Councillor Greaves graciously allowed me to spend the night in his guest room. He had Charlotte prepare dinner for himself, myself, and Irene, after which Irene took her leave and headed home.
I lay in the bed, which was unexpectedly comfortable, and stared at the ceiling. I knew I wouldn't sleep well, so I just lay there, allowing my brain to do whatever the hell it wanted. The thoughts rolled around and tumbled over and under each other, leaving the insides of my skull littered with dents, footprints, and scuff marks.
I didn't bother trying to reign it in. There was simply too much going on in there.
The darkness and the chance to lie down were welcome, even if the cacophony in my head was not. I doubted I'd sort anything out in the darkness of the dead of night, so I didn't try. I knew, in fact, that the middle of the night was the worst time to think about anything. If there were problems, they became magnified. If there were fears, they grew out of proportion. If there were worries, they spun faster than in the daylight. "The Hour of the Wolf" was a phrase I'd once heard applied to that dismal time between two and three in the morning. It seemed to me that had been the title of an episode of Babylon 5.
I must have fallen asleep at some point, however, because I woke up to a glow at the window. The sun was not yet up, but it was on its way. I hadn't bothered to check what season it was here in this world, and there was no illuminated clock in the room due to the lack of electricity, so I had no idea what the time was. I yawned, stretched my arms above my head, and sat up.
I had already investigated the bathroom situation, and thank God no electricity was needed for good indoor plumbing. There was hot and cold running water and a flush toilet. I assumed there was some kind of coal or oil furnace heating the water, because electric water heaters would be unheard of here.
I fussed with details like that to distract myself from the larger issues at hand. Issues such as: Was any of this real? Why was I able to see Irene when she had mentally travelled to my world? Why did those men in the suits want to interrogate and run tests on me? How does one travel between worlds?
For the answers to these, and other questions, I would have to do more than tune in to tomorrow's (now today's) episode. I would have to start taking a more active role in what was happening to me.
Yes, that was it. Things were happening to me; I wasn't making things happen. The one thing I had tried to make happen, my own death, did not come to pass and had, I now thought, played a role in all the unfortunate things that had come later.
I rubbed my eyes and wobbled to the bathroom. Councillor Greaves had been good enough to provide me with one of his nightshirts, which spared the household from a semi-conscious nude excursion to the bathroom by the otherworldly guest. I didn't know if Charlotte was a live-in maid, but it gave me great pleasure to envision her standing in the hall as I staggered, half-asleep, naked, and with a blooming, dream-induced erection, to the bathroom.
I had to take what comfort I could. At this point, including a maid in my naughty imaginings would have to do.
As I splashed a bit of cold water on my face, I returned to my analysis—such as it was—of my long road to Bizarro World. If it had all begun with the suicide attempt, then something must have happened to me while I was unconscious. I couldn't imagine that something as simple as Gravol, Sleep-Eze-D, and Captain Morgan would cause changes to my brain significant enough to alter how I perceived things. I was pretty sure that I was not the first person to try that particular cocktail. I'd never heard of anyone having increased perceptual abilities from such a thing.
But then, I didn't make a point of keeping abreast of the latest suicide trends. Besides which, if someone did gain new perceptual abilities from such circumstances, they would most likely be whisked away to a government facility somewhere, and no one would ever hear of them again.
I froze in the midst of drying my face. Slowly, I let go of the towel and stood upright. I had just hit the nail on the head. I had been whisked away. If it hadn't been for Irene, I might still be in that godawful grey room. I'd most likely have already undergone God knows what kind of tests.
I sat down on the edge of the bathtub. This was a revelation. It was the piece I'd been missing. I was different now, and some agency—some government agency, I now felt certain—knew that I was different. I would probably have been kidnapped even if I hadn't leapt out the back door of my apartment building at the man with the measuring device.
I stood up again, shaky now for reasons other than sleepiness, and returned to the bedroom. I crawled back under the covers and nestled myself into the most comfortable position I could find. I didn't expect to fall back to sleep, but I figured I'd at least be polite and not start moving around too much until the household started its day.
The "household" appeared to consist of just Councillor Greaves; I hadn't met anyone else. He might have had a wife and children, for all I knew, but there had been no sign of them. Just the councillor and his maid. Perhaps they had more than an employer-employee relationship; I just didn't know. If so, it wasn't a May-December romance. It was more like an Ides of March-New Year's Eve romance.
Deciding I didn't particularly want to continue that line of thought, I turned over again and closed my eyes. The light was becoming stronger outside the window, and I wanted to shut it out for a while longer. I turned away from the window, brought my knees up to my chest, and wrapped my arms around the pillow.
Within minutes I started hearing sounds elsewhere in the house. Footsteps, doors, pots and pans.
Charlotte must be starting to prepare breakfast, I thought.
I sighed and sat up again. She was downstairs, but she was making the Devil's own noise. Perhaps it her way of letting the councillor know that it was time to get up. Or perhaps she was just a really clumsy cook. Whatever the reason, I decided to go downstairs and investigate.
I put on my clothes of the previous day—vowing to take a nice hot bath before the morning was out—and headed downstairs. I could hear the intermittent running of water in the kitchen sink, the opening and closing of cupboard doors, and more clanging.
I stuck my head into the kitchen. Charlotte was chopping things and mixing things and putting pots and pans on hot elements. Gas stove, I figured.
"Morning, Charlotte," I said sleepily.
She shrieked, and a wooden spoon and a bowl of eggs went flying into the air. I stepped forward to try and catch them, but to no avail. The bowl and spool clattered onto the floor, and the eggs splattered up onto the nearest cupboard.
Charlotte had her back against the counter and her hand on her chest. "Mister Richmond," she said through sharp, rapid breaths. "You frightened me out of my wits."
I put a hand to my forehead. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to startle you. I didn't realize you were so focused on what you were doing."
Her breathing began to slow a bit. "I'm completely immersed when I'm cooking," she said. "It's almost like I go to another place."
I smirked. "Another world?"
Her face reddened, and her eyebrows tilted towards each other. "Good Heavens, no," she said. "I don't have such abilities. That's why I'm a servant."
I put my hands up. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to offend you. I didn't realize—"
She nodded, then looked down and straightened her apron. "Of course," she said. "Of course you wouldn't know. I shouldn't have scolded you. You're our guest, after all."
"Well, don't make any special concessions for me. Please keep letting me know when I say something wrong. I'll never learn about this place otherwise."
"Don't worry," she said as she reached for a cloth. "There are plenty of people who'll be only too happy to set you straight if you don't follow our customs."
She crouched to pick up the bowl and spoon, then knelt on the floor to wipe up the egg.
I scratched my head. I was beginning to wonder about this world. For all it seemed to be a friendly place, I felt this undercurrent of dread. All this talk of taboos and customs was starting to make me queasy. Not to mention that Charlotte had just hinted a some sort of class-based system, where some types of people were more worthy than others.
I was beginning to wonder just what in hell I had stepped into here.
Charlotte shooed me out of the kitchen after that, and I went back into the living room to sit down until breakfast was ready. Councillor Greaves came downstairs about ten minutes later.
"Good morning, Jack," he said, his voice full of bluster and enthusiasm. He reminded me of an old English admiral, come to give his sailors a morning pep talk.
"Good morning, councillor," I said, standing to greet him.
"Sleep all right?" he asked.
I raised an eyebrow. "Not quite as well as I would have liked," I said. "But it was a relief just to lie down in the darkness for a while."
He nodded. "Yes. Yes, indeed. Hard to turn off the brain after all you've been through, eh?" he asked.
"Yes. Very difficult. Thing won't shut up for a minute."
Greaves chuckled. "Seems to me you still a sense of humor about you. That's a good thing, in my books."
I gave him a sharp glance before turning towards the window. "You're getting the watered-down version," I said. "Usually I'm several notches more sarcastic than this."
"Oh, well, I don't imagine I'd mind that too much," he replied. "A little sarcasm is good for the soul, I think."
I turned back to look at him. "Never heard that one before."
He snorted a laugh. "Hah. That's because I just made it up this minute."
I nodded. "I like it. Mind if I use it sometime?"
"Feel free. Feel free."
I was heading back to the chair I'd been sitting in when Charlotte called from the kitchen that breakfast was ready. The councillor and I moved into the dining room and sat down at the table.
