Hannibal had not heard from Maryann in the four days after his email. Although he had plenty to keep him occupied, what with he and Will Graham's sudden responsibility for Abigail Hobbs, in the quiet moments of car rides and sips of water at lunch, it unnerved him, rankled him.
Why that was, he had no earthly clue. For a man who knew himself well enough to recognize and carefully diet the beast within, he could not fathom why he cared so much about the response of his mere gardener.
It felt like being cut off from a feast.
"Are you alright, Doctor Lector?" queried Abigail, the large eyes in her pale face probing hollowly. "That's the second time you've sighed in the last minute."
Hannibal's instinct was to hide the weakness shown by his internal musings' seeping into reality, but that would have done no good. Over his disgusting cafeteria burger, Will Graham was watching him quizzically, too.
Hannibal's long, multitalented fingers landed on the foot of his thick plastic cup, which sweated ice water onto his quadrant of the table the trio shared in the wanly lit sunroom. As far as institutions went, Hannibal liked the converted colonial, with its large windows and old woods. Too much light, though. "It is a habitual way to relieve worry, I am afraid," he replied, turning the cup in its tiny ocean. "I am worried about you."
Abigail hesitated to take a bite of her chicken sandwich (processed bird pieces Hannibal would never let pass his lips, even in death). Her voice and mannerism was cautious, generally anxious, and hinted at repressed angst. "You might want to box it up," she said over the tan bun indented by her grasp.
Hannibal couldn't help himself, but it also qualified as a therapeutic question. "Like you?"
The young girl's huge, wounded eyes flitted away from his. "It'll be there for me," she says softly.
After a long moment of reflection, Will broke the tension, "You're sure you don't want anything to eat?"
Not from here. Not in this, or any lifetime. Hannibal smiled thinly. "No, thank you. I had a large breakfast." Not untrue: the human liver, when reduced to liverwurst, was quite filling.
The mongoose and the fledgling continued to eat and chat, two injured and spiraling minds pretending to be whole. Although the snake was mostly secluded from the conversation, it was more by his choice than their mechanism.
It occurred to the cannibal that he couldn't make Maryann come to him. She danced around him, flickered beyond his grasp, twirled drunkenly like the bees she so loved, but he could no more control her path than that of the sun.
But he wanted to have her attention, greedily desired it. He may be Lithuanian, but the expectation of instant gratification was an American disease he acquired. Maryann Shule had been instant, heady gratification, up until a few days ago. Now, the silence was deafening, and without cause.
That would not do. It was appetizer before entre, in his world, not the other way around: not gluttony then fasting.
Obviously, he couldn't rely on her to retain contact, to hold the spoon to his lips while his hands were tied with the webs he wove.
So he would put himself in her path, where she would have to bowl him over, or stop.
How?
With ideal timing, capitalization of opportunity, and by continuing to mirror the Technicolor affection she gave.
After all, bees were attracted to color.
Hannibal had to get up early to prepare for a rarely-taken 8 a.m. appointment slot. His mind was pleasantly, peaceably fogged, and his house was silent and semi-dark, and his coffee awaited. When he glimpsed someone out the ground floor window, he had to double-take to be sure.
In the wane morning light, Miss Shule had backed her pickup truck full of heavy-looking sacks and Rubbermaid bins up to the edge of the garden, and on its tailgate sat several 5-gallon buckets. She was taking measured strides through the garden, her lips moving in tacit count, and her wrist was skillfully flicking a large ice scoop full of tan, thick grained powder onto the ground. As the doctor watched her, she airily fluttered the scoop to empty the last pinches, then plunged it back into the bucket she carried and continues on. The gardener ran out exactly at the end of the row, and turned on her heel to retrieve another laden bucket from the tailgate.
Hannibal was a reveler, by the dirt-dusted woman's approximation, and he delighted in watching: unseen, uninterrupted, propped against his window frame, seeking any interesting morsel. But like hunting from a blind, the chances of such observation bearing fruit were a toss of a coin. As such, it raised his spirits to take in her momentary show of weakness.
She dropped the empty bucket onto a stack, and her hand hesitated over the filled one on her tailgate. Then, her shoulders rolled forward on the inhale. In contrast to the tension of the motion, she languidly turned around to lean against the truck, crossed her ankles, and cradled the elbow of her lifted hand as it stifled the catlike yawn that curled back her lips.
He ate it up, his first contact in days.
To watch a being that was uninhibited by the weight of his eyes was intoxicating. In a way, the pain and terror he inflicted on victims was the same brand of candor he sought in the nonvictims, the living.
But then, in one way or another, everyone he met was his victim.
He moved to his kitchen and smiled as an inclination seized him. Grind, measure, boil, pour, steep. The scent of artfully burnt beans tempted his synapses as he transferred the French press of murky liquid, a sugar dish, a tiny carafe of cream, two spoons, a pair of cups, and two napkins to a tray.
He hesitated at the door, however. The last two times, Miss Shule had been in the middle of knocking, as though she'd read his mind from afar. Even as a lover of the human mind, Hannibal did not ascribe to beliefs in extrasensory perception, or superstition.
All the same, with hot liquids in the balance, he checked the peephole.
The air held promise of unseasonal warmth, and he sat the tray down on some patio furniture. "Good morning, Miss Shule," he called from the porch.
She jerked upright from her repose against the tailgate with almost comical haste, and removed herself from the comfortable pose. "Good morning, Doctor Lector," she replied, stifling another yawn. As she meandered towards the porch, Hannibal contained his smile. Come into my parlor, said the spider to the fly.
"Early appointment, I gather?" she asked, knocking her boots against the bottom stair to rid them of most dirt.
"Astute observation," he agreed. His cheer was not contrived: he was getting what he wanted. "I do not rise at this hour unless paid to do so."
"Funny," she chuckled. "Neither do I."
Hannibal allowed his mirth to show as he turned with a cup of coffee in his hand. "I take it you have no bars against caffeine?"
"Hah, no," she snorted, taking the clear glass mug. "Not in the slightest. Thank you, that smells divine."
"There is sugar and cream here."
"I take it black, but thanks."
Hannibal settled into a patio chair, crossing his robed knees, and she took the mate to it, the tray of unneeded additions between them. All around, birds awakened the day and silenced the crickets, while colors opened their eyes to gleam under a tinge of gold. The earth breathed. The sky spun.
At the first sip, she groaned in a way that made his gut clench. "Oh, that's dark and rich," she hummed. "Like your soil." Tilting her head in his direction, in lieu of actually looking at him, she teased, "Kinda like you, in fact."
The doctor chortled. "The coffee is special. The beans were struck by Indian monsoon waters, and they floated in their racks for a while before resuming their initial drying stage."
"So we're sipping a storm. How poetic."
He tipped a corner of his mouth, words alienly echoed in his mug. "Kind of like you, Miss Shule."
"Maryann," she ordered serenely. "I'm too damn young for 'Miss', I've been meaning to tell you'."
He wanted to let out the wolfish grin, but refrained. "Very well. Hannibal."
"Hannibal," she murmured. Her careful roll of the syllables was like miniscule thunder in the cup.
He meant his 'poetic' comment both ways: that he was drinking her, the gale that lashed him with wind and wanton rain; and that she was incredibly poetic, in that despite all she fed him...
he still wanted to eat her.
"What is art?" Maryann mused, nose balanced over steam.
Finally, coming full circle. Hannibal silently waited for her thought to continue, biding his time. He had her. She wasn't going anywhere.
"Art is... in everything," she decided softly. "And yet, in nothing."
"Elaborate," he replied lazily, fingertips warmed.
"Art is this elusive idea that we chase. Every sketch, sculpture, photo... we're all looking for something definitive to call 'art'," she tried to explain her mind. "But we'll never find something, because the idea of art is not for definition: ours or others'. It is exclusively for seeking, and never finding."
"Like righteousness," said the cannibal.
The gardener gave him a gentle, pensive smile. "I guess so."
Thanks to xXAnimeXXRevolutionXx for the quick save on the typos. That's the last time I use the 'search/replace' function to attempt to correct present tense to past tense. :P
