I had never had a pupil before, so I didn't know how well my teaching skills would fare in the face of a thoughtless and unversed Baby like Vali. However, I didn't know what else to do to occupy the Grarrl's time, and feeding it valuable knowledge seemed like the only thing I was qualified to do. Vali often indicated she wanted to play, rolling mud up into balls and throwing them at my trunk, but I had no desire to participate in her crude and mind-numbing games. Instead, I began to seat her at a flat stone next to a patch of mud I could write in, giving her a piece of charcoal to imitate my work on the stone.
She was, from what she showed me on the stone, a fairly adept learner, but copying my mathematics and then applying the concepts to new problems didn't seem to enchant her the same way it entranced me. She was studious, and gradually learned to do the problems well, but she did it with such ennui in her eyes that I could almost feel her agony. Seeing this, I slowly began to give her periods of free time, wherein she was allowed to do whatever she pleased. During these times, she would pester me for a game, and soon I grew receptive to those wide, insisting eyes. Feigning chagrin, I'd finally give in to her games, balling up a quantity of mud for us to toss back and forth. She'd squeal whenever she was splattered, which was often, and then hide her head underneath a bush, just her cinnabar tail sticking in the air.
I grew attached to these games, though Vali was inventing a new one every second. One of her favorites was hide-and-seek, even though she was a terrible player and I always ended up winning. The few times I didn't find her were out of charity to her self-esteem.
Edna and I had figured out which foods she preferred, and which foods to force her to eat for health. She didn't handle solid foods very well, so I had Edna melt down or blend fruits and other foods together to make unique, Spooky-colored shakes. Vali drank them thirstily, though she gave some evidence of teething judging by all the stray branches that had subtle teeth marks in them. She would sometimes bite me playfully, and would leave small indents on my bark.
One of her favorite, but most peculiar, hobbies was watching the small flower that continued to flourish. I instructed her on how to water it, to ensure it sunlight and how to keep it growing. She extended these skills to the weeds that surrounded my trunk as well, but she treated the Neopian beauty with special care, making sure to give it the water with the least mud. Vali tended it diligently, as if it were her own child. I watched her go through these motions with an odd familiarity picking at the back of my consciousness, though I couldn't put a branch on quite what.
When she tired, she retreated to the low, thick part of my branches, reserving the thin and high ones for random adventures which I supervised. She would make-believe throughout these journeys, informing me on which sea we sailed as pirates or which ally of Sloth we fought while tumbling through space. She used one of my splinters as a multi-purpose weapon—sometimes a sword, sometimes a space ray, with a million other identities. She narrated in a lisp but with enough zeal to practically convince me that I could smell the salt water lingering in the air.
Vali never liked when darkness fell—I assumed she had a nightlight at home (a device some younger Neopets had told me of once) and the only light the Haunted Woods provided was the sallow, mournful face of the moon. I'd stay fully awake all night to rock her in my boughs gently, feeling her body shiver against the Werelupe howls in the night. More sinister to me was the crunching noise that came behind me from the black beast, but I had kept Vali mostly in the dark about this threat. Instead, I had rigidly informed her never to travel behind me, but to always keep to my sides and my front. As far as I had seen, she had followed instructions with exemplary quality.
But the beast knew of Vali, whether or not Vali knew of the beast. It could smell her fleshy body from within my branches, and it craved her presence behind my trunk. It would often lick its lips and cackle darkly during the night, whispering bone-chilling threats to me while using the back of my trunk as a scratching post. I gritted my teeth against its claws sunken into my bark and bore the pain, unwilling to relinquish Vali to relieve my pain.
At first I thought I defended Vali because I had, in some way, given an oath to Albert that I would keep Vali safe—but over time, I was realizing that perhaps not all of my allegiance lay in the Kacheek, who I was growing to loathe even more. I refused to admit to myself, though, where my loyalty was beginning to lie. I would not admit that underneath my craggy bark laid a bleeding heart.
So instead I began to claim that my devotion laid in the flower she so lovingly tended, and that without her deft caretaking it would wilt and perish. I watched that flower bloom and shut its lips during nighttime with the same alacrity I watched Vali stumble playfully through my branches, both of them innocents in a tarnished world.
I woke up the next morning. I wasn't sure where I was, actually, and it took me a while for me to register it as my bed. I blinked, and stared at the ceiling. I didn't remember coming home last night—then again, I didn't remember a lot about last night. My wrist and forearm stung on my right arm, and that carried a memory I would rather forget. So I walked to the bathroom to wash of the sleeve of the suit I had slept in, scrubbing the trashy fabric with hand soap. My skin felt a little better, but a slight burn remained where the memory had spilled. I shook off my arm until it was only damp and walked back into my room.
I had work that day. I remembered it because it was on the calendar draped over my mirror, hiding half of my face from view. I gave the calendar a blank stare, and then pushed it aside to see the whole of my face. It was wider than I recalled. I seemed to have gained weight around the cheeks and neck, though my torso and the rest of my body seemed the same—old clothes fit on my body as they always had. I had had this suit for years, and it still felt the same, as if it had just been brought home to be tailored by hand by Miko, as she didn't want to spend extra money on a professional.
I noticed my tie had been removed from beneath the collar of my white shirt, which smelled like sweat and soap. The fabric was dry, but it held the sticky evidence of previous moisture. I didn't bother to change it, but I opened my top drawer to my ties. They were lined up like criminals to be inspected by a victim. Each suspect, though, was a twin to his neighbor—they were all blue, without variation. I looked at them, squinting my eyes. When had I acquired such a vast array of blue ties? I didn't even like the color blue—I didn't like green either, the color of my skin, but that didn't matter as much as my tie. Where were the red ties? Where were the lavender ties? Where were the ties with polka dots and stripes? Just solid blue ties, like an ocean of cloth that never ends.
I waded my hands through that ocean, and then threw up a wave, a handful of blue ties jumping out of the dresser. I stomped them with a satisfying feel, and then undid the buttons at the top of my shirt. I would go with a better tie today, or I would go with no tie at all.
Whistling, I went out of my room and into the kitchen. As usual, nobody met me by the Neopian Times in the middle of the table. I went automatically to brew a pot of coffee—and then stopped myself. When I thought about it, hard and long, I really didn't want coffee at all—it was a terrible and bitter drink, and briefly, I wondered why I had started drinking it. 'For the energy' came to mind, but more prominently the fact that all of my co-workers had guzzled its unpleasantness religiously. I turned away from the coffeemaker, and towards the inventory.
Unlike things of high significance, like morphing potions, gourmet foods or Booktastic Books, regular food, if in an owner's inventory, was available to all Neopets under said owner. I browsed through the inventory, momentarily pausing on Hot Chocolate with Marshmallows—but suddenly, the sweet drink left just as bitter a mark in my memory as coffee. It seemed to reek of unhealthiness, and for one reason or another, my cells screamed for wellbeing.
At the bottom of our inventory, I found a slightly crushed Small Lemon Blitz Smoothie. Smoothies were one of Chiitsuru's favorite foods, and during the day Miko usually stockpiled them, Chiitsuru burning through them in a twenty-four hour period. This one, though, he seemed to have missed, and I was grateful for it. When I put the crumpled straw to my lips and sucked, a burst of flavor exploded on my tongue, addictive and acidic.
Slurping the smoothie, I reached over to my briefcase, which I had thrown to the ground in a hurry to put the morphing potion in the inventory. I walked to work, rather than take the bus as I usually did, even though the bank was remarkably close to my Neohome. Outside of public transportation, I began to notice things on my route to work that had eluded me inside the bus. The road was hemmed on the side with picket fences, but behind those fences lay the most well-tended gardens I had ever seen. I thought it a pity they were blocked, and leaned over each of them to see the flowers and have their scent grace my nose. A few owners reprimanded me for my intrusion, but I ignored their complaints. To build a thing of beauty and to only let Neopets see glimpses of it through the slots, I reasoned, was a form of thievery, robbing others of the excess splendor that their prison fences contained like captives.
Work, when I arrived, was boring, and I detached myself from the experience to survive it. I had always detached myself before, but now the separated ego seemed phenomenally distasteful of how I went about my job. It watched as I kissed the behinds of the undeserving and contemptuous, no matter how they treated me. The self that lingered on the walls grew disgusted with the passiveness I received such spiteful characters. It wondered from the ceiling how I didn't have the taste of dung on my lips by the end of the day.
Soon, though, that soul returned to my body, desperate for the revenge that I had been too weak to exact until that moment. A particularly difficult client—Ms. Uilikee, a snooty Silver Kougra—was hassling me to withdraw money from the bank for what seemed the umpteenth time. She did this daily, and I had become accustomed to cutting myself off from the abuse. Now, though, the wounds seemed fresh, and I reacted with uncharacteristic causticity.
"No, Ms. Uilikee, I can't withdraw 10,000 Neopoints for the tenth time today. It's just not our policy." It was a line I had delivered repeatedly—now it was laced with blatant hatred. She raised an eyebrow at me, baring a fang.
"Are you getting moody with me, Max?" she demanded, thumping a paw down on the counter.
"Why yes, Ms. Uilikee, I am," I said with mock pleasantry, and then began my diatribe. "See, here's my guff: you come in here every day and try to withdraw 10,000 Neopoints from your account at a go at least thirteen times a day—now not only should you know that thirteen is an unlucky number, and you'll probably go to Hell for it, you also signed a contract when you started your account to withdraw no more than ten times a day. Furthermore, I have no idea what you're spending this money on, and whatever it is, it better be paying back money, because let me tell you something: there is nothing, there is negative, and then there is your balance."
Ms. Uilikee's mouth was hanging open, revealing a full set of sharp teeth that at that moment seemed less threatening than a Uni's. I suddenly smiled amiably at her, as if nothing had happened. "Now. What transaction would you like to pursue, Ms. Uilikee?"
She answered me with a series of insulting remarks, and then turned tail furiously and stormed out of the building, holding her tail up and waving it to try and retain her pride. The other tellers around me gave me a look that implied I was crazy—clearly they had seen how I handled the ordeal. Nevertheless, something inside of me was proud—a part of myself that I had sacrificed to the system realigned itself in the shattered portrait of my life.
I was pulled aside by Lester, my Desert Shoyru manager, at the end of the day, and he confronted me on the subject, saying that Ms. Uilikee had called after she left and filed a complaint. "Do you want to explain yourself?" Lester asked calmly, his gaze fixed evenly on my own. Usually, this would cause my eyes to drop to my toes and my throat to clear like saliva from Pavlov's dog—but this time was different. I kept his gaze steadily, not answering until he was the one to first divert his eyes, a troubled look crossing his face.
"No," I said after a moment of thought. "No, I really don't." Lester looked at me as if I had suddenly lost an eyeball. I returned his gaze, complacent. He tried to shift it so he was in control again, clearing his throat and putting on a deeper, aggressive tone.
"Consider this a warning, Max," he said lowly, tilting his head downwards so I could see the whites of his eyes. "The next transgression will put you on probation, and anything after that, you're out of here."
"Great, just two more strikes?" I asked with a tone of relief. I wiped my forehead and smiled. "Whew. I thought I might have to kill someone or something. Catch you later."
It was a phrase I had never used, but somehow seemed appropriate at that point as I pointed a finger-gun at Lester and gave him a wink as I turned to leave. I left the Shoyru flustered and confused, perhaps wondering if this hidden smart aleck had been in me all alone. He yelled at me "Wear a tie!" but his voice was absorbed by the breeze, and I was thankful for that.
I left ten minutes early from work, whistling a tune I couldn't quite remember as I again walked down the sidewalk. I contemplated stopping at Hubert's Hotdogs for lunch, but instead opted for the Health Shop, greeted by a green and fit Quiggle. I leaned against the counter once I entered. Few people frequented the shop, compared to Kauvara's, and I could take my time in ordering. Additionally, I had a few questions to throw at the Quiggle.
"So," I said, my elbow resting on the counter, "I've been thinking about starting a diet and exercise plan, or something." I patted my belly affectionately. "Much as I love this guy, he's been getting in the way of some of my … ideas." What these ideas were at this time, I wasn't sure, but they were simmering independently in the back of my mind, soon to surface. "You seem to be pretty in shape. What'd you recommend?"
"Well," started the Quiggle, biting his lip as he looked me up and down, "you might want to start walking regularly, and then increasing that to a jog. That'll help burn off a lot of your … extra weight. Also, you might want to try to eat a … vegetarian diet." My stomach dropped at that prospect, but I tried to not make it apparent on my face. The Quiggle sat forward, trying to be as helpful as possible. "If you'd like, I can walk around the room and collect a bag of what you might eat … maybe even write out a list for meal options."
"Go for it, please," I nodded, and he picked up a brown paper bag near the side of the counter, beginning to tour me around the store. He shoved a lot of greens in the back—vegetables I hadn't even known existed. I listened patiently as he explained the benefits of each food with a sagacious tone, seeming to have experimented with and then memorized all of the effects of the food. There was no meat in the bag—not even organic meat—but the Quiggle provided me with alternatives to juicy steaks and incredible burgers. I didn't know how I felt about tofuburgers quite yet, but the proof would be in the taste.
The total, price-wise, was expensive, but the Quiggle gave me a first-timer discount and a card to bring back for further rebates. I thanked him and walked back home, experimentally chomping on a carrot. It wasn't as satisfying as sinking my teeth into the stringy meat of a steak, but it made my intestines feel better afterwards.
Arriving at home, I found Miko watching the television blankly while Chiitsuru slept on the couch beside her. There was genuine intimacy between them—Miko held her hand protectively over Chiitsuru's ears while Chiitsuru laid his head on her thigh—but their alliance against me disallowed me appreciation of their tenderness. Miko looked up as the door closed behind me, her feet submerged in a sea of empty Chinese takeout containers.
"Max, you're home early," she commented suspiciously, lifting an eyebrow.
"Yep. Lester let me out early." I mused internally on how easy and effortless it was to lie.
"Mmm," Miko replied absentmindedly, picking up the remote and flipping the channels. "You didn't take out the trash yesterday."
"I know." I aimed my briefcase for the corner and threw it—it landed with a crash, nearly breaking through the cheap drywall. Miko nearly jumped out of her seat, rousing Chiitsuru.
"For the love of—Max, what are you doing?" demanded Miko, straining her head to look in the kitchen.
"Nothing," I replied, putting the brown paper back on the cabinet. I began to unpack, propping the refrigerator open. Miko, rubbing her eyes to adjust from a pixel reality to one of flesh and blood, walked bare-footed into the kitchen. For her sake, I hoped she had cleaned up any glass fragments from last night.
"Got groceries?" she commented on the obvious. She picked a carrot out of the opened bag, munching on it idly.
"Yeah."
"This is pretty atypical of you," she said, gesturing towards the greens as I unpacked them.
"I felt like a change." I paused briefly. "I'm going to go out to buy some ties later."
"Okay."
"I need some Neopoints."
"You have your own."
I remained silent, putting away the last of the lettuce and cabbage into the crisper. I started unpacking the bottom of the bag, filled with vegan soups.
"Did you hear me about the garbage?" asked Miko, raising an eyebrow.
"Loud and clear."
"So, you're going to do that now, aren't you?"
I contemplated this for a minute, studying the paper label of a soup can. A Tomato Chia grinned up at me self-destructively from the can of tomato soup. "No, I don't think I am."
"Then later."
"No, I don't think I'll do that later either."
Miko suddenly intercepted my meditation unpacking, throwing a hand in front of the cabinet. Calmly, I looked back at her. Her face was serious, though not yet upset. "Listen to me for a second, Max. Take out the trash, right now. Don't even pack away that can. Just do as I say."
"Why?" I asked with honest curiosity.
"Because I'm your owner. I provide you with everything you have in your tiny little life. This is the least you can do for gratitude."
"Gratitude?" I almost died laughing. "I bring in the whole of your income. It's only you that decides to spend it—on luxuries for your precious little Zafara and trashy videos and crummy food. You're dependent on me for Neopoints."
"I can abandon you." The statement was meant to be inflammatory, and by the reddening look on Miko's face there was some serious consideration dwelling in the back of her brain. "I can take you to the Pound and leave you there. C'mon—who's going to want a pathetic little green Skeith? You'll be in there forever."
"And what'll become of you?" I responded, my head far cooler than hers. "Where will you get your money to pay for Chiitsuru's spoiled little life? Will you be content with the paint brushes from the newbie pack Will the soup kitchen be a good substitute for Gourmet Food?" I delivered all these suggestions with a subtle, scathing nature, a smile curling at the ends of my lips. Miko was fuming, her ears as bring as the tomato soup I stored away in the cabinet.
"It doesn't matter! There's other ways to make money. You have no idea how good I am at games."
"Is that so? Your hand eye coordination so good from doing all that remote clicking?" I mused.
"Shut up and obey me! Go and take out the trash!" demanded Miko, and stomped her foot meaningfully, inches from my toes.
I looked at her complacently, and smiled. I reached across the crumb-encrusted counter to the sugar bowl, grasping it and holding it momentarily in my hand, seeming to meditate it. Then, with a suddenness, I swung my arm and threw the sugar bowl hard against the wall. The ceramic split on impact, spilling a waterfall of sugar down the wall, some clinging to the wallpaper from the collision. Miko shrieked slightly, ducking at the sound and then slowly straightening up, looking at the ruined sugar bowl and then back to me, surprised and outraged.
"Max, what the heck was that! That was some of our finest china! It's bad enough you wrecked that potion last night—now you have to go—"
She didn't finish her sentence. I had already reached for the salt dispenser, and threw that against the wall alongside the stain of sugar. I kept the smile on my face as she stared at me in shock, and the pepper dispenser followed his sodium-based brother. The fragments of each fell to the floor in a pile of mixed spices with a bigger chunks of porcelain, appearing like the wreckage in a town entombed by volcano ash. Having made my point with hurling the items against the wall, I looked back into Miko's eyes which stared at me unblinking. Deep within her green eyes, I saw fear and hatred, mingling in the far depths of her cranium. Up front, however, she only let her shock manifest itself, petrifying her face.
There was a tension between us. There had always been. Our relationship was attached only by a string—the string I was born with, connected to her, committed. I had been the servant, and she the master. She had taught me to heel at her feet obediently for so long, struggling to keep her pace while she held Chiitsuru and carried him in her hands. Now, though, I had strained against the leash, and was continuing to strain. Even though she was the one that supposedly held me on a choke-collar, she was the one struggling for air, asphyxiated by the heightened awareness in the room.
I smiled. I smiled one of the first genuine smiles I had produced in months, the kind that comes from the stomach to the lips. The smile was so sincere I almost expected Miko to catch on, and smile right back—even start to laugh. She didn't.
"I think I'm going to go buy a tie now," I said lightheartedly. I turned away from her, leaving a single can left in the brown paper bag. Miko was left silent behind me, half-staring at my back with the worn seams of my suit and half staring at the wreckage near the wall.
I found reason to pause before I left, though. In the middle of the dining room table was something I hadn't noticed before, if indeed it had been there previously. It was a glass vase, containing no water but a sampling of flowers, flowers that had no business being placed together. It was a poor arrangement, and upon closer inspection my suspicions were confirmed: they were fake plastic, and hardly convincing replicas seen up close. Yet from afar I could almost swear they were alive, blooming from a base without nutrition—without roots or food.
It was a false magnificence, though, and I put one hand over the petals of a flower and crushed them. They yielded to my hand, and when I reopened my fist, the petals rearranged themselves back into their synthetic place, undisturbed by movement. The smile turned to one of pity, without my knowing why.
With a swipe of my hand to the vase, the glass slid across the table with a skitter and succumbed to gravity. The glass tumbled to the floor and created a new heap, leaving pseudo-flowers—weeds usurping flora's throne—scattered amongst the remains of transparency. Walking out the door, I wondered what had so upset me about those flower—what had moved me to kill what could not be destroyed. Then I remembered. Imitations bastardize true beauty in the sense that they're indestructible. Beauty is fleeting and temporary, lasting for a weekend in spring and susceptible to the slightest footstep.
Real flowers break when you bend them.
The money was delivered to me covertly on the roof of my apartment complex, only two days after Max and I had negotiated withdrawing the ransom from my account. Max had agreed to pump money from his own personal account into mine, so it would appear as if only a small amount of money had been withdrawn. I found it curious that he should agree to such a large donation (for him) on my part when we only had a professional relationship, excluding the visit to the Dubloon. Internally, I wondered if my powers of seduction carried more weight than I had previously suspected, but externally I lavished Max with a gigantic amount of flattery.
To my surprise, he did not receive it with the same desperateness as he had before. Naturally, he did bask in it slightly, but he did not seem to need it with as much urgency as he had before. In fact, there was something inside of him that had changed in the few days since I had seen him. A vibrancy had increased in him, and as he passed the suitcase stacked with money to me, a current ran through his fingers to mine. Alarmingly, I found myself being drawn to him slightly, but immediately pushed the thought to the back of my mind, canceling such repulsive thoughts.
"Thank you, Max," I said breathlessly, acting my best damsel in distress. "You're a … lifesaver."
"It was nothing," he said with a wave of his hand, and it honestly seemed dismissive. I looked him up and down, quizzically, and confronted him directly.
"Something's changed about you," I stated bluntly, not bothering to equip my voice with a breathy pitch. "You're different than the teller I'm used to. Are you sure you're not another Green Skeith?"
"Same as always," grinned Max, and that toothy smile seemed less repugnant than before. Granted, it still sent unwieldy shivers down my spine, but not as many as before. "I just had a bit of a realization."
"Mind sharing it with me?"
"It's something you've gotta find for yourself," he admitted, shrugging apologetically. "Just out of curiosity, how far are the cops on the case?"
"They're narrowed down Vali's location to somewhere between Terror Mountain and the Lost Desert."
"Useless," laughed Max, shaking his head.
"The wheels of justice are rusted in Neopia," I said with chagrin. "But this will help grease them." I indicated the briefcase. "Mind if I check?" I didn't wait for Max's answer. I bent down on the rooftop, unclipped the locks and lifted the top of the briefcase. Neatly lined were stacks upon stacks of Neopoints, the smell of freshly minted money wafting into the air. My eyes rolled back in ecstasy. "If they could only bottle that scent," I crooned.
"Work at the bank," muttered Max. "You smell that dung every day."
"Never say that about money," I said defensively, stroking the bills. I shut the suitcase top suddenly, straightening up. "Thanks for this, Max. I really do appreciate it."
"Any time, any time," he said, crossing his arms over his chest. "Though you may want to switch to another teller soon." I cocked my head, raising an eyebrow.
"Why?"
"Don't mind that. Go get Vali," he said, waving me towards the stairs. "You go first. I'll follow after to leave, so it doesn't look like we're together. That could be suspicious."
I exited first as instructed, walking to my room. I could almost feel Max following in my wake—there was a new aura around him, one that pulsed with a greater intensity so it was something I could feel. It disappeared once I guided him down the elevators, watching as his face was slowly concealed by the closing metal, my face reflecting back where his had been.
I retreated to my room. My owner was out, probably at the Game Room earning us some extra Neopoints just for kicks. I often wondered why she resorted to such idle and ridiculous ways to earn Neopoints—the majority of her wealth came from her enormous and affluent store in the Marketplace—but when I asked her, she only shrugged and smiled. "What would life be without some of the stupid things?" she'd ask rhetorically, and then scamper out the door with a bulging pocket of Neopoints.
The police had confiscated the ransom note to check for fingerprints and DNA samples. The results from those weren't back yet, and I had suspected they just took the evidence so I wouldn't have a number or a place to call back the kidnapper at. Fortunately, I had known better than to trust them wholly with the note—before I gave them the original, I copied down the number on a crinkled piece of paper and shoved the scrap into my journal to be recovered for future use.
Now I turned to my journal, a thing I normally retreated to only during the bad times. Surprisingly, I hadn't written a word about the Vali situation—perhaps it was still too fresh to document. Yet as soon as I pulled the piece of paper out of the notebook, I felt compelled to write, as if the blank pages drew me in to confession. I resisted the urge to write, knowing that I had to get this ransom business over with quickly. Every moment I didn't hand over the money was another moment for Vali in a potentially dangerous situation that could result in God knows what for her.
I rang up the number—judging by what I could decipher from the number itself, it wasn't a residential number. My hands shook as I typed in the number of the keyboard, and chills ran through me with each ring. The phone seemed to shrill endlessly, setting my nerves on end, but finally someone—or something—picked up at the other end. The line was silent for a second, and finally I cleared my throat, unable to eradicate a sliver of fear from my voice.
"Hello?" No response. "Hello?" Still, nothing. "This is … I'm … we're looking for Vali. I was instructed in the note that this was the—"
"Where are you calling from?" demanded the voice, crackling and noticeably distorted. "Are you with the police? Don't lie to me. I can trace this line!"
All of my fur was standing on end, but I tried to project an air of confidence across the phone. "I'm calling from my apartment," I said calmly. "I have the money, and I'm willing to negotiate with you."
"Is this validated's owner?"
"No, this is Princess Fernypoo."
"Are you still working with the police?"
"My owner is—but I'm doing this independently. I have the money. Do you want it or not?" The owner of the voice on the other end paused, as if contemplating the validity of me. I was becoming impatient—I was offering his money, no strings attached, and all he could do was throw an impromptu game of twenty questions at me.
"Fine. We'll meet, but it's gotta be nighttime. We'll meet in the Maraquan Ruins, where the castle used to stand with the great broken windows. Bring the money, and I'll bring the Baby. Come unarmed."
The last request of the kidnapper sent ice down my nerves. It immediately signaled to me to do the exact opposite. I swallowed, though, and complied verbally. "You have my honor. Head to there immediately, okay?"
"Okay."
The kidnapper hung up immediately after his agreement, and I let the phone fall to the ground, shaken. I fell back into a leather chair that was behind me, more fainting than falling. My stomach was attempting to attain its knots-badge in boy scouts, and a thin sweat had laid itself over my skin. The briefcase was at my feet, and I looked at it blankly. It was so nondescript and inconspicuous that it almost became ominous, a rectangular black hole at my feet. I kicked it, and it fell to its side—I almost expected the locks to click open, and the money, packed so tightly into the case, to come pouring out.
But the money did nothing of the sort. It stayed in its place, not to disappear and relieve me of the duty of recovering Vali. Swallowing, I sat up in my chair, not taking my eyes off the briefcase. I walked past the suitcase at first and towards the dining room, where the dinner table lay set and expectant. I touched the setting tentatively, and wondered if I would ever see them again. Brushing past the utensils, I pocketed one of the steak knives, and then to contrast the viciousness, picked one of the intensely-realistic plastic flowers from the middle of the dining table. I stuck it behind my ear to appear the innocent maiden, un-attackable in her purity.
I gave a final critical cause as the dining area. It was elaborately furnished, with the premiere china of Maraqua, and with utensils made of an alloy of maracite. The napkins were folded like origami, a process done by the maid that scoured our house on a daily basis. The lights were off, so I was declined the pleasure of viewing the multi-colored crystal chandelier above. The refraction of the water filtered in from the window, and the air conditioning was cool and fresh. Yet every time I scrutinized it, something came up wrong in the décor. Perhaps this color was off, or those plates were out of season—perhaps the setting had now gone out of style and was one for the petty bourgeois. Whatever it was, it struck me every time—something was missing, or something was wrong. I often blamed it on how neither I nor my owner knew feng shui, and the chi in our room was off, for often the unfortunate mystery lay on the metaphysical level, something I couldn't quite touch.
I had to avoid judging the room at the moment, though, and turned my back to the unsatisfactory scene. I took in a draught of air, strode and grabbed the suitcase, and then walked out of the door, locking it behind me.
I hoped that I would be able to come back to that dining room alive, so that I could one day add that missing piece of the nearly-finished puzzle of my living space, elusive and quest-worthy.