Zachary Rawlins - The Anathema

“Ahem.” Rebecca cleared her throat, fingering the scalpels embedded in the wall with obvious trepidation. Behind her, a doctor and handful of nurses peered out in suspicion and hostility. “I’m just going to say it. Everyone in this room is in a whole lot of trouble.”

“Am I,” Eerie said slowly, searching for words, “in trouble?”

“That would be the gist of it, yes,” Gaul said patiently. “Quite a bit.”

He gave her a minute to let the news sink in. Eerie said nothing, a vacant smile on her face, her head cocked to the side and her eyes focused on nothing that he could see. The silence stretched out longer than he thought that he could stand.

“I don’t want to be,” Eerie concluded.

“Ah. Yes,” Gaul agreed slowly. “Yes, I would imagine so.”

Again, the silence stretched out until Gaul felt practically compelled to cough.

“Uh, I’m — I’m sorry?” Eerie said hopefully, her hands clasped between her knees. “For whatever?”

“You can’t rectify this situation simply by apologizing, Eerie. In this particular case, it might be more appropriate to…” Gaul trailed off when he realized that Eerie had her hand held up politely above her head, waiting to be called on as if she were in a classroom. “Yes, Eerie?”

“I am very sorry,” Eerie said firmly. “A lot sorrier than before.”

“Yes,” Gaul said, coughing. “I do understand. However, I think that…”

“Eerie,” Rebecca cut in, leaning over Gaul’s shoulder, from where she perched on top of one of his filing cabinets. “Why San Francisco?”

Gaul had to combat the urge to bury his head in his hands, to shout at either of the infuriating women who had occupied his office and turned this conversation into a farce, but he did not. Not the least because he was not entirely sure what he wanted to do about Eerie in the first place. If Rebecca had any kind of solution, it was worth tolerating her interruptions.

“You don’t like San Francisco?”

Eerie rubbed her temples and looked puzzled.

“No, why did you want to go to San Francisco?”

“Oh. I wanted to shop, and then to go dancing.”

“Right, but couldn’t you do that anywhere?” Rebecca persisted. “Why there specifically?”

“In San Francisco,” Eerie confided, “no one cares how I look, no matter where I go.”

“I see,” Rebecca said patiently. Gaul didn’t see at all, but he passed on speaking. He could feel the Ether ripple as Rebecca reached for Eerie, empathically, the probe both subtle and profound. His interest perked up — his understanding had always been that empathy worked poorly on changelings, due to their alien consciousness and neural chemistry. “Why did you want to bring Alex, Eerie?”

To his surprise, Eerie looked away suddenly.

“I, uh, I wanted to go dancing,” Eerie said evasively, scuffing her sneakers on the wooden floor of Gaul’s office. “You know. With him. But it didn’t work out.”

“You mean because the Weir…”

Eerie shook her head, and then was forced to push her unruly blue hair back behind her ears.

“No, because he wouldn’t dance,” Eerie said, pouting. “It’s hard. Alex is scared of lots and lots of things. He got two beds.”

“He what?” Gaul asked, trying very hard to follow along.

“At the hotel,” Eerie said, shrugging. “He didn’t even ask me first.”

“Really? Wow,” Rebecca said earnestly, looking mortified. “That’s pretty lame.”

“Rebecca!” Gaul snapped.

“Right, sorry,” Rebecca said, shaking her head and returning to the task. “Eerie, why did you ask Anastasia for help?”

“Oh. Easy one,” Eerie said, seeming pleased. “She said to.”

“She told you to ask her for help?”

“Yes.”

If Rebecca was trying to draw her out, it didn’t work. Eerie just waited patiently, tapping one foot alternately against the ground and her chair leg. Gaul poured himself a glass from the carafe of water his secretary had left on the desk to have something to do while Rebecca frowned furiously, trying to work something out.

“Why? Why would she do something like that?” Rebecca wondered.

“Ask her,” Eerie suggested. “When I want to know something, that’s what I do.”

Rebecca looked at Eerie hard, but she didn’t flinch. Gaul could feel the power in the room, every atom in the air energized, attracting and repelling in a frenzy of ozone and negatively charged ions. He couldn’t tell if it affected Eerie at all. Her eyes remained blank, wet and dilated, and her body language placid to the point of being slack.

“Eerie, I have to ask. Did you know that Alex was coming here? Before he actually showed up?”

“I heard stories,” she said, nodding in confirmation.

“No… before that. Before anyone had heard of Alex here at the Academy. You knew about him, didn’t you?” Rebecca said, leaning forward, so caught up that she hadn’t even touched the cigarette that burned in the ashtray that Gaul kept specifically for her. There was no one else, after all, that he would have tolerated smoking in his office.

Eerie looked away again. Gaul and Rebecca exchanged glances. This, he thought, sipping his water, was something.

“I don’t have to talk about it,” Eerie said, the music disappearing from her voice abruptly, which was instead flat and miserable.

“How did you know that, Eerie? Precognition?” Rebecca pressed on. “Was that how you knew about Alex?”

“I don’t have to talk about it and I don’t want to talk about it,” Eerie said, suddenly animated. Gaul blinked hard, trying to clear his vision, but it looked the same no matter what he did — around the changeling, and the air seemed filled with translucent golden motes, moving in lazy, counter-clockwise circles, trailing golden dust behind them that slowly dissipated into thin air. Despite Rebecca’s cigarette, he could smell a distinct odor of sandalwood. “And if you don’t stop leaning on me, Rebecca, then I am going to have to leave, and I am going to cry, and then I am going to complain, because you cannot do this to me, because I am not the same as you, and because I have always done my best, since I was little, and because you don’t have a right to try and peak inside my head, and it is wrong that you are trying to make me okay with telling you things that I am not okay with telling you, and it is wrong because there are two of you and I am all alone, and I am trying to make friends because you told me that I had to make friends, and now that I am trying you are angry with me, and this is not fair and — ”

Gaul stood up and clapped his hands together. Both women snapped their attention to him, and after a moment, the charged atmosphere receded, both of them returning to their respective corners.

“Enough. Rebecca, Eerie is right. She has made the request, and she does have a right to her privacy. There will be no further attempts to influence you, Eerie.”

“But it isn’t right that she — oh. Uh,” Eerie hesitated, flustered. “Well, good then. Can I go now?”

“No, Eerie,” Gaul said gently. “You are still very much in trouble.”

“Oh.” She hesitated, tugging at the hem of her skirt the same way she had when she was a child. “I’d rather not be, if that’s okay.”

Gaul sighed deeply; wishing that a deity he didn’t believe in would note his suffering and take appropriate action to alleviate it. Possibly via lightning. However, nothing happened, so he was left to muddle along in his own way.

“Eerie, would you mind waiting outside with Mrs. Barrett until I call you? Rebecca and I have some things we need to talk about…”

“Yes, please,” Eerie said eagerly, jumping from her chair and heading for the door.