Tim Pratt - Sympathy for the Devil

“There I am. There’s the-the room, yes, and the-yes, it’s all there, again. There’s the girl. The one who has the brown, shiny hair. The seat behind her is empty. This must be after that other girl broke her neck.”

“Never mind that,” said the monster impatiently. “What do you say?”

“I-” Jeremy was quiet. Finally Fuzzy nudged him. “Oh. It’s all about yesterday’s unfortunate occurrence, but, like the show of legend, our studies must go on.”

“Go on with it then,” panted the monster.

“All right, all right,” said Jeremy impatiently. “Here it is. We come now to the Gymnosophists, whose ascetic school has had no recorded equal in its extremism. Those strange gentry regarded clothing and even food as detrimental to purity of thought. The Greeks also called them Hylobioi, a term our more erudite students will notice as analogous to the Sanskrit Vana-Prasthas. It is evident that they were a profound influence on Diogenes Laërtius, the Elysian founder of pure skepticism…

And so he droned on and on. Fuzzy crouched on his body, its soft ears making small masticating motions; and sometimes when stimulated by some particularly choice nugget of esoterica, the ears drooled.

At the end of nearly an hour, Jeremy’s soft voice trailed off, and he was quiet. Fuzzy shifted in irritation. “What is it?”

“That girl,” said Jeremy. “I keep looking back to that girl while I’m talking.”

“Well, stop doing it. I’m not finished.”

“There isn’t any more, Fuzzy. I keep looking and looking back to that girl until I can’t lecture any more. Now I’m saying all that about the pages in the book and the assignment. The lecture is over.”

Fuzzy’s mouth was almost full of blood. From its ears, it sighed. “That wasn’t any too much. But if that’s all, then it’s all. You can sleep now if you want to.”

“I want to watch for a while.”

The monster puffed out its cheeks. The pressure inside was not great. “Go on, then.” It scrabbled Jeremy’s body and curled up in a sulky huddle.

The strange blood moved steadily through Jeremy’s brain. With his eyes wide and fixed, he watched himself as he would be, a slight, balding professor of philosophy.

He sat in the hall, watching the students tumbling up the steep aisles, wondering at the strange compulsion he had to look at that girl, Miss-Miss-what was it?

Oh. “Miss Patchell!”

He stared, astonished at himself. He had certainly not meant to call out her name. He clasped his hands tightly, regaining the dry stiffness which was his closest approach to dignity.

The girl came slowly down the aisle steps, her widest eyes wondering. There were books tucked under her arm, and her hair shone. “Yes, Professor?”

“I-” He stopped and cleared his throat. “I know it’s the last class today, and you are no doubt meeting someone. I shan’t keep you very long… and if I do,” he added, and was again astonished at himself, “you can see Bert tomorrow.”

“Bert? Oh!” She colored prettily. “I didn’t know you knew about-how could you know?”

He shrugged. “Miss Patchell,” he said. “You’ll forgive an old-ah-middle-aged man’s rambling, I hope. There is something about you that-that-”

“Yes?” Caution, and an iota of fright in her eyes. She glanced up and back at the now empty hall.

Abruptly he pounded the table. “I will not let this go on for another instant without finding out about it. Miss Patchell, you are becoming afraid of me, and you are wrong.”

“I th-think I’d better…” she said timidly, and began backing off.

“Sit down!” he thundered. It was the first time in his entire life that he had thundered at anyone, and her shock was not one whit greater than his. She shrank back and into a front-row seat, looking a good deal smaller than she actually was, except about the eyes, which were much larger.

The professor shook his head in vexation. He rose, stepped down off the dais, and crossed to her, sitting in the next seat.

“Now be quiet and listen to me.” The shadow of a smile twitched his lips and he said, “I really don’t know what I am going to say. Listen, and be patient. It couldn’t be more important.”

He sat a while, thinking, chasing vague pictures around in his mind. He heard, or was conscious of, the rapid but slowing beat of her frightened heart.

“Miss Patchell,” he said, turning to her, his voice gentle. “I have not at any time looked into your records. Until-ah-yesterday, you were simply another face in the class, another source of quiz papers to be graded. I have not consulted the registrar’s files for information about you. And, to my almost certain knowledge, this is the first time I have spoken with you.”

“That’s right, sir,” she said quietly.

“Very good, then.” He wet his lips. “You are twenty-three years old. The house in which you were born was a two-story affair, quiet old, with a leaded bay window at the turn of the stairs. The small bedroom, or nursery, was directly over the kitchen. You could hear the clatter of dishes below you when the house was quiet. The address was 191 Bucyrus Road.”

“How-oh yes! How did you know?”

He shook his head, and then put it between his hands. “I don’t know. I don’t know. I lived in that house, too, as a child. I don’t know how I knew that you did. There are things in here-” He rapped his head, shook it again. “I thought perhaps you could help.”

She looked at him. He was a small man, brilliant, tired, getting old swiftly. She put a hand on his arm. “I wish I could,” she said warmly. “I do wish I could.”

“Thank you, child.”

“Maybe if you told me more-”

“Perhaps. Some of it is-ugly. All of it is cloudy, long ago, barely remembered. And yet-”

“Please go on.”

“I remember,” he half-whispered, “things that happened long ago that way, and recent things I remember-twice. One memory is sharp and clear, and one is old and misty. And I remember, in the same misty way, what is happening now-and what will happen!”

“I don’t understand.”

“That girl. That Miss Symes. She-died here yesterday.”

“She was sitting right behind me,” said Miss Patchell.

“I know it! I knew what was going to happen to her. I knew it mistily, like an old memory. That’s what I mean. I don’t know what I could have done to stop it. I don’t think I could have done anything. And yet, down deep I have the feeling that it’s my fault-that she slipped and fell because of something I did.”

“Oh, no!”

He touched her arm in mute gratitude for the sympathy in her tone, and grimaced miserably. “It’s happened before,” he said. “Time and time and time again. As a boy, as a youth, I was plagued with accidents. I led a quiet life. I was not very strong and books were always more my line than baseball. And yet I witnessed a dozen or more violent, useless deaths-automobile accidents, drownings, falls, and one or two-” his voice shook-“which I won’t mention. And there were countless minor ones-broken bones, maimings, stabbings… and every time, in some way, it was my fault, like the one yesterday… and I-I-”

“Don’t,” she whispered. “Please don’t. You were nowhere near Elaine Symes when she fell.”

“I was nowhere near any of them! That never mattered. It never took away the burden of guilt. Miss Patchell-”

“Catherine.”

“Catherine. Thank you so much! There are people called by insurance actuaries, ‘accident prone.’ Most of these are involved in accidents through their own negligence, or through some psychological quirk which causes them to defy the world, or to demand attention, by getting hurt. But some are simply present at accidents, without being involved at all-catalysts of death, if you’ll pardon a flamboyant phrase. I am, apparently, one of these.”