Quoted By:
"Pretty much. Gil! Put your hand in it! We have to test it sometime. And Eloise is right here, and she's an expert, so if it goes wrong she can help fix it. It's this or waiting around for <span class="mu-i">you-know</span> to come back, and that might not be for days and days, for all I know, so we better— we better— it's for efficiency!"
"Uh-huh," Gil says, and stares at the now-open box. (You've taken it back from Eloise.)
"Well, go on."
He puts his hand inside the box, and you take the liberty of shutting the lid. It doesn't shut. His hand's in it. "Does it need to be closed all the way?" you ask Eloise.
"I'd think it'd help!"
Oh. Well... Gil said he couldn't feel pain, right? 'Sorry,' you mouth, then press down on the lid, hard. You jam it down, really. Gil's wrist splurches, and his lips thin, but he doesn't get up and leave or anything. The box's lid is see-through, which enables you to see the oozing edge of Gil's wrist, and his twitching disembodied hand, and the strip of skin still joining the two. Gil does not look pained, physically speaking.
You latch the lid tight and rattle the box. Gil's hand, also oozing, wobbles on its skin tether. (Is it skin? It's just tough goo. Whatever.) "Gil!" you hiss. "Do you feel anything weird?"
Gil's expression makes you regret asking— but then he sighs, closes one eye, and clenches the creepy hand into a creepy fist. It glows so blue you see it through your eyelids: then you open them, and there's beetles in the box, and there's Gil with one hand.
"Well! You know how to pick them, don't you?" Eloise lowers her own hand from her eyes, then leans over the box. "Hah. Those are beetles, all right. The real Gil, at last!"
"I-I am the real Gil," Gil says tersely.
"Oh, of course! Poor choice of wording. But these are you? Or do you control—"
Cradling his wrist, he turns pointedly away. "Ask him, not me."
"'Him'?" Eloise looks to you.
Him? Hmm. You have a hunch, and to confirm it you shut your good eye. Strings flare up blue everywhere— but especially where Eloise is (the ordinary tangle), where you are (the sun), where Gil is (the embroidery-loop thing), and... where the box is (a small cobweb, not joined at all to the rest of Gil). A-ha. You open your eye. "That's Gil in the box."
"Er, yes, I did—"
"Another Gil. Not him." You pause. "It's complicated. Er. I guess not that complicated. It's just him split off."
One-handed Gil grunts. Inside the box, the beetles twitch and scutter, evincing no inner life, probably just to spite you. "How do you know?" Eloise asks.
"I saw the strings. Also, he's done it before, lots of times. So don't bother pretending, Gil. You sold yourself out and everything."
"You <span class="mu-i">saw</span> the—"
But Eloise is interrupted by a muffled voice. "...Hi."
Eloise's eyebrows go way, way up. "Well! Hello! You're Gil?"
(3/4)
