The New World, 1/8

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(See intro for disclaimers)

[THE NEW WORLD, part 1 of 8]
(Second story in "The Disciple" arc)


"The sky starts to change
 And the wind starts to blow
 And you're suddenly a stranger
 There's no explaining where you stand
 And you didn't know
 That you sometimes have to go
 'Round an unexpected bend
 And the road will end
 In a new world..."
             "The New World", Jason Robert Brown


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
St. Mark's Episcopal Cathedral
Seacouver
After Sunday Mass
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


She was getting away with it.

Mr. MacLeod had been right.  Nobody could tell.

Nervous, still running on adrenaline and caffeine, Rachel glanced
furtively around the women's robe room.  The service was over,
the rest of the choirmembers were hanging up their vestments and
putting away their music, and not one person had even noticed
that Rachel Hudson had become some horrible, unnatural *thing*.
Betty and Katherine were both standing right there next to her,
chattering about what to serve at someone's baby shower.
Neither one of them acted like they had the first clue that Rachel
wasn't human any more.

With numb fingers, Rachel fumbled at her choirrobe until she
coaxed it into staying on the hanger.  Her hands darted nervously
back and forth, awkwardly patting her music into neat little stacks,
sorting the stacks, shuffling them together again.  How long could
she put off leaving?  How long could she stay at the church
without anyone taking notice and asking questions that Rachel
didn't want to answer?  All around her, the other women were
talking and laughing, and she barely heard a word of it.  The
voices inside of her own head blocked out everything else.

Immortality.  Freaks who could heal themselves like magic.
People with swords.  Fighting.  Beheadings    *beheadings*, for
God's sake!

Immortal.  Freak.  Immortal freak.

Rachel barely dared to breathe, moving mechanically as she tried
to remember what being normal would look like.  Smile to the
other singers as they left, nod, say something appropriate
"goodbye," and "see you on Wednesday."  It helped that she had
only been singing at Saint Mark's for a couple of months, and she
kept to herself anyway, so nobody knew her very well.  There
was a mirror on the back of the door, and over and over again,
Rachel's eyes were drawn back to her reflection.  The image in
the glass still looked just the same as it always had.  It seemed so
weird to her, that she didn't look different.  This *thing* that had
happened to her was so huge and grotesque, how could it not
show?

But her reflection looked just the same as it always had, and
nobody realized that she had become a freak.  Nobody stared.
Nobody pointed.  Nobody pulled out a sword and challenged her
to a duel.

Rachel loitered in the women's robe room, gnawing fretfully on
her thumbnail, waiting impatiently until she could have a few
moments alone, just a few, to think.  She listened as the rest of the
choirmembers finally went on their ways, waving goodbyes to
each other: off to lunch, or shopping with friends, or just going
home with their families.  Normal things.  Normal people, with
normal lives.

Finally, there was nothing but silence.  Cautiously, Rachel opened
the door of the robe room and peered out.  The choirroom was
empty.  She was left to herself at last.

Alone in the big rehearsal room with its cracked plaster walls and
high ceiling, Rachel wandered out to the much used piano and
dropped down onto the bench with a low, mournful sigh.
Surrounded by the scent of musty old music and polished wood,
this room was as safe and as comforting a place as any she
knew.  Her apartment was just a place to stay: four walls, and a
roof to keep her few belongings dry.  "Home" was wherever she
could make music.

Aimlessly, with clumsy fingers, Rachel sketched out a
diminished fifth chord, way down low on the bass keys, and left
the notes hanging there in the still room, ambiguous and
unresolved.  She folded her arms on the music bar and wearily
lowered her head to rest on her forearms, squeezing her eyes
tightly shut against tears that she was barely managing to hold
back.

How, how in God's name could something like this have happened
to her?

Less than a day ago    less than twelve hours ago    people only
lived forever in fairy tales and ghost stories.  How could any of it
be real?  A week ago, Rachel had survived an attack when
someone had broken into her apartment in the middle of the night.
The memory was as vivid and as horrible as if it had just
happened.  In the darkness of her bedroom, Rachel had heard
whoever-it-was moving around, and she had done something
incredibly stupid.  Slowly, quietly, she had reached for the phone
to dial 911 -- and suddenly a big, heavy body was pinning her to
the bed, huge rough hands closing around her throat.  She couldn't
scream with the pain as her lungs burned with the struggle to
breathe, and finally the blackness of the room turned to blood-red
behind her eyelids and she went down into the darkness, thrashing
and scuffling, not believing it was really happening.

Rachel drew a long, shuddering breath as her hands caressed her
throat reassuringly.  It was over and done with now.  It had been
terrifying and horrific, but not the least bit supernatural.  She had
eventually come back to consciousness, with her attacker gone.
She had called 911 because it was what you were supposed to do,
but the police had just shrugged and told her to come to the station
in the morning to file a complaint.  Her attacker was gone, nothing
had been stolen, and there wasn't anything to be done.

Then last night, after a week of terrors and night sweats and
starting in fear at every sound, Rachel had ventured out to a
martial arts gym to ask about lessons in self defense.  Outside the
building, a sickening headache had assaulted her; it had felt like
someone had turned a blender on inside of her skull.  In the dojo,
the people she met there had told Rachel that she had not been
just attacked by the intruder; she had been murdered.  At first,
she thought she had stumbled into some insane cult; but then they
showed her things that couldn't possibly happen, magic powers
that healed tiny cuts and even major wounds.  The intruder who
had killed Rachel had ushered her into a world of Immortals,
where people lived forever and hunted each other with swords.

There had been four people at the dojo: Duncan MacLeod, the
owner; Adam Pierson and Richie Ryan, both Immortals; and Joe
Dawson, a regular human person who somehow knew about
Immortality.  Rachel had begun to think that she must surely be
losing her mind.  The idea that she had gone insane had been
enough, in the beginning, to make suicide look preferable.  Now,
with the shock beginning to wear off, Rachel found herself
wishing that insanity was the only thing wrong with her.  At least
insanity was something normal.

What time was it?  Rachel looked up at the old fashioned round
clock on the wall: quarter past twelve.  She didn't have much
time.  Last night, Mr. MacLeod had made a big deal about how
dangerous life would be for Rachel, and he had sent Richie Ryan
along to look after Rachel.  It had turned out that Richie was
close to Rachel's age, and he had only been Immortal for a couple
of years.  He had taken her home to get ready for church, and
then driven her to St. Mark's.  Any minute now, he would be
pulling up to the curb in Mr. MacLeod's old black car to pick her
up.  Maybe he was already there, waiting for Rachel to come out
of the door.

And an Immortal    any Immortal    was the very last person
Rachel wanted to see right now.  The minute she walked out of
St. Mark's Cathedral, the last pretense that she still had a
commonplace, ordinary, normal little life would be gone.  She'd
stop being just plain old Rachel Hudson, aspiring opera singer.
She'd be Rachel Hudson, Immortal.

Rachel the Freak.  The Immortal Freak.

An unexpected creaking of the floorboards stopped Rachel's
heart, and for a moment her whole body went rigid, eyes fixed
straight ahead in fright and shock.  Was it one of.... no, there was
no Buzzing thing, no headache that drilled into her head and made
her sick with dizziness.  If there was an Immortal here, there
would be a Buzzing thing.  Breath and movement came back to
her, and Rachel turned around nervously on the piano bench.

"Still here?"  Jerome Farlowe, the organist and choirmaster,
lumbered out of his office, carrying an untidy stack of music with
him.  Dark and stout, all long legs and big feet, he shuffled
towards Rachel, shaking his shaggy black hair from his eyes.
Besides having one of the more prestigious and more demanding
organist positions in Seacouver, Jerome was the single parent of
three children, all lively boys.  Things like haircuts and ironed
shirts were frequently overlooked in his busy life.

"I thought everyone was gone," Jerome said.  "Don't you have to
be at the theatre?"

"Not today," Rachel answered.  "I have the afternoon off."  For
once, she didn't have to be at the Seacouver Opera House.
Under the circumstances, it was a miraculous blessing that the
matinee on this particular Sunday was one of her "off" rotations.
"I thought I would stay and... and practice for a while."  Inside,
Rachel felt a twist of guilt and shame.  She didn't like lying to
Jerome.  She didn't like lying to anyone, but it looked like she was
going to have to start doing it.

"That's fine," Jerome answered absently.  "You'll lock up?
You've got your key?"  Rachel nodded again.  "If you have time,
take a look at the Rutter 'Requiem'.  I'm thinking of that for one of
the Lenten programs."  Jerome blinked at Rachel for a moment
and paused, frowning slightly, slow in speech and in thought
whenever the subject strayed away from music.  "Are you doing
all right?" he finally asked.

Rachel's heart pulsed hard in her throat.  Small, hunched over the
piano keys, she stared up at him, too horrified to move or speak.
He knew?  He *could* tell?  How?  HOW?  What did she do to
give it away?

"After that night last week, I mean?"  Jerome continued.  He
blinked at her again, aware that something was wrong, at a loss to
know what it could be.  "That person that broke in?  He didn't
come back or anything, did he?"

"Oh."  The earth started to turn on its axis again, and the clocks
resumed their ticking as Rachel let her breath out.  "No, nothing
like that.  I just didn't sleep much last night."

Jerome considered that for a moment, and then nodded his
understanding.  "It'll get better," he told her, as though he were
consoling his youngest after a bad dream.  "It just takes time."
Once again he hefted the cumbersome pile of music he carried,
and with one last reminder to Rachel to lock up, he was off to
round up his children and herd them towards home.

Finally, she was alone again.

Rachel's fingers trailed randomly over the yellowed piano keys,
and she began to pick out the melody of the morning's first
anthem.  It was one of her favourites: "O how amiable are thy
dwellings..."

Some amiable dwelling her apartment had turned out to be.  It
wasn't much, but she had thought it was at least safe.  How could
she have been so stupid about something so important?  Rachel
had lived in some real dumps in her life, other places that had
gotten broken into.  She knew to check for solid bars and
dependable locks, and she had thought the apartment had been
safe.  Well, she sure must have missed something, because
someone had gotten into that "safe place," and Rachel had gotten
herself killed.  Only... not killed.  Changed.

Rachel's fingers slammed down on the piano keys, sounding a
loud chunk of discordant notes.  How could she have *been* so
careless?  What, she wondered for the thousandth time, had she
overlooked when she'd first moved in?  What had she missed?

She let the sound fade away in the silent, empty room.  Finally,
lifting her hands from the keys, Rachel rubbed her tired, teary
eyes.  It was her own fault.  She hadn't been careful enough, and
now she had to pay for it forever.  And how did she get to pay for
it?  With her future, that's how.

Rachel's fingers picked out a few bars of Mozart, random
fragments of tunes that turned into Act IV of "Figaro".  "Giunse
alfin il momento... Deh vieni, non tardar."  Susannah was one of
her best roles, and the aria was beautiful, but it was as simple and
straightforward as a folk song.  The role in "Figaro" that Rachel
really cherished, the one she used to pray she'd be able to do
justice to one day, was the Countess.

Rachel played another opening phrase and began to sing again,
sad sweet music that just absolutely *ached* with sorrowful hope:
"Dove sono, I bei momenti..."

She stopped after the first line, miserable and dispirited.  She
could never sing the Countess now.  Never, never, never.  It was
a role for a woman, not a child; a woman who was struggling with
despair one moment and yearning the next, a whole roller coaster
of grown up emotions.  Maybe if Rachel hadn't gotten changed,
she might one day have grown into singing the Countess.

But not anymore.  You didn't hire a teenager to play King Lear,
and nobody would believe in a mature, heartbroken woman who
sounded like some chirpy little ingenue, either.  Rachel was frozen
now, a not quite grown up body with a not quite grown up voice.
This was what she'd be like forever and ever, never quite done,
never quite good enough.

Just like always.  All her life, in one foster home after another,
Rachel had never quite been good enough.  Not good enough to
keep, not good enough to be adopted.  Not good enough to be
loved.

Then in the third grade, when she started singing    *that* was
something she was good at.  She was wonderful  at it.  She grew
up and got scholarships.  She got jobs.  She got good reviews.  "A
great potential; lots of promise"    all her teachers said so.  Rachel
had hoped that one day, if she worked hard enough, she might be
one of the very, very best.

Well, she was *still* good.  Even if she couldn't ever hope to be
the best anymore.  Rachel was a musician, and a damn good one,
and not one thing had to change just because of some freak
accident.  Not.  One.  Single.  Thing.  Not unless she let it.  And
not Mr. MacLeod, or Richie, or anyone else could *make* her let
it.  She didn't have to start carrying a sword around.  She didn't
have to change anything if she didn't want to.  She could go on
with her life just as she always had, and never mind whatever
anyone else had to say about it.  She would have to see Richie
and Mr. MacLeod one more time, and tell them thank you but no
thank you, and after that they would leave her alone and all of this
-- this *stuff* would be over with.

Walk away from it.  That was all she had to do.

The making of a decision, and the resolving of her future, gave
Rachel a vague feeling of satisfaction and accomplishment.  Her
life was back under her control again, and she was going to keep
it that way.  With her back straight and her head high, Rachel
gathered up her music bag and slipped off of the piano bench.
She marched away from the piano, locked the choirroom behind
her, and strode down the empty hallways.  Her heels clicked on
the stone floors with crisp authority that only faltered when she
neared the old wooden doors of the side entrance, where Richie
was supposed to be waiting.

Rachel hesitated, dreading that awful Buzz feeling -- like bees
trapped inside her head! -- then pressed her lips together and
stomped towards the closed door, her head down like a
determined bull.  The wave of nausea hit her first, almost as her
hand hit the crash bar, and she paused, sick and woozy, leaning
her forehead against the thick polished wood.  Well, she couldn't
back out now, because if she could feel Richie, he could feel her,
so he already knew she was there.  That was what Mr. MacLeod
had told her, anyway.  And the sooner she faced the two of them,
the sooner she could get back to living a normal life.

The sick dizziness had died down to a dull ratcheting behind her
eyes.  Rachel took one last, deep breath.  "Showtime," she
muttered to herself, forcing more conviction into her voice than
she actually felt, and before she could change her mind she
shoved hard at the lever and marched out of the dark cathedral to
greet the bright fall sunshine, and the grinning boy in the black
T Bird.

[End of Part 1]

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