I am not anything.
What happened at Tadfield Manor Conference and Management Training Center on the night of August 20th was never, in the words of the ancient scrolls, satisfactorily explained.
It took Mary Hodges all of one week to clear everything up with the authorities, who, it must be assumed, found satisfaction elsewhere(1). Clearing things up with her own mind was another matter, but then she had plenty of gin. And bookings had doubled.
So it was that on the night of August 28th, after she had gotten the last of her clients to sign the new waiver by cajoling, bribing, threatening, and eventually begging, she sat back in her big leather chair, and smiled, and poured herself a glassful(2).
This she stared at for perhaps thirty seconds.
Then she filled a second cup.
Just in case, she thought, vaguely. After all one wouldn't want to have to wait too long between refills. That was logic, that was.
From her next-to-bottom desk drawer, she retrieved one of the mysterious guns.
It was still loaded, except for two bullets, one of which had permanently lightened a wallet, and one of which had done a number on Nigel Tompkins' right knee-- an extremely large number that Mary Hodges had had to write out, in pen, down to the last zero, on a personal cheque.
Her fingers tightened on its handle at the memory. She tried to take deep breaths, and when that failed, settled for deep draughts.
Neither teacup held out long. She refilled both.
A pleasant pink fog began to percolate through her brain.
She weighed the gun in her hand. It was quite heavy, even half-empty. The sleek feel of the metal was unexpectedly... nice.
Really a rather silly business, she thought, with something closer to philosophic calm. But there was no denying that in the past week alone bookings had doubled, and the legality had been quite a bit easier to sort out than expected. She had no reason to complain, really, not really, she decided, as she took the Stairs of a Rising BAC Point two at a time towards the cloud-wreathed Summit of Enlightenment and Oneness with The Universe, or, Failing That, Your Floor.
Her ascent was unfortunately interrupted by the door of her office opening.
She looked up. The room swam in her vision. Possibly, it occurred to her, dinner would have been a good idea.
There was someone on the other side of the door.
But that was ridiculous. It was past midnight, and the gates were locked, and--
There was more, but she didn't get any farther in her list of objections, because the someone stepped into the light of her office, and Mary Hodges, the confident, successful adult, took one look at her visitor and instantly went back to being little Mary “Mother of the Enemy(3)” Hodges, who no one had wanted to play with at Sabbat School because she was the kind of child who won black stars for handwriting and liver and who preferred tea to blood and who had always, in her heart of hearts, and in all sorts of other organs, too, wished she could be-- well--
--well, the girl who had just strolled into her office, not to put to fine a point on it.
She was tall. She was slinky. Her hair fell in coppery waves over her sloping shoulders, although they were not the kind of gentle wave that you got on the shores of sunny Caribbean islands, or at least not during the tourist season: they were the kind of wave you got when you pitted two fleets of huge, creaking ships full of angry, frightened humans against each other in cold open ocean, and maybe added a little lightening and wind to spice things up.
It was not exactly hair with personality, but it certainly looked capable of personality disorders. Glamorous personality disorders.
Its owner grinned at Mary in a way that implied not only glamorous personality disorders but best-selling book deals about those personality disorders. Her eyes showed startling orange in her dark face, and, Mary saw, she was wearing a pantsuit in a way that suggested it was flattering. It wasn't, of course, pantsuits being one of the few things even bad-girl radiation cannot change the essential nature of, but that simply added insult to injury.
Mary set the teacup down. A red haze was rising before her eyes. The worst part was, it complemented the girl's complexion perfectly.
“Ms. Hodges?” the girl purred. “Let me to introduce myself. My name is Cherry Vermelho.”
Cherry, screamed a little voice inside. Cherry.
She wanted to snap “How did you get in?” and “What are you doing here?” and “Get out before I call the police.” She wanted to say: “Cherry Vermelho, I am not afraid of you. Your casual twisting of school rules and your unbuttoned uniform cardigan and your artistically knotted tie--” and, yes, it was still there, even in this slightly aged version of her childhood tormentors, the tie “--hold no power over me. I am a confident, successful adult, not to mention a New Woman, or I will be in about twelve hours and sixteen ounces of strong tea, and I do not quail before your smirks, or your beastly nicknames, or your gang. You can't be a day older than twenty-five, to my wise and experienced forty-one. Also, I can probably get you on trespassing charges! Hah! Hahaha! Hahahahahahaha!”
She said: “Ah?”
“I saw in the Tadfield Advertiser that you were looking for someone to teach gun safety to beginners,” Miss Vermelho said smoothly. “I have considerable experience in the area, and I can start immediately...”
Of course.
“I see,” Mary said. “Could you show me some credentials, please?”
Ms. Vermelho's interesting eyes (flash bloody contacts, the little voice fumed, inaccurately but with admirable passion) flicked to the gun, which was still in Mary's hand. “If I may,” said Ms. Vermelho, extending a hand, which was, to Mary's astonishment, badly burnt. In her mental image of the world, girls like Cherry had people to play with fire for them.
It might have been her surprise that made her give up the firearm. It might have been the lingering effects of the gin, and of a week that had been perplexing and expensive, not even by turns but at the same time. Or it might have been Ms. Vermelho's stare.
Either way, she put up no resistance as Ms. Vermelho coaxed the gun from her sweaty grip.
“Hm,” the girl said, holding it up. By some trick of the light it almost looked as if the burns were retreating from the parts of her palm that were in contact with gunmetal.
Then she pivoted on her high heel to face the open window, sighted along the barrel, and said, casually, “So what should I shoot?”
Mary leapt out of her chair, the thought of yet more property damage doing what no amount of long-buried vengeful urges and self-confidence could to her cringing nervous system.
“Don't shoot anything, please!”
Cherry Vermelho raised a perfect eyebrow. “I thought you wanted to see my credentials?”
Mary gaped at her.
Obviously a loony, she thought, but it was a secondary thought. It was secondary because more than anything, she was thinking that she wanted to call the bluff in the girl's lazy voice. The tone that suggested she could shoot down the moon, and would, if dared. That it didn't matter, what Mary asked her to do; she could do it, and more. There was always more.
Ms. Vermelho leaned in. “Did I misunderstand?”
Mary's lips thinned as only an ex-nun's can. She glanced out the window.
She pointed.
The girl's teeth shone like the extraordinarily sharp pins prefects wore at Saint Vladimir's(4) School for Girls. She pulled the trigger.
Mary Hodges did not hear the apple's stem break, but she saw it fall, a tiny, distant dark spot moving towards the earth, an echo of the sinking in her stomach.
The girl muttered something that sounded quite like “Demon-made crap, all this shoddy mass-production these days, no care and craftsmanship.”
Mary ignored this, because it seemed safest.
Now would be a good time to ask her to leave, she thought, very coherently. Or, better yet, to hide behind something solid, and ask her to leave.
Yes.
“You're hired,” she snapped, without turning to see Ms. Vermelho's face. “You start tomorrow, at six p.m., sharp.”
“Jolly good,” Cherry Vermelho said.
She paused, looking strangely expectant as Mary sat back down at her enormous desk and attempted to compose herself. At last, when several minutes had passed in resentful silence and whatever she was expecting apparently did not happen, she stopped looking, and shrugged. Then she picked up the teacup that was still brimming with gin.
She emptied it in two swallows, and did much the same for the bottle before Mary could blink.
Mary opened her mouth, and closed her mouth. She mustered every raging brain cell against every ingrained instinct of the muscles in her face, and glared.
Ms. Vermelho sighed happily at her. Mary supposed it was a curiously delayed reaction to the alcohol.
“I needed that,” she said, licking scarlet lips..
“I beg your pardon,” Mary began.
But the girl was already gone.
Mary looked at her expensive office, with its wooden expression of quiet competence. It gave no hint that it knew anything out of the ordinary had occurred.
She gave it a glare, too, it and the dry china, and the little bottle. None reacted obviously, although the bottle toppled over, possibly from embarrassment.
Then she went across the hall to her bedroom to her comfortable bed. There she slept, uneasily, and dreamed blood dreams: dreams full of hatred, and pain, and secret torments in the dark; and the heat in the air between two ancient enemies who had been forced into the same room; and spheres of paint turning, mid-flight, to lead; and every child in homeroom tittering, in terrible unison, at the little hearts you innocently dotted your i's with on those upperclassmen's helpful suggestion.
(1) Most of it in brown envelopes.
(2) Which just about filled the teacup. Old habits die hard.
(3) Her parents had meant well, or rather, badly; but with some names a sinister intention just won't cut it. Specify, specify, specify, that's the name of the naming game. Mary Magdalene The Adulteress Hodges, now, that would have been fine. She would even have settled for Mary Mary Quite Contrary Hodges. But no: they'd gone and blithely left it at Mary, as if people could be expected to know which one they'd had in mind, and she was the one who'd had to suffer the consequences.
(4) Vladimir the Impaler; most assuredly not Vladimir I of Kiev, who converted to Christianity in 988 A.D. and inadvertently began one of the first public cleanup programs by having all of Kievan Rus baptised whether they liked it or not. And again we see the importance of differentiation, although in this particular case, the charming historical statuary in the front lawn rather gave it away.
It took Mary Hodges all of one week to clear everything up with the authorities, who, it must be assumed, found satisfaction elsewhere(1). Clearing things up with her own mind was another matter, but then she had plenty of gin. And bookings had doubled.
So it was that on the night of August 28th, after she had gotten the last of her clients to sign the new waiver by cajoling, bribing, threatening, and eventually begging, she sat back in her big leather chair, and smiled, and poured herself a glassful(2).
This she stared at for perhaps thirty seconds.
Then she filled a second cup.
Just in case, she thought, vaguely. After all one wouldn't want to have to wait too long between refills. That was logic, that was.
From her next-to-bottom desk drawer, she retrieved one of the mysterious guns.
It was still loaded, except for two bullets, one of which had permanently lightened a wallet, and one of which had done a number on Nigel Tompkins' right knee-- an extremely large number that Mary Hodges had had to write out, in pen, down to the last zero, on a personal cheque.
Her fingers tightened on its handle at the memory. She tried to take deep breaths, and when that failed, settled for deep draughts.
Neither teacup held out long. She refilled both.
A pleasant pink fog began to percolate through her brain.
She weighed the gun in her hand. It was quite heavy, even half-empty. The sleek feel of the metal was unexpectedly... nice.
Really a rather silly business, she thought, with something closer to philosophic calm. But there was no denying that in the past week alone bookings had doubled, and the legality had been quite a bit easier to sort out than expected. She had no reason to complain, really, not really, she decided, as she took the Stairs of a Rising BAC Point two at a time towards the cloud-wreathed Summit of Enlightenment and Oneness with The Universe, or, Failing That, Your Floor.
Her ascent was unfortunately interrupted by the door of her office opening.
She looked up. The room swam in her vision. Possibly, it occurred to her, dinner would have been a good idea.
There was someone on the other side of the door.
But that was ridiculous. It was past midnight, and the gates were locked, and--
There was more, but she didn't get any farther in her list of objections, because the someone stepped into the light of her office, and Mary Hodges, the confident, successful adult, took one look at her visitor and instantly went back to being little Mary “Mother of the Enemy(3)” Hodges, who no one had wanted to play with at Sabbat School because she was the kind of child who won black stars for handwriting and liver and who preferred tea to blood and who had always, in her heart of hearts, and in all sorts of other organs, too, wished she could be-- well--
--well, the girl who had just strolled into her office, not to put to fine a point on it.
She was tall. She was slinky. Her hair fell in coppery waves over her sloping shoulders, although they were not the kind of gentle wave that you got on the shores of sunny Caribbean islands, or at least not during the tourist season: they were the kind of wave you got when you pitted two fleets of huge, creaking ships full of angry, frightened humans against each other in cold open ocean, and maybe added a little lightening and wind to spice things up.
It was not exactly hair with personality, but it certainly looked capable of personality disorders. Glamorous personality disorders.
Its owner grinned at Mary in a way that implied not only glamorous personality disorders but best-selling book deals about those personality disorders. Her eyes showed startling orange in her dark face, and, Mary saw, she was wearing a pantsuit in a way that suggested it was flattering. It wasn't, of course, pantsuits being one of the few things even bad-girl radiation cannot change the essential nature of, but that simply added insult to injury.
Mary set the teacup down. A red haze was rising before her eyes. The worst part was, it complemented the girl's complexion perfectly.
“Ms. Hodges?” the girl purred. “Let me to introduce myself. My name is Cherry Vermelho.”
Cherry, screamed a little voice inside. Cherry.
She wanted to snap “How did you get in?” and “What are you doing here?” and “Get out before I call the police.” She wanted to say: “Cherry Vermelho, I am not afraid of you. Your casual twisting of school rules and your unbuttoned uniform cardigan and your artistically knotted tie--” and, yes, it was still there, even in this slightly aged version of her childhood tormentors, the tie “--hold no power over me. I am a confident, successful adult, not to mention a New Woman, or I will be in about twelve hours and sixteen ounces of strong tea, and I do not quail before your smirks, or your beastly nicknames, or your gang. You can't be a day older than twenty-five, to my wise and experienced forty-one. Also, I can probably get you on trespassing charges! Hah! Hahaha! Hahahahahahaha!”
She said: “Ah?”
“I saw in the Tadfield Advertiser that you were looking for someone to teach gun safety to beginners,” Miss Vermelho said smoothly. “I have considerable experience in the area, and I can start immediately...”
Of course.
“I see,” Mary said. “Could you show me some credentials, please?”
Ms. Vermelho's interesting eyes (flash bloody contacts, the little voice fumed, inaccurately but with admirable passion) flicked to the gun, which was still in Mary's hand. “If I may,” said Ms. Vermelho, extending a hand, which was, to Mary's astonishment, badly burnt. In her mental image of the world, girls like Cherry had people to play with fire for them.
It might have been her surprise that made her give up the firearm. It might have been the lingering effects of the gin, and of a week that had been perplexing and expensive, not even by turns but at the same time. Or it might have been Ms. Vermelho's stare.
Either way, she put up no resistance as Ms. Vermelho coaxed the gun from her sweaty grip.
“Hm,” the girl said, holding it up. By some trick of the light it almost looked as if the burns were retreating from the parts of her palm that were in contact with gunmetal.
Then she pivoted on her high heel to face the open window, sighted along the barrel, and said, casually, “So what should I shoot?”
Mary leapt out of her chair, the thought of yet more property damage doing what no amount of long-buried vengeful urges and self-confidence could to her cringing nervous system.
“Don't shoot anything, please!”
Cherry Vermelho raised a perfect eyebrow. “I thought you wanted to see my credentials?”
Mary gaped at her.
Obviously a loony, she thought, but it was a secondary thought. It was secondary because more than anything, she was thinking that she wanted to call the bluff in the girl's lazy voice. The tone that suggested she could shoot down the moon, and would, if dared. That it didn't matter, what Mary asked her to do; she could do it, and more. There was always more.
Ms. Vermelho leaned in. “Did I misunderstand?”
Mary's lips thinned as only an ex-nun's can. She glanced out the window.
She pointed.
The girl's teeth shone like the extraordinarily sharp pins prefects wore at Saint Vladimir's(4) School for Girls. She pulled the trigger.
Mary Hodges did not hear the apple's stem break, but she saw it fall, a tiny, distant dark spot moving towards the earth, an echo of the sinking in her stomach.
The girl muttered something that sounded quite like “Demon-made crap, all this shoddy mass-production these days, no care and craftsmanship.”
Mary ignored this, because it seemed safest.
Now would be a good time to ask her to leave, she thought, very coherently. Or, better yet, to hide behind something solid, and ask her to leave.
Yes.
“You're hired,” she snapped, without turning to see Ms. Vermelho's face. “You start tomorrow, at six p.m., sharp.”
“Jolly good,” Cherry Vermelho said.
She paused, looking strangely expectant as Mary sat back down at her enormous desk and attempted to compose herself. At last, when several minutes had passed in resentful silence and whatever she was expecting apparently did not happen, she stopped looking, and shrugged. Then she picked up the teacup that was still brimming with gin.
She emptied it in two swallows, and did much the same for the bottle before Mary could blink.
Mary opened her mouth, and closed her mouth. She mustered every raging brain cell against every ingrained instinct of the muscles in her face, and glared.
Ms. Vermelho sighed happily at her. Mary supposed it was a curiously delayed reaction to the alcohol.
“I needed that,” she said, licking scarlet lips..
“I beg your pardon,” Mary began.
But the girl was already gone.
Mary looked at her expensive office, with its wooden expression of quiet competence. It gave no hint that it knew anything out of the ordinary had occurred.
She gave it a glare, too, it and the dry china, and the little bottle. None reacted obviously, although the bottle toppled over, possibly from embarrassment.
Then she went across the hall to her bedroom to her comfortable bed. There she slept, uneasily, and dreamed blood dreams: dreams full of hatred, and pain, and secret torments in the dark; and the heat in the air between two ancient enemies who had been forced into the same room; and spheres of paint turning, mid-flight, to lead; and every child in homeroom tittering, in terrible unison, at the little hearts you innocently dotted your i's with on those upperclassmen's helpful suggestion.
(1) Most of it in brown envelopes.
(2) Which just about filled the teacup. Old habits die hard.
(3) Her parents had meant well, or rather, badly; but with some names a sinister intention just won't cut it. Specify, specify, specify, that's the name of the naming game. Mary Magdalene The Adulteress Hodges, now, that would have been fine. She would even have settled for Mary Mary Quite Contrary Hodges. But no: they'd gone and blithely left it at Mary, as if people could be expected to know which one they'd had in mind, and she was the one who'd had to suffer the consequences.
(4) Vladimir the Impaler; most assuredly not Vladimir I of Kiev, who converted to Christianity in 988 A.D. and inadvertently began one of the first public cleanup programs by having all of Kievan Rus baptised whether they liked it or not. And again we see the importance of differentiation, although in this particular case, the charming historical statuary in the front lawn rather gave it away.