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The Night Maids (XI-XX)

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XI.

Liam does not really know what to expect when Moira storms into Sunshine Morningsun's head – she looks perfect as always, except for the slight downturn of her colorless lips and her bright orange eyes that almost seem to spark with flames when she notices Liam.
He's chatting with Sunshine Morningsun, holding onto the bit he's just managed to stuff into an unhappy unicorn's mouth. Sunshine is stroking the glittering mane and eying the sapphire and diamond horn with undeniable delight in her expression. She and Liam are cheerfully discussing how everyone in the world just needs to calm down and take a deep breath when Moira stalks over.

Liam, who is somewhat oblivious to the moods of all Maids, not just Moira's, beams at her. "Moira, look! Isn't this the coolest thing you've ever seen?" He pats the unicorn fondly, and its hide ripples from snow-white to summer sunshine gold. It tosses its head, looking less pleased. "I've named him Alex," Liam tells her happily. Sunshine nods, her mop of dirty blonde dreadlocks flopping in and out of her face.

"He only eats maple syrup," she adds on, looking very serious and solemn. Moira ignores her and motions for Liam to follow her. He shrugs apologetically at Sunshine.

"Sorry," he tells her, patting Alex the unicorn goodbye a little sadly, "But I think we're done here. Good luck with the peace protests." Sunshine smiles a little vaguely and nods as the Maids disembark.

(When Sunshine Morningsun wakes up, she immediately starts to pen a story of a unicorn with a horn made of sapphire and diamond that likes maple syrup and battles an evil flying bear, which she says represents the oppressive government. The unicorn is the common people. Her parents are in awe of her sudden creativity, but they lose the manuscript before anything productive can be done with it, which is just as well.)

The Maids reach their next client – a 21st century man named Luke Green who seems to have a fondness for women with ridiculously long hair; there's a brunette with locks reaching thirty feet sitting in the rafters, picking at the knots and tangles. Liam pulls out his fine tooth comb to assist her, but Moira shoots him a dark glare and makes a stay here motion before gliding off to have a quiet word with Marcus.

Liam settles back against a wooden desk and falls to the floor when it suddenly morphs into a blue cockroach and scuttles away. Moira glances irritably at him from where she's speaking to Marcus, then turns back to her conversation. Liam pulls himself up, and wonders if he's getting assigned a special task and that is why Moira wants him to wait.

Marcus looks progressively happier as the conversation goes on – happiness on a Night Maid means they stop looking like sullen dolls and their faces at least relax.

(Another reason Liam is so odd a Maid is that when Liam is happy – which is most of the time, if not all of it – he smiles. Not a slight relaxation of the lips that could be a smile if you're looking at it in the correct lighting, but he actually beams, showing teeth and lips stretching up to his pale pink eyes. Maids do not smile, and Moira does not like the fact that Liam smiles.)

Finally, Moira and Marcus stop their discussion, and Moira claps her hands. The rest of the Unit, which had already gotten to work scrubbing and tidying and clipping the hair of the women lounging around, pause and look at her.

"I'll be gone for this client as well," Moira announces, hands on her hips. Her hair doesn't even dare swing as she moves her head, staring out over her Unit with fiery eyes. "Marcus is in charge while I am away; should a problem arise, speak to him."

The Maids nod as one, and then Moira is striding back to where Liam is sitting on the floor. She snaps her fingers briskly at him. "Up. You're coming with me this time, Liam."

"Are we going on an adventure?" Liam asks gleefully as he scrambles to his feet – Maids in general are quite graceful; the long, slender limbs don't allow for anything else. Yet somehow, Liam is clumsy, and Moira winces at his sporadic, stiff movements as he hauls himself and then stands, bouncing on the balls of his feet. "Are we going on some kind of special mission? Like James Bond?"

"No," Moira snaps, already walking towards the door that will take her back to the universe. "We're not."

Liam deflates slightly at that, but manages to perk himself up as Moira pulls a platinum key out of her pocket. He watches the key float out of Moira's palm and drift into the lock, and feels excitement rising within him once more. Everything is so fascinating, and Liam can't help but wonder where they are going, if Moira needs him for some special task.

The key clicks in the lock and the door slides open soundlessly. Liam mock bows to Moira, flourishing his ungainly arms in the vague direction of the door. "After you, my lady."

She scowls at him and strides past him. Raising his head, all Liam can see of the space in front of him is pure blackness, without an end, nor a light to break it. Suddenly, he is afraid, and it flows through him like iced water. He gulps audibly as he slowly straightens.
Moira's head reappears, looking frustrated. "Do not dally, Liam," she growls. "Come along, now."

With a backwards glance at the bustling Maids, Liam takes a deep breath and deeps into the door and the night it contains.

It locks itself behind him with the softest of clicks, and Liam steps into the comatose mind of Simon Richmond, where the universe awaits.

XII.

The universe is repairing a wispy, worn nebula when she hears the lock click and the door is pushed open. Moira is somehow looking even more irritated than she was when she left before, hair fanning out behind her making her look like a harbinger of fiery death and destruction as she stalks inside. The universe sighs and concentrates on keeping her stitches even.

Moira waits a moment, hovering by the door, but when no one appears after her, she snarls something insulting under her breath and sticks her head out to bark something at the unfortunate Liam. The universe wonders, vaguely, why Liam isn't in complete and utter terror of Moira – most anyone in their right minds would be. She shifts the nebula around and pulls together some more scraps of gas and debris to hold it together.

Liam slinks in a moment later, and the universe cannot be sure of it, but she can almost swear that something shifts in the room. It was like this with the other odd Maids, the ones who didn't quite fit in. Something is subtly different around them – sort of the electric tingling of quantum uncertainty, only applied to a living creature, and not a particle.

(With quantum uncertainty, you have the choice of either knowing what position or speed a particle has, but not both. With the odd Maids like Liam – maybe they could be called quantum Maids? – you either know what they will say or do, but there is no middle ground. Night Maids are generally predictable, following a set of guidelines that the universe laid out long ago, or possibly very far in the future. The odd Maids do more or less what they want.)

He looks like a regular Night Maid, at first glance, with the silky indigo uniform studded with diamonds and ink black hair yanked away from his very pale face, but once she is past the obvious, she sees what Moira is referring to that makes Liam odd. It is not just his presence that bends the fabric of space-time around him that marks him out. He doesn't move with the same grace that Moira and the other Maids generally do, and he stares at everything with pale pink eyes as if reality itself is the most fascinating concept he's ever come across. There's a smear of chocolate on his jacket and little coils of jet-black hair sticking up from the otherwise smooth knot at the base of his skull.

The universe glances briefly at Liam, takes his appearance in, and turns her attention back to her work. "Thank you Moira; you may leave," she says. "If I have need of you, I'll send a messenger." She shakes out the nebula she's repairing and twists it. "Liam, sweetie, could you be a dear grab that patch of hydrogen gas that's trying to float off?" she asks as Moira, looking far more relaxed and even borderline cheerful, slips out the door and back to her work. Liam nods and scrambles for the drifting gas, jumping up and down as it floats just slightly out of his reach. The universe watches him as stealthily as she can while Liam dashes madly after his target, chasing it around the mind of the coma patient.

He even moves very differently than the other Maids, and reality seems to have a different reaction to him than it did to Moira, or any of the other Unit Leaders the universe can remember meeting. She wonders why Moira didn't mention how colors seem to brighten, if only slightly, around Liam, or the way insubstantial things such as dreams become more real. She can see the coma patient's mind glowing with a newfound hue of pink instead of the previous dull, hopeless gray, the color brighter in the spots where Liam has been.
It's not surprising; the other odd Maids did this too, but it still makes her smile and wonder at the things that she can create.
Liam finally manages to corner the fleeing scrap of hydrogen, and proudly presents it to her, panting and beaming widely. She takes it from him with a small smile and begins to sew it onto the wiggling nebula. Liam watches her with wonder and curiosity. "What are you doing that for?" he asks, eyes wide as the gases begin to react together and spew out light.

"Star nursery," she says, holding it up and examining it critically – she's put too much hydrogen in on just one part; she'll need to rip out some stitches and sew a bit onto another part. "To grow baby stars in – I'm hoping for a supermassive red giant. Maybe a planet or two, if we're lucky. I think I'll put this one back at the dawning of galaxies; doesn't hurt to always have a spare nebula or two on hand…" she trails off and digs her scissors out.

"Cool," Liam breathes, eyes huge in his thin, angular face. The universe giggles and nods.

Liam manages to stay quiet for a little while – a feat for him, considering the coma patient's mind is almost empty, as if the Maids have already come and packed it up into boxes and bags – but he finally breaks. "What am I here for?" he blurts out. "And not to be rude, but who are you really?"

She tries to suppress her grin and fails miserably. "Moira came to me about you," she begins, eyes fixed on her work. "You are not like other Night Maids, Liam. You're very odd, to quote Moira directly."
She can't see Liam's face, but his tone is bewildered enough to paint an image of his befuddled expression in her mind and she tries not to laugh. "Is that a bad thing?" Liam asks, his voice almost a whimper.

"To Moira and Marcus and the other Maids, possibly." She loops her thread into a tight knot and breaks off the remainder with a deft twist of her fingers. She tosses the needle to the side and shakes out the nebula briskly, folding it up and placing it besides her, and then she looks at Liam and softens her tone. "But Liam, it doesn't matter that you are odd," she says gently, because he looks like he's about to start crying. He blinks at her quizzically, and she spreads her arms out and makes a come-here motion. Liam crawls into her lap, and her fingers find the tie for the knot at the base of his skull. She picks at it, slowly draws it out, and lets Liam's mass of springy curls bounce up and around.

"Liam," she says fondly, "You're not a regular Night Maid. And that's fine – brilliant even – because there are other Maids like you, in other species, and the job they have played has been as important, if not more so, than the jobs of Marcus and Moira and the rest. The Night Maids are very…strict, I suppose is a good word for it, and they don't bend the rules – one of which is talking to the clients. But you, my strange little Maid…you do more or less whatever you want."

Liam just sniffs and doesn't say anything. He's confused, can't tell if his lackadaisical attitude is trouble or not, and a little worried of what will happen to him, given that he is so unlike the other Night Maids that Moira has needed to speak to the boss about him. The universe strokes his hair soothingly until he says, "So, am I fired?"

That makes her laugh, and brings a faint smile to Liam's pale face. "No," she tells him. "You've got a job to do. A vital one, a big one."

"Will I have a Unit?" he asks, perking up. The universe shakes her head.

"No, you'll be kind of a lone agent." That darkens something in Liam's expression, dulls and drains him. She can almost taste his worry, hot and bitter in the air, and she hastens to comfort him. "But you're just going to talk to the clients."

Liam's eyes widen. "And wait, I won't have Moira breathing down my neck and telling me it's inappropriate?"

That actually makes her laugh. She wonders if she could redesign the Night Maids so they actually have a sense of fun sometimes. "Nope. I'm not asking you to talk to clients; that will be your job."

"But why?" Liam asks, eyes enormous in his skull and confusion draining everything alien away from his face and leaving him as merely an odd looking child.

"They remember what you tell them, when they awaken," she explains, shifting around and pulling Liam further into her embrace. "What you say, what you tell them – they might only recall it as dreams, but they remember." Her lips quirk. "Do you remember Obadiah Lucas?"
"He was awesome," Liam replies enthusiastically, wiggling around in his excitement. "He knew his stuff on genetics and on machinery and man, what he did with his life was just so cool – he flew all the way to Europa!"

The universe waits for him to calm down slightly and tells him, "Obadiah Lucas always says his interest in space came from a dream he had when he was eleven and he dreamt about Jupiter."

The understanding is very slow to dawn on Liam, but as it hits him, his mouth drops open and he's stunned into speechlessness for a breath or two. "Did I miss up something?" he asks in an almost inaudible whisper, staring up at the universe like a dog expecting punishment after knocking over the trashcan.

"No, you didn't. Without you talking to eleven-year-old Obadiah Lucas about his journey to Jupiter, that expedition might have not happened – which wouldn't have much affect on the history of reality as a whole, but would have drastically changed humanity's course."

Liam looks a little lost. Human languages are so limited; it wasn't this difficult with the Julki.

(The Julki language is astonishingly precise. Every emotion is broken up into smaller and smaller nuances of feeling, colors have new names and groups from just the slightest different in their shades, and it's possible to describe the exact purpose of reality in a sentence or two. It sounds like running water and singing reeds blowing in the wind, and it took the universe maybe five sentences to explain to the Julki's odd little Maid about his job before he understood, completely and perfectly.)

"I need you to talk to people, Liam," she tells him, "And I need you to listen and respond and seek the clients out and talk to them about whatever comes to your mind first. About what they have in their minds. About what they did in the past that you found so impressive, or what they'll do in the future. About friends of theirs have been packed up but had so many memories about them. About unrequited love that isn't actually unrequited, and about the potential they have but they're blind to."

"But why?" Liam, Liam – Liam with the power to change the course humanity takes, who has the most important job a Night Maid could ever have, looks like he's about to cry. Confused and scared and lost – all of those odd little Maids had been the same in the beginning.

"Dreams," the universe tells him, glowing in her wisdom, even as she speaks about something that she herself has difficulty understanding, "Have the power to change the world, can create and destroy and build and break. And you, Liam – odd, strange, amazing Liam - have the ability to change what it is people remember when they wake up."

XIII.

The priest in the church down the block from the hospital calls it a miracle when he awakens from a seventeen-month-long coma, but Simon Richmonds knows there is something more to his wondrous awakening, something even more marvelous than a miracle.
He's not sure if any of it might be true or not, or merely a coma-induced dream, but he can recall a woman, tall and vast and glorious, studded with twinkling stars and scarred with streaks of light tearing across the otherwise smooth and perfect black. He remembers pulsing lights and patches of glowing hydrogen drifting and floating away through a gray almost empty space, although there is no air to breathe. Another woman, as tall and skinny as a god and as terrifying as the end times, her smooth, ink-black hair under rigid control and eyes flickering with flames as she snarls and swears. She's angry, upset about something that is beyond Simon's comprehension, but her frustration ripples through the room like summer heat waves.

A man, as skinny and long as the second woman, but with something warmer, gentler, about him that make him seem less a god and more a human, and eyes that glow a soft rosy pink in his pale face. He trips and falls a lot in Simon's faded memories of that odd dream, and laughs and cries within breaths of doing the exact opposite. His female counterpart had been almost frozen in comparison to the amount of emotion the god-who-wasn't had shown, and instead of an unbearable heat, his presence is gentle, bringing some kind of spark back to reality that it had been missing before.

The vast, marvelous woman who shone with all the beauty of the night and all of time had told this god-who-wasn't that he had a purpose, a power, to change everything for humans. Simon agrees, because until the arrival of the god-who-wasn't, everything seemed so bleak and hopeless and so very dreary, like Simon had already died. Then the god-who-wasn't stepped in and everything began to have colors and lights and noises again, and Simon remembered his passion for metalworking and his daughter – and oh, Jessie, he'd promised to make her a necklace for her birthday, but here he was, trapped; would he ever have the chance to see his daughter laughing again?

As the god-who-wasn't slipped out of the door, clutching at the ring of golden keys set with rubies that the incredible woman had slipped around his neck, he felt something shudder within him, a longing to be free of the prison his mind was forming.

The strange, wondrous woman was watching him then, smiling knowingly. "He's fixed you, I believe," she had said, sounding like everyone's favorite aunt, kind and wise. "And I think it's time for you to go now, Simon. Thank you for loaning me your mind; it was most helpful."

She dipped a small curtsey to him, and then Simon Richmonds shot up in his hospital bed, pulling hysterically at the oxygen mask covering his face and clawing at the tubes sticking out from his arms. The nurse who had come by to check what the commotion was had nearly fainted, the shock was so overwhelming – Simon learns, later on, that most every doctor who examined him had declared that there was almost no chance he would ever wake up.

A miracle, the priest says.

And maybe it is, because Simon Richmonds can now hug his daughter (he's missed seventeen months of her life, it's nine months away from her birthday and he feels so bad for not being there for the last one, but she just sobs with relief when he tries to apologize and flings her arms around his neck) and kiss his wife and find a job for a jeweler – he was a software designer before the accident that put him in a coma, but life's too short and he wants to design beautiful things that turn everyone into the same level of royalty as his little girl.
Simon Richmonds, the Man Who Lived, or the Survivor. The paper calls him that when they write about his story, but there is so much more to him than that. He knows that he has paid witness to something incredible, although he isn't sure what. He tells Jessie, his daughter, about it, but in the manner of storytelling. It becomes her favorite story to hear before she sleeps at night.

(Someday, she'll write a book inspired by the bedtime story her dad told – a story about an ancient and wonderful woman and a god-who-isn't who watches over humanity and guides them in any way he can. Unlike Sunshine Morningsun's book, this one goes places and is fondly remembered the world over. Kids will hide under the blankets with flashlights and read it late into the night. More than one copy will end up marked with ink and accidently dropped in the bath – which is fine, because those books are loved in a way a pristine copy can't understand.)

He makes necklaces, inspired by the stars and the planets and all the rules of reality and glowing with some kind of ancient wisdom. He usually finishes them late at night and when he's put the final touches on one, he'll take it outside and present it to the night sky, silently asking for her opinion and grinning if a star flashes just slightly brighter. And then he'll take it inside, set it down, kiss Jessie goodnight and slip into bed besides his wife.

(It flatters the universe that she has inspired him so, and that he takes so much pride in showing her his work, it really does. She's a vain old thing, and it is totally within her rights to be that way.)

Simon Richmonds always makes sure to thank the Night Maids before he wakes. They are not sure what to think on this.


XIV.

Liam stands just outside the door the keys had unlocked, and glances around furtively. He feels small and a little vulnerable without the silent strength of the rest of the Night Maids Unit around him, with their straight figures and sleek black hair, order in a chaotic, messy reality.

He is very confused, and has no idea what to be doing. The universe had pushed him off her lap after she explained about dreams, and pulled out of some black hole hidden in her vacuum a key ring, hung with golden keys, studded with rubies. She pushed him towards a small, insignificant door, wished him good luck, and shut it firmly behind him.

He's in a long corridor now. It looks like a very typical hotel hallway, with plush red carpets and pale yellow and cream wallpaper and lights that flicker if he steps on the floor wrong. There are no doors, except for one very far down at the end.

Liam glances down at his keys, then at the door, and swallows again. He whirls around, determined to go back to the universe and demand a clearer explanation of what, exactly, he's suppose to be doing, but there is no door on the wall behind him.

There is, however, a painting, hanging in a hideously ornate frame, the same exact height as Liam. Done in deep indigos and navy blues and a shade of silver found nowhere on earth, but everywhere in outer space, the painting almost looms over him. The portrait is of two eyes, large and expressive, with supernovas exploding in the depths and universes collapsing at the edges and growing in the middle. It's the end and the beginning of time, done in oil paints, put in the ugliest frame Liam's ever seen and hung in a generically dull hotel hallway that doesn't actually exist.

He could swear that the portrait is watching him, judging him, sizing him up for the task ahead, which is annoying in of itself. "Well you didn't exactly tell me what it is that I'm suppose to be doing with this wondrous ability of mine," he says petulantly before he can stop himself. The eyes in the painting almost seem to crinkle at the edges with amusement and he sticks his tongue out at it. "I'm going now," he mutters, sniffing and sticking his nose up in the air. He stalks away down the hallway, and he can almost hear the sound of the universe's laughter behind him.

(Her laughter sounds like meteors slamming into a planet and wiping out all sentient life in a fiery, choking, endless hell, in case you were wondering.)

There is not a sound as he creeps down the hallway, glancing around with wary eyes. When he finally reaches the door again, he pauses, trails his fingers down the smooth, dark wood, then turns to look the way he came.
The wall he started at is a mere three feet behind him, as if he never left, but when he turns again, he is still right in front of the door. The galaxies and stars in the portrait have shifted just enough to form the warm, teasing smile of a woman holding back delighted laughter.

He scowls and waggles his finger. "Don't creep up on me, you silly painting, that's just rude," he admonishes, then his gaze slips back to the door.

He gulps loudly in the silence, and turns his keys over and over in his hands. They're warm, pulsing with life and energy and itching to be put in the lock so they can take Liam somewhere, anywhere, everywhere. To the end of time and back, through eternity and a little far beyond…he knows that he can go everywhere he wishes, and to some places he doesn't even know exist.

"Oh universe," he whispers, pulling his shaking hands closer to his chest, "What the hell am I doing?"

The door and the painting behind him have no answers for him, and Liam is not the type to keep still when he could be moving, so even though he shakes, even though he's scared, he manages to fit the key in the lock and turn.

The hinges on this one are rusty – the mind he's about to enter might have been unused for a while – and as it slides open, Liam takes several deep breaths, in and out and in and out and tries to not pass out before he slowly edges through the open doorway.

XV.

The universe wishes sometimes that she had someone to confine in, other than the Night Maids who visit her occasionally, to plead for help or give updates on their cleaning, and the universes who pester her at the edges of the universe balls. Or at least she wishes someone to cackle at and then explain her devious plans. Not that she has many plans that could be called devious, but she feels like it would be fun to do so at least once – to scheme and plot and then monologue about it. Play a villain, like what they have in all the movies on earth.
She feels almost like confessing that she feels guilty for not fully explaining to Liam everything that he can and most likely will do for humanity, but she's always been more of a fan of experimenting and seeing what happens. Plans and concretes just bother her, and she knows that sometimes, her own dislike for explanations and rationalities can irritate everyone else.

(Case in point: the slit experiment, quantum entanglement, Schrödinger's cat and platypuses, to name a few.)

Everything living is capable of incredible things, of works of wonders and awe-inspiring glory, as equally as they are destruction. Liam, if he is anything like the other odd Maids, can push and drive and morph desires and hidden wishes, walk between minds in a way no other Night Maid can. He'll be a therapist and an angel and a conscious, and maybe sometimes he'll even be evil, but he seems too good-natured for that to happen, so she rather doubts it.

She does not know what the odd Night Maids, the one that every species seems to have, are really for, other than that they create where before, there was nothing, and they bring their people so much farther than anyone before could have dared dream.

She's excited enough to see what Liam will do that she can hardly contain herself from checking humanity's developments over the centuries, and so much of it – the travels to Jupiter, the machines that make teleportation and telepathy real and fly humans out of their solar system for the first time, the crops that save the poor from starvation, the American Revolution, Tesla coils, books that change the world…she is amused by how much of those ideas come from half remembered dreams, and not at all surprised.

Liam is an odd little Night Maid who is unpredictable and exotic and just plain strange, but he's exactly what the world needs.




XVI.

There's a girl sitting in the center of the mind that the door swings soundlessly into. She looks very bored and tired as Liam creeps in on the tips of his toes and doesn't notice him until he's almost in the exact center of the room.

She's very young – fifteen at best, if that, with short brown hair cut into a bob that curls under her pointed chin, dark skin, and pale gray eyes that take up most of Liam's attention – they're the most striking feature about her, large and almost glowing with some internal light.
Liam is remembering everything to universe had told him, about how he could change humans, make them remember things he told them, and he plans on being suave and cool, asking the girl her name and learning about what's going on in her time, influence her subtly here or there…but that plan is shot to hell and back when he stumbles over the Persian carpet that suddenly decides to zip off into the air, catching Liam's foot and flipping him onto his back before he knows what's happening.

"I don't think you should apply to be the next master ninja." Her voice is very calm and serene. The girl doesn't look up from the tiny ball of lilac lightning she's tossing from hand to hand.

"Sorry to disturb you," Liam says awkwardly, pulling himself up and groaning – he landed hard on his back and now there's a dull ache singing through him, even though he technically doesn't actually have a body at all.

"You're not," she says, and throws the ball up to the ceiling, where it nestles in among a thousand other lightning balls, all sparkling and spitting with different hues. She gets to her feet, walks over, and pulls Liam up. "I'm Emma Young," she says, once Liam is standing and rubbing at the sore parts of his back. She doesn't offer her hand to shake, but Liam sticks his out, beaming – he can't help himself; everyone he meets is just so fascinating and interesting that he can't keep himself from joy.

"I'm Liam!" he tells her happily, and she studies his hand a moment before shaking it, as if it's something she's never seen before. Night Maids' hands are usually much longer and far more delicate than a human's – they look almost as if you could shatter them by squeezing hard enough.

"Why are you here?" she asks, crossing her arms across her chest the moment she's dropped his hand.

"Do you even know where you are?" Liam asks, gesturing at the room around them, at the lightning balls humming on the ceiling, the carpet zooming around, the lilies and tulips humming quietly to themselves in a corner. There are books spilling out an endless stream of laughing gold coins that melt into a golden puddle that fairies take turns splashing each other in and prowling leopards that can dissolve into the shadows flickering across the walls within the time it takes to inhale fully.

Emma's lips tighten and she keeps her eyes on Liam's face, like he's the sanest thing she's seen in a long time, and she's worried he'll vanish if she takes her eyes off him. "There was a car accident," she says, her shoulders tense, "And that's the last thing I remember before I came here."

There is no point to asking how long she has been here, because there is no real time in a dream world, and anyway, time isn't exactly linear, as you are by now quite aware. So Liam doesn't ask the question of how long Emma has been here, he just pats her comfortingly on the shoulder. "It's all right," he tells her gently, smiling reassuringly, "You'll wake up. You see that?" He gestures at the warm pink color of the walls, the way they shimmer from a dark magenta to a lighter rose, nearly the same shade as Liam's eyes. Emma's gaze follows his finger, and she nods slowly. "Your mind is healthy. You're just fixing yourself."

Her lips twist slightly. "Are you sure I'll wake up?"

"Unless the doctors taking care of you accidently poison you or something silly like that, then yes, you will wake up." He hesitates, then.

"Medicine is advanced in your time, right?"

Emma gives him an odd look. "I'm from the 21st century," she says in a gosh-isn't-it-obvious tone, "I would certainly hope so. Why do you ask?"

Liam shrugs cheerfully. "Time isn't always the most straightforward of concepts, and I think it enjoys not making sense," he says happily, good humor restored. He claps his hands together eagerly and glances around at all of the chaos going around in Emma's mind. "Emma, if you don't mind…I'm a Night Maid, and I think I should help you tidy up."

Her expression immediately turns suspicious and cold, casting a gray sheen over the otherwise cheerful, colorful mayhem of her mind. "A what?"

(Emma is not the most trusting of people.)

"A Night Maid." Liam is next to completely oblivious of her discomfort, as he is of most things. "I clean minds! It keeps you tidy, and from ending up in a mental ward somewhere."

Emma doesn't quite seem to know what to make of this, if the way her eyebrow slowly raises can be counted on to say anything about her (which it can. Emma is generally not very expressive; she leaves that trait to her twin sister, Clara. But we haven't yet reached Clara – her time in this story is not yet here - so keep her in your mind, but don't dwell on her. She's important, just not right now.). "Is this something normal?"

Liam looks at her like's she's suggested earth orbits a black hole instead of the sun. "One of the most normal things ever," he says, "In fact, nothing would actually be normal without the Night Maids." He gestures at the fairies stumbling around in the pool of gold, giggling and getting tiny little footprints that sparkle with green and blue magics all over the floor. "Can I at least mop that up? Or not mop it up, but put it in a container? It'll help when you wake up; I promise."

"How so?"

Liam shrugs, already pulling his silver cleaning rag out of his pocket and unhooking his spray bottle filled with nothing from his belt. "I have no idea," he admits, "But the people we don't clean…they're the ones who slip through society's fingers. End up doing things that most people generally don't consider beneficial for a healthy lifestyle." He tries to look unconcerned, but it's clearly something that disturbs him – Liam doesn't enjoy people hurting, or sad, not when he can make it better.  He remembers slipping into the mind of someone the Night Maids had overlooked, for a year or so, and hadn't been to clean. Monsters lurked everywhere, hiding under the torn rugs and ripped up gardens, waiting to pounce from the rotten rafters and coiled like poison inside the cups. Moira had ordered them out straight away – the mayhem and destruction was far beyond their abilities. Liam tries not to think of the client, and the hell they must be forced to go through, day in and out, but sometimes, he can't help wondering. "Anyway, let's just tidy up a bit. I'll keep you company while we wait for you to wake up."

Emma eyes him, looks him up and down, and weighs something inside of her mind. Liam waits patiently. Finally, she sighs, and holds out here hand. "Do you happen to have an extra rag?"

He doesn't, but they rummage around in the chaos and find a faded, vivid green shirt with holes and a picture of a whale on it. Emma makes a face when Liam digs it out. "Clara gave that to me for our birthday when we turned eight – it was too small; never used it," she explains. Liam wonders out loud why she's kept the memory of it, if not the actual shirt, but the glower Emma shoots his way stops him from pressing her about it.

And so, Emma the coma patient who will one day wake up and Liam, the odd little Night Maid, set to work.

XVII.

Emma is not exceedingly talkative and largely ignores Liam's attempts at drawing her into small talk, but the clutter and mess of her mind says more about her than her words ever could or ever will. The mind is that way for most people, just more so with the quiet ones who prefer to keep to themselves. Their lack of conversation belies their inner chaos, hides the truth depths within them.

There's hidden folds of her mind, holding long, complicated math equations that Liam doesn't understand and historical dates and notes that look like things she's remembered from school in a swirly, blue, cramped handwriting that float lazily into the air when Liam uncovers them, and then he and Emma have to race around, chasing after the little factoids and put them into some kind of semblance of order. Emma ends up weaving together a bookcase from the geometry proofs and they shove everything related to her school onto there.
The fairies drifting around are undeniably mischievous and tricky and they'll tickle the flying rugs just before Liam walks across them, so he'll end up on his back on the floor again or clinging to the fringe as the excitable rugs tear around the room.

(Emma denies she laughs when this happens five times in a row, but there is no other name for the sound that escaped her lips.)
Emma digs a small fountain out of the stack of memories, worn and loved, in the corner. The fountain is taller than even Liam, with several flat levels made of ornately wrought onyx and inlaid a stone that looks like rubies, but tastes like blackberries if you lick it (which Liam does, repeatedly, until Emma takes it away). The crimson stone curls in loops along the smooth black, coiling into flowers and butterflies and eyes that wink at you if you look at them right. Emma and Liam carefully carry the books leaking gold over to it and set them on each level, so the flow of golden coins can spill from level to level, until they reach the enormous, flat pool, where they flow in gentle waves. The fairies are delighted by this new addition enough that one of them takes a break from scheming and pranking to present Emma with a tiny, delicate rose, carved from the thinnest chips of amethyst, with a smooth, silver stem that curls around her wrist like a bracelet.
They slip a pin, with small star caught in the heart of a pale blue diamond, onto the front of Liam's uniform shirt when he isn't looking, giggling to themselves all the while. It evolves into full fledging cackling and chortles when Liam's hand brushes by accident against his chest and he looks down to see the star, forever locked inside a diamond, glowing on his chest. His expression is apparently hilarious, as even Emma is trying to hide a grin behind her hand.

There are so many light things about Emma, small things that glitter and sparkle and shine about her. She's gifted with science – there are so many diagrams floating around of cells and DNA and rockets, things that zip and zoom and morph right in front of their eyes. She builds black holes by poking through her own reality when they take breaks to sip hot chocolate. The black holes don't affect anything she doesn't want them to – such is the logic of dream worlds – and she feeds pencils and scraps of movie star trivia into it, studying the slow process as the object spaghetti-fy with a very calculating gaze. She watches the molecules of the objects torn apart by the gravitational pull, times how long it takes for the things to look as if they've stopped falling completely, pokes and prods the hole and tries to turn it inside out to see if it'll transform into a white hole if she does it correctly. Emma keeps up a running stream of commentary while she's watching this, telling Liam everything she knows about black holes and event horizons and dimensions beyond the three humans can process. Liam just nods and tries to look like he understands what she's talking about.

She's got bright flashes of colors and galaxies that zip by each other, or, rarely, cannibalize each other, slowly tearing the other apart. There are dinosaurs with feathers and tiny, furry things that look like scorpions without eyes. Hover boards and flying rugs drift around and get underfoot. Liam knocks over a spindly lamp and startles a pack of books that immediately take to the air, zooming around the room in a panic until Emma manages to catch and calm them all down.

There are stacks of photos lying around in Emma's mind, which is odd, even to Liam, because most people don't store their memories in the form of photographs, or portraits – for most, it's a feeling, or a color, or something more physical than just an image.

But Emma has photographs. Pick one up, and a feeling overwhelms you – warmth, affection, trust, hunger, anger, fear – but if you don't, they look like regular photos, glossy and frozen. There are many of Clara, nearly identical to Emma in all the images, except that her hair sticks out like she's forgotten to brush it and there are often stains of ink crisscrossing her hands. Her eyes are slightly darker than Emma's light gray, but other than that, everything, down to the minute lines by their mouths, is a complete replica of her twin.

"Clara's the more traditionally creative one," Emma explains, settling onto the floor with an enormous stack of crimson photo albums. Her fingers flick over the looming piles, deftly teasing out a photo here and another here. She glues them into the pages carefully and scrawls dates and notes underneath each photograph in her tight, curly handwriting. Liam is calling down the lightning balls from the ceiling so he can polish them up a bit, and most definitely not sulking because Emma won't let him help with the albums.

"Clara's favorite classes in school have always been the arts and English, except for the year where they made us write rhetorical essays – she hated that one." By the way Emma's nose wrinkles, Liam can hazard a guess that it was not her favorite experience either. "She wants to be the next Salvador Dali."

"Dali?"

"Clara's just weird," Emma says, as if that explains it all. Liam doesn't press it, nor does he ask who Dali is, even though he has absolutely no idea and usually intensely dislikes having things happen in history that he is unaware of.

(He'll take a trip through Dali's mind one day, after Emma and Clara Young. The melting clocks are all Liam's fault, with his explanations of time's general non-linearness; everything else is Salvador Dali himself.)

There are such fragile, beautiful moments of splendor in Emma's mind – Clara, age eleven, dancing in a kid splashing fountain in a park somewhere, laughing, frozen as she flicks droplets of cold water at her twin.

(Pick that one up and breathe deep; it smells like the peach pie they had for dessert and lazy summer days and the pure, sweet love for a family that is always there for you.)

Emma's first biology teacher when she was twelve, leaning over Emma's desk to pass her a test back with 100% written in dark blue ink at the top. The test is being followed by a thick paperback book about the evolution of viruses – not extra work, not being required for her to do outside of class, but a gift, and that is when Emma knows she'll be able to accomplish something in her life.

(This one smells like caramels, because her teacher liked sucking on them while her kids were doing their classwork, and the bittersweet, iron tang of pride.)

Her father driving her and Clara to their first day of high school, binders and textbooks stacked in their laps, and he's teasing them about all the boys that will chase after his lovely girls.

(This one doesn't come with smells but with sounds – the low, growling chuckle of Emma's father, and the amused, horrified "Dad!" from Clara, who doesn't like being teased.)

Liam watches Emma move, her hands sure and steady as she flips through photos, as he rubs at an ornery bit of lime green lightning that keeps twitching in his hands, longing to escape back to the comfort of the ceiling.

She pauses to grab a photograph of Clara and herself from the pile besides her. They're just fourteen in the photo – Emma's just been on her first date with a boy named Cameron, and in the picture, they're sitting on the lower level of the bunk beds they share, giggling about how awkward Cameron is, how sweet, and how it felt to be kissed. Clara is laughing and there's ink all over her face. Emma's red and pleased and feeling very mature.

(It smells like the raspberry lip balm Clara loves and Sharpies and fabric softener, and the soft snorts that slip out when Clara laughs too hard.)

Emma pauses on this one, and her lips thin out slightly. "I miss her," she says softly, tracing her sister's face, captured on glossy paper, and closes her eyes as the sound of Clara's chortles washes over her. "Oh god, I hope she's okay," she breathes, silent as a prayer. Liam isn't sure if he was suppose to overhear that or not.

He dwells on it, releases the ball of lightning – it zooms back to the ceiling, spitting out sparks as it goes – and snatches another one from the cage he and Emma had shoved the majority of the lightning balls into – the rest had cowered in the corners, out of reach. He scrubs at it, ignoring the whimpers, and ponders if there is anything he can do to make Emma feel better.

It hits him just as the irritated lilac lightning he is polishing manages to scorch his fingers, and he drops it with a yelp. He can swear it's cackling as it zips away to its fellows.

Emma laughs at that, and Liam has to grin, even though his fingers are tingling with electricity and a dull shock that makes them throb.

"Emma," he says carefully, around the finger he's stuck into his mouth, "I think maybe, I could go fetch Clara and bring her here. Or check on her. Or something. If you'd like."

Emma stops laughing abruptly and stares at him, her eyes wide. "Could you really?" she says quietly.

Liam fishes his gold and ruby keys out of his pockets and jangles them, smiling a bit at Emma's questioning gaze. "That's what these are for, these keys. I can walk minds with them. And I'm a Night Maid, so it's not like I can really occupy any other reality than what dreams make up," he explains.

Emma purses her lips, as if she would love to start beaming and singing at the news, but is still battling doubts – Emma is nothing if not extremely cautious. "Are you sure that you would be able to find her?" she asks, setting the photograph of herself and Clara aside.

He hesitates, then nods slowly. "Fairly certain, yes."

"Only fairly?"

"I'm the first human Night Maid that is allowed to do this, and my boss – the universe – wasn't the best at explaining everything I can and can't do," he says, and he can't help but sound a little irritated.

Emma's gaze slips off him and drifts back to the photograph, now resting on the cover of one of her many photo albums. She tilts her head, light brown hair falling in her face, and seems to consider something for a long moment, before she nods slowly. "If you could do that, and if you could find Clara…" she trails off, and her eyes meet Liam's again, "…It would mean everything to me, it really would."

Liam leaps to his feet, knocking over the cage of lightning on the way, and promptly has to duck down to avoid the spitting balls of electricity as they dash about. Emma bursts out laughing again as Liam lands in a tangle of too-long, gawky limbs and groans loudly.
He finally clambers to his feet and declares, "Have no fear, fair maiden – I shall save your sister!" and he strikes what he thinks is a heroic pose, putting on of his feet on the lower levels of the fountain, dripping with gold. A fairy pushes it off and, overbalanced, Liam stumbles to the floor, landing heavily on his back.

Emma manages to smother her laughter behind her hand, but her eyes are glinting with amusement as she pulls Liam to his feet and brushes him down. "Thank you," she says softly as he digs out his keying, which is already quivering in excitement.

Liam glances at her as he sorts out the keys, wondering which one he's suppose to use. "It's no trouble at all," he assures her, smiling. "When we pack them up, most everyone wishes they had spent more time with their families. If I can help you spend time with yours…maybe I'll be fulfilling what my mysterious role is." He manages to isolate one key and he spins around, until he notices the door in the corner that had not been there just moments previously. Unsure, he starts towards it, trying to look confident for Emma's benefit.

She catches at his sleeve, and he pauses, glancing back at her. Her expression is almost blank, and steely.

"Take care out there," she tells him, nodding tersely, and lets him go. Liam grins at her as his keys drift out of his hands by themselves and click the lock open.

"I'll do my utmost," he promises, and slips out the door.

Emma watches it lock behind him, and with a sigh, returns to her stacks of photos and her glue.

XVIII.

The universe tells herself she isn't hovering when she looks in on Liam, but there really is no other word for what she's doing.
She watches him help Emma sort out her mind, put the facts and dates onto a bookshelf built from geometry proofs, haul a fountain to the center of the room for the fairies and speak quietly about the photographs lying haphazardly on the floor. Liam does not think he is really helping Emma, doing any good in her mind, and he is so achingly unsure of himself, but the universe can't help clapping in delight at what he's creating with Emma Young's mind and how much this is shaping the future of humanity. It's almost astounding, how much the little events shape everything that happens afterwards. She wonders if she had made everything so intertwined on purpose.

On a whim, she calls Moira to visit her. She appears looking immaculate and cool, with no visible signs of distress or aggravation marring her perfectly smooth face. Her hair is once more mercilessly yanked back, almost afraid of moving for fear of what Moira would do to it, should it drift in her face or hinder her at all. The universe sighs slightly – she has to wonder at the appeal of living like emotions are things that happen to other people, and why Moira would want to go back to the way she was before Liam came crashing in. But all the Night Maids are like this, even though the universe isn't sure why she would create something so incapable of seeing all the beauty in the minds the Maids clean.

"Is there a problem?" Moira asks, her words clipped and professional, her back ramrod straight.

The universe smiles brightly at her – she's already slightly tipsy, and in her inebriated state of mind, she suddenly thinks making Moira uncomfortable and possibly even frustrated would be a most excellent idea. "No," the universe replies happily, "I just wanted to thank you for bringing Liam to me! He's really exceeded all expectations!"

That makes Moira's eyebrows twitch together, just slightly, although the rest of her face doesn't show any signs of confusion. "I am glad that he was…appreciated, here," Moira says stiffly, arms hanging awkwardly at her sides.

The universe beams. This is almost too easy, if Moira's already flustered. "Oh, yes! He's doing his job brilliantly!" She leans in and conspiratorially lowers her tone, as if she's spilling the most important secret ever told. "In fact, I think Liam is what changes human history. Repeatedly."

That makes Moira's mouth quiver – enough to be a glower on her, although to anyone who isn't looking for it, she would seem as unruffled as always. "Am I needed for something here, or may I leave?"

The universe sighs again. Some people are no fun. "You may go." She takes another burning sip of her drink as Moira slips out.

(The universe likes to drink concentrated dark matter, in case you were wondering. Photons and gamma rays are other personal favorites.)

"Oh, Liam, Liam," she murmurs to herself, already slurring her words, "You strange little guy…you have no idea what you're doing now is going to change everything." She giggles and belches loudly, then pours herself another shot.

XIX.

Liam is in another corridor, with plush red carpets and pale yellow walls, with golden lines standing at attention like soldiers. The universe, he thinks, must consist entirely of utterly bland hotels.

This hallway is not doorless, like the last one. Doors are jammed so close together it is near impossible to see the wallpaper in between them. The hallway stretches on farther than Liam can see, fuzzing into a distant, golden blur down the line. Every door is different – some stained, some pristine, some covered in paint stains – and Liam, slightly overwhelmed, wonders how he is suppose to know which one leads to Clara Young.

He begins down the hallway, examining likely doors and trying to recall everything Emma had ever said about Clara, or every memory of her he had seen. Ink stains and words – Clara, from what Emma has said, is art personified, so far into creativity that it defines her more than any physical aspect.

So he stops and peers at all the doors with paint stains and etched with words. He strokes the wood and examines the doorknobs, but he can't find any that is Clara, could possibly be the artistic, mad sister of Emma Young. He begins to panic after the hundredth door, wondering if this was a silly idea, if he should just give up, go back – or maybe even vanish into one of the other doors, the not right ones, forget about his failure with Emma Young and try to do right from there on out.

Except he can't, because Emma misses her sister and is a little scared of what could have happened to her, and Liam does not like it when people are afraid and he can do something to mend it.

So he continues to search, even as the number of wrong doors mount and he gets further and further away from the door to Emma Young's mind.

He isn't sure how far he has walked when his fingers graze over a door, sprinkled with gold powder and with sky blue lettering flickering across it, spelling out new phrases and creating odd worlds right before Liam's eyes, until a moment later when they flash and change again, faster than the eye can blink. There's nothing really special about this door – there are dozens of doors glittering gold, tens of them covered with writing that changes, but something about this one feels different – smoother, maybe, or gentler – under his fingers.

Liam pauses, and pulls his keys out of his pocket, the jingling loud in the silence of the endless hallway. They don't drift from his hand this time – he's forced to examine them, to find the one that will match the lock of the door in front of him, and he's almost holding his breath as he slips the key in and turns it, just slightly.

The door slides open, almost sound against the plush carpet. Liam inhales, holds his breath, counts to five and steps inside, praying he's gotten it right.

XX.

The door that Liam thinks is right but isn't sure about slips open into the most insane, incredible place he's ever seen.

Clara Young is chaos and mayhem personified, madness rolled in randomness and infused with just a hint of insanity, and the sheer color and calamity of her mind stops Liam dead as he stumbles through the doorway. She's dancing in the middle of her mind, rainbows trailing from her fingers, flowers bursting up behind her whenever she takes a step, and her mind pulses with shades of grey and green and gold. Flowers crawl across her walls and wither in the same breath, princes rescue princesses and have their happily ever afters, then morph into spiders with glowing green eyes that scuttle away into the shadows. Creatures watch from the shadows, eyes glowing maliciously before they suddenly wink out like exploding stars. Whole races are born and killed and torn apart by betrayal in the flickering of the Chinese floating lanterns, bobbing along against the ceiling. Rivers wrap around, sirens leaping up with a song, haunting and sad, pouring from their lips.

She notices Liam, and suddenly huge wings, bright blue and dark indigo, the kind angels in the storybooks have, bursts from her back in a flurry of feathers. She flies over, toes just skimming the ground, and hovers in front of him, beaming. "I'm Clara!" she declares, as if it's normal for her to see a stranger in her mind. Her names seems to amuse her, because she chortles and sings it again, pale pink fog coiling from her lips and warping to form the letters of her name. It hangs in the air in front of her, and she traces the letter C with ink-stained fingers. "That's what color my name is," she tells Liam, beaming. "And you are?"

"Liam," he says, slightly overwhelmed and a little exhausted from his trek through the endless hallway. She repeats his name, grinning widely – a thread of dark green flies from her lips and coils into his name. Clara blows it into his face and laughs as it explodes into orange sparks. Liam coughs, a little startled, and waves them away gingerly. Unlike Emma's lightning, they don't burn.

"And may I ask why you are here, Liam?" she asks, gesturing at the chaos in her mind, all the magic and the destruction. Liam follows her hand and is greeted with the sight of a flying red headed boy who soars and then vanishes into the wall, a ball of blindingly golden light following him. Clara begins to circle him, looking him up and down. "I don't recognize you from one of my stories," she says pensively, "Or from any art that I've seen or made. So, are you a part of my imagination or something else entirely? I do know that I'm most likely not awake, so how are you here?"

"I'm a Night Maid, and you're okay – in a coma, but okay and you'll wake up soon enough, and I'm here because Emma needed to know you're okay," Liam says, and flails a bit as an Oriental prince and princess swoop through him on a flying rug. The sensation tingles. Clara doesn't look too perturbed by the information of being in a coma, because she gives him an impatient look until he finishes speaking. "And I'm suppose to go back to Emma and tell her you're okay, but jeez – please Clara, can I clean up your mind? Just a bit? How do you think with this chaos?"

Clara's eyes widen and her grin grows. "You know Emma? Oh, so you are trustworthy!" She looks him up and down one more time, and asks, "If you…clean my mind, will it destroy my creativity or something?" That brings a hint of worry to her dark gray eyes, even though it doesn't show on her face or in her voice, and her eyes flicker to the side, where a cat, slinking forward, morphs into an eagle that takes of with a screech.

Liam stares at her. Even though her mind is mayhem and chaos and absolutely nothing sane, it's still wondrously beautiful and the mere thought of ruining something so incredible is almost a physical blow. Clara might be insanity and might be madness, but so was everyone great in history. "Dear universe, no. It'll just make it…I don't know, cleaner. I don't know what it would be like when you wake up, but it'll still be…this –" he gestures around them, "-just not so intense. You'll still have all this, just…be able to sort it out. And you'll sort it out. It's like…I don't know, tidying your room or something like that."

Clara beams at that and seems to accept his explanations without as much intensive questioning as Liam would have expected from Emma's twin. "Okay then, let's get started!" She snaps her fingers and a witch's broom flies out from under her and soars into Clara's waiting hand. Liam pulls out his rag and starts cleaning with a sigh as Clara picks up an endless stream of conversation on what she thinks everything in her crowded, colorful mind might symbolize.
Finally got around to adding more. Apologies. Parts XI-XX of the Night Maids.

Parts I-X can be found here:

[link]
© 2013 - 2024 WildWolfMoon94
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iluvart88's avatar
i love night maids. it's such a whimsical story.
may i draw the universe? i will give you credit for the design