My Pleasure, Darling

11: For Denise

The signs that fly by overhead change over time. Ravash, far right lane, 120 miles. Zingbur, fifty. Llepelan, eighty. Places I've seen on maps, places I know my father took me as a little girl, places I have no memory of. Until, suddenly, it's there.

Hakkat. 200 miles.

Before I have a chance to feel joy, Felix clears his throat. "Hey uh, Lois... can you eh, can you get me something? I'm thirsty."

"Oh, yeah, sure." For a moment, I forget I'm still kind of mad at him for implying I'm weak and useless. I make him up a bottle of water with a Bablet, and he takes it with one hand and a thank you that sounds sincere. "Andrea, are you hung-"

Andrea is not hungry. I know this, because Andrea is asleep. It hurts to watch, to think how tired she must be, and how tired she will continue to be still. I glance at Felix. "Do you think I should wake her up to eat?" It's dinner time, after all – actually, a little late on dinner time. Should you wake children up for food? I know that newborns need to be woken to eat.

He glances back, just once.

"If you were as tired as her, would you want to be woken up when you were still sleeping?"

No, but I'm no measure to go by. Normally, I'm hell on Earth when I'm woken, for anything, even food. I'm grouchy on a good day. I love my sleep.

Maybe he's right. She's old enough to wake herself if she gets hungry. I turn back to the front of the car. Asleep or no, it's still a bit scary to talk in front of her. Kids listen. And they understand. More than you think.

It's a very quiet ride.

The sun is dead beyond the horizon before she wakes up, and she is hungry, now; hungry enough for gas station food, though I promise her better fare is on the way. Less than a hundred miles to Hakkat now.

I don't know if she understands that Hakkat is not the final destination; that it is only a temporary reprieve from our struggles and tribulations, and that we have much further to go, and it will be scarier. If she doesn't, that's a problem for future me.

Felix is exhausted, I can tell. By the time we take the exit, I convince him to pull over. The roads are still quiet. Late on a Sunday night, you know? Even in a bigger city like Hakkat there isn't much traffic. We switch positions, so at least he doesn't have to drive.

It occurs to me, as I trudge the car into Hakkat city, that I don't actually know how to find one Elise Cartille. The Chancellor never gave me an address or a phone number or anything. Just Elise Cartille at Lowood House.

I glance at the clock. That's a mistake. It's past one AM. I don't comment. Felix knows why. So he comments for me.

"We can't do it tonight, Lois."

We have to. We have to do it tonight, we've gotten so close, we've come so very close. It's a losing battle. The smoothness of his voice is already convincing the ache in my shoulders and numbness in my butt that spending another 5 hours driving Hakkat city in the hopes of finding some mysterious woman is stupid.

"Lois. Lois, we have to stop somewhere for the night."

"Not a motel." I hadn't entirely resolved to give up yet, but my mouth is doing the talking, not my head, and its answer is quick and full of fright. "Not another motel."

"Agreed. Look, there's a sign for an inn house. Let's try there."

I follow the sign he points out without another word. Inn houses are usually less clinical than motels.

I park the car, I cut the engine. It's more of a pub than an inn house, which is lucky for us, cause it means the lights are still on and there's a decent few people still trying to lose their sorrows in the last of the beer foam. We take up our bags, I grip Andrea in my arms – no standing, this time – and walk in.