Paranoid Magical Thinking (Unknown Kadath Estates)

by Zachary Rawlins

  “Yes.”

  Kim was shocked for me, because someone had to be, I suppose.

  “And that she taught herself?”

  “Yes. Kim, I am tired. Can we talk about this some other time?”

  “No,” Kim said seriously. “Preston, you cannot continue to leave April at home by herself with nothing to do.”

  “Hey Kim,” April said softly. “Go easy on him. Preston is tired.”

  “I know,” I said carefully, looking Kim in the eyes. “And I agree with you. But I haven’t had the time to make arrangements yet…”

  “Or the interest,” Kim added icily. “April is brilliant, Preston. She needs to do something with herself. Has she ever been to school?”

  April practically shoved me from the doorway in her determination to end the conversation. I am always touched at how eager she is to put herself between me and anything she perceives as harmful. It’s cute, how she takes such good care of her things.

  “That’s enough, Kim,” April said fiercely. “Preston needs rest. You can talk to him tomorrow.”

  Kim’s eyes went wide in shock. People always react that way when they realize that April is not actually meek. When roused, she can be exactly as stubborn and willful as she needs to be. April has always invited underestimation.

  Then Kim surprised both of us by laughing.

  “Alright, if you say so,” she said, tousling April’s hair affectionately. “In the morning, then.”

  This time it was I who clung to April as we climbed the stairs. Across the breezeway, the doorway to 2A had taken on an ominous aspect. Neither of us said anything until the door was closed and locked behind us.

  “What the hell happened? Professor Dawes? You know I don’t trust that guy. And you showed him your language, too. What were you thinking, April?”

  April looked up from the floor, where she was carefully arranging the contents of her backpack in neat rows, looking at me with an expression between concern and irritation. This, I thought, must be what it was like to have parents and then disappoint them.

  “What about you, Preston? You look as if you saw a ghost…”

  “Worse. I think I accidentally made an enemy. Never mind that – back to Professor Dawes. What did you tell him?”

  “Nothing that could get us in trouble,” April said evasively.

  The knock at the door froze both of us.

  “Are you totally sure about that?”

  April shook her head frantically. I went to check the door anyway, moving quietly to keep the option of pretending we were not home. I looked through the peephole cautiously, then sighed and let Sumire in. Behind her was the rake-thin Professor Dawes, holding his hat in both hands apologetically.

  “Hey, April,” Sumire said, walking right by me. “How’s it going?”

  April looked up at me, and I gave her a little nod. What else could I do?

  “Okay, I guess.”

  “This is terribly awkward, I’m afraid. I’m…” the tall man began nervously, offering me one manicured hand.

  “Not very patient, Professor,” I said, shaking his hand briskly and then hustling him inside, before the rest of my neighbors saw an opening. “I remember you from the teahouse, and I got your message from Kim. I was planning to contact you tomorrow. I’m surprised that you couldn’t wait.”

  “Well, you see, I simply… I am afraid that I, err, couldn’t. My full name is Liam Dawes, by the way. No need to use the title.”

  He looked flustered, waving his hands and shifting from one foot to another in an elaborate and nervous dance. Something about Professor Dawes reminded me of an ungainly bird waddling across a lakeside from a nature show I had seen years before, his head bobbing unconsciously along with his clumsy movements.

  “Are you certain that you are a language teacher?”

  “He’s my teacher, and he knows what he’s talking about,” Sumire lectured, not exactly admitting that I was there, just generally holding forth where I happened to be. “April wants to her what he has to say, don’t you?”

  “Sure,” April agreed brightly.

  “Fine, sure, great,” I muttered, indicating the sad collection of folding chairs and the cheap couch that I had collected from the street. “Professor, please tell me what it is that’s so urgent.”

  The story emerged slowly, amid much hesitation and apology, rephrasing and trailing-off. The reality was that Professor Liam Dawes, simply did not have a way with words, whatever his facility with language as a study. He had agitated body language and a voice so meek that everything sounded vaguely like a question. His palpable discomfort with eye contact and restless hands offered vague suggestions of autism.

  At the nearby university, which I had still failed to visit, much of the focus was on the study and resurrection of obscure and lost languages, particularly certain old and indecipherable books. The school’s library had a collection that was supposedly unrivaled, except for some school back east that I had never heard of. When Dawes described the library, his eyes glazed over as if he were remembering really good sex or a particularly excellent meal.

  Professor Dawes said the names of the books as if they should have meant something to me. The Pnakotic Manuscript. The Seven Cryptical Books of Hsan. The Black Book of Nagal. Unaussprechlichen Kulten. The King in Yellow. And even more that I forgot as soon as I heard them.

  “Tell me, Preston, have you ever seen the city in the sea? Does the name R’lyeh mean anything to you?”

  “No and no. What language is that, anyway?”

  “How about the phrase, ‘Ph'nglui R'lyeh wah'nagel phtagn…’”

  That’s my best guess, anyway. It sounded like he was clearing his throat.

  “’In sunken R’yleh, a dead god dreams’,” April said, turning on the television. “Or something pretty close to that. Though I don’t understand how anyone can be dead and dreaming at the same time…”

  “You see!” Dawes shouted, just excited as if April had invented the light bulb or struck gold. “Surely, you can see it now!”

  “Uh, no. Pretend that I am very stupid, Professor.”

  “That shouldn’t be hard,” Sumire whispered, kicking me in the shin.

  “I still don’t understand, Professor. What is it that you want from us?”

  “From April, dumbass,” Sumire chided. “Nobody needs you.”

  “That is not entirely true,” Dawes corrected hurriedly. “Our university focuses on antiquities and the study of ancient texts. April has a facility for languages that might be unprecedented in all of history, to be entirely frank. She appears to be no more challenged by unknown and archaic languages than by the modern, living variety. I have come to you with a proposal, one that I think that both of you will be interested in…”

  “Not interested,” I said flatly, folding my arms and glaring at the fussy, officious man.

  “I am,” April said cheerfully, absorbed in a rerun of the Twilight Zone, the one where the bibliophile survives a nuclear war only to break his glasses before he can enjoy a leisurely post-apocalypse read.

  “Hey, Preston?” Sumire asked pointedly, her grin reminding me that we were both in on the joke. “Has April ever been to school?”

  “Well, no, but, you see, there are circumstances that make it impossible…”

  Dawes shook his head and gave me what I assume was supposed to be a reassuring look.

  “Preston, don’t worry – Sumire has made me aware that the two of you have some unusual challenges to cope with. And I am certain that we can accommodate all of your needs, whatever the case may be.”

  I glared at Sumire, but she ignored me, concentrating on peeling a Band-Aid from her arm. I tried glaring at April instead, but the she was too involved with the television to notice, so I settled for snapping at Dawes.

  “Professor, I appreciate the offer, but April has a number of health issues that require round-the-clock companionship when she leaves her home. I simply cannot trust anyone else to take care of her
, not for any length of time. Moreover, while I would like to help your school, at the moment, we are barely making rent. We don’t have time for charity right now, Professor…”

  Dawes laugh was unexpectedly robust. It caught me off guard.

  “Oh, Preston, you are simply too much. Who said anything about charity? I said I had an offer for you and April, and I do. Now, if you will simply listen…”

  “No, Professor Dawes,” I cut in crabbily. “You listen to me. I will not entrust April’s care to you, or to some sort of functionary or caretaker, regardless of how professional they might be.”

  “Please, Preston, give me just a moment. I never intended any such thing. Hear me out…”

  ***

  Sumire was still sticking her tongue out at me when I shut the door in her face and then bolted it behind me. I was starting to wish we lived in the kind of apartment where people couldn’t see us coming and going. Then I could at least pretend we weren’t home when someone came to the door.

  “April, what the hell were you doing today?”

  She looked at me with annoyingly obvious pity, turning off the TV.

  “Preston,” she said simply, “I’m bored.”

  “What?”

  April patted the ground beside her, then when I sat down, she snuggled up next to me, her cheek pressed against my shoulder. I did not have the energy to ease her away, and I was feeling tired and beat down myself.

  “It was different when we were running. At least we were always together. Now you go out all day, while I have to stay here by myself. I’m lonely and it’s boring.”

  This was stunning. This was a revelation.

  “But, I thought that, well… you know. Television was enough.”

  “Preston, that’s mean,” April scolded. “It might have been enough before I saw the world outside the Institute for myself. Now that I’ve seen it, how could I not want to go out?”

  “What if I got you some sort of video game console? People spend years on that shit.”

  April frowned at me.

  “This isn’t a joke,” she insisted. “I am not being funny. You have a life outside of the Estates. You and Holly take walks and she holds your arm. You open all the doors for her and do whatever she wants! Sumire told me all about it. And you and Sumire do stuff together, too! You’ve never taken me to the convenience store.”

  Was this jealousy? Was I hearing actual resentment in April’s voice? Could she see through me that easily?

  Okay, scratch the last one. I think that has already been established.

  More importantly, what in the hell had Sumire been telling her?

  “Wait a minute… what has Sumire been telling you?”

  April tossed her hair and turned away coyly, a mannerism that it took me a moment to recognize from a recent episode of a popular sitcom. Stupid television.

  “Nothing special. Just some stuff about the woman who lives upstairs, who can’t keep her hands to herself and wears hooker shoes. Preston, you do what you have to do, right? Well, I’m the same. And what I need to do is get outside this apartment. I can’t spend the rest of my life hiding.”

  I closed my eyes. Things seemed easier to understand that way. If the sun rose in the west tomorrow I probably would have been less befuddled.

  “Okay,” I said slowly. “But this school thing – I mean, I don’t mind you going to school, it’s just that – April, I’m afraid that they are going to find us. No one else can do what you can do, and it won’t be long before Dawes figures that out. Who knows what he will do then? He has probably heard of the Institute. You know they’ve circulated our photos and descriptions. Someone could become very rich just by calling a phone number and giving your address.”

  April pouted.

  “You go out every day!”

  “And it’s risky, but we have to eat, we have to pay bills. You know they aren’t looking for me the way they are looking for you. I am nothing more than a loose end they want cleaned. They actually want you back. For the exact same reasons that Dawes wants you to come to his school.”

  “Two days a week,” April insisted. “Four hours a day. One day with you, one day with Sumire. Professor Dawes said he would pay you for your time. Plus I get to go to class with Sumire for free!”

  “Sumire isn’t…”

  “She said you spent an hour the other night with your head in her lap,” April said flatly. “Two days a week.”

  “April, please, this is so dangerous…”

  April crossed the room, pulled my head down, against her shoulder, into her thin arms. I folded like a paper crane.

  “Two days,” she said, quiet and firm. “I’m not asking.”

  I hung my head and let myself be held. Defeated is defeated, after all. We stayed that way for a little while, and everything seemed to slow down like a clock gradually losing time.

  In the distance I heard the train’s whistle, and I remembered the woman in the sunglasses.

  “April, you want anything from the convenience store? I think I need a beer.”

  “Then I want one, too,” April said automatically, releasing me with a smile.

  “No way. Okay, fine, whatever. You win. Only one, though, okay?”

  “Yay! All right! Maybe you aren’t such a jerk after all, Preston.”

  “Don’t make me reconsider,” I warned, reaching for my jacket.

  7. Ghosting

  Nothing that I gave her was mine to begin with. The difficulty of articulating fear or remembering pain. A survival mechanism.

  The pastry had a soft white cheese inside, sweet through golden layers of honey-dipped crust. It was good and small enough to finish in one bite, followed with a sip of black tea that was too hot.

  “I saw April and Sumire walking to school this morning. I was working on the garden downstairs and I said hello, but I get the feeling that girl of yours doesn’t like me very much. She did look adorable though,” Holly said, with a mischievous grin, “in her new uniform.”

  I coughed up a mouthful of tea. Sumire had come by with the uniform the other night and our bedroom had been the source of a great deal of squealing and bouncing around for a couple hours. I sincerely hoped that no one had overheard, because I had trouble imagining how they wouldn’t get the wrong idea.

  “None of this was my choice,” I said, reaching for the other little pastry.

  “Of course not,” Holly laughed. “Completely Sumire’s fault, I’m sure. She has been scheming to get April away from you the moment they met. I think Sumire may be in love with April, you know.”

  “She’s wouldn’t be the first,” I said, biting through the buttery, flakey dough. “Hey, Holly? What do you think about Sumire?”

  Holly considered it over her own cup of herbal tea. When I had carried it over from the serving counter, it had smelled a bit like rosehips.

  “I think the world of Sumire,” Holly answered thoughtfully. “She puts herself in harm’s way without a thought. And the things she pits herself against, well… seeing them once is enough to convince most people in this city not to go out when the moon is near…”

  “Uh, do you mean full? When the moon is full?”

  “No, I mean close,” Holly said, shaking her head. “The moon over this city is alien and unkind, Preston. Everyone here prefers that that the moon keeps its distance, excepting the cats that prefer to hunt by its light.”

  That reminded me of my failure in Ulthar, something that I was not eager to revisit. Of course, nothing Holly said made any sense, but that came with the territory. Best to change the subject and get my feet on solid ground.

  “What are we doing this afternoon? You said you had something for me…”

  “Oh, yes, I had almost forgotten,” Holly said, setting her teacup delicately back into the saucer. “I do have a sort of an errand for you. It is something of a favor as well. Let me see…”

  Her hand bag was tiny, made out of small interlocking pieces of metal almost like chain mail, so it s
eemed unreasonable that after a couple of minutes of digging Holly still hadn’t found whatever she was looking for. Shaking her head in frustration, she dumped the contents of her purse out on the table and I scrambled to catch a rolling lipstick tube before it hit the ground. When I looked back up, Holly was holding out a folded and refolded piece of paper, so worn that I was not sure if it had begun life as a brown grocery bag or had suffered from exceptionally poor use.