by Ariel Dodson
It was a long and silent meal that evening. The darkness fell quickly, like a heavy drape, and threads of moonlight beamed searchingly through the thick clouds, shining on the girls’ faces like a spotlight. Aunt Maud’s face looked particularly bony and corpselike by moonlight, and Alice found that she could help to pass the time by studying the skeletal angles of her nose and chin in the glow.
Arlen seemed uncomfortable, twisting nervously in her seat and casting anxious glances towards the window.
However even the longest meals don’t last forever, and eventually the kettles were boiled on the fire, the slippery grease was scrubbed off the pans and plates, and the table was clean and clear before Aunt Maud had even climbed back up from the cellar where she was storing the leftover fish.
The wind had started up again outside, whistling down the chimney like a schoolchild, catching the corners of the crumbling stone with a sharp claw. The chanting had begun, the voices echoing in the wind, the moonlight bloodied by the burning glow of the fire. Arlen was behaving strangely, holding her head as if it hurt her, rubbing her hands over her ears. For the first time, she seemed to be able to hear what they were saying, and they entered her head, creeping like soft fingers, possessive words, tugging at her thoughts, slipping through her mind. Soul, soul, soul. She shook her head fiercely, her heart pounding. She was beginning to understand them. She couldn’t let them – she wouldn’t – she didn’t want to. What had happened? Where had it started? Was this because it had seen her? Or because she had unwittingly made some sort of contract with it, letting it draw upon her hatred and her anger? Her thoughts were sitting thickly now, squatting inside her mind, and she could no longer find them through the pounding, pounding, wrapping her mind up with each beat. Ice coursed through her body and beads of sweat broke into a fragile chain across her forehead. The reaction wasn’t lost on Alice.
“Are you OK?” she asked quickly. What now? she wondered, feeling a ridiculous urge to run back to the train station and jump on a train – any train – as long as it was away from here.
“I – need – to – get – out,” Arlen stammered, brokenly. Give, give, give. She could feel herself trembling as the words crossed her mind like black smoke.
“Come on,” Alice said quickly, her face pale, pulling her towards the door. “We’ll get out.” She reached for the door handle and drew back with a gasp as a tall, gaunt shadow blocked it from view.
It was Aunt Maud, standing strangely in the darkness of the doorway, still and silent, eyes glittering.
“Aunt Maud?” Alice asked uncertainly.
“Girls, where are you going?” Her voice seemed deeper than usual, stonier. She made no effort to approach them.
“We – we wanted – to – to look – at the – moon,” Arlen said slowly. She seemed to be fighting for each word.
“You can see the moon clearly from your own room,” Aunt Maud said reasonably. “I’m not having you running out and catching cold at this time of night. Now upstairs, both of you.”
“But Aunt Maud – ”
“Upstairs, now.”
There was nothing for it but to march back up the winding stone steps and into the tower room. Aunt Maud marched behind, drill-like, and ushered them inside. “And don’t think of sneaking downstairs later on,” she warned, sourly. “Or who knows what trouble you’ll get into. Goodnight, girls.” She cast a final expressionless glance on the pair, and left the room.
Alice glared at her in frustration. Why did she always turn up and interfere just when they didn’t want her? But it was only when she heard the faint, dry grate of metal in the door that she sprang forward furiously, her hand rattling the door knob.
“She’s locked us in!” she cried angrily. “What’s the matter with her tonight?”
“I – don’t – know,” Arlen was still struggling to speak, her voice harsh and jagged. Her heart was pounding with the force of a mallet firing against her chest. She felt trapped and dizzy, and she could not think coherently beyond it, much less speak. A circle danced before her, like a red dot, which shimmered and jumped, whilst all else around was blackness. The chanting seemed to fade quietly into the background until it was just a whisper in her head, and all she could hear was the soft, hungry lapping of the waves against the shore. The dot grew closer, and larger, and the fire flickered on her face in dark shadows. She was caught in a ring, and she was not alone.
She could see the dancers, cloaks rustling, sandy footsteps slapping around and around her like moving bars. “We have to get out.” The voice came from somewhere outside herself. She could barely hear it, and strained to listen. The red glow became a throb, and she could feel it pounding, pounding along with her heartbeat and her aching head, and she could see it before her even with her eyes closed. She mustn’t – let – it – in. Was this what Alice had seen? she thought blindly. How could she bear it?
Alice quietly propelled her onto one of the mattresses. “We have to get out,” she insisted. “We have to get out.”
She had been round the room several times, and there appeared to be no hope for them. They had no key, and the door, although old, was of thick, solid oak, and would take considerably more than the force of their two small bodies to break it. There was no route of escape via the window. Nothing grew near the tower, and the connecting rooftops had long since crumbled away, or been destroyed, as Arlen seemed to think. And even if they could have climbed out on to an adjoining parapet, it would have catapulted them into full view of the very thing they were trying to avoid. She didn’t know what to do. She was casing the room as if in a cage, round and round monotonously, with nothing at all coming into view to provide an answer.
Outside the chanting swelled, borne on the wind, whistling a little; an unpleasant chuckle, working its way there, inside her brain. She shook her head fiercely. Singing, singing, singing, louder and louder, as the glowing orange reflection of firelight bounced across and around the walls until the whole circular room was caught in the middle of it, swirling. Alice’s head began to hurt, and she covered her ears. But it was Arlen who worried her most. She didn’t seem to be – there.
Arlen was doubled over, the pain in her head intensifying, the chant creeping around her brain like soft gloves. The bony hand rose, the wide sleeve falling back to reveal a long white arm, reaching for the hood. It was calling for her now. It had come to her when she had called, and now it wanted payment. She fought against it, the words searing her brain, renting wall after wall of her mind. Shooting pains assaulted the backs of her eyes, struck by the firelight, and the wall that seemed to separate her from the moving figures shattered until the chanting became deafening and her head swam. She leaned forward and retched.
“Arlen, Arlen, fight it,” Alice was holding her tightly, shaking her, terrified. “Arlen, come back.”
“Must – not – let in,” she whispered, “must – get – out.”
The cave appeared in her mind like a prayer, its cool green shelter winking at her from somewhere. If she could only reach the cave and rest in the damp coolness of its rainbow lights, she’d be able to think. She’d be able to breathe again.
Alice stared at her, her heart pounding frantically. The liquid green fronds of shadow seemed to pass through her inner vision like an oasis, and she realised suddenly that she was reading Arlen’s thoughts. So this is what it’s like, she thought distractedly, suddenly remembering all the stories she had heard about twins and telepathy. Maybe, then, she could work out what to do from this glimpse into Arlen’s knowledge.
It was then that it struck her. It was so simple.
The cave.
Another picture appeared in her head, flowing like a television screen from Arlen’s mind. “The alchemist,” she murmured softly. “What about him?” Her fists were smarting from the pounding on the walls, searching for some, any, means of escape. “Arlen, what about him?”
“There was a – passageway – a secret – passageway – from the alchemist’s room.
I – read – about it once – ” Arlen faltered, her head buried in her hands, and suddenly Arlen could see her, the other twin. She was standing almost right before her in a dark cloak, disappearing into the fireplace, a tightly wrapped parcel under her arm and an overwhelming ache, a deep and desperate sadness swamping her like a wave. How alike we are, Alice thought, and started suddenly as the long-ago figure seemed to turn back slightly, as if searching for someone. Could it be that she saw her too? She half rose as the image vanished suddenly into the wall, like a conjurer’s trick.
“Where is she going?” Alice cried. “The alchemist’s passage isn’t here anymore! We’d have to go rummage about in the rubble!” And she ran to the fireplace, running her fingers over the ancient stone, searching desperately for an escape.
“Maybe – there was another one,” Arlen stammered, still with difficulty. The cries below the tower were so intense now that she could almost see them in the room with her – the hooded shapes, no longer wraithlike, but physical and powerful, bare feet slapping the cold sand, and from one wide, dark sleeve, a skeletal, elongated hand, and the fire of a ruby ring. “We have to find it,” she whispered. “We have to find it before he does.”
“But where’s the door?” Alice cried, shoving frantically at the rock. The panic inside her had risen to such a point that she was near bursting into tears. “I’ve looked everywhere – I’ve been over the whole room. It won’t open!”
“The fireplace,” Arlen said simply.
“Where?” Alice almost shouted. “I’ve tapped and prodded everything. There’s nothing there!” and she pounded mercilessly against the ancient stone so that her hands were scraped and bloody. Arlen rose slowly to stand beside her and something in Alice snapped. How could she stand there so calmly and quietly, as if she knew something she wouldn’t share, and she turned her attention to her sister suddenly, and shook her and shook her until she felt that her own body would shatter into fragments itself and be sucked through the chimney like smoke. As Arlen struggled, the ribbon around her neck ripped and the charm swung and fell, clinging as if magnetised to a tiny chink in the stone, and suddenly she knew. “Turn it,” she instructed Alice.
“What?”
“Turn it. It’s a key.”
Hardly believing it, Alice reached for the charm, the smooth gold curls sending a soft glow through her, and turned it gently. She stepped out of the way just in time as the fireplace drew back, as if on some sort of pulley, revealing a small dark opening and a very narrow, dusty flight of steps.
Alice looked at Arlen and Arlen looked at Alice.
“Come on.”
The entrance was low and narrow, and both girls had to bend over to slip through. Arlen could almost swear she saw a soft fold of cloak disappear down the stairway before them.
“Are you sure about this?” Alice asked nervously, as she hesitated above the first step. She was holding the charm in front of her, a soft golden glow emanating from its warm coils, like a tiny lamp. The stairs were thin and winding, and seemed polished smooth with use, so that some didn’t appear to be really there at all. Alice couldn’t help but liken them to a sliding tunnel she had once seen at an amusement park on a school excursion. At least there though, she’d known where she was going to end up.
“Just keep going,” Arlen said slowly. The chant was still sounding in her ears, ringing with her heartbeat, and the shadows of the dancers crossed her eyes in black cords. She could smell them now, too; a pungent, rising odour, a stagnation of nothing and lifelessness, filling her nose and her mind until she could feel the bile rise in her throat. “Quickly,” she urged Alice. “Keep going.”
“OK.” Alice took a deep breath and led the way forward.
It was a slow procession. The worn steps were difficult to tread without slipping, and they had to maintain a funereal walk for their own safety. Down and down they went, each few steps almost completing a full circle, so that they felt as though they weren’t moving at all, down and down, in the chill silence of the darkness. It was then that Alice stopped short.
“What’s wrong?” Arlen asked, rubbing her nose, which had landed at full tilt in Alice’s back.
“The entrance,” Alice said quickly. “Did we shut it?”
“No – I don’t think so,” Arlen muttered.
“Aunt Maud!” Alice could not forget the sharp, hungry look on the old woman’s face as she had locked them in, above the ritual. “She’ll find it. We have to shut it.”
“I – can’t – ” Arlen tried to back up.
“I’ll do it.” Alice held her sister firmly and slid around her with some difficulty. The path left so little room that a slightly larger person could not have done it. “Keep going.”
Frantically, she slipped back up the stairs as fast as she dared, her fingers reaching desperately for holds in the soft, crumbling stone as her trainers failed to grip the steps. It was slow progress, but she eventually reached a glimmer of daylight, appearing back at the entrance just as she heard the sound of heavy footsteps outside the door.
“Aunt Maud,” she muttered, her heart pounding as she sought desperately for a way to close the chasm. There seemed to be nothing. Her fingers explored stone and wood urgently for some sort of lever or hole, but nothing was there. “Oh no, oh no.” The footsteps had reached the door now. They stopped, and there was a dreadful heavy pause which seemed to hang on the air like a hungry, drawn-in breath. Her whole body was shaking now, her spine crawling with gooseflesh as she waited expectantly, fearfully. The silence grew, and then she heard the tiniest clink of metal entering the lock. Snapped to suddenly, she continued her search, hardly daring to breathe. The original key hole was now buried beneath the hanging fireplace, so that obviously wasn’t the closing method. There must be a way, she thought frantically, there must be. It’s a secret passage – it couldn’t have stayed secret if it had been left open. Oh, come on. The key was in the door now. She heard it turn and click and watched the handle turn slowly, as if the person behind the door was hoping that those within wouldn’t notice it. The heavy oak began to move, and Alice was aware of a strange sort of panting behind it. Her whole body seemed to chill in the icy wave of a split second and she started, as if an electric shock had coursed through her, and it was then that she noticed the serpent. Just inside the entrance, just above the sliding doorway, was the tiny figure of a dragon, the golden winged creature that had come to her rescue once before. She reached up, somehow feeling that if she could only touch it, it would afford her some protection, at least. Her fingers slid across a warm, rubbery sort of material, tracing its pattern softly, as the door opened wide and Aunt Maud stood behind it, eyes glittering, key triumphant in her hand, her greedy expression changing quickly into surprise, anger and fear as she saw Alice’s small, scared face glowing white in the darkness of the cavity, and she rushed forward in a hungry leap that Alice wouldn’t have thought her capable of, her mouth open and snarling. Alice drew back, her heart seeming to stop entirely for a moment, but the figure of the serpent shone strong and golden, leaving her flooded in light, and the fireplace drew back on its invisible castors at the very moment Aunt Maud flung herself at it with a desperate cry.
Alice was left shaking in a pool of gold, the figure of the dragon glowing around her like stars. She didn’t know what had happened to Aunt Maud. That expression – that wail – hadn’t even seemed human. She curled herself up in a ball within the protective light of the worm, and trembled. It seemed like hours, although it was only a few minutes, until her thoughts began to collect and merge, and she remembered Arlen, alone in the dark, alone with the chanting. She took a deep breath, gathered herself together, and turned back towards the steps.
Arlen, meanwhile, had come to a standstill. She had reached the bottom of the steps by forcing herself to concentrate on each one individually. It helped her to focus away from the throb of chanting, which was growing louder and more intense with each step, until her head was ringing with the words and t
hey were pounding with her heart. Those eyes. She could see the eyes in her head as if they were still before her, that cold, grey face, that emptiness behind the hood, and the sparkle of the ring as Robbie hurtled over the cliff. That blood red ring. She tingled. She was in a passageway now, sandy and flat, and moving away from the castle. The silent chill of the winding staircase had thickened into a warm stickiness, and there was a damp, mouldy, seaweedy smell in the air. As she moved slowly into the tunnel, she could feel the ritual intensify. The passage grew hot and gasping with the dancers, and the craggy walls around her, which were carved with swirling, magical symbols, sweated red with blood. She removed her jumper and stopped, panting. The walls and ceiling were vibrating, and the fire of the circle was flashing before her eyes in a throbbing drum, and it was only when a trickle of sand fell upon her in a shower that she realised she was underneath the dancing ground. She felt paralysed, and yet still her heart kept dancing, throbbing, pounding to the beat, and the shadows of the dancers once again seemed to surround her and cage her in, trapping her like an animal, black tentacles blocking and winding around her throat until she felt that she was choking. The heat was becoming unbearable now and she was wet with sweat, her body dripping, her hair clinging to her face in thick dark strands, barring her eyes, and still the dance went on and on, and the chant sank through her like a stone. She felt powerless to move, unable to escape the prison. And the fire glowed before her, tempting and terrifying, until it seemed that she was caught within its heat and blood, and everything around her flickered red and orange, and she thought that she would burn up. Outside the fire she could see the shapes moving, faceless shadows peering in at her with a strange, snuffling sound, wet lips and tongues, like dogs on a scent, as if they could smell her. And still she stood, motionless, while the sweat formed a small puddle at her feet and her legs shook and the dance pounded and pounded through her heart until she felt a sharp electric shock and all was black.