Personal Darkness

by Tanith Lee

  Through the shadows into the firelight, Ruth moved, out of the dusk. With her puffed sleeves and long ebony tresses, she was like a modern picture-book version of Snow White. Except for the bruise.

  The travelers accepted her coolly. But they let her sit by the fire without argument. And when she said she was hungry, they gave her a portion of the Primus cooked food, nectarine-colored baked beans, and from the black wok a dollop of crisped oily peppers, tomatoes, lentils, peas, onion and rice. Some wine was opened and of this too they gave Ruth a mugful.

  They spoke in university accents, had tattoos on their arms, shoulders, and breasts, done with ink and a pin.

  After an hour or so, someone asked Ruth what had happened to her face. Truth had overturned fantasy by then. She told them her father had struck her. This they absorbed, wordless, as if, with her couth voice and tale of generation violence, she had passed some test.

  A spot or two of blood on her antique dress they ignored, although, in the days to come, Susie would sell Ruth's dress in a town. By then they had dressed her like themselves. They advised her to cut her hair, it would get dirty. But Ruth managed to wash her hair and her body at the sink in the back of the Volkswagen, which the rest of them used occasionally. They gave her strict privacy for that, as they did each other.

  Two of the girls, Susie and Clare, were sleeping with two of the men, Mike and Colin. Only one of the children came of these unions. The others had sprung from earlier attachments. In a way, the children were held in common, as in a wolf pack, although they did not get the care or affection wolves lavish on their young. Ruth had no time for the children at all. The travelers thought her sixteen, but in fact of course she was not even twelve, too close to childhood herself.

  They would take turns with the driving. The others sat or lay in the backs of the vans, amid the bedding, buckets, boxes, and bags.

  At night, Ruth slept in the back of the "girls' van," with Jane, Pat, and Chloe.

  They were vegetarians. They told Ruth how much better this was for the spirit and the bowel, but Ruth missed meat, and now and then they indulged her with ham rolls or fish and chips.

  Chloe and Ron had credit cards, and in the towns, where often the travelers were refused service, Chloe and Ron would queue up in the street at cash machines. Conversely sometimes, Peter, Susie, and Mike would take the children and go begging.

  Their life was aimless, that was, literally without aims. This was what living was about, they said. Not to join in, become imprisoned by rules and inhibitions. One should simply exist.

  Ruth, because she had lawlessly, liberatedly, come to them, and perhaps because, as her injury faded, she looked unusual, they had kept. But she never fitted in with them, her hair in a long plait, her hands without tattoos, her ears unpierced, her shoes too big, her face like porcelain.

  At night Allan would play the guitar, or they brought out the radio tape machine. But the music they produced did not appeal to Ruth. She thirsted for Prokofiev, and Beethoven, as she did for the meat.

  Ruth contributed nothing, although now and then she joined the begging parties. She bought a skirt and T-shirt in an Oxfam shop. Chloe gave her the money. Ruth had not thought to take anything from Tom Rob-bins, beyond the makeup kit he had given her. The methods of the travelers taught her what she should have done, as once in the street Roger found a wallet. They shared the money equally between them.

  The summer died around them as they traveled up and down the roads. Smoky mornings, trees like bonfires. Frost on the vans, with their scratched painted dragons, and on the loads that were roped to their tops. The clothes altered a fraction. Heavy jumpers, thicker socks, gloves and scarves, for Ruth a dilapidated raincoat. The quarrels began. They were always squabbling, but this was harsher. They quoted Shakespeare and Nietzsche. Susie threw a saucepan.

  As the cold shut down, the group began to break up.

  Peter and Allan, Mitch, Roger and Tony went off together. Susie and Mike left separately. Then Pat was gone, then Jane. They would be back, apparently, in the spring. The children were abandoned, at least one by its parents, but desertion seemed to make no difference.

  Ron and Colin, Clare and Chloe remained. And Ruth. Ron and Chloe became close. Ruth slept alone in the "girls' van," at first with the children. But the children were afraid of Ruth, and in the end they went into the Volkswagen with Chloe and Ron.

  The remaining travelers overwintered above a village built of gray stone, under rounded, louring hills that eventually were marbled with snow.

  The cottage in which they lived was the summer retreat of Ron's elder brother, who perhaps did not know that they were there. Certainly they treated his furnishings with scant care, and used his electricity generously. There was no central heating, but electric fires were in all the rooms, and in the living rooms they burned wood on the open hearth.

  They shopped in the village without problems.

  The winter was a confinement. They all grew to hate each other deeply. Initially Clare sided with Colin against Ron and Chloe. Then Chloe and Clare banded together. One early morning, when the snow had begun to melt, Ron drove off in the Volkswagen, leaving Chloe's things in a pile on the cottage floor.

  Chloe mourned, and in the end Colin went to bed with her. This caused an ultimate estrangement of which, oddly, Ruth was made the scapegoat.

  In the spring, they cast Ruth forth. They had found out from her that she had a friend in Cheltenham. They gave her some money to get there.

  Ruth was not sorry to go. But as she walked along the village lane toward the highway, she felt a sense of something left undone.

  Emma Watt had lived in Cheltenham, with her daughter and her daughter's husband. Ruth recalled perfectly the number of the house, and the road. Emma, physically, she recalled less well. Emma had been Ruth's mother, although not in name—"Mommy" was Rachaela. Emma, however, had brought Ruth up, taught her to read, cooked for her, made her world. And then Emma's daughter had wanted Emma. And Emma left Ruth at once. Ruth had been seven.

  Ruth was twelve now. Unmarked, her birthday had gone by just before Christmas, when the travelers had been organizing nut roast and carrot cake to celebrate.

  Emma would not recognize Ruth. But Ruth, who had forgotten Emma's face, would know Emma at once.

  There was a deep animal excitement about going back. Ruth did not analyze it, was not even entirely aware of it.

  But on the journey, as she put on her skimpy skirt under the old raincoat in the station lavatory, Ruth remembered she was Scarabae.

  On some amorphous level, she had noted what had been wrong in her parting from Chloe and Clare and Colin. The thing she should have done. The thing she could do.

  That she had not thereafter found Emma did not count. She could go on looking for her. And she could look anywhere, anywhere at all.

  At the tramps' fire, Sedge stirred as Ruth walked past above him. The other two slept.

  Sedge got up and stumbled after Ruth.

  When she turned, he plucked out the silver cross he still contrived to wear, unknown, about his neck, and jiggled it at her.

  Ruth showed her teeth like a cat, and ran away into the darkness.

  CHAPTER 12

  DURING THE LONG SUMMER EVENINGS, the Scarabae still dined after sunset. They would gather beforehand in the white drawing room, in front of the white television, to watch the late news.

  Eric came in first; sometimes he had been there most of the afternoon. Then Sasha and Miranda. Now and then Rachaela would join them. Why? The terrible events of the world did not truly penetrate her mind. Powerless, she was uninterested. To be with the Scarabae then, maybe only a courtesy, before dining.

  Camillo was absent, with his handmaidens. They had gone on the trike to the Round House.

  And the Scarabae women had come out of mourning. Tonight Sasha wore lavender and Miranda indigo. They were new gowns, styled after the 1940s and '50s. Eric wore a correct evening jacket, perhaps from the 1930s.

&n
bsp; Rachaela had put on the gray silk dress she had selected from a catalogue, and on her hand the ruby ring they had given her.

  An hour before she had been naked in her bathroom, having slept all afternoon.

  She had tried not to look at her body, but there was a long mirror opposite the bath, its glass clear with only a little flotation of enamel water lilies. This might be a concession to her fleshly youth, as the windows which opened were the consolation of her waywardness.

  The mirror had made her look, and see.

  Black fleece of slightly curling hair, from the head and from the groin. Creamy skin without a touch of her proper age. The slim firm body and immaculate breasts of a woman of twenty-five or -six. Beautiful. Yes, she was beautiful. And once, she had felt so—one night. By the sea. With him.

  But he was gone, and she was here.

  She had dressed quickly and come down, down to the Scarabae and their television, to elude the dark ghost of Adamus in her bedroom, who sometimes, even now, would approach her in dreams. The wound of pleasure, which surely his death should have cauterized, even if the birth of Ruth had not.

  Something political was on the TV screen.

  "The Prime Minister said today that she…"

  Michael and Cheta were serving drinks. Miranda drank gin and tonic now, surely that had never been so, before. Sasha took a cerise kir. And Eric had black brandy, as Stephan had done. Michael brought Rachaela a glass of white wine. She noticed its peculiar freshness, an undertaste of apples. She was about to ask Michael its origin, when a dire picture darkened the screen. It was the frame of a burned house.

  Not, of course, like the Scarabae house, not remotely. This was the remnant of a terrace dwelling, and it had not, for example, collapsed. Yet the windows gaped in on a rabid, empty blackness.

  "… The latest fire, which also occurred in southeast London, has now definitely been linked to the series of other fires police have been investigating since April of this year. The circumstances surrounding the first of these fires, which took place in Cheltenham, were quickly believed to be suspicious when the remains of a frying pan were found on the floor of the downstairs hall."

  A shot of another burned ruin, in a different sort of terrace, with tall pillars now black and smoking. A fireman stood in his battle helmet, smudged and very tired.

  "We don't like the look of it at all," he said. Under his chest appeared the caption of his name and rank and an April date. "There was no toxic material in the house, and the fire seems to have started downstairs. Two of the people don't seem to have woken up, and you'd expect they would. The third man looked funny. I mean, he looked odd. You get to know—the way they look. And it wasn't right."

  To another angle of this blackened house, the announcer went on in the voice he reserved for ill tidings short of war and famine, "Two similar fires a few days later in the Oxford area alerted police nationwide."

  And another view came up, another house, also charred and inimical. Followed by others. All were different and all had been rendered to a dreadful sameness.

  The ruins were followed by montages of scenes, happy family groups, confetti weddings, school outings, such jolly, such ordinary occasions, days of roses and daisies the participants had not known would end in this. Names were read out, but they were gone in a flash.

  The announcer resumed in his tragedy voice:

  "A chain of fires in Oxford, Reading, and Guildford were soon firmly connected to the Cheltenham case. Forensic evidence, where available, revealed that all the victims had died before the fires took hold, of lacerations and punctures to the neck and throat. In the second of the Guildford fires, three small children were among the dead."

  More photographs, three little unlived-in masks, like unbought toys.

  Another ruin and another fireman, face congested, nearly desperate. "We see some things. But this little kiddy. No, she was already dead. There can't be any doubt. The fire didn't get up to her." Picture and sound were abruptly cut off.

  "Two fires in southeast London, the most recent of which took place during Sunday afternoon, are now believed to be the latest of the arson attacks. Four people lost their lives. Names are being withheld until relatives have been informed." The announcer rallied like a warrior. "Police now say they have an important lead."

  A police officer appeared, in a suit no one had warned the producer would pixilate, so rainbows zigzagged over the screen.

  "A very curious incident was reported at the scene of the latest attack. A young woman left the pet cat with a neighbor just before the fire broke out. A similar event occurred in Guildford. A pet dog was removed from the arsonist's target and placed with an animal shelter. The dog was quite unharmed and has now been found a new home."

  The police officer cleared his throat. "The owners weren't so lucky. The important thing is, apparently, in both cases, the animal was rescued by a young woman answering the same description. The animal shelter don't have a record of her, and unfortunately the neighbor who took in the cat, although she had quite a long conversation with the girl, was unable to give a detailed description as she wasn't wearing her glasses. However, we do have a description which matches a Polaroid photograph found in the second south London house."

  The rainbows were replaced by a blurred, inadequate picture, its edges unevenly trimmed with black burning.

  In the silence, the world hung in space.

  Miranda gave a sigh and her glass fell on the white carpet, letting out the bloodless gin.

  "The girl is believed to be aged between sixteen and nineteen, is white, with very long black hair worn loose down to her thighs. She is thought to be wearing jeans and a black leather jacket or a black T-shirt. Police say she should not be approached by the public, but anyone seeing her should contact them immediately."

  From such a functionless image, no one on earth could know her. But to everyone in the room she was known at once.

  Rachaela had turned to ice. Sasha did not move, nor Michael, nor Cheta. Miranda did not move again.

  But Eric had stood up.

  Eric strode to the white television and lifted it up on his left hand as though it were made of paper.

  Eric screamed.

  And with his right fist, ringed and old and hard as iron, he smashed in the TV screen, and with it the blurred unrecognizable face of Ruth.

  Before midnight, in a large somber van, all the papers came, several with their ink still wet.

  Every paper conceivably in London. Presumably. The great stern sheets, the rags, some with colors and some without.

  She was there in all of them, somewhere.

  She had a name, not the name Emma had chosen for her.

  They called her The Vixen. Tally Ho, Hunt The Vixen. The Vixen—has she gone to earth? The Black Vixen, where will she strike next?

  It was probably the telephone which brought the newspapers to the Scarabae. Eric standing over it, the wreckage of the TV behind him, pushing at the rest of the instrument with the receiver in his hand, trying to get the operator, as perhaps he had sixty years ago. And then, turning round rigidly: "Michael. How do I make this work?" And Michael coming to him and taking the receiver quietly. "It's all right, Mr. Eric. I will dial."

  Rachaela had left the room. She had gone up to her apartment and opened wide the windows.

  The moon was high and wetted the trees of the common with milky white. The owl hooted in the air.

  It was impossible to stay.

  Eventually, she went down again.

  After the papers came, the Scarabae investigated them. Rachaela too.

  Dinner was not served.

  Twice more they watched the news, now on a set which Michael had brought up into the room.

  Eric did not strike the screen again.

  At two in the morning, the dragon trike came roaring up the road. Camillo entered the house with Lou and Tray, and Eric sent Michael out to bring him in.

  Camillo walked into the drawing room in his black leathe
rs and his silver adornments, and Lou and Tray stood in the doorway like nymphs.

  "My ears," said Camillo, "are full of the beat of enormous musical machines. Drums, guitars, synthesizers, voices."

  "Forget them," said Eric. "Ruth is in London."

  "Ruth," said Camillo. "Ugh."

  Sasha went to him and gave him a paper, the Independent, Rachaela thought.

  "Read. They call her The Vixen."

  "Yes," said Camillo. "For centuries in this English tongue Vixen has implied a wicked woman."

  He glanced at the paper, then put it down.

  "Cami," said Lou.

  "Hush," said Camillo. Then, "Go up to your room."

  Lou shrugged and Tray pulled a tiny little face, then they were gone, obedient as golden greyhounds.

  Miranda said, softly, "It's horrible."

  "No," said Camillo. "It's what we are."

  "Liar," said Eric. But his violence had dissipated. "Michael," he said, "I must use the telephone again."

  "Yes," said Sasha.

  Miranda put her hands to her lips.

  Rachaela stood in stasis. What new demonstration of their dominion was to come?

  She did not learn. For Michael dialed a long while, and when Eric spoke into the phone, it was in another language.

  CHAPTER 13

  PAMELA BELLINGHAM FELT RELIEF AND pleasure when she opened the front door. She had thought Trevor would forget, again, to call the agency. And even if he did, they would just go on being dilatory.

  "Mrs. Watt?" asked the girl.

  Pamela laughed. "Oh, they always get the name wrong, don't they. No, actually it's Bellingham, but Pamela will do. Come in. I saw you with the policeman. Were you asking the way?"