Twelve Nights

by Andrew Zurcher

  Kay stood shivering in the cold breeze. Her father sat very near her, her sister, too, and she was surrounded by friends she trusted and had come to adore – but instantly she throbbed with a loneliness that coursed through her arms and legs like cold lead pumping from her stomach. She took a step back towards the street and, she remembered, the moving traffic. She hardly cared.

  ‘I don’t understand. Why are you telling me this?’

  ‘For the past several minutes, Kay – more; longer – you have been telling the story with me. Using the same words. You weren’t repeating what I said – you were just saying the words as I was also saying them. All of them. At the same time. You didn’t miss one word. And when I tried to stop the story, to change what I was saying, to lose the thread – it was like you knew that, too, and no matter what I did, you were there with me. It seemed almost as if you knew why I was saying what I was saying. More: it seemed as if you were speaking the words through me.’

  ‘What does that mean?’ Kay’s whole exhausted body ached for her father to pick her up and take her home. Somebody tell me what that means.

  ‘What I think makes no sense,’ said Will.

  Kay stiffened. ‘You mean you think that I –’

  ‘No,’ Will said. ‘I –’

  ‘Yes,’ said Phantastes, with decision. ‘Yes I do.’

  ‘As do I,’ said Razzio as he got to his feet. ‘That was a feat I could not have plotted with all the causes in the world.’

  ‘Nor a dream I might have imagined with all the leaves of the tree of Byblos.’

  ‘It’s just … maybe at last we know what you are,’ said Will.

  ‘I knew you would find me,’ said Ned More. ‘Now everything is possible.’

  Kay stared at her father, at his soiled, matted clothing, his filthy hair, his stubbled and exhausted face, his eyes that were once so playful, so generous, so warm. Now they seemed cold, appraising.

  This was all on purpose.

  She couldn’t go to him.

  You set me up. Did you set me up?

  She shuddered. Ariadne. Her gaze moved without comprehension across each of the rest of them in turn, from Will to Phantastes to Razzio. She lingered there; the old left-wraith’s broad smile was as warm as it was unusual, and Kay knew it, and she wanted to smile back, to take his olive hands, and dance, to cry out for joy, and sing, because this was a triumph, theirs was the victory, hers was the quest’s end and it had all been for something, they had done it – but there was a mass of muscle squeezing the top of her neck, and her whole head felt as if it were a fist tightening.

  Ariadne. The gods claimed her. Hers was not a human thread.

  She couldn’t bear to think, and didn’t: in a single movement she turned and walked down the street, away from all of them and back towards the river, following the flow of the cars. Had she wondered whether they would follow her, she wouldn’t have cared; but as she walked her mind was entirely occupied with other sensations, other feelings: the wind, still on the back of her neck; the firmness of the paving stones beneath her thin soles, and the chill of them; the sharp, acid taste of the car exhaust in the rounded curve of her nostrils as she breathed; and under it all, the thin, frail sense of a body that she had thought her own, but which seemed to be something else completely. She wished that the wind would stop blowing her along, and would simply blow through her. She wished it might carry her into the black profound of the silty river.

  She took the corners haphazardly, choosing a way and then, as randomly as she could, striking off in the opposite direction whenever the inkling struck her. She was determined not to be determined, and if they would follow her, then at least she would give them a time of it. Some of the streets, as narrow as cart tracks, almost invited her to perch on their miniature stoops and sills, where the white gloss of the wooden door panelling touched the heavy, foot-sallowed stone, or where the flaking black painted handrails drilled into the discoloured tiles. She might have rested, might have waited for the others who surely trailed not far behind her. She longed to sit on a stoop and cry. Yet she always carried on to just one further corner, or across one further intersection, one further trunk-lined park. To stop would be to admit limit; and so, even though she was growing footsore, even though she often longed to sit, or even to lean up against a wall in the shadow of some wall or tree, she pressed on, out – past the constraint that, until today, she would have called herself. Myself.

  On a broad and empty avenue, largely deserted but for the occasional taxi with its droning rush hurtling past her, Kay’s legs finally gave out and she crumpled at a bus stop. For three or four minutes she enjoyed the stillness and the sense of relief in her fatigued muscles, and listened to her heart play its rhythm across the motion of her breathing as it slowed. For three or four minutes she wished the others might just leave her for three or four more minutes. But no one came; no slight peripheral motion, as of dark coats and hesitant steps, gathered at the edges of her waiting. A small knot of fear wound itself up in her gut as she leaned on the swivel stool in the bus shelter, watching the lines on the street as they ran motionless into her vision and then ran out again. Ten minutes passed. She began to count them. Twenty. When she finally amassed the courage to look around, there was nothing to see but an old drunk staggering down the near side of the street, away from her, with one arm extended and his voice at full rant. A convulsion ran through her upper body like a shock. She dug one set of nails into the back of the other hand, but she didn’t know which.

  They would not be coming for her. She was alone. And because she had deliberately avoided pattern, avoided paying attention to her choices, avoided even looking around as she walked, she could remember or gather no sense of her path, no guess at a trail that might lead her back to the place from which she had come. She had felt an overwhelming need to escape from the stories Will had been telling, and to evade and avoid all the elements of those stories, and how they might erase her, shadow her, reduce her. But, she thought, by doing that she had lost her father again. She had lost Ell again. Kay began to cry because no one was there to watch her do it.

  Hot sobs boiled out of her, and the tears ran down her face. To be alone. To have run. To have lost them all. To be alone. She wiped at her tears. This was not what she wanted. Still she cried. As she held the wet cuff of her robe to her face, feeling its cold pressing on her cheek, she seemed to see something very far away – a dark room, a bewildered awakening, a body wrapped in damp blankets, a lamp at the door – and, with a start like the flood of the leaf on her tongue, she remembered her dreams, night after night of them: dreams of her father and of Ghast; dreams of a journey down the river, of Firedrake, of anger, of pride; dreams of a wicked, cold intensity. Dreams of a red light setting on Bithynia.

  What does it mean? What can it all mean?

  And then, suddenly, as if still in a dream, an incredible thing happened. Down the empty street a bus loomed and rumbled, and the driver, seeing Kay huddled in the glass shelter, began to apply the squealing brakes. Kay turned from the bus as it stopped and the door swung wide: she had no money, no idea where to go, and above all no French. Facing towards the back of the bus, she tried to give the driver the impression that she was not intending to travel. In the back of the bus two or three people sat in different places – in the far rear, under the lights, an old woman with a white bun and dark red lipstick; on the far side, facing her, a dark-skinned boy in a pressed shirt with starched lapels, clutching a rucksack on his lap; and near her, very near her, facing away, a dark shock of long black hair that must belong to a young woman. Kay was looking at her as the door closed and the bus’s engine began to lumber up into motion again. And that’s when the woman turned her face.

  It was Kat. Their eyes met, and Kat leaped from her seat, but the bus was already picking up speed, and all she could do was to race to the back, fumbling for the bell as she clambered into the rear windows, trying to bring the bus to a halt while, Kay realized, not losing sigh
t of her sudden quarry. Kay’s legs recoiled on their exhaustion like springs, and she shot out of the shelter in a panic. At first she simply wanted to get out of sight and to evade that gaze; but as soon as she had thrown herself safely behind the pier of a large office building, she realized she needed to know where and when the bus would make its next stop. As she peered out from behind the stone and watched it slowing, she thought she would turn to run the opposite way, but then it struck her – Kat was a left-wraith, and if she were in Paris, she would be here for one reason only: she had been on her way to the others. A stifling gob rose in Kay’s throat as she apprehended the danger the others were in, and the complexity of what she would have to do to recover them. The bus had slowed to a stop nearly half a mile down the straight, broad boulevard. Sure enough, only one dark-haired passenger issued on to the pavement and, sure enough, she headed directly back towards Kay, half running and half flying in her haste. So it will be a game of cat and mouse, Kay thought. Hunter-seeker.

  On still weekend days in November, when the fog had settled overnight and hugged the stubbled fields like a damp blanket, Kay and Ell had played along the edge of the trees, darting in and out of visibility in a game that was not quite catch. Each sought the other; each evaded the other. The rules were simple, but the action quickly became complex: both hunted and both were prey, and, because the game could only end by surprise, both struggled to keep the other within and just out of sight. It was a game of edges. Now Kay played it again, using a logic that had become instinctive. She moved laterally, down the side street just behind her, but making sure first to weave slightly into the boulevard so that Kat would see her turning. It was crucial that Kat should commit to the long stretch of boulevard between the two of them, and not turn before her – Kay wanted her to follow her, and not to intercept her – so she took her time, moving slowly, trying to give the impression that she didn’t know that Kat had left the bus, didn’t know that Kat was following her. She pretended to be careless, and hoped. Once round the corner and out of sight, she sprinted down the street and then turned left again, doubling back in the direction of the bus, but one block over. So much mist, Kay thought with a little satisfaction, into which she might disappear, and from which she might luringly dart.

  The next stage was the slip. This was Kay’s favourite part of the game, and the one at which she was most accomplished. In the field behind the Laundry Farm, where she and her sister had most often played the previous autumn, Kay had so fully perfected the slip that she had almost hesitated to use it, knowing how desperately frustrated it made Ell feel. But her tools there were trees, fogs, hedges and the odd ditch, fence or stile, while here she had buildings, crowds and – just at that moment she picked it out in the distance, three blocks ahead, topped by its oval sign and sinuous lettering – a Métro station. Once she saw this, Kay didn’t even need to plan. She had pulled Kat back towards the bus route, drawing her – she hoped – in the direction she had been going. Now, if she could just manage to lose her, Kat might well take the bait and revert to her first purpose.

  Down the narrowing street, threading through the casual shoppers with their underarm parcels and their steaming breath, Kay resisted the urge to look behind her, trusting that Kat was still pointing to the quarry. She pretended ease, trying to look relaxed, casual, even as her feet moved quickly under her. There was hardly any traffic on the street, so she stole only the most careless-seeming glance behind her as she crossed over, about a block before the station. She thought she glimpsed Kat – perhaps running now, but certainly much closer – about a hundred metres away. Kay paused for a moment before a pâtisserie, pretending for the briefest delay to covet some cakes; in reality she was ticking off the seconds as her heart raced, one second to every two, then three beats, letting Kat close the gap, letting her relax into this little snare. Then Kay wheeled, touched a lamppost with her shaking arm and drove forward, down into the Métro stairs.

  The rank, warm smell of rot and urine wafted up as she took the stairs two at a time – now out of sight and again racing a little, making up time to work the slip and listening hard for the sound of a train. The whole art would depend on choosing the right platform – of which, she saw as she came off the stairs, there were four: two pairs on two lines. She had no ticket, but the station was mostly deserted at midday just after the new year, and with a little speed she might clear the stiles (just like in the fields at home) without anyone much taking notice. She hardly thought, but a scramble needs none; and at the small price of a knocked knee, she got away. Now she slowed, still listening hard, trying to pull the sounds of the trains out of their tunnels. There was a faint rumble from somewhere, but which of the two sets of stairs produced it she could not yet tell. Footsteps, however, she did hear – but too plodding, too heavy to be Kat’s. And then another set, this one lighter, quicker, not even but syncopated, as if taking the steps in hurls, and then threading around someone else – and Kay held her posture for a second, but only a second – like a bob on a line, just before the fish bites – and then dropped towards the stairs.

  The rumble was growing louder, but Kay was still unsure. She would have to guess, and did. As soon as she was out of sight of the turnstiles, she threw herself at the stairs, trying to get to the bottom and round the corner before Kat gained them, half sliding with her hands down the rails to either side. At the bottom she almost froze – the sound of the approaching train had grown fainter, not louder, but she was now committed, with no way back. Ahead the corridor ran straight for about twenty metres; to the right and left smaller passages led to the platforms. Kay heard steps behind her. She walked slowly towards the right-hand tunnel, seeming to check the signs as she ducked into the alcove, as casually as she could. Instantly behind the shadow of the wall she sprang again into full flight. She had about seven seconds on her pursuer, and needed to use every one of them if she were to escape this dead end. The platform itself was almost empty, but the rumbling, strangely, seemed a little louder. Kay scanned the tunnel in both directions, looking for lights, for some kind of departure screen, for expectant passengers.

  And then she saw it, just beyond a couple of teenagers holding hands down by the furthest end of the platform: a dark corridor leading on to a small staircase, marked with the colours of the second line. That’s where the sound was coming from. She bolted for the passage. As she gained another stairway, she heard the clack of Kat’s heeled shoes behind her. Three by three she dropped down these new stairs, shot over the connecting corridor and round a corner, and then down the last flight. The train was just pulling in below her, and there might just be time – and the right vantages – to pull it off. From the connecting corridor Kat would be able to see the platform for a few seconds before, turning the corner and heading down the stairs, she lost sight of it and Kay disappeared for a couple of seconds. If she timed it just so, Kat would see her running and would assume that she had boarded the train. Kay didn’t know which way the train would be travelling, but as she flew off the stairs she crossed her fingers. A conductor stood on the platform, and Kay’s heart sank – surely he would follow her with his eyes as she peeled off back up the main stairs? – but he nodded for her to board, and then stepped on himself. Kat’s heels rang out on the access bridge above the platform. Kay bounded down the side of the train, hoping that her white coat was catching the light. As the footsteps suddenly grew muffled, she leaped into a side passage. Behind her the doors closed and the train began to pull away. Kay stole a glance backwards as she heaved pantingly up the stairs and – Brilliant! she thought – saw the train pulling forward, away from the sound of Kat’s footsteps, now almost drowned by the roar. Kat wouldn’t be able to see the empty carriage as it disappeared into the tunnel, nor – she thought as she yanked herself round another corner at the top of the stairs – the quiet-stepping girl as she vanished into the maze of passageways, heading waywardly back towards the light.

  But the hunt was hardly over, and Kay sobered quickly
. She had to gather her breath and find a safe, invisible hiding place from which to mark her own prey. As she came back up, Kat would quickly reveal whether she had fallen for the lure: if she took the main corridors, slowly and directly heading for the street, Kay would know that she was safe; but if she took the smaller side passages, listening for footsteps, the slip would have failed.

  Kay bounded up the long flight of stairs before her as quietly and quickly as she could, puffing her cheeks strenuously and pushing down on her aching, wobbly thighs with more than a girl’s force. If I am to be the Bride, Kay thought grimly to herself, I’ll have to get better at disappearing.

  She gained the level. Up here she would have an easier time of it, she thought: columns stood at regular intervals in a few parts of the station lobby, and she need only skulk in a shadow and then play the circling game. The columns were not much thicker than trees, and Kay was a past professional at the childish sport of trunk-shadowing; without crackling leaves underfoot to give her away, it would be even easier than at home. She chose her column and waited for the clack of those telltale heels.

  This left her now on the cusp of the last, easiest part of the course: the flip and chase. With a few more thudding heartstrokes and a bit of jittery footwork, Kay was sure it had worked – Kat’s footsteps died away as she rounded the corner of the station exit, and Kay could hear them slow as she laboured – now tired – up the final set of stairs. She waited until the sound had just died away, and then sprinted after her. So the hunted became the hunter.

  Once again in the sunlight, Kay tried hard to plot her bearings. She had come up a different stairway from the one by which she had entered, and for a moment she spun, terrified, thinking that she had emerged on an entirely different street or forgotten which way she was headed. But then a purple awning a minute’s walk away began to shake as the proprietor drew it a bit further out against the sun, and Kay remembered she had noted it for a landmark just before she dashed into the Métro. Kat couldn’t have gone far, she decided, and if she wasn’t on this street, she would have crossed back to the larger boulevard, perhaps to get the bus again. Kay set off warily, keeping her head moving as she walked, prying with her eyes into every alcove, every storefront, every alley as she passed it. Now that she was the hunter, she must not lose her prey. The street had emptied slightly, or perhaps there were fewer shops along this section, but still there was no sign of Kat moving among the few sparse groups of people. Kay began to panic, and raced to the first corner, hoping to find that Kat had simply turned left.