Chapter 6: Equipment

Violet could not sleep that night, so instead she knelt down in front of her window and watched the Glow light up the distant sky.

The cat seemed to be off doing other things, so Violet found herself perfectly alone in the darkness of her room, feeling tense and afraid and almost impossibly excited all at once.

Soon enough she would be going to the very heart of the Glow, to appeal the fate of her village and ask for protection. She tried to think of what form the Glow would take when viewed up close, but the enormity of such a task boggled her mind and she quickly gave it up. It was a bit like trying to look into the nothingness that came when the cat traveled places. Like it was blinking and leaving her with the visual equivalent of what came when a person tried to look beyond the corners of their own eyes.

Resting her chin atop the windowsill, Violet watched the Glow’s blue light dance and flicker off the underside of passing clouds until her eyes grew heavy and all conscious thought fled in favor of the silken nothingness of slumber.

The next morning Violet awoke early enough that there were still the pale echoes of stars lingering in the silvery sky. She’d slipped into bed just before falling asleep and wriggled far enough out of her warm cocoon of blankets that she could grope for the electric lantern that sat on her bedside table. Finding it after a few clumsy, sleep stunned moments, she tugged it into bed with her. It was cylindrical and steel framed, with a red enamel base. There was a crank mounted on one side and Violet turned it, the lantern flickering and ticking before slowly gathering a glow, casting a comfortable white light out across her room.

Violet yawned and sat up, holding the lantern in her lap as her thoughts slowly collected. It was silent beyond her bedroom door and she supposed that her mother was still asleep.

She got dressed and, though she felt a little peckish, turned away from her door and instead looked out her window. There was a trace of mist at the edge of the forest, interwoven with the trees, and it seemed to glitter in anticipation of the coming sunrise.

From there Violet’s gaze landed on the garden shed. She’d ended up leaving her notebook out there, in case something happened that would require her room to be searched, but those fears had not come to pass.

Indeed, she seemed to have gotten away with the sigils entirely scot-free.

That realization, coming hot and bright as a morning sun, filled her with relief and Violet decided that perhaps the cat had been right in what it had said. She probably did need to keep her sigils close.

Just in case.

Quietly, Violet slid her window open and slipped out, taking care not to accidentally crush the flower the cat had fetched from across the river. It seemed to have perked up a bit since being replanted and Violet reminded herself to water it later.

She stepped over it and into the back garden, the grass slick with a silvery layer of early morning dew. It was wet and cold enough to sting her bare feet.

“I’ve been meaning to ask you something.” A voice came from directly overhead and Violet jumped, just barely stifling a startled yelp.

The cat was seated on the edge of her roof, one front paw dipped into the gutter. It seemed to be playing with something.

“You scared me.” Violet said.

“What if….” the cat continued over her, pausing for a thoughtful moment. “What if you get to the very heart of the Glow and it doesn’t even notice you’re there? What would you do then?”

Violet hunched her shoulders against that unwelcome thought and offered the cat a sour look.

“That doesn’t matter to you,” she said. “You just want to bother me.”

The cat sighed and slipped off of the roof, letting a tiny, relieved something skitter down the gutter. In an instant it was right next to her, padding delicately through the grass. The cat left dark little prints behind where its paws disturbed the dew.

“Perhaps that was a bit discouraging,” the cat allowed, though Violet didn’t believe it was being sincere for a moment. “…But it is important for a person to learn how to manage their expectations.”

Violet blinked. The way the cat spoke, it was like she was dealing with a disappointing birthday gift or something similarly trivial. For a moment she wanted badly to snap at the cat and remind it of the importance of what lay ahead, but….

That wouldn’t do anything.

Swallowing her pique, Violet looked elsewhere.

“Weren’t you going to show me how to set a camp and light a fire and…stuff?” She asked.

“I was. Am. But you need to be properly equipped first. Do you have a flint and striking steel?”

“We have magnesium matches in the kitchen.” Violet said helpfully.

The cat made a face.

“Matches are cheating. You need to learn how to make fire in a clever way, with those big human hands of yours. Why else do you think you have thumbs?”

Violet could think of a great many things that thumbs were useful for but offered no retort, supposing that the cat was correct in its own way. There were only a finite number of matches after all, and if they got wet or were lost then she’d be in serious trouble without a more reusable alternative.

“Moving on,” the cat continued. “Do you have any chalk left?”

Violet thought about the tiny nub left over from the previous day, but that would hardly give her enough material for a circle before it crumbled completely into dust. She shook her head.

“Perhaps that poor florid child will be out again today….” The cat mused. “Now, do you have appropriate clothes?”

Violet shrugged, unsure what exactly ‘appropriate’ meant in this context. Appropriate for journeying through the woods? Looking past the cat, off to the edge of the forest, Violet tried to think about what venturing in there would be like but was overwhelmed by a full body shiver. The mere thought of stepping into that strange, claustrophobic space….

“Alright,” the cat said, turning a small circle in place, drawing patterns across the dew with the tip of its tail. “The good news is that we don’t have much to find. You need a flint and steel, something reliable to draw your sigil with if you run into trouble, maybe a good pair of pants to hide those poor furless legs of yours from the nettles, and…that’s about it.”

Violet blinked, suddenly uncertain.

“Don’t I need a tent or something?” She asked.

“A tent? Whatever for?”

“For sleeping in. So I don’t get rained on if the weather is bad.” Violet had heard occasional whispers about people venturing into the woods, and while the stories usually ended with the hapless travelers ether going mad or being shredded by something awful, she did know that they were much more well provisioned than…this.

The cat was silent, regarding her with open confusion. Violet plowed onwards, hoping to make herself understood.

“And I need a bedroll too, like what the Trade Master sleeps on when he’s taking afternoon naps in his garden. And I want to bring my lantern, and a book for reading at night, and a couple of spare pencils so I can sketch in my notebook if I see anything interesting. And a pocket knife, and a hatchet for splitting firewood….” She trailed off, suddenly realizing the full enormity of her planned inventory.

The cat hadn’t lost its baffled expression.

“I don’t need any of that.” It said at last.

Violet sighed.

“You’re a cat. I’m a human. I’m…different.”

“Very,” the cat agreed. “…Do you have any of these extraneous items on hand?”

Violet considered. She had a pocket knife, and her lantern of course. She had a few pencils, barely more than nubs but pencils all the same. She had….

Hmm.

“I don’t have a tent or a bedroll,” she said. “But I guess I could just take the blankets off my bed. Oh…I need some soap too.”

“Soap?”

“For bathing.”

“The first time I met you, you were sitting waist deep in an ash-pit.” The cat said. “That ash-pit. Over there. Since when do you care about cleanliness?”

“I want to look presentable when I see the Glow.” Violet said, untroubled.

The cat rolled its eyes.

“Anything more?” It asked.

“Food, and a canteen for water, I guess. How long does it take to get to the Glow?” Violet asked.

“I’ve never been. How long do you think it would take?”

Violet looked to the forest again. The mist was beginning to fade but she still couldn’t see any deeper into the trees. They looked very dark and impenetrable, like she’d be better served trying to walk through a brick wall than attempt a journey through its foliage.

If the woods on the other side of the river were anything like this…

Violet took a deep breath, strangling the nervousness before it could arise. She had to be brave.

“Three…four days?” She guessed, but couldn’t erase a little thread of uncertainty from her voice.

“If you’re wrong then you’ll run out of food.” The cat reminded her, almost teasingly.

“Five days.” Violet decided.

“Five it is,” the cat agreed. “Now let’s go find the rest of your things.” As it spoke, its gaze landed upon the shed.

Violet had spent a fair amount of time poking around the garden shed but had never undertaken an in-depth survey of its exact contents. The layout of the shed had attained a certain permanence to her young mind, and though she often admired the aluminum canisters of powdered strychnine and the many rusty and very sharp gardening tools that hung upon the back wall, she never touched any of them. It helped that her mother had once explained the effects of strychnine to her in such a way that Violet hadn’t slept for some time afterwards.

Fishing the garden shed’s key from its hiding place underneath the square stone, Violet opened the door and then hesitated. There were silver streamers of early morning light drifting in through the shed’s one window, but it was still so dim as to imitate night. Violet shifted from foot to foot, a strange hint of instinctual nervousness passing through her. She thought back to the night she’d dealt with the demon and her anxious little quest through the shed to fetch bricks. Though the rational forefront of her mind knew perfectly well that the shed had not changed since she had been in there with the cat only the previous day, it was quite dark now and….

Seeing her hesitation the cat huffed quietly to itself, then turned and slipped away into oblivion, returning a few moments later with her electric lantern in tow. It looked a bit overburdened standing there with the lantern’s handle in its mouth, so Violet quickly took it.

“Thank you.” She said.

The cat spat into the grass, then watched as Violet cranked the lantern up to full brightness again. Almost immediately the shed was illuminated, shadows sprawling across the walls, making a hurried retreat into the furthest corners before they could be fully extinguished.

“I’ll never understand why you find the dark so distressing.” The cat said.

Violet wasn’t sure if it was talking about her or humans in general but didn’t bother to ask. Instead she closed the shed’s door and then carefully daubed a little gateway symbol onto the corner of the window, just in case the cat needed to beat a hasty retreat.

Turning to examine the contents of the shed, Violet contextualized her needs and made herself draw up a little list. She needed a tent…or at least something to cover her while she slept. She needed a hatchet for chopping firewood, something to actually make a fire with….

Nothing in the shed seemed immediately promising, it was all the same spread of dusty clutter she’d been looking over for years and years. All of the most interesting items, the shears and containers of poison, were not things she thought she’d have any use for while out in the woods. It wasn’t even like throwing a handful of strychnine powder at a demon would do anything.

Instead she began shifting boxes and cans of paint aside. She had to be careful, for there were spiders and pillbug and other skittering things nested behind or beneath them. The cat, watching her progress, suddenly grew animated and executed a dramatic pounce upon a fleeing wolf spider. It batted the poor, stunned thing between its front paws, eyes gone slitted and intense. There wasn’t anger there, Violet realized as she observed, but rather something else that she could not identify but still did not like.

Leaning down, she shooed the cat back, allowing the spider to scramble away.

“Why’d you do that?” The cat asked, clearly unhappy that she’d interrupted it in its play.

“Because you’re being mean again.” Violet said, as sternly as she could manage.

The cat’s eyes narrowed just a little, though this time it was definite annoyance Violet could see coiling in their silvery depths.

“I’m a cat,” it said, emphasizing its own species. “I hunt smaller things and eat them to survive. That’s hardly being mean.”

“But surely you don’t eat spiders…do you?”

“Why not? They have a nice bit of crunch to them.”

Violet couldn’t contain a little shiver at the thought of actually biting into a spider and banished the notion from her mind as quickly as she could.

“…At least don’t play with your breakfast,” she said, going back to checking through the stack of boxes heaped against the wall. “It’s rude.”

“So particular, you humans….” The cat chided, and stepped away into a corner to examine a small stack of folded plastic tarps.

“These might be useful.” It said after a moment’s thought.

Violet looked away from the first box she’d opened. It had once contained a great many seed packets for perennials and low lying ground cover, but mice had long since gnawed holes in the cardboard. Now all that remained was twisted, torn scraps of foil and a single desiccated mouse carcass lying at the bottom of the detritus.

She set the box aside in favor of looking to what the cat had found.

The tarps were lying just behind a pitchfork and a small stand of splintered bamboo poles, and Violet swept them aside with some alacrity, mindless of the small rain of cobwebs that came drifting down in response.

The tarps had been lying there for some time and were all coated in a velvety skin of grayish dust. Delicately, Violet seized the topmost one with the tips of her fingers and tugged it free, the tarp falling unfolding as she did. A great plume of dust billowed forth and Violet sneezed, the cat immediately stepping into the nearest shadow and vanishing entirely.

By the time Violet made it out of the shed, the tarp dragging behind her, she was a few shades grayer than she had been before. Dust was embedded in every seam of her clothing, coating her hair like dew on grass

Undeterred, Violet sneezed again and spread the tarp out upon the grass of her back garden. As she did the cat stepped delicately around her side, neatly avoiding the last trickles of falling dust.

“Goodness.” It remarked, still perfectly pristine itself.

Underneath its coating of grime, the tarp was blue, deeply wrinkled and creased where it had been folded for so long. But though it was clearly old and a bit frayed around the edges, Violet couldn’t see any holes in the material.

“This will be my tent.” She declared, and envisioned herself propping it up and lying beneath it, kept safe from rain, hail and whatever else the heavens cared to throw her way.

The cat examined the tarp, then sneezed, its whiskers twitching.

“Do you have a bag to keep all of your things in?” It asked after a moment.

Violet nodded. In the back of her closet, buried behind a medley of skirts and dresses and other things, she had an old leather bottomed rucksack that, like her notebook, she sometimes pretended had once belonged to her father. The rucksack was large and adorned with a great many straps and buckles and intimidating metal toothed zippers. Violet had never had an occasion to actually use it, but she sometimes put it on and marched around her room, pretending that she was going…somewhere.

Now that she had a definite destination in mind the thought of putting the rucksack on again made her stomach do an uncomfortable flip. It all felt a lot more real now that she was actually getting equipment together.

“Be careful not to make it too heavy,” the cat said. “Whatever you take, it’ll be up to you and you alone to carry.”

“Is there a sigil that makes things lighter?” Violet asked.

The cat gave her a strange look.

“No.” It said.

Violet sighed, disappointed, then started back towards the shed.

In the end the remaining boxes did not contain much of anything, only a few cellophane wrapped spools of fishing line (Violet set one aside as potentially useful), nails and screws and even a rusty old toolbox still filled with the corroded remains of its toolset.

Every so often she had to step outside and dust herself off, picking cobwebs and spiders alike from her hair and clothes.

The cat lay on its side in the grass just past the far corner of the shed, idly rolling the spool of fishing line back and forth between its front paws. It seemed to be contemplating the tarp still.

“There’s a certain charm to sleeping under the stars,” it said after a moment, “I’d encourage you to try it at some point.”

Violet couldn’t help but shiver at the very thought. To be completely isolated in the dark like that, with nothing between her and the night….

She shook the notion from her mind and returned to searching.

Behind the stack of boxes she’d just gone through was a splintered plastic milk crate with a square of cardboard taped over the top. Tearing it off, Violet found the vermin shredded remains of what looked to have once been a white plasticky coat lying within, curled around a hard plastic carrying case (secured with a little silver padlock) and various other odds and ends. There were thick, hardcover books lining the bottom of the crate, but they had not escaped the same fate as the coat and were badly chewed by mice.

Sifting through the remains, Violet found a few steel buttons, probably from the coat, and then something odd.

It looked almost like a giant safety pin, perhaps a foot long and with a shallow dish at one end. At the bottom of the dish was a strip of dark steel, cut with regular, repeating ridges. Where a safety pin might have had a needle sharp arm free to swing out and be attached to something, this device’s arm seemed designed to hover just over that curiously patterned steel.

Experimentally, Violet squeezed the device’s arms together, raking the head of one arm across the strip. Immediately a sun bright plume of white sparks pattered across the floor of the shed and Violet jolted back, her heart leaping into her throat. For a moment she was very still, watching the sparks die out, then she raced into the back garden, holding her find aloft.

“I found something!” She called, attracting a glance from the cat. “Look.” With that she struck the steel again, spraying sparks across the grass.

The cat went to its feet and reared back, fur settling only slowly as it realized what she had.

“Oh. A spark lighter.” It said airily.

“Did I scare you?” Violet asked, though she didn’t feel especially bad.

The cat settled down, gathering the fishing line back into its paws with a fussy and very manufactured nonchalance.

“You startled me,” it corrected, then cleared its throat. “…This is a valuable thing you’ve found. Keep it close and don’t lose it.”

Violet struck sparks once more and watched them dance down into the dew soaked grass before being extinguished. They seemed to fizz and sparkle even in midair, like little terrestrial stars. For a solid few moments she turned in a small circle and surrounded herself with a bouquet of sparks, entranced by the way they glowed in the pre-dawn air.

“Do you know where those sparks come from?” The cat asked. It seemed to have lost interest in the fishing line and was sitting up instead, tail cutting a slow arc through the grass behind it.

Violet considered for a moment, then shrugged. The cat’s question had a rhetorical feel and she figured it would tell her no matter what she said.

And indeed….

“Each time you strike the fire-steel, tiny fragments of it fly off and ignite.” The cat said after a moment, nodding to the latest plume of sparks Violet had lit off.

Violet contemplated the little strip of metal at the bottom of the lighter’s dish. Fire-steel was an appropriate name, she figured, and struck it again, burning a spray of little white pinpricks across her vision.

“I didn’t know metal could burn.” She said distractedly.

“Most things can.”

“…If I’d lit the drainpipe on fire, would the demon have burned?” Violet asked, looking away from the spark lighter.

The cat shrugged.

“I think burning a demon would be like trying to burn fog. You could erase it from the world altogether, but there remains an open question as to whether you burned it or not.”

Violet furrowed her brows.

“You can’t burn water though,” she said. “…What are demons made of?”

“You don’t know?”

Violet shook her head.

The cat smirked, then sniffed and looked away, gaze traveling to her house and the village beyond.

“I keep forgetting that they don’t teach you anything here.” It said, then stood up, stretched and padded over to the hard plastic case Violet had recovered from the milk crate. It was somewhat dusty and papered with powdery bits of mangled book pages.

“I tried opening it already,” Violet said. “There’s no key.”

She supposed the cat wasn’t going to answer her question. Or it just didn’t know.

“Hit it with a hammer.” The cat suggested.

Violet did just that, and broke the clasp holding the lock to the case. The case itself was foam lined and contained a small number of glass beakers and vials, a pair of transparent safety goggles with cloudy glass lenses, and a metal box with a glass screen and a confusing array of buttons and switches. Attached to the side was a length of rubber coated wire and then a little plastic wand, maybe eight inches long.

Violet pressed each of the buttons in sequence but the device, whatever it was, remained still and blank. It wasn’t like her lantern, she figured, it couldn’t be wound up whenever it ran out of power.

On the device’s bottom was a curious symbol, though one very much worn and scratched up by use and time. From what Violet could see it resembled nothing more than a V with a loop at its bottom.

“Is this a sigil?” Violet asked, looking to the cat.

The cat began to shake its head, then hesitated.

“…If it is, I don’t know what it means.”

Violet fetched her notebook and copied the symbol down.

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