Page 32 of The Society of Unknowable Objects
She was surprised by the tears in her eyes.
Thought you had your emotions under control, didn’t you?
Before Frank could answer she pulled the parcel of tissue from her coat pocket and pressed it into his lap. “Here,” she snapped. She got up from the bench and walked a few steps away, rubbing tears from her eyes. After a moment she glanced over her shoulder and saw Frank unwrapping the tissue, casting quick, furtive glances around as he did so.
Who is this man?Is this the Frank you’ve always known? Or was that apretenceand this is the real man? Does he care about you at all? Was everything Henry said the truth? This is more like the man she was describing.
The chess piece was revealed, pale white against the red tissue. Frank lifted it carefully and inspected it, turning it in the light.
“We need a Society meeting,” Magda instructed. “Today. We need to put it in the cabinet.”
“Hmm,” Frank murmured, his eyes not moving from the chess piece.
He’s not even listening to you!
“Frank!” Magda barked, forcing his attention back to her. “Will you call a meeting?”
“Yes,” he said finally. “This evening. After I close the shop.”
She watched, arms folded tightly across her chest, as Frank slipped the chess piece into his pocket and then crushed the tissue into a small, red ball. “Anything else happen while you were in Hong Kong?” he asked, tilting his head to squint at her. “Anything else you want to tell me?”
“Other than almost getting killed?” Magda asked. “Is that not enough?”
Frank watched her silently, his expression serious, and Magda realised what he was getting at.
“You saw,” she said.
Frank nodded in response and pulled his phone from his pocket. Magda stood over him, watching the clip she had already seen: fuzzy, shaky footage of a shape moving through the air above Hong Kong Island. The perspective was from up above, perhaps from one of the many high-rise apartments on the island. The thing moving through the sky—Magda—was far enough away to be blurry and indistinct, but it was obviously human, and Magda recognised herself easily.
“There are others,” Frank stated, and it sounded like an accusation.
“I know,” Magda said. She laughed, even though she wasn’t amused. “In some of them I actually look quite graceful. I don’t think I’ve ever been that graceful in my life.”
“This is serious, Magda,” Frank snapped, glaring at her.
She met his look with one of her own. “I was in the room when James was shot and killed. No one is taking it more seriously than me, Frank.”
She dropped back down onto the bench and crossed her legs, glaring at the fountain, finding it difficult to look at Frank. They sat silently for a minute. Somewhere nearby a bird cawed a couple of times, like a nervous host filling the awkward silence at a dinner party, and one of the cavorting dogs in the distance barked a few times at the other, encouraging it to keep playing.
“I didn’t know you could fly,” Frank said after a while. Magda shrugged, not wanting to go into the specifics. He didn’t push her on it, but instead he said, “You know it’s against the rules of the Society. We were set up to stop people using artefacts, not to use them ourselves.”
Magda shook her head slowly. “I haven’t broken any of the rules,” she said. She met his gaze. “Believe me. I have considered the matter very carefully.”
“Exactly how do you reach that conclusion?” Frank demanded, his eyes flashing with irritation. “We are not supposed to use artefacts, except to gather other artefacts. We are supposed to keep their existence secret. And any decision to use an artefact must be made by the Society as a whole. You know the rules!”
“That’s not quite what the rules say,” Magda corrected, delighting in the fact that she was right, delighting in the pettiness of the point she was about to make. “They specifically talk about unknowable objectswithin the Society collection.My artefact, the thing that lets me fly, it’s never been within the Society collection, Frank, and it’s not caught by the wording of the rules.”
Frank chewed his cheeks, looking unhappy.
“Don’t blame me if your rules aren’t well-drafted. I’ve done nothing wrong.”
“Ever the lawyer,” Frank muttered, words that might have been a compliment but weren’t intended as such.
“I was never a lawyer, Frank,” Magda replied with a weary sigh. “You know this.”
Why is this all so hard? Why are we fighting? It’s like arguing with a stranger, not talking to my closest, oldest friend.
And she didn’t want to have an argument with Frank, but the fact that he was more annoyed about what she had done than he was concerned about what might have happened to her, stung her.
