Chapter #8The Boy from Before Everything, Part 2 by: Seuzz   You jerk awake and look around, not knowing where you are. It looks like the inside of a jet airliner, but it's far too spacious and quiet. Where are you, and how did you get here? The last thing you remember--
You dismiss the memory as the present floods back. You look at your watch, and see you'll be arriving in Glasgow in only a few minutes.
The woman sitting next to you hadn't been there when you'd drifted off. She has dark hair and a moon face, and looks to be in her late twenties. She's reading a paperback book--do they still make those?--and there's a faint smile on her face. "Oh, and you was havin' such a lovely dream," she says with a quiet laugh.
"Was I? Shame to wake up, den," you say, instinctively mimicking her Birmingham accent. You look out the window. "Almost there now."
"Oh, that's fab, that is," she says. "I can't tell yours frum the real thing."
"My what?"
"Your accent, you sound like a proper Brummie. Not many Yanks can pull it off. Not many people past Solihull, for that matter."
"What makes you think--? Was I talking in my sleep?"
"Oh yes." Her eyes remain locked on the book. "Couldn't make out the words, mind, but you sounded like you were roight off one of them cop shows."
"Probably rehearsing my lines, den," you say. "I'm flying to New York in a few weeks to take a part in one."
That causes her to turn her head. "You're an actor, Mr.--?"
"Martin. Nick Martin." You extend a hand. "Yeah. Mind you, not a great one, but it's only a bloody police procedural."
"Chloe Moore," she replies. "Have I seen you in anything?"
"Probably, but you wouldn't be able to pick me out. If I'm lucky and in the credits, it's only as 'third man from left at Paddy's funeral' or 'Ricky's mate what passed out under the table.'"
She laughs. "Shall I look you up on the internet?"
"You're a sharp girl if you can do it on that thing," you say, nodding at the paperback.
Dimples show in her cheeks again, and she digs into her purse.
"I don't have any acting work for you, Mr. Martin," she says. "But I'd like to give you my card."
"It would be my pleasure to accept it, Ms. Moore." You pluck it from her and study it. It is simple and graceful and identifies her as a wedding photographer. "Oh, very useful," you say with studied neutrality. "I shall certainly keep it for possible use."
"Not in a professional capacity, I hope," she says.
"Don't you want my business?"
"I want something from you, Mr. Martin, but not a job. Not yet." Now she blushes furiously.
You smile your most ingratiating grin and excuse yourself, saying you want to wash up before pulling into the station.
In the tiny, gently rocking facility, you look at yourself in the mirror and splash water over your face. It's one of the side effects of your metamorphosis that your faces age only when you are wearing them, and so "Nick Martin" has probably aged only a few weeks since you snagged him ten years ago. He is lean and brown and rather boyish looking, though with the serious mien of a young man hungry to advance in the world. You've had so many faces, and acquired and disposed of so many more. You shouldn't be sentimental about keeping this one, your first real alias. But you've hung on to your old face too, that queerly reversed one you acquired during your first disastrous encounter with the Libra Personae. Of course, you never use it, and have grown increasingly embarrassed by it. For, in never using it, you have left it almost unaltered. The last time you put it on, it still looked only seventeen.
Which could be useful at times, but you have other looks for when you want to be young: a sixteen year old girl and a fourteen year old guy and a nine year old boy and a five year old girl.
Even the head werewolf never expects the sweet little moppet with the pony tail of carrying a pistol and silver bullet.
Under the circumstances, though, you're curious to see your old self, and close your eyes and absent-mindedly stroke your nose as you summon up the old imago. A slight and unexpected shudder passes through as it manifests. You open your eyes.
And catch your breath.
The face is wrong. This isn't the face you saw the last time you brought it up, when you went to Olympia for the old man's funeral and wore it as your last gesture of affection and respect. He'd always told you he liked it best of all your faces, which was a sweet and typically magnanimous thing of him to say. It takes you a moment to realize why it's the wrong face, and then you catch your breath again.
It's your real face, the real, unreversed face, the face you had when you first acquired the Libra. It must have come with the apparition.
A lump forms in your throat. For, all too briefly, you have the wild vision of getting off the train and getting on an airplane and flying back to Saratoga Falls ...
And finding that no time has passed since the day before you drove out to Arnholm's Used Book Store to find something for Mr. Walberg's stupid time capsule.
And you would go home and see your father and mother and Robert, and call up Caleb and Keith and hang out being stupid with them, complaining about parents and school and those fucking bullies, like the Molester, and about ... Lisa Yarborough? (Wow, there's a name and face that you've not thought of in forever.) You would avoid book stores and shut your ears when the subject of "magic" came up. You'd do homework and look at porn and drive around town wondering what the fuck to do, because nothing ever happens to you ...
It's a wild fantasy of dropping every burden and shedding every scar, and finding yourself looking at life face-forward again, as though it were a Saturday morning in May, and you had an endless summer vacation in front of you. For, all unexpected, you are again the boy from before--
From before everything.
And the lump forms even as the fantasy vanishes.
As for this face: You hope it's a kind of gift, a token of payment for having helped that other you escape.
You wash the red from your eyes and wear your old face back out to the train compartment, and Chloe Moore looks vacantly past as you pull your bag down from the overhead space. In the station restroom you change back to Nick Martin, and put the past firmly behind you.
* * * * *
And so, back to your real, lying life. Your conscience prickles as you slide into the cab and give the driver Kali's address. It irritates you, but you face it: You feel guilty for lying to that girl on the train. But why should you feel guilty? You weren't taking advantage of her, and have no intention of doing so, and to drive home the point you tear up her card and slip the fragments into the cracks between the cushions. And there was nothing to do but lie to her. For there is no such person as Nick Martin, and so anything you told her would be a lie. And you said nothing malicious. Even your tiny flirtation was only a courtesy--though you did find her attractive.
But that's all your life is--convenient and non-malicious lies. (At least, when you're not on a job.) For there is no "you" in public, only a set of slightly anonymous disguises. That is why it is such a relief when you can be with Frank or Rick or Kali or Joe--or even Father Ed--for that's when you can be as much "yourself" as you can be, and can be utterly candid. And even in small public moments you clutch at truth as a drowning man clutches at a piece of driftwood. You are never sharp with the hotel bills and you always give the correct time when asked, and you have even volunteered that it was you who farted when the accusation is made.
You cannot be truthful, and so you have chosen to be righteous, which is the closest you can come to honesty in your crooked line of work. That is why you chose Malacandra as your second ousiarch when it finally came to the point. You need the strength so you can live with all the lies.
That, and it would give you a common element with Frank.
So occupied, you don't notice the cab ride until it's over, when you're deposited in front of Kali's high rise. She's semi-retired, now that she's saved up a neat boodle of money, and Scotland has called her back. She only takes occasional architecture jobs, and has retreated into writing and illustrating children's books that she is stubbornly shy about publishing. "The world has had quite enough fantasy stories from Scotch writers," she archly declares when pressed.
The elevator takes you to the top floor, and you vaguely tell yourself not to be disappointed that it is not nearly as nice as her old building in Los Angeles. You ring the doorbell smartly, and pat down your hair. You should have called first.
You have to ring it again before it is opened by a kid with East Asian features. You blink, for this isn't what you'd expected. "Hello," you say with friendly cheer. "Is Kali Valentine in? I'm an old friend," you add, for the boy (who can't be more than fourteen) glares suspiciously at you. He shakes his head. "Did she just step out?"
"She go ... She went out."
It takes you a moment to place things, for you've not kept up with Kali recently. "Oh, you're Min-jun," you say in flawless Korean. "You and I are going to be colleagues."
If you thought that was going to reassure him, you were wrong, for now there's no mistaking the fear on his face.   indicates the next chapter needs to be written. |
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