by Frank Hurt
Ember blinked with surprise as she focused on each person in the room. Where Joy’s aura was healthy and normal—sugar glider subform notwithstanding—the four Investigators each had dirty smudges where their auras should have been. Ember hadn’t noticed Neal’s marred aura in the elevator, so flustered as she was by the conversation that she hadn’t focused her sight. Here, though, it was as blatant as Roseanne’s dirty aura was. As Jackie’s and Duncan’s both were too, for that matter. The hairs on the back of her neck stood and her mouth felt dry. What the bloody hell is going on around here?
She realized, belatedly, that everyone was wordlessly staring at her, so Ember turned her attention to the objective—her whole reason for being sent to the Magic City by special mission from Wallace.
“Mr. Heywood, it’s a privilege to meet you, sir.” Ember extended her hand as she stepped toward the man. “I had the honor of serving as junior partner to Wallace Livingston prior to his elevation to Druw High Council. I understand you and he came up through the academy together. I’d love to hear any stories you have on The Legend sometime if you’re willing?”
Duncan remained seated. He shook Ember’s hand stiffly before dropping it as if it were a hot potato. His expression was of annoyance. He cleared his throat and said, “Oh, I don’t know about that. It would be a little unseemly, don’t you think? In any case, I don’t expect you’ll be in Minot long enough to warrant much small talk. This census audit is just a formality, I’m sure, but you will find everything you need to complete your task by asking any of my Associate Investigators. I hope you won’t expect preferential treatment just because you were Wallace’s…assistant.”
The Senior Investigator stood, refilled his coffee, and left for his office.
Ember felt her lips move, but she produced no words. Her throat was dry and she felt lightheaded. Her entire mission was to get Duncan Heywood alone, to talk to him. To find out what was wrong—why he had left Wallace a disturbing partial message and then went silent. She expected to find a man similar to Wallace—an accomplished Senior Investigator who commanded respect and deserved every bit of it.
The fire-maned Jackie exhaled a sigh and offered her first words to Ember. “Look, golden girl, I’m sure you’re real popular back in England, but here we ‘provincial folk’ have to earn our own dang way. We all got our positions by working hard, not by relying on our family name and social contacts.”
Ember clenched her jaw until her teeth hurt. It was the only way she could suppress the stinging in her eyes, to keep tears from forming. She wanted to defend herself. She wanted to set the record straight. She knew, though, that if she spoke at that moment she might undermine her entire mission—or at the very least start crying in front of these strangers. These unnecessarily rude, bitter strangers.
It was the changeling girl who rescued her. Joy cleared her throat—a poor mimic of Duncan, if that was what she was attempting—and deadpanned, “So…well that was…odd. Um…alrighty then. Maybe we’ll try that again later? How ‘bout you follow me, Ember. We made some space for you in a supply room. I’ll show you to your office.”
Ember nodded, not daring to say anything. She avoided looking at the other Investigators—her supposed peers and coworkers. Roseanne didn’t even bother to wait until Ember was out of the room before she started snickering. Three coffee cups cheerfully clinked together as a toast.
For her part, Joy was noticeably subdued. She made a couple of wisecracks when she unlocked the door to the supply room that would serve as Ember’s makeshift office. The walls were lined with steel shelves, overflowing with boxes, reams of paper, ink cartridges, and old computer hardware of every variety.
Joy handed the file folder to Ember. “Here’s the list of personnel and phone extensions. You’ve been given access to all the raw census data, including the computer system for the Minot Embassy, as well as summarized data. If you need anything you can ask any of the Associate Investigators.” Joy glanced down the hall to the break room. “Or…maybe you can just ask me. I’m marked on your phone as ‘Front Desk.’
Ember forced a smile but said nothing as Joy left. She looked around the windowless room that would serve as her office for the duration of her time in North Dakota. On the grey, steel desk next to the phone was a form with a header stating, “Department of External Relations.” A yellow sticky note was affixed, with handwritten scrawl:
For your convenience, here’s the required paperwork. No thanks expected. –Roseanne.
Ember spent the rest of the morning alone in her office, pacing as she ran the conversation with Duncan through her mind. He had no reason to be so rude to her—or did he? Was it possible that Duncan was just putting on a ruse, as a cover in sight of the other Investigators? Was he being blackmailed by one of them, or spied on by someone?
No scenario she could imagine would explain the smudged auras that she was witnessing. No mage was even supposed to be able to see auras, much less differentiate between ones that looked normal versus ones which were…contaminated. Contaminated. Could that be it—could there be some sort of epidemic that’s infecting the auras of Malvern people? It might explain the change in personality that Duncan apparently suffered or the heightened rudeness from those infected.
She needed to eliminate scenarios, but she needed to do so under the cover of her census audit. If the infection hypothesis was disproved, she couldn’t risk showing her hand to malicious actors—assuming there even was something nefarious behind the infected auras.
With access to the Minot colony’s census database, Ember logged into her assigned computer. She began running queries to the server which was located in the same building, but four floors above where she now sat. She searched for any abnormalities in the population. Economic behaviors, crime statistics, changes in migration—she wasn’t even sure what she was looking for. She hoped she would know when she found it.
Lunch came and went—Ember had no appetite and no desire to take a break. She found a couple case files of crimes, but nothing noteworthy. She worked her way backward through the years until she stumbled upon one that had a curious name:
Incident at Mandaree
“Incident? That’s sufficiently vague,” Ember said aloud as she pulled up the dossier’s summary.
Mandaree, North Dakota, it turned out, was a small town near the Missouri River, something like 100 miles southwest of Minot. Details on whatever the incident was were unhelpful and nondescript, which made Ember even more curious.
Public news searches online provided another layer of information. The media described what was popularly called “The Mandaree Incident” as some sort of industrial accident which released a poisonous gas cloud. The cloud persisted for the better part of a year. A quarantine zone had been in place, but there were few casualties reported.
Ember cross-referenced dates and names and discovered that there were ten changelings associated with this case file—with this Incident at Mandaree.
She pulled up the case files for each of the changelings and noticed another coincidence: all ten were marked as “emotionally disabled”—and all acquired that designation in September 2001.
She couldn’t put her finger on it, but something felt important about this case. Not even sure what she was going to do with the information, Ember jotted down the personnel numbers for each of the disabled changelings onto a legal pad. She slipped the sheet of paper into her leather satchel.
Ember was reading the personnel file of one disabled changeling—an Arnold Schmitt—when she saw Duncan walk past her office door. This was her chance. She grabbed her notepad and hurried into the hallway.
“Duncan! I’m sorry to pester you, but I really do need to ask you something.”
Duncan had his briefcase in his hand and glanced at his watch. “It’s 5:00. I’m calling it a day and so should you. Whatever it is can wait for tomorrow.”
Ember hadn’t realized how late it was—she had remained cooped up in the windowless supply closet,
pulling countless database queries. She rubbed her eyes. “It will only take a moment. I just needed some information on a couple case files and then I’ll leave you alone.”
The man sighed, but to her surprise he relented. “Alright, I’ll pull the information you need, but then you had better not bother me anymore. I have three Associate Investigators who would be more than happy to help you out, after all.”
Somehow, Ember doubted the “more than happy” assessment. Her goal was just to get Duncan alone, to talk with him away from anyone else. She needed to get a read on this man who was once a close friend of Wallace. She would need to be subtle, careful.
She followed him into his office, where he pressed the power button on his desktop computer. The machine beeped and cooling fans whirred to life as he settled into his chair with a sigh.
“Alright, give me the case files and I’ll punch them in.”
Case files. Ember scrambled to jot down the series of numbers from her notes. She purposely placed the case number for the Incident at Mandaree on the bottom. She wasn’t expecting much, but she was hoping that while he was distracted entering in numbers, she could get a read on his aura. She prepared to pry.
“These are old cases.” Duncan furrowed his brow. “I can see by the numbers that they are maybe, what, nine years old? Are you really going back that far with your audit?”
Now was her chance. “I need to ask you something. Wallace had mentioned something about a call you made to him a few months ago.” Ember’s voice trickled off as she saw the dark smudge on Duncan’s aura come to life and swirl around him. His aura was reacting to her words, and unless she was mistaken it appeared angry.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” The man’s face was placid. “I thought you wanted to know about these case files?”
It was a strange sight: Duncan didn’t seem to be lying to her. He was genuinely confused. And yet…and yet his aura—his contaminated aura—reacted angrily. It was unsettling. She decided to let the subject sleep until she could think of another way to broach it. She would consult with Wallace and maybe he would have an idea.
“No, you’re right. My mistake. Yes, please, these case files.” Ember pointed at the paper now in Duncan’s hand.
Duncan studied her for a moment with his olive drab eyes—probably trying to detect the untruth in her statement. Ember hoped she was hiding her lie adequately. She must have, as he turned his attention back to the flickering computer monitor and began punching in numbers on the keyboard.
“Oh, right. I remember this one. It’s been closed for some time.” He scribbled a note. “I’ll pull the hard copy and sign off on it.” He entered the second case code and studied his screen. “Oh, yes. Same with this one. Another family squabble.” Another scribble was added to the first.
He entered the case number for the Incident at Mandaree, pulling up the digital file on his computer. “This, too. This one is closed.” Duncan’s voice sounded ordinary, even bored. In contrast, the smudged aura surrounding him swirled violently. It pulsed and grew larger, the darkness seeming to snuff out the light in the room, to envelope Ember.
Ember interrogated murderers before. She interviewed sociopaths, rapists, even child molesters. Their auras were ugly and left her disgusted, feeling unclean just for the proximity of such imbalanced energy forces. Until now, she had never been even a little scared of a person’s aura. It was, after all, just a reflection of its host. What appeared in a mirror might be ugly, but to be afraid of the mirror itself would be unreasonable.
Now, though, Ember was terrified.
Duncan crumpled up the paper she had handed him. He tossed it into the trash and steepled his fingers. While his aura raged around him, his expression was bored, his voice tired. “Are you satisfied now, Ember?”
Ember’s chest tightened. Her heart threatened to burst through her rib cage and flee if she couldn’t will her legs to move. She opened her mouth but quickly snapped it shut. Is this how the infection spreads? Am I about to be contaminated?
She didn’t remember what she said—maybe Ember said nothing at all—but she finally willed herself to look away from the dark tempest forming around her. When she wasn’t looking directly at it, she thought she saw Duncan reaching out—crying in silent desperation. She glanced back to see the man sitting stoically, his shadowy aura raging as before.
Breathing was becoming difficult. Ember didn’t remember leaving Duncan’s office. At some point, she grabbed her satchel and ran past the front desk and into the waiting elevator. She punched the button to close the doors. Sweat dripped down her back. She felt nauseous.
Ember braced herself against a corner and tried to keep her knees from buckling. She distantly heard a cheerful Joy wish her a pleasant evening as the elevator doors closed.
9
So Much is Wrong
Ember’s arms windmilled in an unsuccessful effort to stop her sudden descent. She tumbled into a short hedge parallel to the sidewalk, landing on her satchel.
“Are you okay, ma’am?”
She looked up to see two boys—both teenagers, NonDruws—rushing to her aid. She accepted their help, brushed herself off, and uttered a half-hearted excuse for her clumsiness. Ember walked another block before she realized she hadn’t even thanked the two strangers.
She had been running aimlessly, recklessly from The Parker and the people within that building. Her mind was a distracted beehive of incoherent thoughts. To her knowledge, auras couldn’t grow, block light, or surround someone like that. So, if that wasn’t Duncan’s aura, what was that? Am I infected by whatever that thing was?
Ember focused on herself, looking at her arms, her legs. No shadowy smudge to be seen.
“Touch wood for that.” Ember reached for the trunk of an ash tree planted in the boulevard. A bird sang to her from somewhere up in the canopy. Even that modest reminder of nature in the midst of bustling downtown Minot helped settle her panic. Now if my heart would stop pounding and I could somehow teleport back to England, that would be the bee’s knees.
She closed her eyes and thought of home—of Great Malvern in western England. The namesake hills surrounding the community which formed the seat of power for Druwish people the world over was a place of ancient beauty. It was where a ley line approached the surface and was why the ancient Celtic people were drawn to it. It was why later peoples would build monasteries and churches, and people later still built healing spas.
When Ember opened her eyes, she was still in Minot.
Her introspective moment was enough to provide a hint of clarity. She would call home. The cell phone given by the colonial government wouldn’t do, though; it could be bugged for all she knew. She gave her apartment a wide berth for the same reason.
Perspiration beaded on her forehead, and her forearms were scratched from hugging the hedge that broke her fall. Without warning, a sob broke through her paper-thin defenses and shattered what little calm she’d managed to collect. Ember pressed the back of a clammy hand against her mouth to muffle the sound as she looked around for a place to hide her imminent breakdown.
Roosevelt Park
The unadorned sign announcing the entrance to Roosevelt Park beckoned. Ember couldn’t see anyone on the pathway so she stumbled forward. Whimpers fought free. She chastised herself to maintain composure, to keep it together.
A high-pitched scream stopped Ember’s meltdown. She froze, looking around for its source.
Another scream, followed by laughter. Children’s laughter. Her gaze flitted over the set of brightly-colored equipment which comprised a waterpark. Ember sagged with relief.
She exhaled, unaware that she had been holding her breath. All around her, parents and their children were enjoying the early summer evening. Nobody was even paying attention to her—nobody seemed to notice the blonde woman experiencing a meltdown in public.
Near a building which contained public restrooms was a blue-and-white steel sign of a telephone handset. It loo
ked different from its equivalent in her homeland, but Ember recognized it as a payphone. She followed the directions for entering her credit card and then dialed a number rooted in her memory from childhood.
“Hello, Wright residence.” Sleep deepened the voice that Ember wanted so badly to hear.
“Hello, Mummy.” Ember choked, unable to say more. Her shoulders shook with suppressed sobs as homesickness crashed through her emotional shell, like water eroding the shoreline.
“Hello, darling. We expected you to call, just not so late. Is everything fine?”
Her mother’s voice opened the floodgates. Ember covered her mouth with a shaky hand. Her throat felt constricted. She squeezed her eyelids shut, evicting tears. Her voice was weak, quavering when she whispered. “Nothing’s broken.”
“Darling, whatever is wrong?”
Ember heard a rustling of fabric. Her mother murmured behind a semi-cupped phone receiver. Her father’s voice in the background completely undid the young woman. Ember leaned against the frame of the payphone, the handset pressed flat to her ear as she cradled it with both hands like something precious, fragile. She wanted so badly to tell her mother everything.
“Emberly, what is happening? What’s wrong?” There was a taste of evolving alarm in Benedette’s voice.
Her mother’s concern, curiously, helped Ember gain some form of control over her runaway panic attack. She took the phone away from her face and held it against her chest as she took a deep breath. She willed her next words to sound calmer than she felt. “I’m just…I’m just feeling homesick, I think.”
“Mm.” Her mother didn’t sound convinced. “Sweetheart, you’ve been away longer than this. Perhaps not alone, but this is something more. I can’t help you if you don’t tell me.” When Benedette Wright used that tone, nobody stood a chance.