Somewhere In Upstate New York
Jun. 4th, 2012 09:29 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
awakestheghostsChloe was already pretty sure that this whole training session with Margaret was a bad idea.
After she left Fandom and joined back up with the group, Andrew had recruited some of his friends to come over and help with training the teens in the roles that they had been engineered into.
Chloe did not like Margaret and she especially didn't like that Margaret seemed to think that she was a brainless child.
“So this necromancer stuff,” Tori said from the backseat. “Chloe doesn’t know a lot about it.”
She motioned for Chloe to start asking questions. She knew that Chloe had fantasized about meeting another necromancer, and here she had one and hadn’t asked a single thing.
She started by asking Margaret about the ghostly reenactments she’d seen. Residuals, she called them, but she didn’t tell her anything else she hadn’t already figured out. They were leftover energy from a traumatic event that played over and over again, like a film loop. Harmless images, not ghosts. As for how to block them…
“You won’t need to worry about that for a few years. Concentrate on ghosts for now. Deal with residuals when you’re old enough to see them.”
“But I am seeing them.”
She shook her head. “I suspect what you’re seeing is a ghost reverting to his death form—how he appeared at the moment of his death. Ghosts can do that, unfortunately, and some like to do so to intimidate necromancers.”
“I don’t think that’s what this was.” Chloe told her about residuals she’d seen—a man jumping into a saw in a factory and a girl being murdered at a truck stop.
“My God,” Tori said. “That’s…” When Chloe glanced at her, she’d gone pale. “You saw that?”
“I’ve heard you like movies, Chloe,” Margaret cut in. “I suspect you have a very good imagination.”
“Okay, so can you tell me how to block them when I do start seeing them?”
Tori snickered at the little sarcasm sneaking into Chloe's tone, and Margaret looked over sharply.
Chloe immediately fixed her with her best wide-blue-eyes look and said, “It helps if I know what’s coming. So I’ll
feel ready to handle it.”
She nodded. “That’s a good attitude to take, Chloe. All right then. I’ll let you in on the trade secret. When you see a residual, there’s a surefire way to deal with them. Walk away.”
“Can I block them?”
“No, but you don’t need to. Simply walk away. They aren’t ghosts, so they can’t follow.”
Chloe could have figured that out by herself. The problem was: “How do I know it’s a residual? If it looks real, how do you know it isn’t? Before you see…the dying part.”
“One sign is that residuals don’t make any noise.”
She knew that.
“Another is that you can’t interact with them.”
Knew that, too.
So if she noticed a guy about to jump into an industrial saw, she should stop and listen for any noise? Yell at him and see if he answered? By then, if he was a residual, he’d have already jumped, and she’d see exactly what she’d been trying to avoid. And if he was real, she could let him die while trying to spare herself an ugly sight.
If she could tell it was just a ghost—residual or not—she’d know the person wasn’t in danger and she could get out of there. So, while Margaret drove through a small town, Chloe asked how to do that.
“Excellent question,” Margaret said. “Now the real lessons begin. There are three ways to tell the ghosts from the living. First, clothing. For instance, if a man is wearing a hat and suspenders he’s a ghost, likely from the nineteen fifties.”
“I’ve seen guys wearing hats and suspenders,” Tori said. “Young guys, too. It’s retro.”
“A Civil War uniform, then. If he’s wearing that, he’s a ghost.”
No kidding.
“Second, as you may have noticed, ghosts can pass through solid objects. So if he walks through a door or a chair, you can be sure it’s a ghost.”
Even someone who wasn’t a necromancer could figure that out.
Margaret turned the car onto a road leading out of town. “And the third…Any ideas, Chloe?”
“If they don’t make noise when they walk?”
“Excellent! Yes. Those are the three ways to tell ghosts from the living.”
Great. So if she saw a guy standing still, and he wasn’t wearing an old uniform, she just had to ask him to walk through furniture. If he stared at her like she was crazy, then she’d know he wasn’t a ghost.
Chloe hoped that the practice part of the day would go better. When she saw where Margaret was taking them, though, that hope faded fast.
“A c-cemetery?” Chloe said as she pulled into the parking lot. “I c-can’t—I shouldn’t even be here.”
“Nonsense, Chloe. I certainly hope you aren’t afraid of cemeteries.”
“Um, no,” Tori said. “It’s the bodies buried in them that worry her.”
Margaret looked from Chloe's white face to Tori.
“Uh, dead bodies?” Tori said. “Potential zombies?”
“Don’t be silly. You can’t accidentally raise the dead.”
“Chloe can.”
Margaret gave a tight smile. “I’ve heard Chloe is quite powerful, but I’m sure she doesn’t need to worry about raising the dead yet.”
“She already has. I was there.” Tori's voice was almost a growl.
“I-it’s true,” Chloe said. “I raised subjects of Dr. Lyle’s experiment, buried in the basement at Lyle House. Then I raised dead bats in a warehouse, and a homeless guy in a place we tried to spend the night.”
“Bats?” Tori said, nose wrinkling.
“You were asleep. I didn’t want to wake you up.”
“And I thank you for that,” she said. She turned to Margaret. “I was there for the homeless guy. I saw him crawling across Chloe—”
“I don’t doubt you did, but I’m afraid you girls have been the victims of a cruel trick. There are members of the Edison Group who have a very big stake in this experiment and would love to make it appear that the subjects’ powers were vastly increased by the modification. One of their staff necromancers apparently wanted to make the group believe Chloe could raise the dead. That’s absurd, of course. Not only do you need years of training, but it requires rituals and ingredients you don’t have.”
“But I raised the homeless guy after we got away.” Chloe argued.
“That’s what they wanted you to think. Obviously, they were on your trail, which is how they intercepted you at Andrew’s house. It doesn’t matter. Even if you could raise the dead”—a twitch of her lips, clearly humoring her—“I’m here and I’ll make sure we take the proper precautions. Learning control is the best way to overcome your fears.”
When Chloe tried to protest again, Tori asked if they could have a minute. The two girls got out of the car and she led Chloe to a spot under a maple tree. Chloe's stomach clenched every time she caught a glimpse of the gravestones, imagining accidentally slamming ghosts back into the corpses buried under them.
She only had to glance at the cemetery walls and she could see Derek’s scowl, hear him snap,
“Don’t even think about training in there, Chloe.”
“She’s jealous, you know,” Tori said.
“What?”
“You can raise the dead. If she admits that, then she has to admit you’re a better necromancer than she is.”
“I don’t think being able to raise the dead makes anyone better.”
“In their world it does, because it means you’re more powerful. Everyone wants to be more powerful.” She looked around the cemetery, her gaze going distant. “It doesn’t matter if it’s good power or bad. I lived with my mom long enough to see that. Margaret might not want to raise the dead, but she wants to be able to, and she doesn’t want some kid to be better at it than she is. So she’s telling herself you can’t.”
“Okay, but I’d rather not prove her wrong.”
Tori’s lips pursed. “Actually…”
“Uh-uh. I’m not returning any poor ghost to its rotting—”
“Only temporarily.”
Chloe gave her a look.
She sighed. “Fine. But whatever that chick’s hang-ups, her job is to train you, and you need training. We all do. It’ll be fine as long as you take it easy, right?”
True. While she couldn’t help remembering Derek’s suspicion that Tori was betraying them, Chloe could see no nefarious advantage to encouraging me to raise the dead. She trusted Tori.
“Look, do what you want,” she said. “I’ll back you up. As cliché as it sounds, we’re in this together. You, me, the guys. Not exactly the gang I’d pick—no offense—but…”
“You’re stuck with us.”
“My advice? Take her lesson and be careful.”
She imagined what Derek would say. He wouldn’t like the situation, but she did think he’d eventually agree.
Chloe sighed and then went back to Margaret to tell her she was ready.
[[OOC: Pulled from Darkest Powers Book Three: The Reckoning. NFB, NFI but OOC is ok. Part One of many.]]
After she left Fandom and joined back up with the group, Andrew had recruited some of his friends to come over and help with training the teens in the roles that they had been engineered into.
Chloe did not like Margaret and she especially didn't like that Margaret seemed to think that she was a brainless child.
“So this necromancer stuff,” Tori said from the backseat. “Chloe doesn’t know a lot about it.”
She motioned for Chloe to start asking questions. She knew that Chloe had fantasized about meeting another necromancer, and here she had one and hadn’t asked a single thing.
She started by asking Margaret about the ghostly reenactments she’d seen. Residuals, she called them, but she didn’t tell her anything else she hadn’t already figured out. They were leftover energy from a traumatic event that played over and over again, like a film loop. Harmless images, not ghosts. As for how to block them…
“You won’t need to worry about that for a few years. Concentrate on ghosts for now. Deal with residuals when you’re old enough to see them.”
“But I am seeing them.”
She shook her head. “I suspect what you’re seeing is a ghost reverting to his death form—how he appeared at the moment of his death. Ghosts can do that, unfortunately, and some like to do so to intimidate necromancers.”
“I don’t think that’s what this was.” Chloe told her about residuals she’d seen—a man jumping into a saw in a factory and a girl being murdered at a truck stop.
“My God,” Tori said. “That’s…” When Chloe glanced at her, she’d gone pale. “You saw that?”
“I’ve heard you like movies, Chloe,” Margaret cut in. “I suspect you have a very good imagination.”
“Okay, so can you tell me how to block them when I do start seeing them?”
Tori snickered at the little sarcasm sneaking into Chloe's tone, and Margaret looked over sharply.
Chloe immediately fixed her with her best wide-blue-eyes look and said, “It helps if I know what’s coming. So I’ll
feel ready to handle it.”
She nodded. “That’s a good attitude to take, Chloe. All right then. I’ll let you in on the trade secret. When you see a residual, there’s a surefire way to deal with them. Walk away.”
“Can I block them?”
“No, but you don’t need to. Simply walk away. They aren’t ghosts, so they can’t follow.”
Chloe could have figured that out by herself. The problem was: “How do I know it’s a residual? If it looks real, how do you know it isn’t? Before you see…the dying part.”
“One sign is that residuals don’t make any noise.”
She knew that.
“Another is that you can’t interact with them.”
Knew that, too.
So if she noticed a guy about to jump into an industrial saw, she should stop and listen for any noise? Yell at him and see if he answered? By then, if he was a residual, he’d have already jumped, and she’d see exactly what she’d been trying to avoid. And if he was real, she could let him die while trying to spare herself an ugly sight.
If she could tell it was just a ghost—residual or not—she’d know the person wasn’t in danger and she could get out of there. So, while Margaret drove through a small town, Chloe asked how to do that.
“Excellent question,” Margaret said. “Now the real lessons begin. There are three ways to tell the ghosts from the living. First, clothing. For instance, if a man is wearing a hat and suspenders he’s a ghost, likely from the nineteen fifties.”
“I’ve seen guys wearing hats and suspenders,” Tori said. “Young guys, too. It’s retro.”
“A Civil War uniform, then. If he’s wearing that, he’s a ghost.”
No kidding.
“Second, as you may have noticed, ghosts can pass through solid objects. So if he walks through a door or a chair, you can be sure it’s a ghost.”
Even someone who wasn’t a necromancer could figure that out.
Margaret turned the car onto a road leading out of town. “And the third…Any ideas, Chloe?”
“If they don’t make noise when they walk?”
“Excellent! Yes. Those are the three ways to tell ghosts from the living.”
Great. So if she saw a guy standing still, and he wasn’t wearing an old uniform, she just had to ask him to walk through furniture. If he stared at her like she was crazy, then she’d know he wasn’t a ghost.
Chloe hoped that the practice part of the day would go better. When she saw where Margaret was taking them, though, that hope faded fast.
“A c-cemetery?” Chloe said as she pulled into the parking lot. “I c-can’t—I shouldn’t even be here.”
“Nonsense, Chloe. I certainly hope you aren’t afraid of cemeteries.”
“Um, no,” Tori said. “It’s the bodies buried in them that worry her.”
Margaret looked from Chloe's white face to Tori.
“Uh, dead bodies?” Tori said. “Potential zombies?”
“Don’t be silly. You can’t accidentally raise the dead.”
“Chloe can.”
Margaret gave a tight smile. “I’ve heard Chloe is quite powerful, but I’m sure she doesn’t need to worry about raising the dead yet.”
“She already has. I was there.” Tori's voice was almost a growl.
“I-it’s true,” Chloe said. “I raised subjects of Dr. Lyle’s experiment, buried in the basement at Lyle House. Then I raised dead bats in a warehouse, and a homeless guy in a place we tried to spend the night.”
“Bats?” Tori said, nose wrinkling.
“You were asleep. I didn’t want to wake you up.”
“And I thank you for that,” she said. She turned to Margaret. “I was there for the homeless guy. I saw him crawling across Chloe—”
“I don’t doubt you did, but I’m afraid you girls have been the victims of a cruel trick. There are members of the Edison Group who have a very big stake in this experiment and would love to make it appear that the subjects’ powers were vastly increased by the modification. One of their staff necromancers apparently wanted to make the group believe Chloe could raise the dead. That’s absurd, of course. Not only do you need years of training, but it requires rituals and ingredients you don’t have.”
“But I raised the homeless guy after we got away.” Chloe argued.
“That’s what they wanted you to think. Obviously, they were on your trail, which is how they intercepted you at Andrew’s house. It doesn’t matter. Even if you could raise the dead”—a twitch of her lips, clearly humoring her—“I’m here and I’ll make sure we take the proper precautions. Learning control is the best way to overcome your fears.”
When Chloe tried to protest again, Tori asked if they could have a minute. The two girls got out of the car and she led Chloe to a spot under a maple tree. Chloe's stomach clenched every time she caught a glimpse of the gravestones, imagining accidentally slamming ghosts back into the corpses buried under them.
She only had to glance at the cemetery walls and she could see Derek’s scowl, hear him snap,
“Don’t even think about training in there, Chloe.”
“She’s jealous, you know,” Tori said.
“What?”
“You can raise the dead. If she admits that, then she has to admit you’re a better necromancer than she is.”
“I don’t think being able to raise the dead makes anyone better.”
“In their world it does, because it means you’re more powerful. Everyone wants to be more powerful.” She looked around the cemetery, her gaze going distant. “It doesn’t matter if it’s good power or bad. I lived with my mom long enough to see that. Margaret might not want to raise the dead, but she wants to be able to, and she doesn’t want some kid to be better at it than she is. So she’s telling herself you can’t.”
“Okay, but I’d rather not prove her wrong.”
Tori’s lips pursed. “Actually…”
“Uh-uh. I’m not returning any poor ghost to its rotting—”
“Only temporarily.”
Chloe gave her a look.
She sighed. “Fine. But whatever that chick’s hang-ups, her job is to train you, and you need training. We all do. It’ll be fine as long as you take it easy, right?”
True. While she couldn’t help remembering Derek’s suspicion that Tori was betraying them, Chloe could see no nefarious advantage to encouraging me to raise the dead. She trusted Tori.
“Look, do what you want,” she said. “I’ll back you up. As cliché as it sounds, we’re in this together. You, me, the guys. Not exactly the gang I’d pick—no offense—but…”
“You’re stuck with us.”
“My advice? Take her lesson and be careful.”
She imagined what Derek would say. He wouldn’t like the situation, but she did think he’d eventually agree.
Chloe sighed and then went back to Margaret to tell her she was ready.
[[OOC: Pulled from Darkest Powers Book Three: The Reckoning. NFB, NFI but OOC is ok. Part One of many.]]
