Part 24: You, Me & a Family Tree

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Previously in the Vines Inquiry— Blevin, revealed to know WAY more about the Inquiry than any normal librarian should, gathered some research materials for the three of them to learn more about what in the Cold Heaven is going on. Specifically, Her Tears.

Frank stared, slack-jawed. Everyone is going to die…

“That’s sort of what the Inquiry is going for,” said Blevin, still smiling. “Lately. Since ’77. Every storm, everyone wants to die first. For how long is the question. You were with your parents during their sacrament last night?” 

Frank recounted what he’d heard to Blevin; the screams of pain, the oaths, and the thunderous applause that even drunk him knew couldn’t have been made by just two people.

“Wow, I hadn’t realized they were using the 10-inch network again. Things are really moving along. After everything that happened when you were younger, lots of people thought they might never get here again.” 

“They? Or we?” said Harlow. Frank raised an eyebrow at her. “I’m just saying, tall and culty over here knows a heck of a lot about the Inquiry.” 

“No more than any other Inquirer,” said Blevin.

Frank and Harlow both took a step back towards the door, the former eyeing several of the room’s many knives. He checked off a list in his head: rondel dagger, Santoku, Blade of the Second Moon. Wait, how do I—

 “Though I’ve never been given the official title,” Blevin continued. “By the time I realized this branch was based on Carlisle, they’d already experienced cutbacks into, well, what they are now.”

Frank pulled down a relatively small brown book. It was covered in rough fabric that always made him think of public libraries; like canvas’ slightly more refined cousin. The sort of book you could only find using a card catalog.

“You came here for the Inquiry?” The organization—is that all it was? A club? When Harlow had said cult, it certainly didn’t raise any objections—slipped from Frank’s tongue too easy, like it had been waiting at the back of his mouth his whole life.

The insignia on the book’s spine lent itself to this theory: how many times had he seen the ivy-laced column in his childhood? Outside his house. Stamped onto letterhead. Tastelessly introduced into leather goods and wine glasses his parents pulled out for their private get-togethers. 

“I sort of just tripped into it,” said Blevin. 

“You do seem clumsy,” said Harlow.

“I was working as an overnight janitor at my college and one night when I was vacuuming the library, I found a dead body.” He said this as a generic recounting of his day. “It was a professor at the school. I was an English and Classics major…”

“Blevin, focus for me.” Frank was listening to the man’s tale, but couldn’t stop glancing towards the door. 

“Anyways, my Classics professor, he’d been stabbed. And then the police came, at least the first set of police, and they asked me if I’d seen anything and I said no. And they believed me because, and I quote, ‘don’t seem to possess the cerebral faculty for mendacious guile.’

“THEN they told me that the professor had left me a few of his possessions. Weird, cause I never took his class, but not weird because people give me free stuff all the time.”

“We have that in common,” said Harlow. “Mine aren’t usually from dead bodies, but I’ve never paid a cover.”

Harlow and Blevin looked Frank over, expectant.

“Yeah,” he muttered. “Same. Totally. All the time. What’d the cops give you?”

“That book, silly!” said Blevin.

Frank flinched away from it, pinching the text at arm’s length like it was someone else’s sticky-for-no-known-reason phone. 

“Then they left, and the other cops came and asked me all the same questions all over again, but this time they checked the security cameras and were way more thorough so I guess they were new? The first two were in and out in a few minutes. These guys stayed and needed to look at every little thing.”

Harlow raised an eyebrow while Frank hissed between clenched teeth. 

“Ooooh. The first cops weren’t cops.” 

“Ya think?” she said. “How many years have you been an accomplice to murder? Whoever gave you that book—which Frank, put down! It has murder on it!—killed a professor and you didn’t hear cause I bet you’re one of those janitors who listens to the Dirty Dancing soundtrack on cassette!”

Blevin didn’t meet her eyes.

“Oh, guy. At least the Patrick Swayze version?” said Frank. 

“No, no. It’s Julianne. Hough,” she said. Blevin nodded, a sheepish giant. “I knew I shouldn’t have gone into that god-forsaken house!” 

“Technically it’s ‘god-taken,’” said Blevin. “Seat’s full. SRO unless you’re Feenuín or one of her loyal heralds. A Vessel. Or Gifted, Invited… You get it.”

“I do not! I have my own stuff going on!”

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Harlow collapsed against the wall, the bells on her hat jingling as she slid down to the floor. Frank tossed the book aside. He would have tossed the whole mystery, the whole inquiry aside, in that moment. His Harlow didn’t slump against walls. For all her gripes about her sister being little miss perfect, Frank had never seen Harlow lose. He’d never seen her give up.

Frank sat on the floor and lifted her chin with two fingers before wrapping her up in a hug to block out the rest of it all: the fluorescent lights, the library, the college, the whole town, the whole island. He let her fall into the dark cloud of him—the miasma that seemed to follow him around finally useful.

“Tucker?” he finally said. Harlow nodded into Frank’s chest. 

“He’s gonna take the bar, Frank.” She leaned back, eyes dry but throat scratchy. “And all this stuff, whatever they’re doing. I feel like it’s already on us. Dust. We breathed it in. It’s in me. I feel like Tucker…” She stopped short, shivering. Frank held her, rubbed her arms up and down.

He was there. He was there, but was that enough? 

“Tucker. We’ll handle him, Harlow. Right now. In whatever way you want. These people have waited however long. I’m sure they can take a few more minutes.”

“We are on a bit of time crunch…”

“Blevin, I swear on any god,” said Frank. “I don’t care if FiFi herself came marching in here right now. She will wait. I am a gay hotel manager in New York City. My entire career has prepared me to handle demons from out of town.” 

All three of them looked at the door to Blevin’s library room, loudly hoping that Frank’s declaration wouldn’t be tested. 

“She’s more of a warrior-queen,” said Blevin, raising one finger. 

“And she can take a seat in the lobby.” Frank stood and tugged Harlow up with her, putting her back on two feet with ease.

She smiled and mouthed “Thank you” to Frank.

“I love you,” he mouthed back.

Blevin tried to busy himself with his cuticle.

“What?” spat Harlow.

“Just because we’re going to be working together. I think I should mention I can read lips too.” 

“Lord, give me the confidence of a…” started Harlow. “Wait… Tucker.”

“Give you the confidence of a Tucker?” said Frank. 

“Ew. No. But he’s back. Just now? Just when this important demon storm comes. What’s its name? Its culty name.”

Blevin perked up. “Her Tears! Some people call it Feenuín’s Heart—because she is supposed to be so cold inside. And the theory, well, my theory. Of the eighth…”

“Focus,” said Frank. “You wanna be friends? Tell me who we’re up against.” He immediately felt guilty, manipulative.

Frank had seen it a thousand times before when Dick was working someone. Of course, the golden brother had only ever used his powers for good, but it was always the same dance with slight variations.

A person would have something Dick needed (or just wanted) and somehow, he always knew exactly where to aim. How many fingers to touch their forearm with. When to smile. Frank had seen him pull false memories and identities out of thin air, all to better relate to whatever gatekeeper was stood in front of him. In a move so bold the Carlisle School Board later changed their policies, Dick had convinced his sixth grade teacher that holding a math final was bad for the island’s economy.

To this day, Frank still wasn’t one-hundred percent sure he knew how to multiple fractions.

So now, when he asked Blevin for help and dangled a carrot of friendship in front of the starving man’s eyes, guilt. Guilt, and confidence.

The librarian was ravenous for the Inquiry. Desperate to be taken seriously. If this was the hand Frank had to play to stand a chance at catching up to his parents, so be it.

“Feenuín’s Tears,” said Blevin. “The Carlisle branch named it. For generations, millennia, all the branches of the Inquiry shared their knowledge and skill of the unknown worlds freely. They supported each other’s research and fabrication. There’s some evidence that couture scarves were often involved…”

“Oh, please! Tell us more about the scarves,” said Harlow. Frank couldn’t tell if she was joking. 

“But then, one of Frank’s plucky ancestors decided he wanted things a different way.” 

Frank and Harlow tilted their heads in joined confusion. Notably, Harlow was running her fingers along her scarf’s hem. 

“Plucky.” Blevin pinched his fingers in the air and snatched them back. “Like he plucked things away. Stole them.” 

“Don’t you need a Master’s to be a librarian?” said Frank. 

“Oh, so they just started a museum,” said Harlow. 

“Wait, wait,” continued Frank, hoping against hope that his family hadn’t been quite as bad as so, so many museums. “Why isn’t my family walking around like gods with thousands of years of occult know-how?” Harlow scoffed. “I said ‘gods.’ Not god complex.”

Blevin’s face shined with the passion of an Instagay who was just asked their opinion on something they know nothing about. 

“Retribution! Or so goes the rumor. After absconding from an Inquiry conference with as many records and talismans they could carry, your ancestors’ ship was caught in a terrible winter storm and shipwrecked on the island. Most of the crew survived but chose to stay down-island on the bare shore, waiting it out in the winds and snow drifts, while the Vineses sought shelter in the pines.” 

“Is it just me, or did your vocabulary just jump like four levels?” said Harlow. 

“I have a Master’s! Also, I’m reciting one of my rejected theses.” Blevin pulled a manuscript out of the pile he’d collected earlier, but Harlow pushed it down, shaking her head.

“There’s a few lines from an Inquiry bulletin from 1662 that hints at the other branches’ fear of the Vines line. That you all had survived the storm they sent and would surely seek revenge.”

Rubbing his palms together, Blevin pulled down an illustrated collection of the most dastardly, brutal, conniving scoundrels to ever have a subscription to The Company Store’s catalog: The Vines Family Tree.

All the way back to Rose Vines (1641-1692) and Carlisle Hughes (unknown), the great map spanned thirteen generations with spiraling paths to and fro other families. Frank saw names he recognized; Foster, Felix, Fafsy and Faust. The four roads that bordered the town square had borrowed the quadruplets’ names. In addition to this civic responsibility, the illustration immortalized their apparent passion for nude dancing in the pines.

More details about various ancestors abounded on the map. Vaughn Vines, the manor’s infamous architect, possessed an intimate relationship with his tools apparently, but Frank decided to focus on the task at hand.

“Aww, Frank. You have a fan,” said Harlow. As Blevin turned to reach for another book, she mouthed ‘Let’s go!’ 

“Blevin,” said Frank with a nervous trill in his voice. “Did you make this yourself?”

“Of course not!” Blevin chuckled. “Mine’s at home.” He turned back to the map and sighed. “I really wish I had my laser pointer.”

“I want to be a puddle,” said Frank. 

“Now, this branch of the Inquiry, the Carlisle branch—” Blevin swept his hand over the tree as if no one had noticed the visual aid prior to right then. “—was left to grow. In a little over two-hundred years, they were the most powerful on the planet. Gifted, it seemed, by luck and skill. Talents and arts that were built on the stolen knowledge, but bolstered by something more.”

A shadow fell over Blevin’s face. 

“Your ancestors found something here, Frank. And she had a name.”