And Matthew sat there, still. Silent for longer than I thought he could. When my words hit him and processed he simply stopped, like I’d sprayed a bug-killer on him. On the spot something inside him curled up and died.

God, he just sat there for so long, and so did I.

In moments like those it’s hard to say exactly how long a silence lasts. From outside, I’m sure it was only a minute or two, but in that span—when you’re sitting there, waiting, waiting—it becomes a significant part of your life.

I will never forget how long I sat there waiting for him to say something. Anything at all.

And finally—after my whole life had gone by in reverse, replayed because I had the time—he spoke, slowly and carefully-chosen. “Well, I—I guess that makes sense.”

I didn’t respond. I’d forgotten how to speak.

It’d been a couple of hours since the revelation and I was still numb. I didn’t understand. If it made sense to him—well, I needed him to explain it to me.

But even if he did, in that second, I don’t think it would have mattered. For a few hours on the fifteenth I was about as sapient as a rock. Every thought rattled around in my head, perfectly confined. Every thought projected at me was reflected back, rolled off me like rain. I was a mirror—nothing through, all of it back again.

If I was a rock, then, it follows that if something was inside, it was crystalline. A geode, I guess—there was something inside, I knew that, but what exactly it was couldn’t be determined without taking a pickaxe to the whole thing and shattering it.

Possible, sure, but not what I wanted.

“If he means what he says,” Matthew went on, after another eternity, “And he truly loves you…”

He shook his head. Some energy returned to his voice—some, but not a lot. “No, no. It can’t be. It’s got to be a last-ditch effort to get you to help him. He said it doesn’t matter if you help him or not and that he’ll adopt you anyway but there’s no way that’s true.”

“What if it is?” I asked, barely above a whisper.

“It can’t be,” he repeated.

Breathless— “Why not?”

Matthew’s face didn’t go hard because it didn’t need to. The words came right off the top of his head with no added force. “Because you’re unlovable,” he said, flatly. “You’re a violent psychopath with no regard for human life. I know that, you know that, he knows that, everyone knows that. Your own father hated you, nobody on Unit 6 seemed to treat you with anything better than basic decency, Prochazka clearly only viewed you as means to an end, and by now I think it’s pretty clear that despite Cygnus and Bell being alive, and Bell alone probably being enough to break in here and get you out if she really wanted to—by now I think it’s pretty clear that nobody is coming to save you.”

“I don’t think he’s lying,” I said, evenly. “I—I think he really wants to make a change.”

“Erika, you are literally the easiest person to lie to in the whole fucking world. All anyone needs to do is convince you they give half a shit about your well-being and you’ll bend over backwards to do their bidding. How do you not see the pattern here? Prochazka gave you a room to live in that wasn’t in Red Creek and you went murder-crazy for him. Bell spoke to you once a month and you worship the ground she walks on. Cygnus showed you basic workplace civility and you fell in love. Neville takes you out to dinner once or twice and brings you to a museum and says some things and you seriously think he’s going to make you his daughter? Really? The man doesn’t even have time to shit and you think he’s going to have time for parental bonding?”

“I—”

“Shut the fuck up,” he snapped. “If he really wanted to adopt you, he would have told you that before he told you what he needs you for. All this means now is that he’s doubling down because he can tell you’re still undecided.”

He closed his eyes, took a breath. “Okay,” he mumbled, after a second. Reaching into his pocket for his phone. “Time out. Time out. I’m telling Talia to get over here and we’re going to discuss this like adults.”

And I just sat there, I guess.

I don’t know.

000

And I truly don’t know. I did not think a single thing between when Matthew texted Talia and when she actually arrived. I didn’t move. I’m not even sure I blinked.

Honestly, if I didn’t explicitly have memories of this, I think one could make a case that I didn’t even breathe—that I wasn’t even alive.

Matthew certainly seemed unsure of it. He didn’t stare, but I could still feel his eyeballs roll in my direction ever couple of minutes, maybe just to see if he could catch me blinking. Showing any signs of life at all.

But I was a stone, so I didn’t.

Obviously, what Neville did or did not think wasn’t my fault. He lived in his world and I lived in mine. And I while I can’t really dispute anything Matthew said to me—not beyond whining, anyway—I can say that what he said had no bearing on the way I felt.

I had to believe Neville. I had to.

In hindsight, I know why—but in the moment, I didn’t, and that’s why I was so frozen.

Was this not how I drew it up when I was lost?

Say the word, take the hand, and all of this—everything, everywhere—ends.

Or, of course, don’t. At the end of the day, you are a stone, you are Erika Hanover, and what exactly it is you will do is beyond the machinations of any god or guardian, least of all you.

You, surely, know the least about the way the wind blows between your ears.

The strangest part of all of this, I think, stems back to when Neville and I talked in the coffee shop about how we will be remembered once the game is over. Knowing what I know now, and the part I played, and that historians will struggle to piece this story together after I’m gone, makes every choice I made in the moment seem like one in a movie I watched instead of a life I lived.

I knew, even then, that someone, somewhere, would be pouring over the pieces in a distant future and trying to wring meaning and purpose out of the traces of my life.

Even sitting there, silent and still, I could imagine myself via a camera in the corner of the room, sitting very calmly and quietly, arms crossed tight—hugging myself, maybe a little—and staring blankly at my feet or the edge of the coffee table. Something vaguely in front of me and vaguely downward—unfocused, unseeing.

And Matthew, adjacent to me in the scene, looking over every once in a while, seething, knowing exactly what I know, which is the sequence of events and nothing else. It makes as much sense to him as it does to me.

I had to believe Neville. I had to. He had to not believe him. We did not live in the same reality—and I think one could argue that we never did, that I have never lived in the same reality as anyone else, that I have never lived in any reality at all.

That I never lived, that I have no reality, that I do not exist, that the wind passes cleanly though my ears without any impedance.

I had to believe him. Don’t you see? I—I had to. I had to believe him.

I had to.

000

Talia arrived some twenty minutes later. She let herself in—I guess, in my haze, I’d forgotten to lock the door behind me. Matthew didn’t seem to care.

She regarded the two of us sitting there with a simple, “What’s up?”

Matthew didn’t even bother looking up at her. “Neville wants to adopt her. That’s the end-game.”

And Talia just shrugged. “Oh. Okay.”

Matthew blinked. “Okay? That’s it?”

She grimaced, examined her fingernails for a second. “I’m gonna be real with you, Matty Ice. I’m over it. I’m all Zen with this now. So it goes, it is what it is, It really do be like that sometimes, whatever you wanna say. Neville wants to adopt her? Sure, why not. I’d believe it. It makes sense. Look, I phoned my folks in Atlanta yesterday and told them I might be turning up unannounced sometime in the next few days. It’s over. This shit’s over. I was at peace with that last night and knowing exactly what the nature of Neville’s insanity is doesn’t really move the needle on that much. It was fucked before and it’s still fucked now. Man can do whatever the hell he wants, but it’s not worth my skin. Soon as I can, I’m bailing. I’ve got connections and a good resume. I did good work up here and Neville having a midlife crisis is not my fault. I’m sure I can snag a position with the Atlanta group that does the same shit. Less money, sure, but at least I don’t have to live in fuckin’ New York anymore. I hate this stupid city.”

I thought she was done, but she went on. “I want to hang out with my dad and go to all of our stupid dogshit football team’s games again. Unlike y’all, I have a pretty normal family. I’m the weird one for choosing to get involved with this shit when I didn’t need to. Right about now, normal family stuff sounds pretty good to me. If Neville thinks he can make it square with God by adopting Lil’ Satana here, well—you know what?”

She put her hands up in mock surrender. “That’s not my goddamn problem, that’s what. Matt, if I were you, I’d have been on the first train to Pittsfield, like, three days ago. You’ve had more than enough evidence to prove that Neville’s lost his marbles for at least a week. I have no idea why you’re still here. I’m certain they’ll give you a pass if you explain what’s going on. And unlike me, who’s head Neville will get if he decides he wants it if I abandon ship no matter what I do, you’ll be okay, because no matter what he’s not gonna make an enemy out of the Biiris.”

“Maybe,” Matthew mumbled.

“And you—” she turned to me, and I winced before she even spoke. “Look, Erika, I hate you and all, but if you don’t grow a backbone real quick this shit’s just gonna keep happening to you over and over again. And, like, you probably deserve it, but I’m just saying. Does Neville love you? I don’t know. And honestly, who cares? Did Prochazka love you? Did Cygnus? Did your dad? Would anything be different if they did?”

She shrugged. “I don’t know. And you know what? That’s also none of my business. Shit’s too fucked for me to do anything about it now. So, Matthew, here’s the deal. I was packing my stuff up and getting my affairs in order when you texted me, and I’m gonna get back to that, because on September 18th at twelve-oh-one AM, I’m on a cab to LaGuardia. If Neville’s gonna track me down to Atlanta and take my head, whatever. I was gonna end up dead if I stayed here anyway. All I can say to you, Matt, is this: I can think of a couple of ways the 18th can go, but most of them end up with your head on a pike, so if I were you, I’d be packing my shit up, too.

“Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m gonna get back to fucking off. I’m out.”

She held up two fingers, said “Peace,” and left.

000

And again we sat in silence for a second before Matthew offered a statement. “That wasn’t what I was expecting her to say.”

I made no acknowledgement of that, even though I agreed with it.

“Maybe she’s right,” Matthew went on. Sinking deeper into his chair, as if that was even possible. “It’s over. Right?”

“Why are you asking me?” I said.

He grimaced, shook his head sadly. “I don’t know.”

After a moment, I found something to say. “Don’t you want this to be over, too?”

In the dead air between us I felt like if I moved the droplets to detect his expression, I’d change it. I knew people could feel when I did that if I wasn’t very careful, but now more than ever it felt as though I could affect things just by looking. In the state he was in, I couldn’t discount the possibility that—because it was all over, right?—that he would just go ahead, get the jump on me, and walk away.

He seemed too duty-bound to go for it, but I’d thought the same of Talia, and that, obviously, was wrong.

“I’m wrong, Erika,” he said, after a moment.

I stopped.

“He really does think this is his way out,” Matthew said. Emotionless. Drained. There was nothing left in his face or heart and I didn't need to ring it with droplets to know. “He left you alone in front of the door. Unattended. I didn’t even know you were back yet. You could have fucked off right then, found Cygnus and Bell, and killed us all. If—if he was really just using you, he wouldn’t have done that. Right?”

I couldn’t help but feel like that was rhetorical. “I don’t know, Matthew. Why would I know anything?”

He didn’t respond, and I remember wondering if—just this once—he was truly, genuinely disturbed by what was going on. I don’t know why this was the time that occurred to me. Maybe it was because the whole situation just seemed to annoy or frustrate him before but now—with all parties’ intentions laid bare except his and mine—he had to truly stop and think, and wonder, if the worst would come to pass.

“Are you going to help him?” he asked me, quiet.

I shook my head. “I don’t know.”

“Do you have a guess?”

“No,” I replied, matching his tone. Just as distant as he was. “I—”

They welled up and I forced them down—with my magic, as much as it burned to do so. My voice held as steady as I could make it, which wasn’t very much. “I want to be loved, Matthew. I—I want to go home. I don’t want to do this anymore. I just…”

Sniffled. “I want this to be over.”

And he regarded me expressionless for a minute, watching me struggle against the basic processes we all share, trying not to cry in front of someone I knew would think less of me for it (how, why, did that even begin to matter? With everything he said to me? With everything he did?).

Lips pursed. Jaw tight. “I have to believe him.”

And Matthew looked at me and he believed me. I know he did. I didn’t need to be a telepath to know.

He believed me, and he believed Neville, and he believed Talia, and he believed the world was ending, and he knew—right then—that whatever happened on September 18th would happen without his permission, and that there was nothing he could do about it.

The world turned away from him and he believed it.

He looked at me silently, truly contemptless for the first time in his life, and he saw what I saw.

000

Is it insane to think I didn’t do anything wrong?

Of course, what happens after is exempt from all of this. I have no opinions on it. I don’t think I’m allowed to, even though I was there, and it was my tendons and neurons that moved this husk to its logical conclusion.

I cannot change it—just recall, only recall. I hold these memories still and I expect to never truly get relief from them.

Above all else, I think, this is my punishment. But for what, exactly, I can’t really say. What was I supposed to do? Slowly melt in Red Creek? Let myself die in service of the Radiant? Resign myself to the winds in captivity in New York?

Was I supposed to just finish the job that October day?

It always seemed unfair to me that everyone needed me for something—except me. What did I need from me? I needed to be loved—that was outside. I needed a home—that was outside, too. I needed someone to confide in—outside, outside. None of it was me. All of it relied on someone else looking at this thing walking around and saying, “Yes, this is good, this is right.”

What about me?

I saved myself from Red Creek. That much I know. What, exactly, would have become of me if Prochazka hadn’t found me is beyond the scope of any of my musings. It didn’t happen so it doesn’t matter, hypocritical as that might be. I would have gone completely feral, probably, and in all likelihood I would have been the catalyst for the end of the world.

I would have wandered the dark streets in some backwater town, homeless, and someone would look at me the wrong way and I would have just blown their head off in comically outsized fashion, just because I could, for the hell of it, and walked right on.

And then, later, I would have been put down like the rabid dog I was.

I don’t know. I tried, I think. I did my best—I think, I think.

It’s hard for me to draw any kind of truly ringing conclusion from any of this. This whole chapter of my life just sits in my memory like an old scar. I look at it but it’s not the shape it used to be.

I’m really no better well equipped now to make sense of this than I was back then. I did what I had to do to survive, I think. I did what I needed to do to live.

It didn’t take a specialist to look around and see the ants keeling over from hunger and exhaustion and know that soon there would be no point to any of this. A few more laps around the track wouldn’t change the outcome.

I know I should hold myself more accountable—but knowing who I was, what’s the point? I knew as soon as it was dropped on me that the 18th was going to be a coinflip. I knew I wasn’t equipped to make that call and that Neville was wrong for putting it on my shoulders.

How was I supposed to know how to salvage the world?

I used to go back and forth on this every day—on some days I felt like I did everything wrong and on others I felt like I did nothing wrong. Now, with the wisdom of hindsight, I err on the side of the latter.

At the end of the day, all I know is that I was a very small, very broken child with far too much responsibility and far too little faculty to comprehend it.

It was a tornado, a hurricane, a monsoon-storm come to flood: a natural act of the world along the order of things, and I did what I was told to do.

A soldier, through and through.

000

I spent the next two days dreaming. I could be normal. Life could be easy.

I could have a tutor—no school, not for me, not with other kids around. I wanted to learn but the rest I could take or leave. I had never once been taught how to express myself but that could change—art, like Neville showed me, could be the way. I didn’t need to be a prodigal student to show how I felt but wouldn’t it be beautiful to be one anyway?

Could I not grow old? Could I not live a new life? I was young—withered by the things I’d seen but not dead, still not dead—one or two of these leaves were still green. With some water and some care I could still be saved.

In a few years, when I was all caught up on all the things I’d missed, the gap between Cygnus and I wouldn’t matter as much, and maybe I could take another crack at that. With magic known and celebrated we wouldn’t have to hide.

Wouldn’t it be beautiful to think so?

And across the world people like Ava could bloom flowers along the boulevards and people like Sophia could cure every illness and people like Loybol and Cygnus could build the most beautiful structures and life could be easy—it could, it should!

What was the point in all this? Why was Loybol so scared? Why not look Death in the eye—he looks at us, why can’t we look back?

Don’t we have to?

Don’t we?