Chapter #65A Story of Several Lifetimes by: Seuzz   "Tell me all, Will," Fyodor says, and sends a smoke ring from his pipe. It rises to hover over his head at a rakish angle. His eyes and expression are friendly, merry, but there is something humorously inappropriate about the way the smoky halo lingers over his devilishly cheerful countenance.
"Where should I start, sir?" you ask. Despite his bonhomie, you're very nervous about confessing your sins to him.
"The beginning is often the best place," he says, and the chair groans again as he settles back into it.
"Well, I guess it started when I found this book at Arnholm's--"
"Back!" Fyodor roars, and sweeps the air with his arm. "Back to the beginning! To the day the doctor smacked your bare bottom in the delivery room, if you can!"
You gape. "Okay, then. Um. Well, I come from a little town called Saratoga Falls--"
* * * * *
It's the longest and most intense interview you have ever conducted. Fyodor interrupts you constantly, pressing for details and diversions as you recount your childhood, until you find his preferred mode, which is an exhaustive account of everything you remember and many things you had forgotten. You've heard that Russians like their stories long, and you struggle to give him what he wants.
Hours seem to pass before you finally reach the point where Mr. Walberg assigns your class to bring in items for a time capsule, and you reluctantly find yourself in Arnholm's Used Bookstore, looking for something--anything--to satisfy the teacher. But you're not the least bit tired, and Fyodor himself listens with undiminished intensity and enthusiasm, remarking only at points "That's very well put" or "What a marvelous turn that was" when your narrative has tripped over a semi-interesting point.
You lag now a little, though, as you're coming to the point where it all began to go wrong. You glance around, and notice that it's just you and the giant. "Where did Frank and Joe go?"
"For a run," he says. "They haven't my appetite. But continue. Now things are about to get exciting, no?" He grins around the stem of his pipe.
"Exciting but bad, I'm afraid, sir," you say, and hang your head a little.
"Pah! Just tell me."
So you recount to him, in excruciating detail, how you found the book, and experimented with the first masks, and how you brought Caleb into it. You tense and flinch when you talk about copying Jeremy Richards, and using him to get a copy of Lisa Yarborough's mind--though you didn't put it on, you hasten to add. He just smiles indulgently, as though neither the theft nor your refusal to take advantage of it are any more important or blameworthy than the time you disassembled your own bicycle.
So you're a little more open about how you used the masks to steal money from Eva Garner. "Ingenious!" he exclaims. You don't relax, for you're coming up hard on how you turned Jeremy into a golem, but Fyodor drinks it in with the same open-minded interest. "Amazing!" he says.
"What's so amazing about it, sir?" you squeak.
"What you did with the Libra, of course!"
"But it was wrong!"
"Was it?" His tone isn't puzzled; it sounds like a genuine question.
"Of course it was! We killed him! Basically."
"I suppose you did," he says. "But go on."
Now his attitude disconcerts you a little. You wonder if he is like Joe--fascinated by the possibilities of the masks and the book--or if he's a little mad, and thinks he's just listening to a story, a work of fiction, and not the history of your sins. But you press on.
You describe how you wanted to use the masks to get close to girls because-- He doesn't react, and you have to state it bluntly. "Because we wanted to, you know, have sex with them by pretending we were their boyfriends." Fyodor's gaze remains rapt and unclouded.
And then Steve Patterson enters the story. He made you join his team. No, you have to admit, though Fyodor has said nothing. He didn't make you join. He just drew a very vague picture of things, and you frightened yourself into doing what he wanted you to do. You got copies of your friends, and of Lisa, and you tricked Geoff into having sex with you, and you maliciously spread confusion so as to break them up. And then you moved to Eastman, where you captured and replaced Frank and Joe, and you tempted and seduced some freshman girls into helping you. After getting over the hump of describing what you did to Jeremy, it's easier to get through these bits.
Or it would be, except that Fyodor insists on hearing more than a dry recital of facts. He asks after your plans and motives. "But why did you do that" instead of this? he asks, and traces through your reasoning processes at each point. You have cause again to explain how jealous you felt of Frank and Joe, and how you wanted to be them. Fyodor takes this confession as completely in stride as he'd taken all the rest.
And you finish up with your account of being caught by Curt Straussler, and of freeing Joe, and of helping them set things to right again. "I want to make up for what I did, sir--" you start to say.
And only now does he wave you to silence. "That is the best story I have heard in many months," he declares. "The best!"
"It's not just a story!" you protest, so upset you forget to add the "sir" that you've been unconsciously using. "I did all those things, and they were wrong, and--"
"Of course!" he bellows. "Of course it's a story. It's your story. Now tell me why. Why is that your story, and not some other story?"
"Because those are the things I did! I wish I hadn't--!" You shut your mouth as, for the first time, Fyodor frowns. "I just did a lot of stupid and-- and evil things because I could."
"You don't believe that," he growls. "Neither do I."
What does he want? You lean forward to stare at the floor. You feel him pressing upon you.
"Maybe I didn't like my story," you say slowly. "Maybe I didn't like the story I was making for myself up until the time I found the book. Maybe I-- Maybe I wanted to be a character in someone else's story."
"We are all characters in someone else's story. Even in the stories of people we don't meet."
"Then maybe I wanted someone else's story for my own." Your head bends under a great weight.
"Maybe?" The word rumbles in the air.
"No. That's it exactly. I didn't like where my story was going. It wasn't going anywhere."
The air is very still. "But now you have a chance at a new story," Fyodor says. "One that will still be yours--"
"Do I, sir?" You raise your head. He stares back very gravely at you. "Joe and Frank said-- But you don't want me, sir. Not after what I--"
"It's not your place to judge what we want," he says. "But come. You are tired. You will see things with fresher eyes after you have slept."
You do feel very tired suddenly, though it is only a little past noon. Still, a nap might feel good. You take Fyodor's hand as he stands. A little strength flows into you.
But he doesn't lead you into a bedroom. Instead he takes you to the back yard, and leads you to a little metal shed. He tugs the door open, and bends almost double to stoop inside it. Then he pulls you in.
You'd expect it to be filled with gardening tools, but it is empty. Empty and dark. Vast and empty and dark. There are no walls, and only a little light comes in through the small doorway. "Come," Fyodor says, and grips your hand firmly.
You walk for a very long time through darkness, miles it feels like. The air is very still, and a little chilly. You don't talk. A creeping lethargy steals over you.
Finally, a light appears in the distance. Slowly you draw up. It's a pool of light coming from an invisible source, casting a circle on the floor. It illuminates two stone biers. One is empty. On the other--
His upturned face is pale and creased with fear and pain. It's Steve Patterson. "Yes, this is your friend," Fyodor says. "Joseph brought him here earlier. He sleeps, as you will too."
"Is this a cemetery," you ask, and fear grips you.
"For some," Fyodor says. "But not for you. Not for him. You will both wake, though I am sure you will wake before he does." He grips your hand, and his grasp is warm and reassuring. "Lay yourself here," he says, and gestures at the bier. "Rest and forget, rest and forgive. It will be quite easy for you, after all that you have told me."
You have no idea what he means, and the sight of Patterson shocks you; you thought you'd told Frank that he should let him go. But you lay down on the bier. It is cold, but a warmth, like an invisible coverlet, steals over you.
"I will sing to you now," Fyodor says. "You need not attend the words, for you will not understand them. Listen only to the melody."
And as you close your eyes he does begin to sing, a tune low and slow and rolling; a trifle melancholy, you think, but comforting too. It puts you mind of a lullaby your mother used to sing you, and tears of nostalgia puddle under your lids.
Fyodor's voice lingers on a hanging note, and then vanishes, for you have fallen asleep.
To continue: "The Four Musketeers"   |
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