01-21-2025, 05:10 PM
"This shouldn't be so difficult."
Juliet has taken up smoking. Her health is valuable and precious, yes yes, but she has discovered that smashing mice with a hammer can undo the damage of one to two cigarettes. Heather will go to the nearest pet store and buy the mice in bulk, the cashiers benignly assuming that they're food for snakes or maybe larger spiders. Instead, Juliet will lock herself in a room and seal off the bottom of the door. Upon releasing the prerequisite amount of mice, she gives them a brief head start before pursuing them with a rubber mallet, reducing their guts and bones to a flattened, stinking puddy so that she can smoke one to two Virginia Slims a day without consequence.
It is also because she is angry. Her fury with her twin never abates.
At first Juliet thought he was playing a joke on her. Silly Judy, wanting a game of Hide-and-Seek... The Family was much more disturbed, while Juliet thought that surely Jude would be back within a day, no more than three or four. Instead his absence grew like an abscess. She realized he was serious about leaving her—leaving all of them, leaving their work undone. She was instantly incandescent with anger. Since then, Juliet has had that glow to her. To make contact with her is to ignite.
They have only come close to catching him a handful of times. Once was when he visited that silly old mansion in the Pacific Northwest, but they were just a little too late. It was cheap relief to torment the son of their deceased former patron, for Near Farr was apparently completely in the dark about his father's occult investment and not the least bit of help in determining where Jude could have gone.
Before Jude ever makes his way back to Washington, the Family does, several times. They know where Near Farr's ground level apartment is; they know his job; they stake both out several times. Jude never turns up. This appears to confirm the story they were told—that Jude had left abruptly, on poor terms, without any promise of future assistance. Near Farr is written off.
In a rented house in Denver, Heather goes into the empty bedroom where Juliet has bludgeoned the latest batch of mice into a pulp. Juliet pulls on a jacket to sit on the veranda and stare into the empty backyard, smoking her cigarette. She looks to be the spitting image of Jude, only her curly blonde hair reaches her shoulders, and her chin and cheekbones are sharper. She is the harsher sibling, and she looks it.
"Where are you, Judy?" she murmurs to the empty air, blowing smoke towards the dark sky. "What dumb shit are you getting up to?"
-
What Jude is up to is that he once again leaves Washington and spends two aimless months in Portland. His mission, which seemed so clear to him prior to his latest encounter with Near, is now encased in a fog so thick that Jude cannot see in any direction. His momentum is cruelly and abruptly halted; that, in combination with the fog, causes him disorientation so intense that all he can do is live very plainly in a nondescript AirBnB, the kind with the grey and medium blue color scheme, a few pictures of ships in the hallways, a modern-looking couch that's terrible to sit on, cupboards with the bare minimum number of plates and cups (four). It's an indulgence for Jude, who has preferred cheap motels and long-stay hotels, but a house allows him to connect with a long-lost feeling of stability and familiarity, one that he gave up when he parted ways with his Family.
His own existence has been explained to him several times over. He was not 'born' in the traditional sense of any human being, but 'rendered', the process worked out iteratively through the combined wisdom of the Family, an interdisciplinary group of scientists and sorcerers whose contributions of research and luck yielded the Twins. Jude was 'born' at age eleven, already capable of speech and fine motor control and with very basic social and cultural awareness. For coming into the world minus about a decade of adaptive living, there will always be some awkwardness. Ahead in other things, Jude is forever behind in acting like a regular person.
Near Farr was presumably a regular person. Now Jude knows to a certainty he isn't.
Never before has Jude needed to resolve this level of existential challenge. He has been the challenge. The shoe fits badly on the other foot. Inexperienced with the denial that human adults are so practiced with at his age, he cannot think of anything to do but to return to the scene of the crime. The mystery must be solved, the question answered.
He returns to the mall where he met Near, and then he traces his path back to the apartment complex. The memories resurface easily when he reaches into his mind, the water dark but the pieces in their place, so that when he stretches out his hands, he finds them easily and pulls them up.
It is an awkward week of watching. Jude rents a car for the purpose, a grey Nissan Versa. He watches movies on his cell phone, slouched in the driver's seat. His stakeout yields Near's workplace, a grubby little bar that feels like a hole a rat would hide in. It feels like a place that someone would go to forget or to ignore. The first time Jude goes there, he doesn't make it up to the bar, bullied into silence and submission by an atmosphere that demands he surrender confrontation that will yield complexity. Let things be smudged and simple.
He simply cannot give go. He has never hated doing anything more, never felt more like he is selling something. Jude returns on a Saturday night because that means there are lots of people. He has a very sharp switchblade in his pocket. Everyone around him is a potential conduit for a quicksand floor or a portal to Atlanta.
The way he shows up next to Crystal, both elbows on the bar, looking at Near with silent intensity while not seeming to notice anyone else, is its own statement. His folded hands and the guarded expectation in his handsome face are ex-coded. If there's any doubt, the first thing he say is, "Hi," and not his drink order.
Near could go anywhere, and Jude could probably find him, either the regular way or the magical way. There's things you can get away from and things you can't.
Juliet has taken up smoking. Her health is valuable and precious, yes yes, but she has discovered that smashing mice with a hammer can undo the damage of one to two cigarettes. Heather will go to the nearest pet store and buy the mice in bulk, the cashiers benignly assuming that they're food for snakes or maybe larger spiders. Instead, Juliet will lock herself in a room and seal off the bottom of the door. Upon releasing the prerequisite amount of mice, she gives them a brief head start before pursuing them with a rubber mallet, reducing their guts and bones to a flattened, stinking puddy so that she can smoke one to two Virginia Slims a day without consequence.
It is also because she is angry. Her fury with her twin never abates.
At first Juliet thought he was playing a joke on her. Silly Judy, wanting a game of Hide-and-Seek... The Family was much more disturbed, while Juliet thought that surely Jude would be back within a day, no more than three or four. Instead his absence grew like an abscess. She realized he was serious about leaving her—leaving all of them, leaving their work undone. She was instantly incandescent with anger. Since then, Juliet has had that glow to her. To make contact with her is to ignite.
They have only come close to catching him a handful of times. Once was when he visited that silly old mansion in the Pacific Northwest, but they were just a little too late. It was cheap relief to torment the son of their deceased former patron, for Near Farr was apparently completely in the dark about his father's occult investment and not the least bit of help in determining where Jude could have gone.
Before Jude ever makes his way back to Washington, the Family does, several times. They know where Near Farr's ground level apartment is; they know his job; they stake both out several times. Jude never turns up. This appears to confirm the story they were told—that Jude had left abruptly, on poor terms, without any promise of future assistance. Near Farr is written off.
In a rented house in Denver, Heather goes into the empty bedroom where Juliet has bludgeoned the latest batch of mice into a pulp. Juliet pulls on a jacket to sit on the veranda and stare into the empty backyard, smoking her cigarette. She looks to be the spitting image of Jude, only her curly blonde hair reaches her shoulders, and her chin and cheekbones are sharper. She is the harsher sibling, and she looks it.
"Where are you, Judy?" she murmurs to the empty air, blowing smoke towards the dark sky. "What dumb shit are you getting up to?"
-
What Jude is up to is that he once again leaves Washington and spends two aimless months in Portland. His mission, which seemed so clear to him prior to his latest encounter with Near, is now encased in a fog so thick that Jude cannot see in any direction. His momentum is cruelly and abruptly halted; that, in combination with the fog, causes him disorientation so intense that all he can do is live very plainly in a nondescript AirBnB, the kind with the grey and medium blue color scheme, a few pictures of ships in the hallways, a modern-looking couch that's terrible to sit on, cupboards with the bare minimum number of plates and cups (four). It's an indulgence for Jude, who has preferred cheap motels and long-stay hotels, but a house allows him to connect with a long-lost feeling of stability and familiarity, one that he gave up when he parted ways with his Family.
His own existence has been explained to him several times over. He was not 'born' in the traditional sense of any human being, but 'rendered', the process worked out iteratively through the combined wisdom of the Family, an interdisciplinary group of scientists and sorcerers whose contributions of research and luck yielded the Twins. Jude was 'born' at age eleven, already capable of speech and fine motor control and with very basic social and cultural awareness. For coming into the world minus about a decade of adaptive living, there will always be some awkwardness. Ahead in other things, Jude is forever behind in acting like a regular person.
Near Farr was presumably a regular person. Now Jude knows to a certainty he isn't.
Never before has Jude needed to resolve this level of existential challenge. He has been the challenge. The shoe fits badly on the other foot. Inexperienced with the denial that human adults are so practiced with at his age, he cannot think of anything to do but to return to the scene of the crime. The mystery must be solved, the question answered.
He returns to the mall where he met Near, and then he traces his path back to the apartment complex. The memories resurface easily when he reaches into his mind, the water dark but the pieces in their place, so that when he stretches out his hands, he finds them easily and pulls them up.
It is an awkward week of watching. Jude rents a car for the purpose, a grey Nissan Versa. He watches movies on his cell phone, slouched in the driver's seat. His stakeout yields Near's workplace, a grubby little bar that feels like a hole a rat would hide in. It feels like a place that someone would go to forget or to ignore. The first time Jude goes there, he doesn't make it up to the bar, bullied into silence and submission by an atmosphere that demands he surrender confrontation that will yield complexity. Let things be smudged and simple.
He simply cannot give go. He has never hated doing anything more, never felt more like he is selling something. Jude returns on a Saturday night because that means there are lots of people. He has a very sharp switchblade in his pocket. Everyone around him is a potential conduit for a quicksand floor or a portal to Atlanta.
The way he shows up next to Crystal, both elbows on the bar, looking at Near with silent intensity while not seeming to notice anyone else, is its own statement. His folded hands and the guarded expectation in his handsome face are ex-coded. If there's any doubt, the first thing he say is, "Hi," and not his drink order.
Near could go anywhere, and Jude could probably find him, either the regular way or the magical way. There's things you can get away from and things you can't.