How Entirely Unexpected (V.S. Part 2)

This the continuation of the story, "Thank God it was on the Linoleum," and it might make a bit more sense if you read Part 1 first. Or you could read it afterwards, whatever you please is fine with me. You don't even have to read the first one at all if you don't want to.1

2

I didn't think I'd be able to say anything remotely coherent, so I didn't try. Instead, I merely stared at him, unblinkingly. This appeared to disturb him slightly, as he blinked at me and gingerly touched the top of his head again, looking wary. I finally decided to force some words out of my mouth. Not too many, though. Three is a good number, or rather; four with a contraction, I thought. I tried it experimentally.3

"But, you're dead?" It had not been intended as a question, but it came out as such. 4

"No I'm not," he protested matter-of-factly, "I'm very much alive and hope to stay that way for as long as is possible. Unless," he continued, narrowing his eyes, "You are planning to kill me again with that sharp object you are holding, in which case 'as long as possible' is going to uncomfortably short." I quickly held the katana behind my back, hoping it would seem less threatening. I was not, of course, about to put it down. I spoke again, surprised at how smoothly words were coming.5

"Don't worry; I'm not planning to kill you. After all, they already did, like, six times, didn't they?" He started to shake his head, winced, and held it very still instead.6

"No, only once. You can't kill someone after they're already dead, and it's impossible to kill someone more than once at the same time." I found myself nodding and looked very closely at the man. It was true that he didn't seem to be dead anymore. I examined the wounds he'd had before, and saw that his neck, although noticeably bruised from strangulation, had only a faint scar where his throat had been slit. The formerly bashed in skull seemed only to be badly bruised and bleeding slightly. I could see the bloody tear in his jacket where he'd been staked in the heart by overzealous attackers, but nothing more. I couldn't see the crossbow wound on his back, but obviously his fractured spine and broken neck were better too, because as I've already mentioned, he was sitting up. Fascinating. Granny would love this, I knew. 7

"Who did it?" 8

"Just some purists." 9

"Ah." Huh? I'd have to cover that more thoroughly later." Will they be back?" Best cover all the bases right off the bat. Heh, that's funny; I'd never used two baseball metaphors in the same sentence before.10

"Nah. Why should they? Might I ask where this is?" Just then, before I finished piecing together an answer, Granny called from the dining room,11

"Is the window giving you trouble, dear?" The man raised an eyebrow at me.12

"Uh, yeah!" I cried back.13

"I take it this is not a convenient time for you to answer questions?" he asked curiously. I nodded vigorously, and my heart started pounding again as I heard rapid footsteps in the hall and a familiar voice. Jasper Key, our new neighbor, whose family was
over for a dinner party, called out, 14

"I'll just come help you with it, then, Miss Sherbourne. Those latches can be tricky." I gestured frantically for the man to get out of sight. He complied quickly, lying back down on the couch where we'd put him when he was dead. Then, rushing towards the door, I managed to get it open, slip through and close it behind me before Jasper appeared. He seemed elegantly puzzled at the fact that I was breathing hard and pressed against the door, holding a Japanese katana with a wild gleam in my eye.15

"Uh, Are you alright?" The tall, handsome, arrogant twerp was actually at a loss for sophistication. Yes, I know that I'd only met him not even an hour before, and that he might in fact be very nice, and that I was judging him very quickly, but I don't care. I didn't like him, and that was damn well that.16

"Yeah, yeah, I'm fine! Just dandy, in fact." I seemed to be nodding vigorously a lot lately. I grabbed his arm and dragged him back to the dining room. Unfortunately, in my hurry, I'd forgotten to put the katana back on the wall. Whoops. Three pairs of eyes stared at me, two from the table and one from my side. Granny murmured,17

"The sword, dear?" I looked at the offending item in my hand, and debated the advantages of denying any knowledge of it to giving a quick historical and educational show-and-tell presentation about it. I decided against both ideas. Neither seemed very realistic. So instead I said the next thing that came to mind, which I find occasionally works quite well. In fact, I have a theory about it, involving statistics, human instincts, and the subconscious, but I'll tell you about that later. I'd often succeeded in creating good excuses with that method.18

"Er, I was using it to unjam the window. It was, um, really, really stuck."19

Ok, so maybe it doesn't work all the time. Occasionally, I said, didn't I?20

"I see," said Mrs. Key.21

"I'll just put it on the mantle then," I stammered, and did so. Mrs. Key smiled at me, and suggested sweetly,22

"Why don't you and Jasper tour the house?" What a weird thing to say, I thought. Does she want us to go away, so they can talk adult things or something? I mean, it's not exactly polite to invite your son to tour someone else's house. My room was safe enough to show him; nothing weird and possibly magical about it, anyway. But what about the dead guy? I supposed that he'd have to stay there until later, so I shrugged.23

"Sure. I'm game."24

My room was upstairs, in an attic like space, and had skylights and a big window. It was pitch black outside, and cloudy, so I pulled shut the curtains and turned on my reading lamp. I never used the overhead because it was so sickly looking, and I almost never had a light on and a window open at the same time. I preferred natural light if possible, and didn't usually like the mix of natural and artificial together. Jasper immediately homed in on my photographs.25

"Who are these people you're standing with?" he asked, holding up my favorite. It was small and framed; a picture of me and my younger sister, (kidnapped by demon revolutionists, remember?) Granny, a small lavenderish blond woman and a tall dark-bearded man. We were in front of an indigo coffeehouse with a yellow sign that read "DiCamillo's" It was located in an old, ghettoish part of town, and we went there fairly often when I was a child. "Are they your parents?"26

"No," I replied shortly, taking the photo from him and putting back on my desk, "It's me, my sister, Esther, my granny, and Florian and Dainadh DiCamillo, who own the coffeehouse. They're friends of the family." Though I sounded snappy--and felt snappy too--I was really masking my surprise that in the photo, Dainadh had no shadow. Everybody else had them, although they weren't easy to see in the evening light, but hers was conspicuously absent. She always managed to make one appear in public, so why hadn't the camera caught it? Could you take pictures of illusions? What an interesting idea; I'd have to ponder it in the future. But now, had Jasper noticed? Did I have any other condemning pictures? I didn't see any.27

"You're beautiful," he commented. What kind of a creep was this guy? I didn't trust him, and now that I thought of it, I wasn't quite comfortable in a room alone with him. 28

"You know what?" I asked suddenly, "I think that I need to get to bed. 'Cause you know what? I have to get up early. And Granny always makes me go to bed by nine when I have to get up early." Feeble excuse, as excuses go, but it was true. Although Granny's idea of early was not getting up and going to school. Her idea of early was four or five in the morning. But he didn't know that, now, did he?29

"Of course, I wouldn't want you to be tired in the morning." From his tone, I knew he was gently reprimanding me for being so rude. Well, if we are going to have to endure one another's company at any later points, he is going to have to get used to me being rude. To him, at least. I hustled him down the stairs, got his parents coats from the rack, and went to the dining room. 30

"Well, it was very nice you could come," I said, "Here are your coats and I do hope you have a wonderful night." Granny hid an amused smile behind her hand ad she pretended to cough. 31

"Yes," she agreed, "I should certainly get settled down with a nice cup of lemon tea." Mr. and Mrs. Key looked as if they thought us very quaint as they spouted pleasantries into the night after we gently shoved them out the door.32

"Now dear, what is going on that requires such hurry?" I grinned cheerfully at her.33

"Oh nothing, Granny, just that the dead man in the living room isn't dead any longer. And did you know that Dainadh doesn't have a shadow in the photo of us in front of the coffeehouse?" Granny pursed up her lips with displeasure at all these inconvenient problems.34

"How entirely unexpected," she remarked. "But let's deal with the odder one first." She began to make her way toward the living room, and I followed.