Bolton's Office Hours

[theoverseers]

[Want to chat with Bolton privately? Here is where you do it! Bolton's office hours will be held in conference room B in the library for approximately four hours in the morning several days a week. During that time the blinds will be drawn and that room will be off-limits unless you're there to talk to Bolton, though the other three study rooms will still be available for use.


Comments are screened for privacy.]

Comments

Sunday morning

[curdle]

[ Thomasin, if you want to talk about it I'll be at my office hours.

She shows up nearer to the tail end of said hours, because there's been a lot of hedgehugging and putting herself together to be done in the interim. Thomasin's hair is braided up again, her face scrubbed, and she's wearing her repressed alien clothes and a sober expression. She opens the door herself almost immediately after knocking and walks on in. ]

Caleb's death. You knew of it from the first.

[theoverseers]

[Bolton didn't leave the cafeteria with coffee, but judging by the empty mug he's acquired at least one cup today. He puts his book down immediately when she opens the door, standing to meet her.

He sighs. He can tell it's not a question.]

I did.

[curdle]

[ Now that that's out there, she's not sure where to go next. There's a long, pregnant pause. ]

Be there any question I might ask that you will answer?

[theoverseers]

[Bolton hesitates. He glances over her head at the corner of the room, and then down at the screen attached to his wrist.]

I can't...tell you anything that you don't already know. Or, at least, related to anything that you don't remember yet.

[Much though he sounds like his hands are actually tied.]

[curdle]

[ She may be (she is) technologically illiterate on a truly unprecedented level, but even Thomasin can tell something is amiss upon that combination of actions. She keeps silent, however, and moves on. ]

I know I mayn't ask of that what brought me here. But of Caleb...

Thou must know the twins accuse me. They say there is a witch. Was it her as sickened him, and drove him to death?

[theoverseers]

Oh.

[He motions for her to take a seat, but he waits until she does before sitting down himself.]

You didn't hurt your brother, Thomasin.

[curdle]

I know that!

[ She really doesn't. But she sits down anyway, and waits for him to follow suit. ]

But some thing did. [ ... ] And if you know who, or what, still you will not speak. Canst thou not at least tell me if you know the truth of it?

[theoverseers]

[He sits down as well, then sighs heavily.]

I've read your extended profile. It's...about you, not Caleb, so I don't know exactly what happened to him. But...

The twins accusing you doesn't mean anything. Children their age are too young to completely understand loss like that, so they try to relate it to something they know. Like- a game of pretend with their big sister.

[curdle]

But the fault is mine!

[ She spits this out with vehemence, seeming to want to get the words out while they float, articulated, in her mind. ]

If I'd not lost my temper with Mercy, they never should have conspired so. Had I woke Father and Mother, Caleb would live still. But I would have her afeared of me, and I would stay on the farm, and for that he is dead and I accused.

Our first week here, my throat ached. Thou wilt not tell me whether the cause were a noose.

[theoverseers]

[You're a child, is what he wants to say, but he bites his tongue.]

It wasn't because of a noose, no.

[Sounds like he can't tell you what it was, though.]

[curdle]

... Oh.

[ Her hand reflexively goes to hover around the collarbone area, so her fingers touch her throat. ]

Thank you. [ The matter of what it was is one she's not sure she wants to probe further, in here or out. It had been bad enough imagining being turned off from the gallows. She must know, and she cannot bring herself to know. Surely, if she lives long enough, she will. ] Was this meant as a reward? It comes on the same day as the new floors.

[theoverseers]

Was what- oh. The memories?

It's not...really a reward, it's just. A side effect. The stuff that was used to wipe your memories wears off gradually over time. There's no real rhyme or reason to the way they come back, but it should all fill in eventually.

[curdle]

Then... you knew not when I would remember Caleb, nor any thing else. You but knew that I would, in time.

[theoverseers]

Yeah, pretty much.

[He's not going to tell her that she has So Much that he wasn't exactly sure what she'd remembered that morning.]

[curdle]

I am glad to know it. But if you've no hand in what we remember, how great was it in what we forgot?

[theoverseers]

That depends from person to person. Some people...

[Well, they've already figured it out anyway.]

Some people are missing years, others maybe only a few weeks.

[curdle]

But why? [ The fact that she's actually getting answers has emboldened her. ] Why vary it such? Does it even matter?

[theoverseers]

Not...really. After all, everything you remember has already come to pass.

But sometimes remembering something out of order lets you learn something new from it that you were too close to see before.

[curdle]

Everything was in order.

[ She doesn't know that in the slightest, but she wants to believe nothing else will come in to complicate what's already a miserable mess into an even hotter one. ]

Does that mean... any among us might wake a Sunday knowing how we were brought hither?

[theoverseers]

Not quite. But you will know when all of your memories are back.