MINDED
The corridor, again. Walking, again. Agatha, again.
The Marquis, unfortunately.
He hadn't said anything. Martha would have preferred it if he had. She would have preferred it if he had stopped and blocked her way. She would have preferred it if he turned around, looked down at her, told her she couldn't go to Pewter. She would have preferred it if he started being rude to her, if he insulted her, if he ignored Agatha's warning from earlier.
Or she would have preferred it if he said sorry. If he took back the things he had said about her before. She would like it if he got down on his knees, took her hand and kissed it. She would have preferred him to be nice to her, or not. She would prefer him to talk, or she would prefer him to be quiet if he were to be more rude. She wished Agatha hadn't gone to fetch him before they left. She wanted to walk down the hallway alone. With Agatha, or without. With Mer, or – not at all.
She wished the turtle would speak. She wanted it to have a human mouth and tongue and voice. To be human, like her, and like her at the mercy of moody strangers. To be a companion and a friend, but still a small, wide-eyed creature in her arms. She must be able to carry Mer. But it must be her equal and confidante.
She would love the walls around her to be whole. She'd love if the ceiling were pristine and the floor without holes, she would prefer to be walking through a beautiful building with dainty décor and big windows and that the place didn't exist at all. She would prefer it if the floorboards didn't creak like crinoline caskets, if her steps didn't sound like shouting cannons. She didn't want the noise to be there, or she wanted it to be there while she were elsewhere. She would have preferred it if the corridor vanished from around her and she floated through slippery white until she landed in a world where this world didn't exist.
She missed her house in Pallet and she didn't. She would have preferred it if she had never left, and yet she wanted the leaving to have happened, but differently. She wasn't going back to Pallet, but the walls there were whole and the house smelled of citrus and of wood that hadn't rotted decades ago and there were flowers and a lovely little kitchen and her favourite chair, the green one with the little tatted tuffet, and where she didn't have to go through a sewer to get in or out but – she simply never left…
She liked that she'd left. She just didn't like where she'd ended up…
"Here we are," said Agatha. She had stopped outside the broom cupboard, the one that connected to the sewers. A wary little smile streaked across the woman's lips and it told Martha nothing, yet it worried her.
"Well…" Agatha said. She looked down. Cleared her throat, looked up again, went on: "Good luck, Martha. Lonnie will get you safe to Pewter. Braggart will take over from there" – hold on, but –
"If there's anything left for him to take over," said the Marquis, but –
And Agatha gave him a stern look and said "Shut it," but –
– the realisation hit Martha like a dropped penny, and since there was no more room it pushed out the words, "You're not coming?"
And Agatha... loosened. It was as though a string overhead had been cut, and everything fell down – the shoulders drifted forward, the fingers untensed, the knees folded and the cheeks sagged; the neck bent and the hair fell forward – and then Martha had a closer look, and realised that the changes had not been big, but they added up to a dejected whole.
"No, I'm not," the old woman replied. "I can't – I have a job to do."
"W-what job?"
"My job," was her reply, and then the Marquis cut in, "We all have jobs to do. As would you, if only you had stayed in your place." He bowed at her. "It's something we call responsibility."
"Please, Lonnie, stop doing that. Just… get her where she needs to be."
"That I will do. But no further."
"But…" That was all Martha could say. There may have been words to counter what Agatha and the Marquis were doing, but not what they were saying, and so Martha shut her mouth.
"We'll meet again later," said Agatha.
Then she left, and her back met Martha's gaze.
Now they were two.
"Ladies first," said the Marquis with mock etiquette, bowing again as he opened the door through to the… moat.
Martha had changed her mind. She didn't prefer him to start acting nice. She preferred him to stop existing.