Damon Ich (The Wheel of Eight Book 2)

by Aaron D. Key

  “It was a coincidence,” I said. “Although it’s strange you had that thought. I was wondering myself whether Peter had conjured up your journey to make sure I was not alone.” I wondered why I was thinking such unkind and peculiar thoughts about my host and even more so why was I admitting them out loud to his relatives. At least Maone had some reason to think that Peter might be nervous about leaving her alone. I had no reason and there was nothing in his manner or actions to make me believe he needed to control my life as my paranoid thoughts were suggesting.

  “I’m glad he trusted me. I have been so ill, I do not know if Peter told you. Now I feel better I can see that I must have been a burden to him, but he has taken such good care of me I was worried that he wouldn’t be able to let go now I am almost cured. Aileen is so keen to get rid of me. I can understand her point of view.”

  “He did say that the stress of your job had got too much for you and that you were here for a complete break. I’m glad it’s working for you,” I said, trying to sound detached. She had been giving me the impression that she felt warmly towards me but in an unusual way: in spite of the fact that I was fairly confident she was younger than me, in the manner of a spinster aunt loving an errant nephew. Still, I did not wish to excite any other feelings and I did not know what she had been told about me, or even what Peter knew or thought about me. Despite my experience with McGregor, and my resolution to not be ashamed again, I had never quite found the ideal moment to mention the fact I was gay.

  “I didn’t tell Peter what it was that pushed me over the edge,” Maone said, unexpectedly. “Sometimes I find it hard to talk to him. I think so highly of him that I fear he will be disappointed if I tell him what I am really like. I hope you don’t mind but you don’t inspire the same fear. I think of you as a fellow sufferer. It’s true that my job was getting on top of me. I worked in the same organisation as Peter. It was hard work; frustrating and unrewarding except for the knowledge that I was helping people. I was getting lonelier with every passing year. Then one day I had the fortune, at least I thought so then, to help a young man. He was beautiful, nothing at all like you except for that look in your eyes you have sometimes: the ‘sod the world and leave me alone’ look, I like to call it, which I find attractive. He convinced me quickly that he loved me, and I loved him as completely as only someone who had always been alone could. Then he left with no explanation, no farewell: left me soulless and destitute. I wanted to die. I saw no point in going back to the stone-cold nothingness of my life and I tried to kill myself. Peter stopped me and made me promise to wait another year before I decided if I really wanted to die. He brought me back here and I have gradually been feeling that part of my life fading away until now I can’t even understand why I wanted to die. I even find myself despising my state of mind, as if I was not enough just because another mortal did not love me. But Peter said that I could not help it, that I was ill. Just sometimes I remember the young man’s face and the pain reminds me like the crack of a whip, so I have learned to not think of him. He is so far away from me now that it gets easier every day.

  “Anyway, I meant to say I don’t think of you in that way, in spite of that look you share with him in your eyes. I know that your heart is reserved elsewhere.”

  What a strange way of putting it, I thought, but relief made me feel as if I had dropped a waistcoat of chainmail. I wondered what Peter had told her – without ever discussing that part of my life with me.

  At least I understood Maone’s secret now: a faithless lover and a broken heart. I was glad for her sake that Peter’s bargain and cure had worked.

  “I think this is it,” Maone said after a few minutes of silence. She steered the boat to the edge of the river near to the forest edge. At this point a mooring platform seemed to appear out of the darkness.

  “Just a little walk now,” Maone said after securing the boat and gathering her possessions.

  The forest appeared to have a dual personality. With one half of my mind, I saw it: dark, forbidding, almost impassable; but with the other civilised part of my mind, I saw the path and sunlight drifting through the branches picking up floating debris that sparkled like snowflakes.

  We emerged from the cover of the trees to a typical country scene. A field, and in a corner, next to an old wooden gate with rusted hinges and a lock made from pieces of old orange string, was the Land Rover I remembered travelling in before. Yet I felt a twitch in my eye, and when I looked up I saw it: a shimmering pink line of heat, a gangrenous sky above. When I looked again I saw green fields, rolling hills, and large clinically white clouds in a pale blue sky. I looked questioningly at Maone to see if she noticed anything strange. She smiled back nervously.

  “Would you like to drive?” she asked me. “I’m out of practice.”

  I looked again, trying not to focus too hard this time, and there it was again: a wall, a gateway, and through the gateway endless sands with a path stretching to the horizon. Then with a snap of elastic, green fields and rolling hills.

  And then I knew … or at least I suspected … something.

  “Maone, are we really in Scotland?”

  “Don’t be silly! Where else would we be? Come on, I want to visit those Scottish shops.”

  I had no doubt once I was sat in the Land Rover that Scotland was where I was. We started to see other houses, even small villages, signposts, electricity cables, and telegraph poles. All the things I had missed without really noticing their absence. We drove for half an hour and then found ourselves in a town with a good range of shops. We arranged to meet later for lunch and went our own way. I bought the things I needed quickly and some things I hadn’t realised I needed until I saw them on the shelves. I spent the rest of the morning drinking coffee and exploring. I bought a newspaper just to the check the date and that the news was relevant. I made conversation with strangers just to make sure they were really Scottish and not aliens pretending. No paranoia at all, I mocked myself.

  Over a coffee, I pondered what it was I thought I had discovered for a brief second before common sense had reasserted itself. I thought I had been living in Herron and that I had just travelled the route to the desert wall. It would explain many things: the peculiarity of the weather, the remote nature of the place, its similarity to Herron – which I suddenly realised had never really struck me before, as if I had been walking around with blinkers on. I may have briefly thought this place was something like Herron, a place I thought only existed in my head, but now, removed from the influence that had been fogging my perception, it was blindingly obvious that it was as identical as it was possible to be to a dream, a vision. The very fact of my not realising this was another indication that all was not as it should be. And why would I see an unnatural desert in Scotland? It was beyond belief. The only explanations: madness, or I had been living in an alien world for months without realising it. I did not feel mad. In fact, I felt better than I had done for at least a year, more whole, more truly myself.

  My slow brain could not work it out, so it stored the thought away like a squirrel with winter food waiting for the right time to eat and digest it.

  When we met for lunch I knew that I appeared distracted, as Maone made great efforts to appear amusing and happy – although some of this was because she really had had an enjoyable time, I gathered, as she told me happily about her purchases.

  It was time to head home again. I drove and Maone directed me until we reached the same field. She jumped out to shut the gate behind us, but Peter was there first. Maone ran over as if genuinely pleased to see him, which was unusual. They got along fine but without great warmth, like work colleagues who respected each other but kept a little distance. I thought this a sensible policy, as Maone knew that Aileen regarded her with suspicion. This time it seemed to be the pleasure of relief that she would not have to steer the boat back herself. They made casual conversation in the manner of people avoiding an important po
int that needed discussion but which would cause conflict. I took a step back waiting, watching for the moment we transported, but I saw nothing. I looked in the direction I thought I had seen the desert but nothing was there now. Only what an unsuspicious man would expect to see. Peter was watching me with a quizzical expression.

  “Are you OK?” he asked. “You seem out of it.”

  His voice brought me back to a sense of reality. I understood what Maone said. How it was possible to love him, be prepared to trust your life to his care, and know that all was as right as it could be when he was there and yet still not feel able to tell him all your niggling thoughts in case it made him think less of you.

  I wanted to say to him, “I am worried I am going mad. I keep seeing things that are not there and imagining that everyone around me is in a conspiracy to keep me in an alien place without my knowledge” – but I could not. I shrugged and said nothing. When they thought I was not looking, Peter and Maone exchanged a completely blank look that spoke volumes. He was here to rescue her, I realised, from a situation she felt was out of her control, and presumably that situation was me. There I went again, paranoia abounding. The journey back was uneventful. Although there had been no evident leap from one world to another, the whole trip was a less forbidding experience. It was not too obvious but the river was shallower, more limpid shades of green and blue, less blackness and foam. The trees were shorter than they had been, and greener again. Dark shadows between the trees were now views into dappled clearings. Nothing I was seeing could be relied on to be real. I had no way of placing myself: a drifting mote in the sunlight. I was without an anchor and had no other choice than to enjoy the journey. Tiredness overtook me as I tried to get comfortable on the hard wooden seat. My head began to drop with every vibration of the engine.

  * * *

  This was the day, I had decided. I made my way with solemn intent to the small mound with its encircling blood berry trees and entered the circle made by their branches. I stood on the top for a while, looking at my homeland and wondering why I loved it so much. Empty and cold-hearted it seemed to be – for in it nobody loved me. Even worse, although I loved the land, I loved no person in it. Not even the child whose life had been my responsibility for thirteen years. I was cold like a statue and I didn’t know why, unless it was that my heart was really made of stone.

  Yet I had worked for years, using every ounce of energy that I possessed, to help other people. I believed a long time ago that this would make up for being cold; that this would provide me with the place among humanity I wanted. Now I was no longer sure. I had been tricked and discarded like a worthless doll. This was all I deserved.

  I pondered on the child, ashamed of the bloodless way he had been raised, at least on my part. Yet he was not a fool, I had achieved that much.

  I had never told the child about his origins in case this would cause the sort of problems that had been hinted at when he was given to me: problems of causality, of broken time. I had been left in the dark and could only do what I thought was best and hope. Fortunately, the child asked no questions. He seemed to accept that he belonged as much as everyone else and probably more than me. Now he was approaching manhood, I was no longer needed. He could take over my work, and I, at last, could rest.

  There were so many things I could convince myself I needed to tell him. So many things. I didn’t even know if he was capable of understanding them or not. He was so young. How could he understand suffering and hopelessness if he had never suffered? I had trained him in the use of the power. He knew how to use it in a way that would ensure his safety, but how could I ever ensure that he would not abuse it to the detriment of anyone else? It was an impossible task with a child. I half wished that I would be around to see the sort of man he would turn out to be, but not enough to make it so.

  I lay down in the centre of the trees and folded my arms across my chest. I had a sudden memory that a man I admired very much from my past said that I should look for him at the end. Did he mean this end? Did he even mean in this layer of life? I could not ponder it too long. I had to be swift or I would lose my courage and face an eternity of the same dull, dead existence. I concentrated on my stone heart and the black despair inside it. Despair not for what had already been but for the road that still lay ahead of me. I began to play games with my heartbeat – refusing to let it beat at all. Thinking of the years of loneliness that were still to come … beat and the sound of silence. Beat … and the need to breathe was almost forgotten. Beat … and then there was silence, and cold nothing. Beautiful cold nothing, like the feel of damp stone on a fevered forehead, but then …

  … beat, beat, beat …

  “I told you to wait for me,” a voice said testily. Looking up drearily, I saw it was Rael, my great, great grandfather – the only man I still admired.

  “You’re not a coward. You can’t take this way out. I have a job I need you to do, and I know you’ll be capable of it.”

  I raised my head and looked around me. Rael was standing at the edge of the mound just inside the circle made by the trees. He looked like an angel draped in foliage instead of wings. He also looked harassed, as if he had rushed to get to me. I wondered why, thinking he had all the time in the world. Why would he need to rush?

  “But I can’t carry on,” I wailed. “It has worn me out and sucked me dry.”

  “You are ill and you need to rest, that is all. You can say goodbye to this life if you want. The task I have for you is a long way from here and will wait for you to recover. I hope that you will consider it a reward for all you have done for me rather than another burden.”

  I was too tired to argue or even to ask questions. Bowing my head, I let him take me where he would.

  * * *

  I woke to find my head resting on the hard rim of the boat and jolted upright. Both Maone and Peter were looking at me with amusement.

  “Shopping’s worn you out,” Maone said.

  We returned for dinner with Yan and Aileen. In spite of everyone attempting to look cheerful, Aileen looked stricken, as if she had spent hours crying. After dinner, Peter, Yan, and I went to see the completed moat. It was beginning to be planted and filled with stone and water. It was starting to look something like my imagination and Maone’s sketches. I knew that, paranoid or not, Scotland or some other place, this was where I had done my best work.

  Afterwards, we went to the lake and gave Yan another swimming lesson. Peter took him to bed, leaving me to complete my target distance in peace and quiet. The sun had set by the time I made it back to the shore and it was beginning to get dark. The sauna’s fire wasn’t prepared so I made my way back to my room quickly for a warm drink and dry clothes. I intended to spend some time thinking about my situation but sleep overtook me.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  A New Resolve and a Revelation

  The next morning, I woke with a new resolve. I needed to establish if I was mad, and if I was, I would endeavour to get help. This was something I had always resisted, thinking better madness in self rather than enforced sanity in a conformed shell. Yet things were getting beyond manageable – unless, of course, all my paranoia was justified. I intended to spend the day talking to all the residents and workers I met. I knew that very few of them were Scottish, but as to where they had come from, they had always been reticent. As I had noticed before, they were generally friendly and welcoming but not at all forthcoming about their life stories. I intended to challenge this today with my limited skills at conversation.

  I was beginning to run out of enthusiasm by lunchtime as all my subtle attempts to elicit information had been delicately bypassed, for the most part so courteously that I admired their technique.

  I was eating quietly in a picnic style on the outskirts of the moat along with many of the other gardeners and some people who had been working in the field. I had not given up my quest, but I was at a loss as to wha
t my next move should be.

  “So where were you yesterday?” I was asked as a newcomer sat down next to me with a hefty roll and a mug. His name was Gerard, I knew, but this was all I knew. He had always appeared to be a quiet and unobtrusive person. This was a slight improvement. It was rare for people here to show any curiosity about anything outside of their normal lives.

  “I went shopping,” I answered cheerfully. It was not that I had a specific number of hours a week I had to work but I knew people had begun to expect me to be always there as I rarely took a break. My work was my main interest too, and I was happiest in the garden: digging up weeds, planting or planning, or any other job that needed doing. There were very few distractions to take my mind off the garden.

  “I can see you have a new pair of those blue trousers that Peter’s taken to wearing recently. They look hardwearing.”

  I was wearing jeans and I couldn’t even begin to imagine what sort of person would find these a matter of curiosity. In the interest of moving on, I didn’t make an issue of it but agreed that they were.

  “Well, we’ve almost finished planting the fruit trees and putting the spring’s lion head in place.”

  I was trying to make the central courtyard of the garden as like Herron as I could remember it. A beautiful stone basin was apparently easily found but the lion’s head had taken a little bit longer to create. When I had first arrived here, I had imagined the garden with this feature in place in a dream. I knew it had to be there. The fact it wasn’t was a reassurance that I wasn’t in Herron.

  “Is it working yet?” I asked, excited to see it.

  “Well, it wasn’t this morning. Someone’s installing it now.”

  “Brilliant. I’ll go and look after lunch. So how long have you been living here?” I asked, trying hard to make it sound like a casual question.