by Terry Kitto
‘We should keep what we saw to ourselves,’ he said. ‘James finds out we withheld information, we can say goodbye to the Network.’
Sam dared not respond that he wanted little to do with the Network; he’d only receive scathing retorts.
‘Yeah,’ Trish responded, tone sullen. ‘Bye, Beaker. Bye, Bickle.’
The men murmured their byes back, and slammed the car doors shut. Trish reversed onto the deserted main road, tooted her horn, and sped toward Bugle.
The main lights in the Old Priory were broken, so Sam and Will had to descend the stairs in the putrid green glow of the emergency exit signs. The night they met was much the same. They’d snuck into Sam’s bedsit at night, careful not to wake his neighbours. That had been Sam’s seventh day into his Network induction. After an hour of lovemaking, they’d lain awake into the early hours and declared their deepest darkest secrets, hopes, and aspirations. They’d spent every night together since, but that had ended two months ago. Sex rarely happened. Soul-bearing conversations were nonexistent. How much could someone change in two months? Were they strangers to each other?
Stale food, towers of dirty crockery, and soiled laundry bombarded their noses when they entered the downtrodden flat. Will went straight to the bin, emptied it, and left without another word. Sam placed his satchel on the counter and took out the plastic wallet of ketamine. If they weren’t all used during withdrawal trials, it was compulsory to return them to the laboratories. Witnesses rarely did. He took a pill from the bag and held it between his thumb and forefinger. What abstinence could there truly be from a dependency that pivoted on the very fact one was abnormal? Ketamine did not cure him of his witnessing capabilities, nor did it allow him to forget them. It did numb the intensity of seeing the dead whilst the normality of the world became surreal. The two polar realities Sam struggled to live between merged into one cascade of colour and sound.
Sam skulked to the coffee table, crushed the remaining pills with a cast-iron ornament, and snorted them with a rolled five-pound note. He fell back onto the sofa. To his right were the balcony doors, and in front was the chimney breast. Light bent and refracted. The ceiling fan sparked with motion. Will was back. He spoke, but Sam couldn’t process his words. Will pointed from the coffee table to Sam, and he yelled and accused. Sam began to talk back. He didn’t know what; his mind was on the world that rotated around him. He felt every spinning particle and torrenting tide, every orbit as the Earth veered around the sun. Sam may as well have been occupied. In some ways he was, possessed by ketamine.
Will didn’t see the tongues of fire lick the wall around the chimney breast – his mind was more resilient to frequency energy than Sam’s. Imprints of priests darted forward, buckets in hand. The fire engulfed a cross on the mantle and gorged on a shelf of freshly printed testaments. The priests tossed water onto the flames, daring to be burnt. Anything to quell the destruction of their holy articles.
All in faith.
Will was beyond any notion of salvaging precious things. He had been for a long time. The cavalry of his shouts and tears were desperate last pleas; Will wanted to feel loved, but he was broken and tired, on the precipice of giving up.
Lost in the many delayed echoes of himself, Will gathered clothes and possessions and thrust them into bags as the fire dwindled to ash. The front door opened, and every lagging frame of Will’s movement dissipated until he was gone.
Good, Sam thought. Will was free of him, his addictions, and his afflictions. It was better that Will thought it was his choice. He’d move on from Sam. He’d start his life again and be free in ways Sam could never be.
By the fireplace, the priests came together and observed the damage that had been done. Sam slipped into a world that existed between the ombrederi and sleep.
At first Sam thought it was his own reflection on the shower door. He wiped away the steam, his hand making a gull-like squeak on the glass, to find Abidemi’s body above the toilet, her neck gripped by a noose, pirouetting in an absent breeze. Her eyes were open and hollow. Abidemi only came to Sam in her rawest form when she had a warning to deliver. Considering her absence from the Network, her message must have been urgent.
Sam lumbered from the bathtub and wrapped a towel around himself – misplaced dignity, as the dead did not care for modesty. Abidemi’s projection shifted as he moved, sometimes a child and sometimes a woman; six hundred years of death could teach one more about life than living could.
He hadn’t been aware of her arrival. The scalding water numbed the static that drummed on his skin. Sam closed his eyes. The underside of his eyelids burst with colour until Abidemi’s aura – which radiated heartbreak and forbidden love – dissipated along with the ombrederi.
Sam opened his eyes to the loneliness of the flat once more. Beyond the steady drip of the leaky showerhead, the flat was silent. He tiptoed into the hall, taking care not to slip on the linoleum. Recollections of the previous night were jumbled with fire and urgent priests. He had been on the sofa, and Will had pointed and cried at the ketamine dust on the coffee table that was still there. Will wasn’t. Sam’s sins always remained with him.
His name was screamed, far off, miles away. No, it wasn’t human or organic, but a car, the toot of its horn, and it was just outside the balcony doors. Sam whipped them open. The morning sunlight overwhelmed his eyes. The Reliant Robin was parked in the potholed car park. Trish impatiently tooted its horn and mouthed through the window, Code red!
He darted to the bedroom that was now just his. Still damp in places, he clothed himself and raced down the shadowy staircase before his shoelaces were properly tied. Inside the Reliant, Trish sped away from the apartment block and toward Gorenn. She didn’t know what the code red was. It didn’t deter her from prying. ‘Do you need to go to the Refinery? Talk to James, he’ll understand.’
Sam hadn’t even mentioned the night before. Will had surely texted her. Either that or her foresight. He pulled the passenger visor down and inspected himself in its mirror. His skin was grey, eyes bloodshot.
‘The Refinery is a load of bollocks,’ Sam said. ‘James knows it, the whole board knows it. He’d send me there and keep me there as punishment for everything we’ve done.’
‘Sounds like you’ve given up, like you don’t care about your sobriety.’
Everyone else – his friends, the Network, Will’s family – cared for his sobriety more than he did. His afflictions were firmly on the outside for all to see, so everyone felt entitled to comment. How could he care for his sobriety? There was no true cure to seeing the dead day in and day out. Other witnesses had found peace with it. Sam knew it manifested in other, by no means healthier, ways. Consider Trish, who used her witnessing abilities to reconnect with Shauna using stolen Network technology.
‘I don’t want to be sober. The problem isn’t me – it’s everyone else.’
Trish slammed the brakes. The rear of the Reliant kicked out, and the car came to a stop along the width of the lane. A queasiness – from Trish’s driving, the comedown, both – tugged at his intestines. Trish’s voice rang loudly, and she thumped the steering wheel with every word.
‘It’s-a-problem-because-they-love-you. You-don’t-hurt-the-people-you-love, you-just-don’t.’
The dustcover on the back seat slipped, uncovering the receptor. Another unsuccessful night hunting Shauna and finding the shadow imprint, Sam presumed. Grief is selfish. Sam had always thought that.
‘Code red,’ Sam prompted. He wouldn’t make promises he couldn’t keep.
Trish revved the Reliant back to life, and the rest of the twenty-minute journey to the collieries passed in a quiet tension. The activity centre was in a grave silence when they arrived, as though everyone was in mourning. Trish was quick to confirm his suspicions.
‘I think someone’s died.’
A ripple of whispers coursed through their colleagues as they crossed the cavern to the birdcage. Vanessa, with an agility that defied the physics bound to h
er overweight body, dove inside and beckoned James out. He walked to them with a stoic purpose.
‘I think it’s the Abadi girl,’ Sam whispered through the corner of his mouth.
‘It isn’t,’ Trish said. James was too close for Sam to question her.
‘I tried to call,’ James said. ‘Let’s go to my office.’
Considering the uneven ground on which their working relationship stood, Sam and Trish knew better than to question James and so followed him inside. Trish bowed her head as they went. All eyes were on them. All except Will’s. He was probably metres underground in the laboratories. James closed the office door.
No. Will would be in the activity centre during a red alert. He’d demand to be given tasks, to fulfil his duty in a time of need.
Sam couldn’t sit down, his feet rooted to the floor. He squeezed the back of the wooden chair. There seemed to be a malignant force nestled in the furniture, for as soon as Trish sat, she buried her face in her hands. James reclined into his, face wrinkled into a grief-stricken mosaic. He said through tears, ‘Will is dead. I’m sorry.’
Eyes, so many eyes. Witnesses peered in through the glass from the activity centre. Trish’s were pained and glistening, James’s wide and waiting. So why did Sam smile?
It was ridiculous. It was Friday, and Sam would make up with Will, promise sobriety – another trip to the Refinery if he had to – and cook a chili for them. He’d apologise for his behaviour with a bottle of Will’s favourite red, a cordial for himself. On Saturday they’d watch the local cricket match, then saunter to a nearby beer garden for the evening. Sunday would be a slow sweaty morning where their only activities involved their bed. To Will’s parents’ for a midday roast, tiptoeing through family politics and local gossip. Will couldn’t have died when Sam’s whole existence needed Will in it for it to mean anything at all.
‘Sam, say something,’ James pleaded.
Trish sobbed with sharp intakes of breath. Sam’s face was dry. He stood and waited for a tide of sadness to slam against him. All that came was agitation.
‘How do you mean, died?’ he growled.
‘What we know is limited,’ James said carefully. ‘The police got there first.’
‘You knew there was an issue?’
‘There was a frequency spike in Rosenannon. Imprint activity was detected at his parents’ property.’
‘An imprint?’ Sam was sceptical.
‘Potentially.’
‘So an accident,’ Trish thought out loud. ‘An engagement went wrong. He always said an imprint haunted that cottage.’
‘Everything is speculation at this point,’ James said. It bothered Sam how quickly this news became an investigation, peeling off any personal ties to the event. To Will. ‘We dispatched the occupations unit there. They found a signature outside the house.’
‘Who?’ Sam couldn’t have said it sharper if he’d tried.
James eyed him wearily, and maintained eye contact with Sam as he said, ‘The signature was a noose. Abidemi.’
James continued to relay facts and figures, stuff strictly business that had no place in that moment. Imprints left signatures, an image or emotion, in their wake to tell witnesses they’d been there. Guilt niggled in the pit of Sam’s stomach. Abidemi had met him just before Will’s death, perhaps after – Sam could not pinpoint events to hours over the last couple of days. She only ever met him to warn him. Perhaps she’d tried to alert him of Will’s death.
‘This is a mistake,’ Sam uttered. James and Trish didn’t hear over their fraught voices. So Sam shouted, ‘He can’t be dead!’
James’s and Trish’s babble was cut off quicker than a guillotine to the necks of the guilty. James approached Sam, hands out as if to embrace him.
‘I know this is hard – ’
‘I need to see. I need to see the house.’
Sam strode from the desk before a response was given and fled from the birdcage. James’s and Trish’s footsteps clunked as they chased after him through the myriad of desks. Trish called for him to come back. It was no good; he was adamant. His only concern was to prove that they were severely misinformed.
‘Let him go!’ James yelled. ‘He’s grieving!’
Wrong on both counts. Sam couldn’t possibly grieve because no one had died. Of course Trish wouldn’t let him go alone.
‘Take me to Marge’s and Phil’s,’ Sam barked at Trish as he ascended the main ladder to the northern exit. He dared not call it Will’s; he belonged back at the priory with Sam.
Trish stumbled behind him. She sniffled and coughed as she went.
‘I’m not in the right state of mind.’
‘Then give me your keys.’
Sam reached the indoor car park, blinded by the sun as it filtered through the warehouse skylights. Sam turned to face Trish, a dishevelled mess. He held out his hand.
‘You’re in no fit state yourself,’ Trish remarked.
‘This can’t wait,’ Sam said. ‘I need to know, Trish. Don’t you understand? I need to know!’
‘Okay, okay,’ Trish said. She crossed to the Reliant, fumbling with her keys. ‘But I’m driving slow.’
‘Just get me there,’ Sam said. He climbed into the Reliant.
The journey through the winding sun-washed B-roads was the longest forty minutes of Sam’s life. He glanced at the clock on the Reliant’s dashboard, then to his phone’s lock screen, as if time had been bottled in gelatin. All he could picture was Will’s face, bearing that defeatist smile he often wore when accepting Sam’s apology. Sam would say sorry profusely. He’d never give Will a reason to run to his parents again, and he would tell him that. But with every sluggish minute, the thought of Will taking Sam back seemed slimmer. When Trish turned into the Reeves’ driveway, the concept of seeing Will’s face was snatched away.
The Reeves’ refurbished cottage wore slate and granite like armour. Will hated it, for it had been an imprint magnet during his adolescence. Sam detested it because it was the home of Margaret and Phil. Ex-owners of the local cricket club, Phil had become somewhat withdrawn in his later years and left Marge to spit her venom whilst he tinkered away undisturbed in the workshop. It had lost its aura with recent events. The window to Will’s old bedroom, situated on the farthest side of the first floor, was shattered, and where glass should have been was a ripple of yellow police tape. Two emergency police cars and a van were parked on the gravel, around which loitered a medley of cops as forensics shed their bodysuits. All of them turned as the Reliant pulled up. At least ten pairs of eyes, all assuming, all questioning. That was when he thought, What if they think I did it?
He leapt from the Reliant before Trish had pulled it to a stop. He stumbled on the gravel, righted himself, and raced toward the cottage, sure to keep a wide berth of the police in case they were to hold him back.
‘Sam!’ Trish yelled. ‘Sam, don’t go in!’
The flower beds beneath the kitchen window were flattened where something heavy had fallen, cordoned off by more police tape. Glass dewed the gravel path.
Sam turned the corner to the side of the house and staggered into the two people he wanted to see least: Phil and Margaret. Margaret let out a hoarse gasp and Phil, who Sam noted was unsteady on his legs, managed to grab him by the arms.
‘Sam, my lover,’ he said, his eyes watery blue pools. Will’s eyes. ‘I’m sorry. Will – ’
Sam fought his way out of Phil’s grip. He pushed past them.
‘Sam!’
Sam paid no attention. He barged through the side door into the reception-come-kitchen, skated across the kitchen tiles, and crossed into the low-ceilinged hallway. The main stairs to the first floor were steep and creaked under his weight. There it was: Will’s bright blue door at the head of the stairs. More bile-yellow police tape was strung diagonally across the doorway.
There was no hesitation. He needed to know.
Sam threw the door open. It scuffed the carpet; one of the hinges had shattered. What was o
nce a wardrobe and bedside table had been reduced to splintered fragments. The vintage floor lamp that Will had tried to steal for their flat was in a twisted heap by the window. The window was now just an empty orifice framing the summer day outside. Will had fallen to his death. Splatters of blood left an erratic spiral along the carpet, walls, and ceiling. His blood, adamant to remain on the Earth.
Sam’s knees buckled.
Will’s blood.
Trish arrived outside the door. She sobbed and panted, trying to catch her breath. She didn’t dare enter the bedroom. What she could see was enough to make her cry.
Sam dared not look her way. He didn’t want her to see his dry face. So he did his best to absorb the room, in the dishevelled mess it was, to make himself believe the unavoidable.
This is real, he thought. This is real, so cry. Why aren’t you crying?
Only the bed frame seemed intact, whilst the shelves and photo frames had been obliterated. Even The Vincent, a print of a painting of the nineteenth century ship, was smashed and torn on the stained carpet. Will had hated it but kept it up to appease Margaret.
‘Sam,’ Trish gasped.
He picked the print up in his unsteady hands. The canvas had been torn. Someone had mentioned it so uncertainly that it had been dismissed on the very spot. That was it. The Abadi girl. It seemed the most important thing in the world. He repeated it to make sure it sounded right on his tongue, and it did.
‘The Vincent will fall.’
Ewella runs because they called her strange. Foles, the village children cried in Kernewek. They wouldn’t stop, so Ewella runs through wild woodlands and across fields of crisp mud. The summer sun scorches her shoulders, but at least the emotions she feels are her own. Two summers past, in a raid that pre-empted the Battle of Lostwithiel of 1644, Britons butchered her father and many other villagers. Since that night, her mind conjures the queerest of imagery. Memories not her own. Lust and greed and hatred surpass anything she encountered in her small years. The people she sees, who no longer walk the earth.