There's a part of her that wants to ruin the moment.

Tiff and her aunt stand at the edge of a campsite by an old, dilapidated cabin that nobody has lived in for well over a century. It has crashed in on itself. More than that, it is covered in paint.

The moment is electric. The possibilities are endless. In one hand, a set of paints. In the other, brushes. In her aunt's, cans.

But it's weighing on her. She loves committing acts of petty vandalism, but she has to ask herself if this is wise. If this is worth it. If it's just going to be covered up by someone else's additions. If anything is worth it anymore.

It's the same issue with the sign on the way into town. Someone always paints over the small portrait of Bigfoot. What's the point, if she's just going to get drowned out or caught?

She's a god now. She has been for two weeks. Minor deification has done nothing for her except make her love for science more fervent. It has not stopped the way that her heart twists and churns in her chest when she thinks about breaking rules like this or when she tries to figure out what the point of anything could possibly be.

It's easier when she has someone like Drake with her-- someone who makes morality a little easier by letting it rest in the gentle gray. Who cares if you're technically committing a crime? You're making art and you're having fun. Without someone like that around, all that she has is a swirling hurricane of this is wrong and you know it where her brain should be.

For a moment, though, it doesn't matter. Her aunt is close enough-- a former teen delinquent herself, or so Tiff has heard. The kind of woman who was once a girl who rolled her uniform skirts to make them shorter, who quit smoking (arguably cooler than smoking at all), who fought some unseen, unspoken demon and came out on top. Esther's coolness goes deeper than where she works and what she wears. There's something about her, the same way there was something about Drake-- a mixture of sorrow and peace, maybe, or a deep and unstated kinship between them. They don't need to name it. It's just a quality that is there.

"Alright, Grapenut." Her aunt nods, regards the broken building in front of the two of them. "This was partially your idea. What happens next is up to you. What's the plan here?"

Tiff considers it. This isn't a situation where her plan will immediately be thwarted by shadow creatures, buttrock spiders, or the United States government. The worst that could happen here is that some night hikers stumble on them and, even then, it isn't like anybody cares enough about this place to report on people painting on it. Everybody does it. They would probably join in.

"Is there any way we could get inside?" Tiff asks. "It isn't so broken that we couldn't get in, right?"

"I suppose not."

"Then I'm going in." Tiff nods, sure. "I'm going in."

When it's all over-- when she has smeared the inside of the cabin with something abstract and monstrous, with far too many teeth in its mouth and thorns growing from its body, corpulent flesh glowing gently green-- she snaps a quick picture of her work and goes to rejoin her aunt by shimmying her way out of the broken wood. It isn't the kind of art that matters to her anyway; it's meant to be temporary, like sidewalk chalk or sketches on the backs of receipts: bound by temporality and to the instant in which it is made and observed.

The one big addition to the exterior of the house is a pair of large wings, sloppy and regal all at once. They're outlined with gold and yellow. The culprit crouches on the barren ground, fingers tracing words carved into the wood with the cans of paint stationary and tipped at her feet. A wistful smile twists Esther's lips and flares her nostrils.

"Whatcha looking at?" Tiff asks, voice quiet against the sound of some far-off creek.

"I came out here with an old friend once," she recalls, her voice betraying that her mind is elsewhere. "When I first moved here. He carved our names here." She taps the wood.

Tiff leans to take a look over her aunt's shoulder. Esther & Almiel, Taking The World. She doesn't know what it means, just that the words were carved deliberately and have been painted over hundreds of times since. "Almiel? You mentioned him on the drive up here, during the move. Who are they?"

"You wouldn't believe me if I told you." Snapping out of it, her aunt pops up from the crouch, taking the cans of spray and normal paint with her. It is as if she has remembered where she is.

Tiff narrows her eyes. "I wouldn't believe you? Auntie Esther, I'm a guardian of Lake Wonder now. My best friend's mom is Bigfoot. Our pharmacist's son is a literal god-- and not the weenie kind like me, he's the real deal! There isn't much I wouldn't believe."

She considers it for a long, quiet moment. With a nod, she decides, "Walk with me, Tiff."

"Where are we going?"

"Back to the car, probably. We'll see."

That's part of the issue. Aunt Esther may be older and generally more responsible, but she can be just as scatterbrained as Tiff usually is. The whole house is covered in reminders and technically-out-of-place objects they wouldn't be able to find otherwise. When her aunt says they're going back to the car, the reality is probably that they're going to go in a completely different direction.

That's exactly the case. Her aunt sets the cans of paint by the base of a nearby tree and gestures for Tiff to do the same; she walks off into the woods with the concentrated white beam of her keychain flashlight leading the way.

They don't talk much during the walk there. Tiff still tries.

"Auntie, where are we going?"

She doesn't get an answer. Esther doesn't slow her walk, heading further into the woods. The terrain is not smoother; the slope is steep, at times. Still, they walk. That's what you do when you live in the Cascades and the snow hasn't yet begun to fall.

Eventually, they come to a small clearing. Tiff knows where they are. This dilapidated old cabin is near a cave system and a littleways away from the lake. This isn't the part of the lake that Marlow, her shapeshifter friend, lives near. Rather, this is near the old summer camp-- where Chip Winger tried to kill her, and where she tried to let him. (She also tried to light him on fire, for what it's worth. It wasn't like she was giving in yet.)

At least Aiden was there. At least the impromptu guardian angel had a head on their shoulders and decided not to let their coworker's teenage child die at the hands of the town's former mayor.

Tiff knows where this is based on some old maps, but has never come out this way before. She tends to stay away from the camp and the tunnels. Things don't go well for girls named Tiffany there, and she knows that. She'll go back eventually, she supposes. As it is, she's glad that she isn't another obituary for Drake Galloway to mourn.

Tiff can't figure out why they're here. Her aunt provides no answers. Instead, she continues on to the side of the building, where the wall is broken enough for a person to slide through.

She isn't sure what she expects to see on the other side. Artifacts from early Lake Wonder, maybe-- from when the town attracted trappers and hunters looking to bolster their economic options and to change the town as a result. Old weapons, old tools, old mementos, maybe.

Instead, what she finds is a different scene altogether. It obviously hasn't been touched in years by anyone except small town teen delinquents. There's a bed in the corner (really just a mattress on the floor), a hole in the ground where the floorboards were removed long ago, and a table with scraps of newspaper from decades ago on it. A healthy layer of either dirt or dust coats every horizontal surface. (Tiff doesn't know the difference.)

Esther takes a seat on the edge of the mattress. Her eyes dance with memories of something Tiff has never heard of or experienced.

Tiff barely gets the opportunity to quirk an eyebrow before her aunt lets out a long, beleaguered sigh. "Well, Tiff... I guess it's time you heard some of the truth. You're old enough. You're acclimated enough."

"And you couldn't have told me in the car?" she jokes, though she knows she probably shouldn't. Tiff shivers involuntarily. Despite the paint-stained sweatshirt and the leather jacket, she can feel the nighttime cold in her bones.

Esther chooses her next words carefully. "Did I ever tell you why I moved out here?"

"I mean..." Tiff thinks back through every conversation the two of them have had over the past two years. "No, I don't think so? I think I was just assuming it was for reasons similar to why I had to leave."

"No, not quite." Patting the mattress next to her, Esther insists, "Come take a seat, will you, Grapenut?"

Tiff does as she's told. There's no reason not to.

"So," Esther begins, "Fort Reverence didn't treat me well. And, when I was around sixteen or seventeen-- Well, a lot of things happened then, I guess. But-- See, I got pregnant, and it was way too late to do anything about it by the time I figured it out, and your grandpa found out... Well, the easiest thing to do was to get away. Almiel drove with me, made sure I was safe, helped me out while I was living here--"

"You lived here?" Tiff tries not to let the shock bleed into her voice-- or the horror. She knows she would be fine living in a place like this (she camps more than she should, anyway), but she can't imagine being seventeen, pregnant, and on the run from her abusive family while living in a place like this.

"Yeah. I lived here. Not for long-- just for a month or two, while I looked for work and a place to live. But, uh-- well, Almiel was my best friend for a long time. Hell, he was my only friend. He made a really bad messenger, but he was an okay enough... uh... guardian angel, I suppose. I wasn't supposed to get one. He wasn't supposed to be one, anyway."

"Another angel?"

"Yeah. Like that Zebulon guy with the weird suits, or..." Esther sighs. "Or like Aiden, I suppose." With a chuckle, she muses, "They're not as good at hiding it as they think. I caught on long before all that business in April."

Tiff nods. "Or like Aiden. Okay. But-- why did you have an angel hanging around you? He didn't-- He wasn't-- He's not Drew's dad, is he?"

"No, no," Esther laughs, "not at all."

"Good, because that would crush Drew."

Esther chuckles. "God, can you imagine? Being the most skeptical boy in a place like Lake Wonder and then finding out your dad is an angel?" She chuckles again, lets it out like a deep breath. "No, I'm not sure who Drew's dad is. I'm not sure it matters, after all this time."

"Then why was Almiel there?"

"Because it was the right thing to do, I suppose. I'll tell you the whole story some other time."

Tiff isn't stupid. She's the exact opposite. Threads begin to connect in the back of her mind. Mr. Mathew, Drake-- Aunt Esther. Angels and thousand-yard-stares. She gets it, she thinks. Visions and weird feelings about the supernatural and the sword that keeps appearing in the trunk of the car-- she gets it now. Destiny. It calls again.

She wishes it would realize it doesn't mean anything.

Standing, Tiff reaches out a hand to her aunt. Esther takes it, but doesn't stand just yet.

"What're you doing, Grapenut?"

"We're heading back to the cabin. You don't have to tell me more, but-- Well, it's freezing, and fate is bullshit-- I know that, I've seen it, I defeated mine--"

"Tiff, honey, we've been over this. You were not destined to die in the woods at age sixteen."

"I'll believe it when the Time Gnome tells me so. He alluded to something, and--"

"You and your Time Gnomes." Esther finally stands; she uses Tiff's outstretched hand as a way to gather her into a side-hug. "I'm proud of you. You've grown a lot since you moved here."

"I know I'm taller, but--"

"No, that's not what I mean. I mean--"

"I know. I'm different."

"You're not as scared, Grapenut."

"Well, that's--" Tiff cuts herself off before she can contradict it with some rambling, inconsequential tangent about how she's scared of drowning, horses, and losing everything she holds dear by messing everything up so horribly that nobody could possibly forgive her. One of these days, a horse is going to crush her skull between its teeth or someone is going to decide that she isn't worth keeping around, and then everything will end for her. She's just biding her time until then. She doesn't say that, though. Everyone already knows.

Esther shakes her head. "Not around me, anyway. I'm glad to have you in my family."

Tiff chuckles, trying not to feel anything about it. (This moment doesn't have to mean anything if she doesn't want it to, does it?) "Thanks."

"Let's head back to the car."

"I want to paint something else, actually."

"Oh?" Esther raises an eyebrow, already dragging Tiff through the hole in the wall. "And what's that?"

"Just another monster," she lies. In her mind's eye, she thinks of the words carved at the base of the cabin. She wants something similar. Something permanent. Something that screams she was here, if only for a moment, and that she was loved. It wouldn't be too much to ask, destiny be damned.