«She woke abruptly to even... «Crosstalk»
Tintirichka5 декабря 2025«She woke abruptly to even deeper darkness, convinced she’d heard something, though the room was completely silent. Middle-of-the-night silent, she thought, and reached for the clock. Three A.M. C.B.’s time of day.
C.B.? she called hopefully into the darkness. Are you there?
Nothing.
And it wasn’t a voice, she thought, staring into the darkness, trying to reconstruct the sound in her head. Or a noise. It had been a sudden cessation of sound, like the stopping of a refrigerator’s hum. Or a car outside switching off its engine.
Only this wasn’t outside, she thought, and knew with sickening certainty what had stopped: the feeling of C.B. clasping her hand in both of his and holding it close to his heart.
She’d first felt it in the Carnegie Room when she’d woken and found him asleep, and it had been there ever since, though she hadn’t been consciously aware of it. It had even been there when she was blanked out. That was why she’d believed—in spite of all the evidence to the contrary—that the telepathy hadn’t shut down, that he and Maeve were somehow blocking it. She’d known that wasn’t possible, but she’d believed it because he’d still been there, holding tightly to her hand, pressing it hard against his chest. Until now.
The thought that it had been the very last thing to go comforted her a little. It meant he must not totally hate her for ruining everything, though she didn’t see how that was possible. He had rescued her, protected her, waded through floods and fire for her, like Joan of Arc. Or the Hunchback of Notre Dame. And she’d repaid him by burning down the cathedral. And the library.
You were wrong about the whole three A.M. thing, C.B., she said, though she was certain he couldn’t hear her. And would never hear her again. Fitzgerald had it right. It isn’t the best time of day. It’s the worst. Definitely the dark night of the soul».
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