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…There’s a shift in the forest—silent and black—as indistinct as a sunbeam lancing through branches. Binah’s lips curve into a smile.
”I was wondering when you’d appear to greet me,” she observes, eyes closed. The tea’s rich scent wafts up from the cup in her hands. It’s been prepared to her exacting specifications by one of her staff, treated with all the weight and wonder of the Gospel.
The Voice heralds her, an old friend. Each word is warm and honeyed, though Binah has no taste for sweets. “You’ve been sleeping almost as long as Benjamin.”
”A necessity.” She takes a slow sip, slicing her answer in twain. “Your earlier guests wouldn’t have been worthy of my attention.”
Carmen laughs! She appears to no one’s sights and sounds but Binah’s, sitting across from her at the table. The light wreaths her in heavenly flame, her form partially translucent, the glow threatening to consume her.
Her red eyes are untouched.
“I won’t argue that. Still, it’s a little cruel to make your staff fight that Abnormality alone, don’t you think?”
”They volunteered. They said nothing would make them happier.”
It’s true. Though Binah never had the intention of fighting the Abnormality available to them at the present, her recently awakened employees still jumped at the chance to do something, and save their dear Patron any sort of unnecessary labor.
Carmen’s eyes hood over, half-closed. “I don’t recall you caring very much about your employees in the past. But now you’re concerned for their happiness?”
The tease makes Binah smirk. That’s a twist on her words, but not inaccurate. “Changes in circumstance have led to me reevaluating my thoughts.”
Besides, they’ve been loyal workers, she has to admit—even if they had no other choice. Competence is hard to come by. She has every intention of joining them in receiving the guests once she’s collected her thoughts.
…She takes another slow sip.
”The task of subduing an Abnormality is neither above or below them.”
”’Everyone has their place’. Isn’t that what you told me before?”
It is.
Binah recollects conversations in the dark, over the shifting midnight hue of the Well. Countless sunless days and moonless nights where she would wonder if she’s actually lost her mind (of course not), robotic frame whirring and clanking as she paced the halls of Extraction. There’s a voice in the Well and she loves the despair dripping from every word. They talk.
“It seems you recall our previous conversations, though it remains to be seen if you understood them.”
“I think a lot of what you said made perfect sense.”
Binah picks up the kettle, pouring Carmen a cup. She stops just short of the brim. It’s still hot to the touch, but Carmen picks it up wholehanded, fingers curling tight.
“And is that surprising?” she asks, a touch dry.
“Far from it. You’ve always been the sharpest one here.” There’s a hundred Abnormalities writhing behind every word she speaks. Binah hears the Voice for what she is. Or perhaps the Well has scarred her worse than she imagined. She accepts both possibilities—they’d be interesting to watch in their own, equal ways.
“What do you think of Angela’s actions so far, Binah?” Her tone is conversational. A friend catching up.
Binah’s eyes narrow in sly amusement. “She walks a path many search for when overcome with pain, though whose grief consumes her remains to be seen.”
“That’s more of what the situation is, rather than what you think of it?” Carmen returns her look with a playful grin, halfway hidden by the cup she’s brought to her lips.
Binah can’t help but smile at that. “I think she reminds me of Ayin, and for her, I feel the same.”
Carmen knows what she thinks of Ayin. Binah watches her face closely, sees just the faintest flicker in her expression—is something amiss between her and her most loyal disciple?
Oh, she loves her. Carmen is never boring.
“You and the ‘manager’…you’ve reunited.” It’s a statement that says many things at once, and Binah regards her with a glimmer of white dancing across her pupils.
”Yes, Ayin is here.”
”Did it go as you expected?”
Carmen shifts her gaze, sighing. It’s the resigned sound of a teacher. “It did. But considering everything he’s done, don’t you think it’s only fair that I commend him, regardless of what he may think of me now?”
“What stake do I have in the words between you? Whatever you are feeling will speak volumes more than what I could offer in sentiment.”
“But don’t you think as a friend, your emotional stake in this is me?”
Binah places her cup down. Trails a finger along the rim. Her words smile, though she does not. “You think everything is about one’s self.”
The forest rings with silence.
Carmen laughs again, until the cup is placed down, until the light fades, until the forest returns to serene midnight. The sweet velvet of it is nothing short of music, indescribably pleasant, hypnotic to the ear.
Binah closes her eyes. There’s a Voice from the Well, and she loves its irradiated sunshine.
There’s such a thing as too much light.