Maverick stood in an empty room with his eyes shut and a ringing in his ears that he had been fighting for the last twenty minutes. It was so loud he couldn't do anything but stand there and try to wait. It was a basic mental defense that he had encountered many times before but never at this level. If it didn't stop soon, it might cause lasting damage to his actual eardrums.
The noise ceased suddenly, and Maverick sighed in relief, opening his eyes for the first time since he had arrived. He was in a fairly average room, medium-sized, with one door and no windows. The walls had an ugly, faded yellow wallpaper that was peeling in several spots. He walked to the door and opened it, walking through to the other side to find that he was standing in a small kitchen with the same ugly yellow wallpaper. An older woman was making a cup of tea for herself and sitting at a little kitchen table. He walked past her and into a living room where someone was asleep on the couch. Maverick leaned over the sleeping person and saw that it was Lucy, wearing pink overalls and an army jacket.
Maverick straightened at the sound of a knock at the door. The girl sat up suddenly, a look of wild panic in her eyes as the older woman shuffled down the hallway to answer the door. Maverick watched as a policeman questioned the older woman for a few moments before the man turned toward Lucy and spoke. Maverick watched as they made eye contact and threads, made of light, began to weave their way between the policeman and Lucy like some kind of ghostly web. It was then that Maverick noticed the threads that already existed between Lucy and the older woman.
"Interesting," Maverick muttered to himself.
Suddenly, Lucy looked directly at him. There was a flash of blinding light, and Maverick fell to the floor in the bunker, grabbing his head with both hands as a ringing filled his ears.
"Maverick! What happened?" Tony asked, coming to his side and pulling him up and into the stuffed leather chair. It took a few minutes for the ringing to subside enough that he could clear his head and open his eyes.
"She saw me," he said breathlessly.
"What do you mean she saw you? Nobody sees you," Daisy said from the other side of Maverick.
"She did," he replied, letting go of his head and looking at the sleeping form of Lucy.
"Are you going to go back in? Is it safe?"
"She didn't attack me; she just pushed me out. Her defenses are very strong," he said, rubbing his temples.
Bowser came over with a glass of ice water and handed it to Maverick, who drank the entire thing before setting the glass down and getting back into position next to Lucy.
"I would give her more time to heal; it would make this easier if she was awake and could give me permission, but we simply don't have time," he said, putting his hand back on her forehead.
Maverick stood in a forested park in the dark. He looked around as a noise caught his attention and turned to see Lucy running across a small bridge and falling to her knees. He noticed glowing threads attached to her back, stretching more and more as she ran until they were taut with the tension, and then, as she crossed the bridge, the threads snapped. The girl fell to her knees, weeping in relief. Maverick took a step back into the shadow of a tree to keep himself hidden and watched as a young man who had been walking through the park ran over to Lucy and put his hand on her shoulder.
The threads formed almost instantly between them, and Maverick watched as the weeping and scared Lucy disappeared and a flirtatious and oddly happy version of her took over. Maverick couldn't tell what was happening to cause such a change, but he knew it had to do with the threads that were woven thickly between them. He followed them to the subway, keeping far enough back to not be noticed, and watched as they boarded, passing Tony on the way to their seats. When the subway car stopped and Lucy and the man got up to leave, Lucy locked eyes with Tony for a moment, and when she did, the entire scene froze in place before Maverick's eyes. It lasted for a moment, the world standing still, and then the movie started up again, the actors continuing on their courses.
"Interesting," he murmured again, noting that there must be something significant that occurred in that moment. Maybe they were attracted to each other? Maverick doubted that was all, though he was sure it was part of what had happened between Tony and Lucy, but no, something more was going on.
The scene changed unexpectedly, and Maverick found himself sitting in a dark booth in an ill-lit dive he had never been to before. Lucy was sitting with the young man at a table, looking smitten and in love, until the man got up to use the restroom. The threads stretched between them as he left, and Lucy stood up, looking at the door as though she longed to walk through it. The man came back, and the threads between them grew thicker as he ushered her back into the booth.
A waitress spilled a tray. The man got up to help her, and then time slowed down. Maverick watched the rest in slow motion as the girl got up and sprinted for the door as though she were running through jello. Maverick wondered if this was how that moment had felt to Lucy, like running through jello, as the tether between her and the man grew snug and threatened to break. The scene changed again, and they were at a new bridge. Daisy was leaning down to help Lucy while Tony and the young man were circling each other as though ready to fight.
Everything happened at once: the young man charged Tony, and Daisy touched Lucy and then fell over unconscious. Lucy got up and sprinted across the bridge, and Maverick watched with interest as the tether grew taut and then snapped as Lucy reached the other side. He wondered whether the bridge played a part in its severing or the water underneath it, or was it a coincidence? It would be worth investigating further when Lucy woke up.
A strong wind began to blow, so strong that Maverick had to lean into it and put his head down, and then it picked up, and he had to use his robotic hand to cling onto a lamp post so he wouldn't get blown away. Benches were ripped up from the cement and flung past him; trees were bending until they were lying flat against the ground. Maverick knew this was Lucy's mind trying to push him out, or possibly trying not to remember, or both. He held on, refusing to leave, and his robotic hand did not fail him; it never had before.
The wind stopped abruptly, and Maverick fell to the ground with a thud. When he rose, it was daytime, and he was standing in a tall field of grass, a gentle breeze blowing around him and the sun shining above him in the blue sky. It felt like early summer, and the dragonflies were fluttering over the waving grasses, dancing about as though the world was their playground. Maverick walked through the field for a few minutes, looking around him for Lucy, but there was no one, just grass and blue sky. He walked for a while, picking a random direction, until he came to a small stream and heard voices nearby. Carefully, he crept on his hands and knees to the edge of the grasses and looked down over a short bank.
Two children were sitting at the water's edge with their feet in the water, holding hands as they talked. Their jet-black hair was almost identical, the boy's popping out all over his head in silky curls and the girl's falling over her tiny shoulders in waves. Their pale skin was flushed in the hot sun, and their green eyes reflected the light in a way that made it look ethereal. They were identical, and Maverick thought they had to be twins; he guessed maybe six years old.
"Lucky, how come you can do magic and I can't?" the boy asked the girl as they swooshed their feet through the water. The girl shrugged her tiny shoulders and shook her head.
"Don't know, Floppy," she said with a mischievous grin.
"Don't call me that," the boy said, kicking the water so it splashed up and onto the girl's lap.
"Hey! No fair!" she cried. "You call me Lucky."
"Yeah, 'cause you are lucky," the boy replied.
"Yeah, and you are a floppy head," she said with another giggle.
The boy splashed her again, and this time she splashed him back, and they both giggled and sat in the sunshine, soaking wet.
"How come?" the boy asked again, more seriously, cutting into the happy moment with a tone of sadness.
"I don't know, Milo. It's not so great anyway; I wish I wasn't. You're the lucky one," the girl said. "They always want me to do what they want, and it's getting harder for me not to."
The boy she called Milo looked sideways at her with a frown and said, "What do you mean?"
"They ask me to do things. I do them, but I could say no if I wanted to, but I say yes because we are hungry and need the food they bring. Now it feels like I can't say no most of the time, like I have to, and when they are here, sometimes I forget my name; sometimes I forget your name," she said with a worried look crossing her face.
The boy called Milo took his sister's hand again and squeezed it. "I won't let you forget, Lucy; I promise."
Without warning, the little girl looked up and locked eyes with Maverick. The sunlight reflecting in them almost looked like fire, and Maverick felt a shiver go down his spine.
"Get out!" the little Lucy screamed so loud that Maverick had to cover his ears again. The wind began to blow with a fury that tossed Maverick backwards, making him tumble across the field away from Lucy and Milo. Then, just as abruptly, the world grew dark as though the lights had been turned off, and when they came back on again, Maverick was standing in a dark room with dimmed light that seemed to be empty.
A door opened in the wall that hadn't been there a moment before, and a grotesque figure walked in with a stench of decay that made Maverick want to vomit. It spoke to the corner of the room, and a figure moved that Maverick hadn't seen before. Bali sat up from under a blanket and rubbed her eyes. She looked tired and possibly sick but otherwise unharmed.
"I'm told you will not cooperate," the witch said with a snarl.
"I will never help you!" Bali spat.
"That isss too bad for you, my dear, for we will have to cut your ssshhadow off and make you do what we want. You have until ssssundown to dessside. Either way, you will help ussss find the shadow eater!"
This scene did not feel like a memory to Maverick since Lucy was nowhere to be seen, but he could not tell if it was a vision of what was happening right then or a glimpse of the future. But before he could investigate further, he felt a tug at his sleeve and looked down to see little six-year-old Lucy standing next to him.
"I don't like this movie," she said, and then she snapped her fingers, and the scene changed, and they were standing in the field again, facing one another.
"Who are you?" Lucy asked him as the wind blew her long hair across her face.
"My name is Maverick," Maverick said.
"I don't know you," Lucy replied, carefully avoiding his eyes.
"We haven't met officially yet, but we will soon. Where is your brother?" he asked.
Lucy looked around wistfully, as if she had just remembered she had forgotten to turn off a light or close a door or leave the jar off the peanut butter somewhere.
"I don't know you!" she yelled suddenly.
"I'm Maverick; we just me…" Maverick tried to say, but it was too late. Lucy covered her ears and shook her head back and forth, screaming, "I don't know you! I don't know you!" until a ringing filled Maverick's head that made him want to vomit.