hated very few things. Nevertheless, as irrational as it was, he hated those rioting cells in Vlad’s poor brain more than anything else he could think of. He didn’t say anything else as Vladimir made his slow, clumsy way out of the office. Anything he would have said would only have embarrassed both of them even more.
10
The heavy bag was obstinate, despite Alex’s best efforts to move it. He punched from his legs, from the motion in his hips, he put all of his weight behind it, but nothing worked. He had lost count of the attempts when he hit it wrong, aggravating his injured forearm, causing him to grab the arm and holler, partially from pain, partially from frustration.
“You are never going to be a boxer,” Michael observed, from the other side of the bag. He glanced dispassionately at his arm.
“There go all my hopes and dreams,” Alex replied, shaking his arm out in a vain attempt to stop it from hurting. “I’d be happier if I never had to fight anybody again.”
“We’d all be happier, son, but that isn’t the kind of world we live in,” Michael said, with surprising melancholy. “All we can do is the best we can do. The rest is in God’s hands.”
Alex got suddenly, dramatically uncomfortable — the same way he felt every time someone he respected unexpectedly turned out to have religious convictions. Not that he had anything against it, exactly; it was more like he hadn’t ever really considered any of it as a possibility. After all, what would any of the major religions have to say about him, about what he’d done? Better just to hope for nothing at all.
“I’m not really sure if I believe in God,” Alex said cautiously, wary of offending him.
“Then you don’t have to worry about whose hands it’s in, right? Now get ready to punch the damn bag…”
The bag was punched many times, but never to Michael’s satisfaction. After, there were weights, and then a heavy leather ball that they threw back and forth, then finally and worst of all, outside for hurdles in sets, across one hundred agonizing meters. It would be wrong to say Michael allowed him to stop at that point. Rather, Michael acknowledged the inevitability of stopping once Alex couldn’t get up anymore.
He lay on the grass, under a sun that had not yet grown hot but was starting to hint around at it, while his muscles twitched and jerked and complained. Michael sat down behind him and drank some water from a plastic squeeze bottle, seemingly content to be working out.
“How much trouble is Eerie in, anyway?”
“Technically, you’re in trouble too,” Michael advised him cheerfully.
“But with you,” Alex pointed out.
“Right.”
Alex rolled over on his stomach and reached for his own water bottle.
“So I’m in ‘extra laps’ kind of trouble. What kind of trouble is she in?”
“She’s in ‘embarrassed Rebecca in front of Gaul’ trouble.” Michael said, shaking his head ruefully. “The worst possible kind.”
“Really?” Alex asked, pausing to squirt water in his mouth.
“No,” Michael said, laughing. “For most people, though, that would be a very bad thing. When Rebecca came to the States when she was a kid, she still had an accent, so she had a hard time at first. She’s still sensitive about being embarrassed. However, Eerie grew up here at the Academy, and believe it or not, Rebecca loves that girl as a surrogate daughter. Eerie will be alright.”
“Oh, good.”
“Eventually.”
“Oh.”
“Now,” Michael said, standing up and stretching out his shoulders. “About those extra laps you owe me…”
Rebecca sat on the couch, legs tucked against her chest and her chin resting on her knees, a cigarette dangling from her left hand. The ashtray sat precariously on a couch cushion in front of her, while Eerie sat just behind Rebecca, patiently braiding her hair.
“What was all that about, Eerie? Why’d you run? You know I wouldn’t let Gaul do anything bad to you…”
“I don’t know,” Eerie said quietly, in a small voice that sounded almost like she was humming to herself. “I thought you would decide it was dangerous for Alex to be around me. Everyone kept saying I would get kicked out of the Academy.”
“Who is everyone?”
“You know, everyone,” Eerie shrugged, patiently plaiting a lock of Rebecca’s chestnut brown hair into a fine, even braid. “The other kids. And you can be scary when you want to. You did that thing to me, and I could feel you poking around in my head.”
Rebecca drew from her cigarette and exhaled, silent for a short time, a sheepish look on her face that she was glad Eerie couldn’t see. The changeling had always represented a particular challenge for her, in that everything to do with her was unprecedented. The Academy hadn’t had a changeling student in two decades before Eerie, and the longest previous stay was about four years. According to the notes she’d read, no serious effort had been made to understand or integrate the previous changelings with the other students. However, one of the things people never understood about empathy was that it was a two-way street — and Rebecca already had private reasons to sympathize with Eerie.
“Yeah,” she said, eventually. “That was bad. I’m sorry. I won’t do that again.”
“You didn’t have permission,” Eerie scolded. “That isn’t like you.”
“Hey, who’s in trouble here?”
“Right, sorry,” Eerie mumbled, returning her attention to braiding.
Rebecca decided to finish her cigarette before moving on. Eerie was comfortable with silence, she knew from years of familiarity, and would let it continue as long as Rebecca allowed. It would help calm the girl down, as would the process of braiding her hair, and Rebecca wanted her calm before they moved on. Another incident like the last and Gaul would take on the task of punishing the girl himself, and Rebecca would be unable to intervene. Moreover, Rebecca had mixed feelings on how to handle the whole situation.
Eerie wanted, on a deep and fundamental level, to be useful to the people around her. Given how casually she was dismissed by almost everyone, even the infinitely patient Michael, that desire didn’t surprise Rebecca. That was probably the reason for Eerie taking up knitting when she was thirteen. Eerie had made gloves for everyone in her class and all of the staff members she interacted with, eventually, even the kids who picked on her received gifts. Rebecca thought you could tell a lot about a person in late November, when the wind picked up and got chilly, and gloves became a necessity. Many people moved from Rebecca’s ‘good’ list to her ‘bad’ list, and vice-versa, based on their choice of cold weather gear. In fact, she was still trying to honor a personal resolution to be nicer to Gaul, since he had quietly worn the scarf Eerie had made him every day through the whole of the winter. Eerie never would say what she thought about it, but then again, she seemed to like Margot more than anyone else at the Academy, and Margot looked like a hippie every winter, she was burdened with so many handmade wool accessories.
The first time Rebecca had met Eerie, it had been in this room, the office she’d occupied for the better part of twenty years. The changeling’s mother lived on disability and food stamps in a house her parents owned in a dreadful subdivision outside of Tracy. She hadn’t asked questions or needed persuading when the Academy’s recruiters came for Eerie, she was so eager to get the child off her hands. Rebecca didn’t blame her too much. She wasn’t sure how a Fey and a human went about producing a child, but she understood that a daily reminder might not be appreciated.
An attendant had brought the little blond girl in, probably old enough for kindergarten but barely able to walk and unable to talk. Rebecca had no idea what her age actually was, because her mother seemed uncertain. She thought her to be autistic initially, but when she’d interfaced telepathically with the girl, she’d found her perfectly aware and fully cognizant, but struggling with the concept of spoken language. Beyond that, Eerie’s perceptions
