by Gary McMahon
“Nothing.” He stood, running a hand through his hair. “I just... it was the emotion. I was overwhelmed. That was a heartbeat. I heard its fucking heart beating.”
Vanessa relaxed, reaching out to pat the sofa beside her. “Come and sit by me, Craig.”
He moved to the sofa and sat down. He was cold. He tried not to shiver.
She clasped his hand, squeezing his fingers. Her skin was warm; it took away the chill.
“I’d like you to stay the night,” she said.
He turned to face her but she wasn’t looking at him. She was staring at the television, her face serious. Paul Newman was standing in the street, looking up at the sky.
“I don’t want you to go, not tonight.”
“I...”
“No, wait. Just hear me out.” Finally she looked at him, and her eyes were hard, like chips of ice. “I’ve had this feeling all day... a feeling that something’s on its way and it won’t be good for you. For us. I’m scared. It’s probably just hormones, but the fact is... the fact is, I’m scared. I want you to stay. I want you to sleep beside me, in our bed. I don’t know what this means in terms of us, but I think it says a lot that I want you close to me, I want you holding me in the night.”
His lips were dry, but he was no longer cold.
“You can say something now.” A flicker of humour crossed her face.
“Of course I’ll stay. There’s nothing I’d like better.”
She looked down at her knees. “Thank you.” Her voice was quiet, not much more than a whisper.
She squeezed his hand. He squeezed back, desperate not to break the fragile connection.
They stayed that way for a little while longer, holding on to each other yet still maintaining a short distance between their questioning bodies; intimate strangers waiting for some kind of sign or signal. Then, when the film ended, they went wordlessly upstairs to bed and fell asleep in each other’s arms.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
THIS TIME ABBY is aware of sitting up in bed and turning to face the door. The room is dark; the shapes of the furniture are somehow threatening, as if they are poised to pounce. She feels as if she might be in danger, but she isn’t sure what form it will take.
She walks across the room, shedding her nightgown. She is hot; her skin is covered in a thin layer of sweat. She opens the bedroom door and steps out onto the landing. The door to her daughter’s room is already open and light spills out across the carpet. Shadows caper across the walls. Abby is holding her breath. If she lets it out, she might disturb whoever is in there.
She moves slowly towards the room, her arms hanging down by her sides, hands open. Her skin prickles, excitement makes her blood run faster.
She enters the room and there is no one there. The homemade totem, the stack of Tessa’s things, looks larger, taller; its tip is now almost touching the ceiling. She cannot remember adding anything new to the pile. She has not touched it for quite some time, as if some residue of fear has kept her away.
She walks across the room and stands before the conical mound of her daughter’s belongings. Things have been rearranged. The photo of Tessa’s face is no longer there, and toys she does not recognise have been added to the construction.
She kneels down and closes her eyes.
“Tessa, Tessa, Tessa... bless her, bless her, bless her... come back to me.” She recites the familiar prayer without even thinking about it. She does not hear the words as they pass her lips.
She hears the creaking, rustling sound of the totem shifting. She does not open her eyes. If she sees what is happening, it might break the spell. Something touches her face, brushing softly across her cheek. It feels like a tiny hand, but one that is not fully formed. The fingers are fused together and the skin feels soft and inchoate.
Whatever it is pulls away, making a louder rustling sound this time as it is sucked back into the mass of the totem.
Abby opens her eyes.
She is no longer inside the room, or even in the house.
She is kneeling at the centre of a grove of oak trees. It is dark. The sky is black and starless. There is no moon. The ground is covered with leaves.
Figures are hiding in the undergrowth, standing silently, watching her. The figures are small, slight, like malnourished children.
“Hello...”
The figures do not move. Their eyes sparkle behind a screen of foliage. White teeth are bared in either smiles or snarls. There are three of them, and slowly she begins to realise that they are waiting for her. In unison, they raise their hands above their heads, open their fists, and each of them drops a handful of black leaves onto the ground.
She stands and walks towards a clear spot between two trees, where the overhanging bushes have been forced apart to form an archway. She passes through the archway, feeling leaves brush eagerly against her skin, and makes her way along a narrow, ill-defined pathway. The trees and bushes on either side of her sway, as if dancing. Her bare feet sink into the soft loamy ground.
Before she has time to be afraid, she emerges from the grove and is standing in a clearing. The figures are standing up ahead, at the top of a slight rise. She can see them clearly now, despite the lack of natural light – still there is neither moon nor stars to light her way. There are, as she suspected, three of them, and they are little girls. The girls are wearing tattered clothing – torn coats and dresses, shoes that are falling apart on their small feet. Their bodies are painfully thin, which makes their heads look oversized. They look half starved, as if they have not eaten in months. Abby is put in mind of video footage from African trouble spots: big eyes, dark, sunken cheeks, pot bellies filled with air not sustenance.
As one, the three girls turn away and start to walk down the opposite side of the hill, black leaves falling from their palms to scatter on the earth. Abby follows them, unconcerned at her nakedness, just desperate to make sure that she does not lose sight of the children.
The grass stretches on for as far as she can see, broken here and there by solitary stands of trees, ruined stone buildings, flapping tent-like hides or dwellings inside which small fires burn. Smoke rises from holes in the roofs of these flimsy structures, grey against the black, starless sky.
She can see the dark leafy path they are following, make out small animals running alongside her as she trails the girls. She knows exactly who they are, these three children: they are the Gone Away Girls, all but one; all but her daughter, Tessa.
They’re taking me to see her...
But she has no idea if this is the truth. For all she knows, they could be leading her to certain death, or straight off the edge of a cliff. If they were leading her into the mouth of some hideous monster, she would have no clue until she got there, and stared directly into its fiery eyes.
But at least I’ll know... at least I’ll know what happened to her.
And isn’t that what’s been killing her all along, the lack of knowledge? Long ago, she told herself that knowing Tessa was dead would be at least better than not knowing anything at all. Her life has been on hold, her soul has withered; she is barely even human. The loss stalled her in time, made it so that she ceased to develop as a person. All she was, all she is, is a thing that waits.
She follows the small, thin forms of the three girls, watching their dark backs, terrified that they might bolt or – even worse – simply fade into the darkness, leaving her there alone on the pathway of black leaves. She is walking quickly to keep up but she does not feel out of breath. It is as if she is standing in one place and the landscape itself is moving, rolling past her like a set dressing on castors.
Hills loom out of the darkness up ahead. They form the foothills of a high rock face. There are caves: dark, jagged holes cut into the hillside. The girls pause, look back, wave. Then they bend over and enter one of the caves.
Abby increases her pace. She feels a light chill against the side of her face, and it is pleasant, keeping her cool. When she reaches the cave, she looks
up at the sky – wishing that she could see some stars – and then follows them inside.
Darkness swallows her up. She feels like turning back, following the black leaves to the safety of the grove of trees, but realises that she has no choice but to carry on into this uncertain darkness. She hears water dripping down the cave walls; the hard ground is cold and wet underfoot. She can see nothing, only blackness. She holds out her hands, feeling her way deeper inside, and even though she expects to come up against granite walls, she feels nothing... she might be walking a path with a sheer drop on each side.
But that’s okay. She doesn’t fear death, not now. She has not been afraid of dying for a long time. In fact, she’s often flirted with death, taking too many drugs and sleeping with strange men in the hope that they might be killers. But nothing bad ever happened. She has led a charmed life since her daughter went missing, as if the forces of the universe have conspired to keep her alive, as a form of punishment for losing the only person she ever loved, the only human being who ever loved her as much as she never deserved.
Vague light up ahead.
She moves towards it, quickening her pace. Soon the backs of the heads of the girls resolve out of the darkness. She is closer than she thought; only a few feet behind them. She has the feeling that they have deliberately slowed their pace.
Tiny electric bulbs – like fairy lights – hang from wires along the cave walls. The light they shed is meagre, barely illuminating the space, but it is so much better than darkness.
Abby begins to glimpse markings on the cave walls: crude paintings of animals, buildings and people. She pauses before a representation of a grove of trees, and then, farther along the tunnel through which she is passing, she sees the ragged outline of what looks like the tower block at the centre of the Concrete Grove, the Needle.
But how can this be? These drawings are primitive, like the ones she’s seen on documentaries on television. Primitive Man, using inks made out of berries, would decorate the walls of his cave with illustrations much like these.
She stands and stares, unable to take it all in. How could shambling cavemen, dressed in the hides of wild beasts, even know about a place that has yet to exist – a housing estate tens of thousands of years in their future? None of this makes sense. She fights against the sight, trying to force it out of her mind.
She looks up ahead, along the tunnel, and sees the girls watching her. Their eyes glow in the weak light, but there is nothing behind them. In unison, they beckon to her. Then she hears the noise – a soft, slow humming sound. She tilts her head and stares over the girls’ shoulders, trying to catch sight of what is busy behind them. The darkness moves as if composed of a million smaller parts, each one spinning and twirling and making a pattern in the air.
“Tessa?”
No... it isn't Tessa. It is not her daughter.
The girls steps aside, allowing her access to the back of the cave. Beyond them, the tunnel opens up into yet another cave, and then there is only darkness. She steps forward, moving past the girls, and is only dimly aware of the girls blending into the rock walls, becoming part of the cold, damp stone. There are no electric bulbs here, just the cold air, the constant dripping, and a strange, barely perceptible luminescence which emanates from the rock itself.
She walks across the uneven ground, over a small, natural walkway that spans an underground stream. She looks down, into the rushing water, and sees faces staring up at her through the churning white foam. She does not recognise any of the features, but she feels a connection to their pain. They are trapped here, in the endlessly running stream, but they are not unhappy. Their pain has brought them here, just as her own pain has allowed her to access this strange, desolate place. It is a pain that has no place in the real world, the world she’s left behind; but here, underground, and even in the greater world beyond, through which she’s passed, it is welcomed.
Those faces belong to dreamers, and they are dreaming of themselves.
At the end of the walkway is a low stone plinth, a pedestal carved out of the solid rock. As she draws closer, Abby sees that there are two tiny hummingbirds hovering above this plinth, facing each other. When she reaches them, she goes down on her knees. It feels right to show respect to the wonder before her. It isn't prayer, exactly, but it is a subtle form of worship, a willing act of subjugation.
One of the birds is black, the other is white. No other colours mar their purity. Their wings move in a blur; the beating of those wings equal, the sound they make a single endless note. Not one of the two birds is stronger than the other. It is unclear whether they are mates or enemies. They simply hover there, balancing what at first she thinks is a diamond between the tips of their beaks.
She shuffles forward, not caring that the skin of her knees is torn by the rough stone. Bending forward, she inspects the scene more closely. The black hummingbird is pure black. The effect of looking at it is hallucinatory. She feels as if she is staring at a hummingbird-shaped hole in reality, and glimpsing the utter blackness beneath. The white hummingbird is so bright that it almost blinds her to stare directly at it, so she is forced to look askew. Yet, curiously, it sheds no actual light. These are not colours: they are an absence of colour. And they are locked into a battle that can never have a victor.
The thing she initially thought was a diamond is shaped like a teardrop. It is tiny, but it draws her gaze, growing massive at the centre of her vision, like a black hole sucking towards it all of time and space.
“It is a teardrop. It’s a frozen tear...”
She has no idea who has shed the tear, whose sorrow has given birth to such a magical thing, but there is no doubt in her mind that it is here, underground, in this dark cave, protected by – or perhaps imprisoned between – the twin hummingbirds, one black, the other white. Everything is focused on this scenario; this is the pivot around which everything else turns, and she’s been given a glimpse of the mechanics behind the universe.
Behind her, the three girls giggle softly.
She stares deep into the frozen teardrop and sees it all: tectonic plates shift, carving up the planet; icebergs collide; caverns fill with seething magma; above the surface, dinosaurs roam, then die, take flight to live in the trees; monkeys come down out of trees and begin to dream the dreams of humanity; and this place is born, it comes into being on the strength of those first fleeting dreams; the first tear that is shed in this place is encapsulated, frozen into a solid gemstone, and it becomes the centre. Balance is achieved; eternal, everlasting, a fulcrum upon which nothing will ever turn, because the energy will never tip one way or the other.
“Is this place the dream the world has when it’s sleeping, or was the world dreamt into being by that grove of trees out there?” She is talking to herself and doesn't expect an answer.
The teardrop shimmers; the opposing hummingbirds are unchanging, infinite.
The girls giggle again. The sound is eerie yet strangely comforting. It reminds her of her daughter.
When she turns around to confront the girls, to chastise them for sullying the purity of this subterranean grotto, she is back inside her daughter’s room. Shards of fractured moonlight shine through the window, their brightness making her wince. The sky is overcrowded with silly stars, each one of them a dead world, a place where life will never be possible.
ABBY STOOD AND walked out of the room, pausing outside the door. Her cheeks were wet with tears.
The three girls giggled again... but, no, this time it was only one.
She turned back and entered the room.
“Tessa, is that you?”
She felt the beating of her heart like a tiny fist within her chest. The tears rolled freely down her face, dripping off her chin, smearing against her naked throat and chest.
The top of the shrine had slipped, toppled at an odd angle. The point of the cone, so carefully modelled, had sheared away. She walked over to the mound and was forced to struggle onto her tiptoes to inspect the damag
e. She peered inside the gap, straining to see down inside the pyramidal mound.
There was someone inside there, crouched low, arms up and wrapped around their head. It was a small figure, barely formed, yet recognisably human. Like a new-born child, it looked wet, slimy.
“Tessa?”
The arms moved, snaking downwards across the slick, bald scalp. They made a sound like liquefied flesh sliding off bone – or at least how Abby imagined that might sound. The figure was breathing. She could hear the gentle, regular rhythm of its inhalations and exhalations. Its shoulders rose and fell fractionally. More movement: small, silver branches erupting from the slick head, reaching upwards, towards the top of the totem, quivering as they climbed.
Abby fell backwards, stumbling across the floor until her back hit the wall. She raised her hands, but had no idea what to do with them. She lowered her hands, feeling foolish.
The pointed tip of a silver branch emerged from the hole, waved around for a second, and then vanished back inside, dislodging a doll’s arm from the pile.
What was it, human or flora? When she’d been looking down inside the totem, she could have sworn that she’d seen arms cradling the top of a head... but now there was only a knot of branches, like those of a budding sapling.
Mind racing, blood pumping, heartbeat doing double time, she did the only thing that seemed sensible in her distressed state. She went into the bathroom to get some water for her new plant.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
THE CAT BOX was resting on the back seat as Erik drove out to the old country house. He hadn’t wanted to put it in the front, beside him, didn’t feel comfortable having it in such close proximity. He knew this was unreasonable, but it didn’t make him change his mind.
He kept his eyes on the road, not wanting to have an accident or draw attention to his presence from any passing police vehicles, but he was acutely aware of what had become of Monty Bright curled up in the box behind him. He’d realised, of course, that there was far more different about Monty than just his appearance. The twisted remnant of the man was somehow reaching inside Erik’s mind, grabbing hold of his will, and gently coercing him. It felt like soft waves of energy, caressing his brain, massaging the lobes and releasing chemicals that softened all the hard edges.
