Page 114 of The Pansy Paradox
It’s all I can do not to drop the tray. The items rattle. A bit of hot liquid sloshes from the teapot’s spout. Something hollow and vast opens up in my belly as if the Screamers have walloped me with that betrothal ring. There’s no gush of blood or even a telltale trickle, but a rush of emptiness sweeps through me. I feel like I did after that picnic with Daniel, like I have very suddenly and almost completely bled out.
The tray somehow lands on the coffee table. Everything jangles, including that briefcase. Gwyneth scowls, but I busy myself with the cups. The steam bathes my cheeks, and the teapot warms my fingers. I’m beyond proud when only a tiny ripple mars the surface as I pass a cup to Henry.
“This is a special blend,” I tell him. “Morning-after tea.”
My words fall with a thud. The icy silence that follows has me rewinding what I just said. Gwyneth looks at me as if I’ve uttered something vulgar, and she’s expecting an explanation and an apology, ASAP.
Pillows. Pajamas. And, oh yes, heart-shaped pastries. I retract that earlier thank-you to Guy.
“For the morning after an attack,” I clarify, not that my voice is any match for all the frost in the room. “My mother swore by it.”
Henry sips his tea and gives a nod in my direction. “Excellent. Quite rejuvenating.”
“You should drink as much as you can. It will help you recover.”
“I really don’t think—” Gwyneth begins.
Henry holds up a finger. The gesture stops her words and freezes me in place. Despite his injuries and the fact that he’s reclining on the sofa, he’s still Principal Field Agent Henry Darnelle, and he is most definitely in charge.
“I was just telling Agent Worthington-Wells about what happened yesterday.”
His voice contains a precise cadence, perhaps a heartbeat slower than his normal speech. Gwyneth doesn’t seem to notice, but my ears prick. I wonder what it is he’s truly trying to convey.
“About our encounter in the housing development,” he continues. “What we confronted there.”
I nod but glance away because I can’t stand the way he’s looking at me, full of intent and remorse. Something hot tickles my nose, and I reach for a tissue, then think better of it and grab a thick handful.
“I was also detailing how your mother was lost.”
I catch the stream of blood with those tissues and shut my eyes. I nod again but don’t utter a sound.
“How she vanished when the three of us were there, in the development,” he continues, still using that strange cadence, “possibly swallowed by a fissure.”
I open first my mouth to protest and then my eyes to confront Henry. My mother was not in the housing development and did not vanish through a fissure, as he well knows. I’m about to recite how she was swept away by my father, who waited nearly two decades for that exact purpose, like some time-traveling, fairytale prince. Henry’s gaze halts me. There’s such pleading and desperation in his expression that I can’t make sense of it.
Until I do. Because as far as anyone in the Enclave knows, my mother was, up until now, alive and well.
For as long as possible, do not report my “death” to the Enclave. I owe them nothing, and they’ll find out soon enough.
Well, here we are, then. Breaking that rule, and yet, somehow not. While it feels like he’s torn the bandage from my grief and taken the scab with it, and while he appears extra-cozy with the woman who is most definitely his betrothed, I know this:
Henry Darnelle has just saved me.
Gwyneth turns to me now. To my surprise, I discover that her eyes aren’t an Arctic blue but a warm autumn brown. “Agent Little, I’m so sorry. I know how hard this is.”
To her credit, she does sound sorry. And she does know. Everyone in the Enclave has lost someone.
“When you’re up to it,” she adds, “your perspective on what happened yesterday will also be helpful.”
I nod, yet again, grateful for that bunch of tissues in my fist and for the Sight—of all things—that had me reaching for them in the first place. I appear bereft, which is a good match for how I feel.
From the hallway comes a racket, the exact sound of the umbrella stand thumping against the wall. Something crashes with so much force, I feel it against the soles of my feet.
“I should—” I gesture toward the hall, but under the circumstances, I don’t need an excuse to leave the room.
I’m relieved to have one.
The umbrella stand lies on its side. The big black behemoth of an umbrella remains inside, as does the butter-yellow one. The pink polka-dotted one is several feet down the hallway, almost to the kitchen. I can’t make sense of the altercation, only that there was one. Whether my umbrella flung herself from the stand—it’s happened before—or was shoved is anyone’s guess. But she looks so forlorn at the end of the hallway. Isolated, a bit rumpled, friendless.
