DOUBLE EXPOSURE

 I stood bewildered at the center of the room, facing the doorway, while Piper sat down on the floor five feet in front of me with her back to the entrance. She assumed a meditative pose, legs crossed, hands laid palms-down on her knees, and gazed placidly at me. Nothing happened but the subtle stirring across my skin of rising goose bumps. The squeaking song outside paused. Then the door swung open.

I stood frozen with alarm, staring straight across the too-short distance at a tall, youngish man wearing black jeans and a dark green dress shirt. His glossy, russet hair was swept back elegantly, and his startling, star-fruit-colored eyes looked not at me, but down at Piper, then curiously around the room.

“Do I intrude, Ashta?” he asked.

“Not if you tread softly, Rain,” Piper replied without turning.

He continued gazing quizzically about, then said, “What is all this?”

“Have you not urged me to practice the arts of concealment?” Piper replied.

“Yes…” he said skeptically. “But here?” He grimaced in apparent distaste. “And…this?”

“I said, softly, Rain,” Piper repeated mildly, her eyes still trained on me.

“Pardon, Ashta. … May I join your contemplation?”

Piper sighed. “Can the Tree be mine to withhold?”

To my confusion, Rain (by now I understood that was his name) continued to ignore me as he came to sit beside Piper, assumed a pose identical to her own, and then, to my consternation, stared up at me as well. For easily ten minutes they just sat gazing at me as if I were a painting at the Louvre. Despite my fear, it became difficult not to laugh, though I breathed as lightly as I could, and made sure not to move.

Finally Rain said, “I do regret occluding your repose, Ashta, but I have been looking for you. Rather urgently. … May we speak?”

Her meditative posture finally wavered, though she kept her eyes on me. She smiled wearily, and asked, “Am I in some new trouble, Chancellor?”

Chancellor? I thought. Who in this city—or anywhere—has a chancellor?

“A fascinating question,” he replied, still watching me as well. “Are you?”

Her smile wavered now as well. “Not that I’m aware of.”

“I encountered your ward downstairs as I came in,” said Rain.

“And defused it very neatly, I see.”

“Was that just part of this odd practice session too?” he asked, glancing once again around the room. “Or do you have some cause to feel anxious even here?”

“Is there any place where I should not feel anxious after what occurred?” she countered. “Where better to bring anxiety than Temanghath? You will not mind, I hope, if I continue gazing at the tree while we converse? I find it calming.”

Rain’s expression, as he gazed back at me, seemed increasingly impatient. “The oddest rumor has been brought to my attention. Concerning you, I fear.”

“When are there not rumors about my mother’s difficult daughter?” Piper asked neutrally. “Which one was this?”

“One of Anselm’s creatures, I am told, was overheard this morning suggesting you’d been seen creating some kind of a ruckus outside of their establishment.”

I saw her pale, but, with barely any hesitation, she said blandly, “I’d have thought they’d all be bored by now with tales of Cullen’s narrow miss that night. You know how deeply I repent of that ill-advised adventure. Why should such stale news concern you?” 

“Excuse my lack of clarity,” he answered. “The ruckus I refer to was said to have transpired just this morning. But you are likely right. My informant may simply have misinterpreted some belated reiteration of your earlier misfortune.”

“He must have,” Piper said. “I’ve been right here for quite some time.”

“I am relieved to know that the Lady’s only daughter has not placed herself in such danger again,” Rain said with something clearly meant to sound like diffidence.

“Now that your concern has been addressed, I hope you will not mind if I resume my contemplation?”

“Of course,” said Rain. “Thank you for allowing this distraction. May I remain here for a while longer to consider this lovely image you’ve created? It’s an impressive rendering, if you’ll allow me the opinion.”

“Thank you,” she answered stiffly. “Please do, if you’ve the time to spare.”

“Thank you, Ashta.” He hesitated. “If you’ll indulge one last imposition, however, I find all this other…decoration rather disconcerting.” He looked up, waving at the walls and ceiling. “Your exercise is quite impressive, but as we resume our meditations, might we have the room back as it ought to be?”

She grew even more still, staring at me as if angry now for some reason.

“Ashta?” he said tentatively. “Have I offended you somehow?”

“As you wish,” she said tersely, and the most astonishing thing yet occurred.

For an instant, the room seemed partially obscured by pale, wavering, geometric bands of light, as if I were about to have a migraine. The few I’d ever suffered had begun with just such shimmering visual displays. Seconds later, however, where there had been an age-darkened, wood-slat attic covered in hanging trinkets, there appeared a room not just completely altered in appearance, but significantly larger in size—and impossibly beautiful.

Imagine the vaulted ceiling of a cathedral—or the crown of a huge tree, just twelve feet above your head. Then simplify the shapes until they’re clean and perfect. Render them in half a dozen kinds of finely finished wood. Now weave great sweeping patterns of subtle inlay across every surface, like huge, abstract calligraphy unwinding into soaring curves and arabesques that dance through one another as rhythmically and solemnly as symphonic music—continuing without regard for the boundaries of ceiling, walls or floor. Now you might have some idea of the room I stood in. The domed roof seemed mostly glass held up by delicately branching beams, and frosted with the same airy, calligraphic patterns that swept through all the rest.

Every perfect line was spare and clean. Every material pure and unembellished. The space felt utterly modern—even futuristic—like it might dissolve at any moment into a liquid state—or just pure air. I stared up in awe, overwhelmed, incredulous. “What—the hell?” The whispered words were past my lips before I could recall them.

Rain’s face snapped toward my voice, then as sharply back toward Piper.

“Rain! Rain, I’m sorry! I had no choice!” Piper pled. “Please, I really need your help!”

Rain stood, turning an incredulous scowl in my direction, and swept one hand through the air as if waving off an irritating fly. The expression he wore next told me that, whatever he’d been seeing before, he now saw me. I could think of nothing to do but stand, gaping back at him.

“Rot and ashes, girl! Is there no limit to your reckless disregard for—everything?”

“He went back to Anselm’s doorway and started shouting things about what Mother did!” she gushed. “I had to stop him but I was afraid they’d chase us and I had no idea where else to hide but then he saw the doors and started asking all these questions and it’s not as if we can just go on hiding from him after what he’s—”

“Stop!” Rain thrust a hand up to block her frantic stream of explanations. “This is him?” His outrage was palpable. “You brought him here? And lied to me about it?”

“I didn’t know what else to do!” Piper wailed.

She really did seem nothing but a teenager now, terrified of the angry adult who’d caught her in the crime of helping me. And perhaps I was already getting used to being a child again, because I did something rash then too. “She was just trying to help me,” I said crossly. “What are you yelling at her for?”

They both turned to me with expressions of surprise: hers even more alarmed than it had been; his incredulous. Piper shook her head at me, even as Rain’s ire seemed to wilt.

He looked back at Piper almost wearily. “In the name of every greater power, Piper, are you trying to hand your mother’s head to Anselm on a platter?”

“Should I just have let them catch him?” Piper pled. “So he could tell them everything? He was yelling for her at Anselm’s very doorstep, Rain.”

Rain drew a deep breath, and closed his eyes as he exhaled.

“I was just trying to convince him of the need to hide,” she said, “and offer him enough understanding to have any chance of doing it. Then I’d have sent him off again. I even tried to hide this room from him, until you came in and made me put things—”

“Oh, well done,” he cut her off. “Having brought an Andinol boy—this of all Andinol boys—into our very safe house, you were cautious enough to disguise the decor. What a marvel of discretion you’ve become.” He turned to me. “Don’t even speak until I return.” He turned back to Piper. “Don’t let him move.” Then he started for the doorway.

“Where are you going?” Piper asked him nervously.

“To put wards on all the entrances that can’t be pierced as easily as yours were.”

Piper dropped her head into her hands as soon as he was gone. “If he reports this, even to my mother, I am doomed. It’s likely treason to have brought you here.”

“Why? … And…what’s the penalty for treason—among your kind?” I asked. “I mean, your life isn’t in danger ’cause of me, is it?” Then I cringed. “Am I really not allowed to speak?”

“He’s not that omniscient,” she sighed miserably. “Just don’t have moved when he gets back.” She drew a shuddering breath. “We do not kill each other. Not even for treason. But we have other punishments that make death seem pale. Oh, I hope he’ll take the time to see how little choice I had, and just help me fix this somehow.”

“I’m sorry,” I said.

“We are all caught in this,” she replied sadly. “You most of all, I suppose.”

“What’s he going to do to me?”

“I don’t know. You’ve done nothing wrong, and he is not the sort to punish you just for being here and Andinol. Not when I’m the one who dragged you in.”

“What’s Andinol?” I asked.

“Your kind,” she said. “Our name for you.”

“And what are you?” I gazed up again at the impossible ceiling, then around at the exquisite room. Had that entire other room been…some illusion cast by her? Was this one real? “I still don’t understand.”

She considered me, then shrugged as if to say, what does it matter now? “Your kind has a thousand names for us,” she sighed, “none of them ours. But… I think I have already said too much. You’d best ask Rain your other questions.”

As if, I thought. “Is there anything I can do to help you?” I asked doubtfully.

“Yes,” she said. “Do not provoke him further.”

She turned to face the door again, and soon I too heard him on the singing stairs. Seconds later, Rain rejoined us, looking first at me, then at Piper, then back at me, as if unsure which one of us were more disappointing.

“You,” he said quietly to Piper, “might spend some time in real contemplation, and ask any power listening for another miracle. I suspect we’re going to need it now.”

She nodded meekly.

He handed her what looked like a muddy marble. “I’ve warded all the doorways, but just to warn us, not to avert entry. You’re lucky I was first to find you here. Impairing access to the Temanghath against our own would have aroused a great deal of unwanted inquiry. If anyone else arrives, hide yourself as well as you hid him, and come join us in the casting room. Finding that sealed should arouse far less suspicion.”

Then he turned to me. “Come, boy. Let’s go sort you out—if that’s possible.”

I looked anxiously at Piper, but she nodded, so I followed Rain toward the door.

I was hardly even surprised when we stepped out into a stairwell as transformed as the room behind us was. The walls were brick now, of varied tints, arranged in airy, geometric patterns, giving the passage a light, fluid quality like that of the chamber we’d just left, despite the heavy, earthen materials from which it was made. The passage was still supported by curving beams and joists of dark, smoothly finished wood, and lit by milk-glass windows. But as we descended, it undulated in and outward at rhythmic intervals, curving up and inward toward the ceiling like wind-sculpted canyon walls—or the contours of a stylized animal burrow.

Had Piper truly created that entire other building—just for my sake? How could anyone have conceived of such detailed, convincing complexity at all, much less maintained it all while cooking a meal and carrying on that whole demanding conversation? I couldn’t imagine such ability. And she was still a child by their standards? How powerful were these people?

Less than a story down, we came to a polished wooden door which certainly hadn’t been visible on my way up. A large, geometric symbol of some kind was carved across its surface. Rain took hold of its smooth, black metal handle, and gestured for me to follow him inside.

“Sit,” he told me, pointing at one of several fluidly shaped, blond wood chairs.

I did as instructed, gazing curiously at walls covered in shallow wooden shelves, like miniature magazine racks, on which hundreds of small, irregularly shaped pieces of polished stone were displayed. Their colors and textures seemed as varied as their shapes, a different geometric symbol carved into the surface of each one. The chair was surprisingly comfortable.

“What are these?” I asked, pointing at the rows of stones.

“They’re none of your business. May I ask what you’ve been told since coming here?”

For all the anxiety and disbelieving awe that morning had left me awash in, yet another non-answer, and Rain’s condescending tone roused a surprising wave of irritation. “Well, let’s see. I’ve been told that your kind are wolves with brains that can create incredible illusions, and that my kind are shorter-lived beagles with less impressive brains, whom your kind are obsessed with hiding from for some reason. I wouldn’t have believed a word of it, of course, if not for this,” I waved at my boyish frame, “which, sadly, I’m told is not just one of your illusions.” I thought for a moment. “I’ve also learned that at least one of you can cook like an Iron Chef. Beyond that, I’ve gotten almost nothing but a lot of half-baked riddles with a side of run-around.” For all the outward bravado I was struggling to prop up, everything inside me braced for some dreadful assault of magical displeasure.

“Wolves…and beagles?” Rain asked skeptically.

“Her metaphor, not mine,” I said, emboldened by the growing sense that he might really not intend to hurt me. “So, can I ask you something now?”

“Possibly,” he said, as if I were the puzzling one.

“Why are you guys hiding from us? With all you can do, shouldn’t my kind be hiding?”

“You are alarmed by what we’ve done for you?” Rain asked.

“Are you kidding? I haven’t had an un-alarming moment since running into Piper and that… Did her mother really call that thing a troll, or did I just dream that?”

Rain eyed me with almost comic gravity before saying, “Yes. …That was a troll,” as if this one small answer might have rearranged the fate of nations. “As to why we hide, you have just all but answered that yourself.”

“Okay… But since I missed my answer, could you clarify it for me, please?”

He gave me a sour look. “If you find us so alarming even after being granted such a gift, imagine how your kind might find us under even less ingratiating circumstances—and what they might choose to do about it. Now, may we dispense with the mockery, Mr. …?”

“Matthew.”

“Mr. Matthew?”

“Matthew, No Last Name,” I clarified.

His brows rose.

“Piper also warned me against giving names out too freely,” I explained.

Rain looked disgruntled. “I am being far more patient than you may realize, Mr. No Last Name, and it will help us greatly if you try to mirror that respect rather than—”

“I mean no disrespect,” I interjected, “but I’m tired of being toyed with like some irksome nuisance. I’ve been beaten nearly to death, turned into a child without foreknowledge or consent, left jobless, homeless, impoverished, and possibly criminalized, thrown through walls, called a beagle and a tribal toddler, and now implicitly threatened just for being ‘here and Andinol’ as Piper put it to me—apparently all just for saving that girl’s life.”

“You have no idea who that girl is!” he snapped, as if such ignorance were somehow my fault, and ample justification for all their intrusions.

I could not help flinching away from this first display of even mild temper. But he still hadn’t hurt me, had he? “She’s ‘the Lady’s only daughter,’ I believe,” I said just to spite him. “And you would be…the Lady’s chancellor, I suppose?”

Rain grew still, then frowned at me. “She spoke to you of our politics?”

“No,” I said, not wanting to cause Piper even greater trouble. “I just heard what you two said to one another while I was… What was I disguised as, anyway?”

“A tree,” he said darkly.

“And that didn’t seem strange to you? Contemplating a tree in the middle of a room?”

Rain looked away and shook his head, clearly clinging to the shreds of his vaunted patience, but Piper had been right. For all his daunting airs, he didn’t seem the hurting kind at all. My initial fear was melting rapidly now.

“Mr. Matthew, there is neither time nor opportunity to explain the hist—”

“Yes, I know. She made that clear too, along with the fact that I cannot expect to have this very inconvenient new condition of mine reversed. But is it really too much to ask for just a few straight answers about what the hell has happened to me, and who the hell you people are?”

“I cannot see how knowing any of that will help you,” Rain said. “The little you have already learned this morning places you in far greater danger than you were before. And before you ask, no, there isn’t even time now to explain why.”

“Try anyway,” I said. “If I’m in danger because of what I did for the Lady’s only daughter, don’t I deserve at least a hint about what that danger is?”

“Very well. You are in danger from Anselm and his faction, who oppose the Lady’s faction because we care about the well-being of your kind, while he wishes only to exploit you all to everyone’s increasing harm. Learning what actually became of you after his pet troll tried to murder you that night could enable him to overthrow the Lady, leaving your kind no advocates at all in this contest. And once the evidence now resident in your very person was of no further use to him, he’d likely have you murdered again—much more effectively. Does that clarify everything to your satisfaction?”

“There are a few blanks I’d still like filled.”

“Does the rabbit need a Ph.D. in predatory birds to know it should hide from one?”

“No. But it should be able to tell them from other birds, and have some idea how to hide from them at all. These aren’t just bad people we’re talking about, are they?”

“No.” Rain considered me in silence for another moment, his expression growing desolate. “I doubt that you could ever learn to hide from our kind well or long enough. I suggest you leave this city altogether if you ever wish to retrieve the age of… How old were you, anyway, before this…change was cast upon you?”

“Fifty,” I said sullenly. Rain was clearly older than Piper. For all I knew, he might have been a centenarian, but he still looked to me like the kind of kid fresh out of graduate school who’s got solutions to all the universe’s problems—and not a clue about how things actually work on the ground. “So now that I’ve saved your lady’s daughter, I’m just supposed to leave the city I’ve lived in for more than half my life? How exactly? … I’m no longer old enough to drive, you know. I’ve got no money for even a bus ticket now, or any job to earn it.”

“We can get you to wherever you wish to go,” said Rain, “though it would be best if even we had no idea of your final destination.”

“Great! Wander off to some strange city, and just starve to death there? That’d solve your problem pretty permanently, wouldn’t it? With advocates like you, who needs—”

“You’re not the first street urchin in the world,” Rain cut me off with shocking unconcern. “You’re just the best equipped one there has ever been. This is a breathtaking gift you’ve been handed. A genuine miracle. Live up to it!”

“Starving might still cramp my style a little,” I said, astonished at his callousness.

He rolled his eyes. “There are shelters and soup kitchens in any city, orphanages if you prefer, though I should think a ‘child’ as knowledgeable and quick of mind as you clearly can be could invent some better plan. Despite your stunning grasp of what we owe you, you don’t seem to understand what you owe us. To begin with, you’d have been more than nearly dead if the Lady had not gone to find you and started knitting your frame back together before you even woke to find her there. That act alone left her at terrible risk, both physically and politically—and that’s the least of what she gave you.”

His gaze and his tone left me feeling grubby, which just made me more resentful.

“The Lady is a woman of rare power and skill,” he continued, “even by the standards of our kind, but not even she could have done by any means in her possession what you had the unwitting gall to ask. She has refused to offer even me the slightest hint of why, much less how it was achieved, but that hasn’t stopped me from guessing.”

“And your guess would be?” I asked, eager for any tidbit of insight.

“We are not the only others in your universe, young Matthew. There are more tiers of being in creation than your kind has ever dreamed of—some of them as far above my kind in knowledge and power as my people are above the cattle in your fields. You would call them gods. I can think of no one else who might have had sufficient skill and power to work this miracle you’re so eager to reverse just one week later.”

I gaped. “You’re saying this was done to me by God?”

“No,” he corrected. “By beings your kind would call gods. And if, in some excess of gratitude to you, the Lady has convinced one of them to grant your ill-advised wish, I shudder to think how much it may have cost her to inflict this gift upon you. If one of your great captains of industry were to offer such a power all his commercial holdings in New York, Tokyo and Paris, I doubt very much his call would even be returned. Now can you understand why I am less than sympathetic with your complaints about this ‘inconvenient condition’ you endure?”

“Yes,” I said uncomfortably. “I guess. But how should I have known that?”

“Well, now you do,” he said coldly. “We both know your help that night was largely accidental, but I am also well aware of what it cost you, and more grateful than I may appear. I will discuss your plight with the Lady, and see if there is anything that we can safely do to ease your challenging transition.”

“I’d be very grateful,” I said carefully.

“Know this, however, Mr. Matthew No-Last-Name: waste the Lady’s gift, and nothing we owe you will stem my wrath. Is that clear? I am not interested in hearing more about how hard this seems to you.”

From his pocket, he pulled another muddy marble like the one he’d given Piper, then set it on the floor and crushed it underfoot.

I looked from it back up to him, unsure if I should ask for any explanation.

“The first thing we must do,” he said, “is get you out of here before you are discovered.”