Marked Chapter Twenty-Six

I slip out the library door, walking past the rows of shelves, to see Nax seated at the table, but Chalmer nowhere to be found. I walk up to her, taking a seat next to her, and pick up one of the books she has stacked nearby. It doesn't escape my notice that it apparently takes her around three seconds to read a page. "Where's Chalmer?"

Without looking up, she replies, "Went off to use the privy."

I blink. "Do you have flush toilets back home?"

"Flush... Toilets?" she replies blankly. I almost panic, until I notice the amused gleam in her eye. 

"Okay, but do either of you know how the flushes work here?" I press. 

This actually makes her pause. "Until you asked, I assumed it was a chain pull from the ceiling to empty a water tank into the bowl."

"No, those haven't been used for about a century except in places that are deliberately going for an antique sort of feel. There's a metal lever you push down." Still, I relax a bit. They're smart enough they could probably have figured that out on their own. With experimentation. And I'm almost certainly worried about nothing. "Well, as long as you guys are okay," I say. There's food in the Mansion, and..." Call me if you need me? " .. I guess you have ways to contact me if there's a problem, but I don't suppose you'll run into anything that I could help with here." 

"True, although you seem so eager to look out for us that I almost hope something happens, just so you may come and rescue us," Nax replies with a grin. 

I laugh a little. "Sorry for hovering."

She shoos me off again, much like she did last time. I return through the Mansion, stopping in the kitchen to grab a cup of tea, before walking through the portal. To my surprise, as I get out of the bathroom, the office is open. Nice of them to not bother me in the bathroom, I suppose, but then again, I really wouldn't KNOW if they knocked or asked me anything while I was in Eberron. Best to just act like normal. Not that I know what qualifies these days. 

I wander out to the break room, where I see Father DiMaggio pouring himself a cup of coffee. "Ah, Titania. You're out of the bathroom. Please, won't you meet with the bishop now? Especially after this morning, we have much to discuss."

What could I possibly say to that, 'no?' I nod my head like it's not a foregone conclusion, and follow him from the break room to his office. 

To my amusement, as we enter, the bishop is playing with Father DiMaggio's desk golf decoration. The expression in his face dampens my humor, though, as he looks decidedly troubled. When he notices I've entered, he looks at me with unreadable eyes, while Father DiMaggio steps around the corner of his desk and sits down. "Please, take a seat."

I clear my throat, before I realize I'm a little thirsty. "Can I..." I start, then stop. I can wait til we finish here, and then I can spend another hour in Eberron, just reading. Part of me wants to just walk out for a few hours, and set up a few more Mansion exits somewhere other than the church or library, but that's really something of an excuse. What I actually want, more than anything right now, is to just... unwind. I feel tense and unhappy. 

"What is it?" Bishop Wellhausen asks.

"... Nothing." I'll just get a soda in the Mansion. When he doesn't turn back around, I add, "Answered my own question."

He glances at Father DiMaggio one more time, before facing forward again. It's a bit awkward, and I find myself taking the chair next to him as much out of obligation as anything else.

"Titania, will you tell me more about your power?" the bishop asks suddenly. "Can you only make bread?"

"I can make other things, but bread is the easiest to work with. Easiest to handle. The first time I used it, I made a lot of noodles without thinking, and it was a mess." 

"I remember you mentioning that," Father DiMaggio comments with a snicker. The bishop gives him a questioning look, to which he answers, "I'll let Titania explain."

Explain. Right now I feel unbearably stupid for bringing it up; I certainly don't want to explain it further. Even if it IS my own fault for answering the way I did. I look out the window, my thoughts and anxieties crowding out my attention to anything I'm actually seeing. Instead, my mind's eye replays the expression on Bishop Wellhausen's face as he told Father DiMaggio about me healing that man in the parking lot. I can't even guess what I should feel about it. I don't know whether to feel guilty or nervous or upset or proud, and suddenly I feel a weight on me, like they're going to have a lot more expectations of me, and they're going to be disappointed. I don't want to disappoint, but at the same time, I don't think I can meet whatever standards they're going to have. I'm already betraying their trust with my powers by not explaining to them what I know, that this is actually magic, that I've created a back door in their church to the source of that magic. 

"Well, it creates food and water both. If I have containers, it fills them to the limits. Or, at least, I haven't had access to containers big enough that it doesn't. The water is just water, no soda, no juice, just plain, clean water. So far, I've only made bread and noodles, and the noodles was the first time I did it. I didn't know what the power did yet, I'd just gotten it, and I was in the shower when I tried it, and water and noodles just appeared. Which left me with about five pounds of bathtub noodles around my feet." I pause. "I can use that three times. Then I can call up-" I almost say minions, but that's such a loaded term I catch myself before I say it in front of the bishop. "- unseen servants. They hang around invisibly for hours and do things I ask them to. They're only strong enough to carry a laundry basket of clothes, or thereabout, and really slow. They have to be told every little detail, like a computer program, no judgment-" 

"Only obeying, with no knowledge of right or wrong?" the bishop interjects. 

"Mmmaybe?" I reply uncertainly. "I don't think they CAN do anything actively harmful. They're too slow, too weak, and they disappear if I get too far away from them or if their time runs out. Although they last for most of the day at this point. I can feel when they're there, and I'm not kidding when I say they're like a computer. I can frame instructions the same way as writing a program flowchart, with nested loops and subroutines..." I trail off. How much programming would they know or understand? For that matter, I'm still learning myself. Or I was, anyhow, before everything. "... So, yeah. I can also restore someone's energy when they're tired, I can create clothes, temporary or permanent-"

"The coats," Bishop Wellhausen interrupts again. "I don't understand that. What limitations does that have?"

I shrug, trying to not feel irritated. "Not many, really. If it's clothing or wearable accessories, even costume jewelry, it can make it. Even really fancy stuff. I know there's a limit but I've never reached it; I wouldn't have room. And it's a lot harder for me to make them permanent. It's not a thing I can just do indefinitely." 

He sits back in his chair, mutters something. 

"Confuses me too," Father DiMaggio comments. "I don't understand this one."

"Matthew six twenty-eight through thirty," the bishop replies with furrowed brow. 

Father DiMaggio's eyebrows raise, and he nods. "Of course, of course," he says, slapping his forehead lightly. "I hadn't even considered that."

I look between them. They're talking around me here. "What's that say? Those verses, I mean."

"Part of an admonition against needless worry, during the Christ's sermon on the mount," the bishop says, and he looks increasingly troubled. "This is a more literal interpretation than one would normally assume, however."

"Father, everything about her is more literal!" Father DiMaggio suddenly bursts out, aiming a frustrated look at the bishop. "She isn't a parable or a justification for why we don't see the hand of God more openly! She heals the lame, gives rest to the weary, feeds the hungry, clothes the cold!" 

"That does not make her actions saintly, Salvador!" the bishop snaps back. "If you're so certain now, look back in forty two months."

I feel like, in this moment, they've both sort of forgotten me, even though I'm right here and they're literally talking [I]about[/I] me. I don't know what he means by the forty two months, but I'm starting to feel that the bishop's opinion of me is in decline, and I don't know why. "Should I continue?" I ask, not really wanting to pull their attention back onto me but wanting to let them argue over me even less. 

"Continue," Bishop Wellhausen says with a tight lipped expression. 

"I can heal small or surface injuries, but right now only once a day," I continue, "and I can call up a door to a place that's like a Mansion." I can't help but mentally capitalize it. "It can be any shape I want it to be. It has staff. It even has food. I can choose who gets in and who doesn't." I look sheepishly at Father DiMaggio. "That's the new one I was talking about that I needed to show you, that I was testing out in the junkyard when-"

He nods. "I remember." I smile weakly, trying to not let it bother me that I keep getting cut off. 

But before I can continue further, the phone rings. He picks up the phone, and says, "This is Father Salvador DiMaggio, how can I help you?"

Over the next few seconds, I see his expression darken, his lips tightening into a grimace. "... I see. Thank you for contacting us. I'll be right over."

The bishop and I have matching expressions, I think, as Father DiMaggio hangs up. "That was the family of one of our older members, Hazel McKinley. She's had a stroke, and the doctors don't know how long she has, even with life support. They're requesting last rites at my earliest convenience." 

---

The bishop comes with us; I request to stay in the car. I sort of lied to them about my ability to heal only once a day; it's true but it's also kind of not. The dishonesty of it gnaws at me, yet it's still less stressful than feeling their eyes on me when they think I'm not paying attention. I don't know which is worse, Bishop Wellhausen's ambivalent suspicion, or Father DiMaggio's high expectations. I mean, sure, heroes are a good thing, and it's not like it's offensive, except... it doesn't fit me. I don't want to be a hero. 

Because... 

Because deep down, I think everyone knows it. It's in the way that various gangs and criminal elements just send capes out in the open. It's in the way that the heroes sell hero themed clothes and toys. It's in the suspicion that the bishop holds, and that Father DiMaggio originally greeted me with. The surprise they both share for me having a 'gentle' power. Because the truth of the matter is, everyone knows that heroes don't really help. 

Having a power that doesn't really lend itself to fighting, that can actually make things better, that isn't violent... I like my power. I'd thought it was weak, but it wasn't. And even if it was weak, as I feel now, I'd be okay with it. 

The SUV is warm enough; it sits high, so if I lie down in the back seat I'm not visible from the street. I pull off my wig and rub my scalp. I can barely feel the scars anymore, except in the contour of the mark. I briefly entertain the notion of just laying down and trying to sleep, but at the same time, I feel too restless for that. I need to do something, and I feel like I should check up on a certain dragon and her pet-wizard-boyfriend.

Sure, I only saw them-- I check my phone-- fifty minutes ago. And if I know Nax, she's fully smart enough to think of taking books to Eberron so she has more time to read them; I thought of it, and her brain is probably bigger than my torso. Then again, she might have decided to stay there just to make sure I didn't panic if I went to check on them and didn't find them. So I'm worrying over nothing. 

I check my surroundings again. Nobody around. I duck low in the back of the SUV and trigger my Mansion, mentally tying this door to the one I'm thinking of as my 'permanent' Mansion. I don't know if that's really needed, to be honest, but I don't know that it's not, either, and I can test that out later today when I show the ability to Father DiMaggio. And, probably, I guess, the bishop too. Plus, this way I can find out if creating a portal anchors it to the world in general, or if I can attach it to something mobile, like-- in this case-- the back seat of a car. I try to attach it to the seat of the SUV, and initially closed to passage, so that it's not visible on creation and I don't fall on my ass the moment it appears. 

It's reassuring in a way that the portal doesn't extend past the top of the seat, making it about three feet high and four wide. I decide that the door will let me through it, and roll backward through the seat onto the foyer floor. 

I scoot back through the portal into the back seat again; I make the door invisible from both sides and disallow passage just in case, before sitting back up. I don't see Father DiMaggio or Bishop Wellhausen. So far, so good. When we get back to the church, I'll check to see if the portal is here in the back seat of the SUV or here in front of the hospital. Now, all I need to do is wait. 

Wait for the clergymen to get back from visiting the bedside of a woman who had a stroke. 

My healing power wouldn't help for something like this. It only heals small wounds. 

[I]The human brain is only about three pounds,[/I] counters a small voice in the back of my mind. [I]And a brain injury can be fatal without being big at all. [/I]

Traitorous brain. This is a terrible idea. Do the smart thing, Taylor. Stay in the car. 

Then I'm slamming the back door of the SUV shut as I go to follow them inside.