20

“Marith, seriously! I know I am not your father, but you are acting really cagey lately.”

Marith raised her eyebrows at him. “No, you sure aren’t.”

“Okay, let’s cut this bullshit, okay? I know you weren’t with Vanessa this weekend. I ran into her at the clinic.” Nick placed his hands on his hips, while he spoke.

Well, that’s unfortunate, Marith thought, sitting on one of the leather poufs next to a burning fireplace, while Nick stomped around the living room. Her stomach turned around. How was she going to handle this?

“I visited Gene in the clinic and I stayed the night. In the… the family room. They have those, you know.”

Nick was standing there with his beige coloured pants and his baby blue shirt. Marith thought he looked good, but not good enough to get away with lecturing her.

He glanced outside at the winter landscape and sighed deeply. Deeply frustrated that was. “I was there this weekend and you weren’t and we both know that that clinic is so overcrowded that even if they had extra rooms for relatives they would be filled up with loons right now.”

Marith shot him a warning look.

“I don’t mean your father, of course,” he made an excusing hand gesture in the air, “but you and I both know that the streets of this village have been occupied by deranged figures and it’s dangerous out there.”

“No, it bloody isn’t. Literally none of those people in the streets have ever harassed me or anyone else.”

“I just want you to be safe and I worry when you’re not home for the night.”

“You’re such a gentleman,” Marith scoffed.

Marith had to admire his way with words. He was directing his lecture in a different direction. One that, he had figured, would work better with a woman.

“I am dead serious, Mart. Also, I feel like I have an obligation to your dad to keep you and your sister alive.”

Once again Marith raised her eyebrows in astonishment.

“Maybe… just maybe you have an obligation to keep an eye on my sister, since she is a teenager, but you’re most certainly not to mingle in my life. We’re about the same bloody age!”

“Okay,” he tried to soothe her, “let’s put it to rest. Can we just settle that if you’re going to be out for the night, or several nights, you let me know in advance? I already lost Lieke once, I can’t afford you going missing as well.”

Marith hadn’t thought about that. She agreed upon this arrangement, although she felt like a little kid being spoken to. Being spoken to by her parents to be precise.

The days after making the magical, mystical, physical connection to her Prophet Marith spend mostly missing Nate. Whatever he was thinking, she wanted to hear it. Whatever he was doing, she wanted to be there to experience it with him.

Now that she was absolutely positive about his existence she craved to be around him. To be together and get closer and closer to him. She felt as if half of her was constantly searching and aching for him.

It was a grey Tuesday morning. The heavy cotton-like clouds promised more snow. Lieke was in school, Nick was at work and nobody had responded to her adds for cello lessons… yet. She tried to remain hopeful.

She was completely and utterly alone in the big white mansion. It was worse than that, actually. She was not just alone. She experienced the bitter, tension filled misery of being completely and utterly abandoned. Now that she knew what it was like to be part of a group, to mean something, to be someone, she missed them all the more when she couldn’t be around any of the other Pupils.

Conquering the winter in the mountains to visit Gene seemed like a nice way to take a break from practicing her instrument and to prevent her mind from circling.

She fished her coat from the cloakroom, jumped into her hiking boots and went on her merry way. Outside the frozen upper layer on the ocean of snow crunched under her feet, before the vail gave in entirely and she sunk away ankle deep. She knew she didn’t have to worry about the rest of her hike, since the majority of the trail stretched out under towering trees, whose branches and needles had collected most of the thick precipitation.

The skies were bright blue, the temperature was cold and her vista over the lake was crystal clear in the wintry sunshine. She did not regret going out that morning. By the time she had reached the clinic, no more than twenty minutes later, her cheeks were rosy and numb.

“Marith?” Gene’s brittle, but surprisingly chipper, voice rang. “How have you been?”

He had heard the soles of her heavy boots on the linoleum in the hallway. He sat at the light, little table opposite his bed, reading that morning’s paper. The slats in the window frame were half opened, throwing intermittent lights and shadows into the dim room.

“Good, good,” she answered absentminded, unbuttoning her coat. “How are you?” She asked, sitting down. She knew it was a loaded question in his situation, but not asking felt rude.

Gene eyed her up and down, watching her movements and way of doing, ignoring the question altogether.

“You’re in love,” he remarked, followed by a smile.

Marith was awfully aware of how her face started to glow more than it was already doing. She wasn’t sure if she was noticeably blushing, but, whatever it was, it was probably giving her away.

She nodded faintly.

“I am happy for you,” he said.

“Thanks, dad,” she answered. She did feel excited about it, but found herself at a complete loss of how to communicate this to her father.

Whenever Marith and her father were alone in one confined space for any extended period of time things tended to get uncomfortable.

Gene had been forced to work for 60 hours a week, at the very least, ever since Marith and Lieke had been born, on account of their mother refusing to. Someone had to bring in money or they would financially drown.

As a result, Marith and Lieke were well acquainted with their mother, who was mentally unstable on a good day and plain abusive on a bad one, and barely knew their father at all. Sure, they had spent some summers in Sweet Lake after the parental kidnapping their mother had performed, but in general he was mostly a stranger.

Marith was lying if she would deny being bitter about the way her parents had decided to raise the family. She craved a better understanding of her father, a stronger bond, but having to initiate that as an adult was complex and it would never be the same.

“I know the feeling,” he commented, nodding, no doubt referring to Vanessa.

She didn’t feel any need whatsoever to explore this topic with him any further and was grateful he wasn’t prying or insisting on the identity of her new lover. She figured he had never bothered to inform any of his daughters he had been dating Vanessa, so she was under no obligation to tell him about Nate.

That would have been a different endeavour if her mother had been sitting opposite her. She would have demanded every detail, including his social security number, medical files and his family’s tax returns, only to eventually start berating her about inappropriate topics, like sex, hygiene and possibly money, invading her privacy beyond reason.

Marith sat down on another chair at the square table, that was placed against the wall.

“Great news.” Her father emptied his coffee in one gulp when a nurse came to collect any tableware, left over from breakfast.

“Yeah?” Marith informed.

“Yes, it looks like I might be discharged right before Christmas.”

“That’s amazing!” Marith reacted enthused. “We can all celebrate the holidays together.”

“Yes, and it gets even better.” He folded a newspaper he had been reading, before his oldest daughter had come in.

“Really?” Marith wondered what it could possibly be.

“I invited your mother.”

“Hmmm?” It was not so much a polite, questioning sound, as more of a high, squeaking noise that escaped her tightened throat, containing all the suppressed childhood-trauma and regrets she dragged through life.

“And she said she would ab-so-lu-tely be there. She wouldn’t want to miss it.”

“Ha, that’s… that’s just lovely, dad,” Marith managed after some hesitance.

Why not? If that was how he wanted to kill the warmth, joy and excitement that joins the holidays in sane families, if this was the way he longed to nullify the progress he had made with his mental health than that was his prerogative.

“Can I just ask one thing?” Marith was inspecting the length of her nails, with a face that started to slightly distort with frustration.

Why would she come for Christmas? So she could ignore her daughters, jealous of their youth and their independence? So she could dote all over Nick and other young men, making everybody present nauseous?

If she would acknowledge the presence of her daughters she would probably pound on them with snide remarks and loaded questions until they would hate their own names again. Marith would have to be reminded of the hole in her childhood that would never be filled.

“Sure.”

“Why would you do that?” She hoped her voice sounded as hollow as she felt at that moment.

“Because I’m messing with you.”

She stared at him, slightly astounded, then spread her arms and angled her head heavenward, to the off-white ceiling tiles.

“Oh, thank God!” She almost yelled, elated.

Gene laughed at her exuberance.

“I would rather go missing in these mountains,” Marith joked, looking into her father’s eyes.

“I would rather eat rusty nails for dinner,” Gene added, staring at his grown up daughter’s face. She seemed pretty and bright. He was relieved she had grown up to become such a lovely young woman.

Marith wondered if Gene was aware of the pregnancy already and decided not to find out. He seemed happier than she’d seen him in a long time and she didn’t want to be the one to jeopardise that.

She knew Gene had told her she could share more about her mysterious new role in this world with him, but at the same time she knew she couldn’t. What if the Kid would find him and suck all the information, together with his recollected will to live, out of him?

She felt slightly guilty about not following up on the moment they’d had together after her Rebirth, but she knew she couldn’t risk it. He probably knew the basics, undoubtedly explained to him by Vanessa, and he really wasn’t supposed to learn more than that, for his own protection and for Marith’s peace of mind.

After some more babbling, mostly about the weather, and making plans regarding the holidays Marith went on with her day and so did Gene.

However, Marith didn’t leave the building just yet. She had not been able to shake her thoughts regarding Etienne off. Before heading to the clinic she had gone by Jonathan’s convenience store to see if he had messages from Nate, which he hadn’t, and to buy a colouring book and some glitter markers. Not knowing what boys were into she had decided to go with what she liked as a young girl. Lieke and she had gone crazy over glitter markers when they were little.

She snuck past the reception desk in the middle of the ward and went straight to the boy’s room. She could do so, because the nurses present were taming paperwork and taking upset phone calls. His bedroom appeared to be empty, apart from the furniture and his drawings. Marith was intrigued to notice that he didn’t seem to have added drawings of birds to his original collection on the back wall.

She turned around and followed the taped off wallpaper around the ward until she heard the chatter of children. It came from a communal space on her left. The door was left open and she remained in the doorway for a few undecided moments. Was she allowed to be here?

It was a large, open room, with tiny chairs and low tables, all occupied by small children. As far as Marith could judge the ages ranged from four to about eleven years old. The striped curtains were opened, allowing the faint, watery light to travel inside and shine down on various drawings, games and toys.

All the kids were busy playing, running around or crafting. Some were socializing, others kept to themselves.

Marith was happy and relieved to see Etienne amongst other, age appropriate, patients. He wasn’t exactly interacting with them, but he also wasn’t ignoring them or being ignored. The latter, Marith knew, was the worst.

Some of the children looked up, but didn’t grant her any special attention. They would probably see all sorts of caregiving adults, such as nurses, teachers, social workers and dr. Sybling, during a regular day in the clinic.

Marith peered around the room, mostly at the walls. They were adorned with artwork. Seeing the different techniques and the varying quality of the demonstrated skills the drawings and paintings were made by a lot of different kids.

Not every image was a clear representation of anything Marith could recognize as having originated from something in existence in the world they shared. Or, to be more concrete, there were definitely a lot of birds, claws, yellow eyes and spikey teeth depicted between those four walls, but there was even more work that would be labelled as modern art in most galleries.

Her eyes finally rested on Etienne. He was sitting in between other kids his age, drawing something. She stepped inside the room. He hadn’t noticed her yet, since he was feverishly scratching over a virgin piece of paper with colourful crayons, but as she came closer he was poked and prodded by the boy and the girl that flanked him.

He looked up and after sweeping his straight, black hair out of his eyes he waved enthusiastically at her.

“Maaarith!” He exclaimed.

She clenched her bag and smiled. She couldn’t remember ever telling him her name, or him asked for her name. Maybe he had asked dr. Sybling, she figured, or he had overheard dr. Sybling mention her. It had to be something like that. She shoved her thoughts aside and walked over to the table he was seated at.

He tried to get up from his chair to run over to her, but Marith stood by his side in a heartbeat. She didn’t recognize this enthusiasm in him. He must be doing better she told herself.

She squatted next to his table and was relieved to see he had been drawing flowers, in the crude way kids did. He hugged her awkwardly by more or less clenching his tiny arms around her neck. She felt the clockwork dangling from his neck, under his clothing.

Marith giggled. She was starting to like kids more and more.

“I brought something for you,” she said, after he had released her form his headlock.

He sort of sat down in the chair again, folding one leg under his bottom and having the other sway over the edge of the chair, in the air. He was wearing a superhero t-shirt on jeans and canvas sneakers.

Marith plucked the gifts out of the bag she had put down on the floor.

“Not sure you like it,” she started, suddenly quite insecure about her choices, “but I got you a colouring book and some glitter markers.” She put it on the table in front of him.

He nodded shyly at the gifts, before bursting out that he loved it. Other kids were glancing over at his colouring book and the glitter pens were already being confiscated.

“Do you still see the bird-eater?” She wondered carefully. She had to know, but didn’t want to cause any distress.

Etienne shook his head. Marith could hug him again, but refrained from doing so.

“So the watch helped?”

He nodded demure.

“And these drawings?” She inquired, pointing at the walls around them. “Are those recent or old?”

She had been squatting the whole time and just had to stand up to stretch her legs. Her knees were starting to feel tense and uncomfortable.

Etienne goofily looked up at her. “When were the drawings made, sweetie?” Marith asked again, leaning forward with her hands on her legs.

“Before I gave you the clockwork?” She asked for clarification.

He nodded again and Marith smiled. “Thank you.”

The markers had now arrived at the other end of the playroom, but the girl next to Etienne had fished two out of the package, before it was passed along. She gave one to him. He took it gratefully and put it to use on the flowers he had been working on before.

Apparently, Marith had put his attention span to the test and this was all he could spare.

Just when she wondered why all these kids had been left unattended Marith registered footsteps accompanied by a vapour of cigarette smoke behind her.

“Are you from social services?” A heavy-set nurse, with purple dyed hair asked brusquely. Her voice sounded like she had been eating gravel for breakfast for at least the past decade.

“No?” Marith responded.

“Then you’re not supposed to be in here.” A nasty cough ascended from her, no doubt, black lungs.

“I am sorry. Where is Sophie?”

“Working the night shift,” she answered, still coughing up grit.

“Why?”

The nurse raised her eyebrows as to ask ‘why the hell not?’.

“Because I did it for the past two weeks and before that Muriel did it for two weeks. We have a roster.” She addressed Marith as if she wasn’t entirely compos mentis. By no strange coincidence Marith thought the same about her and felt sorry that the children had to suffer this lady for two weeks.

“She’ll be back on the dayshift in a week and a half.”

Marith nodded. She had gotten the answers she had come for, so she left the paediatric zone of the psychiatric ward behind her.

Before disappearing through the door opening she had come through she turned around and waved at Etienne. He waved back, with a glitter pen in his hand. With the other hand he was leafing through the colouring book, while two other kids looked over his shoulder, picking out pages they wanted to colour.

The next couple of days were almost dull if it wasn’t for the constant threat of the yet undiscovered First Runner breathing down their necks. Her clockwork didn’t show any activity, indicating zero progress on their communal ambitions.

Where was this synchronicity that was supposed to be bubbling all around them, creating miracles? Had the Web grown tired of throwing meaningful coincidences in their direction?

Things had recently stopped leading to one another. The train accident had led to Marith’s return to Oregon. That return had sucked her into this parallel world she was apparently a part of and she got to meet her fellow Pupils. Then her Rebirth had introduced her to Nate. The Chain had given her a sense of purpose and the gatherings had enlightened her about her potential.

What was there to do now? Sit and wait? Marith had a hard time accepting that, but all she could do to ease her mind was to play her cello. That was a proven and effective way to prevent her thoughts from returning to the same topics over and over again and spiralling into a state of near-madness.

Her whole childhood she hadn’t been allowed to be the person she wanted to be, unable to mould her own identity. Playing her instrument had given her slivers of the life she could be living. A life of freedom, be it a melancholic one, considering the years lost living under the tyranny of her authoritarian, berating mother.

This had spurted her to excel in music, which had allowed her to create a little magical world that only she could understand and one she could escape in while playing.

It was her version of smoking weed and listening to hardstyle, wearing noise cancelling headphones, to block out the misery of being young and taken hostage.

In the Netherlands Marith had never had music lessons in high school. Her grandfather had mentored her until his death and later she had taken private cello lessons at the home of a very strict, scary lady. She liked the idea of music lessons as part of the regular curriculum in the United States.

The school was out. At least, Marith hoped so, since Lieke had been ransacking the kitchen for a while, before Marith had left the house to drive to Spectre Lake.

Fitting her cello case in Gene’s car had turned out to be quite the puzzle. Marith knew she was making a fool of herself, while being filmed from three angles by the mansion’s security camera’s. Eventually she had resorted to flipping the passenger’s seat forward, so it would rest on the dashboard and the cello could be placed askew on top of the back of the front seat, reaching from the backseat to the windshield of the modestly sized vehicle.

Sweaty and frustrated she had driven out of the garage into the increasing layer of snow, praying this car was at least rolling on all weather tires. She had arrived slightly late, which she hated, but Dorian assured her he didn’t mind. He had taken the opportunity to prepare some classes.

This high school music teacher was everything Marith expected from a high school music teacher. Dorian was like the dorky, bespectacled guy that could be found in most coffee shops or any place that served craft beer, which was fine. To him she was probably the obnoxious, overachieving girl from every university auditorium.

“What do you think?” Marith wondered after they finished the ever intense ‘Carol of the Bells’.

“You really taught that cello how it’s supposed to sound,” Dorian joked from behind the baby wing.

“What do you mean?”

“That you’re amazing.”

“Ahw, thanks,” was all Marith managed, since she was exceptionally awkward with compliments. “You’re great too!”

“Don’t you dare… We’re not even remotely in the same league.” He grinned.

Marith suspected another compliment in his direction would bounce as well, so she left it at that.

They continued with ‘Where are you Christmas?’ and ‘O come, o come, Emmanuel’ and didn’t stop until they reached ‘Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy’ by Tchaikovsky and ‘Winter’ from Vivaldi’s Four Seasons.

Marith had to admit to herself she was actually having a surprisingly good time bonding through music with this practical stranger.

In the Netherlands anxiety and nervosity had kept her mind busy. Like wheels and trundles in the back of her mind, always working over hours to compensate for the lack of social contact. After her return to Sweet Lake her mind had been occupied almost fully by the train accident, her father’s situation, the return of Lieke and her fellowship with the Chain. Since her Rebirth she could put the full capacity of her brain to use and the results were glorious.

Samuel had been watching a lot of television lately and science fiction had especially caught his interest. At least, it had stuck with him, because these humans seemed to be utterly obsessed with it and therefor it had become important to him. Judging by the amount of attention it got in this society it had to be relevant to this time and age.

The Kid may have been lacking the majority of traits that make most humans likeable creatures, such as kindness, compassion and generosity, but a hunger for revenge, for all the time he had missed and the life that was taken away from him, was a powerful and negative tendency that seemed to stay with him. It made him determined to adapt to this world and master anything that could serve him.

He had learned that he liked Star Trek, but he loved the Borg. Likewise, he admired Jedi warriors, but adored the Empire. He respected John Connor, but Skynet was even better. Neo could do some cool tricks, but only Smith could float his boat. He had found out that democratically elected politicians had definitely the right ideas on the matter of mass surveillance, but these large technology companies executed it more professionally.

Electricity, computers, hard discs, software and the internet all seemed important for his plan of Web domination. He had decided he had to have it all to compensate for his current lack of a Mage.

Now he stood in a massive factory-sized houseware & electronics store, surrounded by the luminous madness that was modern day technology, glued to the grey carpet, under a myriad of light spots. He had most certainly done his homework. At least, he thought he had, but the tsunami of options could even make the last immortal creature of this planet stagger for a few undecided moments.

He found himself in the DVD and Blu-Ray aisle, which was one of the few things he was absolutely positive about he didn’t need.

Luckily, he had been spotted by a zealous, pimply young man with long, greasy hair, who now came over to him, carrying an attitude of naïve enthusiasm that Samuel would have been willing to slap out of him, if it wasn’t for the fact that he genuinely needed help.

“Welcome at Fly’s. I am Constant. What can I help you with today?” Constant asked him, using some obnoxious hand gestures.

Constant what? the Kid wondered disdainfully. Constant need to call my mother? Constant urge to pick my nose? Constant constipation?

Whatever this imp was making each month had to be cut in half, the Kid hatefully thought to himself.

“Everything,” Samuel barked at him.

Constant constipation ignored his tone and the prospect of some big sales glimmered in his eyes, as he guided the customer to their first stop in the store.

After having been advised on the purchase of headsets, routers, hard discs and one of the more expensive smartphones he followed the imp to the computer department.

Trotting through the massive store, past an astonishing amount of screens and colourful lights and other impulses that were hard to resist, even for more evolved primates, he noticed an awfully sticky couple.

The shabby guy promptly stopped and turned around in front of some flagship, heavy duty, gaming laptop that would carry the brunt of software development and programming with ease.

Being a man of many talents Samuel could focus on both the sales pitch of yet another overpriced piece of electronics and the vomit inducing conversation the couple was having. They were being chatted up by another employee about a digital camera and various lenses. The girl attempted to coax the young man into buying the absolute best one, because every detail of their honeymoon had to be eternalized on social media. Such and such would be very jealous of them.

“I would recommend a laptop powered by an Intel i7 processor to you. This one could definitely do the job, but...”

Samuel had no doubt the poor bastard had already paid, or gotten into debt, for the wedding and was also being forced into putting down the entire sum of the honeymoon. What a whore, he thought to himself.

He quickly realized he hated them both. The nagging, spoiled bitch and the spineless twat that enabled her behaviour.

“If I were you I would get at least 8GB of RAM for programming,” Constant constipation went on, waving the box with the noise cancelling headphones they had previously picked out around, while Samuel was holding his new tablet and hard drive.

He nodded at the imp, while simultaneously glancing over to the camera department.

They were holding hands. Samuel wished they would fall off, they would lose their jobs and become homeless, like the rest of them.

They eyed each other lovingly. He granted them an illness that would turn them blind.

They snuck in a quick kiss, when the salesman wasn’t looking. The Kid hoped they would both just die in a gruesome traffic accident.

Samuel and Constant had shuffled further along their aisle on to even bigger, better and faster laptops that would serve his programming ambitions neatly and beat all the other laptops just shown to him.

“This baby has an Intel Core i7 processor, 16GB RAM and 512GB SSD for storage... and get this, it has a backlit keyboard and a battery life of up to 10 hours.” The peak in Constant’s tone of voice and the speed of the words racing out of his mouth indicated that he seemed very passionate about this specific piece of equipment.

“I’ll take it,” Samuel said curtly, much to the delight of the guy selling him all this.

In contrast to the weak, whiny bitches in the other aisle he actually needed the best of the best for his masterful plans of trickery and control to even have a chance of working out.

All these electronics were just a layer of varnish to cover up the fundamental defects of modern society. Defects that Samuel had artfully and proudly helped cause.

All these screens helped people believe they were in control of where their lives were going, or where their fate was headed. The moving images made them forget what was important and who was really taking over.

Freedom, he thought, was not something humans could generally cope with or should have to deal with. If he couldn’t have it, why should others enjoy it?