or at least the section of it that caught his eye. It was folded to an article about a local college student who had been killed. “Maybe it was this. Her name’s familiar but I can’t place it. There’s no picture.” It might have been a customer. A lot of them paid in cash.
Celeste ran her eyes over the text, raising her eyebrows because she was sure that she recognized that name. “Shannon was a regular,” the brunette told James. “Lots of jewelry, enthusiastic?” She frowned, set the paper down. “And a member of the ‘Triple Moon Society’?” Her finger landed on that portion of the article. “It sounds like her.” She looked up at James, her expression one of mingled confusion and concern.
James sat with the description. When it hit him, it was like a bucket of cold water in the face. Shannon. A blonde-haired Wiccan who had started coming to the shop early in the fall, at first with friends and then alone. She was a sweet girl who wanted to learn everything all at once, diving into the craft and practically stamping it all over herself, not with sigils and runes that few would know about but with paraphernalia that people would not only recognize, they might misinterpret. James dropped the paper and ran his hands over his face. “Sam’s going to be crushed,” he murmured after a moment, trying as hard as he could to keep his face blank. “He liked her. She brought him take-out a couple of times from some diner on 10th.”
He mentally replayed the rest of the article. “Those people who were killed on Haverford were part of a coven tied to Third Eye Books. Maybe we need to work in pairs for a while.”
“At the very least,” Celeste agreed, her eyes drawn back to the newspaper as if it were a magnet. “Do you think it would be smart to talk to someone over at Third Eye? I mean, if it’s magic related, there might be things they can’t really explain to the police.”
There was a sudden sensation of restlessness, like a motor turning on, and Celeste got to her feet, careful not to displace the mug of coffee between them.
“Or things the police aren’t telling reporters.” James worked through social connections, trying to find the one that might know an employee at Third Eye, at least well enough to have a phone number. “Serena Martin owned the shop. I don’t know if they reopened without her, but it’s worth a shot.” He would have liked to know the cause of death. It would point to whether the murders were linked or if a witch had done it. He couldn’t imagine how Shannon had already gotten on somebody’s bad side; she was too new at this.
A knot was forming in his stomach. “Did Shannon mention if she shopped there, too?” James looked up. Maybe she wouldn’t have told them, thinking it was like the magical equivalent of cheating on her hair stylist. He was looking for the connection between Shannon and Serena.
“I don’t remember her mentioning it, but maybe Sam knows?” Celeste thought of James’ father then, alone at the shop. She knew, of course, that the older man had been using magic longer than she had been alive, but there was still a prickle of worry tugging at her.
“Maybe we should head over to Curiosities.” Any residual fatigue or complacency was gone, replaced by the desire to do something.
James nodded. “Yeah. Actually he took the day off for yule but we can set up some wards. We’ll give him a call on the way.” He picked up the mug and the piles of paper on the steps and prepared to go back in the trailer. “I’ll get my stuff. Let me know when you’re ready.” He reached out and put a hand on Celeste’s arm, the gentle friction of his palm trying to ground both of them. ‘Whatever it is,’ it seemed to say, ‘We got it.’