Phantoms

by Marie O'Regan

  The minute you let go, though, it’s like you’ve already forgotten it. Like it was never there.

  (And here we go back to reality, the agreed-upon version.)

  You shut the door, hump your things back upstairs, toss Nan’s keys onto the living room floor and leave without looking back, front door cracked open to the cold, cold night. Don’t even bother calling 911 ’til you’re at the bus station.

  Amaya’s taken your hand at some point during your story, studying you closely; she waits for a pause long enough to suggest you’ve finished, then swallows. Begins: “That’s—God, Isla, I’m so sorry that happened to you. I can’t even imagine how that feels.”

  You gawk. “I don’t… Were you listening? I don’t think you really heard what I—”

  “Of course I did, and it sounds traumatizing, to say the fucking least. But I still think you’re blaming yourself too much for what happened, especially after all these…”

  “The paramedics could have got there faster, maybe could’ve… done something, I don’t know. But I didn’t let them, because – well, I hated her, okay? Always. So that’s on me.”

  “She sounds legitimately hateable, babe. And you were young – younger. You’re not that person anymore.”

  (Oh no?)

  “Maya, you really don’t get it, do you? I’m responsible for weaponizing her craziness, then walking away, knowing Mom would have to deal with the result. And now I know it again, I’m glad. I knew how bad her health was, what a sudden shock could do to her—”

  “Goddamnit, no!” Amaya so seldom interrupts you at all, let alone this forcefully, that surprise is enough to stop you. “Strokes don’t work like that, Isla; it could’ve happened at any time. It’s even odds you had nothing to do with it at all – and even if you did, A) being angry isn’t the same as legal malicious intent, and B) it sounds like she damn well deserved it!” She stands, eyes blazing. “So if you want forgiveness, then fine, I’ll give it to you! Good enough?”

  “That easy, huh? You ‘forgive’ me, and I’m just supposed to feel better?”

  Amaya’s fists tighten. “What I’m saying is, there’s nothing to forgive. The only person in this house who thinks you did something wrong that night is you.”

  (And yet.)

  You almost turn your head this time; the impression of a voice is so strong. But Amaya clearly hears nothing.

  And yet, what? you wonder. Is this only that secret, constant worm of doubt, the one that fears Amaya’s only ever been humoring you? Or is it something—

  (some one)

  —else?

  “I’ll always be ‘that person’,” is all you snap back, however – quoting her savagely, throwing her own words back in her face – before you can think not to. Watching her flinch and feeling like flinching yourself, but walking away again instead: down, this time. Back to the basement, half-lit with daylight seeping in through the shades, with the bottle’s furtive gleam. To which that murmur behind your eyes replies, just as simply: Yes.

  (You will.)

  * * *

  Amaya’s voice reaches you through the basement bathroom door, now, barely audible over not just the shower’s roar but also that hiss, that thrum, that oceanic back and forth building inside your inner ear, your skull, your entire pounding body. The one that meets every fervent pledge of love and support she makes with its own litany of self-fulfilling prophecy, advice you don’t even want to hear, let alone follow…

  Just listen, keep on listening.

  You promised to help me, Isla.

  Don’t be afraid, you’ll like it.

  You’ll want to.

  You’ll feel so much better once you do.

  Remember: Amaya thinks she knows, but she doesn’t – she never will. She can’t. She can’t, can’t ever be allowed to know.

  (how bad you are, have always been, how awful)

  (she’d stop loving you if she knew, and that would just be…)

  I’d rather die, you think. And hear something sigh in pleasure, somewhere deep inside: Yes, exactly.

  Exactly.

  “Baby, come on,” you think you hear Amaya plead, from so much farther away than through three inches of door. “Come out of there, Isla, please. Everything’s going to be okay, I promise you.”

  You clear your dry throat, raise your voice just a bit. “You should go, Maya. I don’t want to…”

  “Don’t want to what?”

  “Doesn’t matter. Just… go home, all right?”

  “I don’t—”

  “Christ, can you just trust me, for once? Go home, Amaya! Why won’t you just go home?”

  A pause, during which you can almost see her draw her breath: so determined, so loving. So innocent.

  “You couldn’t make me go home, Isla,” she says, at last. “Remember? I’m here for you.”

  Staring down at the razor in your hand, one leg half-done, you wonder exactly how best to pop the blade inside out without letting Amaya know what you’re doing, so you’ll never have to shave the other one. So you won’t have to worry about hurting her, or hurting yourself. And hearing it still, all through these breathless seconds – another voice in yet another room, then in this one, then inside you: go here, do that. Telling you how nothing you’ve done in the years since you bottled up your crime and left it behind has meant anything, if it can all be wiped away so easily; telling you how no one ever really changes, how even that stroke you gave Nan simply broke the mask she wore and let what was always inside spill out. Telling you – oh so plausibly, rationally, soothingly – how if she really knew you at all, that friend of yours, she’d surely want to kill you, too. So…

  …kill her first, then kill yourself. Leave the house empty as your sin-catching bottle.

  (It only makes sense; you know it does.)

  But: Goddamnit, no. NO.

  I won’t, you think. Not that, not ever – not to her. And you can’t make me.

  (Oh…

  …can’t I?)

  * * *

  By the time you finally come out, hair still wet, she’s already asleep. So you creep back upstairs, lock yourself in Nan’s former room, crawl under the bed and lie there with eyes wide open in the dark, looking up. Like you’re trying to count the bedsprings.

  All at once, you find yourself aware of something scurrying in the darkness, a lithe, wet scuttle. Is it that thing from your other dream, shitting its slimy-blind progeny out everywhere it goes? So you roll out once more, up on all fours, teeth bared. Follow the sound more than any movement, its nailed feet clicking fast towards the bedroom door, and scrabble just as quick at the handle – twisting it to and fro, hard enough to strain your wrist – before finally throwing it open, stumbling out into, not the hall, but that long, black beach under a silver-glazed sky. Mica and volcanic grains beneath, gray-blue above, pale smears of cloud like the peeling patina under raised letters, J-A-U-N-D…

  There’s a plop to your right, a watery swish as that thing immerses itself in the surf, speeding away. Something buried bruises your heel as you step back. Another shell?

  No. A half-circle, then a stem, then the rest. You scrape away sand from every side, freeing it, and raise up the result.

  The bottle.

  On impulse, you raise it to your lips. Breathe across the rim like you’re testing a flute, light but long, evoking a low, pale note – then inhale once more without thinking, only to taste that same note in your mouth like a lover’s tongue or a drug’s first hit, narcotic, numbing. Feel your lungs start to ache with that rush, and whisper: Who are you?

  You, the voice replies, or seems to.

  (You’re almost certain.)

  Who?

  You.

  (I am you.)

  That voice in the dream, in the dark. That voice.

  It’s yours, you realize. Oh God.

  It always was.

  * * *

  Anger is a ghost. Guilt is a ghost. This confession is a ghost.

  You are a gh
ost.

  You are your own ghost.

  * * *

  And here you recoil, throw the bottle into the sea, the incoming waves. But all at once you can see the sky is tightening, shrinking, and you start to see through it to a bent, warped reflection of your room – as if you’re somehow trapped inside an infinitely larger version of the bottle you’ve just discarded. You yell, pound on the bottle’s sides as it moves inwards, crushing you down into a mere flickering light. And as you shrink, the world outside the bottle gets clearer – you begin to perceive what you’re looking at, that smeary room (the basement), that smeary figure (yourself). Standing over the bed, occupied by Amaya. Holding a knife.

  On the bedside table, the bottle starts to move, to slide, to fall, to crash. Inside the falling bottle, you feel yourself start to wink out.

  This is when you’ll wake up, you can already tell, looking down on the self-made pattern of your own ruin. The room will be dark, dark enough it takes your eyes a moment to adjust. Staring up at you is Amaya, the one you love so much your heart hurts, with her red mouth open and teeth beginning to pull apart, her soft black pansy eyes gone wide and hard with terror.

  Because: Did you really think love would save her, or you? A girl like you, everything you’ve done, allowed yourself to forget you’ve done… What sort of love do you think you deserve, hmmm?

  (That’s right: none.)

  * * *

  Oh, you should not rest

  Between the elements of air and earth,

  But you should pity me.

  THE MARVELLOUS TALKING MACHINE

  Alison Littlewood

  It is across a distance of many years that I remember the events of 1846, and yet it might have been yesterday that I first heard the voice that haunts my dreams. It is not the words that have troubled me so, ever since I was a boy; it is the way they were spoken – and the fact of their emerging from no human throat.

  I was twelve when I first heard of the inventor Professor Joseph Faber. Now my hair is grey, and yet inwardly I feel much the same. I still remember my father’s theatre, the magnificence of its halls; the sense of never knowing what wonders would pass before my eyes; the idea that perhaps, truly, they were not entirely of this world.

  My father set me to work early, not because we were in need of funds, but because I begged him to release me from the tyranny of slate and desk. For what were schoolrooms to me, when life itself – and such life – passed daily before my eyes at the Egyptian Hall?

  The edifice itself was a curiosity to behold. Part of the row of mansions lining Piccadilly, it was yet a thing apart; for its gargantuan figures, winged globes and lotus motifs would be better suited to an ancient tomb of Egypt than the heart of London. The mysteries continued within: vast pillars suggested the great avenue at Karnak, while indecipherable hieroglyphics adorned every surface. Its ever-changing displays were equally entrancing, having included extraordinary statuary, dioramic views, historical artefacts – including Napoleon’s coach – and indeed human entertainments; we had hosted a family of Laplanders offering sleigh rides, the Anatomic Vivante or Living Skeleton, and a mermaid – this last, alas, sadly pretend.

  Indeed, it might be said that I was accustomed to wonders, and yet, when faced with something more remarkable still, I longed only to turn my face away. But I was not alone in that, for Joseph Faber’s was one of our most poorly received attractions.

  My first sight of the man was not promising. A hunched fellow he was, wearing a frock-coat with too few buttons, and those dulled with time. His beard was untrimmed, his shoes smeared with street-dirt and his features were unprepossessing; his eyes, which were dull likewise, looked askance when he was addressed, even by me, a mere child.

  He gave his name softly and with a slight German accent. It was only when he directed the placement of his boxes and crates that his expression became sharp, even mercurial in his assiduousness. I showed him to the chamber wherein his display would appear and he glared about before closing its door in my face, presumably to prepare himself. Later, my father sent me to offer any assistance he may require. I knocked and a voice responded with some phrase that I had no doubt meant, “Go away”.

  I did not go away, however, for I was young and curious; or perhaps it was stupidity that made me press my ear to the door and listen.

  He was constructing something; that was certain. I decided I must ask my father what it was, for I had been much distracted by the imminent arrival of General Tom Thumb, a fellow celebrated for his diminutive stature and comic scenes, and had paid little attention when he had told me of it. I knew only that it was some kind of machine, and so it seemed, for I detected the sound of wood being slotted into place and the clearer sound of metal striking metal. But it was Faber’s mutterings that interested me the most.

  It did not sound as if he were talking to himself. He would murmur in a low voice and then pause so that I could sense him listening before giving some reply. It sounded as if he were engaged in conversation with someone I could not quite hear.

  Suddenly my ear stung as my father cuffed it. He told me to step sharp and see about the scenery flats in the main theatre, in tones so loud that Faber, shut up in his room, must surely have heard. And so I left him in there, alone yet not alone, speaking to whoever would listen; and to prepare for his performance that evening, whatever that may be.

  * * *

  I stared down at the handbill. THE MARVELLOUS TALKING MACHINE, it proclaimed. I had wasted no time, after dressing the stage for the hilarious capers of Tom Thumb, in obtaining a copy from the ticket-seller.

  So perhaps here was the answer to the sounds I’d heard coming from Professor Faber’s room. The bill informed me that not only could his machine speak, but that a full explanation would be given of the means by which the words and sentences were uttered. It said that visitors may examine every part of his Euphonia – that was what he named it – not only demonstrating a wonder of science, but providing a fund of amusement to young and old alike.

  All at once, I understood. Examination notwithstanding, it was clear to me that Faber was a cheat; for of course he must have some accomplice who would be concealed somehow within this “wondrous” machine and speak on its behalf. It had been done before. Almost a hundred years ago, Kempelen’s chess-playing Turk was heralded as the most magnificent automaton of its age, until it was discovered that its contests were won by a mere human hiding within its base. Thus it was made plain: it was a feat of wonder for a machine to mimic a man, but a matter of imposture and derision for a man to mimic a machine.

  I could not confront Faber or reveal him as a fraud, however, for were we not his hosts, and party to all that passed? Yet I was determined to see for myself how the trick was done, and I confess I longed to lay eyes on whatever little creature may be concealed so cunningly. For, of course, it occurred to me that he or she may prove even tinier than Tom Thumb himself.

  My disappointment may only be imagined when my father asked me to sort through a heap of mouldering costumes, to put some aside for repair, others for disassembling and yet others for the ragman. I knew I would never finish in time to take my seat for the start of Faber’s demonstration, and it being held in a somewhat small chamber, I could not then disturb those who had paid their shilling by making my entrance.

  Still, as the time came for it to end, I could not resist waiting in the passage to glimpse what I may when the doors opened. This time, I could more distinctly make out the sounds from within. People called out in turn, the audience I supposed, and something answered, though in tones the like of which I had never encountered. The voice was flat and dead and empty, and it made me shudder, and then the first notes of music sounded, and the awful voice began to sing. It was the National Anthem, but emotionless and dry, as if the life was missing, or perhaps the soul, as if the voice progressed from the very heart of a tomb. But of course this must be Faber’s Talking Machine, his Euphonia, and I grasped the reason at once. For he could no
t wish it to sound human; if it did, all would guess at its true nature and his imposture would be discovered. It must perforce sound like something long dead – indeed, like something that had never lived. And yet I could not quite shake the chill as I pressed my eye to the keyhole.

  But the door suddenly shook and swung open. I started back; a gentleman stood there, with commodious whiskers and a gloriously shining top hat. He gave me a disdainful look before leading the exodus from the room, and I made a hasty bow, gesturing towards the exit as if I’d come especially to point the way.

  All the ladies and gentlemen filed past me, and as they went, I realised something odd about them. Usually, our patrons left smiling and laughing, exclaiming over what they had seen. But these did not smile; they did not laugh. They were entirely silent as they moved towards the cabs and carriages that awaited. There was no light in their faces; the only emotion that emanated from them was dismay.

  I looked away from them and saw Faber, his skin pallid, his eyes as lightless as the rest – and fixed upon mine.

  I mouthed an apology, catching a glimpse of the contraption behind him: a wooden frame, through which I could see the back of the stage; an arrangement of keys and levers and bellows; and, affixed to its front, a human face. It was in the form of a woman – or rather, a girl – with reddened lips and gleaming ringlets, but with a cold and empty expression. It unnerved me to look upon it, and I knew in that instant that there was nowhere for anyone to hide, even had they been half the size of Tom Thumb.

  Faber stepped towards me and I turned and closed the door between us. I did not leave, however, but leaned heavily against the wall. Thankfully, he did not follow; after a time I heard shuffling sounds and the scraping of wood against the floor.