by Jack Dann
‘It’s time,’ Mr Drummond says. For the first time I can hear a slight current of fear below the croak of his voice. His left hand, his whipping hand, flexes and curls in anticipation of what’s to come. ‘My advice, boy, should you want to take it: get what you need, leave everything else behind. Remember that you sleep with the dead tonight, and there’s precious little you can do to change that. Any feeling you see in them is just a hopeful figment, wished into being by your own desires, as ethereal and intangible as mist on the sea.’
It is the Captain who selects my partner, a dark-haired girl named Beatrice with skin as pale and clear as the china dolls I played with as a child. She leads me into a boudoir that smells of clove incense and stale sweat; a heavy fugue that hangs in the smoky air, so thick I can barely see the rafters above us.
Beatrice holds my hand between her cold fingers, leads me into the heart of the smoke where a lounge and bed lays waiting. Her cold hands guide me, seating me on the plump lounge whose leather is ripped and rent.
‘Sit,’ she says, and I am so shocked that I do so with mouth agape, like a wounded fish sucking for air upon the deck.
‘Would you care for a drink? Something to smoke? We have some fine opium, if you’d prefer it?’
Her voice is unnaturally dark and rich, a sombre funeral dirge chafing to break into a lively waltz once the audience’s back is turned. I shake my head, mute, and she arranges herself with languorous grace upon the threadbare cushions of the bed.
‘You can talk,’ I tell her, and I’m sure there’s a quaver in my voice as I do so. She nods, smiling at me, her lips drawing into a winsome curve that belies her idle authority in this exchange. I feel a sharp heat rising into my cheeks.
‘The ladies of the Old Houses do not talk,’ I tell her. ‘They are silent as the graves they were rescued from, and nearly as trustworthy when it comes to keeping a man’s secrets.’
She shrugs, a practised gesture that sees her bosom heave with fluid grace.
‘We do not speak to men,’ she says. ‘A necessity of the contract, but one that’s good for business.’
‘Then why speak to me?’
She shrugs again. I wince, suddenly aware of how complacent I’ve been, so long at sea, so long undiscovered and surrounded by men. It is easy to hide among sailors, among men unfamiliar with women beyond a few trysts at shore, willing to see a boy simply because they cannot imagine anything but in my place.
The skin at the base of my neck itches, my face is scarlet. I am not yet ready to return home, to abandon the sea and take up the safe life my mother planned for me. The dead girl revels in my discomfort.
‘There must be some mistake,’ I tell her, doing my best to keep the nerves from my voice.
‘There must,’ Beatrice agrees. ‘Though it is strange, is it not? That a lady of the Old Houses can talk to a man? Break the compact without the spectre of death coming to claim her?’
‘Strange,’ I agree. Beatrice shrugs a third time, letting the slit of her robe fall open a little wider. The flesh of her chest is smooth and pale as cream, marred only by the livid scar of a bullet hole next to her left breast. I find myself tempted to reach out, to stroke the vivid knot of poorly healed skin.
‘Perhaps, Beatrice says. ‘Stranger things have happened, in a house such as this.’
She turns, drawing her robe closed, the legacy of her first death disappearing beneath layers of crimson silk.
I draw my feet up, hugging my knees close to my chest, feeling childish for the first time in months.
‘So,’ I say, quietly.
‘So,’ Beatrice agrees. Her voice is like liquor now, lush and harsh and heavy with promise.
‘What happens next?’
‘Traditionally, there is an exchange,’ Beatrice says. ‘We do what is necessary to sate your desires, or what we can do, to that end, in the time we have. Some men remain a work in progress.’
‘And then?’
‘And then we are done,’ she says. ‘Then you go on your way, sailing off on your ship, and the memory of our time together gnaws at you, just as your captain promised. It gnaws at your soul and nibbles at your dreams and swallows you whole in order to pay my tithe.’
‘Just like that?’
She nods, gravely, her voice devoid of mockery.
‘Just like that,’ she says. ‘It is something of a sacred duty.’
‘And what happens if you fail?’ I ask her. ‘What happens if I come here desiring nothing?’
Beatrice smiles, leaning forward as though preparing to whisper a final secret. I lean in, close enough to taste the sea-salt and pickling wine that lingers beneath the heavy scent of her perfume.
‘Everyone desires something,’ she says. ‘They don’t come here if they don’t.’
One pale hand curls around my hair, drawing me closer. She kisses me and her lips taste like gravestones, like sodden dirt mixed with warm copper, like the hunger of a starving man.
It is a good kiss, powerful, a lure to reel me into the unfamiliar territory of her bed. I know better than to follow, but it takes more strength than I have to resist.
I succumb, briefly. We do not make love, though I allow Beatrice to unravel the tattered strips of my disguise. We do not make love, but her cold hands caress my face, my ribs, the hollows of my knee. We do not make love, but her kiss is cold against my lips and filled with promises.
For a moment I allow myself to feel hopeless within her grasp, writhing and twisting like a fish on the line that knows it will be drawn up onto the deck. Then it is over, halted, nothing more than a momentary weakness. Beatrice lays my head on the pillow, gently wraps me in the cold shadow of her embrace.
We lie together, quietly, a narrow shiver running the length of my spine. She has discarded her robe, allowing me to see the puckered scar once more, a ghost-pale reminder of a pistol shot to the heart. This time I do reach out, tracing the knotted flesh with my finger. It’s strangely warm, as though touched by some lingering spark of fire from the lead slug that ended her life.
‘Did you know them?’ I ask; it’s an incautious question, one that takes her off-guard. Beatrice looks down, presses her finger against the old wound, rubbing it lightly with her cold hands.
‘I knew them,’ she says, finally, her voice little more than a whisper. ‘Not well, perhaps, but well enough.’
‘Do you remember?’ I ask. ‘I mean, you hear stories, girls sold to the Old Houses before their times; still living, even if they’re told otherwise; their flesh left cold and clammy by magic, to give the illusion of the grave.’
Beatrice smiles gently. I notice, for the first time, the reddish tinge of old blood on her teeth.
‘I remember enough,’ she says. ‘It isn’t something you’d recall clearly, given the choice, but I remember enough to be sure. To know that they brought me back, called me home to uphold my side of our bargain, bound me with silence and duty in exchange for my life.’
A cold thumb presses itself against my forehead, resting in the space between my eyes.
‘Where do you hear such stories, little pirate?’
It’s my turn to shrug.
‘And why are you interested? What do you care for the poor, dead girls of Isla Tortuga?’
Beatrice studies me. There are stories about eyes and windows, so I know enough to close my own, to lock away the memories of my mother and her pale flesh, of the nightmares she offered me as bedtime stories until I was old enough to run away. Some days I can still hear her echo, all the old warnings she offered me, explaining that the world was a cold place for women and a colder place for a courtesan’s child.
With closed eyes I permit myself to remember my mother; her violet eyes, the soothing chill of her hands, the ghostly heartbeat that made a lie of her graveyard pallor.
She hated my love of the sea, my infatuation with pirates and sailors, my soul that would not be tamed by books and tutors and the fruits of her wealth.
But it was a cold hatred, t
he final ember of an extinguished fire, trapped beneath the eternal frost that chilled both her body and soul. I sometimes wonder if she wept when she discovered her child was a runaway. It seems unlikely.
Beatrice is staring when I open my eyes, still waiting for an answer. I look at her, catching a glimpse of ghostly memories hemmed in behind her grey pupils. I see pain and sorrow and not enough joy, the same echoes that lived in my mother’s head, buried deep beneath the sultry languor of her eternal stare. Beatrice gives me a slow smile, disarming in its honesty. We have both given something away here, letting our secrets live a little closer to the surface than we’d like.
When she speaks, her voice is little more than a whisper: ‘How long have you been at sea, Tobias Truman?’
And though it has only been a year and three months, it still feels like forever, the weight of the days bunching like a clenched fist deep in my chest. Beatrice touches a tear as it rolls down my face, holds it before me on the tip of her lily-white finger.
‘This is not an answer, little pirate?’
‘Maybe not,’ I tell her. ‘But everyone has their secrets, and the wise sell them as dearly as they can.’
I have been gathering tears for a year now, hoarding them up like my own private ocean. Beatrice takes me in her arms, cooing quietly as I scatter her bed with my gathered sorrow, a hundred tiny shards of saltwater that I dare not carry back to the sea when I leave.
Beatrice shows me to the hall when our time is done, closing her door behind me with a gentle smile and a farewell kiss. The Madam waits nearby, ready to lead me away. It’s a long hall, lined with doors, each leading to another boudoir, another pirate, another dead girl playing at life. I listen carefully as the Madam leads me past them, straining my ears to pick up every heaving breath and grunting drive as client after client expends his seed. There are no women among the voices, no matter how I strain, just masculine moans and manly groans as the moment of climax is reached.
For a moment, barely longer than the space of three breaths, I could swear I hear Mr Drummond’s hollow cackle. The sound is followed by the familiar snap of the lash, the wet sound of flesh flaying off bone. My steps falter, causing the Madam to pause. She looks down at me, her eyebrow raised.
‘Any desire,’ she says. ‘It’s the role of the Old Houses. We try to fulfil any desire, and we take what we need in return. He cannot hurt them.’
‘He wants to,’ I tell her. ‘He wants to hear them scream.’
The Madam offers me an elegant shrug.
‘The dead do not scream,’ she says. ‘They do not speak, they do not sigh, they are silent as the grave. This is immutable, even in the face of desire.’
‘So I’ve been told,’ I tell her. ‘But they could speak, if they wanted to. They could give him what they wanted.’
The Madam regards me carefully, silent as the night. We stand there, amid the whisper of a dozen clients behind closed doors, the muted buzz of the lounge in the distance.
Eventually the Madam nods.
‘They could,’ she says, ‘but they won’t. It would be the end, the talking; no man would come here, once the secrets are revealed.’
She stares at me, her eyes ancient behind the thick layers of make-up.
‘Do you understand, little pirate? Do you know what I’m saying?’
There is a flicker of breeze in the hallway, setting the candles dancing. I think of my mother, powdered and cold, living out her life under my father’s thumb. She wore the mask of a lady as it suited her, but there were precious few disguises that concealed her true nature.
I look the Madam in the eyes and nod.
‘Reputations must be maintained,’ I tell her.
The Madam smiles.
‘Yes,’ she says. ‘I suppose they must.’
Then she takes my arm and she walks, returning me to the velvet curtain and the lounge beyond.
The revel has been tempered by the passing of time, whittling away both noise and numbers until the room is near empty and the voices muted.
The Captain is waiting for me, feet on the table, broad smile clamped around an ancient pipe. I sit down at the table, taking a long swallow of the mug he pushes into my hands. It’s warm and harsh, like drinking fish scales.
‘So that’s that,’ he says. ‘Was it everything you expected, after the stories you’ve heard?’
I shrug, unsettled, wondering if I’ve left some gap in my disguise.
‘Nothing is ever what you expect of it,’ I tell him. ‘Why should this place be any different?’
The Captain nods, the feather on his hat weaving a solemn dance; he pulls his feet off the table with a single fluid gesture, climbing to his feet.
‘Mr Drummond will not likely emerge before dawn,’ the Captain says. ‘It’s probably best that we don’t wait. We should return to the ship, let you get a good night’s sleep while you can. We break port in two days, and he’s always worse after a night in Tortuga.’
I nod, getting ready to follow him. The Captain lays an arm over my shoulder as I stand.
‘Did you find what you were looking for, Tobias Truman?’
He gives me a wolfish smile, but his eyes are serious beneath the brim of his hat. I consider the question for a long moment, studying it as though he’d asked my opinion of a precious jewel. I savour his interest, his desire to treat me as part of his crew; I’m acutely aware that it cannot last forever.
‘Perhaps, Captain,’ I tell him. ‘But at least we can be sure that I got what I wanted.’
This will all end soon enough. One day soon there will be clues that are impossible to hide, and there is no going back once they’re out in the open. I know my future, and I am destined to be landlocked if I survive the moment of discovery. I do not have the stomach for a lady-pirate’s life, fighting to hold my place among the crew.
‘What about you, Captain, did you get what you wanted?’
The Captain smiles at me.
‘Nothing more, nothing less,’ he says. ‘Just as they promise.’
And he leads me out of the room, into the streets of Isla Tortuga, back to the ship that I can call home a little longer.
AFTERWORD
Gothic literature is full of dangerous attractions, with characters destroyed by their desire for someone or something they shouldn’t have fallen for. Popular culture is full of zombies that are little more than a genderless, sexless swarm that goes for brains rather than the body.
‘The Last Great House of Isla Tortuga’ was conceived at the point where those two thoughts met, with an attempt to create a zombie who possesses some of the dangerous gothic allure that’s traditionally associated with vampires and ghosts.
— Peter M. Ball
<
PERCHANCE TO DREAM
ISOBELLE CARMODY
Multiple award winner ISOBELLE CARMODY began her first novel, Obernewtyn, in high school and has been writing ever since. She completed a Bachelor of Arts and a journalism cadetship while she finished the novel. Obernewtyn was shortlisted for Children’s Book Council Book of the Year Award; and its sequel, The Farseekers, was an honour book in the CBC awards. Her award-winning Obemewtyn Chronicles have established her at the forefront of fantasy writing for young people.
Her fourth book, The Gathering, was joint winner of Children’s Book Council Book of the Year Award and was second in the Western Australia Young Readers Book Award. She has since then written more than twenty books. The title story of her short-story collection Green Monkey Dreams won the Aurealis Award for the best young adult short story; and her novel, Darkfall, the first book of the Legendsong series, was shortlisted for the Aurealis Award for Best Fantasy novel. She has also won the coveted Golden Aurealis for her young adult novel Alyzon Whitestarr. Her books have been translated into many languages; and she has just completed The Stone Key, which is the next to last volume in the Obemewtyn Chronicles. The National Library of Australia has recognised the importance of Isobelle’s work by recording an
interview with her as part of its oral-history program.
And you, gentle reader, are about to enter one of Isobelle’s lucid dreams. A word of warning, though: you are entering a trap…
For Marjorie
Anna woke knowing she had been dreaming, but as so often with dreams, to wake was to forget. Strange to remember vividly that she had dreamed, yet to have no recollection of the dream. On the rare occasion that she did remember, the minute she tried to describe it, the dream would dissolve. Pinning a dream down was like trying to catch hold of a skein of smoke.
Leaf claimed it was possible to train yourself to remember dreams by writing down anything you could recall, after which you could analyse them. It would be nice to believe that dreams had meaning but her feeling was that they were nothing more than a churning of the thoughts and events of the day. Dream analysis was all of a piece with tarot cards, the zodiac and ley lines. Wishful thinking. Not that she would dream of saying so to Leaf. Dear, overweight, dreamy, compassionate Leaf was one of those people whose longing for meaning was so strong and lovely a part of her nature that even their cynical friend Izabel could not bear to do more than poke occasional gentle fun at it.
Anna yawned and turned over to find that she was alone. For just the slightest moment, she felt uneasy. Then she laughed at herself for undoubtedly David had gone to town to get fresh chocolate croissants and papers. These and the coffee that he would brew when he returned were part of their Saturday ritual. He would carry the lot in on the enormous antique tray left to her by her grandmother, complete with a sprig of something from the garden. He had done this the very first Saturday they had awakened together, and he never forgot.
She smiled smugly at the ceiling and told herself as she had done once or twice every day of the three years that she had known him that she was incredibly lucky. It was not until three months after he had been introduced to her at Izabel’s retrospective, and only days before they had married, that Anna discovered that he was almost six years younger than she was. She had been horrified and he had laughed at her, asking how knowing their ages changed anything. Amazingly he seemed not to care at all about the age difference, so they had married and suddenly all those long lonely dispiriting years broken by occasional lovers who did not wait to see her face in the morning light were over. She was now that incredible, dazzling thing: an object of love and desire.
