Chapter #71The Blind One by: Seuzz   "Blinded?" you gasp, and grip Hyde-White's hand more tightly. "How—?"
"When he attacked the van," Hyde-White says. "The Stellae hit everyone in it, driver included, which is why there was a wreck, as was undoubtedly his purpose. I suppose it is one of his powers, though not one I would have expected of that individual," he adds in a puzzled tone. "None of the others in the van have recovered their sight either, despite the fact that our doctors can find no physical damage. It may be a temporary but long-lasting condition, but we cannot say for certain."
A cold chill encompasses you. "How long have I been unconscious?"
"Three days," the professor says. "We purposely kept you sedated during the move. We are in Zurich, by the way. We thought it would be better for you, both physically and psychologically, to keep you calm and sedated, on the off chance that your sight might return before we woke you up again."
You rub your eyes long and hard, and the professor says nothing. You're not sure what to say either, for his news has numbed you. But gradually an emotion does begin to boil up inside you: anger at Frank Durras.
And overlaying that anger is guilt and bitterness at having fucked things up so badly that he was able to do this to you. "I'm sorry, Professor," you say in a quiet voice. "I should have told you as soon as I saw him. I should have run away—"
"There's no point in recriminations, Mr. Prescott, self or otherwise," the professor says, and his voice is very level. "What's done is done. When you're feeling better you can tell me what happened."
"I can tell you now," you say, for you don't feel like being left alone with your thoughts. "He showed up with the rowing crew. Some of them got hurt in a brawl with Swann's guys, and then Frank showed up. Supposedly by chance," you bitterly add. You go on to tell him about the crowded events that followed, including the way you suddenly and involuntarily told him all about the team's plans for the ceremony. By the time you finish, you are sitting up in bed and talking with a degree of animation that surprises you. Those three days of rest must have done you good, for you don't feel any injuries, only a stiffness from being still for so long.
The professor is silent for a bit after you're finished. "Well, as I said, there's no point in assigning blame. And from what you've told me, you didn't handle it as badly as—" He stops abruptly. "Once those two had joined Swann, it was likely to end badly. And we didn't lose you, which means we have not suffered any kind of permanent setback."
You ignore the implied compliment, which sounds like nothing but a pleasantry. "Did the ceremony go off?" you ask.
"Hmm? No, it didn't. The Stellae was with them, and he interrupted it before it could begin in earnest. Then Swann appeared with some of his useful idiots. There was a rather one-sided fight."
"Were you there?"
"No, but I had Mr. Dawes and his friends under a kind of remote surveillance. I didn't watch the brawl until the end, for—" Again, he stops short in his explanation. "By that time I was trying to extricate you. And myself. They must have had suspicions about me as well. I know that after I was away, they struck my apartments. I am afraid it is exile for both of us."
"Oh, Jesus! I—"
"Don't take it in that spirit, Mr. Prescott. I can thrive in most any soil, and our own projects are not threatened in the least. We were going to relocate anyway, to the United States. It only means that I, like you, shall have to adapt a new identity." The last comes out with a dry chuckle. "What's wrong?" he asks, and you realize you had made a face, and had barely avoided a shudder, at the thought of Hyde-White disguised as a girl like Mary Dunsdale.
"Just thinking about things," you stammer. "I suppose I'm not much use to you anymore. Not if I can't see." A lump rises in your throat.
"I know it's a shock," Hyde-White says. "And I'm sorry I didn't think to soften it. But it is not so bad as that." Now you do make a face. Easy for an old asshole like him to say that it's no big deal. "Here, put this on," the professor says, and presses something into your hands.
From its shape and heft, it feels like a mask. What good could that possibly do? But with a sigh you put it to your face. A feeling like liquid gold flows over your body, and you fall back into blissful sleep.
* * * * *
A world of snowy whites, powdery blues, and soft greens meets you when you wake. You blink rapidly, and crush the heel of a palm into your eye. Little stars and spots momentarily obscure the room when you look again, but they shortly retreat and fade.
You're in something that looks like a high-class hotel room. On one side of the vast bed is an ornate vanity table with a wide mirror. On the other is a sitting area with two green chairs, a dusky settee, and a glass-topped coffee table resting on a many-hued rug. Crisp white curtains frame a tall window, through which you glimpse skyscrapers glinting in the sun. The wallpaper, which is sprinkled with yellow fleurs-de-lils, is a bashful but glowing shade of blue.
Professor Hyde-White looks up from one of the chairs. He's bent over the coffee table, and appears to have been playing solitaire. "Would you like a mirror, Mr. Prescott?"
No need of that. Even as you were drinking in the room, you were sucking down the mind and memories of the mask. "Fuck me," you say. "But this is one goddamned fancy whore house."
"There's no need to channel Ms. Knotts quite so accurately," Hyde-White says, and lays his cards aside. "You are no longer required to impersonate her. I only gave her mask to you so as to restore your sight."
Makes sense now, you muse to yourself. Insofar as anything about the crazy masks makes sense. Paige Knotts isn't blind, so if you're wearing her mask you'll have her sense of sight as well. "But I'm still blind underneath?"
"We can only assume."
"So I'm stuck like this for the rest of my life."
"No, you can have any form that you like." His brow furrows.
"I'm stuck under a mask, I mean."
"More or less," the professor says. "Though you were going to be spending your life under a mask anyway. And one of our best technicians is working hard on a new device that will replace masks as—"
"But I'm not going back to being myself, I mean."
"You weren't going back anyway," the professor says in a very patient tone. "You had to abandon your life—"
But you've stopped listening to him. You slip out of bed and tug the pajamas—which flop around Paige's smaller form—back into place as you regard yourself in the vanity mirror. The dark eyes, the pallid cheeks, the pale lips; the half-head of black, lank hair that hangs down to one shoulder, and the stubble on the other side. The holes in your ears and lips and nose from piercings that Paige had mostly given up. You adjust your pajama top to settle better over your bosom.
Hyde-White can't understand. Even before Frank blinded you, you could think of yourself as yourself under a disguise. You had a body, and that body was the real you, whole and healthy. It was a thing you could resurrect anytime you felt like it, and it was your real body while the masks were just a kind of job or vacation.
But now it's been crippled. Why would you ever return to a body that has been blinded? Masks are all you've got now.
"But we're not going back to London," you ask when the professor finishing blathering. "What did you do with the real Paige. And Dunsdale?"
"Mary Dunsdale has been restored. Paige Knotts, alas, is a casualty of war."
You look over at him sharply. You can't but flinch at the news that, in this assumed form, sounds like your own obituary.
"I had her hidden under a mask of— of myself," Hyde-White says, and waves his hand over his face. "The Stellae chased my doppelganger down, and she did not survive their attentions."
You turn back to the mirror. Will Prescott, blinded by the Stellae. Paige Knotts, killed by them. Your mouth purses grimly.
"I think I'll stay like this, then, if you don't mind," you say. "As Paige Knotts."
"Whatever for?"
"So that the world doesn't completely lose her," you say.
Silently, you add: And because she'd like to fuck up the Stellae as much as I would.
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