Chapter Four

The first time my release-form-agreed silence was tested came not long after I became technically open for business as an Upper Class scribe. I was slightly paranoid, jumping at the slightest sound or voice and glancing at the Prince’s stupid warning jewel every few minutes just to make sure it wasn’t glowing (and a good few times I could have sworn it was, from the corner of my eye, only to find it dark and silent when I looked around).

I had been so distracted that I had been up for tea about a hundred times and was now taking it in its less appealing state without milk, having run out a couple of hours previous. I was in the process of boiling the kettle for yet another mug when the doorbell rang. I was usually annoyed by disturbances like this in the middle of the day, as deep into my work as I tended to be, but now something so beautiful and mundane as a normal visitor seemed utterly wonderful.

I abandoned my tea and unlocked the front door, opening it a few inches to peer out before I shunted it fully open.

"Red!" Carter's long-time best friend stood on the doorstep in leather trousers so tight it seemed a physical impossibility to get them on or off, and a red corset, her jacket slung over her shoulder and a plastic bag in her other hand.

"Hey Trista, haven't seen you in a while." This was a bit of a joke. Red always came to the house and always called in at the study door when she did, however I was often so caught up that I didn't even notice. It had become routine for her to tease me about this whenever I was the one who answered the door. In this instance however, it really had been a while since I'd last seen her, almost two weeks in fact.

"Hey come in, I was just making some tea." I waved her in and she handed me the plastic bag.

"Thought you might be out." It was a big six-pint plastic bottle of milk.

"You lifesaver." I couldn't help but gush as she came in, kicking the door closed behind her and sweeping her long red hair over one shoulder, out of the way, and hanging up her jacket on the hooks by the door.

"I don't know about that. You drink too much tea, I shouldn't be encouraging it." But she was grinning as she led the way into the kitchen.

A couple of years ago Red had lived here with Carter and I, having had a rough patch with a violent boyfriend who had kicked her out and kept everything she owned. Needless to say, Carter and the rest of the gang were up in arms and she soon got her belongings back, but for a while she didn't leave her room and I had to bring new boxes of tissues in every day.

Before that we hadn't been particularly close, just friends, but after she spent long days at my feet in the study with her head on my lap as I wrote, simply because she needed the company, we had become far closer.

"So where's Carter? He hasn't been at work this week." Red said as she settled herself on a stool.

I cursed myself at that; it was my responsibility to make sure he wasn't missed and I hadn't even considered his job. I put it on my mental checklist of things to do, pulling out a second mug and teabag and pouring out the freshly-boiled water.

Apparently I wasn't overly good at this 'dealing with the aftermath of your brother selling his soul to the devil' business.

"Oh, I don't know," I said, trying to make it sound light, "I haven't seen him about much recently." Great. Big. Lie. He had hardly left the house except to politely excuse himself for 'work', leaving the room promptly before he vanished after the first time it happened in front of me and I slipped and hit my head on an open cupboard door.

"Oh, really?" She obviously didn't believe me, which wasn't surprising considering how close Carter and I were. I was a good liar, but telling someone who knew Carter and me so well that I hadn't seen him much in such a light tone was stupidly easy to see through. Especially for Red. She, like my brother, could read my lies eerily well. I always assumed I must have a tell somewhere, since no one else even suspected a lie and yet those two often knew immediately that I was talking crap. I re-thought my lie.

"Well..." I stopped what I was doing, pausing with the sugar-carrying spoon over her mug. I waited a moment. "I don't know... He hasn't been around, but..." I tipped the sugar into the mug and sighed, watching the teabags bobbing in the water. "I don't know what's been happening recently, but he's been really quiet about it no matter what I ask. He said it had nothing to do with the gang, so..." I turned to look at her, my expression plainly showing distress. "If you don't know, then what's going on?" Red was at my side in a moment, hugging me gently to her.

"Come here," she said, her usual brash exuberance smoothed and soothing, "I'm sure it's nothing to worry about. You know he doesn't like telling you stuff that'll make you worry." Can I act or what? I felt a little guilty at lying to her, at manipulating her like this, but it was necessary to protect Carter. I didn't know what would happen to either of us if we disobeyed one of the contract's terms. I didn't want to find out.

"I'll be okay, I'm just a bit anxious. I don't know what's going on and he's not around, so..." Being a writer made lying easy for me. I made things up on a regular basis, almost everything I wrote was technically a lie. I could live a lie just as easily and telling a little one like this was child's play. But that didn't mean I had to like it. I wanted to tell Red what had happened, but thoughts of the contract and of Prince Daidalos, of Carter's safety and what might come of telling the truth made that impossible.

This had been one of the things I had been dreading. Lying about Carter would be easy with almost everyone except those closest to us. And Red was like family.

"Don't worry. I'll rip it out of him the next time I see him, make him come back here and explain. He can't keep it from you forever." It struck me as Red said this, that I couldn't keep putting this off. I'd have to sort Carter's absence out on a more permanent basis at some point, I couldn't keep saying he was 'here and there' or I'd go crazy. Of course, the easiest way I could think of was to declare him missing. Get the police involved and everything, make it official. Blunt. Finite. But I was reluctant. In a way this whole mess, this whole demon and soul issue, wasn't real until it seeped into the outside world, until it affected more than just our little bubble. I had been keeping that from happening by ignoring the problem, the task of explaining Carter's unexplained disappearance, but I was fooling myself. I knew very well the tendency for reality to invade, to wash away, to wake a person up.

I forced the words to come, felt them sit on my tongue and struggled not to swallow them again. I opened my mouth and pushed the words out. "The truth is... I haven't seen him for days... I don't know where he is or whether he's with someone or if he's safe, I don't know anything..."

“Hush, hush,” Red hugged me tighter, one hand stroking through my hair as she tucked my head partly beneath her chin. “Now, slowly, tell me what’s been going on. Tell me anything or anyone you remember seeing or hearing the Captain mention.” The Captain referred to Carter and I knew Red was trying to discern whether the absence of their gang’s leader had to do with any of the other groups in the area. I knew enough to fake a story about something like that, and it would put the attention on whichever group or individual I put suspicion on, but in the long run less information or hints was better.

So I told her fragments of made up conversations in which Carter told me extremely little, in which I was worried but had too much faith in Carter to do anything about it, in which his disappearances grew longer and more frequent. I frightened myself with how easily the story came to me, how effortless the stream of words, the act, the lie, fell from my lips. The details came to me like they did when I was writing, the characters of this story I knew particularly well and that made my characterisation as perfect as fiction could be. I made myself cry with how easy it was, how painful it was to feed one of my best friends, someone who was like a sister to me, such bullshit. Red, of course, thought I was crying because of Carter.

We took the farce into the living room, where Red proceeded to make some phone calls to various gang members and acquaintances, telling them to keep an eye out for Carter or for someone who had seen him. By the time she was done, Red looked almost feverish with energy. She got up and paced a little, shooting questions at me every now and then, pausing in her movement to listen to my replies before continuing in her circles.

Eventually, after a few more choice calls to people I had never even heard of, she settled beside me and took up my hands. “Listen honey,” she sighed softly, “we’re probably going to have to go to the police about this.” I assumed a suitably surprised expression. “I know, I know, but if he’s not been seen in a week we’ll have no choice. We can’t just keep looking on our own, especially if he’s gone further afield.” Another sigh. “So, we’ll wait a week. If in a week we can’t find him, haven’t heard from or heard of someone seeing him, we’ll report it. Okay?” I nodded dumbly, surprised at how well this had worked out and how bad I felt about it. And how weird, since we were reporting Carter missing when I had seen him that very morning, would probably see him that evening. Would they eventually rule him a lost cause? He would be as good as dead, with no coffin or funeral or closure for anyone around him but me. He was so well loved by so many people and they would never know what happened to him.

I started crying again, this time entirely without my consent, and Red rocked me back and forth, mumbling little comforting words that I couldn’t actually understand.

“Look,” Red said, after a little while, pulling back from me and tucking some of my hair behind my ear, “don’t worry. I know you won’t be able to help it to some extent, but worrying won’t do anything. Put your faith in me and the gang and concentrate on writing, okay? At this point there isn’t anything you can do, so just wait and hope and if by the end of the week there’s nothing, we still have the flatfeet to turn to.” She paused, brushing my hair away from my face, studying my expression. “Will you be alright here on your own? I can always come stay here for a while?” I thought of contracts and demons and Carter and shook my head slowly.

“I’ll be fine. I’ll be a bit paranoid, but I’ll be fine.” Red smiled at that. She knew my paranoid habit of going around and checking all the windows and doors multiple times when I was worried. When her boyfriend tracking her down and ‘visiting’ had been a real possibility, I had done it almost constantly when Carter was out of the house and it was just Red and I.

I got that particular habit from an incident when I was really young, something I felt I had long gotten over and that had nevertheless left me with a large issue concerning security.

It had been just me in the house; I’d been allowed to stay on my own on Sundays when Dad took Carter to football, not being interested in such outdoor pursuits, and while they were out I usually took to quietly reading in the study. About an hour after they left once, a burglar had broken in through the back patio doors, which had been left unlocked, with his partner and started passing various goods out and over the back fence. The study had, in those days, been where the only computer was and of course one of the burglars had come investigating the closed door.

I remember being amazed by how normal he looked; I had expected him to come in wearing all black, a balaclava and everything, maybe with a gun, but he had been wearing jeans and a blue t-shirt, had been tall and brunette with a slight moustache and brown eyes. He had looked completely normal, not like my young mind had expected a burglar to look at all.

I had been sitting in the old armchair – young and almost new then – with a small pile of books, and the armchair being in the opposite corner on the same wall as the door, the thief didn’t immediately notice me. He headed straight for the computer and the stereo, not seeing me until he turned to carry the big monitor out of the room. For my part, I had curled into a ball and half-hid behind the book I was holding, terrified beyond being able to scream for help.

Burglars don’t like getting caught in the act, of course. I count myself lucky that their reaction had been to get me out of the way and keep me quiet in a mostly non-violent manner, rather than retrieving a knife from the kitchen to keep me quiet more permanently. Perhaps they knew I’d never remember their faces. Whatever the reason, they taped my mouth and wrists and stuffed me in the cupboard under the stairs (a cupboard Dad later removed the doors from and put a table and vase of fake flowers in its place), taping the two cupboard door-knobs together so that the doors wouldn’t open.

I remember listening to their rummaging around, their grunts of exertion and the footsteps that explored our home with no regard until all the noises died down and all that was left for me was the book I was still holding and the small amounts of light through the slats in the cupboard doors. I remember that using the light streaming through those gaps I continued to read my book until Dad and Carter came home.

I don’t remember much of what followed them finding me in the cupboard, though I remember flinging the book aside and running to them, remember the warmth and security I felt as they both hugged me at once, remember how long and how much I cried.

For me, Dad and Carter have always represented security to me, they’ve always made me feel safe, and that’s why when Carter is home I don’t even think about the doors and windows except in a cursory way, and why when Carter’s gone I have to religiously roam the house in anxiety for some time before I deem the house secure enough to relax in.

“Well, paranoid or not, call me if anything happens or if you’re worried or need anything, anything at all. Okay?” Red smiled when I nodded, a distracted sort of smile that told me she was probably already trying to come up with places Carter might go or people he might be with, reasons he might not be telling anyone about it.

“Thanks, Red. Really.” I said sincerely, leaning my head against her shoulder.

Even if the circumstances were a great big lie of my making, I still fully appreciated that this was her real reaction to the situation I had created, that the concern she was radiating so strongly was for me and Carter. I really did hate lying to her like this. That this was all because of the contract and the demon Prince, that I was stuck doing this with no way out, filled me with bitterness. Once again I had to wonder why Carter had made his deal in the first place. What had he been given in exchange for his soul? For my lies and silence? For our entire stupid situation? True, the price for him had been reduced from his soul with my contract, but the price was still equitable; what had Carter gotten in return?

“Of course, we’re family. Right?”

“Right.” I confirmed, ignoring the sharp small suspicious pain in my chest.

“But putting all this aside,” she said, taking one of my hands and squeezing it gently, her tone suddenly forced lighter, “tell me about what you’ve been writing lately. Is the next chapter of Ninth Cloud done yet?” I always gave Red chapter updates for my current works, though often it was Carter who took them to her. I knew she was trying to take my mind off of things now, so I obliged and we chatted about Ninth Cloud and various other Works In Progress, a couple of which were close to being completed so I had been saving up chapters until the end, not giving Red or Carter a look at the story until I finished everything. Unfortunately even these projects had been put on hold for my current inclination, which ran towards ‘Reaching For The Ninth Cloud’ and my new, yet unnamed, piece with Freyr and Rachel.

I was enjoying the new project all things considered, though I was also reluctant because it was based in real life and because in places it already cut a little close to home. I should have known better really, but as I said before, I can’t generally pick and choose with my Muses. A part of me wondered what I would even do with it once it was finished. Although both Carter and now Red knew it existed, I didn’t want either of them to read it, especially Carter.

Could I publish it if I didn’t even want my brother to see it? But would I be satisfied if it just sat and gathered dust with no one having ever taken a look and told me what they thought? A part of me ran on feedback, like most people I sought recognition in some way and if I loved this piece when it was done then I wasn’t sure I could be happy setting it in its metaphorical grave, never having seen the light, and forgetting about it. On the other hand, given its subject matter, did I really have a choice? I couldn’t give it to Carter, mostly because of the painful reminder, but also because Rachel was beginning to take a little too much of me and that was always a worrying prospect, especially when Carter was the most likely to notice.

A part of Rachel wished she had never met him, that she had never been given the choice. So now she had her wishes. ‘Use them for anything you like’, he’d said. But she still couldn’t reconcile something, she still felt something she couldn’t quite put into words, and there was regret hovering over all of it, regret and resentment that she had been given the choice to make and that she had made it, regret that she had changed things so drastically.

Once Carter saw something in Rachel, saw the connection, the similarities, he might not be able to tell where it ended, where Rachel became her own person, and I didn’t want that. Not with knowing how Rachel was, how she thought, what was going to happen.

Speak of the devil, I thought as Carter poked his head into the living room suddenly, freezing for an instant at the sight of Red and then, looking panicked, retreated. But the sudden withdrawal caused the door to shift ever so slightly and the squeak made Red, who thankfully was sitting with her back to the door, turn and frown. I hoped to god Carter had hidden himself somewhere good and that Red wouldn’t suspect anything. But when she turned around and laughed and said she missed ‘the old house’, I stopped worrying as much.

Unfortunately, at that moment, while laughing with Red about some of our antics while she had lived here, our pillow fights that had broken the couch before this, our midnight sessions melting chocolate and taking shots – not necessarily a good mix, we had found – our practical jokes on Carter, I saw something that made my laughter weaken and eventually die down.

Red had to leave. The Prince's green jewel was glowing.