Alder's Grove

Abby was about to step in front of her friends when she found 'Via stepping in front of her.  "You leave her alone.  We're not selling anything, we're not buying anything, we're not giving anything.  We're just passing through. That's it."

"Oh," the woman clucked, "but I have information.  And I am willing to give it in exchange for something - if you have something you want to sell me."

"That sounds-" Now Olly, too, was in front of her "-a lot like buying something, and we don't want to do that.  Not here."

"And that's wise.  It is always wisest to never take anything that seems like too good a deal at the moment.  So let's see. Well, or too dear a deal, of course.  If you want information-"

read on…

The ghosts led them past the cracked and melted remains of a Ground Round and a nail salon to a door that, in a normal world, might to go the outside.  To a parking lot. Abby stared at the doors - smoked overs and opaque - and reached for one of the handles.

A ghost caught her wrist with what remained of its hand.  No.  The meaning was clear even if the phantoms made no noise.

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Abby took a step backwards, and another, until 'Via caught her. "Easy," 'Via murmured in her ear.  "It's okay."

She forced herself to look at - at herself.  Except dripping wet and dripping blood from what remained of a leg, leaning on a Liv who was dripping both water and blood, too.

"The - the sharks."  She worked her throat.  "Remember? And before that, the fire.  This is - this is all the deaths we could have died.  It can't be.  We can't have died this many times."

“We could have.” ‘Via shifted a little.  “I mean. It’s not — I mean.  We don’t know how many malls there are.  We don’t know how many of them anyone came through.  We don’t know if the mall just generated new versions.”

“Some of the malls were fake.  Who told us that?” Liv frowned.

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‘Via’s stuff turned out to be in a record shop a few rooms down.  She had her own nest there, but it looked more like a hovel or a hut than a comfortable place to stay.  She muttered something that sounded almost like an apology, but Abby really wasn’t listening. She had caught sight of the people on one of the record sleeves.  ‘Via was right. She didn’t want to know what the rabbit-them looked like.



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"You know," the voice came from under the blankets where Liv - where Abby's Liv - had been sleeping.  "I could say 'you can't be that bitchy, you're me.  But you're all about how we're all different, isn't that what you were saying?  So hey, you're different, you're smart, go you. Problem is, this Liv isn't stupid either.  So what's the problem?"

"Oh, come on, are you all that ridiculously brainwashed or what?"

"Being rude isn't going to make things any better," Liv-Skinny pointed out.  "And it's really not going to help get Abby to do anything for you. Have you ever found that being rude to Abby - yours, mine, any of them - does any good?"

"There's two problems."  Abby'd had time to think while the Livs argued.  She cleared her throat now, because she wasn't sure that this had anything to do with her.  "There's the problem that Liv here, uhm, Liv-Bitchy, wants a way out of this mall. I don't know where she wants to end up, but she wants out of here and she was willing to sacrifice both of the other two of you to do it.

"The other problem is - well, something she said.  That her Abby was willing to kill other Abbies to get what she wanted. The One True Abby.  Liv, is your Abby the one that's been killing Abbies? Is it - is it not the mall? Is it one of me?"

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Abby stared at Liv.  She let her eyes rake over the girl, trying to figure out if this was her friend or was the stranger she’d picked up along the way.  She couldn’t tell. The faces were the same. The eyes were the same.

“Alone?” she managed.

“Oh, come on, we’ve always been loners, all of us.  It’s not like we really like hanging out with people for any length of time.  You’re the same way. It’s just that this place forces a sort of closeness that makes us all uncomfortable.  So why not let her stay here in this beaver den? Let her relax until someone else comes along. It’ll be good for her.”

Abby’s eyes were on the lump in the blankets that was Liv.  The other Liv Something about the way Liv was talking was catching her attention.  She stared at the girl.

“I don’t know how they do things in your world,” she managed through a voice that wanted to rise up into a shout, “but we don’t *do* that where I come from.  Not to anyone.”

She stretched languidly and raised her eyebrows. “We’re all the same. All of us.  Livs, Abbies, Vics. Come on, you have to realized that by now.”

There were *two* long lumps under the blankets.  “Where…” Abby asked slowly, “did you come from?”

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They scrambled on hands and knees through the doorway, one of the Livs making squeaking noises of distress until they were well through, until the other one took a machete to the last hand grasping for them and all three of them swung the door shut.

This likely saved them some headaches, as when Abby looked up above her head, she realized that they had come in just under a mass of briers and as they settled in, the briers closed behind them.

Abby swallowed nervously  -but there was a path opening in front of them.

And the floor, which might have been uncomfortable to crawl on if it had been an ordinary mall floor, was instead something soft and just a little bit squishy, like cork.

“Onward,” Abby decided.  “Come on, maybe we can find a rabbit.”

There was no “up” to choose, but after a little while, there were a couple left and right turns.  Abby took the left the first time but at the second one, one of the Livs made a noise of complaint.

“Tired,” she pointed out.  Abby had to agree with her.

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They all stared off into space for a moment, thinking - or at least Abby was - about being betrayed by one of their own, by someone who looked just like their best friend, the boy they liked - or themselves.  Abby broke the silence, unable to stand contemplating that any longer.

“So what about the pendant -”  She meant to scoop one of them out of her neckline, but both of them tangled together.  “The woman at the first booth, the one Liv sold a regret to, she gave me this.”

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Abby swallowed against the intensity of Vic’s voice and forced herself to be strong.  “Is it you, then?  Because the only thing that wanted to hurt me before I came in here was you.”

Vic gave her a level, cold look. “I don’t know how it was in your reality, but in mine, that is complete BS.  Sure, I gave you shit.  But who gave you the black eye in eighth grade?”

Abby shuddered.  “Alec Harden.”

“I thought so.  And that rumor about you and Tem Brenner, that wasn’t me.  That wasn’t even Tem, which I could almost see.  No matter how lame you are, you’re still a step up for that piece of trash.”

Abby snorted. “You said the same thing.  I mean, in my world.”

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They looked at the map for a minute.  Well, Liv and Abby looked at the map, while Liv tried to explain Vic-French and Vic to each other, leading to Vic (Abby was mentally labelling her Vic-bitchy, but she’d probably be bitchy if she was left hanging to die from a freaking air mall, too) snapping, “Yes, there are many of us, I get that.  The question is, why is she here? We don’t even like you.”

“Because-” something in the tone suggested that the Liv answering questions was probably Skinny-Liv, but Abby barely checked anymore, “-we need as many of us as possibly.  We want to take on whatever’s killing Abbies.”

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💡

Abby bit her lip and repeated herself.  “We have to explain things to her. And then, if it’s not what she wants...”

“Do you think we could find her a way home?”

“It’s not like we can find our own way home - or even out.”

The first came from one Liv, the second from the other.  They were starting to sound identical. Which, Abby supposed, made a certain amount of sense.”

“She has to know.”  Abby sighed. “I think we might need her, but we can’t just, well, force her to come along.”

It was too late already for that, she knew.  And if Vic-French could help them defeat the mall...

Still, she should have said something two malls ago and she was going to make sure she said something now.  She turned onto a new bridge and made her way, step by careful step, over to the edge of the mall, such as it was.

It took longer than it ought to have to get to the “store,” which happened to be, from the looks of things, some sort of tunic and … leggings? maybe? store.  There were only a few pieces of clothing left, hanging from wires or dropped on the floor.

But there was a floor.

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☁️

Abby’s heart was pounding and her stomach was churning.  She sternly told both of them to calm down.

“I want air.”  She glared at the doorway.  “I want open air and rain and nature.  I want out.”

Vic-French murmured to one of the Livs.  The Liv responded in French. Vic started to pull back.

“I don’t know if she can get back to her own mall from here,” Abby admitted.  “Or even go through a door without help. She might be better off staying with us.”

One of the Livs translated that, just a murmur.  Abby caught a word here and there, enough to be pretty sure Liv was actually relaying her message.  Then she glared at the door again.

The Liv on her right released her hand and grabbed on to her belt loop.  Abby wondered if, when they got out of here, she’d ever stop needing to know where Liv was all the time.

They had to survive, first.  She grabbed the door, turned the handle.  

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They went through the door, into a cement hallway.  No, that wasn’t right. Abby glared - oh. Oh, there was a second door, on her left.  She ignored the one on the right and, while Vic was swearing and complaining - at least, that was the general feel of her stream of French - pulled the left-hand door open.  “In!” she commanded.

And in they went, the Livs dragging Vic-French along.

The sounds of carousel music almost made Abby go back through the door.  The images of that gaping clown mouth, the silently-dancing carnival, all of that haunted her.

But this one wasn’t grey and bloody, this one was bright.  And Vic was staring in awe.

read on…

First: The Hidden Mall – a beginning of something
Previous: Copies



All three Livs were staring at Abby.  Abby was feeling rather like, if she could, she would stare at herself.

“Are you talking about - collecting?”  Liv-Old looked a little horrified. “Do you know how obvious you would be?”

“Do you know how obvious we are anyway?  We’re alive, we’re not plastic, we’re not robots; we stick out pretty much every place we go.  Having five or six or an army of us, well. It wouldn’t be Aslan, but it might give us a chance.”

read on…

First: The Hidden Mall – a beginning of something
Previous: Aberrant!

“What do you mean?”  Liv-1 stared at her. “Wait.”

“No.  No…” Liv-2 sounded horrified.  Nauseous. “That means all the moving around, all of the trying to find a door home.  It was useless?”

“Not useless.” Liv-old put a hand on each young Liv’s back and pushed gently. “Look.  All that running around means sometimes you can move more than you think you can. The younger ones, they can’t do it without a partner.  But it’s good. The more you move around the more you know this place.”

“But you’re… how do we get out?  How do we get home?”

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First: The Hidden Mall – a beginning of something
Previous: Clean

“Excuse me?”  Abby took a step backwards, reaching for her friends.  “Packaging? I don’t want to be wrapped up any further than I already am, thank you.”

“You will need face masks.  Packaging will now commence.”

A whirr and a soft creaking noise came from the bin where their bags had been.  A few more sounds commenced - ripping, some shaking, and something that sounded like sucking air through a straw.

Then three identical white bags popped out.  They looked clean, they looked like they had everything in them, and they looked more comfortable than the back packs they’d had.

Each of them took one.  The bot, now a sphere again, whirred at them one more time.  “Please take one face mask each and install on face.  Please take one face mask each…”

A tray popped out of the sphere’s side.  They took one face mask each and, after a moment, figured out how to put them on.  They were surprisingly comfortable, and now the three of them were nearly anonymous.

“This is weird.”  Liv-probably-1’s voice came out clearer than it ought to have, but also somehow anonymized.  “Like, we got all our individuality pulled away.”

“On the plus side,” the other Liv pointed out, “we’re clean.  Now if only we’d been fed.”

“The food depot is out this door and to the left.  Please follow the blue line.” The bot was far too helpful.  “You have been cleaned.  You may now pursue food.”

“Do we have to chase it?” Liv-probably-2 muttered.  “Because I’m not all that hungry, but I might still run something down.”

“Please follow the blue line towards food,” the bot repeated.  

“Following,” Abby agreed.  She took both Liv’s hands. If she lost them here, she was never going to be able to pick them out of a crowd.

One of the Lizs glanced sidelong at her. “This is getting to be a habit.”

read on…

First: The Hidden Mall – a beginning of something
Previous: Back the Way They Came

Abby glanced at both her Livs, to find one of them as shocked as she was and the other completely not surprised.

She cleared her throat. “Food?” she asked.  “We can trade some ridiculous fruit.”

“Fruit?”  Kevin leaned forward.  “I haven’t had fruit in-”

“It’s been a while.”  Vic squeezed his shoulder.  “Okay. You have the question-face on.  So. Short version: This is this world’s Kevin.  I’m not this world’s Vic - she couldn’t make it through the doors.  I’m a traveler, but I lost my Sandy, and without her it’s almost impossible to go anywhere, and, besides, this one might be kind of grubby, but nothing here is actively trying to kill anyone.  Um. Usually.” She coughed and looked away.

read on…

First: The Hidden Mall – a beginning of something
Previous: Circles

The Hidden Mall has a landing page here: http://www.lynthornealder.com/verses/the-hidden-mall/

↩️

They turned back, retracing their steps.  Past the Tome Home, past the little shop where Liv had traded in a regret for a necklace.  Back towards the hallway, where it had first looked all bright and colorful and shiny, where it now looked covered in cobwebs, grey, and awful.  Back through the narrow door and into a cold concrete hallway, covered in pipes.

They were all holding their breath.  They were moving slowly, as if they were afraid what they would see.  She was holding on to both Liv’s hands tightly.  She didn’t want to lose either of them.  She didn’t want to know what happened if they got split up here, here where it had all began.

read on…

First: The Hidden Mall – a beginning of something
Previous: The Hidden Mall: Ropes & Vines

The Hidden Mall has a landing page here: http://www.lynthornealder.com/verses/the-hidden-mall/

⛲

Abby and skinny-Liv slept in beds bracketing Liv-1, who had been tied down probably more thoroughly than she needed to be. Abby had thought she’d have trouble falling asleep – a strange bed, a strange world, and with no idea what might be out there – but she was asleep almost before her head hit the pillow.
read on…

First: The Hidden Mall – a beginning of something
Previous: The Hidden Mall: Moving On

The Hidden Mall has a landing page here: http://www.lynthornealder.com/verses/the-hidden-mall/

🌱

The door stuck at halfway open, but the gap was wide enough to slip through, so Abby led her Livs through the crack.

They pushed through a curtain of Vines and flowers and into a vine- covered beauty parlor.  The door was right next to an old hair dryer bonnet, vines dangling from it like a  hairstyle.

 “Or at least it’s not making my skin break out.”

“Let’s not try that more,” the other muttered.  “This reminds me of Sears  You know, the photo place ought to be right over -”

“-There,” agreed the other one.  Abby wasn’t sure if she liked them getting along well enough to talk in sync.  It could mean her Liv was getting better - or it could mean Skinny Liv was getting worse.

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