Chapter 36
The sky is studded with more stars than the teacup you normally use, and yet you cannot see them. In the time you have been gone, humanity has become more and more entangled with electronic devices. People use lightbulbs to keep themselves awake – artificial lights – much the same way as you once used candlelight, only more so. In your time, yes, there had been those paid to light lamps in the big cities to guide wayward children back home, but it is nothing compared to this. Even in your host’s smaller town, there is enough light to prevent you from seeing the stars you once were able to see.
It isn’t a specific memory, rather one among many, something habitual, something repeated – dragging yourself out of bed when you cannot sleep and walking, not through your manor, but to the edge of your lake. You were younger, then, and your insomnia pulled at you even then. You were always careful not to wake anyone else, but somehow your father always found you out there. Perhaps you learned your insomnia from him. If he did not find you, then one of the servants did, and in those cold winter months, you’d curled up by a fireplace instead and looked out over the looming, steaming lake, wishing you could be outside rather than in.
The memories are vague, but they come to you, slowly but surely, as you walk. It isn’t anything you can hold onto. Just feelings. Comforting ones. It isn’t as though you can remember what you looked like then, a scrawny kid pulling her knees against her chest and staring out on a world covered with snow. You only know that it happened.
Her body instinctively wants to turn left out of the house. You suspect that either the flower shop or the library or both are in that direction. Sometimes you’ve paid attention when she leaves, and sometimes you’ve noticed when she’s paid attention through the window as Jamie leaves, but while you must have logged those specifics at some point, they are not coming to you now.
She wants to go left. You fight the instinct, and you turn right instead. Perhaps right will open a whole new world for you. Perhaps not. You cannot know until you go.
Most of the stores are closed. You stop every now and again, when one piques your interest, and glance through the windows at the wares inside. This isn’t the same as it would be to see them in the sunlight, among the waking, living world. This is only a mirror of the real world, and as you look into the glass, you stop just long enough to gaze at your reflection. You expect to see your host, but instead, you see the faceless maw of your rage. Your reflection has no eyes with which to see you, and yet you know she peers at you just as you peer at her. It’s unsettling. You move on.
Eventually, you find a shop that is still open. No – not a shop – a restaurant. You peer at the title – Denny’s. It seems that their new promotion is a free meal on your birthday. You do not remember when your birthday is, and you certainly do not know when your host’s is, if you were planning to impersonate her, which you weren’t. You do not know if it is worth your while to lie about such things.
And yet your stomach rumbles, and you find that you are hungry, and upon looking into the restaurant again, you see – through that reflection of your rage that you refuse to acknowledge – one of the few other figures that you might recognize. Interest piqued, you make your way inside.
“Strange to see you here, Emilio,” you murmur as you slide onto the chair next to him. Literally slide – the red plastic covers they have on chairs this century are nothing like the cushions you are used to, and they are far more slippery than you expect them to be. The other half of the time they’re hard as stone. You aren’t sure you have a preference between them.
Emilio Solano sets his cup of coffee back on its saucer, continues to cup it with the palm of one hand, but does not turn to you. It is likely that he is trying to maintain eye contact with your reflection in the metal napkin holder, but you hope that isn’t the case. A cursory glance shows the you stuck in the lake, the you with no facial features, the you with no eyes. How could he recognize you if your reflection looks like that? He’s never met you in his life.
That strikes to the core of you, and it hurts. He’s met you, but he’s never met you. He wouldn’t see that and recognize you as you. If he even sees that to begin with.
“Dani.” Emilio raises one brow. “I believe you told me you’d come down with a, how did you put it – a horrid cold?” He turns to her then and gives her a strong look. “I don’t much like when one of my employees lies to me.”
That sort of statement would likely make your host furious. Fortunately for the both of you, she is not the one here right now.
“It is a good thing I am not in your employ, then,” you murmur, pushing a hand through her unkempt blonde hair. “Besides, I don’t much like to lie.” You meet his eyes with a hint of a wry smile. It likely doesn’t fit your host’s face well; you can feel her muscles complaining about the new stretch. “I apologize for my poor behavior earlier. I was feeling under the weather.”
Emilio gives her another look and then nods. “My wife used to say the same thing.” His thumb brushes against a golden wedding band, turning it around his finger.
Your host would likely comment on the young woman who had been hanging on Emilio when they first met him at the library, but you know instinctively that isn’t who he means. When the serving girl appears with a menu, you ask for a cup of tea – you don’t trust her to make it well, but you can hope – and scan the flimsy plastic covered pamphlet in front of you. Then you remember, and when the girl returns with a tall glass full of ice—
Oh. They make tea the way Dani does.
—you hide your disgust. “It’s my birthday,” you say, glancing up to the waitress. She switches your menu out for another one and then leaves again. You levy a strong look at your glass of iced tea and shudder. “I hope your coffee is better than this disgrace.”
“Everything in here is a disgrace. That’s part of the appeal.” Emilio scans your birthday menu. “I thought you didn’t like to lie.”
“The thing about being under the weather,” you begin, not looking up as you read through the platters offered, “is that your body spends so much energy that when you feel better, you feel quite starved, as I do now. Unfortunately, I left without a form of payment.”
Emilio’s eyes narrow. “So you would steal from them instead.”
“How do you know that it isn’t my birthday?” You tap a finger on the menu. “Next time, I will make sure to tip much more than the food is worth. Then the money will go directly into her pocket, instead of the owner, who likely doesn’t pay her what she’s worth.”
Something in you reminds you that you don’t know much of anything about how this century deals with its serving people, but you remember how yours did – not well. You, of course, made sure that your servants were well paid. Something in you knows this, knows somehow that you did better by them then most of your peers. You cannot imagine that this century, with all of its trappings, is much better. They’ve likely just found subtler ways of pushing the lower classes into the dirt.
You’d never much cared for those sorts of thoughts. Class is based entirely on birth situation. Your class may have been higher for all of your life, but that had not prevented you from being relatively poor for most of it – until your father taught you the books, until you’d taken them over yourself and turned your failing manor into a prosperous one. Men never wanted to believe you were as capable as you are. Only your father – and your husband.
You tap your finger on the menu again. “If everything is a disgrace, which of these would you get?”
“The pancake platter,” Emilio states without hesitation. “Most of their imperfections can be coated over with a heaping helping of maple syrup, and the eggs can be taken care of with salt and pepper.”
Your eyes narrow as you continue to read the menu. “Biscuits and gravy?” You glance up at him. “What sort of—”
This would be an opportune moment to ask your host. Unfortunately, to your knowledge, she still slumbers. No point in waking her for something like this. You press your lips together, tap the menu a third time, and when the serving girl returns, order that instead of the pancakes Emilio suggested. They’re likely exactly what they say they are, but you can’t imagine how that is particularly good. Of course, if everything this restaurant serves is a disgrace, then you shouldn’t be surprised if this is, too.
“Ah. A true Southerner. Iced tea and biscuits and gravy.” Emilio stirs cream into his second cup of coffee, idly moving the spoon counterclockwise within his cup. “You must not be from around here.”
You laugh – a dark chuckle that isn’t nearly as dark as it should be given that it is tainted with your host’s voice. “No,” you murmur with a hint of a smile. “I’m not from around here at all.” You tilt your head as you turn to the man, examining him. Your hair doesn’t fall about your shoulders or through your fingers, although you remember it doing so – not in specific, not in this body, but at some point – some point. The action, at least, feels familiar to you but beyond you. “I do not believe you are either. Am I wrong?”
Emilio shakes his head and lifts his finger for the serving girl, ordering a pancake platter of his own. “So that you will not have to eat alone.” But he doesn’t answer your question in the way that you want, instead taking another, long sip of his coffee as though it will settle him. You have seen your host do the same, although just as often she will peer over the top of her mug and give her partner a not-so-subtle smile. “My family is from many places, although recently we have made our permanent lodgings in Florida.”
You do not know where that is, but you suspect from the hint of distaste in Emilio’s voice that it isn’t a particularly great place. “That sounds unfortunate,” you murmur. “What brings you here? Did you just want a change of scenery?”
“I own a chain of hotels, and the board has been considering opening another location.” Emilio glances to the other side of the bar, not meeting her eyes. “Vermont seemed like a prime location, and if we – if I – found the right city, we might be able to have it ready for the next tourist season in the fall.”
“The board?” you echo, raising an eyebrow. “Do you not mean you?”
Emilio covers his mouth as he gives a little cough. “It is more polite to say the board.”
“We do not need politeness between us.”
It’s all too easy, the way he smirks, the little chuckle behind his closed lips. You haven’t lost your touch, even after centuries without practice. “You remind me of my wife,” he murmurs, twirling his golden ring again.
You take a sip of your cold tea. It isn’t good, but you have schooled yourself not to show your disgust over taste. “Is that a good thing or a bad thing?”
“I’m not sure.”
The serving girl brings your food, and you stare at the platter in front of you. The biscuits, at least, you recognize, but the only gravy you’ve ever seen was a deep, murky brown, not this thick, white stuff with bits of meat stirred into it. To one side, there are golden white thin strips of…something. You don’t recognize them, either, but you’re certain that it’s food. You stare at it and blink twice.
Emilio nods toward your food. “You look like you’ve never had it before.”
“I haven’t.”
You’ve seen your host eat any manner of things that hadn’t existed when you were alive – or, if they had, you certainly never had them. She doesn’t use formal dining wear every time, either. Some things, like apples, are meant to be eaten with one’s hands. Whatever the golden white mishmash is, you think it is intended for utensils, and you suspect that’s true of the biscuits, too, even though a normal hard biscuit is just fine with hands. It is far more complicated than you imagined.
And yet.
“A suggestion,” Emilio says, passing you a tube full of some red sauce. “Put this on the hash browns. They taste better that way.”
The hash browns must be the golden white mishmash. You take the red bottle and splutter a bit of the sauce on it. Like the gravy, it’s thicker than you are used to sauce being. It’s a cross between a sauce and a butter – too thick for one and too thin for the other – but whatever it is, mixed with the hash browns, it tastes….
Surprisingly good. Not disgraceful at all.
Or maybe food is just that much better now than it was when you were alive. Surprisingly sweeter, but not in the same way fruit is, with a nice crunch to it. Finding it good, you move to the biscuits and gravy. The biscuits are softer than you’re used to, and the gravy is superb. It’s like a cream sauce, almost, but less cream and more savory, likely due to the bits of what you now recognize as sausage spattered about in it.
It’s good. It’s all good. Food is so good. You’d forgotten what it was like, other than the fruit on your side of the gate, other than the taste you’d received from Owen so long ago.
Except for the iced tea. That is perfectly dreadful.
“Here.” Emilio nudges his plate in her direction. “Take a bite. From your questions, I’d guess you haven’t had this before either.”
You glance over to the stack of pancakes on his plate. He’s placed a dollop of butter atop them and poured maple syrup over that. They look divine, but something inside of you says you’ve had these before. These are older than this time period, old enough that you must have had them. Perhaps not so thick as his are, but you know these. Somewhere in you, you know them.
“No, thank you. I’m well enough with this.” You gaze at your plate again. “More than enough.”
It’s quiet as the two of you eat – only the scraping of forks on plates and your occasional disgust with your iced tea, although it tastes better when taken around your food. Eventually, Emilio takes the napkin off of his lap and places it on the counter next to him. Then he turns to you, considering you. It doesn’t unsettle you. It isn’t the first time you’ve been considered by a man, although in most other occasions, you were dressed the part. His consideration, however, doesn’t feel that sort. “You seem different than the last time we talked.”
He must be speaking of your host. You set your fork to one side. “Is that a bad thing or a good thing?”
“I’m not sure.”
You smile, wry and knowing, as you turn to him. “You said I reminded you of your wife, but you weren’t sure if that was good either. Which is it?”
Emilio sighs. “You remind me of what she was like at the beginning of her illness. I’m not sure if that means you’re at the beginning of yours or if you’ve worked enough at it to get to this point.” He drums his fingertips on the table. “You said that you had anxiety issues and that you’d taken yourself out of teaching because of them. I hope you’ve been seeing a good therapist.”
The mention of therapy tightens your stomach. In your time, that meant an entirely different thing for women than it did for men – usually, if it was bad enough, it meant time in an asylum from which you would never have been let out. You have no idea how things might have progressed here, if a man she barely knows is suggesting such a thing to her, to someone who he wanted to teach his children. Likely it means something entirely different. Perhaps, centuries later, therapists actually care about their female patients instead of ascribing everything to their hysteria. But you cannot be sure.
As you blanch, Emilio raises an eyebrow. “You’ve gotten this far on your own?”
“Yes.” You tilt your head to one side and look at him. “Is that such a bad thing?”
Emilio’s stern look eases. “You keep asking me if things are good or bad. Can’t you make that judgment yourself?”
“Of course, I can,” you say without hesitation, almost cutting him off before he finishes the question. “In good conversation, it is best not to assume the other person’s response. If you say I’m like your wife, I do not know the woman, and I do not know how well you related to her. It could be either. You comment on my being different. I consider that a good thing, since the last time we talked I mentioned I felt unwell. I feel better now, so that should be good, but your tone suggests otherwise. I mention that I haven’t been to therapy – in fact, I do not mention it at all, you merely make the assumption—”
“I was right—”
“—but you seem to regard me with disdain for such an admittance.” You press your lips together. Perhaps your tone sounds harsh, although you do not mean it to do so. You give a little shake of your head and let one corner of your lips turn up. “All of this, and yet you have not suggested finding another tutor for your children. I’m not sure what to make of you, Emilio.”
Emilio gives you another look, one that you cannot quite make out. It isn’t one that you are familiar with in the small group of people you’ve been allowed to interact with, and although you draw deep from those vague memories that circle the back of your mind, you cannot pull out a specific moment you’ve seen it. The fog is too thick, and you cannot remember. “Your mind is not yet so broken that I cannot trust you with my children.” He rubs a hand along his short beard. “But if you want to tutor them, then I believe therapy should be part of it.” He meets her eyes. “I don’t like planning for a tutor only to have you back out a few minutes before. I have things to do that involve not having my children, and I don’t want to reschedule my life because you are unreliable.”
You bristle, but you do not show it.
Therapy in this time period must be different than what you imagine, or else there is no way you would be able to continue to help his children while you deal with that. Not that you’ve actually been able to tutor them at all since he agreed to it, not with Dani deciding that perhaps you shouldn’t be involved at all, not with the rage that overcame you and kept her from going. You do not know if your host will agree to therapy, but if agreeing allows you to see the children—
“Do you have any suggestions?”
The door clicks shut behind you, soft enough that it doesn’t wake the gardener where she still slumbers on the sofa. You run your thumb along the card Emilio gave you, reading the name etched into it with deep, blood red ink: Dr. Katherine Lundy. There’s a number under it, along with her specialty – child psychology, which would perhaps fit more with Emilio’s eldest daughter than it would with you.
And yet this is the woman he has suggested for you.
Her address suggests she isn’t far from here. You glance out the window, across the street, where a sign for a bus stop stretches out of the ground. This, you believe, you will need to do yourself. Jamie would deny you on the basis that your host would deny you, especially once either of them notes your unease with the proceedings. And yet, this is required of you, and you will do it.
Your host will have no option but to join you.