Shadow Though it Be:
An Excursus – Chapter 12
by L. Inman
Elisabeth blinked into the sun as the car turned west. In the driver’s seat Giles squinted and put
down his visor. They had covered some
road already in silence; the rest of the road—and home—lay before them.
Giles made
his turn onto a road going south; the sun was no longer in their eyes, and
Elisabeth appeared to breathe easier.
His lips
twitched for a few blocks before he finally managed to ask her:
“Are you
angry?”
At first he
thought perhaps it was a mistake, and that she wasn’t going to answer him. But after a moment she did answer. “No.”
Her voice was low and still a little scorched. Then she added: “But I will be if you insist on sending
yourself on a guilt trip.”
It was her
first full sentence since the crystals had shattered. His jaw went taut, and he swallowed
hard. He nodded, realized she wasn’t
looking at him, and said, “Right.”
The shadows
of trees were passing over them. Giles
had put the ragtop down, to get the benefit of the crisp, clear evening
air. He stole glances at her and saw her
reach outside the car to tickle the moving air with slow fingers. She was moving a little now, at least; but
still as though it were effort just to meet the air around her. He felt very weary himself; he certainly
didn’t feel like cooking supper.
“Do you
like Indian food?” he asked her suddenly.
She turned
to him and offered a small, tired smile.
“What self-respecting Anglophile doesn’t like curry?” she said.
She was
trying to make him feel better with a jest.
He tried to smile back, but it felt crooked on his face. He turned back to the road. “I know a little place,” he said. “We could get take-out.”
She nodded
hesitatingly.
“I don’t
suppose you’re really hungry.”
She shook
her head. “But I should eat. If they have some of that lovely lentil
soup—I forget what it’s called—”
“Mulligatawny.”
“Yeah.”
“You could
eat that?”
“I think
so.”
A couple of
blocks passed, and she added softly, “I could try.”
“I’m
sorry,” he said, before he could stop himself.
She heard
the raw feeling in his voice, and flinched.
She masked it by pulling her hand back inside the car and laying it in
her lap with the other. “Please,” she
said. “Rupert: I need you to let it go.”
“Okay,” he
said, keeping his eyes carefully on the road.
“Right.”
They said
nothing else all the way to the Indian cuisine shop.
*
Back at home, Giles ushered her in the door, setting his
satchel and her bookbag on the floor next to the hall closet. She drifted to the chair at the table that
had become hers, and at his bidding sat down in it. She let him gather forks, knives, spoons, and
napkins; watched him set the table, first her place, then his; listened to him
filling glasses of ice water for them; and finally reached out for her spoon
when he set her soup down before her, served in one of his bowls rather than
the styrofoam cup they’d brought it home in.
At last he
sat down himself with his plate and began to eat, like a man under orders. She pretended not to see the glances he was
giving her as she lifted small bites of soup to her lips, slowly, one at a
time. It was not so hard to eat the soup
as she had anticipated; and she found she could even chase it with some of the
flatbread he had bought to go with it.
It was harder to feel him watching her eat than it was to eat. Which was only to be expected: the palpable
aura of remorse surrounding Giles on the other side of the table was not going
to be dispelled by a few words of hers.
It was why she had let him indulge all his solicitous urges; that, and
the fact that she was so tired.
“Soup’s
good,” she told him.
He glanced
up. “Good,” he said.
It occurred
to her suddenly that it might be folly to try and make him feel better by
letting him pamper her; a much better approach would probably be to brush him
briskly off and take care of herself. It
was, after all, what she wanted to do.
But she was
just too tired.
And it was
too soon for her natural optimism to reassert itself. Probably, now that she had been burnt clean
like a field for planting, something better would grow within her. Probably, it wouldn’t take too long. Probably, time would carry her and Giles to
the place where Giles found the spell and they performed it and she went home
and got the Obligatory Female Life-Change Haircut, which would then grow back
the way it was in six months, and she would be good as new, her shoes hitting
new road.
Probably.
At the
moment, however, she was lifting one spoonful of mulligatawny at a time and
letting Giles carry the rest, from her bookbag to her glass of water to “the
burden of thought,” as he had called it.
She was not going to feel guilty about it, despite the fact that he
looked far more awful than she had any right to make him look. This keeping-a-low-profile
thing is not succeeding very well, she told herself, then, sharply, Soup.
Eating. Not thinking.
Which was
easy enough to obey.
After
supper, he got up and carried the dishes into the kitchen. Elisabeth sat while he cleared the table, and
continued to sit and listen to him washing the dishes. It’s
not, by any chance, so you can stick me with the cleanup? he’d said
shrewdly, at Buffy’s suggestion that they have Thanksgiving at his place in
honor of his role as the patriarch.
Elisabeth wondered if that exchange had actually happened, or if it were
narrative filigree drawn to embellish the half-obscured vision of— This was too much thinking. At any rate the point was that she,
Elisabeth, was sticking Giles with the cleanup.
Oh, hell: she was feeling
guilty. And she couldn’t even get up
enough wherewithal to scold herself rationally.
This, she told herself for the
umpteenth time, is why there is an
embargo on thinking. Avoiding
thinking was the M.O. right now. Except
the only way she could think of to truly avoid thinking was to take a nap.
Time to go to sleep….
Elisabeth
shuddered.
“All
right?” Giles said, gathering silverware at her elbow.
She
startled, then nodded. “I think I’ll
take a bath now,” she heard herself saying.
“Okay,” he
said. But he continued to look at her
from where he stood.
She got up
slowly and went to her pack to dig for her bath supplies. Then (feeling Giles’s eyes on her back) she
carried them down the hall to the bathroom and closed the door.
Thank God:
a small room where she could be alone.
Elisabeth filled the tub, moved the little chair close and draped her
towel over it, set out her gels and shampoo and paperback book on the
seat. Stepped into the steaming fragrant
water and sat down, then leaned back. The
warm water was an impersonal embrace, soft, encompassing, and nearly silent. She closed her eyes.
Darkness.
She opened
her eyes again, trying to breathe calmly.
Decided that since she had seen the worst, it shouldn’t hurt her to be
in darkness: especially a darkness with
warm water lapping at her body. So she
shut her eyes again and concentrated on her breathing. In…out.
Slow and easy.
The last
time she had been in this darkness, and opened her eyes, it had been to
“Where’s
Giles?” she had asked, in a nearly unintelligible croak.
“He’s
making tea,”
“Could you
take some tea?”
Comprehension
came at length, and with a cost; finally, Elisabeth had nodded.
Now, with
the water caressing her skin, she sank lower in the tub and pressed her lips
together, swallowing the tears that ran down the back of her nose. She hadn’t been able to look at Giles when he
came into the training room again, placing his steps as if there were C4 in the
soles of his shoes; she hadn’t looked directly at him even yet, though she knew
it could only make him feel worse.
Take my picture steal my soul….
Their
kindness was a lash flaying her alive.
I want to go home.
She shut
her eyes; the burning flared under her lids and swelled into tears—different
tears from the ones she’d shed in her extremity—tears of ordinary
grief…Elisabeth leaned forward and turned on the hot tap, both to freshen the
water and to mask any sounds she might make weeping.
Not, of
course, that she’d be able to hide it from Giles completely. He now knew her far better than was
comfortable, for one thing. For another,
she knew him.
Elisabeth
splashed her face once, twice, three times, and kept doing it for several more
before reaching for her facial cleanser and scrubbing at the tearstains that
seemed still to remain on the surface of her face, and remained even after she
splashed her face to remove the soap. She
turned off the tap, pulled the plug, reached for the towel and stood to dry
off.
She dressed
in her last change of fresh clothing and pulled a comb through her wet
hair. Gathered her things and, drawing a
long breath, opened the bathroom door to go and face him again.
In the
livingroom Giles was busily unpacking his satchel and digging through the
pockets of his leather jacket, lining up odd items on his desk to inspect
for—some sort of operation, Elisabeth could not tell what.
“What’s
up?” she said.
He glanced
up, startled. “Ah good, you’re
there…I—I’d forgotten, I’d made this appointment with—” He stopped and straightened to look at
her. “I don’t know if you recall my
mentioning it, but I had come close to deciding that I should look into, er—”
“Non-bibliographic
resources?”
He blinked,
apparently surprised that she remembered.
“Yes. And I’m afraid that taking
you with me to where I’d planned to go would…”
“…mitigate
your sources’ forthcomingness? Of
course. Holmes must have no company in
his missions to the docks and the opium dens.”
She watched
him swallow his irritation at the comparison.
He turned back to his task.
“Unfortunately, I think I have overbooked my evening, and you’re in no
condition to—”
“I can be
alone,” she said.
He stopped
again and turned to look at her silently.
“I can be
alone,” she repeated. “I…I need the
quiet. You can go to your appointment;
don’t worry about me.”
She forced
herself to meet his eye; and so she could see the subtle changes fleeting across
his expression: his recognition that she wanted him away, his easily-bidden
pang of guilt, his gnawing worry, his eagerness to be off and doing something
material. “Very well,” he said at
last. “I’ll try not to be too long. You can expect me before ten, if all goes
well.” He shoved two odd gizmos into the
inside pocket of his jacket and shrugged into it. Jacket on, he straightened the collar,
reached for his keys, and paused.
“You’re sure you’ll be all right?”
“Yes,” she
said, becoming suddenly aware that she was hugging herself. She put her arms down to her sides.
She nodded
several times as he continued to look at her.
Finally he caught up his keys and went to the door. “I’ll be back soon,” he said, glancing back
at her as he opened the door; she nodded a final time, and he disappeared,
shutting the door firmly behind him.
*
The last time Giles had left her alone in his apartment,
Elisabeth had nearly asphyxiated on the solitude. Now, however, despite the renewed grief that
the afternoon’s self-confrontation had brought her, she stood in the silence of
his home and let the solitude pour blessedly over her.
After a few
minutes of this she roused herself and went to her pack with a thought to
organize its chaos; but when she looked inside and saw the load of crumpled
laundry bursting out of its plastic bags, she quailed and ended by leaving her
pack alone.
Music. Something ductile and honest, and weighty
enough for the ache inside her. She went
to kneel before Giles’s collection of LPs, and flipped carefully through them
until she found what she was looking for: the Mozart Requiem.
She set
open the doors of his sound system and turned on the power; lifted the lid of
the turntable and blew the dust off the needle.
With infinite care she removed the record from its cover and placed it
on the turntable; she set the turntable spinning and used the velvet brush to
clean the surface of the vinyl. The
scent of static and the spinning words on the center of the disk brought
unbidden childhood memories. She lifted
the needle and (silently hoping that Giles would not be too scandalized at this
liberty) laid it gently on the turning record; it landed perfectly, like a leaf
falling to the surface of a river.
As the
Requiem began she looked around her for a place to imbibe the music; after a
moment surveying the room with a thoughtful twist to her lips, she decided on
the table. She moved the centerpiece
aside, crawled onto the top of the sturdy table, and arranged herself in more
or less a lotus position. She took off
her glasses, laid them next to her on the table, and shut her eyes.
For a long
time she moved only to breathe.
It was a
good recording, well-directed, balanced in its voices. Listening, Elisabeth felt her body beginning
to make the old responses, the urge to half-dance the ponderous notes as they
came. This was good; and although it was
bringing her back through the muffed numbness into pain, it was also bringing
her back to the world she knew. Her
fingertips met the texture of the wood of the table under her; the air in her
lungs was no longer scorching.
She
listened to the Requiem all the way through to the Lux Aeterna. Then she got up and removed the LP from the
turntable as carefully as she had placed it there, put it away in its cover,
and closed the doors of the sound system.
Stretching, she wandered into the kitchen with a vague idea of looking
for something to snack on with her copy of Lord Peter.
A knock
sounded on the door, startling her. She crept
out of the kitchen and went to stand uncertainly before it, wondering if she
should even open the thing, or let anyone know she was there.
The knock
came again, and with it, a singsong voice she recognized: “Knock, kno-oock….”
“Who’s
there?” she said.
“Spike.”
“Spike
who?”
Without
warning the door was shoved open enough to admit the vampire’s quizzical face
to her vision. “Spike,” he said. “Who the
bloody hell are you?”
“Elisabeth,”
she replied, folding her arms in an attempt to disguise her nerves as a show of
clement displeasure. She had an uneasy
feeling that it wasn’t working. “And I
know who you are.”
“Then you
know that dear Rupert is expecting me.”
He pushed the door all the way open and strode jauntily inside. He paused in front of her and looked her
appraisingly up and down. “Rupert’s
picking them younger and younger these days.”
She had not
quite realized how pungent was Spike’s talent for getting one’s back up. “How very flattering for me,” she said
stiffly, “but unfortunately for you, you’ve got it wrong.”
“Oh I have,
have I?” Spike glanced around, sucking
his front teeth. “Then tell me, where is
he? Upstairs enjoying a post-coital
smoke?”
She
reddened. “Giles,” she said, “went on an
errand. He isn’t here.”
“Well, I
like that. He tells me to come here with
my information and he can’t even be bothered to be at home.” Spike wandered around, with an air that was
actually as impressive as it looked, and then paused to go into a well-honed
Giles imitation. “‘And for God’s sake,
Spike, please knock this time.’
Heh. Now I see why. Don’t want to startle his new girlfriend now,
would we?”
Elisabeth
felt the urge to open her mouth and set Spike straight about her relationship
to Giles once and for all, but decided on balance that the less Spike knew
about her, the better. Spike, watching
her face, saw her master her emotion.
He grinned,
tilting his head.
“Am I
making you mad, little girl? What grade
are you in, anyway?”
Elisabeth
snorted. “Flattery will get you
nowhere.”
He
approached her slowly. “Maybe not, but a
few threats might. You know who I am…do
you know what I am?”
Elisabeth
stood her ground, though having Spike’s face thrust close to hers was hardly on
her birthday list.
“Yes,” she
said, “I do. You’re a bad Victorian poet
who’s been made into a vampire. Whose
threats are, incidentally, quite empty.”
Spike let
out a growl and showed his fangs.
A
longsuffering sigh made them both look round.
Giles was
standing in his own doorway, hands thrust impatiently in the pockets of his
leather jacket, watching them.
“Spike,” he
said. “Elisabeth, are you all right?”
Elisabeth uncrossed her arms. “Perfect.
I and Mr. Bloody-William-Intimations-of-Immortality were just having a
piquant conversation.”
Spike bristled again. “Hey now.
I don’t mind fun and games, but no one—no one—compares me—to
Wordsworth.” He pointed a sharp finger
in her face.
Elisabeth raised one eyebrow in an
unconscious imitation of Giles. She was
starting to enjoy this. “No…not
Wordsworth,” she taunted him. “I’d say
Patmore is more your line.”
For a flashing moment Spike showed
his true face. “Giles, who’s this? She’s about to get killed.”
Giles rolled his eyes. “As much as I’d love to continue with this
vaudeville comedy, I have work to do.
Spike, have you any information for me, or not?”
With an effort Spike severed his
attention from his new acquaintance to look at him. “It’s gonna cost you.”
“I’m
prepared for that. On the other hand,”
Giles drawled, “I haven’t quite paid you out for wrecking my car.”
“I did you a favor! That car was about as valuable as a broken
toaster, and half the size. And just
look at the one you’ve got now.” Spike
gestured wildly out the open door, though Giles’s car was not in view. “I bloody well did do you a favor.”
“Yes, and then cancelled this
so-called favor, as I recall, by trying to get us all killed.”
Elisabeth piped up. “Yes, Spike: you really were a prat to make
that deal with Adam. Don’t you know your
Kipling? ‘To win by his aid and the aid
disown; He travels the fastest who travels alone’?”
Spike stared at her, then back at
Giles. “Who is this?”
Giles leaned indolently against his
door. “She has a point. Although, Elisabeth, we shouldn’t bait the
impotent vampire any more than is strictly necessary.”
Spike went so apoplectic, he forgot
to assume his game face. “Who you
calling a bloody Welshman? Forget this,
I’m outta here. See if I ever offer you information again.”
And he would have stormed out;
except that Giles braced his arm across the doorway and caught Spike hard on
the chest. For a moment the two men,
living and undead, stood meeting eyes.
Elisabeth was not quite sure what it was that passed between them, but
unexpectedly Spike looked away and drew an impatient breath.
“I don’t know much, all right?” he
said. “Just that there’s this whacking
great nebula of energy gathering around town, and our kind thinks it’s pretty.” He tried to push past Giles again, but Giles
firmed his grip on the doorpost and held him there.
“You’re going to have to do better
than that,” he said pleasantly.
Spike heaved a sigh through his
nose. “I don’t know any more than that,” he said.
“It happens sometimes—the energy gathers, and burns itself out, and we
come and watch the fireworks and drink beer.
And blood, if we’re lucky, which apparently I’m not.”
“Gathers. Is it gathering right now?”
Spike grunted; Giles took this as
an affirmative.
“How long till it burns out?”
Spike shrugged. “Few days.
Hard to tell.”
“And the focal point: where is it?”
Spike growled. “In case you haven’t noticed, this is the
Hellmouth. The whole bloody town is the focal point.”
Giles gave him a slow blink which
conveyed perfectly the clement displeasure Elisabeth had been trying for
earlier.
Spike ignored it. “Now, if you don’t mind, I’m going off to buy
some smokes with the money you’re about to give me.”
Giles kept his arm across the door
for an extra moment to make his point; then he reached for his wallet, thumbed
with maddening slowness through the bills inside, and finally held one of them
out between two indolent fingers, his eyes cast up from his downturned face (to
Elisabeth’s amusement) like some odd combination of Martin Sheen and Lauren
Bacall.
Spike snatched it delicately and
looked it over, then scowled. “You said
twenty. This is a ten!”
“And you’ll get the other ten if
your information proves any good,” Giles answered with equanimity. He pocketed his wallet with such an air of
finality that even Spike had to admit frustration. The vampire folded the bill into his inner
pocket as if it were a draft from the Bank of England for fifty thousand
pounds; drew up his cloak of shadowy dignity, and stepped out across the
threshold as Giles moved into the house; only then did he turn around to rake Elisabeth with his smirking eyes. “Nice to meet you, Elisabeth. You’ll have to tell me later if he’s any good
as a lover.”
And before Elisabeth could spring
forward to slam the door in his face, he grabbed the door handle and pulled it
to after him with a rattling bam, leaving Elisabeth and Giles to look anywhere
but at each other.
“For a legendary vampire, he’s not
very subtle, is he?” Giles said dryly.
*