It’s pointless to feel guilty about curiosity, but I still feel a dread weighing on my chest as I ask, "Did you ever find what you were looking for?" "Well, no," Arlene answers, buckling her shoes. She glances at me for only a second, from where I sit on the rented room’s expensive cabinet. She says nothing about my dangerous habits. Getting up and dusting off her skirt, she looks around for something.
Has she ever worn a different dress, even at parties? Or has it always been that same attire? I squint my eyes. I can’t remember. I shake my head. This is too complicated.
"But, it's fine." Arlene's words snap me out of my contemplation, and she smiles at me with closed eyes. "I'll accept it eventually. I just need to check one last thing before I'm off again." I nod, and jump off the cabinet. Arlene flinches (and I'll never understand why she didn't get used to it) but waves me along, swinging her parasol on her jointed wrist. "It's such a beautiful day out. Don't you think, Carnate?"
She's right, and for some reason, I don't hate the fact that she is.
Normally, Arlene would scold me for saying more than what needs to be said—to simply bask in the beauty of the moment, to soak in the sun and do whatever it is "felines like me" need to do. It feels unusual for her to ever start a conversation first.
Unsure how to respond, I scratch my head. "I mean, I guess."
We pass by a tech shop as Arlene continues to walk aimlessly. I hear a news reporter talking about the death of someone—”the young leader of the Royal Sphere, whose life was taken away from her too soon”, and how “her death will be felt around the world”.
There’s a garden in the middle of a large space of sidewalk—it has a graveyard, too, but not many people visit it. They’re too busy. The same was true with Arlene and I; we never had any time to visit this garden just next to the house we were renting. I suppose we were both too invested in finding Hyacinthe.
A bird darts from a tree on one side of the street to another. I'm so enamored by its shiny feathers I barely notice the pole I'm about to walk into. Arlene pulls me away before I walk into it and break my nose.
"Thanks," I mutter, and Arlene sighs; the same way she does whenever she needs to say something but doesn't want to. Or whenever she does want it, but doesn't know how to say it. "I really must thank you for your time, Carnate," she eventually says, tucking a strand of delicate hair behind her ear. "You've been such a help to me; I can't help but feel that I should be paying more than what I already have."
"I don't care," I respond, because I don't.
"How about we have some dinner together, before I depart, my dear? I heard the restaurant nearby has delicious goulash. My treat, of course."
"Yeah, let's do it!"
Arlene giggles. "You're simply too easy. I thought felines were supposed to be intelligent."
I ignore the way my face heats up and look up and away from the sidewalk. "Yeah, yeah, whatever! You know, the best form of extra payment for me wouldn't even be free food, or more money.”
She hums in thought.
“Not that that isn't off the table, of course," I add.
She carefully raises an eyebrow. The gold-filled cracks on her face glint in the sun, pieces of stardust falling from her face. "Do go on."
"You could tell me what all this Hyacinth bull is about." I rest my head on my hands as I lean back. "It would be oh so insightful to know what exactly you've been chasing all these months."
Arlene hums in thought. "Maybe."
"Maybe?" I scoff.
She looks up at me with a smile, and nods. "Maybe."
Rolling my eyes, I try my hardest not to punt her across the street. That would be mean, I think; considering after all we've been through.
Especially after all we've been through.
"So, I hope dinner before we leave will be enough to satiate your hunger?" she asks, stopping suddenly. I look down at her, confused, and she stands up on the tips of her toes to gently poke my nose. "I'm afraid the true secret to finding Hyacinth is currently above your pay grade."
I sneer. "You're such an asshole,” I mutter. “Always have been."
"Then quit your job, and find someone else to pester," she replies with a shrug, walking over to the garden’s gate. As she starts fiddling with the latch, I can’t find any words to bite back with. I can’t tell if her intelligence is my most or least favorite part about her.
She struggles to open the gate the first few inches, so I grab the top part of it and swing it open—she stumbles along with it, but says nothing as she enters the garden—
No, no, not the garden. That's what we passed five minutes ago.
She stopped us at the graveyard.
What could she possibly have business with at a graveyard? Even the people we met who died right in front of her eyes—she never showed any cases of mourning them. I don't even think Varinia was buried here; I doubt it. Her mechanical body, one that was too unnatural and tall to fit into a simple kitchen, would be too big to even fit in a coffin.
Nevertheless, I find a bench next to the gate, and sit down on it. Arlene is right behind me, standing at the grave of someone whose name I can't see. I don't bother focusing my eyes, or putting my goggles on. It would be pointless—even if I could figure out the name, it would end up being the godfather twice removed of the owner of one of her friends from DollComm, or something.
Everything's always a riddle with her—complicated and impossible to figure out. Maybe that's why I stuck with her throughout the months; I always like a challenge.
"Oh? Well, hello little missy, how can I help you today?"
I can only assume that she's talking to a cat, judging by the abhorrent amount of meows and sneezes coming from her direction. How do you even manage to give an artificial lifeform a cat allergy? Did someone give her that on purpose to make her suffer?
"Well, good morning to you too, ma'am, but I really must—"
Crack.
I think nothing of the crack, and I don't think Arlene does either—she stills, completely silent, even as the cat probably continues to scratch her dress.
Crack.
This time, I'm compelled to open my eyes—my bench had lowered just a bit, and my body started to feel weightless. A large chasm quickly opens up in front of me, on the same road I had driven across hundreds of times—Everywhere, all around me, all at once—the café I taste tested for, the sidewalk I carved my initials onto, the roads I committed to memory—it all crumbles in an instant.
I yank my goggles down, my eyes adjusting to the vision sensors. A teenager and their little sibling fall through the chasm, and they fall down before I can get to them. Arlene screams.
"You bastard! You good-for-nothing, lying bastard! You felines are all the same, I sw—"
I turn around. “You know, Arlene, I can’t help but feel like your meddling with the Royal Sphere had something to do with this!”
The doll huffs, crossing her arms. “Why, I’d never! It offends me that you think I’d be so—”
She shrieks, and just before I can pick her up and get her out of here, the small island we were on splits in half.
“ARLENE!—”
I reach my arm out even though she’s hundreds of feet away, and my goggles don’t focus on her body, which slowly floats away. They focus on the small, car-sized spaceships darting around, picking up people who fell off and up into the air—she’ll be fine. For now. I don’t trust her alone.
Another crack sounds behind me, and soon enough I’ll have to jump ship too. The sidewalk I stand on starts to crumble, and my goggles zero in on the gravestone Arlene was staring at—
Hyacinthe Horatius. Friend, daughter, ruler.
Oh.
Hyacinthe wasn’t a perfume in Arlene’s tastes. Hyacinthe wasn’t even a flower to be picked in an exquisite garden. And Hyacinthe wasn’t the name of a rare drink, either—
Hyacinthe was a person. i want to use this sentence somewhere but i’ll find out where later Every single part of it cracks down and breaks apart, falling into a dark pit I can't find the end of, even with my goggles on.