by S. C. Ransom
“‘She ran straight though me,’ she cried in terror, then looked up as another pack of children were upon us. They were playing a game of tag, and they were ducking and weaving around each other. One boy was right beside me. I could see the freckles on his nose and the slightly crooked set of his teeth as he laughed at his friends. He turned and dodged away, directly towards me. I put up my hands to stop him knocking into me.
“There was a strange tingling sensation and he was behind me, still laughing and twisting as he ran down the path. He had gone straight through me, as if he didn’t know I was there.”
Callum paused, remembering. “That was when I finally realised that I was no longer … alive.” He turned his eyes towards me. “What I couldn’t work out was what I had become.
“‘What’s happened to us?’ I heard Catherine whisper. ‘I wanted to be dead, and now I’m back on the bank and children can’t see or feel me. What have you done?’ Her voice rose to a screech. ‘What have you done to me? What have you done?’ I looked around, but no one was paying any attention to us at all. I felt so angry with her. It was her fault we were in this situation. I wanted to leave her to her hysterics. But we only had each other…” His voice trailed off miserably.
I reached out to comfort him, but there was nothing I could say or do. I waited helplessly. Finally he continued.
“It took a long time for her to calm down, but when she did we started to walk. No one could see us. We wandered aimlessly through the city, not knowing what to do. Neither of us could remember anything before the … fall. Catherine knew she had wanted to die, I knew that I had tried to stop her, and I knew that she was my sister, but beyond that, we knew nothing. We had no idea of who we had been, where we lived, or what to do now.”
“I could see the dome of St Paul’s, and when I saw it, I felt a strange compulsion to go there. I didn’t know why, I just knew that’s what I had to do. I started to steer Catherine in that direction, which was easy as she had pretty much given up taking any notice of where we were.
“As we approached the cathedral we suddenly found ourselves in the middle of a crowd. The sensation was peculiar – a tingling from one side of my body to the other as a stranger walked through me. I watched them closely but they seemed to notice nothing. The odd one seemed to shiver a little, but that was all.
“By then, Catherine was barely holding herself together. Her eyes were wild and she muttered continually to herself that she should be dead. I kept tight hold of her hand, frightened that she might run off. The crowd unsettled her even more. As more and more people walked through her she got more and more agitated, and she started to scream at them. They passed on, oblivious, as she stopped to rant.
“I tried to contain her, to protect her from herself, I suppose, because there was no way we were in danger from anyone else. I guess it also gave me something tangible and finite to worry about, rather than facing the enormity of the situation. I forced her to stop and look at me, to try to get her to accept that screaming at people wasn’t going to help. She finally calmed down a little and we carried on to the steps at the front of the cathedral. It was busy, but the swirling mass of people had thinned out.
“I remember looking up at the carving on the facade, wondering what it was that had drawn me here.” Callum smiled to himself at the memory, shaking his head gently. When he raised his eyes to mine I could see the pain in their depths.
“That was when I first saw them, at least a hundred of them on the top step: a long line of others just like us.”
I gasped. “How could you tell?”
“They were all watching the same thing: us. And no one else had so much as glanced at us since we had got out of the water. But what was more shocking was the way they were all standing still while the tourists walked through them. I squeezed Catherine’s hand and gestured towards them, and she was off, racing up the steps crying and imploring to the impassive line. She ran from one to the next, pulling at their clothes and shouting, ‘What have you done? What’s happened to me?’ over and over. They stood there patiently until she had worn herself out. I watched, and then went to join her as she sank into a heap in front of the strangers.
“They were all somehow similar. They all had the same air, and, even though they wore different clothes underneath, they all had the same hooded cloaks.” He plucked at his own. “They looked determined, as if they all had a common purpose, and they were completely indifferent to Catherine’s pleadings.
“When she was finally silent a stocky figure in the centre stepped forward, raising his hand as if to halt any questions.
“‘I am sorry for everything you have lost, but you are welcome,’ he announced. ‘We have had no new faces for many years. Try to be calm. There’s no point in behaving like this.’
“I approached him cautiously, trying not to show the fear I felt and I tried to keep my voice strong as I greeted him. He seemed rather more sympathetic towards me than he had been towards Catherine. I found out later that he really hates emotional outbursts, so we hadn’t made a good start.” He smiled at me ruefully.
I tried to smile back but couldn’t quite do it. This was all too strange, too horrific, and too … unbelievable. But he was telling me with such passion that I couldn’t doubt him for a moment.
“The group took us inside and explained what had happened to us.” He paused, and looked straight at me. “As far as they could work out they were all people who had drowned in the River Fleet. And so had we.”
I looked at him blankly. “But … but you were in the Thames, you said. Where on earth is the River Fleet?”
“That’s the first question I asked too. It turns out that the Fleet used to be a big river, running from Hampstead down to the Thames, but over the years it has been built over, and it’s covered up with buildings and roads. Now almost none of it is visible.”
I continued to look at him quizzically. “But how does…?”
“I know,” he interrupted, “it’s really weird. It seems that all the water that still runs down the Fleet finally reaches the Thames through a culvert directly under Blackfriars Bridge. When I grabbed the ladder and pulled us around I dragged us from the Thames into the warmer waters of the Fleet, and that was enough.” He paused, and looked at me again, before dropping his eyes. “Something about the water, something in the water, stops you dying immediately. Instead, you get stuck in the hideous half-life I have now.
“So we were neither alive nor dead, just suspended. And what was worse, we were condemned to exist forever with the feeling of doom we all felt as we realised that we were about to drown. Something else in the water damns us to be miserable for all eternity.”
I struggled with the injustice of it all. “But you were trying to save someone’s life. How can that be fair?”
“Believe me, I’ve had plenty of time to consider that point myself. But,” he chuckled unexpectedly, “the others rather wish I hadn’t ended up here too. It seems that, as I was so determined that I was going to be OK at the moment I actually drowned, I’m nothing like as miserable as the rest of them. They’ve never had a happy Dirge before. They really don’t know what to do with me.”
“Dirge?”
“It’s our name for what we are, trapped in our half-life, neither one thing nor another.”
“So you have to spend eternity wrestling with misery? Is there no way out?” I tried to keep the rising horror from my voice.
“Well, that’s a very interesting question,” he conceded. “It was one of my first questions too. The key to it all is this.”
He raised his arm towards his face so I could see the amulet on his wrist. The stone shimmered and danced in the light.
I raised my eyebrows in a query. “The amulet? How?”
“When we first met the others they showed us. The whole time Catherine and I had been wandering we hadn’t realised that we had got these on our arms, under our clothes.” He hesitated. “They don’t come off us, you know; I can’t ev
en really feel it. It’s as if it is part of me.”
That did make me panic. “So will mine do the same to me?” I whispered. “Should I take it off while I still can?”
“I don’t know.” His voice was low, concerned. “I think you’ll be OK as you didn’t get it in the usual way, but I’ve not yet dared to ask anyone.”
He looked away, suddenly unable to meet my gaze.
“Oh,” I said in a small voice, surprised by what he had told me as well as his reaction. It almost looked as if he was hiding something, some fact about the amulet. “So why do you have them?” I asked. “Do you use them to communicate with other Dirges?”
“Well, no, not really. I mean … well, a bit: we can tell when another one is nearby. That was how the others knew we were coming.” He risked a quick glance at me then looked down again.
“Is that all they do?” I prompted, tracing the outline of mine with my finger. It looked benign enough now, the stone quiet and peaceful.
His face was a mask of conflicting emotions. This was clearly a key question, and one he really didn’t want to answer. We sat in silence for a few moments while he struggled. He finally cleared his throat, as if he had prepared a speech. “We use our amulets…” He paused again, then seemed to come to some sort of internal decision. “We use our amulets to take thoughts from people, happy thoughts and emotions, and memories,” he said in a rush. “If we don’t do this regularly we…” His voice dropped to a whisper, “we sink into an unbearable misery.”
He hung his head as if in shame.
I was clearly missing something – that didn’t sound too awful. In fact, I nearly laughed at the absurdity of it all. One look at his bowed head stopped me though. This was obviously very serious to him.
“That doesn’t sound too bad,” I said lightly. “I mean, people aren’t going to notice if you take a copy of what’s in their heads, and if they don’t know, well, it can’t hurt them, can it?”
He raised his head and looked directly at me, his beautiful eyes haunted. “You don’t understand. We – I – don’t just take a copy. We take away the memories completely. We steal them.”
I felt my mouth fall open in shock.
I tried to gather myself quickly. “So you take away their happy memories permanently to keep from getting miserable yourself?”
“Yes.” It was no more than a whisper.
“Do you get to keep the memories? The thoughts? Do you see what they are?” I was suddenly conscious of the thoughts I had been having about him, and remembered him reassuring me that he couldn’t read my mind. “You said that you couldn’t tell what I was thinking.”
He put his head in his hands, and everything went silent. I could see that he was talking, but he wasn’t looking at me so he hadn’t noticed that he had lost contact. I had to hear what he was saying. “Callum,” I called gently, “you need to be back over here. I can’t hear you.”
His head shot up, and he looked at his arms as if they had minds of their own. He was quickly back into position. “I’m sorry, I just forgot that I had to stay in the same place. I’ve never tried talking to anyone about this, and it’s a bit … difficult.”
“I understand. There’s no rush, just tell me as much as you want to tell me.” I tried to hold myself back though I was burning with curiosity about what he could do and what he might have noticed about my thoughts.
He gave a ghost of a smile. “You’re being very reasonable about all this. It’s not what I expected.”
“Well,” I tried to laugh convincingly, “you’re not about to steal all my memories, are you?”
“No, no! I’m not! I would never do that to you! I’d never take something so precious from you.” His voice was suddenly vehement. “Don’t even think that!” His eyes flashed, angry and hurt.
“So we are OK then. There’s nothing to worry about.” I smiled again, trying to reassure myself that this was really the case, and to calm him down again.
“Come and tell me about it. I’d really like to understand, but I need to be able to hear this time.” I smiled encouragingly.
His smile was enough to melt my heart, if it hadn’t already been taken. He looked so vulnerable yet brave. “I don’t deserve to have met you,” he breathed, resting his head against mine. I could feel the faintest of touches, and yet again my heart leapt. I just couldn’t tell if it was in excitement or in fear for what I was about to hear.
He sat down just behind me, making sure that I could see him in the mirror, then paused to gather his thoughts. While I waited I found myself scanning across the river to the far bank.
I could see other people walking in the little park, continuing their lives as usual. It was astonishing to me that normal life was possible for everyone else when it had all changed so profoundly for me.
I turned back towards Callum and looked at his face in the mirror. It was so frustrating to be able to see so little of him at a time. He was still looking down at the amulet, frowning slightly. “It’s a strange compulsion, the need we have,” he said finally. “It’s a bit like sliding slowly into an abyss, and the memories and thoughts give you something to hold on to, to stop that slide. We need to take happy and joyful memories. Someone’s happy thoughts are good, but a happy memory – something they’ve thought about over and over again – they’re best. They are the strongest, most powerful, and they are the best at fighting the despair.”
“And if you don’t get enough?”
“If we don’t do it regularly, if we don’t have a store of happiness and can’t find enough happiness in others, we quickly sink. It’s like being buried alive with a pain that will never stop.” His deep blue eyes clouded over. “I can’t begin to explain the horror of it. It’s as if all your worst experiences have been rolled into one terrible thought that you can’t get out of your mind.”
“So what do you have to do?” I guessed he was talking from his own experience. It was too raw, too gut-wrenching to be purely theoretical knowledge.
“You have to force yourself to get back out into your world, to seek out someone happy and to start … gathering. That’s what we call it. You only ever let yourself get into that state once. Afterwards, you are more careful and make sure that you don’t let your store of memories get too empty. That way, the feeling is manageable.” He looked directly at me.
“It sounds like a terrible way to live.”
He nodded slowly. “I think perhaps that’s supposed to be the point. There is something about the river which causes this continuous pain and sadness, and we have no idea why.”
“But how does it work? How do you go about stealing the memories, and how do you tell who is happy or not?”
“When I see people in your world, now I’ve had a chance to practise, I see, well, faint lights around their heads. Different emotions produce different colours, so we can tell when that emotion is good. Happy memories and thoughts give auras that are different shades of yellow – like sunshine.”
“And then what happens? When you see someone thinking a happy thought about something that’s happened to them?”
“It’s really very simple. Frighteningly simple, in fact. I just pass the amulet through the aura, and it takes it in. The person is left wondering what it was they were thinking about. I don’t really get to see the memories themselves, I just get a sense – a flavour if you like – but not the detail. Perhaps something about a favourite place, or a holiday, or sometimes a girlfriend, but nothing specific.”
“Those poor people. They just … forget?”
“It seems so. Then, once you have been here a while, you tend to acquire a preference for a certain type of memory, and I know that some of us,” he winced at the plural, “like a more mature mind.”
“So your friends stalk the geriatrics?”
“Yes, some of them feel that once the brain starts to deteriorate it’s a waste of good memories to let them drift away. They spend most of their time in old people’s homes. We have to be careful
not to take too many thoughts from someone in a single go. It’s very dangerous to do that. But some of us are rather less good at that sort of control.” He shook his head before continuing. “Others enjoy the minds of new mothers. They are often really happy; apparently it’s a good hit.”
“What about you?” I lifted my chin and looked him in the eye. I had to know. “What’s your preference?”
“I find that, as I am generally not as desperate as the others I can be a bit choosy about where I go. Actually, I’ve taken to stalking the cinemas on comedy nights. It can ruin the film for someone but at least they’ll be able to watch it again in the future.”
I hadn’t realised I had been holding my breath and I let it out slowly. “So you don’t take away real memories?”
“I try not to. I really try. And in the cinemas I just have to hope that the people in the cinema are thinking only about the film and not about their real life.”
“So can you see my emotions? Can you tell if I am happy?”
He laughed, surprising me. “I’m afraid not. There is no hint of colour around you.”
“Oh. Does that mean I’m not very emotional?” I was upset at the thought.
“Not at all. I’m sure your aura would be really vibrant.” He smiled and ran his fingers down my hair again. “It’s nothing to do with you, I think. It’s to do with this.” He reached for my amulet. “When you wear this, I can’t see anything. No aura, nothing.”
“So you can’t tell if I’m happy or not – other than in the usual way?”
“No, but if you were to take off the amulet I would be able to.”
“If I took off the amulet I wouldn’t be able to see you, so I would be miserable. No need for an aura on that one.” I tried to joke to get away from the image of him sinking into despair. He looked so relaxed in the sunshine, so young and strong. I found it hard to think of him crushed by misery.
