Chapter Text
I was at loose ends. I spent a part of each day in the library periodicals room following the case. Over the next week the number of remains was finally settled at forty-four. I wondered if they had recovered my jar of eyes from Kob and added them to the other remains. It was, as one journal remarked, the largest slaughter of elves since the discovery of Chicago's 'murder castle' in 1894. It was international news, spreading from one cover story to the next throughout the periodical room.
The connection was drawn between Jody and the woman who delivered Avi to the Vancouver hospital. Various papers suggested her as the source of the anonymous tip. It was as good a suggestion as any.
Lee had begun to talk, and was pleading coercion on the part of the goblins. He claimed he had been raised from childhood to be a human front for the goblins and had no choice but to work for them. It was a clever defense; he would undoubtedly garner some sympathy as a sold child, and he could easily point to Jody and Anno as evidence of what would have happened had he not cooperated. Was it true? He had seemed only somewhat apprehensive when he told Jody that they were holding Anno. I supposed he could have been hiding the real danger from her.
Lee's birth name had been discovered and released: Allan Goscinny. The family was claiming that Lee had been stolen from them as an infant and that they had never reported it because the goblins had made threats against the child's life. There was an ongoing investigation into the family's finances, but nothing on that front had been released yet and there was no word if charges would be pressed against them.
The high Jareth of the goblins in Canada was pressuring the Canadian government to turn over the two captured goblins, Grithix and Trollusk, for an internal goblin trial. With the level of outrage the case was generating in the human press it didn't seem likely. I kept looking for any mention of Glern, the third goblin, but there was none. Perhaps the Aurors were trying to lure him out through a false sense of security, or perhaps he was one of the goblin remains. I wondered if Hoke was looking into the possibility of other tunnels. It seemed that everyone was keeping their word and keeping me out of it.
Opinion pieces were beginning to crop up. Some advocated for the admission of house elf testimony in court. Others countered that that would lead to an increase in elf abuse and killings by masters who feared their own elves would incriminate them. A few radical voices called for the end of elf ownership altogether, only to be met with a flood of replies calling them "blind to two-thousand years of elf culture and history," or "against house elf self-determination," or citing statistics that the majority of American freed elves were unsatisfied in their employment. As if anyone was satisfied in their employment. I wondered what the statistics would show if someone made a study of American human job satisfaction.
There was some new information among all the dross. The CMLE had arrested two go-betweens, neither of them Skeez, thankfully, as well as the ring's largest buyer, a Mr. Pearce Baum. He had apparently been attempting to set up a large-scale banned artifacts manufactory in Montana. He had fled to Mexico on the news of the ring bust, but the Aurors were able to track the parts he had taken with him by association with the remains uncovered in the clearcut. Classic first principle. It was perhaps just as well that Kob had taken the remaining eyes. I had destroyed all of the remaining ward breaker on my return home.
Of course, now that Baum's arrest had been published, I doubted that they would get many more. A buyer or go-between with any sense would burn all ties they had with the ring.
I visited the Seattle Dark Market once, just to see if Mark was still in good standing. There wasn't any fuss about giving him the location or letting him in, but I could see that the whole market was jumpy. Guards were turning away anyone who showed signs of juice, so there were whores arguing loudly with them at the edges of the market. Sellers were keeping the worst banned items under wraps, and Skeez was nowhere to be seen, no doubt laying low. I expect the market would be back to business as usual in a couple of months.
It would also be months before much came of Lee's or the goblins' trials. The venue and evidence hearings were only just beginning and promised to drag on for some time. I stopped coming in to the city daily.
It was early in the afternoon on the Tuesday after I returned home. I was upstairs getting somewhere on my theory. Where I was getting, that was another question. When I opened my desk drawer for another paper pad I saw Jody's face looking up from her crumbling photo. There wasn't much left now; I could barely distinguish her smile from the sky.
The alert wards at my fence line went off. I sat staring at the yellowed photo for a minute before I realized that I had already heard the alerts for the mailman, this was something else. By that time I could hear some steps, then soft voices from the porch. I froze, listening. The date was a more than a week early for Shacklebolt, unless he deliberately wanted to catch me off guard. It could be the neighbors, but what use were alert wards if I didn't check on them?
I slipped from my chair and made my way to the window at the corner of the room. There was a knock at the door. I could see two figures reflected in the rain-speckled mirror propped against the ash trunk near the walk; a woman and an elf. The woman knocked again.
I had tried to cut myself free of my old life, but it seemed that whatever I did, the edges were continually trying to grow together. I hadn't asked them here, I hadn't told them they were welcome, but I could hardly have elves hanging about on my front porch. I went down to the door and pulled it open to reveal Amy and Avi. I didn't say anything. Amy began awkwardly, "Avi told me she needed to speak to you and I agreed to come; I didn't know she was going to bring us right away, unannounced. I'm sorry, but may we talk to you?" As Avi was already halfway across the living room, it seemed pointless to refuse.
"Fine," I said, holding the door open for Amy to enter. After I reset the wards I turned to see Amy alone.
"Where?"
"She just went through there," she said, indicating the door that led to the kitchen, still standing half-open. I went through quickly. What did she think she was doing? There she was on a stool at the counter, messing about with the kettle. Typical.
Amy followed us into the kitchen. Avi apparently had the kettle to her satisfaction. She jumped off her stool and pushed it over to the table. I took the chair opposite and Amy pulled up the one I kept next to the back door. Avi, I saw, still only had her left hand. She saw me looking.
"It is dead, that one."
Amy joined in: "We left it too long, I'm afraid."
I winced. If I hadn't used that damned hair…
Avi went on: "Kob asks me to give you a message. The Aurors speak to him; they have found parts of Wilia and Mayni. He says your job is over. He does not forget you cutting the eyes, but he says that your home is your home. He will not speak to you again."
"But you will?"
"Maybe cutting the eyes is wrong, but now the five are alive. I can't make a choice for them, not to live. I don't know if Kob thinks he could." Amy made a noise; she looked about to speak. At that moment I didn't want to hear her agreeing or disagreeing with Avi. There almost seemed to be some confidence between them. I decided to head her off.
"You are working at the school?" I asked quickly.
"I am working for only three months there to get references. There they are always saying things about free elves and ones who are free on purpose. I am always hearing it. I am free on purpose." Her hand came out from somewhere and opened on the table releasing the small scrap of fabric. "It's for my life."
"And just what is your life in three months?" I felt absurdly like I was back in my role as Head of House.
"I take another position. Somewhere else."
"Speak to Nimmo. They will find you something." It was an easy favor to give, and if Nimmo really was the center of house elf information in the city, as I suspected, I could use someone placed with him. Besides, if he did me this favor, maybe the elves would stop paying my way.
The kettle was starting to whistle. Avi pushed her stool back over to the stove and set to filling up the teapot.
Amy began, a bit awkwardly, "I saw what the papers said about that woman, the one you looked like, Jody Garner. Is she really the same one?
"Yes."
"Did they kill her because of the article in the paper?"
"They killed her because I used her hair in the polyjuice when I brought you in," I said, looking at Avi.
"But if there hadn't been an article – " Amy protested.
"What does it matter? You might as well say 'if she hadn't chosen to be part of an elf parts ring.'"
"Did she really choose it? They say the other one, Allan Goscinny, is claiming they were forced into it."
I shrugged. "I don't know, but part of her wanted to do it. Does it really matter, the reason she joined? The damage was done, the elves still died. She still died, whether she was forced into it or not." Avi was back at the table, with the full pot. I turned to her. "Well, does it matter why she did it?" She gave an angry little hiss.
"You don't ask me this!" She turned her back on us and stomped over to the cupboard. Amy looked at me reproachfully.
"That wasn't a fair question."
"Since when have I been fair?"
"Oh, should I lower my expectations for you?" Avi was setting out some of my mismatched mugs on the table. "I've decided to go back to my name." I looked at her in silence.
"While I was giving the Aurors my statement, I was just thinking how much easier it would be, no evasions, no half-truths. And if I do it now, well, the news is so full of everything else, it's probably my best chance of avoiding a fuss."
"I wanted to tell you first, before I go ahead. I'm not going to mention meeting you now, of course, but your name is going to come up in how I managed to get out. If it does get into the news, you might see your name too. I just wanted you to be prepared for the possibility." She looked at me closely. "Are you alright with that?"
Why did she ask? "It's your choice to make."
"But it affects you too. It – " She cut off with an expression of trying to twist her mouth around something unpleasant. "It's been bothering me," she finished.
"All right, so you go back to your name then."
"It's not that, it's not just that!" She looked over at Avi, who nodded at her. I had the uncomfortable sense that they had been discussing me, that they had come to some decision that I didn't know of.
"I know you don't want to talk about it. I don't want to either, but I think I have to, if I want to get past it, and I do."
I winced; she couldn't just let it alone.
"We both – " she glanced at Avi, "you made some choices for us, to save our lives, so we are responsible too, even though we didn't have a say in it. There isn't any way to make it right." She sighed. I was tired, far too tired of backhanded hindsight judgments.
"And what exactly should I have done then? Please tell me, I do wish to know," I said, gripping the edge of the table and leaning forward towards her. She looked up at me surprised, and that look was back, the one I never wanted to see again.
"But I'm not blaming you! I'm not trying to," she protested. "I don't know anything else you could have done! What I'm trying to say –" She stopped for a moment to gather herself.
"You were in that position, what else could you do? I don't know, I can't claim to know what kind of choice you had. I'm thinking of myself, and what I did. So many, hundreds of times I think about that other woman. If you had given me a choice, would I have let her take my place? I could kid myself, try to pretend that I would have refused. But I wanted to live, I always wanted to live, so maybe I would have said yes."
I stared at the kitchen table.
"Does it really matter who had to make the choice, you or I? It's the same thing now. I have my life, she doesn't, I have to figure out a way to live with that. This is the best way I can think of right now." She paused. "The woman, how did you choose her?"
How could she ask me that, did she think I picked her out?
"I didn't choose, she was the first person I found close to your weight and height. That was all."
"You don't know then, who she was?" I shook my head, I didn't want to speak.
"I keep thinking about if her family…"
I cut in to stop her. "I don't know, I don't know anything about her! What does it matter, it doesn't change anything!"
"All right, all right, I shouldn't have –"
"What, were you hoping she was a criminal, that she deserved it? So you could ease your conscience? I'll tell you, she deserved it exactly as much as you did, exactly as much as anyone did!"
"No, no, that's not it!" She was half-standing, her voice rose to match mine.
"Isn't it?"
"No! I – it's because I – Listen to me!"
"You think you – " I started, but she spoke over me, "Just listen, please, a minute, just listen!" I sat, fuming a bit.
"I didn't ask because of that; it's because I've been, well, hiding. As far as I know, no one knows what happened to her, no one even knows that she's dead. Working as a healer for the past few years, I've seen what it does to families, not knowing. Knowing might be bad, but not knowing is worse. If I come forward, maybe the Ministry can find her family, give me permission to speak to them, something. I have to try to explain and apologize. It's not enough, but what could be enough? But it's all I can do, I have to do it."
"Apologize?"
"All because I was late! It was so bloody stupid! So I'm sorry, I'm so fucking sorry that I got caught, sorry that she died for my mistake, and I don't even know her name and I can't tell her. And I'm sorry you had to… do that. You didn't deserve it either."
"Sorry, you're sorry? Sorry doesn't mean you're responsible – what the hell good is sorry? Sorry doesn't do anything."
She laughed, with no humor in it. "No, it doesn't, it's good for nothing, but I've got plenty of it. It just keeps me up at night. And since I'm up at night anyway, I always sign up for the night shift, which makes me run into you."
"Fucking Felix."
She gave another short laugh. "Yes, fucking Felix."
"Just a fortunate coincidence," I said. If she noticed my slip, she didn't say anything. Avi was pouring the tea.
End