The Arcane: Alistair Mann

CHAPTER 12 SHADOWS

The Lismore Hotel is an above average hotel for northcentral Wisconsin. Its five modernly architecture stories comprised mostly of glass rise above Eau Claire yearning for beleaguered customers to come its way. While the outside fails to capture the eyes though, the interior is much more appealing. Agent Young's suite's interior wall, behind the neatly made queen bed, has old newspaper for wallpaper. An aesthetic not commonly seen. Adjacent to the it is the exterior wall made up of large glass panes the full height of the story. It reveals a view of suburban Eau Claire seen nowhere else. Beautifully shined pine table and chairs are set near the glass. There is a large QLED TV opposite the green blanketed bed with a small dresser underneath it. To the left of the TV is a short hallway with drably placed grey carpeting. The door leading to the hotels main hallway is down this passageway, along with the suite's bathroom, that gives the false impression of cleanliness. Its white tiled floors and marbled sink shine gloriously from the light casted by the lone bulb on the ceiling. And the toilet with the bathtub to its left beckon to those occupying the room to please use the clean services it provides. The meretriciousness of the entire suite makes Agent Young scoff at nearly everyone's desire to appear lavish.

Agent Young is sitting, hunched over her meticulously organized papers laying on the pine table. Checking her watch, the time reads midnight. Grunting tiredly, she goes back to studying the papers laid before her. Like all nights for the past week she hasn't been able to get a wink of sleep. Nightmares plagued her dreams and so eventually she gave up trying to sleep. Instead, Agent Young would study case files and other documents trying to figure out whatever idiotic musician decided to go and murder an entire family making her life, well now that she thinks about it, meaningful. Though she won't admit it, Agent Young loves the hunt and even more the scene they leave behind. Although it's her job to capture criminals, she can't help but admire some of them and the creativity in their work.

Agent Young strains her eyes at the papers laid in front of her. All the lights in her room are off except for a small lamp next to the table shining dimly onto the papers. Abruptly, Agent Young hears someone humming down the hallway. She cocks her head slowly over from where the sound came from.

Agent Young calls out calmly but threateningly, "It's not a good practice to get into walking into strangers hotel rooms, especially mine."

The veteran agent waits a few seconds for a reply, but none comes. Drawing her nine-millimeter she stalks silently across the gray carpeted and deathly quiet room to the hallway. Just then a low clanking noise sounds from within the bathroom followed by the light flickering on several seconds later. Stealthily, she makes her way to the threshold of the bathroom door. Suddenly she whips around the corner and is stopped dead in her tracks at the sight of Elizabeth Monte Carlo Young, her mother. It cannot be her though. Elizabeth Young died when she was just a girl in 1973. She went missing in Russia on a mission for US intelligence. Never being heard from again and eventually was declared dead. The woman standing before Agent Young seems to be the same age that her mother was before she disappeared. Beautiful and smooth fair skin with long brown hair, the same startling sapphire eyes shining brightly at Agent Young's stupefied face. A familiar red river lily is between the woman's ear and head. Elizabeth Young always seemed to have a floral decoration on her person.

The woman smiles from her place on the toilet and says annoyed, "Why are you here?"

It's the same voice too. A smooth and controlled contralto, demanding everyone's attention every time a word is uttered. And growing up Agent Young's mother always demanded her attention; more than that, her emotions as well. More so than her father did. Elizabeth Young tried to mold and control her young child and with an estranged drunken father only around for a few minutes every other month that was never a problem for Elizabeth Young.

Scoffing at her daughter for not replying to her question she says, "Get out until I am finished..."

Agent Young cuts her off, something she shouldn't and wouldn't ever do as a child for fear of getting whipped. But the woman standing before the agent cannot be her mother, she just can't. And so Agent Young says, "How are you here...mother?"

Mother. The word feels strange in the aging agent's mouth. And as if answering her own question, she raises the gun to the throat of the being in front of her and says, "You cannot be here, you're dead."

Agent Young's breathing quickens. She always prided herself with the knowledge that her cognitive abilities are better than everyone else around her. Her sagaciousness always ensuring that she makes the best possible decisions in any circumstance. Without her sanity who would she be? Without her mind ensuring the consistency and potency of her knowledge and subsequent skillset, who would she be?

Agent Young pushes these thoughts away and fires at the thing in front of her before waiting for an answer to any of these confusing emotions and thoughts. The figures face turns into whisps of smoke as the bullet passes through it. A thud resounds as it lodges into the wall behind. The smile with no joy written anywhere leaves the woman's face. A look of sadness almost appears to replace it.

She says dryly, "You shouldn't have done that...daughter."

Confused and startled Agent Young shoots again, then again, and again. Each time the bullets pass directly through the head of her target having never made contact. Again, the lights flicker, but this time when they turn back on the troubling woman is gone. Still breathing hard Agent Young turns to leave and ponder what had just happened, or rather what obviously didn't happen for it is impossible to happen. Ever since she came to Wisconsin things started to happen to her that she cannot explain; things seen that couldn't be there, dangerous hallucinations that she somehow feels has a connection to the case. But as she turns something red and innocent catches the sharp eye of Agent Young. A red river lily is lying beside the toilet.