~1.8~

The door opened the instant that Woe’s knuckles brushed its cream-colored surface. The woman who answered… if she was, in fact, opening the door in answer… was taller and thinner than Woe, angular and raven-haired. She actually looked like she could have been 37, though her face was aged more from grief and smoke.

“You’ve lost your shoes again,” she noted, glancing down at Woe’s striped-stockinged feet.

“I had them when I left,” Woe said, not sounding concerned. “They must’ve been stolen.”

“If I let you in, do you promise not to pee on my floor?” the woman asked.

“I won’t need to,” Woe said. “I went in the elevator.”

The woman sighed and put her fingers to her temple, praying inward for strength.

“I do have a toilet, you know,” she said at length.

“Oh, good,” Woe said, somewhat indifferently. She held up the jar with her fish. “Can I put Herman in it?”

“Only if you want to flush him away,” the woman said. She finally opened the door and stepped aside, allowing Woe into the well-appointed loft apartment. “So, what brought you out? Not that I mind seeing you.”

The lower level was all one open space, but it was a big one. There was a jar of green dye waiting on the table, and Woe went to it, picking it up without hesitation.

“A man is coming to see me,” Woe said. She paused, and then added, suddenly certain that whatever was about to come out of her mouth was true, “I think he will want to kill me.”

Her hostess took this information in stride, or at least showed no outward reaction to it.

 ”You staying very long?” she asked.

“Can’t,” Woe said. “We aren’t meant to be together forever, or for very long. We’re like opposite poles of a magnet.”

“The opposite poles are supposed to be drawn together,” the woman said.

Woe blinked a few times, then asked, “Then why are they always at different ends?”