Back downstairs, I found a neat half bath hidden under the stairs and then Rick’s room in the rear of the house. This room was a disaster. The bed linens were rank and piled on the foot of the bed. There were piles of clothes everywhere, some folded in stacks, others clean but rumpled in baskets, and still others on the floor, obviously dirty. His en suite bath was filthy, mold growing on the shower tile, soap scum coating the sink. I backed out quickly, fearing I might actually catch something in there.
The only neat thing in the master suite was the bookcase on the wall across from the bed. On the shelves were dozens of books with topics ranging from music theory to the Merged Laws of the Cursed of Artemis, which was a book on were-creature law. Part of me wanted to open it and read, but there were scraps of paper sticking out like bookmarks, each with notes jotted on them, and that felt too much like prying. Which I was doing anyway. There were science books and a bookcalledQuantum Physics for Dummies. There were books in French, and one in an African language I couldn’t read and which I didn’t know Rick could speak, or maybe just read. The other things on the shelves were small drums, some looking African or maybe New World tribal. A small collection of wood flutes nested in an oiled wood box that looked antique. There was a purple candle that had burned down into a puddle of wax on a tiny plate, and a black rock that was polished smooth on two sides, fractured and broken on the others. There was a small box with a drawing of a saxophone and the nameVandorenlabeled on front. It was half-full of things that looked like small tongue depressors. Everything on the shelves, except theVandorenbox, was coated with a heavy layer of dust and pollen, suggesting that the room hadn’t been cleaned since before spring.
There was a sound system on the middle shelf; it was dust free and probably hooked up to a house Wi-Fi system. I pressed the on button and a jazzy blues song came on. I hit off.
In the corner was a silver metal stand holding a brass saxophone. The sax wasn’t dusty either, showing that, whatever was going on with Rick in terms of filth and cleanliness, and whatever that meant about his mental state, music and horses were a big part of his life. He seemed to be clinging to things that had kept him sane, things that had kept him human. The values and ideals that had made him the man he once was.
I wanted to hear him play, but I had a strange feeling that listening to him would make me sad. And I also knew that I was searching for something of the man Occam might be, in the things that made up Rick’s life.
“Nell? Your emotions are all over the place today. You need to talk?”
I turned to Tandy, who stood in the master suite doorway, watching me. “No. I think... I think I’m okay.” I looked around the clutter and organization, the filth and cleanliness. “I think I’m going to be fine.”
“But you’re sneaking around Rick’s home. Why?”
Frowning, I turned in a circle, my hands on my hips. “I feel as if I’m missing something and...” Then it began to come clear. I spoke through it slowly. “The public part of the house is fine, if not immaculate. The private part is a disaster. LikeRick’s private life. This space proclaims that Rick is a slob. It shouts the fact that, unlike other bachelors, Rick can’t have a woman over to spend the night”—I pointed to the bed—“so why have clean sheets and a clean bathroom, right? Why not let it go to ruin? And he did. Everything is messed up here except the books and the music and horses, as if only those things are keeping him sane. Someone needs to talk to Rick. You’re a counselor of sorts, right?”
“Of sorts,” Tandy said softly. He tilted his head toward the front of the house and led me back to the living area, speaking over his shoulder. “Rick may need more than I can offer.”
“You won’t know unless you try,” I said to his back. “And being afraid of Rick’s cat is not a good reason to abandon him.”
“I’m not abandoning Rick.” Tandy sat on the sofa and gestured me over. “Have you talked to him about the callings?”
I grimaced. “No fair throwing my words back on me.” I took the opposite side, my back to the arm and my knees drawn up. That showed self-protective body language, so I swiveled around and sat with my feet on the floor. I was uncomfortable and didn’t know why, except that I had a feeling Tandy was reading me and that made me feel violated. It wasn’t lost on me that he was doing to me what I had been doing to Rick when I snooped. “Okay. Fair question. Go ahead.”
“When I was first hit by lightning—”
“Three times in a row.”
“Right. I had no idea what had happened to me, no idea that trauma could turn on the genes that make sensitives into empaths. There are so few empaths that I’d never heard of them. I had no way to process what was happening. I didn’t realize that I was picking up the thoughts and feelings of the doctors and nurses and technicians who were taking care of me. I just thought I had brain damage and my own emotions were flying all over. Until my girlfriend came to see me in the hospital.”
I stopped frowning and fidgeting. This was Tandy’s story and I’d never heard it from his lips. “What happened?”
“At the time, I hadn’t seen myself in a mirror.” Tandy touched his face, the pale skin and the darker reddish Lichtenberg lines that traced across his flesh like the veins of leaves or the tributaries of rivers as seen from the skies. “The lightswere off. She walked in and took my hand. She had been crying. She said, ‘I thought you were dead. I was so worried.’ A nurse followed her in and turned on the light. And I felt her reaction. I was the ugliest thing she had ever seen. She jerked away, with a little scream, and ran out of the room.”
“Did you ever see her again?”
“Yes,” Tandy said softly. “With her new boyfriend. We passed on opposite sides of the street. She pretended not to see me, but I knew her enough to feel her revulsion even across the lines of traffic.”
“That stinks.”
Tandy tilted his head as if agreeing.
“And yet you and JoJo are together,” I said.
“Jo likes my skin. She thinks it’s sexy.” He gave me a grin showing his slightly yellowed teeth, even the enamel marred with fractures of Lichtenberg lines.
“That’s good,” I said, feeling out of my depth and uncertain.
Kindly, Tandy said, “It’s time to go, Nell. JoJo wants us back at HQ.”
I figured that meant the conversation was over. “Okay. By now, JoJo can probably monitor the place on Rick’s security cameras. Talk about snooping.”
Tandy chuckled softly. “Come on. We can leave the back door unlocked in case he comes back here.”
“The doorknob is round. Cats can’t handle round doorknobs.”
“Rick’s cat is smart. Let’s go.”
