by S. C. Ransom
If he could have paced he would have done so. He looked wild and distracted, and for the first time, a bit scary. Not angry as he had been when I had first seen the picture in my head, but proper, not-sure-what-to-expect scary. His voice was still harsh. “You took it off. You took off the amulet so I couldn’t … I couldn’t protect you.”
“I had a driving lesson. It seemed sensible not to be able to be disturbed. Why all the drama? You knew I’d be back at school in a little while.” I couldn’t work out why he was so upset.
“I told you not to take it off. It’s not safe. Not now they know.” The anguish in his voice seemed genuine enough, and the pain on his face was very clear.
“What are you talking about? Who?”
“The others. The people like me. I told them about you, remember? If you are wearing the amulet they can’t get to you.”
“What do you mean ‘get to’ me? And why would they? I don’t understand.”
I watched him take a deep breath, and wondered what was coming. “They know about you now, and it seems that some of them might want to come looking for you.” His voice was tortured.
“But what for?”
He looked exasperated. “They are curious, and want to find out more about your amulet.”
“So why is that a problem? Why do I need protecting? None of you can get to my dimension.”
“Don’t you understand? I don’t want them to be able to take away any of your – of our – memories.”
That made sense – I wouldn’t want to lose a fraction of the glorious memories I had gathered over the last week, but he was still overreacting. I tried to mollify him.
“I understand. I’d prefer to keep all that too, but it’s not life and death. Just relax a bit. You frightened me.”
As I watched he stepped away from me, stood up straight and took several deep breaths. His eyes were closed and I hoped he was just calming himself down. After a few moments his eyes opened slowly and the scary look had gone. I smiled at him hesitantly, and he moved swiftly back towards me, settling his arm into place.
I could feel his touch on my back. “I didn’t mean to frighten you. I love you so much that I don’t want to lose any little part of you Alex. I’m sorry I went a bit over the top. I just didn’t expect you to do it. It worried me.”
Something he had said still didn’t make any sense. “I still don’t understand why your friends would want to come here and take my memories.”
He looked uncomfortable. “I’m sorry. I overreacted – really, there is no reason for them to want to do that. It’s just that, well, your recently worn – charged, if you like – amulet has powerfully attractive properties. It seems that it will summon any Dirge in the area and it’ll make your memories much more tempting. I don’t think they will do it, but when you are not wearing the amulet they could do it.” He carefully emphasised the difference, then looked a bit abashed. “I guess I wasn’t acting very rationally. Do you forgive me?”
“Of course I forgive you. I just didn’t realise what a problem it would be taking this off.” I looked at the amulet. “I promise to keep it on all the time, as long as you promise never to ambush me during a driving lesson.”
“It’s a deal.” His smile was still a little strained, but as I watched his long, strong arms enfold me in the mirror, I no longer cared.
My lessons that afternoon passed in a bit of a daze. It seemed so out of character for Callum to be so wound up. But then, I thought, how well did I really know him? It had only been a week, I reminded myself, since I found the amulet in the sand. How strange that so much could change within a week.
The double statistics lesson went on for what seemed like hours. I kept glancing at the amulet, and I could see the shadows moving across its surface, making the flecks of gold glimmer and gleam. Was that him, I wondered, or one of his mysterious companions?
I was very careful not to mention his name out loud, even in a whisper. I needed time to think.
But the more I thought about my strange and unorthodox boyfriend, the more my head began to hurt with all the questions. I tuned back into the lesson, but they weren’t doing anything particularly challenging. It wasn’t going to keep me occupied.
I stared out of the window, looking at all the houses opposite the school, each one full of the love, hopes and fears of the people who lived there. Every one would be different, I realised with a sudden clarity. My love was just a bit more different. And for all I knew, there might be dozens of people sharing their lives with someone completely out of the ordinary.
I couldn’t help smiling as I thought of him. I knew I was already in too deep. I loved him, and I wanted him to know it. I guessed he wouldn’t be far away, so grabbed my notebook and found an empty page.
Callum – are you there?
He must have been hovering right behind me as both the tingle and his whisper were immediate and made my heart melt.
“I’m here.” His voice was hesitant. “Are you alright? I’ve been watching you and you have been frowning a lot. I was worried that perhaps, well perhaps I had scared you off.”
Not possible. A bit surprised, perhaps, but not going anywhere.
His sigh of relief was audible, and was so real I looked around to check that no one else could hear it. They were all deep in the Bayesian analysis theory, and taking no notice of me at all. “I’m sorry about earlier,” he continued, “but I just can’t bear the thought of losing you, that’s all. I never believed that this was possible, finding you like this, and you’ve turned my existence upside down. I can’t lose you now.”
You are in no danger of losing me to anyone.
“I know I’ve been a fool,” he continued, “but I just wanted to keep you away from the others.” I could feel him trying to lighten the tone. “After all, if you do get to see some of my companions you might like one of them better.”
I started scribbling again.
Possibly. Are they all as gorgeous as you?
He gave a short laugh. “None of them is really my type.”
What is your type then?
I couldn’t resist asking.
“Ah, well, that is easy. It would be slim, blonde and Alex-shaped. Not much competition really.”
I nestled back into his embrace, feeling the whisper of his arms gently around me. Up at the front of the class Mrs Moss was starting to ask questions and I realised I was going to have to pay attention for a while.
I need to concentrate. Can you stay without being distracting?
“Well, I like a challenge,” he chuckled, but after that he was quiet. I was just conscious of his presence by the feeling that I was leaning against something light and insubstantial, and by the occasional brush of my hair.
He stayed quiet until I got back into the car to wait for Josh.
“Well that took some control, I can tell you. Not reaching up to stroke your hair or neck, like this, or running my fingers down your arm…”
“I’m very impressed.” I smiled at him in the mirror. “I wasn’t sure you could behave after your performance in yesterday’s lesson.”
I saw Josh loping over the car park, and Callum suddenly disappeared with a promise to beat me home.
“That won’t be difficult,” I grumbled to myself, knowing that Josh would keep to the speed limit all the way.
Josh was in a cheery mood. He only had two more exams to sit and then his party season started in earnest. I knew that he was planning on making a move on one of the upper sixth girls from my school, but had still not decided the final strategy. I took the rare opportunity to tease him mercilessly for a while, and then started offering some practical advice. The conversation continued when we got home, and I really couldn’t just let it drop – I owed him for Saturday night, after all. Mum and Dad were both out so I sat in the kitchen with him for a while as he made and demolished a huge sandwich.
When I could finally get away I collected a fat book, slipped my mirror in the front cover and headed
out to the garden. I made for a quiet spot by the back fence with a swinging chair - no one would be able to hear me there. I wish I had thought of it sooner.
As I settled back in the seat Callum was already there, his voice gentle and welcoming.
“At last! You seem to have taken forever today.”
“Sorry about that. Sometimes you just can’t rush my brother,” I apologised with a grin, pulling the mirror out of the book.
“Well, you’re here now, and I have the rest of the afternoon and all evening. What would you like to do?”
“Hmm, what are our options? We can’t go to the pub, I don’t really fancy the cinema now, and we have tried going for a walk.” I grinned at him again. “Do you have any other ideas?”
He looked longingly at me. “I have one, but that’s not going to work either.”
I sighed. He was right, what we really wanted, to be able to fall into each other’s arms, was hardly likely to happen. I went for second best.
“I really want to know more about you, and your life. You’re such a mystery.” I reached up and stroked his cheek.
“Really?” He pulled a face. “You might not enjoy what you hear.”
“That’s not very likely. I want to know all about you because I love you.” It still thrilled me to be able to say it.
“Believe me, I don’t want to put you off: I love you too.”
My heart leapt again to hear him repeat the words. “Don’t worry. Just tell me everything.”
He groaned. “OK. The truth and nothing but the truth. Where do you want me to start?”
“How about a day in the life?” He raised his eyebrow at me. “Oh. Well, a day in the existence, then – an average twenty-four hours. How do you fill it?”
I could feel him settling back, so I crossed my legs up on the chair and propped the mirror on my knee to get a good view.
I could see him staring into the distance, thinking, so I kept quiet. I knew he would start when he was ready. Eventually he began to talk.
“A day in the existence… Well, we do sleep, or some of us do, anyway, so I wake up with all the others in the Whispering Gallery in St Paul’s. That’s our base, where we are ‘home’ I suppose. We wake up miserable, which is why you haven’t ever seen me really early in the morning.
“But I’m not as bad as a lot of the others. Every day we go back to our base state, the mental state we were in when we drowned in the river, plus whatever reservoir we have in our amulets, but that’s still pretty miserable for most of us. So we spread out and hit the commuters, always looking for those yellow auras. For most of them it takes all day, but I’m lucky: I can usually get done quite quickly, depending on what’s on at the early shows.
“Most days I get assigned to help someone. I told you the other day about sinking too low. If we see someone getting that way our leader – chief, boss, whatever you want to call him – will get someone else to help them get … well, what they need, to encourage them out on to the street, to help them search so they can start gathering. The others don’t like it when I’m assigned to them: I’m too cheerful. But if we don’t help the ones who are sinking then they are a terrible influence on the group – it’s as if they give off misery and the rest of us absorb it, so it’s in everyone’s interest to get them back up out of it.
“I tend to get asked to help a lot because I am the least miserable and have less gathering to do for myself. I generally only have to pick up a few thoughts at intervals throughout the day, but most of them are searching for hours, having to collect hundreds and hundreds of thoughts and memories.”
“So who is your leader – how does that work?” It was strange to think that there was some sort of social structure in his world.
“We elect one whenever the old one doesn’t want to keep going any more, and give them some power to make decisions for us. Apparently the group works better that way, and not just as a random collection of individuals.”
“So how many of you are there? There must have been thousands of people who’ve drowned in the Fleet over the centuries.”
“Right now it’s about two hundred, but no one has joined for years, and we don’t know why. Catherine and I are the most recent, and we were unusual. So much of the Fleet runs underground now, and maybe that’s the reason. Our longest residents think they have been in St Paul’s for hundreds and hundreds of years.”
“But you don’t know when you and Catherine joined them?”
“No, not for sure. With no features in your week it’s hard to keep track. And, before you, I had no reason to.”
“OK, so you stalk London for the day, vacuuming up memories. What happens next?”
“After a day out gathering we all have to reassemble in the gallery at night. I don’t know what would happen if we didn’t. I just get a strange compulsion to be there.
“You know,” he added with a laugh, “it’s us who makes the gallery whisper, not the acoustics. When we are all in the gallery and you come and sit in the seats there are so many of us that we can carry the sound around. It makes the people happy, and then someone can pounce…” He tailed off, and there was a pause.
“So do you have friends over there?” I asked casually. I couldn’t believe that some girl on his side wouldn’t be interested in him. He looked pensive for a moment.
“No, not really. It’s hard to explain. Everyone is too tied up in their own misery to spend any energy on that. There are some people I would choose to avoid when I get to St Paul’s, but that’s mainly because they are just too miserable all the time.”
“Do you spend time with Catherine?”
“A bit, but she can be rather depressing too. I’m generally better off on my own.”
“Tell me about her. What does she look like?”
“I guess you would say she’s attractive. She is medium height, with long light-brown hair, green eyes, quite curvy, I suppose. I’ve never really thought about it. Most of the time she is scowling so much I don’t want to attract her attention. She has a bit – actually a lot – of a temper.”
I wasn’t sure I liked the sound of Catherine, and decided I didn’t really want to hear any more about her. He hadn’t mentioned any other girls so I was keen to move the conversation on before he worked out why I was asking. “Tell me about your leader,” I asked. “What’s his name?”
“He’s called Matthew, and he was much older than most of us when he came over – maybe in his fifties, and he’s been with the group for hundreds of years.”
“Why did you choose him to be in charge?”
“It was nothing to do with me. He’s been the leader all the time I’ve been over here, but I think that it’s because, for a Dirge, he’s actually quite balanced, not too morose all the time. In fact, after I told the group about you, I talked to him on his own. I wanted to know if he knew of any way to make this work.”
“I’m guessing he didn’t come up with anything?” From the look on his face it couldn’t have been good news.
“No, his only solution was for you to throw yourself in the river, which is a terrible idea, and as no one has joined us for such a long time maybe there’s no way to be sure about that, even. It’s hard to be sure that any open part of the river is the water of the Fleet.” He looked at me sternly. “Promise me you won’t even think about that?”
I would have to commit suicide then, to drown in the murky Fleet, and even then perhaps only have a chance of being with him. My heart filled with dread at the thought. I knew I would never have the courage, not even if I could be sure that he would be there at the other end. I loved my life and my family too much.
He was looking at me anxiously, waiting for an answer to his question.
How do you tell someone that you won’t die for them? I wondered. Dying so he could live – that was a something I could contemplate. But dying with only a chance of being dead with him? No, I couldn’t do that. I tried to put a teasing note into my tone. “You are gorgeous,” I admitted, “
but I don’t think I’ll be killing myself any time soon.”
“Good call,” he agreed. “There are some very dodgy characters over here.” He was clearly happy to let the conversation take a more jovial path.
“Tell me about some of them,” I encouraged.
“Well,” he started enthusiastically, “there’s Arthur. He loiters in churches and takes memories of weddings. And there’s Margaret. She has a particular fondness for late-night parties, and is responsible for huge amounts of amnesia wrongly attributed to drink. Lucas, he is the most miserable person I’ve ever come across, I won’t be introducing you to him. Then before I got here there was Veronica, who used to stalk the university union bars. Until she left she was the worst. Rupert’s speciality is…”
“Hang on,” I interrupted. “What did you just say? About Veronica? Where did she go?”
His face was a picture of horror. His mouth opened but he said nothing.
“I thought you said that you were stuck, that there was no escape. What happened to Veronica?”
I waited for him to respond. With an effort, he seemed to pull himself together.
“She was able to travel further away,” he said eventually, looking out over the garden. “Very occasionally it seems that someone is able to break free of the compulsion to return each night, and that gives them the opportunity to go wandering further afield. I guess she may come back some day.”
Something didn’t add up. If it was this straightforward, why was he so horrified at having to tell me? And why couldn’t he look me in the eye when he was explaining it?
“Do you think you could do that, break the compulsion and stay later with me?”
When he looked back his eyes were still troubled, and it sounded as if he was choosing his words carefully. “I’m afraid not, I can’t resist it. I have tried a few times, but it becomes almost physically uncomfortable. I always have to return.”
