Impeccably Human
Climbing up the ladder with a birdcage in hand is much easier said than done, but luckily, with all the clattering Willi is making, the Attic Antiquarian is quick to come to her aid.
“Careful, careful,” they say as they take the cage to their counters of boxes. “Don’t dent it too much. I won’t be able to tell the old dents from the new ones.”
“Is that what you were looking for?” Willi asks.
“Yes, wonderful, it’s beautiful.” The Attic Antiquarian puts the cage on top of the box and examines it carefully. “A gorgeous, gorgeous item. Never been used for it’s intention, yet was completely useful and will continue to be of use! Once I uncover the full history of it, it should be worth quite a bit, more than that even.” They look at Willi and put out a hand. “And the ring?”
“The ring?”
“The ring that goes with the cage.”
“Why would a cage need a ring?”
“Ah, doesn’t matter. As you said, it’s not necessary. Although, I could charge more if I had the whole set. Hm.”
Willi glances around. Little Mushroom Man’s mess is nowhere to be seen. The Attic Antiquarian cleaned up nicely in their absence. It looks even better than when she first met them up here.
“Were you able to find the deed yet?” Willi asks.
“Hm?” The Attic Antiquarian looks up from the birdcage distractedly. “Ah, no, not yet. It’s a slippery item, that thing, if it exists. Gotta look in places over and over again because things appear and things disappear and things eat things and things, things, things!”
The Attic Antiquarian sighs, rearranging some of their own things on their box counter.
“Well, if you don’t have anything for me to do, I can help look for the deed too,” Willi offers.
“Great idea! And as soon as I don’t have anything for you, I’ll take you on that offer. For now, however, I do have more questions for you.”
The Attic Antiquarian beckons for Willi to come back to their interviewing spot underneath the attic window.
“Now!” The Attic Antiquarian excitedly exclaims as they pull out their pen and notepad from a continued unknown source. “Where were we before that vile fungus interrupted us?”
Willi shrugs. “I think I mentioned the want to kill my new brother.”
“Yes, of course,” The Attic Antiquarian nodded. “Are thoughts of murder common for your kind?”
“Oh, most definitely,” Willi says. “You can’t actually kill anyone, of course, or you’ll go to jail. But you can think about it all you want. No one jails you for thinking. That’s why stories are good, you know?”
“Really? How so?”
“They give you a place to put your thoughts, so that they don’t beat in your brain again and again. If you want to kill someone, you can write a story of killing them, and it’s practically the same thing, but no one actually dies. And you can do it as many times as you want. And you’ll never go to jail.”
“This is fascinating to me!” The Attic Antiquarian scribbles furiously. “Do you have wants of killing often?”
“Sometimes, when I’m mad,” Willi confesses. “And then I write a story about it and I feel better.”
“So while you would have wanted to kill your new brother, you wouldn’t have actually gone through with it?”
“Likely not.”
“So then the questions stands,” The Attic Antiquarian leans in. “Why were you left here instead of helping your parents?”
Willi plays with a stray thread on her dress. “Well, they might not know that I won’t kill him.”
“But surely they’d know you’d go to jail for killing him, hm?”
“Yes,” Willi nods, “but jail is iffy with kids. We don’t know any better. Sometimes, we get away with things.”
“Ah!” The Attic Antiquarian nods. “So it’s a matter of you not getting the proper punishment, yes? Even if they themselves decide to kill you in retaliation, they would definitely go to jail, which hardly seems worth it.”
Willi’s head shoots up. “They would never do that!”
“Why not?”
“They love me!”
“You don’t kill people you love?”
“I, well, sometimes you do, but—”
“And if they loved you so much, why bother with another child?” The Attic Antiquarian continues. “Why leave the house empty and quiet enough for a thief to take? Why leave you behind?”
Willi’s breath hitches, her hands gripping the loose thread so hard, it feels as if it’s cutting into her. Her parents did love her. They had to. They told her every day all the time. They played with her and educated her and took her out places. They loved her. They loved her.
So why do they need another stupid baby???
A hand presses on Willi’s cheek and she gasps. She hadn’t notice The Attic Antiquarian get so close. They wipe away a tear that she also hadn’t noticed and bring it up to their face.
“Fascinating,” they say as they examine it. “So, so fascinating.”
Willi brings her own hands up to her eyes, wiping away any other stray tears that may have escaped. Now’s not the time to cry. She needs to focus on going home first, then she can worry about her parents’ love.
Though, if they don’t love her, what is the point of going home?
“What is that?”
The Attic Antiquarian reaches out to her again, this time taking her hand. They turn it, examining the fingers that are green.
“Oh,” Willi says, wincing at how garbled her voice sounds. “Strange Cook in the kitchen made something and I stuck a spoon in it and it pulled me in and made my fingers green. I tried to find some paint for it, but there wasn’t any.”
“Well, this won’t do!” The Attic Antiquarian huffs. “What’s the point of a human if you’re not impeccably human? Come here.”
The Attic Antiquarian pulls Willi away from their interviewing spot back to the box counters, where they reach down and pull a book from inside the box. They let go of Willi’s hand temporarily as they flip through, then grab it again once they find their page.
They rub the green fingers, caressing it in circles, as they mutter in a language Willi can’t hope to recognize. She watches, eyes wide, as the green slowly fades away and her fingers are fully brown once again.
The Attic Antiquarian lets her go to put their book away and Willi examines her hand, flipping it back and forth.
“How did you do that?” Willi asks. “Was it magic?”
“What? Of course not.” The Attic Antiquarian stands up. “For it to be magic, it has to not make sense. I simply used a spell to reverse the aging of that particular part of your body.”
“A spell means it’s magic,” Willi tells them.
“Maybe where you come from,” The Attic Antiquarian says. “But here, where the unexplained and explained sit next to each other every day, it’s important for us to have a way to separate them.” They look among the items on their box counters. “Oh, I still have so much I need to do. Why don’t you run along, make sure that fungus doesn’t come back?”
“What about the deed? Don’t you want me to help look for it?”
“Yes, of course. And when I’m ready, I’ll call you. Please be careful with your body from now on. It is so, so precious.”
Thank you for reading!
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