Strangeness and Charm cotf-3

by Mike Shevdon

  She brushed the back of her skirt with her hand and then walked back towards the house. The breeze around me died, leaving me to sit in the baking sun.

  Rather than summon the breeze again or follow Blackbird indoors, I walked back towards Alex's room. Fionh had mentioned that she would be alone this morning and it would be an opportunity to see how she was progressing for myself.

  I walked past the pond but the water was clear, the sediment undisturbed. It didn't bode well for the practice Alex was supposed to be doing in Fionh's absence.

  "Can I come in?" The door was resting open, a heavy leatherbound book resting against it to let what little air there was drift through the room.

  "Yeah, why not?" Alex was lying on the bed, staring at the ceiling.

  "I thought you might be asleep."

  "It's the middle of the day, Dad."

  "People do sleep in the day, especially when it's hot." I went in and sat in the armchair near the window out of the sun. She rolled over, resting her head on her hands.

  "Not me. I can't sleep unless it's dark. Not even then, sometimes."

  "Still having nightmares?"

  "No." The lie was blatant and obvious.

  I'd asked Blackbird how she could lie so openly, given that fey magic rankled against a lie. Blackbird had shrugged and told me that teenagers had a different relationship with the truth. "Maybe to her, it's not lying," she had suggested, but the tone in Alex's voice told me that it was, even though she showed no sign of being tongue-tied or having any difficulty with her words.

  "What's up?" Alex asked me.

  "I just came to see how you were — how you're getting on with Fionh."

  "She's busy. She said she'd come and see me later."

  "I know. I thought I'd come and see how you were getting on with your practice."

  "It's boring."

  "It's necessary."

  "She says I'm doing better than you are."

  "She said that? You must be doing well, then."

  "Not really. She was talking to Garvin about you." The implied criticism hung in the heavy air.

  "So have you done some practice this morning?"

  "Sure." Again the lie.

  "Why don't you practice for a bit with me — you can show me how much progress you've made."

  "S'boring."

  "You can show me how many fish you can bring to the surface."

  Alex sighed and rolled over again to stare at the ceiling. "When are we going home, Dad?"

  "We are home." Now I heard the lie in my own voice.

  "Not this place. I mean real home. When are you going to take me to see Mum?"

  "That's a bit difficult sweetheart."

  "She thinks I'm dead."

  "That's part of the difficulty, yes," I nodded.

  "I feel like I'm dead. I'm so bored!" The pipes rumbled in the bathroom. Alex glared at the bathroom door and they subsided.

  "Why don't you do something, then? You could play tennis?"

  "All the bats are broken."

  "They're called racquets."

  "They're all broken."

  "I thought you played with Fellstamp last week?"

  She sighed. "They were old. They twisted when we played with them. They're all broken now."

  "OK, we could find some more?"

  "Fellstamp cheats."

  "He cheats? In what way?"

  "Doesn't matter. They're broken anyway." Her arm flopped out sideways and hung over the edge of the bed. "I've got bats at home. Kayleigh and me used to play."

  "Kayleigh and I," I corrected.

  "We used to play on the courts after school. Even if we didn't have a net it was better then playing with Fellstamp. Kayleigh doesn't cheat."

  "I'll talk to Fellstamp."

  "Don't bother. He won't play with me, and I don't play with cheats."

  "All right, I'll ask Slimgrin if he'll play with you."

  "He's on assignment. Garvin told Fionh. He won't be back until next week."

  "Fionh, then."

  "Fionh's too stuck up. Besides, I don't like tennis anyway."

  It was my turn to sigh. "Well, what would you like to do?"

  "I want to see Mum."

  "Alex… it isn't that easy."

  "Why? What could be simpler? How hard could it be? We go and see Mum… that's it," she shrugged.

  "You can't go back to living with your mother."

  "Why not? You just don't want to admit that you lied to her. Again."

  "I didn't lie to her."

  "You told her I was dead!"

  "You were dead… or at least we thought you were. That's what we were told."

  Alex straightened her legs and lay with her arms crossed over her chest, eyes closed in a parody of death.

  "You're not dead, Alex. I can see you breathing."

  She twisted over suddenly. "No! I'm not dead! So why do I have to live in this morgue? Nothing happens here. It's like a home for the elderly. There's nothing to do and no one to do it with. I might as well be dead."

  "Don't say that. It's not true."

  "I want to see Mum. I want to see Kayleigh and I want my room back." She was shouting and as her voice rose the rumbling in the pipes rose with it. "I want my music, and my things. I want to be in my own room, in my own house, doing my own thing. What's so hard about that?"

  I kept my voice quiet, trying to soothe her. "I do understand, but it's more complicated than that. Your mum… It's going to be a huge shock. She needs to be prepared."

  "So prepare her! Write her a letter. Get on the phone. Do something! Anything!" The pipes rattled and banged.

  "It's not just your mum, Alex. Everyone thinks you're dead. Your teachers, neighbours, friends… you can't just walk into school and say, 'Hi — I'm back'."

  "Why not? What do they care? They'll get over it."

  "You killed three girls, Alex. You drowned them, remember?"

  "They don't know that. They think it was an accident."

  "It wasn't an accident, though was it?"

  "Is that what you think? You think I killed them on purpose? You think I filled that place up with drain-water and shit just to get even with that slag and her council-flat coven?"

  "I didn't mean it like that."

  "Well how did you mean it? Huh?"

  "I meant that it wasn't an accident. The drains didn't explode, did they Alex? There was no build up of gas. It was you."

  She rolled over again, staring at the ceiling. "They should've left me alone. I tried to warn them. Kayleigh did too. Fionh says they got what they deserve."

  "I find it hard to believe that Fionh said that."

  "She said that if you are challenged and you win, then that's fair. It's blood price. You don't challenge someone if you're not prepared to fight — to the death if necessary."

  "She means among the Feyre, Alex. She's not talking about human people."

  "I'm fey now, though, aren't I? Them rules don't apply to me."

  "Those rules, and they apply to you if you want to be part of human society. I don't think you can go back, sweetheart, not once you've broken them."

  "You broke them," she accused.

  "Yes, I suppose I did. But I can't go back either."

  "Mum's got Barry now."

  "That's not what I meant."

  "But you're not stuck in here. You can go out whenever you like. You don't have to be cooped up in your room all the time like a freaking prisoner!"

  "You're not a prisoner. You can go out. There are all the grounds, you have the freedom of the house for the most part."

  "It's just a bigger prison, Dad," she said.

  "Look, everyone says you're doing really well, but to be able to go out you have to do better than that. You can't just lose your temper and blow the drain covers off because someone looks at you funny."

  "I've never blown drain covers off! Now you're making stuff up about me!" she protested.

  "You can go out when you can keep a hold on your tem
per, and a lid on your abilities." I stood up. "Until then you're not safe. So it's up to you. Prove to me that you can control yourself and I'll take you out."

  "To see Mum?" she brightened.

  "I'll think about it."

  Her expression fell. "No, then."

  "Like I said, I'll think about it."

  "Yeah, you always say that when you don't want to say no, but you're not going to say yes," she said.

  "Some things aren't as easy as yes and no, Alex. Maybe if you grew up a bit and took some responsibility for yourself you'd understand that."

  Now she looked sulky.

  "You could start by actually practicing some of the control you're supposed to be developing. How many fish can you actually bring to the surface?"

  "Seven." The lie was plain again.

  "Alex, you're not helping yourself." I moved to the door. "I have things to do, and so do you, if you would only do some of them. I can't keep cleaning up after you."

  "Oh, so it's my fault the government was torturing prisoners is it? It's my fault that Porton Down was experimenting on innocent people?"

  "No," I said, "but it's your choice how you deal with it."

  "You're only saying that because you don't want to explain to Mum."

  "I'm only saying it because it's true. I'm trying to help you."

  "Maybe I don't want help. Maybe I'm beyond help."

  "Look", I said. "Neither of us can go back, but both of us can go forward. Learn to deal with things as they are and you'll be happier for it." I stood in the doorway. "Think about it."

  "My life sucks," she said.

  "Everyone's life sucks at one time or another. There are people around you who care, but they can't help you if you won't help yourself. You can lay on your bed and sulk all your life or you can get up and do something."

  "When you and Mum broke up, you did something. You left. You walked out the door and you left me — with her! You've no idea what she was like."

  "That's not fair, Alex." Though I knew very well what Katherine was like.

  "Yeah, well. Life's not fair. That's what you always say."

  "That's because it's true," I said "Your mother gave me no choice. I didn't like it and it wasn't fair, but that's the way it was. It's about time you learned that life isn't perfect and you have to make the best of what you've got. Grow up, Alex."

  The remark came out harsher than I'd intended and her eyes brimmed. She turned away to face the window.

  I swept out and retreated down the corridor, feeling that once more I was in the wrong no matter what I did. She knew she'd struck a nerve with her last remark, but then she knew where all my soft spots were and never failed to exploit them. Now I had said too much and I was automatically in the wrong.

  I bunched my fists as I walked away. Kids!

  When I got back to our rooms, Blackbird was leafing through the folders I had left on the desk.

  "Those are supposed to be confidential," I said.

  "Secret is what it says here," she said, checking the front of the file.

  "Wouldn't that imply that you shouldn't be reading them?"

  "They're not really secret. No one would be stupid enough to leave secret documents lying around on a desk where anyone might read them," she pointed out.

  "Touche." There was not much point in grabbing them back now. She was most of the way through the pile.

  "Where's the baby?"

  "Going to sleep."

  "I'll just go check on him."

  "If you go in there now you'll wake him up again. Leave him be. If he has a nap now he'll be much nicer to know later. Otherwise he'll just be crabby all day, and it won't be you that has to suffer."

  I bit my tongue on the reply to that.

  "You could have seen him when he was having a bath. I heard you sneak in earlier."

  "I was on my way to see Alex."

  "Really? How is she?" she said.

  "Sulking."

  "I could hear you across the courtyard."

  "Yes, that went well, didn't it?" My shoulders sagged in resignation. "She's bored. She wants me to take her to see Katherine."

  "You're going to have to take her eventually."

  "I know. I said I'd think about it."

  Blackbird looked up from the files. "You need to do more than think about it, Niall. Perhaps if you were to see Katherine alone, just to begin with."

  "If I even hint that Alex is alive then Katherine will want to see her. After all she's been through she'll need to see Alex for herself."

  "Then you're just going to have to grasp the nettle, aren't you?" she pointed out.

  "I'm trying to think of a way to do it that won't seem like I lied to her. Alex does have a point."

  "By delaying you are only making it worse," she said. "If you'd told her as soon as Alex got back you might have a leg to stand on, but as it is…"

  "Alex had no control whatsoever to begin with. She was still in shock after what happened. How could I take her to her mother in that state? With her emotions driving her power, anything might have happened. She was a danger to herself and everyone around her. She still is."

  "Nonsense. She's no worse than any other teenager."

  "I spoke to Fionh earlier and she said she's not ready to join the courts."

  "And what would Fionh know? When was the last time Fionh had anything to do with anyone under a hundred years old?"

  "She's the one coaching Alex. She has the most contact with her."

  "She's a Warder, Niall. With all that entails."

  "What does that mean?" It didn't escape my attention that I was also a Warder, so that particular criticism was aimed at me too.

  Blackbird shook her head and went back to reading the files. "Where did these come from?"

  "Originally they were from Porton Down. They were passed to Garvin from Secretary Carler, the civil servant who looks after relations with the six courts."

  "What are you supposed to do with them?"

  "I'm supposed to find the people mentioned in them. Why?"

  "They read like scientific mumbo-jumbo. What do you think morphological instability is?"

  "In what context?"

  "Andy exhibits signs of morphological instability, exhibiting severe disassociation and fragmentation," she read from the file.

  "The doctors at Porton Down were experimenting on these people. Maybe Andy couldn't control his glamour. That would lead to sudden changes in appearance that might be called instability. I had trouble with it myself at first."

  "Pyrokinetic projection?"

  "That would fit with the guy who burned down a shopping centre. Garvin says the fire spread without an accelerant and through fire barriers, killing one guy and injuring another. Plus the CCTV wasn't working. That would point to someone with a fey affinity."

  "If this person is throwing fire around, then that would tend to indicate a degree of control. You don't just throw fire — air doesn't burn on its own."

  "So maybe there was an accelerant, but not something they'd recognise, or they don't have the language to describe it."

  "Or maybe they don't know what they're talking about." She tossed the file back onto the pile. "This is just jargon and speculation. The language is so technical you'd need a glossary to decode it. It's as if it was written to deliberately obscure what they were doing."

  "Perhaps it was," I said.

  "I read through the file on Alex and didn't understand it, even though I know what happened to her."

  "I don't need a file to tell me how Alex is."

  "They thought she was delusional, and schizophrenic," said Blackbird.

  "Was that before or after they tortured her?"

  "It's nonsense, in either case."

  "Well since you've had the chance to read through the files, maybe you could suggest which of these people I go after first?"

  "Do you think you're ready to go after any of them?"

  "Thank you for making that a question," I said.
<
br />   She ruffled through the files and extracted one, handing it to me. "How about this one?"

  I opened the file to a picture of a middle-aged woman staring out of a passport sized photo. Her name was Angela.

  "I've seen this woman before."

  "You have?"

  "She was in the isolation cells below Porton Down. There were a bunch of people locked up in there. I got Raffmir to get me a key to let them out."

  A spray of blood spattered onto a glass wall as Raffmir's sword took the head from the nurse who brought us the key to the cells. Her head bounced down the corridor, right in front of me. Black blood ran down the glass leaving a dark smear in its trail. The smell of fear and death was in my nostrils…

  "Niall?"

  "Hmm? Sorry?"

  "You've seen her before?"

  "Sorry, yes. When I opened the door to the glass cell, she touched me on the cheek."

  I touched my face where she'd placed her hand. When she had reached out for me I had tried to push her away, but it had been like it was glued there.

  "You let her touch you?" Blackbird was incredulous.

  "I was helping her escape."

  She sighed. "You see what I mean now about not being ready."

  "She went all wide-eyed on me, started talking about brightness."

  "And there was brightness, wasn't there? You lit up everything in a five mile radius," said Blackbird.

  "Then she said something else: 'The sun will rise, and they shall fall'."

  "I beg your pardon?" Blackbird suddenly focused back on me.

  "It's what she said, just before she ran into the dark."

  "That's what Deefnir came out with, at the Highsmith's farm. He started blabbering about the felicitations of the Seventh Court and wanted to touch me." She put her hand on her stomach. "Amber wouldn't let him. Deefnir said, 'The son will rise and they shall fall'. I thought he was talking about our son."

  "I thought Angela was talking about the sun in the sky, she'd mentioned brightness. I thought I'd hear it before somewhere, but I couldn't remember where."

  "Kareesh."

  "What?"

  "When I took you to see Kareesh, on the day you came into your power. You bargained for your vision, but before she granted it, she said something. Evader of traps, bringer of hope — it ended with, 'the sun will rise and they shall fall', don't you remember? At the time I thought she was finally losing it, she never volunteers things — not usually."