He had promised her — she recalled it clearly, if not quite when — that if he ever saw any indication he was going to go out like David, he would ‘make off’ with himself at his earliest convenience instead.
This wasn’t really a David-type situation. At least not yet. David had been frail, exhausted, falling apart. He got loud because he was in a lot of pain, but he’d wear himself out and quit, at least for a little while.
Barnaby wasn’t yelling because it hurt, not physically. Barnaby was yelling because he was mad. He was being force-fed information at every waking moment — and possibly while asleep, if you could call that sleep — and it pissed him off. She guessed she’d be pretty pissed off in that situation, too, but sympathy was pointless. Practical solutions were required.
As soon as she’d collected her senses on the very first day, she bandaged his eyes. But that wasn’t enough anymore, maybe wouldn’t be enough ever again. The light leaked through. He could see the folds in the fabric and gauze. He kept tearing them off because he didn’t like what he was reading, and then he was too distracted reading everything else to put them back on.
The fact that his attic was one big prescient newspaper collage did not help. That first day, she tried taking some of the papers down — not even with any grand intentions, just to neaten the damn place a little bit. He’d screamed at her that she was altering the designs of the universe. She’d ignored him, she was used to the screaming by then and focused on damage control. She at least had to mop up the ones that she’d puked on, the desk…
Then he’d started to weep. She had hesitated, just a moment, with the vague idea that he was acting pathetic to get her to give in. But she couldn’t convince herself. She threw what she had into a paper bag, wiped her hands on her dress and sat beside him to comfort him. He’d sounded so damn broken. And it wasn’t his fault.
(Well, he’d always known where his career choices were going to lead him, but she’d never encountered any indication that he’d realized he wouldn’t be falling apart in the Walled Garden with round-the-clock nurses, catered meals, and a lovely view of Guillory Park.)
He’d tried to warn them about the salmon puffs. His brain didn’t work right and he had to grope through so much pointless static to communicate with her at all. In a twisted way, it was flattering that he’d made it so much worse for himself for the sake of taking care of her and the others.
Then Oz yelled up the stairs that there were delivery men at the front door with a grand piano and all of her guilt-ridden sympathy evaporated. “Goddammit, Barnaby!”
“Don’t you dare send that piano away, Alice! If you place yourself between David and a piano, I will not be responsible for the consequences!”
She paused with her hand on the banister and shut her eyes, pained. “He’s dead, Barnaby. I promise you. You’re only seeing him because…”
“That man in the closet is Milo’s father! He only dresses up when he’s drunk! We have no time for a blender! We have no time at all! There’s only four left!”
She sighed. He probably wasn’t even hearing her, he was only reacting to what he’d seen she was about to do. “Please just leave the bandages alone,” she muttered. Then she continued down the stairs to help Oz get rid of the piano.
She’d told them someone was playing a cruel prank. She disavowed all knowledge of yesterday’s deliveries, including a case of tomato soup, a mattress, and two dozen blankets. “I have no idea what you’re talking about. I don’t know any Barnaby Graham. It must be another one of these old houses. They all look alike.”
She had no idea Erik had tiptoed past behind her as she was speaking, wrapped in one of said blankets with a mug of tomato soup, but he must have done so. When she went back up to check on Barnaby, the soup was on the desk and Erik was sitting on the floor by the bed, with one hand twisted urgently into the fabric of Barnaby’s shirt. “How many frogs across? Why… Why is a raven like a writing desk? Pin angels, Barnaby!”
She thought she ought to pull Erik away, but she hesitated again. She hadn’t even thought about questions with no answers, maybe…
Barnaby had taken the bandages off again, of course. He looked up, something seemed to pass between them…
That doesn’t work for me anymore, Erik.
(Why?)
Because I really do want to know everything.
…like a static shock, and Erik cringed with a subtle shake of his head. Hyacinth reached out to pull him away, but not fast enough.
Barnaby drew up the bedclothes to hide and screamed, “Get your hand out of the woodchipper, you little freak! If you can’t be bothered to look after yourself, you deserve everything you’re going to get!”
Erik fell backwards with a cry and clapped both hands over his face. A seep of red had come away on his fingers and he gaped at it with numb horror.
Hyacinth dragged him to his feet and flung him in the general direction of the attic stairs. She didn’t mean to, but she couldn’t get him out of there and stop Barnaby from clawing his eyes out at the same time. “Go! Go get someone who understands your weird brain to look after you! And-and keep your tentacles to yourself! You can’t fix this, Erik!”
He was already gone. She wasn’t sure if he’d heard the last part, or if he’d listen even if he did hear.
She cupped her hand around Barnaby’s eyes, already scratched and raw from repeated bandaging and tearing. She held him and rocked with him. “Shh, stop. Shh, stop. It’s all right…”
Not that he was hearing or listening either. Eventually she got his eyes covered again, with a slightly different configuration and not much hope, and she gave him something to knock him out. When he had quieted a little, she went back downstairs to check Erik.
There was no immediate Erik, but Mordecai was standing at the bottom of the sweeping staircase, leaning heavily on the banister.
“How’s the kid?” she asked him.
He shook his head. He was barely keeping his feet. He sat on the bottom stair and gave a low cough before he began, “Erik is sorry. Somebody told him Barnaby won’t eat unless it’s all one colour and flat. That’s why he brought the soup. He wanted you to know that about the soup, so there wouldn’t be more yelling. He doesn’t like it when people are upset.”
He drew himself up, such as he could, trying to be stern. “Now, what I want you to know is that Barnaby is so messed up he is capable of causing my child real, physical damage, and that scares the hell out of me. So I’ve left you some more soup on the stove, and Erik and I are going to the movies, and we may never come back. Okay?”
“No,” Hyacinth replied flatly. “You are in no shape to walk to the bus stop, let alone sit through the movies. You go lie down, and I’ll remind the boy not to stick his hands into other people’s brains on purpose, and it will be fine.”
Mordecai slapped a hand on the tile but did not quite stand up. “Erik cannot be expected to exist safely near someone in that much pain!” He covered his mouth with a hand and cast his eyes to one side. Hyacinth deduced that Erik was in the bedroom, hiding and listening. Mordecai lowered his voice to a hiss, “You are not going to stand there and tell me I am not even allowed to get him out of the house and distract him.”
“Go sit on the porch.”
He leaned in, “I am sorry. I can’t tell you how sorry I am, and how much I wish I could help, but we can still hear him on the porch. Will you let me give Erik to Oz, at least? I don’t…”
“No. I need Oz.”
Mordecai breathed out a ragged sigh and dropped his head into his hands. He looked up again after a pause. “The Dove Cot? Can I take him to the Dove Cot and let them babysit? Betty likes kids.”
Hyacinth sighed, too, and finally nodded. “Wrap up and be careful. Sit down in Strawberry Square for a couple minutes, don’t do it all in one go.”
He smiled and nodded, hauling slowly back to his feet. “Thank you.”
Alerting the Dove Cot set off an avalanche of help. It was as if Hyacinth’s house had collectively been feeding coins into a slot machine for years, just for funsies, and the last one hit the jackpot.
Elizabeth and the other ladies sat Erik and Mordecai down in the parlour with tea, and Adrian went running down Eddows Lane to alert their other friends in the neighbourhood — the Toussaints, Steven Yaojing, and everyone at the school. This netted them Ted, Seth, Emily and Soup. Seth had a Rainbow Alliance card, and he called a few numbers at the drugstore on the way to 217 Violena. A couple hours later, Cerise and Sean showed up, and they brought the first casserole.
Mordecai accepted the traditional currency of sickness and death with a suppressed wince, followed by thanks. There was enough for everyone, and plenty of spare caregivers to take the children somewhere less stressful to eat. Oz was even able to manage a nap, before returning to the hotel to check on the rest of his family. More Otises returned the following morning, and took whoever felt like breakfast out for coffee at the nearest diner.
Lunch was another casserole, this time from the Dove Cot. Mordecai had sometimes thought, seeing as how they didn’t share a huge tenement apartment with literal next-door neighbours, that when it got really bad at least they didn’t have to put up with the goddamn casseroles. But they had either cobbled together some kind of community since Erik got hurt, or what was going on with Barnaby was even worse.
Or he supposed, eating a glum lasagna with a carefully neutral expression, it might be both.
◈◈◈
At the earliest possible moment, Hyacinth dragged the General into a quiet corner and asked for some help with the inevitable complications. She would’ve preferred to ask Milo; Milo wouldn’t reply with any awkward questions. But he liked to build things. She guessed Barnaby didn’t have much left in the way of dignity, or care, but she didn’t want a thing. So she asked the General.
“This… This is a temporal problem. It’s… He literally cannot see what is in front of him. A person can’t be expected to aim…”
The General, to her credit, shook her head and lifted a hand for quiet. “There is already a structure in place. I will merely expand the parameters of my daughter’s cat-cleaning spell. Say no more about it.”
Hyacinth’s mouth fell open and she couldn’t stop it from saying, “Wait a minute. You mean Oz and I cleaned out all those chamber pots by hand when I could’ve literally had a piss-and-shit-free household ever since the damn kitten? Why didn’t you fix that earlier?”
The General clicked her tongue. “You are talking about magic designed by a child.” She waved a hand. “And Mr. Rose, who is not any better. They evaporated all the meat in the house by failing to specify, and solved the problem by over-specifying.
“Although, might I add, cleaning the substances in question as they occur would be psychologically difficult to… Ah. Let me simplify as delicately as possible so we may put this aside: That would feel weird and you would probably have asked me to fix the spell the opposite way. Understand?”
Hyacinth sighed and nodded. “All right. I guess it doesn’t matter now. It won’t be any weirder than anything else. Thank you.”
She had underestimated the weirdness. Later, she had to go back and request that something be done about the sparkles and choir of angels — which she recalled Maggie had added to the spell in the first place on Barnaby’s advice. Possibly because even if he was in the middle of a physical and mental health collapse at the moment, he would have found it funny earlier.
He wasn’t going to stop dropping pianos on her just because she was trying to keep him in one piece. That was a problem for future Barnaby. Whom he cared for as little as he respected her, apparently.
All right, she guessed the fresh lemon scent was a little bit helpful. A little bit.
◈◈◈
She couldn’t figure out what he meant by Milo’s father in the closet or “four left,” but there really wasn’t time for a blender. Milo would’ve had to fix it to work without electricity and it was just faster and easier to buy milkshakes and heat soup.
It was heartening and horrifying in equal measure that Barnaby was still oriented in his own weird way and trying to help them take care of him. It seemed not unreasonable to hope that this damage might pass like a fever and he would reach some level of equilibrium.
Hyacinth tried to tell herself he’d been worse after she’d scraped him off the street and brought him home. Not much worse, but… Well, he’d certainly been a lot less polite. There hadn’t been any flashes of humanity, like trying to warn her not to buy a blender.
Maybe he’d been nursing a grudge about her running away from him, for the past nine years, but he was the one who sold the house and took off. So there.
She couldn’t tell herself he’d told her about the blender because he knew he’d be better before Milo could fix it. Not with the other thing he kept asking her to do.
Well, he was beyond asking, but he told her repeatedly she was going to do it anyway, regardless of her logical, medical objections. She thought he was lying, trying to manipulate her to get what he wanted.
On the third day, she finally gave up and did it anyway.
She couldn’t tell him what she was doing. She knew she wouldn’t be able to hold him down, and she didn’t trust anyone else to help her. So she drugged his soup and took advantage of him while he was semi-conscious and muttering, over and over, “I am not a plot device, I am not a plot device, I am not a plot device…” That seemed to be a favourite of his, or maybe the opposite of a favourite.
When she was through, he quieted, like when you drape a rag over a parakeet’s cage. She didn’t know if he was sleeping, but she sat with him and waited for him to wake up anyway. If he could.
After about an hour of peace he spoke softly, hardly moving, “Hyacinth? Are you there?”
“Yeah.” She took his hand. “It…”
He cringed from her and put both under the blanket. “Please, please. I have enough… enough sensory. Is it now?”
“Yeah.”
“You’d say that even if it wasn’t. Liar.” He didn’t lift his hands to feel what was obstructing his vision or pull it away. “Did you… Ha, ha, pardon the expression. Did you man up and do it, girl, or did I take them out myself?”
“It’s a steel plate,” she said. “I shut your eyes like I shut David’s mouth, so there’s some of that damn symmetry you like so much. You’re about to have a fever and a headache on top of everything else you’ve got going on. Are you happy now?”
“No, my dear. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to give you that impression. This is but a brief island of peace and I am only tired, but thank you just the same.”
“Look, you obviously know I can’t leave it like that. How long do you expect…”
“Oh, I think just about three more days should do it. A little less than that, but to estimate…”
“No,” she said sternly. “Not days. Hours. I suppose I can take it off and put it back on later, so you can sleep… If you’re really determined to have it, I can patch up your skin with metal and pop it off and on like a fridge magnet. But if I leave it, you’re going to go blind for real. This is temporary, Barnaby.”
“Ah.” He carefully lifted a hand, as if it were fragile and might break. “So sorry, Alice, but we are all temporary here. If it is any comfort to you, I have passed a threshold. Whether I live or die, I have no further use for… These.” He waved the hand in front of the ragged metal rectangle welded to his face. “I only meant this peace will not last due to the Ganzfeld effect — or whatever we’re going to call it, I don’t think it has a name yet. It is possible to scry in a black mirror, and I will adapt. Please don’t take it off me, even if I yell. You’ll only make it worse.
“I’m sorry, dear girl, I’ve gone beyond fixing. That must be really frustrating for you. I am no less frustrated, I thought I would have time to leave you some more notes and I see I haven’t. But I have only a few hours before I begin to lose my grip again, and I’d like to rest.” He turned on his side and pulled the blanket up to his cheek.
Her voice wavered, which surprised her. She’d thought she was only angry, “Damn it, I didn’t know if you were ever going to be able to talk to me ever again! Do you know that? I know you need to rest but… but you can’t just say things like that and expect me to cope!”
He chuckled. “Baby steps, Alice. I’ll give you a push to the place where the broken, codependent relationship ends, and you’ll have to go the last little bit yourself. You’re better than me. You already said you were starting over, didn’t you? I’d like an ice cream sundae for dinner. I ought to be able to enjoy it when I wake up, but if it annoys me and I fling it at the wall, I assure you, on some level I will enjoy that too. Goodnight.”
She staggered down the attic stairs and had to put herself in the hands of whoever rushed out to meet her. She didn’t even care who it was. “Barnaby wants an ice cream sundae for dinner and I think he was trying to tell me he’ll be dead soon.”
They put her in the kitchen. The kitchen was where they put people back together. Someone made her a drink — not a gin and tonic, just a shot of whatever they had in the pantry, plus ginger ale. Eventually she took a nap for a few hours in her bed, that was nice. They woke her up to tell her Barnaby had eaten half the ice cream and pegged the rest at the wall and he was yelling for her.
She could already hear him, if not quite the words. Seven repeated syllables. Ah, more of “I am not a plot device.” He liked sevens, maybe that was it.
She sighed and straightened her dress. “He warned me. He likes it when he’s right. This is fun for him, the smug bastard. I’ll see if I can get him to calm down.”
◈◈◈
He didn’t know what time it was. And he wasn’t sure if he was used to it or knew he wouldn’t have time to get used to it so he just gave up. Causality was a bitch. He hoped Cousin Violet heard that. Causality was a bitch and so was she. It. They. Fate was cruel and inhuman and it didn’t get to pick any pronouns. It just was. He didn’t care.
Not true. He was tired and hurt and he didn’t want to be hurt anymore, that was all. He didn’t have the energy to lie to himself. He had been born caring, and all signs indicated he would die caring. Maybe he’d get his answers in the next life, or maybe he’d be smart or dumb or nonexistent enough to stop asking questions.
He thought, or was trying to think, that he was thirsty and maybe Hyacinth left him a glass of water within reach. Or he was going to be thirsty. Or she was getting him a glass of water right now and that was why she wasn’t already taking his hand to help him.
There were whispers that something unpleasant was about to happen to him, read from flashes of light in the darkness. He had his own personal aurora borealis, they called that the prisoner’s cinema. Or they would. He was definitely in a prison, but the nature of it confounded him.
He continued to grope through the unknown and knowable. The lights were annoying but strangely comforting. There was a chain of associations there that might lead him to some benevolent being, willing to pluck him out of this shitty situation and deposit him in a better one at any moment. Or maybe an even shittier situation, that was always a possibility, but at least it would be a different situation. He thought he’d prefer that.
Can you fiction…? Gods, I’m prescient. It’s not even in the same folder.
He tried to remind himself that he was looking for a glass of water, or a root beer float with two scoops of chocolate…
Ha, you monster.
No, that’s not my card at all.
…but somehow he doubted that was really what was going on. He wasn’t thirsty, he was being pushed. It was only the most convenient excuse. The last domino in a long chain. The momentum was going to knock it over no matter what.
“I am not a plot device,” he muttered, feeling his way across each floorboard and its associated implications.
He was crawling through a forest which no man could be expected to discern through the trees. Here was Hyacinth, finally acknowledging she had a family. Good gods, they had to blow up the house to get her to admit it. Stubborn as hell; it was admirable. And another explosion? Not the Chambers of Parliament, that was just a placeholder. Like Grandma Trotsky. (Oh, so that was who was in Room 101. Maybe she was watching. Hello, Farewell and Amen, my dear.) The location would be whatever was more convenient. House o’ flies? Oh, Milo, you idiot.
And here was Erik and his stupid machine again, he was getting really sick of seeing that. Especially since it still came packaged with a second version of Erik with a normal life and kids. He could not have it both ways!
Oh, well. Maybe he could. Like a record. No. A “cassette”? Well, perhaps those would exist by the time it was relevant. The path hadn’t split yet, and might never do so. It was only one of those good intentions with which a person paves a road to Hell.
A person?
He sat down on the floor. He’d gotten lost again. He was trying to accomplish something.
He inquired of the darkness, Where am I supposed to be?
It’s on the desk, hon. You have no idea how lucky you are to know there is a place you are supposed to be. But I can’t expect you to be happy about it. That wouldn’t be fair to you.
Oh, whatever.
He got up on his hands and knees again and lifted a hand, or perhaps it was lifted for him. He felt the wheel-less five legs of the desk chair, five was a good number, and then the flat surface of the drawers. He followed them up. One, two, three — also a good number. It was right on top. Four…
A root beer float with two scoops of chocolate?
It was a small piece of paper.
All right, he supposed that made more sense. He felt the ragged edge where it had been torn from the notepad and the stickiness of the charm on the back. And why has it all come down to this little note I left for myself, hm? Why right here and right now?
He knew the one. He saw himself jotting it down a year ago — no, a year and a day. As if he’d made a bargain with the fairies. It was funny how things worked out like that, even Cousin Violet surprised herself sometimes. All the small things…
No, it’s “Going Away to College.” We’ll have it in the notes. Ha, Cousin Violet takes notes, too, eh?
No, it said, Possibly a failed business venture? He’d torn it off the pad and stuck it to the wall. He’d thought he was going to go out, and then he didn’t. And then he did, because Hyacinth had puked on his papers and knocked this one down.
That was plausible. Right?
What are you asking me for?
Well, we both crave validation.
There was a weird sense of doubling, of dissociation. Of watching and being watched at the same time. A shared delusion or hallucination. With poor spelling and a cheap keyboard.
Wh…
His eyes widened behind the steel plate that couldn’t protect him and he clasped a shaking hand to his mouth. He said it aloud, “I’m sorry, are you actually trying to decide where to order a decent fried chicken dinner in Canada while you compose my tragic demise? And you’re not even going to pay for your nourishment with money you made tormenting me? You didn’t even have the decency to make me important? You’re screaming my story into a featureless white void hoping someone will value it, and I am not even the main character?
“Oh, yes, yes, I can only imagine this must be very weird for you right now, you have every sympathy from your purposefully-mangled fucking creation, whom you have just swatted upside the head with the true nature of reality and your insultingly petty reason for inflicting human suffering, an action you know full well will kill him! Murderer! My heart bleeds for your… your failed business venture!”
The yellow slip of paper fluttered to the floor as he clapped hands over his face, but he couldn’t unsee it.
“Am I so little? Are we so little?”
An image, like the flashes of light in the darkness. A tiny mote of dust caught in a sunbeam, viewed from the outer reaches of the solar system. Not even the galaxy, just the solar system. All the planets had different names, oh, that was cute. They called it “the pale blue dot.” So this was how they coped with being insignificant specks of dust. They made more of them.
And ate comfort food. Big things and little things. It was kind of a theme.
Sorry, Barnaby. It’s not your fault. It was always going to end this way.
The absurdity was a coping mechanism. So the universe began with a head injury and ended in salmon puffs. Again, and again.
No, no, please. Not again. I can’t go through this again.
It’s only a version of you. Different across the mind of every observer. You’re a special snowflake, practically quantum. Endless potential for variation.
“That doesn’t make me feel any better!” he cried. “You knew… You knew it wouldn’t and you said it anyway! Nobody’s writing your lines, are they? Why would you…”
He knew. Contrast. Symmetry. Balance. His desire for reality to obey narrative tropes was only a reflection.
“Oh, gods, I am a plot device,” he said softly. He shut his eyes. It didn’t make any difference, but he could feel it. That didn’t make him feel better, but…
The growing pain in his chest did. Cute.
That thing was standing at the finish line — not a line but a great big black X. The creature, unmasked and hideously ordinary, was waving a chequered flag so he could see it.
He hauled back to his feet, gasping. “Only because it’s to help her. Even if nothing else matters, I still care about her. But you know that, don’t you?”
He’d had enough answers. He did not require another. He staggered down the attic stairs, on towards a merciful change in point of view. To a person who couldn’t understand what he was babbling about and never would. But he’d give her what she needed to go on. He wanted her to go on.
Nothing else matter…
Mattered. Damn it, autocorrect, I glance off the side of one letter and you’re gonna render me in Hulk-speak, huh? No wonder it has so many typos. Ha, ha, the absurdity is a coping mechanism.
“Shut up, Satan. Or whatever you want to call yourself. Demiurge. Barnaby. Hyacinth. Erik. Violet.”
◈◈◈
She’d sent most of her helpers to breakfast.
Calliope’s family had run out of hotel reservation — some of them needed to get home to work and all of them needed to recuperate. It hadn’t been a cute little vacation spent seeing the sights and helping Calliope with her art show like they wanted; they weren’t sure about leaving, and they were sorry.
Calliope had to tell them about a million times that it was okay, and she didn’t want to go back with them. No, she had people here who needed her and an art show in progress, and she’d be okay. No, it really was okay if they went home. Even Euterpe, who didn’t technically have a home. This was hard and they’d helped a lot and it was time for a break. They were only a few hours away if she needed them. She’d call from the drugstore and keep in touch. Or Ann would, and Calliope would rest and take care of the baby. Okay?
It wasn’t okay. Nothing was okay. But Calliope’s family wanted to take them all to a nice meal before getting on the train. A spoonful of eggs and toast to help the guilt and helplessness go down.
Although there were plenty of people willing to watch Barnaby for a couple hours and have their nice meal brought to them in a box, Hyacinth had refused to go. She’d have a box breakfast, he wouldn’t calm down for anyone else.
Mordecai had sat down with her in Room 102 and tried to get her to be reasonable. “Listen, I know you’re scared. You don’t want him to need you and not have you. I know exactly how that feels, please believe me. But if you don’t choose a time to give yourself a break, your brain and body will choose one for you, it will be much less convenient, and you will wake up on the floor, terrified.”
He shuddered and shook his head. “No, you’re not alone. We’ll put you to bed and take your shoes off and tuck you in. But you’ll still be terrified and it will suck. Please have a nice breakfast and a nap instead. Cerise and I will stay. He likes Cerise and I’m sensitive and understanding.” He smiled. “Together, we’re almost you.”
She brushed him away. “He puts up with Cerise because she either reminds him of David or he thinks she is David. He does what she says because he’s scared of her. So that’s how sensitive and understanding you are.”
“Hyacinth, I’m sorry. But…”
“No ‘but.’ Put your coat on and bring me some goddamn strawberry waffles. Bring some for Cerise, too, she needs the rest.” She was asleep in Room 103. She’d been up terrifying Barnaby into submission all night. It was a big help.
He was willing to go get them some strawberry waffles, but Hyacinth guessed he knew she was waiting for Barnaby to die. She’d been scared out of her mind all day yesterday, and the day before, uncertain what he’d meant by “only four left.” It hadn’t been hours. It could’ve been days. Maybe weeks. Months or years didn’t seem likely.
It was more than four days now no matter how he was counting, but she couldn’t let it go. Her body and brain were going to have to gang up and take her out like Mordecai said. She sure as hell wouldn’t get any rest otherwise.
He’d been asleep, or close to it, so she went down to the kitchen to cry and put his breakfast together. She didn’t feed Room 101 — either Mordecai would remember to bring it a breakfast or it’d have to eat a peanut butter sandwich.
When she looked up from the bottom of the sweeping staircase, the attic stairs were down and he was lying at the bottom of them. She dropped the mug of soup and ran.
“Ultraviolet is parsed as white but don’t you dare try to pretend that was on purpose, you lazy slipshod little, little placeholder…”
She tried to help him sit up. “Barnaby, it’s me. I’m just going to check if you broke anything. Does it…”
“Oh, Alice.” He had a ghost of a smile, but it faded into a grimace as he spoke, “Don’t. Don’t bother. Leave it.” He swatted her hand away. “I have broken everything and it hurts like hell. But I can’t be held responsible. It’s what I’m made for. Damn it.” He slapped at her hand again. “Don’t! I know that’s what you’re made for, but I cannot be fixed. This is hard enough as it is. Don’t screw up my big moment trying to fix me. It is my heart, it is going to stop beating in a couple minutes, and I want you to leave it like it is. I am done, Hyacinth.”
Though he couldn’t physically see them, he grabbed both her hands and held them. He turned his mutilated face in her direction. “Nevermind my damn face, I asked you to do it. Screw the narration, the dialogue is the important part. Do you remember when I said I would have abandoned you before I ever knew you, without a second thought? Hyacinth!” The word was like a slap. “It was before we killed David. You caught me when I tried to ditch you both. Do you remember that?”
She nodded weakly. “Yes…”
“Well, I meant it!” he snapped. “I am not leaving you because of anything you did, or didn’t do. You have no intrinsic flaw that makes people want to leave you — hold that close to your heart and maybe your character development will be a little less painful. This is something I am doing because I am an evil man and a coward and I want nothing more to do with this. Not you, this. This… This goddamn derivative postmodern shitshow. I have seen what’s coming and why, and I do not care for it. I cannot care for it. Cousin Violet has offered me an out and I can’t do anything but take it. Barnaby Graham ends here, by group consensus — and if somehow I don’t, I hope like hell he isn’t me — but you’re going to go on.” He tilted his head to the side. “Do you want to go on? I didn’t ruin it for you did I?”
“What?”
He smiled. “You have no idea what I’m talking about.”
“I’m sorry, I…”
He kissed the back of her hand and squeezed both. “That’s a good girl. Am I where I’m supposed to be? Can you check for me? There should be a large black X just under the small of my back. Do you see it?”
She had to move him only a little. “Shit. All right. Yes. It’s there. When did you find the time to do that?” She wasn’t sure if she was laughing or crying.
“Ah. I have my ways. I suppose that is a comfort, though it’s not enough for me. Your life has meaning, Hyacinth, because you are meant. I hope you live a long one, but not forever.” He shuddered. “God, no. As long as you like. But if you want to live long, or if you want it to seem long, you must be very, very interesting. Can you keep being interesting, my dear? It’s all right, it doesn’t have to make sense, this hurts like crazy and that’s a mercy. I’m going to talk myself to death. Just nod and do your best.”
She was nodding, but she didn’t know what he wanted her to do.
So he told her, of course. “Milo has cards and pencils in his sock drawer. Get one of each. You don’t have much to write, but you must write it so you have it when you need it. I promise you, I won’t die without fulfilling my purpose. That’s too much of a subversion for all of us. Go on.”
She let his head back down on the floor and staggered into Room 201. She didn’t know what else to do. She took a card and a pencil and, somewhat helplessly, a pillow and a blanket. She put the pillow under his head, then she choked and broke down. She didn’t know if she was being sensible or stupid. “Please let me fix it,” she said softly. “I promise I won’t let you go out like David. Please, just let me try. I’m going to try…” She stood up.
“Sit!” He lifted a single hand and pointed to the bottom step of the attic stairs. “Narratively, my only other option is to go into cold storage in an asylum somewhere for ten years, and I tell you, I’m not having it. Look what she’s done to me in four. I don’t want a fifth birthday, or a sixth. If David wants me, he’s going to have to find me. And it turns out I don’t exist, so he can go fuck himself. Hyacinth, I have no choices, but this is my preference. Now sit down and let me finish.”
She sat down. He had drowned her will to resist in nonsense, fatalism and fear.
“This is the important part. Write it on the card. Everything else is window dressing. Do you have the card and the pencil? I suppose you must. Write these words: Erik is in Cyre.” He gave a weak chuckle. “Ah. Could you add a little smiley face? Because it’s from me, and it will wind you up later when you have context. Will you add a little smiley face from me, or are you going to be stubborn?”
“I put a smiley face,” she said thickly. “You see it?” He didn’t need his eyes for that. It was like how he knew she was lying when she put fake stars on her chart.
“Yes, thank you. Now, under no circumstances are you to write ‘Beware the man with the blue elephant.’ Because that is the sort of nonsense irresponsible seers cough up when whatever it is is going to happen anyway and they want to feel smug. I respect you more than that. Just accept that the man with the blue elephant is going to harm you at his leisure and when he does, all you need to know is that Erik is in Cyre. I have every confidence you’ll take it from there, provided the universe doesn’t end.
“I want you to live, so I won’t wish death on that thing that’s pulling our strings. But I sincerely hope it has an existential crisis and vomits up its chicken dinner in a spectacular manner.” He turned his head aside and seemed to regard the ceiling. “No, dear. Not you. I didn’t mean to upset you. Yes, and I think you might as well let me. This is not your fault.”
“I know,” said Hyacinth.
“Shh, I’m not talking to you.”
She drew back from him, blinking, and glanced cautiously at the ceiling. There wasn’t anything up there she could see. Thank goodness. Just the hole from the shell. Maybe he was talking to the house?
She hoped not a god.
“Time and trauma are going to tear you up enough as it is — people with storybreaking powers like us are hobbled on purpose, you don’t need more pain to make it plausible. I have a present before you go. You remember I said you’d make someone a fine wife someday? Well, I wasn’t teasing you. Do you see it? No, you can’t see the rest of it because that’s not for you, it’s ultraviolet. Just the good part. Yes. Now don’t lose hope.” He sighed.
“Barnaby…?” said Hyacinth.
“I’m still here. I have a few paragraphs left.”
“Is somebody getting married?”
“What? Recently? No. In the distant future, they will and they won’t. It’s different on either side of the path. I don’t know what splits it in two and I’m through asking questions. I am certain it is something very small, I would have seen it otherwise. As little as a blade of grass. I can’t tell which blade of grass. But I’m at the point where I’d be willing to torch the whole meadow on my way out if you didn’t live there, Hyacinth.”
He felt for her hand and found it again. He smiled at her. “This is the most verbose cardiac arrest you’ve ever been privy to, isn’t it? It’s my nature. Is there any way of calculating my word count? I’ll beat out Dutch Schultz! Just nod, dear.”
She was nodding, tears in her eyes. “Barnaby…”
“Shh, shh, shh. There’s nothing you can say I don’t already know, and it all means so very little. I won’t tell you how little. I didn’t ask for you, and you didn’t ask for me. I already said I would’ve abandoned you before I met you.”
“Uh-huh.”
He lifted a finger. He was probably trying to do that thing where he raised just one eyebrow but he couldn’t because of the metal. “Ah, but I did meet you. You have been my pale blue dot — I know you don’t get that, trust me, it’s very poignant. You ought to be weeping into your strawberry waffles over it, but go ahead and give them to Room 101 if you really don’t want them. There will be other breakfasts, better ones. Live well, Hyacinth. It has been my privilege. Oh, and yes, I did this on purpose.”
He rested back against the pillow and folded his hands over his chest.
He evaporated in a shower of golden sparkles to the decidedly canned and low-resolution sound of a choir of angels.
“What?” said Hyacinth. She snatched both hands through the sparkle effect, as if she might find him in there and throttle him to death all over again. But there was nothing left to grab. She screamed.
Cerise scrambled out of Room 103 to find Hyacinth jumping up and down at the top of the sweeping staircase and tearing at her hair with both hands, shrieking, “What the fuck? What the fuck? What the fuck?”
“Well?” the pink woman said. She could manage sharpness at the worst of times, but she didn’t know if it was a merit or a fault. “Are you going to tell me ‘the fuck’ or must I guess?”
Hyacinth grinned at her, displaying gleaming trails of tears and snot. “Oh. Oh.” She sniffled and swiped her whole sleeve across her face. “Nothing. Maggie’s cat shit cleaning spell just disintegrated Barnaby. Poof. Like the biggest mousie you ever saw. All gone.” She spread her arms. Behold! A total lack of evidence! Even the blanket and pillow had vanished. But the X marked the spot.
Cerise groped her mouth with a shaking hand. “What?”
Hyacinth shook her head, smiling. “Oh, don’t worry. He was already dead.” And she burst into tears.
