by Patrick Ness
He smiled and closed his eyes. She stayed for a moment to make sure he was settled – and to make sure she neither needed to cry nor vomit any more this evening – and headed back to her own bedroom, feeling her way down the darkened hallway, her thoughts crowding up despite her best efforts.
Because what if she was? Oh, hell, what if she was?
She put her hand on her stomach, not knowing how she felt about it in the slightest little particular. It’d be eternally awkward to explain to people why JP looked so very much like his brother or sister, and it would be a very, very long secret to keep from Claudine–
Who was she kidding? It’d be a disaster. A wreck.
Which was okay, because she wasn’t pregnant. The end. A single night of regretful sex that ended in pregnancy was another thing that only happened in movies.
Except it would have its good points, too, of course. She loved JP more crazily than she’d thought herself able, and a second boy or a girl . . .
She sighed. It was practically a case study of the term ‘mixed blessing’.
‘But you’re not,’ she whispered to herself, slipping back into bed, finding a cool spot in the sheets. ‘You’re not, you’re not, you’re not.’
Which was when the sound came again.
It was much clearer this time, so deep and sonorous and unearthly she practically leapt from the bed to look out the window.
She saw nothing, just stilled cars again. No movement, not even in the shadows, though there were plenty of corners where anything could have been lurking.
But her heart was still pounding because whatever it was hadn’t sounded like it had come from four storeys below. It had sounded like it was right outside her window. There was nothing there, of course, and not even a proper ledge on which something could have been standing, but the sound, the call, the keen–
Where had that word come from? It seemed right, though. It had been a keening sound. Old-fashioned, more than old-fashioned, ancient, but not ancient like Egypt, ancient like an old forest which you suspected was only sleeping. Something had keened right outside her window, and she didn’t know why or for whom, but it hit her heart so purely she gave up trying not to cry altogether, even as she lay back on the pillow, and it felt proper this time, like the right thing to do, the right sadness to be holding.
Because what was sadder than the world and its needs?
She dreamed again of a volcano, but this time she alternately was the volcano and being ravished by it – a word she thought of, even in her dream, ravished, yes – his hands trailing up her naked torso, his thumbs marking the upward curve of her burgeoning belly, reaching her breasts, which were now somehow under her own hands as she leaned her head back against the hills and cities of her neck, and feeling the importance, somehow, that the volcano should open his eyes, open them so they could be seen, but no matter her entreaties, he refused, keeping them closed even as he entered her, and before she could object, before she could demand again, he was doing what all volcanoes must inevitably do, erupting, erupting, erupting, the stupid pun of it making her laugh, deeply, raucously, even in the dream, even while it kept happening–
She didn’t wake this time.
Mainly because she didn’t want to.
19 of 32
And so comes the final day.
She has followed him to another war. The earth splits apart in seams and crevasses, spouting fire and lava and steam, chasing the volcano’s minions who race through the narrow streets of some city or other, killing its men, raping its women, dashing its babies to the pavement.
She flies through the carnage, the looting, the pillaging, skating her fingers through pools of blood. She weeps for the world that is their child but was never their child, she weeps for her love and wonders if it is lost. She does not wonder if it was true. It was true, for both, that much is obvious.
But is it enough?
20 of 32
The volcano is everywhere and nowhere in the war, all things to it at all points and therefore, in an important way, absent by ever-presence. She finds instead this army’s small general, one who thinks he leads his troops, when of course he no more leads them than horns lead a stampeding bull. His chin is covered in blood where he has been feeding on an enemy.
At the sight of her, the small general drops his enemy and bows to her respectfully. ‘My lady,’ he says.
‘You know me?’
‘Everyone knows you, my lady.’
‘You fight for my husband.’
‘Aye, my lady.’ He gestures to his disembowelled enemy, now grasping at his viscera and trying to shove them back into his body. ‘But so did he. We all fight for your husband, my lady.’
‘Are you not tired?’ she asks, stepping around him in a slow circle.
He looks up, surprised. ‘Aye, my lady,’ he says, his voice full of weariness and disappointment.
‘You do not seek war,’ she says, behind him now.
‘No, my lady.’
‘You seek forgiveness.’
He answers nothing for a moment, but when she comes round again to his face, he pulls himself up to full height and looks proud. ‘As you say, my lady.’
‘Shall I forgive you?’ she asks, slightly puzzled, a hesitancy forming around her.
The small general unbuttons his uniform and exposes the skin over his heart. ‘As my lady wishes.’
She goes to him. His eyes give nothing away. She is unsure still, and hesitates.
‘This cannot be done in anger,’ she says. ‘It can only be done out of love.’
‘Would it help my lady if I wept?’
‘Very much.’
The small general weeps.
‘Thank you,’ she says, and plunges two fingers into his exposed breast, piercing his heart, stopping it.
21 of 32
He does not die. He does not even thank her.
‘I shall bite out your eyes now,’ she says, the uncertainty lingering.
‘Please, my lady, as quickly as you can, to end my suffering,’ he says, and his words sound true.
But they suggest a different kind of suffering than the mere pain of death.
Confused, she moves to bite out his eyes, but at the last moment, she sees.
Deep within them, deep down past who this general is, deep beyond his youth and birth, behind the history of the-world-their-child who brought the general to this place, in this city/abattoir, on this battlefield, deep behind that–
There is a flash of green.
22 of 32
‘We are the same, my lady,’ says the volcano, looking out of the general’s eyes.
‘We are different,’ she says.
‘We are the same and we are different.’
She opens her mouth to contradict him, but finds she cannot.
‘You have betrayed me with this small general,’ she says instead.
‘And you have betrayed me with him as well.’ He steps from behind the general’s eyes, blasting away the flesh to spatter the concrete walls. Nothing splashes on her. ‘And you see, my lady, I still cannot hurt you.’
‘Nor I you.’
‘We must end this,’ he says. ‘We cannot be. We do not fit. Our end is only one of destruction. That is how it must be, that is how it always must have been.’
‘I cannot.’
‘You can, my lady.’
23 of 32
He kneels in front of her, his green eyes burning with sulphur and potassium, hotter than the centre of the earth, the centre of the sun.
And his eyes weep. They weep lava enough to fill an ocean. The city around them is reduced to ashes and boiling rock.
‘I have betrayed you, my lady,’ he says. ‘From the day we met until the seconds that pass as I speak this sentence, I betray you. It is what a volcano does, my lady, and I cannot change as certainly as I cannot harm you.’
The sky blackens. The world shudders beneath them.
‘And so, my lady,’ he says, ‘the day has arrived.
Our last day. Ordained from when we first set eyes on one another.’
He pulls the flesh away from his left breast, landslides and lava spilling to earth. He exposes his beating heart to her, pumping with rage, bleeding with fire.
‘You must forgive me, my lady,’ he says.
‘I . . .’
But she cannot speak further.
‘You must, my lady, or I will find a way to destroy you. You know this to be true. We are not meant for each other.’
‘We are only meant for each other.’
‘That is also true. We are the same and we are different and every moment that passes where I cannot burn you and melt you and destroy you utterly with my love for you is a torment unsurpassing. And because it is a torment unsurpassing, I will continue to take it out on our child, this world.’ He leans forward, his exposed heart beating faster now. ‘Unless you forgive me, once and for all, my lady.’
‘I cannot.’
‘You know what I speak is true, my lady.’
‘I do.’
‘You must act. Pierce my heart. Bite out my eyes.’
‘I cannot.’
His eyes burn. ‘Then you do not love me.’
24 of 32
She gasps. She raises her hand to plunge it into his heart.
‘Do it, my lady,’ he says, closing his eyes. ‘Forgive me. I beg of you.’
Her hand is raised, ready to fall, ready to end this torment, which she will admit, if only to herself, is as bad for her as it has ever been for him. She loves him and it is impossible. She hates him and that is impossible, too. She cannot be with him. She cannot be without him. And both are burningly, simultaneously true in a way that grinds the cliché into dust.
But what she cannot do, what she cannot do that has no opposite which is also true, what she cannot ever, ever do–
Is forgive him.
For loving her. For burning her. For desiring her. For making her do all these things in return by his very existence.
She cannot ever forgive him.
She will not end his torment. She will not end hers.
She lowers her hand and lets him live.
‘You should go.’
‘. . .’
‘. . .’
‘You mean it?’
‘I mean it.’
‘It’s three– No, it’s nearly four o’clock in the morning– ’
‘I want you to go.’
‘. . .’
‘. . .’
‘You’re breathing very heavy, George. Are you feeling all right?’
‘Please, I’m asking you to–’
‘What would be the point? What could possibly be the point in me leaving right now instead of in two hours?’
‘Rachel–’
‘You said she wasn’t coming over tonight, that she was working at her flat. Which, amazingly, you still claim to have never properly seen.’
‘I haven’t.’
‘What a weird combination of strength and complete weakness you are, George.’
‘You’re talking differently. Have you noticed?’
‘People change. People become.’
‘People . . . what?’
‘Do you know why I’m here? Do you know why you let me come here tonight?’
‘So I could possess you.’
‘So that you could– Well, yes, okay, you beat me to it. That was weird. But, so, no, actually, it was so that I could let you possess me. Big difference. And in doing so, don’t you see, I also possessed you. And that’s what you’re afraid of, isn’t it? That you don’t possess her.’
‘That isn’t any of your–’
‘And if you don’t possess her, how can she possess you? Does she even want to? That’s what you’re thinking, isn’t it? You’re thinking, on the one hand, she’s obviously the very best thing that will ever happen to you in your sad little life, but on the other hand, damn her and her elusiveness and her secrecy. Damn her. And you were angry and you called me, remember, I didn’t call you–’
‘Rachel, I would really like you to leave now–’
‘But there’s a deeper question. If she won’t let you possess her, how will she ever want to possess you? And we all want to be possessed, don’t we, George?’
‘Take your hand off that, please. I asked you to leave.’
‘The thing is–’
‘Get off me–’
‘Make me. The thing is, I know exactly what you’re feeling. I know exactly what all this feels like.’
‘Rachel, I said–’
‘One last time, George, because we both know there won’t be another. I’m on the pill, there won’t be any accidents, don’t you worry. That’s it, that’s the response I was hoping for, one last time and I’ll go.’
‘. . .’
‘. . .’
‘. . .’
‘But before I do–’
‘Rachel–’
‘I have to say this to you. All these years, I’ve been treating possession as a game, don’t you see? Something only to be withheld. But do you know how lonely that is, George?’
‘I–’
‘You don’t. You actually don’t. You think you know loneliness, but you don’t. Because you allow yourself to be possessed. And everyone loves that about you. Granted, sometimes after they possess you they have their fill and move on, but that’s not what I’m saying. I’m saying that when they first meet you, you offer yourself, George. That’s what you do. You open your arms and you say, this is me, take me, have me.’
‘Rachel, are you crying?’
‘Aren’t you?’
‘This light. The moonlight. Your eyes reflect so strangely–’
‘And by being possessed, you possess, because that’s how love works. So what are you going to do with Kumiko? A little faster now, George, we’re almost done.’
‘Rachel–’
‘You are crying. Good. You should. That’s what I didn’t understand about you, George. I thought I possessed you like all those other idiots I slept with. Possession while giving nothing in return. But you. You, George. I possessed you, and you possessed me. And that’s why I can’t forgive you.’
‘Rachel–’
‘That’s why I can’t part from you either.’
‘Please–’
‘That’s why I’m here tonight. Why. This. Is. Happening. More. I said, more.’
‘Kumiko.’
‘Yes, I know. Say her name. I’ll say it, too. Kumiko.’
‘Kumiko.’
‘Kumiko.’
‘Kumiko.’
‘. . .’
‘. . .’
‘. . .’
‘. . .’
‘That’s okay, George. You just weep. You’ve betrayed your best love, and weeping is only proper. I’ll go now. I will.’
‘Your eyes.’
‘What was that?’
‘Your eyes.’
‘It’s only my tears, George. And long will I cry them.’
‘. . .’
‘. . .’
‘Did you hear that?’
‘No.’
‘It sounded like, from outside the window–’
‘I didn’t hear anything, George. And neither did you.’
IV.
He was making his final cutting.
He looked up from his desk. Final. What an odd choice of word. Not really final, of course, merely the final cutting for the last tile in Kumiko’s set, the one that would make the story complete. She wanted to finish it before they married, but surely there’d be more to make after.
So, not the final cutting. Not the last ever. No.
He wiped a bead of sweat from his forehead and went back to work. Even aside from how this nagging fever made everything seem extra bright, a trill of anxiety buzzed all around him these days: the sudden rush of being engaged to Kumiko, the still-elusiveness of her as she threw herself into finishing her tiles, the quarrels he’d had with Amanda, whom he couldn’t seem to speak to
lately without snapping.
But most of all, he had slept with Rachel. He almost literally couldn’t believe it had happened and wasn’t just something he’d dreamed. It had, in fact, seemed dreamlike when he called her, dreamlike when she’d come over to his momentarily Kumiko-less house, dreamlike when they’d spent the night in his bed. The sex had been joyless and compulsive, like how drug addicts must feel at the end of their using, but Rachel had been right. He could possess her (and she, him) in a brief but total way that had never happened with Kumiko, that felt like it never could happen. Kumiko was unknowable, how many times did he need proof of it? She was like a figure from history or a goddess, and he’d been frightened and angry and–
‘Stupid,’ he whispered to himself, slashing the page he was working on and throwing it away.
He’d slept with Rachel. He’d slept with Rachel. He’d slept with Rachel. Kumiko didn’t know about it, there was no way for her to know, and he felt the oddest certainty that Rachel would say nothing either. But what did that matter? The damage was done.
‘You don’t look very good, George,’ Mehmet said from the front counter, where he was supposed to be working on a set of conference badges but was instead fiddling with the design for a flyer for some small theatrical drama in which he’d somehow nabbed a supporting role. As far as George could tell, it seemed to consist mostly of audience confrontation and full-frontal male nudity. It was being staged above a chip shop.
‘I’m fine,’ George lied, ‘and that doesn’t look like work.’
Mehmet ignored this. ‘You know, we’re all still waiting for the date.’
‘What date?’
Mehmet gasped. ‘Your wedding date. We’ll close the shop, I assume.’
‘Yeah, I guess we will.’
‘Aren’t you excited?’
‘I’m working, Mehmet, so should you.’
Mehmet turned back to his computer. ‘I don’t even know why I bother.’
George looked up. ‘Why do you bother?’
‘Huh?’
‘There are other jobs you could get. Even if they’re not acting jobs, they’d at least be closer to it than a print shop. A theatre box office, maybe. Or a tour guide–’