A shadow entered his classroom, and paused at the door.
Will didn't need to look up from his computer to see who it was.
"I'm starting to hear Hannibal Lector's voice inside my head." He said.
"Oh, really?" Beverly sounded interested. He could even see the shape of her daemon, flying ahead of her to perch next to Kali on the floor as though everything were normal.
As though they were really there.
He watched out of the he corner of his eye as Kali pushed her nose toward the macaw, only to jerk back with a startled hiss when she encountered a solid form.
"You're not really here." He told her when she reached his desk.
She tilted her head to the side in aknowledgement. "That's true." She confirmed as lightly as if he had commented on the weather. She gestured to his computer with a cup of coffee he could smell. "What you working on?"
He scoffed. "As if you don't already know."
...
Will didn't know who shot the mother, but he saw Beverly do it.
She helped him to his feet where he had knelt down to put himself on the child's level, looking concerned.
"You alright?" She asked, daemon flapping to her shoulder. He felt the wind brush his cheek.
All he could do was nod silently as Kali wound herself about his legs.
...
"I keep seeing Beverly." The words tasted like ashes on his tongue. It was a confession pulled from unwilling lips and teeth. Hannibal's gaze allowed no lies or unspoken truths.
The man inclined his head."While you are cases?" He inquired, "It is not uncommon for the mind to project its expectations onto the world around it. It is a perfectly normal experience. In fact, just earlier this morning, Jack confessed the same thing to me, just as you are now."
Kali blinked slowly, impassively.
Will smiled tightly. "Not that I doubt your expertise, Dr. Lector, but I think I would call this just a bit more than my mind showing me my expectations. I expect to see her at a crime scene. What I don't expect is for her to enter my classroom and start telling me about Willard Wigins."
One of Hannibal's eyebrows rose. "I am unfamiliar with that name." He said.
Will's mouth twisted. "He's a-uh, sculptor, supposedly. A 'micro sculptor' is how she put it."
He didn't miss Hannibal's bemused expression, or the way his ever-silent owl turned to look at him.
"I do not think you should be overly concerned, Will." He said firmly, "Our minds be strange, and sometimes our worst enemy. But they are also our best friends. Perhaps your mind is comforting you in the only way it knows how."
Will's eyebrows rose this time, "What," he he asked sarcastically, "By making me even more crazy than I already am?"
"No," Hannibal corrected gently, firmly, "By giving you hope."
"Hope?" Kali was the one who spit the word like something foul, her leopard's face incredulous.
"If you continue seeing Mrs. Katz where you expect her to be, maybe someday she will return to those places, and your expectations will once again be reality."
...
Expectations were not things you chose. They were things you learned.
All of Will's expectations for the Ripper were destroyed on the day Beverly Katz was found, wandering deliriously through the woods.
The Ripper did not take prisoners. He took trophies.
One of her kidneys had been removed, along with her left hand, cut off at the wrist.
But the very fact that she had been released, that she was alive, it...
It made no sense.
And that scared Will even more than the thought of what Beverly could have gone through to drive her into the state of Catalonia she had been found in.
Worse things were yet to come, Will was sure of it.