The Unskillful Thaumaturge

XI

Lillian was dreaming about waffles when she was awakened by a sharp poke to the side. She cracked her eyes open to find Leslie's face hovering over hers, wearing a green tee that brought out her eye color and an annoyed expression.

"Wake up, dingbat."

Lillian rolled halfway over. "No," she moaned.

"I don't have any waffles, Lillian."

She sat bolt upright. "How do you know I was dreaming about that?"

Leslie giggled. "Well, didn't you just say it?"

"I don't remember that."

"I didn't hear that," Daria added from across the room, toothbrush sticking out of her mouth at an angle.

"You were half asleep. And you were brushing your teeth."

Leslie didn't sound entirely credible, but Lillian herself was familiar with the difficulty of keeping your calm after someone accuses you of lying, even if you're being honest. Besides, there was no other explanation. Lillian clambered slowly out of bed and selected the day's clothes before heading into the bathroom and closing the door.

"Why is she so mopey lately?" Leslie muttered.

Daria just shook her head. She hadn't had the chance to finish brushing her teeth before Lillian had scrambled into the bathroom.

"I think they told her something and that's why she's so upset."

"M-hmm." Daria took care to keep her toothpaste-filled mouth closed.

"What do you think they told her?"

Daria shrugged.

"I think we should know." Leslie watched as Daria nodded. "It's like talking to the wall," she added, watching Daria attempt to stifle a laugh.

Lillian exited the bathroom, causing Daria to spring up from the desk and rush in. "What?" she asked Leslie, who just laughed. "What is it?"

"Oh, nothing," Leslie answered, still laughing. "Just Daria."

☙❧

Stop it. You're making me dizzy.

"Maybe that's why I'm doing it," Dakota replied, feeling rather dizzy himself.

No, really. It's quite uncomfortable.

Dakota had been spinning around in his office chair for "lack of something better to do," as he put it. He had finished grading the surveys (finally!) and was trying to figure out exactly what Ashley had meant during their discussion at the meeting. "They're after you, they just don't know who you are yet," he muttered to himself. "Well, that certainly rules out the-"

Stop! You can't say that!

"Okay, the Nine. It rules out the Nine."

But I can't figure out who would be looking for us without knowing who we are. Who would give a tip without knowing who we are? It would have to be someone outside the thaumat-"

"Her."

I feel like she was telling the truth when she said she didn't have it.

"I know. I think she gave it to someone else. The police or something. And they're looking for me. And-"

They have the fingerprints, the voice finished.

☙❧

"I'm bored," Ashley complained, pulling off one of her socks and throwing it at the wall. Galena, who was sitting in a chair across the room, concentrated on the sock, causing it to fly back and hit her mother in the face. "If you're bored, you can go and put your socks in the washing machine instead of throwing them around and expecting me to pick them up."

"No, I'm not bored like that. I'm bored as in I'm not having any fun."

"Go out to lunch with your friend again, then."

"No!" Ashley said this so sharply that Galena almost fell out of her chair. "I'm not doing that again."

"Why, did something happen?" When her mother didn't answer, she tried again. "What is it, Mom?"

Ashley just shrugged. "Nothing. I just... don't feel like meeting with my friend again. It wasn't very enjoyable."

"Okay, fine. Why don't you clean the apartment then?"

"Nah, I don't feel like doing that either."

"Well, whatever you feel like, you should really do something. You've just been sitting around all morning."

"Fine," Ashley replied, rising from her chair. "We'll go sightseeing."

"No!" her daughter protested vehemently, possibly even more opposed to the idea than Ashley had been to her suggestion a minute ago. "You know what, I have an idea. I was thinking about going shopping later; why don't you head to the grocery store and actually help out around here?"

Ashley immediately began to protest. "I bet you just want me out of the way so you can go out with Rolf."

"Going out? What are you talking about? Rolf and I went to lunch together yesterday to discuss the case we're working on. There's no 'going out' involved."

"You sure?"

"Please just don't be ridiculous." Galena did, in fact, want her mother out of the way, to either talk to her boss about the case or simply to contemplate it for herself. "You should really get out of the house. You've been in here all day."

"It's not even noon yet."

"You've still been in here all day."

"So have you."

Galena rolled her eyes. "Look, I'm getting tired of your excuses. Will you please just go and do something?"

"Why would I want to do that?"

☙❧

Like Ashley, Rolf was feeling somewhat bored. Unlike Ashley, he was also stressed. And baffled. The case was occupying his thoughts.

It was an exceedingly complicated and confusing case, made even more complicated and confusing through the thaumaturgy involved. Or at least the thaumaturgy that they thought was involved. "Whatever is behind the illusion of the dead kid is meant to confuse us as much as possible," he muttered. "So what would they do to confuse us even more? Our next lead is the body. All they'd have to do is mess with it and make it look even more confusing." He fidgeted in his chair. How would the person behind the illusion know what they were about to do? There was barely enough evidence to conclude that the person was even involved with the case at all- without the fingerprints, it wouldn't seem to have anything to do with the matter at all. It was just suspicious enough to be considered a line of inquiry.

Rolf pulled his computer onto his lap and inserted the SD card he had picked up that morning in the DIAO building- the only private interview with Jeremiah Raleigh, conducted several months after the media interviews. Unfortunately, they could not conduct a second interview, for obvious reasons pertaining to Raleigh's untimely death in 2007. Neither him nor Galena had had a chance to watch the interview so far, and he was interested to hear what Raleigh had to say.

And yet it didn't seem to be very different from what Rolf had heard about the Thaumatogenesis, with the added description of exactly what the police found at the scene. The private security camera had seen all of the action- all the cops did was find the baby. And discover thaumaturgy. The most interesting new piece of information Raleigh provided was that he had almost fainted after realizing thaumaturgy was possible. Rolf tittered.

When the interview was over, Rolf removed the SD card from the laptop and opened a new document on his flash drive. He began typing out the clues.