Every step closer to her master's grave added to the dread that filled Merrie's heart. She tried to convince herself that Nir would join the guild and she didn't have to go back. But, she saw the look in Nir's eyes. Scorch's offer of shelter might be the best thing for the teenage girl, but Merrie knew of Nir's past. There was no way the girl would ever join the guild.
Setting her jaw, she forced herself down the street. Her knees and wrists tapped on the cobblestones as she worked her way through the fading crowds. It was a long walk to the district and she took longer than normal. By the time, she got near the bridge, it was already dusk.
The first thing she noticed was the memorials lining both sides of the street. At the first one, she stopped and looked at it. Someone had created a small shrine to a woman, with a small picture that had already blurred under the rain and a dozens of flowers. A few meters down the road, she saw another and then another.
Frowning, Merrie continued toward the bridge and the dread was rising. She saw more memorials. She could feel the emotions from each one: sorrow, pain, and grief. It vibrated from the little presents and letters. She didn't need to read them to know what they were for. There was only one reason so many people would die and that was the Shadowed District.
But, Merrie knew that Gail had saved everyone in the district. She made sure of it, but the memorials said otherwise. She slowed down and looked at the nearest one. It was for a old man who died only a few months before, judging from the newspaper article.
Guilt slammed into her. She may have saved everyone from her despair, but it was still drawing people into the darkness. She shuddered and reached out, only to find a wall of sorrow and grief boiling only a hundred meters away.
The bridge looked nothing like when she left it. In the center, someone had built a wooden wall with a large “bridge out” sign hanging from a rope. Spiked logs topped the top, dripping with the rain. Four guards stood at a reinforced gate in the center of the wall.
Beyond the wall was darkness. The Shadowed District was wrapped in perpetual shadows. Black smoke boiled around just out of sight and she could see dead trees hanging over the raging river. Something crawled inside, she could feel the malevolence from it as it paced back and forth as if it was waiting for the shadows to reach into the bright parts of the city.
On the bright side, a makeshift camp had been built. In the center there was a large fire and it was tended by a number of younger men and a few women, all in their early twenties. They had weapons and armor, but they all looked exhausted. Many of them were bandaged, some of it still crimson with blood. Surrounding the fire were some wooden buildings. One was serving food, another had maps of the district and other paper. A third was lit with painful brilliance. Inside, a young woman sobbed loudly as she crouched on one of the tables.
Merrie stopped in shock. It wasn't what she expected. She knew she wasn't sane when she created the Shadowed District, but the signs of combat and devastation were more than she could handle. Wincing, she looked away as guilt tore at her and the despair rose up. Around her, the shadows grew darker and she felt the malevolence inside the district focusing on her.
Sniffing, she forced herself to pull her thoughts from the rising despair. She couldn't do it again. She stared at the dark and realized she had to do something about it. She couldn't undo the damage or death she left behind, but she could stop more from dying.
With a set to her jaw, she wrapped herself in the shade and continued down the road. Her heart pounded as she got closer to the bridge. The only path she could see was brightly light. In her mind's eye, it glowed with holy magic. It was designed to stop creatures of the shadow and she wasn't sure her shade was strong enough to get through the wards.
“Dolcen! Jarrek!” A man's voice boomed across the fire. Merrie turned as a broad-chested man came out of the brightly lit building. He wore simple, torn clothing and had scars across his face, arms, and hands. On his back, a massive scythe glinted in the light coming from all directions.
As he came to the fire, two men stood up. One of them, his face covered in bandages, staggered to regain his balance.
“Have you found them?” The man spoke with a southern accent, rich and deep. He held out his hand to catch the staggering man.
The other spoke. “No, we checked regions four and five. The Reaper surprised us as we were entering six and Dolcen,” he gestured to the swaying man, “got really hurt.”
The large man sighed and turned to Dolcen. “You should be in the infirmary. The healers are there for a reason.”
“I-I wanted to report.”
The unnamed man patted him gingerly on the back. “You reported. Now get healed.”
“I want—”
“Get healed, boy. The shadows will be there tomorrow.”
Dolcen sighed and pushed himself away. He swayed as he walked.
The man snapped his fingers and a hawk-faced girl ran out of the crowds to grab him before he fell. She wore a healer's robe, but her pendant said she was an initiate instead of one capable of healing him.
The man turned back to the other man. “Can you fight?”
Jarrek stood straight. “Yes, of course.”
“Good, because there are two children out there who need us.” He stepped back and raised his voice. “I need volunteers to go back in!”
Merrie let out a sigh of relief. She clutched the repulsion spell tight in her mind and made her way toward the bridge. Her body was silent as she skirted the pools of bright light and made her way down the bridge.
The bridge shook underneath her, as if something was pounding on the far end. She could feel the shadows reaching out for her, dark and hungry for her power. She trembled as she crept closer to her master's grave. She could feel it in her mind, like a compass of darkness that she could never forget. Tears welled in her eyes as she moved from shadow to shadow, working her way along the shuddering structure until she was pressed up against the gate wall.
Despite being brightly lit, there were places that shadows will always form. Her master knew that and she remembered when he learned the same tricks. Feeling exposed, she ducked underneath a gap from one of the timbers enforcing the wall and breathed a sigh of relief at the blessed darkness.
The wall glowed with ward magic. It enforced the barrier between the worlds and kept everything in painful brightness. Even if she wanted to, she couldn't step through. But that didn't stop the darkness on the other side from pounding on the bridge, scraping at the supports with helpless claws in an attempt to get to the light.
The unnamed man was efficient. Less than ten minutes after Merrie found her position, he was striding up the bridge with ten men and two women in tow. All of them looked exhausted but determined. They were also armed heavily and prepared for war.
“We'll start with region twelve and move back. Jarrek said the Reaper is around six, so we'll pray the children aren't there. Ten still has the trees, but we need to check at least a few meters in before discounting that. If they got much further than that, they would have been torn apart. Beyond that, they could be anywhere.”
Jarrek fumbled with something around his neck. “How did they get in there anyways?”
The man sighed. “Their grandfather left a suicide note when he went inside. Their mother thinks they followed after him.”
Another warrior hefted his long sword. “What if they aren't?”
The large man turned. “Then we fight shadows and maybe make it a little safer. If you have a problem, Golor, then turn back. This is for volunteers only.”
“No,” said Golor, “I'll stay.”
“Good man,” said the man, “we might get out of this alive.” He turned to the guards at the gate. “Please?”
The guards said nothing as two of them provided keys and unlocked the gate. Looking away from the boiling darkness, they pulled open the door and held it wide.
The man took a deep breath and swung his scythe from over his shoulder. The blade began to glow with a warm yellow light. With a long exaltation of breath, he stepped into the threshold of light and dark.
Moments later, the others filed in. Merrie watched mutely, shifting closer to the gate as she prepared a domination spell to slow the guards from closing it.
Jarrek passed and she saw what he was toying with, a pendant with the symbol of Lemetri on it. She gasped as rage rose up. Jarrek drew out his own sword, a two-handed blade much like Bass' but smaller, and dove into the darkness.
Merrie stared as the light faded in the darkness, then released her spell. It took the guards and the three remaining warriors in mid-step, freezing them. In the brief pause, Merrie launched herself from the darkness. Her cloak spread out in a pool of darkness as she dove into the gate and to the side.
The threshold felt like passing into the Shadows. It was a pain of familiarity, pleasure, and horror at the same time. On the other side, the world was an inverted image cast in darkness. Her cloak blossomed around her, wrapping around her in black on black as she crawled along the back edge of the wall.
Behind her, the remaining warriors stepped through, unaware of the brief moment they were unable to move.
It was dark on the other side, almost pitch black, except that the glow from the warriors created more shadows across the deathly silently world. There was magic radiating from all of them, but the strongest came from Jarrek's pendant and sword. All of them were surrounded by magical light, but Merrie's attention was on the follower of Lemetri.
“Keep together. This is not the place to be a hero.”
Merrie watched as they headed to the right of the bridge. She focused on the unnamed man, curious of what made up the leader and to alleviate her own fears that he was associated with Lemetri.
He stood over the beds of his two wives, crying. Both of them had sheets covering over their face and he watched morbidly, looking for any sign that they were still alive.
The village healer rested his hand on his shoulder. "I'm sorry, Gillette, they were too weak for the gods to heal them. I tried everything—"
Gillette shoved him aside. “Damn you and damn the gods!” Without another word, he stormed out.
Merrie gasped at the intensity of Gillette's emotions.
He was coming into Franome City with a load of vegetables. The wagon swayed back and forth and he leaned against the side with the same bland feeling that had consumed his life ever since the plague took his wives, two years ago. He had no purpose, no reason to do anything but keep doing the same as his father and his father's father.
A cold wind tore through the city and his horse, Old Gentle, reared back with fear. He looked up to see a cloud of darkness rising up from underneath the branches of the World Tree. At first, he thought it was a fire or explosion, but the cloud continued to blossom with terrifying darkness, stretching high.
Suddenly, four guards who were eating at a nearby table dropped their forks and shoved back their chairs. Scrambling to their feet, all of them grabbed their swords and sprinted toward the blossoming cloud. There was fear in their eyes.
Gillette glanced to the side were he saw two more guards racing in the same direction. On the other side, another city guard was breaking free of a crowd as he bellowed for everyone to clear out.
He had nothing left, but he could help. Reaching back, he made sure his scythe was still strapped to the back of the wagon bench and snapped the reins. He would just look, nothing more.
Merrie shivered at the memories. They were as raw as her own, but he was focused and determined to help. With guilt still gnawing at her, she cast out her senses for the children he was looking for. In the darkness, her power was stronger than ever and she spread out across the entire district.
She found them clutching each other in terror. Something was circling around them, growling as it inched closer. Merrie shifted her senses to the creature and sank into its dark mind.
Rage and hunger. Hunger for the terror that radiated from the two little morsels of flesh and bone. It had been drinking fear from them for hours but the sweet edge was fading with too much terror. One of the morsels was cracking and soon its mind would fill with darkness. It needed to eat before the mind broke, it wanted to taste blood not corrupted by the darkness.
Merrie closed her eyes tightly. She plucked the map from Gillette's mind and identified the creature. It was in the sixth region, the one they were avoiding. It was the Reaper, a cat-like but massive beast of shadow, as tall as a two-story building and surrounded by black tentacles that tore flesh and bone. Gillette had felt the four rows of teeth during one fight and he only survived with the concerted effort of Jarrek and the others.
She glanced at the light fading in the darkness. They were going the wrong way.
Whimpering, Merrie tried to catch the children's mind, to place an anchor on them, but the terror made it impossible to hold still. She couldn't find their position either, not with the power radiating off the Reaper.
Spurred into movement, Merrie crawled after the warriors. She had to tell them, somehow, before it was too late. She may have created the darkness, but she couldn't bear the idea of children dying because of her. Her cloak flowed around her, rippling along the ground behind her.
With the warriors inching forward, she caught up to them. The cloak rested itself over her mouth, to quiet her panic, as she tried to think of some way to guide them to the right place. She was afraid of showing herself, not with someone following Lemetri in the group.
In the distance, she heard the Reaper screech and the spike of fear radiating from the children. The boy's mind was cracking and she could feel little bursts of insanity rippling away from his thoughts.
Merrie looked down at her body. She couldn't show herself as a bitch to Jarrek, he could be looking for her. Gulping, she concentrated on the cloak. It flowed with her mind, snapping back and forth from the emotions that tore through her thoughts. She drew out a spell, writing calligraphic runes in the darkness. It was a domination spell, but one that attached her mind tighter to the cloak. She hoped it would give her enough control to fake her appearance.
The spell ignited into flames and the cloak shuddered. She pulled her cloak closer and wrapped it around her arm tightly. She tried to remember what it was like to have a hand and pictured reaching out for her walking stick.
The cloak flowed down her shoulder and wrapped around her arm. It continued twist together as it reached out, spreading into a gross proximity of a hand, then down into the shape of her walking stick.
Panting from the effort, Merrie turned her attention to the other side and concentrated. The cloak twisted down and spread out. The fingers were long and flowing until she brought them back into shape. She twisted the black palm over and glared at herself. It didn't look anything like a hand when she looked at it and it would only fool someone who couldn't get a good look.
She sighed and cocked her head. In the shadows, she could pretend to be something less than human and still save them. She hoped it was enough.
Bearing down, she gave herself legs. The cloak tightened around her, squeezing her limbs until the pain brought a cry to her throat. She clamped down on her mouth, biting her tongue, as she sank into the agony.
With a shuddering gasp, she tried to stand up. The cloak shifted around her but she lost her balance and tumbled. The ground hit her wrists and she pitched forward. She let out an inarticulate yelp as she landed face-first into the cobblestones.
She rubbed her nose as she stood up, humiliated and ashamed. But, fear forced her to try again. Power radiating from her, she drew on the strength of the shadows to form the faux limbs for her arms and legs. With a deep breath, she tried to stand up. To her surprise, it obeyed and she was standing for the first time in years.
Heart pounding, she leaned on her cloak and took a hesitate step forward. Her limbs were malformed and grotesque, but functional. She wanted to reshape them, but she couldn't concentrate enough to do anything but move. Limping forward, she worked her way after the warriors until they were only a few meters ahead.
Cringing at the idea of drawing attention to herself, Merrie dropped the repulsion spell and reversed it to draw their attention.
The warriors slowed and stopped. One by one, they turned to look at her. Jarrek responded first, gasping as he brandished his weapon. “Gillette!”
Gillette spun around, his scythe flashing.
Jarrek shook as he stepped between the warriors and Merrie. “What is it?”
Gillette, on the other hand, wasn't as frightened. He hefted his scythe and joined Jarrek. “Something new.”
“Is the evil getting stronger? Is this one of the Lords?”
Gillette's eyes flashed for a moment. “You tell me. You're the paladin in training.”
Merrie almost lost her balance. She stared at Jarrek with surprise and then shook her head. She couldn't speak, but she could feel the need to move growing with every passing second. Shaking with the effort to move, she lifted one hand and pointed toward the Reaper.
Jarrek hissed and stepped back, readying his weapon. Sweat prickled his brow as he waved the tip of the sword toward her. “It's going to attack!”
Gillette stepped back and pulled back his scythe, holding the weapon in one hand.
Merrie's stomach clenched in fear and she swayed as the cloak rippled underneath her. The spell was exhausting her and she dug into her reserves to keep standing. She forced it back into stiffness and pointed again, using her magic to draw their attention to her finger.
Gillette relaxed but he didn't lower his weapon. “I'm waiting for the attack, Jarrek.”
“I-I—” The young man gulped and wiped his brow with his arm. “It's evil, I know it.”
No one said anything for a long moment. Merrie trembled with the effort to remain standing. It was unnatural to her and she longed to drop to her knees. She wasn't suppose to be standing, not anymore.
Gillette lowered his weapon. “I don't know about you, but if it is a creature of shadows, it would be the first time they just stood there pointing instead of trying to rip our throats out or drain the life from us.”
“I-It might be intelligent.”
Gillette patted Jarrek on the shoulder. “Then it probably understands you.”
Merrie started to giggle at Jarrek's blanched look, but then bit down to avoid making a noise.
Gillette held his scythe back and took a step forward. He held out his hand, but Merrie noticed that the arm still holding his weapon was tense. “Hello, I am Gillette.”
Merrie flinched at his hand. She emphatically pointed toward the children.
“Careful,” gasped Jarrek, “it could be a trap.”
Gillette pulled back his hand. “Everything's a trap, but better to go into it with eyes wide open than get stabbed in the back.” He turned to Merrie. “Do you know what we're looking for?”
Merrie wasn't sure how to respond. Being so close to the armed man was making it hard to breath. She could feel her breasts pressing up against the tight wrappings of her cloak. It squeezed down on her, holding her steady. Her mind torn a thousand ways to remain standing, she nodded.
He cocked his head, watching her carefully.
Desperate to attract his attention, she lowered her hand to about the height of the children, then held out two fake fingers. She gulped and stepped back, walking backwards away from him and toward the children.
Gillette followed, his scythe still held behind his back.
A few moments later, the others followed. Jarrek remained right behind Gillette, holding his two-handed sword with both hands. She could feel distrust radiating from him.
Merrie kept a wary eye on the younger man as she led them closer. She avoiding tripping by scanning the ground and using Gillette's senses to keep her moving smoothly. It was hard work, but she didn't dare turn her back on the paladin-in-training.
As they got closer, she felt the boy's sanity crumbling. Ripples of fear broke down into incoherent babbling.
The Reaper felt him breaking and started forward to kill both of them.
Desperate, Merrie threw power into her attraction spell and focused it on the Reaper. At the same time, she pointed toward Gillette's scythe.
The farmer stopped. “What?”
The Reaper screeched, a horrid noise that sounded like someone being thrown into the grinder.
Jarrek gasped and stepped back. “Reaper? It brought us to the Reaper!”
Gillette brandished his weapon, holding it steady but he wasn't looking at Merrie. “Prepare for combat.”
“It trapped us.”
“Shut up and get ready—”
The Reaper burst out of the darkness as it charged down the street. Each impact of its six heavy claws shattered stone and shook the ground. The air trembled with the impact and a foul wind blew against Merrie's face. It stunk of rotting meat and spoiled blood, two smells she knew intimately from the meat packing district.
The warriors scattered as they prepared to attack.
Merrie felt a prickle of fear. The attraction spell crumbled and she draped a shade around her. Unsure if it would work, she rushed to the side of the street as the Reaper sailed over her and landed in the middle of the fighters.
With another screech, three tentacles grabbed one of the warriors and yanked it off the ground. He screamed in pain but it ended sharply with a wet ripping noise. Blood splattered on the ground as the Reaper chomped down on the man's spurting chest.
Jarrek's blade glowed brightly as he slammed into one of the Reaper's back legs. A spurt of black blood splattered in all directions and began to burn away in darkness.
Gillette attacked from the other side, bellowing as he brought his scythe down on one of the tentacles. The thunk of blade punched the air and the blade sheered clear through before hitting the cobblestones with a spark.
The Reaper screamed out in pain and stepped forward, chomping down at Jarrek. Merrie guiltily hoped it would kill the paladin, but Jarrek dodged at the last minute and the massive creature bit down on stone and part of the curb.
Merrie watched as the others attacked, blades flashing. She was ignored by everyone fighting. Glancing around, she turned away from the battle and crawled over to the children.
Both of them were cowering in a basement of a house. Something had torn the rest of the building off its foundations and there was no obvious way to crawl down. The shredded remains of an older man was painted against the ground; she guessed it was the children's grandfather.
Flowing as silently as the shadow, Merrie used her cloak as a rope to lower herself down to the basement. The shattered bricks crunched underneath her knees.
The girl let out a cry and clutched at her brother. He drooled and babbled incoherently, his mind cracking from terror.
Merrie headed straight for the boy.
“Leave my brobro along!”
With a flick of her mind, Merrie froze the girl as she knelt down in front of the boy. Holding her breath, she reached out and grabbed his head with her wrists. His crumbling sanity felt like a prickle plant on her mind.
Merrie delved into his mind, pushing her way past the fragmented thoughts as she looked for some shred of sanity left intact. She found it, cowering in constant flashback of the Reaper nosily eating his grandfather. She smiled and pulled him close. Spells rose up in her mind and she released them gently, easing each one to repair the damage and soothe the fear.
The boy's babbling quieted and he began to sob.
“Brobro?” gasped the girl.
Merrie realized she lost control of her domination, but continued to focus on him. The damage was still raw and broke, but easily healed. She sealed up the worse of the pain and then wrapped him in a protective spell. It was almost the same as the ones in the collars from the mill, designed to push back strong emotions and suppress the spikes of fear and terror. There was a name for it, but she couldn't remember what numbers Borias used.
Sweat prickled her brow as she pulled her mind out of the young boy's thoughts. She felt relief flooding through her as she leaned back on her ankles, panting from the effort.
A deep growl shook the air.
The girl gasped and turned pale as a ghost. The boy's terror peaked, but hit the suppression spell and bounced. He let out a cry and clutched at his sister, but there was a strange, dull look in his brown eyes.
Merrie turned around. When she saw the drooling fangs of the Reaper less than a meter away, her heart skipped a beat.
The icy breath of the shadow creature washed over her. The Reaper opened its mouth and Gillette rolled out and hit the ground with a thump. He still held the broken shaft of his scythe and blood puddled around him. She could hear his ragged breathing and felt his thoughts, but he was as good as dead if she didn't do anything.
She focused on the massive creature crouching in front of her. The Reaper stood on the edge of the basement, two claws clutching the stone. It was large enough to eat a horse.
But, it wasn't attacking.
The Reaper, the alien creature of shadows and death, opened its mouth and licked her face. The tongue was sticky and icy. It left a cold slime against her skin as he finished lapping her from knees to face. She gagged on the stench of rotting meat.
Merrie looked into the six black eyes. It was her fault that it was there. Her own despair and guilt summoned it.
She held out her arm and pressed her wrist to its teeth.
The Reaper purred. She knew in the bottom of her heart, she could use it just like her cloak and everything else. She could rage across the world until everything was burning in black flames.
With a tear in her eyes, she reached deep inside her mind. She found the mote of crystallized pleasure she created with Gail and Tai. It contained an orgasm strong enough to consume the city in pleasure. And it would be enough for her magic. Taking a deep breath, she released it.
She was already crafting the spell as the orgasm tore through her. It was a single flash of pure intensity, a pitch black singularity of pleasure. She fed it through the spell.
(I'm sorry,) she projected as the spell exploded from her.
The despair that kept the shadows bound to the district crumbled from the onslaught of pleasure and ecstasy. Above her, the pitch darkness burned away and the last of the day's sun came pouring in.
The Reaper jerked back and screamed in agony. Its form ignited into choking black flames as it thrashed in the street, knocking down a building and then another.
Around her, the shadows peeled back in a rush, removing all darkness and letting pure sunlight come pouring in from between the branches of the World Tree. It was painfully bright against the dim light of the district and her eyes teared up even as she looked away. The circle continued to spread out, burning away the darkness and revealing the destruction, until the circle of normal reality was hundreds of meters across. And then, just as quickly as it started, it stopped. The edges of shadow and darkness wavered along but the circle of light remained. It was forever burned into the shadowed district, a place of safety and light.
For a long moment, she stared up at the light and was naked to the sun. Tears ran down her cheeks as she felt a terrible loss filling her being. The shadows were her home but she had destroyed it.
Letting out a gasp, she bowed her head. She felt weak and pathetic. Crawling over, she nosed Gillette and pushed him over.
Gillette's eyes were open and she jumped.
He groaned as he sat up. “Oh, I thought I wasn't going to make it.” He sounded remarkably coherent for being in the jaws of death.
Merrie shrugged.
With a glance, he grunted and turned away. “Didn't think you were a pretty girl under that black thing. Jarrek might have been a bit more generous if he knew.”
With a start, Merrie looked down. Her naked body was visible through the folds of her cloak. With a whimper, she scramble back and wrapped the cloak around her. It squeezed tightly around her skin but it was too late.
Gillette stood up. He glanced down at his broken weapon and tossed it aside. “Come on, let's see if the others survived.” He peeked at her and turned away. “You don't have to come with us.”
He gathered up the children, both of them crying softly from the their muted fear, and carried them down the street.
Merrie followed in the shadows, moving in silence as she watched.
They lost half of the fighters in the fight with the Reaper. Steaming blood and offal coated the streets. Torn bits of flesh and shattered bone coated the walls. To her regret, Jarrek was one of the survivors; he was standing on his own as Gillette arrive.
“The Reaper?”
Gillette shrugged. “Not here.” He pointed up to where the clouds were finally breaking and one large branch of the World Tree waved back and forth. “But, I'm not going to question it. Come on, let's get the survivors to the healers.”
“Where is the creature? The other one.”
Merrie tensed as she waited for Gillette's answer.
“It isn't important, Jarrek. We have the children and we have injured. We must do what we must do.”
“But, it will get—”
“Survivors come first!” snapped Gillette.
Jarrek bowed and sheathed his sword. He turned his back on Gillette and headed for the nearest body.
Merrie watched as they checked the survivors and gathered them. Most of them were severely injured and had to lean on each other. Gillette staggered under the weight of two of them. The sister and brother helped another, moving with the small dull actions they had since Merrie suppressed their emotions.
As they started back toward the gate, Merrie followed in silence. It didn't take long for the warriors to delve back into the shadows, but they were vulnerable to the creatures prowling the dark. She could feel them circling around, sensing weak prey inching through the darkness.
Merrie wrapped the warriors in a repulsion spell, draining the last of her pleasure to push away the creatures. She couldn't dispel them like the Reaper, but she kept them safe long enough for them to crawl through the gate.
As the door shut, she let out a long breath. She felt a little relief from her guilt, but it still tore at her. She shook her head. She came in hopes to give Nir a home, but there was no way the teenager could survive the death preying in the darkness.
She turned her back on the gate and headed deeper into the shadows. She had a long way to make it safe. Safe for not only Nir to give her a home, but also to prevent any more memorials being placed along the bridge.