The American had abandoned the debate with an upflung hand and seated himself over on the sofa by the seer and the boy named Joe.
Vincent tore his eyes from the jar and looked up at them. The couple had already been sitting there, hand in hand and pale as china dolls, when he had burst in with the creature. There were track marks on the floor where they had dragged the sofa back against the wall, better prepared to face whoever came in the door, Vincent supposed.
The spirit board was at the seer’s elbow, the candles throwing vast shadows on the wall behind her. She had her foot on the axle of the perambulator and was rocking it gently, as if to soothe its passenger. She had barely acknowledged the American boy when he sat down, her eyes fixed on the creature in its jar.
‘You all right, Harry?’ Joe asked.
The boy nodded, but in truth he looked wretched. He couldn’t seem to stop shivering, despite the warmth of the room. Vincent’s head had begun to pain him. He noticed the boy squinting in the candlelight and figured his must feel the same.
‘Vicente,’ repeated Raquel softly, ‘what does this abomination mean for us?’
Such a simple question. How was he to answer it without toppling all the things in which she wanted to believe?
‘It is a beloved,’ said the seer.
A beloved? What an odd choice of word. ‘Explain.’
‘A beloved,’ she insisted, lifting the hand she had joined with Joe’s as if that clarified everything. ‘A beloved.’
‘It completes your angel,’ said Joe.
‘We have seen its like before,’ said Cornelius. ‘After we had the Angel dragged underground, we found that very same type of creature lying by the shore. The villagers thought it was the devil.’
‘Yes,’ said Vincent absently. He squatted by the jar, traced the glass with his finger. ‘But that was dead – already beginning to dry out. This …’
‘Wolcroft lost his mind over it,’ said Cornelius. ‘Thinking he’d harnessed the power of the devil – such a wicked man. Had I not disposed of him, he would have brought the wrath of England down on us.’
‘Yes, cully, yes, you did very well.’
‘So … you aren’t Wolcroft?’ asked Harry.
Vincent heard Cornelius huff, could well imagine the curl of his lip. ‘No, boy, I am not. Though I can arrange for you to meet the real article, if you so desire – what is left of him. I am just the man who talked our way into his employ. I am just the man who, when needed, threw the lunatic into the oubliette and took his place. I am just the man who has kept this estate untouched and free from trouble ever since.’
He swept his hand to his head, as if removing a hat, and effected a bitter little bow.
‘Quartermaster Cornelius Aloysius Mills: disinherited heir to Nevis’ richest sugar plantation, erstwhile pirate, and from 1690 onwards, the man known to all delegates of King Billy, Queen Anne or any subsequent monarch, lacky, tax collector or inquiring soul as Sir Cornelius Wolcroft, the retiringly shy yet always obliging Lord of Fargeal Manor.’
‘Just how old are you people?’
Cornelius sneered. ‘Older than we look.’
Vincent tapped the glass of the jar, murmuring to the creature within, ‘And you, little monster? How old are you? What are you?’
‘All the dead angels had one,’ said Harry. ‘You saw them. Wrapped about their necks.’
‘Dead angels?’ exclaimed Raquel.
‘All the dead angels had one,’ murmured Vincent. ‘But the Bright Man never did … unless … Cornelius, do you suppose the one we found by the pond was his? Do you suppose we caused its death somehow, during the chase or during the capture, and it came loose of him?’
‘But Vicente,’ insisted Raquel, ‘how can angels be dead?’ She turned to Cornelius, who looked just as startled by the idea as she. ‘Cornelius,’ she cried. ‘How can angels die?’
‘Raquel,’ groaned Vincent. ‘Meu amor. Hush now and let us talk sense.’ Cornelius went to protest, and Vincent flung up his hand. ‘You too, cully. Let us agree to call these things what we will – creatures, angels, demons or others – but let us also decide to lay aside our preconceptions and discuss only that which we have before us. Only that which we know as fact. Are we agreed?’
Frowning, Cornelius wrapped his arms around himself and leaned back against the wall, watchful.
‘Does everyone here live forever?’ asked the seer softly.
Luke startled her by answering from the hall. ‘We didn’t used to. Not ’til the Captain and Himself came.’ He stepped warily from the shadows and entered the room, his eyes on the jar.
‘Luke,’ asked Raquel, ‘where are my children?’
‘Dunno, missus. I called for them in the woods but I didn’t get no reply. Reckon they—’
Raquel dismissed this with a tut. ‘The baby-carriage, Luke. My good children?’
Luke’s face went cold. ‘I’ll bring that all up in a while,’ he said. Then, as if his usual disapproval of Raquel’s dolls had irritated the uncertainty from him, he strode to the jar and bent to look in at the creature. The water seemed to amplify the candlelight, and the creature threw sinuous reflections across his illuminated face. For some reason, this shifting light made Vincent feel ill. He glanced across to Harry.
‘Do you feel sick, boy?’
Harry nodded. ‘Very,’ he admitted.
It’s the ship, thought Vincent. It has poisoned us.
Tina’s quietly insistent question came again. ‘Does everyone live forever here?’
‘Folk always lived long healthy lives in the village,’ said Luke. ‘Place were famous for it. Back in the old times, before Wolcroft and his Roundhead scum made life a nightmare, folks used to come from all over to be cured. Rabies, leprosy, consumption – you name it. Whatever ailed you, a stay in Fear Geal Woods would cure it. But no one used to live forever. Not ’til …’
He glanced at Vincent, and then to Cornelius, obviously reluctant to continue.
‘Not until we locked the Angel down,’ said Cornelius. ‘Something changed when we put it underground.’
‘No one here has died since. No one’s been born. No one’s died. Things just … stood still.’ Luke glanced again at Vincent. ‘But now things’re winding down, ain’t they, Captain? Slowly coming to a halt. Do you think this thing’ – he tapped the glass – ‘can tell us why?’
Vincent squinted down into the light-reflecting water. ‘What did we change?’ he mused. ‘What difference was there between the creature roaming the woods as it used to and being confined underground?’
‘Oh, you’ve been asking that question for decades,’ groaned Cornelius. ‘Are you not sick of it yet?’
‘No,’ snapped Vincent. ‘I am not sick of it yet.’ He rose to his feet and began to pace. The breeze of his passage set the candle flames aflutter, filling the room with shifting, smoky shadows. ‘Let us retrace our steps …’
Cornelius threw his eyes to heaven. ‘Again,’ he breathed.
Vincent continued unfazed. ‘One: we convinced Wolcroft to draw the Bright Man out with a spectacular.’
‘It were allus drawn to entertainments,’ said Luke.
‘Two,’ continued Vincent, ‘we chased it from the trees and down into what was then the cow pastures by the boating pond. Three: the men brought it down. Four: we confined it underground, that I might examine it—’
‘And voila,’ cried Cornelius. ‘Five: we have ourselves a captive angel. And, asking nothing in return but the occasional song and dance, it has given us eternal life. And so we live in peace and solitude, needing nothing from the world.’ He slammed his fist into the wall, his sudden rage making everyone but Vincent jump. ‘Can’t you just accept the gift, Vincent? Can’t you just be grateful, for once in your damned life, and not always want more?’
‘You were the one who wanted to know what the Bright Man needed! You were the one who brought this child here, that she might be forced to speak with it and let us understand what it wants
.’
Vincent went and grabbed the spirit table, setting the light a-dance again as he plopped it down in the middle of the room. ‘Come on, then!’ he cried. ‘Fulfil your plan! Let us commune with your angel!’
Cornelius shrank against the wall, and Vincent nodded his head bitterly. ‘Of course, you have changed your mind. You no longer want to know, now the answers may contradict your carefully constructed truth. Well, I am sorry, cully, but we cannot all live underground wrapped in dreams while life continues on without us. Your angel is dying. And I mean to find out why.’
Vincent turned purposely from his friend. ‘So … we put the Bright Man below ground; somehow we killed its symbiote. But something else also changed. Something in the way it fed. Luke, you told me it began to affect players in a way it never had before.’
Luke tore his eyes from Cornelius. ‘Aye. It was then it began to use entertainers up. Any spectacle after that …’ He shuddered, glancing at the wizened remains in the baby-carriage. ‘It used them up.’
Vincent hunkered by the jar again and dabbled his fingers in the water. The creature lifted its tentacles and he withdrew his hand before their flesh could touch.
‘I had always thought these changes had to do with imprisoning the Bright Man,’ he murmured. ‘That its powers were concentrated somehow by its confinement … but I now suspect that killing its symbiote is the key. We killed it, and somehow … somehow the Bright Man transferred the mutualism to us.’
He looked across at Tina. ‘We have become the Bright Man’s symbiote, have we not, seer? It has been living through us ever since.’
She nodded. ‘And so you live forever …’
‘… by feeding off others,’ finished Joe, his voice immeasurably stronger than that of the girl who held his hand.
‘Which presents the question,’ murmured Vincent. ‘What becomes of us should I choose to hand this creature over to its host?’
Luke frowned. ‘Captain,’ he said. ‘Maybe it’s best just to do what we’ve allus done. I ain’t—’
‘You are not enough for him,’ interrupted Tina. ‘You are less and less enough for him. Soon you will just stop, and then he will stop.’
‘You don’t know that,’ cried Cornelius. ‘Everything will be fine after the spectacular.’
Vincent sighed. ‘Cornelius, can you not even begin to consider—’
Raquel’s sharp cry cut him short. ‘Stop it! You are being disgusting, Vicente! You are being ungrateful.’
She strode through the candles until she was standing over him and the jar, a fierce, angry shape against the light.
‘In six days’ time, the entertainers will come to my theatre. They will come, and they will give their all for the Angel. Then you will be cured, Vicente, and Cornelius will be happy and Matthew will come home. This is what Cornelius has promised will happen. This is what will happen.’ Vincent jumped as she kicked the jar. The impact caused it to ring dully like a broken bell. ‘Take this thing from my house!’
She swept from the room in a fluttering of candlelight. There came the sound of footsteps on gravel as she crossed the driveway.
‘Well,’ grunted Luke. ‘You’ve gone and upset the missus.’
Vincent sighed.
Cornelius regarded him from his position by the wall. ‘You will ruin everything.’
‘You do not know that for certain.’
‘It is not worth the risk. We are perfect as we are.’
‘By the devil, Cornelius. Tell me you are not serious!’
Vincent spread his arms as if to encompass the echoing ballroom, the dusty, silent house. ‘You call this perfect?’ he said. ‘Perfect?’ He began to laugh, a coarse noise that surprised even him with its unhappiness. Cornelius turned from the sound and fled into the dark.
‘Have people come back from the dead before?’ asked the seer.
Vincent tore his attention from the empty doorway and looked at her. She was slumped into the sofa, her hand clasped loosely in that of the boy called Joe. The only thing in any way alive about her was her eyes, and they watched from beneath lids pale as marble, lashes dark as ink.
Vincent flicked a glance to Joe, then back to her. ‘No. I have never seen anyone return from the dead before.’
She turned to Luke, and he shook his head. ‘Why?’ he said. ‘Who’s returned from the dead?’
Without replying, the girl heaved herself from the sofa, tentatively released the boy’s hand, and waited. When there seemed to be no ill effect from their lack of contact, she left him and lowered herself to the floor on the opposite side of the jar from Vincent. Looking across the light-addled surface at her was like gazing into a dark well. There was no glitter left to her at all. Still, Vincent couldn’t look away.
‘If you give this animal to the Angel,’ she said, ‘what is it you think will happen?’
‘I do not know.’
She thought about this a moment, then glanced at the two boys sitting on the sofa. The American was hunched, his eyes half closed, his mouth twisted against a nausea that Vincent guessed was considerably worse than his own. The boy called Joe was sitting forward, frowning attentively.
‘Your friends seem to think something bad will happen,’ said the girl.
‘My friends are frightened of change.’
‘What about you? Aren’t you frightened you’ll die?’
The question surprised him. Am I frightened to die? he thought.
Cornelius was, Vincent was certain of that. Poor Cornelius, so thoroughly disgusted by himself that he could conceive of nothing other than an angry God – he was scared of the torments of purgatory and of hell.
And Raquel? Who could tell what Raquel was frightened of? Her beliefs were so convoluted a tincture of all she’d been taught, and then taught to despise, that Vincent doubted even she had a clear handle on them. She simply revelled in her ongoing vengeance against God – the holding captive of one of His precious children – and the barricade it had allowed her to build against a world that had shown her nothing but pain.
‘How odd,’ whispered Vincent.
‘What?’ asked the girl.
‘You ask if I am afraid to die, and my first thoughts were not my own, but those of my friends.’
She tutted. ‘That’s nothing special, mister. I can count on the fingers of one hand the number of people I know who think for themselves.’
‘That is not what I meant!’
‘Oh, was it not?’ she snapped, and he recognised at once the hard, dry sarcasm of the street; the impatience of one who’d learned to trust no one’s judgement but her own.
Strange girl, he thought. I believe I could have come to like you.
‘Had I not been fodder for your angel,’ she added.
He startled. You hear me?
She just smiled coldly. ‘What do you think will happen once you sacrifice the theatre folk?’
‘We’ll be better again,’ said Luke, who had gone to the window. ‘The Angel will be strong and so we will be strong and everything will be fine.’
The girl did not shift her attention from Vincent. ‘I asked what you think, mister.’
‘I think the Bright Man will stagger along for another hundred years or so, sipping from whatever nasty brutalities the children inflict on the world and whatever contentment Luke gets from the gardens. I think Cornelius will eventually disappear below-ground, never to return, and I think Raquel will simply sit at her window, waiting for Matthew, until she turns to stone.’
‘And you?’
I will get thinner and thinner. Blood will fill my mouth with every breath. I will lay myself down in a room somewhere, and the dust shall coat me.
He shook his head and did not reply.
‘Your friends are afraid that if you give this to him, the Angel won’t need you. They’re afraid he’ll take his gifts away.’
‘Are they right?’
Troubled, the girl glanced to the boy called Joe. ‘I don’t know,’ she said.
Joe’s face hardened. ‘What became of your last seer, mister?’
‘She lost her mind. And died.’
‘This place killed her.’
Vincent nodded. ‘Her communion with the Bright Man wore her out.’
The boy glared at the girl. ‘See?’
She closed her eyes. ‘Stop it, Joe.’
By the window, Luke suddenly straightened, peering out into the dark. ‘Captain, there are lights on the ice.’
Vincent lurched to his feet. At first all he saw was his own reflection looking back at him, then there they were: distant torches bobbing; a crowd advancing through the fog. ‘What the devil can it be?’ he whispered. ‘Let us go investigate.’
‘I’ll get the pistols, Captain.’
Vincent looked at Luke in astonishment, and the man tutted. ‘I might as well’ve been on my own here these past fifty year or more, Captain. You think I’d feel comfortable without weapons at the ready?’
Luke grouched from the room, and Vincent trailed behind, feeling uncomfortably like an admonished child.
At the threshold, he hesitated. The creature bobbed in its jar of water, silent now that it was no longer part of something else’s consciousness. The girl sat in a sprawl of sky-blue skirts, watching him, her two boys like sentinels on the sofa at her back. Lost children. What danger or use were they now?
Luke called from the depths of the safe room by the front door, ‘Pistol or fowling-piece, Captain?’ and Vincent went to join him.
The Heart That Pushes
TINA WENT TO the window and looked out. Wolcroft was on the porch steps, accepting a pistol from the man called Luke. Wolcroft and Vincent murmured to each other as they checked the weapons, their attention on the lake. The woman, Raquel, was standing halfway down the lawns. Nothing but a crinolined shape cut from the illuminated fog, she too was watching the lights advance.
Weapons in hand, the three men descended onto the drive and strode into the dark. Tina knew they would remain lost from sight until they reached Raquel and were silhouetted against the torchlight.
Behind her, Harry rose from the sofa. He had one hand pressed to his stomach, his face the colour of old milk. ‘Let’s go,’ he gasped. ‘Now, while they’re distracted. Tina, you grab the pram. Joe, help me with the jar. After we’ve brought that creature down to the Angel, we can head to the stables, rig up the carriage and make a run for it.’ He staggered over and crouched to grab the jar by its rim. ‘Come on, Joe. I don’t feel too good. I can’t do this on my own.’
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