Authors: Andrea K Höst
Knocked backward, the Core failed to evade reaching hands –
Nash, Tyler, Claire and
Quan
– all of them crowding
forward. The Core lasted only a few
moments longer than
Noi's
Moth, and then it was
nothing, a collapsing jellyfish.
"May you rot."
Gavin stepped forward, and for a moment seemed about to spit,
but shook his head instead and turned his back. And then they were all looking around at each other, eyes large.
"You finished the dragon–?" Madeleine asked.
Pan turned, checking. "Nah, it's still galumphing up the road behind us, but the Core was
the primary target. Time to
snicker-snack,
ev
–"
The Spire stopped screaming.
Madeleine found enough energy to slew around with the rest,
to stare across Hyde Park at a familiar skyline, where Sydney Tower was the
tallest building, and no midnight spear stabbed the dawn.
Then, as cheering rose all across the park, the dragon
reached them.
A neutrally-decorated guest bedroom dominated by a four
poster bed. Sunlight streamed through
French doors, danced with dust motes, and kept Madeleine, tucked beneath a
quilt, toasty-warm. Inertia pinned her
in place.
"I've bad news if you're planning to stay in here
permanently. All your little playmates
are talking about leaving town."
Madeleine shifted gingerly, moving from her side to her
back. "Noi told me," she
said. "Did you find your
friends?"
"Only Eliza. She
thinks Josh is still Plus One." Tyler put down a carry bag and sat on the side of the bed, rearranging
the long skirt of his dress before surveying Madeleine judicially, from her
scraped and bruised face to her tightly wrapped left arm. "Malingering, or genuinely can't
cope?"
"Both?" There had been a patch, when she'd woken early in the evening after the
battle of the Spire, where it had all slammed down on her and she'd wept
herself numb, barely responsive even to her Blue's hunger. The next day she'd slept when she no longer
needed it, and struggled to have anything to say to Noi and Emily when they
brought her food and news. "I
just...don't know how to be."
"Would it help if I mentioned that burning first loves
rarely look quite so eternal from the perspective of a couple of years? Or weeks. No?"
"Has saying that ever helped anyone?"
"Probably not." Tyler shifted so he could see through the French doors to the long sweep
of sunlit garden outside. "I will
concede that this is deliciously complicated. You're not sure if you were in love with the alien, or the boy, or a
pastiche which was neither of them. What
do you think would have happened if your Théoden had settled on a different
host? The practical Noi, for
instance?"
Tyler could be unsparing. Madeleine tried to picture a Noi who was Théoden, but it was impossible,
so she dived into a different subject.
"Was the fight with the dragon bad?"
"No, highly entertaining." Tyler accepted the redirection without
comment. "You chose a terrible
moment to pass out, and missed a most impressive exhibition of bronco riding
from our junior acting squad. Though
with the Spire and the Core gone, I'm fairly sure the thing was only trying to
run away. All I had to do was provide
suitable applause." He caught Madeleine's
change of expression and gave a tiny shake of his head. "Yes, I am aware of the massive
crush. Sixteen. Not going to happen."
Madeleine wondered if she was sorry, and sighed. "I've missed you, Tyler. You never walk on eggshells."
He laughed, that beautiful, warm chuckle. "You have a most lowering opinion of me,
judging from that excoriation on my bedroom wall. How unsparing,
Leina
." But his smile faded, and he touched her
strapped arm, which she'd been told was likely only a hairline fracture. "Did you blame me?"
"No. A bit. I blamed everyone. But I didn't really care whose fault anything
was – I just wanted to get away, not have to see any of those people
again."
Tyler waited, humming softly.
"That's not what I'm doing now."
"It mightn't be what you want, but it is what you're
doing. Not that I haven't gone out of my
way to avoid an awkward conversation or two in my time. Do you really want to not have this one?"
The thought of talking to Fisher, sitting down and properly
trying to work out where they stood... She squeezed her eyes shut.
"Things worth having are rarely easy, kiddo. There are worse responses than deciding how
you want things to be, and doing everything you can to make that what is. Here." Tyler plopped the carry bag onto her lap. "If nothing else, get out of this room,
sit in the sun a while. Your complicated
beau is off having discussions with a crowd of military types who showed up this
morning, so you'll have an hour or two to lose your nerve. If it all ends up being too much, my couch is
always available. Oh, and I've spoken to
your parents, but you might want to call them."
Dropping a kiss on her forehead, Tyler left Madeleine to
inspect the carry bag, which held a pile of unused sketch pads. She still felt absolutely no impulse to put
them to use, but supposed she could at least open these without fear of coming
across drawings she couldn't bear to look at.
Madeleine's eventual reason for getting up had more to do
with not liking the extra burden she was putting on everyone. The two days since the fall of the Spires had
spared the Musketeers little time for victory parties. Around a third of the Blues in the city were
still possessed, and for the first day both they and the Greens had continued
to either attack or hide. The second day
the Greens had stopped, like run down toys, which was not a better situation,
but after several hours of emptiness they'd started to show signs of
reacting. And new Blues and Greens were
returning to Sydney, helping to lighten the load of people who'd started out
damaged and exhausted.
Two possessed Blues had surrendered themselves, but both
Moths had died at separation.
It hurt to walk about, but it hurt to lie down, so there was
no real reason to stay in bed. Noi had
left her a choice of painkillers in the en suite, so Madeleine first took a
fresh dose, then went through her bags until she found her original phone. A little reassembly, and a brief charge while
she washed and dressed, and then she was listening to a stream of voicemail. Her parents had called every day, despite her
warning that she wasn't using her phone, just to leave a message, to let her
know where they were. Her own call was
met by a busy signal, so she sent a text and email.
Then, taking a sketchbook and pencils, she went outside.
The backyard was long, with a central gazebo, a number of
blazing Japanese maples, and a wisteria arbour winding to a tennis court hidden
by hedges. A tall sandstone fence, a
shade darker than the walls of the house, kept it private, a little world of
its own. Madeleine liked it very much,
exploring with interest, then sitting on the rear stairs of the gazebo.
The house was Fisher's. With half the Musketeers in various states of collapse, he'd suggested
it as an alternative to the hectic confusion of the Elizabeth Street
hotels. Because it was away from the
centre of the fighting, and wasn't known to others, they'd been able to use it
as a retreat, moderately confident of not being attacked. Noi had told Madeleine this carefully, as if
she'd half expected Madeleine to immediately try to escape out of the
window. But the place didn't bother
Madeleine, just the prospect of talking to Fisher and finding someone
unrecognisable.
Almost everything Théoden had told her had to be Fisher's
past and Fisher's opinions. A smart,
incisive boy, layered over with a quiet consideration which didn't match up to
the Fisher Pan had first described. It
had not been Fisher's deep anger and black fear, nor Fisher who would stop and
be amused at himself. How many times had
she tried to draw that expression?
Madeleine found herself impatient, wanting to get it all over
with, to face the fact that she'd killed the person she loved. A conversation as a burial, a wake, and then
perhaps she could find the strength to not keep pushing everyone else
away. Lacking a necessary participant
for the conversation, she opened the sketchpad and balanced it on her
knee. If nothing else, not wanting to
sketch people would give her a chance to improve her non-figurative work.
"You're drawing again. I'm glad."
Working on a study of the arbour had helped immensely, and
Madeleine felt only a sense of inevitability as she looked up at Fisher. But there in front of her was the beloved
shape of him, the face she had kissed, that direct gaze. She turned all her attention back to the
page, to gnarled cords of wisteria, and the slight problem of perspective she'd
been trying to correct.
After a pause, Fisher sat down on the opposite side of the
gazebo stairs, where he would have to reach to touch her.
"Hello," he said, and held out his hand. "My name is Fisher."
Madeleine stared at the pad, entirely focused on her
peripheral vision. She understood the
gesture, but could not bring herself to move. He sat with hand held out, waiting long after the moment had become
awkward. A stretched eternity, and his
arm shook a little, reaching the point where muscles would be longing for
release.
The pencil Madeleine was holding snapped, and she looked down
at the faint suggestion of marks on her blue palm, wondering at herself. Had she always been this person, completely
unable to cope with any private crisis? The tightly-wound paralysis was familiar, was, as Tyler had pointed out,
very like her reaction when she'd been knocked down a flight of stairs for
having a cousin.
Carefully she put the pencil on the wooden boards beside her
and felt ill and alive to take the hand which a spare few days ago she had
reached for with complete confidence.
"Madeleine."
The hand clasping hers tightened in a way which was achingly
familiar, then let go.
"Why does your cousin call you
Leina
?"
The casual, neutral question helped. Perhaps it was real, this introduction. Strangers who had just met. She could deal with that if she didn't look
at him. And tried not to react to his
voice.
"When I was, oh, five I think, I lost my temper at
something at the family Christmas party. My uncle – Tyler's Dad – told me I was a 'real little
Maddie
' and teased me a tiny bit during lunch. My family had always called me
Maddie
, but I had no idea the word meant anything but
'me'. I spent the afternoon – and much
of the next few months – insisting that people call me '
Leina
'
instead. Tyler was the only one who
did. Everyone else thought it
tremendously funny."
"Why not introduce yourself as
Leina
,
then?"
"I prefer Madeleine. And I've gotten over caring about being called
Maddie
.
Leina's
just become
Tyler's name for me."
Fisher was looking at her sketch, and she checked a
ridiculous impulse to hide it, lowering her hands to her sides.
"I wouldn't have reacted to your painting in the same
way," he said then, with the air of a confession, and beneath that
something like a challenge. "I'm
interested in art, and I think I would have enjoyed watching you paint, but it's
difficult to imagine – imagine the me before this – sitting for hours, so
singularly absorbed. I would have at
least read a book at the same time."
Madeleine glanced at him, uncertain. To start by making that clear...
"The others are talking over Melbourne and
Brisbane," he went on. "The
Sydney situation is stable enough we could leave tomorrow, perhaps splitting
into two groups." He took a deep
breath. "I had such a...visceral
reaction to the idea. That I didn't care
what group, which city. The only
absolute was that I go with you."
She sat frozen, found that he was waiting for a
response. "You said you thought
those feelings weren't real."
"I said I don't know how much of these feelings are
mine. I wasn't in control, but I was
there, for all of it, every moment. The
pretence that we just met falls down straight away, because every time I look
at you I'm slammed in the gut. It's not
possible to start fresh, to go back. Feelings so strong and deep they make you stop and catch your breath
don't need rediscovery. They need
decisions."
He rose, but to her relief paced a few steps away, and stood
with his back to her. His voice was
crisp and almost combative when he went on.
"I'm not the same person. I would not have behaved as Théoden did. I would have admired your painting, your
talent, but I would not have sat and watched you. I would never have made so much interest
clear, or told you half the things he did, things that I don't admit. I would have put up walls against you because
I've spent years being bored by people, finding them an annoyance or
untrustworthy. I'm not bored by
you. I can hardly breathe when you're in
the same room."
He paused, turning just enough for her to see his profile.
"I also refuse to be the kind of person who follows you
around making you flinch. So, I'm not
going to follow you. I'm choosing
Melbourne. If you want time, or want to
never think about the parts of the past few days which involve me, go to
Brisbane. If you want to find
out–" He broke off, and summoned a
wry, self-mocking expression which faded as he glanced at her. "I sound like I'm throwing down a
gauntlet. Perhaps I am. I want you to come to Melbourne, to let
yourself find out if any of what you felt was for me."
Without giving her any chance to respond, he turned on one
heel and strode off, back to the house.
Madeleine looked down at clenched hands, then slowly opened
the right to inspect the tiny scratch which marred her view of her stars. There had been a lot of pride in that speech,
and hurt. Had she really been flinching
from him? She'd been trying not to.