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So began my new job. With enough effort and ingenuity on my part, Kirti went from pining for good acties to actually paying attention to her lessons, for the most part held in the front study where Mrs. Fairfacs had first welcomed me. However, I was not about to throw any of Mr. Thorne's books at my easily bored charge. Crafting lessons to catch Kirti's attentions took much study on my own part. I spent my first evenings developing tailored lesson plans, searching for educational sites that might engage the interests of a pampered child-star.
There were tons of homeschooling support networks available, complete with group projects for the homestudents to work on together in the comforts of their own terminals. It took much of my time to sift through the sites suggested by my terminal's default search engine to find and test appropriate learning communities. However, it did not take me long to discover that the fences in Kirti's software prevented her from using even these learning activities.
Sparing brief seconds to mutter unkind words about the still unmet Mr. Thorne, I took time to look up instructions on selective disablement of those fences. At last I felt confident enough that between my employer and myself we had designated a safe learning environment for our young charge, and she and I could set to work.
I suppose that, at the age of twenty-two, I never had considered another profession besides teaching, because I thought that such a career would provide me something I'd been chasing my whole life: I longed, or thought I longed, to feel needed. But those first three months in that home taught me that being needed was not really enough.
I came to desolate Emhain Macha, and I felt what it was to be needed by someone. Ultra-introverted Deepali did not seem to need much of anything other than food and shelter, and Mrs. Fairfacs didn't need anything save the right mirrors and an available power source. Kirti, though, needed me to be mother, teacher, guide, and friend. Often I heard myself repeating words to her I could recall Aidann sharing with me. Sharing Aidann's gift of wisdom made me feel special, but it also left me with a hollow, lonely feeling, like the cold north wind rolling through desert canyons in the hours before dawn. Kirti listened to my words, could have repeated some of them like lines from a script, but she did not seem to truly understand them. I could tell by the lack of light in her eyes.
Don't misunderstand me: there was something fulfilling about having this child look up to me. It satisfied some maternal instinct, but that was not enough to keep me from the pacing restlessness that was part of my nature: the nature that had made me attack Clinton VanDeer, the nature that had made me sob and fume when Dr. Woolthersham had humiliated me in front of the other Naomi girls. The nature that knew being needed was nothing next to being wanted.
I was starving for understanding. I longed to open my mouth, allow words to escape my lips and know beyond measure that the ears and mind to catch those words would be capable of their decryption. I further longed for another's words to reach the innermost recesses of my heart, not merely graze my ears like my teachings did to Kirti. I longed, in short, to communicate. Bhenji Nealingson's words were with me often in those days: We are hardwired for communication. Even the delivery people might have met this need for me, but they deposited Emhain Macha's supplies in the deepest parts of night while I slept, so I rarely even heard them come and go.
I had everything the goal-oriented world said I should: a stable job and residence, a child who looked up to me and who strove each day to gain my approval. I had my every basic need provided in better fashion than ever before. I was neither abused nor neglected. What more did I want?
Money? In my mailbox I received interactive ads for independent business opportunities. I deleted them, having learned from the fall of Dr. Woolthersham and the overall crotchetyness of the VanDeers that money would not have made me any happier. Power? What would I have done with that?
Perhaps, dear reader, you might attribute such desire for contact to feminine silliness. Why? Because to be feminine is by default to be silly? For more decades than I care to count, a myth has been perpetuated: that a woman must be like a man in every aspect of personality, skills, perceptions, and predilections; otherwise she is not worthy of serious consideration. To my mind, that is the same as saying that one part of the body does not need the other. A hand is no better than an eye. Each needs the other in order to be whole.
To be unable to communicate as deeply as my nature demanded intensified my loneliness, a feeling I'd been busy enough to ignore up until this point in my life. Now, I had the luxury of free time, which allowed me to become acutely aware of my solo flight through this world. I began to question the veracity of the personality profile the employment service had used to label me “independent” and return me to America.
At first I considered using the personal terminal attached to my bedroom to sift the world's population for minds and souls like my own, to alleviate my isolation. But I did not have the money to buy or rent a projection to make improvements on my actual appearance. Other girls wandered in and out of stunningly rendered locale addresses as taller, longer-lashed, more voluptuous versions of themselves. Meanwhile, I shuffled around in their skillfully cast shadows, ignored for my plainness, the cheap reality my cameras showed, and I faded back into real life, as unconnected as before.
Besides, it was nigh on impossible for me to find net rooms where I had a hope of fitting in. I had no INGO membership. I had attended no school to which I had even the slightest positive emotional ties, so there was nowhere I could catch up with old friends in virtual reunions.
Once out of sheer boredom I sought and found a support group meeting for unclaimed embryos. I was just one double-wink away from joining the room, but I stopped myself. What did I have to offer them? Nothing. How could they want me if they didn't even need me? So I balked. I signed off, emerged from my terminal and went to bed, too empty for tears.
Whether I went to bed with dry eyes or not, however, my sleep was frequently disturbed. Sometimes I woke up to the shower in my bathroom running, though I certainly hadn't turned it on. Other times I opened my eyes in the dead of night and found all of the lights in my room at full intensity, when I had been too asleep to give that command. And then there were the times during even broad day, when lights would not illumine rooms even after I had stepped inside, stomped around several times and jumped about to activate the motion sensors. Doors would open, shut or lock on me of their own accord.
At first I reported these strange incidents to Mrs. Fairfacs without delay, but after the fifth time of being told that the blame could be thrown at the feet of “the house system,” I stopped asking. Occasionally, my imagination entertained the notion that Emhain Macha was haunted.
I grew weary of turning corners to have lights blink at me. I also became increasingly uncomfortable with the house's smartness, and I was unnerved by Mrs. Fairfacs's ability to appear on demand. Why did this bother me when Kirti and Deepali seemed to take this reality for granted? I could not guess. I could only add this to my long list of reasons to feel lonely.
And trapped. I hadn't been under real sky for nearly three months. With self-reproach I remembered challenging myself to incorporate outdoor activities in Kirti's education. Time had come to begin working on that, then.
One night, once my charge was in bed and Deepali, the only other human in the house, sat anesthetized by the terminal images and interactions that failed to entertain me half as much, I returned to my room and stepped back into my personal terminal, not seeking mere entertainment. The eggshell walls wrapped around me, and only the faintest shadow-line hinted at the existence of the door to this little room. The lights dimmed, and rainbows swirled on the walls to let me know the terminal was listening.
“Login, please,” I said.
After taking a picosecond to biometricize my voiceprint, a benign male voice chimed, “Welcome, Jane E! You have no text messages.”
“Surprise,” I muttered to myself sotto voce. Then, in a clearer voice, I began my query. “Please search 'desert night hiking.' Omit acties, please.”
I did not want to pretend I was in the desert. I wanted to feel the sky gaping above me, the earth solid below me. A frame formed on the wall directly ahead. If I turned to the side, it moved with me, keeping itself directly in my view with respect to where the face recognition measured the placement of my eyes. The frame held the first five selections meeting my search. I asked it to show the article entitled “Night Hiker's Checklist: Desert Terrain.”
A gruff, disembodied male voice began, “A good night hike in any terrain, especially desert, requires good planning well in advance. This means—”
“Please, no audio,” I interrupted, lifting a hand to rub my temples.
Instead, I read in the near-silence of my terminal's soft hum. Bring one gallon of water per person. Know when the moon will rise and set. Know the weather. Prepare for cool temperatures. Use a walking stick. Wear sturdy shoes. Map your course ahead of time on your HandRight.
“Please,” I muttered. “For someone who doesn't have a HandRight?”
Several ads for HandRight vendors bloomed before my eyes into the fields around the checklist's frame. I rolled my eyes in response, and the frame swirled along, sliding a circle on the terminal's wall. The over-responsiveness of my environment was pressing in upon me, and at that moment, the terminal felt a living coffin.
“Thank you, that will be all,” I snapped. I nearly leapt from the doorway back into my bedroom. I went to the wardrobe and pulled out my only other pair of shoes, with thick rope soles and hearty canvas uppers, still dusty from my trip here, and wiggled into them. As an afterthought, I grabbed a brown woolen duppetta from a hanger and threw it about my shoulders. After allowing the bedroom door to open for me, I strode as quickly as my short legs could carry me through the now familiar hallway twists towards the main exit. I could have taken any of the smaller side exits, but I knew only one way back inside. I did not want to leave from a door I would not use for my return, lest I add to my chances of getting lost.
As I stood at the door, ready to unlock it with my perks ring, Mrs. Fairfacs appeared.
“Miss Jane? Where are you going?”
“Out for a walk in the night air.”
“I see. And what time can I expect your return?”
“I don't know. Why?”
There was the slightest hesitation in her answer, as I suppose she took time to search her database for an answer. “The desert can be dangerous at night. If you are out there alone and do not come back in a timely fashion, I will know to summon the proper search authorities.”
I should have been scared but wasn't. Instead, a lump formed in my throat. No one besides one child and a database would miss me.
“Two hours,” I managed, thinking that a reasonable answer.
Mrs. Fairfacs's eyes widened until I could practically see through their whites to the stucco shadows beyond them. “And you're leaving without water? When going into the desert, even at night, one must—”
“—bring at least a gallon of water. I know.”
“Then wait here while I have some brought to you.”
I sighed and resigned myself to the wisdom of waiting, however irksome it might have been. Water, I may have learned in the Naomi dojo, was the weakest thing in nature, but without it I might have no strength of my own.
I leaned against the inner entryway door, studying the tiny lumps in the ceiling's hand-spread plaster while Mrs. Fairfacs waited with me, her programmed placidity contrasting my impatience. At last, one of those carts arrived with a slightly age-worn neoprene backpack: small, but still twice the size of my Naomi purse. There was a flip top lid at one end. I lifted the pack, and its gelatinous weight swished between my hands. I slipped my arms through the straps, making sure the lid end pointed upwards before re-wrapping myself in my duppetta shawl. Then I headed towards the door once more.
“Don't you want a light of some kind? A flashlight? Or do you call it a 'torch?'“
“Neither, thank you. That will be all, Mrs. Fairfacs.”
She bowed and disappeared, and I slid through the door while it still was opening. The outer foyer was cool, dimly lit, and smelled like clay after a light rain. The low light played on the outer door, and I noticed a low, square shadowed outline set in the bottom, half a foot above the top exit step. I had little time to study it, though, because then the red rock gave way, and fresh air and moonlight beckoned.
I hesitated as one does when holding wine to one's nose before taking the first sip. A soft breeze rolled in through the opening, kicking up wisps of my hair and the ends of my long winter duppetta in its wake. A cricket hopped down onto the top step, took a moment to choose his tune, and then began to sing. I smiled and began up the steps, giving the cricket enough berth that I should not disturb him. He let me pass and sang on.
I took a moment to look up and orient myself by the sky. Doing so took my breath away. The moon was nearly full, glowing seductively behind the sheerest gray clouds. The stars beyond fought the moon's light and vaporous veils. Flitting triangles swam in the sky, chirping in search of prey. Bats, I reminded myself, smiling open-mouthed at their flight.
Standing still, I already was catching a chill. Night had brought the desert easily down to 10 Celcius—not enough to freeze, but cold enough to make me want to walk briskly. I tasted the landscape's terra cotta with each indrawn breath.
I decided to keep the moon directly ahead of me. That way I could follow my shadow home in its blue-violet light. I tapped my purse with one hand, double-checking that I had brought my PLED glasses, just in case I would need them to help me find the Emhain Macha sign. Feeling their outline beneath the fabric and having no other excuse to dally, I stepped up and began following the moon. I walked at a clip, swinging my arms enough to liven the blood in them but not enough to shake off my shawl. As I warmed, I tucked my wrap more snugly about my neck and ears to conserve as much of my own heat as possible.
The world was full of veils tonight. Clouds of gnats caught the light in swirling clusters. My breath clouded quickly in front of my lips just before the thirsty atmosphere drank its vapor. Soon I was walking quickly and warmly enough that I let my own veil slip to my shoulders. The autumn breezes carried spiders sailing on their threads in search of places to nest for the coming months. Each spider made me feel more and more at home under the wide-open night; they reminded me of how Bhenji Nealingson would greet aloud every spider she saw, calling each “Sister Weaver.”
I heard a hollow fluting song. I slowed my crunching pace over the gravel and searched for its source. Perched upon the heights of a knotty tree about a quarter kilometer from where I stood was the silhouette of an owl. His ears circled over his neck as he turned his head and strained his senses. When he spread his wings and took to the air, I held still and watched him circle and dive for the mouse or scorpion that caught his eye. Beyond the broken mountains, coyotes called a raw litany.
Stopped, I bent at the waist and pinched the fingers of my right hand into the dust at my feet. I lifted the handful of desert to the moonlight. Its flecks of mica mirrored the stars. I breathed over the dust, scattering it on the air in an arid nebula. In a moment's stillness, gravity returned the dust back to the dust, as suddenly the desert seemed to hold its breath for the entire universe.
The logical part of my mind denied this sensation I was having, calling it simply my relief to be out of the watchful eye of Emhain Macha. But that logical part could not keep my eyes from casting their reverent and anxious glance at the violet-black heavens. I held my breath.
Then, a silence made everything stop. An electric fluttering pierced the dry hush, shattering it with a single swing. I looked all around for the cause of this sudden ultra-quiet, but all I saw was blue moonlight ahead of me, brown shadow behind and to either side. I looked again for the owl, but he was gone.
The cricket song and bat chirps resumed, if indeed they had stopped. I surrendered to logic and forced down fancy, shaking my head with self-reproach. My imagination had been starved and now was forming banquets out of the slightest flicker. Everything out here was so harsh and real and free—maybe a little too much so. Perhaps I was overloading myself and would need to spend a little time outdoors every night until I could resist its bewitchment.
I shrugged the water bottle from my back and took a test sip. Spring water, —pure and flavorful, but the pack's insulation must have been too worn to work, for its contents were warm in my mouth. I took several long draughts, unaware until then exactly how thirsty I'd been. There was no one to protest when I wiped my mouth on my sleeve and then turned towards my shadow for the return trip.
But another shadow was approaching me.
I gasped and froze. This shadow was huge and moved with a will of its own, using the ground for speed just as the owl had used the air. The wind pushed the clouds away from the moon and cast light on the shadow's reality, but only to scare me more. This was not a shadow but a huge, shaggy dog. Another shard of moonlight twinkled on its lolling, merry tongue.
Reader, please understand something. I spent a portion of my more impressionable years wandering streets in parts of the world where dogs roamed almost as freely as the rabies and other diseases they carried. As a result, I had to develop a healthy phobia of roaming, unleashed, four-legged beasts. Bhenji Fleuvbleu always warned us that the best way to avoid a dog was to ignore it, because showing it fear would invite attack.
However, this immense ebony creature ran directly in my path. Turning my back would tempt it to chase me. Approaching it might give it reason for defensiveness. Turning left or right from my path could get me lost in the desert with little water and no HandRight to guide me home. I decided to stay put and do my best to relax, hoping it would not smell my fear.
It got closer. Its muzzle and belly were white. Closer, and I allowed myself to hope that its lack of mouth froth meant it was not rabid. By the time the dog reached me, panting with what I could have sworn was a smile, my relaxation was no longer forced. The dog nuzzled my left hand, showering it with kisses. I laughed in spite of myself but remained cautious.
Before I even had time to pull away from its bite, it reached up with gentle jaws and took the hem of my sleeve between its teeth. It tugged in the direction both from which it and I had come. Still enchanted by the evening's sensory overload, I let myself be led. The dog released my sleeve and bounded on ahead, following where my shadow pointed. Throwing my weight from rock to rock, I followed its paw-steps over a slight crest, until I was looking directly back to the spot marked by the sign reading “Emhain Macha.” In an instant my fear returned. Somehow, only the lower part of the door back into the house was open, but it was blocked.
Blocked by a hind end.
Since it was a human’s end, my fear was tempered with plain confusion—how did only that part of the door open?—as well as amusement at the absurd way in which the derriere's owner struggled, kicking his legs and wriggling the shoulder stuck outside in an attempt to extricate the one stuck inside.
Even at a distance, I felt more than confident that this intruder was of the male persuasion. The legs that fought were heavily muscled, the thighs as wide around as my waist. And no wonder this man was trapped while trying to break in through this small opening; even his one exposed shoulder took up considerable breadth. The struggle stopped for a moment, but the body remained tense, and I heard a muffled curse muttered in a voice as rough as tree bark.
The dog bounded closer to the trapped man, barked two great “woofs,” then bounded back to me, trying to enlist my help.
“Chuck!” The man called from his trap. “Get over here!”
The voice was still too muffled for me to pinpoint an accent, but at least he spoke English, a language I knew. But what was he doing trying to break into my place of employment and residence? How could he have known where to look for the unobtrusive sign that signaled this home? And how was I to get safely back inside without him following me in?
I had no HandRight to use in summoning help, even if I had known whom or how to call for it. I had nothing but ten years of training in musumegokoro-do at my disposal to defend Emhain Macha's residents from this burglar.
Immediately my common sense argued: He is immense! He could crush me like a bug! But my more rash nature already was formulating a strategy. True, he looked infinitely more powerful than I. This simply meant I would have to use his power against him.
He could not see me, so I had the advantage. I set my shawl and water pack on the ground to give myself better mobility. Sparing only a second to close my eyes and imagine a stream flowing around an immutable boulder, I let my muscles relax for the upcoming challenge.
“Chuck!” The man called again just before grunting in unintelligible frustration.
Soon I was close enough to see that in the shadow cast by a nearby outcropping sat a two-wheeled conveyance of some kind. It glinted in what light it stole, black and sleek.
I looked back at the trespasser's bottom half, still struggling but without as much energy. Finally, I was close enough for him to hear me within his trap. Just as I opened my mouth, though, I suddenly was reminded of something Aidann had said to me on another night when we had to confront strange men with unkind agendas.
There is never only one choice. Of all options, violence is never the best one.
Choice. I should offer him the option to leave in peace.
“I will help you,” I said in a voice that thankfully did not betray my pounding heart, “if you'll promise not to make me regret it.”
The legs, torso and shoulder stilled. They were clad in shades of darkness, though without my PLEDs I could be uncertain of their colors, and I certainly wasn't about to stop and push my glasses onto my nose.
After a tense moment of cricket song, the man slurred something that can only be phoneticized as: “Jaysuss!hoot'ffffook'er'yoo?”
I took a moment brief enough to decipher his sounds but not long enough to come up with a more civil answer. I quipped, “I am either your worst nightmare or an answer to prayer. Which it is depends on you.”
Another disbelieving pause. “And you want to help me.” Doubt, but not asked as a question.
“Either that, or I'm sleeping outside tonight. You're in my way.”
I heard him bark a laugh, snapped and gritty. “I'm in your way!”
The gall! My temper was wearing. “Do you want help or not?”
“Do I have any choice?”
“There's always a choice.”
“Well, since Mohammed cannot come to the mountain, the mountain is going to have to help pry Mohammed out of this fix. I promise—” he paused again here, and I saw his broad chest fill with a sigh. “—I promise not to make you regret it.”
I stepped over to him and crouched so that I could place my hands on his contorted, leather jacket-clad arm. His jacket smelled like travel—recycled SOF air, stale skyport kiosk food—and feverish sweat. With some wrangling, I was able to extricate one arm, only to have him fall forward enough to get himself stuck even more. Placing my hands on the back of his lower ribcage, even through his heavy jacket I could feel his considerable musculature tense up, like a warp thread just about to snap free of its place in the web.
“Breathe out,” I suggested.
“If I don't, you'll make me regret it?”
“Your muscles are contracted too much for you to move anywhere,” I said, “Breathing out will deflate your ribcage. Then you might get somewhere.”
“Somewhere other than trapped, then?”
“Something like that.”
To my shock, he obeyed me. Magically, with him unwinding and my hands guiding, he inched free. The small, square opening pulled shut, hiding again within the structure of the hidden door beneath the Emhain Macha sign with its perks button keyhole and gel pad of yet unknown purpose.
The man fell back, bum-first onto the ground. I didn't have enough time to get a clear first look at his face, though, because he turned from me and began vomiting into the dust.
Without thinking, I rushed to put my hands on his shaking shoulders. “Oh—sir—are you all right, sir?”
He shrugged me off violently, still retching. The dog approached and nuzzled his sweaty forehead. The man pushed him away with one hand. Between heaves, he choked, “No, Chuck.”
Alarmed, I wrung my hands and looked around until I spotted the water pack and duppetta I'd left behind. I dashed over to them and back, unstopping the water as I went. I returned just as he was sitting back on his haunches, wiping the back of his hand against his forehead.
I held the water out to him and studied his profile. While he was not an ugly man, he wasn't good-looking enough to make me nervous. His nose had to have been broken at least once in his life. His hair and brows looked black as a well at night, especially in contrast to his sickly-pale face. I would have been hard pressed to say whether he was all neck or had no neck whatsoever. I also recall thinking, So that's what a lantern jaw looks like.
He glanced sideways at the proffered refreshment. Recognition registered in his hazel eyes, only to be replaced with disbelief. “You don't even know if I'm contagious.”
Even with his voice now free of the entryway's mufflings, I still could not pick out his accent. American, possibly, but with an extra crispness to the plosives. I extended the water to him further, took another step closer. “I do know that you're not well and that I'd like to help if you'll let me. Are you all right?”
He raised one of his wooly-bear eyebrows at me. “First you threaten me, and then you ask if I'm all right?” Again that brief laugh. “What brand of girl are you?”
I guessed that seniority gave him every right to call me “girl.” His hairline had begun a slight retreat, and deep lines were etched beside and over his straight, sullen mouth. On second thought, however, I could not tell whether pain or age's sun-damage had drawn these lines. The overall picture implied that he was in his mid-to-late-thirties, but his eyes were as bright and rash as any seventeen-year old lad's.
“No answer?” He wound his monolithic neck to look at me squarely. “You'd rather just stare?”
When his eyes focused on mine in that instant, I found I could not look away. The corner of his mouth that I could see curled up in sarcastic amusement. I smelled a deepening challenge. He seemed intent on staring me down.
I refused to surrender. “Do you want the water or not?”
He broke the stare, flicking his glance at the water pack then back at my face. “Never answer a question with a question,” he grumbled.
He reached for the pack with one hand—no travelgloves—and I reached as well, meeting him halfway. His hand, quaking slightly, was pale and lined with the fist-clenchings of many years and. Our fingers brushed, mine cool, his hot.
His jacket sleeve pulled back as his arm stretched for mine. To my surprise, his wrist was bound with one of those new (at the time) WristAssureds. “All of the functions of a HandRight packed into one-eighth the size!” the advertisements assaulting me had read. What was a man doing breaking into an obscure hole in the ground when he could afford that?
Stolen, I assumed as I watched him take a tentative sip, then another. Then he was wincing and coughing like he had just downed a shot of extra-strong arak.
“So,” he said before coughing some more. “So, I'm in your way? How's that?”
“I live in this house.”
“Under what pretext?”
“Pretext! I was hired to live here.”
“By?”
“The owner.”
“The owner! Ever met him?”
Now it was my turn to be disconcerted. I'd been here three months and hadn't even made an attempt to learn anything about my boss besides what I could glean from Kirti and Mrs. Fairfacs. I swallowed, attempting to keep my composure. “Why should I tell you? Besides, what makes you assume the owner is a 'he'?”
The man nodded, narrowing those snapping eyes of his at me before looking away. The arrogant, interrogating tone faded a little, and he looked troubled. “You were hired by a woman?”
“I was hired by an employment service, actually,” I said, disarmed by his nervousness and illness—his vulnerability.
He looked back at me, the moonlight burnishing his stark cheekbones. His mouth lifted with something like an expression of relief. “An employment service? Like, a homeschooling match agency, maybe?”
Cautiously I nodded. Why should this interest him? I was getting jumpy again. Kirti and Deepali were still inside, not to mention the absent Mr. Thorne's belongings. I still was their only defense.
“Enough about me. Feel better?” I backed towards the entry, keeping him in my sight.
He frowned, cocked his head to one side in something like wonder, like a dog catching sight of a bike to chase. “I do,” he said, as if this were the first time he'd been able to give this answer to this question.
“Good.” I held my duppetta loosely in my fingers, ready to drop it in case I needed to flip this guy to the ground with a good katagaruma. “You're going to get up and stand over there.” I pointed over to where he had parked his vehicle. “I'm going inside. I want you to wait until I am gone, count to fifty, then go home. Understand?”
He smirked. “Yes, ma'am.”
“If you do that, I promise not to contact the authorities. If you don't, though—”
“I know. You'll make me regret it.”
“Don't think that I can't.”
He nodded, clearly trying to repress another smirk. “The thought never occurred to me.”
This was my first opportunity to see that he was half again as tall as I was, even with his latitudinous shoulders now slumping forward. He trusted me enough to turn his back on me. Waiting until he was at a more comfortable distance, I paid him the same courtesy.
Just as I was about to press my perks ring to the receptor, he called, “Wait!”
I turned to him and felt the wind pick up, whipping more of my unruly hair out of its loosening braid.
Holding the pack up towards me, he asked, “Your water?”
I'd forgotten. He'd hardly had any of it for himself, and that vomiting jag must have dehydrated him even more than the desert already had. I would just have to buy Mr. Thorne a new water pack somehow—after explaining to him, once I met him, that I gave the first one to a burglar.
“It's yours,” I said, waving my hand in a gesture of goodwill.
He looked down at the pack, smirking to himself with either irony or self-satisfaction. Perhaps both.
I pressed my ring to the keyhole, and the door opened. I looked over my shoulder, back at the stranger, and saw that the dog was bounding toward me.
Before I even had a chance to protest, though, the man shouted, “Chuck! Stay!”
The dog obeyed and planted his behind on the ground, but his feet still seemed to itch, like only loyalty to his master kept him from running inside with me. I descended into the outer foyer until the man and his dog were out of my eyeshot.
As the door closed behind me, on the rising night wind, the man called out, “See ya.”
The door shut completely, and I was alone. Alone I reentered the house. Alone I returned to my bedroom, the lights giving me no trouble this time. I perksed my way back into my bedroom, shook the dust from my shoes and shawl before returning both to the wardrobe. I took pajamas from another drawer and changed into them. I washed up and began to climb into bed, but something stopped me.
The encounter outside had disquieted me, had filled me with an exquisite edginess. I could not imagine myself sleeping, at least not without doing something more tranquil than reliving in my memory the spell of the desert night, the tension of the encounter with the potential thief, the feeling of setting him free and leaving him. I had gone outside to subdue my restlessness only to stir it up.
Searching for peace, I went to the writing desk and picked up Aidann's Memorare scroll. “Lights off, please,” I said, craving the darkness. The house system followed my command, and I found my way in the false starlight of the PLED “window.” Clutching the scroll, I slid under the bedclothes and planted my head on the pillow. I closed my eyes to shut out as much sensation as I could, wanting nothing more than to lose myself in the rhythm and comfort of those inherited prayers. I touched my fingertips over the scroll, winding myself in the memorized decoding of it. As I did so, I remembered Aidann's constant peace and again found myself envying it.
“Oh, Aidann,” I found myself whispering. “I wish you could pray for me now.”
A moment later, I heard a sound that made my eyes fly open in the dark. My heart, which had just begun to slow, was back at full speed again.
There was a dog barking in the hallway.
I leapt from bed and scurried to the door. The lights rose in response. Since I had not locked it, the door opened for me without protest. The hall outside was bright, and that huge black and white dog from outside was in it.
I had to be dreaming. To test this reality, I whispered, “Chuck!”
His ears perked up, and he trotted over, tail wagging and tongue slobbering.
The man had not fulfilled his promise, must have succeeded in breaking in. I was more furious than afraid. How could he betray me like that? I shooed Chuck away and slipped back into my room, wiping my hand on my pajama pants as I went.
“Mrs. Fairfacs, please,” I whispered, not knowing what else to do.
“Miss Jane! What can I do for you?”
“Mrs. Fairfacs, we've had a break in.”
“A break in?” she repeated, her voice engineered to echo my own urgent tone. “Are you certain? How could I not be aware of it? I have not heard Chuck give his warning bark!”
My heart stopped. She had not heard—what?
“Chuck?” I demanded after a stunned silence. “Warning bark?”
“Yes, Mr. Thorne's dog, Chuck. Mr. Thorne made sure that my database had a print of all of Chuck's barks, so that I could respond to anything the dog caught that I might not.”
“That dog in the hall, Chuck—belongs to Mr. Thorne?”
“Yes. They just arrived a few minutes ago. Oh, dear, you'll have to wait until tomorrow before I can introduce you.”
“Because he's not feeling well.”
“Why, yes! How ever did you know?”
“Wild guess.”
“He said he's recovering from re-keying sickness,” Mrs. Fairfacs explained, “and needed to go to bed straight away. Poor dear says he forgot to update his DNA signature with the house security after being re-keyed. I'm afraid he must have had some trouble getting back into the house.”
“Must have.” Poor dear, indeed.
“Did you want me to summon the authorities, dear? You said there was a break in.”
“I did, Mrs. Fairfacs, but I was mistaken.”
“You're certain?”
“I am now.”
“May I get you anything then, dear?”
“No, thank you. That will be all, Mrs. Fairfacs.”
The smidgen of tranquility I had begun to salvage with Aidann's scroll had been completely obliterated. Nevertheless, I threw myself back into bed, reached for the scroll, and read it with my fingers for several hours. I did not fall asleep until just before dawn lit the PLED screen, waking me for a new workday, this time with my employer in attendance.
To Bubba,
Small and Spunky
