Clara gasped and clutched her neck. Her throat had begun to close. She could scarcely draw a breath. “My god! You’re going to strangle someone! And then… you’re putting the twine back in the drawer…you’re framing the family! It was their ball of twine…no one will ever suspect that you did it! My god, someone has to stop you!” Her eyes flew open. “Who are you planning to murder?” she shrieked. “Who are you?” She tried to push aside the other dolls, so she could see whose hand she was holding. But the unseen murderer’s hand quickly withdrew from Clara’s, and disappeared behind the crowd of faces.
“Who are you?” Clara cried. “Who are you?”
“Enough,” a voice interrupted. Clara recognized the voice; it was the old man.
“Enough of these lame parlor tricks,” the old man continued. “We have more important things to discuss.” He bent next to Clara, and pressed a thick black book into her hand. “Take this portal object, and you will use it to tell us about the Outsider. We have tried everything to get their country to join Pangaea. But nothing has worked.”
The dolls groaned.
“Damned Outsider!”
“Still won’t join us!”
“What’s it going to take?”
Clara stared at the book in her hand. It had no title.
“Why don’t they follow, like the rest did?” someone shouted.
“Silence!” the old man said firmly. He cleared his throat, and continued speaking in a low voice to Clara. “We must bring the Outsider into Pangaea. We need their resources. Not for the People, but for us. For the Benefactors.”
The faces nodded eagerly.
“I have a method,” he continued, “but I need to know if it will work. It’s a matter of appeal, not force. It’s got to be pleasant—something that people crave, something that people want, something they can’t live without. Something addictive.”
Clara wanted to know what was inside this unmarked book. Why, of all objects that might be chosen from the Outsider, was this book used as the portal object? She slid her hand beneath the front cover, ready to open it.
“Don’t open that,” the old man snapped. “Your job is to see it, not read it. Now go on, shut your eyes, and tell me if my plan will work. You know what I mean…you know the weapon of which I speak. You see it in your mind’s eye, don’t you?”
~
Clara was exhausted. She did not want to be at this strange party; she wanted to be asleep in her bed, away from all these strange dolls pressed about her like ravenous wooden vultures. And how could they possibly expect her to receive a vision on the Outsider? She had never even seen the Outsider territory before, but she had heard about it from what Dr. Gilac taught her: a barbaric, dark place.
A selfish place.
Yes, Clara realized that humans were inherently selfish creatures: never thinking of their fellow man, hoarding up their food like disgusting scura. Pangaea worked to control those selfish instincts; but the Outsider did not. The Outsider said, ‘Every man for himself,’ and there was no Public Family. Every man was a ‘social orphan.’ The population was utter chaos: the people multiplied like rabbits and spilled over into every corner and alleyway like stray cats. Some people grew fat with plenty, while others starved. They delved into natural resources without any regulation or rationing whatsoever.
Forget all that, she told herself. Let the visions come.
…
…A row of houses. Not tower blocks, but houses—real houses, of brick and wood and stone. Apple trees in the front yards. Children tossing a ball, laughing together. A woman, her arms filled with brown paper bags, walked up the sidewalk and towards a small wooden home.
Strange. That lady must be the Food Distributor. But where was her truck of ration boxes?
The woman opened the front door, and a little boy and his father dashed out. He hugged the lady’s arm, laughing excitedly.
So she was the mother.
No Food Distributor. No ration boxes.
“I brought you those cookies you like,” the mother chuckled.
But that couldn’t possibly be correct. None of it. The Outsider was supposed to be an unhappy place. This neighborhood was far too happy. And those apple trees—why weren’t those families getting arrested for unlicensed food?
Clara knew she was supposed to hate it all—to despise it, to want to obliterate it from existence.
But she simply could not.
Because she wanted to be a part of it.
Suddenly the family turned toward the street, as though something extraordinary had appeared. Clara followed their gaze up the street and up the hill, where a lone figure stood beneath an oak tree. It was a pale woman, dressed in a long dark robe. She extended her hand toward the family, as though inviting them to join her.
The boy laughed and started to run towards the strange woman. His mother caught his hand and tried to hold him back, but he escaped.
~
After Clara had finished murmuring the message, the old man nodded and smiled at the crowd before him. “Well, it looks as though our weapon will succeed.”
The crowd burst into applause, while others clinked their wine glasses in triumph. No one even noticed the woman in the black robe as she slipped through the double doors, and disappeared from sight.
~
Drusilla glanced up at the bathroom mirror, and adjusted the dark folds of her robe. Her cheeks were sunken with hunger, and her usually serene grey eyes had become strangely wild. Rumors had already begun spreading among the press that she had an eating disorder. “It’s common among these famous singers,” the reporter had remarked. “Starving, because they think it looks pretty. Well, let me tell you: starvation is not beautiful. It’s because of people like Drusilla that girls are eating cotton balls instead of dinner.”
The press were wrong. Drusilla wanted to eat, but she could not…at least, not for now.
Soon, she vowed.
Someone banged on the bathroom door.
“Just a moment,” Drusilla called coolly.
The door flung open, and Dr. Lucusta strolled into the room. “Well. I thought I would find you here, Drusilla.”
She glared at him, but attempted to calmly adjust her hair. “Don’t you bother to knock? Have you no respect for women?”
“Of course I respect women.” He grabbed her wrist, and shoved her against the wall. “But you hardly count as one of those. We both know that. Goodness, how thin you look! Have you been starving yourself? It’s not good to go hungry.”
“No.”
“Ah, I see.” He chuckled and released his grip from Drusilla’s arm. “The master has neglected to feed his pet.”
Drusilla rubbed her sore wrist, but did not reply. The nerves in her arm still prickled in horror where his hand had touched.
“Strange, isn’t it?” Dr. Lucusta continued. “The Benefactors provide for every citizen of Pangaea, but they can’t spare even a drop for you. You, the one who makes it all possible for them!”
“They do their best.”
He laughed loudly. “You don’t fool me for a moment. You hate the Benefactors. If you could poison them all in their sleep, I’m quite sure that you would. I would do the same, if it weren’t for all the promises they made to me. That’s how they won the People over in the first place: promises.” He wrinkled his nose in disgust. “Why do you insist on wearing this ridiculous robe, anyway? It looks so terribly clunky. You would look so much nicer in one of those gowns, like the Benefactor women wear.”
“I prefer this.”
“Of course you do. So no one can see you’re a skeleton.”
“Damned scurus!” Drusilla hissed. Before he could stop her, she flung open the door and rushed into the hallway. A few feet away, a boy who had been playing on a piano spun around at the sound of the slamming door.
She instantly recognized the froggish face. He was the old man’s grandson, Geoffrey.
“Are you all right, miss?” Geoffrey called. “Are you hurt?�
�
Drusilla did not answer. With her head held stiffly aloft, she strode towards the ballroom.
~
Clara had wandered away from the party into the hallway, unnoticed by those strange doll-like people. By now, her vision had become less blurred, and her senses were returning somewhat. She realized that she was in a large foyer, with a staircase in the center. And in the far corner was a boy.
He was seated at a piano, his fingers running up and down the keys. But when he noticed Clara watching, he instantly thrust his hands into his pockets. “Sorry,” he murmured. “Didn’t mean to disturb anyone.”
“Wait! I know you!” Clara gasped. “You’re the boy who gave me the box. With the mummified finger in it! What are you doing here?”
The boy raised his eyebrows, insulted. “Well, I don’t spend all my time passing around boxes of dead things.”
“So you play music?”
“Yes. A bit.” He resumed his playing. “I wrote this one myself, you know,” he said proudly.
“You wrote that? But…how?”
“I don’t know. The notes just come into my head, and then I play them. The waltzes, especially.”
“What’s a waltz?”
“A kind of a dance.”
“I never heard of it. How does it go?”
“Stepping in squares. I wouldn’t know, though.” He began to press the keys more harshly now, as though he were angered.
At this moment Clara noticed the boy’s foot, encased in a metal brace. “Oh. I see.”
“It’s always been that way. The doctor said it won’t get better, but I know he’s wrong. Someday it will be normal. But enough of that…what’s your name?”
“Clara. What’s yours?”
“Geoffrey.”
She listened to Geoffrey play for a few moments, but soon her attention had wandered to the walls of the house, crowded with paintings. Some of the works were yellowed and cracked with age, but the images remained clear enough. Clara did not recognize any of the characters: a naked woman standing beside a swan, a crowd of men gathered round a dinner table together, a man thrusting his sword into a hideous winged monster…so many strange pictures. “What are those strange hats?” Clara asked aloud.
The music stopped as Geoffrey turned to look. “Where?” he asked.
“Those white and yellow things—around the heads of those people. What are they?”
He followed her pointing finger to the image. “Oh, that! Those are the haloes. The artists used to paint those rings of light around the heads of people. To show who was good.”
“What if someone was evil, though?”
“They didn’t have a halo. Look there, in that one: the man has a halo, but not of light—of darkness.”
“So he was evil?”
“Well, so the myths say. They claim he betrayed his closest friend.”
“What myths? I never heard of anything like that.”
“The old myths—from thousands of years ago. Didn’t they teach you about ancient legends and civilizations in schools?”
Of course Clara did not know. Her memory had been wiped months ago, so that the only thing she could recall was her work for Dr. Gilac. But she desperately wished that she had known these stories at some point in her life—to understand all of these strange images scattered across the walls like an odd, disjointed dream. “No,” she said aloud. “But I wish I did.”
“I could show you some of it, if you like,” Geoffrey offered eagerly. “We have lots of books in the library upstairs. We could start with the oldest ones: maybe The Odyssey or The Iliad…”
But Clara barely heard his rambling. Her attention remained focused on the paintings of the people with the good lights. A marker of the heart’s innermost thoughts, a window truer than the eyes could ever be. She had never heard of such things anywhere else, except from one person. From Bertie, the so-called Fool. “Your mind’s eye isn’t in your eye,” Bertie had said, “it’s above your head.”
“That halo,” Clara said aloud. “How do you see it?”
Geoffrey seemed hurt. “You weren’t listening to a word I said!”
“I’m sorry. But please, just tell me: how do you see the halo?”
He rolled his eyes. “Why are you so obsessed with that stupid halo? The Odyssey is so much more interesting—”
“—Stop rambling,” Clara cut him off. “It’s very important that I learn more about those lights. I have to know.”
He raised an eyebrow. “Why is it so important to you?”
“Because…because I know someone who might be able to see it.”
Geoffrey sighed. “Well, obviously. I can see it too. Anybody can see it.”
“Anyone! But—but how?”
“In the KirlianScope photo: it shows your halo. See, look here. I got mine taken just last week—” he opened a nearby desk drawer, and pulled out a photograph.
The photo showed Geoffrey, but around his head appeared a purple-green smear of light. “There,” he said. “That’s my halo. Purple and green, no dark spots (except that one spot there, for my bad leg). Fully healthy.”
Clara examined the photo. “What do you mean—‘healthy’?”
He huffed exasperatedly. “You get one of these KirlianScans every time you go to the doctor. If you have dark spots in the halo, it means you’re sick. The spots match up to different illnesses. Don’t you ever go to the doctor?”
“No.”
Geoffrey frowned uncomfortably.
Clara felt equally embarrassed. As she stared in silent wonderment at Geoffrey’s KirlianScan, she had the sensation that he perceived her as a primitive tribesman, beholding fire for the first time. “But my friend doesn’t need a photo to see the halo,” Clara said. “She can see it—just by looking.”
Geoffrey’s eyes widened. “But that’s impossible! It would be like seeing atoms…it just can’t be…”
One of the ballroom doors peeped open, and a woman stepped into the hall. It was Miss Dorrod, dressed in a long blue cloak. Without a word of greeting, she strode over to Clara and took her firmly by the arm. “We will be going now, Clara,” she said, dragging the girl towards the front door.
“Wait a moment!” Geoffrey cried. He grabbed Miss Dorrod’s arm. “You can’t just take her away!”
Miss Dorrod paused in the doorway. Just behind her head, the moon’s waxing crescent hovered like a halo of darkness.
“This does not concern you, Geoffrey,” Miss Dorrod said. “If you object, I suggest you take this matter up with your grandfather. Good bye.”
~
Lucy had fallen off her couch. A ringing filled her ears. I must have dozed off, she thought. The clock on the wall read 6 PM.
Her shift at the coffee shop would begin in thirty minutes. Today it would be a double shift, because Jeff had been fired yesterday. It had been quite a scene: in a fit of rage, Jeff had shattered four coffee cups and one of the windows. With a final curse, he had announced he was leaving for Pangaea, where he could “at least live with civilized people.”
The ringing in Lucy’s ears had not yet stopped. By this time, she realized it was the phone, and she quickly answered it. “Hello?” she mumbled tiredly.
“Hello, Miss Lucy? This is Mrs. Holmes, Timmy Holmes’s mother. Do you remember Timmy? He was one of your eighth grade students.”
Lucy raised an eyebrow, shocked. She had left that teaching job four months ago now, but she still remembered Timmy quite well. “Of course I remember you Mrs. Holmes. But I left my teaching job a while back. Is something wrong?”
A tired sigh hissed through the line, followed by a moment of silence. Then the panicked shouts flooded forth. “Oh, Miss Lucy! Miss Lucy, I just don’t know where to turn! Today Timmy never came home at all. School ends at three, as you know, and he used to be home by three-fifteen, but lately he’s been coming home an hour late. I asked him why, but he wouldn’t tell me. And now he’s gone!”
“Then call the police!” Lucy excl
aimed irritably. “What are you waiting for?”
“I did, I did. I called the police first thing, and they’ve begun searching for him. I tried calling his new teacher for help, but he won’t answer his phone. But you know Timmy—maybe you have some idea where he might have gone?”
Of course Lucy did not know. She hadn’t spoken to any of her students since the school hired that new teacher. For all she knew, Timmy might have joined a gang or run away to sea. “I don’t see how I can help you, Mrs. Holmes,” Lucy mumbled tiredly.
“At least talk to the police,” Mrs. Holmes cried. “Come with us to the crime scene, and maybe you’ll see something that they missed.”
“All right, all right! I’ll see what I can do.”
She hung up the phone and grabbed the TV remote. Might as well catch the news before I leave. But as soon as the screen turned on, she instantly regretted it.
Live: The Trial of Father McCall.
The trial: everyone seemed to be watching it these days, discussing every newest gory detail that came to light. Lucy tried to avoid those conversations, but it was nearly impossible. She had spoken to Father McCall for only a few minutes that one day, when she had wandered into his church in search of help. But even in that short time she had spoken with him, she knew he could never be capable of murder…much less torture.
Now, onscreen, Father McCall was on the stand in the courtroom, staring ashamedly at the floor while the prosecuting attorney spoke. “Father McCall,” the attorney said sternly, “I am deeply puzzled how anyone, least of all a person who claims to be a man of God like yourself, could possibly have committed such a heinous crime. But then I looked into some of your church’s teachings for myself.” He held up a small black book. “Do you know what this is, Father McCall?”
Father McCall glanced up from the floor, and looked at the book. “Yes,” he said. “Our church’s prayer book.”
“You use this book every Sunday?”
“Yes. And for our holidays.”
“Well, Father, McCall, do you know what I found in this book?”
He did not reply.
“There’s a ritual in this book, Father McCall. I’m sure you recognize it. Ladies and gentlemen of the jury—” he opened the book—“allow me to read you some of this strange ritual. ‘Drink ye all of this; for this is my Blood of the New Testament.’” He held up the open book before Father McCall. “Is this the sort of violence you preach in your halls, Father?”
Pangaea Page 8