by S. C. Ransom
Callum. My heart ached unimaginably. I was going to have to live with this pain forever. Had he already moved on to another conquest? I clenched my fist and felt a single tear leak from my eye and roll down the side of my face. Someone gently tried to wipe it away, stroking my cheek with feather-light fingers.
My eyes snapped open.
My parents were together on the other side of the bed, deep in a discussion with the doctor. I was suddenly conscious of a tingling in my arm, and I turned my head. Standing by the side of my bed was a shining sheet of metal: part of a box-shaped piece of medical equipment. I could just see part of my reflection in the chrome. Right beside me was Callum, with a look of profound relief and love on his face and I was swamped with love for him. I smiled back and I felt his gentle touch on my face before I remembered his betrayal. How could I let myself smile? I couldn’t believe that I was going to put myself through all that pain again. I know that however much I wanted him, he wanted something else.
“Alex?” his voice was cautious. “I know that you can’t speak to me, but I have to explain to you what happened. But I have to tell you the most important thing first: Catherine lied to you about so many things, and her biggest lie was to say that I didn’t care about you.”
I tensed, unable to let myself feel the hope that was already welling up inside me.
“I have only ever loved one person, and that person is you. Whatever she told you is nonsense. You are the single positive spark in my miserable, dark existence. I had no idea I could feel like this about anyone. My heart is yours and yours alone.”
His eyes were burning into mine, full of passion. Could I believe it? Could I risk letting that tidal wave of hope overpower me? If it was a lie, and I fell for him again, I didn’t think I could survive another betrayal. He saw me hesitate and his hopeful features crumpled into a mask of misery.
“She convinced you, didn’t she? I was too late to stop her. I can’t believe she was so cruel…” His voice tapered off, catching with emotion.
A posse of doctors was suddenly back at my bedside. I risked another glance at him. Whatever had happened, I couldn’t dismiss him. I needed to understand the truth. “Come back. Come back soon,” I quickly mouthed, and saw him nod once, briefly, his eyes still full of sadness, and then he was gone.
I took a deep breath. It was time to convince the doctors that I was OK. And it was time to give my parents a hug.
It took hours to persuade them all that I wasn’t dying, and that I had no idea about how I came to be in the hospital. I hoped Callum would be able to fill in the gaps when he came back – if he came back. I tried to push that thought away. They sent me for another scan, and then puzzled over the results. I heard the consultant muttering about it being an amazing case study, and wondering if he could get the details into The Lancet. They peered into my eyes, tested my reflexes, and asked me endless questions. I answered them as honestly as I could. Some were easy. What month was it? Where did I go to school? What was the head teacher’s name? Others were trickier. Why were you in Kew Gardens? What happened to Grace? What happened to you? I couldn’t tell them the truth as I hardly knew the truth myself. Once they had decided that I was out of danger, they moved me out of the intensive care unit on to a normal ward, where I could be kept under observation for a while. The new ward had rather stricter visiting hours, and the ward sister sent my parents home in the early evening. There was a huge amount of noise and clattering as the nurses did the evening drugs round, then finally the lights were dimmed, and the snoring around me started. I really hoped Callum would turn up before I fell asleep. I moved the pillows so that I was sitting more upright, and instinctively rubbed the amulet, whispering his name.
Almost immediately I felt the familiar sensation in my arm and a light touch on my hair. Suddenly, I was afraid of what I was about to find out. Wasn’t it better to think that he might really love me than have my hopes shattered again? For a second I considered ripping off the amulet and remaining ignorant of it all, but I forced the thought aside, and looked for his face in the tiny make-up mirror I had begged my mum to leave with me.
I gulped as I saw him behind my shoulder. What if he hadn’t meant what he had said earlier? As I watched his familiar, haunting eyes met mine, and I felt his hand on my arm. I felt my eyes fill with tears. I knew I couldn’t bear to lose him again.
“Hello,” I whispered. “You found me.”
“When you are wearing this,” he traced the shape of the amulet around my wrist, “I can find you anywhere. This whole … thing started when you weren’t wearing it.” His head dipped over my hand and I felt the briefest flutter as his lips touched the inside of my wrist. My heart lurched.
“You can’t imagine what I have been going through. Having failed to stop Catherine, I was so afraid that I might fail a second time and not get this back on you before … well, before it was too late.” He continued to stroke my wrist. He looked up at me, and I could see the tears threatening to brim over. Could he really mean it? I hardly dared to let myself hope. I needed to know more before I could risk that.
“I don’t understand,” I muttered, trying to keep as quiet as possible in the sleeping ward. “What happened? I remember racing to get to Grace, worried that Catherine would start to transfer memories from her, but it was my choice that she took my memories.” My voice had become barely audible, and I needed to be strong. I straightened up and looked squarely at him. “My choice. I wanted to forget all about you.” I raised my chin, challenging him to deny everything.
“How can I convince you that you have it all wrong?”
“Catherine could tell you. Why don’t you just ask her?”
“She’s gone.” His voice was bitter.
“Gone?” I asked. “How can she go anywhere? I thought that was the point, that you were trapped.” My voice was harsher than I intended.
“She used us both. She took what she needed to escape.”
“I really don’t understand.”
He drew a deep breath. “When I told you about us, about the Dirges, I told you how the amulets work for us, that we use them to collect good memories – individual good memories – from strangers. We collect the happiness of others, but we never have any of our own.” He stopped, as if struggling to go on. “I never wanted you to know this; I thought it would make you afraid…”
I stared at him.
“I can see now that I should have told you the truth from the start. Then you’d never have listened to Catherine’s scheme.” He paused.
“Go on,” I whispered.
His voice was bleak and he spoke slowly and reluctantly. “There is a way to move on for us, but it is extremely rare and difficult to achieve. We need a combination of the amulet – the amulet on your side – and a willing mind and then we can…”
“Wipe it?” I hazarded.
“Take all their memories.” He paused. “Then our amulet is full, and it’s as if we’re whole again, I think. And when that happens we can move on. Veronica was the only Dirge I’ve heard of who had done it.”
“What else do you need to tell me?” I asked, coldly.
“I promise – I promise you – that I’ve only just found some of this stuff out, but it doesn’t make it any better.” He shook his head miserably, and then straightened up. “It seems there is only one amulet on your side, and we never know when it is going to turn up. It always appears in the Thames, and when it does appear it means that one of us can escape. When whoever has found it touches it, the amulet creates visions in the Dirge who will have the best connection with the finder. This time it was me.” He paused and I felt myself shiver, thinking of that sunny afternoon when everything changed.
“I didn’t tell the others because I usually keep myself to myself, so no one told me the implications. It wasn’t until I mentioned you to Matthew that I realised the danger you were in, and by then I loved you too much to let anything happen to you.”
“And Veronica?” I prompted.<
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“That time the amulet had been discovered by a man, and she was able to persuade him to do as she asked. She had no compassion, just took what she wanted. We don’t know where she went, but at least she didn’t have to live as a Dirge. Matthew warned me to be very careful around you and to make sure you kept your amulet on your wrist, to stay safe. He could see that you were in no danger from me. What I didn’t know was that Catherine had been listening, and she realised that if she could get you to take off the amulet so you were cut off from me, and persuade you to offer her some memories, it was her chance to go. She’d hated normal life, it seemed, and she hated life as a Dirge more. She was willing to do anything – anything – to leave.” His voice was bitter.
I still didn’t understand. “So how did it all happen? What does the amulet actually do to me?”
“We can feel when we’re close to an amulet. It’s a kind of pull, like a magnet. But while you wear it, it will protect you from us, but being close and not touching it … well, we know where to find you, and you have no protection. That’s how whole minds are stolen. It’s why I never wanted you to take it off.”
“So why didn’t Catherine just swoop on me as soon as I had taken it off?”
“If the mind is willing, and memories are given freely, taking them is easier and more complete.”
“What happens to the people, the victims?” I asked, horrified.
“They’re left with nothing. No thoughts, no memories. Nothing that makes them them. The shock to the brain is terrible.” He looked straight at me. “They die, I think.”
“Why didn’t you tell me all this before, when you first found out about it?” I tried hard to keep the edge of anger out of my voice but wasn’t entirely successful.
Callum looked down guiltily. “I was selfish. I thought you might get too frightened and decide to throw the amulet back. I knew that you were in danger just by having the amulet, but I knew that it was the only way I could be with you. I thought that I could keep you safe, keep you wearing it … I couldn’t bear to lose you.” I looked at his face, which was filled with self-loathing, and couldn’t stay angry with him.
“Have you no idea what happened to Veronica?”
“No one really knows,” he whispered. “Maybe she died, properly this time. Perhaps that is our final escape.”
“So Catherine is gone? Do you think she’s … dead?”
“Yes,” he answered, looking down. “She wanted to be free, but I think that there was something else too.” There was a pause, and I felt his gentle caress on my shoulder. I struggled to hold myself back, when every part of me was longing to welcome him back. He felt me stiffen, and abruptly his touch was gone.
“Catherine was a very complicated person. She was filled with envy and jealousy. I’ve always known that. She understood what you and I had, and she realised that she would never be as happy. She couldn’t bear it.” His voice was scarcely more than a whisper.
“What we had?” I needed to know if it was all in the past.
“She saw how much I loved you, that happiness was possible, at least for me. And she saw you, young and fresh and beautiful, undamaged, untainted by our world, free from the tedium and degradation of hunting out and stealing memories one by one.” There was a tentative stroke on my arm, and I felt the involuntary tingle of goosebumps at his touch.
“What we had,” I repeated, “was built on lies. You didn’t want me – how could you? We don’t even live in the same dimension. All you wanted was my memories.”
I had said it. I looked directly at Callum and his face was twisted with grief. “Who told you what I wanted?” he questioned.
“Catherine of course.” He stared deep into my eyes as he waited. “She was lying to me about that as well?” I gasped. “But what about the other girls? What about Olivia?”
“Do you remember me telling you that I’m often assigned to help other Dirges start gathering in the morning?”
I nodded mutely.
“Well, I’m most often assigned to help Olivia. She is very young, and very unhappy and without help she slides into a terrible state. She relies on me to help her almost every day. I suppose I’m like a big brother to her. Anyway, most of the others, like my sister, think she’s a pain and won’t help.”
“So why were you so horrified when I mentioned her?”
He looked embarrassed again. “Catherine. It was Catherine again. She advised me never to mention Olivia, that if you found out about her you would be really jealous and tell me to leave.”
“So there really is no one? No one for you on your side?” Could I really believe him?
He sighed. “I can’t really begin to tell you what it’s like. Our emotions are so flat. Life just isn’t like that for us. We just … exist with each other, nothing more.” He looked at me sadly. “You are the only colour in my completely grey life. Somehow, being in touch with your emotions let mine resurface. I don’t know how it works, but I will be grateful to you for the rest of my existence.”
I still couldn’t let it go. “And the girls on my side? Other girls? What about them?”
He smiled as he answered. “I’ve never really looked at any of them. I just see the colour of their emotions, and take no more notice of them than that. You, on the other hand … well, I can’t take my eyes off you. And you have the most beautiful emotions I have ever seen. I love you more than life itself, Alex. No one will ever compare to you.”
Then a strange look crossed his face. “Of course, I’ll understand if you don’t feel the same way. I know you have Rob and…”
“Rob!” I almost shouted into the silent ward. I hurriedly coughed to cover it up. “You’ve said that before. Why would you ever think that I cared about Rob?”
This time the realisation dawned on both of us at the same time. “Catherine,” we said in unison.
“When did you first start to realise what she was doing?” I asked.
“After you told me to go and took off your amulet. You were obviously devastated, but I couldn’t work out what had happened. You were in so much pain – it was awful to watch and be able to do nothing.” His voice had dropped to almost a whisper. “Then I thought about what you had said, and remembered that you had mentioned Olivia. You couldn’t have known about Olivia unless you had talked to someone from over here, and that’s when I started to think about Catherine.”
He smiled ruefully at me as I raised an eyebrow at him. “I know … a bit slow, wasn’t I?”
“Definitely,” I agreed.
“I went to find her immediately,” he continued, “and she told me that you had called her and asked her advice on how to break with me because you loved Rob.”
“And you believed her?” I was astounded.
“It always made more sense for you to want him, not me. What can I offer you?” His eyes bored into mine. He entirely believed what he was saying.
“I don’t love him! I never have. I love you!”
“Is that still true? After all this? After all the trouble and pain I’ve caused?”
Looking at him, I didn’t even have to consider my answer. “Of course it’s still true! I’ve never stopped loving you. I only did what I did because I couldn’t bear the thought that you didn’t love me.” I reached up and ran my fingers gently down the line of his cheek, wishing I could feel it properly. He caught hold of my hand, and his long fingers played up and down my arm. There was one last thing I needed to understand.
“But … but why am I not dead?” I asked. “She took my memories and left, so how am I here, remembering everything, talking to you?”
“It was hard.” His voice was barely a whisper. “But there was a way.”
“How?”
He took a deep breath. “You got to Grace just in time. Of course, Catherine had just realised that it wasn’t you with the amulet, and she thought you’d tricked her. She decided she would try to take whatever she could from Grace in the hope that it would be enough, because she couldn
’t risk waiting. I think she was scared that you’d see through her lies, so stealing Grace’s memories might have been the only chance she was going to get to escape. But of course Grace didn’t want to give up her memories, so she resisted which made it much more difficult and slower for Catherine, and at the same moment you appeared and rammed the amulet on Grace’s arm.
“I think she couldn’t believe her luck: here you were after all, begging her to take your memories. She pounced immediately, and, of course, she took everything she could. Once you’d opened your mind to her, she was able to get at everything, and she sucked it all in.” He shook his head. “I can’t believe that I managed to cause you such pain, that you’d be willing to expose yourself like that.” His voice wavered and his gaze dropped to the floor.
“And then?” I urged. I could feel him pull himself together.
“Catherine was able to fill up her amulet with your memories. All the happy, sad, excited, peaceful and exhilarating thoughts you have ever had.” He paused, as if struggling to work out how to put it. “Everything that made you really you – it all streamed into her amulet. Finally her amulet made the most terrible, awful sound, like metal tearing, and I was blinded by a shower of sparks which seemed to start inside Catherine and then envelop her.
“Afterwards, there was nothing of her left to find except her cloak,” he continued. “Catherine and her amulet were gone.” Callum ran his fingers through his unruly hair. “She was my sister, so I ought to feel sad, but I can’t. She’s the reason I am what I am, and she caused too many people too much pain. I’m not going to miss her.”
“But I still don’t see…” I started. He put his finger to his lips to remind me to be quiet. The ward was now very dark.
“I was obviously worried about you because you were not wearing the amulet, and Catherine had been acting very strangely. She was almost excited, not like her at all. So I followed her. But I was too late to stop it happening: I just wasn’t close enough.” His eyes closed, but after a second he continued. “As soon as I realised what you were doing, giving your amulet to Grace, I tried to get in the way. I couldn’t stop Catherine, but I had to try to save you.” His voice was barely above a whisper.
