episode 24: Diplomacy is Not My Strong Suit

-Ellen-

After they left, Takara adopted a marginally more conciliatory tone. "Honestly Ellen, diplomacy is not my strong suit. I’ll even concede that my motives are entirely selfish. I neither want to face my grandmother’s temper nor do I wish to be shot as an abomination, though perhaps they’d send me to some vivisectionist’s lab. And you know, I think Babe might have some sympathy for my position on that. Just a thought. Either way, not ideal. And you know, I’d be happy to see you blow yourself up, or become some sort of fertility goddess. Whatever, to each their own." She delivered this line with a dead-pan tone that strongly suggested that I was crazy either way. She really was insufferable, worse she kept going before I could deliver a rebuttal. "But that’s not the world, and so between grandmother and the Inquisition, I’m your least terrible option. So, play ball with me, okay?"

"You arrogant little bitch," I began.

"That’s a statement of the obvious, Ellen. It takes one and all that, right? So, the question is, what do you want to do about all of this? Like I said, I have some suggestions. And besides, maybe you’ll learn something and Babe won’t accidentally punch another hole in space-time. Surely that's reasonable enough? And it might give us some insight into what happened the night Babe changed. Don't you think he'd be willing to help with that, given how close he and David have become in such a short time?"

" Oh yes," I said, "that all sounds very reasonable, and yet, somehow, you claiming the voice of reason does little but increase my skepticism. Regardless, this is all preamble and no case. And that either means that you're about to try to sell me on some bullshit I won't like, or try to strong arm me even if you don't have a particularly formidable position."

Takara clenched her fists. "I'm trying to be diplomatic here."

"I think that diplomacy works better when you don’t start with threats and contempt. Even more so when both parties have something to offer." Takara gritted her teeth in frustration, knowing that her haughty approach had done little more than antagonize me. Honestly, who did she think she was dealing with, some punk witch that had no actual experience? Then I realized that was exactly what she was used to. Most people who were drawn to magic experimented a bit when they were younger, few kept at it. So, Takara was likely used to scaring those who had natural ability and had done something out of their depth. People who were more than ready for someone to pose as a figure of authority. This was not me. I watched her take a deep breath before she tried again. It was good to see her scramble.

She recalibrated and took a fresh approach. She gestured towards David and Babe, trailed by Shigeto, wandering about Babe’s favourite spots. Not the most enthralling of tours, but they both seemed to find it all entertaining enough. Shigeto looked bemused, as though he was watching a movie he'd heard was good, but that was mostly just confusing. "Do you not think that friendship is something to preserve?"

And I knew how Babe felt about his connection with David; I’d felt it through our link. I glared at Takara as though their sudden friendship was a machination of hers. I had considered that she might have engineered a casting to do just that, but dismissed it. I would have felt that influence through the link between Babe and me.

"You have no right," I began.

"And just who are you to speak of rights? I can feel what you’ve done here, wound everything here tighter than a spring, everything controlled as a formal garden, every aspect of nature subject to your whim?"

"I only touch those things that affect the farm," I retorted. "There’s no lack of wildlife here. The bees are healthy. There are wild things at the edges of the fields, like any farm. It’s not as if I’m doing this out of ignorance. I’ve studied how farm ecosystems work. Have you done as much before criticizing me? Or do you think that we should all be dumping pesticides into the environment?”

"I don’t give a shit about whether this is better farming or any of that crap. I have a responsibility, a function, if you will, regardless of my own interests and passions. One that has intruded on my entire life, and I’ve seen these kinds of situations more times than I care to recall. You’re not the first practitioner who hoarded power like this. Those like you are always surprised when it bites you in the ass. You’ve created a familiar with the ability to twist space-time and it doesn’t fill you with any sense of concern? If anything, that bull seems more powerful than he was. You’ve been weaving spells with him more, rather than less. You have to drain the magic from that animal, not add to it. Otherwise, the shit is really going to hit the fan."

"Who are you, to tell me how to practice? This world needs another path forward, and if we don’t find it, then who will?"

"Oh really," said Takara, "That’s why you’re doing this, an attempt to reform industrial farming world-wide? To develop an alternative for the masses?"

I gritted my teeth at this. There’s no way I’d trust what I’d done to any but a very few, and Takara damn well knew it. "Fine," I acknowledged, "That’s not what this is about, but it is about opting out of a world that has forgotten its link to the land, that we are part of the natural world."

"Pfftt, that’s not what this is."

I opened my mouth, and Takara just held up a hand, and took a breath. "Look, again, honestly, I don’t really care. I don’t like what you’re doing here, but that’s not my business, not part of my duty. My responsibility is to protect the ways, to keep this world safe. I don’t know what you’ve done. I don’t even know if you know what you’ve done, or how you did it. But that bull out in your field opened up a gate to another realm in David’s backyard, and there are things coming through it. And David thinks something big wants to get through. That is the real problem. What’s worse is that the gate seems to be stable; and I don’t know if it’s because of you, the bull, or the Sidhe on the other side. Something needs to be done, and you and your pet bull are the only ones who can do it."

"He’s not a familiar, by the bloody Goddess, he’s not anyone’s tool. We work together on spells, and so I know he’s not involved in sustaining the gate, not as far as I can tell. So, I’m not sure there’s a simple answer here."

"Then it would be the first situation like it that I’ve run across."

"You said yourself that the creature that David saw, this Sidhe, might be holding the gate open," I objected.

"Perhaps," said Takara, "either way, it’s not a good situation. He’s sending creatures through, and at first, they were easy hunting, but not so much now. They know this world and me. They’ve been fighting back and being more clever about it."

"Did you ever try to communicate?" I asked, "Perhaps you’ve been creating conflict where none needed to be?"

"Did David not tell you about the armies? That kind of force gathered around a gate."

"It could have meant something else. Cultures vary."

"It’s not just about that. A gate like that is inherently unstable. It’s unrestrained and may grow or shrink if the right key is found. And do you really want to see alien magics spilling across into downtown Toronto? Even if their intention is benign, it would still be a disaster. They’re a contagion, and must be controlled, regardless of content." Takara sighed, leaned back, "Look, I know that you’re fond of the Babe, but he’s at the centre of this. If the gate isn’t closed, and soon, things may spiral out of control. So we can try to do something that may be risky, with Babe’s help, or other authorities may do that without him."

"And are you thinking you’re that authority?"

She looked away. "I do what needs to be done, but there are always, always, options, if you’re willing to face up to the reality of the situation. You’re trying to protect him. I shouldn’t even be arguing this with you, I should do this with Babe, but he’s new to the world, and the two of you are connected, so here we are."

"Yes, here we are. And even if we did agree to help you, we still don’t have a proper sense of what we’d do."

Takara shrugged, "I get that, so perhaps we should try to figure out what options exist? There are ways — if we’re stymied, then we can look at outcomes. You have enough power and focus here to do a half decent scrying."

My blood ran cold at this. I remembered my mother talking about such spells. She’d even entered several into the family grimoire — right around the time that she began to lose herself. The doctors had always said it was because of early onset Alzheimer’s, but I’d never been completely convinced of that. I’d certainly accepted this explanation at the time, and wanted to believe it, as the alternatives were more horrifying.

That it had been the scrying that had driven her mad. That her visions were true, and that there really was a disaster waiting in our family’s future. One that she’d never seen a way past.

"I don’t think that’s a great idea." I said, teeth set.

"Maybe not, but right now I see little in the way of alternatives, right? We’re at a wall. We could cast backwards and forwards, seeing what we might find. Get an idea of what happened."

"Sure, unless we get some ghost timeline — possible pasts or futures. They could lead us down the garden path, giving us a false sense of comfort, of understanding. That we might act on information that is a phantom of possibility and make things worse than they ever were."

"Only if we act blindly, if we treat it as more than it is. It’s just a way of exploring possibility, not the tolling of fate’s bell."

"No." I said.

I recalled my mother’s panicked and incoherent phone calls. The letters sent with strange illustrations of our farm with an ever-growing black spot. As though some blight had taken hold that would eventually eclipse the house, the barn, and then everything else. It was madness.

I struggled with these memories, and my recollections of my irritation and dismissiveness towards my mother and her. What, prophecies? I was still lost in thought as the boys cycled back to where they left us.

"No to what?" Asked Babe.

I looked over at him, suspicious of his timing. He had become more and more eager to take on new spells and some part of me wondered if he suspected what Takara was suggesting. Nonetheless, I would not have him dabbling with such things — he still told me of dreams of his past lives, where he felt lost in a sea of other versions of himself, or of the Minotaur. None of these dreams were good, and on more than one occasion I’d been up with him all night, reassuring him, walking around the farm, grateful for the occasional passing truck or plane as evidence that he was not to be sacrificed or caged in the labyrinth.

"Takara wants to do something dangerous and probably pointless," I said.

Takara sighed, "I have done scryings many times, never to any great catastrophe. They weren’t always useful, but sometimes they can help you consider alternative paths. We could always do a divination if the scrying is too worrying."

She sounded so reasonable, but I knew that she had her nose to the ground on this one, and she wouldn’t give up the hunt so easily. So, "We’ve made brunch," I said, "Why don’t we have a bite in Babe’s stall, and you can tell us a bit more about the gate, and the creatures behind it?”

Takara gave me a suspicious glance, but simply nodded. I knew it wasn’t over. She had the predator’s patience.