The Sphere

by Martha Faë

  “There we are,” she says, landing and patting her dress back down. “At least one thing done right.”

  “You fly!” I point, astonished. “And Sherlock?”

  “Sherlock will be here shortly.” I can’t miss the sarcasm with which Morgan pronounces Holmes’s name. “The poor thing is awfully limited, you must have noticed it. The only way he can transport himself is with that slow walk. Well, he’s not the only one—” She looks at Beatrice, who has just come out of the kitchen with tea.

  “This man is a disaster. A disaster! All of the cups are chipped, and look—none of them match.”

  Sherlock comes into the living room as we sit down to tea.

  “All right,” he says, as if we were just continuing a chat that had never been interrupted. “How did the investigation of the misshapen go?”

  “Didn’t you talk about that already?” I ask, startled.

  “Without you there? Never!” Morgan responds acidly. I shift uncomfortably in the armchair. “Right,” Morgan says, taking a sip of tea, “now we’re all here and we have your invaluable perspective”—she looks so pointedly at me that I want to disappear—“so I can tell you what happened.” I look over at Beatrice. She’s gazing down into her cup of tea; knives could be flying right over her head and she wouldn’t notice. “I wasn’t able to see all the misshapen because I ran into that evil beast.”

  “Don’t speak that way of Heathcliff!” exclaims Beatrice, indignant, jerking her head back up.

  “And how did you know I was referring to your great love?”

  “Mister Holmes...” Beatrice whines to Sherlock as if he were in charge of this nursery school we’re apparently in.

  “Could we focus?” Sherlock cuts off the argument brewing between the two women.

  “Any day now I’ll cast a spell and free Wuthering Heights from his wretched presence...” Morgan mutters without looking at Beatrice.

  “William!” Beatrice whimpers like a child.

  “All right, let’s cut to the chase,” Morgan says, serious again. “I went to check that all the misshapen were performing their roles as normal.”

  “Heathcliff is one of the misshapen?” I ask.

  “He is their high king,” Morgan answers, and begins to laugh.

  “Creator, forgive her,” murmurs Beatrice.

  “Well, he’s not one of the misshapen in the strictest sense,” Morgan corrects herself with a snort, “but it’s as if he were.”

  “What has Heathcliff done now?” asks Holmes.

  “Nothing new. I found him in character, raising hell. The foulest winds of the Sphere come out of that monster’s big mouth. He barked at me like a rabid dog the moment he saw me. You know, like he does.

  I started my check of the misshapen with the doctor. The sign on the house was in Hyde mode—invisible. Sometimes he’s the doctor, and then you can speak with him, but other times he’s in Hyde mode,” Morgan glances over at me, explaining for my benefit. “When I saw he wasn’t there, and bearing in mind that Frankenstein lives clear on the other side of the Sphere and there wasn’t much time left until dark, I thought it would be a good idea to check on Louis. He lives quite near the doctor, so it was a good use of my time.”

  The name Frankenstein catches my attention... it sounds like a monster from a movie.

  “Well-reasoned,” remarks Sherlock.

  “That was my plan. Check on Louis, and then go back to the doctor’s house.”

  “Louis is a vampire, eternally youthful,” says Beatrice. Morgan tosses her head, growing impatient. “I suppose it is true that all vampires are eternally youthful. So that wasn’t a very good description,” admits Beatrice. “But he is younger and more beautiful than others.”

  “Although Louis is apparently not one of the misshapen,” continues Morgan, “I thought that he might be able to make use of Dorian’s painting. You know, it never hurts to have something around to help conserve your beauty. It’s true that as a vampire Louis hardly needs it, but still, we shouldn’t rule anything out.” Sherlock and Beatrice nod. “And I found everything quite in order,” Morgan continues, taking another sip of tea. “They were interviewing him, like always, nothing outside of his role. I stayed awhile to listen. He talked about the things he regretted, about his centuries as a vampire. Like I said, nothing out of the ordinary. When I went back to the doctor’s house I had the misfortune to run into Heathcliff, who was sitting on the ground, leaning against the door. When he saw me he flew into a rage. He started to throw stones at me to keep me from landing. When I finally managed to come down he called me a witch—you see just how creative the brute is.”

  I look over at Beatrice. One tiny tear is rolling down her cheek.

  “He told me I ought to be off stirring a cauldron and minding my own witchy business instead of poking my nose in where I wasn’t wanted. He tried to chase me away from the doctor’s house.”

  “Why?” asks Sherlock.

  “That’s what I wanted to know. He even shoved me away when I tried to come near the door to knock. It seemed so suspicious that I kept trying, but when I finally succeeded the doctor didn’t answer.”

  “You haven’t cast a spell on poor Heathcliff!” exclaims Beatrice worriedly.

  “Of course not,” Morgan says sulkily.

  Sherlock looks at the contents of his teacup, thoughtful.

  “Heathcliff’s attitude is very suspicious indeed,” he says.

  “Perhaps he’s suffering because of something Cathy did to him,” says Beatrice, “and that’s why he was in such a bad mood. There’s not necessarily any reason to suspect him.”

  Morgan lets out an exaggerated sigh.

  “So we know nothing about the doctor, then,” says Sherlock.

  “That’s right. Because of Heathcliff I wasn’t able to verify whether the doctor was just in Hyde mode or if he has disappeared, too. I would have gone in the house if he hadn’t been there...”

  Beatrice pouts and Holmes clears his throat.

  “All right, that’s enough for today,” says Sherlock. “We should all be going. Someone might see us disobeying our roles.”

  “Disobeying?” I ask, confused.

  “Yes. None of us has a nocturnal role. Well, William and Morgan do have a few night scenes, but not together. If any Spherean saw us meeting at this hour they would find it disturbing.”

  “We’ll meet again tomorrow,” says Sherlock as he gets up to walk us to the door.

  “Tomorrow? But what about the monk’s cell?”

  “So persistent...” Morgan scoffs at me.

  “Yeah, the blood, the trunk...” I say timidly. No one pays attention. “It’s going to be your fault if we never see one of the missing people again!”

  “What do you mean?” Suddenly Sherlock is interested.

  “If whoever’s in that trunk dies, it’ll be because we didn’t do anything to stop it.”

  My companions look at each other as if I had just been speaking gibberish. Then Sherlock begins to laugh, first trying to hide it, then explosively. Beatrice and Morgan join him. Suddenly all three of them are having hysterics, tears in their eyes, even a little coughing here and there.

  “It seems like your little protégée has a sense of humor, Holmes,” says Morgan as she wipes a tear away with one finger. “See you tomorrow. By the way, Eurydice—be ready to come with me to Frankenstein’s house... Ambrosio killing one of the missing people—that’s a good one!”

  I feel so humiliated that I almost refuse to go to Beatrice’s house. The way they laughed at me! Beatrice is still smiling as we walk back to her house. I suppose if I went off on my own Morgan would come looking for me. They’re holding me prisoner, that’s the truth of it—I don’t have any freedom at all. The best thing for me to do is wait until Beatrice falls asleep and then escape. I’ll show them I was right. My nose wasn’t lying. I just hope whoever is in that monk’s cell can hang on until I get there.

  12

  “Here we are, home aga
in,” says Beatrice, slipping the ancient, rusty key into the lock. “What would you like to do? Do you want a little tea?”

  “No, no more tea, thank you.”

  We haven’t stopped drinking tea all day. I ought to be sick of it, but to tell the truth, what we’ve drunk so far hasn’t made me feel at all restless. It hasn’t had much flavor, either.

  “Doesn’t drinking all that tea make you antsy? I mean, doesn’t it keep you from sleeping?”

  “Sleep? Why, I don’t get sleepy, dear! The Creator didn’t think that was appropriate for me.”

  “But you must sleep some time, right?” Beatrice shrugs with surprising elegance. I can’t believe she stays up all night. “You never sleep?”

  “Never.”

  “But—why?”

  There are still a lot of things I don’t understand about these people.

  “It’s not part of my role.”

  “So why do you have a bed?”

  “I don’t know,” she answers with a smile, “you would have to ask the Creator. He put it there. Now, what would you like to do until morning?”

  I can see that my plan to escape while Beatrice is sleeping is going to get a little tricky.

  “We could rest in the living room for a bit.”

  “All right.”

  Beatrice’s sofa isn’t the most comfortable one I’ve ever sat on, but at least there are some nice big cushions. I make myself a little nest.

  “So, I’ve noticed that Morgan isn’t too fond of Heathcliff.”

  Beatrice loses her customary joy whenever she hears the name of her beloved.

  “No one is, I’m afraid.”

  “Why not?”

  “They do not know how to see inside him. Heathcliff has a pure and sensitive soul, but a lack of love has hardened it. He lives in Wuthering Heights, a house up on a hill, far from the other inhabitants of the Sphere. It is an inhospitable place, battered by unusually cruel winds. Anyone would go mad living up there, and if you had to share your days with Cathy, too... well.”

  “What?” I ask, my curiosity prickling. “What happens if you have to share your days with Cathy?”

  Beatrice tries to resist—the Creator doesn’t like her to gossip, much less to speak ill of any Spherean. But what she has to say about Cathy isn’t gossip, just a description of reality. After some hemming and hawing, she describes living conditions that would turn even the most sociable person into a recluse. She says Heathcliff would be very different if his surroundings weren’t so hostile.

  “The Sphereans have always rejected him, as if he were no good for anyone or anything. And the one who rejects and mocks him the most is Cathy, the one person he loves above all others. She treats him with scorn and torments him with jealousy just for her own amusement. She is to blame for his miserable state, though she is hardly the only one. Heathcliff does not have one single friend. You’ve already heard the way Morgan spoke of him. Everyone is prejudiced when it comes to Heathcliff.”

  I nod.

  “And what does he do about it?”

  “Nothing. He lives his life without interfering with anyone else.”

  That isn’t what Morgan told me, but I know all too well what it’s like to feel misunderstood, to live surrounded by people who are different, to be different. For the first time I wonder how other people see me. Do they think I’m sullen and hard to get close to? I suppose most of them do. All of them except Axel—he was my Beatrice. Suddenly I feel the rage that consumes me whenever I think about my life as something that happened in the past. I try to set it aside and stop thinking about it.

  “So why don’t you ask your creator to change things? Didn’t you say that everything in the Sphere was up to him?”

  “I would never ask something like that of him! The Creator has his reasons for all that he does. Though that is not to say that Heathcliff’s situation is not deeply painful to me. We have a certain amount of freedom within our roles, so the Sphereans are not obligated to treat Heathcliff the way they do. They should have better judgment. I would never want to speak ill of anyone, but there are many people who could have the finger pointed at them, and who are very popular nonetheless. Dorian Gray, for example. His portrait is an open secret; everyone knows the pleasure he gets from being cruel to others. Yet instead of judging him for it, everyone in the Sphere seems to applaud his mischief as if it were some kind of heroic feat. They love him; there’s not a single social event to which he is not invited.”

  “Well, not everyone adores him,” I point out. “Someone hit him so hard he might’ve been killed.”

  Beatrice smiles, amused. “What do you mean, killed!”

  “He never regained consciousness while you were looking after him, did he?” Beatrice shakes her head, apparently unworried. “His life could still be in danger. Do you know if he came to when you brought him to the hospital?”

  “Of course he didn’t.”

  “Of course?”

  I don’t know what to make of that answer. Beatrice seems totally unconcerned for Mister Gray’s health.

  “He will not regain consciousness, my dear.”

  I don’t know why hearing that affects me so deeply. My blood goes cold and I sit there, paralyzed. It feels like I’m watching from the outside as they talk about me.

  “You mean he’s... dead?”

  “No, of course not,” Beatrice lets out a gentle laugh. “But he will not regain consciousness until we get the painting back. Dorian is a double being; one part cannot fully exist without the other. He is like the doctor—he cannot exist fully without Hyde. They are two, but really they are a single being. I know it’s complicated, but that is the beauty of creation.” Beatrice’s face lights up. “Doubles are always dark, always evil and at the same time fascinating. They are the method the Creator uses to show us his chiaroscuro, the contrast of light and shadow in his Creation.”

  “The monk that ran away when he saw Sherlock...”

  “Ambrosio.”

  “Right, Ambrosio. I guess he’s a double. Is he dark and fascinating, too?”

  Beatrice’s expression is a mix of revulsion and shame. “Ambrosio is not in the least fascinating. He is one of the worst that the Sphere has to offer, merely a collection of depravities.”

  “So he might be capable of killing...”

  I feel triumphant—perhaps I have an ally in Beatrice after all.

  “Of course! He kills perfectly, meticulously. You know, it does make me a little uncomfortable to talk about such things, although they are part of Creation. But I trust that you have been sent in answer to my pleas, so I shall try to help you in any way I can. Ambrosio is one of the Sphereans who kills the most often. In fact, he murders women from the Sphere every day, without exception.”

  “Every day!” I jump to my feet, horrified. My breath is coming in gasps. We’ve got to go back to the monastery.

  “Yes, every day.” Beatrice has lost none of her usual serenity. “He is only following his role.”

  I can’t calm down. I’m too shocked. How can they take something like this so lightly?

  “But... you all know and you don’t do anything? Since when? I don’t even want to think how many girls he’s killed already.”

  Beatrice looks at me, confused.

  “He murders the same ones as always. I don’t understand the problem. I certainly don’t like it, but it is nothing out of the ordinary.”

  I try to understand. The monk kills the same women over and over again. I think back to what they said about the places where the missing people usually commit suicide, and a terrible doubt begins to choke me. It feels like a huge ball of hair is stuck in my throat. Where am I? When I picture Mister Gray’s face I can’t say whether he was alive or dead. I’m just feeling my way forward here—there’s no way to be certain—but I think I might be in the world of the dead. There is no other explanation.

  “Bice, can I ask you something?” I sit down slowly, with one leg folded beneath me. Beatrice nods
gently. “How can you know for sure that someone isn’t dead?” My voice shakes.

  I don’t dare point out that everyone here is made of wood and has no eyes. That their world is worn-out and colorless. There are no smells, no flavors. They don’t sleep. Wounds only last for a few seconds. The same thought that struck me when I first came to this bleak place starts hammering inside me again, but I refuse to accept it. No. I simply cannot be dead. And Carl? Why haven’t I run into him here? Maybe he was the one who survived.

  All of a sudden I stand up and start screaming. I barely even notice when Beatrice embraces me and tries to soothe me. I scream until my throat aches. It isn’t crying—I don’t feel any sadness about what happened—just sheer helplessness.

  “I don’t know how I can help you.”

  I can hear Beatrice’s words but I can barely make sense of them. The pain ripping through me makes it feel like I’m coming apart, disintegrating, like acid is burning away my body. I feel dizzy. The living room starts to spin. I run over and throw the windows open so violently that it drives the wooden shutters into the walls. I watch, astonished, as the holes in the plaster fill back up. I grab one of the shutters and smash it as hard as I can, but I only see the same sad thing again: the holes only last for half a second. I clutch at my head. I want to tear out the thought that’s tormenting me, to get rid of all the proof.

  “Eurydice...”

  “Leave me alone! Let me go!”

  “Please. You must calm yourself. You have been sent...”

  “I haven’t been sent. I’m not your savior. I’m nothing—I’m nobody. Let me go!”

  With a howl I run out of the living room and down the stairs, slipping, stumbling, crashing into the stone walls. Outside I find the grayish, leaden colors of the gardens of St Mary.

  “I hate you all!” I shout from the bottom of my heart, without even knowing who I’m shouting at. “I hate you!” I scream in vain at the gray sky. The weight of its color feels like it might crush me.

  They won’t get me. That is the only clear thought I can find inside myself. Whatever is left of me has turned into pure rebellion. They won’t get me. No one, not this ridiculous bubble, not whatever force sent me here. Death—if that’s what it is—isn’t going to get me. I still had so many things to do. It wasn’t time yet. I run toward the beach at East Sands, barely able to make out the path in the darkness. By the time I reach the hill I’m moving so fast that I trip and tumble the rest of the way down. When I finally stop rolling, I’m lying face down on the wet sand. The sea creeps up to me and licks my fingers like some enormous dopey dog. I sit up and look at its charcoal color, the grayish foam that comes and goes, shining a little under the light of a cardboard moon. The sight fills me with hate. My body is begging me to cry, but I won’t give in. I get my breathing under control. I’m not going to cry. I simply will not accept death. As the water laps at my knees, I dig my fists into the hardened sand until they’re full of all the sand they can hold. I look down. I hate that leaden, dusty color so much. I fling handfuls of sand furiously into the sea, this sea that’s nothing but a terrible copy of the sea at St Andrews... of my sea.