It should now be said, before anything else, that Lacey Waits' initial ambitions to get answers from an old hermit on a hill have significantly waned after half an hour of walking through territories unfamiliar and having to listen to Gideon drone. Her legs burn with pressure and there's a breeze biting at her cheeks, bringing with it an occasional sprinkle of rain that dusts her hair with unabsorbed and unflattering speckles of moisture.

She's cold. At the same time, she's somehow sweaty. She's tired. And she's overwhelmed, every glance around the lakeside portion of Carrick giving her something new to consume and commit to memory. Even as a youth she'd never come down here, except maybe once or twice to drift on rented canoes with mom and pop. Y'know, things undivorced families do. That said, she hasn't been in any canoes with anyone in a long time.

An icy hand rubs the back of her neck, and she looks to Gideon, finally tuning in to what he's saying.

"...So that's why bowline knots are pretty useful for sailing. Tying everything's not so bad now, but Ma just about took my head off trying to teach me. Nef told me this cool line though, to help me remember bowline: 'The rabbit comes outta the hole, goes around the back of the tree, and hops back into the hole.' He used to sail way back when. Oh, wanna know something that grinds my gears? When I'm walking through the docks and see someone's boat tied up with a clove hitch. What they really need is two half hitches. I don't know how many clove hitches I've passed by one minute just to find the boat floating off in the middle of the lake the next! And then there's the hassle of the poor guy or gal having to find someone willing enough to go out and help them fetch it. This would all be solved with two half hitches! Y'know?"

Lacey blinks once, then twice. Instead of encouraging him to try and explain in depth, she shakes her head. "So how much longer 'til we get there?"

He scratches his hooded head and squints straight ahead, unfazed. "Not too long. We're coming up on a short path here. He's a secluded guy. Kind of depressing, but you'll warm up to him."

I don't think so, but okay. She doesn't indulge in further conversation, and he seems content to take in the silence for once. His eyes roam around, collecting up all the sensory information he can, and she follows suit: barren trees tucked away in small backyards behind small houses, shops raised up with no scarcity of steps to climb to make a purchase, windows glowing gold against a grey morning sky. This side of Carrick is rather packed - there's less space between the houses, and, get this, you can ask your neighbor for a cup of salt without even having to leave the comfort of your cramped, soggy porch steps!

There's something cozy about it, Lacey decides. Or, there would be, if it weren't so damn cold out here.

Eventually, they come to the aforementioned path, composed of gravel and dirt and appearing to slope up gradually. Dead trees border it on either side, and Lacey pauses, arms crossed, while Gideon dives right in. He looks back at her when he realizes, face wrinkled in confusion.

"You're not gonna kill me out here, right?" she asks.

"Frankly, I think you'd kill me first if I tried." At her glower, he waves his hands out frantically. "Uh, also no! Too much work. You coming?"

With hesitation, she finally starts forward, keeping a healthy foot between the two of them. It's a lengthy walk and they walk it in silence. Gravel crunches underfoot. A moist pebble slips into Lacey's shoe. She wants to die every time she takes a step. What's new?

The house itself comes into view after beating the hill, and Lacey is taken aback. It's...strangely built, to say the least. Gideon glances at her through the corner of his eye and smiles. "Wasn't expectin' a triangle?"

"I didn't even know they built houses this way," Lacey grunts, still trying to get to the flatter part of the hill. It does look like how Gideon put it, a triangle. A wide triangle perched atop a hill, built into it so that the left half of the building crawls down the side of the earth. The roof begins on the ground and slants up until it comes to a point, grey shingles bottom to top, save the square where a brick chimney rises. And the front door, made of stained panelled glass, would be unreachable if not for the porch wrapping around the whole house. Where it hovers over the hill, support beams keep it steady.

Leading up to the porch is a ramp, not stairs. Whoever this man is, he seems very fond of slopes. "It's weird," Lacey admits, stopping at the top to give her poor legs a rest, "but cool."

"He's got a pretty penny. Family money. The inside's homey, though, you'd like it. I do, at least."

Gideon takes a step forward, meaning to make his way towards the ramp, but before he can, a noise, like feet trampling through the mud, sounds from the back of the house. Lacey reaches out and drags him back by the hood, already scanning the ground for a good enough stick - she won't let a demon get too close twice in one day. "We should go back," she hisses in his ear, or tries to, given the height difference. "All these murderers about, and I'm not tryna meet any."

Just as she's ready to let go and take off without him, the perpetrator rounds the back of the house at a sprint, one hand violently gripping a small model airplane as the other sticks out, mimicking the wing he stares at. "Vroom! Pachoo, pachoo, rrr!" The towheaded boy, no older than seven, bounds through the yard, wrapped up in his own little world.

Gideon laughs to himself. "That your murderer?"

"Shut up." Lacey huffs. "You didn't tell me he had kids."

"Uh, well, I didn't tell you that because he doesn't. He can't have any. I'm not sure he'd want one if he could, though." He clears his throat. "Hey, listen, just as a disclaimer, he's a bit of a grouch, so don't be surprised if he comes across as a, um..."

"An asshole?"

"Essentially, yeah."

When they walk up the ramp, Lacey lets Gideon take the lead so he can knock on the front door. During the wait, he smiles through the stained glass, rubbing warmth back into his hands. A sweet young woman with honeyed hair and a thin face answers the door. "Gideon! It's been a few weeks, child, where've you been? How's your mother?"

"Hi, Miss Kathy. Busy working to keep the lights on. Plus, all this mess in town with..." He seems to stop himself with a flutter of the eyes and a pressed mouth. Then he's right back to being his giddy self. "She's good. Busy too, and tired, but healthy."

"I'm glad to hear it," Kathy says sincerely, pressing a hand to Gideon's shoulder. She shares a look with him, and then her gaze lifts to the yard, scanning. "Stay close to the house, Gordon! And don't jump in any puddles- oh, he'll do it anyways, I can't stop him. Right, come in now, we've got no use for you outside. Who's your friend?"

The woman makes way, and Gideon slips into the house as comfortably as if it's his own. Lacey steps tentatively over the threshold, taking in everything slow and steady, and most definitely feeling Miss Kathy's eyes on her. Unless it's a spirit, but in a place this new, I doubt it. Plus they're all avoiding me like the plague. So. Yeah.

"This is-"

"I'm Lacey Waits."

Gideon stops at the end of the dim hall and turns back, illuminated by the grey morning spraying in through the kitchen windows behind him. "Where's Nef roosted today?"

Kathy smiles and nods, crow's feet digging into her eyes. "It's a painting day. I'll take you to him along with a breakfast he'll probably only eat half of, stubborn mule that he is." She winks at Gideon, eliciting a chuckle from him, and then skirts past and into the kitchen.

Once she's out of sight, Lacey hurries up to Gideon's side and bumps his elbow. "Wife? Girlfriend?"

"Caretaker," Gideon says briefly, punctuated by Kathy's return. She carries a wooden tray of eggs, toast, juice, what looks like a vitamin, the standard. She nods down the hall and takes the lead. The corridor is short, but there's a set of stairs, and they head up, down another short hall. Kathy pushes open a door with her back and straightens herself out, bright and peppy.

"Morning, Nefyn! Someone's come to see you."

Lacey tries to crane around Gideon's frame for a glimpse at the man, but he stops in the doorway to chit-chat from afar. "You'll have to catch me up on the happenings of Lore's Hill, Nef."

A scratching reverberates through the floorboards, and a hearty rumbling noise from the chest of the stranger reverberates through the air. "Gideon, my boy, I thought you'd cut town for a minute there. I'd've had to get another boy to do my errands and I don't trust a-one of 'em down there. All clumsy cunts with two left feet."

And he's not one? Lacey thinks. Just then, Nefyn beckons Gideon forward, and he moves to make friendly while she takes in her surroundings (an important part of every sketchy excursion). It's a long, wide room, probably the largest in the house, with plenty of open space in the middle and long marks and grooves in the sandy floorboards, unpolished. The grooves themselves are curious, and she files that into the back of her mind as she looks to the walls, white and barren. Despite their desolation, they're unreachable, easels and canvases blocking the way. Some are blank, some finished, some half-painted and abandoned in dark nooks and dusty crannies. On the right half of the room there are more, but cabinets and tables and islands fill most of the space, boasting bottles of paint (the fumes of which she can smell) and brushes and palettes and, of course, Nefyn's breakfast tray, which he extends a hand for now.

She watches as the hand moves to the man's mouth, and picks apart the pieces while his attention is on that errand boy of his. "Gideon, before we begin, I'll need clean brushes and a fresh-made palette. I wrote down all the colors for myself but now that you're here, and you're literate, I hope it's no trouble you get 'em while Kathy watches me eat." He leans forward in his wheelchair and takes a rigorous bite from the toast, crumbs dotting the stubble around his lips and crunching between his teeth as he whispers loudly. "She doesn't trust me not to toss my medicine out the window there."

"Will do, cap'n," Gideon says, knowing exactly where to go to gather the supplies. The thing is, when Gideon steps away, that leaves Lacey in the clear, and Nefyn is quick to light his eyes on her. What once was a relatively pleasant, unreadable expression is now flat, slightly alarmed, with two tablespoons of discontent. He didn't look so old before, and he doesn't look particularly old now, maybe thirty or forty, but the shift causes a difference of ten years in his face, and although most of his hair remains lush and black, and the wrinkles on his face are few, he looks nearly as old as her father when he looks at her the way he does.

"Ah, Gideon. Who's this?" But it doesn't come from the man's mouth curious or clear or soft. It's gruff, and spoken around the remnants of the bread in his mouth. He swallows and Lacey's lip curls down.

"Oh! Right. My bad." Gideon sets down the cup of brushes he's been fiddling with and strides over to the space between Lacey and Nefyn, bringing his hands together in an awkward clasp as he glances from one to the other. "Nefyn, this is-"

"I'm Lacey Waits."

"Right, that. And Lacey, this is Nefyn Lore. I do errands for him, he pays me, we've got rapport. He can't exactly do everything himself, and even Kathy's gotta look out for his health and her kid at the same time. They live here, by the way. Just easier for everyone. Say, Nef, tell her about-"

"What part of town's she from?" Nefyn interrupts. "How old's she? You know her parents? Do her parents know she's here?"

"Uh..." Gideon's gaze parts from Nefyn's as he glances back at Lacey, unsure. "She doesn't live too far from downtown, past the river. She's...sixteen?"

"Seventeen," Lacey corrects. Her eyes harden on Nefyn. "If you've got so many questions, you can ask me myself. I'm right here."

His eyes are green, a glossy chartreuse, and he maintains the stare before flicking them back to Gideon completely. He readjusts his shoulders against the padded backrest in a way that flaunts arrogance. "How are you, Gideon?"

It's here that familiarity rushes at Lacey. He was at Kelly's Market the other day yelling at that kid out there about fish sticks or something. An asshole, indeed. Better be careful with my mouth or I won't get any answers.

Gideon fidgets for a moment before returning to his assigned duties, picking up the brush cup and walking it over to a sink where the light coming in through the window barely reaches. "Not the greatest. I actually came here to ask you a couple questions. You know they found Stella's body down at the river yesterday?"

"Who?"

"One of the missing girls. The most recent one. She's dead and they found her washed up in the Epling River half naked." He flicks tap water from the brushes and takes long, fast strides to a wall of paints, carefully reading the names on the bottles before cradling them in the crook of his elbow. "Since you've got a clear view of the start of the river from your kitchen and the lake from that big juicy window over there, I was wondering if you might've seen anything."

Lacey's attention is drawn to the wide window on the other side of the window, both panes pushed outward so that the breeze floating off the lake can barge in with all of its strength. And what a lake it is! Big and blue, a light mist hovers above the water, fogging up the land across the way. She's drawn to the wooden window-seat beneath it, but Nefyn coughs heavily her way as if to spread a contagion through the air and into her ears: "Don't leave my sight, girl."

So, instead, she crosses her arms in front of her chest and waits. This better not take long. Knowing Gideon, he'll go off tangent six times before we get anywhere.

"Seen anything like what?" Nefyn finally asks.

"I don't know. Anything." Gideon rushes over to the island that boasts Nefyn's breakfast tray and dumps all of the supplies down beside it, hurriedly unscrewing caps and setting them aside. "Creepy figures loitering in the night? Boats on the lake when there shouldn't be? Noises?"

"If I pegged every noise out here as a child-killer, I'd never sleep. Sure, I heard noises, but when don't anyone hear noises?"

Lacey looks to Gideon to see his response, and she finds his hands squeezing out tendrils of paint far too slow, as if he's too distracted to think and work at the same time. "Nef, please, man I can't play games right now. My friend is out there and I need somethin', just somethin' small I can go off of. You sure you didn't see anything?"

Nefyn's mouth presses in a line, and the weak creases on his forehead deepen as he stares at Gideon's handiwork eye-level with him. From this angle, she sees a softer edge to him, but it clashes entirely with the sharper features of his face; he's a contradiction, and just as she thinks he's about to say something useful, he says, "As sure as the rain's gonna drown half those houses down there, I saw nothin'. Sorry I couldn't be more useful to ya, kid. There, that's enough paint, I don't plan to be in here til midnight." He reaches out a hand, wriggling his fingers impatiently for the palette and brushes, and Gideon hands them down, grip loose and deflated.

Although Lacey's been standing silent and uninterested the whole time, she can't help but share in his defeat. This is Stella they're talking about. Pretty Stella, perfect Stella, "the sweetest star in Carrick, Iowa," as Elijah once said to tease her. Pretty Stella, perfect Stella- don't think too much right now.

Nefyn sets the materials on his lap and wheels around, pushing himself to an easel already prepared by the window. "If that was all," he says, "I don't think I'll need anymore help today. I excuse-"

"I had questions, too," Lacey says. She straightens up and clears her throat even though the man won't give her the courtesy of looking at her when she talks. "Not about Stella, though, just Carrick."

"I don't imagine I'll be much help to you either," Nefyn says absentmindedly. He makes the first blue stroke on his canvas.

"I sorta promised her you'd have answers if she came," Gideon says.

"And that's why you shouldn't promise things you can't guarantee." Nefyn sighs. "Shoot, girl."

I have a name. Whatever. Just go for it. Sooner asked, sooner done. "Do you know anything about the death of a little girl here? Like, way little."

She knows he must when he stops mid-stroke, knobby knuckles frozen in his artificial sky or sea or whatever the hell it's supposed to be. He purses his lips, and after a moment, continues painting. The scratch of the bristles is audible in the quiet. "Plenty girls've died here. I'll need more details. Year? Name?"

"Well, I was sorta hoping you'd have that information." She swallows down the thought of how stupid she must sound. "I can describe her, though. She...She's got this long, black hair that falls to the middle of her back. About yay-high. Still got baby fat on her cheeks, real pale, brown eyes. Anything ringing a bell?" She asks in doubt, already choking on defeat.

Nefyn has a reaction, though. His brush skids down the canvas and into his lap, along with his hand, which grips his knee so tightly it looks like he may very well dig his fingers through the jeans and into his flesh. His lips move, a mumbling whisper escaping her ears.

"What?"

"I said Darcy. That sounds like this girl Darcy. I-" He takes a break to look distastefully at the mess he's made of his painting. "I recall an incident. Long time ago. Decades." Jeez. Girl needs to move on. She's a middle-aged woman by now. "She was seven when it happened and I know that 'cause I was seven at the time too. She was in my class."

"What happened?" Lacey asks. She can't help the excitement that leaks through her voice; this is knowledge, a lead, protection. She's got a solid name now, and she can use this to get the salt-breathers back.

Nefyn catches the excitement in her tone, though, and he doesn't take kindly to it. He slams his brush into a slot carved into the easel and then wheels himself so that he faces her directly. "She fell off a cliff while playing and died."

Oh, shit. "How long ago was it? What was her last name? Is her family still alive?"

Nefyn's glossy chartreuse frosts over and he flings his hands around the wheels on either side of him, shooting across the floorboards. He would've run Lacey's foot over if she hadn't moved. "I don't remember and I don't care. I've got more important things to worry about. Like getting a new fucking canvas. Kathy!" He rolls out of the room calling his caretaker's name repeatedly, and as his voice grows faint, Gideon's presence gets louder. Soon he's standing at Lacey's side, but she's distracted.

"We should go," he says. It's quiet.

"Yeah."

A beat of silence.

Grateful for the information, but altogether peeved by the entire encounter, she's set her sights on a one-thousand piece puzzle on a shelf. She eyeballs it with her father's words in the back of her mind. "D'you think I could borrow that?"