by Ada Palmer
Thisbe frowned sympathy. “And Julia’s been twisting your beliefs to fit their scheme for so long, are you sure you even had any beliefs of your own to begin with?”
“No.” Carlyle hugged herself. “No, I had nothing, and Julia made me into this! Oh, God! What am I? What have I been doing all these years, in Your Name?”
Reflections of the streetlights on the bridge above played across Thisbe’s knife blade. “You were going to bring Bridger to Julia, weren’t you?”
“Oh, God! You’re right! I would have! I hadn’t decided on it but it had already crossed my mind. It was instinct! I would have handed Bridger to Julia, handed God to Julia! And what have I done instead? Now I’ve agreed to hand Bridger to Dominic!”
Thisbe scowled. “To Dominic?”
“Julia’s given me to Dominic! I didn’t see it before. Julia’s done using me as a pawn so I got traded to Dominic. They know I have the perfect belief system to make me jump when anyone who knows how to push my buttons says jump. Julia must have briefed Dominic, told them what to say to make me do what they wanted. I was too blind to see it! Mycroft was right, I shouldn’t have access to Bridger. Bridger should be spirited as far as possible from me. I should never see them again!”
Thisbe fingered the knife’s black handle. “That’s not enough.”
The Cousin’s eyes grew wide. “What do you mean?”
“It doesn’t matter whether you separate yourself from Bridger or not. You’ll still be serving Julia’s plans elsewhere. You can’t just undo years of being trained to be a pawn. They’re going to keep using you, even if you try to break off on your own. So long as you continue being a sensayer you’re going be making people into what Julia’s taught you to make them, like you tried to do with us. And if you stop being a sensayer—”
“Stop being a sensayer!”
Thisbe’s nose wrinkled at the discourtesy of interruption. “Even if you stop, you won’t be able to keep yourself from talking to people about religion. You won’t be able to stop doing what Julia’s made you so good at doing.” She smirked. “Cato would say it’s like a retrovirus. The virus pumps its RNA into a cell and the cell keeps pumping out more virus every chance it has, until it dies. It doesn’t even know it’s doing it.”
Sobs came too fast for Carlyle to speak.
“There really is no escape for you, is there?” Thisbe pressed. “The network you helped Julia create is everywhere now, and Madame, and Danaë, and Dominic are everywhere. Anywhere you go they can find you, send an agent, and teach them what to say to get you back. You’re just going to keep luring in more and more victims. You can’t stop it.”
“I can stop it.”
“You can’t. It’s not like you can run when the poison is inside you.”
“I can stop it.”
“How?”
“Like this!” Carlyle snatched the knife from Thisbe’s hands, and leapt to her feet.
“Carlyle—”
“Don’t try to stop me! It’s the only way to protect you. To protect Bridger. To protect everyone!” Carlyle lifted the knife toward her own throat. “You’re right! As long as I live I’ll draw everyone around me toward Julia. It has to end! God won’t forgive me. God shouldn’t forgive me, but at least this way it’ll be over. At least this way God knows I’m doing what’s best for everyone.” Tears swelled to a river on her cheeks, but a smile broke through them. “I’m sorry, Thisbe. I liked getting to know you, and really did intend to help you, all of you. It’s best this way. Bridger will be safe, your bash’, your secret will be safe, everyone. Even me.”
Carlyle closed her eyes and thrust at her throat with the full force of both trembling hands. Smooth as a diving fish, the edgeless trick blade collapsed into the hollow handle with a pathetic squeak.
Slowly, softly, a laugh rose from the depths of Thisbe, swelling like a downpour as a vicious smile bloomed across her cheeks.
“Thisbe, what?” Carlyle stared uncomprehending, testing the knife again and watching the fake blade slide in and out of the trick hilt.
Thisbe raised her hands, applauding clumsily as the fervor of her laughter made her arms weak. “Beautiful performance! I should have let you squirm longer, shouldn’t I? Pleaded with you not to do it. I could have gotten at least two more farewell declarations out of you.”
Carlyle’s jaw quivered. “I don’t understand.”
“Drop it.”
Thisbe snapped her fingers, and the knife tumbled from Carlyle’s hands, her whole frame weakening as despair’s soft trembling turned to crippling terror.
“Thisbe, what … what’s happening?”
Thisbe rose to her feet, her laughter subsiding into a darker smile. “You’re starting to realize, aren’t you?”
Trembling took the sensayer’s legs. She staggered, collapsed into the grass. “What have you done to me?”
Thisbe chuckled. “I’m a witch.”
“What?”
What?
“Did you imagine Bridger was the only one with powers? The child plays with toys. I’m a grown-up, I play with grown-ups.”
“A witch?”
“You needed punishment. You can’t just waltz into my house, or meet with enemies like Dominic, without permission.” Thisbe prowled around Carlyle, the cat circling a sparrow too wounded to flee. “Let’s get things clear here, Carlyle: this house is my domain. I may bring in strays like you, and Esmerald Revere, and Mycroft Canner, but that doesn’t make you any more important than those plastic toy soldiers. You jump when I say jump, you dance when I want you to dance, and you’ll bite your own tongue out and choke to death any instant I choose.”
Carlyle tried to rise, but tremors pinned her, helpless. “A witch?”
Mycroft, is this really happening?
“I’ve been watching you.” Thisbe raised two fingers to her forehead as if to point out a third eye hidden beneath the skin. “Ever since you stumbled through my door I’ve been watching. You fool, you’re not Julia’s pawn or Dominic’s, you’re my pawn, and you’re going to stay my pawn, and stay alive, precisely as long as I want to keep you that way.”
Thisbe’s black eyes were too harsh for Carlyle to meet. The sensayer looked at the ground, at the toy knife lying in the grass before her. “You made me do that just now? You made me try to kill myself!”
The witch shrugged, basking in the web of hair around her shoulders, blacker than night’s black. “I was bored. You think I want to listen to your whiny theolo-gibberish? Besides, you needed to learn the lesson. Forget Julia and Dominic: you’re my puppet, mine alone. My hexes are worked into your flesh too deep for anyone to break.”
Mycroft, what is happening?
I’m sorry, reader. I failed to prepare you for this, just as I failed shivering Carlyle. I tried my useless best, but with the sensayer my warnings were too subtle, and with you, I think, too blunt to be believed. She is a witch. I told you from the start. I still can’t make it sound sane. It’s fear that makes me fail, fear of Thisbe, her spells that can cripple me as fast as Tully’s Canner Beat, while my eclectic skills provide no armor against her craft. I fear her, rare for me. It isn’t that I’m otherwise fearless—I fear a thousand things: Tully’s scheming, MASON’s left hand, Bridger—but the witch is altogether different. She should not be part of this, that’s what it is. She is an unexpected threat, outside the palette of the possible, as when a fortress city, whose death-stained towers have stopped a hundred battle lines, is brought low by a pestilence within. Why would this stage of Gods and Emperors suddenly contain, of all backwards absurdities, a witch? I fear, abjectly, and will fear still, even if you tell me limping science can explain away her spellcraft. When Utopians forge Earth’s rare metals into dragon fleets that feed on sunlight as they bear their masters across the sky-white surface of the Moon, they are wizards, even if they use science to deny it. Just so, when a black-hearted spinster lures a stray priest to her bedchamber to rape her soul and laugh, she is a witch.
“I’ll let you continue as our sensayer,” Thisbe began, running her fingers through the length of her black hair. “You’re right, it’ll be a convenience being able to talk about our work. Maybe you can even help fix poor Cato. You’ll help us, help them, guide them all the way I think they should be guided, and if you start taking any of them in a direction I don’t like I’ll take over your body and talk through you like a meat puppet.”
Carlyle started to speak, but Thisbe waved two fingers, and the words froze dead.
“This is what you need, Carlyle,” the witch continued. “Don’t you see? You want to be free of Julia, but you never can be, you’ll never undo years of Julia’s worming into you, making you think what they want. If you know the truth about us, or about Bridger, Julia and Dominic will make you tell them someday. Except not now. Now you know I’m watching. You know I can snap my fingers, speak the magic words, and … what would be the best threat? Instant death is boring, a stroke maybe? Pain and paralysis? Insanity can be fun, leaving you a nice lunatic babbling about the end of the world? Is that scary enough? Yes, that’s the right level of twitching. You see? And that terror will keep you from blabbing. You have a check now, a backup plan. The moment you get close to letting something slip you’ll remember this…” She loomed. “You’ll remember this to your dying day. And that memory will keep you quiet.” She took a satisfied breath. “I’ll be your gag. That’s what you really need, a gag, to make you free of Julia, to keep us all safe. And if you ever do transgress.” She clapped her hands, and the body at her feet convulsed with shock. “I’ll end it. And fear of that will keep you from doing what you don’t want to do. That way we can all have everything we need: my bash’ can have a good sensayer, Bridger too, and you can finally be free of Julia. How does that sound?” A flick of her fingers freed Carlyle’s voice.
“D-d-d-does Mycroft know?”
“Know I’m a witch?” Thisbe savored another chuckle. “Mycroft’s a clever one. They figure it out about once a week on average, but I don’t let them remember. It’s much more fun to let them guess, to see what gives me away each time. Good practice for not getting caught by others. You, though, I think it’s best for everyone if I let you remember this time.”
“Th-is time?”
The witch’s eyes sparkled with secrets. “Sensayers are used to fearing God, so you know the right way to fear me, don’t you?”
Carlyle tried to swallow. “B-uh … bash’ma-ates know?”
“They know not to mess with me.” She played with her own footprints as she circled, her boots stamping patterns into the grass. “I haven’t let most of them taste my full powers, though, it would cause unnecessary anxiety.” She grinned. “You see now why this little investigation is no threat to me doing a hit. But the others still worry, so considerate of them.”
Thisbe let Carlyle’s flesh relax at last, and the Cousin inchwormed sideways, trying to watch as Thisbe circled him. “Whaa—now?” she gasped out.
“What now?” Thisbe cocked her head. “Now you’re going to say, ‘Thank you, Thisbe.’ And I’m going to go back and tell my anxious bash’mates that we have a trustworthy new sensayer, and no one has to worry about you blabbing.”
Carlyle’s body rocked, her lips attempting words. “Th … th-th—th.”
Thisbe sighed. “Was I too rough? You’re a frail thing, aren’t you? Oh, well.” She leaned down, close enough to kiss. “Run away, little sensayer. Run home and talk to no one. I’ll be watching, my creatures too, my imps and sprites—I conjure darker things than plastic soldiers. I’ll be watching you, in the cars, in your bash’house, in your bedroom with all the pretty birds painted on the ceiling. It’s a good design—maybe I should make you paint my bedroom too?” She slapped Carlyle gently on the back. “Rest up tonight, but I expect you here promptly tomorrow morning. Ockham will want to debrief you when you’ve recovered, plus Sniper needs their session, and I’ll see if I can corner Cato for you.”
Frozen Carlyle could only twitch and watch as the witch retreated slowly, the grass with its army of hidden crawling things caressing her gleaming boots. Thisbe paused at the door to let herself taste Carlyle’s fear-sweat a moment longer, sweet as gingerbread.
“Thiz!” Sniper cried from within the instant she opened the door. “Tell me everything you know about J.E.D.D. Mason!”
Her voice was ice. “Don’t come into my room without permission, Cardigan.”
“Sorry. Did it go well?”
“Swimmingly.” Thisbe moved to block Sniper’s view of the collapsed Cousin, but Carlyle could still hear their words across the stillness of the grass. “Carlyle’s comfortable with everything, and I’m sure we can trust them now.”
The living doll held the door for her. “Great. Should I get Ockham?”
“No, Carlyle’s tired tonight. I’ve told them to come in the morning. Why are you here, Cardie?”
“Tell me everything you know about J.E.D.D. Mason. Ockham was telling me more, things the President said, but it doesn’t add up. Thiz, doesn’t it bother you that Andō’s supposed child doesn’t look half-Japanese? A bit of something East Asian in the mix maybe, but not what you’d expect of Andō’s child.”
The door closed behind the ba’sibs, leaving Carlyle slumped like a carcass abandoned when the hunt has too much prey to carry home. The shock was too absolute, too saturated to be confined by names like terror or despair. She did not try to rise, but flopped onto her back as trembling gave way again to tears. Just tears. It doesn’t matter how long she lay there, ten minutes, an hour, two; feelings that deep dissolve the illusion that time can be measured.
“Ruff! Wuff wuff! Auuuuuw Auuuu!” Hearty as home’s lights through a storm, Boo’s bark rang through the flower trench. The blue dog trundled over to the sensayer, sniffing and wagging, its curious nose trailing wet warmth across Carlyle’s trembling hands.
Carlyle stirred. “Boo? What are you doing here?”
“Rrrruf! Ruf!” Boo licked Carlyle’s face, and the sensayer could not help but stroke its tender ears.
“Here, drink this milk, you’ll feel better.”
It was Mommadoll, riding on Boo’s back, her dress of checked red gingham studded with seeds and burrs. She held a thermos, giant as a barrel between her four-inch arms, while a sack strapped across her back leaked the scent of fresh-baked cookies.
“How did you—” Carlyle began.
“Teleportation. Drink your milk, dear.”
“Where—”
“Milk first!” Mommadoll ordered, shoving the thermos into Carlyle’s hands. “No arguments. And as for you, Stander-Y, I have a hot pot pie for you, and you’re eating all the vegetables this time or else you’re not getting any cobbler afterward. Well? Come out!”
After a few breaths’ pause, a tiny figure in sand brown crawled out from the shadow of the stairs up to the walkway above. “Mommadoll, a secret spy mission means no one is supposed to know I’m here spying.”
“Oh, fiddlesticks,” she countered, gold curls bouncing. “The Major left me in charge while they’re on the rescue mission, and I say you get a hot dinner.” She produced a tiny pie. “It’s not right you getting stuck by yourself all night. The least the Major could do is see you get a decent meal.”
Carlyle stared at the thermos in his hands, despair’s tears turning to relief’s. “You were spying on me?”
“No, we’re spying on Thisbe.” The tiny soldier’s eyes glowed as Mommadoll lowered the pie into his arms. “And the bash’house. We’ve moved Bridger to safety, but best to keep an eye out here. There could still be evidence, and Dominic could get to Thisbe.”
Carlyle gulped the milk, and gasped as Mommadoll opened her sack to display the chocolate chip treasures within. “I can’t believe you brought me milk and cookies.”
“You need it after facing one of Thisbe’s bullying moods.” Mommadoll offered a napkin from the stash in her apron pocket.
Carlyle sprayed crumbs. “Did you know?”
; Stander-Y snorted. “Know what? That Thisbe’s a scary-ass psychopath? Of course.”
“Language!” Mommadoll chided.
“Sorry, ma’am. It’s true, though. Thisbe’s scarier than Mycroft. Reliable in her way, but scary.”
Carlyle paused, facing the ageless question of whether to dip her cookies or keep her milk crumb-free. “You knew Thisbe’s a witch?”
“That’s nonsense!” Mommadoll smiled the thought away with rosy cheeks. “Thisbe just says that to play with people. Thisbe’s upset. I’m sure that’s the only reason for this bullying tantrum just now. It’s been a trying time for poor Thisbe, police stomping around the house. I’ll bring more cookies later.”
Carlyle frowned. “You saw what Thisbe almost made me do.”
Stander-Y took a long breath. “I don’t know if Thisbe’s really a witch, but I do know she can do … something. Witchcraft would explain a lot, actually. Just now, where I was standing, it felt like I could feel all the same things you did, sad, then really sad and ashamed, then suddenly terrified when Thisbe snapped her fingers the first time, then weakness in my legs, and when she shushed you I choked too, like in a dream when you can’t speak. Maybe Thisbe and Bridger have powers from the same source, something about this place.”
Carlyle gazed into her milk. “The place wouldn’t explain J.E.D.D. Mason.…”
Stander-Y shook his head. “I think you should stay away from J.E.D.D. Mason. Mycroft said they’d die before they let you close to them, and Mycroft Canner is a man who’s thought a lot about their death and how best to use it.”
Carlyle’s frown deepened as she took a long breath, two. “I’ve been wondering, does Bridger…”
“Does Bridger what?”
The sensayer closed her eyes, as if afraid to face the question and the world at once. “Does Bridger have a belly button?”
“Good question, if a little out of nowhere.” The soldier smiled. “No, he doesn’t. First real belly button Bridger ever saw was Mycroft’s, and the kid thought it was another bullet scar.”