by Nina Milton
“What did the doctor say?”
“Nothing.” I heard the teenaged sulk behind the word, as if I’d caught her out. “Just … her pulse was a bit high and it would settle with a good night’s sleep.”
“When I left, Lettice, she was fine.” It was me who wasn’t fine. Things had been inverted in the Dare household; for some reason, I was the culprit now.
“Don’t lie! I got back from my ride and went in to see her because I thought you might still be there, and …”
“Lettice? Tell me what you found.”
“Grandma was in a state! She’s never in a state. She’s the one that snaps people out of states! She was moaning, half out of her chair. She was so pale and breathing so hard.” I heard the gulp in her throat. “I thought she was dying.”
“It’s dreadful that you had to witness that, but—”
“What did you do to her?” Her voice dropped to a hiss. “Something despicable. Ma says it’s because you are not family and never will be.” I heard Lettice sob at the end of the line. “She says I should’ve known from the beginning. She says it’s my fault that I let you into our lives.”
“This is not your fault. Nothing is your fault, Lettice. You are the only one who has nothing to blame yourself for.”
“I need to know. Why did you do it? Make Grandma collapse, then just disappear?”
“I wouldn’t ever hurt your grandmother,” was all I could say.
“She’s your grandma too.”
I couldn’t respond. There was no solution to Lettice’s sorrow. I was never going to tell her the entire truth—Grandma dearest is an unpleasant, bitter woman whose understanding of life is diametrically opposed to my own. If she had taken me as six-year old I wouldn’t have spent my life in the care system.
“I’m so sorry, Lettice.”
“You are not,” she snapped. “You are not.”
She cut me off. I looked up. Rey and Juke were gawping. Nige was stock still with a glass of red in each hand. Then a punter flashed a ten-pound note and yelled out an order. I made up his drinks as if nothing had changed.
Something had changed. The sense of losing a thing I’d never had. My aunt had been right to say it: I was not of that family, and never would be.
twenty-two
the black knight
“A chivalric slaying,” said Morgan. “It was promised.”
The acolyte had brought them here. It was his plan to find Sabbie Dare. He didn’t expect to witness such distress.
Such magic.
For there he is. Ready for the taking. The Black Knight.
The man in black hurtles down the stairwell. He goes straight past them. A door bangs below.
He can do this. He wants it. First time. A line of cold steel straightens his back. His hands are steady; rock-hard fists.
“The Black Knight cut down the thorn tree,” he says, realizing. “The Black Knight struck the dolorous blow.”
“Don’t let him get away.”
Pulse in the ears, he runs through the Hall of Angels. They will never catch him if he has a car, but the Black Knight is on foot. The encounter will be a true, chivalric combat.
They cross the town, over the great river bridge, through the back streets. Morgan is ahead on her four-inch heels, snakeskin leather with a peep toe. Selkie can no longer keep up, the little white paws slide on the tarmac. Morgan whips the cat into her arms.
“Don’t let him get away.”
Finally the Black Knight turns into a narrow alley. High fences on either side leads to squat back yards. A gate swings on a single wretched hinge. The Black Knight travels through a weed-infested yard and a back door slams shut.
“The Black Knight was called Pride,” says the acolyte, staring at the door. “His arms and legs were severed. He was dispatched with a blow to the neck.” The story from the books. From the film too. The Black Knight had not let King Arthur pass.
He looks at Morgan’s belt, at her gem-encrusted dagger. “I’ll need a weapon.”
“Fate always brings your weapon.”
The yard is filled with the detritus of bad living. Bins overflow. Broken microwave thrown onto piled rubble and broken bricks never disposed of. Here, just as Morgan said there would be, are weapons aplenty. He chooses a brick, severed across the middle to form a sharp corner. It’s comfortable to hold. He longs to use it.
He almost laughs, exhilarated; this is true chivalry. Pursue the enemy of the land. Raison d’etre.
Silently, the acolyte tries the handle of the back door. Locked already. This is the fortress of the Black Knight.
“We can wait.” Morgan drapes her silk shawl over a low breeze-
block wall further along the lane and sits, crossing her leather-clad legs. She brushes her hand along the weed heads growing up by her feet. Dock and nettles. The stings don’t bother her. The cat settles near her feet, sitting as upright and alert as any mouser. The acolyte sits at a cautious distance. Late afternoon passes, moves into shade.
“He’s in there for good.”
“Patience.”
“We could knock.”
“No.”
Selkie stretches his body and opens a pink mouth wide, licking the surrounds with a long tongue. He yowls.
“Pretty baby,” says Morgan. “You’ve missed your teatime.”
Each day, the cat has single cream and flaked white fish at five in the afternoon. The cream comes in a saucer and the fish in a soup bowl, both items from a 1936 art deco dinner service that originally had square tea cups and a hexagonal soup tureen. Being a full pedigree seal-point Birman, he laps up every last drop of the cream, but takes only the centre portion from his bowl of fish.
“Poor Selkie,” says the acolyte. He’s never liked the cat, or trusted it, but he hides this well. Morgan le Fay adores her pet—his lineage is from the incense-fogged temples of Burma, part of their myth, and their art of transmigration—the oracle cat of the saffron Burmese monks. When courage was needed to stand firm against warriors from across the Burmese border, the temple cat transformed himself. His dark eyes became sapphires and his white coat became gold—all except the tips of his pure white paws, which had touched the high altar of the temple. Seeing this transfiguration, the monks had found their ultimate courage. They took up arms and defeated their enemies.
The acolyte worries that this is a story impossible to live up to.
The sun sinks into low cloud. It’s cool now. Morgan wraps the shawl around her.
They hear the click. Door opens, door closes, door locks.
The Black Knight has an errand. He takes the cluttered path to his back gate. He sees them. How can he not? They are inside the yard.
“Stand aside,” says the acolyte.
“What?”
“Stand aside, worthy adversary!”
“Piss off.”
“He is not worthy,” Morgan snarls. “Take him down.”
“He must say the words. ‘None shall pass.’”
The Black Knight shrugs. He’s not afraid. Not at all concerned. This is easy for him. Fun. To prove it, he laughs, once. “Piss off before I smack you one.”
The acolyte tries to breathe. There is no air in his lungs. No blood in his heart. No thought in his mind. Only the brick, gripped hard, and Morgan’s voice soft as a breeze … be swift, be swift, my little apprentice … pound and pound …
“You fight with the strength of many men, Black Knight.”
“You’re asking for it, you are.”
“I must cross, though you tell me none shall pass.”
“Get out of my garden, you nutter.”
“Stand aside I say!” In his mind he sees the Holy Thorn, cut down by this man like a blade of grass and tied up with red ribbons. Blood behind his eyes. He’s found his mettle. He swings his arm. Bowler in the crease
. This time, there is no faltering. The right implement to hand. Heavy hand. Pound. Shriek of pain. Black dots. Black Knight. Black death.
The acolyte is on the offensive. The sharp, red brick fisted tight makes its mark, once, twice. Brilliant red. The smell of blood is sweet as a come-hither scent. He’s doused in it, fired by it. The third blow misses its mark. Black Knight is staggering upright, hands to his face, yowling, swearing, “Shitbastard! Fuckfuck …” He lashes out, catches the acolyte on the shoulder, sending him down onto his behind. Pain shoots through his spine; the ground is littered with rocks. The Black Knight aims a kick, going for the ribs, but blood is pouring into his eyes and his aim is poor.
Morgan screams at them like a tart at a wrestling match. “Get up! Fight on! Slice him to pieces! Life from life!”
The brick is in his hand and he brings it down on the man’s knee, the sharp point driving home.
He’s scored. While the knight is dazed with pain, the acolyte throws himself into a rugby tackle, powering the man into the wall of the house, powering the brick down onto the knight’s bald scalp.
He hears a crack. Brick on bone. He powers again. His hand is glued to the brick, his shoulder is programmed to lift, swing, pound again.
Chivalric blows. Hard. Accurate. Measured. Unflinching.
DEATH of beauty. DEATH of grace. DEATH of love.
The wound grows large. Blood and mashed flesh. The splintering of bone. Something inside, grey, glistening. The body twitches twice. Then it stills.
He drops the stone. In his pocket is a handkerchief to wipe the blood from his jacket. He retches, once, bringing up only a little strand of green bile.
“Severed through. Limbs then neck,” says Morgan.
There is no severing, not with a brick. A grim sight—crushed skin and exposed bone. A blood vessel at the temple spurts red, slower and slower, until it runs empty.
“I’ve done it.” He’s breathing so fast he puffs the words. “Life from life.”
The Green Knight—he had to run. Run and run until sickness overcame him. The second one—the Red Knight—he’d gone into town and sat with a whisky in a dive down Benedict Street. Then he’d found some alley and burnt his throat with the vomit.
This time, his mind is singing. It’s like leaping from a cliff; running through fire. Like an orgasm.
“You are my best pupil to date.”
“I am?”
“Oh, yes. The very, very best. You have long shown your mettle.” Morgan slides the dagger from her belt. “Kneel.”
He kneels in the mud and rubble of the back yard. Blood is oozing in a trail through the gravel towards him, but he doesn’t shift or flinch. “You struck the chivalric blow.” Morgan taps both shoulders with the naked dagger. “Rise, companion-at-arms. You have won your spurs.”
He has won his spurs. He’s a companion-at-arms. Surely now, the Hollow Hill will open and they will walk in and wake the Sleeping King.
“The Bell of Doomsday,” she reminds him. “It must be rung. You must ring it. You must be the one to wake the Sleeping King. You will heal the wasting land. You are the one, my companion-at-arms.”
“I am the one.”
The back door creeks. A hand, clawed, it seems, pushes at it. It opens a crack.
“Marty? You all right, love?”
He puts the handkerchief away and sees a man pulped to death in his own yard.
“Now we run,” he says.
For the first time, he is ahead of Morgan le Fay.
twenty-three
laura
Laura had the notebook in her hand as she came in that Tuesday. After our last session, I’d felt too full of what I’d seen in my journey—the burning pier, the section of Laura’s soul trapped in a net, the name of her guardian—to want to talk about it until I’d processed it. I’d sent her home with a full account and asked her to work with the images herself. Even before she pulled off her jacket and helmet, she cried out, “You found my soul-part, Sabbie!”
As soon as she was seated, she opened the book and read through my last journey notes, as if to recheck. “What you wrote about the cave was amazing. Remember how you told me to find my power animal? Go to a nice place, you said. Well, I chose a holiday we went on as a family. Mum and Dad liked something a bit different than Weston Super Mare. Cornwall. Kynance Cove. There’s a lot of caves in the cliffs, sort of interconnected? So while you were in a cave, I might have been in one in my imagination too.”
“And that’s where you saw the chick.”
“Yes. Quite a surprise. I thought beside the sea, it might turn out to be, I dunno, a seal or something. It was suddenly there in front of me.”
“Have you seen it since?”
“Everywhere!” she laughed. “On the telly, in a kid’s picture book, you name it. And then there’s the part where you watched Weston pier burn down. Well, that’s perfectly true. Someone had left a deep fat fryer alight. You could see the smoke from miles off. Loads of people went down to the front, half our street set out. It was like some massive fireworks display. Come to think of it, fireworks did go off; they’d been left in storage, I think.”
“It must have been a disaster.”
“Apart from the odd lungful of smoke, you could watch safely from the promenade. No one got hurt, not even the firemen, thank God. The owners had insurance of course, so the revamp was even better than the original.”
“Win-win?”
“Ghoulish, I know.” There was such energy about her; she was rubbing her palms in anticipation. “What are we doing today?”
“I’d like to do another joint journey, Laura, as the last one was quite productive.”
Laura knew the drill. She lay, business-like, on two floor cushions. I lay close to her, with my silken cord wound round our wrists. I set the drumming CD for fifteen minutes in real time—I find most clients can’t take any longer—and made straight for Laura’s cave in the hope of a dialogue with her guardian. I moved through the darkness of the cave, feeling with my hands, until I reached the turn of rock which led to the far exit and the beach. Something blocked my way. I waited, listening. Trendle’s rough coat rubbed at my bare ankle. A shadow flickered on the wall of the cave. Some logical part of my mind told me there could not be a shadow in such total darkness, and yet this was what was happening. An impression flickered there.
“Raichu?”
The shadow moved. “You have come to reclaim Laura’s soul-part.” The reply was as ghostly as the image, as if it came from the sky outside the cave, which was hidden from me. “I’m sorry, Sabbie. I cannot let you have it. Not yet. Only when you know the answer will Laura accept it from you.”
“I don’t know the answer!”
“I have spoken of this before. And your own guardian has offered advice. You must allow our reflections to manifest in the apparent world. When all is clear, Sabbie, you may offer the soul-part.”
“Why not now?”
“Laura would reject it. That is my fear.”
“I see.”
And I did see, but that didn’t help one bit.
Deflated, I followed Trendle back towards my portal. I passed the fingerpost that directed me to Laura’s cave, and recalled a memory of the previous day; the way Esme had pointed at Stefan. Men are savages at heart … I have no wish to live with a brute.
I came out of the journey with my heart thudding in time to the call-back drum. I pushed aside my fleece and looked at Laura, who already had her eyes open.
I was going to have to ask her about previous boyfriends, even her relationship with her father. Had she escaped on her bike, the morning I’d met her, because she was scared of her dad?
We stayed on the floor cushions, writing our accounts. “You go first,” she said, not looking up from her notebook.
“Okay, well I went to find Raichu to ask when yo
u should have your soul-part back.”
“Oh yeah. You’re supposed to give it to me, aren’t you.”
“I’m afraid he feels you’re not ready for your soul-part just yet.”
“Why the hell not?”
“We have to get closer to the underlying problem, I think.”
“The problem is my shitty life! The problem is I don’t have all my bloody soul!”
Laura’s breathing quickened. It struck me forcibly that telling Laura the problems I’d encountered with her guardian had only made matters worse.
“I’m not really sure what a guardian is,” she said, steadying her breathing.
“As a shaman, I think they are rarified beings on the spirit plane, usually from an Upper Realm.”
“What does mine look like?”
“I mostly see his shadow. I saw his face, briefly. He’s very grand.”
“I know why my guardian is called Raichu.” She hugged her knees. “Or rather, why I love my Raichu so much. I think he showed himself to me.”
“The … guardian?”
“Yes. I was sitting on my bed, just before I left home for the Navy, and I was holding Raichu. A sort of … brilliance came into my mind. It made me feel light, like a winter leaf … floaty.” She grinned. “Weird.”
“A nice feeling?”
“More than nice. Whole.”
“You don’t always feel whole?”
“No, but right then, I did. Just for a moment.”
“Your guardian communicated through the toy.”
“It’s the real reason I took him with me. I hoped the feeling would come again.”
“Raichu’s been looking out for you from your birth.”
“He’s kinda been on vacation, then, hasn’t he? And now he seems to be hanging on to a bit of my soul.”
“Tell me about your journey.”
“Oh, it was lovely. I love this journeying lark. I went back to the beach and the chick was there. And he told me to call him Laurie. You know, my invisible friend from when I was tiny. Is that okay?”
“Absolutely. The chick’s in charge! Did Laurie say anything else?”