Fear of conversation

Adam looked outside the room. After a while Mary followed him.

Masses of mist flowed along the hallway. Bodies were prone against the wall or fallen on the floor in several states of disarray.

Mary hummed, walking past the litter.

Adam wondered what John had done this time.

Past the corridor, the mist didn’t fade as Adam expected, but grew instead. More bodies were strewn about.

Mary stopped, looking at a strange body, prone against a doorway. Noticing her interest, Adam checked it too.

The body was blue, like someone dead of hypothermia. Its skin looked slimy and degraded.

“John is an idiot,” Mary declared. “He might as well paint a target on his back. He let his clouds feed in a public place and didn’t even bother to hide the body.” She crouched to eye level with the dead nurse. “He must have called several clouds.”

Eleven clouds, informed the spider, skittering his way in the ceiling. Mary looked up at it, startled, then relaxed as she recognized it for what it was.

“It was eleven clouds,” Adam said.

“Ho,” she sounded impressed. “Are they all dead?”

He looked toward the spider.

One had run way. The spider shrugged. Likely the cloud planned to inform its master.

“One ran back to John.”

Mary nodded. “It wants to eat him.”

Adam gaped at her. “Eat him?”

“Yeah, of course. They often try to eat people when you don’t bind them properly.” She stood, dusted her hospital gown and turned toward Adam. She seemed like she wanted to say something, but, in the end, just sighed and walked down the corridor.

The hospital was filled with mist. In every corner and every room, patients and doctors alike were unconscious.

Adam felt like he was walking on a field of corpses.

People were crowding outside, looking up, and pointedly ignoring everything else.

Mary walked out the door, and turned to see what they were seeing. She palled.

Adam got out and saw the strangest thing he had seen yet. A desert was floating in the sky. Half of it was in shadow, like a half-moon. It was a white and red sphere, vanishing at the edges. Cords seemed to ripple inside.

“Are those the Frozen lands?” Mary asked, fearfully.

“Probably, yes,” Adam confirmed, recognizing the place.

“How is that possible?” Mary seemed utterly bewildered.

No matter how Adam thought about it, it could only be because of him. “I opened a rift to there when I was trying to speak with the Withering Sun.”

She opened her mouth to speak, but didn’t. Instead, she exhaled deeply, gave the rift in the distance a last look and turned away from it.

“Where is the car?” she asked when they reached the parking lot.

Wordlessly, Adam led her to it.

She entered, slammed the door and frowned.

Adam waited, knowing her questions would come.

“A rift that large needs a very special fragment.”

“Joseph had a fragment the Withering Sun gave him. The Withering Sun is pretty interested in what’s happening around here.”

She nodded slowly. “The bats.” She sighed. “How much have you forgotten?”

Adam flinched. He breathed deeply. “A lot. How did you know?”

“The old man spoke a lot to me. His questions suggested as much. He kept asking what you expected to gain by breaking yourself to pieces. The rest was easy to infer.”

After a long, uncomfortable silence, Adam said, “Sorry.”

She whipped her head at him, grimacing. “What does it matter if you’re sorry?! You don’t even remember me!”

Adam turned away.

“You didn’t even tell me,” she continued. “Not even losing your memories makes you trust me.”

Adam turned back at her, stunned to see that she was crying.

She wiped her tears away, scowling. “I need to change clothes,” she declared. “And I need a fucking bath.”

§

“So Lucas is dead.” Mary seemed rather unconcerned. She had become rather quiet on the way back to the mansion and Adam thought it better to let het think through things.

Delilah was shut in her room crying. If he strained his ears, Adam could just barely hear it.

Sarah had been the one to see them at the entrance. She was surprised Mary was up and about, dressed in a hospital gown, but did not ask about it. Instead, she asked if they had seen Joseph.

Naturally, Adam denied, though seeing the old woman worrying filled him with pity.

“Yes, he is dead.” Adam was sitting on the bed, in their room.

Mary was draped in a towel, searching among her clothes. She hummed a tune that now that Adam listened sounded strikingly similar to what the Melodist sang. Suddenly, she stopped, and turned to Adam, showing a strangely concerned expression. “Uh, how do you feel about that?” she asked, like someone who didn’t know how to ask.

Adam wondered how he should answer. “Sad,” he tried, though that was not exactly how he felt. “Guilty, I guess.”

She turned away, silent, looking like a scolded child.

“Tell me about Pence,” Adam said. “What is our deal with him?”

“Pence? He’s a thief,” she declared. “He’s involved in construction, mostly, and drugs. The staple. He buys and sells materials illegally. Apparently he’s an expert at forgeries and can make shady business look legal. Once, there was a time he needed some people gone, and you helped him. Ever since, he’s been asking for help whenever he needs and pays us good money for it. You offered to create a company to take the lumber around here. He’s happy to help.”

“He asked to meet with me tomorrow,” Adam explained.

She nodded, frowning at a rather risqué negligee. “Say, do you think you can have a conversation with him without him realizing you have amnesia.”

“I had several already. You didn’t think you had amnesia.”

She scowled. “I realized something was wrong with you!” She declared. “But you sometimes become weird, so I didn’t think much of it.”

“I become weird?”

“Yeah you become weird.”

Should he ask about that?

“You shouldn’t let him find out you have amnesia,” she said. “No idea how he would react, but he’s not exactly a trustworthy guy. Well, he’s not really dangerous, but it would be better to have his help, and he might not want to help you if he notices you don’t remember who he is.”

Adam nodded. He told her what happened with Joseph.

She became thoughtful at that. “I have no idea what happened,” she explained with a shrug. “You would know, but oh well.”

“There were two investigators investigating around us. They seemed to know what was happening.”

She nodded. “Meriden’s servants. The Withering Sun told me about them, said they might be searching for me. Do they know about us?”

“Maybe,” Adam said. “I’m not sure. They know about John…and probably about Joseph as well.” He dropped on the bed, feeling uncommonly tired. Mary sat beside him.

“Don’t worry,” she declared. “We just need to find the bat and put your memories back together. I’m sure it won’t be too hard. You still remember your spells right?”

“More or less,” he said.

She seemed concerned again. “How much do you remember?”

“How can I know how much I remember if I don’t remember it?”

“I guess so,” she said, flopping her feet over the bed. “If you wanna know anything in particular, just, you know, ask me.”

“Do you love me?”

“Yes, of course,” she said, placidly.

“Do I love you?”

She laughed. “How would I know that?”

“It’s not something to laugh not knowing if your husband loves you.”

She sighed, exasperated. “Let’s just sleep.” She turned off the lights, and lied down.

Adam was laid stiffly, looking up at the ceiling, wondering who he was like usual.

After a few minutes, he felt Mary pulling on his clothes.

He held her hand, wondering what she was doing. “Mary?”

“Just let me do it,” she said, and he let go of her hand.

She hesitated, then undressed him, then herself. She kissed him, a small sob escaping as she did.

He kissed her back, feeling a surge of emotion as he covered her smaller frame.

Her body was scalding under him. She smelled nice.

Adam wondered later if what she sought of him was reassurance or something else.