A few students came up and spoke about how much time she took with their papers, with them. She was tough, they said, but she was fair. Jaguar was glad to hear them speak well of her. It was horrible to leave the world without adding something to its share of good, and she was glad that in spite of everything, Emily hadn't done that.
But when Ethan raised his eyebrows to offer her a chance to talk, she shook her head. What could she say? Here lies Emily, who asked the system to be what it could not be. Or perhaps, here lies Emily, whom I did not kill. Or more accurately, Emily whom I did not protect.
That would be her burden, and she felt it heavily. Two people dead, and maybe she couldn't have prevented it, but maybe they'd died on the altar of her need to stay uninvolved. For her, that knowledge was much worse than the suspicious eyes she met everywhere. She didn't need to be an empath to know what they were thinking. The trouble started when that strange woman arrived from the Planetoid, where empaths sucked children's blood at night. Of course she killed Emily, those eyes said. And Jaguar, in a very different way, found it hard not to agree.
She walked from the Episcopalian church to the cemetery where they'd lay Emily down for eternity. Intermittent sleet pelted the back of her neck, but she wanted to feel the awfulness of the weather. It matched her mood. As she stood by the grave, waiting for the ponderous funeral procession to catch up, Leonard, who had also chosen the footpath, made his way toward her, head bent to the wind.
"Hello, Jaguar," he said. "Nasty day, isn't it?"
She jerked her head up at the sound of his voice and looked at him with cold eyes.
"Stay away from me," she said.
His face furrowed in confusion. "Jaguar? What is it?"
She waited to see what she would say. "I can't do what you ask," were the words that came out.
She jerked her head toward the students that were getting out of cars, heading their way. There was Steven and Katia. Leonard looked toward them.
"Why not?" he asked.
"Because it's a trap," she said.
He closed his eyes and rocked back on his heels as he absorbed these words. "You know the difference between being connected and being trapped?"
She drew in breath and let it out as a hiss. "Yeah," she said. "When you're trapped, you have no space. When you're connected, you have no time."
Leonard's eyes stayed closed, but his head swung back and forth in a negative. "No, Jaguar. It's the difference between love and fear. What you're afraid of traps you. What you love connects you to everything else that's alive." He opened his eyes and smiled. "Maybe that's the lesson you came here to learn."
He put his hands in his pockets and turned his back on her, walking slowly toward the group of approaching students.
She pulled herself farther into her coat and stared down into the hole in the earth where Emily Rainer would soon reside. This was her family plot, Jaguar was told. It had been purchased for her on the day of her birth by her grandparents. Even the state of New York's new laws requiring cremation except in cases of religious taboo couldn't negate previously purchased property.
The sound of feet walking hard brought her up sharp, and she saw Steven and Katia coming toward her. Steven was in the lead, and Katia was trying to pull him back, but he yanked away and took great strides across the slippery grass to reach her.
When they stood face-to-face, he pointed an ungloved, chapped finger in her face.
"Murderer," he spit out. "You have no right to be here."
Too much, she thought. This was too much.
"Steve, I didn't kill her," she said softly. "You know that."
"You—you did," he said, punching his finger in the air. "You did. I know you did because of what you are. Because people like you—that's what they do."
She didn't feel like she had an ounce of fight or an ounce of compassion in her to meet this. It was all pretty dried up inside her right now.
"No, Steven," she said evenly. "Not people like me. That's not what you mean. You mean people like your father."
He brought his hand back and would have slapped her, but she blocked the swing and wrapped her hand around his. He struggled against her grasp, but she held on. "You know what empaths say, Steven? Before they go into someone's mind," she said, her voice low and harsh. "They say, see who you are. Be what you see. Try it sometime. You and Katia."
"Stop it," he cried out, his voice suddenly young and very frightened. "You're hurting me."
She looked at her hand, horrified to see she was twisting his fingers. She let him go. Then she turned and walked away.
Jaguar didn't return to her rooms. Instead she wandered around the old part of the cemetery reading tombstones and staring at the relentlessly gray sky. When she tired of walking, she picked a flat stone to sit on and considered some more. She was still in this state, her thoughts going somewhere she couldn't seem to follow, when she felt a hand gently touch her hair.
"You'll catch your death out here," Ethan said.
She looked around at all the names, all the graves, all the forgotten lives she walked over so carelessly. "Doesn't everyone?" she said.
Ethan laughed heartily. "Dr. Addams, that's what I like about you. You never let sentimentality get in the way of truth. But you should know enough to come in out of the sleet. How about if we go to my old mausoleum of a house, and I'll make some soup. Would you do that for me so I don't have to worry about losing you, too?"
She huddled farther down into her coat and considered. "How was the remainder of the party?" she asked.
"Pretty awful. I still don't quite believe it. My relationship with Emily had its troubles. I know I could have treated her better, but I can't imagine that she's really gone. It seems so unlikely."
"Death is like that," Jaguar said. "Death and departure. There was no further trouble?"
"There never was trouble, Jaguar. The hysterics of a student in supreme stress will not be held against you. Everyone knows you didn't—"
"No, they don't, Ethan. No more than they know Leonard didn't kill the Gone Girls." She uncurled herself from her huddle and stretched her face skyward, feeling the pellets of ice bounce off her eyelids. "It doesn't matter. Not at all."
"My dear woman—" Ethan started to say, and she waved him to silence.
"Let's skip it. I'll go have hot soup and sympathy at your place, but only on one condition."
"Name it. I'll agree."
"That we don't talk about murders or empaths or Planetoids or death of any kind. Agreed?"
"Absolutely. We'll talk only of gourmet cooking and the higher arts."
He kept his agreement not to talk about Emily, though the feeling of her presence lingered as a sustained bass note under the preparations of food and surface talk of weather and upcoming end-of-semester tasks.
Jaguar distracted herself by watching his hands slice mushrooms and onions for the soup, focusing on her awareness of how soft they looked, how finely tuned were all the gestures he made with them. When he brushed his hand against hers, she noticed that it was still very cool to the touch. A blazing fire in the living room where they brought their food kept her very warm, but his hands soothed and cooled her. Ocean cool on a hot day.
After they ate, he sat on the couch next to her, brushing his hands against her cheek, soothing her, cooling her. Ripples of hunger warmed her skin under his cool hand, and desire rose up from her belly and groin.
"You need some tender attention," he whispered into her hair, his leg pressed against hers. "A return to feeling and life and desire."
She couldn't produce a word. She could only feel his hands on her face. She lifted her eyes to his. His eyes were very large. She sensed no pull from them, no empathic ability, but his eyes could hold her beyond her will.
"You are an inspiration to desire, Jaguar," he said.
Every inch of her skin danced with lust, sparkling neurons singing of the body's deep contentment, the joy of flesh and hands and mouth. He kissed her, his mouth delic
ately playing against hers, taking her lips into his and savoring them.
She leaned into him, hungry for this. Hungry for touch, and kiss and flesh. Hungry for desire and feeling after death. Longing for the feel of a live body participating in life, held close to her. And Ethan was perfect. Detached. Cool. Not riling her emotions as Alex did, though why his name should come unbidden into her thoughts right now was beyond her. Why should she see an image of his face behind her closed eyes now, while her desire grew and she had a place to satisfy it.
Alex? Had she kissed Alex like this? Why would she be foolish enough to do that? She had a memory of it, but it seemed to belong to someone else. And he was gone, wasn't he? She could give herself here, where her body was treated kindly and her heart was left alone, in peace.
Something like smooth, easy laughter rippled through her thoughts, followed by words entering 'her just as smoothly.
I will squeeze him from your mind.
The heart of the universe washed into her, wrapped around her, told her what to do.
Stop. Now.
She pulled away from the kiss, and without a break in the flow of her motion she was standing, looking down at Ethan, not sure why she was standing or what she was to do next.
He blinked up at her, his face the model of courtesy. "Have I offended you?"
"No," she said. "Not at all. It's just—" She ran a hand through her hair, and lifted a palm up, unable to complete the thought.
"Are you afraid?" he asked solicitously. "Does this frighten you?"
She resisted the urge to laugh. Who did he think he was? Alex? But she couldn't keep the amusement from her voice when she answered, "No. I'm not afraid of you."
A shadow of anger passed over his eyes and was gone. "Sure of that, Jaguar? Maybe this felt a little out of your control, and I believe you like to stay in control, don't you?"
"No," she said, thinking of the last few weeks and how very out of control she had consented to be. "I like to stay with my power, but I don't confuse power with control. Not ever."
"Power belongs to you only if you control it," he said, speaking with the cool tones of the philosopher. He stood up and faced her, closing her eyes with the tips of his fingers. At his touch, desire spiraled through her mercilessly. She pushed his hand away, opened her eyes.
She grasped his fingers and took them from her face, opened her eyes.
He studied her in his detached way. "What is it you're not telling me?" he asked softly, "I know there's something. All semester I've known. Won't you trust me as your friend, at least?"
She shook her head. There was no way for her to tell him who she was, what she faced, the nature of the chant shape and how a kiss given from the heart of the universe overrode this temporary desire. She wanted to tell him simply, I can't.
Instead she leaned on the mantelpiece and stared into the fire. "It's Alex," she said.
"Who?" Ethan asked.
She brought her face up, hoping her confusion didn't show. "Emily," she said, recovering herself. "I can't so soon after she—Ethan, it isn't right."
Ethan sat down on the couch, spread his hands out across his knees, and stared down at them. "I see. And I understand. I hope you don't think I was being disrespectful to her, but it seems that the force of life will prevail, particularly after a death."
"I know. And if I stay here any longer, I'll take you up on it, so I'd better leave."
He stood and took her hand, patted it, and let it go. "Thank you for that, even if it's flattery."
Jaguar turned her open smile to him. "Oh," she said, "I never flatter. I don't really know how. What I said is just the truth."
And it was, though she still didn't know why.
Planetoid Three, Toronto Replica
Alex came to in an empty shuttle outside the Zone 12 shuttleport.
No blindfold. No people. When he ran his hand across his dry mouth and felt the growth on his face, he figured he'd been out for longer than it took to get him to wherever he was now.
He kicked the seat in front of him. "Fucking army," he said.
He climbed out of the shuttle and stared blankly into bright sun. The street sign at the corner gave directions to downtown Toronto. He was alive and well and on Planetoid Three. He tested his legs for walking and found they were up to the task, so he walked. A man walking a dog passed by him and he stopped him.
"Could you tell me the time?" he asked, holding up his empty wrist. Like Jaguar, he couldn't wear a watch. They blew out at every empathic encounter.
"Sure," the man said. "Five after three."
"Thanks and—um, is today's date the twenty-third?"
The dog at the end of the man's leash growled, and the man reined him in. "Twenty-fifth," he said, eyeing Alex a little oddly.
"Right. Thanks," Alex said, and walked on. Two days. He'd lost two days.
He grabbed a taxi—wheels, not wings, feeling he'd had enough flight for a few days—and took it to the Supervisors' Building. He asked himself to be as low profile as he could and got down the hall and to his office without being observed. Once inside, he picked up his telecom and punched in Rachel's code.
"Goddammit, what the hell is this?" he asked her face when it appeared on-screen.
She opened her mouth and gaped, then stopped gaping. "I'm on my way," she said.
In a minute she arrived and tapped on his door.
"Come right the hell in," he barked.
Rachel slid in, closed the door behind her, and pressed her back against it. "You're back," she said.
"Not for long," he said. "The army brought me back, and why the hell Paul let them drop me off here is something I'd like to find out, but that'll wait until I get back. The next shuttle out is mine."
"No," she said quietly.
He stopped and frowned at her. "No?"
"No. You can't."
Alex looked like a volcano about to erupt, and her eyes grew wide. He leaned across the desk and pointed a finger at her. "Do you have any idea how much danger Jaguar's in?"
"I know."
Alex sat down hard at his desk. "Can you explain what's going on around here?"
She sighed, and took a chair across from his desk.
"Not really. All I know is I got a call from Jaguar. She said keep you here. She said at all costs, keep you here. If you talked to her, you'd understand. There was something about her words. Like—they were the truth, and there wasn't any other truth in the world."
Alex pulled back and considered. Jaguar called Rachel. Walking in her power. In that place where only the essential truth remained.
He leaned back in his chair and rubbed at his temples. "Rachel, do you know anything else about this?"
"No. But I think Paul does, if you can get hold of him. I heard he was on the home planet and couldn't be reached. Vacation, I think."
Christ, Alex thought. Payback's a bitch.
"All right. I'll go looking for him. Are you game for a little fishing?"
"What?"
"I want you to get into a Pentagon site for me. I'll give you some program codes that might help. Find anything you can about fishing. Or Go Fish. Gone Fishing. Anything like that."
Rachel blinked at him. "Fishing?"
He explained his conversation with Durk. As much as he could about what he'd learned.
Rachel shook her head a number of times. "It'll be tough."
"It will. But fish long enough, something's bound to get hungry and go for your hook."
15
JAGUAR NET WITH THE UNIVERSITY PRESIDENT the day after the funeral. Each member of the department would be given a similar audience when classes resumed after the break, to discuss how they had been affected by Emily's death and strategize on damage control. She would be addressing the students in a general assembly when they returned, and letters had gone out to all parents.
No wonder she looks tired, Jaguar thought.
Her office was large and sunny, with banks of windows on two walls and a desk wi
th a gleaming dark surface that stretched a mirrored vista against another wall. A soft and intricately patterned Oriental carpet covered the standard institutional carpeting, and the paintings on the wall were originals. Mary Yates's pastel vision of poetry in motion. Monica Miller's Origin of Voices in oil. Krisin Noonan's watercolor of Freya. They were beautiful, and quite expensive, as was the bone china Jaguar sipped her tea from.
"You like the artists?" President Johnston asked, seeing Jaguar study her walls.
"Three of my favorites. Miller, in particular. I understand she lived nearby."
"Yes. In a little town about forty miles south of here. Her home is open to the public. You can go and view some of her later works."
"That would be lovely," Jaguar said. "It might be nice to get off campus for a day."
That was the opening Dr. Johnston was waiting for. She put her cup and saucer down on her desk and leaned forward, folding her hands on her desk. "How are you weathering the storm? I would imagine you're bearing the worst of the gossip."
That was a good piece of understatement, Jaguar thought. Though forensics had officially cleared her, the police called her office three times a day with more questions, except for Ethan the faculty avoided her like the plague, and her students—she'd see about them when they returned from Thanksgiving break.
"It's bad," she admitted.
The president let her head rise and fall slowly in a sagacious nod, her steely-gray eyes exuding wisdom, sedate and imperturbable. Jaguar wondered if University administrators were trained to nod that way, as if they had the answers. Of course, in this case, she probably did.
"I'll make sure to mention your guiltless status in my speech," she said. "You shouldn't bear the burden of this, when you're here as our guest."
"I don't know that anything you say will stop the whispers," Jaguar noted.
"Perhaps not. But maybe your students will help. I understand they like you very much. They seem to get a lot out of your nontraditional teaching style."
LEARNING FEAR Page 19