“Jacko wasJacko’s body,” says Arkady, “with Jacko’s habits of mind, but with Xi Lo’s soul and memories.”
She shudders, lost. “Why saysuch a thing?”
“Good question,” says Arkady. “Why would we, if it wasn’t true?”
Holly stands up and her chair topples backwards. “It usually comes down to an attempt to get money.”
“Horology was founded in 1598,” Arkady says aloofly. “We’ve made a few investments down the years. Your nest eggs are safe.”
Behave, I suborder Arkady. “Consider Jacko’s oddities,” I ask Holly. “Why would a British boy listen to Chinese radio?”
“Because … Jacko found it soothing.”
“Mandarin was Xi Lo’s mother tongue,” I explain.
“ Englishwas Jacko’s mother tongue! My mum was his mum! The Captain Marlow was his home. His family’s us. We loved him. We still do.” Holly’s blinking back tears. “Even today.”
“And Xi Lo–in–Jack loved you too,” I say gently. “Very much. He even loved Newky, the smelliest dog in Kent. None of that love was a lie. But none of what we’re telling is a lie, either. Xi Lo’s soul was older than your pub. Older than England. Older than Christianity.”
Holly’s heard enough. She picks up the knocked-over chair. “My plane flies back to Dublin this afternoon, and I’ll be on it. As you spoke, there were … bits I believed, bits I can’t. A lot of it, I just don’t know. The dreamseeding stuff was incredible. But … it’s taken me so long to stop blaming myself for Jacko, and you’re ripping that scar tissue off.” She puts on her coat. “I lead a quiet life with books and cats in the west of Ireland. Little, local, normal stuff. The Holly Sykes who wrote The Radio People, she might’vebelieved in your Atemporals, in your magic monks, but I’m not her anymore. If you are Marinus, good luck with … whatever.” Holly retrieves her handbag, puts the green key on the table, and goes to the door. “Goodbye. I’m off.”
Shall I suasion her to stay?subasks Arkady.
If her cooperation is coerced, it’s not cooperation.
“We understand,” I tell Holly. “Thanks for visiting.”
Arkady subreminds me, What about Esther?
Too much, too fast, too soon. Say something nice.
“Sorry I was rude,” says Arkady. “Growing pains.”
Holly says, “Tell Batman’s butler goodbye.”
“I will,” I answer, “and au revoir, Ms. Sykes.”
Holly has closed the door. By now the Anchorites’ll know she’s here, substates Arkady. Shall we have Ф shima shadow her?
I’m unconvinced. Pfenninger won’t abort his meticulous plans on a premature strike.
If they suspect that Esther Little is walled up inside Holly’s head, Arkady’s fingers make a gun, they’ll strike all right, and hard.
I drink cooled tea, trying to see this morning from the Anchorites’ view. How could they know that Esther’s in Holly?
They can’t know for sure. Arkady cleans his glasses on the sleeve of his Nehru shirt. But they could guess, and off her to be safe.
“ ‘Off her’? Too many gangster films, Arkady.” My device trills. The screen reads PRIVATE CALLER and I intuit it’s bad news even before I hear Elijah D’Arnoq: “Thank God, Marinus. It’s me, D’Arnoq. Look, I just found out: Constantin dispatched a cell to abduct and scansion Holly Sykes. It won’t be consensual. Stop them.”
The words sink in. “When?”
“Right now,” answers D’Arnoq.
“Where?” I ask.
“Probably at her hotel. Hurry.”
ФSHIMA’S WAITING ACROSS the road as I emerge, his collar up and his rain-spotted porkpie hat angled low. He points with a jerk of his head in the Park Avenue direction, subsaying, I guess we failed the interview.
I recognize Holly from behind by her long black coat and head-wrap. My fault. I told her that Jacko was older than Jesus. I step aside for a skateboarder. More urgently, D’Arnoq was just in touch, I subreply, to say that a cell has been sent to pick her up for scansioning. I put up my rainbow umbrella as a shield and we set off, Фshima matching my pace and position on the south side of the street, me on the north.
Remind me, subsays Фshima, why we don’t just suasion her into a nice deep sleep and then go in subhollering for Esther?
One, it’s against the Codex. Two, sheis chakra-latent, so she may react badly to scansion and redact her own memories, unraveling anyone who is in residence. Three … Well, that’s enough for now. But we’ll need her goodwill, and should only suasion her as a last resort.
The green man flashes as Holly reaches Park Avenue, so Фshima and I rush, dodge traffic, and get honked at to avoid being stranded on the island in the middle. We lengthen our strides and get to within twenty paces of Holly. Фshima asks, Do we have a strategy here, Marinus, or are we just following her like a pair of stalkers?
Between here and her hotel, let’s just secure her some head space to let her consider what she’s just learned.New leaves and old trees drip, gutters slosh, drains gargle. With luck, the park will work its magic on her. If not, we may have to use ours. A doorman peers up at the rain from under an awning. We reach Madison, where Holly waits in the drizzle while I stand in the doorway of a boutique, watching that dog walker, those Hasidic Jews, the Arab-looking businessman over there. A couple of cabs slow down, hoping to lure a fare, but Holly is gazing into the small green rectangle of Central Park at the far end of the block. Her mind must be in turmoil. To write a memoir in which psychic events irrupt occasionally is one thing, but for psychic events to dreamseed you, serve you Irish tea, and spin you a whole cosmology, that’s another. Maybe Фshima’s right; maybe I should suasion her back to 119A. A metalife of 1,400 years is no guarantee that you always know the right thing to do.
DON’T WALK turns to WALK and I miss my chance. Crossing Madison, I taste paranoia, and glance at people in the waiting vehicles, half expecting to see Pfenninger or Constantin staring back with hunters’ eyes. The last block to the park is busier with foot traffic so I’m even jumpier. Is that iShaded jogger with the baby stroller really a jogger? Didn’t that curtain twitch as Holly passed by? Why would a young surveyor with his tripod watch a gaunt woman in her fifties so closely? He eyes me up as well, so maybe he’s just not fussy. Фshima keeps pace on the pavement opposite, blending into the morning bustle far better than me. We pass Saint James’s Church, whose red-brick steeple once towered above this rural neighborhood of Manhattan. Yu Leon Marinus attended a wedding here in 1968. The bride and groom will be in their eighties now, if they’re still alive.
On Fifth Avenue traffic is lumbering and foul-tempered. Holly stands behind a cluster of Chinese tourists. They’re agreeing in loud Cantonese how New York is smaller, tattier, and crappier than they’d expected. Across the road, Фshima is leaning casually against the corner of the Frick Collection, his face hooded. A bus passes with a digital ad for the newly released movie of Crispin Hershey’s Echo Must Die, but Holly is staring blankly at the park. I calm down. My instinct says we’re safe from the enemy until we reach her hotel on Broadway. If she hasn’t turned around by then, I’ll have to ignore my scruples and perform an Act of Suasion on Holly for her own safety. The Anchorites won’t try anything rash. The fallout from public assassinations is too messy. Reality on Fifth Avenue this drizzly morning is exactly as it appears.
A CHUNKY NYPD 4Ч4 pulls up onto the pavement, and a young black female officer swings out onto the sidewalk, holding her ID. “Ma’am? Are you Holly Sykes?”
Holly is yanked back to the here and now: “Yes, I—yes, is—”
“And you arethe mother of Aoife Brubeck?”