Weaveworld

V

THE HOURS PASS

1

nd still he didn’t return.

It was three-thirty in the morning. She had stood by the window as the hour grew late; watched drunkards brawl, and two unlikely whores ply their desperate trade, until a police vehicle cruised by and they were either arrested or hired. Now the street was deserted, and all she had to watch were the lights changing at the crossroads – green, red, amber, green – without a vehicle passing in either direction. And still he didn’t return.

She turned over a variety of explanations. That the meeting was still going on, and he couldn’t slip away without arousing suspicion; that he’d found friends amongst the audience, and was talking over old times with them. That this; that that. But none of her excuses quite convinced her. Something was wrong. She and the menstruum both knew it.

They had made no contingency plans, which was stupid. How could they have been so stupid, she asked herself over and over. Now she was left pacing the narrow room not knowing what to do for the best; not wanting to leave in case he returned the minute after and discovered her gone, yet fearful of staying in case he’d been captured and was even now being beaten into telling them where she could be found.

Time was she would have believed the best. Contented herself that he would come back in a while, and waited patiently for him. But experience had changed her view of things. Life was not that kind.

At four-fifteen she started to pack. The very fact that she’d accepted that something was amiss, that she and the Weave were in jeopardy, made the adrenalin flow. At four-thirty she began to take the carpet downstairs. It was a lengthy and cumbersome business, but in recent months she’d shed every ounce of fat, and in the process discovered muscles she’d never known she had. And again the menstruum was with her, a body of will and light that made possible in minutes what should have taken hours.

Even so there was a hint of dawn in the sky by the time she threw their bags (she had packed for him too) into the back of the car. He would not come back now, she told herself. Something had detained him, and if she wasn’t quick it would detain her too.

Fighting tears, she drove away, leaving another unpaid bill behind her.