Chapter Text
Really, just about everything in the world goes wrong when Jessica Stanley tries to pick up her life and fly off to Europe to find herself.
It's a rite of passage, isn't it? To put her heart through a meat grinder of a breakup- a bad one at that- then decide that her life, her apartment, her clothes, her hair, even her personality feels wrong. Of course, what else is an American girl to do in the midst of an identity crisis but go abroad?
The plan is simple, if not a little naive. It involves cafes and epiphanies. Soul-searching at an alarming depth and a return to the states as a new person. It's exactly what Lauren Mallory did right out of high school and look at her now. Her shiny modeling contract and French pastry chef of a boyfriend. She's practically a changed person.
And when she returns, she will purge him from her apartment. A complete reset. She's going to spark joy or whatever. Kill the clutter. She's going to incinerate all trace evidence of Edward Masen if it's the last thing she does.
At least she tells herself this as she sits on top of her suitcase to force the zipper closed.
.
On her way to the airport, someone steals the cab she hails. Twice. But that's not bad luck, that's just Chicago. Naturally, when she closes herself inside the third, the city is hit with a freak electrical storm that delays her flight four and a half hours only for her to get bumped anyway. But Jessica is nothing if not determined.
With her comped strawberry milkshake in hand, she FaceTimes Angela for moral support as she waits for the later flight they stuck her on. The moment she picks up, there's a commotion near security as a man makes a run for it.
"Jess?" Angela says from the phone, forgotten by her side. It's kind of funny really, it looks like the runner's headed right for her.
It's less funny when he collides solidly with her shoulder as he whips past, knocking the drink from her hand. The styrofoam cup bursts on the ground, drenching her shoes in pink ooze.
"You're kidding," she murmurs. She lifts her phone, remembering Angela.
"Jess? Are you alright? What's going on?"
She flips the camera to show off the state of her grey Nikes. "Oh, you know. I'm at O'Hare. Delayed, bumped, covered in soft serve. The usual."
Angela suppresses a laugh. "Don't you just love air travel?"
.
The flight- when she finally manages to board- goes so smooth, she's immediately suspicious when they make their first stop at Heathrow, but it isn't until Inverness at the baggage claim that she realizes she's lost a suitcase. Rather than deal with claims, she decides to cut her losses. One look out the sliding doors at the grey Scottish morning and all she can hope is that her candy-striped pajama pants ended up somewhere nice.
The arrangements she made with the travel agency made it all seem easy. All she had to do was get herself on a plane and everything would just fall into place. A tiny idyllic village at the border of a lake of impossible depth like something out of a movie. She's never heard of anybody running off to Scotland to find themselves, but maybe that's the best part. There's a first time for everything, and who better than Jess Stanley to blaze the trail?
.
The road to Rosvar is a long and winding one. The countryside is green in the way she remembers Forks but on some crazy multiplier. Still, nothing short of breathtaking. She points her phone's camera out the window and makes sure her Instagram story has a lengthy runtime.
The car set up by the agency bumbles along the unkept road pocked with holes and overgrowth cramming the cracks in the pavement. The driver is a bulky guy with a playlist full of Sigur Rós and a lead foot on the gas pedal. He had greeted her at the airport with a strong handshake and a yellow panel van with Rosvar Transport neatly painted by hand along the side in blue.
They stopped seeing buildings about an hour ago. Just like the website promised, it seems like the rest of the world pulled a curtain on this place. And despite the trouble getting here, Jess feels her confidence in the trip returning.
Just as the thought forms, the car dips abruptly as they hit a pothole and she smacks her head against the window. Her phone falls from her hand down into the crack between the seat and the door. When she leans over to reach for it, the engine coughs and the car lurches forward. She hits her head on the dash and curses into the floorboard.
"Huh," the driver says. "That's weird."
"That's weird?" she says, sitting up. She rubs the back of her head gingerly and shoves her phone into her pocket for good measure.
"Well, y-"
Smoke starts billowing from beneath the hood as the engine chugs and sputters horribly. The driver pulls off the road and hops out. He throws the hood up and fans away the smoke with his whole arm.
"Everything okay up there?"
"Aye, it's nothing!"
There's a strange popping noise, and suddenly fire erupts from under the hood. Jess stares at it a second too long because at this point, she wouldn't be surprised if an asteroid came out of the sky and finished things off.
When her rational brain clicks back on, she feels the sheer heat of the fire, the promise of death. She screams and throws herself out the passenger door, landing pitifully in some mud. She scrambles to her feet, and with only her small carry-on backpack and her phone, she runs over to where the driver is standing- now, fifty feet away.
The driver wipes the back of his hand across his forehead and puts his hands on his hips as if admiring the flames. Somehow the radio is still absurdly blasting Sigur Rós into the emptiness of the highlands.
"Shit," he says. He glances over at her and smiles at the blatant shock across her face. "Oh, don't worry, lass. The rain'll get it."
Jess yanks the drawstrings of her hoodie to cover her face.
.
The driver- Peter- offers to carry her backpack for her as they walk the remainder of the way along the road's shoulder, but she refuses. It's the twenty-first century after all (she can open her own doors, thank you!), but really, keeping her eyes glued to her last piece of luggage is the only thing giving her any illusion of control at this point.
"I promise ya, it's not all as bad as this," Peter says from ahead of her on the road. He has his hands in his pockets. "I mean, at least it's not rai-"
"Don't!" Jess says. She closes her eyes and braces for the rain to pick up again as if on cue. Thankfully, it doesn't. "Are we getting close?"
"That we are," he says. He points ahead to what just looks like nothing but trees to her, but as they get closer, she can start to see buildings in the distance.
She feels a drop of water on her shoulder and sighs, resigned to her fate. She must have done something to trigger Murphy's Law or, more appropriately, that old proverb that's currently mocking her: when it rains, it pours.
.
Peter delivers her to the inn as promised, where the innkeeper- a tiny woman with short hair and a commanding presence promptly smacks him over the head with a rolled-up newspaper.
"Did you dump her into Malmore as well? What's the matter with you?"
"Little car trouble is all," he says with his hands up. "We had to walk that last leg. But it was great, right?"
Jess, who has been dazed through their entire interaction merely nods at the recognition of his tone rather than his words. She barely caught a glimpse of the little town in the drear of the downpour. But right now, the lobby is small and warm and that's really all that matters.
"Look at her! She's practically dead!" The innkeeper grabs a set of keys off the hook behind her and turns to Jess. "C'mon, then. Your room's all ready. You'll have to forgive my husband. I've been telling him that old thing's a deathtrap for years."
"Hope you enjoy your stay," Peter calls after them as they head for the stairs.
"Ignore him," the innkeeper mutters.
The stairs lead up into the second-floor hall, lined on each side by three rooms. The innkeeper unlocks the first door on the left and motions her inside. When the light flicks on, the pure shock of purple jolts Jess out of autopilot. The room is small with little furniture aside from the bed and desk pushed into one corner. But from the loose itinerary her travel agent made for her, she won't be spending too much time cooped up in here. She turns and gives the best smile she can manage.
"Thanks so much, it's perfect."
The woman chuckles. "You've certainly had an adventure, haven't you? Jessica, was it? I'm Charlotte. I'm the one to find if you need anything, and if I can't get it, Laurent in the shop across the way can." She glances at the pink backpack over her shoulder. "Goodness, is that all you've brought?"
"Long story."
After Charlotte leaves, Jess peels off her wet clothes and hits the sheets like a rock. Her journey to soul-transmutation can start tomorrow.
.
The next morning (late afternoon, really), Jess makes her way downstairs, feeling a little jet-lagged, but otherwise an ocean better than yesterday. Things could have been worse, sure, but from now on, things are going to change for the better. She can feel it.
"Ah, there you are," Charlotte says, tucking away her paper behind the desk. "Breakfast's over there. Dinner technically, sleepyhead."
Jess crosses the small lobby to the breakfast nook in the corner where a tray of eggs and toast is waiting for her. There's another girl in the room with them. She's young, probably high school age, with curly red hair and a septum piercing. She's lying on the couch against the wall near the front desk with her feet up, listening to music through her headphones.
"Dreich weather we're having, but looks like it's clearing up a little," Charlotte says. She rolls her eyes at the girl and pushes her feet off of the arm of the couch. "Why don't you get that boy of yours and take Jessica around? She's visiting from America, Lord knows why."
The girl pulls one of her earbuds out. She shoots Jess a blistering look. "Why don't you make Da do it?"
"Your father has done enough, believe me."
"Really," Jess tries, "I'll be fine on my own-"
Charlotte barrels on. "You'll take her, and that's that."
.
"Why's it so dead around here?" Jess asks as she follows Victoria out the back through the kitchen. The street is empty and most of the buildings are dark. She expected a sleepy little town, sure, but not comatosed.
"You're kidding right?" Victoria says, slightly incredulous. She climbs up onto the short rock wall that lines the path and walks alongside Jess. She's wearing white Converse with sharpie drawings all over the canvas.
"No?"
"It's the off-season."
"Oh…I had no idea."
"Of course not." Victoria hops off the rock wall and lands in front of her. "Come on. It's this way."
Something about the girl's bluntness and impatience reminds her a little of Edward. He wasn't always like that, just sometimes. But within the scope of hindsight, every time he ever snapped at her for lingering too long at a party with friends when he wanted to get home lights up in her mind, every silent Uber ride after. It's not a big deal, really, but it doesn't exactly bring a smile to her face either.
"It's just through here," Victoria says, bringing her back.
She follows the teenager through the back loading area of the small store across the plaza from the inn. There's a shirtless boy with a long blond ponytail stacking cases of water. He has a shark tooth necklace and a clock tattoo on his arm. She knows it's useless to hope this isn't the boyfriend they're looking for, but when Victoria leaps into his arms the faint disappointment truly registers.
She looks away when they kiss, unsure if she's giving them privacy or if she's doing it for herself. Though something tells her she doesn't even exist to them at the moment. Or ever.
"This is Jessie," Victoria says, pulling away from him. The boy gives her an appraising look, almost like he can't tell what the hell she's doing here. "We gotta give her the guided tour."
"It's Jessica, actually," she says, though it probably doesn't matter. Once you're not one anymore, it's the strangest thing being around people this age. They make her twenty-four years feel like twice that, and she's almost certain there's nothing she can do to change that.
"Ah, American. That explains it." When he smiles, there's a weird sparkle in his eye that makes her shift away from his gaze. "I'm James." He picks up his shirt from the seat of the small forklift and pulls it over his head. "Shall we?"
.
"And this is the wishing well where like, ninety cats have drowned," Victoria says with a flourish. It's about the seventeenth stop on the bullshit tour that has consisted mostly of Victoria and James alternating between making out and playfully shoving each other around. They take turns pointing out buildings and feeding Jess stories she's pretty sure they made up on the spot just to mess with her.
From what she's been able to discern herself from the little plaques scattered around, most of the little village burned down about three hundred years ago after the strange disappearance of over a dozen young women. She decides to ask someone over the crest of adolescence for more about it when she gets back to the inn, seeing as her current tour guides are stuck to each other once again.
"You guys really don't have to do this," Jess says, trying to level with them. The sky is darkening from the storm, so chances are, she won't be out much longer anyway. "I can just find my own way around."
"You hear that?" Victoria whispers. "She thinks she can make her own way."
James grins. "I think we should make just one more stop."
"What?" Victoria says, and when James nods toward trees bordering the lake, she smiles wickedly, sweetening it just a little when she looks Jess' way. "Oh please, let us just show you one more thing."
Jess swallows uncomfortably. "Uh, sure."
.
It gets dark so fast, it feels almost evil as she tries to keep up with Victoria and James as they weave through the trees, laughing. It's early evening by the time on her phone, but it looks like the dead of night. The wind picks up and makes it hard to hear their footsteps.
"You guys?"
"This way!" Victoria calls from her left.
"We're almost there," James says from what she swears is behind her.
The sky cracks open into an absolute downpour. Within seconds, her hair is soaked and plastered across her face as she spins around with her phone's flashlight, searching for the kids or at least a sign of the village, but it's just black.
She finds a break in the trees and runs for it. Cold lances through her legs as she realizes she's in the water at the edge of the lake. The lights from the village shine dimly on the entire other side of the huge lake. How did she get-
She spins around as lightning flashes overhead, illuminating the awful remains of a fallen castle. The crack of thunder that follows is so loud she can feel it in her chest.
"God, what the fuck," she says, voice lost in the wind.
She looks up, searching for the moon or a star or something to tell her she's still alive, but it is none of those things that has her sprinting from the water. No celestial body or dead supernova, just the orange light from a window at the top of the tower.