Morning. Death Chamber, Department of Mysteries.


Golden hair combed neatly to the side, Virgil stood in front of the doors to the Death Chamber and waited for Aileen to bring her squib sister along. He fiddled with the buttons on his sleeves, doing and undoing while he thought about what awaited them this morning. Today was the appointed exorcism of Abigail Reid's pentral. A process which, by now, had been performed[1] on multiple victims to various extents of success. Their method for Abby was going to feature some minor differences from the other victims but it was essentially the same.

They were going to exorcise Iona and hope to Merlin that, like the other souls, hers (and only hers) will be called through the ancient archway beyond which lay death.

The differences were only applicable if she wanted Virgil to come with her into Limbo. Down in the chamber itself, Yavin awaited alongside other Unspeakables, prepared with the tools and enchantments required for such a journey. Even Sasha was there - he had come to witness for Abby's sake.

Footsteps sounded ahead, distinct against the glossy black marble of level nine's passageways.

Virgil smiled a little at the approaching sisters. "Good morning," he greeted with a mock bow, trying to keep things theatrical and lighthearted. "If you don't mind me getting to the point: will my services be required by the good lady?"

1.	25th Nov - Things in There that Scream and Shout

The day was here. It arrived like any other day, with Abby waking to the sun shining through the curtains. She'd gotten dressed, walked Roxy, and had a bite to eat. Time had crawled by in those morning hours, and then sped up so fast she turned around and an hour was gone. It had happened like that since August, too. Time crawling, then creeping, then speeding, then flickering by so fast. Time, gone. Just one tick in the lifts and the Reid sisters were on Level Nine. Just a walk across black, shining floors and they were here, at death's door, in front of Virgil, death's guide.

Aileen stood in navy robes trimmed in pale blue, while Abby and Iona had chosen a shade in twilight lavender. Embracing the night, hopeful that day would come again.

Though time had played tricks, Abby had spent these past few days leaning on Sasha and Moira and Raine. She'd sent holiday cards to distant relatives. She'd hugged her nieces, Sulwen and Coira. She'd told her parents that she loved them, unable to add, in words, that she forgave them for the abandonment that she had felt. Iona had visited the McBoids and her mother again. Iona had chosen not to reach out to Lori's daughter, and had received no word from her.[1]

Neither of them had regrets that they could voice without causing more pain, and both of them wished for more time.

Above their heads hovered fear, the kind of fear Abby had felt leading up to Calix's birthday, when the Hunts had intended on killing the squibs and using their souls. This time, she had no one to blame or direct anger towards. This time, the sacrifice was planned. The pentral who had pulled her away from the fallen body of her friend and led her to safety would be the one stepping behind the veil for good.

Could they do it, alone? Could Iona? Iona had become used to Abby, and Abby did so much better around those who cared about her.

Though she feared for Virgil, though he'd told her that two of the five unspeakables who had ever gone to Limbo had not returned, she took a deep breath and answered, "Yes."

Yes, if he were still offering.[2] Yes, thank you. Yes, words were inadequate.

Yes, echoed Iona, who would only brave death one more time. She'd made her decision, and she would take all the help that she could get.

Abby reached for Virgil's hand and gave it a light squeeze, her face fearful and determined. She looked up at her poised sister. Aileen's hair and skin and her icy blue gaze seemed leeched of color under the Ministry lights, but she stood fully herself again, as Abby wanted to be.

1.	The Daughter
2.	Standing on the Cliff Face

Aileen moved forward, resting a hand on Abby's shoulder and looking seriously into her eyes.

"I will be right here. As soon as you come out these doors, I'll be here."

To a casual observer, it might appear as though Aileen were sending her sister off to work for the day, or out for errands. It did not look like life or death.

But they'd talked already, several times throughout the month. They'd hugged, and Abby had cried, and Aileen had reminded her that she loved her, that so many people did. No need to go over it again now, in front of Virgil who was waiting patiently.

"I'll see you soon," she said with the utmost confidence, gave her shoulder a squeeze, and then let go.

She nodded to Virgil. This was in his and Yavin's hands now. She couldn't even begin to express her gratitude for the mere offer, his willingness to venture beyond the veil to go where Abby and Iona's family couldn't. Even if Level Nine had invited her to accompany her sister and even if she had the expertise for it, she didn't trust herself to leave and return. She'd been through too much in the past year that she couldn't quite talk about or address, her experiences put on hold by the presence of her own pentral, by Abby's pentral, by necessity.

After today, she would try to unlock those doors. She'd try, at some point, to put into words what this meant to her, and to look past herself and her family a little more. They still had the Hunts to fear, but they could make a start at moving forward.

Abby stood at the doors and glanced back at her. Aileen looked at her coolly and raised her eyebrows. Go on.

When the doors closed with a soft thud, fear rippled over her face. She drew in a breath and pressed a hand to her mouth. It would be fine. Abby would be fine. She would live.

She and Virgil would come back out, and Aileen would be there when they did.

            "Yes."

Though his countenance did not show it, a flicker of fear was felt in his heart. Virgil would be lying if he did not admit that a small part of him had hoped Iona would say no - but he was prepared for a yes. This was happening. He smiled faintly at Aileen as Abby took his hand, an act that gave him a touch of courage. Come on, come on, come on, he thought, I'm Virgil fucking Carstairs! I can do this and get out alive!

Bravado seemed weak in the face of death. It would have to do, though.  He led Abby into the Death Chamber, doors shutting quietly behind them.

A blood curdling scream cut through the thick, misty quiet of the room. Virgil did not react or reassure his friend: he knew that he was the only one who could discern the scream. It cut off abruptly, followed by nothing at all. Everyone heard something different in the vicinity of the archway. What he heard was retribution and silence. Abby and Iona would hear something else.

"Mind your footing," Virgil glanced at Abby, gesturing at the steps all around the chamber that led down to a dias in the centre. "The steps are uneven."

On the other side of the dark room, as well as closer to the bottom, a handful of Unspeakables were sat and waiting. This included Yavin, Unspeakable Tan, Sasha, and a couple of witches who were rolling out a woven mat just before the towering archway.

Yav was the first to look over. Virgil gave him a serious nod as the paid made their way down towards the centre. A nod, as in, yes we are doing the dangerous thing. The older wizard stood up to greet them. He was holding a ball of vivid red yard in one hand.

He had specifically requested no walk-in audience for the exorcism. Usually, Unspeakables who worked in the Death Chamber were allowed to drop in to watch the process: it was educational and a rare practical use of the arch between life and death. Today, however, Yavin was not going to risk too many cooks spoiling the broth. The less people the better. They were sending somebody's living mind and soul to the Other Side and he wanted to control environmental factors.

"Good morning," Yavin smiled at both protégé and subject, resembling his sweatshirt. "I, aha, I have everything set up for the journey. It's been a significant wait but I promise this, that is, this shouldn't take very long at all."

He threw the yarn ball at Virgil, who caught it deftly and examined the red thread with an air of distraction.

Unspeakable Tan, tall and stoic, cleared her throat."When you are ready..." she looked between the young ones, "Please have a seat on the mat, facing the archway."

Even after weeks of watching and performing similar procedures, Yavin wasn't completely at ease before the ancient dias. It was cold and unfeeling, and something unseen fluttered the black veil. His late wife's humming lay on the other side. He had his back to the arch, at any rate, and was determined to see this through himself.

"Get, hah, get comfortable." Yav agreed with Tan. "Is it, um, is it okay if I talk you through what's going to happen?" he directed this at Abigail, addressing both her and the pentral.

The door to the death chamber shut behind them. Abby was still looking back at it, knowing her sister was just outside, when she heard the whisper.

One whisper, then another, and another. Voices layered over one another in a discordant chorus. The first voice was like a fading note plucked in a vast hall, and then the others joined, continuing an uneven rhythm in a song that wasn't a song. She heard a curious note here, an indifferent note there, a low voice there a high voice there, until they fell silent again. Abby couldn't catch the words at all.

She let out a breath.

Did you hear that? Abby asked Iona in her head.

Silence. Virgil spoke beside her, and Abby took the first step on the stair.

Iii

Another step down.

        Oh

Another.

                Na

Her pentral echoed in her head.

Iona. Someone was calling her pentral already. Abby wanted to feel glad, but all she could her was Iona's footsteps behind a closed door.

They reached the bottom of the chamber to find smiling Yavin in his skeleton sweatshirt, holding the red yarn, his back to the foreboding archway. He looked absurd in this place, yet he stood so comfortably here. Her mouth twitched at his greeting.

A calm unspeakable stood beside him, along with a few others watching, and Sasha. Wonderful Sasha. Lovely Sasha.

Her mouth softened as she looked at Sasha for a long moment. This had to go well. For Sasha, for her sister. For Virgil, for Iona and herself.

Face the archway, the woman was saying. The archway, where the veil fluttered like a dark dementor's cloak and Yavin stood so confidently.

Abby looked at Virgil with the red yarn now in his hands. She stepped forward with him. Her sparkly were flats similar to the ones she'd worn the last day at the lakehouse. Her lavender robe felt warm and soft against the chill breeze. Every instinct in her told her to turn around and run away, not towards. Step away from the cliff face, not on it.

Step by step, they reached the mat where Yavin stood in front of the arch. Iona paced behind the door in her mind, faster and faster.

Run.

She sat.

Her eyes went wide as she stared at the veil, and then tore her gaze away to focus on Yavin.

The voices had started again, slow against the pounding of her heart. She still couldn't understand the words. They were right there, in front of her, but they sounded so faint, echoes lost and scattered, not speaking as one, just speaking to be heard.

Yavin asked her a question. Abby was barely aware of what he'd actually asked. She nodded anyway.

"Do you hear them?"

She spoke a little too loudly over the murmuring chorus, eyes fixed on Yavin, fear woven in her voice. The veil fluttered in her periphery, and she felt the chill against her cheeks.

It looked like she was walking in a dream, drawn to the archway.

Yavin himself sometimes felt the unreality of the Death Chamber but he was clear-headed and watchful this morning. He waited until Abby sat down on the mat - his protégé doing the same next to her, golden head raised towards the darkness beyond the veil. Their audience watched in tense silence while Tan walked around to the squib's side. The older wizard knelt next to Virgil, correspondingly. His knees smarted against the cold stone.

            "Do you hear them?" Abby asked before he could draw breath.

Ah, of course. She must be hearing more than her own expectation of the afterlife.

"No," he met her eye briefly and kindly, "that's, ah, that's just you. Every soul hears something, hm, something different. Something meant only for, hah, for them.  Don't let it alarm you." Though they were well past the point of alarm, if one was being fair.

He took the ball of yarn back from Virgil and began unravelling it by hand, looking up distractedly while he addressed the young pair. "This is, ahah, this is how it's going to go," a quick glance at Schlagenweit, including him in the circle of people who needed to be reassured.

After getting out about four feet of yarn he lowered the ball and neatly tied the loose end around Virgil's thin white wrist. A double knotted bow; he paused to mutter an incantation before continuing.

"We are going to exorcise you, Abigail." Yavin nodded at her and reached into his pocket for a small crystal bottle, other hand gesturing animatedly. "And we are going to give, ah, give Virgil a Draught of Living Death before we lower his core temperature to temporarily, um, tempor--"

"To temporarily kill me, yes." Virgil cut carelessly into Yavin's explanation while he unbuttoned his embroidered vest with his untied hand. "Let's not get pernickety about it now, if you'd please."

Even through the mat, the floor was chilly and unyielding. It felt like a cutting board and he was to be lain and quartered against it. He shook out his shoulders and head, an actor getting into his role, and flashed Abby a dry little smile. He didn't want to linger on the explanation of his part in this but he also wanted her to know what would happen, should they need to do what Yavin didn't want them to: improvise.

"The tricky part is getting the timing right. I have to go under just as Iona is drawn out towards the archway," he reached his free hand over to take Abby's, both of them already cold from being this close to the barrier between life and death. "It might hurt, the exorcism, not physicaly  but... deeper. In the soul, because you're so connected."

Unspeakable Tan was drawing her wand, and she nodded at them in agreement. "Whatever you do, don't follow Iona. You must hold on to yourself, think of things that make you glad to be alive."

In many ways, not dissimilar to the thoughts required to cast a patronus. But Unicorn Girls don't cast patroni. Virgil accepted the unstoppered potion bottle from Yavin and held it delicately. He squeezed Abby's hand one last time and thought about the letters he had given to the older wizard, for safe keeping.

Letters for the people left behind if this didn't work.

"Bottoms up."

With now well-practiced care, Sasha mentally checked for leaks along the edges of the metaphorical box in his gut into which he'd carefully packed all the worry, dread and anxiety that had been building over the past month.  Systematically packing away all the ominous feelings for the day had become as much a part of his normal morning routine as showering, brushing his hair and dressing.  It had become step towards being able to both navigate his daily responsibilities and routine as well as be the source of support Abby needed. 

At least until the end of the day.  When the day was done and he was alone, he could let the sides of the proverbial box give way.  Like last night, when Sasha had retired to his home office and had mindlessly played Sims all night with the help of some gillyweed - the closest he ever really got to sleep anymore. 

But, for now, the sides held and Sasha stood next to the other Unspeakables with an air of complete confidence that was only skin deep.  He met Abby's glance with a confident smile and a nod that, he hoped, conveyed what he couldn't, exactly voice: the he was here and he would be here for whatever happened and whatever she needed. 

"Do you hear them?  No, that's, ah, that's just you ...  Don't let it alarm you."

Sasha's gaze flickered towards the fluttering veil and lingered on the black curtain, fighting the urge to retreat from the center of the room and shout out at the lot of them to stop this and wait.  Even just another two weeks.  Just until they'd turned the calendar page; there was no reason to so blatantly and unnecessarily tempt fate.  It was some small reassurance to know he was the only one who heard the quiet, though unrelenting cacophony of angry voices rumbling from the depths of the archway, like the distant din of an angry village mob. 

He tore his gaze away from the archway when he heard Morgenthau's voice and caught the man's glance out of the corner of his eye. 

Dread and fear railed against the inner confines of that symbolic box, threatening to break free as he listened to Morgenthau begin the explanation.  And Virgil's elaboration.  And Tan's warning.  Whatever Virgil may think of him, Sasha couldn't have begun to express the gratitude he felt towards the former Slytherin for what he was willing to risk.  All of Sasha's attempts to provide real, tangible help had fallen flat but the one truth that had worked irrevocably in their favor was that Abby was surrounded by people who loved her and wanted to help.  People whose world would feel a gaping vacancy, if things went poorly. 

He forced himself not to think about the potential of losing two more presences from his life.  Lingering on that thought for more than a moment would easily breach those box walls and the calm, confident façade he was projecting would crumble like a house of cards. 

All he could do was stand and watch.  And, wait.  And, pray.  And, cast a quick sideways glance towards Morgenthau to both gauge the man's current expression and to offer as much of a wordless plea as he could afford to let leak through the façade.

"To temporarily kill me, yes."

Abby slowly turned her head to stare at Virgil. Kill. Kill! He hadn't said 'kill'. He hadn't mentioned that he'd be drinking one of the most dangerous potions in existence. He'd phrased it much more delicately yesterday. What had he said? He'd said that two of the five Unspeakables who had first been put under had not returned from Limbo. He'd said he was low-risk. How could she be so stupid? Had she just been too stressed to realize he'd meant death? Mostly dead, temporarily dead, but dead. Here they were, sitting in the death chamber, in front of death's doorway, and she denied the reality with every fiber of her being.

She opened her mouth. "Virgil-"

She almost said don't do it.

Then the sound of footsteps paused in her head. Iona's voice sounded, over the whispers beyond the veil.

        As if I'd drag a Carstairs with me into death. He's there in limbo to help me move on. No matter what happens.

Abby gave a shake of her head and looked at Yavin, who appeared confident, not at all persnickety, and she glanced at Sasha who stood calmly and had met her gaze steadily. She could only imagine what he was feeling, but he was here.

Then she looked at the red yarn on Virgil's wrist and let out a shaky breath. This was for her but wasn't just for her, and she wasn't alone.

She held Virgil's hand as he explained and Tam chimed in. Abby nodded at Tam in understanding. The psychic or mental pain she might feel didn't scare her as much as the separation itself. She needed to be strong and stand on her own. Let Iona go. Stay back. Think of happy things and her future.

The whispers beyond the veil grew louder, but no more comprehensible. Their voices hissed and gurgled over each other, skipping like stones on water, trying to reach her at the center. Goosebumps crept up her arms. Abby looked through the fluttering black veil, straining to see and hear. As she focused, the voices quieted again. They only wanted her attention when she wasn't paying attention.

Meant only for her! But who were they?

"Bottoms up."

Abby glanced at Virgil quickly, concern flashing over her face. No going back now.

"See you soon," she squeezed his hand back, hoping he felt it, that he heard her, that he knew how much this meant to her even if she couldn't fully express it.

Her gaze latched on to Yavin. Iona's presence flickered, wary and serious, between Abby's more trusting but fearful expression. What was the next step? The timing had to be right.

He watched the young wizard exchange a look with Abigail, an uncharacteristic softness in his face. Virgil's motivations were probably numerous and vague even to himself - but they were well meant, Yavin felt. Unspeakable Tan spoke in a louder voice and glanced over her shoulder at one of the other Unspeakables, their scribe.

            "Limbo walk, attempt six. Pentral exorcism, subject twenty three attempt one..." she turned back to Abby, gently pushing her back against the mat. "Close your eyes. Remember yourself."

Virgil downed the draught and leaned back against his elbows. Yavin helped him lay down, as the concoction started to take affect. "Remember," Yavin met him in the eye, abruptly stern, "first sign of trouble you, ahah, you come back. If you can't find your way just follow the thread."

The kid nodded sleepily - he looked like he had something to say, something wry and snarky, but the words died on his lips and he turned his head to the side, resting it on his arm. Like he was taking a nap on a hot, stagnant afternoon. Yav waited a second before testing his pulse, breath, heartbeat; quick touches to the neck and mouth, the pale chest underneath.

"As a doornail," he announced gently and glanced at Tan as he picked up the rest of the wool ball. "I'm going to, ah, to lower his temperature now. You can start."

Dropping usual affectations, Yavin threw the ball of yarn through the veil - it disappeared into the darkness, its crimson thread connecting the realm beyond to Virgil. He drew his wand and touched it to his protégé's chest. The tip glowed blue and bright. If Virgil had been still before, he became impossibly so now.

Unspeakable Tan began chanting under her breath, one hand holding her wand over Abby while the other held the squib's shoulder. Exorcism charms were difficult to perform but Tan had been getting in plenty of practice. The red glow of her wand turned white, blinding, filling the Death Chamber with a burst of light.

"Virgil-"

Sasha recognized her moment of hesitation and the writhing mass of anxiety railed against the walls, which shuttered but held.  Oblivious to what Abby or Iona were thinking, Sasha held his breath as the seconds of indecision seemed to drag on. 

Were they debating backing out?  Were they both having second thoughts or - with a new kernel of panic - was only one of them having second thoughts?  Sasha had promised he would stand by and support, protect or defend Abby's right to make whatever choice she wanted to make but he knew the consequences of backing now would be far from insignificant. 

He turned his gaze towards Morgenthau and Sasha watched him for several moments, trying to guess what the man's move would be, if either Abby or Iona changed their minds at the last second.  He tried to compare the man he was seeing now with what he'd seen on his first encounter and Virgil's impression.  He still did not trust the man but he wasn't sure if the man's motives were questionable enough to warrant worrying about Abby's safety. 

Emotional safety, as well as physical. 

Luckily, in the end Sasha didn't need to answer that particular riddle.  Abby and Iona appeared to recommit themselves to their fates.  Sasha turned his attention back towards the archway and the wizard and squib standing in its shadows and met Abby's glance with a smile and a nod as he mouthed I love you.

Forcing himself to take a long, slow steadying breath, Sasha watched anxiously as Virgil downed the potion and Morgenthau moved towards him, the whole ritual unfolding like some lost, morbid Shakespearean scene. 

Her heart pounded, thoughts swirled. She glanced once more at Sasha.

I love you, he mouthed.

A half smile flickered on her face. When Tan put a hand on her shoulder, she resisted for a split second, then laid down on the mat and closed her eyes, holding onto that moment of warmth and love.

Who was she? She was bright and quick and full of laughter. She was flippant and joked away pain. She was...

Yavin's voice and Tan's soft chanting mixed with the murmuring of voices beyond the veil. Virgil's hand grew cold. She let go, letting her fingers just barely graze his. Her thoughts skittered to the day when another friend, Calix, had grown cold in her arms while the fire raged at their backs. Dead and cold on the floor.

No, she couldn't think about that. No fire here, just the chill. She let out a shiver. Cold, but not terrible and not fire.

Who was she? She was...

Fear and doubt kept trickling in, snagging at her thoughts. Her breath slowed. Then there was light.

Behind the closed lids of Abby's eyes, Iona trembled and waited for death. It was a death she was choosing, not one given to her by the Hunts or stolen by dementors. Her time had passed and this was the least complicated answer. This was what the majority wanted. She couldn't ask Abby to continue to house her and she couldn't ask her family to fight for her when it meant more pain and uncertainty.

Death beckoned her silently. She felt its chill on her skin and in her lungs, drawing her nearer with every exhale, raising the hair on her arms, coaxing her forward. Come in.

Distantly, in their shared mind, she overheard the faint voices of the pentrals whispering to Abby from beyond the veil. They didn't bother Iona. They didn't even know her. The Hunt siblings had kept her separate and elevated from them, alone above an altar of asphodel flowers. Abby was their savior and destroyer, the one who had freed them but given them nowhere to go, no defense against the dementors, no direction.

Abby had given Iona a safe vessel. A life shared. After years of feeling alone, she was never alone. After years of being surrounded by evil, she'd been welcomed into the soul of someone good, someone who had needed her from time to time and had understood what it felt like to be a prisoner. Iona had thought Abby useless at first, frustrated by her lack of magic and power in the world. It had taken her time to realize how much people loved her. That wasn't power, not in the active sense, but Iona had missed feeling loved.

They'd said goodbye last night, in a dream. They'd met in the doorway of their minds, Iona with the straight rows of bookshelves behind her that reminded her of her father's shop, Abby with the winding rows of sheltering trees at her back. They'd stood as themselves, Iona in her blue cloak with her red hair and Abby sparkling like a blond star. They'd looked each other in the eye as two souls and tried to come to terms with an impossible situation.

That was then, in the safety of dreams. Death beckoned coldly now. Iona breathed in and out, tilting her chin up.

Yet when the sudden bright light pressed against her eyelids, Iona flinched. Her soul began to leak out through her nose and her mouth and her eyes. Light lifted her up and out of her body. She hung in the air suspended, weightless, freezing cold. No, wait! She didn't want to be alone. She didn't want the dark and cold.

Her soul shuddered and twisted, a few tendrils reaching back for Abby.

Blinding light flooded the chamber, blazing from an unspeakable's wand. Iona turned her head towards it, the light that looked like warmth but wasn't warmth, knowing full well it was a trick but unable to stop herself from seeking it.

Light and freedom and a red thread into the dark. The faces of those standing watch blended and faded together. The stairway bordering the chamber blurred. The more that Iona drifted towards the archway, the freer she felt. Why had she been afraid? This was an end but not the ending.

          Iiiioooonaaaaa.

A familiar voice from beyond the veil called to her, urging her towards the silent pull of death. Iona froze just before the archway. Cold ran through her, siphoning her soul, but a little thread of warmth snagged at her edges. What was that?

She glanced behind her.

A web of tiny, barely visible threads tugged at her from the body on the mat. Abby. Abby's soul, leaving her body. Following her.

No! She pulled away from the squib, closer to death.

          Iiioooonaaa.

No! Her soul twisted, pain rippling as she fought against the life that tugged at her and the death that drew her into its inky black depths.

A bright light pressed against Abby's eyes and seared into her soul. She saw. She saw the light and then she saw the darkness beyond it, a swirling vortex that fluttered warnings at her. Stay back.

Iona faded bit by bit, leaving Abby cold and empty. Who was she? Abby's conscious mind clutched at her own skin, her bones, her body as her soul drifted up, the tiniest tendrils tangling and hooking at the corners of Iona's soul. She belonged there, wherever the other soul was. With every exhale, her soul left too.

The cobweb of her soul settled lightly over her face, watching as the red faded from her hair and the freckles faded one by one and the features softened ever so slightly. Who was this person with the pert nose and arched eyebrows and pale hair? Abby didn't recognize herself. The threads of her soul tangled with Iona, so faint that when the light in the chamber glinted off of them, they disappeared.

Iona fought at the archway. Abby's heart wrenched as a few of her threads fell, cut from Iona's soul.

Iona slipped, tumbling through the gate. Gone. Dead.

For a moment, the threads of her soul hung loosely in the air, looping from her body and through the gate where Iona had left.

Then the threads tightened, and pulled Abby away from her body just as she reached for her own hands. Wait, she didn't want to die! Her soul flew past the fading light and past all the faces she knew.

A blast of cold shocked her as she sailed through the archway and into nothing.

Silence surrounded her. Her thoughts slowed and her emotions went numb, drifting in darkness.

          Stay back, stay back!

One by one, familiar voices found her. They sounded much clearer than they had in the chamber.

          Come with us.

          Who is she?

          The girl who shattered the glass

          -made it worse-

          Saved us.

          Killed us.

They fell silent, tethered to their own souls.

          She left that house with us.

The lakehouse, Abby knew, where she'd set the pentrals free.

          She left her body.

The last voice chimed sadly. Her body? Past the veil, Abby remembered the shell of herself, laying still and dead on the mat.