Chapter 6

“…Life has loveliness to sell;/Music like a curve of gold,/Scent of pine trees in the rain,/Eyes that love you, arms that hold,/And, for the Spirit’s still delight,/Holy thoughts that star the night./Give all you have for loveliness;/Buy it, and never count the cost!/For one white, singing hour of peace/Count many a year of strife well lost;/And for a breath of ecstasy,/Give all you have been, or could be.” ~Sara Teasdale, “Barter”

Tara reviewed the supplies and her checklist one more time. Once she began the spell, it would be impossible to stop without having to start fresh. She glanced up to find the others watching her with varying degrees of intensity.

“I think we’re ready,” she said quietly.

“Do you want to be the one to do it?” Wesley asked. “Or shall I?”

Tara looked from him to Willow, wondering what the spell would reveal, if anything, about herself. “I can do it if you don’t want to,” Willow offered.

“I can do it.” Tara took a deep, cleansing breath. “I’m going to need quiet.”

“Why don’t you use the spare bedroom?” Spike suggested. “You can come out here whenever you’re ready.”

Tara followed his suggestion, heading back to the spare bedroom that Spike occasionally used as a home office. She already suspected what the result of the spell would be; Dawn was certain about some things, vague about many others.

As far as Tara could tell, the girl was a construct—a very good one. Dawn’s purpose was yet to be determined.

Clearing her mind of worries and thoughts was more difficult than it usually was. Her birthday was edging ever nearer, and that knowledge was an impediment to dropping into the required trance.

Eventually, however, Tara managed to clear her thoughts, focusing on her breathing, the smell of the ritual smoke, the desire to pull the curtain back, to see magic. When her eyes opened, everything had a fuzzy look. She almost felt as though she was swimming underwater.

Rising from her spot on the floor, Tara caught sight of herself in the mirror, freezing in place. “Oh.” The sound escaped from her lips and she put a hand to her cheek, faintly pulsing with life.

She was glowing a little, and for one, brief moment Tara thought, “I’m beautiful.”

Shaking her head, she dismissed the thought, knowing that she had a duty. Opening the door and stepping out into the hallway, everything looked the same—a little indistinct, but there was no trace of magic until she got out into the living room.

Spike was surrounded by a faint golden cloud, like a halo. In fact, if Tara hadn’t known better, she might have suspected that he was some sort of angel, but the light had an underlying darkness.

Dawn, on the other hand, was solid, with no hint of magic about her. Tara blinked. That couldn’t be right—unless someone had tampered with the memories of a girl who already existed. If Dawn was constructed, Tara thought she should have been able to see some sign of that.

Without thinking about it, Tara spoke the words of a spell her mother had taught her when she was a child, the words for clear sight. Normally, she never would have combined two spells like that without at least doing some research on the possible consequences, but it felt right.

She wasn’t expecting to pass out from the vision she gained.

~~~~~

Dawn’s memories were a jumble. She remembered standing on a corner near her house, but she couldn’t remember what her house looked like, although she thought that she’d be able to recognize it if she saw it. She had recognized Spike and Buffy when she’d seen them, and she would know her mom and Giles if she saw them.

She had only vague recollections of Buffy’s friends, but she knew that they’d talked about the Mayflower in history class the previous day, and Romeo and Juliet was the next subject in her literature class.

Dawn could remember some things but not others, as though bits and pieces of her life had been erased. But the scariest part, the worst part, was that no one remembered her, as though she’d never existed.

Buffy and Spike had been nice but impersonal, as though they didn’t really know her, but she guessed that maybe they didn’t.

Tara seemed nice enough, and she was supposed to be doing a spell that would explain everything. Some part of Dawn’s brain knew that magic wasn’t exactly normal, that most people would view it as make believe and myth, but she knew that it was real.

How did she know? Dawn wondered silently as Tara wandered out, looking a little dazed. For a moment, nothing really happened. Tara didn’t say anything as she stared at Spike, but when she looked at Dawn, she appeared—frustrated.

Tara snapped the words out, and then her eyes went wide before rolling back in her head. She would have collapsed if Wesley hadn’t leaped forward and caught her.

“What was that?” Dawn demanded.

“That was a system overload,” Wesley replied, lowering Tara’s body gently to the floor. “She saw something she wasn’t ready to see.”

“About me?” Dawn asked, hearing the squeak of impending hysteria in her own voice.

“We won’t know until she wakes up.” Spike put a comforting hand on Dawn’s shoulder. “It’s gonna be alright, Dawn.”

“How?” She was beginning to wonder what she was, and who she was, when she’d thought she’d known before.

“It’s okay, Dawnie,” Buffy soothed. “We’re going to find out what’s going on, okay? We’re going to take care of you.”

Spike looked at Wes. “Carry her into our bedroom, Wes. She can recover in there.”

“Of course.”

Willow followed him back, and Buffy pulled Dawn onto the couch next to her. “It’s okay, Dawn. We’ll get this figured out, I promise.”

Dawn only wished she could believe that.

~~~~~

Willow looked across Tara’s still figure to catch Wesley’s eyes. “What do you think happened?”

“It’s hard to say.” He put two fingers on one side of her neck. “I think she’s okay. Her pulse is steady, and her breathing is even. It’s only a matter of time before she recovers, and Tara is a strong woman.”

“Yeah, she’s a tough cookie.” She was quiet for a long moment. “What do you think this is about, Wes? Do you think it really has something to do with the prophecy?”

“I don’t know. I haven’t yet translated the entire thing, so I don’t know how Spike’s identity as guardian plays into the greater whole, or what Dawn’s role in it might be.” He rubbed his eyes. “Obviously, the Council is worried about what Spike may or may not do, and they wanted to control his reaction.”

Willow thought about it for a moment. “It seems like too much of a coincidence that Dawn would show up now. We have a prophecy from the Council and a geas put on Spike, plus the prophecy that Robert found.”

“I would agree, but we’ll have to wait until Tara wakes up. With any luck, she’ll have information that allows us to put the pieces together.”

They were silent after that, each lost in their own thoughts. Willow knew that they could have gone out to join the others, but she didn’t want Tara to wake up alone, just in case she was disoriented.

About fifteen minutes after they had brought her to the bedroom, Tara’s eyelids began to flutter. Tara moaned slightly.

“Tara?” Willow called. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah.” She put a hand to her head. “I think I have the mother of all hangovers, though.”

“I’ll check with Spike and Buffy to see if they have something for that.”

Willow waited until Wesley was gone before she said, “You look pretty shaken, Tara.”

“I saw something I wasn’t expecting.” Tara sat up slowly. “I—I have something I need to tell you, and Wesley.”

“Okay,” Willow said, sensing her distress. “We’ll talk later, for sure.”

Wesley came back in with a glass of water and a bottle of pills. “Here you are.”

“Thanks.” Once Tara had taken a couple of pills, she rose. “I don’t know if Dawn should be here for this.”

Willow frowned. “I’m not sure how we’re supposed to send her away. She knows that you were looking for something, and she has to know that you found it, given the way you passed out.”

Tara raised her eyebrows. “Trust me on this one, Will. This is a conversation that we need to have with the whole gang before we say anything to Dawn. It will be too much for her.”

Willow was slightly taken aback by Tara’s tone. She sounded more sure of herself than Willow was used to when dealing with the other witch. Tara had always been a little hesitant, a little reserved. She wasn’t right now.

“We’ll get her out of here,” Wesley said soothingly. “If you think it’s best.”

“I do.” Tara took a deep breath. “Tell her that I’m too tired to talk to anybody right now, and that we’ll tell her everything later.”

“I’ll take care of it,” Wesley promised.

Willow laid a hand on her friend’s arm. “What happened, Tara?”

“I saw more than I bargained for.” Tara took a deep breath. “You may want to tell Buffy and Spike that Dawn isn’t dangerous. She is exactly what she appears to be—more or less.”

“More or less?” Wesley inquired.

Tara smiled. “Yes, exactly.”

~~~~~

Joyce had been planning on a quiet afternoon with Giles, just enjoying his company and possibly enjoying her raging hormones while they were still raging.

She only wished she was surprised to get Buffy’s call.

“I’m really sorry to bother you, Mom, but we have a situation.”

“Why am I not surprised?” she muttered. “I’m sorry, Buffy. What do you need, honey?”

“No, it’s okay,” Buffy said. “Everybody had their Saturday interrupted. It’s—it’s been a long day already.” She sighed. “A girl showed up at Spike’s door today. She says her name is Dawn Summers, and she’s my sister.”

Joyce was silent for a moment. “Excuse me?”

“That’s what I said, too. We’re trying to piece everything together, but until then, we need somewhere for her to go. We don’t have any other identification for her, so until we find out who she really is—”

“She’s your responsibility.” Joyce respected Buffy’s dedication; she just wished that it didn’t spill over quite so often. “Bring her over here. We’ll look after her.”

“I’m really sorry, Mom. I know you had a quiet day planned with Giles.”

“It doesn’t matter, sweetheart. I’m happy to help.”

Well, “happy” might have been too strong a word, but Joyce was prepared to do what she could for her daughter.

~~~~~

“Hail, hail, the gang’s all here.” Spike leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms. “Let’s hear it. What do we know? Who is this girl?”

“She’s not a girl,” Tara said quietly. “Or more specifically, she wasn’t always a girl.”

Buffy was on her feet, pacing. “She sure as hell looks like a girl. What is she?”

“She is, essentially, a container for a lot of energy.” Tara sipped her tea. “She’s definitely a real girl, and creating her took a lot of energy, probably changed from what she was before.”

“Let’s get this straight, then,” Spike said, beginning to get very annoyed. “Is she, or isn’t she, human?”

“Yes and no.” Tara hesitated. “Is ice still water?”

“It’s water in another form, just like steam is,” Willow said.

“She’s energy, but she’s energy in human form, and I can guarantee that Dawn had no control over what happened. She did not create herself; someone created her.”

Buffy suddenly frowned. “It went wrong.”

“What, luv?” Spike asked.

Buffy shook her head. “It went wrong. Think about it, Spike. No one would make someone, create a whole person, without some sort of a purpose. Clearly, part of her purpose involves us, because she came here. Even though Dawn doesn’t know much, she knew to come here.”

“My guess is that someone meant to create a whole person, including memories, a background, everything, and I suspect that they meant to create a place for her, too. Something went wrong,” Tara speculated.

“I’ll say.” Xander spoke up for the first time. “And I’d just like to point out, in case no one else has thought of it yet, Dawn thought that Spike was going to protect her.”

Spike raised an eyebrow. “Is that so hard to believe, Harris?”

“No, but it means that there’s something or someone you’re supposed to protect her from.”

Spike rubbed his hands over his face. He really didn’t like where this was going; it had apocalypse written all over it. “We know that she’s an innocent, that someone or something is likely going to come after her, and that we have no idea who or what created her in the first place.” He looked around the room. “Does that about sum it up?”

“I don’t think there’s anything we can do right now,” Willow said. “Not until we know more.”

Spike rose. “Wesley, I want you to work on those prophecies night and day until you know them inside and out. I don’t know that they’ll give us direction, but I’d at least like to know what the Council is so worried about me doing.” He looked at Willow and Tara. “You two need to work on Dawn. I think we need to know everything we can. A spell like that can’t be easy; maybe you can figure out who could have possibly cast it.”

“What about me?” Xander asked.

Spike looked at him, feeling something akin to affection for the young man. Xander might not have the skills that the rest of them possessed, but he had heart, and Spike could respect that.

“I could use your help getting her paperwork together,” Spike admitted. He looked over at Buffy. “She thinks she’s your sister, and I think that might be the best sort of fiction we can construct.”

“How?” Buffy asked. “Nobody knows about her. How are we supposed to pull that off?”

Spike smiled grimly. “We make her your half-sister.”

~~~~~

Quinn had been in Sunnydale a total of five days, and she was already bored to tears. She was very good at blending in, but she was better at fighting vampires and demons. Her parents might not have been thrilled by her career choice, but Quinn wanted to be part of the elite Council team sent out to deal with the worst sort of problems.

As long as the problem wasn’t a rogue Slayer. From what Quinn understood, Buffy might not be exactly orthodox, but she ran a tight ship. Sunnydale was a squeaky clean town compared to most Hellmouths.

“Why couldn’t I have been sent to Cleveland?” she muttered. “I could have watched Brynn’s back.”

Her sister was sixteen, and could use all the supervision the Council could spare. At least their parents had been allowed to go with her, rather than Brynn being farmed out to another Watcher. That would have hurt.

Quinn leaped to the top of a gravestone, looking around the cemetery for any sign of the undead. “Come on,” she muttered. “Not even one little vampire?”

“They say you should be careful what you wish for.”

Quinn froze, then turned slowly. “Dracula.”

“I see you know me.” His eyes were mesmerizing as he stepped closer. “Strange, I thought you’d be taller.”

“Taller?” she repeated, nonplussed.

“As the Slayer. I came to see you. Your reputation spreads far and wide, and I have business with William the Bloody.”

Quinn knew better than to meet his eyes, which is why she kept her gaze set on a spot just beyond his right shoulder. Dracula apparently thought that she was the Slayer, and while she could correct him, that would likely lead to him trying to kill her.

Besides, Travers wanted her to spy on the real Slayer, right? What better way to finagle a meeting than to pass herself off as a demon hunter? What Slayer in her right mind would pass up that kind of help?

Quinn crossed her arms over her chest. “You know what they say about small packages.”

“Indeed.” Before she could move, Dracula was stroking her cheek. “I’ll see you soon.”

He was gone in a flurry of wings as a bat flew away from the spot he’d occupied only a moment before. Quinn made a face. “Gross. I hate bats.”

She’d have to stay in school, of course. Travers hated it when his plans got changed, and Quinn had heard stories about what happened when the Council head was brassed off. But what he didn’t know certainly wouldn’t hurt him.

Quinn whistled as she continued walking through the cemetery, planning how she was going to deal with Dracula, arrange a meeting with Buffy, and avoid Travers finding out that she had changed the plan.

It looked like she was going to be very busy.