The Best New Horror 7

by Stephen Jones

  Despite what Polyhymnia had just seen him doing, Rudolf was regarded as a real brick by the Duchess. He’d fought in India – or was it Africa, or Arabia? – with father. Apparently he’d made quite a splash. And, although the Fortiscues were less than wealthy, they had been allowed to ingratiate themselves on the house of Lethbridge. She suspected that it was not entirely the generosity of her mother – or the fact that Rudolf had saved the life of her father in one of their interminable battles – that had opened the way for them to live in. No, Polyhymnia believed that her mother was having – or at one time had – an affair, as they say, with the handsome Rudolf. And all this despite the fact that the Fortiscues were foreigners, and her parents probably knew as little about them as she herself did. Polyhymnia guessed their surname was a nom de plume; that Rudolf had probably been born a . . . a Wyscescu, or some such.

  Whatever, their guardians had become permanent house guests at the mansion in England. It had its advantages, at least for her parents. They could bundle off their daughters to the four corners of Europe with the Fortiscues. The Fortiscues could hardly complain: they were living off the fat of the Lethbridge wealth.

  There was no doubting that their guardians were filled with the requisite educational niceties. They were suffused – as Matilda might have put it – with art, the opera, the ballet. Rudolf’s first passion, prior to and after military service, was architecture and design. His wife, all manner of the arts, but painting in particular. Polyhymnia’s mother had agreed their house guests would be able to instil such passion and knowledge into their daughters. Worth more, it would be, than any Swiss finishing school. Travel, more travel and an understanding and appreciation of the noble pursuit of literature and history and . . . Polyhymnia harrumphed at the relentlessness of it all.

  She noticed at last that the Fortiscues had moved on, with her sister in tow.

  “Come along . . . Polyhymnia,” Matilda called, pausing just slightly before saying her name. Although both she and her sister were in different apparel, their mirror images – round moon faces with wide green eyes and blonde tresses – caused Matilda to hesitate.

  “Yes, Matilda,” Polyhymnia replied. At one time the power and playfulness of being able to hide her identity with that of her sister would have enlivened her. Not any more. She no longer wished anyone to mistake her for Euphrosyne.

  “Indeed, you will wish to see the costumes on the third floor. And the porcelain,” Matilda announced, as though she was empowered to read the girls’ minds.

  Polyhymnia ran and then slid along the black-tiled, glazed flooring, to catch up with the others, noticing how close to Rudolf Euphrosyne was walking. Their hips touched as Euphrosyne emphasized her womanly profile, brushing silk and serge together.

  The boredom of the tour was dispelled briefly as they entered a boudoir. It was dressed in pink, a riot of pinks on the walls, the plaster, the striped satins of the upholstery of chairs and bed. The air made Polyhymnia catch her breath. Here were the smells of old perfume and talcum. The room exuded scents from long ago, as if the ghostly inhabitant had just then passed by, leaving a sweet eau de Cologne drifting in the powdery stillness.

  The others seemed unaware of this potent aroma, clucking instead over this or that piece of furniture.

  The room was asking Polyhymnia to stay . . . to remain where it was safe, as though she was unsafe elsewhere. When she thought about the black gondolas, and the ugly building and the ugly furniture in the other rooms and the ghastly painting, she could almost believe that it was best to abide here, with that scented, friendly spirit. The same wraith who puffed out a pungent smell of irritation when Euphrosyne unkindly threw herself onto the bed and promptly coughed and complained when she was enveloped in years of settled dust.

  Shortly, however, Polyhymnia was being ushered out and the magical bedroom was left behind. A puff of powdery air squeezed out as the door closed quietly behind her. Locking in her saviour perhaps?

  Over breakfast, Matilda announced that her husband would be rising late. Plans for the day would therefore be subject to some alteration. Polyhymnia assumed Rudolf had drunk too much wine at the gaming tables and might at that very moment be groaning in his room with an ice-pack at his brow. Euphrosyne, however, was smiling wickedly, as if she knew something her sister did not. Such a lascivious grin, Polyhymnia decided.

  “I have decreed, therefore, that today,” Matilda paused to remove a piece of croissant adhering to her lip, “you may explore by your selves.”

  “Thank you, Matilda,” Euphrosyne said ingratiatingly.

  “Are we to –” Polyhymnia began.

  “Choose many things interesting. Study. Mesmerize – ” both girls looked at each other quickly, daring the other to be the first to burst out laughing – “mesmerize and I shall ask what you have learned this evening.”

  Polyhymnia felt a sudden malicious urge to correct Matilda. She was what? Polish, Czech? Venetian? But they understood her well enough, so it really did not matter. Better to act as sycophantically as Euphrosyne constantly did.

  “Stay binded together.”

  Heaven forbid!

  “Ensure you keep this diagram.” She gave a street map to Euphrosyne. “Here is an allowance.” She handed Polyhymnia some banknotes.

  “Shall we see Rudolf for dinner, tonight?” Polyhymnia asked, generously buttering her croissant. A few flakes of pastry fell into her teacup, greasy bubbles expanding across the surface, as though something unsavoury were oozing up through the tea.

  “I expect so, my dear.” A blob of preserve squeezed out of the corner of Matilda’s mouth as she responded, forming an imitation blood blister on her lip.

  Euphrosyne said, “I hope Rudolf is not unwell?” She was smirking again, for Polyhymnia’s benefit.

  “You are so thoughtful . . . Euphrosyne. It is, how would one say, a petit mal. Please do not over worry.”

  Now their custodian was calling the waiter for more tea and Euphrosyne was staring wistfully into the distance, openly placing her right hand over her breast and sighing. What on earth did she mean by the gesture?

  Had there been a liaison between her and Rudolf, Polyhymnia wondered. Or was her sister simply teasing her, as usual?

  By late afternoon Polyhymnia had dismissed Euphrosyne’s imprudent demonstration at the breakfast table. There was a more immediate concern: they were lost somewhere near Campo Ghetto Nuovo. The map did not seem to mean anything any longer, though both young women took turns to snatch the crumpled, limp sheet exasperatedly from one another as their tempers began to flare. Polyhymnia saw the pattern of black lines on the map, the colours and street names, as indecipherable as Egyptian hieroglyphics. It was as if the map itself was the key to some far deeper reality within the floating city, but one which neither she nor her sister could understand.

  They had visited a number of churches and Polyhymnia had done her best to remember everything she could, which was difficult enough in the heat and with Euphrosyne’s overbearing presence. They would need to recall the architecture and the sculpture, the pictures hanging in the chancel, and the rest . . . Yet all Polyhymnia could now remember was agonized grey statuary, glowering down upon her from high places in gloomy nave and chancel.

  “Why don’t they put up street names!” Euphrosyne demanded. She thrust the map into her sister’s hands in order to be free to fan herself.

  “I expect they’ve fallen off,” Polyhymnia replied. “In any case,” she added, “we should walk in one direction, until we find a street which is actually marked.” She tapped the map. The paper was damp, from either their constant poring over it, or the humidity. “It will then be easy to find the Grand Canal and get the vaporetto.” She folded the map carefully and began to cross a small, humped bridge.

  The green water of a narrow canal stretched off in a gentle curve, the reflected ripples playing over buildings which perched at the water’s edge. The reflections were streams of diaphanous silk, caressing the façades. The
water lapped at unpainted wooden doors, rotting upwards from submerged canal-side steps. The dwellings were uniformly blighted, large patches of plaster missing, exposing worn red brick beneath. A few moored boats swayed desultorily from tidal eddies born far off. There were no people lingering on balconies or in the boats. Any sounds were faint, distant.

  “How can we walk in one direction, Pol? Look!”

  Beyond the bridge, the street, or alleyway, ended in a blank wall.

  “They’re all like it! It’s a maze! You’ve got us truly lost!”

  “Wait,” Polyhymnia said, ignoring her sister’s accusation. She walked the few yards to the end of the narrow street. “No, you’re wrong, it’s not a dead end at all. See.” She waved to her left, hoping Euphrosyne would see the intended disparagement in the gesture, and then turned and walked down the path which went off at right angles.

  “Still no street name,” Euphrosyne insisted when she caught up, pointing to the walls above. “We shall be late for dinner!”

  “Late for Rudolf you mean,” Polyhymnia rebutted before she could stop the words.

  Her sister looked blankly for a moment. Then, smiling, “Jealousy!”

  “Then it’s true!”

  “Then what’s true?”

  “It.” Polyhymnia blushed, but she was so hot anyway she hoped it wouldn’t show.

  “It?” Euphrosyne echoed irritatingly.

  “You – him!” She sighed listlessly, slapping the map against her hip, wishing she had bitten her tongue. “An affair!”

  Euphrosyne laughed, braying as if she were a donkey, the sound loud and abrasive in the quiet alley. “Oh, wouldn’t you like to know, little sister,” she managed finally.

  “No, not really,” Polyhymnia said levelly, trying to regain her composure. Her accusation now appeared absurd. What, her sister having a relationship with their guardian? Under the watchful eye of Matilda Fortiscue? No. Euphrosyne was toying with her. Nevertheless she had to say something more, she could not allow her sister the pleasure of keeping the supercilious face she was now proudly wearing.

  “I saw him touch your bottom. You should take care, Euph.”

  That train of conversation was at an end, for the narrow street now became an even narrower sottoportego, stooping under the buildings.

  “Shall we try . . .?”

  “You are the one who says we should keep walking in one direction,” Euphrosyne blurted, stepping blithely into the darkness.

  As they walked between close, water-slimed walls, Polyhymnia could hear the canal gushing below, or sucking at masonry. The passageway curved, leaving them in total darkness for a few seconds before the daylight at the far end ballooned into view. Exiting the passageway, they found themselves in a small, deserted piazza.

  Polyhymnia raised her eyes hopefully and saw the chipped blue enamel plate of a street sign at last. “Campiello . . . oh, bother! What does it say? Can you read it, Euph?”

  “No more than you, sister.” Then: “Give me the map. The beginning is Z-I-N-something. I’ll see if I can decipher the rest.”

  While her sister sat on the edge of a well at the centre of the square, Polyhymnia walked around it, cobblestones dipping and rising in uneven curves, as if mimicking, moments before solidifying, the shape of waves underneath. She was unsafe here, the piazza floating thinly above many murky fathoms of ancient water. The city itself a fragile edifice perched above the weed-choked, slimy sea.

  There was no church in the square to make her feel protected, merely the sullen façades of undistinguished dwellings, weathered with age.

  The afternoon was dying.

  A thin, mottled cat slunk out from a partly open window and slipped away down a street opposite. The animal was half starved, bony, hideously thin. Polyhymnia shivered.

  “Oh, bother!”

  Polyhymnia heard the soft crackle of paper behind her and realized that Euphrosyne had been unable to find out where they were. She ought to look herself, but she was lightheaded. It must have been caused by the slowly dissipating heat of the day.

  “Why don’t you see if that other road is marked?” Her sister’s words penetrated sluggishly through dense, wet air.

  Drifting over to the alley, which led off the piazza opposite the way they had entered, Polyhymnia was sure the cobblestones were becoming soft beneath her shoes. As soon as she had walked a few steps, she realized that it was not a street she was on at all. It was a long, private pathway leading to the entrance of a house.

  The blistered, once elegant door, was wedged open. She went in, thankful to be off the undulating cobbles.

  She may have desired to ask the owner where they were and how they might reach the Grand Canal. That’s what she would tell her sister. In reality, the dangerously soft pathway had unnerved her and she needed to stand on something more solid.

  Once she was in the porch, she realized why the building had been so silent: it was derelict. She shivered in the pale cream light from a ridiculously high window. The sunlight dissolved as its rays played through dust. Piles of wet, crumbled plaster lay in heaps at the walls’ edges, as if that was where safety lay. As she walked, the floorboards squelched, as if her shoes trod on a thin layer of fungus. The strong smell of damp and rot stung her nostrils.

  She hesitated, reluctant to venture beyond the porch, realizing that the building must in fact be less safe than the campiello. When the cat screamed nearby, Polyhymnia started, her heart racing to catch up with her shock. The feline’s yowl thinned out to a guttural whine and only then could she place the sound beyond a rectangular, doorless archway in the far wall.

  The animal might be hurt, or dying, or may have become trapped. She should at least go and find out. Her feet carried her across the soft wood, the muscle in her breast hammering furiously, demanding retreat. Her eyes became wide with anticipation. The pilastered architrave ahead of her was diseased, the blue paint chipped, green mould replacing it. Leaning forward, her shaking hand extending to touch the cold pillar, Polyhymnia stretched her neck to peer through the opening.

  “Polyhymnia!” The cat squealed.

  Cold, cold dread immobilized her heart, stilling it, before she realized it was her sister calling. Turning, she ran, but not before she saw someone in that far room. Sable shadow, a dark silhouette, limned by light starved of strength from the thin, high windows. The shape was thin, too, turning to confront her, aware of her presence, and Polyhymnia glimpsed its hairless white head.

  When she was out into the square again, dusk was beginning to soften the blighted surfaces of the buildings. She spent a few moments of stillness, waiting for the iron-hard vice inside her breast to loosen.

  “It’s not a street,” Polyhymnia said, still breathless, sitting in the well’s rim opposite her sister, where she wouldn’t display the terror which still veiled her face.

  “Then what took you so long? I called!”

  “I was . . . I was exploring. These houses are uninhabited. The whole square is abandoned. Nobody lives here except a starving cat.”

  “Really, Pol! Uninhabited indeed!”

  “I’ll prove it to you – ” She stopped abruptly, wishing she had not sounded so confident. The last thing she wanted to do was re-enter that house.

  Ignoring the suggestion, Euphrosyne said, “I’m going to find someone in that house and ask them to direct us. My Italian is, after all, better than yours.”

  Polyhymnia, about to retort that her Italian was the better, thought better of it. She was already too disorientated, she did not need her truculent sister to add to her discomfort. “Well, then, perhaps we should retrace our steps first.” The remains of her fear made her voice croak as she added, “There are no people there to help us, as I say.”

  Polyhymnia’s nervousness was a red rag to a bull. “Dear sister, what has troubled you?” Euphrosyne turned to confront her twin. “What are you frightened of? You’re as breathless as a bride on her wedding night! You lead the way to the house.”

 
; “No!”

  “Good grief. You are a rabbit!” Euphrosyne leaned across and pinched her sister’s cheek, hard. “If you won’t accompany me, I shall go alone.” With that she stood, spun around and marched defiantly down the now darkening alleyway.

  Damn her, Polyhymnia silently blasphemed, rubbing her stinging cheek. She stood and followed, deciding she was more afraid to be abandoned here than of the ghastly figure in the derelict building, which was undoubtedly a trick of the light and not a withered ghost.

  “See! A ruin . . .” Polyhymnia shouted. Surely it was obvious to her sister no one could possibly be living here?

  She followed quickly, not hesitating at the ruined doorway. Inside, a vestige of the dun sunset filtered through the window. The grim, empty room resolved itself in a wash of sepia. Polyhymnia wondered if the edifice might at one time have been a palazzo, though it was now impossible to tell. She hesitated as she watched her sister disappear through the arch. A triangle of paleness – the corner of Euphrosyne’s skirt – flapped, as might an injured dove’s wing; beyond the entrance.

  “You are right for once,” Euphrosyne agreed, her disembodied voice echoing. “But let’s explore anyway!” Her head bobbed into view. “Come on.” A thin forefinger emerged from the darkness, curling into a fish hook on which Polyhymnia was barbed. Laughing, Euphrosyne disappeared, enjoying the diversion in a way Polyhymnia could never understand.

  Tiptoeing forward, she desperately wished there was more light. At the portal it became difficult for her to proceed. The arch framed a greater darkness beyond. Dribbles of water ran down the blotched surface of the pillars. Above, on the cracked pediment, the plaster face of a blind cherub gazed down at her. Its features were masked by mould, its mouth dripping gummy saliva. There was a momentary sense that the building was below the waters, not above them. Even though absurd, the idea itself reminded her that underneath the floor, shallowly below, the waters of the lagoon caressed rotting timber piles, drawing the city inexorably into a future watery grave.