Chapter 11: Chapter 11: Hospitals and Frederick

Trying to lift my eyelids felt like the most arduous thing I’d ever done as I laid there on what I could only assume was the floor of the carriage. I was able to squeeze my right eye open first to take a look around. Things were blurry, and to my surprise, they were also almost completely white. I tried to force myself awake at the sight. Was I dead? There was something red and pulsating on my hand. Something else appeared to be long and snake like from my arm. It took a minute before I registered I was in a blue paper like gown. And then I heard it. Casually berating someone about needing to wake me up so I didn’t miss too much work: was my mom.

My brain finally figured it out. I was in a hospital. My mom was yelling at a nurse. I wanted to scream or cry or laugh with joy. Here I was awake and alive. Even my crazy mom recognized I was still alive. But the next thing I knew, my eyelids fell back into place clamped shut and I found my knees propped against the side of the carriage.

I tried not to groan as I looked up to see Victor’s doting face and the ceiling of the carriage. He had pulled my head on to his lap and was stroking my hair. “That was quite the bump my lady,” he murmured.

“Victor, I’m still alive,” I said excitedly.

“Yes you are,” he replied, “nothing made me think you wouldn’t be.”

“No I mean on the outside,” I replied, “there’s hope!”

“Hope?” he questioned.

“If we make it through all these events,”. I replied, “I have something to go back to. I just have to figure out how to make it through… it seemed bumping my head shot me back…”

I debated ramming my head against the side of the carriage as Victor looked completely horrified. “What are you saying my lady?” he mumbled.

It hadn’t even occurred to me at the time how deeply I may have just hurt his feelings. “Aren’t you from the outside too?” I replied, “we just have to bump our heads.”

“I think you need to sit down,” he said curtly, “you are saying some concerning things.”

And then it happened. I looked at Victor and realized I once again didn’t know if he was stuck reliving the story because he was part of it or because he was here like I was. He sheepishly put his chin on his hand to return to gazing out the window. I tried to smile as I sat up. “Apologies, I just hit my head,” I replied.

“I’m worried about you,” he answered. He did sound legitimately concerned. I hated to admit it, but I was now concerned about him too. In the book Annalise spends the carriage doubting if Victor had something to do with the goats. I was pretty sure Victor had nothing to do with the dead goats. But I realized I had just as many doubts about if I could trust him given he might actually be just another random character in this universe. And I had actual doubts, just like Annalise had while following Victor to town in the carriage.

I hadn’t meant to sigh so audibly as I leaned back to let my head bang against the side of the carriage. I didn’t want to follow the book plot, but here I was: seemingly doomed to join Victor on this pointless quest to finish the plot of the novel together. Well, together for now. Soon we were about to add Frederick.

“Is something wrong my lady?” Victor asked. He sounded horrified.

“Victor, are you familiar with Nietzsche?” I replied I debated what I had just asked. After all, this was an 18th century philosopher, Victor seemed to be into more historic texts. Although the continuity of this world and time period seemed completely muddled as he had known about Schrodinger. I tried again with a Greek philosopher, “or Empedocles?”

He waved his hand for me to continue. “Well Empedocles was credited with originating this theory that Nietzsche believed in where one eternally relives things. And where you have to relive those events. And I just can’t help but think, we can bend this world and try to change the events so that things don’t quite happen the same. But if we’re destined to live through it there may be nothing we can do…”

Stolen novel; please report.

“Are you upset about the goats?” he asked.

“To be honest, no,” I replied, “but it seems like this universe wants me to feel a certain way about everything and if I try to deviate, it pushes me back.”

“It does,” he replied sadly.

“Like your flower,” I said.

He nodded. He seems particularly morose as we continued our journey. At this point I wasn’t even sure why we were going into town. Was it a dress? Just an outing? All I knew was I was going to walk around in a cloak that magically kept everyone from recognizing me and bump into Frederick. Because of course I had to have my meet cute somewhere.

The rest of the journey played out exactly as it had in the book. Almost too perfectly actually. We arrived, I got out and was pleased to see that our driver looked more like a human than a fox, and Victor set off leading me to some dress shop or something. I guess the original point was for him to spoil me with new clothes? I couldn’t have cared less about the clothes. And I also couldn’t have cared less about the town visit. In fact it was all a bit odd. It seemed like the people in this town that didn’t have a role barely had faces. I had tried to voice my concerns to Victor as the shopkeeper, one of the few people that I could actually converse with here, ran back to do lord knows what with some measurements for me.

“Victor I can’t tell what anyone looks like,” I commented.

“What’s that?” he replied.

“It’s like it’s a town of ghosts just flitting about,” I said, “can you see anyone’s faces?”

“It feels fine to me,” he said, “everyone is doing what they’re supposed to do.”

“What happens if they don’t?” I replied.

He sighed, “you know the answer to that. And if you don’t by now, you don’t want to know the answer to that.” He then looked flustered, “I need to run an errand at a shop across town.”

So he was still sticking by the book. “You’re not afraid of leaving me alone here?” I replied, “not afraid of who I might meet?”

His face turned bright red. That wasn’t in the original novel. He was supposed to be cold to Annalise at this shop. She was supposed to be impressed by his cool demeanor but stuck having doubts. But this Victor? This Victor regardless of where he came from was a flustered, frequently depressed, emotional mess. “I’m not supposed to bring you on this errand Annalise,” he whispered.

“I wouldn’t judge you if I knew what it was,” I replied.

“I know,” he said sadly.

He froze as the shopkeeper returned with giant rabbit ears on his head. I sighed as we went to pay. I had maybe deviated from the script maybe too much. Although it was strange, because despite my lines, I still sort of felt what I was supposed to about the encounter. I had my doubts about Victor now, I was progressing along the plot of the book, I wasn’t really sure I was the reason this man had started to become a rabbit. I looked up at the man next to me as we finally were able to exit and was surprised to see him blush once again.

This Victor wasn’t obsessed with me the way book Victor had been. He didn’t seem to lust for me, and strangely I got the vibe he respected me. In fact he seemed to respect me even after my shenanigans in the carriage. “I,” he stammered.

“You need to go but you don’t want to,” I replied, “I’m guessing we’ll meet back at the carriage in an hour?”

“Thanks my lady,” he said. He stopped and turned to look back at me. “I wanted to say,” he said, “that you looked very beautiful in the blue dress you tried on back there.”

“Why thank you Victor,” I replied, “but didn’t we end up buying the green one?”

His face was still bright red, “I hadn’t been paying close attention to what we purchased… but you look beautiful in everything.” He walked forward and reached forwards as though he were about to offer me an awkward kiss on the forehead. He stopped himself instead and turned to leave once again, “I’ll see you soon my lady.”

He felt more like a middle schooler with a crush than an adult man. “I’ll see you soon too,” I replied. I wasn’t even sure if the response made sense. He didn’t seem to care when I blabbered anyways.

It was more painful than expected to watch him go. I tried to remind myself that he was the book villain as I went back towards the shops to mill about. What had Annalise even done? Window shopped? She was broke after all. I think Frederick was supposed to be at an inn. I went to look for him in the street first just in case and was not surprised to instead see the sea of blank faces. Was this what Victor had been living with his whole life until I arrived? My mind was wandering to darker and darker places as I decided to go straight to the inn. If I had to meet Frederick so be it. I’d go meet Frederick.

Unfortunately for me, he wasn’t at the inn yet either. Book Annalise had sat poised against an open window and he had caught her gaze for the first time as he passed. He thought he’d never seen something so lovely before. She had looked like she was caught up in some dark distracted thoughts. There was indeed an open window with a cushioned chair under it. Almost as if it were meant for me. I sat there and tried to poise myself as it became very apparent I’d forgotten to fix my hair. I debated brushing it with my fingers and gave up to instead stare wistfully around the place, or at least as wistfully as I could muster. Book Annalise was apparently the master of sitting around not being bored. Because I was done with this and it hadn’t even been a couple of minutes.

I heard some laughter next door and figured I’d go investigate. It also wasn’t surprising that the source was of course the local pub. It was also one of the few places that had people with faces. They were drunk faces, but I could make them out. And that right now was exactly what I needed. I went to sit at the corner of a long table as someone nearly poured an entire mug of beer on me. “What’s a pretty lady like you doing in here?” the man asked before meeting my eyes and uttering an “Ugg!”

“Is there something wrong with my face?” I replied.

“Just not what I expected,” he said as he then tipped forward and splashed a giant swig on the back of my head.

I jumped up to avoid another onslaught of alcohol as more men careened about the room. I realized I had really done myself in now. I smelled like beer and could only imagine my hair was really out of control now. I went running back towards the inn hoping I could salvage something. And yay me, there he was. Or at least who I thought Frederick was. A tall strapping blonde man was staring at the window I’d just been at in confusion. But when he turned to face me, I quickly realized he looked nothing like I expected at all…