Mordew

by Alex Pheby

  There is only so long one can avoid thinking about pain. It comes looming, up from the stomach, announcing itself as an ache that sets in, rises through the chest, growing with every breath until it at last lodges in the neck and threatens to choke you.

  The bathwater was opaque now, and grey, and under it shone the locket, the only thing visible. Nathan pulled the plug and when it was all drained away, spinning off to nowhere, he filled the bath again and let the heat of the water, close to scalding, replace the ball in his throat.

  The neck of the tap curved into the bath, like the trunk of an alifonjer. It gushed water as if it had had enough to drink or was washing itself. Nathan scrubbed at his feet, between his toes. Dirt, filth, the rotten stink of dead-life, of sewers, of death and betrayal. The splash of water was like the incoming waves lashing the Sea Wall. No matter how hard he scrubbed the ingrained dirt, years beneath his nails, etched into the flesh beneath his skin, it didn’t quite come away. The water darkened again, and the gas guttered in the lamp glass, causing breakers to clash against the enamel, giving height to them in shadow, rushing back from the sides to meet Nathan’s elbow, breaking the surface of the water as he scoured and scraped at himself, nails scratching the skin.

  On the mantel in his room a clock chimed nine, and on the ninth chime the water was still again. Nathan rose and from a shelf behind the bath took a thick white towel. He wrapped it around his shoulders. It dragged on the ground as he returned to the bedroom.

  He sat on the bed and watched his feet. Water dripped down, splashing the floorboards. He sat and watched, and the clock ticked on, and the water dripped down and splashed until the boards beneath him were darker than those around them.

  He sobbed silently, arm gripped around his back, his hand almost touching his spine he gripped so close, and the locket rested against his chest, hard and warm.

  He dared not open it.

  When Nathan woke, he was not aware that he had slept. His bed was still made, and the towel had dropped in a heap to the floor. It wasn’t cold, but his nakedness made him uneasy. He stood and made his way to the wardrobe. Without looking or thinking, he grabbed what was nearest and dressed, tucking the fabric of the spare arm across.

  His ghost arm looked strange, protruding from his shoulder but not filling his clothes. He hadn’t noticed before, with everything.

  He took the round metal container the Master had given him and opened it. Inside was nothing, unless he held it to the light, and even then it was just the suggestion of something. With his real hand he could feel nothing either, but when he used his ghost hand there was a light, waxy ointment. When he touched the surface, it spread over his hand and up his arm, coating with the thinnest possible layer every inch of the transparent flesh. As it spread, the skin became opaque, dim and translucent, but opaque.

  His shirt and jacket both ripped at the sudden presence of an obstacle where the shoulder met the arm. Nathan had to take them off and get new ones from the wardrobe.

  The day was bright; there was the suggestion of a high noon sun in the quality of the light from the window. The new clothes were stiff, a little, but clean. He placed the locket straight so that it fell like a necktie, then he went to the window.

  There was a knock at the door. It was gentle, as if it was not intended to wake the occupant, more to suggest a presence. A testing knock.

  Nathan went over and opened the door.

  There was Bellows. Though Nathan couldn’t see his eyes, the angle of his nose betrayed the fact that he was averting his attention, preserving, if it needed to be preserved, Nathan’s modesty.

  ‘Young Treeves,’ Bellows said, ‘how does the morning find you? Well, I hope? Rested, perhaps?’

  Nathan stood and stared and said nothing.

  ‘Tolerably both things, let us assume. In body, if not in spirit, eh?’

  Behind Bellows a hallway stretched off in both directions. On the wall was a portrait of a man on a horse. The horse was rearing up, but the man seemed unfazed by it. He was smiling even.

  ‘What a delightful locket,’ Bellows said. ‘So elegant in its design.’

  Nathan looked down at it. It made him think of his mother. It seemed to shine with the colour of her eyes. He forced his attention away.

  ‘The Master has sent you a gift.’ Bellows beckoned, and an old man came hobbling slowly past him, carrying a mirror in an ornate, gilded frame. It was the one the Master had shown him and was about the same size as the portrait of the man on the horse. After a great deal of groaning and complaining and rubbing his back, the old man – Caretaker, possibly – managed to get it hung from the picture rail.

  ‘Will you take a late breakfast, Nathan?’ Bellows asked. ‘The Master is busy with His work, but that need not stop us. Indeed, the Master is always keen that we should not wait on His convenience for every little thing, but should manage our affairs independently, and thereby take for ourselves the responsibility for what we do beneath His roof.’

  ‘I’m thirsty,’ Nathan said.

  ‘Excellent. Easily remedied. There is ample water to be had. Or beer, if you wish. Whatever you prefer.’

  ‘Water, please.’

  ‘Very good. Let us repair to the dining room.’

  As they left, the old man nodded to them and left too.

  XLVIII

  The dining room wasn’t far – it was off the same corridor Nathan’s bedroom was on – and its windows overlooked the sea. Ships with red sails dotted the water, trailing like a line of ants through the Sea Wall Gate, off to the horizon.

  ‘It is a wonderful day,’ Bellows said.

  Nathan looked at him. In the daylight he was stranger even than he had been in the gaslight of the hall. Here, with the blue sky and the sun high, he was not a thing of dreams, or illusions, or magic, but was a real man, in real clothes, but twisted from what a man generally is, altered.

  ‘Is there a food you enjoy? We can have Cook prepare whatever you like. The Master has made it clear that you are to be treated as an honoured guest, and His generosity is boundless. Do you see those red-sailed ships, down on the water? They facilitate trade with the distant places of the world, where delicacies of all kinds are sourced.’

  The ships Nathan could see, but the distant places?

  ‘May I have bread?’

  ‘You may indeed have bread. I will join you. We will have a selection of the finest breads. And cheeses. And pickles and conserves and pâtés – all the good things! Candied fruit to finish.’ Bellows skipped eagerly to a hatch that opened into the kitchens, his limbs a tangle of movement.

  To the left of the window there was the edge of the Sea Wall where it surrounded the port, but there was no sign of the rest of the city.

  When Bellows returned there came with him a short, old man, seemingly even older than the one who had carried the mirror but a little more sprightly, with no sleeves and an apron on. He was bald down the middle, but the hair remaining was long and thin so that it trailed past his collar. He carried a silver plate onto which a loaf had been sliced, and a block of butter lay next to this. He put the plate onto a table and gestured for Bellows and Nathan to sit.

  ‘He does not speak,’ Bellows said, ‘but in all other ways he is an excellent fellow. Aren’t you, Cook?’

  Cook nodded and returned to the kitchen from where the sound of chopping was immediately heard, and then banging and clattering.

  Bellows went to and from a Welsh dresser and took from it saucers and side plates, knives, forks and spoons, a jug of water and glasses, condiments in jars with tiny spoons that slotted into the lids, shakers of salt, pepper and nutmeg. He laid them all out between them. He put a piece of bread on a plate for Nathan, and a thick slice of butter. ‘After this I will show you to your playroom, but first, please eat.’

  Bellows filled his glass with water from the jug and slid it over.

  There were several knives beside Nathan’s plate. One was round and wide, for butter, another was designed for
cheese, with a curved end, and there was a bread knife, though the loaf was already sliced. And then there was a much sharper knife, for carving meat off a joint.

  ‘Ah!’ Bellows exclaimed. ‘Here comes Cook again.’

  Cook had a plank of wood three feet across and on it were so many different things that Nathan could not take them all in at once – ham, chicken, pies, objects in aspic, pears, whole wheels of cheese. Cook also carried a basket on his head and when he placed it on the table, Bellows leaned over it, so that he was only a little way away. He inhaled, eagerly, and his black nostrils sucked.

  Nathan looked at the meat knife where it lay still beneath where his locket swung slowly. He picked the knife up.

  When Bellows had finished smelling the bread, he turned to Nathan. ‘There is something wonderful in simple things done well, don’t you think? This bread, this butter. Your jewellery.’

  Nathan gripped the handle of the knife until it hurt his fingers, and then Bellows sat back.

  ‘That locket is a very helpful thing. Do you know what an interdiction is, Nathan?’

  Bellows was more than an arm’s length away now – not too far away, but a stretch.

  ‘It is a forbidding,’ he went on, even though Nathan did not reply. ‘If you feel you might do something forbidden, or think something forbidden, or ask something forbidden, think of the locket. It will help you. You are in the Master’s home now, and to do something He forbids would be a grave error. Touch the locket.’

  Nathan looked down. There it was and he had been asked to touch it.

  So he touched it.

  If Nathan had wanted to do a forbidden thing, with the knife, then he couldn’t feel that desire now. Where the locket touched his fingertips, such feelings were numbed, and that numbness spread quickly until it was everywhere.

  ‘Eat!’ Bellows urged. ‘The Master tells me that you should learn, and a boy cannot learn on an empty stomach. The aches lack creates, Nathan, can make it difficult to concentrate, to see things correctly, don’t you think?’ Bellows took his own knife and, moving so swiftly that his arms blurred in Nathan’s vision, he carved and cut and sliced until his plate was full. ‘And one must see clearly, must understand things as they are, before one can act properly in the world.’ Bellows took his fork and stabbed a wedge of yellow cheese. ‘Wouldn’t you agree?’

  Nathan took a deep breath – a deep, clean, clear breath – and sat back in his chair so that the locket rested where it ought to be, over his heart. He put the carving knife down, picked up the butter knife, and turned his attention to the food in front of him.

  ‘Excellent,’ Bellows said, and they both began to eat.

  XLIX

  After breakfast Bellows made good on his promise and showed Nathan to the playroom.

  It was off the same corridor his bedroom was, just like the dining room, though the corridor seemed to narrow as they travelled along it, the ceiling to get lower. At first Nathan thought that it was just a trick of the light, there being no windows here, whereas in the dining room there had been many, filling the room with daylight. Everything feels more enclosed in the dark, more claustrophobic, more threatening, and the lamps that attempted to redress the architect’s economy with glass flickered yellow and didn’t give much brightness. But now Bellows was crouched over, his nose pointing down to the floorboards instead of held out in front, like it usually was. Soon the tip of his nose was almost brushing the toes of his shoes, and he slid his feet on the narrow runner of carpet because if he picked his knees up to walk, he would strike himself.

  ‘So, Nathan, if you ever doubted the Master’s thoughtfulness, you will see it now. How perfectly He has considered your comfort, even in the design of this corridor, which is suited to the height of the child. I, a grown man, can go no further without crawling, which is beneath my dignity. Here, then, is the key to the door at the end. Do not be deterred if it seems to stick – you must waggle it a little and lift the door handle – Caretaker is unable to repair the lock, by virtue of his height and his arthritic fingers.’

  Bellows handed over a black metal key. It was heavy in both weight and design, looking like it might open the gate to a graveyard, or give entrance to a museum. Nathan took it.

  ‘Carry on down the corridor and leave Bellows to crouch here alone.’

  Nathan did as he was told, glancing back as he went. Bellows looked, in that enclosed space, like a crab at the bottom of a bucket.

  When Nathan could feel the ceiling on his hair, he was close enough to unlock the door, which was as grandiose as the key, with studded bands of black metal and dark-stained wood. It wouldn’t open.

  ‘Jiggle it. And simultaneously lift the handle,’ Bellows called, his advice echoing down the corridor.

  When it opened, behind was all light.

  It took a little while for Nathan’s eyes to adjust, but when they did there was a room laid out in an octagon, and the only walls that did not have windows in were the ones through which his door came, and one with a door in opposite. The windows were high and bright and made of coloured glass, each one showing scenes from a tale – so much was obvious – with a young boy appearing in each one. Here he was at battle with a dragon, there lifting up a gemstone, and in the light these windows shone and gleamed everywhere.

  The room was full of objects: furniture, of course, and shelves for books, but also cabinets full of things – mannequins and boxes, miniatures and chests, puzzles and games – and everything exquisitely made.

  Beneath his feet the rug was decorated with the same boy as in the windows, now dressed as a prince, perhaps a king, crowned with gold and robed in purple with a locket at his chest, just like Nathan’s.

  The whole place smelled of beeswax and vinegar, as if someone had freshly polished the wood and cleaned the glass.

  ‘I will call for you before the evening meal,’ shouted Bellows from the corridor.

  Nathan nodded, and when Bellows returned down the corridor Nathan closed the door.

  It snicked shut.

  Everywhere Nathan’s eyes fell there was something new and fascinating – a horse’s head made of felt, button-eyed on a striped cane with a mane of soft chestnut hair, and this leant on a cabinet in which beetles and butterflies were pinned, each with their own label, carefully written in the best copperplate script, and on this was a chequered board and pieces, and a silver carriage, gleaming, with doors which opened and wheels which turned and clicked with perfect little clicks that sped up and slowed down the faster or slower you span the wheel, and inside there was a tiny man and woman, perfect in their detail, even down to the buckles on their shoes and the layers of the woman’s underskirts. When he pushed it along the carpet it ran on polished bearings until it stopped at the feet of a suit of armour, boy-sized, in tarnished steel, muddy at the heels and calves, turf in its spurs, holding an axe with a wooden handle so smooth that Nathan couldn’t feel the grain, even with his fingertip. The leather strap fit his wrist perfectly, and the blade was so sharp that when he split the air with it, it made a sound like the tearing of silk. Behind the visor, deep inside, was blackness just the size and shape of Nathan himself, as if it had been made for him.

  On a table beside the armour was a menagerie in porcelain, creatures of strange types, two each, and beside them a ship into which these could be marched, the places where they should stand marked out on the decks by the outlines of their footprints. It was half toy and half puzzle, the animals locking together when in place so that there was barely a hair’s breadth separating them. If one was wrong then the whole lot had to come out so he could start again, the pleasure somehow not diminished, so smooth were they in his hand, so cool and delicate, so intricate and perfect that he could have done it again and again if other things, equal to this, did not keep competing for his attention. There was a clockwork machine which carried balls to the top of a slope, down which they would then roll, only for the machine to take them back up again, on a series of steps, to the top, and
the paths of which, by the pulling and twisting of tiny levers, could be changed and larger marbles taken there and smaller ones here, each deposited with balls of their own size or colour in different reservoirs from which they could be taken on their journey again, rolling in rainbow colours around and around in so many ways that it occupied his attention so completely that Nathan wondered how he had ever paid attention to anything else. But then here was a musket that fired pellets of paper at a target, and a bow made of ivory with which sharpened feathers could be shot, and a tiny theatre stage, on which figures could be placed.

  Nathan blinked. He took a deep breath, as if he needed to get his bearings, held the locket at his chest, felt its warmth.

  Then there was the other door. It had a bolt which did not need a key.

  He drew the bolt across and pushed and the door opened silently on greased hinges.

  On the other side was grass and the great blue sky – the colours were what Nathan saw first: green and the purest blue.

  He stepped through the door and the grass was thick beneath the soles of his slippers, blades surrounding them, wet with dew. He took the slippers off and left them by the door and let the coolness spread between his toes. The sky surrounded him, and it was only when he turned back that it was broken, the walls of the tower behind him, the leaded glass. But in front the sky was everywhere.

  Was this a dream? It felt, somehow, like a dream.

  It felt like a dream, but he walked forwards and the dream persisted.

  Some dreams drift into anxiousness the moment you realise they are dreams, but this was grass and sky, and the edge of it was a wall, crenellated like castle battlements. It was about fifty steps from the door, solid, at least a foot thick, and made of strong stone, gritty to the touch.

  Past the wall, down, was the city far below, the Glass Road curling around and through it like the spiral of a snail’s shell until it met the boundary of the Sea Wall. The locket swayed gently from his neck, describing a spiral like that of the Glass Road.