Jetsam
VINCENT ROSE TO the surface of himself, feeling stifled and fat somehow, overly replete. Had he been feverish again? He cracked a heavy eyelid. Overhead, a white-painted ceiling flickered with candlelight. The air was heavy with the scent of melting wax. Vincent groaned. So, Cornelius had, once again, brought him to a convent to be cared for.
Why do you insist on turning Catholic every time the disease brings me low, cully? My condition is not something to atone for. Especially not by a return to the breast-beating guilt of your tyrannised youth.
Wearily, Vincent listened for voices, for mission bells, for gulls – any sound to tell him which port they had pulled into and how far they were from the sea. There was nothing. Nothing but a warm and breathing weight on his chest and the resonance of old music vibrating through his bones.
Music.
Vincent opened his eyes, remembering. He was not in a convent. Nor was he aboard his ship. He was in the house, as he had been for centuries. The house. How could he have forgotten?
He took an experimental breath. The weight on his chest shifted and he looked down, amazed to find Raquel in his arms. He gazed into her sleeping face. She had spent so long pained and fretful that seeing her thus – calm, and fresh, and peaceful – almost brought him to tears.
Slowly, clumsily, Vincent released the plait from over her right ear and undid it. He spread the hair in glossy ripples across Raquel’s shoulder and neck, letting it frame her face as it had used to.
‘Love,’ he whispered. The word was rare in his mouth, the only person he had ever said it to being the one now curled in his embrace. ‘Love,’ he said again.
She smiled and tightened her hold on the doll in her arms. Vincent regarded its bland, staring china face with the mildest spike of hatred. Cold dead thing. Sometimes he felt like they had sucked the life from Raquel – all her ‘good babies’. One day he would go into the nursery and take a staff to them, all those simpering, dimpled rows of china children with whom she had replaced Matthew. He would smash them, and he would grab Raquel and force her outside. They would walk together as they had used to. They would laugh.
We shall live, he thought. We shall all live again, as soon as …
As soon as what? Was there something he had meant to do?
Vincent frowned. His head had found its way back against the cushions again, Raquel’s warm gentle weight pressing him down as if into a giant feather pillow … deep down, where all was muffled … the world further and further away.
Gasping, Vincent snapped his eyes open. This was not good! He did not like it. It was suddenly all he could do not to heave Raquel’s weight from him and send her toppling to the floor. He slipped from beneath her and slid to his hands and knees beside the sofa. Still sleeping, Raquel settled against the cushions he had just vacated.
The world tilted and spun. Vincent was reminded of the first time he’d drunk to excess, when as a boy of ten the sailors had brought him on shore leave. He’d been the crew’s little mascot then – the darkie boy of the ship’s captain, just as much a pet as the bevy of little green monkeys and African parrots the sailors doted on. They’d fed him rum as if it were milk, and he’d ended in the gutter, his head in a whore’s lap, puking his heart out to a chorus of, ‘Better out than in, laddie.’
Vincent had felt the same self-loathing then as he did now. The same desire to never again debase himself and be so out of control.
He staggered to his feet. The change in altitude broke him out in a cold sweat and sent the floor a-lurching, but he took a breath, set his sights, and launched himself into the hall and out onto the porch.
At the head of the steps, Vincent clung to one of the pillars, breathing deeply. He found himself confronted with a great round stupidity of moon. It dominated the sky and the landscape before him. Vincent followed its light down to the pond, and there he saw a figure outlined dark against the silvery fog. It was Cornelius, coatless and alone, standing far out on the frozen surface, his back to the house, his attention riveted on a strange green light that pulsed beneath his feet.
THE ICE OF the lake was humming, a deep vibration that came up through the soles of Vincent’s boots. There must be a vast movement of water down there, one of the pond’s strange currents. But what was the light?
Answers tried to surface through the syrup of Vincent’s thoughts. Theories struggled to form. He glanced at Cornelius. The man was swaying as if intoxicated, mumbling a one-sided conversation to himself as he stared down through the ice into that slow pulse of green far below.
‘Why are we like this?’ called Vincent.
The words startled Cornelius, and he spun as if guilty. The sight of Vincent seemed to delight him, though, and he spread his arms in welcome. ‘Do not fret, Captain! He will never find us.’
‘Who?’
‘God. We shall remain here as scarlet as he made us, and always beyond his reach!’
Vincent dismissed this with irritation. ‘What has happened?’ he said. ‘I feel like some back-alley crimper slipped me a cosh.’
He lost his footing, and Cornelius caught him. They slithered a brief half circle together, turning like dancers on the frozen surface.
‘Don’t fret, Captain,’ laughed Cornelius affectionately. ‘It is but the Angel’s bliss.’
Impatient, Vincent shook free. ‘I … I can hardly think,’ he gasped, pressing his temples. ‘Why am I affected thus? Why do I feel as though I am trapped in syrup?’
Cornelius frowned, not understanding his meaning, and Vincent lowered his hands from his head.
‘Cornelius, you understand that this is not normal, don’t you? This is not how the rest of us usually react to a feeding?’
Cornelius took a step back, suddenly wary. Vincent sighed.
‘Of course you do not understand. How could you? While we’ve gone about our daily lives afterwards, refreshed and renewed, you’ve always been a little lost, haven’t you? Your mind dulled. Nothing but a smiling child in your corner. Things seem to have changed for the rest of us, though, Cornelius – I do not know how, something altered in our bodies over the years, perhaps – and we have become like you. I need you to tell me: these symptoms I am experiencing, are they what the opium feels like? Certainly you have always exhibited the same behaviour under the creature’s influence as you do under the drug’s.’
With a cry, Cornelius turned and began to stumble away.
Exasperated, Vincent pursued him. ‘Where are you going? I need to know this! Talk with me! Is this what the opium feels like?’
‘Oh God!’ cried Cornelius, as if this possibility were some great horror only now revealed to him. ‘Oh no.’
Vincent grabbed him. ‘I must figure this out, cully. It would not do, should we all become like you. What would befall us then? We should be so dull and useless, it would make us vulnerable to all.’
Cornelius shoved him backwards. ‘Let me go, you ungrateful churl. What good is it to ask me questions when I am so dull, when I am so useless and broken and vile!’
‘Cornelius! I never said—’
Cornelius tried to turn and almost fell.
‘Oh, calm down!’ bellowed Vincent, grabbing him again. There was real anger rising in him now, an element of brutality beyond his control, and he felt Cornelius’ rage blaze hot in response. With it came a thrill of fear, the understanding that they were on the edge of something with each other: something sharp and dark and violent. Something that had been brewing for lifetimes. Cornelius clutched Vincent by his jacket, his fists clenched in the lapels. He bared his teeth into Vincent’s face.
Vincent was just realising that he was ready for this – had been wanting it – when there came a loud thump beneath his feet and the ice leapt, as if struck by a cannonball. The shock jolted the anger from them and they stared down, great wads of each other’s clothes still bunched in their fists.
Something was falling away from them, a pale thing dropping from the surface of the ice down into
the darkness. Then, bam, it came again – the impact of something big hitting the ice right below them – and suddenly there was a boy, his wiry hair streaming out with the current, his eyes staring wide and unseeing as he clung to the ice below. He was backlit by the glow of that green light, his face beaded with bubbles, his hands starfish against the under-surface.
Vincent dropped to his haunches, amazed. ‘Well, look at that,’ he cried. ‘Where did he come from?’
The boy began a slow, painful upside-down crawl on the underside of the ice. There was no indication that he knew Vincent was there or that his water-blinded eyes could see up through the ice as well as Vincent could see down. But when Vincent moved, the boy faltered, his eyes seeking, as if he had seen Vincent’s shadow above.
Cornelius, oddly indifferent, met Vincent’s eye when he looked up.
‘It is the magician, Cornelius! Did you know he was down there?’
Cornelius did not answer. Vincent looked back down.
‘How can he still be alive? It must be freezing down there. Surely he has not been on the estate long enough to have attained our own endurance?’
He laid his palm flat against the ice, and to his delight the boy responded by slapping his own hand against the opposite surface. ‘He sees us!’
Standing, Vincent began to stamp hard against the surface, hoping to crack the ice and get to the American.
‘It is too thick,’ said Cornelius flatly. ‘You shall never break it.’
Vincent looked around him in a mix of desperation and excitement. ‘He must have fallen in somewhere! Perhaps we can guide him back to the hole? Cornelius! Can you guess where it is he went in?’
The boy slapped the ice again, demanding attention.
‘We should guide him to the bridge!’ cried Vincent, beginning to back slowly away, his arms spread to make as large a shadow as possible. ‘Let us see if he can make it that far! If he does, we may well be able to throw something over the side and break through for him!’
The boy began to follow, and Vincent, almost boyishly delighted at the adventure of it all, led him on.
‘He is certainly a determined fellow, cully! I wager he might even make it!’
He continued backing away, leading the boy to shore.
Cornelius watched unhappily for a moment before trudging in their wake.
You
YOU CANNOT STOP crying, and your heartbeat is like a hammer against the cage of your ribs. You need a knife so that you can cut yourself from this dress – so that you can liberate your heart and lungs, and release a scream and stop the tears and terror from getting in your way.
You are heading up to the room and your bag, wherein lie the scissors of your trade. But the darkness is aswarm with light, your mind a dissonance of noise, and so you stumble on the stairs. You roll to your back, the dress rustling about you, and scrabble at your ribs, terrified at all you have seen and at how little you can breathe.
It is as if you faint, then, though you do not faint. Your mind remains alert, but your body ceases to move for a while, as if it has had enough of this frantic panicking. You lie glittering on the dark stairs, your hands motionless against your imprisoned waist, and watch the ropes of light twist above you. I can only dimly perceive the web of thickly pulsing lines that are so bright to you. I want you to look away from them, to close your eyes, because I am frightened by them.
I can feel your mind examining the light – feel your calculations as you trace and follow its movement. You realise that it is not tangled like before, no longer tentative and seeking, no longer lost. Now it is directed. It is purposeful. All straight lines, it is pouring through that woman in the ballroom – the one with the doll – and the two men out on the ice. It is pouring through them, strong and certain and specific, and roaring back from them to the place where it originated.
You struggle to your feet, gazing upwards. You have forgotten your quest for a blade. You are following the light. It misled you last time – brought you, in the tangles of its grief, to the poor lost soul in the box. It will not mislead you again.
You descend the stairs. You pass into the silence of a book-lined room. I feel the press of your hands against cold glass: you push open a door that is like a window, and you are out in the misty air of a warm night. It must be summer; there is the scent of flowers. You stumble down steps and follow a path into trees.
It is time for me to move. I roll to my side and my hands sink into harsh sand. My body is stiff and cold; my joints creak. It takes all I have to climb to my knees. From the corner of my eye, I see the thing. It moans and sways on the other side of this place, its reflection bright in the still waters at its feet. All its attention is on the ceiling. It does not seem to notice me. It is the only source of light. Once I have crawled away from it, I will be in darkness.
You stumble through dappled moonlight, your hands pressed to your constricted ribs. Overhead, stars blaze in a moon-silvered sky. Heavy skirts glisten in your fists as you hoist them above your knees. You see ropes of light, and you follow them through long grass.
I begin to crawl.
You slam into apple trees, snag on branches, stumble on roots.
I crawl into a passageway black as the abyss you have called me from. On my hands and knees, through warm pools, I follow my hunger to where you are.
A structure looms above you. It blots the stars, and you stumble into the tumbled remains of a ruined castle. You cross flagstones worn by time, the straight lines of light drawing you on.
The darkness presses like thumbs against my eyes as I am drawn through winding tunnels of blindness: left, then right, and right again. You draw me on, as I draw you down into the black.
You descend damp stone stairs. Those people put your feet into gold slippers, and they are wet now, and filthy. I remember your feet: ten perfect toes cased in black wool. Warm. Tasty.
Your hands press against wet rock as you grope your way, blind and not blind, downwards at the behest of the light. I crawl upwards. Faster now, slipping up the spiralling steps on hands and feet, my face turned up as if testing the air. I think I may be smiling; certainly my teeth are bared.
Behind me the thing pauses. It has been feeding; now it hesitates. It senses us drawing close to each other, you and I. Coming together with the irresistible force of magnets, we are a completion: one thing belonging to the other. It recognises this. It lowers its head like a scenting dog, but I pay it no heed – I am focused only on you.
You descend, and you descend, and suddenly you are here.
I crawl up the steps towards you, quick and low and four-legged. You run into a gate, which blocks your way. Your hands close around the metal bars. Your eyes search blindly. You cannot sense me, though I am here, crouched at your feet.
I pull myself up the bars, drag myself up, my teeth bared.
You stare unseeing into the dark, your face inches from my cold face.
I press forward, wanting you. Wanting you. Wanting to eat you.
You whisper, ‘Joe?’
My hands close on your warm face, and I remember everything. I remember everything. I pull you in, and bared teeth and greed become a kiss. We kiss. O, love. O, heart. We kiss at last. Your arms come through the bars and we are close, even with the metal between us. You are as warm as I am cold. Your lips, your breath, your tongue on mine – shocking and natural and lovely.
I remember. I remember. I am here.
The Candle
and the Knife
JOE’S FACE WAS cold between Tina’s hands, the fullness of his lips colder still. She was frightened by his silence. ‘Joe,’ she whispered. ‘You died.’
He nodded.
‘Are you alive now, Joe?’
Under her fingers, his mouth curved into that smile he’d always kept so rare and just for her. She pressed her palm against his chest, to assure herself of him, and ran her hands down his arms, feeling the strength he’d kept hidden from everyone but her.
She would never
forget the thrill of first discovering this strength – the summer day Joe had reduced her to laughter and she had bent double, clutching him. The solidity of his arm through the cotton of his shirt had amazed her. The masculinity of it. Thereafter, she had often pretended to need steadying, just so she could hold on to him. Was he so innocent that he believed in her poor balance? Tina didn’t think so. It was just their gentle secret. Their unspoken story.
‘It would kill me to lose you,’ she whispered.
Joe pulled her tight against the bars; then he seemed to lose the strength in his legs, and together they slipped to the ground, the cold metal between them, closer than they had ever been.
I wish you would talk, she thought, so I could be sure you were alive.
As if to please her, his voice came rasping from the dark. ‘There is something in here with me. An animal.’
She clutched him tighter, her eyes straining into the energy-threaded darkness. ‘I know,’ she whispered.
This was where the ropes of lights came from, pulsing and threading through rock and air and sky, emanating from the creature she sensed far below. She had been part of that creature’s mind – she was part of it still – and it was a lonely thing. Broken and starving. She suspected it was mad.
She fumbled upwards, seeking a latch or a bolt, desperate to get Joe out. He clung to her. Joe had never been one to restrain her, it hurt to push him aside, but it was difficult enough to breathe in this terrible prison of a dress.
As soon as he released her it became difficult to think. The noise closed in, the lights stitched themselves through her mind, and she was no longer alone inside her skull.
‘It …’ she gasped. ‘It has lost you, Joe …’
Resonance Page 20