10-15-2020, 03:09 PM
The dissonance jarred. That one smooth step taking her from one world, and into another.
Natalie went through the motions of family reunion like a ship taking on water in fair weather. Alice’s presence in Moscow was a surprise, since she ought to have been in school, though if her gregarious and irreverent teenaged manner flared some sharp pain of memory, it was not unwelcome either. Her mother was unusually quiet, all carefully folded demure edges and tired eyes. The tightness of her embrace burned Natalie’s eyes with heat in the moment she stepped over the threshold. She knew she had been unfair, cruel even, though the sharp fear in Eleanor’s voice the day of the ball never quit its haunt, even as she ignored all those phonecalls. If Natalie did not apologise for it, and a good daughter ought to, neither did she now push the care away.
The invitation to France was not unexpected, nor the warning that her grandfather was furious with the mud spattered against the family name and the deals that had necessitated her extraction from Mexico. Her mother brushed off those political concerns as she usually did when it came to her daughters. A sanitised story was offered, and Eleanor’s face tightened every time that American was mentioned. She asked surprisingly few questions though, at least on things Natalie might have expected her to query, which suggested she had already heard some version of the tale from elsewhere.
“I just want you to be safe,” Eleanor had said, when the final suggestion that Natalie ought to accompany their onward trip to Aubagne was declined. She smoothed the tendrils of hair from Natalie’s face, expression unreadable.
It transpired that what that meant, was paid protection.
Her first day of freedom she spent arming herself to the new landscape. She searched the newsfeeds and clogs with single-minded tenacity, scouring in particular for evidence of action by the Custody’s Channeling Consulate. Whatever Marcus was doing with the information she and others fed into his app, there was scant public evidence of its benefit. She’d pleaded with Brandon to consider education before war, and he’d nudged her in Evelyn’s direction, but there was precious little to find of the woman now beyond an ardent voice for single world governance. Brandon might have pandered to her dreams of peace with one hand while he trained men for war with the other, but clearly he had finally charmed her into the channel he wished. Given the way Evelyn had looked at him, Natalie did not wonder why. It was the same weapon she’d used to assure Jay’s passage home.
Numbed, now, by the question of a future hanging like Damocles’ sword, she nursed a coffee and stared out at the city spread below. Her first night back she’d sent Jay a snap from the same window, to allay worries she didn’t even know he’d have of where she’d ended up. At the time it had felt more like sharing the bars of a cage. Moscow had always been that to her; tainted, she supposed, by her father’s incarceration here. The apartment wasn’t exactly home either. Safe, was what she meant. Alive. Surviving.
But if Moscow was a prison, it was also the place she chose to be. Where Jay pledged himself, he bound her too. He was unlikely to renounce the Custody’s claim; he said himself how he needed it, the pin both curse and salvation. She would never ask it of him anyway. And there was an easy answer of course. She could work with the Custody. But she no longer had any desire to. Alistair’s words dug under her skin, as she supposed they were meant to. Unless the Kremlin called, she had little intention of presenting herself. Which meant she needed new allies.
Natalie went through the motions of family reunion like a ship taking on water in fair weather. Alice’s presence in Moscow was a surprise, since she ought to have been in school, though if her gregarious and irreverent teenaged manner flared some sharp pain of memory, it was not unwelcome either. Her mother was unusually quiet, all carefully folded demure edges and tired eyes. The tightness of her embrace burned Natalie’s eyes with heat in the moment she stepped over the threshold. She knew she had been unfair, cruel even, though the sharp fear in Eleanor’s voice the day of the ball never quit its haunt, even as she ignored all those phonecalls. If Natalie did not apologise for it, and a good daughter ought to, neither did she now push the care away.
The invitation to France was not unexpected, nor the warning that her grandfather was furious with the mud spattered against the family name and the deals that had necessitated her extraction from Mexico. Her mother brushed off those political concerns as she usually did when it came to her daughters. A sanitised story was offered, and Eleanor’s face tightened every time that American was mentioned. She asked surprisingly few questions though, at least on things Natalie might have expected her to query, which suggested she had already heard some version of the tale from elsewhere.
“I just want you to be safe,” Eleanor had said, when the final suggestion that Natalie ought to accompany their onward trip to Aubagne was declined. She smoothed the tendrils of hair from Natalie’s face, expression unreadable.
It transpired that what that meant, was paid protection.
*✣*
Her first day of freedom she spent arming herself to the new landscape. She searched the newsfeeds and clogs with single-minded tenacity, scouring in particular for evidence of action by the Custody’s Channeling Consulate. Whatever Marcus was doing with the information she and others fed into his app, there was scant public evidence of its benefit. She’d pleaded with Brandon to consider education before war, and he’d nudged her in Evelyn’s direction, but there was precious little to find of the woman now beyond an ardent voice for single world governance. Brandon might have pandered to her dreams of peace with one hand while he trained men for war with the other, but clearly he had finally charmed her into the channel he wished. Given the way Evelyn had looked at him, Natalie did not wonder why. It was the same weapon she’d used to assure Jay’s passage home.
Numbed, now, by the question of a future hanging like Damocles’ sword, she nursed a coffee and stared out at the city spread below. Her first night back she’d sent Jay a snap from the same window, to allay worries she didn’t even know he’d have of where she’d ended up. At the time it had felt more like sharing the bars of a cage. Moscow had always been that to her; tainted, she supposed, by her father’s incarceration here. The apartment wasn’t exactly home either. Safe, was what she meant. Alive. Surviving.
But if Moscow was a prison, it was also the place she chose to be. Where Jay pledged himself, he bound her too. He was unlikely to renounce the Custody’s claim; he said himself how he needed it, the pin both curse and salvation. She would never ask it of him anyway. And there was an easy answer of course. She could work with the Custody. But she no longer had any desire to. Alistair’s words dug under her skin, as she supposed they were meant to. Unless the Kremlin called, she had little intention of presenting herself. Which meant she needed new allies.