Inked

Chapter 4: Miss Nang

The guard steered me roughly into the meeting room. The first thing I saw was a blinding white light streaming in from the window on the far side of the conference room. Then a woman's voice spoke. 

"Unchain her, guard. What is she, a common mule?"

The voice was crisp and cold, like the wind on the moor in December. It had an odd lilt to it though, almost like the woman had been exposed to just about every language the world had ever seen. I could hear the German, the Scandinavian, the Arabic, all in those few words. I didn't understand how, but I picked out each of the individual sounds, even though I had never been exposed to another language other than Gaelic, which I grew up speaking in Ireland. My English still isn't very good, I don't ever need to talk to the guards. 

I looked up timidly at my visitor. Her hair was short, chopped at her neck, and black with streaks of violet. I would have mistaken her for some sort of punk rocker, if it weren't for the fact that she was dressed in a starched suit and was carrying a purse of some sort of black shiny material that I recalled being very expensive.  The chains dropped to the ground and the guards forced me into a seat. 

"You are dismissed," the woman said coldly, gesturing to the guards. They shifted but remained in their places. 

"I said, you are dismissed,"  the woman's voice took on a metallic ring at the end of her sentence, and the guards scurried for the door like bats out of hell. I was beginning to panic now. The raw power in that woman's voice was more frightening than anything I had ever created.

"Now," the woman said gently, "I'm sorry about that, but they needed to be dismissed. The subject of my visit is rather, ah, sensitive." 

"W-what is it?" I stammered. I hadn't spoken English in so long I was sure I would have forgotten. My voice was a cracked rasp, I could barely do more than whisper. 

"Have you ever seen a map of the world, Evara?"

"Just one of Ireland, there was one hanging on the mantle at home," I whispered, the sounds coming more naturally... then I realized I was speaking Gaelic. Oh well, if she understands, then all the better. 

"So do you know how many continents there are, or where the Himalayas are?" Without missing a beat, the woman responded in perfect Gaelic. I was astonished. After I'd put my eyes back in, so to speak, she repeated her question. I blinked and thought a moment. Himalayas, the name rung a bell somewhere deep in the recesses of my brain, but I didn't get any more than that. I sighed. She was embarrassing me. According to the scratches on my wall I was in my teens now, but without any formal schooling, I was woefully ignorant of anything outside the four white walls I saw everyday. Marta sometimes gave me books in English, but other than that I had very little knowledge of anything. 

"I'm sorry, I don't know. It rings a bell somewhere... but I just can't... get to it," I sighed and hung my head. There was some rustling, and the woman gestured me to her side of the table. "I-I-I'm not a-allowed, I don't want you to get hurt," I said quietly.

"Child, your gift is powerful, but I am not afraid of you. Quite the opposite. Come," the woman said kindly, a smile brightening her face a few shades. I stood slowly and made my way around the table. The woman spread a map out on the table, bigger than I had ever seen. 

"This is beautiful, madam," I said quietly. 

"Please call me Miss Nang. This is the world. I am from the Himalayas, which are here," she traced her finger along them, "you are here right now, in England," she pointed to the spot in the middle of nowhere where Rockford was, in the middle of an island that looked like something out of a Rorschach test.