Lydia Netzer - How to Tell Toledo from the Night Sky

“Mites?” said Irene, pointing at it before she entered the car. “You don’t get mites?”

“I get oxygen,” said George. He swept the front seat clear for her and then swept the backseat clear as well as she got in.

“Are we picking up a hitchhiker?” Irene wanted to know.

“In a manner of speaking,” said George. “We’re going to need your boyfriend for this errand, see? We’re going to need Enkidu. For backup.”

“What?”

“I need a heavy, to be honest,” said George. “We’re going on a rescue mission. And I’d feel better if I had some muscle on our side.”

Twenty minutes later, Belion was glowering in the back, Irene and George were sitting in front, and the Volvo was on the freeway, headed west. Picking up Belion had been awkward for George for several reasons.

First there was the fact that when Irene directed George to her mother’s house, she had instructed George to drive straight to the house of the drunk psychic who had advised him to wait for a dreaming astronomer with brown hair. Irene’s mother’s house was the psychic’s house, which meant that Irene’s mother was the psychic. George had almost said something. It was at the front of his mouth, waiting to spring out, “Hey, you know what? I’ve been here before!” But he stopped himself. After her freaky reaction to the fact that they shared a birthday, George felt doubtful that Irene would embrace the information that her own mother had counseled George over a crystal ball, had recognized her daughter as George’s future spouse.

It was the kind of information that George could tolerate but Irene could not. He was finding out all about Irene, and this was one of the main things: when confronted with a bizarre coincidence like this, Irene was not one to shake her head and comment on the mysteries of the universe. She was one to smack someone, deny having ever had a mother, and never speak to George again. So he kept his mouth shut.

Then there was the awkward moment while George was inside the car and Irene and Belion were outside the car and Irene was explaining something very firmly to him and used the words “penis sex” and pointed to George, and then clapped her hands together in Belion’s face. George had emerged from his car, looking hopeful and inoffensive, he thought.

“Come on, Belion,” he heard Irene say. “It’ll be just like your game—you the strong warrior, saving the damsel in distress. We need you. We need the Archmage of the Underdark. It’s a mission, Belion. Come on! There might even be weapons.”

Now Belion was in the backseat and looking none too happy. That was OK, George thought. George needed Belion to be a bit riled up, for what they were going to do.

“Ever been to Sylvania before, Belion?” asked George.

“He’s been to Sylvania,” Irene speculated.

“It is Belion, isn’t it?” said George.

There was a pause, and then Irene prompted, “Belion, say it’s Belion.”

“It’s Belion,” he said.

George went on. “So, you’ve been to Sylvania before, then? Lots of times?”

“Tell me, again, what has happened to this girl?” Belion asked.

George put on his turn signal, and they got off the freeway. “Well, she’s been kind of kidnapped by her father. You know, he raised her as a mute.”

“She’s Kate Oakenshield, the girl who was raised mute. You may have seen it on the Learning Channel,” Irene explained further.

“Oh, you saw that?” George asked her. “Did you see me?”

“No,” said Irene. “My mother sent me a video once, but I didn’t watch the whole thing. It was quite the news item, here in Toledo.”

Belion growled. “So, again, I’m asking, what has happened to her?”

“Well, her father raised her mute, right, to develop her math brain. You know, no language, just music and, you know, noises and stuff,” George said.

“Did it work?” Belion asked.

“Oh, did it,” said George. “Yes, all the way. She’s a freaky genius.”

“So what’s wrong then?” Belion asked.

“She was raised mute. No talking,” Irene emphasized. “That’s not normal, Belion.”

“Not normal for you, fancy madam.”

George laughed. “Fancy madam! I like this guy.”

“Well, thank you very much,” said Belion.

The Volvo rolled past the Spuyten Duyval Country Club and into the wooded valleys of the Irwin Prairie State Nature Preserve. After a few more turns deeper into the woods, George pulled in to The Cedars and followed a circular drive around to park in front of a large brick manor house. He pushed the car into park and unfolded himself from behind the wheel, strode around the front of the car to take a fighting stance outside the front door.

Irene got out of the car and stood on the gravel of the driveway, still holding the door between her and the house, but Belion did not emerge. Good, George thought. Secret weapon: giant hairy guy. This is how we bring Oakenshield down.

George shouted at the front door. “Alright, Oakenshield, I’m back. And I brought reinforcements. You let Kate out of there now, or we’re coming in.”

There was no answer.

Irene said, “Belion, you should get out.”

Belion emerged from the backseat bit by bit: first his meaty hand, then his arm and leg, then the rest of his body, leveraged out by his hand on the door frame.

George yelled, “Take a look, Oakenshield. And kindly remember, you’re the guy who couldn’t even take my elderly mother in a fair fight. How’d you like to go up and down the block with our young friend here?”

“Your penis sex friend is a fruitcake,” said Belion calmly to Irene.

“Belion,” said George. “Can’t you roar or something? Wave your arms threateningly?”

“Well, like what?” Belion asked.

George demonstrated what he meant, cantering about on the portico in front of the door, swinging his arms like a mad gorilla. But Belion was unmoved.

“Well? Aren’t you going to?” George asked.

Belion shook his hairy head. “No, but I enjoyed watching you do it.”

Upstairs on the second floor, a window creaked open, and a dark head emerged.

“Emma!” cried George. “That’s the housekeeper,” he explained to Irene and Belion.

The housekeeper poked her head out the window. She pointed up, mutely, to a balcony on the third floor. George looked up. A curtain fluttered. And Kate Oakenshield stepped out onto the balcony, violin in hand. She was wearing a strange silver robe that George had never seen before, and it covered her so completely that George wasn’t even sure it was her until she removed the hood, set the violin on her shoulder, and began to play Brahms. She cast a mournful eye down at her visitors as the melody soared.

Belion barked out a laugh. “Silvergirl? You have got to be kidding me,” he said, as if to himself.

“Picturesque, isn’t she?” said George.

Belion did not reply, but walked purposefully to the door and opened it, closed it gently behind him, and was gone.

George called up to Kate on her balcony. “Nevermind, Kate, Belion is coming!”

Kate continued to play her violin. George saw that eye-contact time was over. But he still called again, “This is Irene.” He pointed at Irene, and Irene smiled a wan smile. “You’ll see her lots when you come back to the institute. She’s very nice.”

“Looks like she’s back to not talking,” Irene said to George.

“Yeah,” said George. “She kind of regresses when he convinces her to spend any time here. I think they’ve got a whole ballroom full of finches, puts her into some kind of twittery epileptic state.”

“Lucky she has you,” Irene said. He couldn’t read the look on her face, but he felt it might be jealousy.