She whispered

by Lucas Chesterton

  They sat for quite a long time, embracing. Again and again, he asked himself ‘What am I doing?’, but found he couldn’t not do it. Eventually, she giggled softly into his ear. ‘The things we’re getting into ���’

  Of course he knew what she was alluding to. Extreme situations, and what followed ���

  ‘Yes’, he rasped, because suddenly her lips were on his neck, along with her hot breath, just above his scar. Tiny plump cushions ��� he’d had that thought before ��� moving slowly up, then down his jawline, their destination quite clear, and in spite of himself he felt his own mouth open slightly, felt his tongue squirm expectantly. His conscious mind tried to remind him that he had nothing to give to this woman other than his dreary life that was so overloaded with problems and demons of the past, and that it was hence unfair to take advantage of her, particularly after she’d asked him not to play with her ��� but his self-control was still in hiding somewhere ��� what was left of him basked in the embrace and couldn’t believe how good it felt, tenderness, closeness, things he had frequently sneered at as overrated and reserved for sissies. Now he found that the way her hands moved possessively over his back was enough to sweep him away.

  A sharp knock on the door tore them apart.

  Jack gasped for air, and at the same time felt an unfamiliar urge to burst out laughing. Of course, something like this had to happen! He saw the irritated pout on Elena’s face before he wheeled around at the opening door.

  He started to flare, ‘Mother, didn’t I tell you ���’

  ‘Excuse me, but I have to know!’ Eileen broke in ferociously. With a cold eye, she surveyed the situation, their closeness on the sofa, and she twitched. ‘Can’t blame me for worrying, can you?’

  ‘Of course not, Madam’, Elena said, an amiable smile on her face (that Jack noticed with some alarm), ‘we’re fine. We just had a scare.’

  Eileen shot her an icy look. ‘I see.’ She turned towards her son and her keen eye detected the problem at once. ‘What happened to your arm?’

  ‘Got bitten’, Daysen replied curtly, ‘by a dog.’

  ‘A dog?’

  ‘Well, more like a hellhound.’

  Eileen’s eyebrows went up, cottoning on quickly. ‘You mean ��� as with the satyrs?’

  ‘Probably.’

  ‘Have you taken ���’

  ‘Yes.’

  Elena had followed the exchange with increasing confusion. ‘What’s that?’ she asked.

  ‘I found out something about the satyrs’, Jack explained, ‘that might apply to those hounds, as well. You have to know that it is not so easy to come by such creatures. They’re expensive. Way too expensive for no more than a scare.’

  Elena frowned. ‘I don’t understand ���’

  ‘Of course you don’t’, Eileen sighed, then focussed on Jack again. ‘Let me take a look at your wound.’

  He shot up from the sofa, realizing that he had to face this situation head-on. Firmly, he grabbed his mother’s elbow and led her to the door. ‘I told you to leave us alone’, he hissed at her, ‘she’s had a scare, she needs to calm down.’

  ‘She seems calm enough to me’, Eileen hissed back with glittering eyes.

  ‘Those dogs had it in for her, you have no idea ���’

  ‘Well, dogs don’t like anything cattish ���’

  ‘That’s enough!’

  Eileen yanked her elbow out of his grip and turned to the room. ‘Let me at least make your friend a sleeping draught, if she’s so upset’, she offered with false brightness.

  ‘You’re not making her anything!’ Daysen spat viciously. He hadn’t bothered anymore to keep his voice down, and it made Elena sit up in astonishment. He opened the sitting-room door and firmly shoved his mother out, sealing the door with a spell as soon as he had closed it.

  ‘Aren’t you exaggerating?’ Elena demanded.

  ‘No.’

  ‘She was worried.’

  ‘She was meddling.’

  Elena smiled ruefully. ‘She also sobered us up a little.’

  She was right. The moment had passed. Jack sat down again, but this time he chose the closest armchair. ‘It’s impossible’, he grouched, ‘I’m almost forty years old and living with my mother ���’

  ‘I’m sure she means well’, Elena said evenly.

  ‘You obviously don’t know her’, he replied gloomily, then scrutinized her face. ‘You seem better’, he observed. In fact, the catatonic state had abated. Her hands still shook a little, but the eyes were more alert and he wondered whether this was the effect of the tenderness they had briefly shared. Or probably more of his mother barging in at the most inopportune moment ���

  ‘I was as if in a daze’, Elena admitted, ‘those dogs ��� there was something about those dogs ���’ Her face became serious as she remembered something. ‘What was it you found out about the satyrs?’

  ‘I believe they were manufactured’, Daysen explained eagerly, glad to have something to tell her about. ‘Making living creatures by magic is very Dark Arts. And if I’m right, they have been made by the score.’

  ‘Made? You mean, like ��� a Golem?’

  ‘Not a bad comparison, actually. The magical processes involved might be quite similar. However, the material is peculiar.’

  ‘Peculiar how?’

  ‘A Golem is made of earth and mud. The substance used for the satyrs, however, appears to be synthetic. And then again, not.’

  Elena digested this. ‘Genetically engineered, perhaps?’

  Jack looked up. ‘What do you know about this?’

  She shrugged. ‘Not much. It’s a technology used to change the genetic make-up of living organisms by transferring genomes and creating new organisms or properties of organisms.’

  ‘For instance, make the skin tougher to fare better in a hostile climate?’

  ‘Yeah, I think. I could find out more if you want to ���’

  ‘You might find out how far these technologies have developed.’

  ‘I might’, she admitted, ‘but I’m afraid it’s difficult in that field. There’s a lot of ethical discussion, you know, and hence legal restrictions. So there might be some difference in what is officially feasible and what can actually be done behind closed doors.’

  Jack smiled crookedly. ‘Are we talking about the Dark Arts of the Muggle world, then?’

  ‘Yeah, you could say that it is, along with nuclear and weapon technology, whale hunting, human trafficking ���’

  ‘Alright, I get it. ��� Anyway, we might be looking at something like that.’

  ‘Interesting’, she said, ‘but we’re really beating about the bush here, aren’t we?’

  He looked at her guardedly.

  ‘We’re not talking about the thing. Guys in masks.’

  ‘I didn’t want to take you back so soon’, he acknowledged and she gave him a tender smile in return before her face turned serious. ‘Jackal masks, right, like some Egyptian god?’

  ‘Anubis’, growled Daysen, ‘the Lord of Death.’

  ‘Charming.’

  ‘Cowardly, I call it. Weak attempt to instil fear.’

  Elena scoffed. ‘It worked for me!’

  Daysen didn’t reply at first, then said, ‘Well, scary it may have been. But it wasn’t anything new, really. I have already been informed that I am to be punished in some manner, that my reputation is to be ruined ‘beyond repair’. What we experienced was merely a personal delivery of that message.’

  Elena raised an eyebrow at him. ‘Are you trying to be cool?’

  ‘Not at all. I’m trying to analyse what happened. The only new thing was that there is a condition: I’m to be punished only if I don’t ��� well, behave myself ���’

  ‘So things are really looking up?’ she asked with a harried smile.

  ‘One could look at it that way.’

  ‘But is it likely? That you’re going to
��� behave yourself?’

  ‘It’s tempting’, he responded, then again pondered for a while before he went on. ‘I’ve done my part, haven’t I? There’s a point when a guy deserves some rest.’

  ‘You certainly do.’

  They exchanged glances, and Elena’s was ironic in a kind way, asking him a question. He knew what the question was, but hesitated. ‘You’re right’, he said eventually, ‘it’s not very likely.’

  ‘Here we go’, she sighed.

  He watched her face attentively. ‘Maybe you should go back home.’

  ‘D’you want to get rid of me?’ she asked as quickly as a whip.

  ‘You said that!’

  ‘Really? I don’t remember.’ She made a dismissive gesture that made a crooked smile play around Daysen’s lips.

  ‘But mind you, I’m totally open for any plans of absconding.’

  ‘Absconding?’

  ‘Isn’t that the right word? ��� I mean we could just take off, you and me. Go abroad, for instance. Like you said, you did your part. You could just tell the British wizarding world to go screw itself and take off to pastures new.’

  ‘Where, for instance?’

  ‘How about ���’, she made a funny face that signalled deep thought, ‘.. how about the Tyrolean Alps? I have an uncle who’s a dairyman and shepherd there. He could find us a cottage, and noone’d look for us.’

  ‘Sounds very Arcadian.’

  ‘Don’t make fun of it!’ she warned him in mock-outrage, already loving the fantasy. ‘Who’d search for you in the Austrian mountains? And you’d like it there, I’m sure. It’s all edgy, bleak and deep, a bit like you ���’

  ‘Oh, thank you.’

  ‘��� and very beautiful if you know how to look at it. ��� No, indulge me! And picture it, a snowstorm on a stormy night, the mountains filling up with snow, but there’s a fire in the hearth and a warm bed, and we look outside through a tiny window ���’

  Her eyes danced over him playfully, and he couldn’t believe how she could flirt like that, so shortly after what had happened, but it wasn’t so much that he resented it than envied her, for the growing tension inevitably made him search for the right words and dismiss most of them in the process, leaving him sadly mute. Yes, he did think that she was a bit brazen; in Elena’s mind, her recent confession of love obviously gave her license to show him openly that she wanted him, and he wasn’t used to that at all. At the same time, he found his ego peculiarly flattered by being pursued.

  ‘Let’s get serious’, he said.

  ‘If you insist ���’ Her face changed and became straight. ‘And there is something I was going to ask you ���’

  ‘Yes?’

  She took a deep breath. ‘Why did you tell your mother like that not to make me anything? I mean, not even a sleeping draught?’

  There was no visible reaction to her question at first. He might not have heard or simply faked not to. Elena had already convinced herself that he would not reply ��� for one of a thousand of his personal reasons, for instance ��� when he did, and his voice was very quiet, almost lazy, and his eyes a black night in Siberia.

  ‘I said that because’ ��� he stopped for a beat ��� ‘because my mother is a poisoner.’

  Elena stared at Jack, aghast.

  ‘Why are you saying that?’ she whispered without thinking.

  ”Cause it’s true’, he replied curtly without looking at her.

  What she had really meant was ‘Why are you telling me this?’, but she guessed that he had deliberately misunderstood her. Again, she felt his need to share and although the realization didn’t fail to make her excited, she also shifted uncomfortably on the couch. Here she was, urged by McVey to find out more about Eileen Daysen, and now Jack was telling her just that. It made her conscience as heavy as a solid rock and she wasn’t able to say anything for a while.

  ‘I know what you’re thinking’, Daysen stated coolly, ‘like mother, like son.’

  ‘I was thinking no such thing!’

  ‘No? ��� But it would be correct.’

  ‘She poisoned your father?’ Elena asked. Again, she had spoken without thinking too much apart from putting two and two together, what he had told her and the rumours that she’d heard. The effect on him was surprising. He looked up with narrowed eyes and obvious alarm on his face.

  ‘You know?’

  ‘No, no, that’s not it, it’s just ���’, she broke off, confused, wondering how to talk herself out of it, ‘it’s something my aunt told me ���’

  ‘Your aunt’, repeated Daysen, not in the least at ease.

  ‘When I met you’, Elena went on to explain, ‘she mentioned once that she talked to your mother, years and years ago. Asked her how she was, to which your mother replied that she’d be ‘very fine very soon’. Your father died pretty soon after that.’

  She saw him swallow; also, he had started to frantically flex his fingers.

  ‘Don’t worry’, Elena said quickly. ‘I don’t think my aunt thinks that she offed him; only with what you said right now it suddenly makes sense ���’

  ‘I see.’ There was a sigh of relief in his voice.

  Elena observed him closely. He was staring at his flexing fingers, refusing to meet her gaze. It also appeared as if he had no intention of telling her more, so she resolved to do some prompting.

  ‘Why?’ she asked simply.

  ‘I have no idea’, he responded, then got up from his armchair and started to pace towards the window, out of which he stared for some time before he paced back. Conflicting emotions crossed his face, which was telling in itself as he was usually the master of impassive expressions. Elena saw that he was preparing to tell her more, that she didn’t have to press him and that it would come eventually. Part of her wanted to tell him not to say anymore, that she didn’t want to know. The problem was that she did.

  ‘It was about eight years ago’, Jack started; he had composed himself, his voice was silky again and the tremor in his words detectable only to someone who knew him. ‘I hadn’t been home for years at that point, because of ��� well, him ��� and because I was preparing myself for ��� you know. ��� One day, I received an owl from my mother. She informed me quite matter-of-factly that my father had contracted a bad case of pneumonia, that he’d seen a doctor far too late ��� I knew he wouldn’t be treated by magic, wouldn’t have allowed it ��� and that there was nothing to be done, he’d die, and I should not concern myself, there was no need to come home. ��� Actually, if she hadn’t written that, I would never have come. But the fact that she did made me ��� suspicious? I don’t know, I had a funny feeling.’ Another hard swallow interrupted his story, while Elena continued to watch him. ‘So I went home. She was ��� well, to say that she was surprised to see me is putting it mildly. To me it was obvious that she hadn’t counted on my appearance, that really she had wanted to discourage it. She said time and again that there was no need to look in on my father. I went to see him, anyway. He lay on that couch’, Jack pointed at the place where Elena was sitting, ‘and he looked a sight.’ He shook himself. ‘Ghastly. I knew at once that he was dying.’

  Jack stared into nothingness. His eyes were empty, but Elena got a sense of the shock he’d had all these years ago, a shock probably that he had never really wanted to admit to himself.

  ‘That wasn’t all, however’, Daysen went on gloomily. ‘The second he saw me, he started to plead. To do something, to save him. ‘She’s poisoning me’, he said again and again. ‘She can’t have her way, and now she’s killing me.’ ��� I smelt his breath then, and ���’ He broke off.

  Elena watched as he sat down slowly. He looked as if his joints ached while he was doing it. Still, he didn’t look at her which told her something about the degree of shame he associated with the experience.

  ‘You see, there are originally two kinds of salvia or
sage’, when he took up the thread again, his voice sounded more sober, ‘a magical kind which is a potent cure against pneumonia and lung diseases, and the Muggle kind, which I understand works quite well against a common sore throat. ��� However, there is a third kind, a hybrid produced by cross-breeding the first two. The result is called Devil’s Sage. It doesn’t propagate and is thus rare, but it is also highly dangerous and aggressive. Instead of curing the respiratory system, it damages it; brings on a fierce form of pneumonia rather than curing it. And it has a very peculiar smell ���’

  ‘Does your mother know about the Devil’s Sage?’

  Jack scoffed. ‘Does she know about it? She told me about it! Showed me all the spots! One of them ��� yes, you have probably guessed, that pond we went to tonight. Ties in neatly, doesn’t it? That’s exactly what I was thinking then.’

  Elena was speechless for a while. ‘You couldn’t cure him?’ she asked eventually.

  Daysen shook his head. Was she wrong or did he look sad, shaken even? All she had heard about his father so far was what a horrible person he’d been and how much Jack had hated him. However, it was dawning on her that the sentiment had, well, maybe not changed, but acquired a new aspect in the last moments of Tobias Daysen’s life.

  ‘What did you do? Did you confront your mother?’

  He jerked his chin in confirmation.

  ‘And?’

  ‘Denied it. Denies it to this day.’

  ‘But how can she deny it? With the Devil’s Sage and the spot she knows for it ���’

  ‘Yes’, he interjected bitterly.

  ‘��� and then there was a motive, if I’m not mistaken?’

  ‘Yeah.’ It was a sarcastic scoff. ‘Some motive she had. And believe me, there used to be a time when I would have congratulated her on the decision to bring about his demise, but ���’