Dark Horizons

by Dan Smith

  I expected Domino to stop when we came out into the open, but she continued walking, taking us both right to the edge of the cliff. There was a good moon that night, not so much cloud in the sky, and the platinum light wavered across the surface of the water. There was little breeze up on the cliff, so the water below was still, just a slight wave on its surface to break the glow that the moon laid down upon it.

  ‘Don’t get too close,’ I said to her.

  Domino tipped her head back and released my hand, taking a step closer to the edge. Her eyes were closed, squeezed shut, shallow wrinkles spreading from the corners. She lifted her hands and held them way out to her sides as if she were dying on a cross.

  ‘Domino?’ I reached out to her but didn’t touch her for fear that she would pull away and slip. Fall.

  ‘You ever wondered what it would be like to fall a long way down?’ she said.

  ‘I jumped, remember?’

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘Not here. You jumped from further along. We’re higher.’

  I edged closer, leaned forward to look over and saw that she was right. Below us, at least sixty feet down, a shelf of black rock jutted from the side of the cliff, hanging over the water that swelled twenty feet or so below that. ‘Shit, you’re right. You don’t want to jump here.’

  ‘Don’t I?’

  ‘No. You don’t. You go over here, that’s the end. There’s no climbing back up from that.’

  Domino stayed quiet, her arms outstretched, her head back.

  ‘Have you taken something?’ I asked.

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘Not a thing. Not this time.’

  I glanced over the edge again, but it made me queasy so I stepped back and looked at Domino, watching her sway. ‘Come and sit down,’ I said to her.

  ‘You think it would hurt?’

  ‘Stop talking like that.’

  ‘I mean, would you feel it, or would you just—’

  ‘Come away from there. For fuck’s sake, Domino, you’re starting to scare me.’

  She lowered her arms and turned round to look at me. ‘I’m not gonna jump. I was just wondering what it would be like.’ But the expression in her eye, the way her smile didn’t come like it normally did, it made me think that it hadn’t just been for effect. There’d been a moment, a split second, when she’d considered going over, and it had scared her just as much as it scared me.

  ‘Come on,’ I said. ‘Take my hands. Come and sit down.’

  She looked at me, then seemed to blow away the thoughts that had been buzzing around her head and she smiled, this time a proper smile, and she reached out to take my hands.

  I led her a good distance away from the edge and pulled her to the ground.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I said after a while. ‘I was an arse today.’

  ‘About Matt? Don’t worry about it.’

  ‘About Kurt. Why didn’t you tell me he’s your brother?’

  ‘Oh, that. Well, I was going to. The night we arrived. You looked jealous and I wanted to make you feel better, but you stopped me. You said you didn’t care.’

  ‘I didn’t want to. I thought he was an old boyfriend and I didn’t want to care. I thought it would … that you’d think less of me.’

  ‘Sometimes you’re so tight, Alex. Think less of you?’ She nudged me and I winced, a hand going to my ribs.

  ‘What’s wrong? You hurt yourself ?’

  ‘It’s nothing,’ I said. She didn’t need to know what Michael had done. She couldn’t see the redness on my face in this light. By tomorrow there would be bruises; we’d talk about it then.

  ‘You sure?’

  ‘Yeah, I’m sure. Is that what’s bothering you?’ I asked. ‘That we argued? Kurt said you were feeling … I don’t know, low, I guess. He said you’d had a hard day and that you wanted to be on your own.’

  ‘And you think that had something to do with you?’

  ‘Well …’ I immediately felt foolish and embarrassed. ‘I mean, after what happened with Matt, then I was giving you a hard time about Kurt.’

  Domino allowed a half-smile to creep onto her lips, the same half-smile I’d seen before, and I felt as if I were losing her, as if she were going back to her thoughts; the ones she’d been having a few moments ago when she was standing over the precipice.

  She shifted, lying down in the sparse grass, resting her head on my crossed legs and looking up into my face. ‘Neither of those things,’ she said.

  ‘What, then?’

  She closed her eyes and sighed, her mouth opening a touch when she breathed out. ‘Something else,’ she said. ‘Something else happened today, something bigger, but I want to forget about it.’ She reached up and touched my face. ‘I just want to be with you and forget about it.’

  ‘Something happened? When you went away, you mean? Where did you go? Down to the kampong?’

  She put her hand behind my head and pulled me towards her mouth. ‘I don’t want to talk about it,’ she whispered as she touched our lips together. ‘I just want to be with you for a while. Talk about other things.’

  ‘Like what?’ I let her kiss me. ‘What you want to talk about?’

  ‘We could talk about you …’ she said.

  ‘Wouldn’t take long.’

  ‘… and about whether or not there’s something going on between you and Helena.’

  ‘Me and Helena?’ I hoped she couldn’t detect the shock in my voice. ‘What do you mean?’ A flash of our moment in the forest. Helena and me together. How good it had felt. I tried to tell myself it was the drug that had skewed my judgement, but I knew that somewhere beneath the lie there was something else. It was Helena’s face I had seen. Under it all, I had known.

  ‘I’m not sure, really. It’s like you have a connection or something. I can see that Michael doesn’t like it. It bothers him.’

  ‘And you?’ I asked, feeling guilt for my lie, but a vague triumph that she even cared. ‘Does it bother you? Is that what’s the matter?’

  ‘Is there something between you?’

  ‘Just that I saved her life. I think maybe she feels like she owes me something, that’s all.’

  ‘Like I saved yours?’

  ‘I suppose so.’

  ‘And do you feel like you owe me something?’

  ‘No. I don’t think so.’

  Domino kissed me again and smiled. ‘Good. And no, it doesn’t bother me. You’re mine, Alex, I know that. But there’s something on your mind, I can tell. You seem different somehow. Is it because we argued? Is it because of what we did this morning? Burying Matt. You still thinking about that?’

  I pulled back and looked down at her.

  ‘It’s OK,’ she said. ‘It’s normal.’

  I sat up straight. ‘For a while I understood it.’ I was glad to have changed the subject away from Helena. ‘When we were all in the forest together, it felt like the right thing to do, just for a moment, but then it was gone. I mean, you can’t just bury a person. It’s not right.’

  ‘It’s what we did, though. All of us. And it’s the way Matt would’ve wanted it.’

  ‘Is it? It’s not what I’d want. I’d want … Well, I don’t know what I’d want, but I wouldn’t want that.’

  ‘How is it different from what happens anywhere else? There was nothing anyone could do for him. He was dead, so his friends buried him.’ She paused. ‘Has this got something to do with what happened to your mother, Alex? Is there something you want to talk about?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘It’s just that when we talked about it before, at the hospital, I got the feeling there was something else. Something deeper.’

  ‘This hasn’t got anything to do with my mother,’ I said.

  ‘Sounds to me like there’s something you need to get off your chest.’

  ‘Other than burying Matt, you mean? For Christ’s sake, Domino, you can’t just bury people.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Well, how did he die, for a start? For all we know someo
ne could have killed him.’

  Domino lifted her head from my legs and half-turned, eyes wide. ‘What?’

  ‘I was thinking about his bruises.’

  ‘He OD’d,’ she said, her body tense. ‘We know that.’

  ‘How do we know that?’

  ‘Kurt’s a doctor.’

  ‘So everyone keeps saying, although no one seems to know exactly what kind of doctor.’

  ‘You don’t believe it?’

  ‘What about the mark I saw on his throat? Didn’t anybody else see that?’

  ‘You think too much, Alex. You ask too many questions. Why don’t you just let things be?’

  ‘Because it doesn’t feel right. I don’t think Matt—’

  ‘It’s been dealt with,’ she snapped.

  ‘What?’ I looked down at her. ‘What d’you mean by that?’

  She shook her head as if she’d said something she hadn’t meant to. ‘Nothing. I dunno.’

  ‘You said it’s been dealt with.’

  ‘Yeah. I meant we buried him, that’s all. There’s nothing else to it. He’s gone.’

  ‘Is there something else?’ I pressed her. ‘Something you want to tell me?’

  Domino pulled her lower lip between her teeth and bit on it as if trying to stop herself from saying something. She held that expression for a while, her eyes searching my face, then she finally shook her head and took a deep breath. ‘No.’ She forced a smile. ‘Nothing. Let’s not talk any more. Things are so much better when we don’t talk.’

  We watched each other for a while, her with a kind of hopeful expression, then she put her head back on my lap, averting her eyes and staring up into the sky. I turned my attention to the lake and my mind went back to this morning when we’d buried Matt in the forest.

  It seemed like a long time ago that we’d all stood round the grave, the heavy patter of soil on his skin. I remembered how long it had taken and how my attention had wandered and I’d surveyed the woods around us. I remembered the unusual, uniform shapes further away among the trees. Strange silhouettes out of place. Over the course of the day, with so much happening, I’d forgotten about them, but now I tried to see them again. And then it came to me. My mind skipped to what I had seen just a short while ago when Domino and I had come into the woods, and in that instant I knew what those regular shapes were.

  The object Michael had been carving; it wasn’t the first shrine he had made.

  30

  I tried hard not to think about those silent shrines, skulking among the trees, just out of view, but they kept swimming back into my thoughts, and I found myself trying to count them from the picture I had in my mind. Once or twice, as we sat holding each other, I was tempted to ask Domino about them, but something pricked at me, telling me to keep it to myself.

  We didn’t speak as we drifted apart on the bluff overlooking Toba, and it was only when I realised Domino was sleeping on my lap that I woke her with a gentle shake and told her we should get back to the longhouse.

  We made our way back to the clearing where the party had calmed down and the music was gone. There were still a couple of people about. I noticed that Alban was asleep at the table, his head hidden in the crook of his crossed arms, leaning on the cold stone. Evie was beside him, one arm around his shoulders. Another person was curled up by the fire, which was dying from neglect, but I couldn’t make out who it was, because his sarong was loosened and pulled high over his head to keep him warm. I guessed he was too drunk to make the short trip back to his bed.

  Domino and I crept into the longhouse, careful not to disturb the others. We made our way to the back of the building, glad for the warmth it provided, and found our own space. We lay on the mattress, still fully clothed, our backs pressed together.

  When Domino was sleeping, I rolled over and stared into the darkness at the apex of the longhouse, listening to the sounds of the sleepers about me. I dozed for some time, but my mind kept going back to those silhouettes among the trees, and the more I thought about them, the more I wanted to know.

  I lifted my head and waited to see if Domino moved. I edged away from her, and when she didn’t react, I was confident I wouldn’t disturb her, so I pushed myself up into a crouch. I remained in that position for some time, scanning the darkness. I didn’t want to risk waking anyone; this was something I wanted to do alone.

  I took one of the several torches kept near the back entrance and opened Michael’s trapdoor, keeping my movements slow and quiet. I slipped out, closed the door behind me and waited a few seconds, listening for sounds of disturbance. Satisfied that I hadn’t woken anyone, I dropped my flip-flops, stepped into them and set off into the woods.

  I kept to the path leading through to the execution stone and, for the first few steps, there was enough light from the moon for me to continue without the torch. But as I progressed and the canopy closed in above me, I switched it on and shone it ahead of me, keeping the beam low.

  The root-veined, potholed track seemed longer than when I’d been this way before, and I began to wonder if I had taken the wrong route. I stopped and shone the torch around me, pointing it behind, then either side, into the trees. I looked for a fork where I might’ve taken a wrong turn, but the path was a single cutting through the trees; there were no wrong turns to make. It led only in one direction, never deviating from that, so I pressed on.

  It wasn’t long before I came out into the small clearing with the execution stone, and when I did, I stopped, playing the light over its surface. When I’d come here with Kurt, and the torches had been burning, the stone had looked so different. It had almost been alive. But now, in the cold light of the washed-out, battery-powered beam, the rock looked nothing more than what it was: a large, cold, grey rock. An ordinary object that had been used for extraordinary things. The ground close to it was dark with the pig’s blood, which had soaked into the soil, and I could hear the frenzied buzz of flies’ wings. And when I ran the torchlight over the ground, the beast’s eyes glistened in its severed head, the entrails still in a saggy heap close by.

  I moved past the rock and the carnage and pointed the beam at the ground around the edge of the small clearing, searching for the path that I knew led away from it. It was narrower than the one leading into this place, but it wasn’t difficult to find, so I was on it within a few seconds. It was when it came to an abrupt end, giving way to the forest, that my search was to become more difficult. Once I was off the track, I would be in a no man’s land of shadow and spectral beauty. Out here, I could truly lose myself.

  I hesitated and glanced down at my feet standing on the edge of the path, then I took a deep breath, swallowed hard and pressed on.

  I did not believe in ghosts and spirits, monsters and ghouls, but out there, alone, the ridiculous was plausible. Every time the breeze brushed through the treetops, and every time a twig fell, my heart beat a little faster. I fought the urge to turn back to the security of the longhouse, the renewed appeal of Domino’s warm embrace, and I continued deeper into the forest, co-cooned in my tiny circle of weak orange light. I extended the cone outwards, sweeping the beam around me, searching for the shapes I’d seen lurking among the trees.

  I had no idea what time it was, and it was easy to lose track of the minutes, alone and in the dark. The moon was high, just a few days away from being full, but that didn’t tell me much. As I searched, I began to doubt that I would ever find what I was looking for. Perhaps I’d imagined those regular shapes. Perhaps I’d jumped to the wrong conclusion about what I’d seen. And even as I thought about it, the whole day began to feel as if it had been a dream. I was tired, my mind was confused, and everything merged into one. Dreams and reality.

  The notion of returning to my bed, of closing my eyes and holding Domino tight, brought with it a physical memory of how it would feel to be warm and asleep. For a split second I forgot about the cool breeze, about the tiny noises from the forest, and my mind was elsewhere, in a more comfortable place than this.
I decided that I should go back. I’d had my adventure. I’d been out in the night, stolen away like a thief. I had tried. I’d made my best attempt to satisfy my curiosity but now other things were more important. So I turned round, looking for the route I’d taken through the trees. And that’s when I realised I was lost.

  I stopped in my tracks, my heart beating faster now, and spun round in a circle, darting the beam of the torch to and fro, searching for a sign, any sign, that would tell me where to go. There was none. Forcing myself to stay calm, telling the rational part of my brain that panic was the worst thing I could do, I brought my breathing under control and closed my eyes, counting my breaths.

  When I re-opened them, I switched off the torch and looked around once again. I was hoping that something from the camp would be visible through the trees, but I had come a long way. I had taken two paths, passed the execution stone; there was no way that light, even if there was any, would pass this far.

  All around me was darkness.

  I flicked the torch back on again, wishing it was stronger, and played it about the trees, across the ground, searching for a clue, wondering if it might be best to stay where I was rather than wander further. Wait here until daylight, even. But then I saw the mound of loose dirt. No more than a few feet away from where I was standing, and I knew where I was. I had a point of reference. Matt’s grave.

  I went towards it, careful not to hurry as I wanted, and kept my eyes on it, afraid to lose it if I glanced away for even a second. Once there, I positioned myself as I remembered I’d been standing that morning, turned round and shone the torch ahead of me, knowing it would be the way out. I took one step in the direction of warmth and safety, then stopped. I wasn’t lost any more. I had a marker. I’d come here for a purpose and now that I knew where I was, there was no reason not to carry on. I would find those shapes.