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Chapter 3
Re-entering the cottage, Elsa saw Lijah moving about in the kitchen. She took her time removing her outer garments, arranging them neatly, pulling back on wool socks and everyday indoor leather gloves. She pulled out Lijah’s phone, thinking maybe it would work inside, and was surprised when the screen mounted on the wall closest to her illuminated as soon as she unlocked the phone. Evidently the phone was integrated into the household systems too. Impressive. But useless. She still couldn’t open any applications. Elsa tucked Lijah’s phone in her back pocket and walked across the room to the kitchen.
“Voice authentication?” she asked.
“Among other things. It’s entirely for my protection. There’s no threat to you here.”
“You don’t think being imprisoned incommunicado is threatening?”
Lijah shot her a quick glance, then looked back to the items he was arranging on the kitchen table. “Are you frightened?”
No, no she wasn’t. True, her position was vulnerable. She couldn’t leave if she wanted to. But Elsa wanted to stay. She wanted to stay maybe forever. Normally she didn’t allow the thought. It was fanciful, and risky, and it hurt. Hope hurt. But it was Thursday, and she was here, and Lijah… Lijah demanded she back off. Damn if she’d let him get away with it.
She stood in the doorway and watched Lijah putter about. He’d been busy while she was outside. The music had changed from classical to folk. A ballad quietly filled the room and three voices: languorous, lush and lilting, swirled like ether. The mess on the floor had been cleaned up and the bins put away. The burnt skillet soaked in a tub of soapy water, and the bloody glove, sheath and towels had been cleared away. He’d spread a large sterile pad on the kitchen table, on top of which he neatly arranged gauze and wipes, a pre-threaded hooked needle, surgical scissors, and various other medical supplies she couldn’t immediately identify. Except for the light directly over the table which shown bright like a spotlight, the rest of the room was bathed in soft yellow light, soothing like the music.
With order restored, so too his equanimity. His hand was hidden beneath a makeshift bandage of gauze held secure by an ace wrap, a temporary fix to staunch the bleeding. He stood back and surveyed his homemade surgical suite. Satisfied, he looked at her and waited. Neither of them spoke. After a long minute, Lijah raised an eyebrow.
“You’ll let me? Help you?” asked Elsa.
“Yes, for now. I was a fool to refuse your help. Another mistake in long line of mistakes starting with bringing you here in the first place. If you’re willing…”
“Yes.”
“Elsa, you don’t even know what you’re agreeing to.”
“I meant, yes you’re a fool.”
Lijah ground his teeth. “A laceration of this nature requires suturing. I’ve read through the procedure. Two hands are better suited to the task, and, in terms of infection, it’s best not to delay. Our options are to execute the repair ourselves and return to town in the morning, or to depart immediately. Given the hour, the storm and my preparations, my preference is obvious. But if you’re squeamish…”
“I’m not squeamish. I’m willing to help. Not just with your cut,” she said, waving her hand dismissively at the table. “But for whatever reason you had for bringing me here. I’m willing. Donning a blindfold proves that I’m more than willing; I’m determined to see this through. You’re a fool to think otherwise.”
Lijah looked pained. Or at a loss. Which, Elsa realized, would pain him. He was accustomed to being in control; to either knowing the answer or exactly how to find it. He approached every challenge with the smug confidence that no problem was beyond his ability to solve. All that was required, he liked to say, was disciplined thinking and careful attention to detail. More like obsessive thinking and obscene attention to detail, Elsa had often teased. But there was no denying his intellect reigned like Zeus and crackled with lightening. His arrogance as much deserved as expected. Lijah unsure and out of his depth? She couldn’t recall another such instance.
“You know me. You know how I am,” said Elsa. “Accept it and tell me why I’m here.”
“It’s… complicated,” said Lijah and grimaced.
He’d never let a student get away with that. Elsa waited.
“I had hoped to start a conversation.”
“You brought me here to have a conversation. We have conversations all the time. Having conversations is all we do.”
“To start a conversation. To introduce an idea, a foundational principal if you will, and then cautiously, over time, build context, corollary, maybe practical application. If this were arithmetic, I meant to start with basic numeracy, some addition, not calculus and analytic geometry. With you that’s impossible.”
Elsa grinned, feeling like a precocious pupil who’d skipped several grades.
“That wasn’t a complement. Information without context. You’ve acquired a smattering of facts, enough to be dangerous, but you understand nothing.”
“And who’s fault is that?”
“Yours. Obviously.”
Elsa rolled her eyes.
Lijah took a deep breath. “Bringing you here has proved that there is no beginning, no linear path, no way to be cautious. If there’s fault, it lay in my failure to anticipate this. I don’t dare proceed. I don’t know how.”
The statement was raw and true; she saw the pain and resignation in his eyes. On Lijah, she found the sentiments unnerving and unacceptable.
She shrugged. “I dare.”
He closed his eyes and shook his head.
She knew of only one way to draw him out. The way she always did. Intellectually, with premise and analysis, deduction and defense. She entered the room, circled past him toward the far side of the table, and watched carefully for any reaction.
“I wonder, why come here to talk? A first for us. It’s private. Although other places, your apartment, would have been more convenient. It’s risky. At least in your estimation. So… a calculated risk. To come here, specifically. Because… Because it’s about this place, right? Why you come here. Why it’s secret. Why it exists. It’s not just a quiet spot. It’s to do with your Thursday pursuits.”
“My only pursuit.” He intoned the words as if they held an inexorable truth.
Elsa snorted at the absurdity of the comment. He had his fingers in a hundred different pies; principal investigator on nine projects, co-I on at least as many more, teaching, consulting, department chair. Honestly, it boggled the mind. He was interested in everything. From ethics to archaeology. Myth. Politics. Cognitive norms. She looked around her. Stones and technology. Treasures and old tools. Her gaze returned to the kitchen. Baking. First aid. He was a know-it-all. He pursued everything.
“You’re being maudlin,” she said. “Or is this you, going into shock?”
Lijah stood straighter, scowled. “Your bedside manner needs work.”
“Your attitude needs work.” She stepped around him and pulled out a chair. “Sit.”
He sat, pulled himself closer to the table and extended his hand to rest beneath the overhead light. Elsa pulled a chair around to sit directly adjacent, within easy reach of his hand while also able to see the screen mounted on the wall to their left.
“You planned to wash your hands?”
This was the familiar Lijah; she would gladly smack him upside the head. A smile quirked at his lips and she went to the sink to hide her own. Still smiling she suffered through his pedantic step by step instruction in proper hand washing technique. Keeping her back to him, blocking his view, she removed her own gloves and sheaths, washed for a full five minutes with the special soap and nail brush he’d arranged on the counter, dried off with the specified cloth, then airdried her hands before donning latex gloves and returning to the table with her hands held high in front of her so as not to touch anything.
“These gloves are overlarge. And what of a gown? Face mask? That’s what they do on television.”
“The gloves are my size, obviously. As to the other, I checked. It’s not required, but if you…”
“It’s not open-heart surgery, Lijah.”
“If you’re not going to take this seriously…”
Elsa glared at him, waving her perfectly sterile hands at him. “Come on, before I have to scratch my nose.”
Lijah proceeded to unwind the ace from his hand. He peeled back the gauze, which was stained dark red, and revealed his naked hand with a deep, two-inch-long oozing cut. Unlike before, when she’d seen his bare hand for the first time, Elsa’s response was neutral. Perhaps because this time she knew what to expect; he was Crafter, nicks and callouses stood to reason. Or maybe because she saw his hand as a clinician might, with a job to do. Or perhaps because the top of a hand was less intimate than the palm. Stood to reason. The hand was broad, square, and larger than her own. Manly she supposed, although she didn’t have much frame of reference. And it was darker. But otherwise not so different. Except. Darker meant sun-tanned, which wasn’t just different, it was outrageous.
Elsa may have gasped, she wasn’t sure, but tried to cover. “Impressive.”
“Thank you.”
Elsa blushed. “I meant the cut.”
He quirked an eyebrow and she blushed again.
“It’s going to be a pleasure sticking needles in you.”
“No doubt. First step will be to anesthetize the area.” He continued to tell her what to do, in annoying detail. He leaned in and blocked her view. He criticized and admonished. They bickered back and forth, just like they were in his office, arguing some theoretical point of contention. After thirty minutes she had exactly one suture in place, and it wasn’t pretty.
“Sepsis will set in before you’re halfway done,” said Lijah. “Have you never darned a sock? I’m going to have a scar to put Frankenstein’s monster to shame.”
“It’s your hand. Who’s going to see it?”
Lijah mouth snapped shut. He sat back and pulled his hand away, resting it against the edge of the table.
Elsa softened her tone. “Come on. It won’t be so bad. I’m getting the hang of it.”
He didn’t budge.
“Lijah. If you’re showing hands with someone, a scar won’t make a bit of difference to her.”
Lijah met her eyes, his face flat, expressionless.
“Or him. Whatever.” She waved her hand dismissively.
Lijah dropped his gaze, shook his head, laughed to himself.
“Look. You need a distraction. Can’t you call up a monograph on that screen, or grade papers or something?”
“We need the instructions.”
“Or something tactile. You’re Crafter, right. What if you held an object or, um, …?” She stopped. She had no idea what she was talking about. She might have just said something offensive. To her surprise, he agreed with her.
“There’s a grey stone. Over there on the windowsill, below the prisms. That might work.”
Elsa went to get it and brought it back. “Looks perfectly ordinary to me. What’s special about it?”
“Wash it, would you?” While Elsa stood at the sink, scrubbing the stone, he explained. “It’s old. Geologically old. I have found that holding elemental objects, like stone, that have been untouched and constant over the ages, to be meditative.”
He sounded like a Feeler, thought Elsa. As far as she knew, Crafter’s connection with inanimate objects was real time, observational. They could sense the composition of something, know by touch differences in materials, veins, fractures, that sort of thing. Like elite engineers who sensed weakness in a dam. Or sculptors who described their art as revealing the form latent within a block of stone. But Lijah was talking about sensing, experiencing, the history of an object. Maybe it amounted to the same thing – knowing something’s composition could mean knowing how it formed or changed. She’d have to think about, figure out the right questions to ask.
Lijah sat back and stared into the distance, his hand resting atop the stone. Elsa took up needle and thread and resumed suturing. She kept glancing at him. He was so uncharacteristically quiet. She wondered what it felt like, communing with a stone. She accidentally poked the needle into her glove, the material loose and bunchy enough she didn’t draw blood. He didn’t seem to notice so she kept going. The latex gloves were overkill. She could have just washed her sheathed hands. They’d have been plenty clean and she’d have much better sensitivity for sewing. She poked another hole only this time she tore out a strip of material at the tip of the finger pulling the needle loose. Dammit. His eyes were open, but unfocused; he didn’t notice. Probably floating around in the Mesozoic era. Elsa peeled back the latex revealing the whole finger. She had scrubbed thoroughly; her finger was clean and it would make suturing a lot easier. She was about halfway done; she kept going.
Elsa blinked, and blinked again. There was an image, like a tattoo, where a moment before there’d been nothing. Elsa jerked her hand away. “Whoa. Lijah. What the hell…”
Lijah’s eyes snapped to hers then his hand. Elsa looked too but her brow furrowed in confusion. Lijah pushed the stone away, then froze when he noticed her hand, the mangled glove, her bare finger. Elsa folded her hand into a fist. He withdrew his and lowered it to his lap, out of sight.
“I’m sorry,” said Elsa. “I shouldn’t have reacted that way.”
Lijah held himself absolutely still, tense and wary.
“Some sort of tattoo?” she asked. “On your hand? How is that even possible?”
“You’re mistaken.”
“No. I’m not.”
“Listen to me,” said Lijah. “Whatever you think you saw, isn’t there. Just forget it.”
Elsa stared at him. Angry. Lijah had never lied to her before. Damn if she’d let him get away with it now. “I saw it. Faint. But colorful. Intricate. Like vines or something.”
Lijah stood up abruptly and went to the sink. He kicked the cupboard and slammed his fists to the counter. “Ow. Fuck.” He kicked the cupboard again, then hunched over, clutching his hand tightly against his body. He was bleeding again, the last two stitches torn through the skin.
Elsa stayed seated. She’d never seen him behave like this.
Blood dripped to the floor and Lijah moved his hand back over the sink. He remained there silent and Elsa didn’t dare speak. As time passed she became aware of the music, still playing softly, seemingly all around her. A beautiful, sad voice reached and held a high soprano note. She recognized the artist, Eva Cassidy, singing Tall Trees of Georgia, a song of longing and regret. Minutes passed. The song finished, the next started.
“Lijah…”
“This should never have happened. None of it. I should never have brought you here.”
“Be that as it may… What’s done is done… No use crying over spilt milk… Pick your platitude and get over it. Infection, remember. Let me finish stitching you up.”
Lijah glared over his shoulder, ready to tell her to fuck off probably, except he did a double take at the sight of her hand, the torn latex glove, her naked finger, and bit back the words. Instead he growled and moved the box of latex gloves from the counter to the table.
“They’re too big – it’ll probably happen again.”
“Humor me.”
He turned his back and started rummaging in the cupboard above the sink. He pulled out a dusty bottle of Scottish single malt whiskey and clamped it under his arm to uncork it one handed. Elsa stood and pulled the bottle from under his arm. He kept his back to her, staring at his reflection in the window made mirror by the black of night. She took a tumbler from the dish drain, set it down beside him and poured an inch. Lijah glanced at it and spun his finger. Elsa poured another inch. When he spun his finger again, refusing to look at her, Elsa filled the glass to the rim. She left the open bottle by the glass, walked to his other side and bumped him out of the way of the sink to wash her hands. When she was done, she returned to the table to put on a fresh latex glove. She watched his back as he polished off the drink in four great gulps, shuddered, and refilled the glass up to the rim.
“Careful. You still plan to talk me through this, right?”
Lijah turned and slumped against the counter. Tilting his head back he announced to the ceiling, “Computer. Open and isolate access to medical application.” He waved his good hand toward the computer screen above the table.
“Ah, I see. You’re putting me in charge.”
“That’s the problem, isn’t it?”
“Then why do it?”
Lijah looked at her baffled, waved his hand as if to clear the air. “You see, that’s the problem. Don’t worry, it won’t happen again.” He raised the overfull glass of scotch in toast and took another enormous swallow, eliciting tears and another deep shudder.
Elsa wasn’t sure what wouldn’t happen again, seeing his hand, putting her in charge or getting blind-faced drunk, but that was obviously his intent now. She’d never known him to have more than a beer or two over the course of an evening. At this rate, he’d be on the floor in a matter of minutes. He was already starting to list.
“Lijah, this isn’t necessary. Come on, have a seat.” She found herself patting the chair as if coaxing a pet.
Lijah squinted his eyes and pointed a finger at her like a gun. “With you, missy, it’s absolutely necessary.” He pushed himself upright from the counter and proceeded to top off his glass one more time before coming over to drop heavily into his chair. The alcohol had definitely hit his system, his movements were jerky and uncoordinated, although somehow he managed not to spill a drop from the glass.
“Almost ready. Just a couple more swallows.”
“You sound like you’re dosing yourself,” said Elsa.
“See what I mean?”
“No. I haven’t a clue what you mean.”
Lijah giggled and forced himself to drink three more swallows. He studied the nearly empty glass but seemed to be having trouble focusing. He set the glass down on the floor by his seat and carefully centered his injured hand beneath the bright overhead light. He dropped his head to his arm resting on the table and spoke to the floor. “Okay. Ready.” And he promptly passed out.
Elsa sat, marveling for a moment at this latest turn of events, and then got to work.