There are no real monsters. Except for the one in my closet

[extra_psychic]

According to all the literature, you weren't supposed to make any big changes in the first year of recovery. That might be all fine and good in the world she came from, Pamela thinks, but with the way the island is...well, it's bullshit. People come and go, there's snow, she's heard you can wake up as a dude. Those are some pretty major changes. So

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[saikamai]

Cuthbert jogged down the steps of the compound, several large rolls of paper cradled in the crook of his arm and a pen lodged behind his ear. Glue was waiting for him in the shade of a tree, tail whisking as his large eyes regarded a dog across the path. Bert grinned and patted his rear fondly, slipping the rolls of paper into the gunna hanging off the saddle, and, just as he was about to hop up, hesitated, thinking he must've heard the dog's owner wrong. He glanced at her and found that he recognized her from the club; he'd seen her there a few times before. She was blind, and now that he was really looking at the dog, seeing it very well, he saw that it was a leading-hound, though it looked different from the type they had at home.

What really struck him wasn't the kind of dog or even Glue Boy's wary fascination with it-- it was what the woman was saying to it. She kept repeating the word cujo, a word in the High Speech, and even that wouldn't have given him pause, really--- there were plenty of soundalikes that he'd come across

[saikamai]

"Glen. Old fellow, on the council-- he used to know Lloyd and Glen, back home."

Bert stopped and watched as the expressions on her face changed, followed by her tone. He processed the drinking bit, first-- and sure, she'd been a frequent-enough patron of their bar, but she hadn't struck him as a sot. He felt a temporary pang of guilt, wondering if the embarrassment he could hear in her correction was merely boot-in-mouth syndrome or shame that he knew, that he'd served her. And as his brain worried away at that thought, another occurred to him-- doesn't he know that when you lose your magic you're supposed to become a drunk?

"I--It's all right," he assured her, hopefully not too rushed. "Yeah, I... hadn't seen you lately." Stupid! he yelled at himself, in a kind of awkward agony. He was momentarily, overwhelmingly grateful she couldn't see his face. Is it hard? Are you all right?-- all stupid.

"You had magic?" The question surprised him, but he guessed it was better than the alternatives. ...he guessed.

[extra_psychic]

"Eh, kindasorta. Not really," she replies. Surprisingly enough, it's not as hard to talk about now even though the void is still there.

"I was psychic. Do you know that word? Psychic...I could see the future, read the past. I could talk to the spirits. Demons. And then I got ahold of an Angel of the Lord and this happened."

Pamela reaches up and pulls her glasses down from her face, revealing the white plastic orbs and the faint traces of burn scars around her eyes. She's faced every reaction possible so she's braced for whatever he might say. Pamela thinks he's a good kid...she just hopes he doesn't get a good look and puke on her feet.

[saikamai]

Bert did know it. She meant the Touch, albeit a pretty intense version of the Touch from the sound of it. Alain couldn't talk to spirits-- at least he hadn't yet, though as babbies Bert sometimes wondered if he saw them or heard them or perhaps believed he did-- but that was obviously her name for it.

He frowned a little, hanging on her word as she reached up to take off the glasses. As she pulled them off and caught sight of her eyes-- where her eyes had been-- he felt a mingled sense of shock, horror, and then embarrassment run through him. He understood angel, but she couldn't mean angel, so he wondered if it was another term for some kind of counselor, because she'd mentioned a lord. He immediately thought of some powerful man-- obviously a magician-- who'd done this to her.

"Oh gods," he said, trying hard to keep his voice more sympathetic than shocked, not wanting to let too much time pass without saying anything, afraid she'd think he was gawping. "Pamela... What happened?"

[extra_psychic]

"Oh, honey," she chuckles, letting her glasses dangle from her fingers. "That is a story best told sitting down."

That's all the invitation she gives before slowly descending to the ground and folding her legs beneath her. Cujo sits for a moment beside her before he sighs a little and lays down next to her. Pamela takes it on faith that Bert will join her.

"I got a call to help out some friends. Dean and Sam Winchester. Bobby's an old friend of mine, and so when he asked, I said sure. I did a few things, contacted the spirits, listened for some chit chat, but I got nothing. So we sat down for a proper seance. A, uh, ritual to call out the demon who we thought might have had something to do with Dean's sitch. Well...I got a line on a force and I talked to him for a while and then I demanded he show me his face. His true face. Shit...I'd never heard of any Castiel in all the demon lore, so I wasn't scared. I don't scare easy. If I hadn't been so fucking pushy, shit might have gone different. he warned me- he really warned me. Then I

[saikamai]

Bert followed her lead, dropping down so that he was sitting indian-style across from her. While she talked, he listened, watching her face much more carefully than he would've if he'd known she could see him, his fingers worrying a wide blade of grass into a knot.

There was some he didn't understand-- the word seance, mostly, but once she started talking about calling demons out, Bert kenned it well enough, thinking, maybe without realizing it, of Roland and the gods-be-damned pink ball. As she talked, even in the bright of the day, he felt anxious for what he plainly knew had already happened.

Like a few moments ago, Bert didn't want to keep silent, but now, what was there to say? Nothing came to mind, and so Glue Boy filled the quiet for him, whickering softly, switching his tail.

"What was it?" he finally asked. "You said an angel...?" As far as Bert knew, angels didn't prove their power by blinding innocent folk.

[extra_psychic]

Well, now...of all the things to take for granted that he'd just knowPamela tilts her head and thinks about that one for a minute. How do you explain something that for a lifetime you've taken for granted as being in some fashion, concrete or metaphorical, the way of the world. Sure, she's had more interaction with the dark, but she knew there was some sort of white-light-realm-of-peace shit going on. She'd told enough clients their loved ones had moved on- and she hadn't been lying

[saikamai]

Bert nodded when she asked about religion before catching himself; he corrected it with a quiet murmur of assent. It was quite a lot to process, and while there was religion where Bert was from, he'd been raised without much to speak of. For the ka-tel, the way of the gun and the way of Eld was everything. There was a smattering of mythology about the Guardians taught, and Cuthbert had always loved those stories (see the turtle of enormous girth, on his shell he holds the earth) but in general, ka was seen as the prevailing force. That was difficult enough for Bert to swallow most days, but the idea of teams of angels and demons duking it out amongst humans?

But the woman in front of him was pretty persuasive evidence. Mayhap on her level that was the way of things.

Bert was glad he wasn't from her level.

"Yes," he said. "A little." He paused. "Do you mind if I ask-- if you do, just say so-- do you still have it here? Your power?"

[extra_psychic]

"No. No, it's gone," she tells him simply. Sadly. "It's gone and I can...I can feel where it should be, you know? It's always been part of me and now..."

She shrugs. It's hard to explain to people who get it. It's damn near impossible to put it in terms that make it clear to someone who doesn't just know.

"I've met a few others who could- before. This place sucks it out of all of us, though. I always wanted to be a normal girl when I was growing up. Now? Now that I am? It kinda sucks."

[saikamai]

"I ask because I have a friend who could do the same things," Bert explained. "In my world, we call it the Touch. It's believed that you can cultivate a little of it into most anyone, but some are born strong with it. I don't know if you've met him-- his name's Alain-- tall, blond, devastatingly good-looking as Gilead men tend to be," he said with a smile, "but he was strong in the Touch. And since he arrived here, we've wondered if he still has it. It isn't seen as magic where we come from. More like a highly-tuned sense of intuition."

He paused. "I bet you've still got a little. Want to try and spell me my future? I won't tell anyone if you get it all wrong. Think of it as an experiment. In the name of science," he suggested, mirth overtaking his tone.

[extra_psychic]

"In the name of science?" she asks, a smile coming to her lips without her knowing. She shakes her head a little and gives an indulgent sigh. There's no trace of it and there hasn't been for months. The best she's got is her palm reading parlor trick and her deck.

Although...her deck has been pretty fucking scary with its accuracy.

"All right, kiddo. Give me your hand and let's find out what there is to know," she tells him, holding out both her hands to take his.

[saikamai]

Smiling, Bert gave over his hand, feeling a childish rush of excitement at the prospect. It didn't matter if it was all guesswork; it wasn't any different than the gypsies from Garlan, except Pam came without a caravan and a crystal ball and a cloud of opium-scented smoke.

He wiggled his fingers slightly. "Be gentle with this one. I had a perfect anvil of a man come down on it with a staff as if to squash a beetle," he explained, though he was mostly kidding; it had long since healed.

[extra_psychic]

"Shh," she says, her fingers going to work. She traces the lines and feels along the mounds and wells. Her nimble, sensitive fingers map every inch of his hand from wrist to fingertip, not missing anything at all.

There's something about his hand that tickles a memory. She's felt hundreds of palms and held thousands of hands, but some...some stand out in her memory. Her tongue rolls slowly along her lower lip and she takes a soft breath.

"You've had friends that were more than friends. The relationship is fused here in your life line. Not family...the chain is wrong for that. But a bond that's not like anything I've ever felt. There's love and loyalty. And guilt. Regrets. This is so mixed up, babe, and it's what makes you

[saikamai]

Cuthbert listened, his smile gradually fading, replaced by a shifting expression that was by turns skeptical, confused, and embarrassed by accuracy.

You've had friends that were more than friends. His immediate thought was romance-- wasn't that the stock in trade of fortune-telling? It was what everyone wanted to hear about, right as soon as they'd been assured they'd lead a long, full life and die in the comfort of their feather bed. So he thought of-- of Lyra, and what had almost been, what he'd thought had almost been and, ye gods, he couldn't have been more wrong. He thought of the face she'd made when he'd moved to kiss her; he thought he would never forget that face, like he was a woolly mammoth moving in instead of a boy.

A bond that's not like anything I've ever felt. There's love and loyalty. And guilt. Regrets.

Bert paused. She's telling you what you want to hear, Bert, come on! It's not lying, but you're playing a game, all the same.But even so it rang true, like she had reached into his nightmares and plucked out the

[extra_psychic]

"Nothing. Nothing," she assures him, though she desperately and unwisely wants to touch his face again. He's clean shaven and his hair's shorter, but that jaw and those cheekbones are unmistakable. How many times had she touched his face? Kissed him? Told him it really was forever? Hell, she'd gotten it inked forever into her skin.

"It's nothing, Bert. I promise. You just...look like someone. I can't see, but I could tell when I touched your face. I didn't expect it. At all."

[saikamai]

Cuthbert's mother had a phrase she liked to use: Bert, when the gods made you, they broke the mold.

A handful of years and another world later, he found out that she was quite mistaken in her assumption that her wee babby boy was unique; on the contrary, her wee babby boy was actually a very popular model.

He tried not to let it get to him-- tried valiantly-- but sometimes, he couldn't help but resent it. First Neil (who was a good fellow, all told, even if looking at him too long gave Bert the blue creeps), then Helen's old flame-- and now, a blind woman claims she's seen him before. Unbelievable.

But he felt bad, all the same-- she was shaken, and even if it hadn't been his fault, he was the one who'd shook her.

"Oh," he said, sympathy cramping his voice, "Pam, I'm sorry. I mean-- I know it isn't anything I did, but I'm sorry to have startled you, anyway." He shut his eyes, feeling awkward beyond belief.