Letters and documents lay in meticulous rows upon the surface of Joki's desk. A fire burned bright in the study fireplace, its lure irresistible to the two black dogs who lay sleeping on either side of it.

Methodically Joki worked her way through the letters, the final preparation before she and Zane would make the trip to Wein. Her face remained expressionless as she read the letter from Angelique, and penned the usual brief, matter-of-fact response.

To Miss Angelique Danesque
Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry

Thank you for the text. I am taking it with me to Austria. I will let you know if I learn anything of worth. Safe travels.

-J. Wilde

With that missive sealed and addressed for delivery, Joki picked up another letter. This one was from Reinhart von Mecklenberg. She could have found it in the dark by the weight of the expensive parchment. She read the letter again, lingering over the phrases that had occupied her thoughs much of the time the past few weeks:

"Dr. Veith....'alternative' practices...agreed to take you on as a pupil..."

Joki tapped a black-tinted nail on the page thoughtfully. This could be the breakthrough she had so long sought. A change of environment would be good. Zane would be pursuing his own work in Wein as well.



There was a house waiting for them, a place more functional than luxurious with long eaves to shield from the Austrian snow and a laboratory for each of them. A grim place to some...a haven in her mind.

A hand slid familiarly down the back of her neck, a touch that brought a smile to her glacial features. "Are you ready, mein schön frau?"

"Almost. You?"

"Of course." Zane bent his head to kiss her and spoke low in her ear. "Think what waits for us."

" 'A table to eat upon, a chair to sit upon...' " Joki grinned wickedly and left the sentence unfinished.

Zane chuckled and brushed his lips against her cheek. "Vixen. Take your time here, hrm? I will wait."

Joki nodded, her eyes never leaving him as he went to stand at the window. She indulged herself with a few moments of looking at him as he watched the London streets below, then reluctantly she drew her mind back to her work. Only one task remained.

Regriam and Brennan...she wished to leave a gift to her sharp-toothed protege and to the friend who had stood by her over the years...but what?

Marius pushed himself up from the floor with a yawn and ambled to Joki's chair as she thought, his massive bulk moving with surprising agility. Sitting by her side, he rested his great head on her knee, his dark eyes fixed on her face.



A smile curved Joki's lips as she ran her hand over the dog's thick, wrinkled head. Marius' twin, Sulla, lifted his head from the floor where he lay by the fireplace and watched curiously. Joki reached for a quill and a piece of parchment.

To Miss Regriam Banther
and to Mister Brennan Brask
Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry

I hereby transfer ownership of my two dogs, Marius and Sulla, to you until such time that I return. Once loyal servants of my father, then of myself, may they serve each of you with the same devotion.

-Joki Wilde




She sealed the document with the Wilde family crest, the staunch 'W' pressed deep into the green wax, and left it on the desk with the others. The house elf would see that they were delivered and attend to the other errands she left behind.

Joki stood and walked to Zane's side, slipping her hand into his, their palms sliding against each other's and their fingers tangling familiarly. Her gaze followed his to the city streets. Silently they bid farewell to London, to Hogwarts, to their lives prior to this time. Joki found herself smiling again.

Perhaps they would return. But if this was to be the end of her life here, it was a better end than she could have ever dreamed.


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
In my wildest dreams
You always play the hero
In my darkest hour of night
You rescue me, you save my life
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

_________________
"We are not bound forever to the circles of the world, and beyond them is more than memory."

Lo! 'tis a gala night
Within the lonesome latter years!
An angel throng, bewinged, bedight
In veils, and drowned in tears,
Sit in a theatre, to see
A play of hopes and fears,
While the orchestra breathes fitfully
The music of the spheres.

Mimes, in the form of God on high,
Mutter and mumble low,
And hither and thither fly-
Mere puppets they, who come and go
At bidding of vast formless things
That shift the scenery to and fro,
Flapping from out their Condor wings
Invisible Woe!

That motley drama- oh, be sure
It shall not be forgot!
With its Phantom chased for evermore,
By a crowd that seize it not,
Through a circle that ever returneth in
To the self-same spot,
And much of Madness, and more of Sin,
And Horror the soul of the plot.

But see, amid the mimic rout
A crawling shape intrude!
A blood-red thing that writhes from out
The scenic solitude!
It writhes!- it writhes!- with mortal pangs
The mimes become its food,
And seraphs sob at vermin fangs
In human gore imbued.

Out- out are the lights- out all!
And, over each quivering form,
The curtain, a funeral pall,
Comes down with the rush of a storm,
While the angels, all pallid and wan,
Uprising, unveiling, affirm
That the play is the tragedy, "Man,"
And its hero the Conqueror Worm.

-Edgar Allan Poe
"The Conqueror Worm"




Only 2 A.M., and she was nearly finished.

Joki rolled her head to one side and then the other and inhaled from the cigarette held firmly in her teeth. A round surgical light was suspended from the ceiling above her, the iridescent glow casting a purple gleam on Joki’s vibrantly green ponytail. Her gloved hands were buried to the wrists inside the night's subject, agile fingers confidently crawling through the familiar mass of cold textures and corporeal shapes. She exhaled, smoke drifting from her nostrils and dissipating into a heady fragrance.

When she worked, she usually hemmed her thoughts into the confines of the task at hand. But this was light work tonight, a break from the week's more strenuous studies. Work that allowed her mind near total freedom.

The chase began, a dozen tangents every minute, twisting and tangling.

During a recent trip to London, she had encountered a former classmate purely by chance. She had never given much thought to Liss Crest as a person, and was mildly surprised to find that her company was not unbearable. Joki’s pale lips curved into a smirk as she thought of the violence that had erupted in the VIP lounge at the Green Door. She had no idea what caused it, cared even less, but it had been entertaining to watch.

As abruptly as the smirk was born it faded, amusement traded for intense concentration as the girl’s thoughts ran, tore, leapt, flew; clawed from one channel to the next in incessant determined pursuit. Ultimately, wherever they began, the thoughts ended in the same place.

Her quest. Her cross. Her relentless eternal fight.

Her stormy green eyes flashed with quick anger. After the Door, they had gone to Joki’s father’s house. Joki still had no idea why she had entertained the other girl for so long. Perhaps mere curiosity. By the fire in the uncomfortably familiar study they had talked. Liss had asked questions, Joki had given honest answers. Mostly.

When Liss had gone, Joki chose a few books from the study to take back with her to Austria. Poetry, more for the entertainment of her Beast than anything else. One of the volumes was heavily creased along the binding, and when she opened it to the much-read place Poe’s tale of the mortal tragedy and its hero mocked her from the page.

She took another drag from the cigarette. The hot smoke called her back to her current task. Carefully she separated memory from thought, devoting herself again to the work at hand. Her tense expression relaxed.

This was her frigid wonderland, her unhallowed fantasia, and here there were no restraints. No reminder of life’s current borders, save the one beneath her hands, and that one was only one of many means to the end goal.

Another hour passed, and her "assignment" was complete. She lit a new cigarette and scrutinized the immaculate line of stitches on the marbled flesh before her, one final time, before carefully shrouding her work in white sheets.

At last turning away, she stripped off her gloves and tossed them into a biohazard bin. The lab coat that covered her usual ensemble of leather and plaid and metal followed. Without another look, she turned out the light and pushed open the doors that sealed in the room’s glacial atmosphere. A hot shower and warmer company awaited her, and she was more than eager for both.

_________________
"We are not bound forever to the circles of the world, and beyond them is more than memory."

The stack of parchment on her left grew shorter as the one to her right grew taller. Mechanically Joki filled in blank after blank with the stark facts that summarized lives and their ends. After an hour she finally paused, leaning her head back to ease her tense muscles. After years of practice she could write rather well with her right hand, but the strain grew tiresome.

As she rested, she became aware of how very much she loathed this office. Narrow and dark, the room was always too warm and too cluttered. The air stank of old books and embalming elixirs, and there was a persistent dripping sound that had no source she could detect. In these late hours, alone with no company save the task before her, it was maddening. Still, she would not complain.

As an intern she was quiet, obedient, meticulous in her work and quick to learn. As a student, much the same. In her personal life she had miraculously found some measure of peace. Still she could not escape the horrid wrenching beauty of the world she had chosen to claim for her own. The innumerable nightmares, the siren song that chilled her in the night and left her mind wildly clawing toward anything that gave release from the realities of her wonderland- toll for the troll, and the price was climbing.

She took another document from the 'Incomplete' stack and began writing.



She felt a surge of boiling rage every single time she looked at that last line. To her, that signature meant defeat. Resignation. Laziness. The healers claimed to fight for the life of every patient. She knew that that fight only extended for the length of the patient's life. The healers at St. Mungo's, and at nearly every other hospital magical or muggle, conceded defeat in the middle of the war. She would not. Whatever path she must take, whatever banal tasks she must perform to be safely closer to the tools of her gruesome trade, she would do it.

Amid the clamor of her thoughts, she lost focus for the briefest moment. The concentration required to keep her handwriting steady was lost, and the tip of her quill snapped, leaving the document before her ink-splattered and ruined. She hissed a curse, squeezing her eyes tightly shut and willing her flaring temper to cool. She could hear his voice in her head. Patience. Calm. Dawn is not far off...

With a sigh, she reached for a new quill.

_________________
"We are not bound forever to the circles of the world, and beyond them is more than memory."

Slow, ponderous steps. Shuffle...shuffle...one...two...three...a pause...four. Shuffle...tap. Tap...tap...tap...tap...tap....

The repeated sound drug Joki unwillingly from the warm tethers of sleep. Emerging from the blankets like a snake from its den, she sat up in a state of mild rage as her sleep-clouded senses struggled to identify the source of the sound. The room appeared to be empty...she tilted her head to listen. Tap...tap...tap... Throwing off the velvet covers, she leaned over the side of the bed. A small tortoise attempted to climb up the ornate leg of the bed, and when he could not, settled for running into it over and over with his hard little head.

Joki's eyes narrowed, and then she sighed, leaning back against the headboard and reaching for the cigarette still burning in the ashtray upon the bedside table. After a few calming breaths, she picked up the yew wand lying beside the ashtray.

"Accio tortoise!"

Doctor Frankfenfurter flew into her waiting hands, instinctively drawing head and limbs back into his shell. She could not help but feel a twinge of amusement...she had seen that reaction before. Releasing the spell, she dropped the tortoise onto the bed beside her.

"Be thankful, land-turtle, that you possess the luxury of a shell." She made a small flourish with the wand and spoke with the cigarette held in her lips, the air around her hazy with the dark, fragrant smoke. "Wingardium Leviosa!"

As the creature rose into the air, Joki reclined to lay on her back in the middle of her bed, her white skin and vibrant hair contrasting bizarrely with the black bedding. Green eyes half-closed, she sent the hapless tortoise slowly spiraling to the ceiling, then back down to hover eye-to-eye with her. They stared at one another, neither blinking, the tortoise's neck still retracted.

"Herr Doktor, you really are ugly...profoundly stupid, and unwaveringly stubborn...yet you have one redeeming virtue." Joki reached up with her free hand to pat the suspended animal on the head. "You are mute."

The tortoise opened its mouth, trying in vain to bite her hand. With a wave of her wand, Joki sent him away to hover above the ornate cradle that had been modified to serve as the creature's terrarium. A sharp flick of her wrist, and the animal was deposited rather ungently into his home.

Another morning had dawned. There would be no more rest for a while. Joki took a final drag on the cigarette and dropped it back into the ashtray. The wand stayed in her hand as her thoughts began to stir. Faces and names raced through her mind, most stirring feelings ranging from apathy to extreme annoyance. Jallebin...Shay...Blaze...Normialias. A new litter of puppies, and rather badly behaved ones at that. Food for her Beast...

Slowly, in a gesture eerily deliberate, her pale lips curved into a smile.

_________________
"We are not bound forever to the circles of the world, and beyond them is more than memory."

Her fingers smelled of asphodel. The acrid scent stung her nostrils, bringing fleeting images of white petals and dust to save the dead.

She thought of half-light and thread through a needle's eye even as a sharp claw pierced her willing flesh.

The first tear was fire.

She screamed, turning her face into the pillow too late to entirely muffle the sound. Bones moved under pale flesh as her spine arched, her body seeking some solace within itself from the first shock of pain. Still it came...slowly, with exquisite care, born again and again from its unrelenting point of origin. Down her back it moved, following the path of lines already traced with skill, blood slipping from the tears and sliding down her skin to stain the white blanket beneath her.

This was life.

Time slowed and sped, hours racing and seconds dragging. At some point the sensations changed. Itch and burn, freeze and throb...when the fire ended the cold replaced it, inescapably thundering through her nerves to the rhythm of her heart's own pounding. Her foot found the rhythm, the toe of her boot slamming into the mattress over and over.

Still he was there.

A touch, warm and human- a hand smoothing over the artful bleeding tears, blood meeting and mingling, aching comfort and fresh pain. Like a symphony from a nightmare it changed again, deep warmth to resonating cold, up the scale to swift feathering scratches all the more painful for their brevity. Over her back to her ribs, lines and loops, the design carved into her very flesh taking shape. She thrashed, bit, her teeth finding other humanity and biting down hard.

And then...she was free. The pain lingered, rolling over her in waves, but she was beneath it now...it could not batter her here. Here, in this chamber of her mind, it exploded from ugliness and horror into rich decadence, love in its most primal form and beauty in its most vibrant hues. She thought of breathing and of its end as her own breath grew more shallow, teeth releasing their hold and her hands cradling her face again.

Asphodel...

"And now...you can fly."

_________________
"We are not bound forever to the circles of the world, and beyond them is more than memory."

All Hallow's Eve


The bed was too hard, the sheets too rough. She was beginning to hate the ugly pattern of the standard-issue hospital wallpaper. Joki turned onto her side, then her stomach, drawing the flat pillow over her head and sinking into the memories that persisted around the headache that stabbed viciously at her temples. She could only guess where he was, what was happening in that cold house of the dead...house of horrors.


Each of her breaths, though measured and calm, were loud in the stillness. Torches burned in the brackets fixed to the stone walls, their light flickering feebly against the pressing gloom of the crypt. Within, she was still.

Her Beast was there, of course. He stood in the doorway, his gazed fixed fiercely on her, his wand tracing small circles at his side. He waited.

She knelt on the stone floor in the center of the mausoleum, her black diaphanous robes flowing around her with her fluid movements. From her robes she drew forth a bowl, the viscous liquid within a red so deep it was almost black. Her slender fingertips dipped into the bowl and withdrew covered in crimson.

Leaning forward, she painstakingly began to draw upon the floor.


She turned over again, her body cringing at the pain the movement brought. Her back, her throat, her head...her warm, living, throbbing heart- all ached. Her thoughts took her again.


The first rune: Algiz. As she drew the final stroke, she lifted her head and looked at the boy by the door. His silhouette was outlined by a torch burning behind him, his red hair bronzed by the flames and his face in shadow. Zane shook his head and nodded back to the floor in front of her, a command in his voice. "Jäger."

Joki dipped her finger into the bowl again, her gaze moving back to the floor. Swiftly, and so deliberately, she drew the next rune- Ehwaz reversed.

Berkano quickly followed, then Eihwaz and Mannaz, the blood dark upon the floor. Joki's expression remained smooth, neutral, her hands sure in their work- until behind her a bench moved, stone grating over stone with no physical hand to move it. She paused in her work, her hand hovering in the air.

"Hello?" The word fell heavy in the stillness, though her voice was quiet. Only silence answered her. She waited, so still.

After a moment her hand returned to the bowl, her eyes downcast again as she connected the four sides of Ingwaz upon the floor. Raidho came next, drawn in bolder strokes as a line of determination formed between her shadowed eyes. Laguz, and then the final rune, Dagaz, were completed soon after the others.

The dark lines were smooth for several seconds before the stones and dust begin to absorb and blur them. The room was silent, a thick and heavy silence. Joki own heart seemed to slow, lulled into a languid throbbing by the pressing silence. The ring on the chain around her neck had begun to feel like a weight.

"Josiah Platt," She spoke to the stillness within and without, "Will you come?"


The door opened and her heart pounded against her ribs, but it was only the healer. Mechanically she answered the healer’s questions with a nod or a shake of her head. Yes, her head still ached, but it was improving. Yes, her throat as well.


The silence pervaded. Her gaze wandered as she waited, the set of her shoulders suddenly going rigid as she stared at the rune construct. Algiz, the protector, had vanished. Nothing remained where it had been save the smooth stone. She breathed deeply, her mind racing. This was the knife's edge...there were no bargains to be made. Her chin lowered in the semblance of a nod. “It is fair.”


Joki wanted to ask about Zane, but she knew he would return to her when his...errand...was complete. The healer checked her injuries, cool fingers clinically pressing against bruises and abrasions as Joki returned to the waiting memories.


A loud voice; deep, dark, inhuman. She leaned forward, on all fours now above the runes, her breathing ragged. Reaching into her robes, she drew forth the ring- his ring- letting it hang and spin from the length of the chain. The pitch of the voice rose in a ghastly wailing, then cut off with a sudden silence that was somehow more violent than the wails

"Let me help you." She whispered, her senses still recoiling from the horrid stench that poisoned the air. Her bright hair hung over her shoulder, the ends nearly brushing the blood-streaked floor. Her green-veined lids closed over her wide eyes, tears of strain slipping from beneath her lashes as she gags. At her words, the reversed Ehwaz rune began to pour forth its loathsome river.

"By your will, Josiah Platt. By -your- will!"


That had been the beginning of the end.

The healer had gone, she was alone again. The memories came faster, more erratically as the gruesome drama neared its crux. Her abused mind sheltered in some scenes, shied from others, and dragged yet others across her fevered consciousness as she lay in the narrow bed.


She tore the chain from around her neck, not bothering with the clasp. The metal bit into her neck as it broke free. She threw chain and ring into the center of the runes. Grasping the edge of the table, she held herself upright as her feet slipped in blood. She battled with the knowledge that she was losing control. Her teeth gritted together. This was hers. She would own it. Then, the emotions that had ghosted around the entity became clear: hatred, murder, rage, death, jealousy, conflict.

"I know..." She called. "I saw."

"Sanctus, Santus, Sanctus, Dominus Deus Sabaoth. Pleni sunt caeli et terra maiestatis gloriae tuae." Zane's voice was a low whisper, the Latin words droning and dirge-like.


Joki lifted a hand to push her hair back from her face, wishing desperately for Zane and a cigarette...in no particular order.


She started forward again, her arm falling as she moved toward Zane. This wasn't how this was supposed to go. Not him. "No." Zane stood slowly, his robes drenched and hanging heavily. "Finish this."

She was choking. There was no force felt on her throat, but she could not breathe. She stopped mid-stride, her eyes widening in panic and her neck elongating. She clawed frantically at her throat and chest until she was picked up by an unseen force and slammed onto a stone table. The ragged breaths that had gasped from her throat were stopped altogether as she lay there on her back, surrounded by the rising tide that she had released.


The headache was slowly easing. As the minutes slowly passed, her thoughts cleared, and she could only imagine what he had found when he went back...considering what they had left behind.


She could still hear his voice as consciousness began to ebb. “Let the enemy have...ngn...no power over her...And let the son of inequity...be powerless...to harm her...Lord, send her aid...from Your holy place...And watch over....her...from Sion..." Zane gasped out the words drunkenly, finally pushing his way up.

"Accio! Mine!" He roared as Joki flew to his arms. An inhuman roar responded, deafening in the stone chamber. "Mine! Damn you to whatever Hell you earned! This...is...mine!" The witch's eyes began to roll back into her head, her lithe frame at last hanging limp in his arms. "Burn, damn you...."

The last thing she heard was the sound of his voice, incantation after incantation as he blasted the room with spells, trying to undo what Joki with her own hands had done.


The door opened again.

_________________
"We are not bound forever to the circles of the world, and beyond them is more than memory."

The candles flickered silently, casting vacillating shadows upon the walls and ceiling of the stone chamber. Those left burning a while had streams of wax sliding down their smooth sides to harden into knobby shapes at their bases. As one the dozens of flames stirred, moving though there was no wind.

Guided by quietly spoken incantations, the candles appeared and vanished, forming and reforming patterns. Circles, pentagrams, combinations and variations of the two drew together and separated time and again.

The girl who guided them watched with hooded eyes, an open book held in one slender hand and a wand in the other. With the stick of yew she created, evoked; the maestro and her musicians each serving the other.

Opposite her, the tall wooden cross observed all. A separate, small group of candles flickered at its base, placed meticulously by another hand. The sight stirred some part of her mind without fail.

She knew little of religion, but faith- ah, that she knew. That she kept alive in the unquiet watches of the night, under the harsh lights of the morgue, and in the pages of tomes that stunk of age and decay. Her afterlife was now.

In the quiet she worked and studied, until at last the hour grew late. One by one her candles went out, leaving their sisters at the foot of the cross alone. With the quiet rustle of cloth and the fading sound of footsteps she left, and the ring of light burned steadily still.

_________________
"We are not bound forever to the circles of the world, and beyond them is more than memory."

The morning sun spilled over the horizon, silhouetting a lithic coastline against its newborn splendor. In the shelter of the cliffs a hill arose, sloping away again to a white-sand beach and the ocean beyond. Around the flat top of the hill a ring of stone and palm trees formed a natural shelter. Light filtered through the canopy of palm fronds overhead and dappled the rolling grass and and the crumbling stone compass that dominated the center of the hilltop. Leaves and grass and fronds alike whispered to one another as a cool wind shivered each vibrant edge, the sound persisting beneath the eternal rumble and crash of the foaming waves.

Two figures sat silent at the crest of the hill, facing the churning surf.

The first was a girl, young and singularly thin. Darkly tinted brows arched over probing green eyes, eyes half-concealed by delicately veined lids. The cheeks were angular, skin stretched tightly over high cheekbones and a jawline that was both feminine and hard. The lips were pale, and curved into lines of an alien sensuality. Here and there the white flesh was broken by small bits of silver, bars and hooks embedded into lips and nose and eyebrow and ears. Her hair was a deep and brilliant hue, emerald tones waving over her shoulders and down to the middle of her back. The arrangement was careless, as if fingers had moved through it often, and recently. Her clothing was a uniform shade of funeral black, from the leather and lace shirt that rigidly buckled in her slender torso to the rough pants that fitted to her long legs with various chains and clasps. Her feet were left bare, black nail polish standing out in small squares against the white of each toe.

The second figure was quite different. A huge lupine shape lay in the grass at the girl's side, his great head even with hers though he reclined. A wolf, and yet not. There was the strangeness of size, the tufts of hair that grew upon his ears and tail, and the yellow eyes with their oddly shaped pupils. The muzzle, too, was different- heavier, with exceptional strength in the jaws, and yet refined. Thick fur covered his frame, red-brindled and gleaming with vitality in the filtering light. Between the arching shoulder blades lay mirrored pieces of metal that were embedded in his skin, the deliberate design all but concealed by the fur. Around his neck he wore a finely crafted leather collar, complete with a dangling tag in the shape of a diamond. In spite of the collar, he looked anything but tame as his red tongue lolled out over fearsome teeth.

The girl lifted a hand, resting it on the neck of the great dog. A pleased rumble sounded in the animal's chest, the open mouth and gleaming teeth took on an uncanny semblance of a grin. The girl smiled in response, letting her fingers stroke through the luxurious fur and slide over the collar that was larger than the belt around her own waist. She took the dangling silver tag in her hand. The metal flashed in the growing light as her fingertip traced over the strokes etched there.

Beast.

_________________
"We are not bound forever to the circles of the world, and beyond them is more than memory."

Long had she sat in the chill and the dark, the only light the orange embers of two hours worth of cigarettes. Her fingertips traced the name etched into the ornate plaque, again and again though they had learned the shapes of the letters long ago. She began again, the pad of her finger pressing into the first angle.

A-L-E-X-A-N-D-E-R
M-A-G-A-N
W-I-L-D-E

Strange how he felt closer now than he ever had. The thought had occurred to her, more than once, that she might someday wake to find that she had somehow become him, like some bizarre cross-dressing Ligeia. She moved, hands now tracing the large square of marble that stood out an inch or so from the wall. Her fingertips curved around the edges, as if she would drag it from the wall and release what it held.

Instead, she let go.The cigarette held in her lips was nearly gone. She didn't light another. Being here felt like treason, and she wasn't even sure to whom or what.

Outside the wind sighed, the sad, shuddering sound calling her back from this unhallowed house of death to a world in decay. The iron cemetery gate closed behind her, leaves rustled under her quiet steps and the cold London wind moved through her hair. There was another visit to make, but it would wait. She was full of memories of him now- the other had been desecrated by them enough.

Joki Wilde lifted her head, breathing in the fresh air. Halloween...tomorrow is Zane's birthday. The cold that had formed at her core began to dissipate. She had a home, and it was time to return to it.

_________________
"We are not bound forever to the circles of the world, and beyond them is more than memory."

"The bird is much the same, but there's...something..."

"I am listening, Vixen."

"I hear him at night, when I should not be able to hear anything at all through those walls. He watches me all the time. And lately..."

She hesitated, drinking from her coffee mug to forestall the next words. He was not fooled. He waited.

"Lately there has been an ambiance of...her. Banther. Nothing material...just random impressions, sensations."

She did not know how to say what was in her mind- sudden morbid images and faraway sounds; vague shadows of decay and vengeful things that go bump in the night- beauty and hatred and love and betrayal, and above all, unquiet death.

Silence was futile. He knew. She forced the words, ridiculous but resonating:

"I think he's doing it."

_________________
"We are not bound forever to the circles of the world, and beyond them is more than memory."

_________________
"We are not bound forever to the circles of the world, and beyond them is more than memory."

A glass house. That's how she always thought of it, even though she knew better. In her mind it was made of a framework of bones, brittle and black, with panes of smoky glass in between so fragile that they would splinter if she breathed too hard. Other times it was not a house, but her own ribcage- constraining her breathing, her heartbeat, held in by steel-boned corsets and years of quiet thoughts. She burned another cigarette, the window open to allow the smoke to escape. She rested her head against the window sill. She felt heavy from too much drink the night before, yet the hand that held the cigarette was thin and fine and too breakable. An autumn wind filled the room, scattering papers from the desk and cooling her warm face. In the cellar crows clawed and screamed. They were killing each other again, as they had the day before, and the day before. Outside, a world in decay...in the cellar, blood and feathers. She smiled lazily.

Home.

_________________
"We are not bound forever to the circles of the world, and beyond them is more than memory."

The wide marble hall was full of interns in various states of despair, elation, or nervous anticipation. As usual, one angular figure stood apart, the deliberate solitude evident in every unwelcoming line of her posture.

"Wilde."

Joki walked to the desk when her name was called, taking the innocuous file folder from the St. Mungo's Director of Internships.

"Be thankful they're not sent as howlers anymore," the pug-nosed woman snipped.

Joki lifted her gaze briefly to the woman's in acknowledgment, then turned and slipped through the throng of interns, not touching any with so much as a fiber of her robes. She kept walking, long legs covering distance rapidly, until she was out in the street with her reflection fading in the Purge and Dowse, Ltd. window.

A quiet alley, a moment of solitude and a swift disapparition, and she was home. The stillness let her know she was the first. She changed her work robes for a pair of jeans and one of his dirty shirts and settled in with a cup of coffee and a cigarette, bare feet propped up on the kitchen table.

Only then did she open the file.

She could lie. She could tell herself that it did not matter, that she did not care, but the rapid pace of her heartbeat and the smallest tremble of the hand that held the cigarette told a different story.



INTERNSHIP EVALUATION: JOSEPHINE K. WILDE, HOGWARTS SCHOOL OF WITCHCRAFT AND WIZARDRY
DEPARTMENT: MORGUE
SUPERVISOR: M. DELANEY

PROFESSIONALISM = O

COMMUNICATION = O

TEAM MEMBERSHIP = T

COMPREHENSION OF MATERIAL = O

ADVANCEMENT OF SKILLS = O

EMPATHY = T

RECOMMEND THAT INTERN CONTINUE IN THE PROGRAM? YES

SUPERVISOR COMMENTS: INTELLIGENT. RELIABLE. NO PERSONALITY.



She leaned her head back, exhaling tendrils of dark smoke as a slow smile crawled across her pale lips.

"Baby steps."

_________________
"We are not bound forever to the circles of the world, and beyond them is more than memory."