I went to see Emmet.
This wasn't about anything specific.
I just needed somewhere quiet that wasn't my own quiet, if that makes sense. My quiet has been very loud lately and sometimes you need to borrow someone else's quiet for a while.
Emmet's library is the right kind. It smells of books and something warm and there's a fire that crackles without needing an extinguisher. Solas the little duck was in his pocket. Everything was where it was supposed to be. It always is. I like that about the library.
I sat down.
Emmet made tea.
We didn't say anything for a bit.
Then I said: "I have a Barbie."
He didn't react the way I expected. He just waited. People usually have questions. Or opinions.
"Maxx gave her to me. After the biathlon. He said she keeps secrets."
"Does she?" Emmet asked.
"Yes. I mean... I think so. She hasn't told anyone anything yet."
Emmet nodded. Set down his cup. Looked at me the way he looks at things he's actually interested in, which is different from how most people look at things.
"Tell me about the brush."
I looked at him. "How did you know about the brush?"
"You mentioned it once. You said you brush her hair."
"To say thank-you."
"Is that what it is?"
I opened my mouth. Closed it. Thought about it properly for the first time.
"...no. Not really."
"What is it, then?"
This took a while. Her job is complicated. And simple. And difficult to find the words for.
So I said... "It's like. When her hair isn't tidy, there's a — it's not sad, exactly. Sad is in there but it's not the whole thing. It's more like a frequency. Something that isn't sitting right. Something that's in the wrong place. It makes your insides feel wrong.
"And when you brush it?"
"It ... the wrong feeling. It stops being loud. It... it goes quiet."
He looked at me.
"The frequency."
"Yeah. I see."
He picked up his cup again. Didn't say anything for a moment. I never know what to do with that.
"So, to be sure I have this right... when the world is too messy to fix all by yourself. When things are too big or too loud or too much. There's one small thing you can put right."
I looked at the fire.
"...yeah."
"And putting it right makes the noise smaller?"
"Yeah."
Emmet nodded slowly.
"That's not nothing, George."
I didn't say anything.
"That's not mard."
[I looked at the fire for a long time after that.]
We talked for a while longer. I don't know how it got onto Dennis but it always does, eventually.
I was trying to explain about the luge. About why I got on it. And I heard myself saying it — because Dennis asked, and he was brave enough to ask, so I said yes — and Emmet asked why that was brave of Dennis, and I said:
"Because everyone tells him he's stupid. Every time he makes something. Every time he brings a blueprint somewhere. He already knows what they're going to say and he makes the thing anyway and he asks for help anyway and he just — keeps going."
Emmet was quiet.
"And you?" he asked, quietly.
"Me what?"
"What are you afraid of?"
I thought about it.
"Things that haven't happened yet. Mostly. Things that might go wrong.
Things that might hurt. Things I can imagine but that haven't — "
I stopped. Frozen. Oh no.
Emmet waited.
"His fears already happened," I said. "He knows exactly what they're going to say. And he still makes the thing."
Emmet's crow's feet appear. They came with his face. They look like they might be new or ancient.
"Yes," he said. "He does."
I didn't understand why he was looking at me like that.
I still don't, completely.
But I thought about it on the way home.
And I brushed Barbie's hair when I got in.
And it went quiet.