Poor Unfortunate Souls, Epilogue: A New Step
Epilogue: A New Step
Contents and Warnings
Chapter Twelve: Conscience
In the end, they had to move the trial out of Seattle. It was a preventative measure to keep Grey’s relative fame from influencing the jury - and to keep the jury relatively free of past connection to any of his businesses. Before the trial, however, Grey Enterprises Holdings Inc filed for bankruptcy: an infamous CEO is not good for stocks, even when the board of directors is only too eager to fire him in an attempt to save their public image. I lost track of the financial wrangling after a while, but it appears that after the bankruptcy, the company shook off its various investments and emerged more or less in one much smaller piece, under a different name, with different management. It was bought up almost instantly by an electronics company named after a raincoat.
The trial itself took nearly a week. Grey was charged with fourteen counts of felonious identity theft, stalking, unlawful imprisonment, custodial interference, kidnapping, rape in both the first and second degree, and to top it all off, perjury and contempt of court when he lied about each and every one of his charges and screamed across the room that the judge was a filthy whore.
Nobody sitting on the side of the prosecution was surprised in the least. Especially not when the jury took only six hours to find him guilty of all charges, and to recommend a sentence of ninety years or life imprisonment.
[Almost Everything is Explained]Grey’s evidence against Elena Lincoln was not considered admissible by the court after he had already lied on the witness stand. The sudden lack of financial aid from Grey Enterprises Holdings Inc and the lawsuit that her husband brought against her within the month, however, ruined her personal fortune, and would have ruined Esclava if Franco hadn’t bought it right out from under her, at what I’m told was a ridiculously cheap price. He allowed all of the workers to stay with the company if they wanted to, and before long the chain, renamed Liberté, was open again. Nobody ever asked where he’d gotten the money, but rumor had it that he had an older sister who had decided to fund the purchase.
Sawyer and Taylor were tried separately for their involvement in Grey’s crimes, and found to have only been accomplices under extreme duress, so they were each given a year of community service. The last I heard, Sawyer was teaching a practical self-defense class and volunteering at the humane society rehabilitating neglected dogs, and Taylor was working for a nonprofit dedicated to raising money and awareness for a variety of mental health disorders, and driving down to Oregon every weekend to see his daughter Sophie.
Although Leila and Sophia testified against Grey, Anastasia Steele did not. It seemed to me that she still didn’t understand what he’d done wrong, and I wondered how deep you could sink into denial without drowning in it. After the trial, she left Seattle.
It bruised my heart all over again when Kate called us to say that Ana had found out she’d hired us to investigate, and proceeded to blame Kate for everything, before packing her things and moving to Georgia to stay with her mother while she looked for a new job. I told Kate that she’d done all she could, and that it was the right thing, but I’m not certain it sank in.
Some people will always hate you for saving them.
Allie and I took on a few more cases that summer, but by late August we both felt that we’d overstayed our welcome in that world. The days, never terribly warm in Seattle, had already started to loom down to fog and soon the mysterious scent of wet leaves would be in the air. It was time to go home.
With the kind of timing that would do a psychic proud, Officer Rayne turned up for an impromptu visit on the very day that we’d finished packing everything up, donated everything we couldn’t carry, and run out the lease.
“Going somewhere?” she asked in surprise, raising an eyebrow at the sight of our apartment, completely bare except for the furniture that had come with it.
“Home,” I said to her, and didn’t bother explaining further.
“I forgot, you’re not from around here, are you?” Since she was standing in our doorway and wearing a t-shirt with a cartoon skunk on it, the question was unofficial as well as rhetorical. “Business in town not what you expected?”
“Anything we can do for you?” Allie asked her. The hurrying but supposedly casual tone she used never works on cops. They see right through it.
Officer Rayne was not the exception that proved the rule. “Yes, actually,” she said, taking a step forward into the empty apartment, “You used to be a stage magician, right? Now, I know how you saw a lady in half and put her back together, but I’m still curious as to how you break a reinforced security door neatly down the middle and forget to put it back the way you found it.”
I exchanged a glance with Allie. We’d planned to be gone in fifteen minute, and this looked like a long conversation if Officer Rayne got any traction.
“Actually-”
She cut me off in the middle of stepping forward. “Ah, yes - I forgot, half the show is really the assistant doing all the work. Why don’t you tell me how you managed to get into the Fairmont - and the Escala building, for that matter?”
“She’s not my assistant,” Allie said, sighing. “And for that matter, I’m not a stage magician and never was.”
Officer Rayne’s eyebrows tried to reunite themselves with her scalp.
“Why don’t you sit down?” I asked her. “The furniture’s still here.”
With a completely unnecessary roll of her eyes, Officer Rayne parked herself in a chair and Allie and I took the fold-out couch. I gave Allie a little prod with my foot, seeing as the explanation here was more of her department.
Allie poked me back and went for the blunt force approach. “I’m not a stage magician, I’m a real mage. I bend the laws of physics, and I can prove it to you.”
For a moment, Officer Rayne just stared at us. Then she frowned. “You’re a wizard?”
“If you need a title, I prefer Mage,” Allie replied.
“Are you for real?” asked Officer Rayne in disbelief.
I rolled my eyes. “Don’t pay any attention to her,” I advised the officer, “There’s an unnecessarily complicated system of titles and responsibilities to go with those two words where she grew up. She keeps getting bent out of shape when people who don’t know any better use the wrong one. The only thing that you really have to remember is not to call her Lady Veldon - that’s her sister.”
Officer Rayne blinked. “You’re what, European nobility? You don’t have an accent.”
Allie smiled. “Further away than that.”
It took a moment - and a few blinks - for Officer Rayne to work her way to the next question. “Okay, then, what does she do?” she asked, tilting her chin at me.
“I see auras,” I explained.
“… Auras,” she repeated, “like… new age medicine and crystals and Ouija boards and dancing around Stonehenge kind of auras?”
“No. I see magic,” I corrected her, “Or, if you want to get really technical, I have a form of synesthesia that allows me to see extra energy leaking into our part of the multiverse as colored lights, noises, smells, and other fun sensations. Some people, like Allie, are able to harness a fair bit of that energy, while other people, like you and me, get only a little of that energy attracted to us.”
She seemed to consider it. “You’re aware of how completely nutty you sound, right?”
“Extremely aware,” I told her, “If it helps, I was still shocked when I found everything out, even though where I grew up everyone knew that magic existed, even if they mostly ignored it.”
“Where you grew up.” Officer Rayne was fast becoming an expert at making a flat, bemused statement and having it interpreted as a question.
“It was a completely different world,” I explained, with more than a little sense of the irony. “To make a very long story extremely short, there are plenty of alternate worlds due to the technical nature of the actual high level laws of physics, and Allie can travel between them: I’m just riding shotgun.” Seeing the officer’s look of blank disbelief, I turned to Allie. “I think you’d better prove to her that we’re not completely crazy,” I said.
Allie sighed. “Pick a piece of furniture -”
“No,” Officer Rayne cut in, “You don’t get to pick the proof - it could be rigged somehow. Here,” she said, pulling a pen out of her bag.
“Turn this into a caterpillar.”
“Transfiguration only happens in fairy tales and fantasy novels,” Allie replied, “pick something that is actually possible in the real world without breaking the laws of physics.”
As she spoke, the pen slowly and smoothly lifted off the table, floating upwards until it came to a rest in front of Officer Rayne’s face. She gaped at it for a second before she snatched it out of the air and felt it all over for wires.
“Right, what else can you do?” she asked quickly. “Because, assuming that you didn’t find a way to rig that, I need to know. Is it just the stuff from Matilda, or do you need a wand?”
“Fire’s always easy,” Allie replied. “Got a post-it?”
Officer Rayne offered her a folded napkin instead, and Allie took the pen back from her and scratched a perfunctory string of symbols. Then she held it in front of her face and we all watched it combust.
“The symbols help, but aren’t always necessary, unless you want to do something specific,” Allie explained, as the flames turned from yellow to blue to green, then to red, “They also keep things from getting out of hand, and once you start the spell, you don’t have to worry as much about getting distracted. Some people still prefer speaking the spell, or tend to get caught short. I can do this in my head and you’d never know it was me, but I’ve been in practice since I was five, so you probably don’t need to worry about meeting anyone else who can.”
The flame went out. Officer Rayne leaned forward and snatched up the charred napkin. “How many of you are there?”
“Usually, about one in every twenty has enough magic to use,” I told her, “But around here, on your world? I’ve got no way to be sure, but I doubt it’s more than one out of a hundred, and most of those would probably go through life never knowing.”
“We don’t mean for you to worry too much about mages,” Allie added, “But you do deserve to know.”
Now the officer’s look was calculating. “If I learn the symbols, then I can tell if magic’s been used -”
She broke off as Allie shook her head. “The words and symbols don’t have any power, really,” Allie said, “They’re more of a means of focus, or a bit like a personal programming language. You train yourself to direct energies according to this or that command, and since you’re the conduit, they’ll keep on behaving that way when your back is turned, rather than, say, starting a forest fire.”
Officer Rayne winced visibly, then seemed to settle into her disappointment. “All right. I’ve seen enough movies to know that playing with the forces of nature isn’t actually a good idea, no matter how much I’d like to be able to use the Force,” she said, “I’ll probably have more questions in a minute, but for now I’ll settle for knowing why both of you took such extra measures against Christian Grey.”
Once again, Allie and I traded a look.
“We were concerned that he might be controlling his victims through magic,” I told Officer Rayne, “as it turns out, he wasn’t, but -”
“You mean that mind control actually exists?” she interrupted, suspiciously.
Beside me, Allie twitched in her seat, and I laid a stilling hand on her knee. “Not precisely,” I said, “It’s more subtle than that - the best scientists have only just been able to start pinning down the possible particle physics behind magic, it’s interactions with the mind are completely unknown -”
“Cut the lecture, I’m here for the evidence,” said Officer Rayne, leaning forward in her seat, “If there’s any possibility that someone’s out there, doing awful things to people with magic -”
“Then you’ll never hear about it,” Allie cut in darkly. “You wouldn’t even know about it if it happened to you. You’d go on seeing what he wanted you to see and the only way you’d ever know is if he made a mistake. And if you ever meet someone with that sort of ability, my only advice is to shoot him dead on sight.” Her eyes were digging holes into Officer Rayne, and I reached over and squeezed her hand.
“The chance of that is about one in four billion, or even less, near as we can tell,” I said, trying to be comforting.
Officer Rayne still looked alarmed. “That means that there’s probably one or two of them out there in the world right now,” she protested.
“Everyone chooses what they do with their gifts,” I replied. “If it’s any comfort, we can’t even be sure that the membrane of this universe is even thin enough to let that amount of energy through. The turbulence when Allie and I arrived was unbelievable.”
It was a poorly timed joke, and earned me a look of utter disbelief from Officer Rayne, but the tightness in Allie’s face and eyes uncoiled.
“Backing up a step,” I continued, “when I observed Christian Grey’s aura, it appeared to consume the auras of women that he interacted with, and it left… traces on some of his victims.” I stumbled over the thought of those twining grey vines, but continued on quickly. “There are some things that can leave a mark on a person’s aura other than magic - the onset of some mental illnesses, traumatic events, travel between worlds done very wrong - so, while I couldn’t rule out the possibility that Grey was a mage, I also couldn’t rule out the possibility that his physical actions were causing those traces.” Especially since I’d heard Sophia’s story before I’d checked her aura, so there had been no way to tell if my brain was incorporating what I already knew, or if the disorganized part of my brain that actually took in and sorted that particular type of energy was even functioning properly at the time.
I was used to second guessing my own brain by that point, but that didn’t mean that I had to like it.
Allie took over. “Of that one in twenty people who are potential mages, four out of five are usually what we call latent mages: people who have a borderline capacity to direct energy, or who have simply never tried it due to lack of knowledge, lack of training, or lack of dedication. People like that can sometimes use their abilities, but they tend to be sort of one-trick ponies. Some are, say, extremely lucky at cards, or very good with animals. In a lot of cases it can be more of a charismatic thing - people are drawn towards that energy, even if you don’t use it and nobody but Lindsay can see what’s going on.”
“But for most people, their latency does nothing unless they’re in a very dangerous situation,” I added, “focused by fear or desperation, really. Then it kicks in and you get things like mothers lifting cars off their children, soldiers dragging wounded comrades impossible distances to treatment, people surviving for amazing amounts of time without food or water, that sort of thing.”
“What she’s trying to say is that we did some extra digging on Christian Grey between his arrest and his trial,” Allie put in helpfully. “His adoptive parents, Carrick Grey and Dr. Grace Trevelyan-Grey, have been quite public in the past about their middle son’s adoption and -”
“I actually look these things up,” Officer Rayne reminded us, “Clearance, and all that, which neither of you officially has.” She didn’t sound too much like she was scolding us though, just thoughtful. We’d dumped a lot of information on her in the past half hour. “You think that his magic got, um, triggered or something due to child abuse, and it sort of - if this is even possible - takes energy from other people?”
“If it does, this would be the first case we’ve seen,” I said. “But it would explain why his aura seeks out women, and since your magic is part of your mind, it’s entirely possible that when he seeks out a young woman who reminds him of his mother, he’s breaking down her resistance with his aura before any of his other abuses start. There’s a very small field of research starting up a few worlds over that suggests that sudden changes in the amount of extradimensional energy you receive can have a negative impact on your mental health.” I shrugged, not knowing how else to explain it.
“So the abused became the abuser, is that what you’re saying?” Officer Rayne asked, settling back and crossing her arms. “I’d say that if you take out all of the psi-ability mumbo jumbo, that’s hardly an original statement.”
“Well, it’s what I’ve got,” I replied. “If there’s anyone else in the multiverse who sees auras, I’ve missed them in passing, but you’re free to consult them if you like.”
“Linds, knock it off,” Allie said. “She’d be lost even if you’d given her a textbook. And that’s not a comment on your competence,” she added, turning to Officer Rayne, “but it’s just that we might as well ask you to wake up one day and start playing with the Higgs Boson -”
“Oh, so that does exist?” Officer Rayne asked.
“Well, there you go then,” Allie said, waving a distracted hand as she unfolded from the couch. “I know it’s a lot, and if we were planning to stay any longer we’d answer more of your questions, but… it’s how the world is. You’ll get used to it.”
Officer Rayne didn’t look so sure.
“What happens if we do start having problems with mages?” she asked.
Allie just winked at her. “We’ll check in from time to time.” It was only natural for Officer Rayne to worry, but given what we’d seen of this world, she’d never have a problem. Still, checking in wouldn’t hurt.
Once Officer Rayne had left, we locked up the apartment behind us, and nearly tripped over the package that had been left for us by the front mailboxes. There was a brown box about six inches tall, and a foot and a half by about a foot wide, addressed to both of us.
Allie slit the tape with a word and I picked up the postcard that was nestled on top of the wrappings. The writing on the back was tiny.
Allie and Lindsay,
Thank you for everything. It’s not enough, I know, but without you I wouldn’t be out here, or anywhere in particular, really.
I wanted to write earlier, but I just couldn’t find the words. There was too long that I couldn’t say anything, could hardly remember everything. My throat used to close up whenever I talked about anything that reminded me of it, but yesterday I finally talked to my mom. She cried, obviously. So did I. She’s been coming with me to all my doctor’s appointments, for emotional support I guess. Maybe to keep an eye on me? I don’t know though, it’s been kind of weird. I haven’t spent this long at home and actually been happy since I was eighteen.
Mark’s going to be back in a month. He says that if I want to stay separated or get divorced, he’s fine with it, and is behind me all the way. I don’t know, though. I mean, I’ve known Mark half my life, and I’ve always thought of him as something safe and solid, hard to move, just there. Supposedly, he had a crush on me since we were seventeen, but we really haven’t spent much time together since the wedding. He was only home a month before he went back to Iraq, and then I was in the hospital, and now I guess I’ll see. I don’t feel like an army wife, but maybe that’s a good thing. I’m thinking of commuting to school in spring term, depending on how things go.
Until then - see that lighthouse on the front? Yeah, I’m going to paint that.
-- Leila Cooper Williams
“Hey, she returned my coat,” Allie said, and dived into the box, effectively shredding the wrapping. “Got it washed too, I see.”
I smiled and tucked the postcard into my pocket as she shrugged on the trenchcoat, settling it on her shoulders like a superhero’s cape or a medieval cloak. Then she offered me her arm, and, as an afterthought, sent the packaging sailing towards the bins with a flick of her other hand.
“Ready?” she asked.
“For the next great adventure? Yes,” I replied, and we both stepped forward.
The afternoon sun shone merrily down on the square of sidewalk where we’d just been standing.
Appendix: Christian Grey's Crimes According to Washington State Law[Notes]* Apparently, Lindsay still hasn’t acclimated to our world. You only get one guess as to which electronics company is named after a Scottish raincoat.
** Christian Grey’s multiple class A felonies are what racked up to ninety years. The fact that we as the audience know he has raped fourteen girls should put him well over ninety years alone, but given the amount of information available to my fictional Jury (not all the girls were able or willing to come forward,) he got as much as they could conclusively prove him guilty of, which is still complete removal from civilized society. I’m posting his crimes and my notes on them separately, as a sort of appendix.
*** Taylor and Sawyer’s sentencing might not be 100% realistic, but I think a sympathetic jury (such as the entirety of the readers of this fic) could probably settle on it. Let me know what you think.
**** Having Officer Rayne reference Harry Potter was tempting, but since this book is set in 2011 she’s a bit old for it to have been a sure bet. Matilda is by Roald Dahl, but it’s more likely that Emily Rayne has seen the 1996 movie.
***** The Higgs Boson was discovered on July 4 2012, and Fifty Shades is set in 2011.