Vox Mentis

Might as well give him a shot. Elise is probably going to hunt you down either way.

At this point, you need all the allies you can get. Keep Nick around.

Looks like Stockholm Syndrome is working to your disadvantage. You won't be able to shake him. You couldn't even use power words. Killing him seems a bit harsh a punishment for being clingy; let him trail you like the lost puppy he is, at least until you can return him to proper civilization, or until he starts being more dead weight than he's worth.

Consider what would happen if your enemies found Nick. Would they be able to use Nick to get information about how to find and kill you? Maybe it would be dangerous leaving Nick out here alone for them to find him.

"Fine. Prove you can be useful. Here's your first test: get them to give us a ride"

"Fine."

"What? So... we're good? We're staying together?"

"Yes."

"Then what the hell was that before? Was that a joke?"

The car slows. You see glassed-in faces gaping at the plane. "This will be easier if you're calm."

"Are you fucking with me now? I'm trying to deal with... magical, killer poets adn you're fucking with me?"

"I reconsidered," you say. "You made a good point." You walk towards the car. "You want to be useful, here's your chance. Get us that car."

~

You sit in a red leather armchair and watch a fish. The fish is in a tall hourglass, with water instead of sand. Every few seconds a drop falls from the top to the bottom with a plink you can hear only because the room is a mausoleum. The fish wanders around, ballooning as it approaches the curved sides and shrinking away again as it nears the center. It doesn't seem to care that its world is shrinking one drop at a time. Maybe it's used to it. When the water level is low enough, the hourglass must tilt, swing the fish to the bottom, and start refilling one drop at a time. Some kind of art, you assume. It's installed in the middle of this room with no other function; it has to be. It's making some point about time or rebirth. You don't know. You shouldn't be thinking about the fish anyway. You're in a situation.

Jane had driven you, deposited you in this room, and clack-clacked off into the depths. She had not spoken during any of this, not one word, even though you tried to provoke her. There was a disturbing softness about Jane this morning. A kind of sympathy in her silence, which you don't like at all.

You wish Jeremy was here. You wish there was some possibility of this day ending in his room, you telling him about it. You would not believe this fish hourglass they had, you'd say. And Jeremy wouldn't say anything but you'd be able to tell he was interested.

Your time at the school is over. That's what Eliot had said. But no one made you leave. They put you in a different room and in the morning a fresh school uniform was hanging on the door. Then Jane, soft and silent. You don't know how to reconcile all this.

You stare at the hourglass. Plink. Plink. You can't see a tilting mechanism. But it must move soon, because the water level is getting pretty low.

You hear heels and identify them as Jane's. Jane emerges and crosses the room without looking at you. She opens a door and waits.

You rise. "Are we leaving?" Jane doesn't respond. She looks at you and her eyes make you feel like maybe you should have run away while you had the chance. But it's too late for that. You'll get out of here one way or another. You always do. "Oookay," you say, and go through the door.

Jane takes you to a stairwell and finally to a door marked ROOF. She opens this and you step out into sunshine.

The roof is maybe a hundred yards to a side, with gardens and a pool and a tennis court. Like a floating resort. And you can see other rooftops floating in the sky around you, and they're all the exact same height, because this is Washington. You marvel at this for a moment and the door clacks shut behind you. You turn and Jane is gone. "Hmm," you say.

You begin to explore the gardens. There's a noise like: schock. Following this, you come upon a man in light gray pants, no jacket, standing with his back to you, straddling a green mat. His knees are slightly bent. He's holding a golf club. You stand very still, because even from here you can tell it's Thoreau, the man Jeremy had promised you you'd never have to speak to, who has shark eyes.

He swings the club. Schock, and a golf ball arcs into the air. You watch it, thinking it's going to land on one of those other buildings, but they're farther away than it seems. The ball falls below the horizon of the low rooftop wall. That'll be kind of dangerous by the time it reaches ground level, you feel. Kind of like a bullet.

Thoreau turns to you. To your enormous relief, he's wearing sunglasses. He almost looks normal. Or not normal, but like a politician - a congressman or senator, someone who might tell you the country needs cleaning up. More solid than normal. He's not smiling but doesn't seem angry, either. He's just looking at you.

What do you do?