You’re glad you stuck with being Will, given how much time you spent with Kali yesterday. Rick wasn’t wrong when he said you’d be busy - yesterday was filled from just after breakfast to just before bed time with a run of horoscope sessions and dream analysis. It started off with just Kali in the morning – no ground that you hadn’t covered already in L.A. and was predictably fruitless. Charles took over lunch. When he failed to make any progress they started working together. Even Joe had been drafted in during the evening. The little study had been very crowded at that point, but still the horoscopes were coming up blank and still the meditations on your dreams had revealed nothing.
This morning was a little worse. You’d found both Kali and Charles waiting for you together in the small study. Yesterday they switched techniques every so often – jumping from horoscope to meditation and back again. Today they just ran one long, long horoscope. It seemed easy enough at the start, just answering the questions. As they got deeper and deeper the questions became odder and odder: ‘If you had a cat, and it died, what would you call the replacement’, ‘What’s your favourite colour, sour or deafening’. Kali’s insistence that you answer immediately and instinctively only makes matters worse. The constant barrage of questions has left you with a pounding headache.
“This is no good Charles,” says Kali, midway through the third hour. “Every question simply pulls him in an opposite direction.” She taps her pen on her notepad. “His first ousiarch is Sulva, there is no doubt of that. It’s clear after only a handful of questions.”
“But we can’t find the second,” says Charles rubbing at his beard. “We could try a few more questions…”
“What would that achieve,” snaps Kali irritably. It seems you aren’t the only one who has been driven to distraction by all this. “The first would push him towards Malacandra, the second would negate the association in favour of Catilindria and the third lead us in a different direction entirely. We are chasing shadows here!”
“I hear what your saying Kali,” says Charles unhappily. “What would you suggest?”
Kali thinks for a while. “We have analysed and re-analysed every dream in his journal three times over now. I am loathe to suggest it, but perhaps a conversation with Ed might loosen up a few avenues of inquiry.”
Ed, Father Ed, has been Joe’s personal demon since you arrived here. Apparently it’s not just enough for Joe to say sorry for not telling anyone about Rosalie, but he has to work out why he made the bad decision and work out some kind of penance for it. Judging by the rather haunted expression on Joe’s face at mealtimes yesterday, it has not been a pleasant experience for him
“Sitting right here,” you whine. “Do I really need to see him?”
“I’m sorry Will,” says Kali. “But we are making frustratingly little progress here. If we cannot work out your second ousiarch we need to know why we cannot work out your second ousiarch.”
“But didn’t I go through all in Oxford,” you plead.
“After a fashion,” says Kali stiffly, brushing away a little moisture from her eyes. Margaret’s death is still too close for Kali not to feel a tug of emotions whenever she thinks of her. “But in that case you were more worried about your powers.”
“You’ll find that Ed’s style is a little different as well son,” says Charles. “Less pleasant maybe, but sometimes if something’s worth doing, it’s going to be a little hard.”
“I don’t have much choice, do I,” you ask resignedly.
“Not if you want to find out your other ousiarch son.”
“I do want to find it out,” you say fervently. “It’s hard to explain what it feels like. Every I meet someone it’s like ‘here’s this guy, he’s this planet and that planet’ and then when they introduce me it ‘here’s Will, Sulva and we don’t actually know yet’. It’s almost like I feel incomplete…” you trail off sadly.
“We’re going to get this sorted Will,” says Charles. “I promise you that.”
“Thank you sir,” you say.
“Well the good news son is that Ed’s a little too busy to speak to you today,” adds Charles with a little forced smile. If Ed’s too busy, it’s because he’s with Joe. “So I guess you have the rest of the day free to use as you want.”
“Thank you sir,” you say again before trudging back up to your bedroom. You lie on the bed for a while, thoroughly miserable.
There is a brief knock at the door and Rosalie comes in. “Hi Will,” she says shyly as you sit up on the bed. You smile vaguely at her and mumble a greeting. “Maria was just going to take me shopping. I heard you were free for the rest of the day and thought you might like to come”
“I suppose I have some Christmas shopping to do,” you say. “Not that I have much money.”
Rosalie smiles. “Just wait there a second,” she says and darts back out the room. You stand up from the bed and briefly ponder what it is whilst staring out the window. After a few minutes she returns, setting down a pile of clothes on your bed before sitting next to them.
“Uh… What,” you mumble.
Rosalie suddenly looks very abashed. “Well Maria’s going to buy me some clothes so…” she says nervously before finding the courage to look you in the eye. “I was hoping you would model for me.”
You almost laugh at that. “I’m not sure I should do that,” you say with a faint smile. “I only take imagos I need.”
“Yeah, well I need to make sure that I don’t buy a dress that makes my ass look big,” says Rosalie, surprisingly defiantly. Now that does make you burst out in laughter. Rosalie joins in giggling along. “You’ll do it then,” she asks.
“Yes,” you reply. “Just the face, I’ll delete any memories I pick up.” The last thing you want to do is find yourself thinking of Will Shabbleman, and what happened to him.
“Ok, go,” smiles Rosalie, closing her eyes. You tap her on the forehead and gently lower her back onto your bed. As you wait for Rosalie to wake back up, you blast away the memories you have picked up from her. “Did you get it,” she asks sitting up again.
“Yeah,” you reply. “Do you have a spare pair of glasses or something,” you ask. “Otherwise I’m going to have difficulty seeing once I make the change.”
Rosalie thinks for a second. “Take these ones,” she says, removing the circular tortoiseshell rimmed pair she usually wears. “I’ll get my spare pair from my room and meet you in the living room,” she says before leaving.
You close the bedroom door and strip before letting yourself settle into Rosalie’s imago. Turning left and right, you examine her in the mirror on the wall. There’s a leanness to her, one that’s usually hidden under the shapeless clothes she wears. It’s almost as if she’s ready to burst into motion and run and run. You cup her small breasts then blush guiltily – this is too much of an invasion of privacy.
It doesn’t take long to get dressed the clothes Rosalie has given you: Loose jeans and a roll neck sweater over a plain tee and functional underwear. Everything comes into focus when you put on her glasses and you take one last quick look in the mirror. Rosalie stares back at you, but the unkempt hair and lack of makeup irritates some small part of you. You fetch your Hélène makeup bag and hair brush and spend a few minutes tidying up your new face. A few well placed clips and a comb take care of the wild hair.
It’s a different Rosalie that stares back at you from the mirror when you are done: One with makeup that enhances those kind brown eyes, one whose face is carefully framed by a few strands of hair while the rest is tied up at the back neatly. Maybe you can show her how to do this later.
The living room is empty when you arrive, so you take a seat by the Christmas tree and wait, wondering what could be holding up Rosalie. It is Joe who enters the room first though, his face unusually glum. His shoulders are slumped, weighed down by his burdens. He looks at you but lacks the energy to muster even a half-smile.
You get to your feet, moved by a sudden feeling of compassion that comes from nowhere. You want nothing more than to alleviate whatever weights are eating away at Joe’s soul and bring him back to his natural balance. Wordlessly, you hug him, rubbing at his back. He lays his head on your shoulder and you hear him stifle a sob.
You stand there for a few minutes, just holding him silently. Then Joe lifts his head, his mouth meets yours and before you realise it he’s kissing you. You pull away from him quickly. He looks at you confused.
“Sorry I took so long Will,” says Rosalie as she enters the room. “It took me forever to find my spare glasses.”
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