The Q

by Beth Brower

“Mechanicalizing is not a word,” Quincy snapped, staring him down. “It should be,” the old man huffed as he settled himself back into his chair.

Each of his smiles held enough charm to cheat a cat out of its mouse.

she did not like what she did not understand. So Quincy did what she knew always gave her the same results, she shut him out by locking her interior doors.

She had not spent a lot of time thinking what it must be like for others to be with her, just as she had never considered Fisher an impermanent feature in her life. He had always been there, and she had assumed he would always be there. And now he wasn’t—because of a concert in Half Crown Park and a French governess. And that fact sat off-kilter, angled and strange, worse than his cutting comment.

“Why do you think you should do that for me? Are you worried about my reputation? The lack of decorum I show?” Quincy asked honestly. “Only that I believe”—Arch lifted his shoulders, and the look on his face was so unguarded Quincy surprised herself by listening—“that each one of us has times when what we need most is someone who is willing to sit quietly by, waiting for us. Not interfering, just being.”

Quincy parted her lips, haunted by her own memory. Why Arch’s words had called up such images, she didn’t know, but Quincy did not have the emotional capital to afford confronting it, so she clamped her mouth shut and turned again towards her work.

she tucked the contracts into an attaché, setting off like the destroying angel on her way to Egypt.

Quincy’s love for music came from the two things she held inside the tucks of her jacket beside her heart: mathematics and solitude. The benefits she reaped after an hour of playing Mozart or Bach, or whoever, were order and inhuman company. And this night, like on so many others, these were what she felt she needed above all.

“When did you develop this sense of humor, Arch?” Arch leaned back and considered. “Probably the moment you gained yours.” Quincy didn’t think this was the case; she figured he had probably just started bringing it with him to work on a daily basis.

When they arrived at the Fontblanc building, Arch said he would be in Upper Rhysdon Cathedral when she was finished. “You’ll accomplish something today that sets you apart, Arch.” “What is that?” he said, looking distracted. Quincy scowled. “Getting paid to worship, you lazy excuse of a solicitor. Only the priests have managed that for the last several hundred years.”

“Good. I’d hate to think you invited me out of pity.” “Never for pity; always for the company.”

“We will talk business, and poetry, and whatever else we find interesting.” “I don’t care for poetry.” “You will. Not as much as I do, but you’ll learn to appreciate that I appreciate it. That’s part of maintaining connections with people. You give yourself a little to what they give themselves to a lot. And they do the same for you.” “Sounds boring.” “I suppose it is, if you’re not focused on the person you’re doing it for,” Arch answered.

She kept thinking that a time like this required words—one million lines of type, laid out perfectly, with no ink stains, no backward letters—to say what should be said. But that couldn’t happen, and she didn’t know what else to put in its place.

“Did Fisher tell you to come?” Quincy said, her voice sounding so unlike itself—sounding yearning. “No,” Arch replied. Then he shook his head as confirmation, as if it were an important truth she needed to know two ways. “But I knew this was his train.” “You missed him.” “I didn’t come for him. I came for you.” His words went unanswered. They were too real for her. And Quincy could only pay attention to how her boots felt on her feet in that exact moment and how Fisher’s absence felt in her chest. The boots were a little snug, wet from the puddles of the midnight rain. The absence in her chest felt too vast for admission.

Quincy, not practiced in giving quiet approval, countered, “I hate taking things I haven’t paid for, friend or not.” Arch leaned back into his chair, but he was entertaining a smile. “There are few things more tedious than a friend who will not graciously receive.”

She obliged because Priest had always been her friend and she was his.

This subtle character development really struck me

He did not say this in his usual tone, rather something quieter, the voice one kept tucked in their vest.

Quincy didn’t look away from Arch’s face, and she felt something burn in her chest, the same overwhelmingly fierce pride she had felt when looking at a perfectly inked Q sheet or an expansion report that exceeded even her high expectations.

As she came around the counter, he smiled, taking off his hat, and they did a strange dance of movements, uncertain how to greet one another.

“Come to my house Saturday for tea.” “Can’t,” responded Quincy. “I’m busy avoiding human connection.”

No sense in being small because someone else doesn’t have the courage to measure up.”

“I’ll try to see what you see, though it’s never been a strong suit. Cats, Arch, it’s never even been one of my suits at all.”

“I thought you were practicing the turning of the other cheek, Arch,” Quincy said as they walked towards one of the formal dining rooms. “Threatening a man’s nose doesn’t seem in line with that philosophy.” “Yes, well,” Arch stepped stiffly, his face still set, “you tend to bring my folly out in spades. Besides, where I may not raise a hand for myself, it would be a cold afternoon in hell before I wouldn’t do it for you.”

“I don’t want a drink. Cats! I just want quiet. And brusque, clear manners. And trousers. And—and peppermint tea! Is that such a strange thing? Is that too much?”

Quincy didn’t feel like she needed to be brushed off and set on the pedestal of devil-may-care courage—she just wanted someone to sit down in the mud of the whole affair and tell her it was all right to be broken. That’s all Quincy wanted, to be sad and be told it was just fine. And be told that she would be just fine.

You see, Quincy St. Claire, it was on this very day, Christmas, six years ago now, that I lost my wife.” “I’m sorry.” And Quincy meant it. It felt easier to console Lord Arch than it had been with Priest. Perhaps six years felt like a safe distance to assuage someone’s pain. It wasn’t as fresh. It wasn’t still contagious.

The dark streets of Rhysdon did not counter her conscious melancholy, but they gave her enough space to spread the heartbreak out.

The pieces of Quincy’s mind—not interested in philosophy—still thought it strange how something could destroy so and yet preserve at the same time. Quincy wondered if the salt wind of this Rhysdon midnight would rust her away or keep her from deteriorating into nothingness.

The day passed, as it always did.

Oh man. This line hit me hard

But they were so very off balance, the two of them. And every line that was crooked caused the entire page to be off-kilter. When in the print room, nothing stopped Quincy from coolly putting away the type and beginning the difficult, tedious business over, until everything was perfectly in place. She accepted no less. But to do that between yourself and another person? To straighten out a misunderstanding? An offence? Who was mad enough to even try? Why should she rip herself up to set him aright ?

because when someone means something to you, you need to see them aright. Even if you are angry. Even if you feel abandoned. Even if it is only to set them on a path that will lead away from you.

And she now understood—Fisher and Quincy had always stood by one another, Ezekiel had pushed her forward, but Arch was consuming Quincy as she was consuming him, keeping her close, tucking her against him until she felt she was becoming a new creature, one that would thrive with him.

“I have read through it twice and find myself unbearably anxious to begin again,”

And then the one face that always reminded Quincy what the fabric of her heart was made of. Fisher.

😭