The Sycamore site was also roped off. Nothing remained standing now. The few remnants that survived the blast had been pulled down. Fin stared across the rubble heap, recalling his mad dash with Bishop. He’d been looking for Rook then, too. In the end, she found him instead.
Hearing his name startled Fin, and he blinked a few times. The person who knew him was a receptionist, seated behind her desk in a cramped office with tacky paneling. He turned to leave, alarmed at his apparent wandering. The place registered in his memory and he spun back again. Sycamore’s temporary location, the place where he worked. Rook might have asked about him here.
No?
No.
Fin gave the receptionist a detailed description of Rook and made her promise to keep an eye out for her before he left.
He asked around. Lots of people knew her. No one had seen her. When he asked at the battered women’s shelter if she was staying there, they wouldn’t tell him anything.
He revisited the hospital in case she had arrived since he checked. Still nothing. He went back to his job to check for messages. When he got there they talked him into staying for his shift. He rationalized that if she showed up while he was there, they’d be reunited immediately. The first hour or so went quickly, but the longer he sat in one spot and Rook didn’t appear, the more depressed he became and he left halfway through the shift.
Fin spent the night hunched against the chill, sitting motionless, staring at every passerby on Linden Avenue. At six in the morning, he wandered down the block to The Shamrock but couldn’t eat any of the breakfast he ordered. The bulletin board by the door inspired another tactic for his search, and he put up fliers in the places he knew she frequented.
*** *** ***
The wedding ring finally started Rook thinking again. It was ugly and uncomfortably tight.
She had the vague knowledge that something like a week — an entire week! — passed while she left her body in the hands of her inner child. Unfortunately, her inner child was twins.
In fifth grade, during her mother’s third divorce, the school counselor recommended Brook see a psychologist. Her mother embraced the idea, treating therapy as an extra-curricular activity — something to keep her little Brook Bramble occupied after school. To heighten the competitive aspects, she’d signed up Dragonfly Bay and Junebug Spring too. Who’s the most screwed up? Who can get better the fastest? Who might need medication? Go team!
The psychologist said Brook suffered from a depersonalization disorder. She shielded herself from the pain and confusion of her real life by inventing an alter-ego, the perfect Princess Brook. When Princess Brook was unable to stay out of trouble, a second alter-ego developed to take the blame. Princess Brook was the perfect one: complacent, eager to please, loved. Princess Bramble was the naughty one: bold, devilish, mischievous. Young Brook increasingly watched her life unfold from a third-person viewpoint, her world hazy, her actions not her own. She began to burn herself with matches and poke fingers with sewing needles just to feel something, to be in control. That’s when she started therapy with Dr Wymbol.
Princess Brook embodied everything the real Brook thought she ought to be, Bramble everything she feared she was. Rook knew it was Bramble who enjoyed being fucked by Kyle. While Rook cowered in denial, Brook cooked and smiled, Bramble gave blowjobs and had orgasms.
Rook shuddered.
She considered the ring again. If she kept it on she would develop a dent in her finger where it would nest and become like an extension of herself, mostly not considered and difficult to remove. Kyle would insist she wear it, she knew. It symbolized his hold on her. But he wasn’t home right now, and her finger itched.
She started wiggling the ring, trying to take it off, for a little while at least.
It had all been so simple when she was a child. Slipping into the role of Princess Coping Mechanism made perfect sense. Princess Brook never had any problems. Who wouldn’t want to be her? And if reality intruded, Bramble was waiting to take the heat. The real Brook could ignore everything and stay safe. At least until the disconnection became overwhelming and she had to hurt herself to drive the fog away.
Slowly Brook had learned how to deal with her real life. On her last day of therapy she symbolically locked the Princesses away. Princess Brook lay in an orchid-scented glass coffin on a bed of smooth, white stones, under briskly flowing water. Princess Bramble stood on a rough slab of lichen-encrusted rock, arms bound above her by thorny vines, ankles by whispering creepers in a glossy, black-green berry thicket of epic proportions. The fact that she could vividly picture their prisons and the serene aspects of their sleeping faces should have been a sign to somebody she wasn’t really cured.
There were times throughout her life, her term with Marcus being a good example, when she pretended to be someone besides herself. It was easier to be Raven for him than to insist she was Rook. She had outwardly sublimated her identity, but the Princesses stayed asleep. Until now. Maybe the Kyle vibration in her head had weakened the foundations of their prisons.
Rook went into the bedroom and got the Astroglide from the nightstand drawer. She lubricated her finger and the link of gold slipped off. Underneath, the skin was wrinkly and mottled black. Rook thought for a moment she had gangrene, but then understood. Her other wedding ring, the tattoo. She had forgotten about it.
After wiping her hands and the ring clean, Rook studied the tattoo. It wasn’t healed and needed to be exposed to the air. She liked it so much more than the gaudy gold monstrosity Kyle had claimed her with. Elegant and simple, the delicate black lines twining around and around. She could never pawn it and it could never be stolen. It could only be obscured, which is what Kyle had done. He didn’t want her to be reminded of Fin. Didn’t want to be reminded himself. Who would want to think about his wife in bed with his brother? Rook felt uncomfortable, like she had betrayed Fin.
She wished this were a betrayal, wished he was alive to be betrayed.
Her karma must really suck. How else to explain finding such unexpected love only to have it stolen and replaced with a shoddy replica? She and Fin were happy together, but now she was compelled to go through the motions of a marriage with Kyle instead. Since her husbands were half-twins did the universe assume she wouldn’t notice the difference?
Rook curled up on the bed, hugging her pillow and trying to call up memories of Fin. Her lack of success confounded her. What had they even had together? Perhaps it was pheromones and nothing more.
But he must have loved her. He wore a wedding ring like hers, painful to acquire and impossible to remove.
Her mother hopped from husband to husband, never giving herself time to figure out what she wanted, what she hoped to find in these men. Rook always swore she would never marry, never be like her mother.
Yet she was already on her second marriage. One mistake could be forgiven, but two?
Fin was not a mistake. If he had lived, things would have been different. Rook laughed humorlessly at the understatement.
Kyle was the mistake, not Fin. She could still be forgiven, just needed to get away from Kyle and start over. Not make any more mistakes.
Getting away from Kyle could prove difficult since he took no chances with her ‘safety.’ If her behavior changed or she let on she felt discontented, who knew what he would do? Rook didn’t relish the thought of being drugged again or locked in a closet. Best to keep him happy.
Brook certainly liked playing house with Kyle. She enjoyed the idea of status, of being married to a rich, powerful, handsome man. Bramble, on the other hand, reveled in the naughtiness. Kyle had an endless supply of degrading fantasies to act out, and Bramble loved them all. Rook resisted the idea of handing her reins over to the pair of them, but what choice did she have?
Rook uncurled herself and stretched. She felt better, almost fully awake. The idea of forming a truce with Brook and Bramble was daunting, but Rook would grant them rights to her body while retaining her intellectual property.
Hearing the elevator brought her mood down again. Kyle’s low vibration in her head strengthened. What to make of that? It must mean something. Did it signal a deeper connection than she wanted to accept? Reaching for the ring, she noticed lettering on the inside. What sort of romantic notion did Kyle deem worthy of inscribing on a wedding band?
PUT IT BACK ON, ROOK
Chapter Twenty-One
PENTHOUSE
The unprecedented wave of missing-persons reports continues with another eight individuals added to the roster as of press time. Neighboring communities are also affected, although the main locus of the phenomenon appears to be Webster.
Historically, the Webster/Donner region has seen a higher-than-typical rate of disappearances over the last three decades, but virtually none of the affected people remain missing for more than two days. The current surge is especially alarming because some of those who vanished have not been seen in over a week, signaling a darker turn in the pattern.
from Webster Daily Press, 10-23-2000
Fin knew that Rook’s sister went to Buck U. Their relationship was strained by Rook’s discovery that her sister slept with Marcus, but Fin was counting on lingering familial warmth to help him out.
When the dorm room door opened, Fin’s heart lurched and foundered in a pool of adrenaline. It was Rook. Only it wasn’t. Maybe Rook four years ago. Naive, happy, puzzled, and very, very young.
“Are you looking for Celine?” asked the girl who could only be Rook’s sister, in a close approximation of Rook’s voice.
Fin stared.
Rook’s hair, the same black and red. A little taller. A little thinner. Fresh tattoo on her collarbone. Nose stud on the wrong side, the wrong color. Dressed like she’d raided Rook’s closet and nothing was quite the right size. She was a poorly made copy. Depression flooded him. Rook wouldn’t have gone to this little girl who so obviously worshipped her big sister. That he came here looking for her shone a spotlight on the depth of his desperation.
With a start Fin noticed her eyes were light brown. Not at all like Rook’s.
Junebug laughed nervously, about to shut the door.
“I’m looking for your sister,” he said belatedly.
“Who do you think my sister is?” Junebug asked.
“Rook. Maybe you call her Brook. Brandymoon. Except now she’s Rook Tanner. We got married a little while ago.”
Junebug arched one eyebrow in an exact replica of Rook’s incredulous look. Fin couldn’t decide if Junebug was a good thing or a bad thing. He wanted to shake her. To get her to stop aping Rook, or to get her to do a better job? He wasn’t sure.
“What’s your name?” She purred, sounding more than merely curious.
“Fin,” he replied warily.
“I never heard her talk about you. She lives with M—” She stopped herself.
“Marcus. Yeah. Not anymore.” Fin saw what he had been avoiding, doing useless things like looking up Junebug as a distraction. In all his snooping Fin hadn’t run across Marcus or heard any mention of him. His absence was a most unwelcome clue.
Junebug’s not-blue eyes crawled over him and she licked her lips. She opened the door fully and stepped aside, motioning him to enter.
Fin wanted to escape. Junebug was a bad thing. Possibly a wild thing. She couldn’t help him, would just pump him for information about her idol. Fin had the distinct impression there was more than one kind of pumping on her mind.
“I’ll see you at the family reunion,” he said, and left.
From Rook’s laptop he obtained the address of the apartment she’d shared with Marcus. Nothing. The air was stale, ashtrays empty. Like no one had been there for a week. Which was how long ago the reception was.
One week since he’d seen his wife.
Fin filled a garbage bag with all the girl things he could find. Rook would appreciate having more than his old clothes to wear. Sobbing, he carried her recovered belongings to the bomb shelter. He’d taken to leaving the padlock off in case she came back when he was out looking for her, and subsequently lost it, so now his dad’s snooty neighbors were on the honor system. Those fuckers better not steal Rook’s stuff.
He patrolled his flyers, tearing down lost cats and bar bands that overlapped some of them. At the bookstore a balding man commented on the rudeness of Fin’s actions.
“Do you think so?” Fin challenged. The man quailed a bit, but nodded, held eye contact.
Fin barged into the stranger’s mind and rifled all the cabinets looking for a connection to Rook’s disappearance, went back again looking for a coincidental meeting, even brushing elbows in the street. He dug fiercely for any glimmer of recognition. He found nothing.
Fin released his victim, feeling ill over what he had done. The man looked dazed and horrified, but not permanently harmed. Fin rushed out the door seeking fresh air.
His hope crushed, Fin collapsed into a frenzy of self destruction. He had only been on the wagon for a short time. When he fell off, there was nobody around who noticed.
He plunged into the deviant candy store of his personal stash and cleaned it out in a single binge. Adept with self-medication, he knew how his chemistry would react to mixtures of hard drugs, could tweak the blend to achieve subtle degrees of psychosis, shades of being fucked up. With the aloof air of a sorcerer he could cast a spell over himself but never give up control.
Tonight he gave up control. He made no pretense at seeking pleasure, or enlightenment, or looking for the edge of the world. This was the unceremonious consumption of a shitload of toxins. This was seeking oblivion.
The shakes and a mammoth headache told him he’d nearly found what he’d gone looking for.
Before the disappointment even fully registered, Fin was planning his next score. Without Rook, he reverted to his instinctual behaviors. Some people owed him, some others were not good at saying no. No one had much luck saying no to Fin this time. He was preternaturally persuasive.
*** *** ***
Besides the ring and the marriage license Brook eagerly signed, Rook decided another symbol of Kyle’s hold on her was her own willingness to be held. Kyle slept soundly, and they were alone in the apartment at night. It didn’t take a genius to see night was the time to snoop. It galled Rook this had not occurred to her before. She couldn’t just walk out, but she could try to learn something in the locked room at the end of the hall. Or maybe figure out a way to climb down from the balcony.
A quick look over the railing confirmed Rook’s memory. No easy way down. Her aerie-prison perched well above the tops of the palm trees and the tame little waterfall. She knew from the sex field trip Kyle took her on a few nights ago that the koi pond at the base of the waterfall was only knee-deep, so a swan dive would be her swan song. There were no other balconies to climb to. She assumed offices made up the rest of the building. Apparently god didn’t see fit to parcel out prime real estate to the entire flock, just the shepherd. Damn.
Rook thought about picking the lock on the door at the end of the hall, but had a better idea. Kyle would have the key.
Their creepy mental connection should act as an early warning system if he woke up, so her position needn’t be too compromising.
The keys were easy to find.
Rook crept down the hall and knelt in front of the door. After several wrong guesses, a key turned in the lock. She allowed herself a smile of satisfaction as she opened the door and slipped into the dark inside.
With the door closed behind her, Rook flipped on the lights. Her eyes adjusted to the low wattage and she looked around, suddenly conscious of her nudity. A large den. With the business office right downstairs, this place must be intended for more private activities. Personal. Secret.
Bookshelves lined the walls. The majority of the books were religious tomes. There were some biographies, some historical studie
s, a few Classics of Western Literature and a smattering of art books.
The only window shared its view of the horrible illuminated cathedral with the office downstairs. In the center of the room, on an Oriental carpet, a dark walnut desk patiently waited to be plundered. Covering its surface were papers, open texts, religious objects, and a portrait of a sickly looking young blonde woman wearing a honeydew-colored pantsuit, its frame inscribed, ‘Molly Oliver Shaw 1952-1981.’ A leather armchair with a reading lamp dominated the far corner, flanked by an old-fashioned console radio and a pipe stand full of pipes. All of it left over from Brian Shaw. To one side of the door sat several office supply boxes. Kyle boxed up all the things he didn’t want to look at on a daily basis and stuck them in here. That meant he wasn’t likely to notice if she snooped around, but it also meant there wouldn’t be much, if anything, pertaining to Kyle himself.
A door along the right wall caught her attention. Maybe Shaw had a hidden arsenal. Inside Rook saw a small altar, complete with wooden chalice and leather-bound prayer book, and a lock of long blonde hair tied with twine. To each side she spotted something much more interesting. A narrow flight of stairs leading up and another leading down. Rook felt a flutter of excitement in her belly. What would she find on the roof? Maybe a fire escape!
Rook raced up the carpeted stairs and came to a tiny room with one metal door and one shatterproof window. Out the window she saw a helipad. Lights defined the perimeter of the roof, and a helicopter silently waited. Beside the door Rook saw a small keypad with a display blinking ‘armed.’ Damn.
Well, there were the other stairs. Which hopefully didn’t lead straight to the sentry station.
Rook retreated, passed by the altar and descended the other flight. These let her out in the anteroom off Kyle’s office, near the elevator, and disappointingly went no further. The elevator buttons were dark and mocking, but she jabbed the Down arrow anyway. Nothing happened. When she’d been here before she hadn’t explored beyond this office. There must be another elevator for the rest of the staff to use. And stairs. That was fire code, wasn’t it?
Miss Brandymoon's Device: a novel of sex, nanotech, and a sentient lava lamp (Divided Man Book 1) Page 27
