Through a Glass Darkly

by Bill Hussey

  He stretched out on Jarski’s couch, eyes shut and a sliver of drool hanging from the corner of his mouth. He heard the doctor and the DCI leave the room, locking the door behind them. He waited a few moments, ears straining. Then he sat up and tore open Brody’s final testament.

  BUNDLE 3 –

  MENDICANT REBORN – 1995

  When I think of Simon, I remember snatches of afternoons. Bright summer, windswept autumn, winter, thick with snow. I picture our walks, from mouth of trees to village school, from village school to mouth of trees. The boy, always cheerful, full of questions and energy. He had an infectious thirst for life. A good thing in any child, you may think. I often wondered, however, whether he had inherited such lustiness from his father, and to what ends it might drive him in later life. I need not have concerned myself on that score. For this child, there would be no later life.

  It was in the spring of Simon’s tenth year when Geraldine Pryce came to see me. I would not say we had become friends since Peter’s death, but a sort of familiarity had grown between us. I think it was based on that shared experience of witnessing Peter’s illness. Neither of us ever discussed it, yet somehow she had divined something of the truth behind the tragedy. Indeed, through that experience she began to understand the nature of the village. Ten years after Peter’s death, she had become yet another piece on the strange chessboard that was Crow Haven.

  ‘He is … different lately,’ she said. ‘Withdrawn. Have you noticed?’

  We sat in my study at the Old Priory. The sound of children playing near the Rowbankses’ farm sallied across the fields and through the window. Soon Jim Rowbanks would stagger onto his porch. He would curse and holler until the children tired of teasing him. All children haunted him, as they haunted me.

  ‘He’s started asking about his father,’ Geraldine continued. ‘Have you been talking to him about Peter?’

  ‘Never.’

  ‘Then how does he know?’

  ‘I’ve no idea.’

  ‘Asher …’ she gave a sudden, violent shudder.

  ‘What is it?’ I asked, her quiet terror catching hold of me.

  ‘Simon … He’s been inside the room.’

  Ever since my first talk with Mendicant in that library, I have had a kind of Pavlovian response to the mere mention of the place. As Geraldine spoke of it, sweat trickled down my back and my throat dried up. I did not want to think of Simon inside that terrible room. I refused to imagine him there, his tiny form dwarfed by the shadows of those huge, empty bookcases. Alone … No, not alone …

  I had been waiting for this for ten years. Had always known that the day would come. But now, I didn’t want to hear. It would be all right, I told myself. She couldn’t be sure.

  ‘He told me … Jesus Christ … He says he’s seen Peter. Spoken to him. Inside the bricked-up room …’

  Not again. Please, God, not again. I had to ask the question, but already knew the answer.

  ‘Was Peter alone?’

  She shook her head. ‘No.’

  It was a cool afternoon. A mist curled about the trees. Snowdrops speckled the grass and frogspawn furred the forest pools. Simon walked beside me, a solemn little figure with his head bowed, his feet scuffing the ground. I put my arm around his shoulder, but he didn’t look up. I would not let this happen. I’d die before I let this happen.

  ‘Don’t worry, son,’ I said. ‘It’s going to be all right.’

  I was angry. Scared. And I didn’t believe my words.

  We cleared the avenue of trees and I looked upon the Doctor’s house for the first time in a decade. The years had taken their toll. Peeling paint and weatherworn brickwork seemed to have softened its rigid geometry. It remained, however, an imposing structure.

  Simon opened the door with his latchkey and we ascended to the old library. The door was ever more warped and buckled in its frame. I took my time over the blessing, sprinkling holy water, crumbling wafer.

  ‘Will this hurt my dad?’ Simon asked.

  ‘No, it will release him.’

  ‘What about the other poor man?’

  ‘Tell me again how you met your father,’ I said.

  ‘I told you …’

  ‘I want to get it clear in my head.’ I didn’t need to know. I was playing for time, wishing the future away.

  ‘I was playing here, on the landing. Mother was asleep. I thought it was the wind at first. The wind in the trees can sound like crying sometimes. Even like voices. But trees don’t speak. Not really. Not words. I heard words. They said: Open the door, Simon. Please let us out. We’re so lonely in here by ourselves. Be a good boy and open the door. It was voices, inside here.’

  Simon laid his hands flat on the door and rested his ear against the panels.

  ‘Weren’t you frightened?’ I asked.

  ‘They sounded so sad. Like lost children. I wasn’t frightened. I looked through the keyhole. I didn’t see anything at first, it was so dark. But then, faraway, I saw a bed, all covered in webs. There was a man by the bed, waving at me. He was real tall and thin and he was laughing. He looked weird, but he seemed very happy. Then I saw this other man. He wasn’t so happy. His waving was sad, like he didn’t want to wave at all. Hello, Simon – the thin man said that – we’ve been waiting so long to see you. I said: Who are you? I just whispered it, but he heard. Well, this is your father, Simon. He wants to meet you very much. And I’m Daddy’s friend. But I don’t have a name, isn’t that sad? Will you give me a name, Simon? I thought a bit. What about Funnyface? I said, because he did have a funny face. Horrible funny, not ha-ha funny. But it wasn’t a scary face. He laughed loads when I told him his name: Funnyface it is! he said. Clever boy. Oh, I can see we’re all going to be good, good friends. Now, your daddy wants so much to meet you. Why don’t you open the door? I told him it was locked. Oh, no, not to you, Simon. Say Open Sesame! Go on, give it a go! And I did. And it opened. And I went inside. Then I can’t … I can’t remember … I think we played … I drew them a picture, I think.’

  ‘And you’ve seen them again?’ I asked.

  The boy hesitated. His eyelids flickered, as if he had just remembered something. He backed away from the door.

  ‘Simon, what is it?’

  ‘Later. His face was scary later. They want to do something to me. They want to …’

  ‘Listen to me, Simon. You must never go into this room again. No matter what you hear, no matter what you dream. Never. Are you listening to me? Do you understand? Your father is dead. He was a bad man and he died. The Devil lives with him in this room and you will burn in Hell if you go in here again. I …’

  The child looked at me as if I had struck him. I told him to get out of my sight. He ran headlong down the stairs and out of the house. Every day, I question the wisdom of using those harsh words. I had wanted to frighten him, but I wonder whether Simon spent sleepless nights during the following weeks, desperate for my help but remembering that rebuke. Is this just another instance where I failed those who sought my comfort and counsel?

  I crossed the landing and knocked on the door of the master bedroom. A moment later it was opened by Anne Malahyde.

  ‘What are you doing here?’ she snapped, glancing over my shoulder to the sealed door across the hall. ‘I told you to stay away.’

  She was still beautiful but only vestiges of her youth remained. Her eyes were very old. As gaunt and frail as she looked, however, her alteration from the fey young woman she had been had given her a certainty of purpose.

  ‘Simon is in danger,’ I said. ‘If he stays here, something terrible will happen to him. He must leave this house immediately. Both of you must leave.’

  She seemed terrified by the suggestion: ‘I will not leave. I can’t leave.’

  ‘You must. Don’t you care for your son?’

  ‘He’s well provided for.’

  ‘That’s not the same thing. You know what I’m talking about, don’t you? Why else is that room sealed up? You know some
thing is alive inside there.’

  ‘Are you mad?’ she laughed. ‘I keep it as it was when Peter died, as a shrine to his memory. I won’t leave.’

  ‘Then send Simon away. To boarding school or something. Even if you don’t believe me, please humour me. Send him away before it’s too late. I was with your husband when he died, remember. I know things you don’t.’

  ‘Leave now,’ she said, closing the bedroom door, ‘and I’ll think about what you’ve said.’

  Anne Malahyde did as she promised, but by the time the child was sent away to boarding school, he was Simon no longer. We continued our walks to and from school, but since my outburst the boy would no longer confide in me. I asked him repeatedly if he had heard the voices or seen the figures again. He shook his head and stared at the ground.

  It was in the early days of June that Geraldine Pryce visited me again. She said nothing. She simply laid a school portrait on my desk and left the room. Puzzled, I called after her until I heard the front door snap shut. I looked down at the picture.

  The faces of Simon’s schoolmates, smiling, grimacing, frozen, stared out of the photograph. There was a spectrum of emotion there, from elation to subdued misery. In that gamut, humanity was displayed in many forms. In the face of Simon Malahyde, however, there was no humanity. There was nothing but distortion.

  Too late. Too late for James and Josh, for Luke and Michael, for Jim and Valerie. Too late for Ma Rowbanks and for Peter Malahyde. Too late for little Simon, and much, much too late for Asher Brody.

  They had taken him.

  I stood before the cornerstone of the Yeager Library and heard the bell reverberate inside that prison of minds. The door opened. The librarian, as before, seemed to have anticipated my arrival.

  ‘Good evening, Father.’

  ‘I need … I must …’

  ‘You wish to see the Transmigration of Souls again?’

  ‘Or any addendum to it. Something that details any special circumstances in which the metempsychosis ritual might be performed. Please, a child’s life …’

  ‘There is an addendum to the text,’ said the librarian. His voice was like a balm to my frayed nerves. ‘It was penned by the author on his deathbed. Due to the delirium the writer suffered in his final hours, however, the veracity of the document is questionable.’

  ‘May I see it?’

  ‘Only one visit to the library is gratis, I’m afraid. If you wish to enter again, Father, you must pay for the privilege.’

  ‘Pay? With what?’

  ‘With a little of what you hold most dear.’

  ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘Your faith, Father. You must bequeath some of it to Yeager. You see, we are not just a depository of knowledge, but of experience. I find your faith fascinating, Mr Brody, full of passion and contradiction. I should like to examine it at my leisure. Are you agreeable?’

  ‘But how can belief be dissected?’ I argued. ‘It’s not like tissue; it’s an indivisible whole.’

  ‘There are ways,’ the librarian smiled. ‘Are you willing?’

  To save Simon? To give him back his soul? For that, God might forgive the bartering of my spirit. I agreed. The librarian led me to the same chamber in which I had translated the Transmigration all those years before. There were a few pages of parchment on the desk, together with the lamp, notepad, quill and hourglass. The librarian set the sands running and I began to transcribe the text.

  The Transmigration of Souls. The Final Word.

  1612 Anno Domini

  I am a coward. I would not have admitted that when I first put pen to paper and recorded the original of this work. I fooled myself into believing that greatness of intellect is, in some measure, superior to largeness of heart. I see now that my learning was meagre enough, but my soul was poorer still. Since I wrote of my experiences, I have led a half-life, fearful of shadows, timid of my fellow man. Loneliness has broken me. I scribble these, my last words, in a tiny garret, watching the passing of people in the street below. I am frightened by them, for all the world seems to me to be populated by angels and devils.

  This addendum should have appeared in that part of the Transmigration in which I tell of the few variations of the rite and its limitations. I omitted it from the original text because it seemed manifestly hideous, even in the company of so many other hideous things. I set it down now, as twilight draws in.

  On my fourth night in the chateau between the mountains, my changed host came to my prison chamber.

  ‘Time for our latest lesson in the Art of Rebirth,’ the man-child said. ‘And time you heard a few of the modifications that may be made to the rite. It is not always performed as you witnessed. You may believe that a spirit must take possession of the vessel almost as soon as it is released from its own body. Not so. A spirit may survive ten days or so outside a body, and still take possession of a child. If he has not performed the functions of the rite before he died, however, he will not have the physical substance to perform them after death. It is essential, therefore, that some servant murder the children, feed his master their fat and burn the baptism dresses.’

  ‘Yet after ten days the spirit is utterly spent?’ I asked, taking down my notes.

  ‘Not quite,’ the child said. ‘There is one other way for a spirit to work the rite. Let us imagine a ritual goes badly. The spirit is released from his own body, but cannot take up residence in a new form. If the spirit has consumed the fat of the children, then the power to possess remains with him. The problem is that, as a spirit, he will not have the substance to procure the baptism dresses to show his way into a new child.’

  ‘So he is trapped. He is a ghost.’

  ‘And will remain so unless he is very fortunate. It is possible, you see, for a parent to sell a child’s soul. The pact must be made while the father or mother is alive, but possession can only take place with the guidance of a dead parent. The child, as with the normal rite, must also be on the cusp of puberty. Then, unlike the usual metempsychosis, where the spirit of the child is utterly subjugated and the possessing soul has free reign, the ghost must share occupancy of the body with both the child and parent. A trinity of souls.’

  ‘No father or mother would do such a thing,’ I said, horrified.

  ‘It has been known. Though hardly an ideal arrangement, it saves one from being a mere shade. But there are disadvantages. The older, possessing ghost will be the master, but the other spirits may war against him. And there is the question of longevity. The life of the vessel taken in this way is severely reduced. Three spirits warring inside will take its toll.’

  ‘And what will happen when that body wears out?’

  ‘Well, then the dominant spirit is free to resume normal metempsychosis. He has a body to use, so he can prepare the sacrificial children, take of their fat, burn the dresses, etcetera. The only problem he may come across is the one I have already outlined. The resistance of the parent and child souls. They may interfere with the necessary preparations. It is remarkable how many fathers, having willingly sold their sons, discover a conscience after the deed is done. For this reason, it has been known for spirits to seek the assistance of a human helpmeet who will take care of the messy business of the ritual … Why are you not writing?’

  ‘It cannot be true,’ I said. ‘Good God, it cannot be true. Fathers selling their sons … what promise could be made to induce such betrayal?’

  ‘We all have our price, my poor friend,’ he laughed. ‘And children are bought and sold the world over for less than the promise of renewed life, for no more than the feel of brass in a clutching hand. Man does not prize innocence as highly as you think.’

  He went to the door and rapped three times. I heard the bolt draw back.

  ‘Do you still look on me as such a monster now?’ he asked. ‘I have murdered children who are strangers to me. Yet your own father might have promised your life away, had he but known what I could grant him.’

  All the horrors I heard
during the remaining weeks did not affect me so much as that interview. What kind of world is this, where we must have life at whatever cost? And where the perversity of that demon, who now spoke with child lips and looked upon me with child eyes, was naught compared to the twisted nature of Man?

  I thought I would die in that chamber, teased on my deathbed by only the narrowest touch of sunlight on my face. But my little host was true to his word. When I had completed my account of the ritual and its permutations, I was released. The surly coachman guided me out of the chateau, gave me a bindle of bread and cheese and showed me the road.

  At the great door of the castle, I looked back, searching every window, hoping that I might see the beautiful face of the changeling. Perverse as it may sound, I had fallen in love with him, and it broke my heart to leave without a final look at that strange incubus. All the windows were empty. I set my face against the wind and started the descent.

  Many years have passed. I have squandered the fortune left to me by my father on diversions: drink, dice, women, boys. Anything to take my mind from those memories. I sleep now in these filthy rooms, playing deaf to the threats of my creditors. My solace is that I have not long left. The corruption works as speedily on gentlemen as it does upon whores.

  I seldom dream, but if I do I see only his face. The face he stole from that angelic child, I mean. He will have aged now, of course, yet will always be young, unto the ending of the world. Will he visit my grave, I wonder? When the worms are set to their labours, will he wonder what became of the soul of his poor scribbler? The pen falters in my hand … the ink spills across the page … darkness spills across my heart …

  I was hardly aware of leaving Yeager. I have a vague memory of the librarian speaking to me, though what he said, I cannot tell you. Arriving home, I pulled down the books I needed from the shelves, lit the lamp on my desk and poured a very large scotch. A few hours of reading and drinking, and I was ready. I would attempt one of the exorcism rituals that I had tried with Peter Malahyde ten years before. Pray God that this time it was successful. I set out for the forest.