The Silenced Tale, стр. 17
And possibly, just maybe, that’s a bad thing.
Although, it’s also possible that it could be a good thing.
Because . . . because maybe Juan was right.
Maybe Elgar isn’t getting enough sleep. Maybe he’s stressed out. Maybe he’s feeling really guilty for not writing anything new. Maybe he’s feeling bad about freaking out his agent. Maybe he’s too involved and worried about the TV show. Maybe he’s focusing too much on being on his best behavior around Forsyth and Lucy. Maybe he’s . . . maybe it was all in his head.
He’s a creator. He has a powerful imagination.
So . . . so maybe his powerful imagination had gotten away from him?
It’s possible.
The man in black could be anybody. His glare of hatred didn’t have to be aimed at Elgar. It could have been for someone behind Elgar. It could have been resting bitch-face. And a story is just a story in his head.
Except when it isn’t.
Elgar scrubs his face and sighs, trying to get his brain to quiet the hell down. He takes his last gulp of coffee. The caffeine isn’t helping his out-of-control brain, but the soothing warmth is something. Maddie is right there again with the pot, and he sends her another smile, this one more genuine, and perhaps just a bit watery.
“I hope you don’t mind me saying so,” she says, slipping onto the bench opposite him, “but you kinda look like hell.”
Elgar snorts. “I kinda feel like it.”
“How’s the writing coming?” she asks, folding her arms over the table. She’s in her mid-twenties, and Elgar can’t remember if she’d told him she was studying psychology or physiotherapy, but with the way she’s encouraging him to talk, he’s starting to think it’s the head-shrinking.
“Ah, all done,” he says, not really in the mood to have this conversation again so soon. “Just some line edits left, I think. But I, you know . . . it’s not that.”
“It’s just that you don’t have your laptop. Or your notebook.”
“Yeah.”
“So, where are they?”
Elgar sits back, eyes narrowed, a nibble of worry starting to make itself known. “Why do you want to know . . . ?”
Maddie blinks, shakes her head, and blinks again. Her grin gets wider, more natural, which startles him into realizing that her earlier smiles had been tight, and false, her gaze a bit unfocused and faraway. “Oh, no reason. They just seem to make you happy, is all. And you look miserable.”
“I think they’d just make me more miserable right now, to be honest,” Elgar says.
“Fair enough,” Maddie replies, chipper. She takes a breath to say more, clearly intends to do so, but the chime of the bell on the kitchen windowsill cuts her off. She grimaces and straightens. She’s the only waitress right now. “Be right back.”
She has his eggs Benedict in front of him in a jiffy, refills his coffee for the third time, and is then called into the back by the line cook. Just before she goes through the double doors, she looks back at him over her shoulder.
Maybe it’s his overactive imagination again, or maybe it’s the crappy lighting, but for a split second, it looks like Maddie’s normally blue eyes are bright green.
Forsyth
That night, I roll over and ask, into the quiet darkness of our bedroom: “Pip? Do you sleep?”
“’M awake,” she mumbles, and it is not entirely convincing. She turns her face into the pillow, an endearing trait that she doesn’t know she has. It means that she is just asleep enough that she wants to remain that way, and is pretending that she does not hear me.
Good. I want her to be asleep.
She shuffles and shifts until her arms are beneath the pillows, and she is fully belly down, head craned to the side in a way that she assures me is actually quite comfortable. She looks, in short, as vulnerable as she had been when I first met her, laid out like this in my mother’s bed in Turn Hall.
A wave of tenderness stirs and sweeps across me. I love this woman fiercely. I am so happy to be able to call her mine, and to have a daughter that is proof of our love for one another, moreover. I should like to keep them. Forever.
And I shall do whatever it takes.
Slowly, gently, I slide my hand underneath the t-shirt Pip has worn to bed. My fingers skim over the now familiar network of thin, raised scars on her back. The original circumstances of the injury is now slightly more than three years past, and Pip is not unaware of the exotic attractiveness of the artistically swirling pattern that was carved into her flesh, though she does not flaunt it, either. She has ceased to wear tank tops in public, and has purchased a high-backed swimsuit, but is comfortable wearing low-backed dresses when they show the raised ivy to good effect. Many people mistake the scars for an elaborate tattoo. Pip does not correct them.
Under my hand, her flesh is sleep-warm, but not hot to the touch, or feverish. I slide her shirt up, ducking under the covers so that the cool air of our room will not wake her. Beneath the duvet, everything is dark. The scars do not glow green as they do in the presence of the Viceroy’s malicious influence, nor are they moving and shifting. All looks normal.
Normal. Frustratingly, infuriatingly normal.
I speak a Word of Light, but nothing sparks against my lips. The room stays dark, and quiet, and cool. Nothing happens.
I cannot tell if my annoyance is rooted in the fact that nothing is out of order. Would I have been more relieved or more scared if the vines were glowing, if Wordlight had filled the room? It would have at least been