How do you cope with learning that your mother was murdered before you were born, your father is a fairy hitman, and you wield the power to raise an army of devoted love slaves... except you haven't the least idea how to control it?
Tom Corwen's di...
"Tom," She repeated with another hesitant smile, looking down at her feet as I passed through, and said nothing else as she let the door shut behind me.
I managed to get the trunk of my car open on my own with some difficulty and set everything gently inside to avoid damage. At the last second, I decided the wood-bound book was potentially too expensive to risk scratching its surface. I set it on the passenger seat, and sliding in beside it, I stuttered my poor car back to life and returned home.
***
Back at the apartment I walked the heavy book upstairs and sat it on the coffee table then returned for the rest, which weighed slightly less than the tome alone. I couldn't understand why anyone would write such a huge volume then bind it with hardwood and brass. A deterrent to theft? I certainly wouldn't want to run down the street hanging on to that thing.
Once I'd hauled everything up both flights, I piled them on the coffee table and stood back to take stock. The dark green blanket turned out to be a long, wool cloak, delicately embroidered along the edge. I held it up and threw it around my shoulders, fastening it with ornate silver clasps stitched into the hem, then I lifted the stone pendant from its place in the bowl and hung it around my neck. I struck a pose for my own benefit, but feeling like a cheap extra from a fantasy film did nothing for my self esteem, so I tossed the cloak onto the sofa and sat to consider the rest. If the bowl contained any secrets, it stubbornly refused to share them with me, the stick remained a lifeless stick, and the books—
The alarm on my phone went off again, this time alerting me to a lecture hall on the effect of mitochondrial DNA on neurotransmitters but I made a very rare decision to skip it since Dr. Barnes had written two well-circulated papers on the subject and I'd read them both.
Instead, I picked up the smaller, leather-bound volume and turned it over in my hands. The cover had been engraved and dyed with a simple design, similar to the tree on the larger book, but it was clearly worn from frequent use. Opening it, I found what appeared to be a single language.
That didn't make it easier to read. It looked like someone's journal, a loose collection of handwritten symbols with notes in the margins and drawings on some of the pages. Most of those were various plants with additional notes beside them. On a few of the pages someone had drawn vertical lines with shorter lines intermittently branching off either side resembling a timeline or a graph, but having no context I couldn't imagine what they were for.
I pulled my laptop close and started looking up language scripts to see if I could narrow it down to a family, or at least a region. After an hour of searching, I found similarities to Younger Futhark, a written language based on ancient Scandinavian runes, but most of the translation tools I found were medieval, focused on phonemes rather than meaning. I uncovered nothing that could tell me what it actually said, so I finally tossed it on top of the pile in frustration.
It wasn't until then that I realized my stomach had been trying to get my attention. The pharmaceutical cocktail that kept me functional had also left me with a near constant low-grade nausea, which restricted my eating habits, so I never kept much food on hand and ate only when my body demanded sustenance. Skipping meals had been a common occurrence. Aggressive pangs of hunger were new.
That left me with another problem. Where most college guys stored cold pizza and a six-pack of beer, I had part of a half-gallon of milk, a fairly new package of low-sodium turkey lunchmeat, a three-month-old sugarless energy drink, half a loaf of bread, and two eggs left out of a dozen.
I opted for an egg and turkey sandwich, but found the first bite bland and the texture uninspiring. I normally ate for nutrition alone, but that afternoon I deeply wanted to be entertained by the flavor, so I set it aside and stared down the empty refrigerator from across the kitchen. It stared back unhelpfully.
Taking advantage of my digestive fortitude felt like an act of rebellion after so many years of hard won discipline, but for the first time in my adult life, my body's urges went unchallenged by fear of consequence. I wanted food, not just sustenance, so I pushed myself away from the table and walked out of the apartment, stubbornly determined to indulge myself.
I hadn't used my car so much in one day since arriving at BAU, other than rare outings with Katherine. If I'd been able to handle the stress of repeatedly walking everywhere I might not have driven at all. But the rules had changed. I had the stamina and the motivation to do things just for the hell of it and that made everything new.
A short time later, I paced the aisles of Pathway, the mid-sized local grocery chain, pulling everything into the cart that was remotely appealing: potato chips, peasant bread, whipped honey, cookies, apple jelly, frozen strawberries, beef patties, a bag of chicken alfredo, canned chili... I had no idea if I'd enjoy half of it, but I didn't care. I found enough pleasure in buying whatever I wanted for the first time in my life without fear of reprisal.
As the cart began to fill, I began noticing a few uneasy stares in my direction. At first, I chalked it up to a heightened awareness of the world around me, but nobody else seemed to be drawing the same attention. One man kept glowering suspiciously as if he'd seen my picture on the wall at the post office, and I had to stop repeatedly for the same woman reaching languidly for something off the top shelf. A dozen others seemed to have an unnatural interest, and I started to check my fly every few minutes to make sure I hadn't forgotten to zip it up.
I avoided other shoppers as best I could, but didn't leave until the cart contained more food than I'd ever purchased at one time. After a short wait in line, accompanied by more uncomfortable stares and glares, I checked out and escaped to the solitude of my car.
Back at the apartment, the problem of storing my haul both amused and annoyed me. I didn't have places reserved for things like cereal, soda, pancake mix, or any of the other dry goods but that also meant the cupboards were more or less vacant so I just pushed most of it behind one door and called it done. Everything else went randomly into the refrigerator, including a six-pack of beer. I'd never in my life tasted alcohol and wasn't promising myself anything, but if I was off the drugs... well, it was there now regardless.
I settled on a bowl of thick, beef and vegetable soup with saltines and sat mulling silently over the puzzle that littered my coffee table. Nothing made sense. A strange woman. A cup of tea. A mysterious chest with mysterious contents. My mom, Janet Lane. My dad, Caratacos something. A strange history that compelled Caratacos to end Janet's life. Miss Gold stepping in and nursing her until I was born. Why did she show up now after two decades? If she had a cure for me, why wait to hand it over? Was it even a cure or just an illusion? Back to fantasies and guesses. Back to the beginning.
She'd said two days, and one had nearly passed. What should I do with it? Did I sequester myself in fear of a catastrophic relapse or run around and try to get as much out of it as I could? And, I thought, what would happen when I saw Miss Gold again? If this chaos was merely an introduction, what might come next?
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