Blimey, had his little sister always been this bossy? Or were Reg and Melissande starting to rub off on her?
Great. That’s all I need… another bossy female in my life.
“Yes, Your Majesty,” he muttered, and took care of the front door. Then he helped Bibbie get-get- not-me — all the way down the hall and into the parlor, where Melissande had indeed jollied up the fire and even managed to shove the arm chairs out of the way and heave the old sofa in front of the warmly dancing flames.
Reg was perched suggestively on the edge of the drinks trolley. “Really, now, under the circumstances, don’t you think I deserve a brandy?”
“I’ll bloody flambe you in the stuff if you don’t give over, Reg,” Bibbie said, close to snarling. “Come on, Melissande. Don’t just stand there, grab his ankles. We need to get him lying flat.”
With much huffing and puffing and muttered cursing they got-got-not-him-laid out on the sofa like a not- quite-dead corpse.
Reg flapped over from the drinks trolley to land on the sofa’s back. “Hmm,” she said, head tilted, considering their unexpected guest. “Hope you’ve got some shovels somewhere, Mr. Markham. Because from where I’m sitting it looks like curtains for you.”
Strategically retreating, Monk shoved his hands in his pockets. “That’s not me, Reg,” he snapped, feeling a violent shiver run through him. “Don’t call him me.”
She sniggered. “Well, if that’s not you, sunshine, he’s doing a bloody good imitation.”
“Where did you put that bottle of brandy, Monk?” Bibbie demanded, looking around. “He could probably do with a nip.”
“Oh, fine, yes,” said Reg, all her feathers fluffing. “Waste perfectly good brandy on a man with both feet in the grave all the way up to his armpits, why don’t you, but deny me the solace! After a shock like this, and me with all those years in my dish! Blimey! There’s no justice in the world.”
“Well, Reg, you’re right about that much,” Bibbie retorted. “Because if there was any justice in the world you’d have talked yourself into asphyxiation a few centuries back! Monk. Where’s that brandy?”
Bugger the brandy. He couldn’t tear his gaze away from the shoes on not-him’s feet. Shoes were good. Shoes were safe. Except-except I bought those shoes last year. From Mr. Chokati’s Famous Shoe Emporium. In the big sale. I know for a fact they’re upstairs in my closet. So what are they doing on this impostor’s feet?
“Never mind, Bibbie,” said Melissande, so quietly he could hardly hear her. “I’ll fetch the brandy.”
The brandy. Yes. He’d put the bottle down somewhere, hadn’t he? Mel would find it. She was good at things like that. Being organized. Being tidy. Efficient. He had to stay here and not think about shoes.
The man on the sofa, who wore dark trousers and a pale shirt and a slightly tired three-quarter length blue coat that looked horribly familiar- but I am not not not going to think about that- stirred and started muttering. Nothing intelligible, just nonsense words laced with pain. Monk felt another violent shiver run through him. That was his voice. That was the way he sounded when he was in pain. He kept staring at the shoes. It seemed safer that way.
Bibbie was crouched beside their completely unnecessary visitor, holding his hand in a firm but gentle grasp. “Hush,” she said softly. “It’s all right, Monk. You’re safe.”
Monk? Monk? Bibbie, what are you doing? You can’t call him that! He’s not Monk, I am.
As though she could hear his thoughts, his little sister turned and skewered him with a glare. “I don’t begin to know how this is possible but this man is you, Monk. He is. Look at him. Look at his face and tell me he’s not you.”
Oh, Saint Snodgrass and her forty-seven descendants. Feeling sick, feeling dizzy, he dragged his gaze away from the shoes he’d bought seven months ago and looked at the face of the man on the sofa. Made himself take a few steps towards him and look again.
Bloody hell. That’s me.
Although… now that he came to actually pay attention… it wasn’t exactly him. Not the him living this life, at any rate. The face of the man on the sofa was thinner. Oddly older. And it had lines in it… deep lines… that only suffering could carve. The Gerald they’d found in the cave, his face had been lined the same way after that mad bastard Lional had spent days playing with him-but eventually those lines had smoothed and then, praise Saint Snodgrass, they’d disappeared, leaving only occasional blank looks and patches of silence in their wake.
Whoever had been playing with this man-this not-him-they were still playing. But where? And how?
Melissande returned with the brandy and an empty glass. Bibbie poured a little into it, slipped an arm around the man’s-the other Monk’s-shoulders and helped him sit up a bit.
“Here,” she said, with a small, encouraging smile. “It’s all right. It’s just brandy.”
He heard a rattle of tail feathers and looked at Reg, still perched on the back of the sofa. The wretched bird was giving him a meaningful look. Then she looked at Melissande, head tipped to one side again. His heart banged like a drum.
Oh, lord. Mel.
She was so pale all her freckles stood out like fallen leaves on a snowfield. Even without a magnifying glass he thought he could count every last one of them. Not even in the middle of the Lional-crisis or the Wycliffe- kerfuffle had he seen her looking so shaken and unsure.
Gingerly he joined her and wrapped his fingers around hers. Her skin was icy. “Hey. You know that’s not me, right? This is me. I’m holding your hand.”
“I know,” she said, and slipped free of him. “But if he’s not you, Monk…”
Exactly. Then who is he?
Beside them, Reg snorted. “Well, if I didn’t know better, sunshine, I’d say he was your evil twin. But since I do know better I’m going to say you’re his.”
He didn’t even bother to glance at her. “Thank you, Reg. That’s terribly helpful.”
“I don’t know,” Reg added, huffy. “That poker-assed Sir Alec picked a fine time to whisk Gerald off in a cloud of secrecy, I must say. We could do with his nattering around about now.”
The man on the sofa flinched and jerked his head away. Brandy spilled down his chin and the front of his coat.
The coat Bibbie gave me three Solstices ago.
Saint Snodgrass’s bunions, this really was insane.
Bibbie held out an impatient hand, fingers snapping. Straight away Melissande took a plain, unfrilly hanky from her tweed trousers’ pocket and passed it over.
“There you are,” said Bibbie, dabbing the man dry. “All better. Can you talk sensibly now?”
“Not if he’s anything like our Monk Markham, he can’t,” said Reg. “Honestly, ducky. Do remember who you’re dealing with.”
“Melissande…”
“Please, Reg,” Mel said, her voice low and not quite steady. “You really aren’t helping.”
Reg chattered her beak. “Don’t be ridiculous. Of course I’m helping. If you’re flapping at me you’re not going into hysterics, are you? That’s called keeping up morale, that is.”
Mel turned to him. “Monk, he didn’t like it when Reg mentioned Gerald. How can he know Gerald? And why would mentioning his name upset him?”
“ Why?” said the man on the sofa, his eyes dragging open. “How can you even ask me that, Melissande? How can you-” He pressed trembling fingers to his chapped lips. “Oh. Sorry. I keep forgetting. I’m all over the place from the transition. And-and-” A terrible shudder racked him head to toe. “And then there’s the shadbolt.”
“ Shadbolt? ” said Bibbie, and leapt to her feet. “What shadbolt?” Closing her eyes she reached out with her potentia, then after a moment pulled back again. Her eyes were wide and brimful of shock. “I don’t understand. How can that even be poss-”
Alarmed, Monk abandoned Melissande and went to his little sister. “Bibbie, what is it? What did you fee!?”
“I don’t know,” she whispered, wrapping her arms around her ribs. “I’m not sure.”
“Well, is he shadbolted or isn’t he?”
“I just said I don’t know,” she snapped. “Why don’t you look, Monk, instead of asking stupid questions. Have a poke around in his aura and-and tell me what you feel.”
