Penult (8 page)

“
Who lives here?” said
Karla, hovering in the foyer, reluctant to touch anything. I
plopped down onto a humongous leather easy chair and clicked on the
TV.

“
It’s ours for now. Enjoy
it while you can.”

“
No, really James. Who owns
this place?”

“
I don’t know. Wendell’s
bosses I guess. The rich people who go to Frelsi. But it’s cool. We
can stay here. They gave me the key. Right?”

“
They gave you or you took
it?”

It took her a while, but eventually
she relaxed enough to explore some of the cupboards and
closets.

“
There is pasta here. And
sauce in jar. You like pasta?”

“
Sure,” I said, as I
flipped through the channels.

“
Pesto or
marinara?”

“
Um … I don’t care. Either
one. They both sound good. Need some help?”

“
No. I can
manage.”

It felt weird have Karla in the
kitchen making us dinner. Like we were an old married couple or
something. I caught up on the news. I was kind of out of touch.
They only let us watch CNN and Fox News in prison. The BBC gave the
impression that we lived in a way more nuanced and complicated
world.

The doorbell buzzed. Pans clattered on
the kitchen floor. Karla burst from the kitchen in a
panic.

“
Whoa kiddo! Calm down. Let
me go see who it is.”

I was a little freaked out as well, I
had to admit. I wasn’t in the mood to deal with one of Wendell’s
people. I looked around for something I could use to defend myself
just in case, but all I could find was an umbrella.

I tiptoed down the stairs and peeked
through the peephole. There was no one standing outside. When I
inched open the door I found a cardboard box filled with
perishables: a bouquet of flowers with fresh baguettes, milk,
cheese and a small basket of apricots. I could get used to this
kind of lifestyle. It was like being a rock star without the
annoyances and obligations of fame.

I brought the stuff up to Karla and
she looked at the stuff like it was poison.

“
See?” I said. “I told you
we’re welcome here.”

She broke the baguette open and
sniffed. “It’s fresh.” She broke out into a big smile. It was good
to see her starting to get into it.

“
Smells great!”

She scrunched her face at me. “It’s
just sauce from a jar. I wish I could make fresh.”

I went back to the news. She called me
into the dining room when dinner was ready, greeting me at the
entrance with a glass of bubbly.

We sat down, with a steaming bowl of
pasta with pesto between us. A board with sliced prosciutto and
Romano cheese, some olives and artichokes.

“
How much you pay for this
place?”

“
Nothing,” I said. “It’s …
free.”

She shook her head. “Nothing is ever
free. I hope you will think about helping them.”

“
Yeah, sure. I’ll think
about it. Don’t know if I’ll be much use though, if I can’t cross
over.”

“
You need to at least try,”
she said, twirling her linguini into a spoon.

I nodded, to humor her, and mumbled
through a mouthful of noodles.

“
I am thinking,” said
Karla. “We can go up to Inverness tomorrow. That is one place I
haven’t looked for Izzie. I was afraid to go there by myself,
because … of Papa.”

“
Um. Sure,” I said. “We can
do that. Whatever you think is best.”

“
We can find Sturgie; get
him and his friends to help us. Around Papa’s people, I would feel
better if we have safety in numbers.”

“
No problem. He’s still
going to school up there, right?”

“
College? Yes, I think so.
He was only in his second year last time we saw him.”

“
Maybe we should rent a
car. What do you think?”

“
You have enough
money?”

“
I have the
card.”

She frowned. “I don’t think it is such
a good idea to keep using this credit card.”

“
Why not? They gave it to
us. I mean, if they want us to work for them, they should be
willing to cover our expenses. Right?”

“
You have decided? You are
working for them?”

“
Well, no.
But….”

“
Don’t use that card
anymore. Please. It’s not right.”

“
Karla. It’s fine. Really.
These people are rolling in the dough. Rich people die and leave
them everything. I wonder what kind of car we should rent. It would
be nice to get something upscale. I always wanted to drive a
Jag.”

***

We had another glorious night all
clean and cozy in a big, soft bed. All this luxury and
companionship was making up for all those long nights in prison on
that hard, thin pad they called a mattress.

Karla nixed my rental car idea. She
insisted that we pay cash, so we had to take the train.
Again.

I got us a pair of Oyster cards and we
took the tube to King’s Cross Station, grabbing a couple of
cucumber and goat cheese sandwiches from Pret to take along for the
ride. We had an hour before the train left so we hung around in the
food court and shops in the building besides the
platforms.

I was checking out a magazine rack
when this heavy set red-haired woman made a bee-line over to us,
cutting off a group of travelers dragging suitcases. She was pale
and bookish, with round rimmed Harry Potter-ish glasses, freckles
and a pug nose. She came right up to me.

“
You’re James,” she said,
without a shred of doubt. “This must be Karla Raeth. Hi. I’m Sophie
Cryer.”

Karla sidled up to me and took my arm.
We looked at each other.

“
Don’t be alarmed. I’ve
been asked to check in on you. Master Zhang has not heard from you.
Is there a problem?”

How the hell did she find us so
quickly? But I guess I should have known better than to
wonder.

“
You’re … with Wendell?
You’re a Facilitator?”

“
Oh please. Don’t be
worried. I’m just here to troubleshoot. We just thought you might
have checked in by now. Wendell said you would—”

“
I didn’t make any
promises,” I said. “I just told him I would try.”

She scrunched her eyes at me. “Can we
talk? Over coffee perhaps? There’s a nice little café around the
corner. We can get a private booth.”

“
We … uh … have a train to
catch.”

“
You have fifty-five
minutes before you need to board. We have plenty of time, I assure
you.”

“
Um. Okay then.” I
shrugged. Karla was being oddly silent and compliant.

We followed Sophie out of the building
and down a block to a row of converted warehouses. Her eyes darted
and probed the passersby, assessing every person we
passed.

The coffee shop had a Middle Eastern
motif. Persian rugs and sisal mats covered the floor. The tables
were low, with stools and a formidable array of hookahs in the
corner.

Sophie led us to a booth in the back
that had its own little privacy curtain. We took our seats, Karla
and I together across from her.

“
Instead of coffee, why
don’t we have chai all around? I’ve already had two espressos
today. I don’t know about you, but I don’t need any more caffeine.
Besides, what you’re trying to achieve goes much better without the
interference of psychoactive substances.”

“
What are we trying to
achieve?”

“
Well, apparently, you’re
having trouble making transitions. That’s what Wendell tells me,
and it’s apparent from your no show. So I’m here to coach you.” She
tilted her head at me and grinned.

“
Listen. Uh … I really
don’t need any coaching. I mean … I’ll go when I’m
ready.”

“
Yes, but you assured
Wendell that—”

“
I told him I would try. I
didn’t promise anything.”

“
That was most definitely
not his impression. Surely, you are aware of the urgency of our
situation?”

The waitress brought over three mugs
of spiced tea. I didn’t really care for it. It was way too sweet
and had too much milk, but I drank it anyway. A fly landed on my
finger. I let it stay, watching it preen itself with its front
legs. Seraf and Lalibela had irrevocably altered my relationship
with the insect world.

Sophie watched my every action with
the rapt attention of a primatologist.

“
You’re not bothered by the
little things, aren’t you?”

“
Why should I be? They’re
little things.”

She turned her attention to Karla, who
drank hungrily and had almost finished her cup already.

“
What’s with your
boyfriend? What does he have to be so smug about?”

“
Smug?”

“
Well … we have been
apart,” said Karla, who was still being oddly meek and quiet. “But
now we are together.”

“
Say no more. Young love.
All is right with the world. All polka dots and moonbeams. That’s
your problem right there.”

“
Say what?”

“
Keep in your mind that no
matter how rosy things look right now, your world is only moments
away from doing a 180 and turning to shite. All it would take is a
double decker bus to hop that curb and plow right into the shop
window. A terrorist deciding to toss a bomb. And if one of you
goes, I can tell that the other ain’t going to be too thrilled
about it, am I right?”

“
I knew it. You
are
an assassin.” I
searched for a weapon but all I had was a tea cup.

“
Not at all. I am a
transition consultant. Yes, I used to run with that pack, but no
longer. Now I deal with Hemisouls wishing to increase the frequency
and duration of their visitations to the Liminality. Those not
quite ready to take the plunge and become Freesouls. I’m here to
help you cross.”

I checked my watch. We still had
forty-five minutes. Karla nudged me and frowned.

“
I try to tell him, it is
all the state of mind. Is like surfing. You let your bad feelings
build like a wave and let them crash over you, even if you are
feeling good.”

“
Precisely my dear. Only I
find it more akin to dredging. Cultivating thoughts of the more
horrible things that have happened to you, building the conviction
that there are more horrors to come, endless unbearable
horrors.”

“
How fun.”

“
It’s all about fooling
your heart, love. That’s all it is. It’s like a muscle. Once you
get good at it, you can flex it on and off. The trick is
identifying those key horrors, finding those that compel you
personally, and dependably. But everyone’s different. One man’s
horror is another man’s inconvenience. Now tell me, what bad things
have ever happened to you?”

“
Bad things?”

“
Things that made you sad.
Things that made you question whether you wanted to go on with
life. There must be something. I mean, you’re a repeat
customer.”

I glanced at my watch again. I really
did not want to be doing this, but we still had half an hour before
we had to be on that train.

“
Come on, love. Surely you
can come up with something.”

I sighed. “I don’t know. Feeling like
and outcast, I guess. Back home, in Florida.”

“
School
difficulties?”

“
I was
home-schooled.”

“
Ah. Say no more. And what
aspect of that experience in particular made you feel … the way you
felt?”

Now I was starting to fidget. This was
not stuff I kept in the forefront of my mind. Thinking about it
again was making me uncomfortable.

“
Yes?”

I didn’t really want to cooperate.
This felt like an interrogation. But Karla’s eyes had gotten all
big and expectant. She clearly wanted me to go along with
this.

“
I don’t know. The
isolation, maybe? I wasn’t like the other home-schooled kids. For
that matter, I wasn’t at all like the public school kids, either. I
couldn’t make … or keep … friends.”

“
Excellent! That is exactly
the sort of well from which we want to draw.”

“
Yeah, but … now I see that
it was all bullshit. I really wasn’t all that different. And the
parts of me that were, well I’m glad I wasn’t like everybody else.
I’m glad I became who I am.”

Sophie grimaced. “What is this I am
hearing? Vindication? Self-esteem? You will need to stifle these
feelings right away if are to make any headway. Please focus only
on the bad. Now tell me, how else do you fail as a
person?”

“
Fail? Me? I wouldn’t
exactly call myself a failure.”

“
Oh, come now. There must
be disappointments. Things that made you question the value of
going on with life?”

I was staring at some spilled sugar on
the tabletop. I could actually make out each little cuboid crystal.
Karla jabbed me with her elbow.