Episode 14 - Signs

## Signs

A white drawing on a black background depicts the silhouette a bird mid-flight overlaid with a red fermata sign. There are four other white signs around the bird. The image has a white border of flutes.

### Author

William A. Wellman

Clara finds a familiar library, Bern sits down for an interview, and Riot goes on the job with Walt. The theme of tonight’s episode is Signs.

***Content Warnings:** Static, death + injury, animal death, violence, birds, kidnapping + abduction, abuse, blood, body horror*

## Intro - Happiness Lies North

Nikignik asks the listener why they are walking north. Is it out of rebellion, curiosity, fatigue of their dreary life, or even in search of happiness? At first, the signs carved into the tall pines were comforting. Now they are a warning, telling the listener that they will never be able to go back to their boxed-up life again.

Nikignik is sitting on the steps of a public library, where a young reader approaches the doors holding a piece of destiny. They want to tell her to turn and leave, but it is already too late for her.

## Story One - Quiet Inside

Clara and Dogsmell approach the Downing Hill Public Library. Dogsmell's hesitation makes Clara wonder if she should be scared too. She flips over the library card she has been holding and it reads "Quiet inside." Although she feels some wrongness about the library, Clara has no other options and opens the massive doors. She enters into the darkness of the library and the doors close behind her.

Lights turn on and for a moment Clara panics, seeing her childhood library and imagining that the creatures that were her parents might come out at any second. However, after further examination, Clara realizes that it only looks like her old library. Books cover the walls and have strange titles, like *Wolves in the Blood: The Covenants of Tenochtitlan* by J.J. Black and *Things That Watch Me Sleep* by Mary Strix.

The rows of books stretch on beyond her vision. She nocks an arrow and begins to walk down a hallway. When she looks back, her childhood library has been replaced by a fiction section. Clara feels as if she's fallen into a trap and is now lost in the maze of books. She feels like Theseus searching for the Minotaur. She sees movement in front of her and lets the arrow fly.

A woman stands in front of her with a face made of static. The librarian pulls the arrow from the void where her face should be, calmly tucks it behind her arm, and asks if Clara needs help finding a book.

### Interlude One - Black Cats

Nikignik says that the animals you meet can define your future. They advise that if you cross paths with a black cat, it means there is a cosmic entity hunting you; you should adopt the cat so it can protect you. A swarm of ravens means that you have an overdue library book and it is already too late. A grackle the size of a log cabin means you're already dead. Give it something shiny anyway. You shouldn't worry about Wandering Night-Gaunts, because they will probably get you long before you see them. A seagull means you are near a large body of water with unknown dangers, and an undead seagull means that a dark and unpleasant end is awaiting you.

## Story Two - Interview With The Revenant

After returning to the Scoutpost with Riot, Diggory meets with Bern, who is suspicious about why they are helping Riot. She has strapped them to a chair, but they don't struggle. Bern tells them that she has put thirty-nine "rotted things" like them in the ground and asks if they'll be the one to make it a nice, even forty. After some consideration, Diggory says that they'd rather not be. Bern is skeptical about their kindness and considers that it could be a front.

She asks why they decided to help Riot. Diggory is still for a long while, lost in a memory. Impatient, Bern taps them on the forehead and asks again. Diggory says that they could not allow Riot to be hurt. They have been women like Riot, women who were beaten and hurt, and they could not allow that to happen even to a stranger.

Bern asks Diggory to repeat their name to her, which she chuckles at. She has her suspicions about Diggory's creator, but she'll need to check with Walt to be sure. She asks where they're from, and Diggory says they are from a room with a stone table, pins, and needles. The room is in a once-beautiful house that is sinking into the bog.

Bern hefts her crossbow and asks Diggory to give her one reason why she shouldn't shoot them right now. They freeze again, and she kicks her desk to bring them back, finished with waiting on them. They say they're called to walk somewhere, and though they're unsure of the destination, they believe it to be incredibly important. Bern stares down the sights of her crossbow and counts down from three.

At the last moment, Diggory blurts out that they're in love with Percy. This gives Bern pause, still suspicious in case this alleged romance is Diggory's next victim. She sits back down and asks Diggory to tell her about Percy. They begin gushing about how smart and brave Percy is. Bern asks where Percy is now, almost sarcastically, as if Percy is an imaginary friend, or one of Diggory's past victims. Diggory replies that Percy is in the room right now, which startles her.

Diggory asks Percy to show himself, raising their arms and casually snapping the straps that Bern had bound them with. Percy appears before Bern, arms wrapped around Diggory. She notes the wire on his wrists, similar to that of the ghost woman who had attacked her under the Instrumentalist's command.

Percy speaks in Bern's mind, saying that if she hurts Diggory, he will burn the Scoutpost to the ground.

### Marketing - Buying Signals

Lady Ethel Mallory guides the sales and marketing employees of BotCo on how to notice "buying signals" for Dreaming Box subscriptions, such as asking about payment plans or what's next. She says that when you enter a Dreaming Box, you become an efficient mind. When one million minds are dreaming the same thing, it becomes reality. When the dreams are guided by BotCo, reality becomes BotCo in every way.

### Story Two, Continued - Interview With The Revenant

Nikignik says they hate that the interruptions have become a ritual. They hate rituals.

Diggory gently scolds Percy for being so unkind and apologizes for him. Bern is uncomfortable with both of them. Diggory doesn't seem to understand their own motivations, which she doesn't even like in the living, and Percy feels wrong to her in the same way the Instrumentalist's music does. Despite all that, she can't bring herself to fire her crossbow. She remembers her past with Violet, and how they were outcasts once too. The people in her past looked at the two of them with the same disgust with which she is looking at Diggory and Percy now.

She puts down her crossbow.

Bern allows the two to stay, since they saved Riot, but only on three conditions: that they don't hurt anyone, that if they're asked to leave they will do so peacefully, and that they help out around the Scoutpost. She sends them to their room (34 in the Badger Wing) and goes to speak with Violet. Violet asks Bern if she's getting soft in her old age. Bern says she's not, and kisses her wife.

### Interlude Two - No Longer To Warn

Nikignik says it is absurd to think that any earthly or heavenly events can predict the future, since that can only be done by reading *La Dernière Page Noire* by Florence Alarie, or the Blood Cards of Xyzikxyz, or by displacing oneself out of spacetime. They remind us that humans are the ones who caused the destruction of the Earth. The events occurring now are no longer warning signs of a grim future, but a reminder of what has been done.

## Story Three - Fermata

Walt and Riot are riding in Walt's hearse, listening to a Stonemaiden album. The music, as well as Riot's love for it, remind Walt of his younger days. Walt asks her about being rescued by Diggory, and she mentions that she hasn't seen them since they arrived at the Scoutpost. Walt says he'd like to speak to them when he gets back, for his book -- an almanac of the creatures of the Hallowoods. Riot pages through it until she lands on the page for vampires, and she asks if they're actually real.

Walt says that they are, in a manner of speaking. They're not the classic vampires one might think of, but more of a change caused by the woods. He reckons that's what happened to Clara's parents. He asks Riot to add them to his book, and she begins to draw them on a blank page. Walt asks if there's been any news on Clara. Riot says that there's been nothing so far. She hopes that Clara is out there somewhere, and worries about her.

Riot changes the subject and asks if Walt has a wife or kids. He says that he doesn't and explains that while he'd love to meet a nice lady one day, he's never been interested in "the honeymoon stuff." He says that Violet was able to put a name to this feeling, and that he's likely asexual. Riot tells him there will be a lady out there somewhere for him.

The two pull up outside of a small cabin, and Walt opens the back of the hearse to reveal a silver-plated sword and a chain wrapped coffin. When Riot asks, Walt explains that the coffin is in case there's anything in the house that needs to be dumped into the lake. They open the door of the cabin to see the charred figure of a man called Mr. Kita, his body tied up in piano wire. Walt says that this is one of the Instrumentalist's signatures. A fermata has been carved into the center of Mr. Kita's chest. Walt says that he plans to bury Mr. Kita and then rid the woods of the Instrumentalist, and Riot says she'll join him.

## Outro - Signs

Nikignik closes the broadcast by speaking again about signs, and how human beings look for signs of hope even when there appear to be none. There are many signs around us, but only we can make our dreams reality.