“Come,” Messenger said.
SOMETHING WAS ODD ABOUT THE HOUSE. FOR one thing, it was distinctly southwestern in flavor, with thick adobe walls of a soft ochre color. The floors were dark hardwood, the lights soft, and then I realized why it struck me as so strange. The walls were not, in fact, thick adobe; on closer examination, they were glass panels and the ochre look was a projection. A very convincing projection that came from no source I could discover.
We passed into a dining room, where a family sat. Two children, both girls, sisters by their features but at the same time charmingly different. One had red hair and a pale but sunburned complexion. The other was Latina, I imagined, for her coloration was right at home in this decor. The first girl was four or maybe five, the other a tween.
They were eating pizza, and I am ashamed to admit that the sight of the pepperoni caused a hunger pang in my neglected belly.
It was easy to see how the girls had come by their different appearance, for their parents, a mother and father, were older images of that same dichotomy, one pale, one dark.
The father said, “Did we not get red pepper flakes? I don’t like it unless it’s spicy.”
The older girl flicked a package to him, which landed on his plate. He chided her, but everyone laughed.
The mother said, “Yes?” It was the “Yes” you use to answer a phone, although if there was a phone, it was so small as to be invisible. Then, with a resigned sigh, she said, “Twenty minutes.”
“Oh, come on,” the father moaned. “You have to go?”
“I’m indispensable,” the mother joked as she stood up. “Girls, don’t drive your father crazy—I have to go to work.”
There was something familiar in her voice, then in her face, and then it fell into place.
“Is that . . .”
“Liam and Emma. In twenty years,” Messenger said.
“Where is she going?”
“She’s on call,” he said. “She’s a doctor. A veterinary surgeon.”
I smiled, and then my smile faded as I remembered another poor penitent. “And what about Derek in twenty years?”
Messenger was silent for a long time. At last he said, “Take what joys come, Mara. They will be few.”
“Where is he, Messenger? Where is the boy whose mind we broke?”
“He is at the Shoals.”
“And what is that?”
He shrugged. “A prison. A hospital. A sanctuary. It is what its residents make of it. A last chance to find his way back to sanity.”
“Just tell me one thing, Messenger,” I said. “Just tell me that you know it was too harsh. Tell me that you know that we did wrong while trying to do right.” He was silent, so I tried one last time. “Tell me that you will cry for Derek.”
He said nothing. He didn’t even look at me. But I saw tears in his eyes. He clenched one hand into a fist and pressed it against his heart, and nodded so slightly that I could have doubted I’d seen it.
But I did not doubt.
“One more question and I will leave off. You created the illusion of Kayla. You created a face to conceal my own. Whose face was it, Messenger?”
He didn’t answer, and I didn’t really need him to. The color of the hair was different, but he had used the face of his beloved Ariadne.
Small joys and compensations.
We stood there, unseen, watching as Liam and Emma’s family argued over who would get the last slice. Then Messenger said, “It’s time to go.”
“Where?” I asked.
“To do our duty.”
We left the house and were somewhere very different, ready to witness, ready to offer, ready to punish, to keep the balance of the world.
To be the Messengers of Fear.