Free Rook by Daniel O'Malley Page A

way.
    “Go on,” she said quietly.
    “Now, Miffy, you mustn’t think that I am not proud of you, but your potential power was obviously much greater than you’ve everlived up to. You must know this. After all, you never seemed to enjoy using your gifts. You obtained exactly as much control as you had to—never more—and it was clear you were never going to be an effective field agent. Heavens! You would drop your keys if someone yelled at you. Can you imagine what would happen if we gave you a gun?” Steffi smiled and gave a little rueful laugh.
    “No, it was clear that you could not be sent out to whatever sewer or forest or semidetached house some monster had decided to live in. You had a good memory, a quick mind, and you were so thoroughly immersed in the Checquy that there was no question of releasing you back into the real world. So we let you slide into admin. But not without some regret.”
    “Hmm,” hmmed Myfanwy. She was about to ask how powerful Thomas had had the potential to be when the secretary came back in.
    “I’m sorry to bother you, Rook Thomas, but Rook Gestalt will be here in fifteen minutes for your appointment.”
    “Coming here?” Steffi asked in surprise. “Tell me, Ingrid, which body is Gestalt wearing today?”
    Which
body? thought Myfanwy in bemusement.
    “The twins will be visiting today, Frau Blümen,” said Ingrid.
    “Ugh, well, in that case I shall leave now,” said the portly woman with a shudder. “If ever you worry that you did not flourish in your powers, Miffy, look at that one. An astounding warrior, a master of supernatural gifts, and, in my opinion, a complete failure as a person.” She shook her head.
    “In any case, we will make another appointment soon. We got so caught up in reminiscing that we didn’t even have a chance to go over the candidates for the Estate.” Blümen laid a folder of profiles on the coffee table, patted her old pupil on the cheek, and went out. After she left the room, Myfanwy went to the desk and added a few notes to the list of terms and names she needed to look up. The Court. The Estate. Steffi Blümen. Wattleman (killing Nazis while
naked?
). Farrier. But to deal with the immediate future, she returned to the couch and paged hurriedly to the section on Gestalt.
     
Rook Gestalt
    Nine years before I was born, some poor woman had to give birth to four children in one sitting. Three boys and one girl. Two of the boys were identical. That’s not the weirdest thing, however. The weirdest thing was that when all four pairs of eyes opened, only one mind was looking out from behind them. This was Gestalt.
    Gestalt is kind of disconcerting, because it/he/she/they is/are spread over four bodies. People try to avoid calling Gestalt anything but Gestalt because they get confused about the grammar. However, it’s very tiresome to constantly write
Gestalt
instead of using a pronoun. So, when I need a pronoun in this description, I’ll refer to Gestalt as
it.
I don’t do it in general conversation—that would be rude.
    Its parents were, understandably, terribly distressed by their peculiar offspring. I suppose that when you have four children and all of them do exactly the same thing at the same time or one of them does something while the other three lie comatose on the floor, you’re going to be freaked out. Plus, there’s the stress of recuperating from having four babies at once. So, when the Checquy turned up on the babies’ first birthday and offered to take them off their parents’ hands, the couple was relieved beyond words. Sadly, this is often the case with the children that the Checquy acquires. They’re weird children and they have weird needs.
    Gestalt took to the Checquy like four strange, hive-minded ducks to water. Or maybe that should be one strange mind inhabiting four ducks. Damn it.
    This is why Gestalt is so irritating to work with.
    In any case, the Checquy took Gestalt to the Estate. They taught it, trained it, and