Chapter Eighteen
Flaky croissants and a sweet French espresso were the breakfast we had two days later. I’d never really liked coffee but I marveled at the brilliance of the tantalizing liquid that was making energetic sparks on my tongue.
This time, Alexia was too busy to join us. The break was a welcome and perhaps unwanted change; I was beginning to appreciate her perky nature. Her sweet charm always helped me forget the horrors of the night before.
The day after Gavin and I had ordered clothing, we found pants and shirts tucked away in the drawers of the dresser. All the tee-shirts were the same, except that mine were black and Gavin’s were all shades. The pants however came in four styles; sweats, jeans, casual trousers, and pajama bottoms. Like my shirts, I’d asked for all my pants to be black. Gavin had an assortment of blue, black, and khaki pants.
We’d spent nearly all our time working on the song and after only two days, we had the first half of the song done, including the chorus. That morning we were going to try running through it as far as we could get. It took a while to organize the jumbled scraps of paper into a playable composition but as soon as we were ready, we started.
Gavin sang the words he wrote beautifully; I’d known the song was romantic and about our love but I was stunned at the beauty of it. Perhaps I just loved it so much because Gavin was singing about me for me. Regardless of why I liked it, Gavin received a loving prize. I was so amazed by the far-from-perfect composition, I gave Gavin a big kiss.
To my embarrassment, we were caught making out; Alexia snuck in to deliver lunch. “Oh, I’m sorry, I’ll just be going now.” She backed out the door.
“Don’t worry about it,” Gavin rubbed the back of his neck nervously.
“You, uh, you sounded really good; both of you.” She mumbled. “If I were you Sruun, I’d kiss him too, just for how cool it was.” I wasn’t quite sure what she meant but I nodded. I kind of felt like she was making an excuse that justified our kissing but if that were the case, she had no business giving us permission to kiss.
Instead of voicing my opinion, I asked an assertive question. “Being the Servant assigned to us, you have to bring us anything we ask for within an acceptable time frame, correct?”
My forcefulness surprised Alexia. “Yes, why do you ask?”
“Then let me speak with Jade Hisui Cataye. She came here with us.” My gaze was going to get me tried for murder one of these days.
Alexia was taken aback. “I-I can’t.”
“Why not?”
“Th-they told me not to say—they told me to lie or something.” She stumbled in her wording. I didn’t like it.
“Then you know.” I scolded scathingly.
“What?”
“They wouldn’t have told you not to tell if you didn’t know.” I explained. I wanted to see Jade but people like Alexia were standing in my way.
“Please, just don’t ask about Miss Cataye.” She pleaded.
“Then what about Leon Gonzago?” Gavin asked; he was the only one in the room to care about that sporting goods store employee.
Alexia clapped her hands to her ears. “I can’t hear you! Laa-laa!”
“Fine, don’t tell me why I can’t see my only living relative.” I sneered. “Instead, take us to Sir Harold. I’m sure your boss would like to know of your breach of confidentiality.”
“But I didn’t say anything about where she is!” Alexia defended; her efforts only hindered her more.
“You said enough that I know you’re hiding something, and you just told me she’s not here.” I took a moment to glare. “Now if you’re willing to cooperate, I’ll reconsider telling Sir Harold.”
Alexia was starting to cry. “Miss Jade Cataye and Mr. Leon Gonzago have run away.” She sniffled. “That’s why you can’t see them, and also why you’re locked in this room.”
“What does Jade running away have to do with us being locked up? Are we being disciplined for Jade’s flight?” Gavin wondered.
“Sir Harold didn’t want you to escape also.” She turned her eyes to mine about halfway through her sentence. “He says you’re too important to the war to lose, whatever that means.”
“So, we’re stuck here, but for how long?” Gavin inquired.
“Until the Servants find Miss Cataye,” Alexia replied.
“Thank-you” I startled her. “Sit somewhere and calm down.”
“Excuse me?” She asked, dumbfounded.
“You’re crying and I won’t let you return to work in tears.”
Alexia moved to the edge of the bed; the curtains stretched taught under her weight. For a moment, I thought they’d tear beneath her too-pretty ironed skirt but they held strong.
“I’m not going to tell Sir Harold, but I do want to know why we haven’t seen him since we arrived. I’d have thought he’d want to speak with us.”
“He’s a busy man,” Alexia explained, wiping a tear from her cheek with the tip of her pinky. “He’s probably out promoting a bilingual world.”
“What do you mean?” Gavin felt for my hand, marched forward, and sat down on the bed next to her after sliding the curtains out of our way and tugging the strained curtains out from under Alexia’s posterior. Alexia stood up to help Gavin adjust the curtains; she smiled weakly when she did so.
“Sir Harold is Canadian, so he’s always trying to get people to speak French as much as they do English.” When Canada joined the government being established during the Unification, they insisted on keeping their two national languages. Other countries just agreed to speak English since it had been a common language as far back as the late twenty-second century. Canada however wanted to maintain their connection with a language other than English. As a result French was one of the few languages other than English, that was spoken by a large enough percentile to be worth learning.
“Sir Harold frequently travels the globe on expeditions to promote ‘Frenchyness’ as he calls it. Most of the time, when he’s away, he’s doing that, although for the past two years, he was being a hermit in the North-American wilderness.” Alexia finished telling her story about Sir Harold.
“Sounds almost typical of what people expect Canadians to do.” Gavin pointed out.
“It does, but this is the first time I’ve ever heard of someone doing it.” I agreed.
For the next two hours, the three of us nursed a conversation. Every time our discussion came close to flat-lining, somehow it was resuscitated.
Though I didn’t trust Alexia, it was comforting to interact with her. Gavin was a bit more open to her than me, but we were both able to enjoy her company.
Alexia had asked about Gavin and I, what our lives were like, and many other hospitable topics, but thankfully she avoided mentioning the Catrions. If she hadn’t, I might’ve fallen off the high-and-mighty throne I had established; being reminded of what had happened days earlier would have been an emotional plane crash.
By the time our conversation began concluding, we were all sitting cross-legged on the bed. Gavin and I leaned against the headboard while Alexia was hunched over at the foot of the bed. It was when she started to get up, that I noticed something. Above our heads on the underside of the roof of the bed, was a plaque similar to the one I’d seen in the train car garage. It read in bold letters “Paraplegic Recovery Suite”
Beneath that, the script was as follows.
“Tamina Jamieson was born without the use of the lower half of her body. Erma determined when she was born, in the hospital she was born in, that Tamina Jamieson would play an integral part in the War, so before the child was even an hour old, Sir Harold began paying for her health. He and the girl’s parents constructed a plan to combat the disability.
“Rather than cure her paralysis with super-human abilities, as is common for the type of treatment in cases of paralysis, Sir Harold and the Jamiesons agreed to only bring her to the level of a regular human being. Even so, some super-human capabilities were necessary.
“To help her with the ‘new’ legs, she had several micro-computers implanted in her brain and various other parts of her body. Apart from controlling the billions of nerve receptors in her legs, the micro-computers could connect to the internet and interface with most electronic devices so that the doctors could help her more efficiently. These micro-computers gave Tamina calculate enormous quantities in milliseconds and also remember word-for-word whatever she was taught.
“This room in McLeod Manor is dedicated to Tamina Jamieson because Account Number 0072214 has donated all the money the Jamiesons needed for the medical bills of their only daughter, provided that Tamina has a good home and is encouraged to follow her dream.”
Alexia left with a cordial wave good bye. Once again, Gavin and I were left to combat boredom with few weapons at our disposal. As it was getting late, our bout with boredom didn’t last long.
Gavin showered first, then I did. In the time that had passed, I’d relaxed a little about being away from Gavin; it was only a little. Unlike the first night, I managed to close the bathroom door so I wouldn’t come off as so much of a slut. That was about as much as I’d relaxed.
I came out of the bathroom wearing a pair of pajama pants and a tee-shirt over top the resizable undergarments. Gavin was waiting for me when my bare foot left the steamy bathroom.
“Sruun, where are you sleeping tonight?” He was kind but his message could be interpreted in at least two ways.
“I don’t know,” I admitted. “I’m not that comfortable sleeping in the same bed as you—it’s nothing personal, just my morals—but sleeping next to you is all that stops the nightmares.” In truth, it didn’t even do that, but it minimized Gavin’s appearance in them.
“So what do we do?” Gavin hoped, I thought, for me to decide.
“If it’s alright with you, I know I’m, going to go to you when the nightmares come.” I didn’t think my answer was all that helpful.
“Then,” He gulped. “Do you want to go ahead and, you know?” He drew a breath in through his nose. “Like you, I’m not the most comfortable sleeping so closely but I want to help you if I can.”
“Part of me says for us to go ahead and go to bed together, but if it’s okay, can we not?” My own morals were forcing me to watch Gavin die over and over again. What joy.
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