Godspeed (15 page)

“You sound as if you speak from direct experience, sir.”

“Many evenings of my youth were spent here, in that garden.” He paused, his words becoming strained and seeming to get stuck at the back of his throat. “Days and nights among the flowers. I have… many memories here.”

“Do you have a favorite?” I asked.

He paled, only slightly, but enough that I couldn't help but notice even in just the rising moonlight. “Memory?”

“I was going to say flower, but if you prefer to tell me your favorite memory, I would be most interested in knowing it.”

His jaw set. Any indication that he may finally begin to tell me a little about what lay within disappeared, and I hated myself for having not been clearer as to what I was asking.

“I once had quite a fondness for a particular sort of orchid.”

“Once?”

His eyes fell from my face, to his own two hands. He opened and closed his fingers several times, entirely focused on their movements before he clenched them into fists so tight his knuckles turned white. “The species was a hybrid.”

“Something of Schuyler's mother's creation?”

His eyes flashed a spark of secret amusement, a smirk upon his lips. “You could say that.” Just as quickly, the frown returned. “It is time to end this discussion,” he declared, taking back his coat. He spun toward the glass door and held it open. “Inside.”

My throat ached, and I wondered again just what I had done wrong.

I moved back into the red room. I was trembling, not from cold but from the sheer force of holding back my emotions — and my tongue.

Quinn observed me, and, as ever, nothing got past him. He tossed his coat onto a chair, strode forward, and held the door that led to the hall open for me. As I moved to walk past, he spoke softly, in an almost impassioned tone. “You must beware curiosity most of all,
young woman.” His whole body seemed to stiffen, his shoulders thrust back with bitter indignation. “I know what it is that you are thinking. You are thinking that there is some deeply held secret within me that, could you but free me of it, would cause me to behave more as normal men do. Men that you may have known in the past, in the life you refuse to speak of.”

I looked away. My cheeks burned, and, I was certain, turned scarlet.

“I should warn you that I have never been a normal man,
Elsewhere
.” He stressed the name with the marked irritation of someone denied something duly owed them. “And the secrets that I keep are deeper and darker than any ten men of abnormal nature. So it would be to your peril to persist in your wondering.” He drew a breath and continued. “Beware the answers,” he warned. “You are in no way prepared to even
consider
the questions they belong to.”

He continued holding the door and waited in silence for me to finally pass by. I could feel his eyes boring into me but still I stood my ground. There was one question to which I did want, and need, an immediate answer.

“You've grown brave, have you?” he snapped.

“You send them somewhere.” My voice shook even as I did. “Out, into the world. The others like me. You render them medical aid though you do not take them in?”

“Penn lives quite nearby, as you know,” he said, his tone one of continued annoyance. “Jib has the finest home in all Fairever, and arrangements have been made for the remainder of the lot.”

“The remainder of the—” I blinked, wondering if he spoke of me in such cold terms when speaking of me to others. Then I realized: aside from Schuyler, I was certain he never spoke of me to anyone at all.

He held out one hand and intently examined his perfectly tended fingernails, apparently both relieved and bored by this line of questioning. “They are like feral cats. Have you ever tried to domesticate such a beast?”

I had, but I gave him no indication that I understood, because I refused to equate human lives with those of creatures too wild to tame — especially lives so young. I could not believe he was speaking this way of any life, and I began to grow suspicious. It was as if he was trying, for some reason, to cause me to dislike him.

“If you try to cage a feral cat, you only end up annoying the animal and dying of rabies,” he concluded.

I frowned. “Surely you do not compare a life like Lilibet's to that of a rabid animal?”

“She would be, if I tried to contain and control her. Instead, I make sure that they have what they need, and I let them take care of themselves as far as they can. They build more confidence over time, and one day, most of them will not require any help from me at all. Help is one thing. Dependence is quite another.”

“Yet you took me in, and kept me here. You and Schuyler agreed…” My voice faded. I was not supposed to have any knowledge that their decision to take care of me was any more than the most fleeting, temporary arrangement, though I knew that the doctor never mentioned once the possibility of sending me out into the world again, leaving me to my own devices to fashion a form of survival out of the nothing I'd come from.

Quinn stared at me and blinked quickly, a look of sullen embarrassment upon his face for an instant before the man devolved back into stone.

The monument breathes
, I thought,
for only a second. Still, and always, he exists as a statue.

“You…” he stammered, before finally turning away a moment to regain his composure. “You are different.”

My breath grew short, and I thought of nothing more now than that he was so close. I could almost feel the rise and fall of his chest before me. Then came a familiar voice from the hall just behind me.

“Quinn, a word,” Schuyler interrupted, and at last I retreated.

Quinn moved back into the red room and Schuyler slammed the door behind them.

Though I knew I shouldn't, I could not stop myself from standing there, ear pressed to the door, listening.

“So. You took her out on the balcony,” Schuyler growled. “I thought that she was to remain a prisoner, indoors?”

“It was dark and the way was deserted. I decided it was worth the risk this once,” Quinn replied.

“This is wrong, Quinn, you know it is. It is inhumane and it cannot be kept up forever. Why persist in this caging of her like an animal?”

“Because she is by far the greatest risk to all we have here, and you know that!” Quinn yelled.

I sighed as I realized once again, I was the ‘she’ that they were arguing over.

“She must sleep during the day while the power source is charged, Schuyler. What am I to do, then? Turn her loose upon this world at night? You know her safety would be in jeopardy from much greater dangers than a lack of fresh air.”

“But to not even let her sit in the garden, just to take in the last of the day as the sun sets…” Schuyler's voice dropped, and for a moment I could only make out some of his words; they included ‘are you telling me’, ‘duplicate’, and ‘awake’.

Then their volume rose to the point where I could once again hear it all.

“And let all those coming and going from the shop risk seeing her? Bad enough I've heard talk in town now that the shop may be haunted, because several ladies were standing in the Emporium last week discussing how they had seen a ghostly vision in the shop display window of Ruby Road Art and Antiquities.” Quinn's voice sounded the tonal equivalent of a glare. “Careless, Schuyler. Completely careless.”

“Bloody vultures, gossiping about any and everything that happens in this town.”

“It sounds as if it's been good for business,” Quinn remarked.

“Are you accusing me of something?”

“Only of taking advantage of her talent and time, and putting us all at risk by doing so.”

“She so enjoys helping with the windows! She never set foot inside of one, she merely drew the sketches she imagined of how they might look, including this item and that from the shop, and then Penn and I would arrange it later after she'd gone. She never even saw him while she was there, I was that careful. What is the harm?”

“The HARM!” Quinn shouted now, completely enraged. “Is that someone SAW HER. The harm is that her LIFE is at stake, dependent upon my continued ability to care for her. As is Jib's. And what would become of Marielle and Lilibet if we could not continue our work with them? Answer that, genius!”

Schuyler sighed. “I'm sorry, Quinn, I hadn't thought it could hurt. She is so very good with it all, and it seemed to bring her some sort of comfort, the idea that she was doing something here to earn her keep.”

“She does not NEED to earn her keep. I have made that much plain before. Apparently I did not sufficiently stress the point.”

“Just because someone is told something — especially that they have inherent value when they have been treated as refuse in the past — doesn't cause them to immediately believe it, Quinn. These things must be reinforced, over time. Belief in a person's worth must actually be accepted to be valid.”

“She doubts her worth?” Quinn scoffed. “After all the time and work I have invested in her, still she doubts her inherent worth?”

“Entirely.”

I listened, now, with my back against the door and tears rolling down my face.

Schuyler and I had never had a deep discussion about my consideration of my value in this world, but apparently no such exchange was needed in order for him to make an accurate assessment of the condition of my self-image.

Quinn sighed. “She was so happy, for a moment, out there on the balcony, taking in the scent of the flowers below.”

“There has got to be a way that we can start allowing her a little fresh air now and then, even if a project must be undertaken in order to achieve sufficient shelter from prying eyes.”

“That is a project that I shall leave to you, then,” Quinn said, and I heard him move away, his voice retreating to the point I had to strain to hear it at all. “I have bigger problems on my hands.”

“Jib?”

I heard the sound of the stopper being pulled from the liqueur decanter and the clink of its neck against the rim of a glass. “Yes.”

I jumped back as I heard Schuyler turn the handle of the door, and I took several steps down the hall, ducking around the corner. He emerged from the red room and asked Quinn one more question before departing.

“Will there ever be a chance for the girl to really see the sunlight again? To live as something other than the nocturnal creature you have turned her into?”

“The nocturnal creature she has become of
necessity
,” Quinn replied with another sigh. “And the answer is yes, if you leave me alone long enough, I may be able to come up with a way for her to find her way back to the light.”

Schuyler rounded the corner and found me there, standing still and staring at the floor. “Is something the matter?”

“I heard the sound of arguing,” I answered truthfully, while still keeping to myself exactly how much I'd heard. “Have I done something wrong?”

“No, heavens no, girl, do not look so forlorn.” Schuyler placed his hand beneath my chin and lifted my eyes to meet his. “It is I who have been careless. I am afraid we shall have to be much more careful about having you in the store. It seems that there are rumors circulating among the old cats in this town that a beautiful young ghost is haunting the place.”

I wanted so much to embrace him then, knowing that at no point had anyone said anything about the suspected ghost being ‘beautiful’. Still, he felt the need to add in that kindest, sweetest of details.

“We must be cautious.”

“Perhaps it is best if I simply keep to the house, to my attic room, the red room, the laboratory…” I felt tears stinging my eyes again and my chest constricted. How I would miss spending time in the shop with Schuyler, should that escape be taken away from me. I lived for hours in the laboratory with Quinn most of all, but he was given to such severity of mood that there was no knowing on any given day whether or not he'd want to have me present there while he worked.

On the days when he would brood, or mutter to himself as he puzzled over some problem that sorely plagued his mind, I was grateful for the chance to divert my thoughts, even if just for a little while, by the lighter tone of voice and content of conversation that was part and parcel of time spent with Schuyler.

C
HAPTER
18

AS ALTERNATELY FASCINATED
and delighted as I was by the company of Quinn's misfit band of patients, I found myself growing attached to them on a level that I had not planned and could not fathom.

I was sorely troubled in my heart for the pain that each of them carried, and I had so many questions that had, thus far, gone unanswered. I decided to approach the man I thought much more likely to converse with me on the subject.

I found him in his red room, standing near one of the windows that were set to either side of the balcony doors and straightening the tie on the curtains.

“Schuyler, may I ask you a question, please?” I knew that Quinn was the one who could give me the most detailed answers if he chose; but that was the sticking point. I felt for a certainty that he would choose not to.

“Of course, Elsewhere.” Schuyler smiled gently and shook his head. “I am still finding it odd that you own up to such a nickname when your own name might be much more suitable and glamorous. Won't you tell it to me?”

I got the same look on my face that I always did whenever Schuyler asked me to reveal my name to him — a much different expression than I wore when the same question was asked by Quinn.

Perhaps that was why Quinn was still so reluctant to answer any of my questions; I had hardly been forthcoming with in-depth answers in response to his.

“What is your question, then, my dear?” Schuyler prompted.

“What manner of illness is it ailing Jib?”

Schuyler's smile dissolved, revealing a deep unyielding sorrow beneath. “His ailment is one of his body's own making. It is not something that he came down with or caught by contagion.”

“How so?”

“The way Quinn explains it, and I assure you he would explain it much better than I can—”

“If only he'd explain it. You know that if I ask…” My words faded, and we shared a moment of understanding.