With an old horse that stumbles and nods

Half asleep as they stalk.

-In Time of "The Breaking of Nations", Thomas Hardy, 1915.

I was plagued by nightmares. Someone should really look into that.

Once, I saw Zombie Chicken next to my bed. He chuckled heartily like a diabolical villain would do in the movies, still with his chicken-accented news anchor voice. "You set them on the loose, Alden."

I thought I woke up screaming after that, but instead, I opened my eyes to find that I was back in the Witch House, surrounded by the ghosts of the slaves - free us! Hee! Give us now!

Again, I screamed imígí - this time voluntarily. The ghosts' memories began flashing again into my head, and I had to endure dozens of torment by the witch and see the townspeople's betrayal over and over again until my heart felt numb.

The ghosts cleansed, I saw myself being carried away by Cora, who jolted into action first. Barney was already waiting outside with some other kids; Barney and Cora took me away from the party while the others brought the catatonic six for any immediate remedy.

There wasn't any.

Suddenly, out of nowhere, a skinwalker struck me straight to the stomach. As pain surged through me, I could see the silhouette of the giant spider looming over me.

Thanks, Alden. It was the Ace of Hearts' voice.

The spider transformed into the Jack of Clubs and struck.

I screamed.

Waking up with such a start - the last time I woke up screaming was back when I was five - my head got dizzy and for a moment, my eyes scrambled around to try and find an assailant. There wasn't any. Remembering the first nightmare, I turned to the bedside - no Zombie Chicken.

I found myself breathing heavily. My palms were beaded with cold sweat, and so was my forehead. I realized that I sat up when I woke. My hand instinctively reached to my collar - Cora's charm was still there. I could still see through the mist.

There were soft growls from outside, but they felt distant. I'd seen how the monsters seemed to enjoy tormenting their victims - maybe if I feigned sleep, they wouldn't be attracted this way. The waiting party was full of waking people and the monsters struck there (aside from the fact that they were looking for me, according to what Ace of Hearts said). If I could try to just sleep...

However, the door to my room suddenly flew open. I almost jolted to a defensive stance, but then I saw that the figure on the doorframe was Jack. I relaxed.

He knitted his eyebrows. "I thought you're - um - having a sleepover?"

The way he said that was enough to tip me off that he knew that I was taking the Witch House dare. I gulped and nodded. "I left early," I said. "Got through the whole stupid game and decided that maybe sleeping over there isn't really the best thing to do. Home sweet home."

He seemed somewhat touched that I still considered this place home, and softened a bit. "Nightmares?"

I nodded weakly. "Nonstop."

He nodded understandingly. "You'll get past that," he said, but then quickly added, "or maybe you won't. That depends. But I know you, Alden, and I think you'll get past that."

I tried to tell myself to smile. He had no idea. "Thanks, Jack," I said. "Um, everything alright while I'm gone?"

He chuckled. "Being eighteen doesn't make you the Dad around here yet, dude, but, well, yeah. Everything seemed okay. Amanda was a bit worried you won't make it out, but I knew you would. And you did, as it turns out."

I remembered what I thought earlier about waking attracting the monsters. "I think I wanna go back to sleep now," I said as I faked a yawn. "Big night."

"Big night," he agreed, holding back a yawn of his own. "Okay, then. Nights."

"Nights."

Jack left and shut the door gently, while I spun around in bed. That's when I saw movements outside my window.

I sat up again before realizing that would only alert the monsters outside of my presence. I leaned back again to my bed and shut my eyes.

Knock, knock.

My eyes flew open at once and my heart skipped a beat. The knocking came from the window. There was a huge figure there.

Huge, but familiar...

I suddenly realized who it was. I jumped out of bed as silently as I could to the window. "What are you doing here?" I asked.

"Warning you," the figure outside replied. Her voice was harsh and hushed and for some reason resembled a hiss, but it confirmed my guess.

"Warning me of what?"

"They followed you," Ace of Hearts said through the window. "I can't be here for too long because it'll be too suspicious for the other Aces. But that's why there wasn't a single monster attack on your way back home."

My heart sank. "They knew I was...?"

"Yes," Ace of Hearts said. "You were out through the night. The defensive lineup outside the forest was good, but there were lots of forests back home, so we knew our way around it. Ace of Clubs decided that some monsters should go ahead and try to stalk you until you settle in a single house for more than three hours, signifying that it's your home. They'll try again to grab you there sometime later."

That explained the growls I heard through the night. There apparently were monsters around me.

I shook my head to clear my thoughts. "How long have I been here?"

"It's almost sunrise," Ace of Hearts said. "Um, that makes it something like two or three hours."

I pressed a palm to my eyes. I led the monsters straight to Jack and Amanda. "So if I leave here right now, it wouldn't be marked as my home? I mean, it's not over three hours yet."

"Maybe," she said, "but you've slept in there. They'd probably take their chances. If you really want to protect the people in this house, keep moving and sleep somewhere else just a little over two and a half hours. That should confuse them for a good while."

"Okay, I'll pack," I said, almost jumping to the other side of my room to grab my backpack. But something held me back and I knocked on the window. "Hey, Hearts?"

"Yes?"

"Thanks a bunch," I said before finally beginning to pack. She knocked on my window back as a reply before I saw her silhouette jumping off into the mist, disappearing with the swarm of monsters moving about.

I took my backpack - already filled with the spare clothes I prepared for my 'sleepover' before I left earlier that night - left a short note for Jack and Amanda saying I'm off for a stroll to clear my head and probably won't be back until tomorrow, and tried to tiptoe my way out of the house. If what Ace of Hearts said was true, the monsters would clear the path in front of me and make sure I see none of them on my way to wherever I was going.

That was until I realized that I would be all alone in the streets. I didn't have my friends or the Necromancers around me anymore. The monsters could just choose to overwhelm me as soon as I left the house. I'd be as helpless as a baby and my magic would probably do something stupid again.

But you've learned some telekinesis, a voice behind my brain said. Just grab everything around like Ivan did, and if the monsters want some fight, bring them some.

I didn't think this whole thing was worth the try - even Ivan decided to rescue me from the monsters as soon as he heard about me, so there had to be something important about my magic - but I just couldn't put Jack and Amanda in the line of fire. I had to do something.

I shut my eyes and tried to focus as I tiptoed to the door. The strings were all free - good. I grabbed them all, but I didn't dare do anything yet. Then I unlocked the front door and left my house, locking it again with the spare key I always had in my bag.

There was already someone outside.

Wait a minute.

As soon as I locked the house and recognized the figure, I froze. I could feel the things I grabbed shaking softly. The figure held out two arms as if to stop me from doing anything rash.

"Don't attack," Heather said. "Please."

There was a second of silence. My brain was fried with both holding on the strings and trying to let everything in and make sense. Finally, after what could've been the most awkward silence in my life, I could gather myself to talk.

"What - what are you doing here?" I asked as I eased my hold on the strings. She took a deep breath.

"Can you bear with me for a minute?" she asked.

"We may don't have a minute," I said. "If you want to talk, we'll talk on the way."

She frowned. "Where?"

"Anywhere but here," I said. "Preferably where I can sleep. I'll explain when we get there."

"There's a small motel near my house," she offered. "It's pretty cheap, too. I can even afford it with whatever money I bring now. But maybe I can try and help arrange something. Interested?"

I nodded. "I think that would do. Lead the way."

"With pleasure."

Heather wasn't wearing her Covens-nurse cape, and I could see that she was wearing a sand-brown sweater with a big wood-brown dreamcatcher motif knit on the front. If I wasn't so tensed - and my eyes so busy scanning my surroundings for monsters - I probably would've tried to give her a cheesy compliment about that. But something told me that something else mattered more at the moment.

"So what are you doing here?" I asked. She didn't even turn to look at me as she answered.

"Helping keeping you alive," she said. "Morgana actually put Cora and several others to the task, but at the moment, the only Wicce on the move - and one that you happen to know - is me."

I raised both eyebrows. "Morgana?"

"Our leader. Well, our stand-in leader, our current leader's out of town."

So Heather was assigned to stick with me until Cora wakes up. Huh. I found myself murmuring to myself before I could help it. "Pleasure's all mine, then."

"What?"

"Nothing," I quickly said. "It's just pretty convenient that you showed up on my doors right when I needed to leave the house. I was just thinking about self-defense."

She chuckled. "Yeah, you were grabbing everything around the house real good." And she could sense the strings on her first night manifesting magic. In regard to what she told me about her dad - him teaching her about magic before she even manifested and stuff - I wasn't all surprised.

We didn't talk much the rest of the way - partly because I was well-aware that there were monsters stalking us. The Suit monsters had shown that they were capable of understanding speeches and even had their own language, although I still remembered that they preferred growling to each other to communicate. Somehow the mist translated their language to my ears and mine to theirs, like the way I could talk to Ace of Hearts and back. I didn't know what monsters were stalking me, so there's no way I could tell Heather that I knew about being stalked without possibly alarming the monsters. We'd be caught off-guard and I really shouldn't risk everything.

Yet, I told myself. Until Cora, Barney, and Isaac teach me to control my magic - or the Alchemists' catalyst helps me there - I really shouldn't get myself in dangerous situations. Especially with someone in my immediate surroundings. There would be time to get stupid, and there would be time for me to vent this excess magic, but that time was definitely not anytime near.

I managed to bother a second to check out Heather's apparel again, and suddenly I realized something - there was a bone-gray bracelet around her left wrist.

The same bone-gray bracelet Cora was wearing all the time.

"Um, Heather?" I began. She turned.

"Yeah?"

There was only one thing so far that I knew could be the connection between Cora and Heather, aside from Minerva High. "Is that bracelet...uh, customary for the Covens?"

She almost reflexively raised her left hand a little. "Oh, this little thing?" she asked. "Well, it's not exactly customary, but most of the Covens wear this. It's called the Witch Bracelet. It's got everything in it - bones, leaves usually used in rituals, droplets from sacred fountains kept from leaking out with impermeable layers, even some feathers. It's practically everything we need for simple rituals and spells, packed in a single item. This reduces the number of pouches we'd need in a single trip by a lot."

"Huh," I said. "Handy."

She managed a small smile. Her eyes swept around for a second, and then I saw a flicker of recognition. She pointed to the corner of the street ahead of us. "There's the motel. Want me to check you in?"

"You familiar in there?"

She laughed. "I have acquaintances. It's sort of my second home."

"Then please do, milady."

She looked amused. "This way, milord."

Heather was moving confidently, and I had to admit that although I've been to this area before - heck, I've been all over Calamity - I didn't usually wander around here. It's not too far from my neighborhood, but I never had anything to do here other than helping Grandma G once. Her granddaughter, Evelyn, was a classmate of mine and we were doing a group task when Grandma G came in and asked for a hand. Being the only man in the house at the time, what kind of a guy would I be if I didn't help out?

There was a neon sign outside on the opening between the buildings, one of which Heather was leading me to. Below the sign was a board promising 24-hour service. Heather walked into the main office - the only building around with lights on - and I immediately registered a woman in her thirties sitting on the table on the far end of the room. She looked up and paused for a moment as the doorbell rang, scanning her new customers. Then she beamed. "Heather!"

"Hey, Bev!" Heather greeted back. "Uh, is mine vacant?"

"Sure," the woman suddenly turned serious. "The usual?"

Heather nodded. "But for my friend here, that okay?"

Bev shifted uncomfortably. Then I noticed that she was wearing the Witch Bracelet. "Heather...don't get me wrong, you know I'd go help you in the drop of a hat, but -"

"Morgana," Heather blurted. Bev froze mid-sentence. Her eyes darted from Heather to me and back to Heather, as if mentally scolding Heather with something like you're joking.

Bev gulped. What she said after sounded like helpless squeaks. "But...Heather..."

Heather turned to me. "Wait a sec."

I shrugged. It's not like I'd be going anywhere.

"Bev," Heather started as she walked over to Bev. They exchanged whispers for a few seconds. The whole time they did, Bev's eyes were glued on me judgingly.

"Is it so," Bev said as Heather finally finished her whisper. Heather nodded. Bev sighed uneasily. "Fine, then," she said, wiggling a finger at me. "You, come here. I'll let you in on something you really shouldn't know. Make sure you don't get too cozy. What happens next never happened. Understand?"

I nodded. Bev reached around her desk, and after pulling something from her drawer, pulled on her name tag. There was a soft click as something opened from under her desk, and she reached into it. It was a key.

"This way," she said. Heather beckoned to me to follow her.

Bev led us around the main office building, away from the other motel rooms. As we walked, I could hear her muttering something under her breath, and the key in her hand glowed.

She had us on full stop when we reached a small build in the opening. It looked like a public toilet, except that the door was made of metal and it was eerily intimidating. Just standing in front of it gave me the impression that it was like one of the safe vaults in FortKnox.

There was no keyhole. However, Bev simply reached out with the key and pushed it through. The key phased through the metal door, and when Bev turned it, there was a familiar click of a door unlocking. When she opened it, I could see that the door led to the underground.

"After you," Bev said, showing her arm to the downward tunnel. Heather entered. I followed suit.

Bev entered the last and shut the door behind us, and I was expecting total darkness. However, just before the door closed, the wall suddenly flickered with soft pinkish lights as if some fireflies began to glow and form a line through the tunnel.

"This leads to the Bunk," Heather said to me. "It's some sort of a protected secret bed, usually reserved for our leader in case she needed protection. But she rarely ever came here, so most of the time, I'm using it."

"Why would you need this...?" I considered her own words for a second, "...protection? I thought your house is near. And your dad sounds like a pretty good magus himself."

Heather chuckled. "I'm not here for the protection, Alden. I'm here for the solitude. I like things quiet. Besides, there's nothing to distract me from doing my homework here."

I figured that that last part could've been a joke, but there was something in her tone that made me reconsider. "So what did I do to have the privilege of staying here?"

"What you've done," Heather said simply. She turned to look at me for a while, like trying to say something she wouldn't say out loud. Her eyes said we'll talk about this later. Not with Bev here.

I nodded a little as we finally reached the Bunk.

It apparently wasn't the small room one would expect an emergency bunker to be like. It was best described as a hotel room, if not a suite on its own rights - it was huge, complete with a queen-sized bed and a bathroom big enough to contain both a shower spot and a bathtub that would've fit a Neanderthal.

Plus, there was a miniature chandelier on the ceiling, providing bright golden lights that shone upon the whole room. There were softer lights from the bedsides, but they were currently off.

"I can really see why you like going here," I said to Heather before I could stop it. She laughed.

"Tell me about it."

Bev, in the other hand, looked uncomfortable. "When you're done, you can just climb up again and open the door. No one can open it from the outside without the key, which I'm going to keep, but you can open it from the inside - unless, of course, if I lock you in."

With that, she turned around to leave. Just like I had with the Ace of Hearts, something made me stop her in the last second.

"Hey, Bev?"

She stopped and turned to me. "Yeah?"

"Thanks a lot," I said. Bev couldn't help smiling a little.

"Don't mention it."

And then she was gone.

//

"Okay, let it out of your system," Heather said as soon as she heard the Bunk door shut. "I know you're hiding something on the way here, although I can't be sure why you're keeping it from -"

"The monsters are stalking me," I blurted out. Heather paused before arching an eyebrow.

"Stalking you how?"

"Stalking me. You know. Following me and stuff." Then I noticed something - she asked back about the stalking. She didn't ask back about the monsters. "Wait, you already know...?"

"Yes," she said absent-mindedly. "I mean, well, yeah. Morgana told me everything. She heard from the Necromancers when they asked her to help cast a protection over Calamity. She told me what you did."

The way she said that wasn't anyhow accusing me of anything, but I still couldn't help feeling a little mentally nudged. "Ouch."

Heather seemed to realize a little too late how I felt. "Don't take it too badly; things like this happen from time to time. Really, it's not a blame game anymore. The point is we should try and keep as many people safe as possible."

I nodded.

"That said...if the monsters stalk you, does that mean they know where you live?"

I nodded again. "That's why I was leaving in the first place. That's why I needed a new place to sleep. I need to keep the monsters on the balls of their feet, guessing which of the places I've visited and slept in is my actual house. I don't want to endanger my family. Those monsters already tried to kill me once - I couldn't afford to let anyone take the fall for me."

I told her everything - from the Witch House dare, about Zombie Chicken, about the killer ghoul and the witch, about the mist, the assault at the party, and Disaster. Even about the Ace of Hearts. I tried to be as detailed as possible so as to not confuse her of how some things came to be. Barney said that Ivan's priorities changed only after he told him about me, and if the Necromancers managed to ask for the Covens to help them before they went to rescue me, it means Ivan might've missed out some parts about who I was. I just needed to fill out the gaps of what happened after the Necromancers met Morgana to Heather. I briefly remembered how Ivan almost referred to me as something accompanied by his grim look before finally settling down on kid. Ivan knew something about me that even I myself didn't know.

During the whole story, Heather was listening attentively - she just looked at me right in the eyes without commenting or asking. There were several moments where I caught her facial muscles twitching like she almost said something, but she always swallowed them back. She was probably holding all her questions back until I finished.

"...so now here we are," I said, showing my hands around. "In the Bunk. There. I think that about summed it all."

"Wouldn't that mean that the monsters know where the Bunk is?" Heather asked almost right away. My heart sank.

I couldn't even bring myself to nod. "But...if it is as safe as you told me, wouldn't that mean the monsters can't enter?"

Heather shrugged. "Well, as long as they don't have the key, they -"

She froze. I froze as well. Our eyes met, and from that intensity, I could tell that our thoughts spoke in unison: "Bev."

We left Bev to leave alone. She's walking out in the open, alone.

The monsters had probably seen her using the key to open that door.

They'd probably struck her at once.

They'd probably have the key already and are...

"Wait, hold on," I said, raising both my arms. "Doesn't the key have some fail-safe systems or something? Maybe a spell that'll make sure only some people can use it?" I suddenly remembered how Bev muttered something under her breath and how the key glowed before she could unlock the door for me. Heather relaxed a little.

"Let's hope the monsters didn't catch that one," she said. "If they still were stalking you up to that point."

I nodded uneasily. "Let's hope."

We fell into silence after that, and I couldn't hold back a yawn. Heather caught the contagion and yawned as well. I stretched a little.

"Aren't you supposed to be sleeping?" I asked her with only a little more than a mumble as I lied down in bed. "I mean, there's still school today."

She shook her head. "I'm having shift tonight, remember?" she said. "I work as a Wicce Nurse every once in a while. There are a lot more magical incidents in this place than I guessed. That said, tonight was my debut. My dad's a Shaman, so he doesn't know what the shelter is like. I mostly heard from the other Covens. It's my first shift ever. And..." she tilted her head a little, staring at the wall. "Dad said he understands. He'll excuse my absence today. I'd be unwell for school today, don't you think?"

She turned and smiled at me. I smiled back weakly. "Don't forget your homework."

Heather rolled her eyes. "Yes, Dad."

We both laughed shortly. "Can you wake me up in three hours or something?"

"Alden. It's sunrise already."

"I know." I yawned again. "You know what, go home. You should get some sleep. Something tells me I'd be having nightmares. Waking up in three hours shouldn't be a problem."

However, she kicked off her shoes and climbed into bed with me. Thank goodness it was queen-sized, it could've been awkward. "Dude, I'm supposed to watch over you until someone else takes the job. And as far as my eyes can see it, there's no one else around who would."

I stifled a nervous laugh in my pillow. Don't blame me for getting nervous, it's not every day I lay in the same bed as beauty personified. Oh, come on Alden, where did you come up with those corny lines? "But you need to sleep. You've been helping a bunch of people in the shelter. I've only endangered everyone else. You deserve to sleep a lot more than I do." Actually, when put that way, I really didn't deserve any sleep at all.

"Just sleep," she purred. She then grabbed a pillow, tucked it in, and shut her eyes. "I'm a light sleeper. If anything around here changes, I'll be awake before I even know it."

I groaned softly when my eyes suddenly felt heavy. Heather was right. I could use some sleep.

She purred back just as softly, and just like that, we drifted away.