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“Huh.”
“Hello Peter.”
The man sitting straight-backed at the desk, wearing a black three-piece suit that looked way too warm to be worn inside the office at this time of year was not James Wright. Of that much, Peter was sure. He wasn’t great with faces, curtesy of the fog wiping unnecessary details about other people like their looks, voice and name from his memory, as well as minus three dioptres working against him. What he did know was that James Wright was an old man. The man who had greeted him by first name as soon as he entered the office of the head of the Magnus Institute neither looked nor sounded like an old man. He sounded amused. The smile tugging the corners of his lips upwards was decidedly not meant for Peter though, given that he had yet to look up from the papers lying in front of him.
“You’re new.”
The man hummed non-committedly, signing off the last of the documents before him with a well-practised finality. “In a way. Please”, he waved his hand in the direction of the chair on the opposite side of his desk, “Take a seat.”
Peter glanced at the offered chair for a second before deciding to ignore the request and scanned the room instead, looking for anything different about the place that could potentially clear up why there was a stranger in James Wright’s seat.
The odd combination of labelled ring binders filled with legal documents and spreadsheets and the few ancient-looking artefacts displayed on the ceiling-high shelfs imbedded into the wall had remained unchanged. Same as the sepia-coloured globe on its dark-wooded stand and the small porcelain figurines that looked old enough to have belonged to the founder of the place. The only noticeable difference were the art pieces hanging on the wall. It was the same mixture of portraits of people who probably died over a hundred years ago and landscapes that were too realistic and grey to be interesting. But what used to be thick, golden frames with intricate shapes that in Peter’s eyes have always looked a bit too clunky had now been replaced by simpler, wooden casings that matched the desk and shelfs in their moderate, sturdy simplicity.
Other than that, nothing had changed. It was still the same stuffy office that in Peter’s humble opinion looked like someone had gotten the task of going to every charity shop in London and buying anything that seemed even remotely old. An opinion James had called him uneducated and a sheltered child for. Then again, Peter had never stepped foot into a charity shop, so he might have been right on that account.
As new frames on paintings weren’t exactly the kind of eye-opening clue he was looking for and he didn’t really care enough to bother figuring out what was going on, Peter shrugged off his confusion and surrendered himself to this weird situation he has found himself in. He was familiar enough with this place and its owner to be certain that whatever he needed to know would be explained to him in excruciatingly meticulous detail with an over-proportionate amount of self-satisfaction, either way. Be it James himself to break the news or whoever this ‘Not-James’ person was.
He took a seat in one of the two armchairs at the corner of the room. At least, that chair provided him with a marginally more bearable amount of personal space than sitting directly in front of the man. He might as well be more comfortable when being inevitably talked down to like a child.
“Right.” The man sighed but seemed unperturbed by Peter’s refusal. Seemingly finished with his work, he placed one of the freshly signed documents inside an envelope, putting it to the side. The rest he picked up, standing up to store them in their respective binders on the shelf before turning towards the dark-wooded cabinet which Peter knew held the fine Glencairn glasses and the ten-year-old Laphroaig whiskey. A gift Peter had given James a few years back purely for the purpose of being able to drink it whenever he was forced to pay the stronghold of the Great Voyeur a visit.
“I’m sure you’re wondering why I am here instead of James Wright.”
A bit. Peter has always been a bit more curious than he was supposed to be. It was something of a guilty pleasure of his.
He watched the man set down the glasses on the small coffee table next to him, smiling mildly as he shook his head. “I’m just here for a request for information. Whether that information comes from James or you or some filing clerk down in the archives I really don’t care.”
The man hummed again, filling each glass with two-finger-width worth of the honey-coloured liquid. “But the whiskey up here is better.”
“Marginally.”
The man pushed Peter’s glass in his direction and took his own back towards his desk, leaning against it far more casually than one would expect from someone new to the office. There was an air of superiority to his relaxed posture, and his smile was a touch too genuine to be cautious. Like he was honestly pleased to see Peter.
Blatant overconfidence seemed to be a requirement for an avatar of Beholding given that James Wright displayed that very same flaw. James, at least, had the excuse of being older and experienced. The new one was young. Very young. Judging by the distinct lack of wrinkles and the full head of dark hair, he probably hadn’t even reached his thirties yet.
Peter took his drink, swirling it around idly as he considered just leaving. He was sure he would learn of James’ whereabouts at one point or another. Did he really want to humour this strange new person? Whoever this man was-
“Elias Bouchard”, came the answer to a question he hadn’t asked, “You can just call me Elias.”
“Is that name supposed to mean anything to me?”
“Of course not, Peter”, he smiled into the rim of his glass, “A name is just a name.”
He turned just enough for Peter to be able to see the name plate behind him, perfectly shiny and new. Either way, he ran a finger over it as if wiping away a smudge of dirt that undoubtedly wasn’t there.
“James Wright’s name is gone and now it’s Elias Bouchard. New beginnings and all. Quite exciting if you ask me. But the reintroductions get tedious after a while.”
Huh. “So, James is- “
“Checked out. Went to the farm upstairs. Has gone for a Burton. Whatever you want to call it”, Elias chimed in, reporting James Wright’s death like one would that of a hated dog that had finally bitten the dust.
Peter took a drink, trying to wrap his head around whatever that was supposed to mean as the malty taste touched his tongue. The whiskey had lost some of its flavour over time; apparently, he was the only one it was being served to. Judging by the displeased look on Elias’ face after having a sip of his own, he had noticed a certain lack of the smoky undertones too.
“Shame”, he said lightly, “I liked him.”
“No. You liked me. You never met James Wright, not the real one. He died around the time you were twelve.”
“What is that supposed to mean?”
‘They’re not like us’, Conrad had said about 25 years ago at the funeral of Peter’s father, while gesturing loosely in the direction where a man wearing a dark, pin-striped suit was talking to his uncle Nathaniel, the new patriarch of the Lukas family. ‘Him, Fairchild, Rayner. They’re different.’
Even the softening smile on his face, tugging on the corners of his eyes, wasn’t enough to soften the intensity of Elias’ gaze, as he seemed to be waiting for Peter to catch up.
‘Yeah, they don’t serve the Lonely’, Peter had replied, 13 at the time and annoyed that his cousin felt the need to disturb him just to state something so obvious.
‘What else is there?’, someone else asked from behind them.
Downing his drink in a fell swoop unbecoming to such an expensive beverage, Elias set his glass down and moved towards the windows at the back of his office, drawing the heavy curtains close. Even though his back was turned to him for a moment, Peter could still feel countless eyes on him.
‘Nothing important’, Conrad had answered. Peter ignored him, just as he ignored her coming up behind him up until the very moment she put a hand on his shoulder. Her hand was warm despite the cool autumn breeze. It felt unnatural.
‘Isn’t he a friend of Father’s?’
Peter shrugged, hoping to no avail it would make her hand fall away.
Elias took off his suit jacket and carefully rolled up his sleeves as he crossed the room again at a leisurely pace.
‘Do you think I could talk to him?’
Peter had remained silent for a while longer before realizing that Conrad had apparently gone back inside, and she was talking to him directly now. Which he could technically still ignore. Or he could follow Conrad’s lead and vanish. But he felt pinned down. Not only by her hand on his shoulder, now gripping tighter as she asked if he was listening, but also by the eyes meeting his own from half across the large yard.
The man waved. The hand from his shoulders lifted to wave back, and Peter used the opportunity to bolt.
The very same gaze was staring him down now, as he snapped out of the memory long enough to register Elias gingerly taking the glass from his grip and placing it on a coaster on the table.
Standing directly in front of him, he brushed a tentative thumb over Peter’s cheek, his other hand resting over his heart. He barely felt it, too busy trying to push the memory back down into the fog-covered depths they had been pulled out of. Elias leaned forward, warm air tickling against his ear as he whispered: “I’m still the same, darling. Just a new face. You’ll forget the last one soon enough.”
“James?”
“Not anymore.”
‘He might help us’, was the last thing Peter had heard, before all sounds were drowned out by an all-encompassing silence.
“Stop that.”
He might help us.
Peter took hold of Elias’ wrist, pulling it away from his face as he turned his head to meet the intense stare, stubborn enough not to flinch away. “Enough of that.”
He forcibly blinked the remnants of memories away. This was exactly why he so rarely came here. He could very well pass on the experience of being shoved down memory lane quite so rudely. Truly nothing was sacred when it came to the Great Voyeur.
“Apologies, Peter”, Elias said, free hand moving up to gently brush strands of his grown-out hair – now more silvery-white than the dirty blond it used to be – away from his face, like he was petting him, “Your mind is just so fascinating. So many repressed memories, almost all of them connected directly to fear. If you ever want to find out what happened to that stray dog, you tried to adopt as a child…” Hard pass. Elias shrugged, clearly having known the answer to that before even suggesting it.
Peter sighed. Talking to James – and now Elias – had always felt a bit like getting every single one of his teeth pulled and then forcibly shoved in again.
“So, you got yourself a new body”, he said, “Sounds more like Stranger-business to me than the Eye. Getting second thoughts about your alliance?”
“Don’t be absurd.” Elias frowned, offended by the very idea. “James has served his purpose, but age was catching up on him. Arthritis is quite the unpleasant condition.”
“You’re like Rayner, then? Jumping ship, when the body grows too weak?”
Technically, Peter didn’t care about such details, but it would be nice to know what exactly he had been sleeping with all this time.
Elias snorted in a way he had never heard James do. “I’m not some blackwater sludge pouring itself into the next best vessel.”
“Right, right. Let me guess, it’s something to do with the eyes.”
“Oh, so, you are cleverer than you look”, Elias said drily, tugging on the upper few buttons on his short-sleeved shirt. Obviously, no matter what face and name he took, he still disliked Peter’s usual choice of bright geometric shapes in mustard-yellow, cyan and green.
Peter scoffed at the comment but didn’t move to stop the hand from travelling further down his body. Nor did he keep Elias from leaning in to kiss him.
It felt nice. Gentle. Almost cautious. And - curiously enough – a bit clumsy. Like the knowledge was there but the muscle memory was not. Given the sharp exhale as Elias moved his head to turn the kiss into something deeper, he had noticed that too. Peter found it weirdly charming.
“Shut up.”
Before Peter could retaliate that he hadn’t even said anything, he was tugged forward into another kiss by the hand in his hair. His own came up to rest on Elias’ hips, both keeping the man steady and from shifting around so damn much while looming above him.
Breaking the kiss, he asked: “Would you stop reading my mind, now? It is quite rude.”
“How else could I get your expert opinion of my performance.”
“You could communicate like a normal person.”
“That is extremely rich coming from you, Lukas.”
Peter huffed out a laugh. “Being extremely rich seems to be my one redeeming quality according to you.”
“There is one other redeeming quality I could name you.”
He palmed Peter’s dick through his grey trousers with a surety of someone who had done this countless times. Peter could appreciate the straight-forwardness if nothing else.
“I can count on you to only compliment the things that directly benefit you.”
“What else is there?”
Peter laughed into the next kiss which Elias used as an opportunity to turn it into a nasty thing while opening the last few buttons of his shirt and pushing the fabric aside. His hand was warm against Peter’s chest to a point that was usually uncomfortable if he wasn’t so turned on by the stark contrast between the harsh kiss and the gentle caress on his cool skin. Interestingly, Peter noted that kissing Elias felt quite similar to what it was like with James. Which shouldn’t have come as a surprise, but Peter was a little too preoccupied right now to wrap his head around the whole body-hopping thing, so he cut himself some generous slack. The nimble fingers, just a tad slimmer and less bony than James’ had been, opening his belt and fly and sneaking beneath both trousers and underwear were quite the effective distraction after all.
Peter groaned into Elias’ mouth as he began gently stroking his cock – not quite hard yet but certainly getting there. He wasn’t usually one to make noises curtesy to the Lukas’ special brand of child rearing. But hiding reactions wasn’t exactly something a place like this allowed for. Another hum escaped him when Elias broke the kiss just long enough to spit into his own hand to make the slide of skin on skin smoother.
In Peter’s defence, it had been quite some time since he last had any kind of sexual contact, which had been some no-name, low-life sailor day drinking in a bar at the Port of Santos who had desperately tried to find some human connection and had instead found The One Alone. He had asked Peter not to use a condom, clinging to him as if he was his last hope, the last person alive beside him – which in the new reality he had found himself after, he technically was. Peter couldn’t remember if he even came.
Either way, the pleasant memory – no doubt witnessed by Elias as well – made him lean into the kiss further, uncaring that his beard would scratch the other’s new, more youthful skin. He considered the benefits of undressing him as his thumps drew lazy circles on Elias’ sides, just above the leather belt.
Peter would lie if he said he wasn’t curious to know what Elias Bouchard looked like underneath the tailored waistcoat and pressed dress shirt. The body was new, while the choice of clothing was not. He was even wearing sleeve garters, that pretentious prick. Honestly, he looked vintage.
“And you look like a children’s carpet.”
“I think you dress like an old man enough for the both of us.”
“I am an old man.”
“Really? Because right now, you look like a twenty-something year old trying to scam me out of my money.”
“I am a 200-year-old, who has been consistently scamming your family out of money for generations.”
“That so?”, Peter asked. Of course, part of this information wasn’t new. He was well aware of the lengths the head of the Institute went to secure continued funding for this place. The part that caught his attention – though only barely more than the gentle massage coaxing his dick to full erection – was Elias’ age. Then, it clicked.
“You’re the founder, aren’t you? … John Magnus? Jacob? Joseph? Something with J.”
Elias pulled back to glare at him. “Jonah. It’s Jonah.” He retracted his hand from Peter’s crotch just to point at a portrait of the founder of the institute behind him. “It’s right there on the name plate, Peter.”
“Can’t read it, too small.”
“Go to an optometrist, for Christ’s sake.”
Peter grinned despite the loss of the warm touch, congratulating himself on figuring out that mystery in – according to Elias’ exasperated expression – the most annoying, anticlimactic way possible. There went what Elias – or Jonah, apparently, this was getting exceedingly complicated – had probably hoped to be a grand reveal of his true identity. It was a pleasure in and of itself.
“I will, I will”, he said soothingly, just to stoke the fire some more, “Right after this.”
He tugged on Elias’ belt loops pulling him forward again to turn his attention back to him. “Peter, it’s eight o’clock in the evening.”
“Just shut up.”
Another more forceful tug forced Elias to brace himself with a hand on the backrest, their knees bumping together as their mouths met for another kiss. The armchair didn’t provide enough space for him to ride Peter – much to his disappointment. He had offered James to pay for a more comfortable seating option just for that purpose alone, but his offer had been refused with a stern comment of not throwing out antique chairs just for Peter’s sexual pleasure. Peter had remarked that technically it was also James’ sexual pleasure too which got him several deeply disturbing images of maggots crawling out of some half-rotted body forcefully shoved into his head. That had been the end of that.
The position obviously wasn’t comfortable. Soon enough, Elias dropped to his knees, instead. Peter smiled down at the sight in lazy anticipation, hand brushing over Elias’ hair which was denied any softness by the amount of gel used to style it back. He reached for the glass of whiskey, taking another tentative sip as he watched Elias free his dick completely, his breath brushing against the heated skin. Without much hesitation, he swallowed half of his length in one go.
No matter how far the Fog hollowed him out and convinced him that nothing could beat the sweet silence of utter emptiness, this feeling of kiss-reddened lips and the wet hot slide of a sharp tongue as warm fingers wrapped around the base and tugged at his skin was a damn close second. If nothing else about this place or the man in front of him – Jonah Magnus, apparently – Peter had missed this.
Elias bobbed his head, eyes closed as if concentrating completely on the task at hand, but Peter knew he was still watching. Maybe even through Peter’s own eyes, observing himself suck him off like the narcissist he was. Denying him that kind of pleasure was easy enough though, as Peter leaned back gazing at the ceiling as he enjoyed the feeling of Elias taking him even further into his mouth. James had never managed to get this far – that man had had a sensitive gag reflex that had let to oral sex being little more than a glorified hand job. The view of James on his knees, face pressed to his crotch had been quite nice, still. But this – Peter moaned into the back of his hand still holding the whiskey glass – this was really nice, actually.
He didn’t even notice that he was pushing Elias' head further down, until he was audibly choking.
“Sorry, love”, he said, letting Elias draw back to cough, “You’re really good at that.”
Elias’ brows furrowed in a way that on James had looked menacing, but on him was – unfortunately for him – quite attractive.
“You say that like it’s a new development”, he said after clearing his throat.
Peter only smiled in lieu of answering and he guided him back to where he really wanted him to be right now. And for once, Elias followed the obvious request without further complaint, going right back to mouthing at his tip while his hand was picking up the pace.
“There you go”, Peter drawled, more breathless than he expected himself to be, “some nice peace and quiet.”
He barely felt Elias pinching the skin of his stomach, too busy enjoying the tongue gliding across the underside of his cock.
It didn’t take much more for the pleasure in his lower stomach to built up higher and higher and he once again took hold of Elias’ hair, uncaring of messing up carefully styled curls and moving him to a faster pace. His stamina was usually better than this, but then again, it really had been a while since he last got his dick wet.
“Almost there”, Peter groaned which was the only kind of warning he managed before Elias moaned and swallowed against him which served its purpose of shoving him right over the edge.
With a long moan he didn’t bother stifling, he came into the warm mouth. It was more liberating than he remembered; the highs of climax hitting him with an intensity the Fog usually didn’t allow.
As soon as the last waves of climax subsided into a pleasant buzz at the back of spine, Elias pulled back, standing up again to take the forgotten glass from Peter’s loose grip and spit out the come, creating a truly vile mixture of stale whiskey and semen.
“Oh, you don’t love me”, Peter quipped half-heartedly. He must make quite an obscene sight right now – his dick slowly softening where it lay against his exposed stomach and glistening with a blend of spit and spend, clothes undone and pushed aside where Elias had bothered to expose him. Not that he cared; Jonah had seen him like this – and in more compromising conditions – plenty of times before.
Elias rolled his eyes and turned to fetch some tissues from one of the desk drawers to wipe his face and hands clean. Peter didn’t really pay attention to him while riding out the last bits of post-orgasmic haze before the Fog would ultimately numb it down to a dull feeling of nothingness, which of course was a kind of bliss in its own right.
He didn’t offer to return the favour. If Elias wanted to get off, he would have made it abundantly clear. Sometimes, he seemed content with keeping their encounters rather one-sided. On why that was, Peter couldn’t care less about. As long as he got to come, he saw no reason to complain.
He accepted the pack of tissues that was offered to him only after Elias himself had straightened out his suit, dusted off his trousers and brushed his hand over his hair to put it back into place. Curiously enough, as Peter was making himself presentable again, Elias also put on a pair of glasses, black with a subtly curved frame.
“Glasses, hm? Shouldn’t your patron grant you perfect 20/20 vision?”
“My vision is fine. Elias Bouchard needed glasses. And, well – there is already enough ‘Something is wrong with Elias’-talk going around in the institute right now. No need to add to that. I will pretend to switch to contact lenses in time but until then, I wear them.”
“Right”, Peter hummed in a way that could be interpreted as agreement, disagreement or a sign of him not listening at all.
Elias smiled. “You like the glasses.”
“’Like’ is a strong word.”
“You’re internally lamenting the fact that I haven’t had them on while sucking you off. Next time you touch yourself, you will probably imagine soiling them.”
“Always a pleasure to talk to, aren’t you, Jonah.”
“I would prefer if you would just call me Elias. I don’t need everyone to know.”
“Why tell me, then?”
Elias laughed. “Who are you going to tell, Peter?”
“Point taken. Why now, then? We’ve known each other for – what? – ten years? Twelve?”
“19 years. If you’re counting the time you’ve know about me, then 25. If you want to count how long I’ve known about you – your entire life.”
“Sure. So, why wait this long?”
Elias shrugged. “I just wanted to see your reaction to the news of poor James’ demise. Maybe let you soak a little in your grief, let you feed your master for a while.”
“Grief?”, Peter leaned forward in disbelief, “You thought I would grief you? Are you really that much of a narcissist that you think I would shed a tear for you, of all people?”
“Well, I discarded the idea, didn’t I.” The statement sounded just a little too indignant for Peter to have completely missed the mark. One would think an avatar of Beholding – so used to being watched and observed – would know how to hide his feelings better than that.
“Sure you did.”
Peter stood up from his seat, crowding Elias against his desk as he stared back straight-faced.
“Elias, I would neither grief you nor celebrate your death. I would feel as much for you dead as I do now, that you’re alive. Nothing.”
“Right”, Elias huffed, seeming to not find what he was looking for – of course not, there was nothing to find – yet smiling a little too softly. “Nothing.”
Peter didn’t know what to make of that, so he just ignored it. “Nothing.”
“Is ‘nothing’ what you came here for?” He pushed past Peter, rounding the table to sit back down on his office chair. Right back at square one.
He pretended to search through his tabletop calendar as if he needed it to jog his memory. “We don’t have any appointments scheduled for quite a while yet. Of course, such gracious benefactors as your family are always welcome to the institute, but in my experience your kind never comes around for a simple chat.”
“It’s never just a simple chat with you.”
“With you”, his eyes flitted behind Peter to the whiskey glass on the coffee table, the only remnants of what had happened just minutes earlier, “maybe not. But – you see – I don’t usually offer blowjobs to everyone. My knees wouldn’t tolerate that for long.”
“Nice to know I’m special.”
“I’m sure it is. Now. You’re looking for Judith, your…”, he paused, as if expecting Peter to fill out the blanks. He stayed quiet, so Elias answered for him “Sister. Long-lost, presumed dead.”
“Yes.” It wasn’t a question. But then again, nothing with a servant of the Eye ever was. James never admitted to not knowing something, and neither would Elias.
“Don’t be absurd, Peter. Of course, there are things I don’t know. I have never lied about the fact that I’m not omniscient.”
“Just tell me what happened with her.”
“May I ask why?”
“No.”
Truth was, Peter wasn’t quite sure himself. It wasn’t that he missed her, he barely remembered her existence in the first place. Neither was he angry about her leaving him and sought revenge. There was just something nagging him every once in a while, but what exactly that was he couldn’t put a finger on. Elias didn’t seem to be able to figure it out either, judging by the narrowing eyes and furrowed brows as he no doubt tried to dig for an answer Peter wouldn’t – and couldn’t – give him.
“You helped her escape, didn’t you? As James Wright.”
“Escape Moorland, yes. Escape the Lonely – that’s not something I am able to do.”
“Why?”
“You know why, Peter.”
He did. Or at least he had a strong suspicion. But he wanted to hear it straight from the horse’s mouth, so he remained quiet.
Elias sighed, leaning back on his office chair, pretending like he didn’t enjoy gloating about his involvement in the Lukas’ family affairs. Despite, his relaxed posture, the small crease between his brows remained, as he clasped his hands together. “Nathaniel wanted her gone. He feared she would be a…”, he waved his hand as if searching for the right words, the expensive watch glinting in the bright office light, “bad influence. On you. And the smaller ones. To be fair, I told him he needn’t worry. However, considering that you’re asking about her now, I might have been wrong.”
“How much did he pay you?”
“Nothing”, Elias shrugged as if what he was saying wasn’t wildly out of character for him, “I did it out of the goodness of my heart.”
Peter rubbed the bridge of his nose trying to fight off the developing headache. The downside of the months or sometimes years between his visits to the institute was that he forgot just how annoying it was to talk to James – now Elias. That man talked in circles to the point he felt dizzy sometimes. Always poking and prodding at him to see what would happen, feeling all too sure of himself under the watchful gaze of his voyeuristic god.
The comment – for the irony alone – might have made him laugh, but right now it made him feel like he was caught on the wrong foot. He got quite the whiplash from being sucked off just five minutes ago to now this. And all of that just because of not having a real reason on why he wanted to know about his sister. One could almost pity the man in front of him for having access to all the knowledge in the world and yet never being satisfied with it. But Peter wasn’t one for pity and he doubted Elias would take it well either way.
“She might be feeling – let’s just say – a little watched from time to time.”
“So, she’s alive?”, Peter asked, keeping his tone neither particularly hopeful nor regretful.
“Alive and-“, Elias hesitated, eyes shifting momentarily onto somewhere far away, “hm. Alive. Let’s leave it at that.”
Peter nodded slowly as he took a seat at the edge of Elias’ desk, sacrificing some of the distance between them just to get on Elias’ nerves by crinkling what looked to be a bunch of application letters and CVs.
“Considering you’re making yourself at home, would you like some tea?”
“Tell me where she is, Elias.”
“Why do you want to know?”
“I don’t know.”
“Not good enough. Why?”
“I have a feeling.”
“What kind of feeling?”
“I don’t know.”
“Peter.”
Peter laughed waving his arms in defeat. “I honestly don’t know what to tell you, Elias. I don’t know why. And you know that. I haven’t thought about it, I don’t care. And before you ask, I also don’t know what I will do with the information. Maybe I’ll pay her a visit, maybe I’ll use it to avoid her until the end of her days. Who knows. I sure don’t.”
“Right”, Elias said, taking the glasses off to rub his eyes, “Apologies.”
He didn’t sound apologetic. He sounded tired. Weary in a way Peter knew well as a sign of a god displeased. What was the saying? Curiosity killed the cat. He was certainly not going to offer the satisfaction required to bring it back.
“Honestly, Elias”, Peter said, tone light as he enjoyed pressing salt into the man’s wounded pride, “If I did know why she suddenly came to my mind again I might even tell you.”
He idly fiddled with Elias’ empty whiskey glass, pushing it around in a crooked circle. “Your hospitality does always put me in such a sharing mood.”
“Canada.” Elias was clearly done with the conversation. “She went to Canada about 16 years ago. Now, she lives in a small house in Vernon with her husband and two children – one from the husband the other from an affair she had six years ago which the husband is slowly catching on to. She has a commute of about 45 minutes taking the bus from the 33rd Street to the Kelowna International Airport where she works as a ticketing agent and she usually spends her lunch breaks at the Two Donkey Bakery across the street. She has an irrational fear of someone finding her and taking her back to Moorland. She remembers you.”
“Right”, Peter clapped his hands together, “there we go.”
He pulled out his check book he had gotten in the habit of carrying with him whenever he went to the Magnus Institute – it was, after all, the easiest way of convincing the owner to do anything. While he filled out the check, Elias picked up a yellow sticky note to write down the details of Judith’s location. They exchanged the papers, each examining what the other had written. Peter squinted at the ridiculously curly handwriting. “What’s the second address for?”
“A recommendation for an optometrist. Why the high sum of money?”
“An incentive to get bigger chairs.”
“Peter, we had that conversation-“
“Yes, yes”, Peter waved him off as he got up from the desk again. “Always a joy doing business with you, Jonah.”
With that he stepped right into the Lonely – he was more than ready to leave this place and not return for a decade or two. The last thing he heard, was Elias straightening up the papers he had sat on, while saying: “Likewise, Lukas.”
~~~
She came home from work – like she did most days as of late – to an empty house. The boys were at their grandparents’ house in Kamloops over the weekend and – if the note on the kitchen table where she had discarded the post she had brought in with her were to be believed – her husband was late out with some friends from college he had recently reconnected with. It was fine by her. More than fine, really. She had been looking forward to unwinding with a generous glass of white wine, some snacks and a few episodes of Seinfeld all day. The fact that she was going to do so on her own instead of with her husband was… well, she certainly wasn’t as bothered by it as she probably should have been, considering she and her husband hadn’t had a relaxed night alone together in quite some time.
She shrugged off her coat, swapped her loafers for house shoes and made herself a nice cup of Earl Gray. The tea was part of her usual evening routine and whenever she made one, her husband would usually come in just to say something along the lines of ‘Fancying a cuppa?” in that terrible fake British accent he liked to do. It had made her laugh – at least the first few times. At this point, she wished he would think of something else to say. Especially because their youngest had picked up the habit and his fake accent was even worse.
Taking the steaming cup with her, she sat down at the kitchen table sifting through the mail to look for the bill from the plumber they had to call the week prior. She wasn’t really worried about the amount – her job paid well enough and so did her husband’s, so they weren’t exactly drowning in debt, and one bill wouldn’t change that. But it would be nice to know how much fixing the bathroom sink upstairs cost them in the end.
Finally, between the usual junk mail and a brochure for some travelling agency, she found what she was looking for. At least, she thought so at the first glance of the neat white envelope. Picking it up, she was about to tear it open, when she saw who it was addressed to. Sure enough, it was her home address, but the name… Judith Margareth Lukas. The name she had given up on over two decades ago.
Before she could think twice, she tore open the envelope to see what was inside. It was just a simple piece of lined A4 paper, blank except for a few simple words. Words, that made her blood run cold.
Peter knows where you are. Good luck.