Was (Was #1)

2x10: To a warped truth at the end of a wintry road

Episode 2x10: To a warped truth at the end of a wintry road

London, December 14, 2009

Silence, tense and heavy.

Nobody in the room wanted to bear the responsibility of giving an honest answer. Much to Ring’s shame, the unexpected question had taken her aback, too. Had it never been raised, it would have made things easier.

Louisa Keynes drew her arms around her legs to rest her chin on her knees, waiting. Echoes opened his mouth, but no words got out of it. And so the child-looking witch just went on staring at Lyle Karlowitz, trying to consider his case in a neutral way, and not with the usual wariness and contempt the sheer mention of a Heart-catcher elicited in her.

The young man’s large eyes remained devoid of expression, as he waited, only waited, perhaps ready to wait until the end of times. He was hard to read, that one, with his quiet, level voice, his calm manners, his way of staying where he was told to stay, unmoving—Gods, for a few minutes, she had even forgotten all about his presence in the living-room! At the same time, she found him as transparent as a spring, considering the problem at hand with an innocence seldom found in adult beings. Whenever Ring cast even but a mere glance at him, she was reminded of a piece of earth, of slate, of something cold and empty. Not cruel, not hostile: cold, like a mere clump of earth in winter could be.

However, the ground itself, so solid, so stable, could be the cradle of havoc if angered. Although that man might look harmless, he sure wasn’t; the way he had stood up to the two Heartless women accounted for it.

‘Please,’ Lyle said. She thought she caught a brief, tiny spark in his gaze; she thought she understood, for a split second. I’ll accept your answer, his eyes said, but don’t deny me. Don’t shun me.

‘If you’re bad, then I’m Gordon Brown,’ Echoes muttered, but his casual tone couldn’t hide a slight note of anxiety, and there was no mistaking that he wasn’t looking Karlowitz in the eye anyway.

‘That’s… your friend keeps on… saying it like… like it’s the worst thing in the world! So please. Tell me.’

At last, the Blood Witch let out a sigh; her long skirt rustling around her thin legs, she walked to him, followed by two pairs of questioning eyes. No matter his claims, Ewan himself didn’t trust him completely. No matter her rightful irritation, Louisa Keynes wanted to know as well. It was only human.

‘Let me have a closer look at you,’ she said. ‘Things all happened so fast yesterday evening. And Echoes is right. Since you’ve been behaving properly so far, the least I can do is to answer you.’

‘Then am I—’

‘Hush. You don’t have to do anything. Just be quiet.’

Although she expected protests at first, or a refusal to comply, Karlowitz nodded.

She knelt down and laid three knives in front of her, the longest in the middle, the two smaller ones on each of its sides. The young man didn’t seem to mind her being a couple of inches from dreadful weapons, observing her moves without a care. Something was different, something had just changed in the subtle tension dividing them up to that point; it took her a minute to understand what it was. He was now accepting everything with a glassy countenance that was all the more disturbing.

Whatever I’m about to tell you, to discover about you... Aren’t you afraid, not even a little? Do gentle lies frighten you more than a harsh and honest truth?

This I can live with, his body language revealed. Now I’ll know at last what not having a Heart means. And if I am a liability, then I also know you’ll prevent me from endangering your peers.