by Tim Lebbon
Wrong, wrong, this is a lie, a woman’s voice said, and he looked around for a memory of his mother. But he was alone there, alone with his future, comfortable with this brand-new past that had been hidden from him up until now. All that wasted time. All those years spent in fear, when he should have been reveling in memories such as these.
They’re not real, the voice said, you never lived like that. Another, deeper voice countered with words he could not make out.
The tune faltered. A cloud passed across the sun. Cain stumbled and fell, grabbing hold of a thick rose stem and feeling vicious thorns pierce his palm and wrist.
Come out of it, Cain!
The garden wavered as if a sudden heat haze had sprung up, and for an instant he saw the roses dead and the bees changed into vicious flying beetles, clicking mandibles adorned with rotting meat. A few notes of the tune sang in and the garden was back, but nothing would ever be the same again. Cain saw the roses, but he saw the sham behind their wondrous growth as well, and the fact that none of them could ever be perfect. It was as if their thick old trunks were embedded in rotting flesh instead of pure, honest soil, and their beautiful blooms were at the expense of something dear to him.
Just bring him out, the woman’s voice said from a distance, and it held a note of authority that set Cain’s teeth on edge. You know none of this belongs to him, and he’s nothing to do with you.
That male voice came again in response, deep and musical, the words difficult to discern. But by now doubt had infected Cain’s mind. He looked around at this extraordinary garden and house—his past as he had so wished it to be, the future he believed he could make—and the images were faltering. Bees buzzed in ever-decreasing circles until they fell to the ground, dead. Their stings were missing, embedded in the skin of the truth. Flowers wilted and turned brown. The sun faded, its light being sucked out of the garden and replaced by an insidious, creeping darkness, oozing out from one place only: the barred basement door. This house was unreal, a place he had never been, but the basement was becoming the one pivot of reality and truth. While the house and garden around it blurred, their colors separating into rotten rainbows, the door remained firm. The roses vanished from across its face, the weeds at its foot slipped back into soil that had never birthed them, and the door changed its appearance to one he knew so well.
Cain, he heard, and then: “Cain!” The voice burst in and shattered the last of the sunlight. A cold light bathed him, cool and impersonal, cast down from a streetlamp and surrounding him in an oasis of cruel truth.
Pan pipes soothed the darkness. Cain blinked slowly, his eyelids still painted with the memory of that wonderful place. He smelled honey, a sudden tang that rested on his tongue and the back of his mouth, and someone let him go.
Falling to the cold pavement, he heard the first scream of rage.
Sister Josephine stood bathed in the light from a streetlamp. Bees buzzed her head, danced at her fingertips, moved in and out of her habit. She was down in a fighter’s pose, habit swaying around her as she shifted her weight from foot to foot. Cain caught glimpses of her bare legs as she moved, and they were slick and shiny with cream. She was all magicked up. Her hands were fisted, her lips tight, brow furrowed in concentration. It looked as if she was about to fight the dark, but then Cain saw the shape standing in the shadows. Whistler. He had put his pipes away for now, and he stood casually, arms by his sides, smiling at Sister Josephine as though a spectator of her fight, not a participant.
“Leave him alone,” the nun said. “He’s nothing for you.”
“And is he anything for George?” Whistler said. There was a trace of anger in his voice that belied his benign expression.
“George was a fool and a monster.”
“No more a monster than any of us.”
“Speak for yourself.” The nun shifted sideways, always facing Whistler as if expecting an attack at any moment.
“Are you not a monster, Josephine?”
“It’s Sister Josephine to you.”
Something about the dream had drained Cain, as if he had left his energy back in that imaginary garden. Maybe he had. Perhaps visions of such an unbelievable past and impossibly wonderful future had the power to kill.
“Sorry, Sister,” Whistler hissed. “And would Cain know of your little flights of fancy?”
“They’re none of his business.” She glanced at Cain as well, and he was shocked at the anxiety on her face. She had seemed so in control.
“The nun magicks herself up and flies through the night, looking for men to rape,” Whistler said. A bee darted at his face, and he lifted his pipes quickly, played two short notes, and sent it aimlessly into the dark.
“Shut up! That’s nothing to him.”
“Really? Cain has lived with us for days, that’s all. Already he has broken into my home and disturbed my followers. Magenta has told him the truth, he has been responsible for Peter’s death at George’s hand, and now George himself is dead. How did you kill him, Cain? How could you possibly kill such a man unaided?” He walked toward Cain, coming out of the darkness and into the light, and Sister Josephine scuttled crablike across the pavement. She stood between Cain and Whistler, her back to Cain. He could see her habit shivering as she shook. He smelled honey. He suddenly wished she would magic him up, strip off her habit, and envelop him with her greased body, enabling him to fly away from all this trouble.
“Just leave it be,” the nun whispered. “Please, Whistler. George is gone—why make this night any worse for all of us.”
“You’re the one making it worse,” the pipe player said. “I merely want to show Cain his own personal Heaven.” He gestured behind Cain and the nun.
Cain turned, and really he already knew which house stood behind them. Heaven stared down, its windows still boarded, the front door solid and firm, the only leftover from the fantasy that Whistler’s music had instilled in him.
“It was no fantasy,” Whistler said, “just the truth unrealized.”
“There’s no truth in the past you showed me,” Cain said, and his voice was weak, his throat barely able to form the words.
“If you say so. You obviously know everything. You’ve chosen your Way, it seems, and that’s no way at all. I’m only trying to help you see the light. Your father would have wanted that, and I gather your mother still does.”
“Nobody can force him to find the Way,” Sister Josephine said. “We all know that—even Leonard knew. And yet we waste so much time. He has to find it for himself.”
“I don’t even want to look,” Cain said, but neither of them seemed to hear him.
“She flies,” Whistler said, voice raised, “and she prowls the streets, and when she sees a man on his own who takes her fancy she lands on him, pins him down, and fucks him. They may not want to fuck, but you’ve seen what’s beneath that habit, the curves there, the wonderful curves. And you’ve smelled that stuff she smears herself with, whatever the hell it is. Can you imagine being smeared with that, Cain?”
Yes, he could, he could imagine it.
“Can you think of what it would do to a man?”
Cain did not have to think; he knew. He could smell the honey, he was hard inside his trousers, he looked at the nun where she stood with her back to him, still in her fighter’s pose.
“But it’s rape,” Whistler said, “and sometimes she fucks them to death! What a way to go, Cain. Josephine’s Way.” And Sister Josephine went at him.
Whistler stepped aside, but the nun did not rely on her feet to guide her. They left the pavement and she hit Whistler like a huge bat, her habit trailing and slapping at the air as she made a sudden change of direction. There was a loud crunch as her hands connected with Whistler’s face and he went down. Sister Josephine landed on top of him, beating with her fists, the habit waving and flapping like a boiling shadow. Bees buzzed the fighting pair, attaching themselves to Whistler’s face before veering away to die.
Cain watched aghast, wonde
ring just what they were fighting over. His future? His past? Or their own?
“Maybe,” someone said, and he knew that voice. The shadow squatted next to him, fingers splayed on the pavement before it. It ignored the light from the streetlamp, casually existing where it should not. Cain had never seen it in such detail; the silhouette of its hair was thick and flowing, the outline of its face strong. And though he could still not make out any particulars, it seemed a friendly face. One that he could trust.
Whistler shouted. The nun rose several feet directly above him, screaming as she paused in midair, and light gleamed off something in the pipe player’s hand. A knife, short and bloodied.
“Feel good?” Whistler asked, and any pretense at being calm and tempered had vanished. “Feel good being fucked to death?” He thrust upward suddenly, giving the nun no time to rise away from the knife. She screeched as it caught her in the stomach, and drifted higher to lift herself from its keen edge. Blood rained down onto and around Whistler, spattering the pavement with black spots that complemented the dying bees.
“Stop it!” Cain shouted, but they ignored him.
“This is about a lot more than you,” the shadow said. “Don’t you think? These creatures that have so much actually know so little. They claim Pure Sight, and yet they’re jealous of each other. How can that be? Pure Sight is freedom, so they say.”
“Selfishness,” Cain said, so weak that he could barely answer. He slumped back on the pavement and watched the two people fight. Whistler, his pan pipes long since replaced in his hands by two shortbladed knives, both of them now wet with the nun’s blood. And Sister Josephine, the woman who could fly, hovering around Whistler’s head and jabbing at him with her bare feet, her long-nailed hands. Blood mixed with the magic cream. The pavement around the fighting couple was wet with both. Metal scraped against bone, and the woman screamed. There was a thunk as something snapped, and the man bellowed. Lights came on in several houses along the street but instantly went out again. I wonder how used to this they really are? Cain thought, and beside him the shadow shrugged.
“Fuck-head!” the nun screeched.
“Bitch!” Whistler shouted. They went at it again, his blades flashing in the weak light, her feet and fists connecting with his head from above. Sister Josephine dipped and rose like a hawk harrying its victim, but Whistler was giving as good as he received.
“Why doesn’t she just fly away?” Cain whispered, and someone answered from the house behind him.
“It’s what they live for,” the voice said. Cain turned to see Magenta standing before Heaven’s corrugated iron doorway. “They’ve done it before, they’ll do it again. Neither of them will ever die easily.”
“Magenta,” Cain said. Mother, he thought. The shadow drew close to him like a frightened child.
“I can hardly see you,” Magenta said, and Cain thought it was because of the dark. But then he realized that he was lying directly beneath a streetlamp, and he wondered exactly what she meant. Perhaps the shadow hid him from view? It held his arm, and though it felt cold, it felt right as well.
“Come inside,” she said. “Away from this madness. It’s not fair on you, not when you have to make up your own mind. Cain? Are you there?”
“Of course,” he said.
“We should leave,” the shadow whispered into his ear, its breath cool and calming. It touched his forehead in an affectionate gesture, and Cain smiled and shed a tear at the same time. No parent had ever done that for him.
He stood slowly, and Magenta smiled back. She was the same as when he had last seen her. When they met she was the Clown, and then the Savior. Now, dressed against the cool and carrying a bag over her shoulder, perhaps she was his Mother.
Cain glanced over his shoulder at the fighting couple. Sister Josephine’s tactics had changed now, and Whistler roared in rage, shouting at her, calling her unclean and monstrous and twisted. She had torn her habit away and floated above him, naked but for her wimple. There were puncture wounds in her stomach and chest, and her hands were gashed from where she tried to fend off his knife blows. But she was smiling. Her skin glistened with the magic cream, the warm honey aroma wafting across to Cain in strong waves, and she opened her legs to Whistler. He struck at her, but bees went for his eyes, stinging, entering his mouth when he screamed. And then she had him, grasping him around the waist with her strong thighs. She forced him to the ground, tipped him onto his back, and laughed as he stuck a knife in the side of her neck. Blood flowed but turned a pasty, pale color as cream slipped across her body to dilute it.
“Feel good, being fucked to death?” she screamed, reaching down between them for his zipper. Whistler bucked and threw her aside, though her ankles remained locked behind his back.
“Get off me, whore!”
“Nothing less than what you do to your followers, you fucking monster!”
“Get your hands away or I’ll cut them off!”
“Ahh, see, I knew you wanted me!”
They rolled into the road, cursing and screaming and fighting, and Cain turned away.
“Are they mad?” he asked Magenta.
“Aren’t we all?” She turned from Cain and tugged at the corrugated iron front door to Heaven. “You won’t find anything good in here, or anything fresh,” she said. “I suspect it will only compound those mysteries in your mind. But it’s somewhere you’ll be able to think.”
“Anywhere’s better than here,” the shadow whispered in Cain’s ear, still holding on to him like an infant grasping its parent. Cain could only agree. He heard the terrible fight continuing behind him, and he followed Magenta into the darkness of Heaven without a final backward glance.
He had seen enough madness for one night.
He hoped that he would discover no more inside.
“I can barely see you.”
“It’s dark,” Cain said. “I don’t like it in here. This is Peter’s place.”
“Peter’s dead,” Magenta said.
“That’s why I don’t like it. It’s not fair. We shouldn’t even be here.”
He heard Magenta rustling around, opening drawers, tripping over something and cursing as she landed on hands and knees. From outside, the fighting sounded as frantic and violent as ever. No sirens, Cain thought. No people coming to help. Perhaps even if they can see, people want to keep to themselves. Even if it means someone else will die. The thought depressed him suddenly and totally, and he let out a sob of loss for the Face and Voice, and safety.
“I’ll never be safe again,” Cain said, and Magenta did not dispute his statement.
“You never were,” the shadow said. “Look what you had as a mother.” As if on cue, Magenta struck a match and lit a candle. There were dozens scattered around the hallway—in wall fixtures and candlesticks, and standing alone—molded to the antique furniture and floor by melted wax. She lit several more and handed one to Cain. Her movement caused shadows to dance behind her; ironic that the only true shadow was still at Cain’s side.
“I see your shadow,” Magenta said, and then she turned away and headed for the stairs.
Cain panicked. Nobody had ever commented on the shadow before! It had always been his and his alone. Even his father had never known of it. But as he turned around he saw his true shadow cast behind him, distorting as his gasp of relief set his candle shivering. “She means that,” he whispered, but the shadow holding on to his side did not respond.
“Cain,” Magenta said. “Follow me. There’s a room up here you should see. Peter was a very old man, contrary to appearances. It’s actually a terrible shame that he’s dead.”
“So nice of you to show some concern,” Cain said. Magenta looked around the hallway as if trying to place an errant thought, then turned and started upstairs without replying.
Cain followed. There was nothing more for him to do. Magenta was his mother, and he supposed out of all of them he must trust her the most.
“Don’t,” said the shadow, “you can’t
choose your family.” Its fear seemed to have vanished, and the old bitterness was back.
But trust her he did. She had not changed since the last time he had seen her, and he took that as a mark of her respect for his thoughts. And though they had parted recently on such a sour note, still she had come back to him, his savior again in different clothes. She had taken him away from the terrible, impossible sights outside, and though she must know he had killed George, she had yet to mention that madman.
It’s what they live for, she had said of Whistler and Sister Josephine. For the first time, Cain wondered whether George really was dead. Perhaps tomorrow they would all return home and Number 13 would be full again. But he doubted that. He had heard the screams and sensed the change with which the others—Magenta included—viewed him now. Not exactly as one of them, but not as a normal person either.
Magenta talked as though he still had to make up his mind, but he had already changed.
“I’ll never be like you,” Cain said. Magenta kept climbing above him, but her stance changed. More stressed, tensed.
“Wait until you see,” she said.
“What are you going to show me?”
“A room. Filled with dead people, I think. And every one of them knew the Way.”
“They’re all here, dead, now?”
She paused and turned to look down at him. Her eyes were vacant, as if she were looking into some unknowable distance. The past, perhaps. Or the future, a time quite literally filled with change for her.
“The house is called Heaven, after all.”
“Perhaps Hell would be more appropriate,” he said.
“None of us are evil, Cain, not even those two outside. We simply know so much more. How can we live normally with what we know?”
“You can live morally.”
“Morals are a conceit of society.” Magenta looked into the flame of her candle and her eyes swam with fire.