Previously in the Vines Inquiry— With Lillian and Thomas Voorhees’ help, Frank was able to unlock the parlor door, finally gaining access to the radio and therefore a ritual. But, in unlocking the manor, he also set free a cougar. A cougar that had its eyes on Harlow.

As Harlow tumbled over the second-floor railing, the cougar’s teeth in her neck, all everyone else could do was watch.

Harlow felt her head hit stone twice.

First, in the foyer. A concentrated pressure. It gave way, collapsed into a sturdy support. She was cradled by midnight glass, back in the buoyant darkness that had calmed her before the pool had kicked off this chain of events.

This chain that had killed her.

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She was laying motionless on her back, but her mind stretched. No, splattered, across the cosmos. Its pathways were dampened, but gaining strength. Things were cut off, but connecting.

Harlow came and went in this time, falling into the back of her eyes. Spinning around again to see more of the work done. When the main thoroughfares returned, she did what inventory she could.

Searching for ailments, wiggling her toes and blinking twice if she could hear herself. 

She remembered her foot that felt like jelly, and tried to reach out for it. Nothing happened, but her heart would not panic. There was a peace to the place. Though her arm might be missing, Harlow could tell it wasn’t anything to worry about. She felt, not infinite, but certainly closer to it than she ever had on Earth. It was then she realized she must not be on Earth any longer. 

Her head, resting on top of the slick stone that formed the whole of her world, was an antenna.

A chord back to whoever was waiting for her. She blinked, working to recall. Again, there was no panic. Her mother. Lillian. Thomas. Stella. And more. Further. The electric connections traveling from where she’d been to where she was branched off into a network of thousands. People she’d known since birth and before, all the way down to those she’d met only in passing. Harlow could see it in totality; a complex but clear web. Some of the electric threads, a rainbow of colors in a system that made sense to her but one she could not define, stopped short. The far ends had gone grey and sent the electric snap back; old mp3s to be reassessed.

Chase Drawson, the ferry boy she’d served chicken tenders to since high school. 

Below her head, where the neck might have been but not necessarily should be, was a constellation so crowded it looked like a foggy nebula. Harlow could see it from all different angles around the oil stone room. She sat against one of the curving walls, like a pipeline wave frozen in onyx, admiring all the tiny pieces of herself that had been laid out on the floor of this hallowed place. She saw a few of her own bright lights dialed down, halted. 

Still no panic. Was that a switch that had been turned off? She knew the room was frigid—the walls were ice cold, chilling the air they touched, but she couldn’t feel it as she laid against the hard stone slope. She just knew. The whole structure, the world. Beyond that? Was frozen. With no chance of a thaw.

The material, slick with sharp edges, looked like it had never been anything but frozen. But no. It must have moved, she realized, even if just for an instant. To get the shapes, the natural curves and organic passageways that comprised this whole place. It felt solid. Eternal. Grounded beneath a ground. As much as Harlow was able to stretch out now, with her body unbuttoned, she could tell there was no bottom to this place. It went on further than what she knew to be Forever. 

There was someone else there now. She hadn’t noticed their arrival. The space filled.

With lights, a changing rainbow to compliment the firing synapses. A disco set-up synced to “I Feel Love.” A loop, with each rotation sending circadian tingles like it was the first time.

The new addition, not a person, but dressed up like one.

It wasn’t a mask, not something to hide behind. The guise was a salve; sunglasses for Harlow and anyone else who might be peeking in. The new addition, She, Harlow realized. As much a She as Harlow could tell, but again, something put on. Something to make more sense for her mind that was just now being put back into her skull. It knit back together at Her touch. Harlow felt the cold then. Frozen veins of that black stone in the seams of her bones. It faded quickly. 

Harlow’s feet were next with a click of Her tongue. A tsk-tsk. These stayed cold longer. She put each one in an icebound cube. They melted into her, joining. No, wrong again. Still learning. Replacing. They melted in and then were. 

Over the next decade or so, She painted Harlow’s toenails. The two of them laughing together as they tried on thousands of shades before settling on the one She wore: “Island Home of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis.”

There were tears during this. Laughter, yes. But remorse too. More cold tears falling from Her eyes. She was quick to wipe them away from Harlow’s legs, her galaxy, lest they take root. 

However long later, it was time for Harlow to go. The woman tsk-tsk-ed again and wiped away a tear, leaving behind a dark smudge like watercolor. Harlow looked into Her eyes then, outlined in a thick kohl, and smiled. The woman sniffled. 

“My dear,” She said, full of sorrow. “May you never fear again.” 

She kissed Harlow on the forehead and put one hand under her neck. As the woman tossed Harlow up, she felt the cold clawing at her, but losing its fight. 

“I promise,” said Harlow. A thin crust of ice shattered away as she opened her eyes. 

 Harlow sat up and rolled her neck around, taking in the room. Wherever she’d been, whatever she’d been doing, was already fading away. It overlaid with the foyer. The dead cougars simultaneously sprawled against the scratched wood floor and sharp black stone. 

The four of them, the ones she’d missed that had helped her get back. They stood in a semicircle, watching. Her mother. Her name…Lillian. She breathed a sigh, tinged with anger and reeking of relief. 

“Get in the car,” was all she said.