Resonance

by Celine Kiernan

  When it goes I will be left in utter darkness, but I have noticed a little door by the stage. I have already mapped my route to it.

  Nearby, Tina reaches the last step of a deep staircase. It led her from a library, where strewn books guided her to a secret door. The boy with her lifts a latch and raises a candle above their heads.

  We’re here, Joe! Tina whispers. I’ll be with you soon.

  The creature, already turned to go, hesitates and raises its head, sensing her through all the layers of rock between.

  I call out to her in panic, Shhhh. It can hear you.

  The creature whips around. Doubling back on itself like a silverfish, it flows down the steps towards me with a high, bright call of interest. It pauses face-to-face with me, its tentacles arched above, its heavy head swinging back and forth as if scenting for me. The air between us crackles, and my eyes are dazzled by its presence.

  I keep my thoughts dim and low, trying not to think of Tina at all. I hope and hope and hope in my heart that she knows not to think of me. There is only it and me in the world now. Only it and me.

  ‘Matthew!’

  I cut my eyes right, past the upper seats to the door above. A man is in the theatre. Black-skinned, thin and noble-looking. His grip on the doorframe shows his terror for me.

  ‘Matthew,’ he whispers. ‘Crawl away. It cannot see you. It will not hurt you on purpose, but crawl away from it now before it touches you.’

  I start backing slowly between the seats, retreating from the creature as it seeks blindly for my presence. At that moment the door by the stage opens and Tina steps through, a dead thing cradled in her arms.

  She looks straight at me. Joe, she thinks.

  The creature rears high, roaring, and I realise that it sees her. Unlike me, who it can only sense through my connection with her, it sees Tina.

  It rushes towards her, all its focus on: Tell. Warn. Danger. Help.

  I leap to my feet, screaming at her to run. She only has eyes for the creature, her face lit up with wonder. The boy behind her freezes, the candle still held high, his eyes brimming with the impossible as it advances towards him down the steps.

  I remember who he is: that dark, wild hair; those intense eyes.

  ‘Harry!’ I scream, scrambling across seats towards Tina. ‘Get her away.’ I launch myself at the creature and am tackled from behind, tumbling head over heels with a hot, iron grip around my chest.

  The man presses me to the carpeted steps. He covers my body with his own as the creature’s shivering veil of tentacles passes overhead, a cathedral of living light.

  Tina shrugs free of Harry’s grip and steps into the creature’s path. The dead thing in her arms rustles as she raises it high.

  Here, she thinks.

  The creature stops in its tracks. Only feet from Tina, it surges to its full height, rising up on those multi-jointed back legs, lifting those leg-type arms in a gesture unreadable to me. Its vast comet-tail of tentacles curl, then spread wide, rigid and shivering as if galvanised. They seem to fill the theatre, and the man holds me down as their tips hover just above our heads. Each tentacle is segmented like an iridescent worm. Each ends in a sucker that opens and closes like a searching mouth.

  The creature bends forward. Its blind, heavy face reflects in Tina’s shining eyes as it nuzzles the dead thing in her arms. She offers it tenderly, her face eloquent with shared grief. A bouquet of papery snakes trails to the ground; a grotesque maggot body spirals the length of her arm.

  Here, she thinks. Here.

  She sees a shining angel, his swan-like wings quivering with sorrow, his delicate hands poised, not daring to touch the fragile corpse. She sees his eyes overflow, and knows he is consumed with despair. The black-skinned man tugs at me, urging me to leave. I shove him aside and begin to crawl to her.

  The real creature is poised above us all, rigid as a glass star. Transfixed by emotion beyond human expression, it regards the dead thing in Tina’s arms. Without warning, it releases a long, piercing wail of rage.

  Tina sees the Angel bare its teeth, and the creature surges forward. It snatches the thing from her, and there is howling and screaming; a violent thrashing of light that fills the theatre.

  The man snatches me by the ankles and drags me between the seats. Harry grabs Tina around her waist, hauling her in the opposite direction. She stares up into frenzy, into centuries of grief. The creature’s voice is fire, it is chaos. It has burned my mind.

  I feel the man’s arms around me, the bump of each step as he escapes and drags me with him. I find I cannot move. The creature’s light is fading. Burnt out and hopeless, empty and lost, it has fallen to the floor and curled around the body of the thing it loved.

  It is dying, I think. The thought fills me with terror.

  Burnt Out

  HARRY’S LEGS WERE like jelly. He felt he might fall down.

  ‘Let’s … let’s sit down for a minute, will we, kid?’

  Tina sank to the stone steps, wrapped her arms around herself and laid her head on her knees. Harry dropped to the step beside her. The candle he held out against the darkness cast just enough light to show that they were at a junction on the staircase. Below them lay the steps they’d ascended from the underground theatre; far above, the door that led to the library. To their right, a passage sloped steeply up into darkness.

  Harry switched his attention back and forth between the passages, feeling crawlingly vulnerable. That had been Joe down there – pale and wild and crouched at the feet of …

  Harry’s mind showed him what Joe had been crouched at the feet of, and his thoughts veered from it, terrified. He returned to the facts. He had seen Joe; had witnessed the black man save him. Vincent – I saw Vincent save him.

  Tina had told him Joe was dead. But Harry had seen him crouched at the feet of the Angel, and—

  Harry’s eyes opened wide. An angel. He had seen an angel. Just like Tina had said. And not just any angel, either – Uriel, the burning eagle. Uriel, the protective lion, the flames of his blazing body filling the theatre with heat and light, descending the steps of the theatre, taking that thing from Tina’s arms; roaring, roaring, and then weeping in rage.

  Uriel, who had saved the world from the Nephilim. Uriel, commander of the Army of Angels. Uriel, one of the four protectors of the throne of God, here, here, the tears of defeat in his eyes.

  Magician.

  Harry jolted, the candle held high.

  I am here, magician.

  His attention snapped towards the passageway that curved away to his right. The candle illuminated only a few paltry feet of gritty flooring and rock walls, but beyond that the now familiar twin phosphorescence of eyes watched from the darkness.

  Is the seer unharmed?

  Tina turned her head, resting her cheek on her folded arms as she looked in Vincent’s direction.

  ‘Joe,’ she whispered. ‘Are you there?’

  There was a moment’s silence, then a dry whisper came down to them. ‘Yes.’

  ‘I can’t sense you at all.’ There was no reply to this, and Tina’s back rose and fell in a sigh. ‘I think I need to sleep,’ she whispered.

  Bring the seer back to her room, boy. Make certain she rests.

  There was a barely audible scuffling far up the passage, and Harry leapt to his feet, the candle thrust forward, straining to see.

  ‘Where are you taking Joe?’

  His voice echoed back to him in mocking non-answer. After a few moments, he heard the door at the top of the steps opening and closing, and he realised that Vincent had taken a different route up to it. The ground below the manor must be a labyrinth of rooms and tunnels and doors. How many entrances and exits must there be?

  Looking up at him, Tina’s face was very pale, and her eyes seemed bigger than Harry had ever seen them, dark as midnight. He crouched and gazed into her face. ‘Can you make it back upstairs?’ he whispered.

  She sighed and rose to her feet. He cinched his arm aro
und her waist, and they slowly climbed the stairs to the house above.

  THOSE TERRIBLE LI T TLE kids were crouched at the door to Tina’s room, trying to look through the keyhole. They straightened as Harry and Tina came around the corner, and Harry felt his stomach shrink at their small wicked faces floating in the near dark – at the pinpricks of their glowing eyes.

  The little girl took a step towards him and he couldn’t help it, he shrank back. She smiled in sly happiness and swished her skirts to and fro.

  ‘Hello, stick-man,’ she sang. ‘We were checking to see if you were home before we paid you a visit. What’s that you have on your bed?’

  He summoned some backbone. ‘You bored with torturing helpless dogs?’

  The boy pointed to Tina’s door. ‘Come inside with us,’ he said.

  To his horror, Harry found himself stepping forward, already reaching for the handle. He was halted by Tina’s arm around his waist. ‘Stay with me, Harry.’

  She pulled him back and Harry moaned, torn between her command and the boy’s. It was a nauseating feeling – an intense, itchy panic – and he bent double, overcome with confusion.

  Tina tightened her grip on him and took the candle in her free hand. ‘It’s all right, Harry,’ she said, and he instantly felt better. She lifted the candlestick high, looking at the children. ‘Go away,’ she said.

  The boy’s eyes hopped between them, a foxy curiosity welling up. He opened his mouth to speak, and Harry turned his face away, terrified. The door opposite Tina’s opened a fraction and Vincent slipped out into the candlelight. He seemed unnerved at the children’s presence. They seemed fascinated by his.

  ‘What are you doing in that room?’ asked the boy.

  ‘Pap doesn’t like people going in there,’ said the little girl, awed at the very thought of it.

  Vincent closed the door behind him and stood with his back pressed to the wood. ‘You … you go off and play,’ he told the children. ‘You are not allowed up here.’

  ‘We only want what’s in there,’ said the little girl, pointing to Tina’s bedroom. ‘We weren’t going to play with Pap’s seer.’

  ‘There is only an old one in there. You know you’re not allowed to play with the old ones.’

  The girl pouted. ‘That’s only when they’re in the attic.’

  ‘Nevertheless, you cannot have it.’

  ‘But it is not in the attic.’

  The little boy was watching Vincent very speculatively, his eyes hopping between the man’s face and the grip he still had on the handle of the closed door. ‘What are you doing in there?’ he asked.

  Harry was amazed at the discomfort that rose up in Vincent’s face – he had never seen the man look anything but fully in command. ‘Nothing.’

  The boy took a step towards him, seeming to listen intently for sounds from the room. ‘Pap doesn’t like anyone going in—’

  ‘Do you know what your pap is doing right now?’ asked Vincent brightly.

  The children perked up like spaniels. ‘No,’ said the little girl. ‘What?’

  ‘He is cooking.’

  They seemed a little confused. Then the boy’s face opened in sudden wonder. ‘With fire?’ he breathed.

  At Vincent’s nod, the little girl squealed in delight. ‘Where?’

  ‘In the kitchens. Go on – quickly. I am certain he will let you help.’

  Vincent shooed them away and they ran, tumbling and squealing and arguing happily as they raced each other down the stairs. Vincent listened quietly for a moment, then he glanced towards Tina and Harry.

  ‘Sometimes they seem almost normal. Is it any wonder Cornelius did not believe the accusations flung against them?’ He scrubbed his hand across his mouth and shook his head. ‘Had I been in his place, even I might have saved them from the mob and the gallows.’

  ‘Why do you let them stay?’ asked Harry.

  Vincent frowned, as if the answer to that question were obvious. ‘Why, they are Raquel’s. Cornelius brought them for her. Why on earth would I want to get rid of them?’ He opened Tina’s door for them, gesturing them inside. ‘I will not mention that you were abroad,’ he said. ‘We need none of us mention that we were abroad.’

  He closed the door, and they listened to him locking it. There was the quiet opening and closing of the door opposite. It was hard to tell if he had left or if he had gone back inside, and Harry pressed his ear to their own door, listening for retreating footsteps. He heard nothing.

  ‘Is he gone, Tina? Can you tell if he has Joe in that room?’ He turned to her. ‘Tina? Is he …’

  She was leaning on the bed, the candlestick perilously tilted, wax dribbling onto the floor. Her face was dead of expression. Harry gently took the candle from her and placed it on the bedside locker.

  ‘Maybe you should lie down, kid, huh? It might do you some good.’

  He sat her on the bed, removed the coat she had flung on over her petticoats, and hung it on the back of a chair. He hesitated at the sight of her ragged, filthy stockings, looked up into her blank face, then, looking away, reached beneath her hem to release the stockings from their garters.

  ‘You can’t get into bed covered in mud like that,’ he murmured.

  He pushed the covers aside. It felt very strange to lay Tina back against the pillows. He was acutely aware of her being a girl: the soft shape of her beneath the cotton of her petticoats; the dark spread of her hair on the yellowed pillowcases.

  Her feet were freezing as he lifted them onto the bed. Her dark eyes followed his every move as he pulled the covers across her. He sat down, took her hand.

  ‘I won’t leave you, Tina,’ he said. ‘I promise.’

  She gave no indication that she heard him, but there was some look to her, some sense to her, that told him she knew he was making promises he couldn’t keep. He squeezed her hand.

  ‘I’ll do my best to fight them,’ he whispered.

  The faintest of smiles tugged at her lips and her eyes slipped shut.

  Beside her, the strange, wizened little creature that she insisted was Miss Ursula burbled, its big eyes watching the candlelight wink and gleam on the rosary threaded through its claws.

  Harry sighed. ‘I guess I’ll fight for you, too,’ he whispered.

  Wrapping himself in a blanket, he went and sat in the chair by the window, looking down towards the lake. He listened to Tina breathing and the old thing murmuring to itself, and tried to think.

  Uriel: fire of God; the light in the west. Harry tried to come up with a more earthbound explanation for what he’d seen, but there was none. He had been looking for music-hall tricks, the cheap and tawdry machinations of man, and all the time it had been so much more than that. So much more. Uriel, an angel of the presence, trapped here and powerless at the mercy of these – his eyes flicked to the door – these what?

  Shedim? Mazzikim? Harry shook his head. Men, he thought. He is held captive by men. This was not right. This was not good.

  Behind him, Tina slept fast within the ring of golden candlelight. Her skin was paper-white, the flesh beneath her eyes as bruised as if she had been beaten. She had gone through so much to try to rescue Joe. It had been heroic.

  Harry thought of all his father had told him about God and the world, and about mankind’s ancient duty to both: every human being’s responsibility in actions big and small to heal the world – tikkun olam.

  He could not let this go on here. He had to at least try to stop this terrible thing.

  Did it matter that he would fail? Was there not also honour in a valiant defeat?

  Harry pulled the blanket tighter, closed his eyes and, though he knew he would not sleep, recited the Kriat Shema al Hamita. Then Adon Olam. By the time he had finished, he was calm and sure, and resigned to die in his efforts to free the Angel.

  Matthew

  THE MAN BY the window runs his fingers across something on the windowsill, a scar or an ornamentation in the wood; I cannot tell from where I am lying. He tr
aces the shape tenderly, then lifts his eyes to take in the slowly brightening sky. I am unsure of how long we have been here. He appears to be waiting for me to wake.

  I close my eyes and remember. The underground theatre. The creature. Tina.

  I search and find her nearby, a fizzing brightness, like a silent Catherine wheel on the edge of my thoughts. She is dreaming. I reach for her, and she draws me in. There is a surge of nausea, the world shifting suddenly around me in colours my eyes can’t understand, sounds my ears can’t hear. I am afraid, but Tina squeezes me tight, wrapping me around her, and we are no longer Tina and Joe – we are something other: one and the same, separate but inseparable. We.

  We bend and flex together, sure and certain, performing familiar tasks. There is a calm sense of order to Us. We are doing Our duty. It is a matter of routine.

  I realise I am a memory. I am the living memory of something long ago. We are tearing through purple and yellow vastnesses, faster and further than I could ever have imagined possible. We carry a burden with Us, terrible and urgent. Our duty is to return it from whence it came; to push it through to its own space; to close the door behind it; to repair the world. We know there is no danger – as long as We live, it will sleep. Still, We wish the journey was done. Somewhere down deep in Our shared soul, We must confess We are frightened.

  I try to disentangle from this – it terrifies me to be so little myself – but it is impossible to pull away. The other half of Us does not want to let go. We should never be parted! How can We survive if We are parted?

  Then Tina releases me, and my mind almost splits at the dislocation. It is a terrible, painful rending, the division of something that should never have been divided – blinding in its horror.

  But then I am myself again, and I can breathe.

  I open my eyes a slit. The man is still watching the sky. I can recall him carrying me here. He removed my clothes. I think he washed and combed my hair. Then he dressed me again. The boy I used to be would have been appalled at that – how dare he – but the thing I am now sees it for what it was: a desperate attempt at transformation.