The Fate of Droplets (ix)

Two days later, the police allowed me to see George. I had undergone a gamut of inquiry the day following, as well as a series of psychological evaluations, which were not particularly satisfying. The morning before seeing George, I tried to visit the scene. Damage had been done to the floor below and the top floor just above, all of which was taped off and two guard were posted, mostly to fend off media and gawkers. The displaced residents were put up in a hotel at the time. I explained who I was, but all they allowed was for me to see in from the hallway. The scene had been swept over for clues, samples of blood and wax and hair, some fine powder marked spots on the floor and wall. I noticed a strange smudge, like a wide, rounded footpad, as if of an elephant or something was incompletely described by some of the powder. Some trace of that smell like burning plastic remained, but it had been dismissed as residue from the fire. I maintained that Henry avoided synthetic material as part of his study, but no one listened.
I suppose what I went to see was any sign of the portal from the fire. Though ash and charred fabric lay about the room, as well as marks where the fire had nearly spread to the destroyed furnishings, I could determine nothing peculiar relating to the blaze. Other witnesses confirmed the weird, bewitching hue of the flame, but it was explained away by certain metals mixed with the fire, like those in firework displays. This was also to account for the odor that firefighters and other residents had emphasized in their tellings.
When I arrived at George's hospital door, I was still recovering but felt doubly drained by the unsurprising nature of the scene we had left. The furniture, though torn apart had lost the qualities I had seen in that altered state. I had omitted any mention of the strange properties I had seen exhibited on the wall while the fire I limited my story to the chromatic intensity. The silverware had shown some strange magnetism, but most of it, it seemed, had been forced into the yielding plaster of the wall; and the magnetism quickly faded, suggesting it had never been sufficiently potent to hold anything to it.
Seeing George for the first time since, I felt demolished. She was held as the primary suspect—I was set apart thanks to witnesses who saw me enter following the events—responsible for the disappearance and likely homicide of Henry Carnes. The blood on the wall was cross-checked with hair samples from a comb and confirmed to be his, and the quantity found suggested a severe or lengthy bleeding. In the apartment, police found George's backpack, the one I had seen her with days before, filled with pieces of wax and some odd, indecipherable scribbles of which neither officers nor George could make heads or tails.
But here was George, strung up and guarded, wounded and accused. I had, almost off-handedly, assumed George's guilt, particularly with the oddities I had witnessed and Henry had described. All the same, I could not deny my curiosity and the absurdity of the situation, so I chose to think of George as a friend first, and as somehow involved in the probably demise of Henry second or third. (This, too, felt absurd, but the profound difficulty in shaping the experience to anything that fits in my life has allowed some strange flexibility in my choices.) And so, I came to speak with her.
“How are you feeling?”
“They drug me, but not enough. I can feel my bruises whenever I fidget. I think the nurses refuse to give me more out of disgust.” She peered at me, suspicious and clever; later, I understood that she was considering if I might be acting the stooge for the police, but she must have thought better of me. “Why are you here?”
“To see you. To try and make sense of it.” We sized one another up, and for a moment, I felt exceedingly dishonest. “I went to the apartment this morning.”
“How was it?”
“It felt and appeared pretty normal. Normal for a crime scene. Normal for tables and rugs torn in two.” I looked at my feet and muttered, “Normal for Henry being dead.”
“You don't know that, there's no body.”
“But you do. You know.”
George stared at me, her face turned cold and bloodless.
“George, you were there.”
“No, I wasn't exactly there.”
“Henry called while it was happening. He mentioned you.”
“What did he tell you?”
Then I thought of his words, I pulled them out and felt them, realizing I had misspoken before saying them again.
“Through me, he said. It wasn't me, it was through me.”
“What does that mean, George?”
“Henry knew while I didn't. Most of my actions were numb, dream like. I couldn't feel myself as I did them and then they would fade from memory. You saw me. I was in no state to have done anything.”
“I know, George; but what happened?”
“Henry told you that he was channeling something, that whatever he had gone into was still with him. Well, when he punctured the veil—that is what he called it when I spoke with him—it must have weakened something, triggered something. I was curious and then obsessed by his experience. Before I knew it, I wasn't in control of my actions or my words. I remember, vaguely but I remember, spying on the two of you, then on him. Lex, if I was so obsessed with Henry, why can't I remember anything specific?”
“How do you know so much, though?”
“I have had two, under-medicated days of surgery and thinking. All I have been doing is piecing it together as best as I can.” George's face reddened and I saw her in rigid, furious pain; “It was in me, Lex. It took my curiosity and twisted it into obsession, madness, and that was like a beacon through the hole Henry made. When I came to, I felt its absence, like emptiness, like it had carved me out so that it could fit, like I was some, some costume. Lex, I feel caved in, my body feels polluted, toxic.”
I moved to her, to reach out and touch her and she shifted as best as she could away from me. The guard turned and saw me approach her. George made a noise I could not discern. The guard ordered me out. I obeyed. In the hall I sat and thought for a long time before leaving.