~~Jack~~
Thick, dripping gold leaked from the tear, near the bottom, like someone had sliced a gash through a bag full of barely molten gold metal. Gold mist joined it, and gently flowed out over the black water until it nudged up against the crowd of people watching. It was warm.
The glow increased, but it didn't burn his eye anymore. For just a split, wishful second, he thought maybe the soothing warmth would heal his injuries. Nope. It felt nice though, calming, and a glance back showed everyone relaxing. Danger over. Whatever these flying orbs were, it certainly didn't seem like they were gonna hurt Jack and the gang. They were the reason Black Blood was now locked up below, or something. And whatever this gold water leaking out of the tear was, it was good.
Everyone came a little closer, except his mom. She stayed with Mary's ghost, stroking the monster's hair. A couple times she glanced toward the singed robe Jacob had worn, still half floating in the shallow water where he'd died, where she'd killed him, before she looked back down at the ghost and whispered soothing things to her. Jack wanted to go to his mom, to calm her, help her, something. But the gold light called to him, literally, with a voice.
"Jack," the gold aura said. "Jack."
"Antoinette," Jack whispered, "am I--"
"I hear it, as well. It beckons you," she said. Not a voice in his head, then, thank god.
"Jack." Avery came up beside him and gave his shoulder a small tug. "I recognized some of the words those things spoke before. First Tongue." She gestured to the glowing orbs. "Those things are old, Jack. Very old. They were talking about... something about a great game. Or, machine. No clue what they meant."
Black Blood had mentioned something about a machine. Jack had assumed the giant god was being metaphorical. Maybe not.
"Think we should, uh, run away or something?"
Avery snorted and shrugged. "None of us are in any condition to run."
Jack gulped on a dry throat, and looked back up to Antoinette. Antoinette shrugged as she set her eyes back on the gold tear ahead, and the gentle flow of gold it released. The gold continued to spread out, pushing the black water aside. It was so beautiful, glittering and hypnotizing, Jack drifted closer toward it anyway. And so did the others, though they had the good sense to stay behind him. Like penguins waiting for one to fall off the cliff first, to know if it was safe to swim. He couldn't blame them.
The flowing gold water came up to his feet, and Jack dipped his toe in it. No reaction. He put his foot down on it, until it sank up to his ankle. No reaction. It felt more than soothing though, it felt wonderful, like someone was caressing him. Like, drinking hot chocolate and sitting by the fire; not that he'd ever done that, but it'd certainly looked comfy in the movies and videos he'd seen.
He came closer. The tear's crazy rainbow colors were gone, replaced with an endless gold that glowed in gentle waves. He came closer. The aura shifted and altered slightly, not changing in any major way, but responding to his presence. Well, he wasn't on fire. It wasn't vampire bane. So, he came closer.
A hand, a very human hand, reached out from the tear. And Jack took it. It was solid, and as warm as the gold water around him. He half expected the hand to pull on him, but they didn't. Jack pulled on them.
Mary stepped out of the tear.
"I... I..." Jack stepped back as he let go of her hand, and looked her up and down. Mary, looking very much alive, and very much naked. The gold glow didn't just come from the tear, it came from her body as well, conveniently hiding her private parts, somehow without hiding any of her features. It was Mary, with her shoulder-length brown hair, soft face, and bright eyes, all gold tinted.
"Jack," she said, smiling. "Wow, right?"
"Um, yeah... wow. I, I uh... I don't understand, what's--"
Mary pat him on the shoulder, her beautiful smile paralyzing, and she walked past him. He managed to force his head to turn enough to watch her, and see how everyone else was as frozen as he was, as Mary approached her mother.
Mary's ghost and her mom stared at the oncoming figure of gold. If they noticed the audience of hypnotized onlookers, they didn't show it. No one noticed anything or anyone else anymore, except for the gold figure walking toward her mom, and her own ghost. Even the giant seven glowing orbs had become an afterthought.
Where she walked, the gold water followed, staying just ahead of each step.
"Mom," Mary said, once she got close, smile slowly changing from its usual playful shape, to something more serious. But still a smile.
"Mary?"
Mary giggled as she sat down, with absolutely zero grace. If she'd had grace, it wouldn't have been Mary. She sat just across from her mom, with her ghost between them.
"She doesn't have much time, I don't think," Mary said. "Let me talk to her."
"She's... dying?" her mom asked.
Mary shook her head. "No, but she'll keep changing. There won't be much left of her soon. I can't believe she's lasted this long, after everything that's happened to her."
Jack dragged himself closer. No one else so much as moved a single finger, every one of them staring at Mary.
"It's okay," the ghost said. "It's okay. Mom's safe. Safe! That's all that matters."
"That's not all that matters," Mary said.
The ghost let out a little whimper, raspy high-pitched shrieks underneath it, loud enough to be heard but quiet enough they sounded more like distant screams in a forest. Echoes on the wind.
"Mom should go," the ghost said. "Go. Don't stay. I don't want her to see me like this."
"Mary," Mary said, and she leaned in close to the ghost and her panicked, wide, empty black eyes, "it doesn't have to be that way."
"It... It doesn't?"
"No." Mary smiled warmly down at her ghost, the same smile Jack had seen their mother use so many times, when she wanted to be soothing. The mom smile.
"I don't understand."
Mary set a hand on her ghost's shoulder. "You can stay here, and change into something... big, and scary. Or, you can come with me."
Mary's ghost tried to sit up. It didn't work. She collapsed again on her mom's lap, and her long centipede body splashed a few times as she tried again. She gave up, and relaxed on her mom's lap, head tilted to keep looking up at her original.
"Go with you?"
"With me. Truly with me." Mary put a hand on her chest.
The ghost looked up at her mom, but she was speechless, eyes slowly sliding between her two daughters.
"I... I can feel... weight, pulling me down. I don't know how I can--"
"Ghosts can crossover, and join us, in there." She pointed to the gold tear. "But, they... they almost never do, when they come to the Great Below. And they never, ever do, when they get this deep, lose their lantern, and... do this." She gestured to the long, hideous body coming out of the ghost's waist.
Mary's ghost sniffed, as if she was crying. "What will happen to me?"
"You'll join me. Together, here." Again, Mary pat her own chest. "Together as one. I've seen it happen to others in the great river, when ghosts manage to cross over. It's always so beautiful! It's just, never happened like this." She gestured to the tear. "But that just means it'll be even more special."
"I won't disappear?"
