Rule number 7: Fear is good. Fear keeps you alive.
“Turn left here.”
Zipping across the now stagnant motorway at a crisp 60 km/h with my calf stinging all the way, we’ve finally reached my neck of the woods. When I say ‘Left’, I’m referring to the upcoming exit that we’re going to miss if the Duchess doesn’t slow down. I have two reasons for wanting to split off the main road here. First of all, we’re too exposed out here. If Victor is on the hunt for us, he’s sure to find two people riding a bright green motorcycle without much hassle. Cassie, in all her colourful glory, seems to scoff at the idea of being inconspicuous. We might as well be wearing giant, flashing lights to broadcast our location.
“Why?”
“Because I need to pee, woman!” That’s the second, and arguably more urgent, reason. “You lot weren’t exactly forthcoming with the bathroom breaks in there.”
“Can’t you hold it or something?” She asks, mildly irritated that I even bothered her with such a request.
“I’ve been holding it since your friends locked me up. Without my permission by the way. Don’t think I’ve forgotten about that little detail.”
“Fine,” She mutters in annoyance.
Having taken the exit, I direct her towards a suitable place for me to conduct my business call with nature. I hop off of Cassie as soon as she rolls to a stop and make a beeline for my destination.
“Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got to go see a man about a horse!” I shout behind me. If the Duchess notices the slight limp in my movement, she doesn’t mention it.
A small field, bursting with unchecked vegetation, is my goal. In particular, a section of the dense hedgerow bounding the field. I’ll spare you the details of what occurred next. As I’m finishing up, I find my attention is caught by the top of a white pole sticking out just above the startlingly tall grass. They’re up to my shoulders already. Its twin, connected together by a horizontal bar of the same type, is about seven meters away and equally obscured. Goalposts. Their paint is chipping off and the copper rust beneath them is becoming more evident but still they stand magnificently.
My mind drifts off for a moment to the last time I played on a field. The feeling of damp grass between my toes still etched in my brain is reawakened while my eyes close inadvertently. Kicking up patches of soil as I ran in my football boots, scoring my first goal and the sheer joy and adrenaline, chasing friends around until we all collapsed into an exhausted heap together, breathless. The memories are electric, placing themselves within my mind’s reach one after the other. But memories are all they are. And memories are what they shall remain. I tighten the seal on them once again, wondering when next I’ll get to open them again. Returning to the task at hand, I open my eyes again to find a pale hand forcing its way through the thick hedgerow. Much to my alarmed surprise, it’s grasping wildly in my direction. For the second time this week, I shriek like a little girl.
“Argh!! Jesus Christ, Eoin. You scared the crap out of me.”
“And the piss too, by the looks of it.” Eoin manages to say between fits of laughter. I whirl around to fix my pants as Eoin fully emerges from the hedgerow.
“Why does your entertainment have to rely on my suffering?” I look up to the skies as I entreat the heavens. Surely, I’m deserving of an answer.
“Dunno, just how the world works I guess,” he replies in their stead. If he’s the universe’s spokesman, then we really are doomed as a species.
“And you, of all people, claim to know how the world works?” I ask in a quizzical tone.
“I don’t claim to know anything.” is his response.
“Yeah, that sounds about right,” I mutter under my breath. “So I noticed your little disappearing act before I was taken hostage. What do you have to say for yourself?”
“My staying wouldn’t have changed anything.”
“I could have died in there!” Slightly hysterical, yes, but I believe I’m justified here.
“But you didn’t. So all’s well that ends well, right?”
“Gah, whatever. What do you want?”
“Who is she?”
“She who?” I know full well who he’s referring to, but can’t a guy have a little fun?
“Stop playing around, I’m serious. I don’t trust her.” To his credit, his tone is more stern than before. He pauses for a moment before continuing. “Are you sure you’re safe with her? She’s with them.”
“You’re right, she is with them.” A sigh slips out from my mouth at this thought. “I don’t know much about who she is or what she wants from me. But the truth is she’s saved my sorry ass twice already so I basically owe her a life debt. Or something to that effect.”
“Alright,” he concedes and his voice softens up a bit. “Just do me a favour.”
“What is it?”
“Promise me you won’t pay it with your life.”
A sombre moment passes between the two of us. My back is still turned to him so I can’t see his face. I wonder what kind of expression is painted on it right now, but I can’t turn to face him. Instead, I tell him,”Don’t worry, I won’t. You can’t get rid of me that easy, I’m like a really annoying cockroach.”
“Hah, I know you are. And take care of that leg of yours.”
And with that he’s gone. Don’t ask me how I know. I don’t have to look behind me to be sure that he’s gone off again. I can just tell.
On my return to Cassie, I find the Duchess leaning on her with a pocket knife in one hand and a tan block of wood in the other. Both hands are naked and calloused; a wealth of untold experiences encapsulated in them. Her knife glides effortlessly through the wood, taking a small, curled strip with it every time. This is her space. I can feel it in the air. There’s a kind of magnetism centred around her figure, visible only to someone who’s paying attention. In this moment, all of my attention is on her. I stand there motionless for who knows how long entranced by the subtle movements of her wrist and the profound effect it has on the piece she’s working with. I’m sure she’s aware of my presence but she continues anyway.
Eventually, it begins to take its form. There’s a certain elegance in its simplicity; a faceless, wooden figure kicking a ball. The carving isn’t at all smooth, the evidence of each formative stroke can still be seen in its rough edges. But I think that’s where its beauty shines. The evidence is there in all things; the knife and hands, gentle and rough, that helped shape them. Those traces are indelible no matter how hard we scrub away, how much skin we cut, and how much we blind ourselves to it.
“You were gone a long time. Did you fall down a hole along the way?” The Duchess asks without glancing in my direction.
She stows away the knife in a secret compartment in her leather jacket and pulls on her gloves at a leisured pace.
“Uh…no, not that I can recall. Are you saying you heard me scream and you did nothing?” I narrow my eyes in accusation.
“I figured you were rehearsing for Victor or you’d been possessed by yet another little girl,” she says, waving a hand in an indifferent manner.
I refuse to be phased by such playground insults. “Not this time, my body’s closed for renovations at the moment so no chance of that.”
“And how do you plan to enforce those new restrictions?”
“Well that’s what I have you for, isn’t it? Which brings me to ask: what do you want from me?”
The Duchess crosses to the other side of the bike and places the wooden figure on a cement barrier separating the road from the pavement. Within its line of sight is the overrun field of memories. From the pocket of her jacket, she brings out what appears to be a piece of paper folded over once. Unfurling it in her hands, the corners are dog-eared and the photo on it is starting to fade from repeated contact. “I’m looking for someone.” She announces. Aren’t we all? I take a close look at the photograph and the young woman pictured in it. She looks to be in her early twenties, hugging herself in a woollen sweater the exact shade of a swan’s wing. Her tawny skin tinged with a rosy undertone, like baked clay, exudes its own heat. Her mouth is curved into an endearing smile. Warm, brown eyes stare back at me. In a word, she’s pretty. Yet I suspect my role here isn’t to simply ogle her.
“Her name is Graciela. I need you to help me find her.”
“Wha- what? Why me?” In my defence, I’m still dumbstruck at her request. Hence, you must excuse what comes out of my mouth. I shouldn’t be held accountable for such things.
“Why you indeed?” She exhales deeply before answering her own question. “I know you’ve been working a job for Victor. I don’t know what it is but I know it’s taken you to a lot of places. Places the Strays don’t go. Places where she might have been. Where I might be able to find her.”
I understand wanting to find someone in these times, believe me. When everything seems so uncertain you need people you can trust to keep you stable, and frankly, sane. You’d have to be a little unhinged to work with Victor von Doom after all. “What if she’s dead or you know…” I hesitate to finish my sentence but I don’t need to; we both know what I mean. Some would think undergoing the transformation into a Bright and becoming a mindless enemy of humanity is a fate worse than death. I’m inclined to agree.
“Whatever the outcome, I’ll believe it when I see her body.” Her words feel more like a solemn promise rather than just a statement. I can tell she’s not budging from this. I’ve always been weak to those with that kind of conviction.
“I’ll help you. On one condition: You have to trust in me and my decisions.”
“I will agree to those terms unless I think you’re making stupid decisions. In which case, I will be making my dissatisfaction known.”
“I would expect nothing less from you.”
I take a closer look at the photograph. The woman pictured in it looks nothing like the Duchess. The Duchess’s high, prominent cheekbones are nowhere to be found on Graciela’s face. Eye colours are all wrong too. The list of dissimilarities are endless. One thing is for sure: they are not related. Yet what bond could spur the Duchess to search for her at the risk of her own life? Even going so far as to get on Victor’s bad side. I can say from experience it’s not a very nice place to be. She puts the photo of Graciela away and mounts Cassie. I follow behind her and do the same.
My head is swimming with thoughts of the woman in the photo (and possibly because of the dull ache that’s begun to assault my injured leg). I think I’m infected. Can I ever catch a break? This might be the slight fever I can feel coming on talking but I’m a little excited. Is this my call to action? The beginning of my journey? But that would imply that I’m the hero in this story. And I’ve never felt less like a hero than I do now. This is not a story and I’m no hero.
I take one more glance at the wooden figure watching over the wild field. A Heimdall in its own right, keeping guard over something with even less form than Asgard. I say this only for foreshadowing purposes, but that’s going to come back and bite me in the ass, isn’t it?
“Where to now, princess?” I must say, I really hate that nickname.
“Home. But first we have to pick up something.”
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