“It certainly puts my problems in perspective.”
Malcolm paused in knotting his tie. “I hope you don’t mean that you think your troubles don’t matter.”
“No, just that I can appreciate having survived yesterday’s attack. So much worse could have happened.”
Malcolm came to my side and kissed me. “I can’t imagine anything worse than losing you. Call the node. I’ll be back around six.”
I put my arms around him and snuggled into his embrace. “I miss you already. I love you.”
After I’d waved goodbye to him as he drove away, I went back into the kitchen and cleared my bowl and juice glass. I’d only eaten half my cereal, and it was soggy now, the milk pale pink. I dumped it out and loaded the dishes into the dishwasher. Then I went back into the living room and found the remote. There was a stock photo showing on the screen of a beautiful medieval village on a hill, surrounded by green trees. When I turned the volume back on, the same male newscaster was saying, “—breaking news from Barga, Italy, where local authorities have quarantined nearby towns for fear of the outbreak spreading. No one has confirmed or denied the existence of a super virus, but officials are choosing to take precautions. More on this story as it develops.”
I turned off the television and put the remote away, then stood hugging myself as I looked out at my grassy back yard, where the sun had burned off the morning dew. Five thousand people. It was too big a number to comprehend. How could the invaders have killed so many, so quickly? New tactics were definitely involved. I thought about calling Lucia, but decided it was none of my business, not the way the named Neutralities were.
I went upstairs and dressed in shorts and a T-shirt, feeling another vague flash of guilt at being dressed down on a work day. Then I found my phone and called the Gunther Node, not Lucia and not her assistant Dave Henry, but the number for the node’s switchboard. Though likely it was more complex than that. I pictured it as an old-fashioned board with holes and wires and half a dozen young women making physical connections when people called in, but that was unlikely.
The phone rang twice, and then a cheerful woman’s voice said, “How may I direct your call?”
“This is Helena Campbell,” I said. “I don’t know who I want to speak to, but I…I need to set up an appointment with a therapist.”
“Oh, hi, Helena,” the cheerful voice went on. “This is Marci Pringle. Let me put you through to the infirmary—just tell them what you told me and they’ll set something up.”
“Thanks,” I said, but Marci Pringle had already hung up. I heard the hum of a live connection but no Muzak while I was on hold. I waited. It took only a few seconds before someone said, “Infirmary.”
“Hi, this is Helena Campbell. I need…I want to make an appointment with a therapist.” I felt so stupid saying it, like I’d confessed to some embarrassing personal secret.
“Sure thing,” the man said. “Does today work for you, or do you need something a little further out?”
I swallowed. “Um, today is fine, maybe this afternoon?”
“How does 3:30 sound?”
“I can do that.” The abruptness left me feeling both dizzy and relieved.
“Come to Green 1 then and someone will direct you from there. Is there anything else I can help you with?”
“Thanks, that’s all.”
After I hung up, I lay back on the unmade bed and stared at the ceiling. Maybe I should have asked more questions. I didn’t even know if the therapist would be a man or a woman. I wasn’t sure I was comfortable talking to a man about my private business, but then I wasn’t all that comfortable with talking to anyone, so it probably didn’t matter. Would they want me to tell them about other things? Hypnotize me? I had so many questions…and in a few hours, they’d be answered. So there was no point in worrying.
I made the bed and tidied the room, which didn’t need much tidying, and then went downstairs and contemplated the TV. I wasn’t sure I could stand listening to more news about Barga, particularly news that had no idea what was really going on.
The doorbell rang, and I found Judy and Viv on my doorstep. “We thought you could use company,” Viv said. “Did you hear about Italy?”
“Yeah. It’s awful.”
“I think it means the invaders are scared,” Viv went on. “They’ve never destroyed anything on this scale before, and I bet it’s because they know the Wardens can take them out. So they’re making it look like they’re more powerful than they are and hoping to bluff.”
“Except that they are powerful if they can do that,” Judy said, rolling her eyes.
“Unless it’s like when the Mercy attacked all the steel magi. That used up most of their resources, and they weren’t able to follow up the attack with another one.”
“Which the invaders just did. It’s only been two days since Berryton.”
“You’re making my head hurt. Do you want water, or something?” I asked.
Both shook their heads. “The Wardens made the wards on the store impenetrable while the construction’s going on,” Judy said. “I’m staying with Mike for a few days. I love him, but he has some appalling habits.”
“Still not interested in living together?” Viv teased.
“Nope. Maybe someday, but I like my privacy.” Judy dropped onto one of the couches in the living room and sprawled, heedless of her dress’s lightweight fabric. “And I think he feels the same. At least, the way he drops his underwear on the floor six inches from the basket tells me he does.”
Viv made a face. “I’m okay with a relaxed attitude toward laundry, but that’s just laziness.”
“Let’s do something,” I said. “The mall will open in about an hour. We can walk around and get smoothies. And then I have an appointment with a therapist this afternoon.”
Viv sat next to Judy. “Good for you. It will help.”
“I hope so. I don’t know what to expect.”
“Just be open and honest, and everything will be great.” Viv poked Judy in the side. “Don’t you agree?”
“Openness and honesty are a good idea in most cases, not just in therapy,” Judy said. She sat up and smoothed her skirt, then cursed. “I forgot about your stupid cats. There’s long hairs everywhere.”
“They shed more in the summer. You can use the lint roller. Didn’t you have dogs growing up? Those shed, too.”
Judy accepted the lint roller with a scowl. “They were familiars that looked like dogs. The illusion doesn’t extend to making them seem to shed.”
“Well, a little cat hair never hurt anyone.”
“Unless they’re allergic,” Viv pointed out.
“All right, except for then.” A thought occurred to me. “I have to email the other custodians about what Lucia told me, and about what happened yesterday in the store.”
Judy and Viv followed me into the kitchen, where I set up my laptop on the table and opened my email program. “I hope they’re all all right,” I said. “I should have done this last night, but I was overwhelmed.”
“It’s fine,” Viv said. “If anything had happened, we’d have heard about it.”
“I don’t know. The Sanctuary is mostly off the grid.” I typed my message about what Lucia had said as succinctly as possible. Then I hesitated. Where to start? Just thinking about yesterday’s events made me tremble again. I told myself to stop being stupid and described the attack on the store, from Victor’s warning to the deaths of the invaders. I don’t know if your Neutralities are vulnerable to that kind of attack, I concluded, but as long as you’re consulting stone magi about the wards, you should find out the details. Though after what happened near Barga, maybe the threat isn’t what we thought it was.
I signed the email and hit Send. “That’s all I can do for now,” I said.
“Don’t you wonder what the authorities in Italy are going through?” Viv said. “I wish there were a way to reassure them they’re not dealing with a bioweapon.”
“They wo
uldn’t believe anyone who told them the truth,” Judy said. She brushed futilely at her skirt one last time and said, “Let’s go. Shopping, and smoothies, and lunch.”
I nodded agreement, but as I gathered my purse and put on my sandals, I couldn’t help glancing back at the TV. Even though it was off, I imagined I could see the pictures of the unnamed village they hadn’t shown—bodies fallen in the street, crashed cars, doors hanging open like someone had just stepped out—and wondered how long it would be before the invaders struck again.
6
Viv and Judy volunteered to drive with me to the node that afternoon, but I declined. I had no idea how long a therapy session lasted, and I didn’t want to make them sit around if it was a long time. Not to mention it made me feel like a little kid taking her mommy along to the doctor. I was a grown woman, and needing therapy didn’t make me weak.
I parked in the gravel yard next to the airplane hangar that was the entrance to the Gunther Node and crunched my way up to the smooth concrete. The thorny circle on the floor had recently been repainted and looked more pale pink than white now. I wondered whether magic went into the painting, or whether the circle was just a mundane way of marking the space where the teleportation happened.
I spoke my name into the telephone handset on the back wall, took my place within the circle, and two seconds later the world blinked, and I was elsewhere. The cavernous, three-story-tall central hub of the Gunther Node bustled with Wardens, some of them carrying folders or tablets, others pushing mine carts full of glowing purple ore that was unprocessed raw magic. Nobody paid any attention to me, which was comforting. I already felt like I was wearing a sign saying Mentally Unstable.
The rainbow-colored spaghetti tangle of lines painted on the polished concrete floor was no help to me, since I rarely came here, but I didn’t need it because I’d been to Green 1 before. I set off toward the big opening rimmed in green paint where the infirmary was. The last time I’d been here, the hall had been full of injured Wardens and the stink of sulfur and burnt rubber. Now it smelled only of gardenias, a strange contrast to the industrial hardness of cold concrete walls. People still filled the hall, but they walked at a normal pace, not the breakneck speed of a life or death situation. Again, no one showed any interest in me beyond some polite nods and smiles. I relaxed. This would be all right.
The wooden doors lining the hall had large glass windows filled with wire mesh that reminded me of my middle school, though that had smelled of paint and boiled cabbage rather than gardenias. Almost all the rooms were unoccupied, something I knew because there were curtains on the inside and most of them were drawn back to reveal empty beds and dormant medical monitors. There were a lot of rooms, and I knew there were other halls in the infirmary with even more of them. It was frightening to remember a time only a few months back when all these rooms had been needed. The attack on the Gunther Node by invaders who’d breached its wards had devastated the Wardens. We’d won, but at a tremendous cost.
After a minute or so of walking, I neared a big open space, this one brightly lit with white lights. It had a lower ceiling than most of the halls in the node, and the walls were painted a warm cream, giving it a comforting look most hospitals lacked. The operating tables filling it dispelled that comforting feeling, especially when I remembered the screaming that had echoed through this room the last time I’d been here. None of the tables were occupied now. It was quieter than the hall, as if people respected it as a place of healing even when no healing was going on.
I made for a circular desk in the center of the room that reminded me of a nursing station in a hospital, though I’d never seen one in the middle of a room before. Two Wardens in hospital scrubs, one maroon, one teal, stood behind the desk. The maroon Warden was typing rapidly and swearing under her breath at whatever showed on the computer screen. The teal Warden looked up from his tablet as I approached. “Ms. Campbell, right?” he said, coming around the desk to shake my hand. “Owen Jefferson. It’s good to meet you.”
“Um, you too,” I said. “I don’t know…what do I do now? Is there paperwork?”
“We have a couple of pages of questions for you, yes. Sorry about that. We try to make it as easy as possible, but this provides background for your therapist so she has something to start from.”
So it was a woman. “What’s her name?”
“Sydney Fallon. She has a lot of experience working with the kinds of trauma Wardens usually suffer.” Owen rooted around behind the desk and pulled out a clipboard with some papers clipped to it and a ballpoint pen. “Be as complete as you can. There aren’t any right or wrong answers.”
I glanced at the top sheet. There was a place for my name and then a long list of questions with bubbles next to them like on a standardized test, only these were for responses ranging from “Never” to “Almost Always.” I found a chair next to the wall and began filling out the form. Despite what Owen had said, I couldn’t help thinking of how this Sydney person would interpret my answers. If I said, in answer to question five, that I felt something was wrong with my mind, did that mean I was crazy? It was tempting to guess what would make me look normal. I closed my eyes briefly and berated myself. I was here for help, and if I lied about how I felt or thought, that wouldn’t happen.
There were four pages in all. I filled in bubbles, taking my time about answering and giving each question some consideration except the one about wanting to end my life, where I colored in “Never” so hard it nearly tore the paper. Then I returned the clipboard to Owen, who said, “Thanks. Wait here, and Sydney will be out in a couple of minutes.”
I returned to my seat and watched Owen disappear through a door marked PRIVATE. I twined the strap of my purse around my fingers and let it roll from one side of my hand to the other and back again. Answering the questions had actually relaxed me, as if I’d already talked to someone about my problems. Not that I was going to leave—I knew this was just the beginning. But it surprised me how much looking at my fears and bad memories in a clinical sense had eased them.
The woman in maroon left the desk, giving me an absent smile as she passed, and I was alone in the room. I leaned back and closed my eyes. There was a hum in the air that sounded like distant machinery, or an air conditioner running on low. The room was comfortably cool, just like the entire Gunther Node, and I wasn’t sure air conditioning was necessary, but the hum was soothing.
“Helena Campbell?”
I opened my eyes. A plump older woman stood in front of me, smiling like meeting me was the best pleasure she’d had all day. Her silvering blond hair was pulled up in a twist at the back of her head, and she wore a flowing long-sleeved robe of some thin burgundy fabric embroidered abstractly in pale gold around the neck and cuffs. “Sydney Fallon,” she said, extending a hand. “Please call me Sydney.”
“Helena,” I said. I stood and shook her hand. A flash of memory, Jun Li shaking Lucia’s hand and Lucia falling unconscious, struck me just at that moment, and I suppressed a shudder. I didn’t suppress it well enough, because Sydney’s eyes narrowed briefly as if she’d noticed something off about me. But she said nothing, just indicated that I should follow her.
We went to a door, not the one marked PRIVATE, that led to a short hall so different from the main room it felt like stepping through a portal to an upscale office building. The floor was carpeted, just with a plain gray Berber, but it was the first carpet I’d ever seen in the node, even in Lucia’s office, so it looked exotic and out of place. Wooden molding stained dark brown divided the walls in half; the upper walls were a light tan color, and the lower walls were a rich plum. The doors were a brown that matched the molding, with brass handles rather than knobs. Each door bore a nameplate, but Sydney walked too fast for me to read them. She stopped at a door labeled SYDNEY FALLON, LCSW and opened it for me.
The room beyond matched the hall for comfortable upscale furnishings. A wooden desk with more drawers than I’d ever seen in anything that wasn’t a rollt
op took up one corner, with a rolling black office chair pulled up in front of it and a computer monitor atop it. Two padded armchairs upholstered in mahogany colored leather, or maybe just a really good imitation, faced the desk, angled so they also faced each other. A colorful Persian rug lay atop the gray Berber, brightening the room, and a series of photo enlargements showing Middle Eastern market stalls hung on one wall. It was enough to make me forget we were probably deep underground.
Sydney gestured to me to have a seat in one of the armchairs, then took the other. “So how are you feeling?” she said. “I heard about the attack on Abernathy’s.”
“I’m fine—I mean, I wasn’t hurt, and the fear has mostly passed,” I said. “Is…this what we do? Talk?”
Sydney smiled again. I wondered if the smile was something she practiced, not to be deceptive but to make it the most pleasant, non-threatening expression she could produce. “Talk, yes,” she said. “It sounds from your initial paperwork that you’re dealing with post traumatic stress disorder, and we’ll see if we can help you with that.”
“PTSD. That sounds so serious. I don’t feel—I mean, I always thought that was something soldiers got from battles. I haven’t done anything nearly so dramatic.”
“I wonder,” Sydney said. “You were kidnapped last January, weren’t you? By the Mercy?”
“Yes. But they didn’t hurt me.”
“And before that, I remember the Mercy tried to burn down Abernathy’s with you inside.”
“That’s right. I fought back. And the oracle helped me put out the fire. So nothing really bad happened.”
Sydney propped her elbow on the arm of the chair and rested her chin on her hand. “I wonder,” she said again. “Why do you want to deny the pain and horror of your experiences?”
The Book of Destiny Page 6