A short time later, he found Aubra at the end of the main dining table. She patted the empty chair beside her, and James nodded. He set a plate of food down and took his seat. He readied a knife and fork and paused as he caught a glimpse of Aubra’s place setting. In sharp contrast to his crowded plate, hers featured a plain bowl of oatmeal.
“Is that going to be enough? Lunch won’t be for another six hours.”
Aubra poked her spoon into the bowl impassively. “It’s more than lots of people get all day.”
James frowned over his bounty. By comparison, his breakfast did seem gluttonous, but then again, by her logic, so was hers. He shrugged, stabbed a sausage link, and began to slice it in half.
Aubra lowered her spoon after taking a modest bite of oatmeal and leaned toward James. “Agnes used to eat this every day. Except she ate yogurt too. I don’t like yogurt.”
James pushed his glasses up his nose. “That’s… fascinating, I guess.”
Aubra jutted her chin toward a teapot at the center of the table. “She drank tea, also. I like some kinds of tea. Not that tea.”
James nodded. “I, uh, I’m fine with orange juice.”
“Agnes doesn’t drink orange juice.”
James tried to set his silverware down gently, but he released his grip too soon, and they clattered noisily on his plate, catching the notice of the far end of the table. He waved it off and made an apologetic gesture, then leaned in to speak to Aubra in hushed, annoyed tones. “I don’t care what Agnes eats for breakfast.”
Aubra glared at him. “You love her, you said. People who love other people should know everything about them. I’m being informative.”
James winced. “Look, I don’t know why I said that, but Agnes… doesn’t want to see me anymore, okay? The less I know about her, the better, I figure. Besides, I’ve got other things to worry about.” He stabbed a sausage link and popped it in his mouth.
Aubra stuck her spoon in her oatmeal, and pulled it out, making lumpy mounds as the oatmeal slid off her spoon. She repeated the process a few times before James interrupted.
“Stop playing with your food. Like you said, lots of people don’t have any.”
“Why doesn’t she want to see you anymore?”
James sighed and picked at his plate. “I… don’t know.”
“Was it something you said to her?
“Yeah… I think so, but I don’t get why she was so upset. I just told her I was here at the manor, and I’m studying with the countess, and then she got really angry and she withdrew into those… shapes. I wish I knew what they were, and how I could get rid of them.”
Aubra set her spoon down and stared at James for a long time before speaking again.
“What countess?”
CHAPTER 27: FALLEN
Agnes awoke on her bedroom floor. She swept her scraggly hair from her eyes and looked around at her sparse room from a different vantage point. Everything looked—and felt—wrong. The furniture seemed to oppose her. Her writing desk and chair stood silently like an unanswered accusation. The carpet had pressed into her cheek overnight. Agnes felt a rash setting in as a result. Her skin was hot to the touch and the impressions left by the carpet fibers made her feel acne scarred and ugly.
A tear rolled down her nose at the thought. Ugly. Scarred. She hadn’t cared about her physical appearance previously. She was above vanity and carnal desires. Was she? Or was she alone and unwanted? Agnes pulled her knees up into a fetal position as she wrestled with these thoughts. No, she was loved. She remembered someone telling her. Someone she didn’t know. He wouldn’t have said it if he hadn’t meant it… would he? But if she didn’t know him, how could he know her?
It was a lie. Ugly. Scarred. Unloved because she was unlovable. Hot tears streamed down her face as she felt the shameful truth of her thoughts press down upon her. Shameful. Her sisters were more successful. More popular. Jacqueline was a successful businesswoman and did magazine interviews. Gracie was a hotshot in a fancy office with a big desk. Her unique marketable skills landed her the job over a raft of qualified applicants, who were all prettier, smarter, or more ambitious than Agnes. Not or… and. Agnes was nothing. She had nothing to offer.
Agnes pulled into a tighter ball and squeezed her eyes closed. Her wallow in a mud pit of self-pity morphed into anger. No, she was betrayed. Betrayed by him. The boy, the child who said he loved her. Lies, all of it. He was sent by her enemies to lie. To tempt her into accepting this paltry bribe, and for what? Control. Power. To laugh at her. Silly, stupid Agnes, believing such lies. She’d fallen for them before, so why not pile on more? The manor had found a fresh recruit. The boy probably thought Bess was his best friend. He believed Henry Steele and the Countess were actually teaching him something. Gullible fool.
No, Agnes thought sadly, she was the gullible fool. She had fallen for the ruse first. She had put in more dues and fallen from a higher pedestal when her idols were laid bare as charlatans. The boy would learn someday. Or, he would be just like them. Maybe he already was. He wasn’t tricked into visiting Agnes and applying a thick layer of sweet talk upon her in hopes of tempting her back to the fold. Back to the manor, that den of deceit.
Agnes rubbed her nose and wiped the slick tears away. She felt her nose, paying close attention to the pattern she traced out with her fingertips. Not a pretty nose. It was ugly. Hooked, crooked, bulbous, disgusting. Who could bear to look at such a nose? She should have worn her hair down more often, as a kindness to unsuspecting onlookers. Agnes ran her fingertip up and down the bridge of her nose. Tears slid past as she continued her examination. She hadn’t thought about her nose before. Now it was prominent and obscene. Who could love anybody with a nose like hers? Surgery might have helped, but only slightly.
Agnes traced the ridge of her brow. She was a Neanderthal. Her hand pressed against her forehead. She slid it upward in search of her hairline. All she felt was clammy skin. Her forehead was at least a foot tall, maybe more. She found her brow line again and re-checked. Her sweaty, stringy hair proved she wasn’t bald. What then? Agnes felt like Benjamin Franklin. She wanted to fish some stray bills from her knit bag and compare. She looked up at the knit bag. The bag was stupid. Why didn’t she carry a leather purse? Something expensive and stylish. Something like Jacqueline would use.
Oh, because she was successful, and Agnes was a failure, that’s why.
Agnes returned to her fetal position. Where was her brother? He was far away, she thought. He was always busy with work and traveling to important conferences. She recalled seeing him recently, but she only saw flashes of him leading his teammates in a cheer as they kicked off a new initiative. That was Marc, always out in front, taking charge, commanding the troops. Not like shy, reclusive Agnes. Well, that was the cover story. The fact was, she didn’t have anything interesting to say. Gracie coached her to leave them guessing. Best not to be known as a dullard. Not like Marc, the life of the party.
Dubai. Agnes had a flash of that, and she shook her head. Yes, that was the sort of place Marc would take vacations. He’d fly first class and stay at the finest resorts. She stayed home and ate plain yogurt to keep from being a bother.
Worthless. Useless. Ugly. Scarred.
Agnes reached up and pulled her comforter down on top of her. She buried herself underneath it; not for comfort or warmth. She wanted to feel closer to the grave, where she belonged. To stop being a bother, and a waste. The world would be better off without her, she thought.
Agnes sniffled and knew it already was.
CHAPTER 28: OFFICE ROMANCE
Gracie sat down to a fresh stack of purchase orders. The commute from Annabella’s apartment was different, but it felt right, to her. Maybe they would move in together. Gracie hated leaving Agnes in the lurch without someone to help pay the rent and utilities, but she was an adult now. They both were, and Gracie couldn’t help it if things moved fast with her new girlfriend.
She snuck a peek at her phone and brought up
the photo Annabella had taken of them in her bed. How unreal it seemed, and yet, it happened. No nightmares of being cast out. No face to face rejections. They’d had an amazing evening together, followed closely by an amazing morning. Gracie felt self-conscious as she wondered if her sponge bath was enough to mask the scent of who she’d been with, and what they’d been doing together.
Cathy walked behind her, and Gracie scrambled to swipe her thumb quickly to find another photo. She fumbled her phone and dropped it under her desk, screen-down.
Cathy flopped down at her desk. “So, hot date, huh? Was it exciting?” Her eyes sparkled in anticipation of the details.
Gracie pulled the phone closer with the side of her foot. “Yeah, it was good. We had a good time.”
Cathy leaned forward. “Yeah? You went out to dinner, right? How was it? Where at?”
“Oh, no place you’ve heard of. Total hole on the wall in… Evansburg, I think.”
Cathy looked puzzled. “Evanston, maybe? Was it over by Dempster?”
“Oh, I don’t know. I wasn’t driving,” Gracie lied.
“Oh. Yeah, they got all kinds of stuff over that way. I haven’t been there in a while. I used to go to place called Carol’s, but they closed down. The owner moved to Florida, the lucky bitch, leaving the rest of us up here to freeze our butts off.” She coughed out a laugh. “Can’t say I blame her.”
Gracie struggled to scoop her phone off the floor. Her fingertips flicked against the edge, flipping it over and illuminating the screen. If Cathy leaned forward just so, she’d see the photo Annabella sent Gracie of the two of them kissing. A jolt of panic shot through her as the phone betrayed the truth about her dream date. She scrunched up her nose as she strained to pick up the phone. Wait, she thought, what was there for her to be ashamed about? Yes, she was a lesbian. Woo. Big deal. She couldn’t imagine she and Annabella were the only two in Chicago, so who cared? And why wasn’t it okay to be honest about who you were dating? She palmed her phone and pressed the power button once to blacken the screen.
Gracie sat upright and ran her fingers through her hair. “Yeah, totally, Florida, that’s hot.”
Cathy nodded and frowned. “Well. Anyway, glad you had fun.”
Gracie slipped her phone into her desk drawer furtively. She sighed and smiled. “Yeah, me too.”
To Gracie’s relief, and at times, dismay, Annabella didn’t assault her phone like she had during the run-up to their first date. She snuck peeks at her phone every so often and other than a few emoji swaps, they didn’t say much. Gracie tried to stay focused on purchase orders, but the silence was getting to her. She took a bathroom break around mid-morning and sent Annabella a text.
10:30AM: I miss you. I wish we didn’t have to work today.
Gracie set the phone on the toilet paper holder and waited for a response. She couldn’t dawdle around in the bathroom for too long; it was a one-seater and other women would be rattling the door knob at any time. She hoped to get in a minute or two of unsupervised chat time.
She peeked at the time: 10:34. She had to get back to work. She took one last look at the photo of Annabella kissing her. Even with the photo evidence, Gracie couldn’t believe she’d gotten so incredibly lucky. She not only found Annabella clear out of the blue due to Agnes and her weird teleporting or something, but to have gone on a date with her and oh, so much more… she still couldn’t wrap her head around it. She traced her finger along Annabella’s cheek and imagined the sensation of touching it for real that morning. The nearness of her, the taste of her lips, the sensation of running her fingers through her real hair and not a Bettie Page wig… it was all so—
A knock sounded at the door followed by the rattling of the door knob. “I’m not walking to the back of the warehouse again to pee. Time’s up.” Jaime’s voice cut through the door like a buzz saw.
Gracie’s daydream evaporated. She hurried to pull herself together and flush. She ran her hands under the sink and wiped them off with a wad of paper towel. She pulled the door open and Jaime gestured for Gracie to get out of the bathroom.
“You better have courtesy flushed, for as long as you were in here,” she huffed.
The door slammed before Gracie could answer. She hurried back to her desk and plucked another purchase order from her inbox. Cathy was engrossed in a call and gave her a look that conveyed her annoyance at being roped into covering the phones without fair warning. Gracie pushed down the guilt and entered the information from the top third of the form.
“Okay, I’ll have him call you when he gets in. Is this your cell?” Cathy scribbled a note on a pink message pad.
Cell. Gracie patted her pockets. She had remembered to grab her phone before she left the bathroom? Panic struck again as the phone didn’t reveal itself. She slid her desk drawer open and peered inside. Nothing. Gracie rooted around in there in case something was covering it. No luck. She looked around her desktop in case she had tossed it aside when she sat down. Nothing there either. She looked at the area around her chair in case she dropped it. The search came up empty. Gracie sat upright to find Jaime standing beside her desk, arm outstretched, handing over her phone.
“Oh, there it is. Did I leave it in the—”
Jaime dropped it onto Gracie’s palm and rolled her eyes. She turned on her heel without saying a word and returned to her corner of the office.
Gracie slumped in her seat and checked her screen. There was the kissing photo. She felt her cheeks redden as she stowed her phone in her desk drawer and slammed it shut.
CHAPTER 29: GUIDANCE
James spread his prayer mat on the floor of a stuffy classroom. He felt badly about having to cut breakfast short, but he did have classes to attend. He assumed Aubra did as well. She asked about the countess. James assumed Aubra had met her. He assumed everybody knew everybody else at the manor. It was a small enough place in terms of brick-and-mortar construction to support that assumption. The grounds were spacious, featuring a placid pond punctuated by trees, attracting birds of all sorts. James enjoyed walking around the pond and admiring the beauty of creation until it was time for class—probably another lecture about physical reality being an illusion, like heat haze, for example.
He prepared himself for another such lecture. A tired-eyed woman in her late 40s with brown, straight hair and loose-fitting clothing sat cross-legged at the front of the classroom. James and three other students arranged their prayer mats and sat cross-legged facing her. She nodded and smiled to her students. “Shanti, shanti, my friends.”
James thought the greeting was a bit awkward. If an Indian woman had given it, he would have accepted it uncritically. Something seemed… off hearing it from a middle-aged white woman who seemed to have never left the country, let alone the building.
Nevertheless, he returned the greeting with his fellow students. “Shanti, master teacher.”
“Let us begin by meditating on the interconnectedness of all things,” she said.
The instructor closed her eyes and turned her palms upward. She pinched her thumb and middle finger together on each hand and took deep, slow breaths. James set his glasses aside and mimicked her actions. That is, he went through the physical motions of appearing to meditate as instructed, but internally, he was following a divergent path.
Guidance, James thought to himself. Aubra told me to ask for guidance. Tell me how to help Agnes, he implored. Show me what I did wrong, and what I can do better next time.
Black smoke encircled him. He felt a tug of concern. Was he being rude? Did the others know his head wasn’t in the game, so to speak? James didn’t hear any objections from anyone nearby. He allowed the smoke to transport him away and provide the answers he sought.
To his surprise, rather than seeing Agnes, the countess, or anyone familiar to him, the smoke thinned and revealed a massive stone wall. Guards dressed in resplendent bronze armor with red capes and tall spears watched over a walled city in the desert. James looked up at the guards, who took no not
ice of his arrival. He glanced down at his nakedness and shrugged. If they couldn’t see him, he was fine going commando. He was more interested in where his journey had taken him.
James passed through the wall and into the confines of the ancient city. Slaves toiled in the desert sun repairing damage to one of the interior buildings under the watchful eye of an overseer. Unlike the stories James had heard about American slavery, the overseer didn’t whip the slaves. He did, however, quietly recommend various punishments for infractions, such as reductions in daily rations. The other slaves worked harder in response and had a self-reinforcing system for keeping each other in line. James was outraged and impressed at the sight of the operation.
A man dressed in regal attire walked through him, flanked by two men dressed in fine clothing, yet not as majestic as his. James knew at the sight of him he was a king, in the way things are known in a dream. The king spoke.
“A great army! For what purpose? What are their demands?”
The man to his right smiled nervously. “Ah, but my king, they have no demands.”
The king cocked his head. “What madness is this? For what purpose is an army raised during peaceful times, if not coercion?”
The man to his left gave a submissive nod. “My king, I pray you do not strike me for this utterance, but I must tell you this army has no demands, but dreams.”
“Dreams? Explain them to me.”
“They are but the dreams of the beggar who spies fruit hanging from a high branch, my king. They are the dreams of the man who longs for a beautiful woman who stands beyond his reach, kept from him by an impassible barrier.”
“I do not understand,” the king replied. “What do they crave? Our food? Our women? The gates of Nineveh are open to all who lay in want, for I am generous.”
The man to his right nodded and pressed his palms together. He shook them in a beseeching gesture. “Yes, my king, your name is spoken throughout the land as just, wise, and generous. But… my king, if I may be so bold as to speak with candor, they dream not of your wealth or your people. They dream… of conquest.” He braced himself to receive an angry blow. He lowered his arm and was visibly relieved when the king instead stroked his own chin thoughtfully.
For Centuries More Page 11