Hannah （And After） #2
Kellington stayed on the island, but he would go on television and plead for compassion from the world on behalf of the Malicarn.
He wrote a book about the plight of his countrymen.
He invited politicians and celebrities to see the poverty, to ask for help.
Wu Zihao, now a colonel, came back to visit on a goodwill tour, documentary crews following him everywhere as he and Kellington hiked over the Morlon Kastaun and reminisced about the great battle they fought there.
Others left entirely, the Malicarn now an open wound, a memory of oppression and death.
They formed communities, a global Malicarn diaspora.
Jasper returned to Chicago, though his family did not recognize him as Aaron anymore.
Wallace moved to Dublin, where many guildmembers lived as well.
Today you can find someone from the Malicarn in almost every city on Earth.
The Cameroon farmers stayed, and they aren’t called goblins anymore.
On the island most people speak Portuguese again, intermarrying or going to the mainland as they need. Traditional Malicarn living is rare now. But there are still some who remember the old days, when men fought beside wizards. Every child knows the stories. In this country magic once was real.
3.
Hannah drank a cup of espresso on the open patio in front of a café, watching the frogs. They hopped, dozens of them, up the street. One woman pulled on her dog’s leash to prevent him from chasing them. A man on his phone stepped on a frog without seeing it.
Paris was louder than she expected. In the memories, there were fewer cars.
But maybe that was all wrong anyway. The Seine at least was cleaner, so they said.
A busker sat with his guitar on the corner, crooning out some Bob Dylan tunes.
He kicked away a few frogs that jumped into his case.
The café owner’s son came out to the sidewalk with a pail and a long stick.
He was about ten and said hello to the busker as if he recognized him.
Hannah watched him walk over to one of the frogs, then quickly stab it with the stick and drop it into the bucket.
The boy saw Hannah’s expression, which must have been half amused and half disgusted, and apologized. “They have to do this in Australia,” he said in French. “My dad saw a video about it. It’s one of my chores now.”
“Of course,” she said. The boy turned to stab at another frog. It squeaked and twitched on the end of his spear, then went limp as it fell into the bucket.
Last year the frogs were accidentally imported from the Philippines and exploded in population.
They didn’t cause much damage, apart from being extremely plentiful.
The official guidance was to kill and dispose of any frog you saw.
The Paris sanitation department had installed “frog cans” around the city for that purpose.
Street preachers called it a plague. Late-night comedians made a lot of strained jokes about the French love of frogs.
Most people just found them to be annoying.
The frogs didn’t bother Hannah. They reminded her of the royal menagerie.
Hannah drank her espresso. This was what people did, right? Sit in cafés and watch other people. She remembered doing it but had never done it. It felt okay.
“Good morning, Hannah.” She looked up and saw Lilly wearing a sweater and jeans, and leaning on a cane. “Thank you for meeting me.”
Hannah smiled. “It’s nice to see you.”
Lilly shuffled across to the table and sat. The busker switched from Dylan songs to Australian folk music, joking with the young boy.
“This is how they really do it down under!” he said. The boy smiled as he stabbed more frogs.
“How are you doing?” Lilly asked.
“I am well,” Hannah said. “These cities are so enormous. I mean, I thought so, from what you and Glenn remembered. But I did not really know. You had no trouble leaving England?”
“Roger helped. He has a lot of connections with the right people. Where are you staying?”
“A hotel in Montmartre. It’s nice. How are you?”
“Three surgeries but feeling better. I wish I didn’t need the cane, but it helps.”
“I should get one,” Hannah said. “I enjoy wandering the city but my leg is pretty sore most nights. But I might try physical therapy. Is that what it’s called? Six months in the real world and I’m already learning new things.”
Lilly smiled and looked at the ground. Hannah suspected the reason she had wanted to meet, and was waiting for Lilly to get the courage to ask, even though they both knew what Hannah was going to say.
After her extraction, Hannah was interrogated by MI6 for several days before an official apology came from Parliament and she was released.
The film studio settled with her quickly, hoping she wouldn’t talk to the press.
There wasn’t much she was able to tell the British, anyway.
The whole mess turned out to be a diplomatic win for the government, with them taking credit for rescuing Major Wu and returning him to the Chinese.
They made a big show of helping the Portuguese, and even without the neuroscanner were able to cow the CIA, who after all had allowed an American business to shelter a political prisoner on foreign soil without their knowledge.
Roger, somehow, managed to spin the entire debacle into a significant career achievement, an example of “clandestine diplomacy by force”—a term he made up.
He was given a promotion at MI6, his own discretionary fund, and even a new desk.
Hannah knew all of this because Roger couldn’t stop bragging about it, on the multiple occasions he interviewed her directly.
He also told her that Jules was released from British custody with an apology and had returned to Los Angeles.
Rumor was he already had a book deal. Buck Douglas was institutionalized somewhere in Scotland.
“I’m not even sure why that guy came with us,” Roger had said, offering her tea from a kettle in his new office.
Hannah already had the settlement money and was planning on leaving Britain as soon as possible, but she visited Roger at his request as a courtesy.
She did not really wish to ever see him again.
“But I guess his brain patterns might still hold some clues as to how the neuroscanner worked,” Roger said. “Might give our guys some good data. There’s a team from St. Andrews working with Mr. Douglas now. I might recommend Lilly to them for a job.”
“I doubt she’ll accept that.”
“Oh, you never know! She’s very ambitious!”
“Where is Glenn’s body?”
“That’s classified,” Roger said. “Same thing, they—we—need the autopsy.”
“What do you want from me, Roger?”
“Oh, nothing much, nothing much. Public relations, you know? Do some talk shows, some interviews. Maybe appear before Parliament. Just talk about how heinous and terrible the Malicarn is, how wretchedly you were treated. Give us some human rights leverage against the US, you know?”
“Aren’t the Americans your friends?”
“What is a friend, Hannah? It’s just a person who owes you favors, right?”
“I don’t think so.”
Hannah refused to help, claiming that the terms of her settlement with the studio meant she couldn’t do press.
Roger didn’t believe that, or didn’t care, but he let her go anyway.
Not that Paris was free of similar hassles.
Hannah was in tabloids constantly, fans snapping photos of her wherever she walked.
She had come to Paris out of some misplaced memory, some half-true romantic recollection of Jean-Danton’s from before the war, but now she was considering only leaving her hotel at night.
Maybe she would leave Paris, too. But to go where?
Not back to the Malicarn. They were figuring out their future without her.
She wasn’t really their queen anyway. She had too many people’s memories floating around inside of her, and the last place she wanted to go to was the one location where all the memories converged.
But Hannah was lonely, and when Lilly wrote her a letter asking to meet, she agreed, even though she knew that it was almost certainly another foray from Roger.
“Do you want anything to eat or drink?” Hannah asked.
“No, I am all right,” Lilly said. “You know, this is my first time in Paris?”
“I guess me, too, technically.”
The busker started to play “Waltzing Matilda,” whistling the melody at first and then singing the lyrics loudly in a decent Australian accent: “Waltzing Matilda, waltzing Matilda, you’ll come a-waltzing Matilda with me.
And he sang as he stowed that jumbuck in his tucker bag, ‘You’ll come a-Waltzing Matilda with me.
’” The café owner’s son bobbed his head to the music as he stabbed more frogs.
“I suppose you know why I’m here,” Lilly said.
“Yes. Tell Roger I’m not going to help him.”
“I have a whole speech I’m supposed to give you.”
“I don’t care. Did he find you a job?”
“Yes. I took it. I don’t know why. I haven’t done any science in years.”
“Well, I certainly don’t know what I am supposed to do now,” Hannah said, “or what I can do. People always recognize me on the street, from the films. It feels odd.”
“Yes, I imagine.”
“I actually went to see the latest Malicarn movie,” Hannah said. “I guess it’s the final one.”
“For now. I’m sure they’ll find a way to make more. They are still very popular.”
“I died in it. Well, a version of myself. Glenn and I blew up. I am not sure how they made it look like that. I mean, I do, somewhat. I remember what Glenn remembered, about digital effects. But I have never seen it myself before. In the movie, I was a coward, but that is not what happened. Not really. They show us being vicious and cruel.”
“They make things the way they want them to be,” Lilly said.