“Jesus,” she whispered. “How did anyone else take this thing off?”
I will not tell you. “Some died eventually of old age,” he said carefully. “That is the easiest way.”
“I don’t suppose I can wish I never picked this ring up.”
“It would be…unpleasant, were you to do so.” Fortunately, he did not have to say for whom.
Also fortunately, she did not ask.
“So, is my apartment going to be trashed all the time now? What am I supposed to do? Do I have to move? What the fuck?” An edge crept into her tone. Irritation, or anger.
It was heartening. “Mistress—” He stopped short, seeing her flinch. The small movement caused…discomfort. “Emily. I protect my bearer.”
“Well, really, I only have your word for that.” She dropped her hands, but she did not move to rearrange the ring. “Right?”
“You are still alive.” It was logical enough, and he congratulated himself. Surely she would see reason. “Right?” It sounded different when he said it, though.
“For now.” She took another step back, almost blundering into the couch. “Sure.”
He stood, mute, as she turned away and headed for her bedroom.
“Christ.” A tiny disbelieving laugh, just before she closed the door. “I can’t even afford a hotel.” She was rubbing at her tangled hair. The dust in it would no doubt begin to itch. Why hadn’t he taken care of that when he restored her small home? It would have been no trouble, just as it would have been no trouble to smooth away the scratches.
That was not what she expressed a desire for, he told himself. You are bound to that, and nothing else.
He was also bound to truth, and he had not quite lied. What was he to do now, in the face of this numb retreat?
Nothing. It was all he could do, and that was a very unwelcome development indeed.
Emily the Safe
Her phone buzzed, and the text popped up. What the fuck’s up? It was May, and she was probably concerned.
Emily’s hair was still wet. Her scalp itched a bit, but maybe that was plaster.
Or had she washed the shampoo out? Taking a shower while jumping at every slight noise was a new and hideously uncomfortable experience. She even contemplated sleeping in her car, but what good would that do? Those big gray fuzzy things with the huge teeth, and their faces, shaped like dishes, the big raw open nose-holes…Jesus.
The more she thought about it, the more going nuts seemed almost better than magic and genies and long-furred, sniffing whatever-the-fucks. At least, with nuts, there was medication, right? There were places she could go and get put in a straitjacket.
Now there was a fun thought. Christ.
Emily made sure the charger was plugged in and settled back in the corner. It wasn’t optimal, but when your apartment had been busted to shit and then zoom-la-di-da suddenly put back together, you had two choices: crawling under your bed and sleeping with the dust bunnies, or grabbing a pillow and a blanket and hiding in the closet.
She slid the mirrored door closed again, took a deep breath, and hunched over her phone. Work outfits, color-coded, hung happily on their wooden little homes. Although color-coded was kind of a misnomer, since she tended toward work clothes that would go with everything else she wore, just to be efficient. Three pairs of low black heels, two pairs of running shoes, one barely-used pair of hiking boots, and Dearfoam slippers still in their box for when her current pair wore out shared the closet floor with her. Cedar sachet hung on every third hanger, but it was still stuffy in here. And dusty.
I’m fine, her thumbs typed. Bad day at work.
That didn’t even begin to cover it. Would May believe her? She typed I have a genie in my living room, then held down the delete key. Nope, that wouldn’t do anything but make May laugh.
Deflection was the name of the game, then, until she could figure out how to get rid of the goddamn ring and stave off an incipient mental breakdown. She bit her lower lip and typed again.
Did you give my number to a stripper?
She could almost hear May’s giggle when the answer came back. Shit, did I give him yours? I meant to give him mine.
On a normal day, she would have been able to guess whether May was joking or not. Today, though, her joke-o-meter was busted right down the middle and stomped flat for good measure. So I should just give him yours when he calls again?
There was a long pause, then her phone brightened and the tinkling notes of Tavares’s “Heaven Must Be Missing An Angel” sounded, loud in the closet’s confines. Em gasped, let it ring for a few seconds, then hit accept.
“Girl, you are just the worst!” May crowed, tinny through the speaker.
“So I’ve been told,” Em mumbled, shutting her eyes against the darkness. Pretend everything’s fine. You’re just tired. Well, she was. “He sounds like a nice guy.”
“Yeah, well, after you took a powder we partied with his crew. It was a blast, you should have stayed.” Cheery, sunny, and chewing on something crunchy, May sounded just exactly like herself. It was a maddening consolation.
Yeah. I should have. “You know I’m no fun. So, listen, you want his number, or—”
“Try him out for me first?” Was that hope in her bestie’s voice? Em squeezed her eyes shut even tighter. Hot water trembled, threatening to trickle between her lashes.
“Not gonna happen, May.” I have other things on my mind right now.
That turned the conversation serious, and as usual, May jumped in with both feet. “You have got to get over Steven one of these days.”
Oh, god DAMN it, no. “He’s not the problem.”
“Then what is?” It was the closest May would ever come to asking directly about the divorce.
We could just leave.
Em heard Steven’s voice again, and felt the small internal motion that meant she had made a decision that was irrevocable and inconvenient all at once. “It’s kind of late for this conversation on a weeknight.”
“I get it, I get it, fine. Coffee tomorrow at the usual?”
She was about to say no, closing her eyes and breathing in the stale fusty scent of clothes hung and shut away, shoes waiting for their time in the sun, boxes of paperwork on the shelf above slowly accreting dust and exhaling the scent of bills, responsibilities, adulthood. There was no comfort in the darkness behind her eyelids or inside the closet.
“Yeah,” she heard herself say. “I’d like that.” Maybe you can tell me if I’m crazy. “May? Question.”
“Huh?”
“Do you think I’m nuts?”
May thought about it for a few moments. “Honey, you are the most distressingly sane person I have ever met. That’s why we’re such a team.” A scarf of bright laughter. “Ciao, love ya, ba-bye!”
Wait, Em wanted to say. Notice something. Ask me why I’m in my closet instead of my living room. Tell me I sound strange. Something. Anything.
She couldn’t exactly blame May, really. They had their comfortable roles, like well-worn slippers. When was the last time they’d really talked about anything, well, real?
Emily the safe. Emily the sane. Emily the responsible, the designated driver, the one you called when you needed to know how to hire a plumber or do your taxes. Emily the straight arrow, Emily who had already married and divorced, doing it first so everyone else could relax. Even the divorce had been kind of bloodless. No real hurt feelings, just a distance. Emily, always doing the expected, the logical, the rational.
Emily the lonely. Emily the sitting in her closet, too afraid to sleep in her own bed.
I could call 911 right now and be carted away to the funny farm. I probably could make them take me; I could act crazy.
It would be an act, though. Like everything else, especially impersonating a responsible adult while she was just as scared and uncertain as her friends.
She dropped her phone and snuggled her bed’s comforter around her. Sleeping sitting up in her closet had sounded good at the ti
me, but her ass hurt and her legs were lying across shoes and her throat was full of something hot and rancid she denied.
Maybe it was fear. Or maybe it was the idea of the genie, standing in the middle of her living room. Was he sleeping on her couch? Did genies sleep?
Em tried, and tried again. The tears just lurked. They wouldn’t come out, because she couldn’t let her iron grip relax. She’d been shoving everything down and away so she could function for so long she couldn’t break.
Finally, dry-eyed and pragmatic, she crawled out of the closet and into her bed, and fell into a thin, troubled slumber.
Moved to Do So
The wind rose during the night, freezing small puddles into mirrors. The gray hush before dawn found Hal pacing barefoot and soundless from one end of her small living room to the other, occasionally drifting into the kitchen and scrutinizing every surface as if it might give him a solution to this strange discomfort.
Well, discomfort wasn’t precisely the right word. Distress was closer. Why should it bother him so much to contemplate his mistress taking the ring off, perhaps with a curse? Left unprotected, she would return to a drab life, leered at by others like that hideous Brett man, for a short while before Cavanaugh’s heirs or cohorts descended upon her.
Each time that thought reared its ugly head, he paused, whether on the linoleum in her entryway or kitchen, the carpet in the hall, or the much more used carpet in her living room. It scratched comfortingly against his soles, but it would not have garnered much praise in Cavanaugh’s time. Rugs were meant to cushion and seduce, not to be purely utilitarian. Yet there were touches around the small flat that showed care and the instinct for beauty. Paintings reproduced and carefully framed, the small carvings on the bookshelf and scattered throughout the place. She had a fondness for turtles, and collected small figurines of them in whatever material caught her fancy. He had thought it a dingy nest for such a sweet-faced bird, but upon closer inspection, it was merely…subtle.
He did not want her to slip his fetter free.
What did it matter? One hand on his chains or another, he was still a servant. He felt the same pleasure whether he reassembled her destroyed furniture or made one of Cavanaugh’s enemies choke to death on his own blood. Anything else had been taken from him, had it not?
Why was he so hesitant?
Several times he paced softly to the bedroom door, slipped into the subtle space of the insubstantial and slid through, hovering on the other side, straining his preternatural senses to catch her soft breathing. She slept as if she meant never to wake, perhaps finding a relief in unconsciousness. He did not dare to approach more closely, though none but the sharpest of unphysical senses could have discerned him.
What was the distress? He could not find it, so he paced.
The day strengthened outside. There was no whisper of another attack, no sign of another pursuit. Of course, when the dogs failed to return, the owners would turn suspicious. Which made it all the more imperative that he keep the ring on his new bearer’s finger.
But why?
Could it be that he actually preferred one form of servitude to another? She was…engaging, this bearer. And somewhat kind, even if her language was shocking. A product of her time, perhaps. Had humanity grown a little gentler? It did not seem possible.
Hal found himself regarding the coffeepot on her wiped-clean counter. A neat and thrifty little soul, her dishes washed and set to dry, her cabinets methodically arranged.
Well, really, I have only your word for that.
Did she disbelieve the evidence of her own eyes, or had he been too slow and entirely too cavalier in dealing with the Appetites? She had been bruised and scraped. Had he moved to ease such things, though, she might very well have taken to screaming. That brittle calm might have broken.
What could he do? There had to be a solution. With all the resources at his command, helplessness was unthinkable.
Hal’s gaze refocused on the coffee machine. Such a simple, elegant little thing. Whatever mortal had invented it had probably reaped much reward.
He heard her voice again, bright and cheerful. I’ve had my eye on a sweet little espresso machine for a while, but it’s a bit steep, you know? So I just have this Mr. Coffee but the beans are fresh.
Could it be that simple?
There was nothing in the laws of his servitude that said he could not act of his own accord for his bearer’s comfort instead of protection. He had rarely been moved to do so in the past.
Well, that was not quite accurate. He had never been moved in the past.
Hal turned sharply and paced for the larger room. There were glossy catalogs stacked neatly by size on the glass table crouching before her couch. Most had folded-down pages where something had caught her eye.
Those were desires. One could almost call them wishes.
I can’t even afford a hotel, she’d said last night.
Wealth was easy. Comfort was seductive; women liked it, did they not? They had always seemed to, and his former bearers that wished to snare one started with gifts.
Perhaps he should give his new bearer a taste of his usefulness.
Hal found he was fully corporeal except for his right hand, which slid insubstantial through the pile of magazines, absorbing information. His face felt odd. Hal felt at his cheek with his fingertips, touched the corner of his lips. That was strange.
He was smiling.
* * *
Hal knew the moment she woke, because she pushed herself up on her elbows and blinked fuzzily, her tumbled dark hair a halo. With her cheeks flushed and her shoulders bare except for the tiny straps of her camisole—you could not properly call such a scrap of clinging fabric a shirt—she was a vision. He should have immediately averted his gaze, but he did not have time.
His bearer frankly stared, her dark eyes huge, as the gray velvet window-curtains softly, slowly whispered wide, letting in first a few swords, then a flood of thin golden winter light. Her eyes widened further, and Hal let the light discover him by the new pale-pearl door with its gilt handle. Her bed was now dove-gray, a soft nest with pigeon-throat accents. Sheer netting fountained from a large ring set in the ceiling, the bed-nest safely held in a cloud; the carpeting was now the color of a sudden spring storm. A dainty white nightstand sat close with a lamp whose shade was jewel-bright mosaic glass, swans and heavy purple grapes intertwining.
Her mouth opened a little, showing those beautiful, pearly teeth. She stared at the walls, where her previous decorations—prints of some little quality—were now framed in lightly carved wood. A low padded bench at the end of her bed was just right for easing off her shoes at the end of a day, or putting them on at the beginning. Instead of her closet with its simple mirrored door, a wardrobe of fine cypress took up a very long wall that had not been there before—her bedroom was now much larger, and held two bookcases and a fantastical mirrored vanity with a cushioned bench, all of light lovely design.
He had not touched her clothes yet, though. He did not think a woman’s temper would brook such a thing.
She blinked a few more times, and fished around in the covers for a small electronic device. The cell phones were fascinating, and he had very carefully made certain hers was in fine order as well as updated in a few small ways.
She thumbed the device, probably checking the time. Then she sat up, and the covers fell down to reveal the briefest of camisoles over her chest.
Hal decided to study the wardrobe. It was beautiful, even though he had simply guessed at what she would like. She had not found a proper wardrobe in any of her catalogs.
Finally, his bearer spoke.
“What.” She coughed slightly, a little morning throat-clearing. “The fuck.”
Was she pleased? He certainly hoped so. “I, ah. I took the liberty of…a few small…”
“It looks like a Munsters bordello in here.” She rubbed at her forehead. Sleep-warm, tangled dark hair took new depth from the sunlight, chestnut and honey
strands glowing in its richness. “And I’m late for work. Probably don’t have a job anymore.”
He brightened. “That is easily addressed, Mistress Emily. You are now the owner of several—”
“Dude.” She fixed him with what would have been a stern look, if her hair had not been a most fetching bird’s nest. “Mr. Genie. Hal.” Well, at least she remembered his name on the third try. “I haven’t had coffee yet, so keep this simple. What have you done to my bedroom?”
“I have…it is…” The speech he had prepared vanished, leaving him floundering. “I, uh…Mistress Emily, I meant to…apologize.”
She rubbed at her eyes with her free hand. A sigh filled her chest, and Hal found himself wondering if all the women of this time wore such things to bed. It was…distracting.
“Lord give me strength,” she muttered, finally. Then she dropped her hand and regarded him levelly. “It’s really nice, really it is.” A hint of a pleased smile that did not seem very real touched her mouth, turning it into another distracting curve.
“But it does not please you?” He had an uncomfortable feeling that showing her the rest of the house just at this moment was perhaps a bad idea.
Her gaze sharpened, she pushed herself fully up to sit on the bed, and he hoped he had made the mattress of the right softness. “No, look, just…Jesus. Okay, look. Are we going to see any more of those things? From yesterday?”
That was a question he could answer with good grace. “Certainly not. I have taken some elementary precautions. This house is fully secure.”
“House?” She shook her head when he began to explain. “No, no, really. Nope. Not just yet. I need caffeine.” Her cell phone chirped, and she glanced at it. “Fuck. I’m late.”
“For work?” He had planned to surprise her with freedom from that hideous maze of drudgery, but this conversation was not going as planned. If she would just put a few more layers of clothing on, he decided, it could easily be remedied.