Heedless of how little she fit in at the Victorian-styled café (aptly named The Victoria), Alice had dragged Olivia back to what was quickly becoming a familiar meeting spot. Every visit Olivia learned something new and amazing about the place, such as the water feature built around a vine-covered artificial ruin, tucked discretely away in a corner of the café despite the decoration being larger than Olivia’s entire apartment. Or the fact, tucked in a small note at the bottom of the menu, that all the maid and butler costumes worn by the serving androids were faithful reproductions of centuries-old designs, made of 100% genuine cotton and wool. Ditto the furniture, all reproductions of some famous designer Olivia had never heard of before. Despite all that, the prices were surprisingly reasonable – apparently during the day the place bustling with suits from the nearby office buildings, so the volume made up for the nearly abandoned evenings when Alice preferred to visit. Still, being able to afford it was a small comfort to Olivia – in her pastel-coloured sweats, she still felt like she didn’t belong. “One of these days I need to get you to help me pick out some nicer clothes.”
There was a dangerous glint in Alice’s eye as she looked up from pouring her tea, “I’d love to help you try out some new outfits.” Olivia wondered if she’d regret asking.
After the first time Olivia watched Alice work on her art, she’d begun to notice just how regularly elements from the park appeared in her backgrounds. In fact, once Olivia knew what to look for, she was hard pressed to find a background that didn’t have something borrowed from the park scenery – a tree, a lamp post, even the vending machines had a suspiciously familiar stock layout. And the more time they spent together, the more Olivia was able to spot other traces of Alice’s interests and personality in her art as well. As she sipped her steaming, fragrant coffee, Olivia pulled up her phone and began idly scrolling through her folder of saved Alice_ art, and couldn’t help but notice Alice seemed to pay exceptionally careful attention to the details of seams and folds, and to the weight and texture of fabric. It was easy to dismiss it as Alice’s usual attention to detail, but now Olivia began to wonder – was Alice actually really interested in fashion and clothing? Her clothes were always simple and elegant, but they were also always coordinated – unlike Olivia, who’d once left the house in purple pants with a purple shirt, and spent the rest of the day feeling like a sweet potato.
Olivia half-heartedly asked a few more idle questions about clothes and fashion, and Alice even mentioned she’d once mended one of her skirts after a seam got torn, but despite Alice’s brief spurt of enthusiasm when the topic of Olivia’s wardrobe came up, the conversation soon sputtered. Both Olivia and Alice were distracted. Olivia felt an uneasy pit of worry clawing at her stomach, and she suspected Alice wasn’t feeling much better – tonight would be the first time either of them returned to the park since the fire.
****
They hesitated at the nearest of the wrought-iron gates leading into the park. If this was a magical girl series, this might be where Olivia held Alice’s hand to reassure her, but Olivia reminded herself magical girl characters were usually half her age, so she just made eye contact with Alice instead. She stared for a moment into her friend’s cool grey eyes, hoping she came across as reassuring and suspecting it was just awkward. After their first hesitant steps through the wrought-iron gate, it felt like their worry may have been for nothing. The park felt very much just as they’d left it, not only the green of the trees rustling familiarly in the light wind, but also the usual mix of people around. Owing to the size of the park, it was never too many at once, but every now and then there would be a jogger, or a cyclist, or just someone out for a stroll. There was the occasional squirrel running along the ground, tail twitching, and the occasional bird singing a song. The lampposts weren’t yet lit, but they stood alongside the paths waiting for twilight, quietly reassuring visitors they wouldn’t be lost if they stayed out a little too late. It didn’t smell like smoke, and there was no fire damage in sight.
Entering the park this close to the central district, it was nearly a half-hour until they returned to the familiar overgrown stairway leading up to Alice’s favourite meadow. The entire time, the park was just the park, and it was as if nothing had changed at all. Gradually, Olivia’s earlier worry about what they might find in the park found itself being replaced by worry about how sore her feet were getting. Maybe she needed to buy some proper walking shoes? She’d always recoiled at their price (easily double or even triple what she usually bought!) but if she was going to be spending this much time in the park, maybe there was actually a point to their boastful claims about how soft their insoles were and how great they were at alleviating fatigue. As they reached the meadow and began to climb the overgrown stairs, Olivia’s attention was fully focused on making sure her feet found steady ground amongst the crumbling stonework.
Alice reached the top first, so even before Olivia was able to look out to the meadow’s familiar view, she could tell something was wrong from the grim, bitter expression crossing Alice’s face. As Olivia came up beside her and looked out, she saw the familiar sea of green which stretched out to the edge of central district was still there, the only change the seasonal colours starting to creep in. But she also saw, in the distant edge of the park where it met the city, there was an ugly black scar in the landscape. A wound of ash and charcoal and distant black needles that were all that was left of the trees that had stood there only weeks before. The scar carried on into the wall of skyscrapers, and even from so far out, Olivia could see the masses of rubble piled up where buildings once stood. “It’s not as bad as it could have been, but even still…”
Olivia glanced over to Alice. Anger was starting to leak out from behind the bitterness. “Even still, it should never have been allowed to get this bad.” Involuntary fear began to prod the edges of Olivia’s mind, a tense reminder of the last time she’d seen Alice angry. She found her thoughts drifting back to her apartment, her bedroom, her warm sheets and comfy pillow. Why had she come here? She tried to shake those feelings, to stop her thoughts spiraling. She had come because Alice was her friend, and she didn’t want her friend to face this scene alone. Alice is my friend, she repeated to herself, trying to fix the point in her mind, to drive off any uncertainty. Alice must have noticed the tension in Olivia's posture, since her next words were more mild, almost gentle, “Oh, don’t look like that. I’m not Doctor Jekyll, you know. It’s not like an eclipse comes every time I’m a little upset. He only comes when I ask.”
Olivia wasn’t sure that was as reassuring as Alice seemed to think it was. If she could create an eclipse whenever she wanted to, then her anger definitely felt like something to be wary of. Still, Alice was trying to be reassuring, and strangely, despite the words being a bit alarming, Olivia found the attempt at reassurance itself was reassuring. “Doctor Jekyll, that was season 2 of Justice Detective, I think?”
Alice was looking at Olivia now, her back to the black scar at the edge of the park. “She was kind of a lame villain, wasn’t she?”
“I mean, season 1 had Moriarty and North Star and it was SO GOOD. I think anyone would have been lame in comparison. The mystery side of season 2 did feel weak, though. Jekyll could have been interesting, but she just shows up, gets mad, and fights. For like, 8 episodes in a row. A lot of things felt underused in season 2. So, your eclipse is a ‘he’, is he?”
Alice chuckled. “He’s like a cat, more than anything. He just lazes around most of the time.”
“Most of the time…” Olivia echoed, her gaze drifting back out to the park. Remembering the immense vortex of twisting, squirming light that had formed above it as the midday sky turned black.
Alice had turned back to the park as well. “I… I don’t draw at home. I don’t paint, or really do any art at all there. I sketch a bit. I watch videos and animation and browse art forums, but I don’t create anything there. Everything I’ve made has been touched by this meadow. Looking over this view. I’m scared. I’m scared Olivia. There’s a purity here, something primal and beautiful. I always felt like I was carrying that into my art, at least a little. The outsider violated that purity, stuck a scorched dagger into it, and now it feels like that scorched dagger is hanging over me, threatening to slip into my art, into everything that I am… You’re smiling. I suppose this seems a little dramatic.”
Olivia shook her head frantically. “No, no, no! It’s not dramatic at all! I didn’t mean to smile, it just… it means a lot that you’re able to be this honest with me. It really means a lot! And I understand! I’m not an artist, so maybe I don’t understand, but if someone burned something that was really precious to me, it would make me sad every time I looked at it, too! I don’t know if there’s anything I can do to help, but if there is just let me know, I’ll do whatever I can!” Olivia felt a baffling combination of crippling embarrassment and glowing pride she’d managed to say all that.
Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
“You really are just like Hana,” Alice sighed, but the lines of bitterness and anger and worry in her expression had lightened. From the wild swings in her expression, Olivia could tell Alice’s feelings were a tempestuous mess. And each time Alice’s expression softened, Olivia chided herself for being afraid – she was glad she’d come today.
“I stay in my room alone all the time, doing stuff on my computer in the dark, if I’m anyone from Hana Double Zeta I’m more like Yoru. I’m just missing the glasses.”
Alice shook her head, but didn’t argue. “Fine. There is something you can do. Stand right there, Yoru, and don’t move too much, okay?”
Olivia nodded, not quite sure what was going on, and from her bag Alice pulled out a jar of water, a pencil, a watercolour palette, a sheet of heavy paper, and a small drawing board. As Alice found a comfortable rock to sit on, Olivia realized where she was standing placed her directly between Alice and the scar from the fire. As Alice started by laying out some broad pencil lines on her paper, Olivia smiled to herself. She didn’t think there was anything she could have done to help Alice, but here she was – she’d somehow stumbled onto a way. Even if it was just roleplaying a conveniently-placed rock. Alice was focused on her art and didn’t seem inclined to conversation, so Olivia pulled out her phone and started browsing new game releases, hoping to find something interesting for her next live stream.
****
Two hours later, the sun was touching the horizon, and Alice finally signaled she’d finished her painting. Olivia flopped with relief onto the nearest rock that looked halfway comfortable to sit on – her legs were aching from standing in one place for so long. “I don’t mean to be a downer, but I’m not sure how much I’m going to be able to do that. That was more tiring than I expected.”
Alice had begun to pack her equipment back into her bag, and Olivia ruefully reminded herself not to get too comfortable – the sun was going down so they’d need to start making their way out of the park soon. As she worked on tightening the cap on her jar of water, Alice agreed. “It’s not the kind of thing I’m going to do all the time. Maybe just once in a while.”
Her equipment neatly packed, Alice began making her way towards the ruined stairs, and Olivia reluctantly shifted her weight onto her still-complaining legs. As they emerged from the stairs back onto level ground, Alice showed the product of her two hours of work to Oliva in the lamplight. Olivia stared for a moment, then a blush crashed across her face, “Wait, that whole time you were drawing me?!”
Alice tilted her head, “What did you expect?”
“I thought you were just doing another landscape or something.”
“There is a landscape - in the background, see?”
There was indeed, and it was beautiful, naturally. Once she got over the shock of seeing a stylized but still unmistakable image of herself, Olivia began to understand just why Alice seemed so upbeat after finishing it. There was no black charcoal, no scorched trees, no trace of devastation that had slipped into the art. If anything, it was even more radiant than usual. “Is that what I look like to you, then?” If it was, it was a high compliment - there was something serene, contemplative, and almost wistful in the painted Olivia, none of which seemed to match what Olivia saw in her mirror everyday, which was just, as chat constantly reminded her, an endearing disaster.
Alice chuckled, “I embellished a bit.”
Olivia found herself laughing as well. “Send me a scan of that when you get home, okay?”
Sudden movement caught the corner of her vision, followed by the sound of skin hitting pavement. One of the joggers in those silly tight-fitting spandex outfits had tripped spectacularly. Why did an interest in outdoor fitness always seem to line up with a tendency towards exhibitionism? Couldn’t people just wear normal clothes while jogging, or biking, or doing park yoga or whatever? Alice was already quickly moving towards the fallen jogger, so Olivia snapped herself out of her internal rant and followed. “Hello, are you okay?” Alice asked.
She had skinned one knee and both hands pretty badly, to the point Olivia could see blood dripping off them as she pushed herself off the ground into an awkward sitting posture. Her face was ash white, and even from where she was standing Olivia could tell she was drenched in sweat. Her eyes were grimly narrowed and her mouth was twisted in a scowl, as if she was trying to overcome her injuries with pure spite. She certainly didn’t look okay, and Olivia said as much. The jogger’s response was considerably delayed, as her unsteady breathing was halfway to a sob, but eventually she gritted her teeth and forced out, “I’m fine.”
That was a painfully obvious lie, even before she tried standing and quickly dropped back to sitting, the motion accompanied by a burst of sharp profanity. Regardless of obvious reality, Olivia still considered leaving her there. If she said she was fine, who was she to argue? But it was hard to ignore the concern on Alice’s face as she looked over the injured jogger. ‘Cool, see ya,’ didn’t seem like the correct dialogue option, so she settled for: “Can we help you get somewhere? Like, a hospital or something?”
The jogger still seemed to be considering stubbornly insisting she was fine, until she tried shifting weight onto her leg again, “Dammit, ow! Alright! My apartment isn’t too far, that should be fine… actually, if you insist on being helpful, I should get to Office 38. It’s at the edge of central district.”
Olivia looked doubtfully towards the central district, then back to Alice. Alice looked at her bag of painting supplies, which was light by Alice standards but still awkward, then back to Olivia. It had taken them a good half hour to get from the Victoria café at the edge of central district to where they were now – repeating that route in the dark with someone who couldn’t walk didn’t seem like it would end well. “If you need to get to central district, maybe we can get you to a subway station?” Olivia ventured.
Olivia wasn’t sure of the etiquette around bleeding on the subway, but that’s what cleaning androids were for, wasn’t it? After a few awkward moments of trying to work out how they’d move together, the jogger ended up leaning on Olivia with her arm draped over Olivia’s shoulders, and while it was awkward and Olivia was certain she felt a damp spot forming on her sweater where the jogger’s hand was bleeding on it, it was less physically exhausting than Olivia had feared. She suspected that was mostly because the jogger was pridefully trying to keep as much of her weight off Olivia as possible. When they reached the road and saw the familiar glowing Square Mart sign just down the street, the jogger seemed to recognize someone just past the convenience store, and after texting them a quick message on what could only be described as an antique phone, he ran over to meet them. To Olivia’s dismay, she realized she recognized him as well – it was the robot-boinking businessman from the night she’d been attacked by the sense-eating nightmare.
“Auditor Sharp, you’re looking rather worse for wear.”
Despite her silence as they stumbled out of the park, the jogger (Sharp?) didn’t seem reluctant at all talking to the tired-looking businessman. Perhaps she was already starting to feel better, or maybe she just preferred talking to people where there was a clear hierarchy? Although what she said didn’t make any sense to Olivia. “Hunting sprite. Does Containment still work out of Office 38?”
That seemed to light a fire under the businessman, who immediately called a taxi to get them there. As they waited, he returned to his unsettlingly narrow apartment and brought down a spare jacket and suit pants, as well as a supply of handkerchiefs to act as makeshift bandages. Sharp looked at them quizzically, “You’re more considerate than I expected. Although even with the handkerchiefs, you WILL be getting blood on those clothes, so I don’t want any complaints later.”
Getting into the offered clothing was awkward and involved several profanities, especially as she tried to work around her bloodied knee to get the pants on, but as the taxi came into view along the street, the jogger was looking more or less like a professional office-goer and Olivia was casting her thoughts ahead to the evening’s live stream.
“I’m very sorry, priestess, but may I ask you to accompany me?” As jogger Sharp bowed to Alice, her expression grim but her posture respectful, almost reverent, Olivia wasn’t sure who was more shocked – herself, or the businessman who seemed to have noticed Alice for the first time. Priestess? Alice hardly seemed comfortable, but she reluctantly agreed. She turned to Olivia, “It sounds like I’ll be off here. I’m glad I wasn’t alone today. Talk to you soon?”
You’re not getting rid of me that easily. It would have been cool if Olivia could pull off a line like that with a wink and a dashing grin. Instead, she said, “If you’re going, I’m coming too. I’ve helped this far.”
Olivia hoped she sounded resolute, rather than just petulant. It was a strange situation, and Olivia didn’t like the idea of leaving Alice in it alone. And besides, Priestess? Was Alice a priestess? Did it mean something else? Olivia didn’t want to pry, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t desperately curious. As they stepped into the taxi, she pulled out her phone and delayed her evening stream time.
