Fearsome Magics

by Jonathan Strahan

  “It’s Sally’s birthday. You know.” Sally was Cathy’s older sister, Simon had only met her twice, and one of those times had been at the funeral.

  “Is Sally all right?” asked Simon.

  “Oh yes. Yes. But you know. Anniversaries. Gets the brain thinking. Any excuse. Top up?”

  They took their replenished glasses into the dining room. Sarah brought out the food.

  “This smells nice,” said Arthur. “Doesn’t it, Simon?” Simon agreed that it did.

  “I hope so,” said Sarah. “It’s a different sort of lamb this week. I was in the supermarket, there was a different sort on offer, and there was a label saying, try it and see, so I thought we would. It comes with herbs on it.”

  “It smells great,” said Arthur.

  The lamb was very good, the herbs made all the difference. The carrots and peas were fresh and tasty, the mashed potato had fluffed up well. The gravy was a bit bland. “Mmm,” said Simon, and as he bit into the lamb he thought of the dead wolf and it made it all taste better somehow. Arthur winked and nodded approvingly at him, and Sarah gave some trace of a smile.

  “I might get into the garden next week,” Arthur told his wife. “In the summer we can have a barbecue.”

  “It’s Sally’s birthday today,” said Sarah. “Maybe she’ll phone.”

  Arthur asked Simon whether he’d gone back to work yet, and Simon said he was toying with it, but he wasn’t sleeping well, he shouldn’t work until he was sleeping maybe. And Arthur said that it was good to work.

  “Well, I thought that lamb was the best lamb ever,” said Arthur.

  “You say that every week,” said Sarah.

  “That’s because,” said Arthur, and he took her hand, “every week you just get better and better at cooking it.” Sarah took her hand away.

  “Please stop bringing flowers,” said Sarah. She wasn’t even looking at Simon, she was still looking at her husband.

  “I’m sorry, what?” said Simon.

  “Please stop. We don’t need them. We have lots of flowers.”

  “Oh, I don’t mind,” said Simon. “But I’ll stop. You know. If you want me to.”

  “I do,” said Sarah.

  She got up to clear the plates. Simon stood up to help her, but Arthur smiled and shook his head, and Simon sat right back down again. Sarah stacked all the plates on top of one another, one, two, three, pressing them together so the remains of dead lamb were squashed between them. She made her way towards the kitchen, the stopped, and turned. She said, “And she didn’t say anything? She didn’t give any explanation?”

  “Sarah,” said Arthur.

  “No,” said Simon. “I’m sorry.”

  “She didn’t say a word? Give a hint?”

  “No.”

  “You must have done something to her,” said Sarah.

  “Sarah,” said Arthur, again.

  “No. You must have done something. You can tell us. It’s all right. You can say.”

  “Sarah,” said Arthur. “Simon’s a son to us.”

  “He’s not our son,” said Sarah. “You’re not our son, are you, Simon?”

  “No,” said Simon.

  “You agree you’re not our son?”

  “Yes,” said Simon.

  “If someone had to die,” said Sarah. “And I’m not saying someone had to die. But if someone had to, why did it have to be Cathy? Why not you?”

  She took out the plates.

  “I’m sorry,” said Arthur.

  “No, no,” said Simon.

  “She’s upset,” said Arthur.

  “It’s all right,” said Simon.

  “Though she does have a point,” said Arthur.

  Simon said nothing.

  “Six weeks you’ve been coming here,” said Arthur. “Since Cathy went. Six weeks, and I’m not saying I thought it’d get better fast, but it’s still a long time. And you never say anything. You never offer any reason for what she did.”

  “Maybe there wasn’t a reason,” said Simon.

  “Bullshit,” said Arthur, placidly enough. “Sarah’s right. You must have done something. Or said something. Or, I don’t know, not said something. So that Cathy was here and now she’s not.”

  “Yes,” said Simon.

  “Sarah went to church last week,” said Arthur. “Some woman told her that suicides go to Hell. That Cathy is now in Hell.”

  “God,” said Simon.

  “She said she was sorry about it, she wasn’t being nasty. But facts are facts.”

  “God,” said Simon. “That’s horrible. I’m sorry.”

  Arthur shrugged. “If Sarah wants to go to church, why not? Why not? If it gives her some closure. Christ knows, I’m still looking for mine. And don’t bring us flowers. For Christ’s sake. The flowers keep dying. Why do we want to deal with all your dead flowers? Think a little.”

  “I can’t sleep properly,” said Simon. “All I do. Is try to work it out. Work out what happened. What I should have done. I think I’m making myself ill. I think I might be very ill, really.”

  Arthur smiled then, and it wasn’t a cruel smile, it seemed forgiving and true. He waved Simon closer. Simon leaned forward.

  “The flames of Hell don’t burn,” said Arthur.

  “What?”

  “The flames of Hell don’t burn,” he said. “They freeze.”

  He sat back in his chair, the smile never left his face.

  “I should go,” said Simon. He got up.

  And at that moment Sarah came back. Her face was wet. She had been crying, she seemed to have stopped for a while. “Simon,” she said meekly. “Oh, Simon.” And she put her arms around him. “Simon, I’m sorry.”

  Simon put his arms around her too, felt her crooked face bore into his shoulder. “I won’t bring any more flowers.”

  “Oh, bring as many flowers as you like!” she said. “Really. Putting them in vases, taking them out of vases when they die, it’s something constructive, isn’t it?”

  “You won’t stop coming, will you, Simon?” Arthur was still smiling, but the smile looked pinched now. “We still want you here. You’re the only part of Cathy we have left. We need you. We need you. Please. We need you. Please.”

  Simon said of course he’d continue to come. He enjoyed seeing them. He enjoyed his Sundays. Arthur and Sarah were family to him.

  “And in the summer,” said Arthur. “In the summer, we can have a barbecue.”

  6

  AND ONE NIGHT, Cathy got into bed beside him. It was too dark for him to see her, and he wanted to turn on the light, but he knew that if he did she would go away. And he knew one day he’d have to let her go, but not just yet, not now. He recognised the shape of her body. He smelled her hair, and it was nothing like the fabric conditioner.

  She whispered to him. “I’m cold.”

  “Yes.”

  “Can I cuddle up? You make me warm.”

  “Yes,” he said. She tucked her feet against the back of his thighs, she craned into his back, her head was at his neck. She was freezing. He winced at it.

  “Cathy,” he said. “Cathy.”

  But she didn’t say anything else. He couldn’t tell if she were sulking, or if she’d fallen asleep. He thought she was asleep. Although her body wasn’t moving at all, he couldn’t feel her breathing in and out, he’d always liked that, he’d regulate his breaths so that they matched hers, that had always made him drowsy. “Cathy,” he said, a little louder, as loud as he dared, because he didn’t want to disturb her after all, he didn’t want her to answer him. She wasn’t getting any warmer. The skin felt hard, like ice, and now the ice had taken hold of his body, it was slowly stealing over him and where it reached he felt numb. He tried to wriggle free, but Cathy held him too close, or maybe they’d been frozen together, maybe they’d be together forever now and those fingers digging into his chest were really icicles—Oh God. Even her breath was freezing, a blast of cold air at his neck that never eased, was it even breath? Beca
use where was the in and out he’d liked, there was no in or out to it, and it was roaring now like the wind. “Cathy,” he said, one last time, but it was too quiet, she’d never have heard him over the storm. And he wished Cathy wasn’t there, he wished Cathy were gone. He’d rather take his chances with the wolves.

  He closed his eyes tight.

  When he opened them, he was back upon the ice. The moon hung so low that Simon instinctively ducked so he wouldn’t scrape his head on it. A dozen wolves sat in a circle around his bed. They whimpered to each other in the cold, and they licked their chops.

  Simon felt happy to be there.

  And then the circle was broken, the wolves parted to make way for their mother. Simon didn’t understand where she could have come from so suddenly, why he didn’t see her approach. She was beautiful. Her fur was long and black. She was the size of a lion. Simon heard each paw thud hard against the ice as she walked towards him, and the ice wouldn’t crack.

  If Simon was to be killed by a wolf, then let it be by this one. It was only right. And with the other wolves watching, he wouldn’t even die alone. There was something to that, it was right and it was good. Simon gazed into the she-wolf’s eyes, and they were yellow and green and blue and more colours besides.

  One of the little wolves growled. At Simon or the she-wolf, who could say? Maybe it just wanted attention. Its mother swiftly picked it up in its jaws and lifted it clean off the ground. The wolf looked so startled, it was really very funny. It looked proud too, it was getting all that attention it had asked for! Mummy bit down hard, Simon heard the crack. The head didn’t come quite off, it listed brokenly to the side. And then gently, so gently, the mother lowered her dead child to the ice, she opened her mouth, out it tumbled, she let it free. She nosed it tenderly, and then lifted her head and didn’t ever look at it again.

  The other wolves seemed to learn from that, and backed off.

  The she-wolf padded over to the bed, as lightly as its bulk would allow. Simon felt his chest heave in fear, but he would not shut his eyes, he would never again flinch. Her breath against his face was so very warm.

  He reached out and stroked her. In turn, she put her head down on to the bed. He put his arms around her neck. She let him. He knew that at any moment she would bite, but until then it just felt good to be holding on to someone again, and it felt good to be warm. The fur was rough against his skin, but that didn’t matter, it didn’t scratch him, it tickled.

  Simon and the she-wolf stayed close for a long time. He didn’t want to let go. Didn’t move a muscle, didn’t give her any sign he wanted the intimacy to be broken.

  And, at last, she was the one who pulled away. Because they’re always the ones who pull away first, aren’t they? But she didn’t run, she waited for him patiently.

  He tore the sheets into strips, knotted them together to make them strong. He tied one end of the rope to the brass headboard Cathy had liked so much. With the other end he made a noose, and put it around the she-wolf’s thick neck.

  The she-wolf got into position at the front of the bed. She strained hard. Soon, but very slowly, the bed began to move. She was encouraged by this. She pulled harder, stronger. She lurched into a trot, dragging the sleigh behind her.

  Simon laughed. The other wolves howled, he thought they were laughing too.

  And on she ran, picking up speed now, the giant wolf taking him across the ice. And the wolf pack was running by their side, sometimes sliding over in the excitement, trying to keep up.

  On toward the unchanging horizon.

  7

  SOMETIMES THE JOURNEY would make Simon drowsy. And he’d fight it as hard as he could, because he didn’t want to go back to those pointless dreams. Of days spent being bored at home, eating food, watching television, feeling sad. But the bed sleigh was so soft and comfortable, and he was warm too, he could stretch out his hands and bury them within the coat of the she-wolf. He didn’t want to sleep, but he knew it was all right, the dreams weren’t pleasant but sooner or later he’d wake from them and he’d be back with his friends on the ice where he was happy.

  The wolves still ran by the bedside to keep him company. He’d got to know them. He’d given them all names. He hadn’t called a single one of them Cathy, and that made him feel a little proud of himself.

  Once in a while the she-wolf would come to a stop. She may have been running for days without a break. She was exhausted. And Simon would tell her it was all right, she could rest. Or even stop for good, if she wanted—after all, where did she think she was taking them? Living on this patch of ice would be as good as any other, this may be the best bit of ice in the whole world. The she-wolf seemed to understand, or maybe she didn’t, maybe that was wishful thinking. She refused to give up. She just needed a break, and something to eat. She would scoop up one of the wolves in her mouth, she’d bite it open. She would share the food with Simon, and Simon wasn’t always very hungry, but he didn’t want to seem impolite. He would cook his wolf meat on the burning ice until it was good and tasty. The she-wolf would eat her supper raw.

  In his dreams he would still visit Arthur and Sarah, and sometimes he thought his visits made them happy. Sometimes he even made them laugh. He could be good company in dreams, he discovered. He could be strong.

  He went back to work, just to give himself something to do whilst he waited to wake up.

  And one day, and this was months later, there were no more wolves left to eat. The she-wolf was spent. She couldn’t go on. Simon listened to her breath, and it sounded old and raddled. Her fur was threadbare.

  “No further,” he said to her. “We’ll stop now. Promise me we’ll stop.”

  The wolf fixed those eyes upon his, and there wasn’t much colour left to them now. She lowered her head. A nod? Or a gesture of defeat. She allowed him to take off the leash. He hugged her for a long while.

  And then, when she had had enough, or just couldn’t bear the parting any longer, she moved her head from his. She bared her teeth. She growled. One last act of ferocity. And she bit down, savagely, she tore through skin and she shattered bone. Out came the blood, her own blood, she had bitten into her own flank—and from the gash she pulled out gobbets of meat, she dragged them onto the ice where they sizzled and cooked.

  Simon wished she hadn’t done that.

  He ate her. And what he couldn’t eat, he pulled up onto the bed and wrapped under the sheets so they had been given some sort of burial.

  He used her sharp teeth to cut out two large patches of fur. He put his feet within them. He got down on to the ice, and he didn’t burn. He left the bed, and he walked onwards.

  He didn’t have much further to go.

  8

  AND, JUST AS the ribbon of dark seemed at its densest, as the moon was as low as it had ever been. There, Simon thought the ice seemed clearer than before.

  He peered down and it was like looking into a mirror.

  He was so old. His chin was a forest of bristles, grey and set in, he’d never be able to shave them off now. His cheeks sagged. In his eyes he saw something flinty and hard he’d never noticed before. He supposed it ought to have made him feel ashamed, he’d got so old. But it didn’t. He was glad, that in spite of everything, he hadn’t given up yet, he’d kept going. That old grizzled face was the evidence of it.

  He remembered how he’d once stared into his bathroom mirror and made himself cry. He hadn’t needed to do that for a long time, tears came so much more easily these days. But he decided to try it again, even if only for old time’s sake. He stared hard so that his eyes were bulging. He furrowed his brow. He thought of Cathy.

  And there, just beneath his old tired reflection, he saw her.

  Of course, he didn’t believe it was really her. Not at first. She was too perfect, too much the image he’d always kept in his head. The face gazing up at him, and so light somehow, like it was full of soft air—that smile she’d had, that favourite smile, the one which showed the tip of her tongue. The ey
es.

  No, she was there, she was there, under the ice.

  He stared at the face, but it didn’t move. It couldn’t move, it was frozen stiff. (It was dead.) She was dead, and that smile wasn’t going to get any wider, that tongue was going to remain an unfulfilled promise, it wasn’t coming out to play. Frozen still, like the photographs he had at home, the ones he swore he’d throw out but somehow never did.

  And Simon thought to look about him. And he realised Cathy wasn’t alone.

  Beneath the ice there were more faces, bobbing to the top like apples. And the faces had heads, and the heads had bodies—he could see now the limbs splayed out, arms bent upwards as if trying to break to the surface. All caught in thick sheets of jagged ice so livid they looked like flame. He had been walking across the ice all this time, the dead only inches below his feet, and he hadn’t even thought to look. Bodies stacked on bodies stacked on bodies, bodies all the way down.

  He looked back to Cathy. “I’m so sorry,” he said. And Cathy blinked.

  He stomped hard upon the ice then. It wouldn’t break. He jumped up and down with as much force as he could muster, trying to be the heaviest he had ever been, willing every single ounce of him to be focused upon the spot where his foot hit the surface. He shouted loudly at it, and when that did no good, he swore at it too, he told the ice what he thought of it, that it was a cruel fucker. He got down on his knees. He pounded at the ice with his fists, he tore at it with his fingernails. The hands burned, and he wasn’t sure he could stand the pain, but soon he stopped caring, on he pounded. Open up, you bastard. Give me her back.

  He did this in love. And love is terrible, and makes the heart hurt like Hell itself. But it can also do extraordinary things.

  Simon broke through the ice. He grasped at Cathy, but she was too slippery, or Hell was too strong. He put his head under the water. He put his whole body in. He pulled her free.

  He dragged his little lady up to the surface, and there on the ice he stretched her out, and he lay there panting, and she didn’t pant because she was dead. Or because she was frozen, or because she didn’t want to, what did he know what she wanted? Had he ever known, really? She did nothing but blink at him, and at last he cradled her on his lap, and she was so very, very cold.