The Unspeakable Unknown

by Eliot Sappingfield

“Darling,” the voice said with a deep southern drawl. “You’re going to a bad place right there. Why don’t you keep looking that way and lift your hands up by your ears where I can see them? That way nobody loses any body parts for the time being. You, too, twinkle toes.”

  “Okay,” I said, seeing Warner and Hypatia following suit from the corner of my eye.

  My phone buzzed, and before I could react, it was snatched from my hand. Whoever she was, she moved quickly.

  For just a moment, my agar bracelet twitched on my wrist, like it was dying to do some work. I could have used it to restrain her, but something told me she wasn’t a threat right then.

  “Someone named Dirac wants you to know he can’t see me anymore. I’m just going to let him know he should sit tight. That all right?”

  I heard the keyboard on my phone clicking as she typed out a response.

  “Which one of us is ‘twinkle toes’?” Warner asked.

  “Shut up, Warner,” Hypatia and I said in unison.

  Once the message was sent, our new acquaintance stepped between Hypatia and me, and hunkered down in the grass in front of the three of us, her weapon (a ramshackle assortment of various electronic components mounted to a board) trained on me.

  She was a girl with clear umber skin. Her eyes gleamed bright golden-green from between thick braids that parted like curtains around her face and ran down over her shoulders and back. Obviously tall, even crouching in the grass, she wore faded blue jeans and a flannel shirt over a plain white tank top. She smiled warmly, still smelling of the bread she’d probably been baking when we interrupted her. She tossed her head, sending a cascade of braids over her shoulder, improving her peripheral vision.

  The wind shifted, and despite the whole firearm situation I was looking at, my mouth watered at the smell of baking bread in the air. “Tell me who sent you here. Do you work for the family?”

  “No,” Hypatia said cheerfully. Apparently her initial fear had passed. “The School sent us. And we’re just students. We came with our class and teacher, Ms. Botfly.”

  “Thanks, sweetie. Keep going. How many are you? What kind of threat are we talking about here?”

  Warner answered this one. “There are twenty-five of us, but not all of them will make it very soon. Maybe about half. And of those, only three or four are really worth anything in a fight.”

  Little more info than she needs to know, Warner. I threw him a glance, hoping he got the point. Was he trying to gain her trust?

  “Your turn, darling,” she said, fixing her big eyes on me. A second later her expression turned quizzical. “You’re a tough cookie, aren’t you? I’ll ask you easy questions to start with. Did they tell you I was here?”

  “Who?”

  “That’s a question, not an answer. How did you find me?”

  “Newspaper articles, police reports of strange animal sounds, drone readings, and—”

  “Yeah, I got it. That drone was pretty obvious. Should have known y’all were coming. Do you know my name?”

  “No. All we know is that you’re an uncontacted parahuman, and we’re supposed to tell you about the School and invite you to attend.”

  “The School is one of the things I do know about. I don’t remember a lot about it. That was another life, practically.”

  “Well, they want you there,” I said. “It’s pretty great, to be honest. Do you have family around here?”

  “Well, my sisters ditched me and left me for dead. They’d probably kill me if they could find me.”

  “Oh,” I said, not sure what to say. “Sorry about that?”

  “That was months ago. I’m over it now. Getting back on my feet and all. Are you telling me the truth? You really think you want me at your school?”

  “Yeah, I . . .” She looked directly into my eyes, leaning forward. The smell of fresh-baked bread flooded my senses. I could almost taste it. My mouth watered involuntarily. Was the house on fire? Did she have bread perfume?

  “What’s your deal?” she said, giving me the stink-eye. She turned suddenly to Warner, who was sitting patiently, waiting to be helpful. “Is she lying?”

  Warner shook his head. “No, that’s the deal. You can come to the School with us. That’s why we’re here. They want you.”

  “No, they don’t,” she said, standing and dusting herself off.

  “You’re all alone out here. What are you going to do?” I asked. “Hang out in the forest? Hide in your cabin until some normal people find you and call social services? You going to fight them off or run? How long can you run? Do you really want to?”

  She leaned close and her smile faded. “I have no other choice, darling. Once the family disowns you, you either die quick or hide till someone kills you later. I figured out the basics. I can blend in, I can walk and talk, and I got a few more tricks up my sleeve. Don’t I?”

  I wasn’t sure who she was asking, until both Hypatia and Warner turned their heads to me.

  “If she’s lying, she’s dying,” Hypatia said in a distinct southern drawl.

  “And she ain’t dying, ’cause she ain’t lying,” Warner said in the same sharp lilt.

  “I’m sorry,” I said, raising a hand. “What the—”

  But I stopped asking because suddenly I understood.

  It was the smell that told me, that and an almost imperceptible vibration in the air. As soon as she made eye contact with me, I caught it again, more intense than before. We were too far from the cabin to smell anything from there. It was her. I hadn’t caught it, because they usually smelled awful.

  I looked at the girl again—not like you usually look at someone, but really looked. It’s hard to explain, but the trick is letting yourself observe what your eyes see, not what your brain thinks it is seeing. I’d learned the difference from Tabbabitha, having seen her in disguise on a couple of occasions and once in her true form.

  It was instant—the girl wasn’t there at all. But something else was—a writhing mass of tentacles of a color we don’t have a name for swirled and twitched around a central body whose shape broke several rules of geometry but vaguely resembled one of those stout street-side mailboxes. The girl wasn’t the same as the other Old Ones—but she was right, she was a member of the family.

  “Oh,” I said.

  “Yeah,” she replied slowly.

  I took a breath to compose myself and worked hard to see the girl again, instead of the being that made my brain hurt. “They disowned you? What is that? I thought the Old Ones had a hive mind, like they all shared the same memories and everything. How could they kick you out?”

  “When they kicked me out, I was nothing more than a pile of goo and tentacles for a while. I almost died. No mouth to eat or drink with, no eyes to see where I was going. I was sure I was dead. That was till this lady came by and happened to sit and have a bite to eat right where I was dying, and because of that I was able to figure out how bodies work. I suppose I look like her when she was younger. After that, I hung around, eating leaves and drinking rainwater till some hunters came along . . .”

  “You didn’t . . . kill them, did you?”

  “Nah, but I did make them teach me how to talk and some other basic stuff. I had them bring me here, too. Then I had them forget the whole thing after. I was pretty set here, till you all came poking around. I can make them forget they found me,” she said, gesturing at Warner and Hypatia. “But it isn’t working on you. Why is that?”

  “I’m not a hundred percent sure,” I said. “I’ve run into another Old One in the past, so I guess I’m used to what the disguise and suggestions feel like, maybe?”

  “You mean,” she said, holding out her arms, “you can see—”

  “Yep, but I’m looking at the girl now,” I said.

  She smirked at my barely disguised shudder. “Maybe that will teach you not to look at things y
ou don’t want to see. How’s my disguise, by the way?”

  “Good,” I said honestly. “Actually, it’s impeccable. I’d heard only the most powerful Old Ones could pull off a really convincing human suit. You’re a lot better at it than the other one I met. You don’t look weird or misshapen or anything.”

  “It’s probably because, since my memory was wiped, I’ve only ever known humans. They’re all I have to go on. I blend in pretty well, huh?”

  “Yeah,” I said. “But people will question why a kid is hanging around alone out here. Can’t you look like an adult?”

  “Long story short, no. It’s easier if we pick a look closer to our developmental age. Besides, most of blending in is acting natural, you know?” As if to illustrate the concept of acting natural, she pulled a cigarette from behind her ear, popped it into her mouth, and chewed it thoughtfully.

  “Um,” I said. “You’re doing that wrong, I think.”

  “Am I? Those hunters tried to explain them, but they got a little confused at the end. I should have known I was doing it wrong. Why would anyone do that on purpose?”

  “You can skip the tobacco stuff altogether. It’s bad for you. Well, it’s bad for humans. I don’t know if—”

  “Done. Listen, I don’t mean you any harm, and I don’t want any part in your school. I wouldn’t hurt a fly, which is probably why my sisters kicked me out. I just want to be left alone, so I can go to work and live my own life.”

  I had to ask. “Go to work?”

  “I just got a part-time job at the Dairy Shed in town. You’ve probably heard of them; they’re a Fortune Ten Thousand company. I landed an entry-level frigid dairy formation and customer-service specialist position. I really don’t want to pick up and start over somewhere else when my career is just taking off. Can you—”

  “You’re a what?”

  “I make ice cream cones, and if someone wants a waffle cone or a mix-up, I get a manager and—”

  With a flash of silver, Dirac dropped from a tree and landed softly on his feet, seeming to simply appear directly in front of the girl. He was training his ridiculously oversized blaster rifle directly on her heart.

  “Drop the weapon. Now,” Dirac said, his voice calm and very, very serious.

  I waved at him. “She’s okay, D. She’s not a threat. It’s a—”

  “I was listening, Nikola. She’s an Old One, and she got in your head. It only seems like she’s harmless.” To her, he said, “Now, drop that weapon, or I drop you.” Behind the sights of his raised weapon his eyes were ice-cold stone.

  “No,” the girl said.

  “Okay,” Dirac said cheerfully. He handed her the blaster, sat down next to Warner, crossed his legs, and closed his eyes.

  “God, that’s creepy,” I said. “You know it messes up people’s brains if you do it too much, right?”

  “Yeah, I always stop before they get damaged. Learned my lesson with those hunters. Now, where were we?”

  “You were going to ask me nicely not to tell anyone you’re here?”

  “Good summary,” she said. “You’re sharper than a light bulb. So is that cool with you, or do I need to skip town?”

  “It’s fine,” I said. “What’s your name, by the way?”

  “Well, the family took my old name, so I had to come up with a new one on my own.”

  “They took your name? How does that work?”

  “We have a name people like you couldn’t understand or pronounce. It’s pretty difficult to explain.”

  “Okay, so what are you called now?”

  “You can call me Darleeen.”

  “Darlene—that’s nice,” I said, wondering what it’s like to have to pick out your own name.

  “No,” she said, shaking her head, sending her braids swirling around her. “You’re spelling it wrong. It’s Darleeen, not Darlene.”

  “That’s what I said.”

  “You said it right, but you’re spelling it wrong.”

  It took me a moment. “You’re saying that when I pronounce your name out loud, I’m misspelling it in my head?”

  “Yeah, I can tell. It’s D-a-r-l-e-e-e-n.” Then she did something I didn’t see coming at all. She tossed Dirac’s weapon, set down her own weapon, took out a felt-tipped pen, and wrote an email address on my arm. “I check my email pretty regularly at the library after work, so do me a favor and drop me a line if you hear of any trouble headed my way.”

  “Yeah, okay. Well, it was nice meeting—”

  “Honey, you don’t have to do that. No need to be polite. You want to do me a favor? Go back to your people and tell them I got away. These three will remember whatever story you make up like it really happened, so they won’t rat you out.”

  “Can you let them remember it?” I asked. “I trust them, and I’ll probably tell them anyway, so you’d be saving me the trouble.”

  She rolled her eyes. “Ah, fine. They’ll remember . . . after a while. Fair enough?”

  “Fair enough,” I said.

  With that, Hypatia, Warner, and Dirac stood up in unison and started trudging back toward our rendezvous point. I made to follow them but had to ask one thing.

  “I’ve always wondered—you Old Ones can slide into other dimensions to move around or to protect yourselves from harm. Why didn’t you just hide from us somewhere . . . else?”

  Darleeen shook her head. “See, I was supposed to die when they abandoned me. But when I didn’t, they started looking for me, hoping to finish the job. Anytime I do something that you might call unnatural, it makes noise. Not actual noise, but it’s a kind of signal they can home in on. Think of it like trying to catch a lightning bug. Every time it blinks, you can get a little closer, even if it’s basically invisible the rest of the time. If I were to cross over for even a second—it’d be like a lightning bug you could see from ten miles away.”

  “How do you know they’re looking for you?”

  “I’m not connected anymore, but I can still listen in, sort of.”

  “So wait,” I said. “You just basically rewrote my friends’ memories. Won’t that lead the Old Ones here?”

  “Nah, stuff like that isn’t so obvious. I can get away with a little here and there, but I can’t do it too often or do really big stuff, like crossing over or absorbing energy from people. That’s also why I need the gig at the Dairy Shed. I have to eat, and soft-serve ice cream is the least gross thing you all make.”

  “How do you get to work from out here, since you can’t slip into another dimension? Do you have a car stashed somewhere?” I asked.

  “I look about thirteen. Would you give me a license?” she asked.

  “Probably not. So how do you get around?” I said.

  “I usually bum rides or hitchhike. That’s where I use my abilities most often. I just make people want to help me out, when their natural instinct is to steer clear.”

  I was about to ask something else, but Darleeen interrupted me. “Speaking of getting around, your friends went over that ridge a couple minutes ago, and they might be a bit disoriented. You should probably keep an eye on them.”

  I might have argued, but we’d crossed a pretty healthy stream not long before we’d found the cabin, and the mental image of Warner, Hypatia, and Dirac stepping zombielike into an ice-cold bath convinced me I should probably catch up.

  Just as I went over the top of the hill myself, I turned back to wave at Darleeen one last time. I could be wrong, but I think I heard her say, “Don’t come back, now.”

  7

  PISTOL-PACKIN’ PUPPY

  And then,” Warner said, his eyes growing wide, “she let the dog off his chain, and he had a gun, too.”

  Marie, the pretty red-haired girl Warner had been regaling with his tale, gasped in astonishment. “No! You must have been terrified.”

  He leaned
back expansively in his seat, as if trying to take up as much room as possible. “Nah, I’ve been out there in the real world before. Once you’ve stared down death, not much can scare you anymore . . . not when you’ve looked into . . . the void.”

  I took a big, fizzy gulp of Ridgeline Condensate and bit my tongue. Whatever programming Darleeen had planted in my friends’ heads seemed to involve them agreeing with one another no matter what, so as soon as one of them embellished the story even a little, the other three remembered the fib as completely accurate.

  DeShawn Foster’s head appeared over one of the tall bus seats in front of us, wearing a puzzled expression. “The dog had a gun? How does that even work?”

  “It was in a harness over the dog’s back, like a backpack. One pistol on each side,” Hypatia chimed in. “Like a service animal OF DEATH!”

  “How does he shoot it without opposable thumbs?” Marie asked, somehow able to apply scrutiny to the tale only when it wasn’t being told by Warner.

  “It was sound activated, so it would shoot whenever he barked,” Dirac said. “That dog barks at you, and you’re dead.”

  Marie seemed to believe this, but a fourteen-year-old Fluorine popped up over one of the other seats, and her face made it clear that she was not buying it. “Dogs bark all the time. You’re telling us these people have this animal hanging around the house, and whenever he barks, whatever he happens to be looking at in that moment gets shot? That doesn’t seem safe to me. And do they reload their dog every day, or just when they think harmless students might stop by? Why would you need a dog holding the guns anyway?”

  The story was spinning out of control fast. “Look, maybe they have bulletproof pants, Fluorine. I don’t know. We didn’t even get a really good look at the dog. I mean, it looked like guns, but he might have been wearing something else. I didn’t stick around to find out. We hid behind some brush, and we heard them get into a van and leave. Then we went looking for everyone else.”

  Fluorine rolled her eyes and was about to argue further when there was a flash, and a second later, she was about forty-seven years old. The change in her level of interest was obvious.