The man in a fedora and neon yellow sunglasses scuttled furtively into the lobby, much like the insane woman in the puffy coat, only he wasn’t even interested in the coffee. He had a shopping bag with striped paper sides and ribbon handles — indicating a purchase of scented candles, lacy underthings, fancy shoes, or some other useless object — and no backpack or suitcases.
Miss Mila hoped like hell he didn’t want a room. They had enough crazy going on.
He bowed and began to explain, through a thick Marselline accent, that a woman in a puffy red coat…
And Miss Mila howled and clutched both hands in her tightly-wound grey hair. “Of course you belong to them! Are you here for daily goat sacrifice?”
He dropped the shopping bag and pulled a mangled Prokovian phrasebook out of his coat pocket with a shaking hand. “Please… re-repeat…”
“No!” She cut her hand at him. “Nevermind! What do you want?”
“Woman miss bag. F-forget bag?” He set it on the desk.
“Room 405 and 406,” Miss Mila said flatly. “Take stairs, or take elevator and pray.”
“No thank you,” he said quickly. “Uh… Uh… I go. I must go.” He pointed towards the door. “You… You…” Here, he took his wallet out of his back pocket and dumped the entire contents on the desk. There were no cards inside, not for credit or identification or business, only a pile of folding money that had to be an inch thick. “I tip. Please take. Thank you.”
Miss Mila stared, open-mouthed — first at the money, then at the man.
He smiled miserably at her. “Please?”
She nodded stiffly, only once, up and down.
“Thank you,” he said. He tried to run out the door, smacked face-first into the glass, and only then realized that he needed to pull and not push. He staggered out onto the street, turned the corner, and vanished from Miss Mila’s story — for the time being.
She swept all the money into her hand and stuffed it down the front of her dress. The precious shopping bag went on the floor beside her chair. She would…
Misha, the useless animal, saw an unoccupied crinkly paper surface, and pounced. He curled up on top of the shopping bag, crumpling it, turned around once, and lay down.
Miss Mila sighed. “Damn cat. Shoo. Shoo…”
◆◇◆
“Erik, this is real!” Mordecai said quickly. “David is gone, you’re back, this is real! We’re…”
Erik wheeled away from the window, pale and with sweat beginning to bead on his brow. There was a dark patch across his nose and both cheeks that looked like a bruise, a feverish red blush peeking through green skin. He looked down again and clutched his shirt with a hand, crumpling the delicate fabric. “No. This is wrong. No…”
Mordecai took both his hands. “I’m sorry. He was here, but he’s gone, and these are his clothes. That’s all it is. It’s just…”
“You son of a bitch!” Erik was looking past him, past all of them, towards the open closet with the full-length mirror on the door.
Maggie dashed over to close it, but before she could do that, Erik pointed an accusing finger and addressed the closet again, “Of course I can see you! This is my fucking room! You don’t belong here! How did you get in? I don’t want to hear it! Stop fucking with me! Give me back my things and leave my fucking family alone! You bastard, you…”
Maggie swiped a hand in the near vicinity of the closet. She couldn’t feel anything, but of course she never could. “Is he still…?”
Hyacinth snarled at the closet, “David, you idiot, you’ve been knocking around his head for over a year and you never noticed he can see you?”
“No she can’t!” Erik howled. “So I know this is some kind of bullshit fucking sadistic prank and you need to stop it right now! I won’t give you the… I won’t… I won’t…” He sank down to his knees, clamped both hands over his eyes, and began to sob. “You can’t be here, you can’t be here, this is wrong, you have to stop, you ha… you have to…”
Ann and Mordecai both dropped down beside him, and Hyacinth continued to yell at the closet, “If you’re in here, get out of here! Let us take care of him! Vanish!”
“Get away from me, don’t touch me!” Erik cried.
Ann scuttled back and Mordecai just froze as he was, with his hand out. “Em,” she said. Well, that got him to put his hand down, at least.
“Get out of my head,” Erik said. “You have to… You… You have to…” Both hands were still firmly over his eyes and he was rocking himself, curled up so tightly his head was almost against the floor. “See a light,” he muttered. “See a light, see a light, see…”
“Erik,” Mordecai said softly.
The response was a moan.
“I’m sorry, Erik. I know you’re scared. This isn’t your room. This isn’t your safe room in your head, because David cannot get into that room. You know that…”
“He does what he wants,” Erik said, rocking. “He does whatever he wants and he shows up where he doesn’t belong and he won’t leave. Stop it, just stop it, just stop…”
Mordecai crouched down to his level, not touching, and lowered his voice to a murmur, as if coaxing a scared animal out from under a bed. “Okay. You’re right. I know. He scared the hell out of me, too, so I know.”
“You’re not really here!”
“Okay,” Mordecai said. “Maybe I’m not. Maybe you made me up to help get David out of your head. You’re very smart. You can do things like that without even knowing it, your mind has its own immune system and you are in charge of it.”
“He made you up,” Erik said. “He made you to hurt me, and now I’ll be crazy and I’ll never go home for real…”
“No,” Mordecai said. “He can’t make me hurt you. Nothing can make me hurt you, dear one, not in your head or out of it.”
Erik looked up at him, shivering, damp. “What are we gonna do?”
Mordecai drew a slow breath and let it out in a sigh. He tried on a smile, just a small one. “I can help you get back to the safe room in your head, and you can make sure all your things are still there, and David isn’t.”
Erik nodded. He sniffled and scrubbed David’s silk sleeve across his face. “Okay.”
He let his uncle — or whoever that was — help him off the floor and onto the bed. “My room doesn’t have a ceiling,” he said, pointing at it. He smiled sickly. “I can’t remember, but I guess we didn’t need one.”
“No,” Mordecai allowed. “I guess we didn’t.”
Erik looked around at the others, pausing at each face for the first time. “Are you guys gonna help too?”
Ann sat on the other side of the bed. “Darling, of course we are.”
“Even… her?” He was looking at the General.
“Yes,” Maggie answered, for her.
“If he comes back, will you shoot him?”
The General seemed rather nonplussed, “I…” Maggie gave her a light swat. She bowed. “I will do my best.”
Mordecai dipped a shaking hand into his coat pocket. He still had a whole fistful of change in there from hypnotizing Milo. He selected a silver coin of uncertain provenance that was about the right size. “Here, Erik. Do you…”
Erik’s expression melted into dismay. “That’s not how we do it…”
“I’m sorry,” Mordecai said quickly. “This is how I do it. Is that going to be okay?”
Erik considered, frowning. He sighed. “I’ll try.”
“Thank you. Do you see how…”
“Mm-hm,” Erik replied. His grey eye rolled closed and the metal one stayed fixed on the coin, adjusting audibly with each tiny motion of Mordecai’s hand.
“What?” said Mordecai. His fingers twitched. He’d almost palmed the quarter — or whatever that was — to put it back in his pocket, but he resisted the habit. Erik was still looking at it, but his other eye was closed tight. “Dear one?”
“‘Do you see how the light dances,’” Erik said dreamily. “‘Listen to my voice and follow the light.’ I got it. We’re good. What’re we doin’?”
“Uh,” said Mordecai. “Uh… Erik, are you sleeping?”
“Yep.” The lens of his metal eye narrowed, watching the coin. “I can’t read those little bitty letters, could you write it again?”
“Uh,” said Mordecai. He fumbled the coin but caught one hand with the other and kept it about where it was.
“Em,” Ann said. “Milo goes out like…”
“Milo is a freak of nature!” he cried. “He goes cataleptic at the drop of a hat and I am positive that’s because he broke something to make you! That’s not what this is. And… And he’s talking to me like we’re making a new recipe and I need help with it! That’s not suggestible, I don’t know what the hell that is!”
“Do you need something else?” Erik said, frowning.
Maggie leaned in urgently. “Fool, have you been helping people control your mind?”
“Sure!” Erik said. “What’re we doin’?”
“Maggie, stop!” said Mordecai. “Erik, please only listen to me, and only when I’m talking to you.”
“Thanks,” Erik said, smiling. “That’s way easier.”
“He can tell us…”
“No he can’t,” said Mordecai. “This is not how you get people to remember things, this is how you get people to agree with you and then forget that’s not what they remember!”
She planted her hands on her hips. “You just said you had no idea what it was.”
“I’m making my best guess based on the closest thing I have to compare it to, will you please let me figure out how to operate it so Erik can understand we’re really here to help him?”
“Don’t freak out, I gotcha,” Erik said. “What’re we doin’?”
“Uh…”
Maggie stared. “You told him not to…”
“I know!” Mordecai sighed, he almost dropped the coin again, and he wound up with his free hand nervously clutching the other change in his pocket. “Erik… Dear one… I want to help you go to the safe room in your head so you know it’s still safe and everything is right where you left it.”
“‘See a light,’” Erik prompted him. “‘A round glass bulb…’”
“Yes, thank you. I, uh, I know.” He cast his eyes aside uncertainly, then refocused before he dropped the damn quarter — coin! — again. “Erik, if I just tell you to go check the safe room in your head, can you do that for me?”
Erik lifted a hand and signed him a thumbs up. “Yep, just a sec… Wow.” He laughed. “Okay, there’s my goofy flamingo lamp! And my end table and my floorboards… And my white shag rug that says ‘rug’ on it, hang on, lemme fix that… Okay! And my coffee table and my comic books, and my swing chair, and my radio…”
Mordecai had been nodding along, but he drew up short at that last one. “What?”
“Hang on, lemme fix that too…”
“Wait, no, you don’t have to…”
“Yes I do!” Erik replied, with bright determination. His hands were clenched and his voice was tight, like he was about to wrestle a friendly bear. “Because we don’t want an outside signal, and that sucker doesn’t belong there! Ha-ha, nope! Shut up! I don’t care!”
“Erik…”
“…And my violin, and my tin soldiers, and my elephant with the spangles, and my fish…”
“Wait, please…”
Erik stopped entirely. His mouth fell open and he paled as if he’d just witnessed a bus crash on his way to the corner store. “No. Oh… No, no, no… I’m sorry.” Tiny, and terrified, as if he’d crashed the bus himself. “No, I’m sorry…”
“No, dear one, please don’t be sorry. I just can’t keep up. You’re all right.”
“Uh-uh.” He shook his head, and sobbed.
Mordecai scooted forward and put hands on Erik’s shoulders. The coin fell onto the bed, unnoticed. “I’m here with you. The things in your room aren’t real things. If you don’t like what’s in there, you can just put it down, and walk away. Even if…”
“I don’t want to hurt them!” Erik cried.
“Dear one, what are you looking at? What do you see?”
“A train car full of people, and they don’t want to die. I don’t want them to die either.”
Maggie wheeled on Hyacinth. “He said they weren’t killing…”
“I told you, he’s a liar,” came the dull reply. “You need me to tattoo it on Erik’s forehead so you won’t forget?”
“Mr. Eidel,” said the General, “if there is any way to get him to elaborate without…”
“Not right now, you goddamn fascist!” Mordecai shrieked. He held Erik tighter and calmed his voice. “Dear one, that sounds really scary and sad, I understand. But that isn’t a real thing…”
“Yes it is!”
“…It might be a real thing out here, but the sad, scary thing you are looking at is an idea in your head. You won’t hurt anyone if you put it down and stop thinking…”
“Yes I will!”
“…I promise, it will not go away so you can’t think about it later, but we can’t think about it now. We’re trying to help you be safe right now, and it’s hurting you. It’s just an idea in your head. I can help you put it away.”
“I have a lid for the dish,” Erik said tearfully. “I put it away before, but it always comes back. The radio said stop looking for things, but I didn’t listen…”
“I will help you put it up so it won’t come back until we’re ready to think about it again.”
“Okay.” Erik lowered his voice to a whisper. “I’m sorry. Please go to sleep now.” He sighed. “I don’t know what to do with it.”
“…So I’m going to take it away and put it on a high shelf where you can’t reach…”
“I’m taller than you,” Erik said weakly.
“Not in there you’re not.”
Erik nodded.
“Right,” said Mordecai. “I’m putting it up where you can’t reach, you can’t even see it up here, but you know it’s there, and you don’t need to have it. Please hand me something to put in front of it so it can’t fall down even if it tries.”
“My comic book with the rollercoaster,” Erik said.
“Thank you. So if you start to remember on accident, think about that cool rollercoaster you made instead, and then think of something else safe. Will you do that for me?”
Erik nodded. “Yes. Thank you.” He sniffled once more, and not again.
“Thank you for helping me, dear one. Your room is safe and everything is right where it belongs, that’s the important thing. I can help you with it a little, if you let me, but nobody can get in if you don’t want them to. It’s your room, and you have it just how you like it.”
“Yes.”
“Okay. When I wake you up, you’re going to come back to real life and real things. It’s not where you were, but it’s safe, you are safe, and we’re here to help you.”
Erik nodded. “Okay.”
“Thank you, dear one. Will you help me undress you first?”
“No, thank you,” Erik replied, frowning.
Mordecai nodded. “Yeah, I knew that sounded wrong right when I said it, uh… That’s good, I definitely don’t want you to do anything you don’t want to do — I’m sure glad you’re still able to push back like that — but I have no idea how to explain this without upsetting you…”
Maggie leaned in again, “Erik, it’s snowing out and you’re a mess. Will you let Cin wash your things and wrap up so you don’t get sick?”
“Oh,” Erik said. He smiled at her, eye closed, and knocked a hand on the side of his head. “Yeah, that’s okay.” He helped her unbutton him and take off his shirt. She wrapped him modestly in a blanket from the other bed before she went after David’s pants — which resisted valiantly, had to be turned inside-out from the top down, and stole both of his socks out of spite on the way off. “Thanks, Maggie.”
Mordecai shook his head at them. “I have no idea if he’s been helping people mind-control him or manipulating them into never telling him to do anything he’s not already okay with.”
“If he could work out how to do both, he would,” Maggie said. She crumpled David’s things and stuffed them in the laundry bag with the rest, out of sight.
“I’m a people-pleaser,” Erik volunteered, unprompted.
“You’re whatever you want to be,” Mordecai said firmly. He bundled the blanket tighter and found Erik’s hands under the rough fabric. He held both as tightly as he could. “And it’s time to wake up now.”
Erik drew a short breath and blinked open his eye. The metal one spun around once, then settled and readjusted with a whisper of gears. “Uncle?”
“Erik, I just want to tell you right now…”
“I love you too,” Erik said, and hugged him.
“Oh,” Mordecai said, with a shudder. “Um. Yes. I knew that. Of course.” He hugged back, still talking, “And… And I am so incredibly sorry I said I didn’t like that song you wrote…”
The whole room winced in their direction and Ann covered a soft exclamation with one hand.
He’d been waiting to apologize for over a year and he didn’t even pause, “I was being a stupid jerk and I promise, you can play whatever you want, however you want, forever, and I’ll play it, too, if you want.” He drew back with a tearful smile. “Okay?”
“Oh, my fucking gods,” Hyacinth muttered. “He’s run out of mental health. Maggie, grab him…”
Maggie shushed her. “Erik,” she began.
Erik smiled. “Hey. Cool. What song?”
“Oh,” said Mordecai. He touched a hand to his head. “Nevermind. That was a long time ago. You…”
“Is it my birthday?” Erik said. He laughed and shook his head. “Sorry, I know. I mean, don’t be sad, but I sorta know. I’m not so good with the, um, whaddyacall’em? Numbers. It’s okay. I don’t have to get better all at once. Hey, Maggie.” He smiled at her. “‘See you soon,’ huh? It’s snowing! You gotta meet my ducks…”
Maggie had been angling in for a hug of her own but she paused, blinking. “Ducks?” Last she saw, he had a cat in there with him, for some reason, but no ducks. Not even a stuffed one.
“Ducks of society?” Hyacinth offered. David had referenced that silly, mangled lyric only minutes ago. It always got a laugh at parties — if nobody else caught it, David would laugh at them.
“I guess they have a society,” Erik replied. “I dunno. They definitely do not kiss, but I don’t know about the frogs with little houses and furniture. They can’t tell me, they don’t speak Anglais…”
Maggie stopped him with a hand, “Erik, is this a radio show or…”
“No, we can’t have a radio.” He rolled his eyes. The metal one did the full three-sixty. “That would be dumb. We have some lighthouses, and a farm, and Mashed Potatoes, a bunch of other stuff. They wouldn’t take back all the expensive tiny candy, but we have regular-sized candy, so that’s okay. And there are way too many kinds of eggs on the phone, but I don’t know if the cord goes in the laundry or the dry cleaning. John’s not happy about it, but he doesn’t want any baby farm animals or lighthouse cumin, so I don’t know what to do. Is there any cake or did I have it already?”
Ann put up both hands for quiet and smiled. “Milo and I are positive that would all make perfect sense if we had any idea what he was talking about!”
Mordecai stood and shooed them all back like a highway worker with a road flare. “It doesn’t matter. We all just need to keep our heads and stay calm. This is not an interrogation or a broken toy or… or an emotional support group… It’s someone we love and we just want him to stay safe and okay. We will do whatever we need to do to keep him safe and okay, and that is all.”
“This isn’t,” Erik said, almost before Mordecai had finished talking. He stood up and glanced around the room. “Wait… What’s goin’ on?”
Mordecai said, “You’re safe,” Maggie said, “We’re here to rescue you,” and Ann said, “It’s your birthday!” all on top of each other. They all stopped talking and stared at each other, with varying levels of confusion and annoyance.
“It can be all three of those things!” Ann said brightly.
Mordecai hissed at her. “Shh!”
“Kid,” Hyacinth broke in, “we’re disorganized and stupid. We’ll do whatever you want, how’s that?”
“I… I… I want to know what’s going on.” He was pacing back and forth, looking at the walls. “Didn’t I say…?” There was an oil painting of a mountain landscape hung over the desk. He approached it with a puzzled look and touched the frame, then the painting itself. “I…” He looked down at himself. The blanket they’d given him was lying crumpled on the floor. He gave a gasp and covered his chest with both hands.
“I’m sorry, fool, your clothes were a mess,” Maggie said quickly. “I got some pyjama pants that might…”
He shook his head at her, pale. “Maggie, I need my… funny T-shirt back… please. No foolin’. I-I need…” He looked at the painting, and the other walls. “I don’t know. I can’t remember. I… This isn’t okay…”
“A T-shirt?” Maggie said. “Hang on…” She started pulling open dresser drawers.
“Those are too hard,” Erik said weakly. “That’s really mean. I… I need my…” He looked around again, all the walls, and the painting. “Uh-uh, no. I don’t know. I don’t know…”
Mordecai grabbed both his hands and tried to hold him still. “I’m sorry, dear one. This is a new place, but it’s just as safe, and we will get you home just as fast as we can…”
“Home?” he said. He smiled, or began to smile, just faintly, then he shook his head and turned away. “I can’t… I-I built this cool rollercoaster one time but I made it way harder than it needed to be…” He flinched and shook his head again. “That’s not it. No. I-I’m sick. I don’t remember, I need help…”
“We’re here to help you,” Mordecai said gently. “It’s okay. Whatever you need.”
Erik pushed him away. “I don’t KNOW what I… I…” He blinked, wobbled, and put out a hand to steady himself. His metal eye whirred and adjusted.
“Dear one?”
Erik smiled at him. “Hi. Is it, um, whatsit…” His uncle’s concern had just registered and he responded with a little wince. “Sorry. I-I’m okay, I just… um… Words. Sometimes. You know. It’s no big deal. Is there any cake?”
“I will go out and get a cake right now!” Ann declared.
“Wait,” said Mordecai. He was watching Erik. Something had just happened, like a reset, or…
“No,” Erik said, doubtfully. “I don’t…” He looked down and gasped again at the lack of T-shirt. “No…”
Hyacinth popped up on the other side of him. “Kid, you’re okay…”
“Please wait,” Mordecai said.
“Here, Erik, put this on.” Maggie shoved her pyjama shirt at him; it was a plain white men’s T-shirt — they were comfortable, cheap, and came in convenient packs of three. It might be a little baggy on him, but it would work. “And I’ve got…” She had a pair of plaid flannel pants with a drawstring that ought to fit him…
Erik accepted the T-shirt with a relieved smile, shook out the fold, and had a look at the front. And the back. And the front again. His mouth gaped open in silent horror.
He blinked, wobbled, his metal eye whirred and adjusted, and he dropped the T-shirt on the floor. He wandered over to the desk and leafed absently though its contents. There was a newspaper, which he set aside, and a pad of hotel stationary, and a fashion magazine, and a violin…?
Seemingly curious, he opened the case and had a look at the instrument inside. “Angie? Hey, what happened to you…?”
“Did you see it?” Mordecai said quickly. “Am I crazy?”
“No,” Hyacinth said. She approached carefully, put up a hand, and tapped lightly on the table so he’d know she was there. “Hey, kid…”
He startled and blinked at her. His eye whirred and adjusted.
“Hey,” she said. “Mind if I get a look at you?”
He smiled. “Is it, uh… uh… uh… Party, you know?” He mimed putting on a hat. “Sorry. Kinda… Um… I get mixed up.”
“Yeah, I know. Can I see you?” She put up her hand.
“Huh? Oh. Yeah.” He leaned down slightly so she could reach. “It’s no big deal, I just, um…” With her hand on his brow, he looked around again, all four walls and the painting. “Wait, wait.” He brushed her away. “It’s not… I don’t remember, did we…” He glanced down and, once again, there was no T-shirt. He ran a hand down the front of the desk drawers, shook his head and turned away. “I can’t…”
“Hon, hold still for a sec,” Hyacinth said, following with her hand up.
“Can you see,” Mordecai began.
“No, it’s a mess,” she replied. “Erik, hon…”
Erik had put his hand on the door leading out into the hall.
“Whoa, hang on, wait…” They all stepped towards him.
But he turned away and kept walking, tracing his hand along the dingy wallpaper. When he reached the curtains, he peeked out of them. He drew a gasp and staggered back. Once again, they heard the sound of his eye adjusting.
Hyacinth was there to help steady him. “Hon, let me…”
He stared at her, pale, haunted. He opened his mouth, closed it, and turned away. He put up one hand, as if begging a pause, and shook his head, looking down.
“Honey, come over here and sit down…”
“…Cake?” Erik asked her, with a hopeful smile. He signed, SORRY, shaking his head. “I’m, uh… I’m, uh…”
“Yes, you are definitely ‘uh,’ please sit down!”
“What is it?” Mordecai hissed at her.
“I don’t know, but he’s losing more language every time and we need it to stop!”
“Is it his eye?” Ann said. “Is it hurting him, Cin? Milo wants to take it apart. Can we…”
“I don’t know! Shut up and let me…”
Erik clapped a hand over his metal eye and shook his head at them. Inevitably, he had taken responsibility for the emotional wellbeing of everyone in the room again, only this time he had no idea how to make them happy. He was visibly grasping for something to say. Anything. “I… I’m…” He looked down, then up and around, all four walls and the painting. He stood up again and wandered back towards the window.
Maggie slid in front of him and put up both her hands. “That is a window, Erik. We don’t like…”
“Oh.” He nodded and turned from her. “Yeah.” This time, he made for the connecting door between the rooms, which they’d closed on David’s advice. “Not here… Can’t…” He put his hand on the knob, shook his head and stepped away. “No…” He kept walking, and came to the hall door again. He put a hand on it, turned, and spoke, “I… I need…” He fingerspelled it: F-R-I-E-N-D. “I can’t.” He slid down to the floor, with his back against the door. He was starting to cry.
Ann knelt down beside him and flung both arms around him. “That’s all right. We’re your friends, sweetheart. We’re going to figure this…”
He shoved her away with a wounded sob. When she let go, frightened, he turned and blinked at her. His eye whirred and adjusted. He cocked his head to the side, confused. He stood up and wandered back to the desk. He picked up the magazine, and leafed through a few pages. He shook his head at it. He looked down, he looked up, and he clutched a hand to his mouth.
He steadied himself with a hand on the desk and his eye whirred and adjusted.
“Cin!”
“I don’t know what it is, he won’t hold still!”
The General had picked up a loose battery, there were a few scattered around on the floor and the bed. “I am capable of restraining him if it is required…”
“No!” said Mordecai. “He’s stressed out enough as it is!” He caught himself and lowered his voice to a mutter, “Back off.”
Hyacinth caught Erik’s and tried to turn him around. “Erik, honey, stop now. Please stop. You need to rest.”
He blinked at her, smiled sheepishly, and waved a vague greeting. He walked with her when she pulled him back to the bed.
She shut her eyes and smacked her hand on his forehead. “Stop trying to do things, you are sick, do you read me?” She felt him nodding. “Okay.”
A physician’s touch-know was not an exact science, or even a science at all. It was as subjective as an interpretation of abstract art, except in this case the painting in question was a simple, representative map of the human body and its functions. She had been taught to divide a body into seven sections, which she pictured as spinning gears, and go from the head down. It seemed pointless to change that up now.
The first gear was brain function, and that was off somehow, but not in a way she’d ever seen before. It was… Dulled. Less. Almost as if he were concussed, or going to shock, but with no accompanying pain or physical problems. “Hypoglycemia?” she muttered. “Vitamin deficiency? Prefrontal lobotomy…?”
“What?” said Mordecai.
Maggie muzzled him and dragged him away.
“There is something wrong here, but the brain doesn’t feel pain,” Hyacinth said, eyes closed. “I’m sorting a bunch of goddamn chemicals by feel. Shut up and let me…”
Erik took her by the shoulders and set her back gently. He was still smiling at her. “I gotta… I-I gotta, um…” He shook his head. The smile was rapidly fading. “Go. Not here. Do you live here? It’s… room, but I gotta… suh-safe… go… ducks, okay? Ducks. I’m sorry. Can’t… Something bad… I think… I-I’m… help. I…” He looked down and back up. “No ‘Vacancy.’ I… Who am I…? I’m really sorry, you guys, Erik wants to go home, too, I just gotta find… uh, uh…” He sobbed, the gears in his eye whirred like a coffee grinder, and he knocked back into the headboard with a gasp, cringing from all of them.
Ann pinned him down by one shoulder and put up her hand. “Erik, you take that eye out of your head this very instant!”
He looked hopeful, just for a moment. He looked down. He looked up again and shook his head at her. He covered both eyes and rocked himself, crying softly. Mordecai yanked Ann back by the collar of her dress and put himself in her place. “Stop it, don’t scare him,” he hissed. “Give him five fucking minutes to put himself back together — we don’t have any fucking clue how, so back off and let him try!”
They all stood there, frozen, with Mordecai crouched on the bed and warning them back with a hand.
Slowly, Erik dropped his hands, trembling, and regarded them all. He opened his mouth, closed it, and shook his head. He leaned forward and drew his uncle into a hug.
Mordecai gave a little gasp and hugged back, gently, but Erik pulled away, shaking his head again. He disentangled himself and stood to hug Ann, then Hyacinth. To the General, he hesitated, then offered a salute.
With Maggie, he lingered, with his head resting on her shoulder, and she wrapped her arms around him, tight. “You’re going to be okay,” she said softly. “We’re going to figure this out. You’ll…”
He put his hands on her shoulders and set her back, with a sad smile. After a moment spent groping for words, with tears gathering in his eye, he managed a single, painful sign: GOOD NIGHT.
He slipped past her, walked into the closet, and shut the door behind him.
◆◇◆
Meanwhile, downstairs, a shopping bag with a large hatbox inside had been waiting patiently behind the front desk for almost a half hour. Miss Mila was listening to her evening stories with half an ear, and she had quite forgotten it. She was making complicated arrangements on the phone, though the red tape seemed to have thwarted her again. “Why is it going to take so long? We are friends with Marsellia! You are not sending them by post, can’t you just wire ahead and…?” She sighed. “Then what can you give me? No. That just won’t do.”
She hung up with a frown.
In the hatbox, under a hat that was taking slow, crushing damage to its tall height, there sat an envelope that had been secured by at least a dozen rubber bands. In this envelope, among other things, there was a copy of the most recent list of suggestions that John Green-Tara had been using to control Erik’s mind. A great deal of the items on this list were meant to keep Erik safe in a hotel room that was not loaded up with so much spellwork it needed to eat two mice a day. A room in which people could hear him.
There were, as always, a few items that had changed or gone missing. John had a lot of papers to keep track of and he was doing his best. (Often, they seemed to vanish altogether, but the second-most-recent list had blurred beyond legibility due to a leak one rainy night.) However, the very first item — Stay calm, if you try to scream or make noise you’ll lose your words and forget what you’re doing — had survived multiple iterations and was quite obvious, right under a hastily scrawled, I’ve been using this to control Erik’s mind, I’m sorry!
However, it was in a hatbox, under a hat, in a shopping bag, and a cat was sleeping on the whole business.
And Miss Mila had a few more shopping-bag-related calls to make, so it was going to have to stay there for the time being.
Liner Notes: Related Posts
- Who’s On First, What’s in the Attic, I Dunno Who’s in Room 101
- Whaddya Get When You Cross Bowie, Brahe and Mercury?
- Meet Cousin Violet
- Revelation I
- The Teapot Om
- Les Imbeciles Abroad
