Lenore returned to the library after several days but largely ignored John. As a result, he finished the library project on time. His mother was as delighted as expected, looking around admiringly while John stood in the doorway, waiting for her verdict. When nothing she said on her own gave him what he wanted, though, he finally brought it up himself.
“It’s not wrong?” he asked. “For Julian to have all this?”
Mom frowned a little. “What do you mean?” she asked.
“All this is here because of people who – weren’t Right,” said John. “But Julian didn’t do anything wrong. They just gave it to her.”
Mom just studied him for a moment, and John worried he had said too much and that he had wandered into an error. At length, though, she shook her head. “No,” she said. “Your sister hasn’t done anything wrong.”
Somehow, though, this wasn’t as reassuring as John wanted it to be. He slept poorly that night, struggling with an apologetic argument he was writing. The next morning, waking up before dawn, he pushed himself up onto his elbows and glanced over the scribbles he had fallen asleep trying to put into some kind of order.
…Moving away from the Lutherans specifically: inspiration is not without merit (see Old Testament: Gideon, David, Elijah, etc.), but it must not be accepted without question, without being held up to orthodoxy. See Gideon, David, Elijah: they were in line with prop. tradition, not just babbling. Also they had miracles. From these idiots who believe in no authority we get the Young Earthers. Their claim is physically impossible and the use of addition even in their own source points this out, even allowing for co-regencies. They mislead many because they are stupid.
More pertinent: Without structure, all is personal! When Athena gave the Greeks jury trials, she ruled in Orestes’ favor in part because she had no mother(suppose Aeschylus forgot Metis?). “I am the thing, so my particular circumstances must dictate what is proper”. Dike Parthenos had two parents and two sisters: Peace and Good Order, Eirene and Eunomia. Eunomia refers specifically to governance under good law (Dysnomia Regina, elab) but Eirene carries a cornucopia. Food, peace are good, but they do not necessarily coincide with justice (panem et circenses). Correlation is not causation. Dike also left the world – when all comes down to personal judgment, when the impartial structure is removed, there is no justice, there’s just us. The disorder of the other churches is appalling: they’re everywhere and all have different opinions. There can be no confidence in this. Originally only Fortuna wore the blindfold – good and bad luck happen no matter who you are (see Boethius). This is not justice. Justice must be clear-sighted.
There was nothing actually wrong with it, but as he read it, John knew he was not talking about the dispute between the true church and its estranged relations. He was talking about Julian. It was what he had been thinking, after all, when Welles had called her word the law here.
He rubbed his eyes. He needed to go outside. He needed to ground himself in the physical world. He got up and started looking for his trousers.
He made it to the dining room before he encountered another person, at which point he stopped in surprise. “Morning, William,” he said.
“Good morning,” said William, quite as though there was nothing odd at all about him being in Julian’s house at the crack of dawn. John tried very hard not to assess the other wizard’s weak points. He did not yet have conclusive proof that he needed to kill him.
“What are you doing here?” asked John.
“I wanted a word with Julian.”
“It’s six-thirty in the morning.”
“I’m an early riser,” said William. “As are you, I see.”
William stated the obvious too much along with smiling too much. It made John want to crack his pretty teeth even when he didn’t suspect the guy had recently gotten out of Julian’s bed. “I was going out,” said John. “I’ve never been in this part of the country much.” At least he didn’t think he had. He didn’t know exactly where they were. “I was going to go to go out to look for birds.”
William smiled again. It made his sky blue eyes twinkle. John began to reconsider his standards of evidence for justifiable homicide. “A risky undertaking,” he said. “One is not likely to run into any particularly dangerous magical creatures this close to houses, of course, but it is always possible. Would you like some company?”
John realized he was scowling instinctively as he tried to puzzle out what William meant by that and made himself lift his eyebrows up, no doubt giving himself a momentarily strange expression. His eyebrows almost instantly, however, lowered themselves again of their own accord as his attention was wholly on the issue of that statement.
“I can take care of myself, thanks,” said John.
“I’m sure,” said William quickly. “I did not mean to imply otherwise.” John refrained from pointing out that this made him pretty dang poor at implying what he meant to imply instead of what he didn’t. “I must confess, though – I’ve been curious about your birds since I heard about them. I’d never really thought of taking an interest in them before and I’d like to see what you see.”
John was not inclined to believe this, but shrugged. “If you insist,” he said. “I’m not responsible for your shoes, though,” he added, only just refraining from openly sneering at the elegant footwear in question.
“Leave those to a good Scouring Charm,” said William. “Shall we?”
* * * * * * * *
It had rained the night before, and somehow, this seemed to have made all the already alien, threatening smells of the outdoors even sharper. William’s nose was as overwhelmed by what he thought must be earth and fresh pine mingled with the dusty smell of the rain itself as his leg muscles were by the contours of the earth, which made the roughest-cobbled street he had ever walked look as smooth as the newly-refinished floors of his mother’s dining room. He exercised regularly, but always in a controlled environment. Out here, there were hills and rocks and he did not know what to do with them, and doubted he would have even if the seemingly endless stretches of wood had not been doing a very thorough job of unnerving him. There was, to his mind, something almost malevolent about the trees, glistening slightly brown-black and dark green. When a breeze caught more than one twig at a time, which it usually did, it was easy to imagine them whispering secrets to each other.
His companion did not seem to notice this. Indeed, his companion looked more relaxed than William had ever, in their admittedly brief acquaintanceship, seen him. When he’d met John Umland, William had (admittedly, after finding out from Julian beforehand that the kid was obsessed with birds) thought his resemblance to an irritable, slightly anxious wading bird was so striking that it must be an intrinsic quality, but out here, on what William was rapidly realizing John considered his own territory, he had relaxed enough that the resemblance had largely faded. His head was held almost straight, his resting expression was close to a half-smile, and he held his arms more naturally by his sides, without the elbows sticking out in a manner reminiscent of wings. Even his walk had changed, the lanky strides turning purposeful instead of awkward and with the air of one who had to think to place each step. All that was left was his rather beaky nose (an adjective William thought he might have used without any input from his girlfriend) and a single new addition, which was occasional humming.
John was clearly completely comfortable out here in this place, which looked a lot further from civilization than William knew intellectually that it was, and William suspected that John might also be deriving a certain satisfaction from the fact that William was so visibly not comfortable here. There was something malicious about the kid, plus he had bad blood. Bad blood would out and the half of his William knew about was not the kind that came to a good end….
There was one thing John was definitely enjoying, though, and that was lecturing William. He kept stopping to show him things – things William could barely discern when he could see what he was supposed to be seeing at all, but which John said were ironclad evidence that this or that had been through recently. There was strange jargon associated with this. Finally, though, just as William thought he could go no further, John stopped abruptly and did not immediately bend toward the ground.
“This should do,” said John. “Here – we can lie low in these rocks, not disturb anything.”
William glanced down. He didn’t think the wretched brat could kill him by pushing him off the perch John was indicating, but he was not happy about this state of affairs, either. It was the ground. It was dirty. William had never in his life considered getting dirty to impress a half-blood before. He reluctantly climbed down into the rocks, where John propped open a couple of books and began opening up a case. “You know that spell you use to duplicate things?” asked John.
“Yes.”
“Do that to these,” said John, indicating a pair of binoculars he was taking out of the case. “You’ll need them.”
“Wouldn’t a supersensory charm…” began William, but John gave him such a severe look that he had to stop talking in order to keep himself from either laughing or reaching for his wand.
“That’s not how it’s done,” said John curtly. “You can’t adjust that as you go. Anything you saw at the wrong distance would be long gone before you could.”
William duplicated the binoculars. John picked up the copy, examined it a bit, and made a noise of disgust, much offending William. “I suppose it’s good enough for a beginner,” said John, handing the copy back to William. “It’s a pretty complicated object to draw from Transfiguration.” He pointed at the book which looked to have been printed; the other looked handwritten, though mostly in some kind of shorthand William didn’t recognize. “If I’m right about where this place is, we may be able to see some summer breeders we don’t get in Alberta. I’d like to see a scarlet tanager – if I’m even right about where we are – but I’m not really holding out much hope of that.”
With that, he picked the real binoculars up and began scanning the trees above them, ignoring William as thoroughly as though he wasn’t there, at least as far as William could tell. Hesitantly, William raised his apparently inferior binoculars and looked up at the sky, too, but he didn’t see anything in particular. A few branches rustled, but he could only make out fluttering shapes, not any details about them.
“Ah – John,” said William after a few minutes, when John took a break from looking up to write something in his book. “I was – “
“Colors,” said John.
“What?”
“What are the colors and which one is primary?”
“That’s what I was hoping you could tell me,” said William, and John finally looked up. His expression suggested he was looking at a deliberately dense child.
“I can’t see for you,” he said patiently. “Can you indicate direction without pointing?”
“I was not exactly speaking about a bird,” said William. “Julian tells me you don’t like me.”
John’s reaction was strange. He stared at William in evident bewilderment for a few seconds, then off into the middle distance with no expression at all for a long moment.
“Why did she do that?” asked John finally, sounding, at most, mildly interested in the answer.
“You two had had a fight,” said William, and John’s shoulders rose as his posture shifted into something defense. “She said you said you didn’t trust my intentions.”
John scowled at him. “And what does that have to do with scarlet tanagers?” he asked coldly.
“Ah – nothing,” said William. “But as we both care for Julian, I thought it should be addressed – “
“Dangerous pastime,” muttered John. “Thinking, that is. I – “ he made a strange face. “If I had known you wanted to talk about our feelings like a – a couple of social workers, I would have declined your company,” he said. William found his simile strange and wondered what social workers had ever done to make John appear to hold them in such contempt. “I’m here to look for birds. What we think of each other isn’t important.”
William gaped at him. He wasn’t faking it at all. He was honestly that surprised. “Merlin’s beard,” he swore. “You upset Julian that much and don’t consider it important?”
John rounded on him suddenly. “Do not imply you care more about my sister’s well-being than I do,” he snarled, switching from contempt to aggression so fast it almost made William’s head spin.
“Then don’t behave in a way which suggests I do!”
The boy’s hands were in fists. William wondered if he was actually foolish enough to hit him. He had no doubt that if it came to fighting with their hands, John would have an advantage – William was not terribly athletic – but after the actual bit with the pummelling was over, William would hold all the cards.
“What I was saying,” said John, far too quietly, “is that it doesn’t matter if I like you, or if you like me. Right now we have to – to stand each other because of Julian, so I suggest that we get on with it.”
William threw his hands up. “But what have I done to make you think so little of me?” demanded William.
John glared at him. “Would you give my sister the time of day if she didn’t own all that?” he asked, pointing back toward the estate.
“I never would have met your sister if she didn’t own all that.” William held his hands out in supplication. “I didn’t know about Julian’s family when we met, or for some time afterward,” he said. “She didn’t tell me. But when she did, John, I accepted that part of her along with the rest, because I love her.” John just looked at him, hard to read beyond the scowl which seemed to be his general resting expression. “For goodness’ sake,” exclaimed William, borrowing Julian’s near-catchphrase in the thought that hearing his sister’s words first might prejudice John toward what he had to say next. “Are you and Julian the only ones not to be judged by your parents? Your – original ones, I mean.”
The color drained from John’s face and he physically recoiled. His hands rose for one moment, but then he suddenly turned them away from William and tangled them in his own sleeves. William pressed his advantage. “I understand your concern,” said William, switching to a more conciliatory note – no point giving him a point to keep his back up against. “If I had a sister and you were dating her, I’d be afraid you were merely after her money and connections – at least at first. But can’t we give each other a chance? For Julian’s sake?”
He held out his hand.
* * * * * * * *
Back in the box of a room in Julian’s house which he had temporarily claimed as his own, John stared at his own hand. He stared at it for a long time. Eventually, however, some small noise, possibly not even real, drew his attention upward, and he looked around the room as though seeing it for the first time. Then he picked up the metal water pitcher on the nightstand and, after hefting it carefully, getting a good grip and a solid sense of its weight and balance, threw it as hard as he could right toward the tiny fireplace.
The crash was deafening and sparked a brief frenzy of movement: pillows, cases a dusty dark blue printed in a cream-colored chintz, followed the pitcher, and he jerked the quilts half off the bed as well. Swearing, he strode over to the writing table and threw the chair over before hitting the desk itself hard with both fists. He kicked the chair cushion, which had fallen away, across the room, and sat down hard on the floor, his back against the little cupboard meant to hold clothes and his eyes fixed, unseeing, on the dark blue wallpaper, which was dotted with golden stars and stretched from the floors to the undecorated wooden beams of the ceiling. The lights, three cold magical fires suspended in three little metal bowls hanging from chains on the ceiling, sent shadows flickering over everything.
She told him.
John kept repeating that sentence to himself over and over again, trying to make it seem easier to believe. Julian had told him. Julian had taken their private family business and she had told that guy about it. She had told a government agent that John didn’t like him and suspected him and for all he knew had told William about her mad idea that John was dating a Muggle girl too. Julian had told him.
He was screwed. He knew this. Somehow, though, that just seemed like a side issue, a mole hill beside the mountain that was the fact his sister had knowingly betrayed him, even if she hadn’t known exactly what she was betraying. That had all been their private family business and Julian had gone and told the one person she knew John didn’t trust about it. She would throw a fit if he complained about her to Joanie or Clark, he knew she would, but somehow it was all right for her to tell everything to Billy Boy just because she was sleeping with him. And that bastard had the nerve to get out of John’s unmarried sister’s bed and then act like he was the victim in all this?
If the clock had not chimed, he did not know what he might have said or done, but it did. It chimed and reminded him that he had a book club meeting back in Calgary, and that thought told him what to do next.
* * * * * * * *
Joanie almost always listened to her music through headphones, but once in a while, when no-one else was in her house, she unplugged them from the jack and let the tunes play to the room. Accordingly, her heart leapt into her throat almost as fast as her hand darted for the volume dial when she heard a burst of rapid knocking on her door, automatically turning the stereo off so there was no chance anyone would hear her listening to Katy Perry instead of Mozart.
Muttering to herself, she fumbled for her jeans and dropped the towel she’d been using to dry her hair. It was going to be blatantly obvious she had just gotten out of the bath – damp hair, tank top, no make-up – but there was nothing she could do about that, as the rapping started again, clearly indicating that the intruder hadn’t gone away. She put on the best smile she could before opening the door, but it fell as soon as she saw John, who walked in without waiting for an invitation.
“Sure, John, come on in,” said Joanie brightly. “I wasn’t doing anything. Have some tea and a ginger biscuit, I just took them off the cooling rack.”
“Where are they?” asked John, looking blankly around her living room.
“That was sarcasm,” said Joanie, following him and frowning. “What’s wrong with you?”
It was obvious, to her at least, that John was unusually agitated. His failure to look like he was picturing her naked just because her hair was damp and her arms and shoulders bare was expected – John seemed utterly indifferent to her sexually; she didn’t know if it was loyalty to the guy, Clark, she had concluded must be his boyfriend or if he was actually gay instead of just boarding school gay or if it was just that he’d known her too long or that he liked ‘em stupid, and she didn’t care so long as he continued to feel that way – but it was obvious he had had lost all interest in her before she had finished the first sentence. He was almost twitching all over and was shaking his head as though arguing with himself as he stared at her coffee table. “John,” she said sharply, calling his attention back.
“Ah – oh, right. I’m here. And you’re here. That’s right.” John ran a hand through his hair.
“Are we in trouble?” asked Joanie.
For a moment, she thought she was going to have to redirect his attention again - Joanie had long since concluded that John probably had some kind of high-functioning undiagnosed ADHD, or at least a fairly intense case of psychomotor overexcitability on top of the intellectual one which pretty much summed up his entire character, and that his caffeine addiction was a crude attempt to self-medicate – but he shook his head. “No,” said John. “Not yet. I just – need a favor.”
“What is it?” asked Joanie.
“I need you to teach me something. I need to know how to screw with people.”
Joanie considered all the ways this sentence could be interpreted. “Define your terms,” she said. “Are we talking about manipulation or a sex act?”
“Manipulation,” said John. “Not the way I do it. The way you do it.” John grimaced. “All I know how to do is make people go away,” he said. “I can’t twist them around like you do.”
From a lot of people, that would have been a condemnation. From John, Joanie didn’t think it was. He knew she could no more turn off her ability to read people and figure out what they wanted than he could just stop needing to know things. That was one of the two reasons Joanie both loved and hated him: he was the one person she knew who had never asked her to be something other than what she really was, and he was also the one person she knew who had never shown any sign he was even trying to be anything other than what he really was.
She had purely hated him for that second one for a time. For a long time. She had spent years trying to beat him at everything to prove to herself that she was right to be a liar and that there really was no future in being oneself. Then, when it had turned out they were evenly matched academically, she had resented him, assuming he could only get away with it because he was a white guy. Finally, though, the relief of not having to pretend to be dumber or kinder or happier or anything-ier with someone had gotten the better of her, though she did still sometimes wonder what would have happened if she hadn’t found out that John, too, was hiding part of himself and just had the ability to apparently not really mind….
“You’ll have to tell me more about what your problem is,” said Joanie. “You can do that while I make the tea.”
* * * * * * * *
Chapter Six
It was brutally hot outside, the light of the sun so bright that Joe squinted even though there was nothing for it to reflect from but the bits of jewelry the girls were wearing. Julian and Lenore both wore their dark hair in braids, Julian’s much shorter than Lenore’s, presumably to keep as much of it as possible off their necks, and Julian was also wearing one of her broad-brimmed hats. William, naturally, appeared completely unaffected by the heat, making no move to remove his jacket, but Justin was clearly suffering as he tried to keep pace. Joe, still irked with Justin for refusing to shake hands with him a lifetime earlier, took a measure of satisfaction in that. He, unlike either of them, had no jacket to remove or keep on; he, unlike them, was not a bit of an idiot in certain areas.
“Lucy and Elyse will be sorry to miss this,” remarked Justin, mopping the back of his neck with a handkerchief.
“Oh? Why didn’t they come, then?” asked Julian.
Justin shrugged. “I suppose they had lessons, or a party, or something.” He glanced at his sister with a hint of a smile of a type that Joe, having siblings himself, recognized. “This really isn’t the place to learn to be a lady, you know.”
Lenore laughed. “Nonsense!” she said. “Joseph proved it last time.” She glanced directly at Joe for what he was pretty sure was the first time since he’d hexed her in the back the day they’d met. “Or are you suggesting Julian isn’t the queen of love and beauty?”
“Never,” said Justin, bowing slightly to Julian, who giggled as she leaned against William’s shoulder. She seemed in strangely high spirits, considering the heat and the occasion; Joe suspected Cheering Charms, or else wine. There was a lot of wine in the house. Joe never understood why people liked it – several years into taking Communion when he could, he still thought wine tasted rather vile – but many seemed to. “But this is all a recent influence on her. You’ve been here all your life.”
“And here is as much of a place for a lady as any,” argued Lenore. She looked between William and her brother as she said, “See? Here’s a handkerchief. I could give it to Burhan or Umland as a favour.”
Joe blinked, surprised by even a joking suggestion of her giving favours, of any kind, to John. William, on the other hand, laughed. “I’d think surely Burhan,” he said.
“Do you?” asked Lenore. “Umland! Umland, come here.”
John had been staring off into space at nothing in particular, no doubt planning how to make the best of the thrashing he was very likely about to receive from Burhan now that it was his turn at last to play this mad game. He started when Lenore called his name and scowled, but approached. “What, Crowley?” he asked.
“Here,” said Lenore, shoving the scrap of fabric at him. John frowned at it quizzically as he took it from her.
“Why are you giving me that?” he asked, rubbing the thin fabric between his fingers.
“To prove a point to him,” she said, jerking her head toward Justin. “And him,” she added, looking now toward William, who was smiling tolerantly. “Though you can use it to tie up your head after my brother splits it open, too,” she added.
“I doubt it’s large enough for that,” said Joe, and John gave him a remarkably eloquent look as everyone laughed – or, in William’s case, raised the corners of his mouth and tilted his head back slightly as though mildly amused, but did not actually make any sound.
“Probably large enough to throttle you with,” said John, squinting in Burhan’s direction. “Is he ready yet?”
Joe didn’t know anything about Burhan’s abilities, but he expected this to be a more dramatic show than he and Justin had provided. John was good with a wand, rather competitive, bit of a showoff – though he tried to protest that one sometimes, complaining that Mr. Chenar, their wandmaker, had said John’s wand might explode if it got ‘bored,’ and Joe had to admit that if anyone was going to own a wand that would literally do that, it would be John. If Burhan didn’t knock him out of the air straightaway, there would be a show.
He wasn’t as worried for his brother’s physical safety as he had been for himself the first time they’d all been here, but he was a little worried about…something. He didn’t know what exactly. Something just felt…off, somehow, as though he was listening to words sang to the wrong tune. He hoped he was imagining it.
Neither of the guys involved in the entertainment seemed to have any hesitation about anything: they threw themselves toward each other as though they liked nothing better than the thought of pain and the off chance of painful death. They were far enough away that hearing incantations was unlikely unless the parties involved were shouting, so since neither Burhan nor John seemed to feel the need as they got within range of each other, all Joe could see were flashes of light. Several of them. John, it seemed, had been paying attention to Joe and Justin’s attempts, and had noticed that the trick was in who could cast spells the fastest. Distract and overwhelm the other guy, then hit him. Anyone who could use nonverbal magic would have a distinct advantage, and from his speed, Joe was guessing Burhan could. John, who couldn’t as far as Joe knew, was using a different tactic: going big. Lenore actually clapped her hands, of all things, when John sent what looked like small birds swooping at her brother’s head, then hexed him when Burhan, predictably, flinched at the birds diving at his head. William even leaned forward.
“Interesting,” he remarked.
“Dramatic,” disagreed Julian.
“John would pick birds,” said Joe, sharing a rueful smile with his sister.
“That’s not what I meant,” said William. “Bit advanced for a fifth year, that, isn’t it?”
Julian shrugged. “John likes magic,” said Julian. “He likes to push himself. Always Most Ambitious and Best Spellcasting in the yearbook.” Her tone was that of the fond mother of a precocious child. Joe was prepared to bet money that Julian had clean clothes and ibuprofen, or a potion equivalent, waiting indoors, and the tea and cookies would be quick to follow. She’d have done the same for Joe, had last time not kind of been sprung on her, but she had always been particularly bad about babying John. Half the time, she expected Joe to help her.
“Yeah, and Most Likely To Become a Criminal,” said Joe.
Burhan, it had to be said, did not appear overly fazed by the move. He seemed focused on one thing, blocking John and then knocking him out of the air. John had the same aim. They’d knock each other back, both wobbled dramatically more than once, but they always came back. Unfortunately, though, they seemed surprisingly evenly matched. Neither could get past each other – at least not until John abruptly came hurtling toward the ground.
Joe leapt to his feet, not sure what he intended to do; one of the girls shrieked, but Julian had her wand in her hand as they both rose as well. Joe didn’t recognize the spell Julian shouted, but it must have worked, because it looked like John sort of…bounced…maybe a foot off the ground before hitting it with a thud Joe knew, in some distant rational corner of his brain, wasn’t nearly as bad as it could have been.
If Julian was thinking the same, it wasn’t readily apparent as she called out John’s name, sounding completely panicked, and descended so quickly that Joe had to catch her to keep her from stumbling. On the ground, she ran toward him, kicking up dust in her wake and losing a shoe along the way. William, trailing after Julian and Joe – it was only later that Joe realized he’d been right behind Julian all the way – picked it up and carried it after them, looking slightly puzzled by all the fuss.
John was already trying to sit up. “For goodness’ sake, Julian,” he gasped as she hovered. “I’m not dead.”
“I can see that,” said Julian tartly, and Joe felt immeasurably better just for hearing them talk to each other normally. If she had been gentle, Joe would have been terrified. “But you don’t know what you’ve hurt, so be still – “
“I can move everything just fine,” said John, and managed to sound mildly irritated even while white-faced and grimacing. “It’s just – oh, damn it - my shoulder – Joe, help me up – “
Julian gave Joe a Look. Joe shrugged. “No can do,” he said. “I think I’ll die instead if I do. And anyway, here’s Burhan.”
It was indeed. Burhan had, Joe noticed, taken the time to complete the game before descending. He did, however, look mildly…perturbed in some way, anyway. Joe couldn’t tell if the expression was more surprise or concern, but it was definitely some kind of perturbation.
John, pushing himself upright at last, made a face that might have been meant as a pained smile. “You win,” he said. “Well done.”
“The same to you,” said Burhan. “I did not expect you to stand in my way so long.” He frowned slightly. “Though I am surprised you fell when you did after all that,” he added.
John grimaced again, but this time it looked more annoyed than pained. “Stupid of me,” he said. “I slipped.”
He hadn’t, though, that was the thing. Joe had been looking, and he was nearly sure that John had not really slipped at all – or at the very least, that he had done so on purpose.
* * * * * * * *
It took Joe several hours to get his brother alone in the library, at which point he promptly dropped all pretense of civility. “What the hell is wrong with you?” he demanded furiously.
He wished, for one moment, that he was the sort of person who shouted when he was angry, but he didn’t. He could get loud when he was happy, but when he was angry, he went quiet. They all did. Maybe that was what was wrong with them – maybe they just needed to all have a great big, family-wide screaming fight and get it out of their systems. They could invite Sam, and while he and John and Paul and Mom and Julian were the messed up ones, he was sure they could loop Dad and Stephen in somehow. He’d invite Grandma and Grandpa and Aunt Katie and second cousin Lawrence if he needed to. They could all just scream their heads off at each other over everything and nothing in particular and have done with it.
John did not look like he wanted to have a screaming fight, though. John frowned, seemingly genuinely puzzled. “Er – nothing, as far as I know,” he said. “Shoulder’s still a little stiff, but…”
“But that’s your own fault,” snapped Joe. “You fell on purpose.”
John looked at him quizzically. “Why do you say that?”
“Because it’s true,” said Joe. “I was watching you, John.”
“Joe, I’m flattered you think I’m good enough that I couldn’t just slip, but – “
“Stop,” said Joe. “Are you even listening to yourself right now? You’re lying. Do you think I don’t know when you’re lying? You’ve been acting weird for days. What is wrong with you?”
He began the sentence glaring and ended it all but pleading. John suddenly glared back at him and slapped the desk in front of him. “There is nothing wrong with me,” he snapped, his voice rising abruptly to something close to a shout at the end. Joe took a step back. “You’re the one babbling – sounding like you’re paranoid – listening to her, are you? You think I’m crazy?”
It took Joe a long moment to realize who ‘her’ was. “That has nothing to do with this,” said Joe. “I’m worried about you because you’re acting weird and possibly hurting yourself and I don’t know why.”
He could almost see the wheels turning in John’s head. “Fine,” spat John at last. “Fine. I did stop fighting back. I let him knock me down. Does that make you happy?”
“Not particularly. Why?”
“Because I wanted Billy Boy to think I’m easier to beat than I am.”
Joe stared at him. “So you jump off a broom twenty feet in the air?” asked Joe. “If Julian had been any slower, you might have broken your neck, you might have died - “
“Don’t be so dramatic. I might have broken a leg.”
“That’s not the point!” At a cool, rational distance, Joe realized that this was not helping his case. “The point is that…that? That is not the right way even if you had a single scrap of evidence that William is even going to try to do something to you or to Julian, and as far as I know, all you’ve got is that you can’t stand purebloods and you apparently haven’t got an iota of respect for our sister!” John’s jaw dropped. Joe continued ruthlessly. “I’ve wanted to be on your side in this, but I know Julian knows him better than we do, and I trust both of you and right now, she’s the one who’s acting more like that’s a smart thing for me to do with her!”
Joe knew he wasn’t making the best sense right now, not expressing himself clearly, but he thought he was getting the point across reasonably clearly considering how incredibly stressed he felt at the moment. From the looks of him, John was stressed, too; his hands were moving restlessly, and they stopped over his face as his shoulders hunched defensively for a moment – only a moment, though, because the position was evidently painful.
“I have my reasons,” he said finally. “I can’t – Joe, I just need you to trust me. I can’t tell you, but – “ John stopped talking, shaking his head, and they stood there in silence until they heard the library door open and both turned toward it at once.
Joe was terrified it would be Julian, who would know they had been fighting at once, but it was Lenore Crowley. She at least seemed to know something was wrong – she looked slightly wary as she looked back and forth between the two of them standing on opposite sides of the desk – but unlike their sister, she didn’t know them both well enough to read them and didn’t have certain rights and prerogatives even if she did. She must have known it, too, because after a moment, her eyes fixed on John.
“You – still have my handkerchief, Umland” she said.
John frowned and patted his pockets. “I do? I don’t think I do. Did I…” He frowned. “I didn’t remember having it. I must have dropped it in the…falling down…stuff.”
Lenore gave him an inscrutable look. “I suppose that’s as close to a good excuse as you’re going to get,” she remarked. She took a step closer. “You weren’t hurt badly?”
“I’m fine,” muttered John.
“Good,” said Lenore. “Some of your views are a bit simplistic, but it would…have been a shame if you really had gotten your head knocked in.”
John laughed sharply. “Was that a compliment, Crowley? Thank you.”
Joe looked between them and had terrible thoughts. Worse thoughts than he had had at any point before this. He tried to catch John’s eye, but his brother was looking around the desk as though still expecting the errant handkerchief to appear there. Lenore was easier to read, though. Joe would have bet a galleon – a princely sum from his perspective – that Lenore had been genuinely concerned for John’s well-being, and when he put together her last comment with the whole affair of the handkerchief….
He thought back over the afternoon, to the original affair with the handkerchief, and swore silently as he realized something else: William thought he knew the same thing Joe thought he knew, which was that Lenore was attracted to John. And William disapproved.
Joe thought he had just found one of the pieces of information he’d been missing. This had just all gotten a lot more complicated.
* * * * * * * *
Julian muttered as a heel stuck in the grass, then looked up and found herself looking at the object of her search. Joe was standing in the drive, looking up at the house, his hands in his pockets.
“Hello,” she called and her brother looked around and then at her as though she had startled him out of deep thought. “What are you doing?”
“Just thinking,” said Joe.
“I can see that,” said Julian, reaching his side. “A knut for your thoughts?”
Joe grinned. “Since we don’t have pennies anymore,” he remarked. “I was just thinking it’s been a weird couple of weeks.”
Of course. This was right where she and Joe and John had all stood together when she had first brought the boys here. “I hope it hasn’t been as bad as all that,” said Julian, looking around, too, and wondering again exactly what the boys saw here.
“No,” said Joe. “It just seems like more’s happened than really did, you know?”
“Not really,” said Julian.
“It’s…I don’t know,” said Joe, grinning again. “Let’s just say I didn’t see any of this coming when we came home.”
Julian considered Joe. All of this had happened because of John – Julian had staged everything for his benefit, his and later, to a lesser extent, Mom’s. Once she’d realized that concealment and secrecy was no longer an option between John and William, she had opted for full disclosure, deciding to take William’s word for it that John’s paranoia and hostility were the product of insecurity. It had seemingly worked, too, so that was good, but she had never really thought about if or how all this was affecting Joe.
Joe was not like John. Joe didn’t show any strong ideological passions. When the family talked religion or politics, Joe was off on the sidelines. He made the occasional joke or sarcastic comment, maybe pointed out a flaw in logic, but he rarely advanced opinions or arguments of his own. Julian had always assumed it was because, as the baby of the family, he just didn’t have any, but she usually didn’t advance opinions of her own in those discussions because she was the sort who smoothed over arguments, not the sort who started them, even when she knew everyone else in the argument was having fun having it. Joe was a Teppenpaw, too.
“It means a lot to me, you know,” she said. “Everyone getting along.”
“I know,” said Joe.
“And I know you know,” said Julian, and they shared a smile. It was much easier to speak this way to Joe than to John, somehow. “But what I don’t know is whether that’s why you’re getting along.”
Joe shrugged. “I’m not going to lie,” he said, and she momentarily feared the worst before he said, “with Justin? I’m faking it for you.”
Julian laughed, and Joe did, too, after a second. “Justin’s a bit…yeah,” said Julian. “I think it’s like his version of painting his nails black and listening to metal or something. The rest of us only put up with him for Lenore and Burhan’s sake.”
“The rest of ‘us’,” echoed Joe. “This is your set now, then, huh?”
From anyone else in the family, Julian would have been sure that comment was judgmental. With Joe, she could almost think it was just a question. “We hang out,” she said non-committaly. “I spend time with a lot of people.” She crossed her arms over her chest and ran her hands down her sleeves even though it wasn’t remotely cold. “I didn’t ask for any of this, Joe,” she said. “But it happened, and it’s not all bad for us.”
“You don’t hear me complaining,” said Joe. “I just said it was…kinda weird and unexpected.”
“You’re telling me,” muttered Julian.
“Maybe you should tell John,” said Joe suddenly.
“What?” asked Julian.
“You two are driving me crazy,” said Joe bluntly. “Just go – deal with it. Whatever ‘it’ is.”
Julian crossed her arms again. “What do you think I’ve been trying to do?” she said. “That’s why we’re all here.”
“Oh? I thought you just wanted to share with all of us.”
Julian glared at him. “Of course I do,” she said. “But….” She flushed. “It’s what we were fighting about at Easter, all right?” she said. “So I wanted to show…I’ve got nothing to hide, I’m not hiding you guys, I – “ she stopped and shook her head, cursing how easy Teppenpaw guys were to talk to.
“I get it,” said Joe. “Kind of. But….” Joe bit his lip, looking deeply conflicted. “Just think about it, okay, Julian?” he asked.
“Okay,” said Julian.
* * * * * * * *
The skylights made the library almost painfully bright on a cloudless day, not to mention more than a little hot. Julian twisted her hair back for a second and then let it go again before approaching her brother.
John was working at the desk he shared with Lenore, intent on his books, but without any of the more obvious indicators of stress in his posture or expression. If Julian was still any good at reading him at all, she actually thought he was about as close to relaxed as he got. That meant he was working on something engaging and wasn’t thinking about anything else; the only other time he really relaxed was in church, and even that wasn’t totally consistent. She had always wondered what it felt like to live in John’s head, because from the outside, it looked utterly exhausting.
Julian had expected to see William that day, but had not expected to see him the way she had: at breakfast time, shoes covered in mud, coming in from outside with her brother. John had excused himself quickly, and to William he probably sounded normal enough, but Julian thought he seemed a little too eager to get out of there.
“What were you two up to?” asked Julian.
“John was introducing me to some of the basics of his hobby,” said William.
Julian looked up at William in surprise. “You went birding?” she asked, trying to hide the incredulity in her tone.
“I wasn’t very good at it,” admitted William. “But I confess, that’s not really why I went.” Julian raised an eyebrow. “I thought we ought to address that incident at Easter, and it seemed like a good opportunity – what?” asked William, noticing that Julian was staring at him in utter horror.
“Please tell me you never got around to it,” begged Julian.
“It’s all fine now,” said William. “We sorted it out.”
Julian had highly doubted that. She had gone to look for John the first moment she had, but by the time she’d realized he wasn’t anywhere she expected him to be, he hadn’t been in the building at all; he’d had a meeting back in Calgary and had then gone out for frozen yogurt with his friends, apparently. Upon his return, he had acted as though nothing was wrong at all, but Julian was still worried.
“Just a minute,” said John distantly, apparently noticing that someone was in the library but not the details yet. “Let me do these numbers….”
“What are you working on?” asked Julian when he put the pencil down and ran a hand over his eyes.
John glanced up for a moment, evidently surprised it was her, but otherwise showed no particular reaction. “I was trying to figure out if I can incorporate any data I gather here into my big bird project,” said John. “But it just occurred to me that I haven’t accounted nearly enough for the influence of magical flora and insects in my study areas.”
He sounded despondent. “Is that bad?” asked Julian, as John’s tones didn’t always match his moods exactly. Whether that was because he sounded different to himself or because his moods could swing so rapidly, she didn’t know.
“Yes,” said John. “It means I – “ he grimaced. “I probably can write up something before my RATS, but it won’t be as good as it could have been.”
“What exactly is the point of all this?” asked Julian.
John gave her a long, colorless look, then suddenly grinned. “You really want to know?” he asked. “Just to prove I can do goodresearch…without resources. It might make people want to give me more resources someday.”
Julian Summoned one of the other chairs in the room so she could sit down, too. “So you want to take this to university, huh? The bird stuff.”
Julian envied him that, which was why she was surprised when his face fell. “I don’t know,” muttered John. “I love this, of course, but I’m also fascinated by biophysics and Transfiguration, and most of what I’ve done with Clark falls under some kind of – “ he chuckled – “I suppose it’s in the vicinity of chemistry, but with a good side of ecology….” He grinned ruefully. “I might have to decide which university to go to, uh, in order to decide what to study once I’m there.”
Julian was surprised by that one. She had always assumed John would stay close to home. They had one of the best universities in the world practically on their doorstep, after all – Mom and John had a passionate love affair with the parts of UCal’s libraries that were open to the public – plus John needed looking after, and anyway, it was cheaper to live at home. “Oh?” she asked. “Planning to break family tradition?”
John shrugged. “I don’t know. It’s not as though I won’t have options, right?”
She had the feeling she was missing some nuance of those words, but couldn’t guess what it might be. Julian folded her hands in her lap. “Yeah,” she said. “You can probably do – basically anything you want to. Except go into politics,” she joked.
“Yeah, don’t really have the right kind of background,” he said, but it was lightly spoken and there was no edge to it.
“Background, hell,” said Julian. “It’s your personality’s that’s the problem. You’d have to move south to have a chance.” The corners of John’s mouth twitched. “Or, I don’t know, maybe Quebec,” continued Julian. “They might elect you just to – haha – just to argue – “
They both laughed. It felt like the first time they had done that in a long time.
“I was wrong,” said Julian.
John looked confused by the abrupt swing in the conversation. “Come again?”
“I was wrong not to tell the family about all this sooner,” said Julian. “That I was coming here, that I was going to parties with Sallie – “
John pinched the bridge of his nose. “Julian, don’t,” he said.
“No. I was – I was kind of messed up. I wasn’t thinking about anything but how confusing it was for me, and – “ just like you did, basically, thought Julian, but she didn’t say it. She had the ability to empathize with others to a degree that John didn’t. The one thing she couldn’t get her head around was truly not even being able to imagine what other people felt, as Julian spent more of her time than not worrying that her own feelings were incorrect. She couldn’t imagine possessing the confidence to assume everyone must feel the way she did about something. “Confusing because I didn’t know why they wanted to talk to me, I mean - I’m not one of those adopted kids who doesn’t think I belong in my family.”
It was more complicated than that, of course. There was that part of her that didn’t always feel she fit in with the rest of the family. She had also not sought out the Crowleys out of some desire to belong, but out of an abundance of caution and no small measure of calculation, hoping she could find some means of making life easier for her family. For their purposes here, though, there was no need to go into all that. All John needed to know was that Sallie being in her life didn’t mean John was any less her baby brother than he had been before her fourth year. She loved her family, including him, no matter what – even when she really wanted to slap a particular member, generally him, of it.
John couldn’t seem to make eye contact with her and was fidgeting uncomfortably. “Why are you saying all this?” he asked gruffly, staring over her head.
“Because we’ve been screwed up for a while and I don’t like it,” said Julian bluntly. Expressing her feelings like this was no easier for her than she thought it was for him – they were a family given to understatement and quiet gestures; they discussed ideas, not their feelings – but she had been working up to this for days. “And William told me you two talked about how you feel about him and worked it out, so I thought – it should be a lot easier for me to sort it out with you than it is for him. We’re family.”
“Yeah, but Bill and I are both guys,” said John. “We, uh, talk about things a little differently than girls do.” He was staring at a fixed point on the desk, now, and drumming his fingers rapidly on it; Julian stayed quiet, pretty sure he was trying to organize his thoughts and that speaking would just interrupt and probably agitate him. “I…you…I didn’t want them to hurt you,” he muttered finally. Silence fell again, and she could tell John’s leg was now bouncing under the table, too. “Miss Breaman – that doesn’t bother me,” said John. Julian strongly suspected he was lying, but decided not to call him on it. “But I – you aren’t like me. You’re…normal. You care about people, I mean – it just happens for you. Do you think I would have been nice to me if I’d been you?”
Julian thought for a second and decided he was referring to when they had met. “Maybe not the same way I was,” said Julian. “But don’t think you can pull that Sherlock Holmes, all-great-brain routine over on me.” Julian smiled. “I’ve seen you expound on the Scout code and what you voluntarily wear out in public during the wintertime,” she teased.
“People always act like there’s something wrong with my sweaters,” muttered John. “They’re warm and I live in a place with a name that might literally mean cold garden in Ancient Norse.”
There was only one thing Julian could say to that. “Why do you know that?” she asked, and they both laughed again. John, however, sobered quickly and was still fidgeting. Julian once again waited him out.
“I was wrong, too,” muttered John. Julian stared at him in honest shock, wondering for a moment if he was actually going to concede that Sallie and William and maybe even Bertram were decent enough people. “I – I was unkind to you,” said John, dashing that hope but giving her something she still wouldn’t have counted on. Forgiving John for being an ass sometimes was something she did because she was the better person, not because she seriously expected him to improve. John was always the same. “I was – not good. That day. Not just to you, but – I was unwell. Miss Breaman showed up at our house.”
It took Julian a few seconds to process that one. “Oh my God,” she said. John glared at her, and such were the circumstances that Julian couldn’t be sure it was because John disapproved of taking the Lord’s name in vain. “Why didn’t you tell me that?”
“It was irrelevant,” said John. “She had gone away. I shouldn’t have yelled at you because of her, though.”
“Well – no,” agreed Julian. “But I never would have….”
Pushed it, thought Julian. Brought up Joanie. Well, she wouldn’t have brought up Joanie, but if she had found out that woman had been upsetting him after she brought up Joanie, after he questioned her judgment, maybe she would have….
Years ago, John had hurt her feelings horribly and never known it. I don’t think Julian’s that stupid. She’s just acting stupid. Julian no longer remembered if those were the exact words her brother had used, but that had been the gist of it. He had thought she was a bit dim, too nice to know that people could be out to take advantage – not thinking that someone could be kind and charitable and pleasant and yet not a naïve fool, when she thought he really should have known better. He had done it again when he had questioned her judgment as far as William was concerned, implied she was so shallow that she thought about nothing but appearances. She had questioned his judgment, too, implied he might let his libido override his good sense, but he had taken it below the belt, not just brought up a reasonable concern an adult talking to a schoolboy….
Julian flicked that thought aside. He was, after all, a young teenager. Nothing he said was any more relevant, as he himself might put it, than his plan to ‘rescue’ her from the clouds when he was ten, and anyway – there was only so much honesty and dealing with each other that she thought either of them could take at one time, and there was no point to getting into things that had happened years ago.
“I should have been more in control of myself anyway,” said John.
Julian could see no satisfactory way to end the argument, so she decided to skip it altogether. “Awkward sibling hug?” she offered instead.
“Sounds appropriate,” said John.
* * * * * * * *
Whether awkward sibling hugs were appropriate, instead of just sounding that way, John couldn’t say. They were, however, welcome either way. After the discussion which had preceded one, John’s nerves had been decidedly frazzled.
He had never in his life intended to tell Julian about Miss Breaman.
”I know what you’re thinking,” Joanie had said. ”And it’s dead wrong. You’re not going to convince Julian you’re right. It’s like Dr. Phil says: Do you want to be right or do you want to be happy?”
What, his friend had asked after John had finished mocking her for quoting Dr. Phil, had Mr. Flowers done? He’d played up being the victim. He’d been all hurt that John would think of him that way, reinforcing to Julian that John was the irrational aggressor and that the guy her various glands thought would make a good mate was indeed the Good Sort she really wanted to think he was. The playing field between them couldn’t be truly leveled, John not being the sort to want or attempt to have sex with his own sister, but he could bring Julian back to his side, or at least bring her less far from it, by playing the same card.
”Come on, John,” Joanie had said irritably. ”You’ve read as much about this as I have. You just haven’t figured out how to apply it. Appear weak where you are strong. A prince need not have all the qualities he appears to have.”
“I don’t think that’s exactly how it went….”
“Doesn’t matter.”
And it didn’t. And he knew it. The point was that to get something done, one sometimes had to appear to be other than one was. John had spent most of his life pretending his social skills were even more limited than they really were to hide that he was a wizard. Joanie pretended to be an airhead to secure the interest of genetically desirable males. William pretended to be a good guy with easily-bruised feelings in order to continue trying to infiltrate and investigate John’s family. Everybody lied. Everyone, as he had told Lenore, was a rotten case…except Mom and Julian.
Julian wasn’t like him. Julian saw things the way she wanted them to be, not the way they were. And Julian was Good. Julian had kept one secret in her life, other than the secret of being a witch, that John knew of, and she hadn’t even done a very good job of that. Julian was everything John wasn’t – including the kind of person who, when she realized there was a problem, would just come to him and try to talk it out instead of going to a third party to learn how to play head games. She hadn’t, he was sure, been thinking about what she could get out of their conversation; she had just been concerned that things were messed up between them.
For one moment, too, John had considered telling her the whole truth – that the reason he didn’t trust William was because he had done things William could legitimately be investigating, that he had been afraid that message about mothers from the Satori had been about her and therefore afraid that she didn’t really love Mom and by extension him, that it had all started out so simple but now it was complicated and he was in over his head and would like nothing better than to go back and own up and make friends with her again. That way of thinking had only lasted a moment, though, before he had realized that wasn’t how it would go. If Julian ever knew him for what he was, she’d be disgusted and horrified by him. He’d just have to figure out how to build better roads….
A broad, straight road leads into Hell, and there’s something else wrong with that thought….
No, he was off-task again. Avoiding the topic, which was that he was in over his head. The only practical course was to continue, though, even though he was terrified he was damning himself by doing it. Not only was he in so deeply that to go back would be as difficult as to go forward, it was also the only way to protect Mom and Julian, Joe and Joanie…even Clark could probably get roped into it, if it came to that. If he did what he had always learned was the right thing, then almost everyone he cared about would suffer along with him. They wouldn’t even be able to derive comfort from thinking they were being persecuted for God – they’d suffer, not even for, but just because of him. Joanie was his second self, but the others were good people. How could doing that to them be Right? How could it?
Right isn’t complicated, it’s just unpleasant. Whether someone else did what was Right has no bearing on what Right in another case is. When all comes down to personal judgment, when the impartial structure is removed, there is no justice, there’s just us.
He had said that. He had written that. He had believed it when he wrote and said it. But….
He rubbed his hands over his face.
OOC: Stuff Alluded To Or Outright Referenced includes X-Men: First Class, The Great Gatsby (both “her voice was full of money” and the earlier “bona-fide print materials”), Disney’s The Hunchback of Notre Dame, the Prince Caspian novel and film, and Shakespeare’s King Lear, Richard III, Much Ado About Nothing (deliberately misquoted), Othello, and Macbeth. Furthermore, there’s also Lewis’ The Four Loves, the musical Chess, Aeschylus’ Eumenides, Pratchett’s Mort, Disney’s Beauty and the Beast, The Young and the Restless, Gravity Falls, one of Dr. Phil’s endless catchphrases, Sun Tzu’s The Art of War, Machiavelli’s The Prince, and various books of the Bible.