Writ in Water

by Natasha Mostert

  Death’s fingerprint is in our DNA. It sets our fate. The grave is journey’s end for all of us. But the memory palace—oh, Gabriel. The memory palace transforms the journey from drudgery to ecstasy. Once you’ve tasted the rush of the memory palace, ordinary life is a withered flower.

  A part of him realised that she desperately wanted him to comprehend the magnificence of her creation.

  He gestured at the gigantic stone walls with their enigmatic symbols. ‘Was this worth killing for?’

  Is becoming a magician not worth everything?

  She placed her hand on his shoulder and drew even closer. He could feel the heat from her body. A small shameful part of his mind was reacting to her physical closeness. Her thigh brushing his. The soft swell of her breasts. The pale skin accentuated by the bruise of the Monas: a rough kiss made visible. The urge to touch his fingers to that highly erotic bruise was overwhelming.

  ‘No.’ He tried to move away from her. ‘Minnaloushe—’

  Minnaloushe? As if the name was a foreign word and she was enquiring as to its meaning. She tightened her grip on his shoulder. Minnaloushe was faint of heart. But you and I are the same: we crave the thrill. We ache for it.

  We crave the thrill. She understood him well. For him, too, risk had always been the ultimate turn-on. And risk had its rewards. In his own life risk had usually paid off. But if he miscalculated this time…

  He looked into the blue-gemmed eyes and knew he was looking death in the face. She was lethal.

  Behind her shoulder he could see the doors lined up. One of those doors was the entrance to Pandora’s Box. If it opened, he would probably not survive the onslaught.

  He pushed the thought aside. Time to act.

  Deliberately he placed one hand against her breast. Her skin was as soft as he had imagined it would be. He placed his other hand behind her head and drew her face to his. His fingers moved in her hair, loosening it so that it fell to her shoulders in a dusky cloud. As he touched his lips to hers, her eyes remained open, locked with his. Blue pools fringed by inky lashes. They told him nothing.

  He tightened his grip in her hair. ‘You are insane.’

  I know. A ripple of amusement from her. Exciting, isn’t it?

  Pain shot through his lip. She had bitten him. He tasted blood.

  He pressed his fingers against her breast with such force, he knew he was hurting the tender flesh. But her mouth softened and he could feel her tongue moving gently. Her breath was sweet. Gabriel. She whispered his name like an incantation. Gabriel.

  An incantation. A spell. But he had his own spell. It was time to set it free.

  He placed one hand against the small of her back and the other around her shoulders and drew her to him even more firmly. She did not resist. For the first time her eyes closed, shuttered by a languorous sweep of lashes.

  Her body so soft, so slack, but a rippling coming from deep within her. A slow smile crossed her face.

  He struggled to focus. Concentrate, Gabriel. It is time to remember. Remember…

  When I entered the House of Blood and Air

  I saw the dusky portal

  I saw the princes of the dark dwelling

  The fragments of text floated through his mind. Minnaloushe’s magic code.

  I saw men of arms

  Buried in black graves

  And my name is…

  Morrighan’s eyes flew open and he felt her mind snap back in alarm. NO!

  He tightened his grip on her shoulders. ‘What is your name, Morrighan?’

  She was shaking her head back and forth.

  ‘Say it!’

  Twenty-two. The word left her lips in a moan. My name is Twenty-two.

  You breathe your name

  In my ashen ear

  And pen secrets on my soul

  I am the whore and the saint

  I am the wife and the virgin

  And my name is…

  She lifted her hand and her nails raked fire across his cheek. Without hesitation he slapped her across the face and slammed her body against the wall. The breath left her lips in a painful gasp.

  ‘Say it!’

  He had never seen such hate in anyone’s eyes. She was trying to fight the compulsion: he could see the muscles in her throat contracting. But the words left her mouth as if of their own volition.

  Seven. My name is Seven.

  Almost finished. Only a few more lines…

  Like the speckled wolf

  I will travel by your side

  Like the charcoal crow

  I will wing the soil

  She was weeping and her crying was silent and fierce. Snail smears glistened on her cheeks. She collapsed in his arms, a dead weight, and as he let her go, she sank to her knees. Her head was bowed, the black hair parted, and he glimpsed the nape of her neck, vulnerable. Reaching down, he cupped his hand under her chin, twisting her face round. She looked at him with drowned eyes.

  Please, Gabriel. Don’t do this. It’s not too late. You can still take my hand and we can travel together. Forget about… her… You used to love me too. Don’t you remember?

  She stared at him with those blue eyes and images of their summer together spooled through his memory. Morrighan, her mouth aglow, smiling at him as they dance at Minnaloushe’s birthday. Morrighan sitting in the peacock armchair, her eyes closed as she listens to the notes of a violin. Morrighan working in the garden. Her dress is bunched up above her knees; there are dark patches of sweat under her arms and her thin blouse is clinging to her breasts. She is humming underneath her breath. She is happy.

  But then another image. Morrighan standing in a window, framed like an object on display, her eyes dispassionate. Behind her shoulder the curve of a staircase…

  He stepped back from the woman at his feet. As the last lines of Minnaloushe’s spell slotted into his memory, Morrighan’s lips pulled away from her teeth. Pink tongue glistening. Eyes like space. Her hair black seaweed.

  Speak not, I

  Dead are my lips, my cut lips

  But my name, my whole perfect name is…

  Her lips moved painfully: My name is Eldaah.

  It was over. He closed his eyes briefly.

  The next moment she screamed. It felt like a steel needle had been lobbed into his brain. One of the doors flew open. An avalanche of information rushed through the opening with a sickening roar. It swept him off his feet as though he were a matchstick in the path of a hurricane.

  He had become a fleck of dust in a storm of blinding movement and was being propelled forward with such unimaginable force—with such speed—that the objects he encountered along the way dissolved into a demented visual landscape: chaotic, dissonant, like a reel of film edited by a mind no longer sane.

  Images beautiful and profane stared at him from the chaos. A figure, its spine encircled by the sinuous form of a snake, flashed briefly past him, followed by a boy dressed in flowing robes, a book to his chest, one finger against his lips as if admonishing him to silence. A child, its chest ripped open, was cradling his pulsing heart in his own two hands. Gabriel stretched out his hands towards the child but the next moment it had disappeared and he was teetering on the edge of a precipice and far down below him was an entire city submerged under ice and he could hear the voices of angels screaming. Birds fell from the air with crushed beaks and torn wings.

  Control the input! Keep it clean! His defences were crumbling. His eyeballs were straining inside his head. His body was disintegrating under the impact of the sensory overload. And still it continued, the images pouring into his mind, his skull shuddering with noise and turbulence. And among the madness and confusion the crow—grown immensely large—flew past him in a mighty rush of air.

  And now he was inside a vast, many-tiered chamber spiralling downwards into blackness. One moment he was looking down into this labyrinth and the next he was falling, falling down the wide vertical shaft, getting closer and closer to the blackness beneath him. Doors—million
s of doors—spinning past the edge of his vision. His mind struggling for a fingerhold, scrabbling for something with which to anchor his sanity. Frankie. He could sense her anxious probing but it was so faint, so faint, like fingers tapping against glass. Oh, God, he couldn’t hang on any longer. He couldn’t process—

  Sudden quiet. The silence of infinite spaces.

  Then he heard her voice.

  Gabriel. The word a desolate moan.

  I am lost… A whisper travelling down the long corridors, bouncing off the steep walls, echo upon echo. Lost… Lost… Lost…

  Gabriel… Don’t leave me here…

  CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

  The smell was the first thing he registered. Disinfectant. And then the green dusk of a hospital room. He was also aware of a gentle clicking sound against the window pane. Rain?

  He was hooked up to monitors. There were tubes sticking out of his arm. He touched his hand to his forehead and his fingers recognised the gauzy feel of a bandage.

  Slowly his eyes travelled around the room. A Formica nightstand. A matching dresser. A chair with a crumpled blanket, tossed to one side as though someone had recently left the chair. There was a paper cup on the nightstand.

  He saw all this without any sense of curiosity. For a while he simply lay there listening to the rain tapping against the window. He closed his eyes.

  • • •

  When he woke up again, the room was bright. On the chair next to the bed, the blanket was neatly folded.

  The light hurt his eyes and he closed them again quickly.

  ‘Gabriel.’

  He turned his head on the pillow—wincing at the pain skewering through his neck—and peered through narrowed eyes at the figure standing on the other side of the bed.

  ‘Gabriel. Look at me.’ Frankie brought her face closer to his. ‘Hey, you.’ She was smiling.

  ‘What…’ His voice was a croak. Behind Frankie’s shoulder, a nurse in a navy-blue uniform poked her head round the door for a few seconds before disappearing again.

  He tried again. ‘Am I OK?’

  She was still smiling. ‘You will be. Are you thirsty? Do you want some water?’

  ‘How long have I been here?’

  ‘Five days. Three days in intensive care. You’ve drifted in and out a number of times.’

  ‘I don’t remember.’

  ‘Well, you’ve been mostly out of it. Are you in pain? Shall I call the nurse?’

  ‘No.’ He moved his shoulders awkwardly against the propped-up pillows. Now that he was actually able to focus on his surroundings, he didn’t want to be drugged. He wanted to know what had happened.

  As if anticipating his next question, Frankie said, ‘Dr Dibbles will be here soon to explain everything to you. It was a close call. The brain aneurism ruptured and they had to operate. But you’ll be OK.’

  ‘Good to know.’ His thoughts were cotton wool. He tried to concentrate on Frankie’s smiling face. ‘What about you, Frankie. Are you OK?’

  ‘I’m one hundred per cent fine. Although I did come out of that ride with one hell of a migraine, I’ll tell you that. But I’m all right now.’

  ‘No bad dreams?’

  ‘No dreams whatsoever. I can’t even recall the ride at all, to tell you the truth. I have no memory of it. Nothing, not even fragments. It’s as though the slate was wiped clean. Weird.’

  She hesitated. ‘And you? Do you remember anything?’

  An image flickered through his mind. A dizzying replication of doors and winding corridors. A woman’s voice whispering, the sound fragmenting into a kaleidoscope of echoes: Don’t leave me here…

  He felt suddenly very tired. ‘I remember.’

  ‘She’s here, you know.’

  ‘What?’ He stiffened and his stomach knotted involuntarily.

  Frankie nodded. ‘Four doors down.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘She’s in a coma. But they don’t know why.’ Frankie watched him steadily. ‘There was no physical trauma to the brain. No brain swelling or brain bleeding. Not like with you. She’s simply… unconscious.’

  ‘How did she get here? Did you—’

  ‘Not on your life.’ Frankie’s voice was emphatic. ‘I wasn’t even aware she was in the hospital. Apparently the cleaning lady discovered her unconscious and called for an ambulance.’

  ‘How do you know all this?’

  ‘By chance. Morrighan has a cousin who came to visit. We met at the coffee machine and she and I made friends.’ Frankie smoothed the hair from his forehead. ‘But don’t worry about any of this stuff right now, sweetheart. You should rest.’

  ‘I suppose so.’ His voice sounded exhausted even to his own ears.

  Frankie leaned over and kissed him lightly on the cheek. ‘Go back to sleep. We can talk about it later.’

  He placed his hand on her wrist, holding her back. ‘Frankie… thank you.’

  ‘Oh.’ She smiled again. ‘You’re welcome.’

  ‘No. I mean it. I owe you everything.’ Tears came to his eyes. ‘When that door flew open I started falling… falling into darkness. And then I felt your mind reaching out to mine, hooking on. You saved me.’

  ‘Shh. Go to sleep.’

  He closed his eyes obediently. Frankie’s voice came as though from far away. ‘Everything is going to be fine now. It’s all over.’

  • • •

  That evening he went for a walk. He was hooked up to an intravenous drip on wheels and he had to drag the entire contraption with him. The wheels made an unpleasant squeaking sound on the linoleum.

  He shuffled down the corridor using baby steps and feeling like an old man. He was not in pain, but he was so weak. The idea that his muscles would regain their former strength seemed almost inconceivable.

  It was late. The evening meal was long finished and the last visitors had left. The wide corridor down which he was moving was empty. He could hear the sound of a television set behind one of the doors but most of the rooms leading off the passage were darkened.

  Four rooms down, Frankie had said. He stopped just inside the doorway.

  The room was only dimly lit, but there was enough light for him to see. Her face was pale in the gloom. Her hands rested flaccidly next to her body. She did not look ill. If it weren’t for the wires and machines, you would have thought her asleep.

  Hesitantly he moved closer to the bed. She was very still. He could hardly see the movement of her breast as she breathed. Her eyes did not roll under the lids. Her fingers did not twitch.

  Was her mind still as well? That beautiful, corrupted mind?

  She had approached life as though it were a blood sport. She had been a warrior. Now she was a sleeping princess. But no prince would be coming to her rescue.

  Don’t leave me here…

  Her desperate plea would haunt him for the rest of his days.

  Where was she now? Was she walking through endless passageways? Was she desperately searching for a clue, a sign, something that might make her remember the order of places and the order of things? The knowledge of it was a shadow on his heart. It was diabolical. To search for order and find only confusion. To know the horror of being lost forever.

  They had joined in a battle of the minds, the two of them, but he felt no victory. He felt only loss and a profound sorrow.

  ‘Morrighan,’ he whispered.

  The lovely face remained completely blank.

  ‘Forgive me.’

  CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

  He remained in hospital for another twelve days and he did not make the journey to Morrighan’s room again.

  Until the day he left.

  Frankie was at his side, her arm hooked through his, his overnight bag in her other hand. He took a last look at the hospital bed in which he had spent so many hours. He would not miss it.

  It was visiting time and the corridors were filled with people looking either anxious or relieved. As they walked down the wide passage, he deliberately kept his eyes straig
ht in front of him, not looking left or right. But from the edge of his vision, he knew they were approaching the door that led to Morrighan’s room.

  He stopped. ‘I must go in.’

  Frankie was reluctant. ‘That’s not a good idea.’

  ‘It’s something I have to do.’ He pulled on her arm.

  As they entered the room, a plump woman dressed in a mustard-coloured tweed suit got up from the chair next to the bed.

  She nodded at Frankie. ‘Hi, Frankie.’

  ‘Hi, Lisa.’ Frankie spoke gently. ‘How are you doing?’

  ‘All right.’ The woman smiled but the smile did not dispel the resigned sadness on her face. ‘Is this your friend?’ She looked at Gabriel.

  ‘Yes. He’s being discharged today, I’m happy to say.’

  ‘That’s great news. I’m Lisa Duval, by the way. Morrighan’s cousin.’

  ‘Pleased to meet you.’ They shook hands briefly. Her palm was moist. She had not inherited the beauty gene so blazingly obvious in her two cousins. But her eyes were kind.

  He had been avoiding looking at the bed, but now his eyes drifted towards the figure lying there. His breath stalled.

  Morrighan no longer looked like a sleeping princess. In some indefinable way she had aged. Her skin looked chalky and greyed. Her lank black hair was pushed back in a no-nonsense fashion behind her ears.

  ‘How is she doing?’ Frankie was actually whispering.

  ‘Not good.’

  ‘Maybe she’ll get better.’ Frankie sounded awkward.

  ‘No.’ Lisa Duval shook her head. ‘She scored very low on the Glasgow Coma Scale.’

  ‘The Glasgow Coma Scale?’

  ‘It is a standardised system used to identify degrees of brain impairment.’ There was a parrot-like quality to Lisa’s response. She had obviously been talking to the men in white coats. ‘Morrighan’s total score out of fifteen was very low.’

  ‘So the doctors—’

  ‘The doctors don’t know anything.’ There was a quiet vehemence in Lisa Duval’s voice. ‘They still don’t understand what happened to her. There’s no physical reason for her coma. It’s a mystery.’ She dabbed angrily at her eyes. ‘Excuse me. I think I need to go to the restroom. But very nice meeting you.’ She held out her hand to Gabriel again. ‘And good luck.’