Fic: Catechism
Title: Catechism (chapter twenty-three)
Rating: PG-13 for Mordred. As usual.
Archive: Yes
Notes: Previous twenty-two chapters are here.
Summary: Reincarnated Arthurians! In this chapter Gareth flips and Gaheris takes Clarissant shopping! :)
"What?"
"I'm really sorry--"
"Your telephone number?"
"Come on, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to--"
They stood in the kitchen. Gareth was wearing his McDonald's uniform, red and yellow, with a name-tag clipped on that said Gareth in block letters, no last name. He looked at Mordred half guiltily and half afraid. Mordred was in his suit and tie, had got back from work not half an hour ago; there was a half-empty beer on the table and his hair was all ruffled from his running his hands through it.
"What's next? You're going to tell me you know your mother's maiden name."
"Parker," Gareth said, and then flushed. "Look, there wasn't any reason to talk about it, I swear I wasn't trying to cause trouble."
"Well, I think you've caused trouble, thanks. Jesus, kid. You're an idiot."
"No, I'm not," he said loudly. "They didn't want me any more. Why do you think I left? They didn't want me, and you guys did. That's why I'm here."
"That would be nice, if you weren't on the missing posters in every post office in fucking Massachusetts. They want you back, you moron. They're looking for you. They've been looking for you for years, and I've been harbouring a fugitive in my house. You realise if anyone recognised you we'd probably all be in jail right now, right? You've been here almost three years, and we never said anything. We look like kidnappers, for Christ's sake. Knowing my luck they'll find Gaheris, too, and decide it's a white slave ring. Jesus!"
"Look, I'm sorry."
"What's the phone number?"
"Why?" Gareth backs towards the living room door.
"Oh, for--because I'm going to call them and let them know you're not dead, that's why. They're your fucking parents."
"No."
"Kid--"
"No. You don't know what they did to me."
"You were sixteen. I doubt it was as horrible as you think."
"No. They think I'm crazy."
"So do mine."
"You don't get it! They put me on stuff, they kept giving me stuff. They wouldn't believe me. And they kept making me see shrinks, and nobody did any good."
"They were worried about you," Mordred said, a different quality in his voice now. His face was a little twisted. "Their kid, they were worried about you. Trying to make it right."
"I was on pills since I was five."
"Anti-psychotics when he was eight," Clar said suddenly, pushing aside the quilt and looking out at them. Her eyes were still shadowed underneath and she looked sleepless. Her voice was sing-song. "Ritalin, Rubifen, Methylin, Metadate. Mellaril, Novorizadine, Thioril. Fluoxetine hydrochloride. Lorazepam, Clonazepam. Make things worse, they make things backwards, sleeps all wrong. Gareth, come here."
Mordred looked sick. "I have to let his parents know. For Christ's sake. This is ludicrous, do you think I can ask them if we can adopt him? I don't have a say in this. This is a new life, God. Other people have a claim on him. Not us first. Not any more. You think I'm happy about this, you think I want to let him go back? --I can't hide you here, kid."
"You've been doing it!" Gareth, holding tight to Clar. "They didn't help me. I can't go back, I don't want to go back, don't call them. I won't tell you the number!"
"Then I'll call the police," Mordred shouted. "God damn it, what do you want from me?"
"I can't go back! I can't go back, don't make me. Please don't make me."
"I'm about out of options, okay? Christ."
"Please. Please. Mordred."
"Damn it! Both of you, go. Go away and let me think. I can't handle this."
"We're breaking Michael," Clar said, suddenly very solemn, and rubbed her thumb across the quilt. "Come on. We'll do scrys. I have things for that. Come on."
~~~
When Gaheris gets back from visiting Amy, the house is quiet. He gets up the front steps and comes in, pauses in the kitchen for peanut butter and bread and milk, which they wouldn't have except Mordred buys it for Gareth. He always says young bones need calcium. Gareth laughs and drinks it, and Gaheris drinks it when he eats peanut butter.
Then he goes up the stairs and starts for his room. For a little while he sits at his desk, shading at a picture of Cywyllog. Mordred's wife, years and years ago--she was pale, dark-haired, with dark eyes; she didn't smile much, but she didn't have much reason to. He's drawn her before with the twins, the sons, but this picture is of her alone.
Sometimes he thinks he loved her once. He loved her a little.
But she wasn't his, and he loved Lynet more. It's something that doesn't matter now.
Finally he puts the picture aside and goes into the hall, pauses for a moment. Then he goes to Mordred's room and knocks lightly.
"Damn it, go away."
"Sorry."
"Forget it. You can come in."
He pushes the door open. Mordred's sitting on the bed, leaning against the wall behind him, with his hand over his eyes and an uncapped bottle of aspirin beside him. For a moment Gaheris' stomach upsets, which is stupid, it's stupid--not the same. For God's sake, he tells himself, for God's sake, Mordred isn't sitting here committing suicide in bed. He's got a headache. Stupid.
"Hey," he says. "You okay?"
"If I didn't have to go to work to-morrow, I might be getting plastered. That's not obvious from my body language?"
"What's wrong?"
Mordred drops his hand and looks at Gaheris bitterly. "Your brother and your sister are completely batshit crazy, what do you think? It's nothing new and startling, believe me."
"What happened?" He comes over and sits next to Mordred.
"Gareth knows where he used to live. He's been storing this pertinent information away for years without actually saying anything. He knows his address, his telephone number, all his personal information. He also knows his folks have been looking for him for the last five years. He ran away after his sixteenth birthday, which, according to Clar, he spent in a mental institute."
"Oh, God."
"Apparently not the first time."
"I don't get it. He wasn't--I mean, he just had extra memories."
"He wouldn't lie low with them. He's an idiot and he couldn't shut up and stop pushing. Because everyone had to believe him, why wouldn't they believe him, he was right--Christ. They thought of everything from ADHD to point-blank insanity, and nothing sorted the goddamn kid out. I have this from Clar, you understand--Gareth wouldn't tell me. He won't tell me anything now. He thinks I'm going to sell him out."
"God," Gaheris says again, and, lost for any other words, nestles up close by Mordred. At least he's warm. Mordred isn't.
After a few moments, Mordred puts an arm around him. "I'm out of ideas. I have no fucking ideas. Nobody believes that. I am not a caretaker, damn it. I'm not a misanthrope, but I can't take care of people, I can't take care of all you complete lunatics. I don't know how."
"I know."
"That makes one of you." He's still bitter.
"I'll help more. Tell me how to help."
"I don't know. We may need a lawyer. I don't care what he thinks, I have to call his parents. I mean, Jesus, if you'd been looking for your kid for years--it's not the kind of thing you just let go. You make sure they keep those posters up for a reason. They'll want to know he's okay, he's alive--he's twenty-one, he can probably live wherever the hell he wants, but I don't know how this works."
"So if you called his parents, they couldn't make him come back with them?"
"I don't know. He's insane, remember? And they might call the police--I wouldn't blame them. You'd think we'd have thought to figure out where he came from before we adopted him. And the IRS is going to find out there's a backstory and I lied about his origins. If anything else goes wrong, I'll just stop being responsible and run away, like you."
Gaheris ignores the last. "I could do some legal research and see if we could get a lawyer. Lynet's good with computers," he says.
"Twenty-first century talents."
"We could see if there's anything that will help. Can we afford a lawyer?"
"Depends on the lawyer."
"We could see how it comes out and ask Gawain--"
"No."
He's silent. Then, "I have money saved. People like the pictures of Peredur's quests. If you need anything."
"I'll ask you. Thanks," a little gentler. Mordred ruffles Gaheris' hair with a weary hand.
"Okay. I'll do that." A pause, in which he scrapes at the charcoal under his fingernails. "Did you eat dinner?"
"Yes, in between existential angst and rage against the machine. No."
"I can make you a peanut butter sandwich."
"You're nuts."
"I can put bananas on it. My mom used to do that."
"It sounds disgusting."
"You don't like peanut butter and bananas?"
"Christ."
"Plain, then. Or blackberry jam? There's some in the fridge."
"Jam. Now I have three mothers."
"Just a minute." He gives Mordred a little smile, gets up, and goes downstairs.
~~~
Breakfast the next morning is quiet. It's just him and Mordred, having coffee, lots of coffee, and toast and breakfast pastries Gareth brought home from work the other day. Mordred is reading the paper, the police report, his tie thrown over one shoulder so it doesn't get in his toast. Gaheris has nothing to do until two-thirty when Amy gets back from school; they're going to go to the local library and hook her laptop up in a reading room and get names and telephone numbers. He guesses Clar and Gareth are in the living room.
They're almost finished when someone knocks at the door.
"Get it," Mordred says. "I can't take Jehovah's Witnesses to-day."
So Gaheris goes over and opens it. "Hi--"
"Hey, Gaheris."
He stares more than he means to. The last time he saw her she was wearing an old, dirty uniform and work boots, and an old cap pulled over her long, long brown hair. Her eyes are laughing at him now, her sunglasses are pushed up on top of her head, and her grey jacket and skirt are so professional he wants to wince. He's never seen anyone dressed like that outside of movies about corporate intrigues. She grins, outright grins. It looks a little strange on her face, with her bright red lipstick and her blue eye-shadow, but that's because it's the grin of somebody who smells like heather and hawthorn, and says her words like clear water and the double l in Llanwellynn.
"Hi," he says.
"I heard you needed a lawyer," says Vivienne.
"No," Mordred says from the table, without looking up from his newspaper. "We need a psychiatrist. You got the wrong house."
"Oh, no. I never get the wrong house."
"Everybody makes mistakes."
"I grew out of that stage years ago."
"Isn't that wonderful for you."
"May I come in?"
"Why, you want breakfast? Gaheris, give her a pastry. She can eat it outside."
"That wasn't even very clever. Just let me in, huh?"
"No."
"You have a problem. You've noticed, right? I can give you a hand. I'm a great lawyer, and I already know the situation. I know you."
"More than I'd like, yeah. We can handle the situation."
"Of course you can."
"And without the part where we end up in debt to you. No. Fuck off."
"You've forgotten how to talk to a lady."
"No, I haven't."
"Modred," she says reproachfully.
"The situation is not the same, okay? The situation is never going to be the same again. I'm not a kid who's stupid enough to think he needs your help and he can pay you back what you ask or trust you not to screw him over. You will. I know you."
Vivienne sighs. "This is a favour--"
"Won't work."
They all look over. Clar comes in and takes Gaheris' toast, looks at it carefully, and then puts it back and gets her own. Her hair is braided. She stands in front of the toaster, watching her bread. Gaheris decides she isn't paying attention to them any more; she waits until it pops up and then goes to the fridge and gets out the blackberry jam and an apple.
"What won't work?" Vivienne asks finally.
Clar glances up. "Not right now. Gareth isn't here."
"What?" Mordred stands.
"He left last night. Scared."
"And you didn't have a fucking problem with this?"
"He's fine." She gets a knife and starts peeling the apple.
"How do you figure?"
"I know."
"Do we have any grand plans for finding him?"
"No. He'll get home."
"When?"
"Soon."
"How soon is soon?"
Clar puts down the apple. "Stop asking questions. He's coming home. I know he's coming home. Don't be stupid. --Vivienne can go."
"I think," Vivienne says, "the problem will still be there when he comes back. Don't you?"
"Except that we will have found some other lawyer, possibly one who's actually a lawyer," Mordred says.
"Do you want to see my papers?"
"No."
"Get out of my kitchen!" Clar picks up the knife and points it at Vivienne. It's only a small kitchen knife, for cutting onions or carrots or something, but she makes it look like a magic she's wielding. "You're loud. I'm having breakfast. I'm having toast. Go away. I haven't had cigarettes to-day. Go away. Mordred's late for work. Gaheris has a thing."
"Shit, I am late," Mordred says, getting up. "Stab her good for me. Dance on her body, too, if you want to. I feel vengeful to-day." He takes his briefcase up by the handle and jostles Vivienne at the door. "Excuse me. I need to go. Stay away from my family."
In the silence he leaves, Clar starts cutting her apple into thin slices. When she's finished, she spreads jam on her toast and lays the apple slices on top of it. Then she looks at Vivienne. "He's looking for you."
Vivienne pales. "Oh, no."
"Go fast."
Without another word, she turns and goes, shutting the door behind her. Gaheris stands for a still moment, and then comes back to the table and picks up his toast.
"Who's 'he'?"
"The one she got."
"Who?"
"I can't tell you anything! You never understand. Stupid."
"What thing do I have?"
"I'm on somebody's wall." She takes a bite of toast. "You have money."
"Oh." He pauses. "Thanks."
"He's coming back soon."
"I know."
"Good."
Gaheris puts his dishes in the dishwasher, puts on his coat, and starts down to the gallery.
~~~
When he gets home from the library, with an armful of computer printouts, and goes into the kitchen to put it on the table where Mordred can find it, it's early evening; Mordred is already home, and on the telephone, and he listens quietly, standing by the sink.
"Yeah. No, he should be back to work as soon as possible, but he's been pretty sick. Uh-huh. Yeah. Yeah. I know, I'm sorry. We were surprised, too. Did he? Really? Yeah. He just came home and fell over. No idea. Yeah. So he's in the hospital right now. We should get him home soon. Seriously? Thanks. No, we appreciate it. Thanks. Uh, yeah. No. The house is better. Thanks. Great. All right. I'll give you a call if anything happens. Thanks. Good-bye."
He turns to Gaheris. "Christ."
"Who was that?"
"His boss. I called her to tell her why he wasn't there to-day. Apparently they like him, if you can believe that. She wanted to know where to send get-well cards. Jesus."
"It's good that people like him," he offers.
"She says he's their best worker. Biggest smile! she said. I can't believe that kid." He leans his forehead against the wall. "So stupid."
"I brought home stuff from the library."
"Yeah? Great. I'll look through it later, okay? I want to lie down for a while. --Please tell me we have some bourbon."
"We do," Gaheris says, although he doesn't know that for certain. It isn't what he drinks. He usually buys bottled beer, and Gareth drinks milk and Coke. Clar survives almost solely on iced tea. The bourbon and soda are something Mordred buys for himself, and he smiles wryly when Clar tells him he's being pretentious. It goes with the suit, he says.
Gaheris leaves the papers on the table and goes to him room while Mordred gets a glass down.
~~~
The rest of the week is quiet without Gareth. The house isn't the way it should be, and Mordred is short-tempered, unsettled and angry. He leaves for work in the mornings and comes home in the late afternoon, a black and white pattern, without much speaking to them. Clar, at least, seems fine. She goes about her magic, clipping things out of the magazines and newspapers, carrying in blades of grass and shining beetles from outside. At dinner she tells him about the articles she's cut out, in her halting way. Gaheris tries to understand her.
On Thursday, she comes into his room without knocking, standing over his shoulder, while he tries to draw Geraint and Enid from memory, to show them as they are in his head, short temper and sharp eyes, blonde braids and patient smile. It's not coming.
Finally he puts it aside and looks up at her, a little relieved to be distracted from it. It won't be what he wants it to be.
"What?"
"I want to go out. I don't like it here," she says.
Gaheris frowns. "But--"
"I know. Stupid. I don't like it here to-day. I want to go out."
"Where?"
She looks at him and smiles--she doesn't smile too often, and it surprises him--tugs on her blue-black skirt, pushes her long black hair over her shoulders--all of it shy and hopeful and graceless, like a little girl or a coy one, and he stares at her stupidly. She's wearing a huge grey scarf to-day, wrapped around her and over her hair.
"K-mart," she says.
"Why do you want to go to K-mart?"
"I need things. We upset Michael and he won't take me. Venom, claws." She waves her hands. "Won't work. I don't like him to-day."
"He took the car to go to work."
"I know. We can walk."
"If you're walking, why do you need me?" ignoring the fact that she can't walk, it's too far.
"Because people are stupid," Clar says. "They don't understand."
He thinks for a moment of her standing among stars, among meadows, among bonfires, and on the cold stone floor of the castle; of her simple gowns and her black hair, ever left free, even when their mother would bind hers up sensibly (as strange as it seemed). He thinks of old spells, and while he's thinking she takes out a cigarette and lights it.
"All right," he says finally. "I'll take you."
"Good. Bring money."
"Me? Why don't you have--"
"Because I'm crazy, too, like Gareth. But nobody knows." She smiles at him again and smokes her cigarette. "Only the important people."
"Are we really going to walk?"
"No. We're talking the bus."
~~~
The store is busy for a Thursday afternoon. Gaheris trails along by Clar, who walks easily, a red plastic shopping basket over her arm, looking around at everything and poking him when she wants him to look too.
"That's made out of lambs," she says, rubbing the smooth surface of a bottle of lotion. "Little babies."
"Are you sure you want to do this?"
"Yes." She looks at him malevolently. "Come on. We have to find paper."
"What kind?"
"Pretty. Colours."
"Maybe we should have gone to a craft store."
"It's here."
"Okay. Well, let's look. Where do you think it is?"
"Under the floor."
"What?"
She rolls her eyes. "I think it's under the floor. But it's in the stationery aisle. With the tape. Come on."
So Gaheris lets her pull him down the aisles, and finds that he's laughing after a few moments, laughing as he struggles to keep his feet--she's faster than he is--and at the way they keep pulling up short so Clar can say, "Look!" She ignores him at first, and then murmurs, "You're a dummy." Eventually they pause in front of a display of plastic themed lamps, the bases shaped like Saturday morning cartoon characters, the shades made up of pictures. Clar is touching one gingerly and Gaheris is hiding the breath of his laugh behind his hand when an employee, name-tagged like Gareth would be, comes up to them.
"Are you all right?" he asks.
Clar folds her arms. "We're fine. Ignore my brother. He's an idiot."
Gaheris grins and slips his hand through her arm. She's taller than he is, and he could lean his head on her shoulder if he wanted to, not that he does, not that he expects she'd let him. "Do you know which aisle has stationery?"
"I know," Clar whispers.
"The back, there, behind the piñatas. Can you see it?" The young man points.
"Yes. Thanks very much."
"No problem."
"I knew where it was," she says, frowning at him.
"I know. But I didn't."
Reluctantly her face clears. "All right. Now we have to go. We need paper, and blue cylindrical adhesive, and matches. And mints."
"What are you doing?"
"I'm making him something. He's backwards. Inverted. Everything is seawards." She shrugs. "Gareth's coming home."
"I know. Do you know when?"
"Soon."
"Will things be better?"
"Maybe."
"Is he going to talk to his parents?"
"I'm not a mirror!" she says, her voice loud and suddenly angry. "Stop looking in me! Stop it! He's coming home! You should find the way yourself. You don't even know it. You don't know anything! I can hear it all the time and it sings and it weeps on you, but you don't hear anything because you're deaf. Leave me alone!" She turns and sweeps away towards the piñatas, clutching handfuls of her skirt.
Gaheris stands silently. The other shoppers are staring at them, or at him, since Clar isn't here any more to stare at. He shoves his hands awkwardly in his jacket.
"It's all right," he says, into the air, speaking to nobody. "We're all right. Clar! I'm sorry!"
She doesn't turn back, so he lets her go and leans a little against a shelf of throw pillows, closes his eyes. Can't do anything right. Damn it. Damn it. But he's afraid--he's afraid, for Mordred and himself. Gareth will find his way home. If Clar says so it's true, it's a promise, and he knows Gareth will come back soon. But he's shaking, his hands are shaking. Mordred is restless and discontent. He wants, suddenly, certainly, to go back to Gawain. Of course Mordred's happiness is worth more than his own. Here they're both miserable. At least with Gawain Mordred was happy, was bright--God, they should go back. Or Mordred should.
It's him. Part of it's him. He can't be around people. He's still afraid of them, still afraid to be touched, still afraid because he killed his mothers, God, killed his mothers, who would trust him? He doesn't trust himself. He doesn't want anything to do with what's outside his room, he wants to stay there silent and just draw what he can, to drain out the memories. He wants madness. There was a relief, that half-year in Orkney after Morgause's murder, when he knew nothing and went blind through the islands. He knew nothing--wishes he knew nothing now.
He shouldn't have done this to-day--he can't do it. He can't do it. It doesn't work.
Clar rouses him by taking his face in her hands and kissing his forehead. She came back.
"Art lost, brother." She's speaking their language, not the English he knows.
"Aye," he whispers, in the same tongue. "Aye, I am."
"Shouldst come with me. I have what I have come for. Come thou now, we'll go home."
He puts his hand in hers and she leads him to the checkout counter; he takes out his wallet mechanically and pays for her scrapbooking paper and matches, a little package of blue glue sticks, some coloured ribbon, wrapping paper, chocolate-covered mints, green ink pens, and a ceramic coffee mug with pictures of Disney animated animals on it. She tells the clerk to put them all into her blue bookbag.
On the way back to the bus stop she collects handfuls of dead leaves and grinds them into powder between her palms, puts them into the mug. Then she runs her fingers over his head, and puts the loose hairs that have come out into the mug with the leaf powder.
"I'll make it better. Art sick."
"Am I?"
"Aye." She opens one of the pens and dribbles the ink into the mug with everything else, while they sit under the little glass covering and wait for the bus to come and take them home. "Art sick and dreaming. Bad dreams. Shall ease thee a little."
"I still dream."
She frowns into the mug, stirring it with a match. "I know. We all hear thee."
"What?"
"Art loud. Dost scream. As thou didst before. Thy wife could stand it."
"Thou didst not tell me!" He sits straight upright, watching her. "None of ye told me."
"It's best thou dream."
~~~
"Gaheris."
He stirred in the bed and looked at her; his eyes were soft with sleep and dreams, and she rested her hand upon his bare shoulder. He smiled, a little crinkle of his mouth that she would know was a smile, that was unique to him of all his brothers, whose smiles twisted or shone or set thinly.
On the pallet by the bed, their daughter still slept. The cottage they had taken in his brother's land was small, a room for sleeping that was also the one for cooking, eating, and all other pursuits, like any common person's. They lived there because neither of them could forget the cottage where they slept when he was in exile, that year they spent in a wilderness far from anything they knew, and how that was one home in which they were happy.
"Aye, my lady?" he said.
"Thou wert not such a nuisance last night," as she bent to kiss him.
Even their daughter had learned to sleep through her father's disquiet; they all had. She never asked why he cried in his sleep, why he begged for his mother like a child, why her mother simply disregarded it after all those years. There had never been a night he hadn't. It had become commonplace.
Gaheris reached to his wife. "I'm glad to hear it."
Beside them, the girl began to wake at their voices. Lynet rolled her eyes. "But my peace is little, I can see. Now I must rise to feed the hungry little chick and her father, else they turn upon me and devour me instead."
"Nay, lie a moment longer."
The girl got up and looked down at them, her hands on her hips, no sleep in her sharp eyes; a tiny thing, like her father, with her mother's acid temper. Her brown hair fell in tangles over the shoulders of her nightdress. "You're still abed."
"Merciless wretch," Gaheris said softly, burying his face in Lynet's shoulder.
"Devils, both of you."
"Mother, I'm hungry."
He pulled himself up at the same moment Lynet did, and caught the girl up in his arms as her mother snapped at them both and began to dress herself.
~~~
The memory takes his breath away. Clar tilts her head at him.
"Thou rememberest. The same now. No point in waking thee." She hands him the mug. "Hold."
The bus pulls up, and he holds her hand while they get on. The memory is worse than the dream, because the memory is from a time he was happy. He and Lynet and the girl--they were happy, despite his dreams, because the dreams had become as everything else, to be taken for granted, part of him that could not be escaped or changed. And there he hurt nobody, because everything that could be done was done.
Clar threads her fingers with his.
"To-morrow's better," she says, after a while, when the neighbourhood is more filled with trees and houses and they're nearing home. "I saw out the window." She's speaking in English again.
He nods quietly.
"We'll make Michael happy."
"I thought you didn't love any of us except Gareth," he says, abruptly, maybe because of her hand still holding his. "I thought you loved just Gareth."
She tcchs. "Love all of you. You're just stupid."
"Mother said--"
"Mother lies. Ragnelle told you."
"How do you know?"
"Because." A little poke. "Mother always lied. We keep telling you. Nobody believed her except you. And Gareth."
"Is it going to be right? God--is it ever going to be right?"
"Maybe. If you pay attention. Are you saving?"
"What?"
"You're going to go home. Then it will be--different. Like it should be. Different backwards. Don't worry."
"I won't," he says.
"Good. Now shut up."
When he looks out the window again, they're pulling up by the bus stop closest to Mordred's house, and he carries Clar's bag for her the rest of the way home.
Rating: PG-13 for Mordred. As usual.
Archive: Yes
Notes: Previous twenty-two chapters are here.
Summary: Reincarnated Arthurians! In this chapter Gareth flips and Gaheris takes Clarissant shopping! :)
"What?"
"I'm really sorry--"
"Your telephone number?"
"Come on, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to--"
They stood in the kitchen. Gareth was wearing his McDonald's uniform, red and yellow, with a name-tag clipped on that said Gareth in block letters, no last name. He looked at Mordred half guiltily and half afraid. Mordred was in his suit and tie, had got back from work not half an hour ago; there was a half-empty beer on the table and his hair was all ruffled from his running his hands through it.
"What's next? You're going to tell me you know your mother's maiden name."
"Parker," Gareth said, and then flushed. "Look, there wasn't any reason to talk about it, I swear I wasn't trying to cause trouble."
"Well, I think you've caused trouble, thanks. Jesus, kid. You're an idiot."
"No, I'm not," he said loudly. "They didn't want me any more. Why do you think I left? They didn't want me, and you guys did. That's why I'm here."
"That would be nice, if you weren't on the missing posters in every post office in fucking Massachusetts. They want you back, you moron. They're looking for you. They've been looking for you for years, and I've been harbouring a fugitive in my house. You realise if anyone recognised you we'd probably all be in jail right now, right? You've been here almost three years, and we never said anything. We look like kidnappers, for Christ's sake. Knowing my luck they'll find Gaheris, too, and decide it's a white slave ring. Jesus!"
"Look, I'm sorry."
"What's the phone number?"
"Why?" Gareth backs towards the living room door.
"Oh, for--because I'm going to call them and let them know you're not dead, that's why. They're your fucking parents."
"No."
"Kid--"
"No. You don't know what they did to me."
"You were sixteen. I doubt it was as horrible as you think."
"No. They think I'm crazy."
"So do mine."
"You don't get it! They put me on stuff, they kept giving me stuff. They wouldn't believe me. And they kept making me see shrinks, and nobody did any good."
"They were worried about you," Mordred said, a different quality in his voice now. His face was a little twisted. "Their kid, they were worried about you. Trying to make it right."
"I was on pills since I was five."
"Anti-psychotics when he was eight," Clar said suddenly, pushing aside the quilt and looking out at them. Her eyes were still shadowed underneath and she looked sleepless. Her voice was sing-song. "Ritalin, Rubifen, Methylin, Metadate. Mellaril, Novorizadine, Thioril. Fluoxetine hydrochloride. Lorazepam, Clonazepam. Make things worse, they make things backwards, sleeps all wrong. Gareth, come here."
Mordred looked sick. "I have to let his parents know. For Christ's sake. This is ludicrous, do you think I can ask them if we can adopt him? I don't have a say in this. This is a new life, God. Other people have a claim on him. Not us first. Not any more. You think I'm happy about this, you think I want to let him go back? --I can't hide you here, kid."
"You've been doing it!" Gareth, holding tight to Clar. "They didn't help me. I can't go back, I don't want to go back, don't call them. I won't tell you the number!"
"Then I'll call the police," Mordred shouted. "God damn it, what do you want from me?"
"I can't go back! I can't go back, don't make me. Please don't make me."
"I'm about out of options, okay? Christ."
"Please. Please. Mordred."
"Damn it! Both of you, go. Go away and let me think. I can't handle this."
"We're breaking Michael," Clar said, suddenly very solemn, and rubbed her thumb across the quilt. "Come on. We'll do scrys. I have things for that. Come on."
~~~
When Gaheris gets back from visiting Amy, the house is quiet. He gets up the front steps and comes in, pauses in the kitchen for peanut butter and bread and milk, which they wouldn't have except Mordred buys it for Gareth. He always says young bones need calcium. Gareth laughs and drinks it, and Gaheris drinks it when he eats peanut butter.
Then he goes up the stairs and starts for his room. For a little while he sits at his desk, shading at a picture of Cywyllog. Mordred's wife, years and years ago--she was pale, dark-haired, with dark eyes; she didn't smile much, but she didn't have much reason to. He's drawn her before with the twins, the sons, but this picture is of her alone.
Sometimes he thinks he loved her once. He loved her a little.
But she wasn't his, and he loved Lynet more. It's something that doesn't matter now.
Finally he puts the picture aside and goes into the hall, pauses for a moment. Then he goes to Mordred's room and knocks lightly.
"Damn it, go away."
"Sorry."
"Forget it. You can come in."
He pushes the door open. Mordred's sitting on the bed, leaning against the wall behind him, with his hand over his eyes and an uncapped bottle of aspirin beside him. For a moment Gaheris' stomach upsets, which is stupid, it's stupid--not the same. For God's sake, he tells himself, for God's sake, Mordred isn't sitting here committing suicide in bed. He's got a headache. Stupid.
"Hey," he says. "You okay?"
"If I didn't have to go to work to-morrow, I might be getting plastered. That's not obvious from my body language?"
"What's wrong?"
Mordred drops his hand and looks at Gaheris bitterly. "Your brother and your sister are completely batshit crazy, what do you think? It's nothing new and startling, believe me."
"What happened?" He comes over and sits next to Mordred.
"Gareth knows where he used to live. He's been storing this pertinent information away for years without actually saying anything. He knows his address, his telephone number, all his personal information. He also knows his folks have been looking for him for the last five years. He ran away after his sixteenth birthday, which, according to Clar, he spent in a mental institute."
"Oh, God."
"Apparently not the first time."
"I don't get it. He wasn't--I mean, he just had extra memories."
"He wouldn't lie low with them. He's an idiot and he couldn't shut up and stop pushing. Because everyone had to believe him, why wouldn't they believe him, he was right--Christ. They thought of everything from ADHD to point-blank insanity, and nothing sorted the goddamn kid out. I have this from Clar, you understand--Gareth wouldn't tell me. He won't tell me anything now. He thinks I'm going to sell him out."
"God," Gaheris says again, and, lost for any other words, nestles up close by Mordred. At least he's warm. Mordred isn't.
After a few moments, Mordred puts an arm around him. "I'm out of ideas. I have no fucking ideas. Nobody believes that. I am not a caretaker, damn it. I'm not a misanthrope, but I can't take care of people, I can't take care of all you complete lunatics. I don't know how."
"I know."
"That makes one of you." He's still bitter.
"I'll help more. Tell me how to help."
"I don't know. We may need a lawyer. I don't care what he thinks, I have to call his parents. I mean, Jesus, if you'd been looking for your kid for years--it's not the kind of thing you just let go. You make sure they keep those posters up for a reason. They'll want to know he's okay, he's alive--he's twenty-one, he can probably live wherever the hell he wants, but I don't know how this works."
"So if you called his parents, they couldn't make him come back with them?"
"I don't know. He's insane, remember? And they might call the police--I wouldn't blame them. You'd think we'd have thought to figure out where he came from before we adopted him. And the IRS is going to find out there's a backstory and I lied about his origins. If anything else goes wrong, I'll just stop being responsible and run away, like you."
Gaheris ignores the last. "I could do some legal research and see if we could get a lawyer. Lynet's good with computers," he says.
"Twenty-first century talents."
"We could see if there's anything that will help. Can we afford a lawyer?"
"Depends on the lawyer."
"We could see how it comes out and ask Gawain--"
"No."
He's silent. Then, "I have money saved. People like the pictures of Peredur's quests. If you need anything."
"I'll ask you. Thanks," a little gentler. Mordred ruffles Gaheris' hair with a weary hand.
"Okay. I'll do that." A pause, in which he scrapes at the charcoal under his fingernails. "Did you eat dinner?"
"Yes, in between existential angst and rage against the machine. No."
"I can make you a peanut butter sandwich."
"You're nuts."
"I can put bananas on it. My mom used to do that."
"It sounds disgusting."
"You don't like peanut butter and bananas?"
"Christ."
"Plain, then. Or blackberry jam? There's some in the fridge."
"Jam. Now I have three mothers."
"Just a minute." He gives Mordred a little smile, gets up, and goes downstairs.
~~~
Breakfast the next morning is quiet. It's just him and Mordred, having coffee, lots of coffee, and toast and breakfast pastries Gareth brought home from work the other day. Mordred is reading the paper, the police report, his tie thrown over one shoulder so it doesn't get in his toast. Gaheris has nothing to do until two-thirty when Amy gets back from school; they're going to go to the local library and hook her laptop up in a reading room and get names and telephone numbers. He guesses Clar and Gareth are in the living room.
They're almost finished when someone knocks at the door.
"Get it," Mordred says. "I can't take Jehovah's Witnesses to-day."
So Gaheris goes over and opens it. "Hi--"
"Hey, Gaheris."
He stares more than he means to. The last time he saw her she was wearing an old, dirty uniform and work boots, and an old cap pulled over her long, long brown hair. Her eyes are laughing at him now, her sunglasses are pushed up on top of her head, and her grey jacket and skirt are so professional he wants to wince. He's never seen anyone dressed like that outside of movies about corporate intrigues. She grins, outright grins. It looks a little strange on her face, with her bright red lipstick and her blue eye-shadow, but that's because it's the grin of somebody who smells like heather and hawthorn, and says her words like clear water and the double l in Llanwellynn.
"Hi," he says.
"I heard you needed a lawyer," says Vivienne.
"No," Mordred says from the table, without looking up from his newspaper. "We need a psychiatrist. You got the wrong house."
"Oh, no. I never get the wrong house."
"Everybody makes mistakes."
"I grew out of that stage years ago."
"Isn't that wonderful for you."
"May I come in?"
"Why, you want breakfast? Gaheris, give her a pastry. She can eat it outside."
"That wasn't even very clever. Just let me in, huh?"
"No."
"You have a problem. You've noticed, right? I can give you a hand. I'm a great lawyer, and I already know the situation. I know you."
"More than I'd like, yeah. We can handle the situation."
"Of course you can."
"And without the part where we end up in debt to you. No. Fuck off."
"You've forgotten how to talk to a lady."
"No, I haven't."
"Modred," she says reproachfully.
"The situation is not the same, okay? The situation is never going to be the same again. I'm not a kid who's stupid enough to think he needs your help and he can pay you back what you ask or trust you not to screw him over. You will. I know you."
Vivienne sighs. "This is a favour--"
"Won't work."
They all look over. Clar comes in and takes Gaheris' toast, looks at it carefully, and then puts it back and gets her own. Her hair is braided. She stands in front of the toaster, watching her bread. Gaheris decides she isn't paying attention to them any more; she waits until it pops up and then goes to the fridge and gets out the blackberry jam and an apple.
"What won't work?" Vivienne asks finally.
Clar glances up. "Not right now. Gareth isn't here."
"What?" Mordred stands.
"He left last night. Scared."
"And you didn't have a fucking problem with this?"
"He's fine." She gets a knife and starts peeling the apple.
"How do you figure?"
"I know."
"Do we have any grand plans for finding him?"
"No. He'll get home."
"When?"
"Soon."
"How soon is soon?"
Clar puts down the apple. "Stop asking questions. He's coming home. I know he's coming home. Don't be stupid. --Vivienne can go."
"I think," Vivienne says, "the problem will still be there when he comes back. Don't you?"
"Except that we will have found some other lawyer, possibly one who's actually a lawyer," Mordred says.
"Do you want to see my papers?"
"No."
"Get out of my kitchen!" Clar picks up the knife and points it at Vivienne. It's only a small kitchen knife, for cutting onions or carrots or something, but she makes it look like a magic she's wielding. "You're loud. I'm having breakfast. I'm having toast. Go away. I haven't had cigarettes to-day. Go away. Mordred's late for work. Gaheris has a thing."
"Shit, I am late," Mordred says, getting up. "Stab her good for me. Dance on her body, too, if you want to. I feel vengeful to-day." He takes his briefcase up by the handle and jostles Vivienne at the door. "Excuse me. I need to go. Stay away from my family."
In the silence he leaves, Clar starts cutting her apple into thin slices. When she's finished, she spreads jam on her toast and lays the apple slices on top of it. Then she looks at Vivienne. "He's looking for you."
Vivienne pales. "Oh, no."
"Go fast."
Without another word, she turns and goes, shutting the door behind her. Gaheris stands for a still moment, and then comes back to the table and picks up his toast.
"Who's 'he'?"
"The one she got."
"Who?"
"I can't tell you anything! You never understand. Stupid."
"What thing do I have?"
"I'm on somebody's wall." She takes a bite of toast. "You have money."
"Oh." He pauses. "Thanks."
"He's coming back soon."
"I know."
"Good."
Gaheris puts his dishes in the dishwasher, puts on his coat, and starts down to the gallery.
~~~
When he gets home from the library, with an armful of computer printouts, and goes into the kitchen to put it on the table where Mordred can find it, it's early evening; Mordred is already home, and on the telephone, and he listens quietly, standing by the sink.
"Yeah. No, he should be back to work as soon as possible, but he's been pretty sick. Uh-huh. Yeah. Yeah. I know, I'm sorry. We were surprised, too. Did he? Really? Yeah. He just came home and fell over. No idea. Yeah. So he's in the hospital right now. We should get him home soon. Seriously? Thanks. No, we appreciate it. Thanks. Uh, yeah. No. The house is better. Thanks. Great. All right. I'll give you a call if anything happens. Thanks. Good-bye."
He turns to Gaheris. "Christ."
"Who was that?"
"His boss. I called her to tell her why he wasn't there to-day. Apparently they like him, if you can believe that. She wanted to know where to send get-well cards. Jesus."
"It's good that people like him," he offers.
"She says he's their best worker. Biggest smile! she said. I can't believe that kid." He leans his forehead against the wall. "So stupid."
"I brought home stuff from the library."
"Yeah? Great. I'll look through it later, okay? I want to lie down for a while. --Please tell me we have some bourbon."
"We do," Gaheris says, although he doesn't know that for certain. It isn't what he drinks. He usually buys bottled beer, and Gareth drinks milk and Coke. Clar survives almost solely on iced tea. The bourbon and soda are something Mordred buys for himself, and he smiles wryly when Clar tells him he's being pretentious. It goes with the suit, he says.
Gaheris leaves the papers on the table and goes to him room while Mordred gets a glass down.
~~~
The rest of the week is quiet without Gareth. The house isn't the way it should be, and Mordred is short-tempered, unsettled and angry. He leaves for work in the mornings and comes home in the late afternoon, a black and white pattern, without much speaking to them. Clar, at least, seems fine. She goes about her magic, clipping things out of the magazines and newspapers, carrying in blades of grass and shining beetles from outside. At dinner she tells him about the articles she's cut out, in her halting way. Gaheris tries to understand her.
On Thursday, she comes into his room without knocking, standing over his shoulder, while he tries to draw Geraint and Enid from memory, to show them as they are in his head, short temper and sharp eyes, blonde braids and patient smile. It's not coming.
Finally he puts it aside and looks up at her, a little relieved to be distracted from it. It won't be what he wants it to be.
"What?"
"I want to go out. I don't like it here," she says.
Gaheris frowns. "But--"
"I know. Stupid. I don't like it here to-day. I want to go out."
"Where?"
She looks at him and smiles--she doesn't smile too often, and it surprises him--tugs on her blue-black skirt, pushes her long black hair over her shoulders--all of it shy and hopeful and graceless, like a little girl or a coy one, and he stares at her stupidly. She's wearing a huge grey scarf to-day, wrapped around her and over her hair.
"K-mart," she says.
"Why do you want to go to K-mart?"
"I need things. We upset Michael and he won't take me. Venom, claws." She waves her hands. "Won't work. I don't like him to-day."
"He took the car to go to work."
"I know. We can walk."
"If you're walking, why do you need me?" ignoring the fact that she can't walk, it's too far.
"Because people are stupid," Clar says. "They don't understand."
He thinks for a moment of her standing among stars, among meadows, among bonfires, and on the cold stone floor of the castle; of her simple gowns and her black hair, ever left free, even when their mother would bind hers up sensibly (as strange as it seemed). He thinks of old spells, and while he's thinking she takes out a cigarette and lights it.
"All right," he says finally. "I'll take you."
"Good. Bring money."
"Me? Why don't you have--"
"Because I'm crazy, too, like Gareth. But nobody knows." She smiles at him again and smokes her cigarette. "Only the important people."
"Are we really going to walk?"
"No. We're talking the bus."
~~~
The store is busy for a Thursday afternoon. Gaheris trails along by Clar, who walks easily, a red plastic shopping basket over her arm, looking around at everything and poking him when she wants him to look too.
"That's made out of lambs," she says, rubbing the smooth surface of a bottle of lotion. "Little babies."
"Are you sure you want to do this?"
"Yes." She looks at him malevolently. "Come on. We have to find paper."
"What kind?"
"Pretty. Colours."
"Maybe we should have gone to a craft store."
"It's here."
"Okay. Well, let's look. Where do you think it is?"
"Under the floor."
"What?"
She rolls her eyes. "I think it's under the floor. But it's in the stationery aisle. With the tape. Come on."
So Gaheris lets her pull him down the aisles, and finds that he's laughing after a few moments, laughing as he struggles to keep his feet--she's faster than he is--and at the way they keep pulling up short so Clar can say, "Look!" She ignores him at first, and then murmurs, "You're a dummy." Eventually they pause in front of a display of plastic themed lamps, the bases shaped like Saturday morning cartoon characters, the shades made up of pictures. Clar is touching one gingerly and Gaheris is hiding the breath of his laugh behind his hand when an employee, name-tagged like Gareth would be, comes up to them.
"Are you all right?" he asks.
Clar folds her arms. "We're fine. Ignore my brother. He's an idiot."
Gaheris grins and slips his hand through her arm. She's taller than he is, and he could lean his head on her shoulder if he wanted to, not that he does, not that he expects she'd let him. "Do you know which aisle has stationery?"
"I know," Clar whispers.
"The back, there, behind the piñatas. Can you see it?" The young man points.
"Yes. Thanks very much."
"No problem."
"I knew where it was," she says, frowning at him.
"I know. But I didn't."
Reluctantly her face clears. "All right. Now we have to go. We need paper, and blue cylindrical adhesive, and matches. And mints."
"What are you doing?"
"I'm making him something. He's backwards. Inverted. Everything is seawards." She shrugs. "Gareth's coming home."
"I know. Do you know when?"
"Soon."
"Will things be better?"
"Maybe."
"Is he going to talk to his parents?"
"I'm not a mirror!" she says, her voice loud and suddenly angry. "Stop looking in me! Stop it! He's coming home! You should find the way yourself. You don't even know it. You don't know anything! I can hear it all the time and it sings and it weeps on you, but you don't hear anything because you're deaf. Leave me alone!" She turns and sweeps away towards the piñatas, clutching handfuls of her skirt.
Gaheris stands silently. The other shoppers are staring at them, or at him, since Clar isn't here any more to stare at. He shoves his hands awkwardly in his jacket.
"It's all right," he says, into the air, speaking to nobody. "We're all right. Clar! I'm sorry!"
She doesn't turn back, so he lets her go and leans a little against a shelf of throw pillows, closes his eyes. Can't do anything right. Damn it. Damn it. But he's afraid--he's afraid, for Mordred and himself. Gareth will find his way home. If Clar says so it's true, it's a promise, and he knows Gareth will come back soon. But he's shaking, his hands are shaking. Mordred is restless and discontent. He wants, suddenly, certainly, to go back to Gawain. Of course Mordred's happiness is worth more than his own. Here they're both miserable. At least with Gawain Mordred was happy, was bright--God, they should go back. Or Mordred should.
It's him. Part of it's him. He can't be around people. He's still afraid of them, still afraid to be touched, still afraid because he killed his mothers, God, killed his mothers, who would trust him? He doesn't trust himself. He doesn't want anything to do with what's outside his room, he wants to stay there silent and just draw what he can, to drain out the memories. He wants madness. There was a relief, that half-year in Orkney after Morgause's murder, when he knew nothing and went blind through the islands. He knew nothing--wishes he knew nothing now.
He shouldn't have done this to-day--he can't do it. He can't do it. It doesn't work.
Clar rouses him by taking his face in her hands and kissing his forehead. She came back.
"Art lost, brother." She's speaking their language, not the English he knows.
"Aye," he whispers, in the same tongue. "Aye, I am."
"Shouldst come with me. I have what I have come for. Come thou now, we'll go home."
He puts his hand in hers and she leads him to the checkout counter; he takes out his wallet mechanically and pays for her scrapbooking paper and matches, a little package of blue glue sticks, some coloured ribbon, wrapping paper, chocolate-covered mints, green ink pens, and a ceramic coffee mug with pictures of Disney animated animals on it. She tells the clerk to put them all into her blue bookbag.
On the way back to the bus stop she collects handfuls of dead leaves and grinds them into powder between her palms, puts them into the mug. Then she runs her fingers over his head, and puts the loose hairs that have come out into the mug with the leaf powder.
"I'll make it better. Art sick."
"Am I?"
"Aye." She opens one of the pens and dribbles the ink into the mug with everything else, while they sit under the little glass covering and wait for the bus to come and take them home. "Art sick and dreaming. Bad dreams. Shall ease thee a little."
"I still dream."
She frowns into the mug, stirring it with a match. "I know. We all hear thee."
"What?"
"Art loud. Dost scream. As thou didst before. Thy wife could stand it."
"Thou didst not tell me!" He sits straight upright, watching her. "None of ye told me."
"It's best thou dream."
~~~
"Gaheris."
He stirred in the bed and looked at her; his eyes were soft with sleep and dreams, and she rested her hand upon his bare shoulder. He smiled, a little crinkle of his mouth that she would know was a smile, that was unique to him of all his brothers, whose smiles twisted or shone or set thinly.
On the pallet by the bed, their daughter still slept. The cottage they had taken in his brother's land was small, a room for sleeping that was also the one for cooking, eating, and all other pursuits, like any common person's. They lived there because neither of them could forget the cottage where they slept when he was in exile, that year they spent in a wilderness far from anything they knew, and how that was one home in which they were happy.
"Aye, my lady?" he said.
"Thou wert not such a nuisance last night," as she bent to kiss him.
Even their daughter had learned to sleep through her father's disquiet; they all had. She never asked why he cried in his sleep, why he begged for his mother like a child, why her mother simply disregarded it after all those years. There had never been a night he hadn't. It had become commonplace.
Gaheris reached to his wife. "I'm glad to hear it."
Beside them, the girl began to wake at their voices. Lynet rolled her eyes. "But my peace is little, I can see. Now I must rise to feed the hungry little chick and her father, else they turn upon me and devour me instead."
"Nay, lie a moment longer."
The girl got up and looked down at them, her hands on her hips, no sleep in her sharp eyes; a tiny thing, like her father, with her mother's acid temper. Her brown hair fell in tangles over the shoulders of her nightdress. "You're still abed."
"Merciless wretch," Gaheris said softly, burying his face in Lynet's shoulder.
"Devils, both of you."
"Mother, I'm hungry."
He pulled himself up at the same moment Lynet did, and caught the girl up in his arms as her mother snapped at them both and began to dress herself.
~~~
The memory takes his breath away. Clar tilts her head at him.
"Thou rememberest. The same now. No point in waking thee." She hands him the mug. "Hold."
The bus pulls up, and he holds her hand while they get on. The memory is worse than the dream, because the memory is from a time he was happy. He and Lynet and the girl--they were happy, despite his dreams, because the dreams had become as everything else, to be taken for granted, part of him that could not be escaped or changed. And there he hurt nobody, because everything that could be done was done.
Clar threads her fingers with his.
"To-morrow's better," she says, after a while, when the neighbourhood is more filled with trees and houses and they're nearing home. "I saw out the window." She's speaking in English again.
He nods quietly.
"We'll make Michael happy."
"I thought you didn't love any of us except Gareth," he says, abruptly, maybe because of her hand still holding his. "I thought you loved just Gareth."
She tcchs. "Love all of you. You're just stupid."
"Mother said--"
"Mother lies. Ragnelle told you."
"How do you know?"
"Because." A little poke. "Mother always lied. We keep telling you. Nobody believed her except you. And Gareth."
"Is it going to be right? God--is it ever going to be right?"
"Maybe. If you pay attention. Are you saving?"
"What?"
"You're going to go home. Then it will be--different. Like it should be. Different backwards. Don't worry."
"I won't," he says.
"Good. Now shut up."
When he looks out the window again, they're pulling up by the bus stop closest to Mordred's house, and he carries Clar's bag for her the rest of the way home.