Luc sat hopeless on the edge of the bed, staring at his feet. It wasn’t the first time his father had lost his temper. Lawrence would right the table and clear up the mess; then, although he never apologized, everything would go on as before.
I’m as mad as him, thought Lucas. I’ll grow old in this place, I’ll turn into a scratchy mad wraith like that thing in the attic . . . “For fuck’s sake, shut up!” he said out loud. It ignored him.
Despairing panic came over him. He craved escape, but the only place to hide was above. Perhaps he could jump off the roof. Numb, he went along the landing until he found the little door to the attic. He climbed the narrow stairs and felt for the light switch he remembered at the top.
Brownish light caressed the roof space. Old chests, boxes, fabrics; it appeared nothing had been touched since he was last here so many years ago. The oil painting of the collapsed angel stood facing him. The crouched figure with its trailing hands and hidden face made him sad. It was exactly how he felt. Fighting tears, he sat cross-legged in front of it. He felt safe here. Lawrence never ventured to Sapphire’s rooms, let alone any higher. “Is it you crying?” he said. “I wish you’d stop. What’s wrong?”
Lucas reached out to touch the textured surface. In answer, the angel’s hand lunged out of the painting and grabbed him.
Sam lay in bed watching Rosie, who was on her feet with her back to him, on the phone to Lucas. She was wearing nothing but one of his shirts, which hinted deliciously at the curves of her bottom as she moved. Sam pushed the cover down to his hips to let his body cool. They were in the apartment he was sharing in Ashvale. He’d apologized for his room being cramped and shabby; she insisted she didn’t care, since it was their sanctuary.
“Well, you keep telling me you’re fine, but I don’t believe you,” she said. “The lack of detail makes me suspect otherwise . . . No, nothing’s changed, Luc. Mum’s still worried. We still want you home . . . Sorry, but I will keep on. I’m sick of treading on eggshells with you. If you keep saying the same thing, so will I!” Her tone took on a let’s-change-the-subject brightness. “So, are you going to Cloudcroft Show on Saturday? Oh, the usual; cows, horses, big tractors, Morris dancers, Beast Parade, all that stuff.”
Sam heard the scratch of Lucas’s voice, saying no.
“Come on, you’d enjoy the music.”
There was a rueful laugh at the other end. “Brass band? I don’t think so. I’ll call you next week, Ro.”
Rosie glowered at the phone. “He’s hung up.” She turned towards Sam, the open shirt offering a tantalizing glimpse of soft dark curls between her thighs. “What are you grinning at?”
“At you,” Sam said affectionately, “naked in my room. And the times I lay in my prison cell, fantasizing about this.”
She brandished the phone at him, mock-annoyed. “I don’t think you’re taking this seriously.”
He leaned on his elbows. “I am, love, but Luc’s got a point. Village carnivals, not my scene either. How about we go elsewhere for the day?”
Her eyes glimmered. “Where?”
“Shopping, dinner, romantic walk—anything and everything you want, sweetie.”
“Ooh,” Rosie breathed, her eyelids falling. “That sounds so tempting. To escape . . . it feels almost wicked.”
“That’s what we’ll do, then.” He smiled, basking in the tingle of conspiracy. Rosie parted her lips, moistened them with the pink tip of her tongue. The shine of her eyes became so intense that he felt its heat trailing over him. “Ah,” he said, “you seem to have turned fully human. You’ve become aroused by the word shopping.”
Rosie launched herself, and he fell back laughing under the force of her. She lay full length on him, her teeth and tongue playing hungrily over his skin. “Not shopping. You,” she said into his neck. She raised her head, trying to see through the wild mess of her hair. “You know, if you lie in bed with your naked chest on display, you are going to get jumped on.”
___________
Lucas ended the call to Rosie and looked up at the ceiling. What should he have said to her? Help me, Ro, I’m going mad, please come and get me? His heart jumped in his throat. He picked up a grocery bag and softly made his way to the attic again.
The angel was still out of the painting. The first time had frightened him half to death. The creature had come with him as he leapt up, unfolding from two dimensions into three; and there she stood eye-to-eye with him, a specter engraved on darkness, the face as wild with astonishment as his own.
Once he’d overcome his shock, he realized that she was the more terrified; that she was harmless, insubstantial like an elemental. She wouldn’t speak, only knelt on the floorboards and hid under her hair. The second time he returned, she’d melted back into the canvas and he’d had to coax her out again.
Now he approached carefully, trying not to startle her. She was willowy, drawn in sienna shadow, with creamy highlights on her flesh, long rippling bronze hair covering her naked form. The canvas behind her was an indigo blank. The shape of wings was sketched in the air above her, a faint high curve that moved when she did.
“Hello, it’s me again,” he whispered. “I’ve brought you some water, and food . . . uh, there’s a cheese sandwich, and some cake. I don’t know if you eat, but . . .”
She raised her head and stared at the items he was taking from the bag. Her face was delicate, perfect, a true faerie face. The eyes were solid golden globes; un-human, timeless and wary. “It’s all right,” he said. “I’ll sit with you. You’re not on your own.”
To his surprise, she reached out and took the bottled water from him. She tipped her head back and poured it on her face, opening her mouth. The red curl of her tongue was startling in the gloom. She took a bite of bread and spat it out; the cake seemed more to her liking. She licked and nibbled at it.
“So sweet,” she said. Tears swelled in her eyes.
It was the first time she’d spoken. Lucas sat on the floor next to her, pulse racing. “Don’t cry,” he said. “Or at least tell me why.”
“Lucas,” she whispered, touching his arm with long, thin fingers.
“That’s me. Do you have a name? I don’t know if you’re literally made of paint, or if I’m dreaming this, but you need a name.”
She paused, putting her fingertips to her mouth. “Iola.”
“Iola. That’s nice.”
Hesitantly she explored her face with her fingers. Her voice was faint, rusty with disuse. “I am not made of paint. I’m like you.” He began to ask if she meant Aetherial or something else, but she interrupted, her gold-leaf eyes widening. “Is he still here?”
“Do you mean Lawrence?”
The angel shivered. “Yes. Lawrence.”
Lucas’s heart sank. “He is. Why?”
Her lips opened; she froze, like a sculpture. “Then I can’t come out.”
“No.” Lucas caught her arm, afraid she would vanish into the canvas again. She winced. “Sorry,” he said, letting go. “Didn’t mean to startle you. Please stay with me. He won’t come up here, he never does. Why are you hiding from him?” Iola bowed her head and wouldn’t answer. “You’re obviously afraid of him. Me too. You’ve been here years, haven’t you?”
“You’re warm,” she sighed. “I’m so cold.”
“Come downstairs with me. You shouldn’t be up here alone.”
She only shook her thigh-length ripples of hair. “I can’t leave. As long as he is still in the house, I must hide.”
Each day Lucas took her food, and each day Iola became more substantial. She began to move around the attic, testing her feet and legs. Her wings were now only a spectral hint, if there at all. He brought her clothes, but she wouldn’t wear them. She ran her fingers through her hair, gazed for a full hour at her reflection in an old pockmarked mirror, spun round so that her hair whirled in a fan. Lucas tried hard not to stare at the ivory flesh this revealed, and failed miserably.
She still looked gilded and fantastical l
ike some opium dream of a faerie, but she was now too solid—he hoped—to fade back into camouflage. She let him plait and play with her hair. There was a sad serenity about her as she began to speak more freely.
“How long have you been here, in the painting?” he ventured.
“I don’t know. Time stands still, but the memories are bright.”
Skeins of silk ran deliciously through his hands. “It’s said that when Aetherials die, we don’t so much die as change. Become elemental and attach ourselves to a tree, a rock, or a stream. Is that what happened to you?”
“In a way.” She fixed her eerie golden eyes on him. “I am like you, Luc. Aetherial.”
“Did Lawrence . . . kill you?”
She smiled for the first time. The cosmos rearranged itself inside him. She was indulging his innocence. This was not a frightened fawn of a girl at all but an age-old creature beyond his comprehension. “He hasn’t told you,” she said. “I hear your conversations, when the house is quiet. He won’t admit it.”
Luc tried to take this in. She must have heard everything that went on in the house for years. “I knew he was keeping something back!”
“I’m from Asru, the realm of spirit,” she went on. “The Spiral Court sent me to Liliana, and I stayed to help Lawrence. They always send a guardian to aid the Gatekeeper. We stay in the shadows, not quite secret, but not seen, either. I was mistress of the dysir.”
Lucas was confounded. “Never heard such a thing. Did you have . . . authority over him?”
“No, the guardian only comes to offer guidance, protection. We offer a connection to the inner realms. My first few years with Lawrence were difficult. I was always there, helping him find his way . . . but he rejected me. A black madness came over him. I tried and tried to help, but there was nothing I could do and in the end I was overwhelmed. His dear wife went too and I was powerless to bring her back. He drove us away. I’m ashamed to admit my failure but by the end I was mad with fear, so I fled.”
“Why here? Couldn’t you have returned to Asru?”
“Why here?” she echoed. “You’re here too. This is where he drives us.”
“Oh.” His mouth fell in shock, but she smiled.
“I couldn’t leave him, Lucas. He was still my Gatekeeper. I was still bound to him. So I hid myself. Faded away.”
Lucas thought of the weeping he and Jon had heard on and off for years. “You were heartbroken.”
“Oh, the pain in the house. I could never shut it out.”
“Does he know you’re here?”
“I don’t think so. He closed his ears to me years ago.”
One shoulder appeared between the waves of her hair. Lucas instinctively went to kiss it, stopped himself just in time. He cleared his throat in embarrassment. “Er, Iola, I’m the Gatekeeper now. So they tell me.”
“I know.” This time her smile was girlish and sweet. “That must be why I came back into the solid world. You called me out.”
“Then you have to come downstairs with me.” Hope danced in him. “We can face Lawrence together.”
She turned to him and placed her hands on either side of his face. “I can’t.”
He was pushing her too hard. She was still as fragile as smoke. Lucas was no good at being forceful, either; Lawrence could blow him over like a straw. How could he hope to defend Iola, if he couldn’t look after himself? Frustration brought tears to his eyes. “I can’t leave you up here.”
“You must, dear friend. I’m used to it.”
“I’m not leaving without you. We’re both his prisoners.”
“Don’t weep. You brought me to life,” she said softly, and kissed him.
The sweet surprise of her mouth on his ambushed him. Lucas was lost. He whispered, “Is this usual—with your Gatekeepers?” and her mouth warmed his ear as she breathed, “No. Never before. I need you . . . to make me real . . .” And he was falling into soft golden fire, falling through one exquisite sensation after another.
Snatches of memory touched him like electric shocks. Those knowing human girls who’d hung around the band, their solid flesh reeking of cigarettes and stale perfume; he’d never let them near him. There had been no one. Drugs had thrown a muffling veil over any desire for love. There was always Jon, of course, and the quiet release they offered each other since they had no one else, and which they never spoke about in daylight; but that didn’t count. He’d never been inside anyone. Never imagined the feather-soft perfection of an angel’s body or the tenderness of her mouth and hands moving over him, drawing him deep into her.
It lasted forever, and it was over in an instant. She took his breath away like a fall into the Abyss. Spasms of ecstasy possessed him, hurled him out of himself, lashing like lightning.
As pleasure trickled away, he found there was no one beneath him. He was embracing the folds of a dusty blanket.
Lawrence woke from the toils of a nightmare and the angel was there again at the foot of his bed, her stone finger pointing at him, her blank golden eyes staring. “You will wake the Shadow,” she hissed. “I could have helped you, but you turned your back and drove me out. Now the beast is too hungry.”
“No,” he gasped. “I control the Gates!”
“Too late, Lawrence.” Lightning flickered around her. A hot wind caught the rippling hair. “You woke Brawth with your anger. The great Shadow at the beginning and end of time.”
“Please.” He writhed and his voice was raw. “How can I lay it to rest?”
“By losing whatever you love most,” came the savage answer. “When your pain is more powerful than your anger—that is all that will satisfy Brawth.”
“No!” he cried, starting up. He woke properly then, sweating in a tangle of sheets. There was no one there. The guardian, Iola, had fled and vanished years ago; he’d driven her away, believing that she was an infiltrator, in league with his enemies. Certainly not believing she could help him, for no one could. Yet still she haunted his nightmares, a wraith of ill omen, her stone finger piercing him with wintry cold and terrifying knowledge . . .
In the feverish aftershock of the dream, Lawrence suddenly knew, in horror, what she was telling him. It must end. And I . . . He trembled as all the years of fear, denial and icy self-control forged themselves into a torrent of rage. I must be the one to end it.
The morning of Cloudcroft Show was dry and fine. Jessica and Auberon were up early, ready to take full part in selling tickets, stewarding, or whatever duties they’d agreed to. Even Matthew dragged himself from bed despite an apparent hangover. Rosie felt a little guilty at running out on them; not guilty enough to change her plans, however.
Sam took her to Birmingham. Not the most exotic venue, but the city center had changed in recent years. Grimy industry had given way to the faux crystal glamour of shopping malls. At the entrance to the Bullring Center stood a great bronze bull statue that reminded Rosie of Brewster as she stroked the smooth metal; beyond were high viewpoints from which to admire the city skyline. They drank coffee in a bookstore. Sam bought her a blood red crystal heart on a black leather cord. They discovered the unexpectedly sensual pleasure of buying clothes for each other—sliding silk and cashmere and cotton against each other’s skin, flirting with the danger of discovery in changing rooms—and later, after a lengthy meal with champagne, they walked hand-in-hand along the canal basin, which had been renovated and lined with trendy bars. Late sunlight sparkled on the water. No one knew them here. Rosie, with her arm wrapped around Sam’s lean waist, had never felt more perfectly that she belonged.
“This has been the best day of my life,” Sam said in wonder.
“And mine,” said Rosie. They stood with their arms around each other, not wanting to break the spell. “Do they have designer stores in Elfland? Where would you get a cappuccino? Do they have an economy at all?”
“Nah,” said Sam, amused. “You’re supposed to find your true self up a mountain or in a sacred grove, aren’t you? Instead it turns out to be her
e, in a grim old midlands city beside a canal. Perfect happiness. Perfect peace. Who’d have thought it? I like this world.”
Fun and hot dogs and the flutter of bunting; it was all a masquerade for human benefit. Sapphire felt detached from it, tense all day as if with stage fright. When evening fell, it would begin; a carnival procession, traditional folkloric revelry, a perfectly natural part of the day’s activities. In isolation, the Beast Parade would have looked as weird as hell. In context, no one had reason to suspect a thing.
They costumed in a back room of the Green Man. It was like dressing up for a village play, except that everyone was deathly quiet. Comyn and Jon were in another room. No one spoke to Sapphire. It was when she slid the hound mask onto her face that a sense of ritual strangeness and unreality hit her. The mask was stylized, with staring eyeholes; a fetish object.
I’m not myself anymore, she thought, looking at her animal reflection in a mirror. Not little Maria Clara Ramos, not Marie Claire Barada, not Sapphire da Silva or Mrs. Lawrence Wilder. I don’t know what I am. She felt calm, focused, intent.
The costumes were in shades of green, part-medieval and part-fantastical. With their masks, the gathered Aetherials became hunter and hound in one. She couldn’t tell who was who anymore. They were . . . a pack.
Comyn alone was dressed in red, complete with a Victorian-style huntsman’s jacket in scarlet. He wore a simple black highwayman’s mask. When he brought Jon in, Sapphire started. It was like a beast from another world lumbering in.
Jon towered, and the hide that covered him reeked. When she went closer and tried to see his face, he only smiled vacantly, horribly back at her. He’d obviously taken something, but who could blame him? It was what shamans did. For this night, it seemed appropriate.
The air felt humid as they stepped into the evening and made their way onto the village green. Sapphire felt the fire of vengeance quivering through her. This was what she’d lived for her whole life; the end of Lawrence.
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