Twig

by wildbow

  “Shut up, Sylvester.”

  “Harsh words.”

  “Stay,” she said. “It doesn’t really matter, and you’ll have to ungag me at some point to give me food and water. I can talk then. You’ll have to hear me out eventually.”

  “I can get some wax to put in my ears. We do have a bag, tubing and a needle to give you water without having to remove the gag, if need be, among other things,” I said. “We’re not having that particular discussion, Lil. This is where I’m going to be exceptionally unfair to you. If you were to catch me fair and square, then I’d be the one who was tied up, and you’d be the one who was free to lecture at me. But you didn’t. So you aren’t. Those are the rules.”

  “Somehow I don’t remember agreeing to any terms of engagement,” Lillian said.

  I shrugged. “They’re the rules. Take them or leave them.”

  I could see her considering.

  I ventured, “If I end up going back to Radham, I’m going to wither away and die. I don’t have it in me, Lil. I’m pretty sure they’ll kill Jamie in an effort to salvage what they can of the Caterpillar. So please don’t bring it up. Don’t make me feel even more like shit. Whatever Hayle might have said, it’s not an option. I’ve got a few years left. Jamie’s got less than that, I think. We have every intention of spending that time free, and I plan to do everything in my power to ensure the Lambs aren’t punished for that in the meantime.”

  The consideration on her part stopped. The wind picked up, and I closed my eyes, enjoying the present moment, while putting those thoughts momentarily out of my head.

  But my brain ticked forward into other things I wanted to say, when I was sitting close enough to Lillian to smell her, to reach out and touch her. All of the countless nights of the past half-a-year of tossing and turning and reaching out to pull her closer and finding that half of the bed empty, I wanted to make up for it right here, right now.

  “Sy,” Lillian said, at the same time, I said, “If—”

  In the awkward moment that followed, I got up, moved the gun and the sleeves from the trolley to the nearby table, so that only the glasses were on it, and rolled it on its squeaky wheels until it was closer. I poured some of Lillian’s water into my glass and drank it.

  “I don’t even know what I was going to say, Sy. You go first.”

  I offered her her glass again, and she shook her head.

  I drew in a deep breath, then said, “If there was a way I could have stayed, Lillian, stayed with you, then I would have. I hope you know that.”

  She didn’t respond to that. She looked very uncomfortable, more than anything. As I looked at her, trying to decipher it, she seemed to become even more uneasy. I looked away, staring out the window.

  The silence was hard to manage. I wasn’t sure how to move forward from this.

  Help me out, I thought.

  It was a well-practiced exercise at this point, to conceptualize Lillian, her appearance and mannerisms, her way of moving, her personality and patterns of behavior, and to twist them into a very fierce imagining of what Lillian might be like if the circumstances were different, if she wasn’t tied to the pillar. If she wanted to be here.

  The spectre of Lillian came to stand behind Lillian, leaning past the pillar to wrap her arms around the real Lillian’s shoulders, head tilted so it touched Lillian’s head, a gentle embrace.

  “I know that you would have stayed if you could,” the spectre said.

  “Yeah,” I said, in response to the silence and the imaginings. “So that’s the rule. If, at some point, the Lambs decide to catch me and bring me in, then it’s already a conclusion, and you can let me know just how badly inconvenienced you’ve been by my rebelliousness. But until then, if you say anything on the subject, I’m going to have to gag you.”

  More silence from Lillian.

  “Don’t be too hard on me,” the spectre suggested.

  “…With one of my socks, maybe, which I imagine is still very dirty and sweaty from me running around all day,” I said, smiling.

  Lillian looked up. She and the spectre were nearly in sync, asking, “Seriously, Sy?”

  “Or a pair of underwear,” I said, still smiling.

  “What? How would that even work? Your underwear or mine?” Lillian asked.

  My smile became an ever-widening grin, as I watched her expression morph through several different emotions, ranging from disbelief that the question had passed through her lips, to anger at herself, then confusion, then something mingling shame with depression.

  “I walked into that,” she said.

  “Actually, that was very much you, Lillian, I didn’t plan for you to waltz right into it, I just brought up underwear to embarrass you and lighten the moment.”

  She hung her head a little, staring at the floor.

  “Wow, though. That’s where your mind goes, is it? It’s—”

  “Sy. Please.”

  I stopped, still smiling. I perched on the stool and leaned forward, “Okay. In all seriousness, Lillian. This situation, right here, you tied up and completely at my mercy? Has it ever crossed your mind before?”

  “Yes,” the spectre admitted, while Lillian struggled to get her mental footing.

  “How many times? Once? Ten times?” I stretched it out, enjoying her squirming, the spectre’s expression and body language a representation of what Lillian was keeping hidden. “Too many times to count?”

  “Water,” Lillian said. “I would like a drink of water. And a change of subject, please.”

  “I can give you the water,” I said, teasing. “I kind of like the current subject.”

  “Change of subject,” Lillian said, more firmly. “And I won’t bring up Hayle or his offer.”

  I picked up the glass. I weighed it in my hand.

  Lillian was so beautiful in this moment, cheeks flushed, hair a little bit in disarray. I wanted to say I knew she had already resolved not to bring up Hayle’s offer again. I could say no, I could push. Again, the thought of making up for all of those nights she hadn’t been lying beside me took over. She probably wouldn’t even be that upset over it.

  “Okay,” I said. “In the interest of being a gentleman.”

  I leaned forward on the stool until it might have tipped forward, offering the glass. I tipped the contents between her lips.

  “Thank you,” Lillian said.

  “Your end-of-year project is going well?” I asked, looking at the sleeves.

  “Yes,” Lillian said. “It is, thank you. I could hammer home the fact that I’ve had a lot of free time to spend in my lab, studying, but I won’t.”

  “Thank you,” I said. “I’d guessed that much, for the record. And I’m sorry for your free time.”

  “It’s been nice, as a matter of fact. Lonely, but nice. Mary was training me in hand to hand in the downtime, and I was getting caught up in a way I haven’t for a while.”

  “I thought the training might be the case after dealing with you earlier,” I said. “You put up a fight. I thought for a moment I wouldn’t be able to grab you. I was actually genuinely worried for that moment.”

  “And then you confiscated the syringe, which I had taken off of one of your errant orphans.”

  “And stuck in your waistband,” I said. “Yes. And I stuck you with it.”

  “When it counted, earlier, and when facing you, I didn’t quite have the courage to make myself move and to hurt people,” Lillian said. “I’m still a scaredy cat in the end.”

  “You did fine,” I said. “Just about everyone did. I’m not sure about Abby, but I don’t even know who or what she is, except that she loves animals of all kinds.”

  “She was supposed to serve as someone who could decipher, even better than you can. Human nature, animal nature, read body language, read tone and expression. If she’d worked, she would be better at cracking people than you are. As is, she’s good with animals.”

  “Nothing like Evette, then.”

  Lillian s
miled. “We brought her because of her physical similarities to Evette. Jamie had a picture of Evette in one of his notebooks, and described how you used to sleep on the floor by her vat.”

  “Dirty,” I said, but I smiled. “I like that she liked the lamb I left for them. I had no plans for them to keep it. But when they did, and they went up into the tower where I couldn’t follow or listen in, I scrambled to get everything together so there would be more animals waiting when they left the building. I’m so pleased I was able to.”

  “Duncan was bothered by the chicken.”

  “I thought there was a chance they’d pick up more pets and have more dead weight if I included variety.”

  “That’s what I said,” Lillian said. “He thought it was a jab.”

  I struck my forehead with the heel of my hand. “It could have been, too! I could have said something to him, needled him. I feel so dumb!”

  “You were hard on him as it was.”

  I snorted, then looked for a change of topic. “I still have to get the details about what Emmett knows from him.”

  “You do,” Lillian said. “I’m sure you’ll manage.”

  Her disposition had improved considerably. The flush still hadn’t entirely left her cheeks, which was important.

  “Now’s a good time for what you’re thinking about,” Lillian-the-spectre murmured.

  “Speaking of,” I said.

  “Speaking of?” the real Lillian asked.

  “Of managing. As much as I would very much like to be able to be in this room and watching you for the duration of your stay, I don’t think I’m capable. That means, well, I need to make sure you don’t have any tools or tricks that could deal with those bonds while I’m looking the other way.”

  “What?” Lillian asked, caught off guard by the change in topic.

  “I’m going to need to frisk you,” I said.

  “What?” she asked, again. “No.”

  “Yes,” I said.

  “No! Sy, you little shit, that’s not—”

  “—negotiable,” I said. “Not negotiable. But, like I said a few minutes ago, you do very much have the option of kicking me out of the room. I can go get Jamie, he can take over, and I’m positive he’ll be an absolute gentleman for you.”

  “And you won’t?”

  “I’ll try,” I said. “But I’m not very practiced. So if you give me the signal to go ahead and we leave Jamie where he’s at, then you do so at your peril.”

  I met her eyes as I said it, giving her my most serious look in the process. I saw the flush start to return to her cheekbones.

  Before she could back out, I ventured, “I highly recommend you ask for Jamie.”

  “Are you that perilous?” Lillian asked.

  “I don’t think so, but you’re a scaredy cat and a crybaby, and I think we’re on good terms right now. I don’t want you getting mad at me again. You’ll be stuck here with me for at least the whole night and part of tomorrow.”

  “Scaredy cat and crybaby,” she said.

  I smiled.

  “You could have searched me while I was unconscious.”

  “I could have,” I said. “But that would have been rude.”

  Her body language and expression told enough of a story that I knew I didn’t need to look at the spectre for clues or validation. Not that the spectre was anything but a fun way of exercising what I already knew.

  “I want to see you try and fail at being a gentleman,” she challenged.

  I smiled, and stepped away from the stool, bending into a small bow.

  “Good start,” she said.

  “About your presumption of failure on my part? You forget. I’m on Wyvern. I can be and do anything, given a chance to adjust,” I said. “May I have one of your feet, please?”

  “My feet?” Lillian asked.

  She raised her leg, sticking out one shoe as much as she was able before the rope tugged taut.

  I dropped down to my knees, and took hold of her ankle and foot. I unbuckled the straps to her shoe, then took it off, setting it on the lower shelf of the tea trolley. That done, I took hold of her sock by the top edge, and peeled it off.

  I didn’t look up at Lillian, because her leg being raised like it was, me kneeling at her feet, I was in a position to look up her skirt, and that wouldn’t be gentlemanly.

  Her silence in the moment spoke volumes, however.

  I let go of her foot, and she offered the other. I unbuckled and removed the other shoe. As I peeled off the sock, taking care as I did so, I revealed the scalpel that Lillian had tucked in there.

  “Taking lessons from Mary?” I asked, collecting the scalpel in one hand as I took the sock in the other.

  “Not at all,” Lillian said.

  “I name thee a liar!” I pronounced, picking up the second shoe. I flicked it, hard. The blade flicked out of the sole, coming to a stop in a position where it stuck out in front of the toe.

  “Oh. You recognized it?” Lillian asked.

  “Recognized?” I asked.

  “They’re Mary’s shoes. She outgrew them and lent them to me for today.”

  “No. I recognized the thickness of the soles. I never paid that much attention to Mary’s clothes, except to think of how fancy they were. I paid more attention to what you wore. I still have a vague recollection of all your different nightgowns, now that I think about it.”

  “Careful, gentleman Sy. You’re slipping.”

  I set the shoes together on the trolley, and draped the socks over them. I held on to the scalpel until I’d straightened, and placed it on the top. I took a position in front of Lillian, our noses a few centimeters apart.

  “I beg your pardon,” I said.

  “Wh—” she started. She stopped as my hand seized the front of her skirt, balling it up in my fist. I pulled at it, until the waistband was a short span away from her waist. Had I looked down, I could likely have seen everything clear from the bottom of her button up shirt to her knees, but I didn’t look down. My eyes were locked to hers.

  With my other hand, I ran my fingers along the inside of the waistband.

  I could see the dilation of her eyes change, the pupils expanding. She didn’t break eye contact any more than I did.

  “What’s this?” I asked, as I found the first obstacle. A twist of metal, which held three thin vials.

  Lillian was silent. She did all of her communicating with her eyes and the flush of her cheeks.

  “Yeah,” I said. I put the vials on top of the trolley. I switched hands, using the tension of my finger against the waistband to hold it away from her body, touching the clothes while not touching her. “And another. Look at that.”

  I’d discovered a syringe, pre-loaded with a half-dose of fluid. I set it on the table.

  “Excuse me,” I said, as my finger traveled along the circumference of the waistband, reaching further back.

  At the last moment, before my hand would have struck the post, she pushed her pelvis out, toward me, giving me room to reach the waistband that would otherwise have been pressed between her rear end and the post she was loosely bound to.

  “Just because you’re saying ‘beg your pardon’ and ‘excuse me’, doesn’t mean you’re actually being gentlemanly,” she said.

  “Being polite about this is just one of the rules. I’ll touch your clothes, because that’s necessary when searching someone like I have to search you, but I won’t touch you unless you make the first move, give your consent, or ask.”

  “Is that so?” Lillian asked

  “It is so,” I said. “And it is also so that you can, at any time, ask for me to go away. I can go get Jamie, and he can wrap up.”

  She didn’t respond to that.

  I withdrew the rectangular cloth bag of pills that had been clipped to the underside of the waistband. I examined the pills.

  Rather than break eye contact, I held up the baggy beside her head and shook it, trusting my peripheral vision. “There are no little yellow
pills in here, sadly. It would be nice to extend the leash some.”

  She didn’t flinch or look away as I angled the bag and let the contents clatter on the trolley.

  My fingers traced the inside edge of the bottom of her shirt, and again, she pushed her body out toward me to assist as I reached behind her. Nothing.

  This was a different kind of dance, but the maintained eye contact made it an intimate one. Less two dancers separating and joining back together, as I might dance with Mary on a battlefield, more of a dance where each person held the other in their own ways, and didn’t let go from start to finish. What we were saying, the interplay, and the things we weren’t saying helped preserve the illusion. It would be so easy to say the wrong thing and break the spell.

  If Lillian talked about Hayle.

  If I drew too much attention to the fact that she was playing along.

  My fingers grazed the buttons on her shirt, checking them by texture, and slipped into the spaces between to check that nothing had been placed there.

  Even with the wind, I could hear her every breath, faint but real. I was aware of the shift in light and dark as the sheer curtains moved and let more sunlight in.

  I reached the top button, and moved up to check the collar of her shirt.

  At the front of her collar, where the corners were, I found a pair of blades, each one like a razor, but with a solid edge along one side, no longer than a few centimeters. I dropped them on the trolley.

  At the back of her collar, there was a punching blade with a reservoir. It was little more than a triangle of steel with a ‘T’ shaped bit of metal on the end. I imagined it could be loaded with poison or a drug.

  “That last one was actually very uncomfortable when leaning back against this post,” Lillian commented.

  I was very aware of how close her lips were to mine. I could feel her breath as she spoke.

  But my gentleman’s rules were as much for me as they were for her. I obeyed the restrictions I’d set for myself.

  My fingers traced her shoulders, then her sleeves, stopping at the ends. I reached inside, between her arm and the sleeve, and checked there.

  Left sleeve, secured with a pin, a little cloth baggie, scarcely taller or wider than my thumbnail.