The Rise and Fall of D.O.D.O.. Nicole Galland

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СКАЧАТЬ perfect circles; splinter stones; break glass and then restore it.

      It was clear now that anybody actually inside the ODEC with her could not (by definition, really) remain mentally coherent, and so each time she set about to work her magic, she did so alone. Sealed up within the ODEC, her workings remained a perfect mystery.

      These acts of magic each took between five and thirty minutes to achieve. While happily invigorated after the first dozen or so, she presently showed signs of tiring. Tristan chose not to notice this, and tried to step things up a notch: he asked her to materialize something out of nothing.

      “There is no such thing as nothing. Not even in what you call a vacuum. But I am tired now,” she said, lolling against the control console. “Materialization is a complicated summoning and requires many calculations. And I am tired of taking orders from you, Tristan Lyons. Perhaps tomorrow.”

      It was clear from her tone that Tristan should not bother asking more of her. He looked both contented and resigned. “That’s a wrap, then,” he announced to all of us. “Back here at 0900 tomorrow. And Miss Karpathy, thank you for your efforts today. You have begun to change the future of magic. Thank you.”

      She made her now-usual dismissive face, and otherwise did not respond.

      As the Maxes—who had scarcely left off staring at the beautiful witch when she wasn’t in the ODEC—began to collect their jackets and such like, I had the sudden thought: Where are we going to put her? Clearly we could not return her to the nursing home.

      I was startled by Rebecca’s soft voice behind me: “How large is your apartment?”

      I turned to her. “Not large enough,” I said.

      Rebecca sighed rather pointedly to get Tristan and Oda’s attention. “Well then,” she said in a slightly raised voice. “I suppose we must. But only for the one night.”

      Erszebet heard this, and smiled. She straightened up and strolled toward us. And then—in a moment of unguarded bliss—she threw her hands up and cried triumphantly, “How wonderful not to be in prison anymore!”

      “How many guest rooms do you have?” Tristan asked Rebecca quietly. “I’m responsible for her, I have—”

      “You are not responsible for me,” said Erszebet, immediately exchanging glee for contempt. “And you have no authority over me at all.”

      “Excuse me, miss, but if it wasn’t for me, you’d still be a crone living in a retirement community.”

      “You had nothing to do with that,” she said dismissively. “It was Melisande who found me. Not that she has authority over me either, but I owe her at least a debt of gratitude.”

      Journal Entry of

      Rebecca East-Oda

      MAY 19

      We’ve brought all three home for the night. I made it clear they must respect this as our home, not merely a dormitory for experimental physicists and their sideshow curiosities. (Obviously didn’t say that. Still in shock about Erszebet.)

      Immediate disagreements about sleeping arrangements. We have the guest room (double bed) and Mei’s room (twin). Tristan said he would take Mei’s room, but Erszebet demanded to sleep alone. Then:

      ERSZEBET: It is ridiculous that you (Tristan/Mel) refuse to share a bed.

      MEL: We don’t refuse to—

      ERSZEBET: Good, then, do it.

      MEL: It’s just that we don’t.

      ERSZEBET: Why not?

      MEL: We’re not romantically involved.

      ERSZEBET: Why not?

      MEL: Because we’re just not.

      ERSZEBET: That answer is too stupid to justify depriving me of my own room. Even in that prison, I had my own room to sleep in at night.

      MEL: He snores very loudly and I won’t be able to sleep.

      TRISTAN : Yeah, it’s terrible, women leave me all the time because of it.

      ERSZEBET: They leave you for other reasons.

      MEL: So please, let’s you and I share the double, and Tristan has his own room.

      ERSZEBET: I cannot believe the indignities I am already having to suffer under your regime. Sharing not just a room but a bed. I haven’t had to do that since the 1930s.

      TRISTAN : You want to go back to Elm House, I’ll drive you.

      MEL: Let’s everyone just calm the f**k down.

      Tristan took Mel aside to discuss surveillance of Erszebet. Assuming my role as hostess and lady of the house, I stepped in to see how she was settling in. She had left the elder-hostel with only one large bag of faux leather that looked stolen from a fashion shoot. She was removing her possessions from this bag and laying them out neatly on the painted wooden dresser: ancient boar-bristle hairbrush, couple of camisoles and dresses, small satin bag for toiletries and makeup, nylon stockings. Plus one object made of yarn or string, a kind of fiber-sculpture. The calico had leapt up onto the dresser to examine this, but seemed to know better than to swat at it.

      I looked closer at it. It was very old and frayed in places. Its central artery was a length of spun wool perhaps as long as my forearm, and tied to it were several hundred more slender strings, of varying lengths. All bore multiple knots along their lengths—knots of varying shapes, sizes, complexities, and densities. A number of strands were deliberately entangled to each other, and some of the strands were tied together into bundles thick as my thumb, creating an effect like dreadlocks. It resembled a design I remembered from my favorite college class, on South American anthropology, so I assumed that what appeared to be the ruins of a mop was in fact a calculation-and-record-keeping device.

      “Looks like an Andean quipu,” I said.

      “Mm,” said Erszebet absently, removing her shoes and wiggling her toes. “Mine is better.” She shooed the cat off the dresser. “What do you use?”

      “Sorry?” I said.

      “What do you—” She stopped herself, blinked, looked lost. “Never mind,” she said, sounding cross but looking confused. “I forget there is no magic now except in this ODEC.” She gave me a searching look. “So you can’t do magic? Ever?”

      “That’s right,” I said. Neutral voice, neutral expression.

      “Well, you can now, with this ODEC-room,” she said.

      “I don’t do magic,” I clarified, hoping Mel would return and interrupt this conversation. “I have no idea how to do it.”

      “Ah,” she said, still distracted, and began to brush her hair. “Of course, if it cannot be done, then it cannot be practiced or remembered. I wonder will Tristan Lyons require me to show witches how to do magic. Probably.”

      “I don’t see myself volunteering to become a witch,” I said.

      She СКАЧАТЬ