Mimi turned from Josephine to look at me. “You’ve brought me a guest.”
Although her voice was neutral, I recognized the disapproval in it. I wasn’t sure why it was there, but I needed to take command of the situation to make sure the book was returned to its rightful owner. I strode up to the porch. “Hello. I am Dr. Carolyn Fern. Josephine is my patient. We’ve come to return something to you.”
Mimi stepped down the stairs on unsteady legs. She shuffled over to meet me. Something about her was familiar. As if I had met her before. Perhaps long ago in another dream. She stopped before me and bowed her head.
“I remember you. You didn’t listen to me. Why didn’t you listen to me? I couldn’t save her. I thought I could save you. Now all of us will live and die together. Our fates are intertwined.” Her voice was tired and old and damnably familiar.
“I do not understand.”
“Must you do this to me? Must you make me rip the scales from your eyes?” She tilted her head up, one golden-brown eye visible through her mass of greying-black hair.
Suddenly, I was back in the asylum, standing before Nurse Heather and Dr. Mintz’s drugged patient. “Sati Das? How are you here?” I blinked, the image of the patient melded into the old woman before me, transforming her into a young Indian woman with a straight back, bright eyes, and long dark hair. That appeared to be her true form, her true age, despite the years I felt upon her shoulders.
“Mimi?” Josephine stood next to us. This Josephine was no more than ten years old. “What’s happening?”
Sati took a breath and let it out in rush. “I’m sorry, Josie. I’m not in a mood to play.” With that, she turned on her heel and strode into the Red House. She closed the door behind her.
“Doctor? What’s happening? What’s going on?” Josephine took my hand in hers.
I looked down. She was an adorable child. It would be so easy to allow her remain so. One more step to taking care of her and protecting that aura of innocence I knew was a lie. After all, I held the very book whose whispers she’d succumbed to. But she knew Sati, the woman she named Mimi, better than I did. I would need her insight, if not her support, to convince Sati to take back the book that clamored for my attention. “I’m not sure. But I think you need to grow up again. I may need your help in there.”
Josephine shook her head. “I don’t wanna.”
“There are many things I don’t want to do. So, unless you want this book back…?” I held it out to her. She let go of my hand and stepped away. “I thought not. Grow up and come help me with this.” I refused to believe she would deny me.
I raised my chin and faced the Red House. It was going to let me in if I had to tear it down piece by piece. I strode to the front door and tried the doorknob. It turned in my hand without hesitation. I went in, leaving Josephine behind.
All the while, The Glyphs of the Eltdown Shards and the Binding Language wordlessly shouted in my head for me to read it.
I walked into a single room with four doors leading off of it. All of the doors were closed. This was a parlor where you could invite people into the house, but not necessarily into the home. Three overstuffed chairs and a long couch sat in a horseshoe around a long, low table on bird legs in front of a fireplace. All of it was decorated in rich hues of reds, oranges, and yellows. The occasional adornment in blue broke up the fierce color pattern.
Sati, once more the old woman I saw on the porch, stood next to the fireplace with a straight back and grey hair in a neat bun. She gazed into the fire’s flickering flames. Rather than wearing the sari of her native land, she wore the business dress and jacket of a professor. In my mind’s eye, the memory of her true form, the drugged woman in the asylum, flickered in and out of existence.
“We are not done, you and I.” I moved into the room and took a seat in one of the overstuffed chairs. “This book. It belongs to you.”
“And if I refuse to take it?”
“It’s killing Josephine.” I didn’t say that it was currently gnawing on my will in an effort to get into me.
Sati turned. “It appears that Josephine is no longer in danger.” She gestured.
I looked and saw Josephine standing by the porch door. She was once more a young woman, but she was also back in her linen dress and dressing gown. I knew what it meant. Sati did not. “Josephine is still in danger. You gave her a duty too much for her. I know exactly what she went through and why she succumbed.”
“I am standing here in the room with you both. Do not speak of me as if I were not.” Josephine pulled her dressing gown about her in an effort to salvage her dignity.
Sati rolled her eyes. “Then come sit down and be part of the conversation.”
“Perhaps I should throw this book into the fire.” My statement was met with a fierce reaction from both Sati and Josephine.
“No!” Josephine, in the act of sitting, jerked to her feet again. “You cannot.”
“No. We would lose too much.” Sati took two steps toward me, revealing what she’d kept hidden thus far.
“I can take it back. I’m strong enough.” Josephine reached a hand toward me. “I know better now. Don’t throw it into the fire.”
I ignored Josephine’s hasty, panicked words. I only had eyes for the scroll case in Sati’s hands. About a foot long and two inches in diameter, the beige leather was covered in embossed swirls and whirls accented in gold. It was beautiful. It was important. I recognized it in the depths of my soul. It was what I’d been meant to carry all along.
“I see…” I breathed these words, putting my understanding of Sati’s burden and the reason she didn’t want the book back into the breath, and locked eyes with the professor.
Sati shook her head. “I’ve already ripped one set of scales from your eyes. Don’t make me rip another.”
“There is little more you can do to me that has not already been done. Those horses have escaped the barn.” It was true. There was no going back to the way I once was. “All experiences shape us.”
“It will change more than just you.” Sati raised her eyes to Josephine.
“It must be done. You must take this back.” I raised the book to her despite the pain I felt at parting it from my body. Sati remained where she was. I put the book on the table between us. “I will take on your burden.”
Sati raised the scroll case then lowered it again as she shook her head. “I…” She fell silent.
I was missing something. I focused on the professor. There was guilt and fear in her posture. She’d turned away from Josephine. “Why did you give Josephine the book? Why would you give something so dangerous to a child?”
“It wasn’t supposed to hurt her.” Sati’s eyes begged for forgiveness. “It wasn’t awake when I held it.”
“What changed?”
Sati shook her head. “I don’t know. It never occurred to me that she would read it. It was a barrier, a ward. Something to hide behind. It wasn’t awake. I didn’t know it could wake.”
I could feel the book thrumming on the table. It seduced me with its promise of knowledge and power. “It is awake now.”
Josephine moved between us and reached for the Eltdown Shards book. Her body froze scant inches from it. As she froze, so did we all. Three women in a tableau of need and conflict. I reached for Josephine with one hand and for the scroll case with the other. Sati held the scroll case with both hands, already pressing it toward me. Our conversation whirled about the room in visible thought bubbles as if we were nothing more than characters on a page.
“I am right here! Neither of you is listening to me. This was my burden. I should never have given it up.” Filled with determination, Josephine strained toward the book.