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A fundamental design flaw of the modern automobile was that when one was parked on the side of the road on a hot summer day, it turned into nothing more than an impressive-looking oven. In the time that I’d been sitting there, I felt that I had been at least twice baked and I was now careening dangerously toward the realm of overdone. What breeze there was, stifled by the humidity, did little to remedy the matter. It likely didn’t help that I had shifted as far away from the window as the seating would allow. A glance was all it took to confirm that moving back wasn’t an option worth entertaining.
The man-shaped thing on the side of the road had been standing there for as long as Ratcliffe had been gone and I had yet to catch it in a blink. This wasn’t a task I’d been trying particularly hard to accomplish—if anything, I’d been studiously avoiding eye-contact, staring at the rough, picked at skin around my fingernails instead. Apparitions like this didn’t typically go away when ignored (or, at least the ones who took an interest in me had never been so courteous), but acknowledgement only ever seemed to encourage them, which was fundamentally unwise. There was little that I could do besides duck my head and sweat nervously under a gaze that felt like it had acquired weight. At least if I was still enduring the stare, it meant that the thing hadn’t approached—hadn’t actually touched me. I tried not to dwell on the thought; irony had never been a friend to me.
There was a metallic click, a sudden brightening of sunlight, and the world (or, at least, the part of the world that resided within the confines of John Pelham Ratcliffe’s auto) shifted slightly on its axis as Ratcliffe himself climbed in. “Apologies, Booth,” he said, with a joviality that only felt slightly affected. He was not untouched by the less pleasant aspects of the weather, but he swiped at the sweat that dampened his brow like it was a mere inconvenience. My attempt at strategic seating meant that I’d inadvertently left him less personal space than should be comfortable, but Ratcliffe didn’t mention it. “I didn’t expect it to take so long to find someone who knew where the blasted place was. I swear, they make a game of setting these things at more obscure locations every year. You know how it is.”
I did not know how it was at all, but I figured it would do me no favours to say so. It was not that Dr. Starkweather was shy about sending me away when he thought it was useful to do so. It was more so that he had never thought it useful to send me to the kind of conference that was less about academic peerage and more about rubbing elbows with the kind of philanthropically wealthy people who were interested in the trappings and prestige of academic accomplishment. It was not underselling myself to say that socialization was not an area at which I excelled. But, of course, the wealthy elite were not the only ones who were motivated by the allure of prestige and when he’d become aware that Ratcliffe had accepted an invitation to this particular event, Dr. Starkweather had been quite insistent that I reach out to him and ask to come along. While he seemed to accept that I was not the kind of man who would be able charm people into giving them money, he persisted in the impression that I would be able to charm Ratcliffe into taking it.
I had half hoped that Ratcliffe’s open disdain for Dr. Starkweather would lead to him rejecting the request outright (and had not made very much effort at all to dissuade him from considering that option), but he had instead been so accommodating that the situation had become unavoidable. The twin chains of basic decency and civil politeness had wrapped around me and left me with no way out of what was rapidly beginning to feel like an obligation. The situation was not as uncomfortable as I had feared it would be; if Ratcliffe was unhappy to have me along, he didn’t show it. “This might be my fault, I fear,” Ratcliffe had said after we had already been driving for some time. “I ran into Starkweather at a function the other month and couldn’t extricate myself without a brief conversation. I’m afraid that I spoke rather well of you.” He had grimaced as if in apology, but there had been something mischievously good-natured about it—like he and I were sharing a private joke.
“Are you quite all right?” Ratcliffe asked now, frowning at me. He stretched out one hand as if to touch me but stopped when I flinched back unthinkingly. I was both mortified by my reaction and fervently unable to regret it; in this moment, I wanted nothing less than to be touched, however comforting the intentions of the gesture might have been. “I would have insisted you come with me had I known I’d be so long. I’ve seen men on expeditions fit to pass out after less time in the heat.”
I shook my head, both a negation of Ratcliffe’s concerns and an effort to physically shake away the electric tingle of my own nerves. I risked a furtive glance over my shoulder and was unsurprised to find the road as deserted as it had been when we’d arrived. “I’m fine,” I said, “but I’d, er, like to get going. If you don’t mind.”
Ratcliffe stared at me for another moment, his shrewd hawk-like eyes seeming to bore through the layers of my careful calm. “Of course,” he said at last, smile twitching into place a second too slowly. “We’ll miss the finger sandwiches if we’re late.”
When the auto started its slow roll down the road, I very deliberately didn’t glance behind us.
We had been driving for at least a quarter of an hour before I felt myself able to relax by even small increments. One could never be certain how these things might react once spotted nor how far they’d follow. But as far as I could tell, the drive was proceeding without incident, the road stretched long and empty before us, and it was easy to put the matter out of mind in the name of more present concerns. Like the fact that I was still leaning closer into Ratcliffe’s space than was appropriate or comfortable—for either of us, surely, because though Ratcliffe was a small-ish man, I was not and even my curled position did little to take away from the disconcerting feeling that I was looming over my colleague. The crux of the matter was that I wasn’t sure how to go about removing myself in a way that wouldn’t be even more awkward. Or worse, I might have seemed to be recoiling (much like I already had—I could not quite supress a wince at the memory) and give greater offense in drawing away than I already had in moving into the space.
The issue was taken out of my hands when we hit the crossroads and then, rather more literally, hit a bump in the road. The car was not moving fast enough for it to cause more than a slight jostling of bodies but angled as I was and not the most co-ordinated at the best of times, I found myself overbalancing into Ratcliffe’s shoulder.
“Steady on now, Booth,” Ratcliffe said. The words could have been a reproach (perhaps should have been—that had been dangerous), but there was none of it in Ratcliffe’s tone. He did not remove his hands from the wheel, but he bumped his elbow back against my arm in a way that was almost consoling, if still too sharp to be comfortable. I took the opportunity to ease back into my seat, muscles sagging from the sudden loss of tension. I even closed my eyes for longer than a blink, though it did little to blot out the glare of the sun.
“You’re feeling better,” Ratcliffe said, voice filled with a strange warmth. I blinked him back into view and he cut me a small smile that offered no elucidation.
“Yes,” I said. And then: “Sorry.” I hardly knew what I was apologizing for, but it felt appropriate.
“It’s gone, then? Whatever it was that was bothering you?” I startled a little at the acknowledgement, but his eyes were glued to the road and he didn’t seem to notice. It was a little embarrassing to be so called out on such a deliberate omission, even without any apparent censure. Even when in any other circumstance—with any other person, I’d have had no cause or inclination to tell them. I found myself regretting that I hadn’t spoken up in this instance, which was a peculiar feeling indeed.
For reasons I still cannot fully explain, it was at this moment that my eyes accidentally strayed toward the rear of the car. They caught there, pinned in place by the dead fish gaze of the car’s third passenger. The thing was sat in the back, quiet without even the rasp of breath to draw attention to it. “No,” I said and had to swallow around the word. “It’s here. It’s still here.”
“I see.” It was difficult to pull my eyes away from the thing in the back, but I managed it for a brief moment—even as the hairs on the back of my neck rose, prickling with some kind of prey animal instinct. I was able to turn my head long enough to take Ratcliffe’s measure. His expression was smooth to match the even cadence of his voice, but the calm did not carry past his shoulders. The muscles in his arms looked painfully tight, fingers whitened where they clenched around the steering wheel. “What do you need me to do, Booth?”
The thing captured my gaze again with its own, unblinking and unfocused. And then it slowly raised one hand and extended a finger. “Take the next left,” I said.
The thing seemed content to offer directions until the car pulled alongside some woods, the shifting sun setting their contents into eerie shadow as it lowered toward the horizon. Then the thing was abruptly and alarming more animated than it had been in the entire time that I had been watching it and even the continued movement of the automobile couldn’t keep me from scrambling for the door.
Ratcliffe cursed more fluently than I might have expected of him and threw the vehicle into park so quickly that I felt it lurch. “Booth, what are you doing?” It was the harshest tone he’d taken with me since we were fourteen. His hands seized at the fabric of my shirt, probably trying to keep me from falling out the door, though it nearly had the opposite effect, my own momentum overbalancing me.
“It wants to get out. I don’t want to be in the way.” He didn’t protest any further, releasing me so that I could half-walk, half-tumble as far away from the auto as I could manage. The thing wasn’t far behind me, stumbling past without disturbing the dry ground. My eyes followed it until it disappeared into the dark of the forest. To my relief, it never looked at me again.
I was suddenly aware of the sound of my own harsh breathing, startlingly loud. I realized that the sound of the engine had stopped. Ratcliffe raced around the front of the auto and I was once again subject to the full scrutiny of that uniquely penetrating gaze, his eyes taking in the length of my body from where I was near lying on the ground. “My God, Booth—are you all right?”
I could do little more than nod, but when Ratcliffe reached out a hand to lever me to my feet, I found that I stood readily enough. “Thank you,” I said and hoped he knew I meant it to encompass more than the hand up.
“My God,” he said again, quietly, and ran a hand through his hair. He was near vibrating with some unvoiced thing. “Is it still here?” he asked at last.
“No,” I said. When I looked toward the forest, his gaze followed mine.
“Do you think we should follow it?”
“No,” I said, too quickly. I shivered, though the air was still warm. “That is to say: I don’t want to.”
“All right.” There was something almost like disappointment lacing his voice, but when I turned to look at him, he smiled at me amiably enough. “I must say, Booth, you certainly keep things interesting.”
“That hadn’t been my intention.” I frowned, catching the way the warm tones of the sun played in the tips of his hair. It had gotten late at some point—later than we ought to have still been on the road. “We’re going to miss your conference.” And Dr. Starkweather would be furious with me, though that seemed to matter less in the moment than allowing Ratcliffe to put his work in jeopardy for the sake of an encounter he likely wouldn’t have had if I hadn’t been present. I doubted I’d have been much use in drumming up funding even if I’d made it, at any rate.
“I should hope so.” He laughed. “Those things are dreadfully dry.”
“But—your funding.”
“Will sort itself sooner or later. The Anatolian plateau isn’t going anywhere.” He shrugged indifferently and then seemed to reassess his own reaction after his eyes scanned my face. “Honestly, Booth, don’t worry yourself over it.” His eyebrows lowered, drawing together like clouds over an expression of grave sincerity. “In truth, I should perhaps apologize to you. Here I am, relieved to have an excuse to miss my appointment when today has clearly caused you a great deal of stress.”
“This is the second time I have dragged you into this sort of thing.”
“I should rather think I dragged myself in, on both occasions. It is a great weakness of mine that I cannot ignore an interesting mystery. And as I think I’ve said, you have a tendency keep things particularly interesting.” He paused, seeming to linger over a thought. “I should not like to see the day when Starkweather realizes he has exclusive access to a prospect far more appealing than money.” It should have been a joke, but Ratcliffe’s face and tone were far too serious to lend the words any humour.
I wasn’t entirely sure how to respond to a statement like that—I wasn’t even certain how I felt about it, though a jump in my pulse suggested some inherent reaction. At the very least, I could address the most obvious point to save us both some future unpleasantness. “I don’t see that it should be necessary to—to trouble Dr. Starkweather if you had need of me.”
He stared at me oddly. “Then, you would not mind if I called on you directly.” It wasn’t quite a question, but I felt the expectation of a response anyway.
“I. No?”
“I see.” His gaze flicked over me again, slow and assessing, but no less intense. I wondered if he had other senses to match that hunter’s gaze—if he had heard the way my breathing had hitched between the words. “For personal matters as well as business?”
It was my turn to stare at him with what must have been an odd look. I couldn’t seem to piece together what it was he was getting at. “I would rather Dr. Starkweather have as little involvement in my personal matters as is possible.”
His lips quirked into a smile, large and generous on his narrow face. The effect was...very pleasant. “Yes, I would imagine so.” He clapped his hands abruptly, the noise loud and startling enough that I nearly jumped. “All right then, Booth. In that case, with no obligation born from Starkweather’s bullheaded ideas, let me take you out to dinner.”
It would have been the polite thing to at least try to demure, but Ratcliffe had been all too correct about the stress of the day—about the stress of the whole wasted venture. I was too exhausted to attempt to argue with Ratcliffe, who I knew could be quite obstinate in his own right, and more importantly, I didn’t want to. The trip would hardly feel any more wasted for an evening spent in agreeable company. “I think I would enjoy that."
When we got into the auto, I found that I had once again sat too close to centre, intruding on Ratcliffe’s space. He didn’t seem bothered by it, smiling at me with friendly candor as he restarted the engine. I decided to stay put where I was, for the time being. The summer heat was ebbing with the sun and our close proximity made me feel just a little warmer.