A Seat At the Table Who: Elfleda/Flynn Where: Henderson When: Present Content Warnings: General Creepiness
He hadn’t stepped inside this home since before the two lifeless bodies were discovered. The For Sale sign had been quietly removed, as the traumatized realtor no longer wanted to be associated with this place. Flynn didn’t blame her. It was hard to bake chocolate chip cookies and host an open house when you couldn’t stop imagining the sight of decaying corpses. She had, however, furnished him with a business card for a company that specialized in crime scenes, suicides, and post-death cleanups. Now the rooms only smelled like freshly applied coats of odor-killing paint and the faint hint of industrial solvents. The carpeting had needed to be torn out, too, which had cost a pretty penny. Oh, well. Hardwood floors were more popular nowadays, anyway, and besides, Flynn had a plan on how he would deal with both the albatross of a house and his dwindling bank account. Fire erased many sins, and so did homeowner’s insurance, and he had been given the contact information for someone who was very good at making arson look like an accident… For a nominal fee.
But Flynn was curious. He had tapped into an energy that night that had engulfed him like nothing he had ever experienced before, and he had lived here for his entire childhood and adolescence. Since it had happened, he couldn’t stop thinking about it. It called to him the way he called to the spirit world. Summoned, beckoned. There was a part of him that had always been slightly envious of the dead. He was only a tourist in their world. What if he could fully walk in it without dying himself? What would that look like, how would it feel? It was these questions that brought him back. And now he stood in the center of the room where it had begun and dipped his fingers into the invisible waters that swirled around everyone, but only a chosen few could sense. He had been chosen, he had decided, long ago when he couldn’t understand how or why. His eyes had been opened, and his family, as well-meaning as they had been, tried to tear his gaze away. Made him feel broken, defective. Crazy. And then he had met Ellie, and for a short time, felt like maybe she understood and didn’t judge him. But she hadn’t seen him, not really. Only what she had wanted to see, the carefully constructed version Flynn had built around a lifetime of small rejections. He didn’t blame her, either. She was sweet, kind, and giving. Beautiful. Talented in her own right, not just with art, but telepathically.
But there was still a barrier, something he couldn’t identify or name. Maybe he wasn’t meant to straddle two worlds. Maybe he needed to pick a side. Flynn closed his eyes and centered himself. Then he dove in headfirst.
"Sing a song of sixpence..."
The melodic voice sliced through the air with an etheric chill. It was both there and, yet, not. Half in, half out. Something which called aloud, not within these walls, but seemed more like something which was haunting the echoed arches of a chapel.
"A bag full of rye..."
Closer, that time. As it had faded out, like a heartbeat, it pulsed back to life. An echo from yesteryear. A siren's call from the grave. A resonance which took form with the sudden aroma of burnt sugar and an arrival of solidity from shadow. Skin with the pale complexion of ivory, like milk being rising to the top of some impossibly dark chocolate, poured forth and eyes softly blinked out of the surrounding gloom.
"It didn't used to be blackbirds baked in a pie," the vision of a young woman spoke in unbidden clarification. "It was naughty boys. You didn't put yours in a pie, but served them up, all the same... It was quite the feast, so I hear."
If Flynn was still running with the water analogy, this new arrival was a tempest localized in his quiet little stretch of river. He had been communicating with the dead in some form or another for over twenty years and yet, he had never seen anything quite like the woman who stood before him, if she was even woman, at all and not some kind of uncanny simulacrum.The burnt sugar smell was so strong, he could almost see it envelope her like an aura, almost cartoonishly beckoning him forth with the crook of an ephemeral finger. “You weren’t in attendance. I would have remembered you,” the medium murmured in agreement. “Don’t take the lack of invitation as an offense. I don’t think we’ve ever met.” What was she? The contrast of delicate, almost doll-like features with the unfathomable darkness that clung to her was fascinating. He almost asked aloud, accompanied by a step closer into that sickly sweet aura.
Then something caught his attention, something just beyond the veil. It moved, mostly invisible, around her feet like a loyal pet. Flynn tilted his head searchingly, then moved into a half-crouch as if ready to greet a friendly dog. Fingers swept the air and felt nothing. And then he pulled. It seemed to require more energy than usual, a sensation similar to eyestrain in the midst of a budding headache. It entered the material realm slowly, begrudgingly, one thin leg ripping through at a time. And then he was rocking backward, stunned, as he looked upon the creature he had called forth. It was about the size of a small dog, but it was no canine. It was some type of spider-like… Thing, standing on eight legs from which razor sharp points jutted out haphazardly. The body was in an obvious state of decay and, instead of black arachnid eyes, multiple human ones stared up at him instead. Some were blue, brown, green, but all of them were full of fear. The same type of fear Flynn himself had caused in this house. They would not look away from him.
Flynn’s breathing became erratic, his chest heaving visibly through the material of his sweatshirt. “Who are you?”
"An envoy," she finally answered, moving close enough to lean in with a level of interest one might apply to rats in a maze. "A friend... Potentially. I can be quite friendly, should the mood take me."
Black eyes drifted down to the beast, freshly transferred from one realm to another, then back to Flynn. Pale fingers had leisurely reached out, softly caressing through his hair and igniting a bright trail within their auric wake. There was something dreadfully wrong about her. Something terribly, awfully wrong, his instincts cried out. But also something very enticing. An oasis of poison in a desert of the mundane.
"Would you like a name? I have several. Or perhaps you'd like to choose a new one for me?"
Flynn froze. Nothing he had ever summoned before had been able to touch him. He wasn’t entirely sure if he was imagining it, but he felt it. The hair on top of his head shifted and the sensitive nerve endings in his scalp came to life and, he couldn’t help himself, he tilted his head up in an attempt to lean into it. When was the last time anyone was this close to him since...? Besides touching the corpse of Brandon Simmons but, God, he didn’t want that to count. The spider creature was trying to climb up one of the living room walls, something sticky at the end of its legs allowing it to cling to the newly applied paint. He hated spiders. Even someone who could talk to ghosts had a phobia. Flynn remembered himself and got to his feet. He towered over her in physicality, but that was about it. “I think I know who you are.” What you are. The medium had heard stories.
He turned his focus on the spider and, ignoring the splitting sensation inside his head, used what was left of his reserves. It was something new for Flynn that he had been practicing, though not very successfully. In the mortuary, it had taken magic, strong magic from a powerful warlock like James to animate the dead body. It made him wonder about the limits of his own power. One of the creature’s uncannily human eyeballs began to roll in its socket until it landed on Flynn, almost accusingly. And then its body spasmed and twitched, a high pitched sound emanating from it, before sliding to the ground. “So how does this work?” he asked, bringing a hand up to his throbbing temple. The strange hybrid, now freed, began its ascent up the wall once more. “This… Friendship.” In his minds’ eye, he could see a crying Ellie running out of his trailer as if she were being chased by something horrific.
If he was looking past the veil between material world and etheric, a billowing cloud would be shown surrounding him, emanating from the young woman like dry ice. But unlike that substance, it rose tall, thickening and inching into his spiritual aura. It was tasting. Tasting and beginning to exude something intangible.
Elfleda's essence was one of corruption. It was subtle, at first, though always alluring. Appealing. Over time, given sufficient opportunity, it would gradually work away at one's ethical values. Would begin to shift former aversions into temptations.
"You think you know me...?"
Her tilting headed response was flush with intrigued amusement. The gothic brunette's spine straightened and her black lips curved. "Friendship," she began, testing the very flavour of the word, "is best embraced closely, Flynn Russo. Why, you've quite a talent for this gift of yours, haven't you? It's rare, to summon with such ease..."
Suddenly, she moved into his personal space and, like a cat, gave one long rub up into his side as she turned. Sensuality, grace and... Something else. A dizziness. A sensory overload she would bring into the midst of any psychic within close proximity.
"And friends help friends, don't they? I could help, Flynn Russo... I could help you to nurture this skill of yours. How to germinate your seed. It just needs the right soil within which to plant its roots. Given time, you could even pull dreams into your world."
“Dreams,” Flynn repeated. His Adam's apple bobbed up and down as he swallowed. He didn’t allow himself to have much of those. But now that she mentioned it, there was a dreamlike quality to their interaction, now. He couldn’t tell if it was good or a nightmare. The spider creature tipped the scale toward the latter, but it was difficult to pay attention to it when she was circling him. Her voice seemed to activate something deep in the recesses of his brain, tentacling around and through different nervous responses. There was an urge to reach out and touch her as she brushed against his side, but he wasn’t entirely sure his hands wouldn’t come away covered in something inky, slick and black. “How can you help me? Why would you want to?” Never mind the fact that she knew his name. Some spirits came through knowing it, too. Flynn wondered if there was a congregation place for them to meet, chat, compare notes about other people like him. Did he get favorable reviews?
“You talked about a feast. Are you hungry?” he asked, and this time he turned to follow her. Flynn swayed a bit on his feet as if they were slow dancing separately. Really, he was a little unsteady. A little high, almost.
Something hidden played around her mouth like a lover’s tease. A sentiment, a hint, a long forgotten poem… Answers. Amusement. What he queried was firing her imagination.
“I would help all who ask it. I am but a guiding hand, ready for the clasping.” A pause flowed from the words like wine from a freshly uncorked bottle and, eyes half-closed, the visiting entity gently breathed in his essence. “Hungers,” she added; voice solidifying with the sharpness of a knife’s blade through honey. “You would ask me of mine? Oh, Flynn Russo… I am both sated and forever embraced by appetite.”
Something like the tip of a tongue licked between his neck and ear. Elfleda smiled.
“Would you like to feed me, boy?”
There was a part of him that bristled at these tactics. That his loneliness and sense of isolation were so tangible, they could be so openly manipulated this way. And yet another leaned into it, it felt like the grim satisfaction of pressing into a wound to feel the sting. Flynn froze at the sensation against his neck, trying to fight back the shiver that threatened to break forth. “And in return you help me become more powerful?” Who got the better end of that deal? Did it matter? He lifted his hands and tried to reach past that ethereal veil that swirled around him, barely visible.
“I want to see the other side,” he told her, his voice steadfast, his jaw set. “Show me, even just for a minute, and I can feed you.”
"I reveal only the path. It is for you to walk down it."
Still against his side, something about the pale brunette's physique felt, just for a moment, less like flesh wrapped in clothing and more akin to the ridged outline of bones within a skeletal frame. Not allowing time to question it, a hand flashed out to press fingertips, gently, to his forehead.
"Awake," she spoke, projecting it as much through mental command as in physical voice. Around him, it was like a dark forest had begun to peel back, allowing shafts of spiritual light to penetrate through the canopy. Colours unseen by mortal eyes were suddenly revealed in a rich tapestry, overpowering scents drifted into nostrils and even temperature seemed like it had only been experienced as a single instrument when it was truly an entire orchestral choir. Senses he hadn't even known were suddenly engaged and...
Just as quickly, was returned to that former dormant state.
"Imagine, Flynn Russo. Imagine if you could bring entire worlds through. Or take your own world to another. It need not exceed your grasp."
The word ‘overwhelming’ absolutely failed to describe what he felt as he was surrounded by a cacophony of senses. All his life, Flynn felt like he was in between somewhere. Near enough to approximate a life but never quite close enough to truly grasp it. It never seemed to belong to him and so, maybe it didn’t always bother him when his worst suspicions about people came true. The inevitable moment when someone, no matter how well intentioned, would get tired of sharing Flynn with that other world and finally left. Even his emotions felt more pale, less realized, more in common with the spirits that called to him. But this… This was everything. He wanted to reach out and grab a hold of it, wanted to be swept away with it instead of being left here, in this ordinary home not made anymore real by the deaths that happened in it. It was then that he knew he would do it again a hundred times over if it meant another glimpse. “I don’t want to imagine,” Flynn told her breathlessly. “I want to do it. I want to be awake, don’t…”
Don’t leave me here. The words he should have spoken out loud, to Ellie. To his parents. His hand brushed against the skirts of her dress, tentative. Exploratory. To see if his audacity would result in a puff of black smoke, leaving him blinking in her absence. “Tell me what you want and I’ll do it.”
"Bring through more friends," came the brunette's answer in verbal salvation. "Add their colour to your brush, for with every fragment they bring from their world, so, too, is yours made more vivid. More real. Creatures... Things... Practice."
Elfleda had spoken of clasping and now it was her own hands which did so to his. A smooth obsidian stone was transferred from her palm into his and she rolled his grasp around it.
"Think upon me, should you have need of the focus I can bring," she encouraged, sliding one of those hands around to the back of his skull. From it, energies pulsed and Flynn's mind was granted a momentary sense of freedom, like he was floating upon an ocean. Liberation. A connectivity to something unseen, something far greater. "I'm not like God, Flynn Russo. I answer my prayers."
Teeth playfully snapped in front of him and the unnamed phantom's aura now pressed into his, engulfing it. Fusing. Soaking a measure of her ethereal corruption into it. "You did say you wanted to feed me," she reminded. "You, first... I insist."
His fingers tightened around the stone, his own body heat transferring to it. There was a part of Flynn, the part that walked around in daylight and worked a normal job at the truck stop and small-talked with the residents of Searchlight, that wanted to pull away from her grasp. But a chasm of resentment separated what he wanted from that reality. And he would not let her use him and give him nothing in return. “Practice,” he repeated with quiet intensity that didn’t nearly reflect the sensations that were raging inside him. And that floating feeling. It was better than any high, natural or artificial. “I already do. But I’ll do more.”
The medium slid the stone into his hip pocket and studied her closely, the way she moved around him, the sense that her darkness was dripping into him. He had never felt so intrigued. Was she among the dead? A ruler? A remnant? How much did Elfleda know about Flynn? Emboldened, he reached up and wrapped his hands around hers, the one that had slipped him the smooth obsidian disk. An outsider might see the pair of them, her hand on his neck, his fingers clasping hers, and think a dance of sorts was about to commence. But it already had.
"Help thyself by helping others," came the emboldened reply. It was the grasp of a gigantic octopus composed of, not flesh, but force. Something which had been a filth-soaked etheric cloud of spiritual contamination, now merging, fusing into the man's aura. Realigning... Converting. A concentrated dose of whatever essence fuelled this bewitching entity, rooting into his and inverting former values.
Dark temptations, hidden whispers, all laid bare. Given appeal.
Corruption given fusion.
"Elfleda grants you sustenance, Flynn Russo. Blessed are they who feast at my supper."