Before the chapter begins, I would like to have a quick word with you, yes you, the reader!
Hi! I'm back. It's been a couple months and oh boy has it been busy. I got a boyfriend, a job, and a neurodivergent diagnosis, which explained a lot of things for me.
I'm so sorry about the wait, I thought I'd get this to you guys for Christmas…and now it's March. If I may explain myself, I fell back into that drowning pit of perfectionism. I didn't post anything because my writing wasn't meeting the standards I'd set for it (spoiler alert, the standards were impossible to reach) But now I've learned how to punch perfectionism in the face and love my work unconditionally.
Are all of my problems solved? Nope
Will I still struggle with perfectionism on a daily basis? Yup
But I'm sticking to my word, and I am going to finish this fanfiction. For you guys, and for myself.
It feels so good to be back. Thank you all for waiting, and please enjoy this chapter!
It was decided that they wouldn't leave that day. It was too busy, and the police would be on too high of an alert. In the meantime, the three of them had worked to assemble a temporary living space for Reynie. The press had several open rooms, but they'd all agreed it would be best to keep Reynie out of the way, just in case the Ten Men decided to come back. And so, Reynie found himself sitting cross legged on a mattress in the Kieta's basement.
"I'm sorry. This is hardly ideal," Lea said, scrunching her nose at the musty smell.
Reynie smiled. "It's wonderful, Lea. I've stayed in much worse conditions,"
This was true. Following the dissolution of the tunnel system, and before Reynie had arrived in Burrough, there were many nights that he hadn't had a roof over his head. He recalled a particularly bleak 3 days when, due to a sudden influx of police in the area, he had to spend his nights in a cave by the sea, which was prone to flooding and soaking him in the midst of his slumber. Compared to that, this basement was quite luxurious.
Though small and dimly lit, the room felt cozy. Wooden shelves lined the walls, overflowing with canned soup, Releaf, cleaning supplies, and other assorted items from the printing company's glory days. The floor was littered with old newspaper pages, spilling out of cardboard boxes that were sagging from moisture. His bed was just a mattress, and one very thick quilt that Mr. Kieta had brought down from his son's bedroom.
Towards the back of the room was a door which led to the printing machine, which was now long out of use. Outside it's door was a large desk that was littered with pens and sticky notes. Hanging on the wall above was a board covered in yet more sticky notes, plus assorted papers and objects all held in place by thumbtacks. A mug sat empty on the corner of the desk, waiting where someone had evidently set it down long ago.
The scene was undisturbed, a moment frozen in time. Were it not for the dust, Reynie would have expected someone to come in and take a seat at the desk, resuming whatever work they had been in the middle of.
"Well with luck you won't have to stay here for long. I've already started packing a small travel bag," Lea said. "We won't be able to leave by normal means, of course—"
"Of course?"
"The police aren't going to let you leave this city, Reynie. So we'll need an unconventional way out."
"I suppose you already have a few ideas?"
Lea grinned. "Let's just say, you should consider yourself very lucky to have stumbled upon the one person who knows Trippoli back and forth. I'll find us a way, but in the meantime, it'd be best for you not to leave the press. It'll be rather boring, but it will be safe"
Reynie laid down on the mattress and stretched. "Don't worry, Lea," he said with a smile, "I will gladly welcome a bit of boredom in my life,"
He heard her give a short laugh, and then her footsteps as she left him alone.
Reynie was quite tired, but found he couldn't fall asleep. Every time he tried to shut his mind down, he was reminded of Mrs. Lowry's words from just last night.
"Big changes are coming. And not just in Burrough, all across the world!" It was surely a coincidence that things had gone wrong on this trip, just after her warning. It had to be. Her concern was only Whisperer induced. That was all.
Despite telling himself this, his mind couldn't help but consider the fact that she may be right. It was true, she would know better than him if something tragic was on the horizon. But he could not think about such things, because then he began to speculate about the most awful and wicked possibilities. It's foolish to be anxious over problems that you aren't even sure exist, he told himself. But this did little to convince him.
Giving up on trying to rest, he instead began to pace around the room to make some sense of his racing thoughts. When that did little to help, he perused the items lying around the basement. One box held several old toys from when Lea had been younger, and one very thick album housed family pictures (though Reynie did not look through it much, for he felt this would be rude). In one corner of the room was a collection of beautiful oil paintings, most of them depicting the same owl.
Some had familiar settings, such as one where the owl sat in the alleyway behind the press, head tilted up at the sky. Others showed the bird in fantastical places, like one that depicted it soaring through an archway carved from a purple mountain. Sometimes the owl was small, and other times he was larger, sometimes flying and sometimes sitting still. The scenes in each painting were so variable, the only commonality was the owl and two tiny initials in the corner reading: MK. Reynie gingerly set the paintings back down, feeling as if he'd just infringed on something sacred, and continued his browsing.
The most prevalent items were the many paperback novels, all with Mr. Kieta's name printed on the front. Their pages were yellowed with age and the printing inside was small and blocky. They were the perfect kind of books, at least to Reynie. He flipped through the pages, stopping to admire the occasional vignette. He smiled. It seemed he'd found a way to occupy his time.
…..
Reynie was halfway through one book titled, "The Beggars Jewel" when Mr. Kieta called him. So absorbed in the text was he, that it took Reynie a moment to realize he'd been summoned at all. Pushing aside the quilt he'd wrapped himself in, he stood up from his mattress and left the basement.
"Mr. Kieta?" He asked, pushing the trapdoor open. The entrance to the basement was found in the living room, and Mr. Kieta sat watching the television. Early evening light filtered in through a window. On the coffee table in front of him were two cups filled with a steaming beverage.
"Hello Reynie. Come and sit," he greeted. Reynie moved over to the couch and took one cup in his hand.
"Is this Releaf?"
"No. It's hot chocolate," Mr. Kieta kept his gaze fixated on the television, where the tetherball tournament was under way.
"Thank you," Reynie took a sip. "Where is Lea?"
"She left to meet someone. She's trying to find us a way out of town,"
"Oh. Is that safe?"
Mr. Kieta shrugged. "Doesn't matter. She would've gone even if it wasn't," He turned to look at Reynie. "You've gotten her fairly infatuated with this whole rebellion thing,"
Reynie searched the old man's face, unsure if he harbored any animosity towards Reynie for this.
"I think…" he began to say.
"Thank you," Mr. Kieta interrupted him.
Reynie stopped. "What for?"
"For giving her a way to fight." He looked back at the television, "For giving me a way to fight."
Reynie said nothing. He only sipped his hot chocolate (it was good) and watched the game (it was tedious). Despite the Whisperer's messages, TV was bearable for him. So long as he kept up with Releaf dosages, the Whisperer had little effect on him. He was sure this greatly frustrated Curtain, who was likely not living in the world he had hoped for. The events at Third Island Prison had resulted in the ultimate destruction of the Whisperer and its computers. When Curtain escaped, he had needed to essentially reinvent the entire machine, a feat that many would consider impossible for a fugitive. Even Mr. Benedict had once commented that such an endeavor would take months, even years. However, Curtain was able to do just this with relative ease, all because of Arthur Pressius.
Mr. Pressius, despite his rumored associations with nefarious types, had been regarded highly amongst the public. In the nearing years of Curtain's escape, the wealthy businessman had set his sights on politics, holding various positions of power and earning himself a reputation as a firm but effective leader. Reynie sometimes thought back to those years, and wondered if Curtain's hand had been in the play even then, or if he'd only taken advantage of Pressius's willing decision to enter the world of government. Either way, when it was announced that Arthur Pressius had won the presidential election, Reynie knew it couldn't be good.
It had taken a long time for Reynie to begin to trust government officials. He still believed that many were corrupt, but he began to see that just as many of them were, in fact, good people, working for positive change. There was, of course, Ms. Argent, but there were countless others whom Reynie had worked with, lawyers and legislators and police.
Under Pressius, however, corruption was as prevalent as crops in a corn maze. No matter where Reynie turned or what direction he went, it was there. He was lost and stumbling through a maze of malice, one that had no exit. While the public only saw an ambitious leader who initiated several controversial programs, the Benedict household could see behind the curtain, at the puppetry going on within. Unexplained disappearances, money skimming, bribery, blackmail, and other criminal acts ran rampant in the government.
Perhaps they could've done something about it had Curtain not escaped. It was only two months into Pressius's administration that the jailbreak occurred. The timing of both events was chalked up to coincidence. And despite the Society's best efforts, Pressius made sure that no one, especially not them, interfered with Ledroptha's work on his machine. Once the Whisperer had been completed, the world's fate was sealed.
Pressius gave complete reins of the country to Curtain. The public disagreed, but there was no one able to stop him. With his Whisperer, a venal government, and no legal obligations, Curtain was able to seize the world one country at a time. All the while, he grew his police force, established restrictions, and destroyed anyone in the way. It all happened so quickly, Reynie felt as if he went to bed in one world and woke up the next morning in a completely different one.
If there was any upside, reconnaissance missions had revealed that the Whisperer was not the same as it once was. Mr. Benedict had said it was truly impossible for the Whisperer to ever be exactly the same, for any and all blueprints had been destroyed or never existed in the first place (a mix of paranoia and arrogance on Curtain's part). The new model lacked some of its later capabilities, such as being able to retrieve information from a person's mind. And as multiple tests showed, the further away from the machine that you were, the less strong it's messages were.
It was an interesting and, according to several rebels on the inside, an unanticipated phenomena. Curtain had been furious upon its discovery. With time, his fury faded, for the Whisperer influence was still heavily felt in even the farthest reaches of the Earth. But it did permit Reynie and other sensitive minds to watch the television for short stretches of time, as he did now.
The tetherball snaked its way around the pole and a buzzer went off. Another point for the leading Trippoli Tigers. Mr. Kieta gave a small exclamation of joy. The players shook hands, and walked off to the sidelines, as two new players approached the center, ready to begin the next round. Reynie frowned at the Farstead Falcon's player.
"Huh,"
"What is it?" Mr. Kieta grunted.
"That player, the one in the purple and white, she looks familiar to me," he said, leaning forward to get a better look.
The announcer's energetic voice crackled through the TV. "And it's time for the penultimate round! Playing for the Trippoli Tigers is Geli Baudelaire…"
The crowd screamed with joy as the athlete pumped her fist in the air.
"And playing for the Farstead Falcons, please welcome, Martina Crowe!"
The player turned to face the camera. Reynie stopped breathing. The crowd roared even louder, and Martina gave them a wide, toothy grin, flexing a muscular bicep.
"Do you know her?" Mr. Kieta asked.
Reynie pressed his lips together. "You could say that."
After the extensive and exhausting legal matters surrounding Third Island Prison were cleared up, Martina had gone MIA. Even Mr. Benedict could not find where she'd gone, though Reynie knew he had not searched very hard.
"If she wanted us to find her, she wouldn't have hidden so well," Mr. Benedict had said. Reynie believed he was right.
Mr. Kieta noticed Reynie's expression.
"I think that's enough TV for today," He reached for the remote and clicked the device off. "The Falcon's wouldn't be able to catch up with the Tigers anyways,"
Reynie nodded and looked down into his hot chocolate.
"We have some card decks if you'd want to play a game," Mr. Kieta offered.
"Oh, I appreciate that, sir. But if it's alright with you, I have a book I'd like to get back to. It's one of yours, actually,"
Mr Kieta laughed. "Ah, picked up one of those old things? I haven't seen my own work in many years,"
"They were just lying about in the basement and caught my eye," Reynie felt himself go red. "I wasn't trying to snoop or anything. I only—"
Mr. Kieta cut him off with a wave of a hand. "Oh, don't bother. Books are meant to be read. Though tell me…" he adopted a curious expression. "Have you found anything else of interest down there?"
Reynie thought back to the paintings. "There was some art. Oil paintings. Were they yours as well?"
It was the right answer. Mr. Kieta grinned a wide smile of crooked teeth.
"Oh no, they were my son's, Marlon, Lea's father. He was a wonderful artist. While I would labor trying to craft worlds out of words, he could do so much more using mere pigments and brushes. His paintings often told even greater stories than the books I wrote,"
The elderly man looked out the window, and sighed. "He had such a big heart. A compassionate dreamer, Marlon was. He believed the world was a beautiful place, no matter how many times it tried to prove him wrong. Despite it all, my son loved everyone and everything, down to the bugs crawling in the dirt."
"Did he like owls?' Reynie asked.
At this, Mr. Kieta let out a great, shaking laugh, his head tilted back towards the ceiling. He tittered long and hard, though Reynie couldn't see what he'd said that was all that funny.
"Ohohoho…oh dear, I know exactly what you're referring to," Mr. Kieta sat up and dabbed at his eyes. "You mean Jericho,"
"Jericho?"
"Yes, he was the closest any creature came to being our family pet. He was a beautiful bird, and we all loved him very much. When Lea was only eight years old, she found him at the park with a broken wing. She brought him home, and begged us desperately to fix him. There isn't much that an artist, a journalist, and an old man can do in that situation, but Lea's mother was determined above all else. I suppose it came with the job. She got all the books she could from the library, spoke with medical students at the university, and did everything in her power to heal that little bird's wing,"
"He stayed with us for only a month or so, but oh, how he found a home in our hearts. Marlon was the one who named him Jericho, and he became the star subject of all of Marlon's paintings. There were several times I can recall when Lea came home, clutching a live mouse in her grimy hands, stating it was to be Jericho's dinner. And when Lea was off at school, and her parents were out busy investigating or running the press, Jericho, or Jerry as I called him, would sit with me and watch the telly."
Mr. Kieta absently rubbed the armrest of his chair. Perhaps it was Reynie's imagination, but he now noticed several loose threads in that spot, perhaps pulled up long ago by an owl's sharp talons.
"And then his wing healed. We all knew it would some day, but we were very sad to see him go. Lea was heartbroken, but in the end, it was her who released him out into the wild. As a way of keeping his memory alive, Mrs. Kieta had an engineer who lived nearby come and install a doorbell whose ring resembled that of an owl's hoot. She said it was fitting that 'an old friend would welcome new friends into our lives'. I haven't heard from that engineer in a long time. I think he's been arrested now."
The old man gave a weary sigh. "I'm tired, Reynie. And you have your book to read."
Reynie nodded, recognizing the dismissal. "Of course sir, I'll leave you be then,"
The young man set down his drink and returned to the trapdoor, cleverly disguised as a floor panel. He began his descent down into the basement that would reside as his bedroom now, but stopped before closing the hatch.
"Mr. Kieta?"
"What is it?"
"Thank you for the hot chocolate,"
The old man gave a smile full of crooked and missing teeth.
"Anytime, Reynie. Anytime,"
