The Rook

by Daniel O'Malley

  “I did not know that,” said Myfanwy. I would have thought the Checquy would have tidied that sort of thing up.

  “Oh, yes. So I knew you were alive, and I have a friend who works in the tax office. He didn’t want to, but he tracked down a Myfanwy Alice Thomas who lives here. You’re the only Myfanwy Alice Thomas in the UK.”

  Of course, thought Myfanwy. Death and taxes. They get you every time.

  “That’s really impressive,” said Myfanwy.

  “I’ve always been a pretty good researcher,” said Bronwyn modestly.

  Oh, so that we share, thought Myfanwy, but you didn’t inherit the power to make people shit themselves. You’ve got to love the randomness of genetics.

  “I still wasn’t sure that it was you. I came to this address, and I was trying to get the nerve up to go and buzz at the gate. But then I saw you and you looked so much like my mum. So I followed you to that building in the city. I went in the front, but your name wasn’t in the building directory.

  “I know it was kind of stalkerish,” continued Bronwyn, “but I hung around the building. I thought that if you didn’t come out the front, then I could just come back here and try buzzing at the gate. And then you were there, right across the street.” She shook her head in amazement, and it was clear to Myfanwy that Bronwyn was trying to figure out how to ask all sorts of questions. So she beat her to it.

  “Bronwyn, you’re twenty-five, right?”

  “Yeah, I was only three, when you… went away. So I really didn’t remember you at all,” she added guiltily.

  That makes two of us! thought Myfanwy, as she tried to think of what else to say. There was an awkward pause, and then Bronwyn settled for the easiest opening gambit. “I like your house a lot. How long have you lived here?”

  “Oh… a couple of years,” said Myfanwy vaguely. Since she’d spent most of the afternoon vetting Bronwyn, she hadn’t had a great deal of time to prepare any convincing stories. “I got a big promotion and bought this place. And then spent ages decorating it.”

  “It’s lovely. So, what is it you do?”

  “I work for the government,” explained Myfanwy. “I’m a specialist on domestic affairs.” She watched the light of interest die in Bronwyn’s eyes, just as it was meant to. “I do a lot of supervisory stuff. Long hours, not much social life, but I like it.” And that was true, she realized. It wasn’t just the administration she enjoyed, although she was good at it. She liked the whole thing.

  “Okay, so I have to ask,” said Bronwyn. “What happened? Jonathan told me that we had a sister, and there were some photos of you, but Mum and Dad never talked about you. For ages, I thought you’d died or something.”

  “Jonathan’s our brother, right?” asked Myfanwy hesitantly. She had to be careful here, but she was also intensely curious.

  “Don’t you remember?” Bronwyn was incredulous.

  “Not really,” said Myfanwy. “I was young when I left, and then a lot of stuff happened.”

  “What kinds of stuff?”

  “Well, it’s complicated. What did your… our… father tell you? Or our mother?” asked Myfanwy, wary of contradicting any established stories.

  “They never said. When Jonathan and I tried to talk to them about you, they just refused. Dad especially, he said that he didn’t want us ever to ask him about it. That you were gone, and we should try to forget about you, and just get on with our lives.” She kept her eyes firmly on Wolfgang as she talked, and Myfanwy got the impression that there had been bitter arguments over this matter. Shouting and silence and shame. People had been sent to bed without supper. She felt obscurely guilty.

  “I had a medical problem,” said Myfanwy. “And it was a very big deal—the odds of my living were really slim.” Bronwyn looked at her with concerned eyes. “I’m pretty much okay now,” she assured her, “but for a while, it was touch and go. Most of the time I was on a lot of drugs, completely out of it, in the closed wards,” she invented on the spur of the moment.

  “And that’s why you couldn’t visit,” continued Myfanwy. “Our parents knew I was going to die and that they couldn’t see me. So it must have been easier for them just not to think about it.”

  “What was wrong?” asked Bronwyn hesitantly.

  “Complicated stuff, really rare,” said Myfanwy vaguely. “You don’t need to worry, it’s not a genetic problem. But I really don’t like talking about it.”

  “But you got better?”

  “About four years ago, they figured out a drug regimen that let me function. Still, it was a huge deal getting me cleaned up. I’d been on some of the medication for years, and had a few pretty serious addictions going on,” said Myfanwy, mildly impressed with how easily the lies were coming.

  “That’s dreadful!” exclaimed Bronwyn. “But you never thought of trying to contact us?” It was clear she didn’t want to offend Myfanwy but also felt hurt. It was incomprehensible to her that her sister wouldn’t immediately try to find her family.

  “There was so much coming at me so fast,” said Myfanwy. “I’d been living in this drug-induced fog. I was given help finding a flat, a job. I was so used to focusing exclusively on just one thing, there didn’t seem room for anything other than work, and detox. I still hardly go out in the real world. I get nervous.” She looked intently at Bronwyn, willing her not to be upset. “And my memories of you all were so vague. It was like a dream, when I thought about it at all.”

  Bronwyn nodded, looking dazed. It turned out her sister was a recovering drug addict and an agoraphobic.

  “I don’t know what to say,” said Bronwyn. “This is a lot to process. It must have been so hard for you.”

  “Yeah, well,” said Myfanwy, shrugging easily. “Them’s the breaks, and I’m really grateful for how everything turned out.”

  “Yeah,” said Bronwyn softly. She looked down at her hands, stroking Wolfgang.

  “You okay?” asked Myfanwy uncertainly.

  “Yeah, it’s just that it would be intense if it were just a friend telling me this, and you’re my sister,” said Bronwyn, still staring down. She took a deep breath. “I feel like I’m already supposed to know all of it, like this is supposed to be part of our past, and the family just let you go. You must feel that way too, like we didn’t even care.” She looked up, and Myfanwy saw tears in her eyes. “There’s no reason for you to feel anything for me, but I want you to know that even though I don’t remember you, and maybe you don’t remember me, I’m glad I found you. I really do want you to be my sister.”

  And Myfanwy felt those words within her heart.

  “I do too,” she said.

  Then she was moving forward, and she and Bronwyn were holding each other and weeping, but laughing at the same time. As she embraced the woman, Myfanwy felt a flaring in her powers, as if gasoline had been poured onto a fire. She could sense the genetic ties she held with this girl, her own patterns mirrored, to a certain extent, within her sister. Myfanwy pushed gently away, examined Bronwyn at arm’s length, and then drew her back in, laughing again.

  Everything else seemed like a part of Thomas’s life, she thought. Something inherited. But this, this is mine as much as it could have been hers. This girl is the sister of this body, and this is just as much my body as Thomas’s. And with that, she felt herself finally relax into her own self.

  Now,” said Myfanwy after they’d calmed down and wiped their faces. “Tell me all about you. And the family.”

  “Oh God. Well, I hate having to tell you this, but our parents are dead,” Bronwyn said sadly. This didn’t come as a surprise; Myfanwy had read it in the files. But now, when her sister said it, she felt a shock go through her. Somehow, it was more real, more relevant. They weren’t just the parents of a body she’d inherited, they were her parents. She felt a piercing regret, and she knew it showed on her face.

  “They died eight years ago in a car accident,” her sister continued. “It was a drunk driver. I moved up to London to live with Jonathan
. He’s a banker; he’s thirty-three. When Mum and Dad died, he became my legal guardian. It wasn’t easy, being in a new school and everything. I finished, but just barely. And then I bummed around for a couple of years, worked a bunch of crap jobs. Then Jonathan said I’d had enough time to get over it, so now I’m studying. We Thomases do better when we have a mission. You probably figured that out for yourself.” They smiled at each other, and Myfanwy felt very strange. Seeing her own features stamped on someone else’s face was somehow comforting.

  “We believed you were still alive,” said Bronwyn quietly. “Jonathan and I went through all their papers and found some documents.”

  Christ, have I just given a brilliantly detailed lie, only to get totally busted? Myfanwy thought in horror. What did these documents say?

  “They were financial records. Mum and Dad had been receiving regular payments. Jonathan traced them through his work and found out that they were from the government. Some obscure department. We tried to track you down, but it was miles of red tape. And we had no idea where you were, what was happening. It just turned out easier not to think about it either. But the payments kept coming. They’re paying for my university,” said Bronwyn shyly.

  Compensation from the Checquy, thought Myfanwy. I wonder how much I’m worth.

  “What are you studying?” she asked.

  “Fashion,” said Bronwyn.

  “Oh, fantastic! Maybe you can educate me,” said Myfanwy. “I’m completely ignorant about all aspects of fashion.”

  “What? Look at the suit you’re wearing!”

  Myfanwy looked at herself. “Yeah?” It wasn’t a suit that screamed Look at me! In fact, it looked like it would prefer if you didn’t look at it at all.

  “Well, it’s really good quality,” said Bronwyn, fingering the cloth appreciatively. “And it costs more than I make in three months of work as a waitress.”

  “Yeah, well, my general approach is that if I pay a horrendous amount of money for a garment, people will overlook the fact that it looks terrible on me,” said Myfanwy.

  They stayed up late, and Myfanwy found out a great many details of her sister’s life. She still lived with Jonathan. The only reason she hadn’t brought their brother to Myfanwy’s was that he was in Japan for a few weeks on business. Bronwyn wanted to be a designer but doubted both her talent and the possibility of finding employment. She’d made only a few friends since moving to London and had no boyfriend.

  “I know how that goes,” said Myfanwy. “I’ve never had a boyfriend.” And no time even to think of having one, she thought dispiritedly. Thomas’s written explanation of her lack of a social life had been short, mildly regretful, and awkward. Much like Myfanwy imagined Thomas herself had been. That whole aspect of her life was going to require some thought. She’d found a battery-powered item in the drawer of the bedside table but was somewhat wary of using it. Admittedly, it is mine. And it’s only ever been used on my body. But not by me. This is an aspect of amnesia that people don’t normally talk about.

  After she’d shown Bronwyn to the guest bedroom, Myfanwy went back down to the living room and finished the last of the brandy. She scooped up Wolfgang and put him in his night hutch. Then she lifted up the pillow on her end of the couch, took a gun from where it had been hidden, and locked it away in her office desk.

  18

  Dear You,

  Well, I have hit an extraordinary amount of pay dirt. You know, there’s a reason the FBI employs accountants and computer geeks. It’s always about the money. And the whole electronics revolution has caused a tremendous amount of trouble for the illegally minded. Used to be, you could just take a handful of doubloons and spend them. The authorities couldn’t really trace a doubloon. Now, however, there’s always a trail. Especially if you’re dealing with big bucks. That irregularity I mentioned earlier? Yeah, well, it turned out to be a lot of money. And I’ve figured out where it was redirected.

  Tracking the missing money was actually kind of fun, especially compared to all those records of corporate credit card transactions that I had to wade through. That shit was just tedious. There’s a reason that there’s no TV show called CSI: Forensic Accounting. Although I will say that I now really, really know the Checquy, inside and out. And I know where the missing money went.

  Compared to the total budget for the Checquy, the amount that was missing over the years wasn’t that much, but it was enough to buy up a lot of land in the south part of Wales, throw up some buildings, and set about building a small army of superkids.

  That’s right: there’s a second Estate.

  Maybe that doesn’t strike you as terribly astonishing, but I couldn’t have been more surprised if there’d turned out to be a second royal family stashed away in the back valley where this second estate is. That’s how big a deal it is. The first Estate represents the real core of the Checquy’s power. Paranormal ability isn’t what makes our operatives the best in the world, although their supernatural skills certainly give them an edge. They’re the best because they’re brought in at an early age and trained rigorously. This is how the Checquy remains so powerful and the reason the nightmares stay under the bed rather than climbing into it with the rest of us. And now there’s another one, so whoever controls it holds an awfully big weapon, illegally.

  I couldn’t believe it, so I made myself go down there. I had a weekend off, and it was either go on a mini-break to Wales or stay in my house and go over administrative records. So, Friday afternoon after work, I loaded the car up, packed Wolfgang in his carrier, got behind the wheel, and began to drive.

  I actually like to drive. One of the many perks of my position is not having to worry about speeding tickets, and I have enough money to afford a nice frivolous car with a good stereo. So, tearing down the road I managed to sing loud enough to justify the speed but not so loud that Wolfgang wouldn’t be able to stand up without falling over.

  Ah, Wales! Land of my forefathers! Our forefathers! You’re part Welsh, did you know that? I mean, our family moved out of Wales a few generations ago, and though we probably have relatives scattered around somewhere, I don’t recall ever meeting them.

  Ever since I learned that in the near future, one of my compatriots will try to have me killed, I’ve become kind of paranoid. Frankly, I think that’s justifiable. So I elected not to check into a B and B and slept outside in a sleeping bag.

  I haven’t slept outside in years, not since the wilderness training at the Estate. God, I hated wilderness training. I hated everybody in my group, and it didn’t help that I was made to share a tent with Emmie, the girl who shot insects out of her mouth. But this time, I actually found it very soothing to sleep out in the open air. All snuggled up in my new sleeping bag, looking up at the stars, listening to Wolfgang fidget around in his carrier. There was no moon that night, and I was out in the dire wilderness of Wales, so there was no light pollution. Just five hundred million stars glittering down at me.

  The next day, I drove farther into Wales, to some little nothing village where I made some very discreet inquiries. I felt uncomfortable at first, starting conversations with people I’d never met. I was worried that they would correct the way I pronounced my name. I mean, I look at that w in the middle, and I always worry that I don’t say it right. Whoever heard of a silent w? Plus, I really thought that they were going to yell at me for sticking my nose into other people’s business, but it was actually fairly easy. It turns out that ordinary people like to tell you about their lives, and the old ladies in the hair salon were gold mines of information.

  As far as the residents of the village are concerned, the secret estate is some military installation that deals with very hush-hush materials. At least, I think that’s what they said. Everybody I talked to had pretty thick accents. On the upside, I did get a nice haircut.

  Nobody from the estate ever comes into the village. Trucks full of supplies drive down the main street early in the morning, but the drivers never so much as stop to pic
k up cigarettes. The estate itself is back in its own little steep-walled valley. There’s one road in and out, and it goes through these woods that must date back to before the Romans. I found some underagers hanging hopefully around the pub and pumped them for information. It’s funny; the bad kids of my childhood rebelled by trying to sneak off a secret military installation, and these kids do their best to sneak onto one.

  According to Darren, Lucy, Ricky, and Maysie: “There’s a place where the fence kind of skips over a gully, and you can slide underneath. You can sit under the trees with a six-pack and a pair of binoculars, and just watch the show. It’s totally amazing.”

  This estate’s very hush-hush reputation is likely the result of the weird things seen in the sky above it. Shapes coursing through the night, brilliant light bouncing off the clouds, and people ghosting along the lawns doing bizarre gymnastics routines. To the bored teens of the village, it’s like having the Cirque du Soleil and a jet stunt team living next door. To me, it sounds like home.

  Now, let me make this clear for you. There is only one Estate. It’s not a case of putting all your eggs in one basket; it’s a matter of keeping your valuables in a safe. All the genetic potential of the British Isles is there, a vast resource of wealth and power. And by putting them all in the same place, we ensure that they mesh. The Pawns of the Checquy work together so well because they all receive the same education in the same place.

  One time I watched a documentary about guns. The thing that really struck me was how big a deal it was when gun parts started being interchangeable. You could take the hammer out of one gun and put it in another, and it would work. It meant that no gun was unique, and that they all could be repaired easily. It’s the same with the Pawns. Most of them, despite their gigantic variety in terms of supernatural ability, can be slotted easily into a new team.

  Ironically, it’s generally the misfits who rise to the Court. None of us is standard Checquy. Even among the unusual, we’re strange.

  Anyway, the secret estate needed further investigation, and I wasn’t about to trust anyone else, so I was going to have to check it out. The kids assured me that guards would periodically come along on these “mega-cool four-wheeler things with lights,” but you could easily see them coming and hide. I wasn’t terribly impressed with the security arrangements of this school. On the real Estate, hiding in the woods wouldn’t protect you from the guards. For that matter, there wouldn’t be a quaint little village nearby either. Still, this place was on a budget (I should know), and its main protection was its secrecy.