by Dante Graves
Chapter 24: The Magician & the Star
“Split up on a dark sad night, both agreeing it was best.”
Bob Dylan, “Tangled Up in Blue”
“What’s next?” Pietro’s excited voice echoed in the empty section of an abandoned factory. After the fight with the Judges, the circus had only a couple of trucks, the Galaxie Skyliner, and Ino’s pickup to transport all the mongrels as well as Pietro’s archives. No hotel, not even the most disreputable and avaricious, would agree to provide rooms for such a disheveled group of circus monsters. So they had to choose alternatives, mostly abandoned buildings, preferably big ones. The lack of amenities wasn’t a deal breaker. If they came across something like a neglected factory with a strong roof to shelter them from the rain and walls to protect them from the wind, it was considered good luck. If such a building could be found in less than a day’s journey, it would count as a miracle. The Lazarus Bernardius Circus was like a homeless tramp that had been running around for just a few days, but some of its residents were already exhausted.
“They’ll come after us,” the archivist said.
“They haven’t yet,” Greg said. “And the longer they can’t find our trail, the less they are likely to find us.” Greg did not look up from the fire in a barrel over which tried, in vain, to warm his trembling hands. The weather was warm, but the magician felt frozen. His body, torn by two coexisting minds, suffered new failures every day. They were mostly minor, such as shaking hands, dizziness and headaches, nausea and fatigue. But every morning, Greg woke up feeling weaker than the day before, and he was horrified by what might happen next.
“Eight judges disappeared overnight,” Ino said, her tone of voice cold. “It is unlikely their bosses will not notice. As for the townsfolk, that flash was so bright, the dead could have seen it from their graves.”
“I asked to take care of this,” said Mr. Bernardius. The ringmaster looked like a mummy, wrapped in bandages that had turned pink from the blood that soaked them. Only his eyes, thoughtful and sad, could be seen under the rags. Lazarus still needed the support of one of the ogres to move, but every day, he claimed, more muscle grew. Here and there, new skin already showed through the bandages. Mr. Bernardius applied his own dressings, occasionally requesting assistance from Blanche and Black, but apart from them, no one was admitted to the process, especially Ino, who felt an impulse to help him.
“There won’t be any hype,” Greg said. “We have no Judges on our tail. It’s time to separate me … us.” Greg could not hide the impatience in his voice. “It’s time to find a new body for Martha.”
Greg still called the one who had been Martha by that name, but her real name was Demeter. Demeter, Damate, Ceres, Prthivi, Earth Mother. She’d had dozens of names over the centuries, different names in different cultures. Names that over time people began to forget. The less they remembered her, the less they believed, the more her power waned. And so came the moment when the goddess had to live among mortals. As she continued to lose divinity over time, she needed an avatar—a physical shell—to exist among people.
For centuries she walked the Earth, indistinguishable from a human, and then something happened. Something that Demeter could not remember until now. She did not remember how she became trapped in the body of Martha, or where she was before. She did not remember hundreds of years of her life. Only when she had awakened inside Greg did she realize who she was and who she had been inside Martha. Now she needed a new avatar, a new physical shell. Greg grew weaker every day, and no one knew what would happen to her if he died.
“I have already said that it will not be easy,” Pietro said. He was exhausted. “Finding the right avatar is very difficult. Demeter can take any body. But it’s like with clothes, you know? You can put on any clothes, but you won’t feel comfortable in just anything. It could be too loose or too tight. But you can get rid of clothes that don’t fit. But with an avatar, no.”
“I don’t chase fashion,” growled Greg.
“There’s a problem,” Pietro said. “You’re not a wearer, Greg, you’re a jacket.”
“There must be a way!”
“I didn’t say there wasn’t. I just said that it is not easy to find the appropriate avatar. Not every shell is suitable to instill the goddess into. Albeit, she is not as strong …” said Pietro and then added sheepishly, “as before.”
Lazarus’s voice came from under his bandages. “It’s time to tell us, Pietro.”
“Well,” sighed the archivist. “As I said, not all bodies are suitable for a goddess. Each may have its limitations. It is possible that in the wrong body, she would not be able to use all her strength. Or she could lose a portion of her memory. Or behave differently. I do not know what the consequences might be.”
“Isn’t it written in your books?” Ino asked with a raised eyebrow.
“No, it is not written,” admitted Pietro with irritation. Close proximity with the witch had unnerved the archivist. What unnerved him even more was that she was always looking for any reason to doubt his and his brothers’ knowledge. “In any case, as far as an avatar suitable for Demeter, it depends on many factors. For example, the susceptibility of the physical shell.”
“What does that mean?” Greg asked.
“It means it is impossible to enter some people. They are just not suitable for it. But others are like a ready-made vessel, waiting to be filled.”
“I don’t think Demeter wants to take an appropriate body from just anyone. She does not want to suppress his mind,” Greg muttered.
“That’s clear. I’ve already thought about where to find an avatar in case Demeter wants to show the kind of humanity that’s uncharacteristic of gods,” the archivist said.
“Sounds like you know where to find people who voluntarily give up their minds,” said Lazarus.
“Actually, yes, I do know.” Pietro looked at Ino. “In the nuthouse.”
There was a puzzled silence.
“Where?” Greg asked, disbelief in his voice.
Pietro looked embarrassed. “In hospitals for the mentally ill. As you know, some people in such places complain that they hear voices in their heads, as if someone is talking to them. Not all of them are crazy. Some really talk to … different creatures. For example, to the spirits of the dead lusting for their bodies. But these spirits or ghosts are too weak, so they are only manifested in the form of voices.”
“It’s like a demonic possession,” Lazarus said thoughtfully.
“Overall, it amounts to the same thing. Demon, spirit, goddess—they can all dwell in a man. But not completely. The human personality is always trying to oust its new neighbor. Only very powerful gods and demons can completely suppress the former consciousness. Ghosts and spirits just make it go crazy but are too stupid to realize it. Demons, as we all know, possess people just to have fun. And gods need an avatar—a physical shell—to exist on Earth.”
“So we need to find any mental hospital?” Greg asked. “And we’ll have a lot of options?”
“Oh, no. We need a hospital with the most severe patients. You see, not all doctors believe voices in the head is a serious disease. Almost every twentieth person on the planet sometimes hears voices, but not all of them are clapped in psychiatric hospitals. Only the most seriously ill patients. If the cause of the disease is a ghost or demon, then there is nothing the doctors can do to help, and over the years the patient’s consciousness, exhausted by constant struggles for independence, becomes decrepit. Sooner or later the person loses it and degrades to a vegetable state.” Pietro looked around. “We can borrow the body of one of these patients for Martha.”
“And what about the ghost that lives in it?” Ino asked, clearly wanting to find shortcomings in the archivist’s plan.
“Oh, it’s not a problem!” said the tubby man. “As an archivist, I know how to banish ghosts and demons. But I think that Demeter herself can handle the displacing of the former oppressor.”
“And what will ha
ppen to the person?” Greg asked.
“Nothing. If you choose an avatar of a worst-case patient, he or she won’t feel anything—not the exorcism, not Demeter. His mind, so to speak, has died. It would be like moving into a house that didn’t belong to anyone,” explained the archivist.
“Where do we find the right person?” Ino asked doubtfully.
“It’s not far,” the archivist said. He brightened, feeling everyone’s attention riveted to him. “On my map there is one hospital a few hours away from our temporary, as I hope, home.”
“Will we really find … what we need there?” Greg said, a faint hope in his voice.
“This hospital has been famous for many years for its, shall we say, unusual patients. I think finding a suitable body there will be easy.”
“Then it’s decided,” croaked Bernardius. “Pietro, tomorrow you will hit the road with Greg and Ino. I’ll stay here to look after the rest.”
“Why do we need her?” the archivist said.
“You need someone to take you there. You do not know how to drive, and Greg …” Lazarus paused, and everyone looked at the magician, whose body was trembling, especially his hands. Assessing the state of the fire mage, Pietro said no more.
“Go tomorrow at dawn. Ino, I hope you don’t mind if you go in your car. It is less noticeable on the road.” Lazarus’s voice was dry, and in the dim light, and because of the bandages, Ino could not see Bernardius looking at her.
“Of course,” agreed the witch with a sigh.
Greg was afraid to fall asleep. Since sharing his body with Martha, strange dreams had been hammering him. He dreamed of Martha, about how they made love, and then she would dissolve into his arms and he would be left alone, clutching emptiness. He dreamed about the murders, but he did not see his victims’ faces, but instead looked at himself with their eyes, seeing only anger and darkness. And then the fire would corrode his face from the inside and span the entire world. The most terrible dreams were memories of his own death, with the creepy cave with faces on the walls. That would have become his universe, if she had not saved him.
Martha or Demeter? He struggled to recognize the girl in his dreams, and when he realized, with horror, that he couldn’t, he woke up with heaviness in his chest. Greg was afraid to fall asleep.
Dreams torment you?
“You know they do.”
Soon all will end.
“Yes.”
Are you happy?
“I don’t know.”
Why?
“I don’t know if you will stay.”
I have nowhere to go.
“I do not know if I want you to stay.”
Why?
“Because of you, I think Martha is still around. That she’s not dead, and will return one day.”
She’s not dead, she lives in me.
“Sounds like a line from a cheap romantic comedy.”
Her memories, her emotions—all of them are in me.
“This is the problem. She is you. But you’re not her. Every day I speak with you and don’t know who I’m talking to. It’s driving me crazy.”
Greg, her love for you has set me free.
“Hers?”
I do not understand.
“Martha wasn’t demionis. She was a human. And when you took her body, she became something more. And I loved her, what she was with you. And now she’s dead, and all I have left of her is you. And I don’t know what part of you I loved as Martha, and if there’s still a part of you that loves me.”
You don’t want me to leave you?
“Devil’s fuck, I don’t know! While you’re inside, it seems to me that she is there, she’s with me. But what happens when you get a new body?”
You can live a normal life, control your own body.
“Yes, yes, but I will no longer have her. All her memories, her emotions, they will be with you in another body.”
If I remain in you, Greg, you will die. And what will happen to me is unknown. Perhaps I will disappear. I’m not as strong as I was a thousand years ago.
“I understand.”
Then we both have only one hope.
When the sun rose, almost all the members of the circus slept under the roof of an abandoned factory. Only Lazarus, relying on help from one of the ogre brothers, came to say goodbye to Greg, Pietro, and Ino.
“I don’t like long goodbyes. Especially because I hope to see you again within one day, maybe two. Four of you.”
“Don’t worry, Mr. Bernardius. Everything will be fine,” Pietro promised.
“I have no doubt, my friend.” He turned to Ino. “Please do not tease him. Safe trip.”
During the first hour on the road, a heavy silence hung over the car. The archivist was studying a folio he had brought with him, and Greg looked gloomily out the window. They rode to some lonely spot that, with drizzle and the gray light of an overcast morning, seemed even more forbidding. Ino, sitting behind the wheel, decided to break the silence.
“I always knew the girl was special,” said the witch, looking at Greg in the front mirror. “Everyone felt close to her in a special way.”
Greg looked at Ino and said nothing.
“Demeter, as a witch, I always believed in you—in nature, in the Earth, the planet itself, more than in God or the Devil,” Ino said with fervor, for which she got an indignant look from Pietro. The archivist looked like an old lady, in front of which there was something obscene.
“She is grateful to you,” said Greg for the goddess. “Thanks to those like you, she’s still alive. Albeit weak.”
The witch looked back at Greg in the mirror, her eyes shining like those of a girl who admired an elder sister or a close friend.
“I wanted to ask you something else,” Ino began hesitantly. “I’ve always believed, if not in Demeter herself, but in all that she represents—the ground, trees, nature. And if you’re looking for a new body for her …”
The witch did not have time to finish. Greg’s face ceased to express any emotion, and when he spoke, his mouth poured out a deep and melodic female voice in the ancient language. The witch listened attentively, in a vain attempt to understand the words of the goddess.
“What did she say?” she reluctantly asked a giggling Pietro.
“I must say, I would not refuse to look at it!” chuckled the archivist until Ino punched him in the shoulder.
“Oh!” Pietro exclaimed in surprise.
“Just translate it,” Ino hissed.
“She said she would not take your body.”
“But I give it voluntarily!”
“That’s not the reason. For a god to feel comfortable in an avatar, he must oust the old personality. Only your physical body would remain. For your friends, relatives, and loved ones, you would be dead, and your personality would not come back to you, even if the god decides to leave the avatar. So, according to Demeter, to my regret, what you suggest is not a gift but your own suicide. So she must decline your offer.” Pietro looked amused.
“Maybe it’s better just to watch the road,” suggested Greg irritably. And Ino and Pietro shamefacedly hushed up.
They continued to drive in almost complete silence till evening. The landscape outside the window was so dull, plain, and monotonous that Greg began to think they were on another planet, where even the trees and oncoming cars were considered a curiosity. They drove according to Pietro’s instructions, and the archivist swore as he checked an old crumpled map covered with creases.
“How old is that shit?” snapped Ino. “We’re already lost.”
“This was issued in 1947,” Pietro, stung, had to admit. “Perhaps there are no new roads. But we only need the old ones.”
The archivist and the witch continued debating the need for new maps, until Greg, who was paying more attention to the road than to his squabbling friends, tapped on the window.
“There,” the magician said, pointing to a silhouette away from the road. Against the evening sky above the thick tree
s, two tall spires were clearly visible.
“This is it!” the archivist squealed happily, and Ino, with relief, drove to where Greg pointed.
“At one time, this hospital was one of the most advanced,” Pietro said. “Here experimental and sometimes extreme methods of treatment were used—hydrotherapy, insulin therapy, lobotomies, and LSD.”
Ino looked horrified. “Treatment? Some would call it torture!”
Turning off the road, they moved onto a wide dirt track that looped through the trees. Greg frowned at the litter covering the road. Here and there lay empty bags of chips, beer cans, paper, and plastic bags.
“They don’t try hard to impress new guests,” Ino said with a smile, glancing at the archivist.
“Pietro, are you sure this is the place we’re looking for?” Greg asked.
“Yes,” the tubby man drawled, but he seemed uncertain. “This is it.”
When the car rounded the last turn, all doubts were dispelled.
A cinder path led through a wide lawn with flowerbeds and rickety benches to a long five-story building with two wings crowned with the spires Greg had noticed from the road. The third spire, shorter than the other two, towered above the arch in the middle of the main entrance, decorated with a clock with twisted hands. Piles of garbage spotted the lawn even more frequently than on the driveway to the building. Red brick walls were covered with obscenities and the names of bands, and some of the building’s wide rectangular windows were completely devoid of glass.
“It doesn’t appear that the hospital is still operating,” Greg murmured. In his voice were fatigue, disappointment, and shock.
“Damn it, if not for Lazarus’s ban on all electrical devices, we could have Googled it first,” Ino lamented.
Pietro looked like a child whose Christmas gift had been snatched away from under his nose. “This can’t be,” he whispered.
“We can at least inspect the building,” suggested Greg.
“And what’re you gonna find in this dump?” Ino snapped.
From inside the building, they heard voices, glass crunching, and the sound of crashing. A moment later, a company of teens tumbled onto the porch, choking with laughter. They did not immediately notice Greg and the others, and when Ino got their attention by loudly clearing her throat, the teens almost jumped.
“Hi,” the witch said cheerfully and waved.
“Ahem, hello,” said a shaggy boy about 19 years old, the eldest in the company.
“What are you doing here?” Ino asked, maintaining her cheerful tone.
A ginger-haired girl standing behind the boy was about to reply, but the shaggy hair spoke first.
“We don’t have to answer them, they’re not cops,” hissed shaggy to his girlfriend. Three other teenagers, two boys and a girl, heard the eldest’s whisper and relaxed a bit.
“No, we’re not cops,” said Ino. “We were just driving past and wanted to see the house.”
One of the guys nodded toward Greg, who was pale and kept his hands under his armpits to stop shivering. “Yeah, yeah. A lot of guys like him strolling around.”
Ino did not understand. “Like him?”
“What’s wrong with you, mumsie? Like this doper.” The teen nodded again and pointed to Greg. “Since the hospital closed, they gather here. Come here to shoot up, so no one sees.”
“It was closed a long time ago?” asked Pietro.
The shaggy hair looked at the archivist as if trying to decide if he was worthy of a response.
“Fourteen years ago,” said the girl behind the shaggy one, and got a disapproving look from her boyfriend.
“What did they do with the patients?” Greg asked.
“Some were discharged, others were sent to other psychiatric hospitals,” said the second girl.
“There’s one left,” mumbled the redhead.
“Left? Here?” Greg asked doubtfully.
“Yes, some crazy Indian,” said one of the guys, grinning. “They say he was discharged, but he kept coming back here.”
“Right here, in the ruins?” Ino asked.
“Yeah,” said the shaggy one. “He says that the voices in his head told him to come back.”
Pietro brightened like a child who was promised to get his Christmas gift back. “Voices?”
“Yes, he’s crazy. They say there were a lot like him here, crazy people hearing voices.”
“A dime a dozen,” confirmed the second girl.
“You said the Indian says—not said—that he had a voice in his head. So is he still alive?” Greg asked the eldest kid.
“And kicking. We see him every time we come here.”
Greg and Ino tried not to show their surprise, and Pietro turned his head, looking from the witch to the magician and back, as if expecting that they would embrace him and thank him profusely.
“You probably have to go home, kids,” said Ino playfully.
“You’re not our mother,” shaggy said defiantly.
The five teenagers remained on the porch for a few moments, as if implying that they would go home when they saw fit, and then hesitantly went down the porch steps.
“Hey, guys. Anyone else here?” Ino asked them.
“No one. Only that Indian,” said the redheaded girl.
“Well, nice,” Ino said. “Here’s something for you to brighten the way home.” The witch found a bottle with bright red liquid and threw it to the shaggy, who caught it on the fly. The teens surrounded their leader, whispering, trying to figure out what the stranger had given him, and then they went away, occasionally turning back to look at Ino and the others.
“Not sure they’re allowed to drink alcohol,” said Greg, after the teens disappeared around the bend of the road.
“It’s not alcohol, my boy. But tomorrow they will not remember anything about tonight. We do not want them to gab, eh?” retorted Ino.
“Let’s just find this Indian,” said Pietro.
On the inside, the abandoned asylum looked as unwelcome as it did from the outside. Graffiti adorned even the lofty ceilings, and Greg could not imagine what tricks teenagers used to climb so high. The wide ground floor lobby was covered with fragments of leather chairs, and in the center was an old piano, the keys of which were stuck to each other. In general, the inside of the asylum was more like an expensive hotel of the early 40s than an ugly place for using experimental treatment techniques on humans.
“Yes, looks can be deceptive,” mused Pietro, as if reading Greg’s thoughts.
Grim silence reigned in the building, except for broken tiles and shards of glass crunching underfoot. Greg and the others inspected several single wards that resembled rooms in a hotel, with a separate shower, bed, and table and even a mirror. The also checked the rows of general wards, decorated with tiles and looking more like a morgue than a living space for people. Some of the beds in those wards had wide leather straps for restraining particularly violent patients. Some had been cut off, and Ino mused that local teenagers had taken them as souvenirs.
“I thought these kinds of beds only existed in horror films,” muttered Greg. His condition was deteriorating faster than anyone expected.
“Okay, enough enjoying the sights, let’s find this Indian,” Ino said, her voice full of determination.
They had examined more than half of the asylum when Petro stepped on a pile of newspapers and was not able to pull his leg back.
“Seems someone’s holding me,” the archivist whispered to Greg and Ino.
“She has come,” a voice croaked in a hoarse whisper. “She has come.”
“Did you hear that?” Pietro asked, looking as if he was on the verge of death. “That otherworldly voice!”
“Drunk voice,” Greg said, exchanging glances with Ino.
The witch went to where the archivist stood and kicked the pile of newspapers. The voice uttered a groan, and the one to whom it belonged was forced to release Pietro’s leg. The archivist hurried away.
Ino scattered
the newspapers, revealing a ragged old man in tattered denim jacket lined with artificial fur. He had long matted gray hair and a scruffy beard of the same color, and the parts of his face that were visible bore a network of deep wrinkles. He stared at them from dark, deep-set, crazy eyes. “Looks like we found him,” the witch said. She and Pietro looked at Greg.
“She has come,” the graybeard said in a gravelly voice.
“Exactly what we need,” Pietro said. His fear seemed to have evaporated, and the archivist was as jolly as usual.
“Whatever gave you that idea?” said Ino, disgustedly looking at the man under the newspapers.
“He’s not just crazy. Look! What is inside this man reaches for Greg, I mean Demeter. He can feel it!”
“Are you suggesting that Demeter has to take this body?” Greg said, clearly at a loss.
“Is there a choice? In any case, we will save you, and Demeter will have a new avatar,” said Pietro. “Then we will find a more suitable option.”
“Are you sure that his mind …”
“I’m sure,” the archivist said, interrupting Greg. “Look at him. This is just a shell, in which lives some vicarious spirit.”
“Well, OK,” Greg said. “Let’s bring him into a room.”
“Why?” wondered Pietro.
“I think the change of bodies is a rather intimate process, is it not? Could you leave us alone at this time?” Greg almost hissed the words in the face of the stunned archivist.
“Yes, perhaps you’re right,” said Pietro. “Let’s find a cleaner ward.”
A cleaner chamber was not easy to find, but they finally found one that was less messy than the others. The room had probably been something like a suite in a hotel. The walls still had wood paneling in some places, and the floor was decorated with carpet worn to tatters. In the center was a large bed with a greasy mattress too small for the frame and box spring.
“I think I know why the local teens did not break this bed,” said Pietro with a chuckle as he led the madman to the bed. Ino nudged him in the ribs, and Greg shot him an angry glance.
“Wait outside,” Greg said, sitting down on a chair next to the bed.
“Are you ready?”
You know I am.
“This body…”
This is temporary.
Standing outside the ward, Ino and Pietro were waiting to hear the sound of screaming, expecting to see some kind of magnificent radiance (the archivist argued that it should be blue, the witch thought gold). But in the end everything was far less spectacular than both had imagined. There was a clap, a sound like a gust of wind, another clap, and then they heard two male voices behind the door. One belonged to Greg, and it was sad. The second was the hoarse voice of the Indian, trying to console him. The archivist could not wait to see how it had gone, but Ino did not let him inside, catching his hand as he reached for the door handle. They waited for half an hour, hearing two quiet voices, sad and consoling.
And then the door opened.
Greg left the room with the Indian. The Indian stood straight, without slouching, and they saw that he was almost as tall as Bernardius, but much broader in the shoulders. His eyes were no longer crazy, but reflected a clear mind. Standing near the Indian, Ino and Pietro felt the same way they had when they stood close to Martha. They felt peace, forgiveness, hope. He spoke, and although his voice was hoarse, it had confidence and strength. And relief.
“I swallowed the memories of that man,” said Demeter. “He knew where I could find a proper avatar.”
To be continued …
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