by Ben J Henry
Alicia glanced up with the misguided idea that Rainn might show approval, but there was no one on the crater’s edge. Rainn had returned to whatever battle she was facing in the physical realm.
Uncomfortable before the sea of silent faces, Alicia cleared the audience. She had not a moment to herself before Amira returned. With her back to Alicia, the girl searched the crater’s rim for Rainn, awaiting further instruction. Alicia locked upon the back of her head.
‘Amira.’
The girl spun at the sound of a voice in her skull. Her eyes were wide, her mouth gaping. Alicia spoke hurriedly.
‘I know you’re at Burnflower. I’m looking for—’
Amira stumbled backwards and dived into the lava.
Drinking from shoes
The rain had not abated. Tripping over roots and slipping down streams of water that coursed along the moss-lined banks, Gus crossed the strip of woodland to where the sky began to lighten. He had just discerned the outline of the lighthouse through a gap in the trees when the bushes to his right rustled. From the leaves emerged the head of a large dog. The animal tensed before lowering into a crouch, silver-grey fur dripping on the sodden soil. Gus backed against a tree as the dog inched towards him. He held the rough bark between his hands and lowered his body, levelling his eyes with the beast.
‘Easy boy.’ His breath escaped as mist into the cold morning air.
Teeth bared, the husky sniffed gingerly at the torn and ragged jeans before raising his blue eyes to meet Gus’s. He turned and padded off into the trees.
Steadying his pounding heart, Gus continued towards the lighthouse, avoiding any semblance of a path until he reached a crop of bushes between the outlying trees. The structure towered on the cliff’s edge, the stone black against a platinum sky. Rainn leaned in the open doorway with her head resting against the wall and the captain’s rifle by her side. Water cascaded from the red cupola roof, hit the barrel of the gun and split like a curtain. Rainn’s clothes were soaked, with a large hole around her navel where the fire had burned through the white dress.
Gus crouched in the bushes and watched her eyelids fall. He waited a moment before emerging, ready to charge through the curtain of water and seize the weapon. But Rainn’s eyes snapped open and swept the clearing, narrowly missing Gus as he ducked behind the nearest tree. He maintained his position for several minutes, snatching glances of a pattern as Rainn blinked in and out of consciousness. So adept at lucid dreaming, she entered the state almost instantly, and took no more than a couple of seconds to visualise whatever portal she used before blinking to the tower. She monitored both the lighthouse and the thrones, spending less time in Vivador than it would take for Gus to dash across the clearing and grab the rifle.
Defeated, Gus crept into the woodland and made his way back to the plateau. Weak morning light outlined a path that wound from the sheet of rock to the mainland above, and before this lay the blowhole, its edges barely visible in the centre of the peninsula. There was no sign of the dog.
Gus hopped down to the ledge that ran along the cliffside and lifted his shoe to inspect the canine print beneath. He raced along the uneven path, tripping twice and steadying himself against the rock as his mind provoked him with images of what he might find in the shallow cave. Scrambling along the ledge, scattering small stones into the ocean below and calling Winter’s name as loud as he dared, he reached the overhang to see a grey tail poking from their shelter. With his heart in his throat, Gus peered inside to find Sam beside Winter. The dog’s shaggy head rested on the girl’s lap. Winter raised her eyebrows expectantly as he approached, stroking the beast that had savaged her.
‘She’s guarding the lighthouse,’ said Gus. The dog eyed him cautiously as he stepped over its tail. ‘She’s alone, I reckon. We’ll head for the mainland.’
Winter brushed a thumb between the dog’s ears.
‘If Peter wants her guarding the lighthouse, that’s where you should go.’
Gus narrowed his eyes, taken aback. Cold rain streamed down his cheeks. Winter had protested vehemently against waiting on the peninsula, and he had been reluctant to leave her when he woke. Her lips were tight, her face hard, and whether she was suffering or had simply resigned to her fate, he could not tell.
‘She’ll only sleep when I’m in Vivador—’
‘You can’t go back!’ Winter barked, loud enough for Sam to raise his head. She stroked him reassuringly and shifted her position so that he did not rest on her wounded thigh. ‘You can’t sit on that throne. This power—your soul—you would give it to them?’
Thunder rent the ocean as the pair stared into each other’s eyes.
‘It’s Alicia that has this power—’
‘You don’t know that.’
Gus scratched the back of his head and spoke tentatively. ‘Maybe if I sleep again, I could distract them in Vivador. You could head to the lighthouse and look for a phone…’
He trailed off. When recounting his conversation with Peter, Gus had not told Winter of his offer, which relied on her making it to the lighthouse alone. In her state, she would be lucky to cross the ledge without stumbling into the sea. And while it might energise her to demolish his plan, he would not frustrate her with it. With Rainn straddling sleep, awaiting him in both realms, he had no means of contacting his uncle and no time to search Vivador for Alicia.
He ducked under the overhang and leaned across Sam, who pricked his ears. He lifted one of Winter’s shoes from beside her, held it under the rain and let it fill with water.
‘You’re disgusting,’ she said as he offered her the water. He brought the golden heel to her mouth and she opened her lips to drink from the tattered rim.
‘I need to get you to a hospital,’ he said, sitting on his knees, his eyes drifting between the pallor of her lips and the bloodstained strip of dress that he had tied above the wound. His jacket did not appear to have warmed her.
‘You’re going to carry me? With those skinny arms of yours?’
Gus looked down at his arms, frowned, and leaned back against the rock. The rain fell in sheets from the overhang, separating them from the outside world. Splitting their cave from reality. Staring at the falling water, Gus thought of the dripping petrol, the fire, and Anna’s letters reduced to ash. What secrets had Alicia’s mother uncovered? Had she climbed that tower and laid her eyes on those spinning thrones? Had she made it into the lighthouse, as his parents had done? With bare elbows on wet knees, he ran his fingers against his temples, his head throbbing with all the unknown wisdom that Anna Harrington might have left behind.
‘You’re eighteen, right?’ asked Winter. ‘An adult? Your childhood is dead?’
‘All right, Hallmark.’
‘What have you learned? What do you know now that you didn’t when you were a kid?’
‘Aside from lucid dreaming leading to another realm—’
‘No, I mean about life. The real world.’
Gus cupped his head in his hands and stared through the rain at the ocean, his eyes distant.
‘When you’re standing at a pedestrian crossing, never assume the person beside you has pushed the button.’
‘You’re an idiot.’
He grinned and picked up the shoe. The downpour was starting to lighten and the sheets of rain had become thin streams that funnelled between the overhanging rocks. Winter watched him fill the high heel until water spilled over the rim, and then tipped it away with trembling fingers. Gus tossed the shoe into the corner behind him and studied her out of the corner of his eye. She had admitted speaking to her dead boyfriend. In what might have been her final hour, she had been honest with him. What else did she need to confess?
‘Go on then, humour me,’ he said. ‘What have you learned?’
She looked away and a distant flash of lightning lit the ocean. When her eyes returned they were filled with reluctance, as if pressed for the truth.
‘My dad was scared of everything. Mum, mostly, of course—but e
verything else too. He’d make excuses not to go out with friends and he’d put things off till the last minute—afraid to call up the plumber when the bathroom taps were installed backwards. He was always apologising. Always trying to please, even when someone had messed him about. He was such a psycho…sicko…’
‘Sycophant?’
‘It drove me nuts, listening to him. Watching him shrink smaller than everyone he met, like cats that roll over to submit to the boss—’
‘I think that’s dogs—’
‘He started getting these nightmares about losing his job at the post office. It drove him to drink.’
The rain pattered against the rock at their feet.
‘What happened?’
‘He went to work drunk and got fired.’
Gus leaned forward and laughed into the rain.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said, wiping his eyes.
‘It’s not funny,’ said Winter, unable to suppress a grin that exposed her flawless teeth.
‘It’s not funny,’ Gus agreed and Winter traced his face with her chestnut eyes, searching for creases of humour.
‘When he died, my dad, I told myself I’d never be scared. Never shrink like he did around other people.’ She shook her head and drops of rain flicked from the ends of her hair, landing on Sam’s twitching ears. ‘And guess what, Augustus? I’ve been scared every bloody day. I can hear them now—the voices. Warning me: don’t tell him anything that…’ She blinked slowly. ‘It’s so obvious, when you can hear it. So stupid. We don’t even know we’re listening to it.’
Gus watched her pinch at the droplets of rain between the dog’s ears, a mask of dejection on her ashen face.
‘You talked to Jack about your dad? Before, I mean.’
She nodded and turned to look at him.
‘Who do you talk to?’
Gus shrugged, and rubbed his eyes. When he spoke, his voice was jovial: ‘I guess that’s why old people are so fearless, right? They don’t give a damn any more, about what people think. They know it doesn’t matter.’
Winter released a breath, disappointed at his attempt to deflect the attention from himself.
‘You know what I’ve learned.’ Gus cleared his throat. ‘I’ve learned you’re not as stupid as you pretend to be. That trick with the petrol? You got us off that boat. Methinks the sprout hath brains.’
‘If you call me a sprout one more time—’
‘You will literally bite me?’
‘I will literally set this ferocious beast at your throat.’
Gus grinned, reaching out to scratch beneath a furry ear. Sam looked up sharply and then closed his eyes as Gus rubbed a spot on his neck.
‘I killed him,’ Winter uttered the thought aloud.
In both their minds, a scarecrow levelled a rifle in their direction and disappeared beneath explosion.
‘You didn’t know he would die. He could have jumped off the boat like the rest of us.’
She made no response. Whether it had been her intention or not, the captain was dead because of her. If not murder, it was manslaughter. The rain had finally ceased and Gus watched drops fall from the overhang as the peninsula drained. He watched his father stand at the bedside of his great-grandparents. Benedict Crow pulled a knife from his bag and faced the ancient figures as they dreamed their murderous dreams. In that situation, would Gus have the—
The what? The strength? The courage? The cold-blooded resolution to do what his father could not?
When faced with difficult choices, weaker minds will fail to do what is in their best interests.
He scratched the bare rock with a fingernail as heat filled his chest. There was no uncertainty as to what must be done. When he faced Aldous and Morna, he would succeed where his parents had failed.
Winter saw his face darken.
‘She’s right, you know. That pyromaniac has a point. About fear, I mean—that motor, driving us. My dad’s fear made him a sycophant, but yours is different. It makes you angry. We’re only angry when we’re afraid we can’t change the situation, my mum says. What are you so afraid of?’
Back from Vivador, Gus could hear his thoughts. Paranoid and defensive, they urged him to keep his mouth shut. Avoid judgement. Disappointment. Above the dog’s collar, Winter’s hand shifted against his and he met her eyes. In their isolated enclosure on this barren peninsula, they might have been the only two people in the waking world. Brown eyes glistened in the half-light as Winter closed the distance between them.
‘Winter.’ Gus leaned back a fraction. ‘I’m into guys.’
‘Blackout.’
Gus let out a chuckle, gazing across the ocean.
‘Don’t laugh, you tapeworm. I’m spending my last moments on Earth drinking from shoes and hitting on gay guys.’
Gus laughed again, his body shaking by Sam’s side. The dog let out a yawn that escaped its formidable jaws as an irritable groan, and Winter surrendered to the laughter in her chest. Light and indefensible, their mirth carried across the waves to where cirrus clouds were tainted pink by the first rays of the morning sun.
‘I’m not going to die scared,’ Winter whispered, stroking Sam’s fur and staring into the dawn of her final day.
Betrayal
The weight of the rifle lingered on her collarbone as Rainn cast her eyes across the hexagonal tiles. Gus’s head emerged from the stairwell and she released her grip on the material realm. Grounded in Vivador, she leaned against the arch, and the pull of that wet strap evaporated, replaced by the tactile sensation of crumbling stone beneath her fingertips.
The young man stepped into the throne room. His green eyes flitted between Peter and Rainn, waiting in opposite arches. Without a glance at the restored ceiling, Gus crossed the tiles toward the thrones. The curl in Peter’s cleft lip parodied a smile.
‘His will is stronger than his father’s,’ grunted Peter to Rainn, folding his arms and leaving his position under the arch. ‘Perhaps he will surprise us.’
Wordlessly, Gus stepped onto the revolving platform and stood before a throne. The pair watched him complete one full rotation, staring at the white seat.
‘This is not surrender,’ Peter continued. ‘You choose to end this. To end the uncertainty. The hunt that has cost so many lives.’
With stiff limbs, Gus lowered himself upon the throne.
Peter unfolded his arms and strode across the floor, dark hair ruffled by an impatient breeze that whipped between the arches. He stopped mid-stride as Rainn vanished from her archway to reappear on the empty throne. She raised her chin, her chiseled cheekbones white as the stone beneath her. Cerulean eyes strafed leftwards, following Peter as she drifted past him.
Her mouth did not move when she spoke. A low voice filled the chamber: ‘Should we not summon Aldous?’
Her emerald dress scattered the light, and green shadows played across the floor as she circled back into view. Her words had not been delivered between Peter’s ears, but out loud, available to those unseen. For the first time, she saw fear on his face.
‘Or…’ she mused, ‘perhaps you intend to claim the Sol for yourself?’
Rainn spun out of Peter’s view, her defiance exchanged for Gus’s white-eyed bewilderment. Peter spoke calm words over his head.
‘As members of the Order, we are here to determine whether Gus is in possession of the Sol. Not to claim it.’
Rainn’s nostrils flared, her expression regal. ‘You have trained me, tested me, analysed me like one of your stolen children…’ she scoffed. ‘Like a child. Another experiment for Aldous. Mighty Aldous. You would think he discovered this place alone. You would think he founded the Order alone. Aldous this and Aldous that—Morna might bend to her husband’s will, bend the knee to this patriarchy, but this realm was built by no man, built for no man, and will be commanded by no man. Not once, Peter—not in one iteration of this moment, did you consider that I might take the throne. That I might inherit this power. Have you forgotten that I am a Crow?’
Peter’s eyes were as vacant as his son’s, observing her patiently. No intention to respond. No desire to intervene.
Rainn closed her eyes.
‘Let’s see what my cousin is made of.’
The chamber froze. Each strand of hair on Peter’s head, the silver chain about his neck, the playful hem of Rainn’s dress—each lay unwavering as a still image. All that remained in motion were the revolving thrones.
And then, nothing.
‘Well,’ said Rainn, her tone clipped. ‘I guess the Sol doesn’t lie with a man after all. As I said, it’s Alicia we need.’
‘Or…’ rumbled Peter, ‘that is not Augustus.’
Rainn revolved away and the second throne passed into Peter’s view. Winter lounged upon it.
Rainn staggered from the platform, her footing uncertain as she crossed the tiles. She stretched out her hands, reaching for Peter’s support, but he disappeared. She fell against the archway and turned to stare at the imposter. Winter’s smile was defiant, not a trace of fear in her chestnut eyes.
Champagne
Melissa was agitated. She ploughed through fern and bramble on an unwavering path towards Burnflower. Alicia watched her stumble on a low ridge of grass at the woodland’s edge and glare at the green shoots, scolding their insolence.
Ten minutes earlier, Alicia had woken in the Jeep to find Melissa leaning across her legs. The headmistress had stuffed a small cardboard box and a pair of gloves in the compartment under the dashboard and then straightened up, her face flustered and her hair in disarray. Shadows beneath her eyes suggested a sleepless night.
The sun had risen, marking the end of Sunday night and the start of Monday morning. For eighteen years, Alicia had woken to little more than fuzzy slivers of an incoherent narrative, and while her time in Vivador had energised her physically, she struggled to compress the night’s events within six hours of sleep. From her journey on horseback to the battle with Amira, she needed to process her nocturnal adventures. Branches twanged in Melissa’s wake and Alicia shielded herself while attempting to describe the battle in the crater. She received no response.