Chapter Six: Flight Risk
Shingles Manor, Wensleydale, October, 2019 (The following morning)

“Shahlah pute yer bag in’t boot, sir?”

At least, that’s what it sounded like the boy had said. I was finishing a late breakfast, and my brain appeared to be on a soft strike. “Work to rule,” as it were, and the contract apparently hadn’t specified translation services. “I’m sorry?”

“Yer bag,” he said patiently, shifting his eyes to the carryon that was my only luggage. “Would you lahk me ta pute it in’t boot of yer car?”

Slow and surly, my brain brought the memories of my decades-ago stay in this part of the world back online and the boy’s words rearranged themselves into something that made sense. “Yes, please. I’d appreciate it.” I fished the keys from my pocket and gave them to him.

The “Colonel” made no appearance this morning, and I didn’t expect him to. Holweard had been in quite the temper at the conclusion of our discussion. “Since you’ve already wasted the entire night talking,” he’d snapped, “you can bloody well come back to the hollow after moonrise if you’ve anything further to say.” Then he’d vanished, leaving me to make my tortured way back up the many, many levels of stairs to the crypt, and then back to the master bedroom, cursing a blue streak the whole way.

At least he’d left the lights on.

It had been 5:30 a.m. when I got to sleep, but after four hours or so I’d had all the “rest” I was likely to get. I threw off the covers and paced, like I was walking through everything that happened, again and again.

I’d spoken to an honest-to-gods-and-goddess immortal. Someone with first-hand knowledge of the world before Hastings . . . before the Norsemen, or even the Romans. I’m more than geek enough to eat all that up. He was utterly fascinating. Also obnoxious, conceited, opinionated, narcissistic, maddening, narrow-minded, unprincipled . . . . But still.

And, well . . . okay. The experience had been pretty amazing in other ways, too. What I had felt, in those moments that I had worn Freyia’s gown . . . . I couldn’t begin to describe it. If only . . . .

I snorted in amusement. I hadn’t gotten used to being stupid rich yet, but already I’d found that money couldn’t buy a lot of things. Both Holweard’s time and Freyia’s gown were definitely on that list. Indeed, Holweard’s sole interest in me was as the senior surviving heir of the Litton family. And I had zero desire to be Viscount Chingleput or the nominal master of Shingles. Less than zero desire. You couldn’t pay me to do it; sure as hell I wouldn’t whore myself for the “privilege!”

I’m not just a gamer, I’m a game designer. One of the best. I told myself that I had to be missing something, that it was just a matter of finding the right key. But try as I might, it wouldn’t come, and after a couple hours of pacing, I came to the reluctant conclusion that I didn’t have anything more to say to the Sprite after all.

Mom had suggested that I simply go play when I was done with my family business in the North of England, so I hadn’t actually made any plans. I could stay as long as I wanted, and I decided as I finished my beverage of someone else’s choice – which is to say, tea – that I’d more than done that.

Just slip out the back, Jack. Make a new plan, Stan.

Right. I trotted out the back door and down the steps, retrieved both keys and car from the boy who’d put my bag in the trunk, and sped off. Within a minute, a curve in the road wiped Shingles from my rear-view mirror.

Two and a half hours later, my car properly returned, I was at Leeds Bradford Airport, still with no plan, idly looking at places where all the pretty planes were scheduled to go. It might not have been the most sophisticated way to travel, but I literally had no deeds to do or promises to keep. All I had was a desire to be somewhere – anywhere – other than where I was. Get far, far away from trouble.

Or temptation.

Well, I was going to need a ticket to somewhere. So I found myself a cafe in the welcome hall, and wonder of wonders, it actually served coffee. From there, I looked at the list of departures, and tried to think what sounded like it might be interesting. Dublin sounded cool. Or possibly Dubrovnik. Maybe Czech out Prague . . . .

“Luigi Litton . . . what on earth are you doing here?”

Startled, I stopped gazing at the departures board and found a matron looking down at me, a funny sort of smile on her . . . .

Shit. Really? I mean, seriously? “It’s an airport, Heather. Is this a trick question?”

“And of all the airports in all the cities in the world, you walk into mine?”

That was . . . pretty good, actually. But . . . “Isn’t that s’posed to be my line?”

“I shouldn’t think so. Unless maybe you bought the place, which I suppose you might have done. Though, I’m not sure it’s the best investment.”

“So you’re saying I should tell them I’m not interested?”

“Definitely. One star; would not recommend.” She stood for a moment longer, then playfully said, “Aren’t you going to offer me a biscuit?”

I stood slowly, trying to regain my equilibrium. Just seeing her brought an immediate flood of memories, but not all those memories were good ones. I remember every detail. The Germans wore gray. You wore blue. I wore . . . Well, I was dressed like a French maid, so . . . very little?

After a quick and frantic search I found my manners where I keep my default settings. “Will you join me? Do you have time?”

“I’d like that.”

“Can I get you something?”

“No need.” She sat. When I still stood, irresolute, she said, “I’m fine. Sit.”

So I sat. I still couldn’t think what I was going to say to this woman, who had inadvertently shaped my life so much.

Heather being Heather, she took the initiative. “I’ve got a bone to pick with you,” she teased.

She seemed so glad to see me; I just smiled . . . .

Well, not exactly. Sure I smiled – but it probably made me look less like the happy-go-lucky student she remembered and more like a shark. “Do tell.”

Her eyes narrowed. “My boys – all three of them – couldn’t get enough of your horrid games. All day, all night. Why in heavens did you have to make such irritating characters?”

“That would be ‘Jiro. Or possibly his evil twin, Fus.”

“No! No! Don’t say the names! Never say the names! Those names are banned in my house! I can’t even hear them without their stupid, insidious laughter ringing in my ears!”

I chuckled. “All the characters, and their voices, were tested out the ying yang to ensure deep market penetration and profit maximization.”

“I can’t help thinking, somehow, that everything you just said is horse manure. Why might that be?”

“Because it is. My investors bought it, though.” I said nothing more, but my shark smile stayed firmly in place.

“Oh, come on, Weej. You know you’re going to spill!”

“Can you keep a secret?” My face, I’m sure, was wholly free of guile.

“Of course I can!”

Heather was, as I knew full well, constitutionally incapable of keeping a secret. But I didn’t mind this particular rumor getting around . . . very informally, of course. So I’d have just the right amount of plausible deniability. “I had a personal score to settle with a guy named Fusajiro.”

Her face lit up like the Rockefeller Center Christmas Tree. “Oh, that’s simply delightful! Do remind me not to make you angry!”

I tried to come up with a non-revealing response, but all of my mental search terms generated non-valid results. Error 503. Backend fetch failed.

After watching my face register the internal malfunction, she sighed. “I guess it’s a bit late for that, isn’t it?”

Dammit! Do NOT go there! Reboot on safe mode! “I wasn’t angry at you, Heather.” I tried my very best to make it sound sincere.

“You are an appalling liar, Luigi Litton!”

You have no idea. “Nonsense! I’m an accomplished liar!”

She laughed. “You will say anything to win an argument, won’t you? But you can’t win this one. If you hadn’t been angry, you wouldn’t have tossed all my shoes.”

“I gave you back everything else. Even boxed it up for you.”

“I have a distinct recollection that my feet were very sore!”

Yeah. Got me. “Sorry about that.”

“There you go again.” Her smile, broad, amused, almost wicked, was exactly what I remembered. Still crazy, after all these years. “Lies. Just atrocious!”

“Same old Heather,” I chuckled. “The best defense is a good offense.”

“It is!” she insisted. “Well. That is to say . . . it is when you don’t have a defence.”

Keep it light, dude. “You’ve always got a defense.”

“Not this time.” Her voice was low, and serious in a way I’d seldom heard from her, which naturally made me both suspicious and uncomfortable. “I was an idiot. There’s no defence. I’ve wanted to write to you, so often, to apologize for how I treated you.”

I had locked this pain away for so many years. Why is it still there? My throat was suddenly dry and I took a gulp of coffee, playing for time. Disengage!

“That’s okay,” I said. Or intended to, anyway. What actually came out was, “I wasn’t hard to find.”

“You certainly weren’t. Could have knocked me over with a feather, the first time I saw your name on the back of one of Hector’s games!”

“You could try not to sound quite so astonished.”

“I was, though . . . I never really understood what you did with all that computer Hocus Pocus. And you have to admit, Brutus would never have said you were ambitious.”

“Given his track record with ambitious guys, I’m thinking that’s a good thing.”

“Right you are. But anyhow, there you were, the picture of success. And then, of course, I couldn’t possibly write. You’d just have thought . . . .”

Apparently she couldn’t bring herself to say “gold digger.” I wasn’t going to say it either, but that didn’t mean I wasn’t thinking it. We both were. The white elephant in the room.

“Weej —“

Danger, Will Robinson! I cut her off. “You don’t have to explain anything. It’s been over a long time.”

She shook her head, hard. “I need you to know the friendship was real. And I should have left it there — we were good friends.”

I’m afraid my look was a bit skeptical.

“We were friends, and we were good at it? Had fun together?”

I smiled. “Yes, absolutely.”

“There you go. But then I let my head get all filled with rubbish dreams about becoming some sort of great lady. God! I mean really — I’d have been a complete disaster at it.”

“Nah. You’d have rocked. Thrown the whole peerage on its collective ear.”

“I’m sure it’s been tried.”

“Not by someone with your . . . skills.”

“I’d have looked ridiculous.”

“Compared to whom? You have seen the peerage, haven’t you?”

“I’d have been beastly to the staff.”

“Yeah, well. Okay. Can’t argue with you there.”

She was silent for a moment. “I feel horrible about chasing you to California.”

“The tan looked good on you.”

She brightened. “Did it?”

“Absolutely! Best shade of red I’d seen outside of a lobster pot. Must have hurt, though.”

“Bastard!”

“Nah. You wouldn’t have chased me if I had been.”

“Certainly not!” It came out with her trademark zing, but then she caught herself, and added quietly, “And that was the whole problem.”

Dammit! Damn, damn, damnedy, damn, damn! Can’t you let me blame you in peace? Why can’t you just stay properly villainous? Rub your hands together and cackle or something?

“Okay, listen.” Deep breath. “You need to stop beating yourself up about this. I let it happen, and I knew . . . I knew it wasn’t love. It was fun; I enjoyed it. But we didn’t love each other.”

Her expression was indescribable. “You might have said something!”

“Told you that you had a defense.”

“You little git! What were you playing at?” The tone was humorous— but also, not.

“Charades?”

“Really?” No humor this time.

“Well . . . kind of, yeah.” I shrugged, uncomfortably. “I mean, I’m not normal; I get that. But I thought, ‘hey, I sure look normal. I’m in school, I’m cruisin’, and I’ve got this hot English girlfriend.’”

She gawped. “‘Hot’ and ‘English.’ Together. In the same sentence. Are you quite all right?”

“Well, hot and super cool all at the same time. You know Americans swoon whenever they hear a British accent.”

“Ah, yes. The colonial cringe.”

“Hey!”

“So I was effective arm candy?”

“Yeah. And so I figured, you know, maybe I’m okay? After all, my hot English girlfriend doesn’t mind if I like to . . . .’” I stopped myself before that got even more embarrassing, and simply concluded, “Anyway. I thought maybe I could fool the world.”

She saw where I’d been going. “I noticed all my little presents to you were in my box. Even that delightful maid’s outfit.”

“Yeah.”

“You looked adorable.”

“Thanks . . . I think.”

“So you just put it behind you?”

“Yes . . . .”

She gave me a skeptical look. “Your pause says otherwise.”

Keep it concrete, Weej! “I stopped dressing. I stopped fooling around, stopped trying to be normal. I thought I’d take a shot at being extraordinary instead.”

“If you do say so yourself?”

I shook my head. “Didn’t say I succeeded. It was just a dream.”

“Based on what I read about the sale of your company, I’d say you managed a pretty fair dream.”

“I got a good price for it.”

“Your company? Or your dream?” When I didn’t answer, her look softened. “Are you happy?”

“Bad time to ask.” Attempting to lighten the mood, I added, “after all, I’m still largely pre-caffeinated. How about you?”

“I had a cuppa.” Her smile said, two can play that game, and you’re outmatched!

“Witch! Are you happy?”

“You’re not going to believe this.”

I leaned back, smiling. “Probably not.”

She stuck her tongue out. “Well, don’t believe me! But I am. Happy, that is. I have all the things I never wanted, and I’m just ecstatic. Does that make any sense?”

“Given that you used to want to be ‘Viscountess Chingleput’ of all things, I’m going with ‘yes.’”

She had the grace to giggle. “I reckon I had that coming. But it’s true. All I had to do was stop fussing about what I needed to be happy, and suddenly, I was.”

Uh huh. “Sounds like something I’d find in a fortune cookie.”

“You should be so fortunate. Anyway, you don’t eat fortune cookies.”

“I don’t. So, what made you stop worrying about being happy?”

“The usual, bougie story, I guess – the sort I’d hear from Mum, that would make me just roll my eyes.” She shrugged helplessly. “I met a great guy – Donny. Strong, quiet type. Helped me get my head screwed on straight.”

“That must have been a shock. How could anyone recognize you?”

That earned me a finger wag. “Now, now. Yeah, it was a bit of a shock. But that’s alright. Anyhow, we did the church wedding, and had three boys, and . . . God, Weej. It’s just been the most amazing ride!”

I sat back in my chair, stunned. She sounded — no, she was — completely sincere. This was Heather!

“Come on, let me show you pictures!”

No!!! “Of course. Whatcha got?”

She pulled out her phone and started whipping through a staggering large photo collection. Her husband Donny looked like he was around six three and handsome in a reedy sort of way; the boys appeared to be twenty, eighteen and fifteen, give-or-take, exhibiting various combinations of their parents’ not-all-that-dissimilar Northern English genes. There were heaps and heaps of smiles . . . and a love that was real, warm and genuine.

I would not be convicted, by a jury of my peers . . . .

After showing a recent photo of Donny and the boys right in the airport, she explained, “They just were off on holiday together in Dublin; I had to work so I couldn’t go with. But they should be landing in just a few and I should get to their gate. Would you like to meet them?”

Oh, look at the time! “I’d love to, Heather. I would, but . . . I really do have to be going.”

“You are an appalling liar, Weej.” She put her hand lightly on my wrist. “But I understand. And I’m sorry if I’ve rubbed rock salt in old wounds.” She rose, put her phone in her bag and a smile on her face. “If you do buy the airport, knock it down, would you? Piece of rubbish, if you ask me.”

I stood. “I’ll do that.”

“You’ll be alright?”

“I will. Take care of yourself. And . . . Heather?”

She raised an eyebrow.

“Thanks. I had no idea I needed this.”

“Right then. Don’t squander it!” She gave my hand a final squeeze, turned, and was off.

I watched her go, shaking my head in wonder. Heather, a doting suburban wife and mother. I didn’t see THAT coming!

I felt a familiar click in my brain . . . The feeling I get when pieces of a problem that I’ve been worrying about suddenly rearranged themselves, creating a pattern that highlighted an unexpected solution. All I had to do . . . .

My gestalt moments were famous at my company. Partly because they were responsible for some of our greatest triumphs, but mostly because I might as well be catatonic while they are rearranging my brain, which can take an embarrassingly long time. The world continues to do its thing, but I kind of check out from it for a bit, like I’ve slipped out a side door for a breath of fresh air. One of my partners had even managed to draw a mustache on me during an early episode, without my even noticing.

Click.

Click.

Clicketty-clicketty-click.

After a moment of staring blankly into space in a way that almost certainly tripped silent alarms in airport security — foreign male acting suspicious! — I downed the dregs of my coffee, picked up my bag and headed resolutely for the exit. Heather was right after all — I was an appalling liar. In fact, I was so bad at lying that I might have inadvertently told her the truth.

I did have someplace I needed to be.

To be continued . . . .

~o~O~o~
Author's note: Many thanks to RobertLouis and AlisonP for their help reviewing this story.

For information about my other stories, please check out my author's page.