My Familiar Stranger (6 page)

“No cars,” she repeated.

“Yeah, no cars or home theatre systems. Also,” he added offhandedly, ”no weapons or I’ll be in more trouble than usual.” He looked around the room. “You’ve got some space limitations. And please tell me you’re not a jewelry freak.” She shook her head no. “Good. You can use it to get… you know, clothes and,” he looked at her hair, “hair ribbons or magazines or music and stuff. Here’s the address you use for billing.” He handed her a note. “And here’s the address you use for delivery. They’ll do overnight if you want.”

“Hair ribbons?”

He cocked his head. “I guess women don’t really wear hair ribbons, do they?”

“I’m, ah, hoping not.”

“Well,” he smiled, “you know what I mean.” She nodded again and smiled back, wondering if this man was really this kind to monstrous looking clumps of bloody flesh in general or just her. “Let’s go for our stroll. You think we’ll go faster today?”

“I’m positive you could. Go ahead. Save yourself.”

“Elora!” He sounded surprised. “You have a sense of humor.” He was looking around like he’d lost something. “So where do they keep the booties?”

She thought he had to be the cutest, most considerate person who had ever lived. Seeing this man with the shape and bearing of a warrior of old searching the room for traction booties made her throat feel tight.

“Aha!” He straightened from where he’d been opening drawers, holding up a clean pair of traction booties still sealed in a plastic wrapping. He seemed so pleased with himself, over such a small thing, that it tugged at her heart strings a little. “You know, you can order your own booties or socks or slippers or whatever.”

He knelt down on the floor next to the bed and started pulling the booties onto Elora’s feet like she was a child. He talked about the marvels of internet shopping while he was concentrating on making the booties conform to her feet.

“And movies! Just download them right to your own monitor. You’re not going to feel like a prisoner anymore.”

There was a slight break in his movement when he realized what he’d said.

She jerked her gaze from her feet to his face. “Prisoner?” She thought she saw a flicker of reaction. Was it self-recrimination or… guilt?

He looked serious all of a sudden. “I mean, being stuck in a hospital room has to make you a little stir crazy.”

“Oh. Yes.” Her eyes wandered over the room. “It does.”

He tried to restore the mood. She walked a little further than the day before and maybe just a little faster although at that pace it was hard to tell. She was too exhausted to do anything but sleep when she returned to the room, but she woke in the middle of the night and wasn’t sleepy. She turned on the laptop, found out that she had a lightning fast connection and that GilesQuery.com was the search engine of choice in this world. She tried some familiar names just to see what would happen. Some came up right away. Some came up as no matches. She ordered Paul Mitchell hair products, make-up from Mac, jeans from Levi’s, and some long-sleeve tees and hoodies from Saks in shades of green, blue, and gray. She knew from watching TV that she was in New England and that it was Fall, but it was always cold in the infirmary. So she also got two pairs of velvet leggings, black and brown, and a long, black silk sweater from Armani Exchange.

She wouldn’t be able to consider wearing something so sensational at home, but, gods only knew, she wasn’t home. She bought cotton socks, cashmere socks, furry brown house shoes with moose faces and antlers, cross trainers and black, low heeled, Ferragamo riding boots. She bought fine weave yoga pants in a cotton/silk blend and camis with built-in support to use as sleepwear, under garments, and a thick, plaid robe for warmth and comfort. She bought a skirt just on the off chance she might need it sometime, a lime green backpack suitable to hold a laptop and other valuables and, last, Danskins for when she was able to start working out again.

It might take other people longer to outfit themselves via cyberspace, but she was accustomed to shopping by internet. For a member of the royal house, actual shopping was too much of a production. Permission for such outings was rarely granted because of the expense of needing two guards to protect her from rumor rag reporters and paparazzi.

Undoubtedly the piece de resistance of the internet shopping spree was the iSongs account, a pink iNote player that would hold several gig of songs, and a pair of good headphones. She couldn’t wait to find out if her favorite music existed in this world. She wanted to start downloading to her music library, but she was still getting tired easily and would go to sleep mouse in hand if she didn’t shut down and lie back.

A couple of days later the nursing staff began delivering boxes as they arrived. No one was trying to hide the fact that the packages had been opened and contents inspected first. The jeans were an optimism purchase since her body was still too swollen for her regular size. Tight pants would aggravate bruises anyway. At the moment she required nonbinding, elastic waist, loose fitting clothes. Thin knit sweats and hoodies would have to suffice.

When Storm arrived to a room crowded with shipping boxes and packing paper, he said something under his breath that sounded like, “Woden Almighty,” but proceeded to help organize by ordering a rolling rack and hangers since they hadn’t thought to build a closet. They also bought four stacking crates with front closures for things to be folded or rolled.

She felt so much better in real clothes and it seemed to show in the speed of her progress. She was getting out of bed without assistance and walking up and down the hallway without leaning on Storm - which he missed, but couldn’t begrudge. In two weeks the snail’s pace had increased to a walk almost as fast as Storm’s normal, long legged gait for half an hour at a time. In a couple of days she added talking and laughing at the same time.

Sometimes they played chess in the infirmary break room with a guard posing as an orderly nearby. It was the only room that had a window. Elora loved to sit where she could see gardens and trees. Storm noticed that she would lapse into melancholy if he took too long to move. One day he sat back and asked tentatively if she was ready to talk about who she was, where she came from, and how she got here. She looked away and didn’t answer which was an answer of sorts.

Elora had grown accustomed to seeing the same faces every day. She knew everyone who worked in the infirmary, how many children they have, what kind of music they liked, what they like to do for recreation, what had attracted them to their line of work and on and on. It was a win-win. She was curious and people love to talk about themselves.

Designed on the ‘out of sight, out of mind’ principle, the infirmary is located at a dead end, out of the way corner of the Jefferson Unit ground floor. It's a destination facility meaning you don’t go there unless you need to. Active duty knights endure enough uncertainty without in-your-face reminders of mortality and the fragile nature of human bodies. Well away from typical traffic patterns, they are not likely to casually wander by and be forced to confront the fact that The Order maintains a fully functioning hospital on the premises.

One morning Storm and Elora were playing chess in the infirmary break room while having breakfast. Storm wasn’t really thinking about the game. He didn’t need to. He’d always been - what did they say? - too smart for his own good. He had learned chess from a cousin in fifteen minutes when he was ten and had never lost a game since.

Elora took Storm’s knight with her queen and, in the same tone one might use to inquire about the time, asked, “Why are they recording everything I say?”

He stared into those arresting turquoise eyes and realized that they had continued to get bigger and more pronounced as the swelling receded by tiny increments each day. For the first time he noticed her irises had yellow and gold flecks. Scabs had turned to ivory pink skin and it looked like there would be minimal scarring, if any. There was still swelling, but the black and purple bruising had gone through the even more gruesome green and yellow stage. What remained looked more like streaks of jaundice than anything. A nose had slowly emerged in the center of her face and was starting to look like it might be well proportioned and a little upturned like that video of the young Elora Laiken. The mouth that had once been nothing more than a gash in a hideous lump of flesh was now softening into lips formed in the shape of a bow. Her hair was pulled up in a severe ponytail, bound at the crown of her head so that all that thick, beautiful hair hung down to her collar bone, and swiveled enticingly from side to side as she moved her head.

He met her gaze head on so she would know he wasn’t holding back or playing omission games with the truth. “Because you arrived here in a unique way, a way no one has ever seen or heard of, and because we don’t really know anything about who you are, where you came from, or why you’re here.”

“I see,” she sat back in her chair appraising him. “Reasonable. Understandable. Prudent.”

“
I don’t know what happened to you, but it doesn’t take a genius to know it was awful and that you probably didn’t volunteer.”

Elora sighed and looked out the window. “Awful,” she repeated. Her eyes seem to be transfixed on something in the trees, glazing over as she took on that melancholy expression he had seen so often since her face had started to become more readable. Once again the whole trauma was playing across her memory in quick time.

After a beat or two she blinked and turned her attention back to Storm, hair swiveling across her shoulder to her back as the focus in her eyes took on a crystal clarity and seemed to drill through him.

“Who are you? What do you do? And what kind of place is this? Really.”

It was his turn to lean back and study her. He forced himself to smile and deliberately broadcast nonchalant body language. “You want to trade answers? Question for question?”

She stared at him as though evaluating the pros and cons of the offer. “Have you ever heard of someone named Monq?”

“Is that your first question in trade?” He didn’t try to hide the fact that he was amused by the possibility of an intriguing game.

She pressed her lips together. “Your proposal is tempting. Because I do want answers. Of course you know that, don’t you?” She nodded to punctuate that it was rhetorical. “But I don’t want to have to tell my story more than once. I’d rather make a deal for one time. One time only.”

Storm leaned forward looking intent and serious. “I think that’s fair. When you’re recovered I’ll set it up. You say when.” He looked down at the checkered board between them, moved a piece, and she saw a fleeting hint of satisfaction flash in his eyes right before he said, “Check.”

Her mouth twitched involuntarily. Yes. She was in mourning, but she was still alive and able to relate to the pleasure of winning. After all, who likes to lose? “Just tell me one thing now. Am I a prisoner?”

Storm kept his expression blank while his emotions ran the gamut. Those were the words he had been dreading. A hundred times he had rehearsed what he would say when this moment arrived and now his mind was a blank. His chest heaved with a big sigh.

“Elora, I’ve never deceived you and I don’t want to start now. Your being here, well, you’re a walking paranormal phenomenon. Oddly enough, or maybe not if you believe in synchronicity, that happens to be what we do. So this is probably a best case scenario as far as places where you might have landed. When we’re reassured there’s no reason to be afraid of you…”

Elora barked out a sarcastic laugh. The sound startled him, but Elora was the one who was sorry because the jarring caused some remnant abdominal zingers. “So I am being held as an enemy combatant?”

Storm looked like he was working hard at choosing his words carefully. “No. More as a phenomenon of interest.”

“Hmmm. You know, in the place I come from, it is well known that befriending enemy combatants,” she gestured toward the chess board, “as you have done here, is a far more effective method of extracting information than torture.”

“You are in the infirmary unit of a special operations facility. No one here has either desire or plans to harm you in any way. If they did, they would have to go through me and my... associates.”

“And you don’t consider confinement harm?” His jaw tightened ever so slightly, but he didn’t answer. “What has to happen for me to gain release?”

“Satisfy my superiors that you are not a danger.”

“And how do I do that?”

He scowled at the board for a moment. “I haven’t asked that. I’m not sure that’s been defined. But I can find out.”

“Have I met any of these superiors?”

“Not formally, but one of them was present when you... arrived.”

“Why do you come here every day?”

Surprise crossed his face. That wasn’t a question he was expecting. He repeated the question back to himself several times while Elora calculated what was taking so long and, more than likely, speculating as to whether or not he would lie.

“I come every day because I like to. Do you like having me come?”

She didn’t hesitate to answer. “Of course,” she smiled with a hint of flirtation that would have knocked him on his ass if he wasn’t already sitting. “You’re my angel.”

She moved her queen. “Checkmate.”

First, his stomach did a discomfiting, little flippy thing when she called him her angel. Second, he had to process the astounding news that he’d lost a game of chess for the first time since he was ten. Was he that distracted? Or was she that good? Either way, this was by far the best assignment he’d ever drawn.