Chapter 23

 

Jared

 

 

After a violent explosion of screams, the fly banged the wall a couple of times and fell silent. Perhaps even magical super flies had to rest sometimes. It was nice to have a break from the racket, however long it lasted. Jared yawned again and closed his eyes until a renewed surge of shrieks pulled him out of somewhere far and deep and into late morning. They were lying not too comfortably on the opened couch in a confusion of blankets and pillows, and the fly was in fine voice, and it was raining outside, a chilly grey drizzle. The front window, lowered a few centimeters at the top, let in the rain-washed air, a pleasant smell, and the insect repeller glittered in the pale light. At least no new flies could come in and join the party.

On the plus side, Cara was curled close against him in the circle of his arm, her head resting on his shoulder until an especially piercing screech from the back bedroom caused her to stir and sigh. She sat up beside him pushing her hair out of her eyes and casting a dark look toward the back bedroom. He didn't like her color, or lack of it, and her face was shadowed with exhaustion.

Jared shook the fuzziness out of his head and sat up himself. "Well, that was nice while it lasted," he said. "Why don’t I get us some coffee? How do you feel about breakfast?"

"I wish I hadn’t told you not to swat her," said Cara.

"It does get tempting, doesn’t it," he agreed. From the sound of it, he guessed the fly was cursing her way across the ceiling, north to south, south to north. "We’re going to have to think what to do with her," he said. "Sooner or later she will make enough noise that even your neighbors will notice."

"And call the police," said Cara, "and they will come knocking on the door and I will tell them we have imprisoned a fly in my back bedroom. I wonder if there's a law against that."

"Noise ordinance," said Jared, as the fly went back to howling at the door, with intermittent shrieks by way of variety. "How is your head, Cara mia?" It slipped out without thought; beloved, my beloved, in one of those Latin-based Earthian tongues; it felt so entirely right to call her this, and it brought a luminous smile from her.

"I feel okay now." He thought this might be partly true. "But I want to take a shower," Cara said, "and I hate to go into the room right next to her." Which was a sentiment Jared shared, but after coffee and toast – neither of them had much appetite – they took turns with the shower, turned up to the noisiest cycle possible. Jared, taking the second turn, saw that Cara had wedged the decorative little chair from the corner of her bedroom under the back bedroom's door handle.

He came out of the shower to find his clothes gone, the contents of his pockets piled neatly on the counter beside the sink. A confused vision of the fly carrying off his jeans drifted through his mind, but it seemed a little more than even she could accomplish; he wrapped a towel around his waist and opened the other bedroom door to find Cara standing by the dresser, doing up the buttons on one of those tailored shirts. She glanced at him in the mirror with a small mischievous smile, and just for a second he thought of Maud. "I stole your clothes," she said. "I thought you’d like clean things, so I threw them into the quick wash cycle. I hope that’s okay."

"Entirely. Thank you." He tucked in the end of the towel to hold it in place and came barefoot across the room and unbuttoned the top two buttons on her shirt and, after brief consideration, the third one too and he kissed her gently.

Thieving whores! The fly began thumping on the bathroom door. Jared went back to make sure the door and its barricade were still intact, and to look at himself in the mirror. He had used the whisker cream yesterday morning and should be all right for a few days; his teeth were another matter. He settled for a finger and Cara’s toothpaste, which was better than nothing.

You’ll be sorry! You’ll wish you’d never been born when I’m done with you, thieving mongrel scum!

"And good morning to you," said Jared cheerfully, and rinsed his mouth. "Have a nice sleep?"

I’ll sleep when you’re in hell, lover boy!

"You’ll have a wait, then," said Jared, drying his face.

You think I can’t handle you, you ignorant man-whore? You think I can’t touch you?

"That’s right," said Jared, hanging the towel on the rack by the shower.

You’ll see what I can do! She hit the door again and then rocketed across the bedroom to rap on the windows for awhile, shrieking. Jared adjusted the towel around his waist, eyed himself in the mirror, and found himself laughing. He had planned, this weekend, to enjoy the spring weather and the holiday. He had considered going to the ma/hifez match with Issio and Terry and Gina. He had hoped to take Terry fishing tomorrow, and maybe Gina. He had not expected to find himself standing barefoot in a strange bathroom, wearing a towel around his waist, trading jeers with a talking fly.

Sometimes life took a turn for the bizarre.

But there were compensations. Cara was sitting on the bench by the vanity; she looked pale and drawn, but he loved her smile. He kissed her again and took the hairpins out of her hand because he liked her hair drifting loose around her shoulders, and sat down in the recliner, piling the things from his pockets on the chair arm, his phone and clip, his wallet, three ticket stubs from the Rocket Termites concert to which he had taken Gina and Phyllis, an ID card for the Alliance Institute, and a holo of Phyllis and Lillian and Gina and Terry clustered around Willis in his brand new Alliance Defense Academy uniform.

"Those are the kids you were talking about? I saw that handsome young man in uniform," said Cara. "Yes, I snooped. Sorry."

"You're welcome to snoop. And yes, these are our kids. We sort of adopted them," he explained. "Their parents are separated – contract marriage that ended – and they aren't so much anyway. I guess we just took over all three of the children."

"The neighborhood?"

"All of us. Terry is very close to the D'ubians when they're home. The music. I think Gina is especially close to Issio and Sofi. They don't have children of their own yet. Sofi has miscarried twice." She understood what this meant to a Zamuaon couple; she nodded soberly. And this was certainly part of the connection among Gina and Sofi and Issio, but he thought that the Ears were what really drew them together. Gina was so strong, young as she was, and Issio and Sofi knew the techniques to teach her control. He did not. He had never thought it worthwhile to try to train his little talent.

"Anyway," he said, looking at the clock, "speaking of Sofi and Issio, I should try to reach them. They ought to be home by now. Sofi's match was at ten."

"Was it a tournament?"

"No, just a meeting with another circle." He scrolled for Issio's number and Cara put down her comb and kissed him on the way to the bedroom door, surprising and pleasing him.

"I'll check the laundry," she said, making an excuse to give him privacy with his friends, he thought. It would be interesting to see how she and they reacted to one another. He felt, without knowing exactly why, that the fit would be good.

Issio answered on the second chime. Behind him, Jared could hear Gina and Terry, sounding excited and happy, and Sofi answering them. "How was the match?" he asked Issio.

"Sofi took second place," said Issio, "which does not satisfy her, but it pleases all of us. We are very proud, are we not?" Gina and Terry shouted agreement; Sofi grumbled.

"Tell her congratulations from me. And good work."

The sound of the other voices diminished as Issio moved apart from them. "I thought you might attend the match also," he said. "But I see that your meeting ran late."

"Very late," agreed Jared.

"A productive meeting, I trust?"

"Oh, yes," said Jared, "highly productive. Have you got plans this afternoon?"

"Me? Yes, indeed, I plan to sit here in the study and think of very good reasons not to grade reports. This will be an excellent use of my time, I think. Have you some other occupation to offer?"

"Actually, I do," said Jared. "Calling upon your particular expertise as our neighborhood biologist."

"Your knowledge in some areas of biology far exceeds mine," said Issio; Jared could almost see his tail twitching and twirling.

"I think," said Jared, "what I need here – "

The fly let loose with a scream. It was a loud, complex and many layered scream, starting in lower registers and working its way up to a shriek so high it was barely audible, although it ought, Jared thought, to start any dogs in the area barking. There was no way Issio could not have heard it on the phone. It was possible that the Bahtan sisters across the street from him had heard it.

There was a pause. "This," said Issio carefully, "is the lady with whom you are meeting?"

"No," said Jared, succumbing to temptation. "Her mother."

There was a certain amount of bumping and thumping on Issio's end, and Sofi spoke into the phone. "You," she said, "will immediately tell us all about this. Immediately."

"I will," said Jared, and did.

 

Having pulled on his clothes, still a little damp from the quick wash cycle, Jared found Cara in the kitchen scrubbing cups and saucers from the seldom-used china set on the upper shelf. "Granny's china. I think it's prettier than Mother's. I don't like Mother's. The coffee maker is filled," she said. "You did say they both like coffee? Saizy hates tea. She told me once no self-respecting Zamuaon would drink tea. But Saizy is very opinionated."

"They like coffee." She caught the pile of saucers with the corner of her dish towel and they went spinning to the edge of the counter; he grabbed them before they could fly off to the floor. "Sweetheart, don't be nervous," he said.

"They're your friends. They're your family," said Cara. She swiped at a cup in her hand and put it down and picked it up and swiped it again. "Did they like Maud?" she asked.

Actually he didn't think anyone in the neighborhood had much liked Maud, although they had all been polite and pleasant to her. They were suspicious of her, and determined to stand on his side in any dispute. "Not especially," he said to Cara, and she thought about this with frowning concentration. He wished that he knew if this was a request for information, an expression of jealousy, or a way of predicting the reaction of his friends to Cara herself, on the theory that if they adored Maud they would detest anyone trying to take her place. He tried to think of a way to tell her that either way, it didn't affect what he felt about her.

But before he could, the door chimed and she lost her hold on the cup and he got it on its way to the floor. ""Don't worry," he told her and put the cup out of her reach and hugged her quickly before she headed for the door, smoothing her hair as she went. The fly, who had been working her way through some very choice Bahtan obscenities, fell silent at the sound of the chime and remained silent. Maybe she would refuse to speak in front of their visitors. That would be a shame.

The rain was still coming down; there were puddles in the driveway. Issio had parked behind Jared's car, just avoiding the largest of the pools. Cara ushered them in out of the damp and Jared introduced them. "Dr. Lindstrom," said Sofi, shaking hands with Cara.

"No, call me Cara," she said.

"And I am Sofi, and this is Issio," said Sofi, "with the large jar." Her green eyes lifted, looking for any sign of this unusual insect. She shut up when you arrived, Jared told her, and she twitched the end of her tail.

Issio shook hands with Cara in turn. "I am very pleased to meet you," he said. Jared felt them both reach with their minds and fall back, unable to get past that marble barrier in Cara's head. Issio did indeed have a large jar, with a complicated lid; he showed it to Cara and Jared as Cara ushered them to seats in the living room. "It is possible to feed the specimen," he explained, "without letting it escape. We use these jars in my second year general biology class, to secure insects and invertebrates for study."

"So you won't hurt her," said Cara hesitantly.

"No, certainly not," said Issio. He sat down on the edge of the brown couch, restored to its usual appearance and lack of comfort. "I would like to say," he said, clearly finding it awkward, "that I much respected the knowledge and ability of Dr. Margo Lindstrom, as must anyone in my field. Her passing was greatly regretted in these circles. I do not understand what Jared has told us."

"We don't understand it either," said Jared.

"You say she has been speaking to you," Issio said to Cara, "this fly, for how long?"

"What has she said?" asked Sofi.

"She's said exactly what she always said. Not – very positive things. I've heard her ever since, well, since she died. That sounds odd," she appealed to Jared.

"Yes, but it's true; at least, she speaks in your mother's voice, you say."

Issio calculated. "Dr. Margo Lindstrom died during the winter," he said.

"Yes," said Cara.

"The common house fly," said Issio, "lives two weeks to a month, a little more in laboratory conditions. Dr. Lindstrom died several months ago. One fly could not have survived so long."

"She changed flies?" Jared suggested.

"I don't even remember flies in the house," said Cara. "But I wasn't really paying attention to flies. I thought what I heard was just in my head, some mind trick, remembering Mother. I called it the Mothervoice; I didn't realize; it was Jared who heard her and figured out it was the fly." She had sat down on the extreme edge of the over-sized desk chair and now she bounced to her feet. "Coffee," she said brightly.

"Let me help," said Sofi, abandoning the rocker.

Jared sat down beside Issio and examined the jar. "The fly's being quiet," he said. "I suppose she's hiding from strangers."

"She did not sound shy," said Issio, "when she screamed on the phone. You say that she disliked your pendant." He flipped his own out of his collar; it gleamed in the thin daylight. "Sofi has worn hers also," he said.

"And Cara put on hers," said Jared, "which is an interesting coincidence; what are the odds of all of us having exactly the same pendant?"

"I wonder why this fly does not like the pendant? I wonder," said Issio, "if we enter this room where you have her trapped, all of us wearing our pendants, she might speak to us then?"

"We could try," said Jared, "but frankly, Cara's had enough stress; that fly – "

There was a bang in the kitchen, and Cara said something in a startled voice. "It did not break," said Sofi, in a tone of reassurance, "although I do not think it would be much loss if it did. Where she found so ugly a set of dishes – surely these were not your choice."

"Mother's stoneware," said Cara, and there was a brief silence, and a sudden crash, with breakage. "You're right; they weren't my choice," said Cara, sounding much more cheerful.

The voice in the back bedroom erupted with a burst of screams loud enough to drown out the sound of any further damage to dishes; it was a rising crescendo of yells that ended in a burst of Earthian expletives. "And get your shitting hands off my fucking dishes, you little whore!" she finished with a loud bang on what sounded like a window.

"Sixteen spitting demons," said Sofi in the kitchen. She appeared, holding two of Granny's cups, and gave one to Jared and one to Issio, who was sitting very still staring at the hall, at the end of which the fly ranted. Cara gave Sofi a cup and sat down with her own; the four of them sipped their coffee in silence while the Mothervoice showed off her Earthian vocabulary and switched into gutter Zamuaon. Sofi's tail bushed; it became twice its normal size, and her eyes flashed green fire. Issio showed his fangs briefly and set down his cup and opened the specimen jar instead.

"She was always very good at languages," said Cara on an apologetic note, as the volume decreased slightly.

"She used her languages in this way? In ordinary life?" said Issio.

"Well, yes," said Cara. "She had a – short temper."

"You lived with this?" said Sofi. "Five years, you lived with this? And you did not even break her dishes until today? I would have killed her myself. I would have cast her out – well, not into the street. The rest of the city would have been greatly disturbed. I would have left her in some desert wilderness, where no one lived. Did you hear what she called Cara?" she demanded of Jared and Issio. "Just now, did you hear it? How dare she say that? To someone who took care of her for all this time?"

"I read her basic texts," said Issio. "I have even read portions to my classes. I thought her a civilized person. You say this is how she always spoke? Devils of the pits!"

"Those were indeed her dishes?" Sofi asked Cara. "The one you threw, it was hers?" She got up, straightening necklaces, pulling her own Celtic Knot pendant out of a pretty tangle of gold chains so that it rested against the front of her shirt, a clear statement. She marched off to the kitchen without a backward look. Cara stood up, but before she could follow they all heard another crash, a very loud one. A cleaner came scooting out of Cara's bedroom and across the hall and through the living room, seeking the source of the noise, and Sofi reappeared, looking satisfied. "I am so afraid I dropped the creamer. It broke. You can imagine how sorry I am. If required," she said, "we will gather all of the saucers and plates and cups and throw them at her, one at a time. This will be entertaining, and it may confuse or anger her so that she is easier to catch."

"Yes, lovely idea!" said Cara, and began to laugh.

"We will use it if no other plan works," said Issio, "but let us try something less violent first." He got up with the jar, tucking the lid under his arm. "She is in the back bedroom," he said.

"Yes. There's the door to the hall," said Jared, "and a door to the bathroom."

"Very good. The bathroom is small? Less space for her to lose herself in. We will hide in the bathroom, all of us, and someone will open the door to the bedroom and challenge her to come in."

"Me," said Cara. "She'd love to get me."

"Jared," said Sofi. "He has annoyed her greatly, and he is a threat; he distracts you from her. Do you not?" she said to Jared.

"I do try," he agreed. "So I give her a chance to get to me, and when she comes into the bathroom we shut the door, trapping her in there with the four of us. And the jar."

"And we will put her in the jar," said Issio, "and fasten the lid, and we will have her. It could not be more simple."

"And then what?" Cara wanted to know.

"We will put her where we cannot hear her," said Issio. "I am thinking of our basement, with the doors closed. And we will see what she does, and what she says, and we will try to learn what this phenomenon is. We will not harm her," he said to Cara.

"It's just – it's my mother," she said.

"Of course you do not want her harmed," said Sofi. "This is natural. I will not actually throw the dishes at her. Only around her. I promise this."

Cara sputtered into laughter, and on this lighter note the four of them marched down the hall

"Be aware that she hits hard," said Jared.

"We can hear," said Issio; the Mothervoice was slamming her way around all four walls of the bedroom.

Issio went into the bathroom, lifted the little chair under the door handle and handed it to Jared, who carried it back into Cara's bedroom and returned, shutting that door firmly, trying the catch a couple of times. "No window in here," he observed, and Issio looked around, estimating the possibilities. He pointed to Sofi and Cara and motioned to the tub, and Sofi stepped into it and Cara followed; they screened themselves behind the shower door. Issio flattened himself against the wall beside the back bedroom door, with his jar and the lid. Jared looked around at them to see that they were all ready, and took a deep breath, and threw open the bedroom door.

"Hey, how about some quiet in there?" he shouted, and the Mothervoice, with a piercing howl, flung herself toward him; he could hear the buzz of the wings, and he could feel actual heat, some steaming furious thing bolting through the air into the bathroom, a hot missile launched at his chest, and he sidestepped just before she landed and Issio slammed the door shut, trapping her inside the bathroom with them.

She landed against the door to Cara's bedroom and Issio started toward her, jar in hand, apparently imagining that it was going to be an easy matter to get her into it. The Mothervoice spotted him; she shot toward the shower. Sofi leaped in the tub, reaching with cupped hands, and the Mothervoice dodged above her and hit the opposite wall, above the mirror, and clung there.

Mongrels! Bastard mongrels! Get your mangy tails the hell out of here! She launched into a string of Zamuaon curses, mostly involving the doubtful parentage and subsequent poor rearing of both Issio and Sofi, and Issio, with something remarkably like a hiss, jumped upon the counter and slammed a cupped hand over her, but she zipped out under his fingers and past Sofi's nose. Jared lunged at her as she went over his head and Cara tried for her and missed. The fly veered away from the shower door and back toward Issio, who reached with both hands, dropping jar and lid. She circled around him and returned to the shower and hung, still spouting curses, on the tile just out of reach. Cara jumped for her, and the Mothervoice hopped up on the top of the shower door and paraded back and forth, sneering in Zamuaon.

She was watching them; Jared wondered what the view was from those multiple insect eyes. His understanding of insect intelligence suggested that the ordinary fly probably could see no more than movement that might be a threat, that it could not put the images of these large creatures together to get a picture of them. This fly was different, he thought; her brain was organized differently.

Jared started toward the tub and Issio waved him back, and signaled Sofi and Cara out of the way. He stepped up on the edge of the tub, balancing precariously and reached for the jar; Jared passed it to him, keeping the lid. Clutching the jar, Issio moved toward the fly as she paused, picking that moment to groom her two front legs. It was almost, Jared thought, a gesture of contempt, a way of telling them how puny their efforts were. She waited until Issio came up even with her and lifted the jar, and then she swooped down from the top of the shower door across the shower panel itself; Issio reached, slipped, hit the controls, and the water came on, full force, spouting out of all the jets at once. He landed in the direct path of the spurting water, and uttered a curse nearly as comprehensive as those from the Mothervoice.

"Demon spawn!" yelled Sofi, abandoning calm, and sprang over Issio and the spurting water and out of the tub after the Mothervoice as she circled the ceiling light. Sofi was not tall enough to reach her. Jared tried, batting at the fly, hoping to knock her down to the floor; she eluded him with shrieks of mocking laughter. Cara got to the controls and turned off the water and, sputtering, Issio struggled out of the tub. They were both drenched, and Issio paused to dump water out of the jar.

The Mothervoice swung around Jared's reaching hand and headed for the counter, and Sofi charged her and ran right into Issio, knocking them both against Jared who was trying to get to the counter himself. Jared lost his balance, dropped the lid, grabbed at the corner of the sink, missed, fell against the door to the hall with Sofi and Issio on top of him. The door popped open and dumped all three of them into the hall, and the Mothervoice, with a triumphant howl, sailed out of the bathroom.

They pursued the fly down the hall, Issio dripping in the lead, Jared and Sofi behind him, and Cara, very wet, in the rear. They ran into the living room, where the fly flew straight at the front window, still lowered a few centimeters at the top. Without a pause she dove through the opening and the insect repeller, which shorted out with a bang and a shower of sparks, and then she was off across the lawn.