For Rye

by Gavin Gardiner

  Rage swelled.

  The love, the romance in the books once occupying these shelves: she’d really believed it had finally found her. She’d given Quentin her body, but so much more, too. She’d reached out, revealed herself to him, spoke not in a pale imitation of what was meant to be said, but spoke.

  She thought of his embrace and, for a fleeting moment, felt the warmth of his naked skin. The man she’d loved was as dead as the thing in the armchair, or the boy in the grave. Worse, he’d never even existed.

  She tore the folder from the shelf and flung it across the room, smashing the pot of a blackened peperomia. Soil sprayed over the carpet. She spotted the envelope of cash perched at the back of the shelf and felt tears forming in her eyes. She threw her hands against the frame of the bookcase and shook it, throttling it like her father’s shrivelled neck, strangling the life out of that damned—

  Something shifted behind the bookcase.

  She froze.

  Intrigued, she carefully pushed its weight into the wall, again feeling the disturbance. This time it was accompanied by the creaking of wood. She pressed the side of her face against the wall and peered through the narrow slot behind the bookcase, coughing on dust from the disruption.

  There was a door handle.

  She threw her weight against the bookcase’s side, but her father’s crammed tomes gave too much weight to the unit. She swung back to its face and started pulling off books, leather-bound volumes thumping to the floor, bibles thick as tree trunks piling at her feet. The envelope, having fallen to the floor, was now drowned in books. She swept her hands across the shelves until the thing was bare, then kicked the scattered texts from around the base of the bookcase and returned to its side. She pushed.

  It moved.

  She grunted at its weight as it slid aside, the hidden wooden door finally making itself visible. She turned the handle.

  The door creaked open.

  Black.

  Renata reached through the doorframe, half expecting the dark void to form a solid, impassable wall. It didn’t. She watched the rope still in her hand pass into the darkness. She pulled the noose back, staring at her hand as she compared the sudden change of temperature, then stepped through.

  The house was bitter cold, but as she passed through the door the air became fangs, biting her skin through the still-sodden hospital gown under her open duffle coat. She stood at the top of a flight of dilapidated wooden stairs descending into the dark. The rusty light switch resisted her fingers at first, then cracked into place. There was a weak crackle as long-forgotten circuitry awoke.

  Light exploded from glass tubes stretching the length of the ceiling. Renata covered her eyes as the fluorescent strips drowned the space in total white, until, as her eyes adjusted, the details of the cellar opened up before her.

  Upon the rough brickwork lining the narrow chamber hung rusted pipes, tangling like snakes over creeping mildew. The mouldy space seemed to constitute part of the building’s foundations, an integral part of her childhood home’s anatomy, yet hidden from her all these years. The air was different; not quite rank, not quite natural, it was breathable yet somehow intrusive in her lungs, and icy cold. The mystery of the moths’ nesting place was immediately solved as she looked to the alien-like clusters lining the edges of the ceiling, white and cloudy like frozen smoke. But one detail above all others won her attention.

  Everywhere, books.

  They were strewn across the concrete floor in tumbling piles, like the naked, tangled bodies of a wartime death pit. The books’ covers lay open, arms and legs flung out, pages crumpled and spines damp. She descended the wooden stairs and knelt by the books, plucking one from the pile by its open cover.

  She recognised it.

  She recognised them all.

  Her mother’s own attempts at writing had burned in the fireplace, but Thomas’s wrath had decreed mere banishment on her romance novel collection – banishment to this hidden chamber. She peered down the narrow basement. How could this have been kept from her? Why would it have been kept from her? Quentin had succeeded in reigniting her memory, images and words now leaping through the mist of her mind into crystal consciousness. Memories were unfolding. Now, staring into this forgotten cell, she thought back to the day they’d moved in. There had been, she now remembered, two items in place upon arrival: the painting and the bookcase.

  Her father had meant for the cellar to remain hidden. Even so, there was nothing particularly of note in the tomb of light besides the books. It was a dumping ground for sinful texts, nothing more. So why hide its existence? Why not just use the cellar as a junkyard and padlock the door? Why not—

  Her breath caught at the sudden realisation.

  What if his hate for their little girl had spiralled deeper? What if there had been lessons needing taught under the cover of darkness? This place was Thomas Wakefield’s last resort. It was a prison-in-waiting.

  She looked down the cellar, her eyes following the mishmash of ancient piping, and saw the place for what it was. It had lay hidden all these years, ready to aid her father in measures too sinister to share, too dark to risk being discovered.

  This cell: he’d kept it ready for her.

  Her legs went weak. She reached for the rickety banister to steady herself. He’d been right all along: this family was forsaken.

  She cast her eyes to the ceiling. The upstairs floorboards were visible from below, long joists running their length between muddled spaghetti-clusters of electrical wiring. A single beam stretched the width of the room. It looked strong, solid.

  She could take no more truths. Quentin had what he wanted. In her unravelling she’d performed unthinkable acts in which he’d no doubt find the inspiration for his masterwork, imbued with that sacred truth he’d so long craved. She was manipulated, used, defiled. Everyone in her life had each broken a single part of her, amounting to a whole, with Quentin delivering the killing blow. At first, back on Neo-Thorrach, she had wanted to end it all in light of dwindling options: a drought of inspiration, debt, nothing and no one to live for. Now, her need for finality rose from the truth finally revealed to her. The truth of her life.

  The beam stared down at her. Rusted nails pointed accusingly from its splintered surface. She gripped the noose.

  At the far end, beneath a knot of heavily rusted tubing and by a rotting wooden hatch, lay a decaying desk partially covered by a grimy sheet. From this she dragged one of two chairs, which she positioned beneath the central beam on a strangely shaped slab of concrete. She stepped up onto the chair and threw one end of the rope over the beam, looping it round and tying it securely.

  Finally, time to rest.

  it’ll hold it’ll hold it’ll hold

  Damn Father.

  Renata lowered the noose over her head, the scratchy hemp pulling loose a strand of hair.

  Damn Quentin.

  She fixed the rogue strand, cursing herself for doing so, then tightened the coarse rope around her neck.

  Damn them all.

  She kicked.

  There was a crack, but not the crack she’d intended. It came from above as the beam buckled against adjoining struts, leaving her hanging some inches lower than she’d intended.

  it didn’t hold it didn’t hold it didn’t hold

  The snap of her neck was prevented by an unclean drop as she stumbled off the chair, which clattered back against the concrete. She was barely aware of her hands flying to the noose locked around her throat, and watched from afar as these alien fingers clawed at the rope. She wanted to die; apparently, her hands did not. As she watched this distant, dying struggle, she thought of just one thing.

  Rye.

  How dare he use her like a puppet then cast her aside, strings knotted and twisted beyond repair. Only one string now remained, and her neck was collapsing under its grip.

  She kicked and clawed.

  How dare he interrupt her private, long-awaited end with these horrors, dragging her bac
k to this hellhole to be used as an instrument of his ego.

  Her eyes bulged from their sockets. Veins swelled in her head and neck. The rope gouged deeper. The bricks of the walls swam around her as the glaring light of the fluorescent strips began to fade. The beam buckled again.

  How dare he.

  Vaguely, she felt the overturned chair against the tips of her feet as the cellar closed in, light giving way to darkness. She closed her eyes.

  Damn him.

  The starved rope’s teeth sunk deeper.

  Damn Rye.

  Suddenly, from the darkness of her dying mind, it dawned on her. It emerged from the black and hit her like that fist all those years ago, except this was different. All the horrors of her life shrank before it, cowering from its terrible totality. It was the final key to the last door of her subconscious. It was the one simple, absolute truth. One and only one.

  Rye had to suffer.

  Her eyes shot open.

  She tore at the rope, not in an automatic effort of self-preservation, but in a battle of pure, crystallised purpose. Her toes fought to balance on the overturned chair, a grotesque ballet dance. A hint of ghostly blue fell over her face as her neck crushed, but still she clung to consciousness like fingers on a cliff edge.

  One truth: Rye had to suffer.

  …one truth…

  Suddenly, her hand left the rope and dived into her coat pocket.

  One…

  She fumbled desperately.

  …truth.

  She switched pockets.

  One truth…

  Deeper, deeper her hand plunged.

  …ours.

  Her fingers met brass, the Zippo’s engraving vaguely familiar under her touch.

  Thank you, Quentin.

  She pulled the engraved lighter from her pocket and flipped it open, every twitching, aching muscle begging for unconsciousness. Like a driver falling asleep at the wheel, her mind battled her body’s demands. The lifelong victim within shrank to nothing as something else rose, something invigorated, something with no interest in dying this day.

  Something vengeful.

  Again and again she flicked the flint until a flame finally sparked into life. She held it to the rope above as she battled to keep her toes on the chair. Her body began submitting to the noose. The warmth of letting go rose within her. Gravity hugged her arm and pulled.

  Still she held up the lighter.

  Through fading vision Renata watched the burning rope in the distance, strings of black smoke rising from the small flame. Her head slumped forward. Her drowning awareness bobbed up and down on the surface of her failing consciousness, struggling to stay afloat in the blackening abyss. She had work to do, she couldn’t die, not now, not like this, she had work to—

  Her arms fell. She lost the chair. The lighter clapped against the concrete thousands of miles away.

  The rope snapped.

  Thank you, Quentin.

  The floor flew towards her, the thousand-mile distance closing in an instant. She didn’t register the impact, only the tidal wave of air crashing through her throat as the noose loosened. Her windpipe exploded open. With tingling fingers she removed the rope. Light poured in as she devoured the cold air. She reached for the lighter by her side and turned its engraving to face her.

  One truth: ours. Thank you, Quentin.

  Her scream filled the cellar as she threw the Zippo across the chamber. She fell onto her back and stared at the ceiling as her ruined hospital gown inflated and deflated like a balloon over her gasping chest. Inflated and deflated, inflated and—

  A shape fluttered past the severed rope, circling it twice before scrambling across the ceiling to the far end of the narrow space. The feeling of realignment with her body’s respiratory processes was euphoric. She felt the overcompensation of blood in her head return to her extremities and watched her world fall into focus, and with it the fluttering moth. The frantic insect descended from the ceiling towards the desk from which she’d dragged the chair. It landed on the dirty sheet and strutted along the covering. Renata watched, suddenly realising something lay beneath.

  She steadied her breathing then struggled to her knees, before crawling to the desk and hauling herself up. The moth froze in cautious observation then fluttered away. She pulled the sheet from the desk, coughing at the dust. Her throat settled. She opened her eyes. On the desk lay her mother’s typewriter.

  Renata’s only recollection of the machine was when she found her mother pecking at the keys in the empty lounge in the dead of night. It soon disappeared forever, apparently relegated to the same purgatory as her collection of romance novels. Here it had been all along, waiting to be discovered.

  It was of a similar design to her own, a solid metal brute with functionality modelled after the IBM Selectrics of the sixties and seventies, interchangeable typing elements allowing for emboldened or italicised type, amongst others. Renata’s eyes moved up the keys to the carriage, where a single, aged sheet remained loaded. Her eyes pulled the print into focus:

  I know these words will never reach you, Rennie. I write this in a cellar I didn’t know existed until a few days ago. Your father’s upstairs, finally in the throes of infirmity. He requires constant care now. I’ve been forbidden to contact you and I know I won’t, no matter how badly I want to.

  I wish I could tell you how sorry I am. You deserved so much better. What happened wasn’t your fault – this is still your home, and we’re still your family. You once promised that you’d be there for your father if anything happened to me. As I get older, as I approach the end of my life, I find myself praying every day that you don’t remember that promise.

  I’ve been told it’s best to leave you alone, and I think I believe that. You’ve found peace away from the truth. I pray you never come back here, and that your peace remains.

  I know these words will never reach you, but you remain in my heart.

  I love you, Rennie.

  Pain. It erupted in her brain, deeper than ever before. She fell to the ground.

  As she writhed in agony, as her mother’s words from beyond the grave spiralled around her head, she thought of how she’d been dragged back to this damned place by that psychopath. She should have held onto her peace. She should have stayed away, ignored the promise, ended herself sooner. If only he could feel this pain, if only Rye could beg for mercy, if only his very lifeblood could burn in his veins and—

  Her back arched. Another scream filled the cellar as her body contorted on the concrete. She was tearing at her skull when something else, something besides the agony, exploded into her mind. Renata suddenly saw what she had to do. She saw what she had to write.

  A…novel?

  At this vision the pain backed off, a leviathan doubting itself, then smashed back in.

  This idea, this book, was replaced by Rye’s daughter, Sandie, that vacant blonde he cherished so. She was a moth, just a little moth, like the one in the larder. Maybe if she lit a flame the moth would—

  Again, the leviathan of pain reared back, surrendering ground.

  Just a little flame. That’s all that would be needed for the moth to return, then—

  The pain began falling from her in great waves, gathering itself in her hands as the plan formulated in her mind. She wrapped her fingers around the pain, owned it. It belonged to her, now hers to do with as she pleased.

  She would gift to Rye the agony he’d gifted to her. She would do it in his own language, the only language he understood: the language of written horror. From these very hands, such unclean hands, she would issue a flood upon Rye.

  Her eyes lit up.

  Yes, she would write a book.

  Her eyes rose to the typewriter, sitting so majestically above her. She struggled to her knees, trembling with excitement, then smeared her wild hair out of her face and tore the sheet from the carriage. From a box underneath the desk, she withdrew fresh paper and a new ribbon, then ripped the cellophane packaging with her te
eth and quickly fitted the ink module and paper into loading mechanisms she recognised from her old Adler. She lay her fingers on the keys.

  D

  The ribbon hadn’t dried.

  e

  The hammers still fell.

  a

  It was meant to be.

  r

  She needed help writing the book. All she had to do was light a flame and the pretty little moth would come flying to her. She would punish Rye where he could be hurt most: his love for his daughter. Was she capable of such a thing? Her fingers hit a few more keys. Renata’s end would come soon enough, but first she had to return the pain. She stared at the paper.

  Dear Ms Rye,

  22

  Battered.

  Beaten.

  Brutalised.

  But not today.

  The island of Neo-Thorrach is an abused spouse, stoic and determined. It takes what it believes it must and raises not a qualm. The North Atlantic cuts it no slack, pounding its worn cliffs and outcrops, kicking up the gritty sand of its grey beaches, continually harassing the dead land which sprouts nothing of note – its only form of rebellion. Yes, an abused wife, just like…

  No point thinking about that today.

  The winds have calmed, you see. Although it’s still freezing, the rain has dried up and the skies have cleared. This serenity is the rarest of occurrences, so there’s no point thinking about all that today. Better to enjoy the break in the storm. That perpetual, never-ending storm.

  The woman, the ‘Neo-Thorrach Buidseach’ as the Gaelic children of the neighbouring islands have named her – the ‘Infertile Witch’ – pulls her duffle hood over her head and wraps the scarf around her face, eyes squinting through the biting chill. She trudges up a worn incline, the same incline she’s trudged a thousand times before, for over this craggy gradient lie the cliffs. How much of her time on this island has been spent pacing these cliff edges? Yes, it clears her mind, and yes the sound of the waves detonating against the rocks below seem to help her mentally arrange whichever writing project is currently taking form in her head, but there’s something else the cliffs provide. Something she can’t quite put her finger on. There’s a comfort in those dead, perilous edges. Something about the power of possibility in your hands, the possibility of plunging into non-existence without a moment’s notice.