In the meantime, to keep busy, I figured I’d do some hand washing. I had a little pile of dirty things that I’d taken out of my duffel, and I felt as if the world would be a slightly better place if I made those soiled clothes clean.
But then my deodorant escaped and I’d had to recapture it. Which brings me back to the scratching…
What the hell? I thought as I froze, still half under the bed. The scratching was repeated, a bit louder this time.
I stood cautiously, then padded over to the hotel door so I could peer out. There was nothing to be seen at eye level, but when I looked down I could see the flashing tip of a wagging tail.
I thought we were past the hiding in plain sight as a dog thing, I thought as I unlocked my door to let Anyan in.
“Jane,” he rumbled, his big doggie face peering up into mine.
“Anyan,” I replied cautiously. What did he want?
“Can we talk?”
I sighed. Anyan had kept trying to engage me in a heart-to-heart earlier, but I was totally not in the mood.
“I was just sort of getting organized,” I explained, pointing at my piles of clean and dirty clothes. “I thought I’d do some hand washing…”
“That’s great. I can keep you company,” the big dog replied, pushing his enormous head through the door and padding past me.
“Great,” I said, my voice sarcastic.
Anyan came in, sniffing around. I looked around for a newspaper or magazine to whack him with if he took a sniff at my laundry. Finally, he jumped up on the king-sized bed, twisting about in a few tight circles until he settled down.
I closed the door and locked it, leaning back against it as I watched the barghest speculatively.
“Go ahead and take care of your stuff; I’ll just hang out.”
I narrowed my eyes at Anyan. “You just want to hang out?”
“Iris was my friend, too, Jane. If you must know, I don’t really want to be alone right now.”
I felt my spine stiffen, and a wave of grief threatened to wash over me.
No time, I reprimanded myself harshly, clenching my fists and heading over to my pile of dirty laundry.
I scrabbled at the pile, realizing my hands were shaking as I kept dropping things. But I persevered, unwilling to let my sadness get the best of me. When everything was collected, I headed into the bathroom where the sink and my Woolite awaited.
When I was finished, and my few pairs of dirty panties and bras were hanging, clean and wrung out, over the shower curtain railing, I took a second to collect myself. Staring into my own black eyes reflected in the bathroom mirror, I took a few calming breaths before going into the main room to confront Anyan.
“All done?” the big dog asked. He was lying on his stomach, his front paws hanging off the side of the bed, his back legs stretched out behind him. I couldn’t help but smile at his position, and his tail wagged in response.
“Can we talk?” he asked again, causing all smiles to cease.
“About what?”
“About what we found today. About Iris. About how you’re feeling.”
I sighed. I didn’t want to talk. And I really didn’t want to feel.
“Please?” he asked.
“I don’t really want to,” I said. “I just… don’t.”
“Okay. I just want to know what you’re thinking.”
“I’m not thinking about anything.”
Anyan’s muzzle split into a doggie grin, his tongue lolling. “Jane, you’re always thinking. Please, just talk to me. A little. For my sake?”
Those oddly human iron-gray eyes staring at me from that fuzzy face broke me.
“Fine,” I said. “The truth is, I’ve been thinking about the book of Job.”
“Job?”
“Job,” I confirmed unhelpfully.
“Well, what have you been thinking about, when you think of Job?” the barghest replied, his voice oozing patience, warning me he wasn’t a dog that gave up.
I rolled my shoulders, trying to work the knot of tension that had formed sometime between looking at that file folder and sitting here with Anyan.
“Sit by me,” he urged. “Tell me.”
I sat down on the end of the bed, my butt near the end of his tail. I didn’t want to be too close and I definitely didn’t want to see those gray eyes.
“You know I wasn’t raised with religion,” I said, “except the vague pseudopaganism of Jason’s grandparents Nick and Nan.”
Anyan’s tail thwapped gently against my lower back in affirmation.
“So when we were about thirteen, Jason and I decided to read the Bible together, mostly to see what all the hubbub was about. Both of us became slightly obsessed with the book of Job. Jason thought it was a great story, and he liked how it highlighted the character of Jehovah: He of the sound and the fury. But I’d never understood how anyone, at any historical time period, could ever have found comfort in such a myth.”
I paused, trying to figure out what I was going to say next. Anyan responded by scootching around the bed so his big front paws draped next to my thighs. He wasn’t going to make this easy.
“And now?” he prompted.
“And now… now I get it. I get what it feels like to cry out like that… into oblivion.”
“Well, you’ve lost a lot, Jane. Asking why is natural.”
“Yeah, but what’s the point, Anyan?” I demanded, my voice suddenly heated. “Job, at least, got something. It was a distinctly unsatisfying nonanswer to his question, but it was something. The whirlwind’s response to him might have sucked, but it spoke. The very act of speech implied that this tempest that had brought such tragedy to Job’s life had something behind it. In other words, that voice spoke of intent, cementing the idea that things happened for a reason, even if those reasons were incomprehensible to Job.
“But when I rage into the whirlwind? I get bubkes, Anyan. When I grieve, my tears are met with silence; and when I rage, apparently Jarl merely laughs and plans a new set of atrocities.”
“So what do you want to do?”
“I need to stop questioning. I need to stop thinking. I need to act.”
“What do you mean, act?”
“I need to take down Jarl,” I replied. Before Anyan could contradict me, I spoke again. “I know Jarl’s Alfar, and one of the most powerful Alfar at that. I know that besides all of the power at his fingertips, he also has the backing of the king and queen and every other Alfar in their court.
“But none of that matters. He has to be stopped. And if that means being Jane True isn’t good enough, that’s fine. I can change—until I’m smart enough, strong enough, and ruthless enough to stop that bastard.”
My voice, gone loud, rolled through the hotel room, a little vehement and strained even to my own ears. But I meant every word.
I’m so tired of being weak, I thought, feeling my fists clench as a wave of pain and anger threatened my cool facade.
Instead of confronting me as I expected, Anyan responded by shifting onto his side so that the top of his head was pressed against my hip.
“Can you scratch right behind my shoulder blade?” he asked, to my surprise.
“What?”
“Can you scratch behind my shoulder blade. It’s been itching for a while, even before I shifted. I was hoping you could scratch it for me.”
I stared down at the barghest, confused. Normally he was the first to yell at me when I tried to go all Battle Jane. Then I shrugged and started scratching, my nails digging harder into his side as he growled and panted. I smiled, then blushed as I remembered this was Anyan, not just a black dog. My fingers slowed, then stopped. He reacted to my cessation of scratching with an ear flicked toward me and a gray eye rolled back to give me a “oh hell no” look, so I started scratching again.
Finally, he grunted, “Stop.”
He stood up and shook himself, a cloud of black fur falling onto my previously pristine bedspread. “That was great. Now, we talk for real.”
I frowned. I’d really thought he was going to let me be…
“You’re angry,” he said.
A loud snort was my only reply.
“But you can’t just be feeling anger?” Anyan prodded.
“No,” I replied. “I’m not. In fact, I’m pushing the anger away. I just want to act, Anyan. Rage and grief have never gotten me anywhere. They didn’t bring my mother back when she’d disappeared all those years ago, nor did they resurrect Jason. And they aren’t going to revenge either Iris’s or my mother’s murder.”
“So is that what you want? Revenge?”
I laughed, but it was a dry, pained sound.
“Yes, Anyan! I really, really want revenge,” I whispered finally, in a voice so cold and intent it could have been Jarl himself speaking.
Anyan moved around so that he was facing me, one leg hanging off the bed awkwardly so that he was far enough forward to look me in the face.
“What’s going on, Jane?” he asked, as if I hadn’t just said exactly what I felt.