There is a photo of Roha, gazing out onto a field of shallow snow banks, the dunes blinding white under a high sun. The date of the photo is often misattributed to a much later event. One bombastic editorial would call it ‘the day before the end.’ But the ‘end’ is months off yet. The most telling clue is that Roha is wrapped in a fur coat the colour of dark chocolate, not her the infamous tattered dress.

No, the photo is simply a vacation snap.

Running up to January 200x, the Kir family take a month-long retreat to their personal getaway in the Western valley to celebrate the new year. Four generations of Kirs make the journey, including members who do not normally reside in Central, and with them their current and potential inductees. Petra is accompanied by her boyfriend, a scion to the wealthy Kelbi family. Augustine, leaving his apartment empty and his phone to ring off the hook, drives in with Roha.

The winter estate is a twin to their Central homestead, sporting a driveway of fir instead of beech, a skating pond instead of a fountain, and a large stone fireplace in the lounge where one of the green papered walls would have been. The quintessential winter wonderland, it is perfect for photos - and with prior bad blood seemingly washed away, Augustine’s camera cards are filled with high-quality snapshots of posing, grinning relatives.

Augustine records himself giving Roha her new sable coat before they arrive. She raises her eyebrow slightly at the sight of it.

Did you not say you prefer women to wear less?

I say a lot. But where we’re going, I prefer you stay warm. Fur suits you.

He also films a few initial introductions. While mutual unease hangs in the air, true to their acting heritage, all members of the family appear able to pull together a smile and a handshake.

One young aunt screams when her hand comes away dotted with aura pods. Augustine can be heard laughing behind the camera, while assuring them it’s nothing. It’s even healthy! You can eat them.

It’s been speculated by more than a few investigators, online and official, that he brought her there purely as a shock tactic. But the mood soon levels out to the ordinary level of discomfort that comes from conjugal visits. The Kir family is nothing if not adaptable.

So this is the girl that took you down. This from an older relative identified as Nia Kir’s stepbrother, in the last introductory video.

Augustine laughs brightly. Why do people keep saying that? The online guys, and now you.

We’re all hoping it ain’t true. Would be a shame for you to have to shut down your little video projects. Still, she’s not a bad choice, if you gotta pick one. And their kind are young forever, huh? If anything happens to you, I got dibs…

Augustine leads Roha away from his leering uncle and toward the drinks bar.

The majority of Augustine’s captures during the trip after that are still images. The family appears in picturesque reverie. It’s the perfect winter setting, for the perfect, beautiful family. Free of context, Roha appears to slot right in, even thrive. All smiles and dressed (rather than undressed) to the nines, she is a cloud of silver among the coppery locks and dark brows characteristic of the Kir family genes.

In the testimony that emerges - largely from the lesser-known members of the Kir family when the case goes public - we learn that her continued reception was definitely not perfect.

—

Augustine may have gifted Roha a winter wardrobe for her grand entrance, but a good quarter of his photographs from that period feature her in swimsuits by the Kir’s heated indoor pool. Reclining in a striped beach chair, Roha appears flushed and languid, a dazed sunbather despite it being dead of winter.

‘He just wouldn’t stop,’ recounts one of his female cousins who requested not to be named. ‘It was obvious she hated it. Oh, she didn’t seem to care about the stringy little things he got her to wear, but she didn’t like being around the pool. The water wasn’t the problem either. She kept saying it was too hot, how even taking off clothes didn’t help. She did sweat a lot when I saw her down there. I wondered a little if she was sick. But they don’t get sick, do they?’

It is indeed practically unheard of for Life Fountain to catch a common cold or flu. But many do have a favored environment, and Roha had made it quite clear to Augustine that she preferred the cold - what little good that did.

‘He tried to get her to hang around by the pool longer by bringing her ice and frozen juice and stuff. He got really in her face, trying to get shots of her licking the long ones as he held them by sticks… It was gross. Like a dog panting and eating at the same time, or trying to. They left sticky juice and crap all over the side of the pool, the cleaner was pissed and blamed us girls. Augy and Em just thought it was the funniest thing ever.’

—

This was not Roha’s only run-in with the music-critic cousin.

Another photograph captures Roha with the Kir family’s Central mainstay - Augustine, his sisters Calya and Petra, and Emile. In her white gown and easy smile, she is a beacon in a crowd of wine-red dresses, dark, sharp sportcoats and leather upholstery. The men are stationed to her left and right like foot soldiers. Behind the group, the fireplace crackles between a set of rather large speakers.

‘That was the last time Em ever tried anything on Roha,’ Calya says.

According to Calya and one of the Kir family aunts, Emile was seen pulling Roha to the side after dinner and drinks. There was some conversation and gesticulating on Emile’s part and he appeared to be trying to woo her.

‘He was just about to go in for a kiss when Augy came around the corner, just chatting away, totally chill like he was expecting this to happen. He said, oh, Em, you know this song, don’t you? And it was on the big speakers, the song Em had reviewed a while before then, I think it was about the singer’s brother who...’ Calya continues rifling through the photos. ‘I forget the name. It was the song Roha liked.’

And Emile, in a messy rush to cover his tracks, launches into his tired criticism of the song. Boring, standard chords. Uninspired, repetitive lyrics. A song for simpletons.

‘And Roha - it was too good - she put up a finger like she was going to shush him, but instead stabbed it against Em’s chest like, no, she was sending this straight to his heart and she said ‘It doesn’t matter what you think.’’

The spectacle had by then dragged in quite a crowd. There was plenty of boozy laughter. Augustine tut-tuts Em for trying to lecture a girl at least a hundred years his senior.

‘He said people are going to like what they like,’ Calya remembers with a bitter smile. ‘He would know, wouldn’t he?’

Augustine was, at very least, gracious enough to move the bustle back to the dining room, leaving cousin Emile to simmer in the lounge.

‘They all set me up,’ Emile grumbles when the topic comes up in his interview. ‘Got me to drink and… he must have agreed to it. It was all so fake; it was a coordinated attack. And anyway, Cal was in on it. She practically dared me to drag her brother’s zombie girlfriend into another room.’

Calya denies this allegation.

‘Cal likes to pretend she had nothing to do with anything, was never interested in Aug and his white freak. That she was just being quirky, and those kinds of pranks were what you’d do to siblings. Funny, though, she never pulled anything on Petra’s man. I think she was jealous that Petra and even Augy bought plus-ones while she still couldn’t find a guy who’d put up with her for more than three dates.’

Calya denies this as well, pointing out that Emile, the second-oldest of the Kir foursome, hadn’t been able to find a partner either.

Emile continues. ‘She was acting up the whole trip. Almost as bad as Augy’s skank assistants. Come to think of it, I guess that’s why Roha never told Cal to fuck off, she was used to skanks. Assuming she wasn’t just dense - she was used to it.’

At the end of the trip, Roha even gives her sable coat to Calya.

—

Petra insists that she stayed out of the children’s squabble, so focused she was on keeping her male friend entertained. ‘I didn’t have the time to babysit. And when Augy’s involved, the best you can do is not give him your attention.’

She did note Roha’s discomfort regarding the pool, and has a vague recollection that Calya dared several male family members to approach her. ‘Not that it came to anything. She drank half of them into a coma, and for the other half, Augustine was there with his camera, just daring them to do something he could plaster all over his channel. Him and his channel, dear god.’

With some reluctance, Petra admits to having tried to convince Roha to leave the estate, even offering to drive her back to the city, to her home or the Foundation.

‘The way I saw, it was for her own good. The treatment was becoming hard to watch, she was clearly uncomfortable. Augustine had styled himself into the black sheep on purpose, you see. It was a years-long process. He’d been given all the chances in the world to turn back. But she wouldn’t… she would be entering the family under his shadow. And she didn’t have the capacity to know–’

Petra stops herself at that.

‘That’s a point of contention, in regards to the proceedings. I can’t say whether she had the capacity to make the right call or not.’

She lingers on a photo Augustine took of herself and Kelbi, who was soon to be her husband.

‘Roha didn’t take my offer, by the way. She thanked me, very nicely and all, but I could tell she didn’t really understand a thing I was telling her. And I don’t mean it as a fault of hers. it would be wrong of me to say it was due to her primitive Life Fountain nature, or something like that. Augustine never got the picture, either. Maybe I should have talked to him instead… been a big sister to him. I don’t know what I was to Roha. Just speck of dust in a long, long life, probably.’

A picture of brother and sister and their future betrothed, side by side. She divorced Kelbi after a year and a half.

‘It’s exactly as Augustine said that night to cousin Em. People like what and whom they like. There isn’t much you can do about it. Unfortunately.’

—

Among the tales of awkward conversations, poolside shenanigans, and thankfully thwarted attempts of assault, there is one innocent, fable-like account that stands out. Its teller is a very young member of the Kir family.

Eight year old Lif and his six year old sister took an immediate liking to Roha’s gentle temperament and ‘nice lady voice’. The twosome had some pleasant encounters with Roha when their hikes across the snowdrifts coincided with her morning walk. She helped them stack up an impressive row of snowmen, and could identify the best slopes for sledding. She did not tell their parents when they played rough; indeed the idea did not even seem to cross her mind.

When Lif asked if Roha was a new maid or nanny, his mother quickly corrected him, though she did not seem particularly happy about it. The child notes that the adult Kirs were apprehensive of this newcomer, which he supposed was due to her looking very different from the rest of the clan. Uncle Augustine, the one who’d brought her in, also made adults exchange funny glances when they talked about him. But since they were all family, the children felt there would be no issue with taking her on as a playmate.

The children’s dog had accompanied the rest of them for the trip, and spent most of the time locked in their suite, relieving himself on the chilly balcony. Some days, when they snuck out for their early morning adventures, they would leash the butterscotch terrier, wrap him with scarves, and sneak him out alongside them.

The animal, Lif recounts, was as antsy around Roha as the adults were. (There are many studies that suggest certain animals take a defensive stance when facing a strong Life Fountain aura.) The children supposed that this restlessness was simply an ‘old person thing’. The dog, Lif informs us, was coming on in years and, like grandpa (the child throws in this tidbit with a coy smile) could get a bit mean when it came to new people.

But despite being the oldest creature of them all, Roha was ambivalent to their pet, and didn't even care when it nipped her. The dog’s fear of her actually kept its mouth shut, so as far as the children were concerned, all was well.

The Kir property was so expansive, its edges cloaked with thick evergreen, that it seemed the perfect playground. The children weren’t aware they had neighbors.

The Kir’s neighbors - vacationers like themselves - were avid hunters. The trigger-happy nature of the family on the other side of the trees was cited as a reason the Kir family preferred their Central residence. Both sides of the fence claimed that they thought the other wasn’t around at the time.

So one morning, Lif and his sister snuck out of the house, dog in tow, waving to Roha as they passed her on the porch. They planned to play in and around one of the fallen trees at the edge of the property. They leashed the dog and began a game of hide and seek. The two were skilled players, quick and quiet. But they were so focused on each other, that they didn’t see a second party approach. Three neighbors, who were taking a small tour through the grove themselves, saw movement within the log - vaguely like that of a fox - and fired. Multiple times.

When the very un-foxlike screaming began, the hunting party bolted. Lif remembers he was hiding and watching his sister stalk around the log when she suddenly tripped, with a sound like a thunderclap. When he ran to check on her, she was bawling and trembling, her light blue coat turning blackish and warm. Their neighbors were lackluster shots - they’d hit just about everything but the vitals, and their targets were alive to suffer in extreme pain.

The dog, who had been tied to a branch and unable to flee, had taken three shots to the middle. It was alive and crying too, ‘like a whistle that wouldn’t stop’.

Lif ran back to the house, mittens spongy with blood, but hesitated at the door. Despite everything, he still feared his parents - but there was Roha by the front step.

He was surprised how quickly she moved through the snow. He had never seen her run before. ‘She was flying - but not really flying, just fast. She wasn’t moving over the snow, but bashing through it. Like a snow plow.’ He also remembers that she did not seem overly concerned - there was no grabbing and shoving and gibbering of ‘it will be okay, it will be okay’ - that came from others, later. Instead, she seemed curious.

Even the sight of the crumpled girl in the red snow didn’t ruffle her. The oddness of her reaction kept Lif from looking away, as he so desperately felt he should have been doing.

Roha lifted the little body and checked the girl’s injury - of that much he was sure. She appeared to be looking for something. Then she just let the girl drop back onto the snow and went over to inspect the dog, who was then struggling to breathe.

And then it was over, or rather, everything was all right.

Lif’s sister pushed herself upright, rubbing her shoulder. She poked her finger through one of the holes in her coat that had passed through her sweater, thermal undershirt, and out her back side. The holes in her body, though, were sealed with several large blue blisters.

Soon enough, the dog was up and about too. He was in a miserable mood and not at all wanting to rejoin those who had tied him up, but he was very much alive - also covered in blue blisters.

By the time Lif dried his tears, Roha had dusted snow off her skirts and headed back to the house for breakfast.

The children were so enthralled that they rushed back to the house on her heels to tell everyone of the miracle they had witnessed.

Seeing the blood, the holes and the blue glowing pustules, the Kir family went nuclear.

This is one of the events Augustine sees fit to film. There is a lot of screaming, almost entirely adult. The dog is barking madly, aura pods bobbing on its back. The animal makes a dash as someone approaches to try and remove them. The child is almost stripped in front of the whole group but even her parents recoil at the sight of the aura globbed over her wounds. Too skittish to touch the alien growths, the parents resort to making loud proclamations. Roha makes an easy target for their shouts, but the kids are eager to defend her, so naturally all aggression is redirected at the potential assailants. Petra’s boyfriend Kelbi says he can make sure the neighbors are all jailed. One great-uncle says he’s about to go and shoot the neighbors’ children then and there, to even the score.

Mercifully, there is no revenge killing. The lawsuit only juggles around the idea of which side trespassed into the other’s property. In a week, Roha’s life-saving aura pods fall off child and dog, and they are fully recovered without even a scar to show off to the kids at home. (Although, one of the bullets remains lodged in the girl’s shoulder - so at least she has the x-rays to flaunt before her friends.)

At the end of the trip, Augustine takes a particularly poignant photo. Roha kneels with a look of slight bewilderment, while Lif and his sister throw their arms around her neck in a thoroughly joyful embrace. Alongside the photo of Roha in her dark coat, and the group shot taken in front of the fireplace-sound system, the photo of the children hugging her was printed and tucked to the back of in Augustine’s daily planning notebook of that year.

—

After the Kir family’s extended soiree, Augustine and Roha take a tour of the nearby winter lodges. With unpublished footage from his hard drives, it is evident that Augustine tried to film a video for his channel with a swinger couple that they met at a bar.

How’s this, for everyone saying I’ve gone monogamous?

The couple they take on are a pair of perky blondes, and the woman instantly takes to Augustine. Her man seems happy enough to lead Roha to the second sofa, but soon re-emerges from offscreen to complain that she’s boring, she isn’t being accommodating. What he means is that she’s fallen asleep. If he’s not getting equal share, he says, then the whole proposition is out the door.

Augustine curses him good-naturedly all the way out and goes to roll Roha over. She blinks at him.

Did your friends leave?

Of course they did. No apologies, as usual, I see.

I’m sorry?

It’s hard to tell what Augustine may be thinking; his back is to the camera. Like so many videos before it, Roha’s ambiguous smile reveals nothing either. There are no more attempts to film until they arrive back in Central Mainline, a week later.

—

February 200x, a few days before Valentines. Augustine claims to have something special planned. His project is so special and so secret, not even Lis and Vira have any clue as to its nature. They never find out, either.

It is Friday morning when the police descend on Kir’s apartment for a third time, with Life Fountain Foundation leader Cadmus in tow. Roha is escorted back to her home once again and Augustine Kir is arrested for willful abduction and taking advantage of a ‘compromised individual’.

The Kirs fling down the money for bail and fire back. Stories of Roha’s holiday at the Kir mansion are laid out and embellished. She was welcomed with open arms. She never once tried to leave - just the opposite, she couldn’t be dragged from her four-poster bed most days. She said she’d rather live there than in her squalid Central residence. The children loved her. She was no mentally inept victim, seduced into becoming a prisoner.

In particular there is Nia Kir, Augustine’s fashion-model mother, recently appointed the face of an domestic abuse-awareness organization. She manages to light considerable sparks with her speech during the organization’s charity ball. The so-called Life Fountain Foundation looks down on its own, she says, but only when it’s convenient.

Are Life Fountains the potential productive adults, deserving of our respect and value, or are they gibbering, drooling children who must be locked in padded pens for all eternity? Which is it? The low or the high? Think about what either choice says about you. Surely the Life Fountains among you with your long, fruitful lives – you know better than the flip-flop for the sake of moral high ground in the moment…

Lem Carthage, Cadmus’s human wife, issues a short response that Whistle cites in our interview. Life Fountains, like any group of humans, ‘are not a monolith’. Aside from their aura, there is no single definition and all of their needs vary on a case-by-case basis.

Somewhat more abstractly, she also alludes to the potential dangers of uninformed humans beginning romantic relationships with Life Fountains, suggesting that Augustine’s intentions likely come from a good heart, and is welcome to speak to the foundation if he’s truly interested. Augustine posts his reply to his channel.

Of course she’s going on about that. She was the one who get herself stuck fucking that crusty old cock Cadmus, but no, it’s everyone else who’s stupid, everyone else who’s making mistakes and doing wrong. The young people are too stupid and should just be alone forever, right? Talking all high and mighty, the slut, when she gets grey and wrinkled, and he loses patience with her, then we’ll see who has the right to talk about choices.

This firebrand talk draws back many of the viewers who departed in a huff when he was supposedly pursuing monogamy. The comments cry for the blood of Lem, Cadmus and anyone who dares associate with their anachronistic Foundation.

People are gonna say I should play nice because I’m just some guy who makes videos - but you know what, I’m proud that I’m honest. I have sex, what of it? You think they don’t? Bet those two have all kinds of mutant half-blood kids stuffed under the floorboards too.

Obviously, these aspirations do not earn him a pass from the Foundation. In what is an unusually quick progression for the Central legal system, Augustine’s case is taken to court, the date set for April.

While the world is on fire around her, Roha goes out to dine alone, reads her mail, and of course, sleeps away the days.