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The thickly woven rug was coarse and welcoming, real in its rough press against his palms and cheek. The dry, musty smell of it filled his senses, mixing with the fading scent of smoldering herbs. The last notes of that song hung in the hazy air; still familiar, still unknown. His body felt heavy, his limbs awkward and clumsy. It took a tremendous effort of will to curl his fingers into the rug's fibers. Every breath he took was the result of a great labor. He felt cold and hot, aches all the way down to his bones. It was miserable. He hated it, and all he could do about it was lay there and be helpless. Again. Bitter tears welled in his tired eyes, and he blinked hard to keep them at bay. It wasn't enough that he was forced to witness the slow, awful death of someone who by all rights should be alive. Now he had to lie here, where the only thing he could do was breathe.

At least his gut hadn't turned on him. At least he hadn't puked on himself. It was a small, stupid comfort, but it was all he had. It raised his spirits a little. Helped him take note of how, with each passing moment, he felt better. Each breath came a little easier than the one before it. The ache lessened by the second. It wasn't fast, but it was happening. That helped a little, too.

Even with all that, he was in a bleak mood. It wasn't that he couldn't tell what emotions filled him to bursting, for he could. It was more that they were all mixed together into a big, ugly mess.

First and least of these was how utterly fucking useless he was. Couldn't do his job, not knowing what a killer looked like when he had two of them right in front of him. Couldn't take care of himself. If he could, he'd not be lying here on a rug in this small, stinky room. He'd be arresting Rupert Wagner and getting ready to put him and Elijah on trial. Couldn't keep Claudia safe from fools with quicker tempers – quicker hands – than their own minds. The way her head had snapped to the side stuck in his brain. Then Ruby. Such a terrible Sheriff he was that a woman died in his town and he didn't know until the next morning. She had died, slow and awful, and he had done nothing.

It hurt. He had enough experience with loss to know how it felt. This heart-sickness didn't make sense for all that it burned sourly in his breast. He hadn't known Ruby at all, not one bit. Yet he mourned her. The absence of her, the place she had once been; he felt it keenly. He didn't know why. He didn't know if it was more about him or her, but he mourned her all the same. The sorrow was so raw, so confusing, that he lost the battle to keep his tears contained.

There was so much he didn't know. So many questions burning their way into his brain. Every time he learned something, it opened an avenue for him to realize how little he truly knew. This thing – this ritual – that had just happened to him helped not at all. True to the pattern, he had learned much. Learning the who, the how, and the where of it all; that helped. It was useful, make no mistake. But it wasn't what he felt was the biggest. Why. 'Why her?', 'Why now?', 'Why her liver?', and perhaps most importantly; 'Why weren't you afraid of Elijah?'. The pattern of answering one question, only to find he now had three more in front of him, was really starting to wear on him.

That, he felt most of all. Worn. It made all that he felt stronger, and worse. It would be easier, maybe, to handle all of this if he weren't so damned tired. Dog-tired, he was. Bone-tired. He had thought himself so before now, but he'd been wrong. He'd only been on the shore of it. Now, though, he was in the deep water. No solid ground in sight, and it kept getting harder to keep his head up. The small room's door opened, old hinges groaning. Small, shuffling steps approached. He didn't lift his head. It seemed like too much effort. The steps came to a halt and Widow Booke, for it could be no one else, said, “You're back.”

He swallowed the thick knot in his throat that had come with those bitter, stinging tears. “Believe I am,” he rasped. He expended a great effort to roll onto his back, one hand clutching the rug as an anchor while the other flopped onto his stomach. He looked at the upside-down face of the Widow. There was something in those eyes of hers. He couldn't say what. He breathed heavily from the effort, and it took him a moment to gather enough air to speak. “Could've...warned me. Almost...almost lost myself.”

From his perspective, seeing her lift her brow at his words was strange. She said, “I did warn you. I said, 'Keep your mind on what you're lookin' for, you should be okay'.”

He lifted the hand that lay on his stomach and let it fall back down. He had meant for it to be a gesture of that warning's inadequacy. “You did,” he conceded, “it just – it weren't enough.” Oh, how Claudia would glare if she heard him talking like this. She had been on his case since forever for him to speak properly. He was just too tired to put in the effort right now. “Not nearly.”

The Widow nodded, as if he had told her some great wisdom or piece of lost knowledge. She said, “Keep that in mind for next time.”

The noise that escaped him was either a whimper or a laugh. Honestly, it was close enough that it could have been either. “Won't be no 'next time',” he groaned. From somewhere, he found the energy to prop up on his elbows. “Not for me. Once is more'n enough.”

“I hope you found what you was lookin' for,” she said, shuffling around to drag the business end of her cane through the ashen pile of what had once been those herbs.

He had. He truly had. What good's the testimony of a ghost? It was enough for him, but whether or not it would for everyone else was the question. What had happened was so different, and had changed him in such a way that he had no issue believing what he had seen was the truth. But he had to be sure. So he asked, “How much've of what I seen was true?”

The Widow shrugged. She tapped the end of her cane on the heel of his boot to knock some clinging ash from it. “Dead got no lies left in 'em.” she told him.

He nodded. It made sense. Once you were in that place there was really no point to anything, lies included. It would be harder to make something up than tell the truth, so the truth was what got told. It was just easier that way. Nothing moral or ethical to it, just ease. Sooner it was done with, sooner you could return to not being. He felt a pang of longing at the memory. “Elijah was there,” he said, in an effort to distract himself. “was the one tore her liver out.”

The Widow clicked her tongue. She leaned on her cane and was quiet for some long moments. “He eat it?” she asked.

He saw again the dark, bloody organ in the vampire's hand. The way Ruby's blood stained his skin. “He didn't,” he said. “He just...held it.” He shook his head and instantly regretted it, seeing as the room spun like mad for a few wild seconds.

“Well,” the Widow opined, “that don't make any sense.”

He grunted. “It sure don't. Think he'd be hungry, after sleepin' so long.”

“Oh, he would be,” she said. She was tracing some sort of pattern in the floor with the end of her cane, drawing lines of ash across the wood. “damn near starvin'. Should've torn her to pieces, an' left not a drop of blood behind.”

Wasn't that something. How he hadn't done that. “Well...” Caff drew the word out, tasting the beginnings of an idea on his tongue. “not only did he not, there was others there. He never touched either one of 'em.”

The Widow's brow went high. Her clouded eyes fell on him and he felt their weight. “That's somethin'. What d'you reckon?”

The idea came forth. He said, “I reckon he was tellin' the truth about that whole 'bein' messed with' thing.” He wanted Elijah to be responsible. It'd feel right. It just wouldn't be. He sighed, and asked, “Now who in the hell could do that?” He wasn't expecting an answer. More than anything else, he'd been thinking out loud.

“I could,” said Widow Booke. “You could, too, probably. Ain't that hard.”

- - -

That means something. What, though? If he believed her, and he did, it meant that going into someone's mind and taking was not only simple, it was easy. There were few things in the world a person could trust than their own mind. It was theirs, and it was safe. Only it wasn't. Not really. He couldn't fully understand or express how wretchedly horrible he found this. It was too big. Could easily send him into a paranoid mess, trusting no one. Not even himself. He wondered what it felt like, to have his mind violated like that. He wondered if someone could come back from it. He asked, “Could– could a person give somethin', instead of takin' it?”

“Sure,” the Widow nodded. “probably easier to. Folk notice when somethin's missing. Don't always see somethin' new or a little different.”

Caff passed a trembling hand down his face. He felt stubble scratch his palm. He needed a shave. He wanted to not know one thing more about this. He asked, “How do I – can you tell? If someone's been in your mind?”

“Some people out there,” the Widow said, tapping her cane thoughtfully on the floor. They hadn't left this small, cramped room. It was starting to feel like the walls were closing in on him. “can slip in an' out and none's the wiser. Most ain't that slippery. Noticin' taken stuff's easy. Noticin' given or changed stuff can be trickier, but usually...you just...notice.”

“Notice?” He scoffed. A rising panic gave him the strength to push himself to his feet. “What kind of answer is that? I need to know how to tell! I need to know if someone's been in my fuckin' head!” He hadn't intended to start shouting. It wasn't panic, he realized. This was fear. If someone – maybe the same who'd done Elijah – had been in his mind, then he didn't even know. There weren't words to describe it.

His fear, his risen voice, hit Widow Booke and slid right off. She didn't even blink, but there something soft in those eyes of hers. Sympathy, maybe, or empathy. Or both. “Here's how you tell,” she said. “you think on it. Go back a while, to somethin' you did or wanted to do, said or wanted t'say, that weren't like you. Now, I don't mean little things like yellin' at someone or wantin' to hit someone you's angry at. I mean bigger. The nasty stuff folk can do to each other. Got anythin' like that in your head?”

Instantly, he went back to this afternoon. To Arnie. Did that count? Wanting to beat the shit out of the man who struck his sister. He had meant to beat that man bloody, turn his face to a side of meat. But he hadn't. He hadn't. That meant something. It had to. He clenched his jaw, breathed sharp in and out through his nose, and shook his head. “No,” he grumbled. “I...no.”

“Well, there y'go.” she declared, in such a way that made it obvious she considered the matter settled. “No one's been up there but you.”

He didn't feel relieved at that. He trusted Widow Booke not to lie nor betray him. He was in awe of her, somewhat. She had little power over his emotions. He didn't trust her with those. So while it helped a little to hear, there was still a well of that panicked fear in him. He wanted to be away from here. Needed it, too. This little room was too small. “Reckon I got what I need,” he said. “I'll be on my way, now.” He didn't make excuses as to why. She probably knew, anyway. Probably seen this before. Maybe even been in his place, once.

“All right,” she said. She shuffled around him to open the door out of this too-small room. Cooler air from the hallway spilled in. That helped a little bit more, but he knew he wouldn't start to calm until he was out, until he had the sky overhead and this whole place at his back. She led him back through the darkened hall. Night had fallen while he was among the dead, it seemed. He could see the thint of it through the grimy front windows. He made for the door, eager to be gone, and she stopped him with a raised hand. “One last thing. Ain't sure if I told you already, but Elijah...he done promised years back that he'd never eat no human. Said those days was behind 'im.”

He grunted. It was deemed a good enough response. The Widow Booke lowered her hand, and he left, pushing through the front door and out into the desert night. He breathed in the cold, dry air. Let it fill his senses and wash them clean of the smoke and strangeness he'd left behind. Above him the stars glittered, bright and silver-soft. Not at all distant or cold. Ahead of him lay Calavera, warmly glowing with nightlife. He stood for a moment, just breathing. Felt the fear and panic subsiding. Not truly gone, but going to a quieter place.

He turned up his collar, jammed his hands in his jacket pockets, and started walking.