Chapter 2: Quarantine

-I guess that if I was facing such a choice, I'd be leaning towards the option that would let me have immune children also after what happened today. But I also see you point, though it may be hard to convince Tuuri that it's an actual drawback. And neither Emil nor I are exactly in the position to argue against immune children.
Helena, even though she didn't come from a place with few immunes, knew that if you were both immune and a mage, the line between "you can go out there and fight the trolls" and "you have to go out there and fight the trolls" was very blurry, if it existed at all. Being non-immune, Tuuri had been told all her life that the main danger of the Silent World was the Rash and next to nothing about the dangers that existed whether one was immune or not. Helena and Reynir had both lost an arm on the first Silent World expedition, but that had been the result of an untried powerful rune and the pair's propensity to produce first tries that caught fire. Even those arms had been replaced by well-made fake ones. The stories told by Reynir about his siblings and his own adventure in the Silent World had failed to make Tuuri understand as well. Helena twirled one of her many brown braids around her finger, which indicated she was pondering. Why did she bother with so many? She'd been wearing only a single one when Lalli had first met her almost a year ago, when her dream area and Reynir's were one thanks to the very rune that had cost them their respective arms. She and Emil always got at least one of them undone each time they did anything remotely intimate. Sven had noticed this also, and Lalli had taken to see if he spotted the same number of undone braids as him after any period of time during which Emil and Helena had been left alone with each other. Living them alone with Reynir had turned out to be just as bad, as he had lived with them for several years and hence no longer registered as an intruding presence to them. The braid twirling stopped:
-Hey, I've got it! Did you ever see Sigrun's left arm?
Lalli nodded. It was covered in scars and she sometimes had trouble moving it despite the fact that both Mikkel and Helena had been able to care for the wound soon after it had been incurred. Tuuri had only ever spoken to Sigrun over the radio, so she'd had no opportunity to see it. Sven had explained to him that it had been the arm or Reynir, and that Reynir himself had very narrowly avoided being scratched, "actually got a small bruise on his arm" narrowly to be precise. Unfortunately, nobody had seen any reason to put Sven in the loop about the other world, not even via the cover-up story of a hermit mage who'd lost an extremely bookish younger sister several years ago and had messed up a scrying spell in a way that had created a permanent link between him and Lalli. Because of this, Sven had no idea that each time he told Lalli about something that happened on the first expedition, Lalli couldn't help wondering if something similar had happened in the other world and if it had been a factor in the other Tuuri ultimately getting bitten by a troll. His other self had a policy of not telling him too much, but had quickly admitted to a few situations that Lalli had guessed on his own. It had been a little hard to miss the fact that he was married, for instance. Lalli realized he hadn't answered Helena yet:
-What about Sigrun's arm?
-I thought we could have a little get-together between Tuuri, Sigrun and Mikkel, while making sure this will come up in conversation before it happens. Do you think it could work?
-I don't know, but it sounds worth trying.
-Great, I'll try to set things up so they can see each other after the quarantine. Anything else?
Lalli opened his mouth, but changed his mind. He wasn't sure whether Helena was the best or the worse person to ask the other question he had. He'd come to her about Tuuri's request only because his alternatives were Tuuri's own boyfriend and a pair of parents-to-be who had no choice but to be ready for both.

-If Sven broke his glasses in a remote village in Finland, would he be able to get them repaired?
Tuuri took a little time to answer. She probably hadn't realized he was awake, since he hadn't moved from under her bed.
-I don't think so, unless magic could help with that. And since his glasses are made in Sweden, I would really not advise him to move anywhere else than central Saimaa or Keuruu if he ever actually needs to go hide in Finland.
Keuruu was part of Sven's better options, then. A few moments later, Lalli gave himself a little slap on the temple. Why in the world did want Sven to move to Finland so much that he was actually wishing for whatever he could potentially need to run away from to become bad enough to make him leave Mora? Sweden was Sven's country, not Finland. Maybe he should have asked Helena, after all. Advice on where to go if he ever needed to would be enough.

Due to the town-wide quarantine, even immunes weren't supposed to go out without a good reason, to limit the opportunities for any yet-to-be caught beasts or incubating animals to get inside houses in which non-immunes lived. While all extra manpower had been welcome on the first day, both he and Helena had been told that the Swedish scouts and cats could handle things without them. Four days in, Lalli was so restless that he was seriously considering paying the other world a visit so he could have a jog outside in his other self's body. It was five years later there, so Mora wouldn't be in a town-wide quarantine, at least. He'd already come up with the perfect reason to go there: asking his other self for his opinion about Tuuri's request. The main reason he was hesitating was that Onni's sole visit to the other world and his discovery of Tuuri's fate there had left such a mess that the other Emil had figured out something both strange and magic-related was going on, eventually leading the other world's Onni to visit this one. There had been no visits from the other world since the other Onni had left, but his other self's absence hadn't become unusual quite yet. Lalli would only worry if he didn't start getting blackouts of a few minutes at a time a few weeks before Tuuri's birthday due his other self collecting materials, longer ones as he worked on the present and an even longer one on the evening of the birthday party Tuuri shared with another member of the base who was otherwise a complete stranger to him. Asking for his other self's help to fix Helena and Reynir's dream area situation had created an exception to the pattern and had gotten them discovered by both Onnis. Lalli jerked as he realized that there were less than two months left before Tuuri's twenty-seventh birthday right now. It wasn't quite close enough for his other self's lack of intrusion to be unusual, as he had once managed to cram both the material gathering and the crafting of one of his gifts into a couple of weeks. But that meant he had to figure out his own gift, now that Tuuri knew that there were basically two of him. There were probably some materials he could use somewhere in the house. He'd seen Janine drawing at some point the previous day, so there must be at least some paper and pencils he could use.

Someone opened the upstairs linen closet in which Lalli and the family kitten had taken refuge. It was Emil's uncle, who very obviously didn't expect to find him there. Lalli moved, in case he happened to be sitting on what Emil's uncle wanted to take out. The dreaded phone rang yet again. Helena picked up, yelled the same thing as usual in Norwegian and loudly hung up. Tuuri had told him there was a way to unplug it, but they didn't in case Emil's cousins called to give news, as they all had access to phones. As for the reason it was ringing so often, it had to do with his discovery of that boy's non-immunity and people with no idea of what mages were wanting to ask questions. The second she had seen what effect the phone's regular rings had on Lalli, Tuuri had told him to just find a place inside the house where the noise didn't disturb him too much, but show up for meals. The calls had kept him from getting a good day's sleep, so he got most of his sleep at night, when most people were doing the same. As Emil's uncle put a couple items in the closet and the kitten decided they would make a good bed, there was another phone ring. This time, Helena stopped half-way through her usual speech, and started talking with a voice that was so much softer that Lalli would have had trouble making out the words even if his wasn't trying to understand Norwegian with less than a year's worth of Tuuri's Swedish lessons. Helena spoke long enough for Lalli to figure out the caller was unlikely to be any of Emil's cousins, as she didn't call any other member of the family. The call had however been enough of a curiosity that Emil's uncle had started to slowly move towards, then down the stairs. As it continued, Lalli somehow managed to circle around the inconveniently placed sleeping kitten and get out of the linen closet. He had made his way to the top of the stairs by the time Helena hung up and called the names of everybody in the house, safe for the kitten. Once Lalli was downstairs, she told everyone something as if on the verge of tears, in which the only word he was able to make out was the name "Kevin". The second she finished her sentence, she picked up her daughter and squeezed her, while Emil put his arms around both of them. Tuuri, along with Emil's aunt and uncle, all looked like they had gotten unpleasant news. A few moments later, Tuuri finally came around making sure Lalli knew what was going on and told him the child that had gotten bitten had started showing symptoms of the Rash. He took a deep breath and got ready to be hugged if it ended up being what she needed. He could understand that she didn't want to go through something like that with children of her own. But he had at some point acquired the knowledge that Mora had come close to sixty years without an outbreak. Non-immunes had probably died of old age in there. While those outbreaks in Saimaa had killed people of all ages, they had done their job keeping their non-immunes safe up to that point. Iceland was even safer than both Saimaa and Mora. People were working on a Rash cure in both Iceland and Sweden, and had gotten a lot of help in their work from the unfinished cure the first Silent World expedition had brought back. Lalli knew of immunes who had died on the job before reaching twenty. That meeting between Tuuri and Sigrun couldn't happen soon enough.

Upon opening his eyes, Lalli was welcomed by a partly moonlit bedroom and a few hints of the other Emil's face.
-Known mine for a while now. Still don't get why you married yours.
He got out of bed, put the robe on and turned the light on in the other, larger room that served four different functions that included being his other self's study. He quickly found the notepad he usually used to leave messages to his other self in a desk drawer. There was already something written on it: "New rule from Onni. You need to write in the red book if you need to tell me something. Both in Finnish and Swedish if you can. Yes, it's so Emil can know what is happening. But he knows some things I don't, so it may help someday." There was indeed a very nice-looking red book on the desk, which turned out to have blank pages when Lalli went through it. He gave some family news, mentioned the beast intrusion, mentioned the unusual circumstances any plans for Tuuri's present would have to account for and Tuuri's request. He closed the book and went back into the bed. He'd already woken the other Emil once while doing this, and he didn't intend to have it happen again, especially now that he knew enough to be keeping an eye on their exchanges.

Emil finished tying Janine's braids into loops. He'd tried the same hairstyle on Helena, but both of them had needed to face the fact that anything that wasn't the Norwegian-style multiple simple braids looked strange on her. Even when that strange magic phenomenon had caused her tastes and Reynir's to become closer than they had been beforehand, he had never quite gotten used to her imitation of Reynir's hairstyle. But looking like they were only half trying to look their best would defeat the reason they were doing this. After finding out the cause of the beast intrusion, some genius in the government offices had decided that every single resident and visitor of Mora had to get a good look at Kevin to be shown that yes, the Rash was real and the measure taken to protect the non-immune were necessary. From what Emil and Helena had gathered, they were basically getting away with using the child as an exhibit because his parents were detained. They had tried to do something about it, but their input was brushed off on the basis that they were immune and had no idea how necessary it was to keep such a situation from repeating. But he and Helena had realized that it wasn't only the non-immunes that would have to go see him, and that the fact they were treating the little boy as a mere exhibit didn't mean they had to do the same. So, they were going to visit him dressed as if they had been invited at his birthday party.

While in the line that had formed outside the quarantine facility, Emil couldn't help looking at Tuuri and Lalli's outfits and being impressed at what they had managed in spite of not having packed any dress clothes. Tuuri in particular had had an extra motivation to dress well. After the "viewing", they would pick up Reynir and Sven, who were getting out of quarantine that day, and go out to lunch with Sigrun and Mikkel. Lalli, who was right in front of him, cleaned up quite nicely. Lalli had come on the giant-killing expedition because Helena had determined that even with Emil and Reynir coming in addition to herself, they would need an extra mage or an extra cleanser to do the job properly. Lalli had shown interest. Emil had gone in expecting to be his translator, as the long hospital stay in Finland during which he had initially befriended Lalli had given him no choice but to learn some Finnish. Sven had shown up with a better mastery of Finnish than his own and become a more practical translator. Sven had ended up doing all tasks necessary to make Lalli comfortable short of the ones that required an immune person, which was when Emil took over and got to spend a little time with him. In the end, Emil had been happy to let Sven care for Lalli most of the time, especially on the way back, where Lalli's coma had caused Helena to fall back into her triple shifting habits from the first expedition; that work ethic in resulted in needing to persuade her to go to bed because adrenaline was keeping her from realizing how tired she was. Emil really hoped that Lalli would find someone who would make him as happy as Helena was making him. The odds were unfortunately against Lalli, between his hard to approach personality and him having admitted to only being interested in dating men if he ended up dating at all.

As the line got closer to the room in which Kevin was being kept, Emil realized that the mouse beast was in a guarded triple-layered transparent plastic cage, on display right outside the quarantine room's window. Whoever got to look into the room also got access to an interphone, but the device apparently had its own guard. Emil hoped it was to keep people from breaking it or using it to tell the kid inappropriate words, rather than some other motivation coming from those who had had this idea in the first place. He saw Lalli take a deep breath while Tuuri was convincing the guard to let her and Lalli to see Kevin at the same time despite both of them being adults. Emil patted his shoulder:
-You can do it.
Janine was the one who would carry out his and Helena's idea, but Tuuri had volunteered herself and Lalli to go in right before them and catch Kevin's attention in case too many of the previous "visits" had gone as bad as they feared. All they had to do is greet him and thank him with a smile on their faces, but it was harder than it sounded for Lalli; Emil had figured out that he kept that quasi-expressionless face in part because the alternative was showing how he was currently feeling, which carried the risk of being different from what those around him were expecting. Lalli managed to pull it off. Smiles suited him well. Next came Emil and Helena, each holding Janine by one hand. After greeting Kevin, they let Janine list all the non-immunes of the classroom who hadn't gotten bitten (and gotten out of quarantine without a single symptom) because Kevin had caught the mouse and put it in the glass jar. From a little snooping during the quarantine, Helena had found out that the teacher had come up with a plan upon seeing the mouse in her classroom: have Sune and the non-immune students climb on the furniture, while she and the immune students played a game of catch-the-mouse. It would have had the merit of working, if the immunity of the child that had ended up catching the mouse hadn't been a lie. But Kevin had caught the beast, nonetheless. They hoped that getting reminded that he had kept the other non-immunes in the class from ending up in his situation would make anything else the rest of the town could throw at him easier to handle.