The Two

by Will Carver

  The circle of tiny flames illuminates to my left, where I expect the boy to be standing, shifting the dust around his feet as he jigs from side to side. But he is not there. A pile of clothes lie neatly folded in the centre.

  To my right, the same.

  Light. A circle. A pile of neatly folded clothes.

  My eyes dart about the blackness in a futile attempt to discover their whereabouts.

  The pile on the right begins to move as if something is trying to escape from beneath.

  I’m frightened to focus.

  Afraid to look around.

  Then, from the front of the pile of folded clothes where the girl should be standing, a snake appears. It isn’t huge but it’s still a snake. It slides out fully from underneath the garments and begins to circle them.

  From above, a drop of liquid falls onto the centre of the clothes. Then another. Then a third, larger drop. I can’t see where they’re coming from; above is as black as beyond.

  The drops start to form a trickle. A white trickle.

  Like milk.

  The trickle soon becomes a gush, which bounces off the top of the pile, droplets hitting the snake who continues to circle.

  I take a quick glimpse to my left but nothing has changed.

  When I look back, the gush of milk has grown to a waterfall and the reptile forms a track behind him, where the liquid grows thicker on the floor. Splashes start to hit the candles. One of the candles flickers and dies, and the snake escapes through the dark breach.

  I follow his track as he moves swiftly to the other circle and disappears under the dry mound of trousers and T-shirts.

  The pile ignites instantly into a healthy blaze.

  I hear someone call my name.

  ‘Jan?’

  I look behind me.

  Black.

  Back to the front, the milk still pouring, the fire now wildly out of control.

  ‘January?’ the voice says again.

  Then white.

  ‘JAN!’ he shouts.

  Then blue …

  And I’m back in the office, the light on the van rotating. Almost no time has passed.

  I release the grip on my mug as the sound of Paulson shouting my name from behind me brings me back to reality too early. The handle breaks on the floor and a crack forms down one side of the giant cup.

  ‘Fuck,’ I say, clearly unnerved. ‘What are you doing sneaking up on me like that? Jesus.’ I squat down to pick up the broken pieces.

  ‘I forgot something.’ He bends down and fumbles in his top drawer. I don’t ask him what he has forgotten. ‘Where were you just now?’

  I was busy getting clues to the next murder, which I now know must occur tomorrow, yet, unlike last time, I don’t have any idea where it will be or how it will be performed – fire, flood, poison? There wasn’t enough time.

  So, whoever the victim is, they are certain to die before I get there.

  I need to get back to that place. To my trance.

  I need to get to sleep.

  The vision itself won’t help me solve the case but it gives me a head-start on the perpetrator. I know before they do.

  ‘Just thinking about the case,’ I lie.

  He pulls a pack of cigarettes from the mess inside his drawer and smiles as he presents his findings with a relieved sigh.

  ‘Sure you don’t want me to stay?’ he asks, fidgeting, awkward.

  ‘I’ll be fine. You get off,’ I say, absent-mindedly flicking through the wad of paper that he printed off the Internet. ‘I won’t be much longer anyway. Might just take these home.’

  Paulson skulks out of the office, no doubt to unwind with some late-night gambling or to drop down a dark stairwell into one of his members’ clubs that you won’t find in any London guidebooks.

  And I head back to execute my master plan.

  Sleep.

  Finish the vision.

  Obtain the information needed to solve the case.

  But that would be too easy, so of course it doesn’t work.

  I fail again.

  I need help.

  I need a Wiccan.

  To explain these rituals.

  To unravel these visions.

  Celeste

  WINTER IS SLOWLY loosening its grip and the days are growing longer. I plant some seeds in the flower box outside my window. This is a time that represents growth.

  But later today, another will die.

  They have to.

  I meditate, closing myself off from the city around me, immersing myself in another world, another time and place. A time of misery and desperation, a place where an old man is stabbed through his broken heart and a woman is impaled in her cancerous stomach.

  I focus on the rituals. The flames from the candles burning brightly as their souls move on.

  They didn’t know it at the time but I was saving them.

  I sent them to a better place.

  As I gradually filter out the dirt and scent of the exhaust fumes, the noise of vehicles revving and beeping with frustration, the constant hum of voices talking endless clichés and insincerities, I move ever nearer the white, the blankness I require to attain my next location.

  To find out who needs me next.

  With my mind clear, I begin the journey. My legs crossed and palms facing down, resting on my knees, my body remains motionless as my consciousness travels through the light at warp speed. A crossroad passes beneath my feet, then another, then another. I smell the grass, hear the trees blowing in the cold February wind. Another set of intersecting paths travels below me.

  I sense the moisture and come to an abrupt halt as a wall of noise smacks me in the face. My eyes flit open, the noise from my travels now bleeding back into the murmur of reality outside.

  I know where I must be. I can decipher my intuition.

  But I won’t know who I am there for until I arrive.

  I do not need to stalk the hallways of the hospitals or aisles of the churches searching for desperation; it is always there. I just need to turn up. I can find the next victim when I arrive.

  The nearest tube is Marble Arch on the Central Line, but I get off at Hyde Park Corner on the Piccadilly Line so that I can walk through the park. The bag over my shoulder contains everything I need, and is heavier than usual.

  Crossing the road onto the central island, I am temporarily ambivalent about which way to walk. The park is huge, things look the same to the left as they do to the right; grey skies above, trees lining the roads and many intersecting paths. I find myself next to a sign that reads: ‘You are here.’ A red arrow points to the spot I currently occupy. A man about my age peruses the map next to me. He turns his head to say something arbitrary but instead just smiles, lifts his eyebrows as if to say ‘Who knows?, then goes back to deciphering the shades of green on the board in front of us.

  I notice that a path runs parallel to Park Lane and takes me around to the next corner.

  That’s the way I need to go.

  It’s where I’m supposed to be if I am to save another person.

  I just know it.

  Of course, they must die first, that is their fate; I cannot argue with that, another must end life on their knees. They will not thank me for what I do to them on this plane of existence, but they will realise in the next that I kept them out of an eternity in hell.

  At that point, they can bless me.

  It starts to rain. Nothing heavy. That light rain that you sometimes don’t notice; it’s not worth putting up a hood or opening an umbrella. It’ll pass. By the time my foot touches the path I should be on, it has either stopped or I’ve just forgotten about it.

  Ahead, I see a fountain. I could walk around the left-hand side; I could use the right. To the left, two young girls, seventeen or eighteen, are sitting on the stone ridge around the water. They are flicking their hair and talking as if they are chewing gum even though they are not. At first I don’t notice the boy behind the home-video camera adjusting his tripod
.

  I choose the path to the left.

  Intrigue diverts me.

  The girls stop talking as I approach; the boy pretends he isn’t there, thinking that, if he is perfectly still, I won’t be able to see him. We’re suspicious of each other. Perhaps it is a mistake to make my face memorable, to create a witness.

  But, whatever they are doing, whatever they are creating, they don’t want me to remember them either.

  I walk past this filmic enigma and round the opposite end of the fountain, back on path.

  I’m almost where I need to be.

  I can feel myself being drawn forwards.

  My pace increases. It’s not excitement but it’s something close. It’s not anxiety either.

  The end of the path is cut off with a red and white tape as part of the ground is under repair. I step out onto the cycle path, ducking under the tape, and in my haste I’m almost run down by a gaggle of joggers.

  In the distance I see crowds forming. Separate masses around each independent orator. They are still too far away for me to hear what any of them are talking about. People queue to buy coffee from the stand to drink while they listen. In the background a team of rugby players, dressed in black and red, run some drills, oblivious to what is happening right next to them.

  What is about to happen.

  One girl stands on a box, her blond hair as grey as the English sky; she gesticulates passionately to a gathering of two, who swiftly move on to the next spokesperson.

  I smile in recognition.

  It’s her.

  I’m just in time.

  Talitha

  I’M NOT NERVOUS about speaking in front of people, not even this many. I’ve done it before. But it’s busier than usual today and the things I have to say seem to be too positive to care about.

  Nobody wants to hear optimism.

  Buoyancy is boring.

  Twenty feet to my right, two men are tag-teaming a speech about the size of their penises. Apparently they think they are rather small. I don’t know whether this is self-deprecating humour or whether they have a genuine affliction they wish to share, perhaps empowering other less-endowed men to embrace their lack of penile provision.

  Whatever their motives, they are drawing the largest crowd.

  I can’t hear what the woman over the back is talking about, but she appears to be confusing gesticulation with passion.

  I tell no people that they should feel privileged.

  No crowd hears me say that life is for living.

  I say purely to myself that each day is a blessing.

  Then a man pronounces that his pubic hair is longer than his dick.

  Fifteen people laugh.

  I feel deflated. An elderly gentleman, too decrepit to climb on top of his soapbox, preaches the value of art. He quotes Nietzsche and two people listen. He coughs up phlegm and another joins his audience.

  ‘Are you in yet?’ a man cackles, and his spectators obligingly react with reverence.

  I sigh as three men in their twenties buy a coffee from the stand and make their way over to the tiny dicks and their routine. I try again, ‘I’m going to die.’ Raising my voice is meant to attract more attention. I’m trying to shock.

  It makes me look spoiled. Like I’m here just because I need the attention.

  That’s not why I’m here.

  My eyes follow them as they each blow air into the small hole in the lid of their drinks that were probably only bought as hand-warmers. I start to listen to the schlong twins myself, not noticing the woman in the distance whose intent is clear. Her aim is direct.

  She is closing in.

  I shout across at the idiot horde, ‘Size does matter.’ Thinking I’m clever. But still, nobody notices, like I’m invisible. And now I’ve just ensured that my final words on earth are ‘Size does matter.’ Thank God nobody is listening to me.

  I don’t even see Celeste picking up her pace, darting straight for me. We are both unseen.

  Nobody’s noticed me all morning, so why should I be shocked that nobody saw this?

  In a couple of minutes I will be dead and the woman who saw me from hundreds of yards away, the woman who locked her sights on my exact spot and honed in on it, the woman who sprinted towards me without me noticing, will be standing on top of my box talking, and still nobody will be listening.

  It’s all about location.

  Celeste

  I PLACE THE undersized cauldron on her waste-of-a-soapbox. The one she is knelt in front of. I stand on the other side inside the circle I have cast. In the background I see the Marble Arch; closer still, a woman waves her arms and talks operatically.

  I pour the sand into the cauldron that will hold the seven candles in place.

  I light the first candle.

  ‘Although it is now dark, I come seeking light. In the chill of winter, I come seeking life.’

  Nobody is listening to what I have to say.

  I light the second candle.

  ‘I call upon fire that melts the snow and warms the hearth. I call upon fire that brings the light and makes new life. I call upon fire to purify with its flames.’ I chant these lines, fixing my vision on the young girl.

  I light the third candle.

  ‘This light is a boundary between positive and negative. That which is outside shall stay without. That which is inside shall stay within.’ The crowd to my left laugh heartily. I’m temporarily angered, thinking they might be laughing at me, but they’re not.

  I’m invisible too.

  With the fourth, fifth and sixth candles I repeat my fire incantation.

  I bend down so that my eyes are at the same level as the girl’s. She is dead now. My work is almost done.

  I strike a match and hold the flame to the seventh and final wick. As it ignites, I remain low on the ground, visualising the seven tiny flames connecting to form one large light, aglow with purity.

  ‘Fire of the hearth, blaze of the sun, cover her in your shining light. She is awash with your glow and tonight she is made pure.’

  I see an aura of blue light outline the girl as the purification takes place; her eyes are closed, her mouth is pleading. Two joggers wearing oversized headphones bound right past us, safe in their endorphin-fuelled world. Ignorant.

  Her aura still cleansing with a light only I can see, the candles still burning, I creak back to my feet, my knees aching. I can leave her now. Whoever she is, I will find out tomorrow.

  Over by the number fourteen lamppost a man shouts, ‘Shrivelled.’ He squawks, ‘meat and two veg, crown jewels.’ He cries, ‘twig and berries.’

  I have three minutes until the number forty-four bus pulls up parallel to the Broadwalk.

  My work here is done.

  I can be proud of myself.

  Another person dead.

  Another person saved.

  January

  I WAKE UP on the floor, Mother’s journals spread over me like a blanket.

  But I haven’t dreamed.

  The Two did not return.

  My preoccupation with the case has stopped me from wondering where Audrey is, what she is doing, who she is doing it with. It’s working. But, for the first time in years, I also forgot about Cathy. For a moment, a brief moment, she just slipped my mind.

  And I don’t want to do that.

  I do all of this for her, to find her. To find the person who took her from me and caused my family to disintegrate almost overnight. I don’t want others to feel this loss, this guilt.

  I look at Mother’s journals and blame her for taking my thoughts away from my sister. Temporarily, I hate my mother again.

  The concoction of wine and sleeping pills I had counted on to put me into a state of hibernation never materialised. I try desperately to stay awake so that I do not waste any more time. I have to read Mother’s journals. I must understand Paulson’s notes. I need to find a Pagan expert. Getting to a point of over-tiredness where hallucination becomes more likely. Where alertness some
times descends into a waking catatonic stasis.

  I haven’t heard the phone that has been ringing constantly all morning, a worried Paulson dialling my home number, wondering why I have not shown up at work all day.

  I don’t yet know that the darkness outside is not early morning; I don’t realise that it is the evening and that I’ve been asleep most of the day. While I lay here surrounded by the scribblings of a madwoman, a girl was dying on her knees at Speaker’s Corner in Hyde Park, her face burned almost beyond recognition.

  The doorbell rings.

  I sit up too quickly; four journals fall off my chest to the floor, my brain throbs inside my skull and I grimace back to semi-lucidity. The sound of the bell pierces through my thoughts and stabs me between the eyes. I sweep the note books that have been keeping my legs warm through out the night to the side, and endeavour to stand up.

  It’s too much to attempt in one movement. I feel confused and nauseous so drop to my knees, spreading my weight onto all fours and shutting my eyes to collect myself before another big push. My mouth flops open to suck in the stale air of my home-office, the saliva thinning and dribbling out onto some of the pages that are strewn beneath me.

  I know what that means.

  I need to get up.

  The bell rings again and this time Paulson bends down, pushes the flap of the letterbox open slightly and presses his mouth into the gap.

  ‘Jaaaaaan. Are you there?’

  The few seconds of silence that follow his question are broken by the sound of me dry-retching at the floor. But I am empty inside.

  I try to speak. To tell him that I’m coming. But as I open my mouth again to do so I retch and taste bile as it burns in my throat. I need water.

  I need to stand up.

  ‘Jan, is everything OK?’ he calls again.

  At this point I manage to get to my feet, supporting my weight on the door handle to my study, and open the door that lets me out into the hallway, where I can see the fat silhouette of my colleague and only friend.

  Noticing the change in light, Paulson pulls his fingers out of the letterbox, the flap springing shut, the noise reverberating through my head. He stands upright again, blocking more of the light from the bulb on the doorstep with his huge frame.