The Doktor's Spyglass

Chapter 18

The next two days were a haze. Every attempt he made at working failed, resulting in either fumbled results or hours spent distracted by the gleam of a brass flask holder or the hue of a solution. Seffa did not return. He realized, at some point, that he was waiting for her. That all progress had ceased until she came back, at which point he might breathe again.

He didn't know what this meant for him. Even the immediate future, so clear only days before, was now clouded by a turn of events he truly hadn't anticipated.

For Key, the ability of others to intrude upon and affect his inner world was consistently astounding. Everything made sense—each part of his plan, however tentative, followed a logical pattern that he had laid out with great thought—until she said no. Until she reacted unpredictably. What made it worse was the knowledge that another person might have seen this particular turn of events as an eventuality. His failure to understand other people felt like an aching hole inside of him. He regretted it, if only because of Seffa. He could have gone on indefinitely, never connecting with or knowing another human being, until she appeared and crept past the ingrained defenses and firebreaks that protected his soul.

Seffa unlocked something inside of him that he'd thought inaccessible, even to himself, and it made him scared and, at times like these, overpowered by a rage that he did not know how to control. He could lock it away, but never snuff it out: it smoldered like a banked coal somewhere beneath his heart.

* * *

She returned two days later. Key, despite wishing and waiting for just this moment, found that he was not ready to face her.

He'd spent the greater part of the two days puttering about the cistern, occasionally reading or fiddling with a piece of equipment but mostly moping, depressed and anxious. He had resigned himself to the idea that she was not coming back, only to reassure himself in the same thought that of course she was coming back, and he must be ready to make his case. This cycle repeated, over and over, with few variations, until he had started quite literally pulling his hair out, plucking them one at a time and examining their ends. He started to find relief in the production of a complete follicle, and more anxiety if the hair broke off above the skin. By the time she walked through the western entrance he'd denuded all of one forearm and a small but growing patch behind his left ear.

She startled him, of course. The soft scrape of her shoe on the stone basin blended into the noise of his surroundings in the cistern lab, as did the polite clearing of her throat: all ambient details of a world Key had left behind over a day ago.

When he did look up he focused on her face, pale, contrite, her hands clasped behind her back. She wore different clothing: a cleaner frock, and sturdy shoes. Her hair was tied up in a neat bun. She looked older than he'd ever seen her. Washed and properly clothed, Key couldn't help but notice the perfection of her skin, the slight dimple at the juncture of her collarbones, the soft curve of her jaw beneath the soft pile of hair.

"Key," she said, not for the first time. How long had she been there?

"Seffa," said Key. After a moment he stood up, willing his hand to stop plucking at his hairline. He even dusted off his trousers, a useless gesture given the state of his clothes.

"You look terrible."

"Yes."

"How long has it been since you've eaten anything?" she asked.

"I'm not sure," he answered honestly. After he'd finished the lab's meager stores he'd begun to worry, begun to pluck, and time had stopped passing normally. The hollow in his stomach told him it had been two days.