No doubts about him, but a dispassionate observer might have found some amusement in laying bets, whether I was running to Laura or to Carol. Lord knows, I was far from certain myself, though not by any means dispassionate. It didn’t matter, though, it wasn’t a choice I had to make. We arrived in order, Laura and then Jamie and then me; Laura hugged Carol close, Jamie didn’t so much hug them both as brake himself against their bodies, and they were all three so wrapped up in each other by the time I arrived, there was neither space nor need for me.
So I turned on my father instead, fear and frustration both driving me as I snarled, “You get your hands off her!” as I chopped down hard at where his hand was still locked like a cuff around Carol’s wrist.
“Mind your temper, son,” my father said mockingly, snatching his fingers back with rare sweet timing so that the edge of my palm sliced only through empty air and I was left looking and feeling stupid. I glanced to the side, where my cousin and my friends had their heads tightly together, and there was still no room for me; and I gave a shrug of surrender, and just said, “What’s she doing here, anyway? Where the hell did you find her?”
“Language, boy. You’re in church, remember.” He was well into father-mode here, and loving it. “I found her at your place, actually. I was looking for you. You weren’t there but she was, hammering on the door like nobody’s business; so I thought I’d bring her along. Thought she might tell us where you were. If we asked nicely.”
All the hair on my body prickled at his soft smile then, and it was nothing to do with my standing so close. If I hadn’t seen the flare of nightfire on the spire and the opportunity to hide right up front, to take shelter in the open — well, I’d seen my family asking questions, once or twice. Like any self-respecting inquisitors, they never believed a claim of ignorance.
“What did you want me for?” I muttered.
“Ask your uncle,” my complaisant father said, and I nodded slowly. If I’d not chosen to come here, not Laura nor Jamie nor anyone could have saved Carol from interrogation; and as she couldn’t have told them where to find me, and as that would have been unacceptable to them, they would have gone on asking until she wasn’t able to give any answer at all...
Me, I didn’t need to ask my uncle anything; not even what the concomitant threat was, when he sauntered over to join us under the eyes of the interested congregation.
Slipping his arm once more under my elbow, he murmured, “Would you like to change your mind, Ben? About that walk in the air?”
And his eyes danced and smiled, and slid briefly over to the huddle of humanity that held the people I cared most for in the world, and then back to me again.
Straight trade-off, me or them; and after he’d taken them he’d probably get me anyway. So many people here and his tongue so silver, and they so used to listening: he could lay the bodies out in rows and they’d still believe that he did it for the best, they’d still hold me ready for his killing.
I nodded jerkily, and was proud of myself for the way my voice didn’t noticeably shake, and neither did my body except my elbow to shake him off. “In a minute,” I said. “Just let me, let me talk to them, okay?”
“Of course,” he said, all confidence and ease, not a worry in the world. And quite right too. What was I going to do, suddenly start shouting accusations to the crowd? This man, this wise and talented man, head of the clan, yet — this is the guy who’s been killing your children, your cousins, your brothers and my sister? With some unrecognised talent never before recorded in all our family’s long and talented history, and for some unrecognisable motive that a day’s scrambled thinking hasn’t come near to identifying for me?
And of course all that from me, whom hardly any there would recognise as anything more than a freak child from the weakest branch of the family tree? I’d be laughed out of church, and Allan knew it.
Luckily, so did I. I went to join my friends, and never said a word out of place.
What I wanted most just then was a share of that huddle, but it broke apart at my arrival, each of them stepping back a little, loosening the linkage so that we all stood in a circle rather than a hug. Still close, though, and still closed off from everyone else there, still private. No point to the brief bitter twist in my gut; I tried to ignore it, but there was an edge of anger in me as I reached to touch them all individually, as I fired the one question that applied to them all but came out aimed at Carol.
“Why?” I demanded, just the one word containing all my grief and sorrow, why aren’t you safe at home where I left you, where you ought to be?
“You didn’t phone,” she said, matching my anger with her own. “You promised, and I was waiting for it, and just bloody nothing all day. So what was I supposed to do? I couldn’t phone you, you aren’t on the bloody phone, and I was worried about you...”
You were supposed to stay home, stay safe... But I just shrugged, helpless to change what had happened already; and I looked at Laura, and at least she had the grace or the understanding to sound a little defensive. She said, “Same here. Of course we were worried. Christ, you don’t recognise family when it’s right under your nose, do you? Jamie came for the jeep, and even he didn’t know what you were up to; so I made him bring me too. I thought at least there might be some news if I came down here...”
I glared at Jamie, wanting to scream at him for being so stupid; and he said, “What’s the big deal, Ben? We’re all here, we can look after them. Safety in numbers,” cruelly echoing my own hope, now in ruins. “Nothing’s going to happen,” he added confidently.
Wrong, I thought, so wrong... But I said nothing more, only praying in this place of prayer that I’d have the courage and the wit to play the hand well now, so that nothing happened to anyone except me. That was all I had left, and it was little enough, in all conscience. Particularly as none of my family was big on conscience, and Uncle Allan seemingly less than any...
I glanced across and saw him watching me, waiting by the door with all the patience of the utterly certain. I gestured to him, I’m coming, and saw his nod; and then I turned back to make what would surely be my last farewells. And oh, the drama of it was heavy on me, and I couldn’t let them see it, for their own safety couldn’t let them guess.
But if I couldn’t be selfish now, I never could; and I could forgive myself one last indulgent weakness, after a lifetime of being nothing but weak. So I went around that circle, went from one to the next; and fuck them if they didn’t want to be hugged, hugs were what they were getting.
Carol first: I held her tightly, kissed her when she frowned up at me and whispered, “Thanks” into her hair. Let her work out later, thanks for what.
Then to Laura. I went gentle with her, not to be presumptuous of her body; just my arms loose around her shoulders and a touch of my lips to her cheek, far too little for all that had been between us but as much as I dared afford.
Jamie I hugged like a cousin, like a brother; but I startled him too with a kiss, just so’s he shouldn’t feel left out, and I muttered, “Look after her, okay?” against his stubble. And stepped back and punched him lightly under the ribs, all male bonding and no import, nothing going on here, honest; and I turned my back on them all and walked over to Uncle Allan and out of the church with him at my back, quiet and deadly.
I am just going outside, and may be some time, I thought, and had to swallow a hysterical giggle. Me, I’d always had my own theory about that — on a diet of pony and no fresh veg, the guy must’ve been constipated; I reckoned he just crawled out for a shit and froze in mid-straining, and Scott was far too Brit and stiff-upper-lippy to record anything so bathetic in his diary, and hence all the heroic assumptions— but maybe I was ready to change my mind just then. Here I was, after all, self-confessed coward and failure, recognised expert at running away; and I was doing much the same thing that the Oates story alleged, going gentle into that bad, bad night for the sake of my friends.
o0o
It had neve
r been so hard simply to balance, let alone move: to keep upright against all the weight of air above me, to force my legs not to falter. But I could feel too many eyes watching me, too many questioning thoughts and uncertainties; so I walked out and never looked behind me, not for one last glimpse of those I loved.
Right outside the door the bike would be waiting, still hot, keys in the ignition even; I was showing signs of acquiring some truly Macallan habits, just a little too late to make myself truly one of the family. What I wanted to do, I wanted to run for it: to sprint out and vault astride that great black beast and twist the key in a single motion, jerk the throttle and kick the stand up and be away, roaring into the night in a great escape while Allan was still static and stunned in the corridor, only running after me too late, far too late to touch me now...
And of course I didn’t try any of that, because Allan was only a moment behind me and he’d only need to come out through the door while I was still bumping over the grass or weaving through the clot of cars beyond, and so much for great escapes. Besides, there would be retribution to be paid by others, all implicit in a single shift of his eyes towards my friends; and that threat was enough to hold me, whatever chances I had to get away.
Though he must have known that, he still flicked off the light in the corridor, to give him access to starlight a half-second earlier if I should choose to run. A cautious man, my uncle.
So down the dark corridor, and out into the cold-lit night; and yes, there was the bike, close enough to touch. I patted the seat, felt the warmth in it, wondered which of us would cool first.
Just past the bike was Jamie’s jeep, likewise warm and ready in this place of cold and abandoned bones. Some vandal had tidied all the gravestones away, years back; they lined the graveyard wall now, nice and neat, but the bodies were still allegedly undisturbed. Wake up, you idle buggers, I wanted to shout, come up here and see murder done. You’ll like that, it’ll be just like old times for most of you...
Out here, where there was nothing but nightfire — which didn’t — to interfere with the sky’s light, Uncle Allan didn’t need a grip on my elbow to be sure of me. Actually he needed nothing more than the grip he had already, on my inconvenient conscience; but he took another anyway, belt-and-braces time.
Chill, subtle cords laid themselves under my skin and around my skull, and briefly it was my turn to think that Hazel was back for a visit, just dropping by, bro, make sure you don’t forget me. No danger of that, nor any danger of forgetting this, once felt before; and I’d felt this many times when I was younger. This was Hazel in a temper, in a mood, doing what was utterly forbidden. This was Hazel’s web from the inside, looking out: a mesh that gripped so lightly it hardly hindered a muscle in its movement, except that the constant whisper of its presence was a constant reminder also that it could be pulled taut at any moment. A netted fish I was, and fit to be reeled in...
And Hazel was dead already, dead before me and not doing this. I turned my head against the faintest resistance, and said, “So what happens now, Uncle Allan? You going to curdle my blood for me?”
He smiled. “No,” he said, “I’m not going to curdle your blood for you. Just keep walking. Down the path a little way, I think,” and the web twitched to hustle me along the cinder path that was circumjacent to the church. We were walking widdershins, but I thought I wouldn’t tell him that. Maybe the bad luck would come down in my favour, given that I had no choice here.
“You’re not supposed to be able to do this,” I said softly, and heard him laugh in response.
“No,” he agreed. “But then, it’s hardly alone in that category, is it? I learned this from your sister, though she never knew I was taking lessons. It’s one of the great follies of this family,” sounding vehement suddenly, teasing no more, “that they’re all so embedded in the tradition, no one ever tries to look beyond it. You wait for your talent to develop, and then that’s it. Everyone knows you only get one, so everyone accepts it. No one questions why it should be so, or whether it even is so.
“In point of fact,” he said, “it isn’t. I’ve been experimenting for twenty years, and I can imitate most of our blessed relatives now, and probably outclass the bulk of them in their own talents.”
I was sure of it. “I’ve seen you,” I said.
“Last night,” he acceded, totally unfazed. “That wretched stone bauble...”
“No, before that. When Hazel died, when you appeared so conveniently after I’d found her body. You did the same trick that night, when I was carrying her out of the garden; you blasted the gates into nothing, to make it easier for me. Took me a while to realise it, but you shouldn’t have been able to do that either.”
“Ah,” he said, after a brief pause. “Yes. I should have thought of that; but you’d startled me, turning up so quickly. I’d forgotten you had that primitive telepathic link with your twin. Pity you two didn’t get on better; that might have been interesting to study, further than I did. But if you’d got on better, of course, the dynamics between you would have been different, and the telepathy might not have worked at all. I always had the impression it was more a case of Hazel shouting at you, rather than a genuine dialogue, yes? That’s far enough,” added unhurriedly as we approached the transept. There was a little puddle of shadow in the angle it made with the nave, where the light from above was blocked off; the path ran through that darkness, and Allan was being more than cautious, it seemed to me, he was being positively paranoid.
“Just step out onto the grass now,” he said, and the web nudged me even though I’d had no thought of disobeying. “A dozen paces, say. Yes, that’s about it, that’s excellent.”
“For what?” I demanded, losing just a little control at last: fussiness without purpose, this seemed to me, and I could live without it.
Die without it.
For answer, Allan glanced up. I followed his gaze, up the wall of the church and on up to where the spire stabbed into the sky almost directly above us now, with that flaring phoenix atop it; it was relief to my eyes and my neck both to look lower again, at Uncle Allan as I began to understand.
“I think we need an accident,” he said. “Don’t you? Anything else would be just a little suspicious, perhaps. Accident is better anyway, people prefer it. It lets your friends mourn more freely.”
Then he turned away from me and whistled, and half a dozen men stirred and rose from a corner of the churchyard.
“Thank you, lads,” Allan called. “You can put the fire out now. Everyone’s here, who’s coming.” Then to me, with a smiling glance, “And one or two surprises also, mm, Benedict? You really were foolish, you know.”
“I hadn’t expected hostages,” I said, trying not to sound heated about it.
“Not your friends, perhaps — but your mother?”
“Hadn’t expected her, either.”
“No? Well, it is contrary to practice, I suppose, having the womenfolk. But I thought someone would find you sometime tonight and bring you in, if you hadn’t already come of your own ignorance; so I wanted her here. As a lever.”
“Yeah.” Would it have worked, would a threat against my mother have been enough? Probably, yes. Not necessary now, though. Didn’t matter. Allan had a stronger lever far, and I was in his net before ever he webbed me. Now I was watching the men make their way into the church as the nightfire died on the steeple, leaving us in the dark, nothing but stars and a late-rising sliver of moon to light my way to damnation.
“That is one knackered bird,” he said cheerfully, his eyes in the skies still. I flicked my gaze briefly upward, it was irresistible; and saw the phoenix only a mess of twisted metal now, still glowing faintly against the night.
“No surprise,” my uncle said, “if that snaps off now, and falls. Just another family tragedy, if it happens to fall on you. Nothing I could do to stop it, everyone knows my talent doesn’t lie in that direction.”
“Any particular reason, then?” I enquired, trying to sound genui
nely curious when actually all I wanted was another minute, another thirty seconds of being alive if I could scrounge that much. God knows why, I wasn’t feeling so hot just then, but even the terror clutch of a web seemed a little better than nothing at all, which was the alternative on offer.
“Reason?”
“Why you’re doing this. Killing us off. Or is it just because you can?”
“Well. There is a satisfaction, in extending my range of talent. I admit that. Scientific exploration. Like you kids with that sheep, I’m intrigued by my own abilities. But yes, of course I have another reason.”
He paused, and I saw him smile at me; and the smile said, Just as you have a reason for asking. I know you, Ben, I understand you intimately. And then he said, “I don’t think we need to go into that, though. Do we? Why delay the inevitable? I’m not being cruel, but it’s not exactly going to be useful information for you, and I’d sooner just get on with things. The family will be waiting for me; and the longer we’re out here, the more they’re going to wonder what we were doing...”
And he glanced up at the raddled phoenix, and so did I, again couldn’t resist it.
Dimly I saw the soft-shining thing topple from its perch, and start to slide down the steep slated roof of the spire; and he’d worked out the trajectories fairly well, I thought, he wouldn’t have to help it much. Just a twitch when it hit the gutter, perhaps, and goodbye, Benedict...
The web tightened then, held me rigid in a way that even Hazel never had. It hurt, more than anything had ever hurt me all my life; I wanted to scream, I needed to scream and couldn’t shift my jaw or my throat enough to do that, couldn’t breathe or even focus my eyes now to see my death come down.
o0o
Except that there was light suddenly, a blaze of white light engulfing me and an engine racing, and above that another voice screaming for me, screaming my name; and the web was gone as my uncle lost it in the light, and the pain was gone too. And I wasn’t thinking to move, I wasn’t thinking at all, but it had only been the web that held me upright and with that gone I collapsed, my legs gave way and I fell sideways, and the brutalised metal bird came crashing down to earth so close to me that I felt the fierce chill of it as it thudded into the grass just by my head.
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