Tragic Silence

by E. C. Hibbs

  “Bianka?”

  “I’m fine, Anya,” I called back, forcing my voice to keep steady. “I just tripped. Put too much pressure on my leg.”

  There was a relieved sigh from outside. “Are you sure you’re alright?”

  “Igen.” I nodded as I said it, even though she couldn’t see. I did it more for myself. Out of the two of us, I was the one who needed convincing. I hadn’t stopped staring at my reflection, and checked my face again with shaking fingers. I bit my lip hard and silently cursed as my teeth broke the skin. I quickly wrenched the tumbler from the sink and swirled water in my mouth before spitting out a stream of pink. Then I grabbed my cane – shooting one final glance into the mirror – and opened the door. Anya was still there, waiting for me, and she rubbed the top of my arm gently.

  “Did you hurt yourself?” she asked.

  I shook my head. “Just gave myself a fright.”

  “You gave your Apa and me one, too!” She laughed it off, and pulled me into a hug. I clung to her with my left hand, using my other one to support my weight on the cane. She held me for what seemed like forever, and it was one of those moments when I wanted her to never let me go. But eventually, she drew back and saw me to my room, opening the door for me before planting a kiss on my cheek and returning downstairs.

  I closed the door and leant against it, before crossing to my bed and perching on the edge of the mattress. I laid my cane at the other side of my table, within easy reach for when I needed it, then clasped my hands underneath my knee and lifted it onto the bed. I lay down and my head sank into the pillows, as I forced myself to breathe deeply. My room in the rented house was smaller than the one I’d had at home, but its compactness offered a strange comfort and solace. It had no connections to the horrors.

  But that night, my mind was full of what had stared out of the mirror at me. First of all, I tried to do what I’d done for the past year and suppress it, but it was then that a shudder ran through me, and I remembered my nightmares; Lucy’s scream; his face over me. I mentally put my foot down, and made myself think clearly. I knew what I’d seen. Those red eyes had been mine.

  I raised my hand and gently ran my fingers along my throat. There was the small ridge of the scar that had formed on the right side, directly over my jugular vein. My pulse beat steadily beneath the skin. That was the scar from when I’d scratched myself, that first night in the hospital.

  No, Bee. I heard a distant part of myself step back and talk: you didn’t do that to yourself. You know what really happened. Stop fighting it.

  As I slipped into sleep, the voice changed from my own into the silky tone that I’d driven away.

  “Did you honestly believe you could outrun me?”

  I descended into a world of darkness, falling away like I had that night, when I felt the knife in my back. The maw of the earth swallowed me and I watched from above, suspended close to the ceiling of the crypt. The hole was small: the way it had been before I had crashed through.

  And below, he was there. I saw him for the first time plainly, rather than just a shadow in the dark. He stood facing the wall, a beam of moonlight doing enough to illuminate him – and as I drew closer in a dream-wind, I noticed that in front of him was a figure. The stature and hair length told me immediately that it was a girl. She was wearing a soiled tie-dye t-shirt and large bell-bottomed corduroys, and her frizzy hair was slick with grease, distorting the shade.

  He leant into her and gently placed his hand on her shoulder. She wrenched away, but was stopped by the wall at her back. I watched in subdued horror, and thought I heard a wave of strangely harmonised wails echoing off the walls. The girl tore her head to the side, away from him.

  My heart skipped a beat. It was Lucy.

  But before I could do anything, the chamber melted away like candle wax. A familiar fear overcame me, and mist swept up around my waist. A single spectral light shone up ahead, and I felt him standing behind me, his back to mine. He slowly turned, and I stayed where I was, my fingers on that scar.

  “That was you, wasn’t it? You made my eyes do that, didn’t you?” I whispered it in my head, the echo louder than a scream. “What are you doing here? What do you want from me?”

  He didn’t answer, and I woke up sweating and panting, at 3.30 in the morning. I looked around frantically, turning on the bedside lamp. There were the posters tacked to my walls, the collection of stuffed toys on top of my bookshelf. I relaxed. It had only been a dream.

  But his face was still there, just out of glimpse in the periphery. Whenever I turned to look, he’d move with me; always watching. It was exactly the same as I’d felt when I was in hospital, the nightmares coming like silent nets every time I slipped. I lay back and stared at the ceiling, reminding myself that my eyes had turned red. It had been terrifying, true – but it wasn’t what his eyes looked like. His were black and bottomless until they lit up with fire. No redness there at all.

  Calm down, Bee.

  I tried to take comfort from that realisation. They weren’t my eyes – but they hadn’t been his, either. I picked up my old knife from the bedside table. When the investigation surrounding my stabbing had been shelved due to lack of evidence, I’d requested it back. I loved it, despite it having caused me so much pain.

  My eye caught the framed photos of the Budapest and London panoramas, tucked away at the side of the wardrobe. I hadn’t hung it up because there were no nails in the room, and I didn’t want to hammer any in, since the house was rented. I remembered conversations I’d had with Lucy and Emily about their home: of the Changing of the Guard outside Buckingham Palace; the London Eye in Westminster; the shows of the West End. In the past, I’d promised Lucy that if we never went there together, I would go and make sure I saw it all. I wanted so much to see the great city of England.

  Such a beautiful-sounding place: London. Even its name was beautiful, the way it rolled off your tongue. Just like the name Lucy.

  Tears filled my eyes. I put the knife back and buried my face in the pillow, crying until I couldn’t anymore. But any kind of pleasant sleep had no plans on coming back, to pull me under and relieve me of darkness. He was still in my head. I tried to push him away as I tumbled down the bleeding tunnel.

  I snarled, “Leave me alone! Go away!”

  I heard his snigger, and it sent shivers through me. I could have sworn that where I saw him meant that he was a safe distance from me, but now I heard his voice, he sounded unbearably close. I flinched away in my bed.

  I cannot leave you when I am here because of you.

  I frowned. “What are you talking about?”

  But deep down, I realised in a split second that I actually knew, and it repulsed me to the pit of my stomach. He wasn’t haunting me. I was keeping him in my mind, even if I didn’t want to or know it. I was longing for him. I was so disgusted that I cried out and turned over violently, slamming my palm into the wall.

  “Get out of my head, you beast!”

  I cannot leave you when I am here because of you.

  In my dream, I whirled around. “Well, if you won’t go, then come out and face me!”

  The laugh resounded like knives in my chest, and gradually I saw him swim into view before me. Every detail of his face was clear and solid as the living mist spun around us. He was at arm’s length, standing with his back straight and arms loose at his sides, as he always did. A faint breeze that I couldn’t feel gently moved the black strands of his hair, and above him were two huge wings, like I’d seen in the mausoleum. Held out fully, each was as long as he was tall; and despite their thin, skeletal structure, they still looked powerful. They were like bat wings, and the leathery membranes shifted continuously, surrounded by their own mist.

  I stared him down. He stared right back. In my dream, I stood erect and without my cane. The blood dripped down the sides and pooled at my feet.

  We’re on equal terms here, I told myself. This is my head, and my dream. If I don’t want him here, then he has no
place or right to be here, and I will get him out.

  My vision clouded, and it was like seeing the world through a red haze. I distantly wondered if it was anger; or my eyes, flickering like they had before. At the memory, the rage became stronger, and the mist around him tinted. It reminded me of the Red Death. And that face was the mask.

  Stop fighting it, he said to me. You know you want to find me. It is only natural.

  My hands curled into fists. “I never want to see you again!”

  He shook his head deviously. But you will. You cannot fight me.

  I gritted my teeth hard. “But I’m going to try. Now leave me alone!”

  My shout woke me up so fiercely that I smacked my head on the wall and sat bolt upright. I wondered if I’d yelled all of my lines out loud. My eyes settled on the door, waiting for Anya to come running in to check I was alright. My hands were still in fists at my sides, as I fought to bring my pounding heart back under control. But – to my relief – she didn’t come.

  The bottom of my calendar, hanging near my arm, was torn almost in two. One of my pillows was half-hanging off the top of the wardrobe. I reached down to the floor and pulled the duvet back over my legs.

  I decided not to go back to sleep. I turned on my light, and grabbed my book from the table. But before I opened it, I reached back to my penknife. I pulled out the blade and laid it beside my lamp, then settled down and began to read.

  CHAPTER VII

  The next day, I began to subject myself and my room to an intense protection routine. I went out with a bag and collected huge bundles of birch twigs, and lined my room with them in the same way I’d formed a circle around the couch to protect Lucy. I figured the only reason he’d managed to get inside that night was because the twigs had been dislodged, and the fire had burned out, to allow him access down the chimney. In the legends, Lidérc may enter a dwelling either down the chimney or through keyholes, and burning birch and incense is the only way to bar them. I didn’t have a fireplace in my room, which made me feel a little better, but to compensate, I burned incense whenever I was there. In order to make sure the twigs weren’t moved, I tacked them to the skirting boards, and made sure each one was in contact with another.

  I also decided to make some kind of extra protection, to carry around with me. I congratulated myself for choosing a cane made of birch, but I wanted more of that wood, since I couldn’t carry a smouldering stick of incense with me all the time. So one day, when my parents were at work, I fetched Apa’s toolkit, attacked a slab of birch with the handsaw and sandpaper, and eventually fashioned it into a reasonably small circle. Then I drilled a hole through the middle, hung it on a strip of brown leather, and wore it around my neck as an amulet. I even varnished it carefully, so I could wear it whilst bathing. I wasn’t sure if it would do much help, but the fact it was there – and that I’d put effort into making it for a specific purpose – was enough to convince me it would somehow be worth something.

  The months continued to fall by, and there was no sign of him again. However, I noticed my eyes flickering red a few more times, and as much as I was beginning to harden, it soon dawned on me that something was going to have to change. I hoped no-one else could see the redness, but I realised sickeningly that they could. In the middle of a day out with Emily, she asked me if I was wearing contact lenses. I fell silent for a moment, and then remembered that it was April Fool’s Day. I quickly grasped at it and replied that I was, for a laugh. I’d never been so grateful for the 1st of April.

  Eventually, we secured the house in Pest and moved in, finally leaving the rented accommodation behind. The first thing that I did in my room – before even beginning to unpack properly – was to hang up the panoramas. I got my Matura results and was overjoyed to find that I had passed everything. The day was the final page of memories I took with me of time at school: sitting in the graduation hall in my black cap and gown, a golden tassel hanging at the side of my face. I posed for my photograph, one hand on my cane – and jokily thought to myself that it must make me look like a proper old teacher. When it was over, my classmates and I stood side by side, and threw our caps into the air.

  The photo was framed and displayed on my bedroom wall: an eternal reminder of my achievement. I checked it madly in case my eyes were red, but to my relief, they were my usual blue. It occurred to me that in spite of everything that had happened, I’d still managed to complete my education and walk away with good grades. And that made me even more proud of what I’d done.

  It wasn’t long after the celebration that I truly realised I wasn’t at school any more. I wasn’t a student, with countless assignments to work my way through, and a season of exams to revise for. I had gained my knowledge, now was the opportunity to apply it in some way. I contemplated going back to study at university, but in due course, I decided against it. I wanted to get out and see more, not spend my life in a lecture theatre. I knew I loved studying so much that I’d happily continue doing it unless I put my foot down. But I longed to go away; I’d lived my whole life in Budapest, and I needed somewhere else. I loved it where I had grown up and forged so many memories – though I wouldn’t have wanted that single city to have been my entire world.

  A large part of my thinking was to increase protection. Even though I hadn’t had any more lucid dreams, it had become harder and harder for me to push his face away. Even at my graduation ceremony, I could have sworn I had seen him watching me from near the back of the hall, but when I’d looked again, it was just a shadow.

  As much as I hated to admit it, I found I was still longing for him, in that strange way that went against everything I felt. I knew I had to get away in a hope of escaping it, for my own peace of mind. ‘Safety’ seemed a ludicrous word to use, but I hoped that on the other side of the Hungarian borders, I might find some small shred of it.

  After all, I told myself, he’s a Hungarian entity. Lidérc are only found here. Go and immerse yourself in another culture, Bee, where they can’t exist. Maybe that will work. Maybe that will be enough.

  And so it was that I found myself sitting in my new bedroom a few months after my graduation, perching a laptop on my knees and combing through the net in search of jobs. My initial idea was to find something to do with a museum, to help me gain some experience. Then I could begin thinking ahead to becoming a field archaeologist. Despite everything that had happened, somewhere in the back of my mind, I was still hell-bent on my plans for finding every obscure and lost civilisation in history.

  I hardly looked at anywhere in Hungary. Instead, I found myself staring at the website of the Museum of London. I stopped then, and thought. London. It sounded wonderful. I spoke English, I liked English people, and there were several jobs on offer there for quite good pay. It was a ticket out of Hungary. I glanced up and looked at the bottom panorama, of Saint Paul’s Cathedral.

  Over the next few weeks, I weighed the pros and cons in my head. I eventually decided, and announced I was going to apply for one of the vacancies. It felt like the thought had been brewing for a long time, and when it found an excuse to act, it leapt at the opportunity. Apa and Anya were incredibly supportive – they always had been in all of my endeavours – but I still saw the anxiety in their eyes. They had almost lost me two years before, and had witnessed me struggle, with my mind and my limp, as I found my feet again. Of course they would want me to stay close, in their hearts.

  But I tried to think with my head. They wanted to protect me, as parents do, but how? As far as I was concerned, my staying with them meant more danger. After all, I was the one he was after – even though I couldn’t understand why he hadn’t come back for me. And my true fears were also overridden by another, perhaps more mundane notion. I was almost twenty, out of pocket, and wanting to put my education to good use; to chase my dreams whilst I could. For that alone, they knew they had to let me go.

  At first, I thought I wouldn’t have a chance as I typed out my CV. Written English had never been my strong point
. I got Emily to read through the document for me – in the same way that Lucy used to do – and she helped to smooth out my wooden sentences and crooked grammar. But even after her check, I dubiously surveyed the words over and over again. A Hungarian kid looking for her first job at the other side of Europe, who had hardly been outside of Budapest, and who was partially paralysed in her right leg? It all seemed doomed to failure. I was gritting my teeth so hard when I hit the ‘send’ button on the email that my jaw ached for the rest of the day. It was almost as bad as when I had clamped my mouth shut when I was in hospital.

  So even the feeling of shock was beyond me when I received a reply. I sent a video interview, answering the questions I would have faced in the actual situation, and not long after, was told I had been accepted to assist in Exhibit Management. I spent the next three months preparing for the move, and signed a contract for a small rented flat in Islington. It included basic furniture, so there wasn’t much I needed to pack in bulk.

  I tried not to think about the fact that I was leaving Budapest. I was leaving a demon behind too, and not just a physical one; there were so many memories and dark clouds that might finally leave me. As my departure drew closer, I felt weight lifting from my shoulders. When I finally said my goodbyes to the Denboroughs, and Anya and Apa, I was more than ready to let a new chapter of my life begin. A few days before the date, I went for a final walk around the city – but deliberately ignored the street where our old house was. I never wanted to see that place again.

  Austria, Germany and Belgium passed by, thousands of feet below, before I touched down at Heathrow airport. A fresh wad of currency lay in my purse. Not much, but it would see me through a fortnight or so. Stuffed in the back was a silver and gold 100 forint coin, to remind me of home. I’d kept it separate, so I wouldn’t have a chance of confusing it with a two pound piece. I leafed through the notes as I sat in the taxi taking me to my flat. Pound sterling. I silently ran through the system as I held the small coins in my hand.