Chapter 110: Eternitybox

Typical Saturday morning. But for some reason, Acheron glanced out at the water, and realized it wasn't.

 He knew, without knowing why he knew, where he had to go.

Because a two-bit criminal had been granted a stupid amount of power.

And with power came wealth.

And what followed was an abuse of power, more greed, more wealth.

Acheron stumbles down the hill. The cave is somewhere past these stones and graves.

 Years of life can't just be tacked on.

They have to be stolen from someone else.

 It was a fate meant for Amy's grandfather.

But Amy threw this away, unknowingly destroying the would-be witch's spell.

 He could have sworn it was somewhere back here...

He will... save his would-be girlfriend... unless he's already too late.

The stairs are hidden where he knew they would be.

"Claire!" he shouts. His voice startles him, as if someone else clawed it out of his throat. "Claire, where are you?!"

It hasn't happened yet. There's no inferno, no wailing. The walls are cold and damp.

He was never supposed to be here.

He finds them. He trips, nearly falling to his knees. "Stop! STOOOooooOOOOoop...!"

Claire lowers her hands, shocked. "Acheron?"

Claire's concentration broken, the multicolored mist stops rising from the cauldron.

"Acheron? Why are you here?"

He runs to her. "No, why are YOU here?!" His voice is a squeak. He tries to calm down, to even it out. "Forget it. I know why you're here. And what you're doing is wrong."

Claire backs up. "W-well I... I..."

"What is this?" Vadoma demands. "What have you told him?"

"Nothing!" Claire gasps.

Acheron holds his ground. "You're angry at Carl Libros because he bought out Landgraab Industries. Your father's workplace. Carl fired Dr. Rome and his team, and began weaponizing their research." The words tumble out as if it's someone else talking. How does he know this? How many alternate dreams did he have and forget? But now he knows. Nigel Rome's pain over the misuse of things he'd done affected his daughter; his daughter was willing to hurt the man responsible; it would backfire; she would die; Amy would die; Claire would live again. "But your Gran-mama allowed that to happen. She made Carl rich. She gave him what he needed to be a better thief, in exchange for certain favors."

"I know she's used him to steal for her," Claire says tearfully. "But she doesn't control everything about him."

"For that kind of power she needs you," Acheron says. "Mages are strengthened by other mages."

Vadoma shakes her head. "You insinuate I'm using Claire, child-elf?"

Acheron ignores her. "You're not like this, Claire. I know you. You're not a killer."

"But he's worthless to everyone. I can put his time to better use!" Claire protests.

Acheron raises his voice. Tells her it's wrong.

Claire sobs. The boy she's had a crush on is disappointed in her. It's the end of the world.

"Claire!" Vadoma snaps. "You're allowing this creature to interfere?!"

"I thought befriending a supernatural would impress you, Gran-mama..." She glances at Acheron. "But I loved you, before that," she tells him. "Before I ever knew what you were. I've loved you for years..."

"I know," he says.

Vadoma seethes. "His kind are tricksters. They turned my own children from me."

"You loved your sons," Acheron murmurs, "but you still had them under a spell. You didn't want to lose them to the natural course of life and death. But Pauline freed them from your mind control. And when they turned from you, your powers were weakened."

"How do you know this?" Claire whispers. 

Acheron shrugs. "Precognitive visions. I've seen these this play out over and over. I've had more time to find out things than you could imagine. I think I've been trapped in my own dreams for years."

"Enough!" Vadoma snaps. "Carl was a necessary evil. But with Claire's help, there won't be any further necessary evils."

"We can make everyone get along," Claire says softly, trying to convince herself.

"You're gonna die," Acheron's tone is a plea. He blinks back tears. "You left the anchor to Mr. Libros's soul in his home. But his granddaughter, Amy, threw it away. Your spell won't work. It will kill YOU, not him. And then..." Acheron stifles a laugh. It's all sounding a bit insane, "and then your great-grandmother kills Amy to bring you back."

Claire looks at the elder witch. "You can do that?"

"Resurrection is more likely successful if there was a person responsible for the victim's death," Vadoma confirms, contemplating.

"But Amy is just a girl. Like me. Not an evil old man."

Vadoma turns towards Acheron. "You've made her unwilling to use her chosen target. And I know she won't choose another. But with an extended life-span, she'll be forced to leave 'friends' like you behind... and she'll come around, to see my point of view."

Claire stares. "You're not seriously thinking of hurting Acheron?"

"He isn't human!"

"He's my friend! He came here to help me!"

"I love you," Vadoma shouts. "I will not lose you!"

Vadoma's spell is woven in ways Acheron cannot perceive. He can only feel their effects, the unspeakable pain of spirit ripped from flesh.

"No!" Claire screams.

Footsteps.

Acheron hears footsteps. Maybe it's another detail in the dream, taunting him. Maybe this is just the start of another loop. If so he's become like his grandmother's twin brother, unable to tell psychic visions from reality.

He's been very sleepy, lately.

Sure, he decides, as he crumples to the floor, I'm dreaming. Not dying.

Vadoma is down as soon as the tranquilizer hits her in the back. She trembles and falls right onto it, pushing it further into her back. It makes no noise, but the shooter does.

"What the barnacles are you scurvy hags doing to my cousin!?" Candace demands.

"C-Candy!"

It's the only word Claire can get out. Candace doesn't wait; she shoots Claire with the second dart. Acheron gave her enough for three. He told her what they'd do, and she didn't believe him. She thought he was absolutely stoned on those bubbles. But she agreed to come here anyway, she agreed to bring them, and in the heat of the moment her gut feeling is to use them. Acheron is hurt.

Claire falls ingloriously to the ground. She knew what hit her. It made no difference to know.

Candace promised they'd find out if he was crazy.

She already knew about her family history. About Reginald, and about Loki. She knew because her mother, Pepper, had told her the story. And Pepper knew because her father, Basil, had reluctantly told his three children the story. A cautionary tale. And at its end, a symbol to save you.

Acheron could have placed the ward-mark on himself and stopped having any visions, in theory. But then he couldn't use those visions to try to find a way to save Claire.

Candace wasn't ready to believe he could see the future, but didn't she owe it to him to not dismiss him outright?

Acheron nodded off, right there on the swing set in the school yard. He never ate his lunch.

He wasn't bubbled. He was exhausted.

Candace peeked into his backpack and took the jar of milky liquid. Did Acheron really pilfer it from the Libros place? Would enough to load a standard dart really constitute as an overdose? Could it really confuse people in small doses? Make them forget, in large doses?

The bell rang nine minutes and twenty-eight seconds later. Acheron woke up. They both went to geography class. Jamel Darwin had no idea where Shang Simla was. Jeffry Rao threw a paper airplane at Nelson Noon and earned himself a detention. Cemre took apart his mechanical pencil and couldn't put it back together.

Yesterday was very normal.

Candace shakes Acheron gently, then violently. "Wake up!"

She begins chest compressions. Every millisecond counts.

She's about to tilt his head back and establish an airway for the much-dreaded CPR phase two when the boy shudders back to life. Vadoma's spell could not complete itself without her to guide it. Acheron's lifeforce was still there enough to snap back to him. None of it had been transferred into Claire yet.

"You weren't crazy," Candace says.

He doesn't move his head. He's staring at Claire. She's in an unflattering heap on the floor.

"I shot both of them," Candace says. "Told you I was a good shot."

"I think you saved my life," Acheron says.

"Well, you weren't breathing. So yeah I think I did."

Candace helps Acheron to his feet. He tells her, in a few terse words, what happened.

"Bitch." Candace scowls. She nudges Vadoma with her foot.

"She's not evil. Just... misguided."

"Well. What will she be now?"

"She won't remember us. She won't even remember who she is."

"Maybe I shouldn't have shot Claire..." Candace stammers.

Acheron lowers his head. "We have to get Claire back to her parents."

Nigel and Susan find their daughter sitting in the vegetable garden behind the house.

She doesn't know who they are, or where she is.

Her parents assume she's been through something traumatic. They do everything they can to show her patience, and love, but Claire never remembers anything before waking up in that garden.

Pauline cracks her knuckles. Angered over the loss of her sons, Vadoma cursed Pauline to be bound to the very spring she guarded. Now Vadoma's magic has weakened, and Pauline does not know whom to thank.

Vadoma wakes up in the cave alone. She finds the stairs outside easily enough, then wanders clueless through the woods and meadows until, finally, she runs into a person. A story goes out in the paper about the amnesiac woman - a strange coincidence, given the teenage Claire Rome's similar experience—but no clues surface as to Vadoma's identity. Carl, Feather and Amy Libros know... but they are silent, shocked.

Vadoma adopts a new name—Aadi Beach; the first female name in a book of names, plus a surname to fit in. She takes a job as a waitress at Ferry Lane, and wonders constantly if she'll ever remember who she is, or why she awoke alone in a cave in a cemetery.

Despite the rough re-start, Ceth's relationship with Floyd improves.

He's not perfect, but neither is she. 

There's no time like the present to set it right.

It's only the issue of their son that needs sorting out. Must he know?

For now, Ceth only invites Floyd into her house while Acheron is in school.

It's like old times... except better.

When they were young, Ceth always knew the outcome of their relationship. It wouldn't stick, and she would break his heart. But now that she's opened her own, the future is an exciting blank page.

Floyd is more cautious. He spent years in an unhappy marriage, and he worries for his daughter. And Ceth has never been predictable; his head tells him to get away from her as fast as possible, but his body won't comply.

"How long is this going to last?" he asks her. "This phase, I mean. Where you love me."

"As long as you love me back," Ceth says. 

There's a lot of guilt, but Candace doesn't have to work hard to convince Acheron to keep their secret.

There's no reason for anyone to know of their involvement in the "amnesia cases".

With his mother's permission, Acheron gets a tattoo.

Ceth knows about the dreams, and about her son's consequent troubles staying awake in school. She doesn't know about the dreams' contents. About Claire or Amy or his quest to change the future he saw for them. About how he blames himself and not Candace for Claire's memory loss.

The symbol that gave Loki back some semblance of reality can ease Acheron's mind as well, and that's all Ceth cares about. She does wonder what became of her uncle. If he's alive somewhere, making people uncomfortable.

Candace doesn't understand why Acheron would want to lose an ability that allowed him to save someone's life. Acheron tells her he doesn't need her to understand his decision, only to respect it.

Acheron says hello to Claire at school.

"I'm sorry," she apologizes, "I don't know you."

He can see she feels awful about it. She has the kind and considerate personality she had as a young child.

He leaves her alone.

He keeps waiting for this timeline to collapse and restart. Waiting to wake up.

Amy Libros never knew him well enough to pronounce his name in the first place.

She sits idly by, enjoying his DJ'ing.

But he has not forgotten the mystery of his mother's reaction to Amy.

"Amy Libros?" Ceth scowls. "You're dating Amy Libros?"

"Yes," Acheron lies. Amy is still going steady with Nelson. Maybe, in this fresh reality, Amy and Nelson will never break up at all. Vadoma is gone; Amy's poorly thought out revenge ideas against the woman, for the crime of "using" Carl Libros, must be a thing of the past. Acheron can hope Amy is rethinking her life.

"What about Claire?" Ceth demands. "I'm sure this amnesia thing is temporary."

"Amy is the hottest girl in school," Acheron says. Though he's not sure if it's true.

He's never given it much thought.

Ceth abandons rationality pretty quickly, and tries yelling instead.

"Just because her family is rumored to have done some questionable things doesn't mean Amy is going to follow their path. Why do you hate her? Why are you screaming at me?"

"Because you're making a mistake."

"You're hiding something from me," he says, frustrated. "When I was a kid you told me you were a genius, and as a genius you believed we should always talk anything out. You said I could always trust you. But you never even told me about my supernatural ancestry. Grandpa had to do it."

Ceth looks away, taken aback. 

"I'm disappointed in you, Mom, if rumors around town is all it takes for you to condemn a person."

Ceth's eyes close. "There's a reason, Acheron. But I can't talk about it right now."

First, she has to talk to Floyd.




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Etc.: According to new CPR guidelines released in 2010 by the American Heart Association, chest compressions should come before establishing the airway and forcing breaths down the victim's throat. Sometimes compressions were all the victims needed in the first place, and fumbling around with the first two steps was delaying them and potentially causing less lives to be saved. Check out this article for more details and nuance.

Tranquilizers generally aren't used by the police outside of science fiction, because, according to Wikipedia, "no drug is yet known that would be quickly and reliably effective on humans without the risks of side effects or an overdose. This means that effective use requires an estimate of the weight of the target to be able to determine how many darts (if any) can be used. Shooting too few would result in no effect whatsoever, while too many can kill the target."

It was Claire who stole Eggbert's sister's teddy bear. He mentioned it was stolen in chapter 106.