* * *
We walked for some time without speaking, down by the river. At last Helena said:
“There is nothing for us there. With them. Only hatred. Only pain. We are death to them. And they cannot endure the knowledge of us.”
She stared hard at me and her voice trembled slightly, as if from some dreadful secret memory.
I said nothing. A dark cloud of fear had been released that night from some corner of my mind, and consciously I refused to stifle it. It might have been possible to do so, and that in itself was the most frightening thing of all.
“These are hard lessons.” Helena said, “but they must be learnt for they cannot be taught.”
But I shut her voice out, drawing back into myself. At last the veneer of fantasy I had always imposed upon my life was beginning to crumble. All along I had been the captive of my own hopeless naivety. It had been too easy for me to see my new existence as something magical: a wondrous thing never to be questioned. Helena, beautiful and wise; Helena, the faery princess. She had made it easy. Her enchantment was always there to dispel all doubts and fears. Now I rejected it. Or at least I began to question it. Behind the glittering facade of endless life and immortal beauty rose the grim dark shadows of bestiality and horror. They seethed in my brain to show me the nightmare realities of hypocrisy and delusion.
I glanced around at Helena, seeing now the real depths of her fear. And there came the crushing sense that all her strength and nobility were false and doomed to failure. That truly they were nothing more than stubbornness and conceit, ultimately pathetic and inadequate for the life which was ours. She spoke of learning. What was there to learn? Only to see ourselves as we truly were. And that was enough to leave us desolate for eternity. No. Such knowledge could not be borne. The only escape was in self-deception. The world of fantasy from which I was only now emerging. The fantasy by which Maximillian could convince himself that evil was good. And worse. That evil was divine. The fantasy by which Helena told herself that we were something other than monstrous.
“How did you find me?” I asked her at last.
“Find you! Do you really suppose I could lose you? Or you me? I know your thoughts. I know your fears. But more than this. I have known your life, your death. We are one. And you are as close to me as I to you, if you would only see it. But you will not. You are distant. You are remote from me.”
“I. .. from you? I blurted out in astonishment. She paused a moment as my mind struggled to understand. Then she went on.
“You hold back. You cling to what was. You would wrap your life in a cocoon of things you know and recognise. You cannot. You cannot judge this new life through old perceptions. You must see that. You must know the change in you and let it guide you.” Then she said carefully. “I should never have made you like myself. I know that now.” She shook her head. “Truly I always knew it. It was wrong. It was weakness.”
“No. Not weakness. I think it must have taken courage,” I said, for her distress seemed at once so great I felt I must say something.
“No!” she cried, and flinched as if she had been struck. “It was weakness! Such… such weakness. I pray… ” for a moment her voice fell to a nearly inaudible whisper… “I only pray you will never know what weakness it was. But you must understand, I did it because you willed it. Because your will drew me to you. And if you had not willed it you would never have survived. Never have fought your way back from death.”
“Then we are both weak,” I said.
“But now it is done. It is irrevocable. And you must come to me that we may find strength together. We need that strength. Do you understand? Without it we are lost. We are without hope.”
“But what of humanity?” I said, for this seemed very important to me. “Do you really care nothing for men?”
“Care for them. Why should I? How can I?”
“Then why… ”
“Why do I not kill them? Why can I not abandon myself to destruction like Maximillian and Hermione? Oh John, if you think I am immune, that I do not know their desires, your desires, burning inside me, you are wrong. But I left them many years ago because I could not accept what they believe. We, with our minds and powers and senses which may exist for age upon age. We who may gather the wisdom of centuries. Is all this to be squandered in an eternity of mindless and vicious sensuality? No. It must not be. Maximillian is mad. Our kind are much prone to madness. Remember that always, in all that you do. We became without form or purpose through the centuries and the desolation and horror we spread are but the reflection of these things in ourselves. Death becomes our only purpose in a war against life. An escape that leads ultimately to nothing but evil for its own sake. But to follow such a course is the final admission of defeat. The defeat of our minds by our own life and our own power.”
“But is it possible? There are times… ” I faltered “… times when I do not know myself. Times when power is like a separate entity inside me that I cannot control. Is the evil in us our own, or does it claim some other source? Some external source? Are we possessed? And how can we fight these impulses when they are the key to our very survival? When they lie at the root of our being. Do they toy with us? Do we deceive ourselves in supposing we can overcome them? What else is there for us?”
“We must protect ourselves,” she said, “against this madness. Against the stagnation which is evil. After so many years there is little I can tell you. But I will not accept that there is no choice. We must fight. We must search ourselves for awareness, for purpose. We must find our own way. There are times of hope… times of frustration and confusion. But I have found that some answer lies just in the searching.”
I nodded and said no more. Her words impressed me, edged me towards a clarity of thought. I was at once aware that something in me was fading, yet in its wake something else, powerful and new, followed. I was as some newborn creature struggling from its egg, fighting through the wall of blindness that is the only world it has ever known; suddenly aware of a vast imminent new world just beyond. I feared this new world. It was dark and strange beyond my wildest conceptions. It threatened things I could no longer ignore or dismiss. But I had nowhere to go but forward into it. There were no alternatives. All I had ever wanted or valued before became unimportant – feelings discovered then lost, all sacrificed to truth. What I needed instead was understanding – a knowledge of myself – and one in whom to find and share that understanding. A love to transcend all earthly needs, that might span the centuries in its discovery and growth. And I could not speak or even turn to look at Helena, for these were distractions that seemed an impediment to realisation. I knew simply that her thoughts were close to mine, and there was at once reassurance in that knowledge.
“What keeps us from truth,” she went on slowly, “from understanding, are the needs and desires which cloud our minds. Beyond these, I am convinced, lies the destiny I seek. My wish has long been for another to join me in my search. I chose you, in whom life was so weak. Now you have the power to understand. Now the choice is truly yours. Now we may search together… if you will stay with me.”
And again, through every feeling of confusion and dread, through every doubt, her beauty dazzled me, her enchantment touched me. There was a sudden impulse to reach out and clasp her hand, to tell her I would love her always and never doubt her again. But I resisted and at once it died. I knew simply that it was meaningless now. I just gazed out on the lapping waters of the river, at the squat gloomy buildings on the other side, covered with glistening snow; and at the moon, lighting the long thin clouds that streaked the sky: silver claws that raked the dark. And I said simply:
“Let the search begin.”
IX
Decades passed. I can find little to say of them, for in truth they were uneventful, though the memory of them seems alive with events. Of gradual awakening, of growing strength and control. And of love, that was my support and security; a love that could only increase as I followed Helena into a
timeless twilight world, where everyday life passed beneath us; leaving all I had ever known far behind, all my former links with human life lost without trace or regret. I grew to prefer solitude and quiet to the breathless noise and pace of cities. And when circumstances did force us into cities and towns, it came to seem as I walked the crowded streets almost that I was in strange foreign places, surrounded by babbling, incomprehensible alien people.
And so the nineteenth century passed into the twentieth; the Great War with Germany came and went, with very little effect on the lives of Helena and I – except for one occasion when I was stalking a woman who turned to see me at the last moment, and promptly produced a white feather which she thrust into my open hand, leaving me so astonished that I simply stood and watched her walk away.
It was our custom to pass the summer months in some remote part of the countryside, and it was soon after the Great War that we found ourselves in Derbyshire. We both felt a strong attraction for that bleak, hilly county. To begin I rented a small house in the town of Matlock, and from there we journeyed several miles out into more rural parts. It was always difficult to find any accommodation deep in the countryside that was suitable for our needs – and even when it was to be found we inevitably aroused a good deal of unwelcome local curiosity – and so we did now what we were often forced to do. We found a graveyard near to a village, broke the decaying lock on one of the long deserted vaults and vacated two of the coffins therein.
One night soon after our arrival I wandered down a narrow lane that led past the graveyard and on down to the village, when there was a distant clattering behind me, and I turned to see a small horse-drawn carriage approaching rapidly. I stepped aside as it rattled past, and watched it pull to a halt outside some closed gates just up ahead. The coachman jumped down and opened the carriage doors, and a young man climbed out, pulling his overcoat about him, for it was raining slightly, as he opened the gates and went inside them. The coachman followed, carrying some luggage. I moved forward, and as I passed the open gates I glanced inside. The young man stood by the doors of a house, where he was being greeted by an old man. I stopped, staring, for behind the old man, framed in the light at the threshold of the open door, stood a very beautiful young woman. She looked to be no more than eighteen, not tall, but with a slender and graceful form. She had long fair hair and wide eyes, and her skin was so pink and fresh that it seemed to glow in the gloom. Her looks had a youthfulness, a sweetness that made her seem perfectly angelic.
I leaned slightly forward, staring harder. Then I turned my head away. I felt for her an immediate, overpowering attraction, and it unsettled me. Made me aware of all the old passions that still lurked in me. For the desire, the madness, had never left me. Most of the time I learned to suppress it, but occasionally it rose in me with such strength it infested my every thought, allowed me no peace and filled me with restlessness as I wandered the night, loading my mind with seductive images of human beauty; obsessing me with wild, sensual fantasies of death. And when in this state I hardly dared look on my victims while I fed, taking them from behind, pulling away while my hunger was barely yet satisfied, fearing the lightning grip of that deadly climax.
But though I dreaded the feelings the girl roused in me, I could not long keep my eyes from her. I drank in her beauty and it warmed me like blood.
When he had finished greeting the young man, the old man turned to the girl and said:
“Elizabeth. Come along and welcome your brother home.”
“Yes, Father,” the girl answered in a low, soft voice, and stepped forward. The young man embraced her quickly, and I watched as the fever rose in me. I wanted her. Desired her more than I had desired anyone before. I gazed after them as they turned back into the house. I closed my eyes. I resented my feelings. I had fought so long to overcome them. And I knew too well how dangerous they could be: to the girl, and to me. Cursing angrily I turned and hurried away.
I wandered in agitation for hours, not even seeking for a victim, though I was hungry, intent on first overcoming my disturbed emotions. At last I returned to the graveyard shortly before dawn. I walked slowly, weaving a path amongst the old, decaying gravestones, surrounded by overgrown grass and shrubs, when at once a strange sound came from somewhere nearby, a low stifled groan. I stiffened, then crouched behind a bush. Then I straightened up slowly, looking all about me. A woman, all dressed in dishevelled black clothes, knelt on the ground beside a newly filled grave. Scattered all about were brightly coloured wreaths and fresh bunches of flowers. Plainly the funeral had taken place the day before, but the woman had returned alone, half demented with grief. I moved closer. Her eyes were swollen and red, her face grey and lined. At first glance she had seemed ageing and worn with care. Now I saw she was really quite young. She knelt, looking down blankly at the soft soil with a sorrow that seemed to grip and crush her crouching, trembling form in a giant invisible palm.
She sobbed weakly, bringing up her small hand to cover her face. Then the hand dropped and she raised her head, staring at the dull grey sky from which the rain still drizzled miserably. Her face contorted with sudden bitterness, as if demanding some reason or redress from Heaven itself. And then she simply curled up like some small, frightened animal, burying her face in her hands as her sobs grew wild and uncontrolled. I stood, reflecting that I did not understand it, this human horror of death. It seemed any part of me that might once have understood it was no more. And so it is, I suppose, for all my kind. To take a life seems a small thing because all men must die, now or later. It is just a matter of time. And time has so little meaning to us. But nevertheless I felt sudden compassion for this woman, as I had felt for no human being in many years. It hurt me, to see such grief. I wanted to ease it. To end it.
Her sobs ceased abruptly and she gave a tiny cry as I swooped down on her, pulling her to me, her cheek against mine, my lips on her throat. And no sooner was I locked to her, it seemed, that her life was gone, surrendered in a moment. And through the mounting pleasure I pulled away and whispered breathless in her ear:
“Do not fear. It is death. Only death.”
And the clouds gathered as at last the rain began to fall heavily. I left her lying on the grave of the one she had so mourned, her rigid hands clutching the damp earth, her lifeless face a mask of tranquility. And as I walked away I felt no guilt at her death, for I had not killed her. She had simply sought death, and found it through me. Yet I was disturbed.
When I returned to the vault Helena was waiting for me, and I felt that she knew – indeed our thoughts and senses were by now so close I could not have hidden it from her. But she made no mention of it. There were no questions or reproaches, nor even any warning of the dangers of leaving a dead woman so close to our resting place. She seemed worried. She stared at me for several moments, then she said:
“What is wrong?”
“Nothing,” I told her. “Nothing. It will pass.”
“I feel it too,” she said with a frown. “It extends to me. Disturbs me. I don’t like it.”
“It will pass,” I said again. But I felt it, this strange unease. Indeed I had felt it all that night.
“Something about this place,” she said finally. “A sense of… ” She shook her head. “Let us go from here.”
“If you wish,” I told her. “But not yet. Not for a day or two.”
She nodded, but stood, still frowning, as I went to rest.
The next evening when I rose my restlessness seemed only to have increased. I roamed the country lanes for a while, though in the back of my mind I knew all along where I should finally go. It was growing late when at last I stood at the back of the house I had passed the day before. It was she, the fair girl. She was the reason for my unwillingness to leave at once, as Helena had wished. I wanted her, and I was tired, so tired of nagging, unanswered passions. After a time some curtains in an upstairs window were drawn back and I saw the girl there, her slender figure displayed beneath a thin nightgown as she
unfastened the latch and pushed the window open, for the night was close. It seemed almost an invitation.
I watched her as she stood and stared out into the dark. Her face seemed sullen, her eyes sad. In some ways I think she reminded me of myself when I was young. The house she lived in was a grey, rambling, old-fashioned place, without brightness or joy. The countryside about was bleak and lonely. The whole scene seemed to belong to a bygone age, so distant from the lively, modern world that had sprung up since the end of the war. She was too young and much too beautiful to be locked away from the world in such a place, and no doubt she knew it.
At last she stepped back out of sight and the light in her room was extinguished. It was agony to know that she lay so close. My limbs shook and my veins throbbed, but even now there was a part of me unwilling to submit to these impulses. But at last in anger I set aside these nagging doubts and moved swiftly across the back lawn, scaling the wall of the house, crawling onto the canopy over the ground floor window, grasping the ledge above and hoisting myself up to peer into her window. She lay in bed, sleeping soundly. I pushed open the unlatched window and, swinging my legs, vaulted silently into the room and moved to her bedside. I stared down at her. She seemed even more lovely in repose, and my hand trembled as I rested it on the pillow by her head, gently twisting a lock of her fine silky hair between my fingers. She rocked slightly and sighed as I leaned over her, placing my arms about her, brushing my mouth across her cheek and throat so that she stirred, about to wake as I grasped her to me and felt her soft skin open between my lips.
Pleasure overwhelmed me as she lapsed back into sleep, until at last I pulled away, lying gasping on the bed beside her. Her breath came in great sobs as she reached out and clung to me, but I pushed her arms back and whispered softly:
The Revenants Page 11