Shadow Though it Be:
An Excursus – Chapter 14
by L. Inman
He woke with the plan forming in his head. Today he would give her rest and space, first
of all; which meant showering and dressing very quietly and getting out the
door without waking her up. At lunchtime
he would leave Anya at the helm (he’d worry about the heart palpitations when
they happened), and come back to check on her.
When he got to the shop he would call Xander and
His plan
succeeded very well at the start…until he bobbled the bottle of Tylenol and the
pills rattled like beads all over the kitchen floor. “Shit,”
he mouthed, watching them roll away across the tiles. It was very difficult to crawl around on the
floor gathering them without grunting. You’re getting old, Ripper, he
thought—pushed the thought away, and stood with the handful of caplets. He looked at the bottle, glanced back at the
sleeping form of Elisabeth on the couch, decided to dump the pills into a
sandwich bag. Less noise that way, and
anyway the pills were a bit dusty now. I’m going to be finding Tylenol on the floor
for weeks, he thought sourly.
He took the
dose he’d laid out for himself before the bottle-spilling incident, and crept
down the hall to the bathroom.
The shower
water seemed incredibly noisy, especially when it spattered against the shower
curtain. Giles could only be thankful
that Elisabeth appeared to be a heavy sleeper: perhaps she would sleep through
another person’s noises in the bathroom, especially if she’d gotten more
comfortable in his flat. Which she
seemed to have done. Too, she seemed to
have gotten more comfortable with him, though he had an idea she had not at all
abandoned her idea of keeping vigilantly clear of involvement with their
world.
He could
respect that.
He could
even wish—
Giles
looked sternly at himself in the bathroom mirror and whipped the shaving soap
into a lather in the cup, unmindful for the moment of the noise it made. He had made a choice: the same choice, more than once. Hadn’t he recently been told twice in the
same evening, by two different people, that he was not expendable?
Giles
wished he did not understand quite so thoroughly Elisabeth’s urge to cling to
nonentity. Is there something wrong with wanting it to be easier? she had
said. And, No, he had said. He began to
daub the shaving soap briskly onto his face.
He had a question for her…Is there something wrong with wanting to be
significant? And: Do we answer those questions by the
outcome—whether we get what we want?
“The proof
of the pudding,” he said dryly to his reflection as he began to apply the
razor.
After the
Tylenol-spilling incident, the Quiet Plan seemed to go more smoothly. Giles dressed, gathered things into his
satchel, and slipped into his leather jacket, all without making undue
noise. He was congratulating himself on
his success as he picked up his satchel to shoulder it, when a sound from the
couch made him freeze.
Elisabeth
grunted, made a little groan, and finally sat up and looked over the back of
the couch, blinking hard. “Rupert?” she
said.
Damn. He stood straighter, accepting being caught.
She rubbed
hard at one eye, then the other. “Are
you going?”
“Yes,” he
said, still holding his satchel at an awkward angle. He finally lowered it to the floor. “I thought I’d give you some rest. I’ll come back here at lunchtime.”
“Oh,” she
said, with a little yawn. “Okay.”
He hefted
the satchel again, and made to go. “I’ll
see you,” he said.
“Wait!”
He stopped
and turned her way again. She struggled
with the covers, and finally stumbled off the couch and around the table to
come toward him.
“Yes?” He
adjusted his glasses and peered at her in concern.
“Before you
go,” she said breathlessly, “I want to pronounce a blessing over you.”
“A—a
blessing?”
“Yes,” she
said seriously, “a blessing. You look
like you could use one.”
For
response, he raised one eyebrow.
“Don’t be
so skeptical,” she said, and cleared the morning gravel from her throat. She lifted one small hand, palm flat and
sideways like a priest, sighting from her forehead up to his. She made the sign of the cross, soberly
intoning: “Minutum cantorum, minutum balorum, minutum carborata descendum pantorum.”
He blinked
several times, and by the time she had finished the sentence and gesture, he
was frowning oddly. She clasped her
hands before her and watched him expectantly.
He cocked
his head, still blinking hard. Then his
mouth twitched. Then he sputtered and
began to laugh, still disbelieving.
Finally he dropped the strap of his satchel and grabbed his knees, his
shoulders shaking.
When he
recovered enough to stand—still giggling helplessly—it was to see her surveying
him with satisfaction. “I thought you
could use an appropriate blessing,” she said, one corner of her mouth finally
betraying the joke.
“Where on
earth did you pick that up?” he said, taking off his glasses to wipe at his
eyes with his handkerchief.
“Internet’s
good for something,” she told him.
He
snorted. But he was still smiling as he
refolded his handkerchief and tucked it away in his inner pocket. “Thank you,” he said, smiling down at her.
“You’re
welcome,” she said. “So: lunchtime?”
“Yes,” he
said. “
“I’ll be
ready. Should I eat beforehand?”
“Don’t know
what you’d have,” he said. “I’ll pick up
something. There’s going to be a meeting
at the shop this afternoon.”
“Okay.”
He saw her
swallow hard, and reached out to grasp her shoulder briefly. “Get some rest,” he said. “I’ll see you in a few hours.”
She
nodded. He shouldered his satchel and
reached for his keys and the doorknob.
Before
pulling the door to, he leaned his head back inside to look back at her. She was still standing there, in her ratty
T-shirt and pajama pants, with her hair badly awry, watching him leave with a
wry and faintly stoic smile on her lips.
“Rest,” he
told her, giving her a smile to match.
“Dream sweet dreams. Dream of vaudeville.”
She made a
gesture, as of working a seltzer bottle, and smiled a little wider.
He gave a
silent giggle in return; and shut the door behind him.
*
Elisabeth did not dream of vaudeville, though she did go
back to her nest and doze for a little while.
An hour or so later found her lying broad awake on Giles’s couch,
staring up at the ceiling. For a wonder,
her mind was blessedly clear, and her thoughts, though tending toward the
somber, did not hurt her.
It was time
to think of the possibilities. Whatever
spell the gang found, there seemed only a few outcomes once they had taken
action. She could be integrated fully in
Sunnydale—and that either because the spell pulled her through whole, or
because in her own dimension—the thought came quietly—she was dead. She could be reintegrated into her own
dimension—either alive or dead. In
either case her life could quite nearly be over.
She didn’t
have enough mental wherewithal to prepare for all four outcomes. But one thing she knew: there wasn’t much
room for fear. In fact, it appeared to
be the time for stepping out into apparent thin air, and not just in terms of
physical safety.
Another
phrase of George Macdonald’s came to the front of her mind: We must
do the thing we know in order to learn the thing we do not know. She had always kept it in her mind next to
the one of Aristotle’s about learning to do things by doing the things we are
learning to do; and invariably when she thought the one, the other was not far
away.
Elisabeth
studied the ceiling, hands crossed over her belly.
So what was she learning to do?
Not to be a
shadow.
And what
did she know?
Pain. Honesty.
Fairness.
The
now-familiar creases of grief around Rupert Giles’s mouth.
The way the
pieces moved on a chessboard.
Five-candle
spells, a rogue Latin phrase, and a partridge in a pear tree.
She smiled.
It was time
to get up.
*
Phase two of Giles’s plan was going well, even if the heart
palpitations had indeed made their appearance.
He set the parking brake on his car, thinking of the bottle of scotch
he’d stashed under the counter at the magic shop and wishing briefly that he’d
taken a snifter of it. Well, too late
now. Anya had managed the shop alone for
such brief periods before, and the others should be arriving soon, so—he told
himself—there was really nothing to get one’s knickers in a twist about. He’d already dashed in and out of the store;
all that was left was to pick up Elisabeth, and if she was ready as she had
said she’d be, that shouldn’t take long either.
He hurried
up the walk and through the court; he paused on his own doormat to pick out the
proper key; and froze.
On the
other side of the door he could hear music.
He listened
acutely, but he couldn’t tell what the piece was, only that it was classical,
and being played very loud. The last
time he had walked into his own flat to music he hadn’t put on himself—
With a
trembling hand Giles reached out for the doorknob and pushed the door quietly
open. He put his head in, eyes wide,
expecting to see disaster.
Instead, he
saw Elisabeth sitting on the dining table, fully dressed, though barefoot, with
her legs crossed under her tailor-fashion and her eyes closed. On the turntable was Bach: the Orchestral
Suite No. 3. As he watched, she lifted
her arms, eyes still closed, and began to move them to the ebb and flow of the
music, half-conducting, half-dancing it; stirring it in the air with her
fingertips, bringing the curve of her spine into it. Conjuring the healing that lay dormant in the
plaintive strings.
He came in
silently, not even breathing, and stood watching, living through the movement
to its finish along with her. It seemed
to last for a quiet eternity. His eyes
were on the unselfconscious grace of her arms and the lift of her chin and the
line of her throat against the light from the window. How long had it been since he himself had
done something so simple and sensual, for spiritual reasons? When she drew a long visible breath, he found
himself drawing it with her.
The burden of
the music moved to its close; Elisabeth ended her dance with her hands before
her face, and as the last tone died away, she lifted her head again and let her
hands down to her lap, eyes still fervently closed.
Giles came
to himself. This was not fair, watching
her like this. He needed some way of
letting her know he was there without startling her unduly. Quietly he reached behind him and pushed the
door shut. In the same moment she opened
her eyes and glanced toward the turntable as it began the next movement. At the sound of the door closing she turned
her head, saw him, and let out a small cry.
He put out
a hand. “I’m sorry—I didn’t mean to—”
“You’re
early,” she said, still catching her breath.
“How long have you been standing there?”
“For most
of the last movement. I’m sorry,” he
said again. “I didn’t want to stop you.”
Her cheeks
were pink as she clambered off the table, the unselfconscious grace of her
movements once again camouflaged, and went over to the turntable. “I hope you don’t mind my using your hi-fi
set,” she said, lifting the lid and turning down the volume on the Bach.
“Of course
I don’t,” he said. “Why—?”
She was
pulling out the cover to the Bach LP.
“Well,” she said awkwardly, “it’s clear your albums are well-loved. I mean, if it were me I wouldn’t want just
anyone messing around with my music.”
He
approached her slowly as she pressed the button to lift the needle from the
record, and watched her stop the turntable gently and lift off the disc,
handling it gingerly by the center label and the outer edge. It was possible that she wouldn’t have been
so careful with it had he not been there, but as he observed the way she slid
the record back into its cover and
the inner paper, he decided that it was merely the way she always treated music
equipment, and his presence was only adding a sense of nervousness.
“It’s
fine,” he said.
She darted
a sideways glance at him, still blushing.
“Okay.”
“You like
Bach, then.”
“Yes. That piece in particular.”
“It’s
lovely,” he said quietly.
“Isn’t
it?” She was kneeling to replace the
Bach on the LP shelf and tidying the edges of the records, a bit
unnecessarily. “I’ve always thought it
unfortunate that it should be called ‘Air for the G String’—I’ve known too many
high school boys to be able to let that title sit comfortably in my head.” She stood up, dusting off her hands, and
finally turned to look at him full-face.
“I see you bear no food in hand.
Have the plans changed?”
It was his
turn to feel uncomfortable. “Well, yes,
in a way. I ordered pizza at the magic
shop. It should be arriving—” he turned
his watch around on his wrist— “about now, and so should the others. I just came to get you.”
“Oh! Well, then I better get myself
together.” She hurried to the other side
of the couch and pulled out her shoes and socks. “Shoes—wait—I need to put my hair up—where’s
my ponytail holder? Oh, it must be in
the bathroom....” She stood up, patting
her head distractedly. He cocked his
head, watching her: her hands were actually shaking, a far cry from the
Bach-induced serenity of a scant minute before.
“Are you
all right?”
“What?” She looked up.
“I said are
you all right,” he repeated. “You seem
unduly flustered.”
“I’m fine,”
she said, pushing past him toward the bathroom.
He gestured
after her. “You’ve only put on one
sock.”
She
stopped, let her shoulders fall, and turned back to give him a sigh and a
look. “Oh, very well, I confess…I’m just
a little bit nervous about meeting everyone again.”
Giles
blinked. “But why? I thought you’d gotten somewhat more
comfortable here.”
“With you,” she said. “I’ve been with you practically 24/7 since I
got here. And we’ve talked a lot. Nobody else knows what you know about me, except
for what you’ve told them. It’s bound to
be awkward.”
He took her
point. “Well, it’s certainly true that
they don’t know you as well as I do; I haven’t told them much.”
“Why not?”
He met her
probing look. “Elisabeth: I do keep confidences.”
“You
mistake me,” she said. “I’m not worried
about that. I’m more worried that you
might think you’re under some charge not to share vital information with
them. I mean, if they’re going to be
helping, they ought to know everything you know, shouldn’t they? Or whatever you see as important to the search.” With a little shrug she continued into the
bathroom and came out again a moment later, with her hands up binding her hair.
Giles
leaned against the hall doorway, watching her as she went into the kitchen to
glance over the counters. “You trust me
quite a lot, don’t you?” he said.
“Yes,”
Elisabeth said absently, taking down her ponytail to start over again. Then she heard the words for the first time
and turned to look at him as she re-bound her hair. “Yes,” she repeated.
“When
people do that—” he said, and started over.
“I’ve let a number of people down,” he said. “Badly.”
Elisabeth’s
mouth quirked. “So have I. Drink five Bloody Marys and you won’t
remember.”
He squinted
at her. “What?”
“Sorry,”
she said, threading her hand through the ponytail holder. “British comedian. Told a joke about an Anglican vicar taking
confession.”
“Oh,” he
said, deciding that the little comprehension he’d gleaned was enough.
She
smoothed her hair against her head and felt the ponytail to make sure it was
even. “Yes,” she said, “I trust
you. So what? I see no reason not to—unless, you know, you
were a serial killer in your dark past.”
He
snorted. “No,” he said, putting his back
against the kitchen doorway, hands in pockets.
“Just a foolish and occasionally dangerous young man.”
“And now
you’re a foolish and occasionally dangerous middle-aged man.” She grinned at him.
He pulled
off his glasses and glared at her. “Yes,
thank you.” He drew the other hand from
his pocket and the ubiquitous handkerchief with it.
“With,” she
went on, “the grace of self-knowledge.
Which counts for a lot in my book.”
She was standing before him now, her eyes steady and humorous on his. Then she put her hands on her hips and
glanced around him. “Now where the hell
are my glasses?”
Giles
paused in cleaning his to gesture at the bar window. “Over there, where you left them last night.”
“Oh!” She ducked around him to go and retrieve
them.
He put his
glasses back on and folded away his handkerchief; came back into the livingroom
to watch her lacing her shoe, her foot braced on the edge of the coffee table.
“Five
Bloody Marys, eh?” he said.
She
wrinkled her nose at him. “If you like
vodka. Myself, I think it makes things
taste like medicine.”
He smiled,
and she offered him a little grin in return before bending to put on her other
shoe.
*
In the car, he asked her:
“So you
think I should tell them, then?”
She looked
over at him. “Tell them what?”
“That—that
you know what’s to come.”
She pursed
her lips. “Mmm. Your call; but I kinda think not. I mean, some of them will figure it out on
their own; but some of the more preoccupied ones might freak if it was suddenly
revealed to them.”
“You
needn’t be so circumlocutory. I know
you’re talking about Buffy.”
She
answered him only with a look.
“—And I
agree with you. But, did I hear you say
that some of the others might know?”
“Well, I
think
He glanced
at her. “What makes you think so?”
“Well,
she’s a smart cookie, Rupert. And she—she
can read me. She can’t really help
it. I’ve found myself disclosing things
to her without saying a word—” Elisabeth
sighed heavily.
“Well,” he
said, to comfort himself as much as her, “she’s a steady sort of person; and
I’m sure she’ll be circumspect...you don’t think she’ll tell
“I don’t
know,” Elisabeth confessed. “She may
just keep it to herself to think over.
But really, Rupert, it’s just a matter of time before they all figure it
out. And I want to—I need to be gone
from here before that happens.”
“Which,” he
said, “is why we’re having this meeting.
I thought if we all pooled our information, we’d come to the solution
faster. It’s coming together; we just
need the form of the spell and the knowledge of when to do it....”
Giles made
a left turn, musing to himself, and it was a few blocks before he noticed that
Elisabeth had gone quiet again. He shot
a few glances at her morose profile, casting about in his mind for something to
distract her. “I want you to do
something,” he said abruptly.
She looked
at him, startled, but clearly ready to cooperate. “What?”
“Sing for
me.”
“What?”
“Sing for
me,” he repeated.
“You mean,
a song? With my voice?”
“Well,
yes.” His eyes and voice were mischief
embodied.
“Now?”
“Yes, now. A song.
With your voice. In the car, on
the way. Of your choice,” he added,
forestalling her next question.
“Oh,
for—You really are an ornery
so-and-so.” She glared at him, but the
shape of her mouth was not at all convincing as a threat.
“I’m waiting,”
he said, resting a casual wrist on the top of the steering wheel.
“Bugger,”
she said, throwing herself back in the seat to think. She paused once, tapping her fingers on the
door where her arm rested, to glare at him again. Without taking his eyes from the road, he
smirked. She snorted and looked away
again, thinking.
Finally she
sat up and drew breath. She’s going to be timid about it, he
thought. Well, if I know the song I’ll help her out.
She wasn’t
timid. She opened her mouth and belted,
daring him to dislike it:
“She came in through the bathroom window
Protected by a silver spoon
But now she sucks her thumb and
wanders
By the banks of her own lagoon....”
He was startled enough to put both hands back on the
steering wheel; but managed to recover enough to come in with the harmony on
the chorus, with Elisabeth beating rhythm on the dashboard:
“Didn’t anybody tell her
Didn’t anybody see?
Sunday’s on the phone to Monday,
Tuesday’s on the phone to me....”
“Now you sing the
second verse,” she said.
“Okay,
um—oh, damn, what is the second
verse? Oh—right—got it—
She said she’d always been a dancer
She worked at 15 clubs a day
And though she thought I knew the
answer
Well I knew what I could not say....”
And they finished off the song together, trading off on the
harmonies and hitting the occasional sour note.
By the time they came to the end they were both breathless with
laughter.
“Didn’t
expect you to know any Lennon and McCartney,” Giles said when they had
recovered somewhat.
“Oh, give
me some credit,” she said.
“At the
least I’d’ve thought you’d think that song was written by whoever made a cover
of it last.”
“Are you
kidding? This is my early childhood
we’re talking about here. I know from
Lennon and McCartney. Your problem is,
you’ve been used to talking to young people who were born under the Reagan
administration.”
“And when
were you born, the Carter
administration?” he sniffed.
“No,” she
said, with dignity. “Gerald Ford.”
He tried to
hold it in, but lasted only a second before he was laughing again. She held out a few seconds longer before
sputtering out into laughter herself.
They were
both still laughing hysterically by the time he pulled up in front of the magic
shop. And coming toward them along the
sidewalk were
“Well,
well, well,” Buffy drawled, “if it isn’t Heckle and Jeckle.”
That
sobered them up a bit—but only a bit.
Giles set the parking brake, clearing his throat; Elisabeth ducked her
head and put a quelling fist to her mouth.
Before
either of them could attempt to explain the joke, Xander poked his head out the
front door. “C’mon, the pizza’s getting
cold!”
“I’m sure
it is,” Giles said, recovering his self-possession as he got out of the
car. “Elisabeth, grab that grocery bag
from the back seat, would you?”
*
“You see, I was honorable this time,” Xander was saying as
Giles lifted the lid of one of the pizza boxes and inspected its contents. “I waited till you all got here to eat.”
“Yes,
Brutus,” Elisabeth said absently, hefting a two-liter soda bottle from the
grocery sack, followed by— “Grapes, Rupert?”
“They were
on sale,” Giles said, not quite looking at her.
Elisabeth
shrugged and placed the bundle of grapes next to the pizza boxes, snapping one
off the stem to pop into her mouth as she did so. Then she grabbed the soda bottle. “Do you have enough glasses for all of us?”
“Um, I
think so.” Giles was thumbing quickly
through a notebook at the counter.
“I know
where the paper plates are,”
“Funny,
Xander,” Buffy said with a smile, “you had all this time—why didn’t you set the
table?”
“He had his
hands full being honorable,”
“Hey,”
Xander said.
“I’ll help
you with the soda,”
Elisabeth
met her eye much more steadily than she had done a few days before. “It was kinda touch and go for a while last
night, but we came out of it okay,” she told
“Good,”
“I’m
glad.” Elisabeth glanced briefly over at
Giles, who was alternately lining up a pile of books on a chair and helping
Scooby
meetings, as Elisabeth had suspected, were never precisely called to order,
especially if there was food. In fact,
for the first ten minutes the only one who didn’t devote her whole attention to
the meal was Anya, who kept making as if to dart toward the counter at the
slightest indication that a customer might be about to make a purchase. There were more jokes about Xander’s
honorable forbearance, in light of numerous previous occasions in which most of
the food had mysteriously disappeared before the others could arrive. “I’m a growing boy,” Xander protested. “I think that plea becomes null by the time
you reach twenty,” Giles said, biting into his third slice. Which prompted Xander to observe that he,
Giles, seemed to have no trouble consuming a large share of the food at any
given time.
Elisabeth
kept her head down for the most part, passing the bottle of soda when asked,
and replenishing her little pile of grapes on her paper plate. She ate two slices of pizza and listened to
the easy banter; and by the time she was down to eating the occasional grape
and taking the occasional sip of her soda, the meeting was ready to begin in
earnest.
“What’s the
list of factors?” Buffy asked, wiping her hands with her napkin.
“Umm...vampires. That’s all I’ve got on it. Oh, and the Sunnydale city limits, but that
mostly goes under dimensional contact points.”
“Well, the
list of factors seems to be my list,” Buffy said. “I’ll take care of the vamps while you take
care of the mojo.”
“I
don’t—think it’s that simple,”
“Yes,
unfortunately,” he said, wiping his mouth, “they’re a bit more intimately
related to the situation than we thought.
I received intelligence last night that the vampires are particularly
attracted to the energy generated by the contact points. I also discovered that the current contact
being made should reach its peak in the next few days or so.”
“Or so?”
Giles
rolled his eyes. “My source was not very
specific. About anything, really.”
“Was your
source Spike, by any chance?” Buffy said shrewdly. Giles studiously ignored her. Elisabeth kept her eyes down.
“Well—”
Willow pouched out her lips— “the new moon is in two days. That should give us a good index point if we
don’t find out anything more, um, specific.”
“Otherwise,”
Xander said, “we’d have to follow a bunch of vamps around to find out where the
focus is.”
There was a
small silence. “We may have to do that
anyway,” Giles said.
Buffy
heaved a sigh and raised her eyes. “Do
we have to talk to them? I don’t have
the patience right now to deal with smart-aleck vamps.”
“Yes,
dealing with the smart-aleck can be a sore trial,” Giles said, lifting his mug
of soda for a sip. Buffy gave him a
look. Then transferred the look to
Elisabeth, who swallowed her smile post-haste.
“Does that
mean we’re all going out on patrol?” Anya asked Buffy.
Buffy
blinked. “No. No, I don’t want to have to take everyone out
just yet. I’m handling the vamps
okay...unless you think the focus is going to happen tonight?” She looked to
“No, I
don’t think so,”
“What do we
do in the meantime?” Xander asked.
“I’ll
patrol tonight,” Buffy said. “Xander,
you and Anya keep reading.” They
nodded. “
Giles shook
his head.
Buffy
shrugged. “I guess otherwise we’ll just
be marking time until we get a break.”
“In the
meantime,”
Elisabeth
suddenly found the eyes of all the gang on her, and the heat rose in her
face. “Of course,” she said.
Anya got
up. “I’ll take everybody’s plates,” she said.
“This part is going to be boring.”
“Can you
tell me a little bit about your dimension?”
“Well....”
Elisabeth paused, choosing her thoughts carefully. She had to tread lightly to avoid betraying
her knowledge. Under the surface of her
mind she cursed Giles briefly for getting her into this.
As if
sensing her thoughts, Giles got up and went to the counter, leaving Xander,
Buffy,
“I mean—”
Elisabeth began awkwardly— “our dimensions are so much alike otherwise, it
looks like. I haven’t discovered any
fundamental differences in things like American history. All that seems different is that the
population of individuals is—well, there are some people here that aren’t
there, and some there that aren’t here.
On the other hand, there’s more war in my dimension than here. Most of the wars here appear to be
supernatural. In my dimension, there’s
just a bunch of human wankers messing things up.”
Giles
coughed into his handkerchief as he turned over a leaf in his inventory book.
“We have no
lack of human wankers here,”
“I didn’t
think so,” Elisabeth replied, returning the smile.
“What’s a
wanker?” Xander said.
“It’s
another one of those British insults,”
“She’s been
hanging out with Giles all week,” Buffy said. “What else do you expect?”
“Yes, but
what is it?”
Everyone in
the room gave Xander a look.
“A
jerkwad,” Elisabeth said shortly. “Or in
that neighborhood.” She waved a hand
temporizingly.
“Ah,”
Xander said. “I’ll have to remember that
one.”
“Hmm.”
“We can’t
see the things that are closest to us,” Elisabeth agreed.
“Of course,
we don’t know that for sure,”
At this
point Anya click-clacked back into the front room. “Is the boring part over yet?”
Elisabeth
smiled at her. “Yeah, I think so. Unless there’re any more questions for me, I
think we’re all just fixing to hit the books.”
“‘Fixing
to’?” Xander said quizzically. “Where
are you from, the South?”
Elisabeth
heard Giles give one of his longsuffering sighs, behind her at the
counter. “Xander, you really need to
work on your accents and dialects.
Elisabeth is not from the South.
She’s from the
At this,
Elisabeth lifted her head and sat calmly straight for a moment. Then, moving deliberately, she reached for
one of the large grapes left on the paper plate, twisted around in her chair,
and flung it at him, hard. He had his
back to her, comparing two vials of herbs in spirits; her missile went wide to
his left as he dodged right without missing a beat. The grape made a hollow squished thump as it
hit the crystal-cabinet door, and fell to the floor, rocking gently.
Giles
replaced one of the vials in its stand and turned slowly round to look at her,
adjusting his glasses on his nose.
Elisabeth hung her arm over the back of her chair and met his look levelly. “So,” she said, “how did you know to dodge
right?”
“Well,” he
said, his tone equally serious, “you’re right-handed; if you were going to
throw something at me you’d probably have to twist to give your right arm
enough freedom, and you’d be throwing across your body, so the missile would
likely go wide left. Which, as you see,
it did. Q.E.D.”
“Here
endeth the lesson,” Elisabeth said gravely, and turned around in her seat
again, eyebrows high over her glasses.
As she did so she saw that all the Scoobies around the table were
staring at her.
Buffy
flushed too. She picked up a spork from
the motley pile of plastic silverware on the table and began to score her napkin
with it. “If we’re all done with this
exhibition, maybe we can make some plans.”
She paused in her maceration of the napkin to glare up at Giles. “Are we going to follow vamps tomorrow
night?”
“If we
don’t make a breakthrough sooner than that,” Giles said, keeping his
equanimity, “I expect we will.”
“And are we
bringing her?” Buffy pointed at
Elisabeth with the spork.
Giles
blinked. “I’m not sure. She hasn’t had any training.”
“Unless you
can kill vampires with an etched microspatula,” Elisabeth said.
Giles
snorted into a giggle.
“And
sacrificed paste,” Anya added brightly, carrying over a pile of books to be
reshelved.
“Yes,”
Elisabeth said giddily, “we could paste his lips shut so he couldn’t bite
anyone, then stab him with the bone folder—oh, wait, that’s not made of wood.”
“A bone
folder?” Xander said faintly. “That
sounds pretty darn painful. Kill him;
don’t make him suffer.”
“I wish I’d
known about bone folders when I was a vengeance demon,” Anya said.
“Don’t
think Giles’d take kindly to that kind of use of his preservation tools,”
Buffy’s
napkin was in shreds. “Nobody has
answered my question yet,” she said, with asperity.
“I wouldn’t
worry about it, Buffy,” Giles said. “I
can give Elisabeth a little training tomorrow, and if I think she sets up well,
we can take her along.”
“Great,”
Buffy said, scoring her shredded napkin harder.
“And no,”
Giles said, his eyes half-veiled, “you can’t use my bone folder to fight evil.”
“Darn it
all,” Elisabeth said, grinning at him.
“And here I was looking forward to the training and everything.”
The head of
the spork snapped under the pressure and flew into a shelf full of jingling
trinkets. Buffy dropped the handle,
glaring at them with her mouth a small hard line.
“Buffy,”
Xander said, “you just killed an innocent spork.”
Buffy
ignored him.
Giles
cleared his throat. “Well, I think that
takes care of most of the meeting.
Elisabeth—”
“I’d like
to speak with you,” Buffy said quietly to him.
“Alone.”
“Yes, of
course.” Giles wasn’t looking directly
at her. “Elisabeth, there’s nothing in
the kitchen for us to eat tonight. I
wonder if you’d be willing to shop for our supper.”
“Of
course,” Elisabeth said with alacrity.
The waves of danger coming at her from Buffy’s direction were not
getting any fainter.
Giles
pulled out his wallet and thumbed through the bills. “I think this should do it,” he said, handing
her a fifty. “Get whatever you’d
like. Xander, you drove here, didn’t
you?”
“Yeah,”
Xander said, still looking at the decapitated spork and the ravaged
napkin. “I’ll take her.”
“Excellent. Here,” he said, working his housekey off the
ring, “Elisabeth, here’s the house key.
I’ll meet you back home when I’ve closed up here later this afternoon.”
“Okay.”
Elisabeth pocketed the key and the fifty, then looked at Xander. “I’m ready if you are,” she said.
“Yeah,”
Xander said, with a final glance at Buffy, who had folded her arms and was
sitting looking stonily at them. “Let’s
go.”
Pulling on
his jacket, Xander ushered Elisabeth out the door before him; and shut it
behind them on the sound of the tinkling bell.
*