FIRST TRISTAN HAD TO BREAK the news to the Maxes and the Vladimirs that they had been working all this time on a project whose end goal was magic. He did this in the one remaining non-demolished office, so I didn’t have the satisfaction of seeing it happen. They seemed to me to be biting back amusement when they filed out of the briefing: to a man, they all avoided direct eye contact and the corners of their pursed lips occasionally wiggled.
Tristan and I arrived at 420 Common Street in Belmont in earliest afternoon, to find—to our dismay—a desanctified church converted into some kind of institutional group housing. WELCOME TO ELM HOUSE read a non-elucidating pastel-blue plastic sign planted in the forecourt.
“Hmm,” I said.
“Could be interesting,” said Tristan. “Could mean someone’s messing with us.”
We parked on the street and followed the walkway around the side of the old church and across a modest lawn dotted with generic, dutiful landscaping. The old church had been built on a very large lot, much of which was now occupied by three-and four-story buildings with a decidedly mid-twentieth-century institutional vibe. The main entrance was in one of those. The inside was bland and sterile, like a hospital admitting room. There was a linoleum lobby floor and laminate receiving desk, where two bored thirty-something women chatted quietly and ignored the handful of elders beyond them, in a carpeted room full of primary-color bingo charts and large posters of MGM movie stars.
“At least it’s not a loony bin,” Tristan muttered, relieved.
All of the residents were either asleep, or muttering to themselves despondently, or staring up at a very loud screening of The African Queen. It smelled of old furniture in here, and disinfectants.
As we stepped into the lobby, a twig of an ancient woman, keen-featured and remarkably upright, immediately approached us. She was wearing a 1950s-style cocktail dress, which might have flattered her in the 1950s, but looked absurd on her now. She was clutching a large Versace knockoff bag under one arm.
Before I even had the presence of mind to greet her, she spoke in a hushed but furious tone, with a well-educated Eastern European accent: “I cannot believe how long you have kept me waiting, Melisande! It is very rude and after all this time I deserve better. I see you cut your hair. It looked better long. With those bangs you resemble a rodent.”
I stopped so abruptly that Tristan bumped into me. He began to say something, but she pushed ahead before he could: “You must be Mr. Tristan Lyons. Are you her lover?”
“Did she say I was?” Tristan asked immediately, which was a pretty good recovery.
The old woman made a dismissive tch. “No. Only she is a woman of unreliable morals, and you have a powerful secret government position, so I presumed.”
“Ma’am, how about we talk in private,” Tristan said. “You’ve cited a few things that raise security questions.”
“Of course we talk in private. You’re taking me to the ODEC—this instant.”
Tristan took her skinny arm in his large hand and stood over her, his chin a hand-span above the top of her head. “Ma’am,” he asked very softly, “where did you hear that term?”
“From her,” she said impatiently, poking me in the shoulder.
“I have never met this woman,” I said to Tristan, recoiling from her, and then to her: “I have never met you.”
“Not yet, but you will,” she retorted impatiently. “I am Erszebet Karpathy. It is absolutely time to get out of here and go to the ODEC. I dressed specially.” She gestured to her cocktail dress. “Do you know how long I have been waiting for this day?”
“Ma’am,” said Tristan. It seemed he was stalling for time until he could form a complete sentence. “How long have you been waiting?”
“Far too long,” she said.
“Her first post to me on Facebook was a month ago,” I offered.
“You’ve been waiting a month?” asked Tristan.
“Pft,” she said. “That’s because I got tired of waiting for you to find me. I joined Facebook as soon as it was available to the public, as you told me to.”
A pause as Tristan considered this. “You’re saying you’ve been waiting more than a decade for us to come and find you?”
“Ha!” It was a dry, humorless sound. “I have been waiting for more than one century and a half. And this woman”—she pressed on, before we could interrupt incredulously—“gives me the words Facebook and Tristan Lyons and ODEC and tells me this, now, this is the exact month to use those words to find you after so much time. So. We have found each other. Take me to the ODEC.”
Tristan nudged his shoulder against my back, encouraging me to speak. Was it possible he was speechless? And did he expect me to be less so than himself? “Why are you so eager to get to the ODEC?” I asked.
“Because I can do magic again in the ODEC,” she said impatiently. “Obviously.”
Tristan frowned at her. “Ma’am, I need you to know that if this is your idea of a joke, you’re making trouble for yourself. If somebody has put you up to saying these words, I need to know who it is, and why—”
“Her! It’s her!” she said irritably, jabbing her bony little finger into my shoulder again. “I would be dead right now except for her. I have stayed alive all these years because she commanded it.”
“Ma’am, I’ve never met you—” I protested again.
“Don’t you call me ma’am, you hussy! You’re older than I am.” She checked herself, with obvious effort. “That is, you were. When we met. I have now been old for longer than most people have been alive. Do you know how boring that is?”
Tristan had collected himself enough to play the polite West Point cadet card. “We’d love to relieve your boredom, ma’am. Let’s step outside and you can tell us the whole story, how about that?” he said. “Do we have to sign you out or something?”
“Pft,” she harrumphed, with a dismissive gesture toward the reception desk. “Nurse Ratched has given up trying to control me.”
“Which one is she?” Tristan glanced toward the desk.
“Tristan!” I said. “Come on. My not knowing DARPA pales compared to your not knowing Nurse Ratched.”
“I call all of them Nurse Ratched since the movie came out,” Erszebet was meanwhile saying. “It amuses me.”
“You’ve been here since One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest came out?” I asked.
“Yes. Do you see why I want to leave? Boring.”
“Let’s get her outside,” muttered Tristan.
It was cool outside, and nobody else was out there. The uninspired landscaped path wended its way around groupings of wrought iron benches, at which the residents might have a modicum of privacy with guests. Erszebet, with a remarkable grace of movement, seated herself in the center of one bench, leaving me and Tristan to share the one across from her, squinting into the bright spring sunlight.
“This is where people argue with their children about their inheritance,” she informed us. “I have no children, so I do not have this problem.”
“If you will, ma’am, let’s start from the top,” suggested Tristan. “Name, date of birth, place of birth, basic background.”
She sat pertly upright and gave him a self-important look. “You will take notes?”
He tapped his head. “Mental notes, for now. Begin, please.”
“I am Erszebet Karpathy,” she said. “I was born in Budapest in 1832.”