marnie piper.

——— in truth, semra didn't know what to expect when dr. d had proposed they move their operations to a new city. middleton had grown stale after a while. any crimes they had tried to commit had been thwarted by a goodie-toes teenager and her bumbling sidekick. there was a part of semra that had miss the fight. the routine of a nemesis and having someone to push her to be, well, evil. the underland provided that opportunity. however, there was no little miss kimberly to try and stop her this time. it was a delicious thought knowing anything went here. there were no rules, no restrictions. just pure chaos. she was excited to see how she got her hands dirty. the only downside to the underland was the scenery. or better yet the lack thereof. at least in middleton there were some damn trees. still, she had decided to familiarize herself with the city. inferno seemed like the best place to dip her feet in. she would be able to let loose but also scope out the city and the people who lived here. she made her way to the bar, ready to give the bartender her order when another body stepped in front of her. "are you going to buy me a drink or get out of my way?" she asked abruptly. there was a sickeningly sweet smile on her face but no sugar in her words whatsoever. "because if it's the latter you have two seconds to move before i move you myself."

a wall was not enough. between the underland and old elias, they needed a bridge and a chasm.

krit stood at the old elias side, leaning against a lamppost a ways away. he had a clear view of those walking across, to and fro. people were becoming more daring. two people this week had, so far, crossed into the underland for the first time. a councilman (terribly disguised) and someone from the metroville family. and the grotto had been their locations — very interesting. was little miss ariel running a tourist trap with the newly reopened shop? these were the types of things they kept tabs on. very little happened in the underland without the big man knowing about it, thanks in part to krit and cas keeping him updated.

his eyes tracked someone as they neared his radius, as eerie as a night owl whose eyes might shine in the dark. though the sun was still very much high in the sky.

"bonjour, bonjour," he called out with a grin, his french accent a tad exaggerated. when he next spoke, it was without the accent. "you look like you know what you're doing — tell me, do you know how to get to the university? i'm all turned around," he sighed, shaking his head at himself.

⸻🍂 WILLOW WALKED AMONG THE WEATHERED GRAVESTONES OF Hatchaway Cemetery. 

It truly felt like stepping into the most haunted place in Old Elias. As the cemetery stretched outward in an way where boundaries blurred &. the dead seemed to reach for the living. While it didn't help that spring made the cemetery feel alive in all the wrong ways. As spring did not soften it.  If anything spring had made it worse.  While the graves were half-swallowed by new growth.  Moss was threading between headstones ⸻ pale fungi clustered at the bases of older markers ⸻ algae bloomed so thick &. dark in lower places.

Taking the kind of care that came from knowing what was underfoot.  As she told herself she was here to ⸻ forage ⸻ because that part was much easier to explain. 

But deep down that was only half the truth.  Orion Bartholomew.  Even thinking the name made something stir-uneasily in her chest.  As she was looking for there grave.  While the people who are still missing had to many gaps ⸻ &. without answers to the questions that haunted the living. As the restless dead were said to roam Hatchaway. &. most people speak of it like an warning ⸻ like something to stay away from. Like old grief with nowhere else to go. But she had grown up tending things that grew in dark places ⸻ things that fed on what others left behind.

As she froze. What was that sound? The sound had been small ⸻ maybe almost nothing ⸻ but out here almost nothing was enough to give-way. “ Who's there? ”

Her eyes looked to the person across from her in the middle of the cemetery, and when she spoke up, Marnie paused, stopping dead in her tracks; was she supposed to be here? She didn't know, but she knew that she had startled her, and she didn't want to do such a thing; she had only been interested in the cemetery.