The Janus Cycle

by Tej Turner

  “I don’t know,” I said, shrugging. “My Mum’s been teaching me since I was little.”

  Harriet and Paul came back with drinks, so we both had to shuffle along the bench to let them in. Harriet soon began to ply him with puppy eyes and lots of questions, which was good because it meant Steve and me were free to carry on chatting about music. Amy and Josh disappeared at one point and returned with another round of drinks, and I reached the stage of drunk where everything starts to sway and blur.

  At some point in the conversation Steve’s attention was stolen by something over my shoulder and I turned around to see that Harriet had finally made her move: she and Paul were kissing.

  Steve then looked at me and I could tell what he was thinking; his two friends had both made a successful move on their prospective dates – therefore, he was lagging behind. He hesitantly began to lean towards me, as if he was unsure. He was giving me plenty of time to pull away. I looked at him. He had proved himself interesting; that had been probably the longest conversation I ever had with a boy.

  Our lips touched and held in place for a moment. Neither of us seemed to know what to do. He started pouting his lips like a goldfish. This was doing nothing for me.

  His hands were on my shoulders. This was doing nothing for me.

  The tip of his tongue entered my mouth. I pulled away.

  “Err...” I said, turning away and covering my mouth. “Sorry... I need to go... to the loo.”

  I made a swift exit before he had a chance to reply and disappeared into the crowd. They were all dancing wildly, shaking their black hair around and raising their arms up to the ceiling. An angry song reached a heavy bridge and I found myself in the middle of a mishmash of shaking limbs and heavy bodies colliding with each other. They knocked me to the floor and I screamed, but no one heard me. A foot came down on my leg and I yelped again, quickly shuffling away.

  By the time I crawled back onto my feet I was angry. I shoved my way past them, searching for a way out. It was hard work because they were all too busy making a big show of how violently they could dance to notice me. I fought my way out and went up the stairs. When I reached the toilet, I stood in front of the mirror and thought about the kiss. Why was it that Amy and Harriet enjoyed it so much?

  My hair was a mess, my skirt was torn, my makeup was smudged, and I found myself wishing I was like Amy and had a backup supply with me so I could reapply my face. I stumbled up to the mirror, planning to fix myself up a bit, realising just how drunk I was.

  Fuck it, I thought, and gave up trying to straighten my vest top. I walked out of the toilet with the intension of going back downstairs to see if Steve and I could pretend that whole thing never happened, when I realised I was back in that weird corridor again and I remembered the girl I’d seen earlier.

  I searched the rooms. Some of them were empty but a few were filled with people partying. I scanned their faces but none of them were hers. As I made my way further down the corridor the place became quieter. In one room there were two people sitting opposite each other in the lotus position; one of them opened their eyes and gave me a knowing look that sent shivers crawling down my spine. I moved on.

  I turned a corner and opened a door. A series of faces turned to look at me and stared. Several eyebrows knotted together.

  “What are you doing here?” a boy demanded. He had dreadlocks and was wearing a denim jacket.

  I was dumbstruck. I had no idea why, but I could feel hostility and it wasn’t just my imagination: many of them were scowling at me. One of the girls got up and walked over to me. She wore a more sympathetic expression than the others but I could still see some kind of disapproval in her eyes.

  “Come,” she said, putting a hand on my shoulder “You must be lost. I’ll take you back downstairs.”

  “Wait,” a voice called out. Everyone turned to a small figure sitting in an armchair at the back of the room.

  It was the girl from my dream. She was staring at me.

  “You want to speak to her?” the girl with her hand on my shoulder asked.

  She nodded.

  I was led across the room to her. I was nervous and I didn’t know what to say; if I told her I knew her from a dream she would think I was a freak.

  “Be careful what you say,” the girl guiding me whispered into my ear. “Be careful what you think. She sees...”

  I was too nervous to fully take in what she was saying. We were now nearing up to her and she looked exactly as I remembered, with her pointed chin, but otherwise small and delicate features. Her hair was a thin layer of black, shiny velvet running down to her jaw.

  The one who was guiding me then left, and I was alone with her. Most people look you up and down the first time they meet you but this girl just studied me with her ghostly blue eyes and there was something about them that made me feel exposed.

  “You’ve seen my face before, haven’t you...” she eventually said. Her voice was a little different to how I remembered it in the dream, more of a whisper. A gentle sound, but it had a tone of authority.

  I didn’t know what to say so I just nodded.

  “What did she say to you?” she asked.

  Her eyes were still on mine, and I somehow knew it would be impossible to lie to her. “It was a dream,” I said.

  She nodded her head, unsurprised. “What happened?”

  I told her about how I herded the animals around the meadow by playing my flute. I left out the bit at the end, of course, but I think she caught me blushing when I thought about it.

  “You play the flute?” she asked when I finished.

  I nodded.

  “Patrick!” she called out, turning to a table a few feet away. A boy wearing a checked shirt and scruffy jeans lifted his head. He had a mousy face framed with locks of wavy brown hair. “She plays the flute.”

  He narrowed his eyes at me. He was one of the boys who scowled when I first entered the room, and his expression had not changed much.

  “Play then,” he eventually said.

  “I don’t have it with me,” I answered.

  He shook his head and turned back to the girl from my dream. “A true flautist would always carry it with them.”

  “Do you play the flute?” I exclaimed, suddenly feeling angry.

  “No,” he shook his head. “I play the violin.”

  “We need a flute player for our band,” the girl cut in.

  “Not her!” Patrick objected. “She’s—”

  “We’ll just give her a trial,” she said, turning back to me. “Is Tuesday evening good for you?”

  I was about to ask her what sort of music they played (as well as some of the other numerous questions going through my mind, such as what the fuck was she doing in my dreams) but there was something about Patrick’s arrogance that vexed me. “Tuesday’s fine,” I said, through gritted teeth. “What’s your name anyway?”

  “Ellen,” she replied. “I’ll call at your place.”

  “Fine!” I agreed, as I turned around and stormed out of the room. “And I’ll show you what a real flute player is!” I yelled at Patrick as I passed him.

  It was only after I slammed the door behind me that I realised I never told Ellen where I lived.

  When I returned back to the table in the main bar Amy and other others questioned me on where I had been. I told them I got lost – which wasn’t far from the truth. I had a feeling I shouldn’t tell them about the people I just met.

  After that, the rest of the night was pretty boring. Amy carried on making face with Josh, Harriet gave Paul a sickening amount of attentiveness, and Steve was being distant with me, so conversation was stilted. I was glad when Amy finally decided it was time to call it a night and the three of us went back to her place.

  On Tuesday I had an English lesson with Steve, so I sat next to him. Things were a little awkward at first but I got him talking about music again and it soon dissipated. I made a conscious effort to make sure I didn’t say anything to lead him o
n so he wouldn’t get the wrong idea. That kiss had been wrong for me but I hoped we could be friends.

  I arrived home to my mother stirring a pot of lentil soup on the hob and we ate at the table together. I think she was beginning to forgive me for letting my friends smoke in the house at the weekend. She’s not the sort of mother who grounds me or anything when I do wrong, but she always makes it clear when she is disappointed. After we finished eating I offered to do the washing up.

  I was just running the water when I heard a rapping at the door, followed by the sound of my mother’s voice talking to someone in the hallway. It wasn’t often we had visitors so curiosity got the better of me and I quickly dried my hands and walked over to see who was there.

  I stopped in surprise when I saw Ellen standing in the doorway.

  “Hi Faye,” she said.

  “Hi,” I replied, suddenly feeling nervous and flustered. “I’m just—”

  “I’ll finish the dishes,” my mother interrupted me as she ushered Ellen into the house. “Would you like a cup of tea, Ellen?”

  Ellen shook her head, and looked at me. “No thanks, I would like to talk to Faye.”

  “Sorry about Patrick the other night,” she said, before I had a chance to ask her how she found out where I lived. She sat herself on the end of my bed. She was wearing a purple dress that had been tassel-cut from her knees to ankles that day. “He’s a bit cautious around people these days.”

  “He doesn’t even know me!” I said, placing a hand on my hip.

  “I know it seems unfair,” Ellen said. “But there have been a lot of people who dress like you coming to Janus recently. It has taken away a lot of what Janus used to be... it’s hard to explain...”

  I looked in the mirror; at my black trousers, corset, and spiked bracelets, as if seeing it all for the first time. I started dressing like this originally because Amy and I were experimenting, and it gave me a sense of identity which I had never felt before.

  When I recalled the main bar of Janus, that night, it was filled with people dressed just like us. Everyone who was a bit different seemed to be hiding out in all those other rooms and corridors up the stairs.

  I opened my mouth to say something but she silenced me by raising her hand.

  “You don’t need to justify yourself to me,” she said. “I never judge a book by its cover and I know that you are not the same as the rest of those people... even if you don’t yet. That’s what my sister was trying to tell you.”

  “Your sister?” I gawped.

  “Yes,” she nodded her head, simply. “In your dream. That wasn’t me.”

  “But she looked just like you!” I gasped. “And it was a dream... this doesn’t make any sense.”

  “I was a twin,” Ellen said, leaning forward and placing her hands on her knees. Her face became serious. “At least I was supposed to be... she died when we were born. And now... well, she follows me. How do you think I found my way here? It was her.”

  I stared at her, dumbstruck. I didn’t really know what to believe anymore – there were too many coincidences surrounding this sequence of peculiar events to deny that there was something mysterious going on and dismiss what she was saying. This wasn’t much stranger than some of the stories friends of my mother had told me about, but experiencing it yourself is much more overwhelming.

  “But anyway,” she said, resting her head against the wall. “She sent you to me because I asked her to find a flute player for our band. Where is your instrument?”

  I picked it up off the floor. It was strewn with a pile of mess, still where Amy dropped it the other day.

  “Play,” Ellen said.

  I held it to my lips, and placed my fingers against the notches. It had been so long, but the weight of it was familiar and comforting.

  After I finished playing Ellen took me to Janus to meet the rest of the band. I wanted to ask her questions about the music they played but I was too much in awe of this girl to say anything. The things she told me about her twin sister and the dream I had were streaming through my mind and even though none of it was logical, with everything that had happened, I couldn’t deny it.

  When we reached Janus she led me upstairs and through a series of winding corridors, followed by another set of staircases. She opened another door and we stepped into a large, dimly lit hall. Patrick was sitting in the middle of the room with his arms dangled over the backrest of his chair, and another boy I didn’t know was next to him.

  “This is Jack,” Ellen said, pointing to the stranger who was tuning an acoustic guitar. He had long golden hair, and reminded me of a younger version of one of my mum’s friends. He smiled at me, and I took an instant liking to him.

  “And I believe you’ve already met Patrick...” Ellen said, dryly, as she walked over to a pile of sheets scattered over the floor. I stood before the two boys nervously as she began to leaf through them. There was an unoccupied drum set a few feet away.

  “Faye,” Ellen said as she returned with a selection of papers in her hands. “Can you play any of these?”

  I scanned them. Some of them were folk songs my mother taught me when I was younger but most of them I didn’t recognise. There was also an electric guitar propped up against the wall, so I guessed this band must be a fusion of styles.

  “Any of these are fine,” I eventually said. “This one looks interesting. Can we try it?”

  The corner of Ellen’s mouth curved – she seemed impressed. Patrick however, narrowed his eyes at me sceptically.

  “We’ll see how you do, Jezebel,” he muttered.

  I guessed that nickname was a dig at the way I dressed but I decided to take it as a compliment: Jezebel was originally a powerful and beautiful princess in the ancient Hebrew texts; it was the later influence of Christianity which demonised her into a fallen symbol of dark and destructive femininity.

  You’re not as clever as you think, I thought, smiling at him sweetly.

  Just then we were interrupted by the thwack of the door bursting open with such force that it rebounded from the wall. A tall girl with long arms, torn clothes and messy hair marched into the room in giant strides.

  “That’s Amelia,” Ellen whispered to me as she strode right past us and sat herself in the middle of the drums. “She doesn’t mean to be rude... but she’s just... abrupt, about things...”

  It was only after Amelia positioned the drums sticks in her hands that she finally looked up and acknowledged that there were other people in the room. “We ready or not?” she asked, staring at us expectantly.

  “This is Faye,” Ellen said, gesturing at me. “She’s... auditioning for flute.”

  “Hi,” Amelia muttered, barely glancing at me before turning back to Ellen. “What are we playing?”

  “I might give Faye a chance to practice first,” Ellen said, passing me the notes for one of the songs. “Just so she can—”

  “Let’s just do it,” I said. “It looks pretty easy.”

  “You sure?” Ellen asked.

  “Let’s just get this over with!” Patrick muttered as he held his violin up to his chest and pressed his jaw against the chinrest.

  “Fine,” Ellen said, placing a reassuring hand on my arm before stepping over to the microphone stand. “Patrick, you start, and Faye, you come in on the fourth bar, okay?”

  “You do know what a bar is, don’t you?” Patrick muttered behind me. I chose to ignore him, and readied the notes for the song on the stand.

  Patrick raised his bow to the strings and began to play. A soft winding note filled the room, and he drew the bow back, weaving the strings into a melody. Asshole or not, he was a good fiddler – there was no denying it.

  But I wasn’t going to let myself get distracted. When he reached the end of the second bar I raised the flute to my lips and prepared myself for the cue. My hands were almost shaking with nerves but I kept a steady pitch as I blew the first note. I was determined not to give Patrick the chance to be smug.

  I w
as concentrating so hard on the note that I almost forgot about the others – but then an acoustic guitar began to drone behind me, echoing across the room, followed by the tapping of Amelia on the drums.

  The song built up speed and I felt a wave of elation when I realised that we actually sounded quite good. Amelia was in her element; her eyes were distant as her arms flailed around, smacking the sticks into different parts of the drum set. Jack gave me a quick nod of approval as he strummed his guitar, and even Patrick was smiling.

  But none of this prepared me for the moment Ellen reached for the microphone and pulled it closer to her lips. An eerie soprano filled the room that was both haunting and beautiful. Her words were an indecipherable glossolalia, but the feelings they stirred within me were ominous and poignant. I stared at her, mesmerised, as our melodies entwined. It was at that moment that I realised just how in awe of her I was.

  I was back in the meadow with Ellen lying beside me.

  “I am glad you are getting more acquainted with your instrument,” she said, smiling at me devilishly as she placed a hand on my thigh.

  I sat upright at the sudden revelation that this was a dream, again, and took a look around me. The meadow was a little brighter than last time, as if spring was underway and merging into summer. The grass was long and green and dotted with wild flowers. Sheep were grazing, but they had been crudely painted black and had fake pointy ears strapped around their heads. One of them tilted its head up into the air as if it was a wolf preparing to howl, but the noise it produced was an unpleasant amalgam.

  I shook my head; this was just getting weirder and weirder.

  “Okay, so I know I am in a dream now... isn’t this usually the part where I wake up?” I said.

  “Usually, yes,” Ellen replied. “But this isn’t a normal dream, is it.”

  “Why are the sheep trying to be wolves?” I asked.