A Man of Shadows

by Jeff Noon

  He screamed!

  This was an unknown fact, a lost memory, until now. Kinkaid had screamed at the end; a suicide victim wouldn’t do that, would they? Wouldn’t they more willingly accept their fate? So that means… that meant that Kinkaid didn’t slash his own throat. He was murdered. But whose hand was on the knife? Nyquist’s or the girl’s? He screwed his eyes shut to focus on the mental picture, the memories. But the mist closed over the scene as surely as a curtain at the end of a play.

  He lay down on the bed a while and rested. Speckles of orange dust, the potent seeds of the kia plant, drifted around the room, across his field of vision. He was tired, his body drained of all energy, but he would not sleep. Not yet. Not until this was done, not until all the events had played out to their end. His mind flitted over the various details of the case as the seeds settled on him, setting his skin to tingle. His eyes closed and once again he was walking through the field of dusk flowers, beneath the electric violet moon. A dark object of some kind could be seen ahead, only slightly visible within the swaying stems and petals.

  It was a gravestone.

  The whole field glowed with an eerie light. Nyquist parted the stems in order to read the inscription on the stone, its letters clean and well defined, freshly carved. There were no dates, no acknowledgement of birth and death, only these words:

  * * *

  Here lies Eleanor Bale

  Killed in her youth

  by hands unknown

  and cruel

  * * *

  He touched at the lettering with his fingertips, tracing the girl’s name. A mound of earth was clearly visible, stretching away from the stone. The flowers had not yet blossomed over the grave. Nyquist knelt down to dig into the soil. His bare hands brought up several objects, one after the other: a postcard of a beach scene; a shadow puppet; a piece of paper with a telephone number on it; a page torn from a travelogue; two vials filled with orange liquid. a photograph of a young man. He turned the photograph over and saw the words Angelcroft and Silhouette written on the back. Nyquist could make no sense of these mysterious objects, beyond a vague feeling that he might have seen them before somewhere, or heard about them from a friend, or read about them in a novel that someone had lent him once, a book that was now lost, as all things eventually become lost. His body shivered with cold as a smear of cloud passed over the moon. Mist clung to the stone, partially obscuring the name of the girl. He was afraid. What had he done? What had he done wrong?

  Nyquist woke up. He was lying on the hotel bed. His mouth was dry, his eyes flashed with strange colours.

  Something had changed. He could not comprehend it at first, except that the room was dark now, the overhead light had been turned off. Did he do this? The curtains were drawn. Did he do these things? He could not remember. Nyquist remained still, very still, listening.

  He became aware of another presence in the room.

  He turned his head slightly, enough to see that a person was sitting on a chair in the corner, in the darkest part of the room. He could not see the person’s eyes or even their face, not clearly, but he could sense that he was being watched, stared at, examined closely.

  The clock on the wall started to tick.

  A Lesson from the Shadows

  It seemed that sleep still had a partial hold on him. Nyquist made to get up from the bed but found that he could not easily move his body. His limbs were filled with earth. His head turned back and forth like a machine pretending to be alive.

  The wall clock filled the room with its slowed-down mantra, each single tick taking an age to complete its movement.

  The figure had not yet made a sound or a gesture.

  Nyquist screwed up his eyes, seeking knowledge of the visitor, the person that shared this space with him. His vision readjusted slightly, letting the silhouette take on a blurred identity.

  “Eleanor? Is that you?”

  There was no reply.

  “Eleanor?”

  Finally, the figure spoke: “Yes. It’s me.” The voice, a whisper only.

  “Oh, thank Apollo. I was scared that you…”

  His voice trailed away. There was something different about the girl, he could not make it out. Again, he tried to move; again finding it difficult. His body was under some kind of binding spell, some weight placed upon him.

  Eleanor asked quietly, “Tell me your name, please?”

  “What?”

  “Your name?”

  “It’s John. John Nyquist.”

  “John?”

  “Yes. Nyquist. The private detective.”

  He managed to raise his arms, enough to allow his fingers to rub at his eyes. He could feel granules of sand lodged at each tear duct.

  Eleanor must be confused, he thought; it was this place taking control, this room, the dusk itself, the various moons and the mist, the few remaining neon stars, all under Aisha’s control.

  “I feel strange, John. I really do. I can’t…”

  “What? What is it?”

  “I can’t seem to breathe properly.”

  “Eleanor?”

  He had to get her out of here, back to the daylight. And with that thought he managed to gain some control over his body, to sit up on the bed. He carried on the movement, lifting himself to his feet. His legs felt weak and he almost collapsed. The spell worked like a personal gravity. Eleanor was moving her arms slowly back and forth, over and over, and his internal body clock was slowing in turn, following the rhythm.

  The girl settled back once more into the shadows.

  Nyquist could just about make her out there; he could see that she was still wearing the plain blue tunic given her at the Aeon Institute; he could hear the shallow breaths that she took, the spittle in her throat. It was too intimate a sound and his own mouth went dry in response. If only he could think clearly.

  He looked around the room. A crack in the curtain let in a beam of light which fell just so across the face of the wall clock, as though placed there by some purposeful hand. The dial was blurred. A black jellylike substance was seeping from the bottom of the clock. Here was Time; Time itself, escaping from the confines of the instrument.

  At last he got the clockface in focus: it was six minutes past seven.

  Nyquist felt sick. “Let me…” His voice would not work properly. “Let me see you. I need to… I need to see you, your face.”

  Eleanor nodded. She spoke quietly, using strange words, and then he could move again. Nyquist steadied himself, before taking a few tentative steps.

  “Please, John. Not too close.”

  The girl’s voice was changing, growing weary.

  And he remembered what Aisha Kinkaid had said to him about Eleanor being caught in a different time zone. What a tremendous effort the girl must be making, to show herself to him like this, to force herself into his world, at least partially. Yes, yes; that’s why the clock was wounded. The two worlds were clawing at each other, to stay connected.

  “Eleanor, are you all right?”

  “It’s this place, isn’t it?” she replied. “This twilight. All the clocks ticking away, so slowly. Tick away, tick away.” The voice quietened. “Tick, tick, ticking away. Oh…”

  Nyquist had clicked on a bedside lamp, causing Eleanor to gasp.

  “Is that hurting you?” he asked.

  “A little.”

  Nyquist picked up the lamp by its base. He walked forward slowly, towards the girl. She leant back into the shadows. Nyquist followed her, holding the lamp out in front of him.

  Now he saw the face, one half of which was turned away.

  “Eleanor? Look at me.”

  She did so, and he was shocked by what he saw.

  “Please don’t think badly of me, Johnny. You don’t mind me calling you that, I hope? Because we’re friends, aren’t we? Of course we are. John Nyquist. A fine name, for a fine man.”

  The face loomed directly into the lamplight, fully visible, and Nyquist understood completely. He knew t
he truth. All the hidden patterns of this long difficult case unfolded, all the riddles and tangles pulling themselves into shape. His hand trembled, causing the light to quiver as he made a study of the person before him.

  The girl’s skin was palely drawn, almost translucent. Within this setting the mouth was stark red and open, labouring to draw in breath. The eyes were the worst, for they contained no colour, none of the startling blue he had seen before in Eleanor’s sight, and no whiteness at all; instead they were black, entirely black, glistening. Strands of mist trailed around her head like the filaments of a dream escaping from her skull. Strangest of all, the face quivered slightly, blurring at the edges. She opened her mouth and a wisp of grey fog escaped, curling away from her lips.

  Nyquist watched in horror. He knew that this was Eleanor Bale in body only, a body taken over by the spirit of her sister, Eliza Kinkaid. Or rather, yes he saw it now: the two women were occupying the exact same place at slightly different times. Just a few seconds separated them, enough to allow this merging to take hold. Nyquist felt his skin crawl. The fear rose in him and he dropped the lamp. The shadows of the room rushed away from the light’s sudden downward swing, finally settling once more in new shapes, new positions.

  “Eleanor?”

  He could hardly dare look at her, but he did, he had to. He tried to say her name a second time, knowing it was a lie or at least part of a lie. His voice froze, mid-word.

  “Quiet now, Johnny. You’re weak, weak and fatigued.” The girl’s face took on a more serious aspect. “When I was younger, so very much younger…” The words drifted away, unfinished, barely heard. She was moving in and out of his time, and the struggle to remain in sync took all her concentration.

  It made him bring a hand up to his own face, checking for evidence of his own flesh and blood, his own bodily warmth. Even to look upon this woman seemed like a small act of dying. All evidence of Eleanor’s youthful awkwardness had vanished, the flesh caressed all over by the sister’s presence. The years spent here in twilight had taken their own toll upon Eliza, causing her to lose sense of what life might be, all youthful vitality to be drained away. Now she was the parasite. And the ravenous look in the blackened eyes told him that she would soon take Eleanor’s life force as her own, completely. Yet Nyquist sensed that she was following orders given out by her grandmother. A part of her still clung in love to her twin.

  She said, “You have to listen to me. Can you do that?”

  It was Eliza speaking. Nyquist nodded. “Yes.”

  “When I was younger I lived alone, here in this room. They locked me away, my father and my grandmother. Oh, they fed me, and cleaned me, and tended to my sickness, and they said that they loved me, very much so, but I was alone. I lived in the confines of this room, very often in the dark by my own choosing, and mist grew within me. I could feel it. Just here, as I grew older. And here…” Her hands touched at her chest and belly. “Until the time came for the door to be opened. I walked out, into the fields of dusk, and I breathed. I breathed out. I breathed the mist.” Again, she demonstrated her skill for him.

  Nyquist could take no more. He brushed the mist from where it clung to his face and cried out, “Eleanor! Eleanor, if you’re in there, speak to me. Speak!”

  The darker sister sighed. “She can’t hear you. Eleanor can’t do much of anything just now.”

  “Let her go.”

  “I can’t do that.”

  “Eliza, please…” It was the first time he had used the young woman’s name.

  “I can’t help you, I’m afraid.”

  He pleaded with her. “What do you want?”

  The face smiled. It was unnerving to see Eleanor’s face and form like this, to hear her voice, and yet to see the hands moving in a stranger’s manner, the expressions awkward on the flesh, and the choice of words and syntax so different from those he was used to hearing from her.

  He repeated his question. “Eliza, what is it that you want?”

  “Only what was stolen from me. My life, my strength.”

  “You’re going to kill her?”

  The jet black eyes blinked. The head tilted slightly. “My grandmother will carry out the ceremony. Eleanor’s physical body will die. But even then, I believe my sister will live on inside me, in a way.”

  Nyquist leaned closer. “This isn’t the answer, Eliza. Her life isn’t yours to steal.”

  The girl shivered. “I should’ve destroyed her in the womb.”

  Seven words, plainly spoken.

  And that was all he needed: a trigger.

  Nyquist moved away.

  The girl stood up from her seat, holding out a hand in warning.

  He went to the wall and clicked the switch.

  The room was flooded with light.

  She howled.

  He went back to her and said, “Eleanor? I know you can hear me.”

  He reached out and placed his hands on her shoulders, one on each side. The body flinched. Her face was close to his. Her eyes were so deep and so dark at this range, they reminded Nyquist of the state of midnight into which he had entered, the pool of blackness at the night’s furthest edge. But now he could see that thin trails of mist rose even from the pupils, like tears turned to vapour.

  He whispered, “Eleanor. I’m here. I’ll take you back home.”

  She pulled away. The ghost in her eyes had seen something, something in Nyquist. Something terrible. Her voice faltered, she couldn’t speak.

  Nyquist felt this strange desire come over him, this urgent need to wrap his hands around the girl’s neck, or to push her back roughly. Energy coursed through his body.

  He glanced at the clock.

  It was still six minutes past seven.

  He could hear the ticking in his head.

  In the mirror below the clock he caught a glimpse of his own face. One look told him the truth, that he was no longer in charge of his own being. He was a slave. His demeanour was changing, becoming more cruel, more determined and trapped in its course. Nyquist scarcely knew what was happening, but the feelings were too strong. His mouth opened, showing his teeth. His eyes were pinpricks, with no expression in them, none.

  Less than a minute to go. Fifty-five seconds.

  The hands of the clock moved on, slowly, so very slowly…

  He turned back to the girl.

  “What’s wrong?” she said. “What’s happening?” It was Eleanor’s voice.

  “It’s time,” he answered.

  She took a step away from him, another. “Please. Nyquist. You’re scaring me. Leave me alone.” He followed her, his long stride easily covering the distance, and he reached out with one hand and pushed her down onto the bed.

  She was terrified. “Keep away from me. Keep away!”

  He fell on the bed with her, straddling her body. The girl was screaming. But Nyquist could hear only the surge of blood inside his own head, nothing else. His hand reached out without need of instruction, grabbing the nearest pillow. He brought it round in a preordained movement, following the rehearsed pattern to place it over her face. He pressed down, lightly at first. Eleanor cried out: no words, just a noise, a noise, a dreadful, appalling noise and then Nyquist cut off the voice completely, pushing the pillow down hard on the girl’s face.

  Pressing down, pressing.

  Eleanor struggled.

  The seconds ticked away. He pressed harder.

  Her hands reached up to…

  To stop him…

  To…

  Her hands…

  Reaching…

  Failing…

  Falling…

  There was little chance for her now. She had given in, willingly, desiring only an end to this pain and for stillness to take her at last, nothing more. Her final movements were tiny, her breathing slowed to nothingness, to silence. Nyquist was too strong for her. It was done now, done, and yet still he held the pillow in place, keeping it there, whilst his mind entered another state, another place, another ti
me, floating free from his immediate surroundings, from his body. He saw the clock on the wall reading exactly seven minutes past seven.

  It was time.

  He was a child again, seeing his mother lying in the road, his father emerging from the car, crying out in horror at what he’d done: he’d killed her, his own wife, his darling wife! And Nyquist knew that his father had walked into the dusk out of guilt, only that, sheer guilt. There was no exploration, no hope of seeing her again; only the mist taking him away.

  All these thoughts came to Nyquist as he knelt there on the bed.

  He let his hands uncurl on the pillow, and to lift up, lift up, further, taking the pillow with them as he willed the girl, the beautiful young woman, all that life, that life to come, willing her to breathe again. To breathe.

  Then he threw the pillow aside and pressed down on her chest.

  Breathe again. Breathe for me.

  Again.

  There was no movement.

  Breathe. Eleanor. Please won’t you breathe! Breathe.

  His lips came down to hers and he pinched her nose shut with one hand and he breathed for her. He breathed for the girl, again, again, and again, sobbing, his eyes brimming with tears as he breathed out, letting his own breath go inside of her, pure air, willing her to live, again, again, pressing down on her chest now, violently, urging the flesh, and then returning to her lips, to breathe there, to breathe for her and with her. Breathing as two persons sharing one body might breathe, until a scream came from her, not from her lips but from within, and a shadow moved away from her body, was torn from her, and Eleanor stirred beneath him then, the flesh, the blood, slowly, reluctantly, clinging on, loosening their grip on darkness, stronger now, more determined, her chest starting to rise, to rise and to fall in a broken rhythm and she was coughing, choking, and he held her there, that moment, another, one more, he held on tight until she was sobbing with him, in his arms and breathing at last. And he looked into her eyes, her lovely blue eyes, clear, untainted, the colour of the sky in daylight, in sunlight.