Alone in her hotel room, Roslyn wondered what was wrong with her that she could not keep a simple promise to herself. It had been little more than three months since she vowed to stop drinking Mud Drink and to stop levitating. And though she had been tempted toward Mud Drink, she had stayed true. Levitating was different. Had she ever really believed she was done with it for good? Or was there always somewhere in her mind that knew she’d return to it? And if so, did that matter?
The morning after her argument with Quake, she followed her old routine. She found it an easy action to slip back into. Just like riding a bike, as the saying went. Although Roslyn had never learned to ride a bike herself.
She sat on her bed. She breathed and thought of nothing until she felt her mind begin to peel away from her body. Once she was free of herself, she went outside, through the morning streets—busy as always—toward Quake’s apartment. He’d admitted to lying to her, hadn’t even been ashamed of it. And maybe, like he’d said, she’d known all along. Wasn’t that part of the appeal of Quake? A liar who could make lies come true? She wanted to see who he was when there was no one around to lie to. Then she would decide if the lies mattered or not.
It was early, and when she arrived, he was not yet awake. She lingered in his room, watching him sleep. He slept like a child, curled into himself, one arm thrust over his head. When he finally woke, he lay in bed for some time, as if considering a problem, so deep in concentration he could not be bothered to move his body in the slightest. Roslyn wondered if the problem was her—the things she’d said the previous night.
Finally, whatever spell was over him broke and he rose from his bed. Roslyn watched as he went about readying himself for his day—shaving, combing his hair, selecting his clothes. He left the apartment for his breakfast, eating at a small café nearby. He lingered, moved slow. She didn’t know what Quake did on his days away from her, but she suspected that, like her, he was largely idle, simply passing time. Indeed, after breakfast, she followed as he took a leisurely, loping walk around the neighborhood. From time to time, he would stop to chat with someone. He knew his neighbors and seemed well liked.
The conversations Quake had on the street were dull. There was none of the cleverness he employed with Roslyn. Just small talk, being polite. He bought a paper from a news stall and then continued to a very small park—a house-size plot of land that was nothing more than grass, a tree, and a bench. He sat on the bench and read his newspaper. Though there was nothing, really, to be learned from this, Roslyn stayed nearby. On the way back to his apartment, Quake stopped to buy a sandwich. He ate at the table in his living room while hunched over a map with no label. Roslyn wondered if it was San Francisco. She too studied the document, though she gleaned nothing concrete from it.
In all this, Quake was remarkably quiet. Not the kind of man to talk to himself while alone. Even his breathing was slow. It would be easy to take the apartment for empty.
After some time, he left again, and Roslyn followed him back to the market where he’d bought his sandwich. This time, he purchased sacks of flour and sugar, a pound of butter, and some other pantry staples, and from the butcher next door, some sort of meat. This surprised Roslyn. To her knowledge, Quake didn’t cook and hardly ever had food of any kind in his house. When he returned to his building, instead of going back to the top floor, he knocked on a door on the first. A thin woman with gray hair answered, and Quake held out the box of groceries to her. She shook her head. “There’s no need—” she started, but Quake cut her off. “I hope Marcus is feeling better. Please let me know if there’s anything else I can do.”
Then back to his own apartment, where he began tidying the already tidy space. Books in stacks moved to shelves. Windowsills dusted. Coats on hangers straightened.
None of this revealed anything to Roslyn about the mystery of Quake, except perhaps that there was less mystery than expected. It made her like him more, the gentle quietness of his days. But it didn’t make her trust him.
Above all else, she found herself jealous of him.
Here was Quake, living for himself and no one else. He did not question himself in the day-to-day. He did whatever he liked in the moment. He slept late. He was kind to his neighbors. He stole money and hid it in his home, spending it how he wished.
It was in his study that Roslyn got an idea of what she might like to see. This was the smallest of Quake’s rooms and a space she had never been invited into. She knew it was where he’d emerged from that first night with his fist full of Spokane Falls bank cash. She felt she ought to see more of that room. After all, whatever tools of his trade Quake did keep here in his home, Roslyn assumed they were in the study. If there was a gun, it would be here. That would tell her something, she felt. One way or another.
He was hunched over the desk, using a rag to clean an ink stain from its surface.
Open the drawer, she thought. Open all the drawers.
He did. And more. He set the rag to the side and pulled his key ring from his pocket. He opened the drawers, revealing a collection of gray-green metal lockboxes. He removed one, lifted the lid, and took out a tidy pile of money, which he spread on the top of the desk.
Quake stepped back, extending his hands.
“There,” he said. “Is that what you want? You’ve been following me all day, for Christ’s sake. Is that what you want, or isn’t it?”
She thought she might vomit. Was it possible to vomit while separate from one’s corporeal self?
I’m sorry, she thought. I only wanted to know you better! It sounded so childish when she put it like that. She didn’t know if he could hear her words or sense them. As with Kate the day of the fire, she was unmoored. Suddenly vulnerable and exposed, she fled the scene. But this time no cities burned. Just the small town she and Quake had built between them.
She didn’t want things with Quake to end like that. In the morning, she returned to his apartment in her normal, non-levitating form. She knocked on his door, thinking he might not even open it for her, would just tell her to go. But the door did open and there he was with his haunted, hollow eyes finally seeming like they had a reason to be so sad.
He stepped aside and Roslyn entered the room. “I’ve come to apologize,” she said.
“Because you made a mistake. You got caught.”
Not sad at all. Mad. His voice was cool with it, the way men can be when they feel anger gives them advantage.
“Never pull the same scheme twice,” he said.
Roslyn shook her head. “It wasn’t my intention.”
“I’m not the fool Heydale is. My money isn’t here. All that’s in the desk is pocket change. You want it?” He strode out of the room and returned a moment later with one of the gray-green lockboxes. He lifted out a stack of bills and thrust it toward her. “You want this? Take it.”
She waved the money away, just as she had their first night together. There had been a playfulness to it then—both his giving and her refusing. It made Roslyn sad to think how quickly things had changed.
“That doesn’t give you the moral high ground. You broke into my house,” Quake said.
“I didn’t think you’d be able to see me. Normally people can’t see me.” Except for Ernest. And then Kate. And now Quake. Why? The answer came easily this time: Because she’d wanted them to. She’d wanted Ernest to see her so she could prove her ability to him. Then Kate, whom she’d been equal parts jealous of and guilt-ridden for—which of those emotions had overflowed the day of the fire? Now Quake, with whom conflict had been gathering like storm clouds. Perhaps she’d wanted to be the clap of thunder that got his attention.
Still, she repeated her earlier excuse. “I meant no harm.”
“Of course not. You know, you didn’t mention any of this when you told me about your terrible visions. You pretend to be a victim of yourself? Maybe keep your mind-control trick under wraps.”
She wasn’t sure what to say after that. She let Quake fill the silence.
“Did you ever put ideas into my head? I mean, aside from making me open drawers so you could take my money?”
“No. I swear it.”
“What about before I knew you? Ideas like daydreams? I had one where we were in a forest, but then you wanted me to feel guilty for how I live. You called me a wildfire grown too wild.”
It seemed to her that his anger had turned to delirium. Like Barton with his devil woman. It shook her in a way that felt personal, even though it had nothing to do with her. But this time, she had no intention of agreeing with him. She wondered if there was someone else pulling strings in these men’s heads. Probably not, she decided. He was simply casting about for somewhere to place blame. If you’ve got a certain kind of woman on your hands, well, you can blame her for anything. Even things that happened before you knew her, and who’s to say you’re wrong?
“I’m not sure what you’re saying. A daydream in a forest? I can’t do that,” she said. “I wouldn’t even if I could.”
“How do I know that? How do I know what’s real here?”
“I’m sorry. I can’t answer that,” was all she could offer.
“Right. Nothing more to say? Then I think you should go.”
So she did.
Later, though, alone again in her room, it did come to her what she would like to have said. She thought she might want to tell Quake that following him had shown her something of value after all, and so it was not a crime, nor a waste of a broken promise. It was an idea about the difference between a burden and power. Why did people like Quake and Barton get power, while Roslyn had only burdens? Being a certain kind of woman, that was a burden. But if Barton or Quake had magic like hers, they would not be certain kinds of men. Not because men are never afflicted in such ways, but because they are allowed to use their afflictions without scrutiny. So theirs are not afflictions at all. For her whole life, Roslyn had been hunching her shoulders, hiding so as not to be seen, running from her visions, levitating just to pay rent. What if she acted like the men she knew instead? Took what she wanted, lived the way she liked? Quake was right that she need not be a victim of herself. All she had to do was act more like him.
She wanted to say this. But she decided, in the end, that it had little to do with Quake himself, and so it was best kept for her after all.