Unspent: Hedge Trimming

Here's a link to a listing of the Unspent posts, if you're a newcomer to this.

Well, when last we left things, Joel had died in the theater, thanks to the shadows, and everyone was running. When they busted out of the school, Bryce offered his own take on things: the Hedge (the border of the Faerie realm) was bleeding over into reality itself. Then they got into the car, and George started trying to choke Bryce.

Curious George
As Bryce struggled against George's chokehold (a rather unorthodox but reasonable use of the grappling rules, of all things), he managed to get out a brief explanation: Bryce had told George that he wanted him to conduct surveillance, but the Hedge had twisted George's memories while he was trapped in it. George stayed a bit mad, roughhousing Bryce, but found nothing to make him think otherwise. (Even though it was a bold-faced lie.)

They found out a little about what George had seen, such as witnessing everyone from beyond the Hedge, and being sustained in his observation by Ivy's focus and will. They realized that he had been responsible for getting Ivy to write the notes, even if the memory of the writing faded from her memory.

The Next Plans
Bryce noted that Ivy and Jake were probably as good as gone. Not only had they not shown up after passing through the Hedge on their way into the theater, but there was a strong chance that at least Leona had gotten taken and twisted by whatever evil Fae force was in the area. Plus, the existence of the evil shadows and the shining figure with a sword they had seen in the theater--well, both of those were too specific to ignore.

George's sole clue was seeing them in a house with a woman. Something he didn't remember, thus it was probably something in the future. In all of the discussion, they eventually arrived at a singular point: there was one missing gap in the entire puzzle--Rachel Strait, the mother of the deceased Hanna Strait. To top it off, the little boy was looking for his "mommy". All of that seemed like a good enough lead to follow up on.

So, Sharon headed off to the police station. And what she found was not terribly good....

P.S. Go see The Amazing Spider-Man!! It's supposed to be awesome.