Strangeness and Charm

by Mike Shevdon

  I rubbed by eyes, feeling tired and stupid. I hadn't considered what it would all mean for Alex. I knew Katherine would be upset and in the event she had acted predictably. We both had. It had sparked another in our long list of unresolved arguments and Alex had been left on the sidelines to watch. Worse than that, I hadn't realised why she was there. She wanted to see her parents reunited. She wanted a homecoming. The trouble was, the home she wanted to return to no longer existed.

  Katherine was going to be angry. She would already be pissed off with me for leaving her in a wood. That had been petty, but I'd just wanted to prove to her once and for all that she didn't know everything, and that there were things that I couldn't explain, even if I wanted to. Now I had to tell her that I didn't know where her daughter was.

  It would be better to find Alex before I had to explain that.

  Alex waited until the noise ceased. She waited until the arguments were over and the shouting was done.

  In the lake the sound was a muted echo. In the lake she didn't have to listen to her parents fighting. She had walked into the water to distract them from yelling at each other, but they hadn't even noticed. She could have drowned and they wouldn't care.

  She didn't drown, though. They'd proved that again and again at Porton Down, holding her under while she kicked and struggled until she could hold it no more, until the water surged into her lungs on the indrawn breath. Only then did she realised she wasn't drowning. The water entered her lungs, but it didn't hurt her. It couldn't hurt her. It was hers, and it would support her and hold her, until the hurting stopped.

  She'd spat water into the faces of the doctors, which had earned her a day in the goldfish tanks, the name the inmates gave to the glass-walled cages with iron wire woven into the walls and iron locks on the doors. They'd given her no food and only plain water, and left her to stew.

  It had been worth it.

  Beneath the surface of the lake it was dark, the water cloudy. Yes, it was cold, but she could handle it. She'd learned that in the goldfish tanks too, when they'd stripped her naked and thrown her in, turning the temperature down to soften her up. She remembered the goose-bumps on her skin, her embarrassment as she turned away from the glass to hide her growing breasts and the light fuzz of hair in her groin, only to see the camera staring down at her. She'd cowered in the corner as they leered through the glass at her. She'd cried… oh yeah, she'd cried. But then she'd got stronger. She'd learned how to stare back until it was they who turned away. She'd learned how not to cry.

  The water wouldn't hurt her, no matter how deep she went, and she could lighten the pressure, easing the weight from her ears and from her drenched lungs. She could hang there, suspended in a cold embrace, for as long as she wanted. Eventually, though, she had to come up. Eventually the world wanted her back.

  She surfaced and walked from the water. No one saw her emerge, no one noticed the water running from her sodden clothes, streaming from her nose and mouth. By the time she reached the edge of the coppice where the Way point was, she was dry. She looked back at the lake, wishing she could have stayed there, then walked into the wood.

  I walked back down the hall to where Blackbird and I had our rooms. That was another thing – I had left Alex isolated when she should have had people around her. Yes, there were reasons for that, and initially there hadn't been any other choice but to keep her separate until she gained some control, but she could have moved to a room nearer to Blackbird and me days ago. It had been convenient to leave things the way they were until she joined the courts. She'd been making progress towards that – but now?

  I found Blackbird sitting on the bed with my son laid out naked and wriggling on a towel spread across Blackbird's legs with his arms and legs waving around.

  Is that wise?" I asked her. "One false move and we'll all get a sprinkling."

  She sighed. "He was too hot. He's having a cool down." Reaching down, she stroked her hand across his tummy. He blew bubbles and kicked.

  I sat on the end of the bed and looked down at my son. His eyes were pale grey, almost colourless. I wondered if they would stay that colour.

  "How did it go?" Blackbird asked me. She knew I was meeting Katherine this morning. I'd had a restless night trying to think of a way to explain and, as a consequence, so had Blackbird.

  "It went OK up to a point. Have you seen Alex at all?"

  "No, I think… Niall?"

  I looked up from the baby.

  "What really happened?"

  I sighed. "I met Katherine and I was trying to explain what happened last year, and then Alex appeared."

  "What?"

  "She just popped out of nowhere. One moment there was no one there and the next minute she's standing watching us."

  "She used glamour. Perhaps she has more control that we've given her credit for."

  "Katherine was emotional, it's understandable. I didn't get time to say anything that would soften the blow. She was just there. I don't think Katherine could believe her eyes at first. It was just so unexpected."

  "How did she take it?"

  "Badly. She blamed me, shouted at Alex, called me every name under the sun. Yes, I think it went entirely as expected," I sighed.

  "And what about Alex?"

  "That's the problem. I thought she'd gone off in a huff – come back here to sulk in her room. She's not there, I just looked. I was hoping that maybe she'd be in here, talking to you."

  "How did she know where you were going?"

  "Good question. But if she has enough control to master her glamour then she could have overheard all manner of things. She could have been there while I was talking to Tate. Maybe she overheard the conversation with the driver? Either way, she followed me to the meeting, or maybe she was there before me? I don't know."

  "This is why we treat people with power as adults, Niall. Once they have power they have to grow up."

  "Yes, well, she's had exceptional circumstances. It's been hard for her."

  "It's hard for everyone. What will you do?"

  "Do? I'll have to talk to Katherine. She might try and go home, which is what I was trying to avoid. Garvin won't want a public scandal and Alex is supposed to be dead. If people start seeing her near her house, there'll be ghost stories, TV crews… it'll get out of hand."

  "What about Alex?"

  "I owe her an apology."

  "Really?" Blackbird raised an eyebrow.

  "I suppose. I'm not sure what I did wrong, but whatever it was, it wasn't right for her. I failed her."

  "No, Niall, you didn't fail her, but an apology would be the beginning of a new stage of your relationship. You're starting to think of her as an adult."

  "I need to find her first."

  "Not if she doesn't want to be found."

  "I found her before." I found her when no one else could.

  "Yes, but she wanted to be found. Now she wants some time alone. You're finding it hard to adjust to these changes, Niall, so how must she be feeling? She's growing up fast, and she's starting to understand that her parent's relationship isn't what she wants it to be. That's part of growing up too."

  "I can't just let her run around loose. What do I tell Katherine?"

  "Tell her you don't know where she is."

  "She'll freak."

  "Let her. It's not your fault, Niall. At least not all of it."

  "Gee, thanks."

  "I mean it. You bear the world on your shoulders, as if everything is your fault. You take responsibility for things that are outside of your control. You need to stop doing that, Niall, or you are going to drive yourself mad."

  "My daughter is my responsibility."

  "First and foremost she is her own responsibility. She is an adult, and if you treated her like one then she would probably be here now."

  "You sound like Garvin."

  "Rue the day I hear those words spoken again."

  "Speaking of whom, I ought to go and find him. Amber said he was looking for me."
>
  "Never a good sign," said Blackbird.

  I stood up. My son gurgled and then wee started spraying from his nether parts. "Aaaah! Get a nappy!"

  Blackbird calmly flicked the towel across so it damped down the spray and wrapped him into the towel. "Perfect," she said, nuzzling him. "We just get you clean and dry and look what you go and do?" He gurgled in response. "Come on, we'll go and find a nappy while your father goes and finds Garvin. I know which I'd rather do."

  I left and headed downstairs to find my boss.

  She could have gone back to the courts, but why walk back into a prison?

  Oh, they called her a guest and they treated her well, but she knew a prison when she saw one. You could tell as soon as you tried to leave. She knew that all freedoms must be won, that all concessions must be fought for. Well, she was free. With the Ways at her disposal she could go anywhere she wanted.

  She needed a direction. If she went down the Way without any clear idea of where she was going she knew she would be lost, and you could lose more than your sense of direction on the Ways. Fionh had drummed that into her, at least.

  What did she want? She wanted her clothes, her things, her music. She wanted the things that made life bearable. Well, she knew where they were. It was just a matter of taking them. It wasn't stealing, they were her things, after all.

  She stepped onto the Way, immersing herself in the rush as she hopped from one node to another. It was like skateboarding, only without grazed knees, and if you fell – well, you were falling anyway. She stepped from node to node, tracking southwards, following her limited sense of direction. It was only when she emerged in a park where the roads were patrolled by red buses and black taxis that she realised the she'd overshot and passed the suburb where she lived – where she used to live – some time ago. She was somewhere in London.

  She'd been into London on many occasions, but rarely on her own. There was the time when she ran away from home, when she'd ended up at her dad's. The first thing her dad did was ring her mum and tell her that Alex was there. So much for teaching her mum a lesson. So much for running away.

  She could use the Underground, though. She walked across the park and approached a lady in a smart suit and high heels.

  "'Scuse me, but where's the tube station?"

  The woman looked at her like she'd crawled out from under a rock and then walked away. How rude could you get? She'd only asked for directions. There was no need to treat her like that.

  Alex continued walked across the park, finding that people changed track to avoid her. She shook her head. City people were so rude. She walked across the road and headed down the street to the corner, trying to get her bearings. As she reached the cross-street she could see the familiar outline of the BT Tower above the buildings. She wasn't far from the centre then. Not far from Oxford Street, and shops, and cappuccino bars.

  She turned and headed towards the BT Tower and civilisation. As she walked she went past a bookshop and glanced sideways into the large window. Her reflection met her gaze. No wonder they walked away from her. My God, she looked a fright. Reflexively her hand patted her pockets for a comb to tame her unruly curls. The water hadn't helped, and anyway, these days her hair tended to have a mind of its own you.

  A man appeared in the shop doorway wearing a polo shirt with the shop's logo emblazoned on it. "Go away, you're putting the customers off!"

  She gaped at him. Putting them off? How dare he! There was an echo of a rumble, beneath the ground. Alex could feel the water far below her, feel it wanting to burst upwards and engulf the man and his stupid shirt.

  "Get lost! Shoo!" He affected a two-day stubble that was so carefully cultivated. He obviously loved himself.

  Alex, lifted her chin. The rumbling below her subsided. "Why don't you… take your stupid books and your stupid half-a-beard, and your stupid shirt with its stupid logo, and go and fuck yourself?"

  The man bristled, but he didn't leave the doorway.

  "It's a public footpath, isn't it?" she said, "You can't stop me. I've got as much right to be here as you have, prick!"

  "Right, that does it. I'm calling the police!"

  "Help yourself," she said, fussing with her hair in the windows reflection. "By the time they get here I'll be long gone and they'll think you're as big a prick as I do."

  He made a big show of going inside and picking up the phone, glaring at her through the half-reflection of the window as he punched the numbers. Alex was guessing that with the other hand he was holding the phone closed – that type were all show.

  She did look a state, though. There were black rings under her eyes from staying up until all hours, and her sweatshirt and skirt looked like they'd been trampled by elephants before she'd put them on – one of the disadvantages of getting completely soaked and then drying them by forcing all the water out.

  She glanced back at the dickhead in the shop, stuck a finger up at him for good measure and walked on. Within yards she had cloaked herself in glamour. Let the police see if they could find her – they could try. She headed for the brighter lights of Oxford Street.

  Meetings with my boss were very different, I reflected, than when I used to have a real job. When I reached the stairs down to the training room I could hear Garvin before I could see him. He was using one of the weapons on the rubber car tyre that we used for stamina exercises, hung in the corner from a chain in the ceiling. The raw smacks as he hit the tyre travelled down the corridor as a fast percussion. He was sweating it, pushing himself. When I opened the door I realised he was doing it in pitch blackness.

  "Come in. Close the door." The percussion continued.

  I stepped inside, closing the door with a soft thud, and finding myself in darkness as the noise continued. I stood there waiting for him to finish.

  The lights flickered on leaving me blinking in the light. I realised that Garvin was behind me.

  "Just because the sound continues does not mean I'm still over there. You should know that Dogstar."

  He wandered back to the spinning tyre, swinging the long staff in curves and sweeps around and through the tyre without once touching it, this time in silence, letting his muscles cool slowly from the exertion.

  "I asked you to come and see me," he said, circling slowly around the twirling tyre but still avoiding hitting it.

  "Amber told me."

  "She said she told you twenty minutes ago. Where were you?"

  "I went to see if Alex was back."

  There was a sharp double thud. In Garvin's hand the staff had separated into a shorter staff and a long handled blade. Most of the tyre dropped to the floor, bounced once and then rocked back and forth, leaving the top section jiggling around manically on the end of the chain.

  "You cut the tyre in half," I said, stating the obvious.

  "I can always chain up another tyre," he said, sweeping the blade in a circle, and finishing with a flourish that joined it once more into a staff, "but getting another Warder at short notice is much more difficult."

  "Why do you need another Warder?"

  "Because one of them is running around after his daughter?" he suggested.

  "I… I needed to meet Katherine and I thought it best if it was done discreetly."

  "Discreetly? So you send a black limo to get her? In the middle of a housing estate?"

  "I don't know. I thought maybe…"

  "No, the problem is, you didn't think. I asked you not to see her. I asked you not to tell her Alex was alive."

  "I'm sorry, but I felt I had to."

  "A bit late for that, isn't it? You appropriate the property of the courts for your own purposes, co-opt one of Mullbrook's staff into doing your dirty work, and do something that I expressly asked you not to do…"

  "You only said it wasn't a good idea."

  "And was it? Did she take it well?"

  "Not really."

  "Well I think we can assume I was right, then, can't we?"

  "It's better that she kn
ows."

  "Let me say something, Niall, as someone with a great deal of experience in managing the courts and dealing with humanity. It is, in fact, almost exclusively better, if people do not know. Do I make myself clear this time?"

  "I couldn't leave her like that."

  "This is not about assuaging your guilty conscience. I have a job to do and you're supposed to be helping me – instead you're making it harder."

  "She won't tell anyone."