After it was over, she found herself staying at the manor house. Waiting for something. She wasn’t sure what. A push, she supposed. The desire to be elsewhere, or alternatively, the compulsive need to flee. She hadn’t known life without one or the other but now they failed her, her usual instincts for migration. She had always been whatever version of herself came next, constantly drifting into her subsequent evolution, which was, she supposed, always just more of the same. What would she do now? Her own answers came back to her—spend money, have sex, eventually die. Depressing, and she had enough of that to contend with already. It was lucky, she supposed, that there wasn’t some quota for human sadness, like a bucket that could only hold so much. If love wasn’t finite then neither was pain, and neither was sorrow. She could always summon more of it, and resentment, too, for the life that had done nothing but teach her how to suffer and carry on.
She started noticing things about the house. The kitchen that needed restocking. The library that needed cleaning. The rooms that needed emptying and refreshing, the things that had been left behind that ought to be put away for whoever would come next. She knew, in part, that Nothazai would be arriving any day now, that the rooms the six of them had occupied would be replaced. That things continued, that life went on, that people would always continue bleeding for someone else’s greed, that they would suffer in the name of someone else’s god. Knowledge would always be coveted, power always taken and rights always robbed. The house would continue its work of draining its inhabitants for its own symbiosis, to bolster its own sentience, becoming answers that lived and breathed because the occupants inside had questions they had asked with their entire souls.
Variations on Callum’s first thought when he learned Atlas Blakely had died: That’s it?
As in: the man to whom I attributed this much power was capable of dying without my knowledge, as if he never even existed to begin with?
As in: the Caretaker of the Society, a man with the key to limitless secrets about the world, is still only a man with normal limitations?
As in: the game is over now?
As in: after everything, that’s all there is?
As in: if Atlas Blakely can disappear without a trace, what hope is there for me?
Some very good questions. Unanswerable, as all good questions were. Parisa had given up on trying to summon the energy to reply, even for herself. She recalled the Magic 8 Ball that Gideon had dreamed up for her, the weapon he had given her in her time of need, and remembered the mix of things inside herself at holding it in her hands, this one precious thing. This one priceless seed.
Better not tell you now.
She found her sister Mehr on social media, looked at the baby pictures of her nieces, her new nephew. She thought about messaging her and then thought okay, but why? Better not tell you now. She checked up on her brother Amin, who was being investigated for assault. She wondered what would come of that. Better not tell you now. She read Nasser’s obituary. Beloved son, cherished husband. It wasn’t completely false, even if it wasn’t entirely true. Better not tell you now. She looked up Atlas Blakely’s mother, his father, looked at Atlas Blakely’s half siblings, pulled the files for all the others in his Society cohort. They were so lovely, so vibrant, so young. What else might they have accomplished, what else might they have been? Better not tell you now.
She read Dalton’s notes in his meticulous handwriting before it turned manic; the careful letters of a total sociopath who indiscreetly loved his craft. In Atlas’s desk she found a bottle of pills, only two or three tablets remaining. Exactly how much pain had their Caretaker lived with? In Callum’s room she found an empty bottle tucked behind the headboard. In Nico’s, a rolled-up ball of mismatched socks. In Reina’s, a children’s book of fairy tales. Better not tell you now.
Parisa didn’t ask herself what she was waiting for. She read books, rearranged rooms, walked in the gardens, had tea by herself. Many of Tristan’s things were still there, and Libby’s too, though Parisa didn’t message either of them to ask if they were coming back because she no longer lived in a world where answers mattered.
Sharon emailed her a selfie with her daughter, the two of them on a trip to Disneyland Paris. Parisa thought about crocheting or maybe knitting.
On a whim, she finally pulled the gray hair out.
Two days crept by. Three. A week.
At night, Parisa dreamed. She woke up with no memory of where she’d been. Most of the time she had no memories to relive, no nightmares to haunt her, though she knew she was always holding something, a small weight in her right hand. Once she woke up with music in her ear, certain she’d been hearing Nico de Varona’s signature laugh. Another time she woke up with a message. I think I can teach you how to use this if you want.
I do, she thought, I do. Not necessarily for good, though.
I don’t always use it for good either, replied the dreamer in her head.
Another day or so passed before the house told her there was someone else inside it. She was in the gardens when she felt it sigh in relief, sagging around the presence of someone else. Ah, Parisa thought with a moment’s irritation, an epiphany that felt more like an itch. So it hadn’t been a what that she was staying for.
She saw Reina coming from the house and she thought okay, is this the ending I’ve been waiting for, really?
And in her mind, a tiny fluorescent message glittered smugly.
Better not tell you now.