Unmaking Percy

Part II - IV, continued (The Hushing Manor)

"But... what are gaps?"

He could not see Evans' smile, but he could hear it, sparking alight.

"That's what's hard to explain. Gaps can be anything. They can be anywhere. They can be something tangible, that you can see and touch. The gaps between... between hair strands, grains of sand. Between the pages of a book, or perhaps between paper and a pen. Between a window and curtains, or between the folds of the curtain's fabric. Between a mirror and its reflection. Between the strands of woven fabric."

Percy stared vaguely at the bed. He could not understand Evans' words. They were like a tide that reached his feet, but left them dry.

"And others are more... abstract. Not as obvious, perhaps. Of course, there is different power to all these. The gap between memories, or between sleep and wakefulness. Or even the gap between two tasks, when time goes by with no purpose. The gap between the doing of things in which nothing is done. Between speech and its understanding..."

Evans' voice wove and wove, and with each new thread, Percy began to see a pattern. Now, he began to make sense of those words. He felt their understanding seep into his bones, sink its roots within him, till the earth of his skin. It was like an ancient thing that had long been waiting for him, a forest ground that longed to claim him and cover him in old moss. It frightened him, but for once, for the first time, it was not a fear that made him want to run; it was a fear that grounded him. It was a fear he welcomed.

And Evans went on, unfurling his tapestry.

"... between your expectations of a moment, your fears or hopes of that moment, and its reality when it comes to pass. Between a promise and your intention to keep it, or break it. Between desire and..."

Percy thought of that single drop of water and its touch as it drew silk down his back. He understood now, why that moment had so gripped him whole. It was not the drop. It was what he had wished it to be. But that, he would not think of.

"When you said... you needed a gap to summon the sorceress..." he began.

Percy tried again to remember what had happened in the music room, to reel those memories back to him now. They started to become clearer. He remembered how, when, the sorceress had been summoned. In that in-betweenness, between the end of music and the beginning of applause.

"You waited for that moment to summon her. That's what you meant" he murmured.

"Yes."

"But... if they draw magic from gaps... How can they wield magic from... nothing?"

Evans sat up at last. There was an intensity in his features that struck Percy.

"But that's just it, they're not nothing. Gaps are not an absence. They are the presence of everything that fits nowhere else."

Evans rose from the bed and took a towel from the folded pile by the tub. He faced Percy, and, kneeling on one knee, started to dry his hair, as though there was nothing more natural. Percy sat there and allowed it, eyes closed, all of him open.

He spoke again only once the towel was put away and his hair spread its mess of dark, wet-slick waves.

"Then, if I got it right... when sorcerers and fae cast curses, they are drawing their magic from these gaps."

"Yes."

"And when you're breaking the curses... what do you do? Surely there must also be some magic involved in closing gaps?"

"I just break the curses."

Percy stared at him, taking in that fire-lit landscape, reading between those handsome lines. He heard in Evans' voice the restless twitching of a concealed truth, the ripples of a creature under placid waters. Evans was not lying; but he did not, perhaps, truly feel that things were as simple as he claimed.