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The health care assistant tried again, straining to maintain a reasonable tone of voice. “I don’t think you under—”
“Look, the rules are simple and everyone has to . . . Oh, God, what is that?”
Both flight attendants recoiled. One covered her mouth. Expressions of disgust radiated out from Trent.
“He has a colostomy bag,” the health care worker snapped. “I’ve been trying to—”
“The rules—”
“I’m sitting in my own shit!” Trent cried. “I’m . . . I’m . . . I . . .” He lowered his head to his chest and sobbed. “I want to die. Just let me die. Just let me die,” Trent roared. “Just someone, someone have pity and kill me!”
“You don’t mean that, Trent,” the health care worker said soothingly.
Trent unleashed a torrent of verbal abuse on her, on the flight attendants, on the mother who covered her children’s ears.
The health care worker reached her limit. “This is your own fault! I tried to change your bag back in the terminal!”
But Trent was beyond listening. He raged and cursed and wept and demanded a drink. He called out every racial epithet he could think of and ranted in a way that must have seemed nonsensical to those around him about a messenger and a chink.
Messenger advanced the time line, causing hours to pass. The flight was a long one. After his racist, sexist, obscene rant, Trent had earned no sympathy. The flight attendants refused to try and help. Nearby passengers moved away, even sitting in the aisles by the rear bathroom rather than be within range of him. Trent’s health care aide sat staring stonily ahead, probably counting the minutes until she could quit this job.
“I’ve seen enough,” I said.
But Haarm said, “He’s being justly punished according to the rules, right?”
“Yes,” I said. “But that doesn’t make it fun to watch him suffer.”
“You have a soft heart,” he said.
Messenger stayed aloof. Then we were no longer on the plane but back in the basement where the real Trent, the body that still contained the tortured mind, lay on the concrete floor as if in a coma. This Trent, the real one, was no older and was not crippled.
Haarm looked down at Trent with an expression I found hard to read. He was interested, but in a distant sort of way. I took the opportunity to look more closely at Haarm. He had extraordinary skin; peaches and cream some might say. His brown eyes were framed below lashes, darker than his hair, as were his eyebrows. He was tall, maybe six feet, maybe a little more, a little more muscular than Messenger.
Comparing the two objectively I realized that both were gorgeous, to use one of my mother’s favorite words, equally so, except that some other quality shone through Messenger that elevated him to something beyond.
I wondered whether that extra something that Messenger had was supernatural. There had been no unattractive messengers at Isthil’s gathering, but now I sorted through my memories, picking out individual faces and I began to see faces that were quite plain and yet had felt lovely to me.
So, it was supernatural, it could only be. It must be some power that Isthil bestowed on her messengers. Though even with that in mind, and striving to eliminate the effects of that charm, I still saw that Messenger had been a very handsome boy.
Minus the magic, though? Minus the magic I suppose I’d say Haarm and Messenger were equally att—
What was the matter with me that I was standing there obsessing over the relative attractiveness of these two males? Where had this superficiality come from? Was I really that lonely? No, I argued back, I was just a teenaged girl alone with two extraordinarily attractive boys, why wouldn’t I have thoughts? Why wouldn’t I compare and contrast eyes and shoulders and legs and lips?
Then how to explain Oriax?
I had no answer to that.
“This is Graciella, our other case,” Messenger said, and yes, we were instantly with Graciella. She was no longer under the freeway. It was no longer raining. Was it still Austin, Texas?
Hard to say. She was walking down an empty street. It was dark. She was alone. A pickup truck passed by, then I saw brake lights flare as it stopped a block away. Then the white backup lights came on and the truck came back toward her.
I tensed and we were there beside her, the three of us invisible lurkers as Graciella, frightened, shied away and redoubled her pace, heels click-click-clicking on the sidewalk.
There were three men in the truck, or at least one man with a very full beard, and what might be his two sons, one in his twenties, one my age.
“This looks like trouble,” Haarm said.
Strange to have commentary. I had almost wholly adjusted to Messenger’s quiet and reticence.
