Haven: Evi and the Map

 I'm up a ladder in The Gull, with a flashlight in my mouth, stripping wires inside a disconnected light fixture. The light is on one of the tables. I see a shadow of movement behind one of the windows, footsteps on the dock outside and then she appears in front of the patio doors.

Shit, and my hands are all tangled up inside the wires.

Of course she opens up the patio door and invites herself in.

"There you are!" she says, brightly, "I didn't find you on the boat. What are you doing?"

I start to answer, remember the flashlight, pull my right hand out, remove it and, "I'm dancing on the ceiling. What's it look like?"

"Don't you have people you can pay to do that? You have people for so many other things."

"Why would I pay someone when I can do it so much better myself for the cost of parts?" I climb down the ladder. Nothing will get done right while she's here, "Was there a point to your visit, Evi? Please say that came to say goodbye? Or did you just come to try and ruin my mood?"

She tuts at me, "Why would I be leaving?"

"No, of course. Why would you? That would only be the sane thing to do." I cross the bar floor to keep an eye on her, picking up a stack of towels that were left on one of the tables and bring them behind the bar.

She sets her purse down on the bar, "I was thinking about your problem."

"Which problem is this that you're assuming I have?"

"The tattoo man. I know your lady crush isn't helping you."

"My who?" I was starting to count the glasses under the bar but this brings me back up to look at her, which I'm sure she was hoping for.

"The FBI lady."

"You mean the one who had to leave the town because it ate her brain? Because for one that's a perfectly acceptable reason to stop helping someone and two I resent the implication..."

She rolls her eyes at me, "You know who I was talking about."

"I really don't, because I don't have a crush on Audrey. Wait, do you think she has a crush on me? I thought she had a thing for Nathan. Maybe I'm misreading the whole situation." I look off thoughtfully because I know that will make her more annoyed.

She smacks her hand on the top of the bar, "Stop it."

"You're the one who brought up this line of conversation. You really think she has a thing for me?"

"No."

"Then what were you talking about?"

"You don't have any help with the tattooed man."

"Who says I don't have any help?" I sit on a stool behind the bar and spread my hands before her.

"Well, you have me now, always."

"I've said it many times, Evi. I don't need your help. If you really want to help me you can swan off and find someone else to pester. Didn't you say you had some score bigger than Macau?"

"I don't want to see you wasting away here, that's true; but if helping you with this will give you some answers and help you put Haven behind you..."

I snort, "That's what you think I'm trying to do?"

"Isn't it?"

"I'm not talking about this with you. It's not your business. No matter what you're trying to do. We're not a part of each others' lives any more. Is someone else paying you to stay in town?"

"I resent the implication," she throws back at me.

"Can I pay you to leave?"

She toys with the strap of her bag for a moment, something brewing behind her eyes, “You can thank me,” she says.

“Really?” Somehow I doubt that.

“I got something for you.” She opens the purse and slides out a very familiar folder. The last time I saw it a certain actual Special Agent Audrey Parker was using it to bribe me into taking her on a boat trip that would eat her memory. I'd told Evi it was evidence that could get me in trouble—now she's bound to know that's not the case.

“I see...”

“Strange,” she says, “How this isn't photos or video captures but...a map,” she flips the folder open, revealing the yellow hand-drawn page with that telling maze tattoo in the top corner.

“Yeah. Weird,” I remark, casually, “Almost as if I didn't want to tell you the truth about something. Imagine that.”

“Why would you be so interested in this?” she asks.

“Why would I give you an answer to that?” I respond, closing the folder over her hand.

“What is it worth to you?” she remarks, with a sly smile.

“I seem to recall that you owe me, and that's why you were after getting me on whatever job that supposedly was...so you leave this,” I pull carefully twist the folder away from her, “and we'll call it even.”

She grimaces, “I was right though,” she retorts, “You have settled down. All the talk about the evils of this town and running off to Canada and you're right back here! I can't believe you—it's so damned disappointing. All those dreams you had—all that stuff we talked about and you're rooting yourself to this—this--” she waves her hands about as though The Gull is some muddy hole that she's just climbed out of and she's trying to shake herself off.

“We talked about a lot of things, Evi—but that was years ago. That's not where I'm at any more. Thank you very much for the folder. Get your ass out of my bar. We're closed.”

“You--” she starts.

“Get out, Evi,” I can feel the anger rising and remember one of the many reasons why our relationship was not a good one. The many times I had to walk out on arguments to stop myself from hitting her.

She stalks out of the glass door and onto the dock, once she's actually retreated out of sight I exhale slowly and I lean my head down on the bar.

Julia appears out of the kitchen, “Coast clear, Boss?”

I nod, but I'm not sure she can tell, so I stand back up, “The evil has gone.”

“Good,” she pulls something out of an apron pocket and begins spraying a can of air freshener in the general direction that Evi had been standing before sliding it back away again with a smirk.

I shake my head at her and laugh, “She did at least bring me something useful for once, but I won't dare say hopefully she'll leave town now.”

Julia nods, “Yeah, that doesn't seem likely.”

“What do you make of it?” I push the folder across the top of the bar towards Julia. She comes around in front of me to where Evi was standing a few moments earlier and opens it. The map laid out before her, and puts her hand towards the maze symbol at the top pensively.

“Where did Evi get this?” she asks.

“Audrey Two had it. It was supposed to be my payment for taking her to what wound up being mind-wipe island; so, well, of course she forgot. I may have told Evi the only reason I was talking to and doing anything for the FBI was because they were blackmailing me with something that could put me in jail—she assumed this was it, and took it.”

“Ah,” Julia nods, “And the FBI had this...why?”

“According to the file someone who was killing tattooed people drew it out while being interrogated, but half the info is redacted, something about marks out where he hid something that helped him, or the path to something. The person documenting wasn't sure if the guy was nuts or...on drugs; but Evi's seen this so she's bound to be going out there, probably now thinks I'm only staying here because there's buried treasure, so I best check it out too...even if it is following crazy tattooed people leads. If there is something out there--”

“She doesn't need to be getting her grubby mitts on it,” Julia agrees.  

Haven: After the Gravedigger

I lean against the outside cabin wall as Julia unlocks the door, still both seething and disgusted.

"You gonna tell me what all of it was about?" she asks, "How in the hell you wound up all the way out there? and not getting a ride with the Wonder Twins back into town?"

"I don't even know where to start right now."

The door opens and I duck inside. I can feel myself getting more agitated. The need to pace. Shit.

"I know the dead came back," she says.

"Yeah. I had a reunion with dear old Dad."

"Oh," her tone goes from practical to concerned in short order, "What did he have to say?"

"Just wanted to tell me all about the wonders of our Family Trouble and it's storied and great history." I wave my hand.

Julia follows me through the galley into what passes for the sitting room. This doesn't feel right either. I don't know where I want to be.

"How I'm supposed to follow in his footsteps, start "curing" people." I make the motion with my hands, "Oh! and then the Rev shows up. I guess he knew while he was alive and Evi too, probably, who knows? But that's why he was after me palling up with him, because they love getting rid of Troubled. Curing means killing, by the way, did I say that?" I throw myself onto the couch and put my head in my hands for a moment, didn't we talk about that already? "Did you see your Mom? I should have asked that."

"No," she sits down nearby, "Blessing of having her cremated, I guess."

"Should have thought of that. Doesn't matter now though." I give a half-laugh.

"Duke...what happened?" she leans over to take my hand, but I pull away, too sweaty.

I stand up again. I can't. I can't.

"Duke," she says, sternly.

I look at her and those eyes they would have never have wavered if they'd been at that barn across from me, unlike Nathan so accusatory, or Audrey so nervous and scared.

"The Rev showed up while we were looking for people. His followers had taken Troubled, it turned out. He threatened to send them after Audrey if I didn't go with him, so I followed him out, well, you know where, bunch of his idiots, they'd gathered a mess of Troubled out there, had to be a dozen. Him, Dad...all eager for me to start curing, because I'm apparently just going to turn around and start stabbing people to death because they hand me a knife and go on about the Great Crocker Legacy." I shake my head, "I didn't, by the way."

"I know."

"Then it turns out somehow they've got Audrey and Nathan, and the bombshell gets dropped that the grave digger who is one of the Rev's chief disciples in this nonsense is the reason all the ghosts have come back, and Dad gets ALL excited, oh, now he's going to be freaking out and in denial because that's what they all do and now he's going to be begging you to save him, "put the knife back in his hand, boys, come on," because the grave digger's wife is there and she's got to be at least 8 months pregnant and now he's freaking out that he's baby's going to be damaged. It's a trouble that makes ghosts. Granted they're annoying as Hell, but it's ghosts. It's not like he's burning holes through people or--or melting holes in the sidewalk, or, I don't know causing radiation or something. It's GHOSTS, but he's standing their begging me to stab him and my father is cheering me on like it's little league. I just--no."

Julia gets up and comes towards me, but I can't.

"Duke Crocker! Stop backing away from me!" she scolds, "Or sit down, God damn it and stop pacing. You'll wear a hole through floor into the hold or worse crack the keel."

"He shoved the knife in my hand and threw himself on it." I tell her, "I just--I couldn't...there's nothing I could do."

"You didn't kill him," she says.

"And is wife is--is thanking me for killing him."

"You didn't kill him, Duke. He committed suicide."

I do manage to make it to the bathroom before the churning that's been building up for a while with the shakes expels what little remains in my stomach after I threw up in the woods managed to hold that in until Nathan and Audrey left.

Julia knocks carefully on the door, "You need anything?"

I swill my mouth out with the water from the tap, "I'm...I'm okay..."

I open the door, but wind up leaning in the door way.

"Are you seriously trying to bullshit me, right now?" She narrows her eyes, "I hate to ask you this, but...after he died...how did it feel? The blood absorbed into you, didn't it? Like when you cut, Dwight?"

I go to nod, but it makes her blur in front of me, "Yes, and it was...the best worst thing ever," I can see her searching my face, "I haven't felt anything like that in a long, long time. I could...the colors were so much. It was like I could feel the auras of people around me, sense bird's wings beating and see their songs...not...not good. If I just had that much more everything would be open to me, all of the mysteries." I realize my hand is shaking when I try to reach for her. She takes hold of it firmly, "It really brought home—like we were talking about. Dad being the way—the way he was. I'm not killing anyone. I'm not. Not just because of this."

"No, I know. Come on," she says, "Out of the bathroom door way. You--you must be hurting, you idiot, coming down off that high. You must have been hurting. I would smack you if I didn't think you'd fall over and take me with you."

She leads me back towards the sitting area and pushes me towards the couch. I flop down. I realize saying I'm not and never was a stupid thing. There might be a time I have to. I lean forward. I can hear her moving around in the bathroom and then the kitchen and something rattling.

"What are you doing?"

"Don't worry about it," she says, coming back over and sitting down next to me. She has a pill bottle balanced between her wrists, a glass of water and a bottle of dark liquid. She drops the dark bottle and then the pills onto the couch, "How shaky are your hands?" she asks.

I look down at them trying to determine but she just laughs. In the end I wind up being fed six of the pills and drinking from the bottle until she tells me to stop, once it gets in my mouth I realize it was NyQuil. Then she kisses me, "That should take some of the edge off, you idiot. You don't need to punish yourself. That wasn't your fault. He was a terrified fanatic. It probably wouldn't have mattered if his Trouble was to make flowers grow..."

"I shouldn't have said never," I tell her.

"What?"

"I might wind up stuck between a rock and a hard place. I might...if I have to, if something happens, do what you have to to keep my idiot self okay, okay?"

"What makes you think I wouldn't anyway?" she asks, "I have to protect my investment. Without you I have no place of business or place to live."

I can feel my limbs becoming heavier, and my eyes don't want to stay open, "Wench."

"Whatever you say, Boss." I feel her shifting over on the couch, "Come on, lay down."