James Hutchins (0roborus) wrote in birthrightrpg, @ 2020-09-21 13:36:00 |
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Entry tags: | fern o'grady, james hutchins |
The Lady
Who: Fern & James
What: A One-Sided Set Up
When: Present
Where: Hutchins Auto, Searchlight
Ratings: Low
Hutchins Auto, formerly Bobby’s, sat near the curve of Main Street in Searchlight, close to the truck stop and Carter’s mobile home park. The low structure had two bays on the left and a glassed-in lobby with a counter and chairs on the right. A narrow hallway led into the back of the building, which branched into a bathroom, a kitchenette, and the owner’s office. A group of cars, some awaiting service, some finished, were parked outside. In the back, James’s trailer was mostly hidden from the road. It was a small operation for a small town. The magic user had taken it off a retiring mechanic’s hands in 2015. Since that time he’d hired a second-in-command that ran things when he was in Las Vegas, and a high schooler learning the ropes after school and on weekends. He had liked it small, manageable. He didn’t have the interest in anything bigger. Now a ‘help wanted’ sign was taped to the front window.
James sat in a chair in the back office. The garage was empty. A large pile of receipts had been pinned next to the books for him to record. Instead, he stared at a rough patch of stained wood between the papers on his desk, a place where the grains converged in a swirling knothole. He tore a clean page off a notepad, laid it over the spot, and scratched it with a pencil. When it was finished, he held up the paper.
Until the moment she pulled into the lot, Fern hadn’t realized that she’d never visited an auto shop of any kind. Those things were done by people -- her parents’ people, the ones who handled all the daily doldrums that they could never be bothered with. The strange scents of mingled gasoline, motor oil, and desert dust were an entirely new experience as she crossed the lot, looking around with no small amount of curiosity.
The Lady often had far more important things to do with her time than dally at Fern’s side; she knew that, and knew that it would be terribly selfish of her to expect anything else. So days like this, when the Lady could not deliver her message in person, Fern would wake with an idea planted in her mind, a little seed stowed there while she slept and left to grow into something bigger, so that when she woke, she knew exactly what she had to do. That morning, Fern knew she had to visit the auto shop and find a man named James, so that is just what she set out to do.
“Hello?” she called out timidly.
The rubbing looked like an eye, or an eddy inside an oil slick.
At the sound of a person in his lobby, James raised his attention from the paper. He crumpled it and got out of the chair, the springs whining. On his way out the office door, he tossed the paper in the trash can. He hadn’t turned on the light in the hallway, but daylight lit the open bays and streamed in through the windows of his lobby. He went into the small waiting area and looked at the girl with the blonde hair.
The board in the back hadn’t indicated any pick-ups, so it was possible that she was bringing her car in for work. He didn’t recognize her from town. James put his hands in the pockets of his jeans. “Hey. Did you need some help?”
Fern smiled, soft but broad: a real smile. She had so few of those, it seemed. He was older than she was, with an air about him that made him look as though he belonged in this place even as Fern herself felt as though she stuck out like a sore thumb. She didn’t mind it, though; if the Lady thought he was important, then he was important.
After all: Fern herself was weak and useless, and the Lady still saw fit to grant Her favor. She could find diamonds in the rough wherever She cast her gaze.
“She sent me to find you,” she told him, still smiling gently.
James frowned. “Who?”
That smile was peculiar. It wasn’t the casual way customers tended to greet him, making quick, noncommittal eye contact while they pulled car keys off their rings, or using cell phones like security blankets. She was perfectly still. He searched for something recognizable, maybe a facial feature that was like someone in town, but even the car outside didn’t ring any bells.
A feeling slipped down the nape of his neck, as faint as a trickle of sweat or the legs of a house fly walking on his skin. James broke eye contact to look over his shoulder at the bay. It was empty.
Fern cocked her head to the side, arching an eyebrow though she still smiled. Perhaps he didn’t quite understand yet; she was certain the Lady would have at least contacted him, but it remained to be seen whether or not he had accepted his place in Her grace.
“You don’t know?” she asked curiously. “The Lady wanted me to find you. You’re James, aren’t you? She believes you’re important.”
The lady. That barely-there touch on the back of his neck kept traveling, as it did in the void, a hidden current flowing around his limbs. It had tested, even though she gave her word, marking weaknesses for later. He put a hand over the area and rubbed at it. He wasn’t unsure if it was real. “She told you to come here?”
James looked at the parking lot. At any time, a customer could come in for an oil change. He flipped a switch on the wall and the bay doors began to close. Then he moved past her to the front door and flipped the sign from open to closed. “We’re not talking about this out here,” he said as he passed her. He headed down the narrow corridor and into his office. The walls were bluish-gray. It wasn’t visible, but there were wards painted under a rug on the concrete floor. The ones etched around the doorframe and window were smaller. They ought to keep her out if she meant him harm.
Two worn, leather chairs sat across from his desk. James dragged one around so they’d face each other and waited to see if she got across the threshold.
Fern followed quietly, glancing around the place as she went. The thick odors of gasoline and oil faded as they went further on, becoming dominated instead by the dry scent of paper and dust. She stepped inside gingerly, unsure of what to expect, then seated herself in one of the chairs.
“She lets me know what She needs,” Fern explained, sitting primly on the edge of the seat. “We’re at a place beyond basic communication now. And She wanted me to find you, James. I think there are some amazing things ahead of us.”
She smiled again. “Do you know anything about magic?”
James sat across from her, elbows resting on his knees.
“A little.”
He took in as much of her as he could. Posture, what she was wearing, the clear-eyed look. Not a black vein in sight. ‘She lets me know what she needs.’ He could do an interesting exercise of compare-and-contrast with the handful of people he knew who’d been contacted by Elfleda and how they came out on the other side.
“Do you worship her?” James blinked and looked at her hands and arms. They didn’t look anything like his; they weren’t inked up to protect her from whatever might ride too close to her magic, if that’s what she did.
Worship. The word seemed… loaded. It didn’t quite seem to encompass what the Lady meant to Fern. Worship? No. It didn’t seem right. She was as integral to Fern as the air that she breathed, as important as the blood that flowed through her veins. She was home… safety… everything.
“I love Her,” Fern said, as though it were the simplest thing in the world.
“Why?” James tried to wrap his brain around that outcome, how it had come to be.
An idea came to him, that Elfleda might use everything she knew about a person’s history to construct the perfect entrance into their lives. With Derek’s wife, she offered herself as food. With Arnette, a seer, it was the familiar landscape of prophetic dreams. With James, an open portal to a place he’d never been. What was the entry point for a well-mannered girl who seemed afraid to get her clothes dirty on his chair?
“I meant to ask your name, too,” he added, bringing his hands together in a loose clasp. “Sorry.”
Fern laughed; it was a soft sound. “Why not?” she replied, shaking her head. So much power. So much care taken for someone that Lady could easily crush under her heel. Fern was favored. How could she possibly hope to explain that?
“My name is Fern,” she went on, lacing her fingers together over her knee. “And you’re James. Aren’t you?”
It was a little confusing. It was a rarity that the Lady would send her on an errand only to be met with so many questions. Perhaps, Fern thought, it was her approach that had spoiled things; she frowned at the thought.
He nodded. “Yeah, I’m James.”
He continued to watch her. When he opened his eyes late that morning, still blurry from the combination of alcohol and over-the-counter meds he’d taken to trick his body into a dreamless sleep, there was no version of this day he imagined that went like this. But Fern was here. James wanted to know why.
“Elfleda and I, we just met,” he said. “But I’ve known about her for a long time. I didn’t know I was supposed to talk to you. It wasn’t in the, uh… discharge instructions. Based on your question, I take it you’re a magic user.”
Her name. He said the Lady’s name. It had slipped off of his tongue like water, like nothing. Words spoken so carelessly, so flippantly. A name due such reverence that Fern could rarely bring herself to think it, let alone say it.
She bristled.
“I wouldn’t… I wouldn’t be so... “ Fern started, then shook her head as though to clear the thought. Better left for the Lady to sort out herself. If James needed a lesson in respect, Fern was sure that the Lady was the best one to teach it.
Fern cleared her throat and brightened. “She’s been in my life for some time. She’s helped me learn about magic, and I help Her with whatever She needs.”
“I bet you do.” James nodded. Forget about what she said earlier. If this wasn’t worship, he didn’t know what was. He wondered if this was Elfleda’s idea of a role model for him. “I haven’t had the pleasure yet,” he shared. “I think she’s…” He scratched the side of his neck. “She might be letting me get used to the idea. I always called my own shots. But it’s easy to get lost like that. Have you gotten to help with anything lately?”
Fern’s thoughts briefly slipped to a dark night in the desert, to an array of prickly seeds in a thick black liquid dropped into the earth and willed to grow.
She smiled. “Not much, since I came to Searchlight. Just some gardening.” She paused and bit her lip, leaning forward in her seat just a little. “I know it probably seems weird? The Lady, coming to you, asking for your help. It can even be scary, at first. But She came to me when I needed Her… She offered to change my life, even without knowing if She’d be welcome. We’re very lucky, you and I, even if you can’t see it yet.”
If only Elfleda was in the habit of simply asking. James bit his tongue.
He leaned back in his chair and put his hands on the arms. The upholstery was coming loose on the right side. He picked at the threads. “I don’t like to lie, Fern. I get the sense we’re not gonna see eye-to-eye on her,” he said. “But we can probably agree on one thing. She’s got a better view of the whole picture, which means she gives good advice.”
His middle finger tapped on the broken stitches. “Powerful things aren’t supposed to be caged. Not even for a little while. It makes them weak.”
Cages. Now that was something Fern could understand. They weren’t always made of iron bars; sometimes they were fashionable red brick homes on a hill, with hardwood floors and a few extra acres for tennis and horses. Sometimes the things that are caged don’t even realize they are locked away until they break free.
“I guess you’re right?” Fern said, shrugging gently. She couldn’t understand his reluctance to accept the gift of the Lady’s presence, but so long as the Lady found him useful, Fern could do whatever she asked. “Sorry. I don’t… I don’t do this. Often.”
“Don’t do what?” James gestured around. “Sit in auto shops with strangers?” He gave her a small smile. Even if it was true, he knew that wasn’t what Fern meant. Maybe it was because he was on his own turf, with his chair parked right beside a ward she couldn’t see, but he could tell he was somehow more at ease than her. Which made no sense to him.
Fern reached and absently tugged at her small gold hoop earring, needing to do something with her hands. The air in the room felt too still, too cloistered. She knew she had done the right thing in coming to see James, but it wasn’t easy. It was wearing on her.
“Talk? To people?” Fern offered. She laughed; it sounded forced even to her own ears. “I haven’t been in Searchlight long. I… don’t make friends. Easily.” She cleared her throat. “But, I’m new here, so… fresh start?”
James absorbed that. At some point in the last year, Searchlight had become the fresh start capital of Nevada. “I’m the other way around,” James said. “I can talk to anybody.” A light shrug. “Know everybody. It’s getting close that’s hard. When people expect you to start opening up.” He looked at her hand fidgeting by her ear and wondered if that had been Elfleda’s in: befriend a girl who didn’t have any other confidantes. “There’s one thing about this town that might be different than where you come from. You can’t throw a rock without hitting someone who’s more than what they look like. Like us. But you’d never know it, because they only do ordinary things.”
“I thought this place would be… special,” Fern agreed, nodding enthusiastically. “It’s why I came. I think that's why She wanted me here. You can tell it’s… different? Just… different.”
Fern cast her eyes to the floor and quietly sighed, folding her hands in her lap. “I had hoped… I thought, maybe, She was sending me to someone who could help me learn? I can’t expect Her to do everything for me, and I’ve never…” She paused, voice breaking, and looked up to give James a small smile. “My parents were all into… church stuff. So they couldn’t know about… things. About magic. I don’t really know many people who understand it.”
“Church stuff,” he repeated. “My favorite.” It was hard to tell if that was false modesty or not. Fern could be feeding him a line and this was just another strategy. Still, James figured there was no risk in putting his cards on the table. If Fern was good with the internet, it wouldn’t take her long to trace him to Curiosities.
He leaned down and pulled up the edge of the area rug, folding it back. Underneath it, she could see the paint. James settled back on his cushion and turned up his hands, so she could see his arms better. “There’s a lot to magic. I don’t believe in keeping it from people, and I always hated when people tried to keep it from me.”
Fern leaned further forward and peered down at the markings on the floor and reached out to touch in a moment of curiosity before thinking better of it and pulling her hand back. There was never any telling with symbology, whether written in ink or paint or blood; sometimes a simple touch could be disastrous. That much, at least, she had learned on her own.
She glanced back to James, eyes bright with interest. “Is it protection?” she asked curiously. “Most of what I know is more… active? Make a plant grow, seek out a specific result.”
“Here?” James looked at the floor. “Yeah, it’s protective. I don’t do magic here unless I have to.” He thought about the spell he did with Celeste sitting in the same chair that Fern was occupying. “But I need to keep things out. Spirits are opportunistic.”
James tried to remember the last time he made anything grow. Healing was different than growing. It must have been a long time ago. “My dad’s a witch,” he said. “He’s into earth magic. I grew up learning things his way, but it changed. I like to open doors, channel things, redirect them where I want them to go. Every magic user’s got things they’re good at. I don’t know why, but that’s always been mine.”
“Most of what I know, it’s just come to me?” Fern offered, nodding in agreement with James’ sentiments. “I didn’t really have people I could ask, not for a long time, and when… well,” she paused, giving a short laugh. “When you have people around you who think even, like, a star on an earring is too much… it’s not easy to seek anything out.”
She looked up hopefully from beneath her blonde lashes. “Maybe you could teach me? I don’t… channeling things, I don’t understand that. But I want to learn.”
James watched her. “Maybe.” He hated the word when it came out of his mouth, but the origin of the conversation was hanging him up. James had never turned any magic user away from Curiosities, or from him. Information ought to be there for the taking. But this wasn’t a customer; it was a younger woman who walked into his shop and asked for him by name on Elfleda’s directive. He didn’t want any assignments from Hell. Was that what this was? Or was it a way to get James doing what Elfleda wanted by proxy?
“I know you can do something more than make a plant grow. Otherwise your Lady wouldn’t have swooped in to help you out,” he said. James rested his chin in his hand, fingers covering his mouth as he thought about it. “We don’t know each other,” he said. “So let’s fix that. Then we’ll figure out what we can teach each other.
“Amazing things,” he echoed.
He flipped the carpet back with his boot.