Chapter Text
Watching the helicopter fly away rips open the pit in Nicholas’s stomach, a pit he’s long tried to pretend doesn’t exist. For a moment he feels a rage so strong; not at his brother, no, but at the narcolepsy that so cruelly runs his life. If he’d just had more time with Nathaniel; there’s so much more he wanted to say, in the face of a thirty-year absence suddenly screeching to a stop.
“Mr. Benedict?”
He turns, sees Reynie watching him with a worried frown.
“Are you okay, sir?”
Nicholas nods, forces himself to focus on the children instead of the fading thrum of the helicopter, squashes down the vicious thought telling him it will be another thirty years before he sees his brother again.
“Better close the window, before he proves gravity right in front of us,” Constance says drily, though she’s watching Nicholas warily. For Constance, it radiates genuine concern.
“No need, dear girl, I’m not at any risk of imminent sleep,” he says, and manages a smile. He’s proud of that, when all he wants to do is scream. He claps his hands together. “Now. Best to regroup, I think, and get out of here before everyone realizes what’s happened.”
The elevator doors slide open, Rhonda and Number Two spilling out with Milligan in tow. All of them are panting and disheveled. Nicholas regards them with alarm.
“What—”
“Our way out has been compromised,” Number Two says. She jerks her head at the elevator door, still standing open. “They can’t get up, but now we can’t get down.”
“I can pretend to be my brother again,” Nicholas offers, “get them to stand down.”
Rhonda shakes her head as she stalks about the chamber, crossing to the window. “They know Curtain has gone, the pilot of the helicopter radioed out.”
Nicholas nods, watching Milligan cross the room to peer in the low windows that look in on some kind of control room. “Right, so we just need to find a way down from here, and then some sort of seaworthy craft to get back to the mainland.”
“The barge,” Kate says. She’s shadowing Milligan, peering at what he does, crouching when he does, running her fingers along the wall behind his. “They keep it docked under the bridge.”
“Wonderful!” Nicholas says.
“So how are we gonna get down there?” asks Sticky. “The elevator is the only way in and out of here.”
Nicholas surveys the chamber, tuning out Number Two and Rhonda arguing over the physics behind what makes a flying squirrel glide and if they can be applied to children with windbreakers successfully.
“If I know my brother,” he begins to say to himself, then has a brief, wavering moment where he realizes he doesn’t, not really.
“Sir?”
Nicholas clears his throat, shaking off the melancholy thoughts. “Tell me, did he pass any of you on his way to the helicopter?”
“No,” Reynie says, “no one came out of the elevator.”
Milligan comes out of the control room, Kate close behind. “There is no discernible exit.”
“So where did he go?” Kate demands. “He didn’t just phase through the wall and float to the helicopter.”
Rhonda and Number Two are busy fashioning what looks like a cross between a sling and a balloon, Constance glaring and blithely informing them she won’t be jumping out the window, thank you. Reynie and Sticky are nervously looking out the window, reporting on the crowd gathering at the base of the tower.
“Even if we got down, how are we going to get past them?” Sticky asks, polishing his glasses anxiously. “I don’t know about you guys, but fighting is not my forte.”
“Oh, really, George? Who would have guessed?” Constance says.
“Mr. Benedict?” Milligan asks, watching Nicholas walk into the elevator, doors still open.
Nicholas doesn’t answer, instead running his hand over the exposed controls, careful not to touch the ripped wire, likely Number Two’s touch and the reason the elevator has been sitting here despite no doubt repeated attempts from ground level to call it down.
Nicholas looks up to where Milligan looms in the doors. “He wouldn’t leave himself with only one way out. I know that much, at least.”
“Uh, guys?” Sticky calls, and everyone save Nicholas and Milligan joins him at the window.
“…is that a battering ram?” Number Two asks. She sounds jealous.
“And that looks like a very large gun,” Rhonda says.
Nicholas is turning circles in the elevator, heart hammering in his throat, the thought of everyone in the room dying because he failed to act, again, making his hands sweat.
“It has to be here,” he mutters under his breath, running his hands along the walls of the elevators, eyes straining to pick out a hint of difference, any miniscule sign that could point to something.
No discernible exit. Milligan’s words ring in his mind.
He didn’t phase through the wall.
Nicholas’s eyes snap to the floor, to the grey square tiles, except for there, in the corner. One rectangular tile. Breath caught in his chest, Nicholas presses one foot on it.
Nothing.
His shoulders slump, then someone taps him on the back. He turns and sees Constance frowning up at him.
“Which direction are you looking?”
“Ah!” Nicholas nods at her gratefully, then steps north, east, west, south.
The tile sinks an inch, and a panel in the wall slides open. Nicholas swallows and steps up to it.
“Good way for a poison dart in the neck,” Constance drawls.
Nicholas’s own reflection stares back at him from a blank screen. He jumps at the automated voice.
“Please assume position for retina scan.”
The tower shudders suddenly, the lights flickering. Nicholas leans close to the screen and keeps his eyes wide open. A green light floods his vision, bright but painless.
“Identity confirmed. Thank you, Dr. Curtain.”
With that, the elevator hums to life.
“Quick!” Nicholas calls, standing half in the elevator and half out. The others look at him and he waves them over. “In, in, get inside.”
They all run over, Milligan hustling them along, everyone stumbling as the tower shakes again. The windows where they’d stood seconds before suddenly explode in a shower of glass.
“Quickly, before the power fails!” Nicholas cries.
Reynie and Sticky run in, followed by Number Two and Rhonda, Constance grumbling as she’s squished against the back wall.
“Emergency override engaged,” the automated voice announces. “Beginning descent.” The elevator starts to descend.
“Kate!” Sticky and Reynie cry. The tower shakes again and knocks Kate to the floor. Milligan grabs her and practically throws her into the elevator for Nicholas to catch. She lands against him and instantly fights to get away. The gap between the elevator roof and the chamber floor is shrinking.
“No!” Kate cries, shoving off of Nicholas. “Dad!”
Milligan dives, his bulk just fitting through the closing gap. He lands in a pile of limbs on top of Number Two and Rhonda, unharmed but missing one shoe. Kate throws herself at him, hugging him tightly. Nicholas stares, as lost as the others.
“Dad?” he repeats, looking between Kate and Milligan, to the dumbstruck expressions everyone else wears.
Kate nods, pulling away from Milligan but staying close under his arm. “We had a…revelation,” she says, and grins up at Milligan.
Nicholas looks at him, and Milligan nods as the elevator slows to a stop. The doors have been open the whole ride, and a stark white hallway spreads out before them, mercifully empty.
“Whoa,” Sticky says, peering out. “There’s another floor?”
“Her father?” Nicholas repeats. “You remembered?”
“Yes,” Milligan says.
“Oh,” Nicholas says, and his heart swells at the sight of Milligan embracing Kate. “Oh, that’s just…”
He falls asleep.
Waking up to sea spray on his face is shocking. Nicholas gasps and blearily wipes at his face, blinking furiously.
“What—”
Number Two is beside him, hair tossing about. “Nine minutes,” she says in answer to his unvoiced question.
Nicholas looks around, stomach jumping with each bounce of the boat as it speeds through the harbour. Reynie and Sticky each give him a little smile and wave while Constance burrows in her lifejacket and squints against the wind.
Milligan is piloting the boat, Kate pressed up against his side. Nicholas beams at them, eyes going a bit teary, and the scrap of green plaid is shoved under his nose and he takes hold of it instinctively, then gets a good look at it. Suddenly the pattern that used to soothe his nerves, that used to bring his overwhelming emotions back from the brink, suddenly it fails.
Nicholas falls asleep, the sour tang of guilt creeping up from the pit in his stomach.
He wakes with a sigh, frustration coursing under his skin. Lifelong though his struggle with narcolepsy may be, it still irritates him to so easily be so weak, and vulnerable.
He’s been carefully propped against a tree, familiar forest spreading out around him. The children minus Kate are huddled together on a fallen log. Rhonda is pacing, keeping a careful eye on the woods and the children. She hurries over when she sees Nicholas stir.
“Mr. Benedict!”
“Thank you, Rhonda, I’m settled,” he says. Reynie, Sticky and Constance approach, and he gives them a reassuring smile. “It won’t be long until we’re home.” He glances around. “Where is Milligan? And Kate and—”
“They’ve gone with Number Two to find a car,” Rhonda says, laying a reassuring hand on his shoulder. “Ours has been…compromised.”
He follows her gaze to the car sitting on four flat tires, the hood open, the steering wheel on the ground beside it.
“I see. Why didn’t anyone go inside?” he asks, because indeed all of them are sitting outside of the carefully crafted cabin at the water’s edge. Rhonda grimaces and the kids exchange glances.
“Turn around but maybe stay seated,” Rhonda says. Nicholas frowns but obliges, looking behind him.
“Oh!” The cabin is a sad pile of charred wood, unrecognizable for the shelter it had been.
“They must have come after our departure,” Rhonda says. “Good thing that we left when we did.”
“Nothing salvageable?” he asks, getting to his feet. Now that he takes a moment he can smell the wreckage, faintly smoky. He thinks with a pang of his picture inside, the only one he has of himself and his brother. He supposes that’s gone, too.
“Mr. Benedict?”
Nicholas blinks and looks down at Sticky. “Yes. Yes, they’re off to secure a car, yes? So, I suppose we had best just sit tight and—”
“Please sit, sir,” Rhonda says, but he gently pushes past her.
“Did you look inside?” Nicholas asks, approaching the collapsed structure.
“No,” Rhonda says, hurrying to his side, “there’s no safe way in, and even then, what are you looking for?”
“It’s…” he falters when the children step up beside them. After what they’ve been through at the hands of his brother, for him to stand here and confess to longing for a picture of their antagonist, it’s selfish.
There’s no point looking. The house was wood, the furniture was wood, his aim a flammable picture. It would have curled up into disintegration in minutes.
“Just a shame, is all,” he says, pushing down the swell in his gut that threatens to overwhelm him and drag him down. He’ll wait until he has a moment alone. Lay on his bed and let the grief wash over him while he can’t bang his head on the way down when he inevitably loses consciousness.
“Here they come,” Reynie says excitedly, and everyone turns to watch the rattling fishmonger’s truck making its way towards them, Kate leaning out the driver’s window.
“Milligan let me drive!” she yells, waving one arm wildly. The truck swerves to the right in response and then abruptly screeches to a stop. Kate throws open the door and jumps down, beaming widely, followed by a more sedate Milligan and Number Two.
“Where’d you get the truck?” asks Reynie.
“He let you drive?” Sticky repeats, eyes wide.
“We’re all doomed now,” Constance grumbles.
“She was adequate,” Milligan says. Number Two nods.
“And really, a truck doesn’t need two sideview mirrors,” she says, and everyone looks at the truck that is indeed missing one mirror. Kate shrugs.
“Didn’t realize that tree was so close.”
“Well,” Nicholas says, “no time like the present, I suppose. Pile in, everyone, and let’s go see what remains of the house.”
“What if that’s gone, too?” Sticky asks. “What if they burned it down, or left boobytraps or compromised the maze—”
“I believe catastrophizing is my specialty, Sticky,” Nicholas says, urging the boy into the truck. “I don’t doubt there may be some internal damage but structurally, it’s a very hard building to wound.”
And yet the lengths Nathaniel would go to are as of yet undiscovered, Nicholas fears. To see how twisted his brother has become, it breaks his heart. To know his own betrayal played such a hand in that transformation makes the pit in his stomach ache and wrench. What was it Rhonda said, when they’d been scanning the microfiche? The absence of pictures, the scrubbing of Nathaniel Benedict from the earth, spoke of a great pain.
Because of you, he thinks viciously to himself, while smiling at the children minus Constance crammed in the back of the truck.
Nicholas has much to atone for, and as the truck- driven by Milligan, much to Kate’s chagrin- clatters down the dirt road he vows not to stop, no matter how arduous it may prove to be. Enough have suffered because of his moralistic failings; this is the least he can do.
Everyone is relieved to see the house standing, the tension in the truck easing noticeably at the welcome sight of the tall peaks nestled among the trees. Milligan stops the truck on the road and leaves it idling, surveying the house.
“I will sweep the house, make sure there are no nasty surprises left behind,” he says.
Number Two slides her baton from its place in her boot. “I’m going with you. Someone needs to take care of those cameras.”
“And the security system will need to be assessed and likely reprogrammed,” Rhonda says.
The three of them, plus Constance and Nicholas, are crammed in the front seat. Constance squirms in irritation.
“Instead of sitting here yapping about it, why don’t you get out? I’m hungry and can’t breathe squished between you lumps.”
Milligan glances at Nicholas.
“Hm, yes, you’d better all go,” he says. “We’ll keep watch.”
“I want to come with you,” Kate says, pulling herself half in the cab from the back window. Milligan shakes his head.
“Stay in the car, Kate. If you need to get out of here quick, at least I know you can drive should anything happen.”
He means if I fall asleep and become dead weight, Nicholas thinks. It’s fair of Milligan to base his response off of past experience, though.
“Now, I’m sure nothing will happen,” Nicholas says, giving Kate a reassuring look. “No one on the island is going to be concerned with us right now, they have far too many things to sort out.”
Nicholas averts his gaze when Kate swoops in and kisses Milligan’s cheek, looking out his window until Milligan, Number Two, and Rhonda have slid along the bench seat and begin to walk up the driveway. It wouldn’t do to go to sleep before the others are even out of sight.
“Finally,” Constance grumbles, stretching out along the bench. Her head is right under the steering wheel, feet barely an inch from Nicholas’s thigh. She’s snoring in seconds.
Nicholas smiles at her fondly, while Kate snorts. Reynie and Sticky have joined her at the window and peer into the cab at the sleeping girl.
“Man, she falls asleep anywhere, anytime,” Sticky says. Nicholas chuckles.
“She’s at that age still, I suppose. Naps are essential, especially to a child like Constance.”
“What nine-year-old still needs naps?” Kate asks skeptically. Nicholas blinks at her.
“Nine—” he looks down at Constance and back at Kate. “Did she tell you she’s nine?”
Kate shakes her head. “No, but I mean, she’s younger than all of us, I was just guessing.”
“Ah,” Nicholas says. “Well, you’re a bit off.”
“Let me guess,” Sticky says with a grin, “she’s really nine and a quarter, right? That quarter would matter to her.”
Nicholas points down. Reynie’s brows raise.
“Eight?” he asks. Nicholas points down again.
“She’s seven?” Kate asks incredulously.
Nicholas can see Constance’s foot twitching and fears consciousness is imminent.
“I’ll tell you but please, a little quiet for her, she’s exhausted,” he says. The children nod. “She’s four.”
“FOUR—”
Sticky and Reynie clap a hand over Kate’s mouth simultaneously. Constance grumbles in her sleep but doesn’t move otherwise.
“She’s very gifted,” Nicholas says in the understatement of the year. He casts his gaze about the street, and is relieved at the distinct lack of goons or suspicious cars. The house is silent, which he takes as a good sign. “As are you all, of course.”
Sticky is shaking his head. “I never would have guessed,” he says. “I mean, she’s a lot smaller than us—”
“Big for a four-year-old,” Reynie says, as if appeasing Constance’s ire even when she’s not awake to know its been stoked.
Kate is looking at the slumbering Constance with a new light in her eyes. “She’s pretty tough, too; she took on the Whisperer all by herself.”
At the mention of the machine the mood sombers.
“We really stopped it, huh?” Sticky asks, looking around at them.
Nicholas nods fervently. “Oh, yes, you did, and you did it so wonderfully, I never had any doubt. And I am sorry I had to ask that of you, and I will spend the rest of my life making it up to you. All of you.” It hurts his neck to sit looking behind him like this, but he wants to be sure they all understand.
“You don’t have to do anything for us, Mr. Benedict,” Reynie says, brow furrowed. Beside him Kate and Sticky nod in agreement. “If it wasn’t for you, the whole world could be under Dr. Curtain’s influence by now.”
If it wasn’t for me, none of this would have happened, Nicholas thinks.
“Yeah, and I never would have found Milligan again,” Kate says.
“I’d probably still be hiding in the library, stealing food from the break room,” Sticky adds.
“We did what we did because of you,” Reynie says to Nicholas. “I can’t imagine how it must have felt to realize Dr. Curtain was your brother.”
Numbing, Nicholas remembers. That feeling still hasn’t left him fully, like he’s so shocked his brain just decided to catalogue everything as Vaguely Important from that moment on if it weren’t related to Nathaniel being the mastermind behind the Emergency.
“You…didn’t know?” Sticky asks. He winces when Kate slugs him in the arm. “Ow!”
“Sticky, obviously we can trust him.”
“I know that now!” Sticky snaps, then freezes and gives Nicholas a guilty look. “I mean, I always did, I just…”
“Oh,” Nicholas says, realization dawning. “When you first saw him, you thought he was me?”
“At first, we were confused,” Reynie says. “Constance even asked him if it was another test. But once you talk to him, it’s totally obvious you’re not the same person.”
“Yeah, he was really creepy,” Kate says. “Always looking at you like you just crawled out from under his shoe.”
“Talking to you like you’re an idiot one minute then praising you the next,” Sticky mutters.
“Yeah, I don’t think he likes kids,” Reynie says. “I feel bad for S.Q.” He gasps when Kate digs an elbow in his side.
“Who is S.Q.?” Nicholas asks, while his mind whirs with thoughts of what his brother had put these children through, and every child on that island.
“Um,” Reynie says, cheeks flushed. Sticky and Kate are failing at looking casual.
“He’s his son,” Constance says, sitting up with a huge yawn. “Big but harmless, like a bear in a trap.”
“A bear in a trap is when they’re at their most dangerous!” Sticky says, clearly unable to let this misinformation fester. “When trapped, they’ll actually—”
“Sticky,” Reynie interrupts, and once his friend has stopped talking, says, “Mr. Benedict?”
Nicholas is staring at Constance, dumbfounded. She doesn’t notice, instead peering out the windshield.
“Oh good, here they come.”
His son…his son…his son.
Thirty years without his brother, and now another member of his family that Nicholas has never known, a child…
“Are you all right?”
I feel bad for S.Q. Oh God, what does that mean? How does Nathaniel treat his own son if Reynie pities this child? How deeply must Nicholas’s past failings drag down innocent people?
“The house is clear— what happened?”
“Nothing,” Nicholas gasps, fighting hard against the threatening darkness. “Get— get them inside, they need…rest.”
He covers his face with his hands, forcing deep breaths in and out. He’s not going to topple over and sleep, he’s not going to succumb to oblivion when faced with his misdeeds, taking the coward’s way out. He can sit here and accept the pain he’s brought on others.
“Mr. Benedict.”
Deep breath in, and out.
“In the house, Milligan,” he manages. Another deep breath in as he knuckles his eyelids, remembers standing across from his brother barely an hour ago, seeing him in the flesh, having him at arms’ length…squandering his chance completely, left to watch helplessly as the helicopter bore his brother away.
Was that what it had been like for Nathaniel, all those years ago? Having to stand and watch as he was left behind, left with nothing but the hope that his only brother, his twin, won’t forget him?
Deep breath in, and…
Deep breath in, and…
“I think he’s having a panic attack.”
“Go inside, all of you, Rhonda is on the porch waiting—”
Deep breath in even though his lungs feel as though they’ll explode with every inhale, the air trapped in his chest, the pressure building. It hurts, like his chest had hurt when he’d seen his brother asleep on the floor. Nathaniel always hated his narcolepsy, hated how powerless it made him, hated how it controlled him. And he’s had to deal with it alone, because Nicholas left him, turned tail and gone after the promise of books and family.
Was it really so hard to do as he wanted? No, Nicholas had been selfish, ignorant.
“Mr. Benedict.”
He could have spent thirty years with his brother at his side. Imagine what they could have accomplished together!
“Nicholas.”
There’s an iron band around his chest and he abandons his deep breaths, instead gasping shortly. He feels a broad hand on his back, tentative.
“I know you’re upset,” someone says.
Nicholas shakes his head, because this is worse, this is so much worse, being upset has never hurt like this before.
“Here—” his hand is held and lifted, pressed against something warm and firm, with a steady thrum. “Can you feel my breathing? In, and out, slow and steady.”
“I can’t,” Nicholas gasps. The hand on his back is soothing.
“You can. You’re already doing a good job. In—” and his hand shifts with the slow inhale— “and out. Follow.”
Nicholas finally manages a sputtering exhale. Warm tears on his face go unattended as he tries again to manage a steady inhale and exhale. His hand is held tight to the rise and fall of someone’s much more regulated breathing.
“Good. You’re doing good.”
“Milligan? What—”
“Shh. In and out, Nicholas. You’re doing good.”
Breathing is still a chore, one he’s very conscious of, but at least it doesn’t hurt anymore. His world narrows to the sensation of his lungs filling and emptying. He’s surprised he’s stayed awake, what with how drained he feels mentally and physically.
Breathing settles into a familiar rhythm. The pain in his chest lessens and he manages to let go of his pants, where his fingers had curled into them.
“I’m sorry,” he mutters, scrubbing his face roughly. “I must admit, I don’t know what came over me.”
“You’ve been through a lot, these past few days,” Milligan says. He’s left his hand on Nicholas’s back, and the weight lends more comfort than Nicholas can remember receiving in a long time.
Nicholas scoffs. “Me? No, no, Milligan, I did nothing, I was exposed to nothing, it was the children— and Kate, your daughter, oh, I hope you can forgive me for putting her in danger!”
“Kate was as capable as we both believed her to be, along with her friends,” Milligan says. “I would rather she risk failure than sit back and accept it.”
Nicholas sighs, then nods. “Yes, you’re right, of course; the need outweighed the good.” He looks up at the house, where the children have long since disappeared inside. “I just hope they can recover from this.”
“I hold the same hope for you, sir,” Milligan says.
There are gouges in the walls and books on the floor, but all in all, the damage done to the interior of the house is far below what it could be. Nicholas decides to take this as a positive and not get lost in feeling badly for the state of his home, because it could be so much worse.
He says as much to the children and is met with blank looks.
“Your pep talks need work,” Constance tells him, and Nicholas could kick himself for taking so long to pick up on the children’s discomfort at what they’d viewed as a sanctuary so tainted.
“Oh, not to worry,” he says to them all, “we are quite safe here. It’s unfortunate, what happened, but…” he shrugs and smiles at them. “We’re here now. We’re safe.”
Number Two had ruthlessly dismantled every camera and microphone she came across and then at once set to work in the kitchen, and now, sitting around the dining room table, everyone is eager to reap the benefits. Everyone except Nicholas, who has been sitting under a growing pile of realizations and feeling all the more discomfited for them.
Nathaniel had eluded him, after a scant few minutes of interaction. Nicholas has been starving for word of his brother for three decades, and to know that Nathaniel has known how to find Nicholas for who knows how many years and has chosen to continue to hide…it makes Nicholas want to curl up under the weight of his own guilt, sit with the self-loathing that has consumed him for so many years.
The more Nicholas thinks of it, the more keenly he feels the loss of the picture, of the two of them standing with the rest of the children in the orphanage. It’s gone now, the last physical proof that there had once been a boy named Nathaniel Benedict. It makes it hard to swallow, a lump in his throat that sits heavy and immoveable. He’s had it for so long, has spent many a long night sitting up after a particularly disturbing episode of sleep paralysis or all-too real nightmare gazing at the picture, at the youthful faces grinning up at him.
You always were a coward, he reflects as he passes a bowl of potato salad down the table. It’s the third dish that he’s let bypass his plate, and it doesn’t go unnoticed.
“Mr. Benedict, are you not eating?” Number Two asks from beside him, looking upon him with mild concern.
“Hmm? Oh, no,” he says. “Um, not feeling much in the mood for food, wonderful as it looks,” he adds, nodding in Number Two’s direction. Truth be told, he can’t get the thought of the helicopter out of his mind, or where its borne its last passenger. Now more than ever, the thought of Nathaniel out there, maddeningly out of reach, haunts him. Every dish he’s slid down the table has done nothing but turn his stomach.
“What happens next?” Kate asks. She’s sitting beside Milligan, cheeks flushed as she glances up and him every now and then and grins to herself.
“Next? Well,” Nicholas shrugs, “whatever- and whoever- has been left at the Institute will need to be dealt with. You said there are the students, teachers and Helpers there?”
“And Messengers,” Sticky adds with a grimace. “They’re just students but they were the ones with special privileges.” He says special privileges the way one would explosive diarrhea.
Nicholas nods. “And of course, there’s the memory loss to account for with the Helpers—”
“Not just them,” Sticky interrupts. “Any student that was kicked out got their memories erased, too.”
Nicholas’s eyes widen. “The students?”
Kate nods, crunching her way through the last quarter of an apple. “Yep. Every kid that got barged. It wasn’t all of their memories; just their years at the Institute.”
“Pen,” Nicholas says, patting his pockets. “Oh, dear, I thought I- ah, thank you, Number Two.” He pulls a battered notebook from his jacket pocket and sets to writing. “Besides the Helpers and the students, do you know if anyone else underwent the process?”
Reynie shakes his head. “I don’t think so. But, if the Institute has been open for years, how are we going to find all of the students that lost their memories if they don’t even remember going to the school?”
“That is going to be the task,” Nicholas mutters, writing furiously as more and more things occur to him. “With the Whisperer out of commission, the various influenced agencies are going to be able to think clearly again. Now with the evidence we have, I don’t think there will be many a deaf ear turned.”
The students still at the Institute will need to be sent somewhere, and if the majority of them are orphans, then finding where becomes the question. And the teachers at the school, how complicit have they been in the criminal undertakings? Could the students be safely kept at the Institute, where they have rooms and food, and access to education? Just while the next step is sorted out; Nicholas hates the idea of anyone losing their home.
The Whisperer will need to be dismantled and analyzed; such a powerful leap ahead in technology, used for such nefarious purposes, well. Nicholas knows there is more than one person out there like his brother who would be eager to get their hands on it. He’s guilty about the stirring of excitement he feels at the thought of getting an up-close look at something Nathaniel has worked on. It’s pathetic to think of the two of them intertwined in this way.
The revelation of Milligan’s partial memory regain gives Nicholas great hope, for it means the effects of the brain sweeping aren’t permanent, as Nicholas had long hoped, ever since meeting Milligan and seeing the pain in his eyes at living a life unknown.
“Mr. Benedict.”
“Hmm.” Before anything, though, he’ll have to figure out how to identify the moles planted at nearly every level of government, and root them out, lest they help his brother keep even the tiniest foothold in influential positions.
“Mr. Benedict.” A hand gently covers his own, to slow his frantic writing. “You’re writing on the tablecloth, sir.”
“Hmm? Oh,” Nicholas says, blinking down at the table. “So I am. Apologies, I was rather lost in my own head.” He smiles at the children. “Feeling better? I see you- oh, Constance.”
The girl is fast asleep in her chair, arms crossed over her chest, frowning even while she snores. Nicholas stands.
“I hope she’s all right,” he says as he walks to Constance’s chair, heart twinging when he looks down at her. “To take on the Whisperer…” If she were any other child, he might have laid a gentle hand on the top of her head; instead he pats the back of the chair.
“I do hope all of you understand how grateful I am,” Nicholas says. He looks at each child in turn, and Milligan, Number Two and Rhonda. “I have no doubt that we would not stand here today, with free will intact, if it wasn’t for every single one of you. You all accomplished what I could not.”
“We never would have done anything if it wasn’t for you,” Reynie protests, Sticky and Kate nodding along.
“We were all instrumental in the plan, and we all share the victory,” Rhonda says.
“We didn’t call ourselves The Mysterious Benedict Society for nothing, you know,” Kate adds. Nicholas blinks.
“You- what?”
“We needed a team name, and we thought it should reflect the one who brought us all together,” Reynie says. “Constance came up with it, in the end.”
“Plus, it made us feel like real spies,” Kate says with a grin. Sticky shrugs.
“That, and it was really nice being part of something,” he says, and exchanges smiles with Kate and Reynie. “Its been a long time since I’ve felt like that.”
“And now we all have really cool friends forever,” Kate says, then thinks for a minute. “Wow, I can’t believe I really mean Constance, too.” She looks across the table to where Constance still sleeps. “She grows on you. Like a wart.”
“And I’m fifty times harder to get rid of,” Constance says without opening her eyes. “Now stop talking, you’re interrupting my brain waves.”
Nicholas sits in the chair next to Constance. “What do you mean by that?”
Constance sighs but keeps her eyes closed. “My head feels like somebody poured in eight buckets of painting and now won’t stop mixing them.”
Alarmed, Nicholas looks up at Number Two. “The aftereffects of the Whisperer?”
“No, it must be the pear I ate,” Constance snarks.
“We can take her to the hospital,” Number Two says. Nicholas nods.
“I think that would be for the best—”
“No thanks,” Constance yawns.
Nicholas frowns. “Constance, really, this is totally unknown to us, and you, and I think it would be best if—”
“Bedtime,” Constance interrupts. “I will let Milligan carry me.”
Everyone looks at Milligan, who stands and looks questioningly at Nicholas.
“He does not know anything, either,” Constance says. Her eyes are still closed. “There is no doctor who can help me.”
“Mr. Benedict?” Milligan asks.
Funny how he has no problem throwing children to the wolves, and now struggles against forcing a child to do something for their own good. Nicholas shakes his head, trying to clear out irrelevant thoughts.
“Why don’t we see how you feel after you wake up?” he suggests, and nods up at Milligan, pushing back from the table to make room for him to bend and lift Constance easily. She’s already asleep again, and the remaining children stand beside Nicholas to watch as Milligan carries her from the room.
“She’s going to be okay, isn’t she, Mr. Benedict?” Reynie asks. Sticky is cleaning his glasses and looking worriedly after Milligan. Only Kate seems relatively unbothered.
“Guys, come on, it’s Constance,” she says to the boys. “The only things that knock her down are things she lets knock her down.”
Kate doesn’t see it, but her words are reassuring even to the adults in the room. To think, Nicholas marvels to himself, watching Kate joke and prod Reynie and Sticky until they’re all grinning again, the animosity that had existed between these three and Constance at the start. Children truly are a gift to the world.
It comes as no surprise when he falls asleep, a chair placed behind him by a quick-thinking Rhonda to catch his fall.
Nicholas wakes up to the sound of a door shutting. He sits forward and nearly falls off his chair in the process.
“Oh,” he says, looking down, “not the floor, then.”
“Certainly not,” Number Two says from behind him, startling him terribly. She hands him his notebook, still filled with his notes from earlier, her own neater print underneath his. “I copied your words from the tablecloth,” she tells him, and gestures at said tablecloth tucked under her arm. “I’m going to wash this and then Rhonda needs help with the security system.”
Nicholas nods. “Yes, all right, thank you. I’m going to start making some phone calls. Are the children sleeping? How’s Constance?”
“The other three are in various states of relaxation around the house. Kate is determined to master the maze by dinner—” and yes, that sounds exactly like Kate’s sort of relaxation—” and Constance is still sleeping.”
“Oh,” Nicholas sighs, running a hand over his face. “We can’t just leave her alone with this, I’m afraid the Whisperer did some real damage. What if it’s irreversible, or her brain starts to deteriorate? No doctor could effectively help her without having an understanding of what exactly happened!”
“What do you propose?”
Nicholas sighs, staring at the floor and shaking his head. “There’s nothing for it. We need to analyze the Whisperer.”
Number Two’s mouth sets firmly. “Back to Harbour Island.”
Milligan offers to go but Nicholas insists on going with him. Neither Rhonda or Number Two are pleased at the prospect of being left behind. Nicholas is tired, tired as he’s ever been. His narcolepsy leaves him feeling drained all of the time, and this, coupled with no sleep the night before as he and Number Two and Rhonda had been busy crashing onto the island, has his nerves on edge.
“Stay with the children!” Nicholas snaps, and the room falls silent. He swallows hard, unable to look at any of them. “Please, stay. I know they’re safe with both of you.”
“Fine,” Number Two says, “but take the police with you.”
“The police?” Nicholas repeats, looking at her. “We can’t! Not yet, not when we don’t know who my brother has planted within. We don’t know what his plan is now that he’s been ousted; any of his spies could be about to enact some contingency plan—”
“And we can’t sit around and wait!” Number Two snaps. “Constance needs help now.”
“Which is all the more reason we should not delay our departure—”
“You yourself claim dangers from the outside world, but what about within the Institute?” asks Rhonda. “We suspect Curtain’s agents within various agencies. We know for a fact that the Institute is riddled with them, yet you want to walk in the front door?”
“Want? No, no, I don’t want to, it isn’t a matter of want, but need! If we do nothing, Constance may be irreparably harmed. Without knowing what the Whisperer did, we cannot help her!”
“No, we can’t,” Rhonda agrees, “but there is no reason to throw ourselves headfirst into a volatile situation. We have no idea what’s going on in that school now that your brother has turned tail and run!”
It’s ridiculous but Nicholas feels the urge to jump to Nathaniel’s defense. He quashes that down as the silly notion it is. The loyalty he’s always claimed for his brother is in tatters, has been for decades. It’s stupid now to try to gather it back, to defend a brother who wants nothing to do with him.
“We’re going to have to do something,” Number Two says. “We don’t know how long it will take for the Emergency to clear out of everyone’s psyches, and there are a lot of people on that island who need help.” She looks at Nicholas steadily. “More than we can give them ourselves.”
Nicholas can see the sense in her words. It’s either sit back and wait while they clear every member of the Stonetown police force, or risk it and go immediately. All at once he feels a great rush of anger at his brother, at the massive scale of the problem now before Nicholas, of the mess he has to clean up while Nathaniel runs off, no doubt to hatch some other convoluted plan to hold the world under his thumb.
“How many more will suffer?” Nicholas asks quietly. Ever since the children uncovered the identity of the headmaster of the Institute, its been too easy to fall into all-consuming fits of deep depression. He’s struggled with it for as long as he can remember, and seeing Nathaniel, seeing what he’s become…it weighs heavily on him. In his years working to uncover the full depth of the Emergency, he’s never given over to the fatalistic fear of failing. Now, knowing its been his brother he’s been working against, it’s starting to feel like too much.
Nicholas is tired, and there’s still so much to be done.
“Just you bullfrogs if you don’t stop bellowing,” a cross voice says in answer to Nicholas’s question. They all turn to see Constance standing in the doorway to his study, eyes half-open but her glare undiminished.
“Constance! How are you—”
“I’m going back to sleep. It’s helping my head, but it would help even more if you would stop yelling,” Constance grumbles over Nicholas.
The adults exchange guilty looks. “We’re sorry,” Number Two says softly. “I didn’t think we were that loud. Why don’t I take you back upstairs?”
Nicholas sighs once they’ve left, sitting heavily in his chair. Rhonda and Milligan are quiet.
“Perhaps, Constance will recover on her own,” Rhonda offers in the silence. “She said sleeping was making her feel better.”
“Hm.” Wouldn’t that be nice, Nicholas thinks, if it could be as simple as that.
“Why don’t we wait?” Milligan suggests. “We’ll keep an eye on her overnight, and in the morning, see how she is.”
“Waiting could be dangerous,” Nicholas mutters. He’s angry with how tempting it is, though, to sit back and wait, to be able to take one thing off his list.
“Mr. Benedict.” Milligan waits until Nicholas looks at him. “We can go, but if we do, I think the sooner, the better.”
Nicholas nods. “Yes, I agree.”
Number Two strides back in with a strange look one her face.
“What is it?” Rhonda asks. Number Two frowns, looking at Nicholas.
“Constance wants me to pass on a message,” she says. “She said, ‘tell the old man to stay off the boat if he doesn’t want to see a-” Number Two clears her throat- “turd float.”
“…Ah,” Nicholas says. Milligan shrugs at him. “I’m not—o-old, that’s—”
“The point is, stay put,” Number Two says.
“You told her what we were thinking?” Nicholas asks, and Number Two pauses.
“No,” she says slowly, “no, I did not.”
Rhonda frowns. “Then how—”
That little girl is psychic, isn’t she?
“Oh,” Nicholas says, as it all makes sense with a sharpening clarity. “So then…”
“Sir?”
“More than possibly, now,” he goes on, reaching in his jacket for his trusted notebook. A pen is thrust under his nose, and he thanks Number Two distractedly as he begins to write. He’s suddenly found himself in need of in-depth research on the properties and care of a psychic mind.