(no subject)
A Study In Moonlight: Another First Meeting (This takes place the day after Viviane and Marcella go to the concert.)
It was an early Saturday afternoon, and I was feeling pretty darn good about the universe and my place in it. The sun was shining, and I'd put on my comfortable shoes and hiked downtown to the Bellehaven Farmer's Market with a light step and a song in my heart. (Well, technically, a Schubert earworm.)
I mostly went to the market to browse and get some fresh air, since my apartment had a decent supply of groceries laid in at the moment. The buskers this week were an interesting mix. The percussionist-of-ambiguous-gender playing on an improvised drum kit that included an empty water cooler jug and a metal trashcan lid was new. I wondered where they acquired their instruments, since the city of Bellehaven uses plastic garbage cans for the most part. I mentally nicknamed the drummer “Angel Dumott Schunard” and left them a few quarters in appreciation of their avant-jazz-taiko creativity. I recognized the bearded young Utilikilted man playing the Irish bagpipes, but his partner with the bodhran from my last market day was nowhere to be seen. I briefly wondered if Viviane would have been enjoying herself under these circumstances. I got the impression that she wasn't a fan of crowds, but at this stage of our friendship, I didn't know at what point she drew the line between “lively and bustling” and “oh Lord, make it go away.”
The market always attracted a broad range of people, and I wondered what Viviane would make of my fellow attendees. Everyone was milling around too much for proper scrutiny, but I tried to get in a little observation and inference when someone caught my eye. The woman with the multicolored dreads went hiking recently - somewhere with reddish clay soil, so probably out of town. The pasty gentleman with the wrist brace: unmarried, serious coffee drinker, computer worker? It was all fairly basic superficial details, and I had no means of checking my own accuracy, but I was enjoying myself.
My only purchase wound up being a cup of hot spiced cider from a local orchardist. There was plenty of interesting merchandise around, but nothing that screamed “buy me now,” which was all to the good as far as my budget was concerned. The winter gift-giving holidays were more than two months away, and in Viviane's case, I needed to learn more about her tastes before I bought her any Christmas presents.
Since I was downtown anyway, I decided I might as well run a few errands. Hit the public library and lay in a new stash of cheesy fantasy paperbacks - the university library was great for nonfiction on all kinds of odd subjects, but not so big on the light reading with no pretensions to being “literature.” Now, I like my nineteenth century melodrama as much as the next girl, but sometimes one just wants to read about superpowered teenage girls with shiny magical nonhumanoid sidekicks. I'd left the market and had gone about two blocks toward the library when my cell phone beeped. A text. From someone with a Seattle area code, who wasn't on my contacts list. Odd.
It read: What is your connection with Viviane Malifaux? Double odd. Jealous significant other? Viviane had said she was single, and I had no reason to doubt her. Jealous ex? Completely platonic nosiness?
I replied: Excuse me but who are you? and headed off briskly toward the library. I didn't know whether to hope they dropped it, or hope they'd reply and give me some more information. I was curious about what on earth was going on, but this was kind of creepy.
Another text. Let's just call me an interested party, Ms. Argento. Believe that I have both Ms. Malifaux's and your own best interests at heart.
I replied: Appreciate your concern but I don't give out personal info to strangers. Sorry! This was getting more enigmatic by the minute. At least now I was fairly sure it wasn't romantic jealousy at work. A lover feeling betrayed would have been more overtly hostile or indignant. I kept heading toward the library and wondered if I'd ever get to the bottom of this.
I was nearly at the library doors when I heard a phone ringing. It wasn't my ringtone, and when I looked around, I realized that there was nobody nearby whose cell phone might be ringing. It was coming from the pay phone just outside the library front doors.
What. The. Hell. What the Hell, Heaven, Purgatory, and Limbo! I had no idea what exactly was happening, or how, but I sincerely doubted this is a coincidence.
I picked up the phone. “Hello?” I automatically tried to repress the irritation in my voice, and immediately wondered why I bothered.
“Hello, Ms. Argento,” said the voice at the other end. It was an adult woman - a bit deeper than my own voice, but higher than Viviane's. Maybe a dramatic mezzo or light alto. The accent was mostly West Coast American like my own, but with something about it that registered as “posh” or “cultivated.” No sign of a speech impediment or respiratory issues. “I hope I have not unduly inconvenienced you,” she continued.
“Inconvenience isn't really the word I'd use,” I said. “If I may be blunt for a minute - who are you and what do you want?”
“All in good time, Ms. Argento,” she said. “Clearly, we both have questions we want answered, and electronic communications has proven unsatisfactory for both of us. A face-to-face exchange of information has the potential to be much more informative.”
“Excuse me?!”
“In five minutes, a black 1972 Buick Riviera with tinted windows will park in the empty non-handicapped parking spot nearest to the library's back doors. It will take you to the rendezvous point. Our encounter should be over in half an hour or less.”
“Excuse me?! I know nothing about you, except that you have slightly creepy quasi-omniscience and odd notions of etiquette, and you expect me to get into a car under your control and meet you in an unspecified location, by myself? Not in the cards, madam. No offense.”
“Really, Ms. Argento. Your paranoia and stubbornness are not helping either of us get what we want. Be reasonable.”
“I believe that a certain basic concern for my personal safety is reasonable, ma'am, but I'm willing to agree to disagree on this. Look: you clearly know how to get in contact with me, so I'm going to assume that, if you cared to, you could easily use your magic creeper powers to find out enough about me to create a brief and reasonably accurate biographic sketch. I'm not, in principle, necessarily completely unwilling to talk to you. I'm not keeping any secrets here. I'm just not comfortable talking about my personal life to a disembodied voice I have no context for. I'm not asking for your Social Security number and tax records, here. It's just rather disconcerting being asked for personal information out of the blue without being properly introduced.”
“Is it, now.” My mysterious contact's tone of voice was perfectly deadpan, but I fancied I heard a hint of what would be an exasperated sigh in someone less impeccably well-bred.
“It is. At least to me, and I don't believe I'm being wildly out of step with conventional etiquette on that front. Not to mention that business about asking people who don't know you to get into strange cars and be whisked off to locations unknown is considered just a bit skeevy in certain circles, no offense.”
“Very well,” the mystery lady said, perhaps a bit more coldly than before. Good heavens, was she sulking? “Goodbye.”
“Goodbye, ma'am,” I said cheerfully, and hing up. I didn't know whether to hope that she'd grown sick of this whole business and would leave me alone, or that she'd make contact again and I'd actually get some answers. The whole business had been just a bit disturbing, but it was a distinctive enough brand of creepiness that I'd gotten curious. At least this would be something interesting to tell Viviane about the next time I saw her.
I looked over all the posters and fliers near the library entrance, looking for any upcoming events that might be interesting. The Chinese chamber orchestra sounded like it had potential. I wondered if Viviane liked world music. I made my way to the New Books display, the adult graphic novels, and and science fiction and fantasy paperbacks half expecting to be accosted by a messenger pigeon or something equally outre, but I didn't even get a beep from my phone. There was a low table surrounded by empty chairs near the paperback display, and I sat down with my haul to do a little light reading. I was about a third of the way into “Three Septembers and a January” when I heard a soft cough, quite close by. It wasn't a sickly cough, or a throat-clearing cough, it was pretty clearly an “ahem” cough. I looked up from my Sandman anthology, and noticed that a white woman in a dark suit had noiselessly settled into the chair across from me, and appeared to be watching me intently. “Hello?” I said softly. “You wanted to talk to me?”
“Yes,” the woman said. She was half whispering, but I was fairly sure it was the same voice. My mystery contact looked about thirty, with very fair, lightly freckled skin, pale intense eyes, and coppery blonde hair pulled back into what might have been the tightest of all possible French twists. She was a little taller than me, a bit slimmer, and not as muscular, but closer to my own build than Viviane's supermodel-gangliness. Her facial structure reminded me of Tilda Swinton, although this woman was a little squarer in the jaw and has a slightly more aquiline nose. She was wearing a black tailored skirt suit made from some quietly expensive medium-weight natural fabric - I wasn't certain, but possibly a wool-silk blend - a silk blouse, unscuffed pointy-toed medium heel pumps, unostentatious pearl and white gold jewelry that probably cost more than a quarter's tuition, and little rectangular wire-rimmed glasses. Everything fit perfectly. She smelled cool, icy-green, and slick, like lily of the valley soap, with a bit of the faded maroon rumpled velvet of cafe latte, the crumbly pastel sharp edges of mint gum, and a faded golden brown slubby-silk perfume I didn't recognize. Whatever she was wearing, it couldn't have been cheap, since I was fairly sure I smelled real sandalwood. What would someone like this have want with someone like me?
“Well, what is it you wanted to talk about?” I asked. Technically, she'd already told me, but I wanted some details this time.
“I would like to know what your relationship is with Viviane Malifaux,” she said.
“We're friends? We've spent less five hours total in each others company, but I'd say we have a good rapport. You know, we talk, go out to eat together, go to concerts, solve minor mysteries... you know, friend things.”
“Ah. I see. And that is all?”
“Well, I currently have a roommate, and moving house in the middle of the quarter is kind of a pain in any case, so we're not planning on moving in together at present, if that's what you're asking. And Viviane said that dating wasn't her area, so that's not an issue.” Mystery woman raised an eyebrow at this, but didn't say anything. “So, yeah, we got on very well so far, and I really hope we don't fall out of touch or get sick of each other.”
“Ms. Argento,” my mysterious contact said, “what is your relationship with drugs? Be honest.” Okay, I hadn't been expecting that.
“I'm a nonsmoker,” I told her. “Which you could probably smell on my clothes, if you were looking for it. Light drinker, but I don't drink much at all when left to my own devices because decent stuff is kind of expensive and rotgut isn't worth the bother. No experience with hard drugs, and no desire for such.” I'd been speaking softly already, but I dropped my volume a bit more for the next part. “Tried half a pot brownie once, found the experience interesting in its way but not something I'd go to any trouble to repeat. Plus, it wasn't a very good brownie. Someone needed baking lessons.”
“Indeed,” she said.
“Now, I've answered your questions,” I told her. “Care to tell me a little about yourself?”
“I am someone who has a legitimate interest in looking after Ms. Malifaux's interests,” she said.
“Right,” I said. “Very informative. Mind if I guess? You're not a former lover - little out of her age range, plus you aren't acting like one. A friend would have just asked Viviane. You look a bit like her, and busybodying makes more sense if you're related, although I still don't know why you couldn't just ask Viviane. Too young to be her mother, unless plastic surgery nowadays is more advanced than I'd realized. Okay, sorry, that sounded bad. More likely a significantly older sister or stepsister, or a young aunt. Maybe a cousin. Wow, that Gilbert and Sullivan reference was completely unintentional.”
Mystery woman closed her eyes briefly, and looks like she really wanted to sigh, or rub her forehead, or do something that conveyed emotion. “She must be rubbing off on you. Very well. If you must know, I am her older sister.”
“And you wanted to make sure baby sis wasn't being debauched by a crazed dope fiend. Okay, that's not inherently unreasonable. What's your name, by the way?”
“Undine Malifaux.”
“Like the water spirits? Wow, Undine and Viviane, were your parents hard core pre-Raphaelite fans or something?”
“I really cannot say.”
“All right, then,” I said. “I hope I've set your mind at ease. Now, if you don't have any more urgent matters to discuss, I'd like to get on with my day. It's been interesting meeting you.”
“Goodbye, Ms. Argento,” Undine whispered crisply, which is a combination I'd never encountered before that day. I hoped I hadn't inadvertently terribly insulted her, but the matter didn't worry me too much. She wasn't really in a position to be an Etiquette Fascista.
“Goodbye, Ms. Malifaux Major!” I sent her off with a cheery little wave, which I considered rather magnanimous of myself, under the circumstances. Undine stood up, placed a folded piece of stationery on the table, nodded briskly to me, and walked off. In the time it took for me to grab the note and put it in my jacket pocket, she disappeared. I wondered if she'd ducked into the stacks, or if she had some odd teleportation power that only activated when nobody was looking directly at her.
The note was handwritten, in ink, on ivory monogrammed paper. It read:
Dear Ms. Argento:
Thank you for your cooperation. I hope that we have established a sufficient level of mutual trust to expedite our future interactions. My contact information is enclosed for future reference.
Tell Viviane nothing.
I shook my head. You don't presume much, do you? If one of my quasi-omniscient creeper relatives happened to be in town and was stalking my friends, I'd have wanted to know about it. I made a little note to tell Viviane about this on the back of the paper, and use the rest of the space to copy down the date and time of the Chinese concert.
It was an early Saturday afternoon, and I was feeling pretty darn good about the universe and my place in it. The sun was shining, and I'd put on my comfortable shoes and hiked downtown to the Bellehaven Farmer's Market with a light step and a song in my heart. (Well, technically, a Schubert earworm.)
I mostly went to the market to browse and get some fresh air, since my apartment had a decent supply of groceries laid in at the moment. The buskers this week were an interesting mix. The percussionist-of-ambiguous-gender playing on an improvised drum kit that included an empty water cooler jug and a metal trashcan lid was new. I wondered where they acquired their instruments, since the city of Bellehaven uses plastic garbage cans for the most part. I mentally nicknamed the drummer “Angel Dumott Schunard” and left them a few quarters in appreciation of their avant-jazz-taiko creativity. I recognized the bearded young Utilikilted man playing the Irish bagpipes, but his partner with the bodhran from my last market day was nowhere to be seen. I briefly wondered if Viviane would have been enjoying herself under these circumstances. I got the impression that she wasn't a fan of crowds, but at this stage of our friendship, I didn't know at what point she drew the line between “lively and bustling” and “oh Lord, make it go away.”
The market always attracted a broad range of people, and I wondered what Viviane would make of my fellow attendees. Everyone was milling around too much for proper scrutiny, but I tried to get in a little observation and inference when someone caught my eye. The woman with the multicolored dreads went hiking recently - somewhere with reddish clay soil, so probably out of town. The pasty gentleman with the wrist brace: unmarried, serious coffee drinker, computer worker? It was all fairly basic superficial details, and I had no means of checking my own accuracy, but I was enjoying myself.
My only purchase wound up being a cup of hot spiced cider from a local orchardist. There was plenty of interesting merchandise around, but nothing that screamed “buy me now,” which was all to the good as far as my budget was concerned. The winter gift-giving holidays were more than two months away, and in Viviane's case, I needed to learn more about her tastes before I bought her any Christmas presents.
Since I was downtown anyway, I decided I might as well run a few errands. Hit the public library and lay in a new stash of cheesy fantasy paperbacks - the university library was great for nonfiction on all kinds of odd subjects, but not so big on the light reading with no pretensions to being “literature.” Now, I like my nineteenth century melodrama as much as the next girl, but sometimes one just wants to read about superpowered teenage girls with shiny magical nonhumanoid sidekicks. I'd left the market and had gone about two blocks toward the library when my cell phone beeped. A text. From someone with a Seattle area code, who wasn't on my contacts list. Odd.
It read: What is your connection with Viviane Malifaux? Double odd. Jealous significant other? Viviane had said she was single, and I had no reason to doubt her. Jealous ex? Completely platonic nosiness?
I replied: Excuse me but who are you? and headed off briskly toward the library. I didn't know whether to hope they dropped it, or hope they'd reply and give me some more information. I was curious about what on earth was going on, but this was kind of creepy.
Another text. Let's just call me an interested party, Ms. Argento. Believe that I have both Ms. Malifaux's and your own best interests at heart.
I replied: Appreciate your concern but I don't give out personal info to strangers. Sorry! This was getting more enigmatic by the minute. At least now I was fairly sure it wasn't romantic jealousy at work. A lover feeling betrayed would have been more overtly hostile or indignant. I kept heading toward the library and wondered if I'd ever get to the bottom of this.
I was nearly at the library doors when I heard a phone ringing. It wasn't my ringtone, and when I looked around, I realized that there was nobody nearby whose cell phone might be ringing. It was coming from the pay phone just outside the library front doors.
What. The. Hell. What the Hell, Heaven, Purgatory, and Limbo! I had no idea what exactly was happening, or how, but I sincerely doubted this is a coincidence.
I picked up the phone. “Hello?” I automatically tried to repress the irritation in my voice, and immediately wondered why I bothered.
“Hello, Ms. Argento,” said the voice at the other end. It was an adult woman - a bit deeper than my own voice, but higher than Viviane's. Maybe a dramatic mezzo or light alto. The accent was mostly West Coast American like my own, but with something about it that registered as “posh” or “cultivated.” No sign of a speech impediment or respiratory issues. “I hope I have not unduly inconvenienced you,” she continued.
“Inconvenience isn't really the word I'd use,” I said. “If I may be blunt for a minute - who are you and what do you want?”
“All in good time, Ms. Argento,” she said. “Clearly, we both have questions we want answered, and electronic communications has proven unsatisfactory for both of us. A face-to-face exchange of information has the potential to be much more informative.”
“Excuse me?!”
“In five minutes, a black 1972 Buick Riviera with tinted windows will park in the empty non-handicapped parking spot nearest to the library's back doors. It will take you to the rendezvous point. Our encounter should be over in half an hour or less.”
“Excuse me?! I know nothing about you, except that you have slightly creepy quasi-omniscience and odd notions of etiquette, and you expect me to get into a car under your control and meet you in an unspecified location, by myself? Not in the cards, madam. No offense.”
“Really, Ms. Argento. Your paranoia and stubbornness are not helping either of us get what we want. Be reasonable.”
“I believe that a certain basic concern for my personal safety is reasonable, ma'am, but I'm willing to agree to disagree on this. Look: you clearly know how to get in contact with me, so I'm going to assume that, if you cared to, you could easily use your magic creeper powers to find out enough about me to create a brief and reasonably accurate biographic sketch. I'm not, in principle, necessarily completely unwilling to talk to you. I'm not keeping any secrets here. I'm just not comfortable talking about my personal life to a disembodied voice I have no context for. I'm not asking for your Social Security number and tax records, here. It's just rather disconcerting being asked for personal information out of the blue without being properly introduced.”
“Is it, now.” My mysterious contact's tone of voice was perfectly deadpan, but I fancied I heard a hint of what would be an exasperated sigh in someone less impeccably well-bred.
“It is. At least to me, and I don't believe I'm being wildly out of step with conventional etiquette on that front. Not to mention that business about asking people who don't know you to get into strange cars and be whisked off to locations unknown is considered just a bit skeevy in certain circles, no offense.”
“Very well,” the mystery lady said, perhaps a bit more coldly than before. Good heavens, was she sulking? “Goodbye.”
“Goodbye, ma'am,” I said cheerfully, and hing up. I didn't know whether to hope that she'd grown sick of this whole business and would leave me alone, or that she'd make contact again and I'd actually get some answers. The whole business had been just a bit disturbing, but it was a distinctive enough brand of creepiness that I'd gotten curious. At least this would be something interesting to tell Viviane about the next time I saw her.
I looked over all the posters and fliers near the library entrance, looking for any upcoming events that might be interesting. The Chinese chamber orchestra sounded like it had potential. I wondered if Viviane liked world music. I made my way to the New Books display, the adult graphic novels, and and science fiction and fantasy paperbacks half expecting to be accosted by a messenger pigeon or something equally outre, but I didn't even get a beep from my phone. There was a low table surrounded by empty chairs near the paperback display, and I sat down with my haul to do a little light reading. I was about a third of the way into “Three Septembers and a January” when I heard a soft cough, quite close by. It wasn't a sickly cough, or a throat-clearing cough, it was pretty clearly an “ahem” cough. I looked up from my Sandman anthology, and noticed that a white woman in a dark suit had noiselessly settled into the chair across from me, and appeared to be watching me intently. “Hello?” I said softly. “You wanted to talk to me?”
“Yes,” the woman said. She was half whispering, but I was fairly sure it was the same voice. My mystery contact looked about thirty, with very fair, lightly freckled skin, pale intense eyes, and coppery blonde hair pulled back into what might have been the tightest of all possible French twists. She was a little taller than me, a bit slimmer, and not as muscular, but closer to my own build than Viviane's supermodel-gangliness. Her facial structure reminded me of Tilda Swinton, although this woman was a little squarer in the jaw and has a slightly more aquiline nose. She was wearing a black tailored skirt suit made from some quietly expensive medium-weight natural fabric - I wasn't certain, but possibly a wool-silk blend - a silk blouse, unscuffed pointy-toed medium heel pumps, unostentatious pearl and white gold jewelry that probably cost more than a quarter's tuition, and little rectangular wire-rimmed glasses. Everything fit perfectly. She smelled cool, icy-green, and slick, like lily of the valley soap, with a bit of the faded maroon rumpled velvet of cafe latte, the crumbly pastel sharp edges of mint gum, and a faded golden brown slubby-silk perfume I didn't recognize. Whatever she was wearing, it couldn't have been cheap, since I was fairly sure I smelled real sandalwood. What would someone like this have want with someone like me?
“Well, what is it you wanted to talk about?” I asked. Technically, she'd already told me, but I wanted some details this time.
“I would like to know what your relationship is with Viviane Malifaux,” she said.
“We're friends? We've spent less five hours total in each others company, but I'd say we have a good rapport. You know, we talk, go out to eat together, go to concerts, solve minor mysteries... you know, friend things.”
“Ah. I see. And that is all?”
“Well, I currently have a roommate, and moving house in the middle of the quarter is kind of a pain in any case, so we're not planning on moving in together at present, if that's what you're asking. And Viviane said that dating wasn't her area, so that's not an issue.” Mystery woman raised an eyebrow at this, but didn't say anything. “So, yeah, we got on very well so far, and I really hope we don't fall out of touch or get sick of each other.”
“Ms. Argento,” my mysterious contact said, “what is your relationship with drugs? Be honest.” Okay, I hadn't been expecting that.
“I'm a nonsmoker,” I told her. “Which you could probably smell on my clothes, if you were looking for it. Light drinker, but I don't drink much at all when left to my own devices because decent stuff is kind of expensive and rotgut isn't worth the bother. No experience with hard drugs, and no desire for such.” I'd been speaking softly already, but I dropped my volume a bit more for the next part. “Tried half a pot brownie once, found the experience interesting in its way but not something I'd go to any trouble to repeat. Plus, it wasn't a very good brownie. Someone needed baking lessons.”
“Indeed,” she said.
“Now, I've answered your questions,” I told her. “Care to tell me a little about yourself?”
“I am someone who has a legitimate interest in looking after Ms. Malifaux's interests,” she said.
“Right,” I said. “Very informative. Mind if I guess? You're not a former lover - little out of her age range, plus you aren't acting like one. A friend would have just asked Viviane. You look a bit like her, and busybodying makes more sense if you're related, although I still don't know why you couldn't just ask Viviane. Too young to be her mother, unless plastic surgery nowadays is more advanced than I'd realized. Okay, sorry, that sounded bad. More likely a significantly older sister or stepsister, or a young aunt. Maybe a cousin. Wow, that Gilbert and Sullivan reference was completely unintentional.”
Mystery woman closed her eyes briefly, and looks like she really wanted to sigh, or rub her forehead, or do something that conveyed emotion. “She must be rubbing off on you. Very well. If you must know, I am her older sister.”
“And you wanted to make sure baby sis wasn't being debauched by a crazed dope fiend. Okay, that's not inherently unreasonable. What's your name, by the way?”
“Undine Malifaux.”
“Like the water spirits? Wow, Undine and Viviane, were your parents hard core pre-Raphaelite fans or something?”
“I really cannot say.”
“All right, then,” I said. “I hope I've set your mind at ease. Now, if you don't have any more urgent matters to discuss, I'd like to get on with my day. It's been interesting meeting you.”
“Goodbye, Ms. Argento,” Undine whispered crisply, which is a combination I'd never encountered before that day. I hoped I hadn't inadvertently terribly insulted her, but the matter didn't worry me too much. She wasn't really in a position to be an Etiquette Fascista.
“Goodbye, Ms. Malifaux Major!” I sent her off with a cheery little wave, which I considered rather magnanimous of myself, under the circumstances. Undine stood up, placed a folded piece of stationery on the table, nodded briskly to me, and walked off. In the time it took for me to grab the note and put it in my jacket pocket, she disappeared. I wondered if she'd ducked into the stacks, or if she had some odd teleportation power that only activated when nobody was looking directly at her.
The note was handwritten, in ink, on ivory monogrammed paper. It read:
Dear Ms. Argento:
Thank you for your cooperation. I hope that we have established a sufficient level of mutual trust to expedite our future interactions. My contact information is enclosed for future reference.
Tell Viviane nothing.
I shook my head. You don't presume much, do you? If one of my quasi-omniscient creeper relatives happened to be in town and was stalking my friends, I'd have wanted to know about it. I made a little note to tell Viviane about this on the back of the paper, and use the rest of the space to copy down the date and time of the Chinese concert.