The Other One

by Amanda Jay

  "You think, or you are certain?" Tatum scratched his beard again. Felix wished he wouldn't do that. It was hard enough to concentrate as it was.

  "She liked to be left alone, when she had her headaches. I wouldn't disturb her then," Felix explained.

  "So you would often go days without speaking to your mother?"

  Felix felt a prickle of defensiveness.

  "Only when she wasn't feeling well."

  "And was she feeling well before she disappeared?"

  But Felix didn't remember. His days lacked variety, and often blurred together as one. He couldn't even remember the last real conversation he had with his mother. He had spent the entire night pacing through his house, wracking his brain for any clue, or any piece of information that she might have dropped his way. But he kept coming up empty and he hated himself for it. Finally, the next morning, his father couldn't ignore Ioana's pleas any further, and had reluctantly agreed to inform the City Guard.

  Ezra was questioned separately, but Felix could tell he was nervous. He had kept tugging at his shirt sleeves and running his hands through his hair during the whole walk to the station. Felix was entirely surprised that his father even asked him to come along, but figured soon enough that he, along with Ioana and Bayou would be questioned.

  "You will find her, won't you?" he asked Captain Tatum, aware that he sounded more like a child than ever. The brisk Captain softened a little under his question.

  "Aye. We'll do our best," he grunted, digging his nails into his beard again. "Now you go take a seat outside. Your father might be a little longer."

  But Felix couldn't stay seated. He hadn't been able to stay seated since he realised she was gone, and decided to wander around the station instead.

  It was a busy day, but then again, the City Guard was always busy. Strings of street urchins lined the holding cells, while angry looking people filled out various reports.

  "Tried to grab it from under me very nose," a man with exceptionally hairy arms hollered at a guard while he shook a boy no larger than his leg by the ear.

  "Please, mister. ‘Twas a mistake," the boy squeaked, trying to wriggle out of the man's grasp.

  No one gave Felix a second glance as he aimlessly wandered from one corridor to another, his feet moving without any thought. He stopped in front of a large framed photograph of Jamous Frankly. Pictures in Mliss were rare, and pictures of that size were virtually unheard of. Still, the sepia tone did nothing to accentuate the flaming red hair of the Mayor. He stared blankly into the distance, a grim smile on his face.

  The plaque underneath the picture was covered in fingerprints and rust, and Felix instinctively used his shirt sleeve to polish off some of the grime.

  "Poor kid, didn't have the heart to tell him." It was the same grunting voice of Captain Tatum that came from the room just out of Felix's view.

  "Well, he'll find out sooner or later. Better to tell him right away that she's never coming back." Felix didn't recognise the second voice, but his heart had started beating hard. "That Ezra Orson is a strange fellow. I'm not surprised she would leave him."

  "We aren't sure she left him," Tatum cautioned, even though his tone said otherwise.

  The other guard snorted. "She'd be better off if she did. Loser like that. You heard what the housekeeper said, about that other woman. No doubt she found out about it and decided to pack her bags."

  "He's hiding something though. I can feel it. They had been arguing the night before she disappeared."

  "Probably because she found him on top of his little girlfriend. But who's to say he was on top? Could've been behind her..." There was a snort of laughter from both guards and footsteps coming towards the door.

  Felix hurried away to the entrance. It felt like the walls of the station were closing in on him suddenly, and he was filled with an urgent need to get outside.

  The burst of sunshine on his face was dizzying, and he panted, even though he hadn't been running, as he held onto the railing by staircase. He thought he was going to be sick.

  "They had been arguing the night before she disappeared," the guard's voice cut through his nausea. "Better to tell him right away that she's never coming back."

  "Where have you been?" His father's voice cut irritably from behind him.

  As he caught sight of him, exiting the station looking as dishevelled and annoyed as ever, Felix couldn't help himself. He leaned over and emptied the contents of his stomach all over Ezra's feet.

  EZRA

  Ezra arrived at the coffee shop rattled. He glanced up at the Eyes and breathed a sigh of relief. He was still early.

  He found a small table at the very back of the room, and ordered a tea for himself. He knew it was frowned upon to drink tea at a coffee shop, but he needed to calm himself.

  Kaelyn knew something was going on. She hadn't said anything, but she definitely sensed it. And Ezra knew it was his fault. He had been detached lately-- the weight of what Onyx had said clouding his days. He knew that Kay wouldn't approve. He didn't want to upset her, but he knew he couldn't stop now either. And so he had put some distance between them.

  "Where are you going?" she had asked, when she saw him getting ready to leave for his meeting with Ethel.

  "I have to meet some people. About my final paper," he lied, hating himself a little.

  "It's Friday night, I thought maybe we could have dinner together, and then take a walk around the pond. I've hardly seen you this week." Ezra tried to ignore the expectant tone in her voice.

  "I'm sorry. I really have to do this tonight. Tomorrow?"

  "Oh, alright then. Tomorrow it is. Maybe I'll go see Onyx tonight then. I've hardly gotten to see her over the last few weeks either."

  That's probably because she's been spending all her time plotting her plan to overthrow the king, Era thought. But he couldn't tell her that Onyx wouldn't be free tonight as well, because she would be at the coffee shop with him, waiting for the right moment to introduce herself to Ethel after Ezra let her in on their plan.

  He gave her a quick kiss and left before she could say anything else, but the way she looked at him just as he turned to say goodbye sent a shiver through him.

  This is it, he told himself. He'll help Onyx with this last task of trying to recruit Ethel, but then he was out. He couldn't do this to himself anymore. And most importantly, he couldn't do this to Kaelyn anymore.

  He glanced over his shoulder nervously to where he knew Onyx was sitting. She met his eye for a quick second and gave him a curt nod. She meant business, as usual.

  At the next table, Frank was sitting with a group of serious looking men who Ezra didn't know. They were talking in low voices and reading from a gazette released by the crown. Ezra hoped he wouldn't be overheard, but the men looked far too immersed in their own discussions.

  He smelled Ethel's strong perfume before she announced herself. He stood up, shaking her hand and pulling her chair, making up his mind that he would carry out his task properly, so that this would be the end of it.

  "Thank you so much for joining me today, Ethel." He used his most charming voice.

  "I almost didn't come," Ethel purred in voice that suggested she had no such thought at all. "It isn't seemly, you know. Coffee with a married man." She giggled slightly and brushed his arm.

  Ezra arranged his face into a polite smile. "Well then, I must thank you all the more."

  Ethel leaned close to him and Ezra was almost choked by the fumes of her perfume.

  "So, why did you ask me here, Ezra Orson? Kaelyn would be ever so furious if she were to find out. But I'm not afraid of her, you know."

  This woman is ridiculous, Ezra thought to himself, as he straightened up in his seat and decided to get down to business.

  "The reason I asked you here today, Ethel, was to discuss a matter of extreme urgency with you."

  "Extreme urgency? Is that what we are calling it these days?" she giggled, with a small wink.

  "Well, yes. It actually ha
s to do with the crown, and your father's newspaper. You are familiar, I suppose, with the Chyranian school bombing that took place some years back?" Ezra was all business now, and Ethel blinked at him unbelievingly.

  "Um, yes. I suppose so," she replied hesitantly.

  "Well, what if I were to tell you that everything we know about the bombing is a lie, and that it was actually a conspiracy planned by the king?"

  "Um, what?"

  "Ethel there are things that have happened. Terrible, monstrous, things that have taken many people's lives. And we need you now. We need your help to put a stop to this."

  "Me? What do you need me for?" Her eyes darted uneasily around the room.

  "We need to speak to the people of Mliss, Ethel. And we feel the best way to do that is through your father's paper. We've tried to speak to him, but he wouldn't listen. Could you please talk to him for us? I can explain everything to you and it will make sense, I promise."

  "You promise," Ethel repeated stupidly. She suddenly looked up, realisation dawning on her face.

  "This is why you asked me here?" she screeched, shrilly. "You wanted my help on some stupid plan? And to think..." A small, wry laugh escaped her.

  "Oh, the gall you have Ezra Orson. You think you can just flash your charming smile at women and get them to do what you want?"

  "I- No, Ethel, listen," Ezra tried but she was already standing up. This way going very, very wrong.

  "You are ridiculous. I don't believe this. Kaelyn can have you all to herself, for all I care." And in a huff, she was pushing her way towards the door.

  Ezra looked over desperately at where Onyx was sitting, but she wasn't looking at him. Instead, she was gesturing towards two burly men who were seated near the door. They stood up and left the coffee shop directly after Ethel.

  A sense of alarm punched Ezra in the chest. He jumped to his feet clumsily and followed the two men out. He reached the street just in time to see one of them clamp something over Ethel's mouth, and the other catch her as she staggered forward. The street itself was deserted, and cloaked in shadows. Ezra realised why Onyx had suggested this particular coffee shop in the first place.

  "Hey!" he called out, starting the chase the men down the street. "Let her go!"

  But a hand grabbed him and pulled him back.

  "Be quiet! Have you lost your mind?" Onyx hissed angrily.

  "Have YOU lost YOUR mind?" Ezra hissed back. "You can't just do this you know!"

  "Come back inside." It wasn't a request, it was an order. With a firm grip on his arm, she led him back inside the coffee shop. Ezra was too shocked and confused to fight her back.

  "It needed to be done, Ezra. She wasn't going to agree to help us. Don't tell me that you were naive enough to actually believe that?"

  "You tricked me," was all Ezra could manage.

  "Oh please," Onyx rolled her eyes. "You and I both know that you would have never agreed to this otherwise."

  Ezra put his head in his hands.

  "Will she be safe? You're not going to harm her?"

  Onyx laughed softly. "Of course not. What do you think we are? Monsters? No, I'll simply hold her for a while, and try to get Dunstan to do what I ask. Your little friend will be fine."

  Ezra just shook his head, wondering how he could have been so stupid.

  "Hey, I'm serious. Nothing bad will happen to her. I promise." She reached out and took his hand. "You have my word okay?"

  Sighing, Ezra held her hand back. He needed to steady himself.

  "I just hope you know--"

  "Ahem--" he was interrupted. He turned around slowly, as Onyx quickly dropped his hand.

  Kaelyn stood in front of them, her arms crossed, and her lips pursed.

  "What's going on?" she asked. She kept her voice levelled, but Ezra could see the mixture of fury and sadness that was etched on her face.

  FELIX

  Felix eyed Ezra suspiciously on the walk back home. He expected his father to be angry, to yell at him like he usually did, but the older man just shook his head defeatedly and started walking.

  "Ioana! Bayou!" he hollered as he entered the house, a good ten feet ahead of his son, but they hadn't gotten back from the station as yet.

  "Father?" Felix ventured.

  But Ezra wasn't in the mood. Stalking off towards his office, he shut the door with a loud, resounding bang.

  Well I guess that's all he has to say about that, Felix muttered to himself, a sudden rush of bitterness over powering his worry. No wonder she left him, the words floated over him again.

  In a sudden rage, Felix leaned over and punched the wall. It wasn't a particularly forceful punch, the Twin Faced God knew he had never punched anything before in his entire life, but the pain that reverberated up his fist provided a slight relief from his frustration.

  He punched the wall again and again, too angry to feel his knuckles throb, but too numb to feel an adequate release.

  One of the paintings that hung on the wall crashed down, shaken free from Felix's repeated assault on the plaster and floral wallpaper.

  "What in bloody Bearoux's name is going on there? Keep it down!" his father had flung open the door of his laboratory again, for just long enough to holler out his displeasure.

  "Fuck you," Felix snapped, although his defence mechanism didn't let him shout it out too loudly. He hung the painting back up, pounded his way up the stairs, and went into his mother's room, throwing himself on the bed.

  The covers still smelled like her. Felix breathed in deeply and after a few minutes, he felt his anger start to ebb away. He almost wished it didn't. What was left was a type of wretched helplessness that he had never felt before.

  And with the minutes that turned into hours that then turned into days, this feeling of hopelessness only got worse. Felix couldn't sleep. He spent the days pretending to read in the garden, his mind everywhere but on the pages in front of him, and his nights wandering around the house, retracing her steps, trying to reimagine what might have been going through her mind.

  She had left him. It made sense that she would have left him. She was still young, and beautiful, and even though he only saw rare glimpses of it, Felix knew she would have wanted to be happy. She deserved the chance to start over. Away from this miserable life of silence and neglect. A fresh start would have suited her. Felix imagined her in a little cottage, perhaps by the seaside, on a cliff somewhere. She would sing, and bake cherry pies, and spend her afternoons lying out in the afternoon sun. Yes, it made sense that she would go.

  Except, she would never leave you behind, a voice called with firm resoluteness. She would never have left you with him.

  But if she hadn't left him behind, that means she hadn't left on her own accord. And that meant... but Felix didn't want to know what that meant. No, it was better for her to be safe in her sundrenched cottage, singly cheerily to herself, free at last.

  OF LOVE

  The way people love you, sometimes it's like a glove- it fits you just right, keeps you warm when it's cold. But also slowly, unwittingly, it affects your movement. Your fingers get stiff after a while. You can't write, or turn a page.

  Most times love is comforting. Sometimes, it holds you back.

  FELIX

  It had been exactly three days since she left him. Felix wished he didn't count, but it was a part of his internal clockwork. He had to take his mind off the fact that her absence was like a gaping hole in the very centre of his life somehow, and so he kept counting.

  One. That was the exact number of times his father had emerged from his laboratory since the City Guard.

  Five. The number of times he rudely turned down Ioana's questions about the general runnings of the house.

  Three. The number of times the doorbell rang, causing Felix, Ioana, and Bayou to drop everything they were doing and rush to the front door, flinging it open expectedly, to no avail.

  Two. The number of nights Felix had barely slept, tossing and turning only to fling the covers
off early in the morning and admit defeat.

  One. The number of nights he hadn't even bothered to try and sleep at all.

  But as the days rolled by, Felix had to resign himself to the terrible idea that his mother wouldn't be coming back for him. Or at least if she did, then perhaps it would do her well to find him clean, fed, and at least keeping some semblance of his life intact.

  And so he grudgingly tried forcing himself back to normalcy. He even humoured Ioana with a small smile when she expressed relief at his request to run him a bath. He pulled out his textbooks that had been left untouched, and wrote a note to his tutor, which he hoped to ask Bayou to deliver. The tutor had been understanding when Ioana explained to him the circumstances of Felix's situation, and had even called on him afterwards to offer his comfort (two of the three times the doorbell rang was him), but Felix couldn't muster up the enthusiasm for a visit and polite conversation.

  So when the doorbell rang the next morning for the fourth time since his mother left, Felix assumed it was him.

  The urgent banging on his father's office door and the screams from Ioana were definitely not what he was expecting.

  She came back. The sheer joy of it flooded through him. His heart matched his footsteps that pounded down the stairs to the front door. How could he have doubted her? How could he even have tried to move on? Of course she would come back for him. Of course she would.

  But it was a stony-faced Captain Tatum that he found in the landing.

  "Good day, Felix," he greeted him quietly.

  "Did you find her? Where is she?"

  There was a scuffle coming from the office, and more of Ioana's screams. But Felix was only focused on one thing.

  "Where is she?" he asked again, more forcefully.

  Captain Tatum looked like he would rather be anywhere else in the world. He shuffled his feet slightly, trying to straighten the edge of the carpet that had gotten kicked over.

  "We think we might have found her," he replied, quietly.

  "I knew it. I knew it. When can I see her?"