by Martha Faë
“My dear Beatrice! Are you well? Your lovely eyes are dim!”
It’s clear that Beatrice isn’t well. I don’t know how I can tell—I just know it. Her wooden face seems emaciated. But to claim that her nonexistent eyes are growing dim...
“The shadow...”
Beatrice’s voice is barely audible, but William jumps back, startled.
“Don’t speak, my beautiful lady, don’t speak.”
“The shadow,” Beatrice says again, forcefully.
“If you’ll allow me, miss,” William says to me. “I believe that it is of the utmost importance to take Beatrice somewhere so she can recover. Obviously she is unwell, and now is not the best time for socializing. We shall see you another time.”
“I want Eurydice with me. She is the answer to my prayers. The Creator has sent her. She is the savior.”
“Me?” I ask, astonished.
“My beloved Beatrice, this hardly seems like the proper time to...”
“I will not be separated from her,” insists Beatrice weakly. “We were going to my house to have tea, and our plan has not changed. If you would care to join us, you are most welcome.”
Now I’m the one offering my arm to Beatrice. William hesitates for a few seconds and finally decides to come with us.
“Dear, beautiful Beatrice...”
“I am perfectly well, truly. Let’s go to my house.”
We go into the gardens that lead to St Mary’s College, passing under the stone arch and through the barred gate with the shield. Finally, something that hasn’t changed! The flowers and the trees are right where they belong and everything is the same. In black and white, but still the same. There’s the old oak tree, and there’s the little Celtic fountain made of stone. I feel encouraged—maybe everything is finally going back to normal. Beatrice gently takes her arm from mine and goes over to the entrance of the building on the right. She takes out an enormous rusty key wrapped in a cloth and unlocks the door with a practiced motion.
“But this is the school of divinity!” I exclaim.
“Pardon?” Beatrice smiles, amused.
“The school...”
Evidently things are going back to normal. People are ignoring me, which I’m used to. The other two go in, and I follow. The interior is quite plain—very little furniture, only the necessities. I’m surprised to see that it’s an apartment. There are no classrooms, and not a single clue that this is, or was, part of the university. Beatrice asks me to come with her to the kitchen to get the tea ready while William stays in the living room. I begin to doubt my intuition. Even though Beatrice has that calming air about her, she could be totally crazy. She did say I was the savior. Whose savior? Me?
“What did you mean when you said I was the answer to your prayers?”
Beatrice moves her hands with grace and skill. She sets a china teapot delicately on the counter, and then takes a wooden box down from the shelf. It’s engraved with flowers, and must have been very beautiful once, though now it’s worn and chipped. Beatrice opens it and takes a deep breath, sighing with satisfaction. She holds the box up for me, but I can’t smell a thing.
“Tea always soothes my senses,” she says.
She takes out a spoon and puts four spoonsful of tea into the pot.
“One for each guest, and one for the pot,” she says in a voice like a silver bell. Softly she sets the porcelain lid back in place. “We mustn’t let the aroma escape. The merchants that bring this little pleasure back from the east do a marvelous job of explaining the importance of the aroma.”
Beatrice moves smoothly to an old cupboard, takes out a metal container, and fills it with water from a great clay jar. My eyes follow her all around the kitchen, full of anticipation, heavy with doubt. I’m sure that if anyone normal could see my eyes right now they’d be surprised by their changing color. That happens when I’m disconcerted. Why doesn’t Beatrice answer my question? What made her think I could be the answer to her prayers? And above all—what did she pray for?
Beatrice sets the metal container down on the cast iron stove, opens the little door below, and blows on the coals to revive them. She disappears to the other end of the kitchen and comes back with some firewood, which she puts inside. I keep waiting for my answer, but she doesn’t seem interested in giving it to me. She closes the stove door gently and turns around to face me.
“The Sphere is perfect. It always has been. And so it must be, for the Creator is in charge of it.”
“What sphere?” I ask. It’s not the first time I’ve heard the term. Beatrice looks at me with such shock that I feel embarrassed. “I mean, right, yeah... the sphere. Of course.”
“As I was saying, the Sphere is perfect. However, of late something very subtle seems to be tarnishing its perfection. I feel it as a shadow, something that weighs me down inside. Sometimes I even seem to see it. May the Creator forgive me, but I feel helpless. I don’t know how to pinpoint what is happening, but I feel the suffering of the other inhabitants of the Sphere, and I know it is greater now than ever. This is one of the duties the Creator has given me: to feel the suffering of others.”
I look at Beatrice’s face. I really have lost what’s left of my mind: she looks trustworthy. I’m intrigued. I don’t know what sort of wood she’s made out of, but it’s extremely pale. Now that she’s taken her veil off I can see that her hairline starts quite far back, well before her forehead. I wouldn’t call her pretty, but she definitely has a kind of gentleness that I’ve never seen before.
“Things are changing, nothing is as it was...” she says sorrowfully. With each word her face becomes sadder and sadder.
“I know!” I clap a hand over my mouth, sorry for interrupting. Beatrice motions for me to go on. “It was something sudden,” I say. Beatrice nods. “Nothing is like before. Sometimes I wonder if it’s a punishment.”
“I too have thought this.”
“It could be,” I continue. “I don’t know from what or whom, but whatever’s happening to me is a punishment.”
Beatrice’s careful attention surprises me. I can see she agrees with my theory, and so I go on talking.
“I suppose I deserve it, for wishing things were different. For wanting a huge change.”
“Why would you want that?” Beatrice is shocked.
“Well, so everything would be better. So my life would be better.”
“But the Sphere is perfect!”
“My sphere wasn’t.”
Beatrice takes the water off the fire and pours it into the teapot. She takes some mugs from the cupboard and sets them on a tray. I feel the knot in my throat getting larger and larger.
“My people have disappeared. All of them,” I say suddenly.
Beatrice drops the sugar dish, and the sound of smashing china brings William to the door in a flash.
“She knows!” Beatrice exclaims in a trembling voice.
“What happened, my lovely lady? What does she know?”
“What’s happening in the Sphere. She knows.”
William gazes at me with his inscrutable expression. I feel ill at ease.
“I didn’t do anything. I just told her my family disappeared.”
It was madness to think that Beatrice could help me. I’m on the verge of walking out when we hear a noise from down below. Somebody has opened the main door and is coming closer, steady footsteps growing louder and louder. William grabs a pan. I glance over at Beatrice, who looks frightened. The footsteps stop on the other side of the kitchen door. William is ready, the pan held tightly in his hand. I can see his hands shaking. I know whatever happens next won’t be good.
6
William gets ready to open the door, the pan gripped firmly in his hand. But just then someone pushes from the other side, and the door hits him in the head, and the pan falls with a great crash right on his foot. It’s only then that I realize it’s cast iron. At last his stick-face shows a little feeling—I can tell how much it hurts.
“Holme
s, finally, I found you!” cries the new arrival.
At first glance I don’t understand why William and Beatrice were so afraid. It’s just a girl.
“It’s true about Romeo...”
William gets up, grumbling about his injuries. The girl goes quiet when she sees Beatrice and me. She’s young, and almost as tall as William, with a great mass of dark hair. She’s been running; you can tell from the excitement in her voice. She turns to face me. Suddenly I understand why my companions were afraid. I know that if the girl had eyes she could pierce me with her gaze, could strike me down in an instant. I’ve never felt anything like the force of those empty sockets looking at me. We don’t like each other. The feeling is instantaneous, mutual, and visceral.
“You’re not alone.” The girl doesn’t bother to conceal how unwelcome my presence is.
“Of course he’s not alone,” replies Beatrice in a thunderous voice. “It is to be expected, don’t you think? I mean, he is in my house.”
This is the first time I’ve seen Beatrice lose her gentleness, which confirms my feeling that I shouldn’t trust the girl. Maybe I shouldn’t trust Beatrice, either, but there’s my internal voice again, insisting that she’ll be able to help me somehow.
William takes the girl by the arm and marches her out of the kitchen, whispering something into her ear. She jerks herself free and whirls around to face him with no sign of fear, like a wild animal. It feels like a fight could break out at any moment.
“Enough, Morgan!” says Beatrice, raising her voice. “I repeat: you are in my house. I expect you to have the courtesy to behave properly.” The girl responds with a loud snort. “Since you’ve already stormed in, would you at least be so kind as to explain what it is about Romeo that is true?” Morgan and William huddle together and whisper, then turn their empty sockets toward me. “There is nothing you cannot say in front of her. She is my friend,” says Beatrice firmly.
“She just got published,” points out Morgan.
“But she has my absolute trust,” answers Beatrice.
A few minutes pass. A very brief interval that feels like an eternity. No one speaks; no one moves; even my thoughts seem to have stopped.
“My dearest Beatrice,” says William, clearing his throat. “What I am about to say pains me, but it seems that for the first time your judgment is not entirely correct. We don’t know her. We don’t even know what role she has.”
“Thanks for everything, Beatrice,” I say, moving hesitantly toward the door.
“No—stay!” she urges me.
Beatrice—so sweet, so much smaller than the rest of us—faces off against William and Morgan.
“Eurydice is the answer to my prayers. That’s all we need to know. I have begged for help to come, and she has been sent by the Creator.”
“Here we go with the Creator again!” exclaims Morgan scornfully. “How can you be so superstitious and ignorant? And you really think that’s the answer?”
She comes over to me and inspects me as if I were a thing, not a person. My fists are balled up and my arms hang stiffly at my sides. I can’t speak. I’d like to come up with something intelligent, a single sharp remark I could hurl right at this smug girl and her ill-mannered friend. Pride leaves a bitter taste in my mouth. All I can do is stand perfectly still.
“I am supposed to guide you to the Empyrean, am I not? Is that not my role? Morgan, tell me. Is that my role or not?”
Morgan mutters something through her teeth.
“My dear lady, we are not discussing your role right now; rather the advisability of the presence of this...”
“But she knows. She knows about the disappearances,” insists Beatrice. “That’s the proof that Eurydice has come to help us.”
“I...”
I was about to say that I’ve got no idea why I’m stuck in this world full of lunatics. There’s no way I’m the answer to anything. Morgan and William stand there stiffly as Beatrice tries to make them give in.
“Why can’t she hear what you have to say?”
There’s so much tension in the room. The tiniest spark would be enough to set us all at each other’s throats.
“Goodbye. Thank you for everything,” I say, looking at Beatrice.
“Thank you,” says Morgan sarcastically.
We stare at each other for a few seconds. She’s nobody: I’d like to make sure she knows it. I’d like to make it perfectly clear that I’m the one who decides when I go and when I stay, but instead I turn silently, and go out.
With every step I take I feel more slighted, more insignificant. I keep walking, irate. My head is held high but I can’t stop wringing my hands. The more I think about it, the more furious I am. With them, with the world, with myself, with this ridiculous situation that I’ve somehow ended up in. My blood is boiling, and so I forget that just a few hours ago I was afraid of going home and finding it gone. I’ve been walking along on autopilot. Only when I reach the river do I realize I’m on the way to my house. What I see is like a bucket of ice water dumped over my head: the street stops just beyond the river. Something extremely strange is going on. Last night there was a street after the bridge. My house wasn’t there, but there was at least a stretch of road. Today it’s nowhere to be seen. I stare at the field in front of me. There are a few gray stalks of wheat bent over by the wind. I’m not confused like I was last night. There’s no doubt—St Andrews ends here, plain and simple. Like it or not, my family’s summer house has vanished.
How did I end up in this world without rules? I don’t think the accident could have been enough to land me in this bad copy of St Andrews. I absolutely refuse to accept that a car crash could get me trapped in a world drawn in charcoal. It’s been hours and I haven’t seen anyone familiar, there are no cars in the streets, and I haven’t met a single person who isn’t made of wood, with empty eye sockets. This is and is not St Andrews. In a way it’s almost like I’ve gone back in time. Everything is so old in Beatrice’s house—there isn’t even a faucet in the kitchen!...
I have to find a way out of this nightmare. I have to wake up, or get back to my own world, or whatever. The point is, I have to find a way to get back to normal. I know, I know—I’m not very normal. Everything and everybody has made sure to point that out, ever since I was a little girl. But I want to go back to my normal. The question is: how?
I walk back the way I came. At East Sands the ocean is cresting in tall waves that break on the deserted beach. I go slowly down the hill that the twins run down every morning. It’s odd, I feel an impulse to think they went down. It’s hard to imagine them in the present tense. Where can Benvolio and Mercutio be? Little twerps, I miss them in spite of everything. I remember the blood gushing everywhere, but it seems like a thousand years ago. I remember how calmly Axel assured me that soon everything would be all right. I look over to the right: there are the rocks we were sitting on. It seems like it just happened yesterday, but now the rocks are covered in a thick layer of seaweed, buzzing with dense clouds of flies. The seagulls dive down, jam their beaks into the seaweed, and fly off again. I don’t dare go any closer.
There’s no one on the beach—why would there be? The absence of people is the norm in this colorless world. I feel strangely hollow inside. It’s not fear—unease, maybe, but not fear. I’m confused. It makes me unreasonably angry that I don’t know how to get back to my life.
I sit down on the sand and hug my knees to my chest. I pick up a twig and start drawing with it, smoothing out the sand with my hand and then drawing with slow, continuous strokes. Waves, straight lines, this has always helped chase away my worries. I love drawing; it’s the only thing that gives me a space that’s all my own, where I know the rules, and I’m in charge, with no one to judge or watch me. My drawings are my world. It’s the only place where I don’t have to try and fit in. I feel myself relax; my breath slows down. My mind lets go of its burdens, and the hole I feel in my chest begins to disappear. I can see Axel smiling at me, asking:
>
“What’s that?”
I think that’s when I began to hate him. Or maybe not. Yes, right then—that’s when my love/confusion relationship with him started. No matter how much time passes, I’ll never understand him. Axel. He never knew how to keep still, even when we were just getting to know each other. I put my bag on the table at the bar and of course my notebook had to fall out. It only took him two seconds to pick it up, open it, and see my drawings. I felt naked. I hated him instantaneously for barging into my world like that.
“Give that back!” I said, snatching it away. He didn’t bat an eye.
“Are they yours? They’re very good, from what I saw. Let me see, come on.”
He tickled me so I’d let go of the notebook, then he nibbled at my neck and I didn’t know whether to smack him in the head with the notebook or just run right out of there. It felt like everyone was watching us. Never, no matter how much he asked, would I put up with public displays of affection. He was so much more uninhibited and outgoing than any boy I could ever imagine being with. As time went on, my friends couldn’t understand how I kept going out with him, either.
“Axel is nice, don’t get me wrong,” Marion said once, “and he’s good-looking...”
“Shit—good-looking is right!” interrupts Laura, not mincing words. She never minded a bit telling me just how attractive she thought Axel was.
“Hush! What I’m trying to say is that Axel's nothing like the guys you usually go for.”
Marion was right. I didn’t need her to tell me; I was well aware. Reserved and mysterious, that was the type I always fell for—even though those sorts of guys never even noticed me. Why Axel? A dare, a stupid dare. I can’t control myself when someone puts me up to something. A dare, and there I was drinking coffee with Axel for the millionth time. All because of that night. I was just out having fun with my friends, like always—how did it all go off the rails? Laura noticed the group of boys playing darts in the other corner of the pub. They were all smoking hot, according to her, but that was normal. Laura and her out-of-control hormones. It should’ve just been a regular night, and not the beginning of all my bad luck.