C.E. Murphy - Truthseeker

Kelly said, “Lara,” more insistently. Lara drew in a sharp cold breath that balled itself in her throat like a hiccup from the other direction, and her eyes popped open.

The sky shone red over nearby mountains still blue and misty with night. Lara stared at them, then shivered, part in response to their otherworldly appearance and in part her body’s objection to waking from the fugue it had been in. The road behind them faded into haze in the sideview mirror, distance and fuzziness a reflection of Lara’s mental state as well. She mumbled, “We’ve gone a long way,” and dropped her face into her hands, trying to wake up.

“Yeah, and now we’ve got a problem. Guy coming the other way just flashed his lights at me.”

Lara lifted her head again, uncomprehending as Kelly slowed the car and pulled toward the side of the narrow road. “So?”

“So my headlights weren’t on high, so if he was flashing me it means there’s probably some kind of trouble up ahead. Either somebody hit a deer or …”

“Or there’s a roadblock.” Exhaustion burned away, leaving Lara’s spine tense. “We’re a hundred and thirty miles from Boston. They can’t possibly be putting up blocks this far out.” Hope, not truth, ran through her words.

“What do you want to do?”

“I don’t know. How far are we from the mountains?” They looked close, but they dominated the horizon, making her perspective uncertain.

“Ten, maybe fifteen miles before we’re really in them. We could walk it,” Kelly said dubiously.

Lara lifted her feet a few inches, displaying the heeled sandals she wore. “I didn’t know when I got dressed yesterday that I’d be going on the lam or I’d have worn hiking boots.”

“You don’t even own hiking boots. Okay, so we ca—” Kelly broke off to stare at Lara. “You don’t own hiking boots.”

“I know. I was kidding.”

“You don’t kid like that.”

Lara caught a protest behind her teeth and held it there, looking at Kelly in astonishment. She was right: it wasn’t the kind of joke Lara made, its inaccuracy lying too close to falsehood for her comfort. But there’d been no twinge of dissonant music, no out-of-tune keys played as she’d spoken. They were more distressing in their absence than their presence ever could have been, and her voice went light and heady. “It didn’t feel like a lie.”

“Holy crap.” Kelly sat up more enthusiastically than Lara liked. “Does that mean you’re losing your power?”

“Impossible,” Dafydd murmured from the backseat. Both women twisted to look at him. He looked worse again, the vehicle sapping his strength for all that he still held the staff. “Lara’s magic is mortal. Even if the Barrow-lands are closed away forever, her talent will never fade. At most it’s only changing. Maturing.”

Truth rang clear and reassuring in Lara’s mind, relaxing her shoulders a little. “I thought developing it would make hearing, and telling, lies worse. But it’s like, what’s the phrase? ‘Close enough for government work.’ It didn’t matter that I wasn’t perfectly truthful. It was like it understood nuance.”

“Lara!” Kelly caught Lara’s hand, expression bright as she put away their troubles for a moment. “Lara, does this mean you might develop a sense of humor?”

Lara, injured, said, “I have one. It’s just not very—”

“Nuanced?” Kelly suggested happily. “Seriously, Lar, this is great. Think how much less hideous it’ll be if your wacky talent doesn’t make you turn green when somebody gives the polite answer instead of the truth.”

Dafydd, far more gently, said, “I’ve never known a mortal truthseeker, or even one of the Seelie talents. You can already do more than you could—”

“Three weeks ago?” Lara asked wryly. “A year and a half ago? I honestly don’t know which way to count it. Either way, though, you’re right. I can do more than I could, and for the first time I’m wondering if maybe I could learn to turn it on and off.” The idea sent a shock through her, relief tangled with fear, and she unwound to gaze out the windshield at the mountains again. On one level, the idea of turning the truth sense off seemed like casually removing her arm. The idea also made her aware, as she’d never been before, how tiring it was to always be on guard against falsehood.

She heard herself say, “It doesn’t matter right now,” and ached with the weary truth running through it. “We’re going to have to keep going, Kel. I can’t walk ten miles in these shoes, and maybe all that’s up there is a dead deer.”

“If I were stronger,” Dafydd said from the backseat, his voice low and frustrated.

Lara shook her head. “If wishes were horses.” Chills ran down her spine, this time from awareness that her talent didn’t object to the phrase. “I’ve never said that before. I’ve heard it, but it just made me uncomfortable. If wishes were horses, beggars would ride. I never would have said that. It’s too improbable. It’s not true.”

“It’s true enough,” Dafydd said. “If wishes were horses, beggars probably would ride.”

“But wouldn’t a beggar be more likely to wish for a house and food and clothes?”

“It doesn’t say if wishes came true, only if they were horses.”

“Will you two shut up already? Ye gods.” Kelly put the car back in drive. “If I’d known you were going to start deconstructing axioms I’d have left you to sleep.”

“No.” Lara smiled, unexpectedly cheerful. “You wouldn’t have.”

“How many times do I have to tell you you’re not supposed to do that?” Kelly shot her a scolding glance. “You better hope it’s a dead deer, or I might just turn you over to the cops.”

“No,” Lara said again, and smiled at the road. “You won’t.”

Kelly said “Oh, be quiet” without rancor, and both women laughed. It was better that way, Lara thought. Better, certainly, than the tension that slowly ebbed their laughter away as they made their way down the road.

She wasn’t, she realized, afraid of being arrested herself. She could employ the newly acquired knack of making people hear the truth in her voice if she must, though it was still an unpalatable solution. One that would probably end, as Kelly had suggested, in straitjackets and padded walls. And prison was hardly preferable, though there at least she’d be less likely to face psychotropic drugs meant to ameliorate the insanity of claiming to have been attacked by fairy-tale monsters. There would be a chance of parole from prison, as well, should she be convicted of manslaughter or murder. Aggravated assault, a more hopeful part of her suggested, or attempted manslaughter; those were lighter sentences, and there was no word yet on whether Detective Washington had survived his injuries.

Anxiety relaxed its knotted hold in her belly, loosened by faint curiosity. Lara had never thought of herself as particularly brave, but she recognized the pattern of her thoughts: she was looking for ways to accept all blame herself. None of them had done anything wrong, beyond being caught up in extraordinary events, but if the worst should come to pass, there was no reason for both Kelly and Dickon to suffer.

It would be easier if she had a weapon, so she could claim she’d forced Kelly to help her at gunpoint. But the true voice might help there, if she could vocalize a command that even authorities might find impossible to ignore. Two weeks ago she never would have imagined her talents might stretch that far, but now, watching the mountains come closer, she was certain there were innumerable aspects to her truthseeking, and that in time she would learn to use them all.

Lights flashed in the distance, a curve in the road hinting at a hollow and the interference the oncoming driver had warned of. Lara squinted, trying to see more clearly. “If it goes badly, we’ll need a distraction. Something to let Dafydd get into the forest.”