He shook his head, still marveling. “They made me think how the world might be different than what it was; what we think it is. That there might be things we still don’t know, even though we think we’ve discovered everything. Like the work I do? We scan all these satellite images of the desert, and we can see where ancient sites were, under the sand, under the hills. Places so changed by wind erosion you would never think anything else was ever there—but there were temples and villages, entire cities! Empires! Like in the third book, when you read it and find out there’s this whole other history to everything that happened in the first two. The entire world is changed.”
The entire world is changed. I stared at him, then nodded. “Christopher—these cards are from his books. The last one. ‘The least trumps.’ When I got them, there was a little piece of paper—”
My gaze dropped to the floor. The scrap was there, by Christopher’s bare foot. I picked up the scrap and handed it to him. “‘The least trumps.’ It’s in the very first chapter of the last book, the one he never finished. Mabel’s in bed with Tarquin and he takes out this deck of cards. He holds them in front of her, and when she breathes on them it somehow makes them come alive. There’s an implication that everything that happened before has to maybe do with the cards. But he died before he ever got to that part.”
Christopher stared at the fragment of paper. “I don’t remember,” he said at last. He looked at me. “You said there’s one other card. Can I see it?”
I hesitated, then went to get my bag. “It’s in here.”
I took out my wallet. Everything around me froze; my hand was so numb I couldn’t feel it when I slid my finger behind my license. I couldn’t feel it, it wasn’t there at all—
But it was. The wallet fell to the floor. I stood and held the card in both hands. The last one: the least trump. The room around me was gray, the air motionless. In my hands a lozenge of spectral color glimmered and seemed to move. There were airships and flaming birds, two old women dancing on a beach, an exploding star above a high-rise building. The tiny figure of a man was not being carried in a litter, I saw now, but lying in a bed borne by red-clad women. Above them all a lash-fringed eye stared down.
I blinked and rubbed my eye, then gave the card to Christopher. When I spoke my voice was thick. “I—I forgot it was so beautiful. That’s it. The last one.”
He walked over to the window, leaned against the wall, and angled the card to catch the light. “Wow. This is amazing. Was the other one like it? All this detail …”
“No. It was much simpler. But it was still beautiful. It makes you realize how hard it is, drawing something that simple.”
I looked down at my leg and smiled wryly. “But you know, I think I got it right.”
For some minutes he remained by the window, silent. Suddenly he looked up. “Could you do this, Ivy? On me?”
I stared at him. “You mean a tattoo? No. It’s far too intricate. It would take days, something like that. Days, just to make a decent stencil. The tattoo would probably take a week, if you were going to do it right.”
“This, then.” He strode over to me, pointing to the sun that was an eye. “Just that part, there—could you do just that? Like maybe on my arm?”
He flexed his arm, a dark sheen where the bicep rose, like a wave. “Right there—”
I ran my hand across the skin appraisingly. There was a scar, a small one. I could work around it, make it part of the design. “You should think about it. But yeah, I could do it.”
“I have thought about it. I want you to do it. Now.”
“Now?” I looked at the window. It was getting late. Light was leaking from the sky, everything was fading to lavender-gray, twilight. The fog was coming in again, pennons of mist trailing above Green Pond. I could no longer see the far shore. “It’s kind of late. …”
“Please.” He stood above me; I could feel the heat radiating from him, see the card glinting in his hand like a shard of glass. “Ivy—”
His deep voice dropped, a whisper I felt more than heard. “I’m not my sister. I’m not Julia. Please.”
He touched the outer corner of my eye, where it was still damp. “Your eyes are so blue,” he said. “I forgot how blue they are.”
We went into the studio. I set the card on the light table, with the deck beside it, used a loupe to get a better look at the image he wanted. It would not be so hard to do, really, just that one thing. I sketched it a few times on paper, finally turned to where Christopher sat waiting in the chair beside my worktable.
“I’m going to do it freehand. I usually don’t, but this is pretty straightforward, and I think I can do it. You sure about this?”
He nodded. He looked a little pale, there beneath the bright lights I work under, but when I walked over to him he smiled. “I’m sure.”
I prepped him, swabbing the skin, then shaving his upper arm twice, to make sure it was smooth enough. I made sure my machine was thoroughly cleaned, and set up my inks. Black, cerulean and cobalt, Spaulding and Rogers Bright Yellow.
“Ready?”
He nodded, and I set to.
It took about four hours, though I pretty much lost track of the time. I did the outline first, a circle. I wanted it to look very slightly uneven, like this drawing by Odile Redon I liked—you can see how the paper absorbed his ink, it made the lines look powerful, like black lightning. After the circle was done I did the eye inside it, a half circle of white, because in the card the eye is looking down, at the world beneath. Then I did the flattened ovoid of the pupil. Then the flickering lashes all around it. Christopher didn’t talk. Sweat ran in long lines from beneath his arms; he swallowed a lot, and sometimes closed his eyes. There was so much muscle beneath his skin that it was difficult to keep it taut—no fat, and the skin wasn’t loose enough—so I had to keep pulling it tight. I knew it hurt.
“That’s it, take a deep breath. I can stop, if you need to take a break. I need to take a break, anyway.”
But I didn’t. My hand didn’t cramp up; there was none of that fuzzy feeling that comes after holding a vibrating machine for hours at a stretch. Now and then Christopher would shift in his chair, never very much. Once I moved to get a better purchase on his arm, sliding my knee between his legs: I could feel his cock, rigid beneath his corduroys, and hear his breath catch.
He didn’t bleed much. His olive skin made the inks seem to glow, the blue-and-gold eye within its rayed penumbra, wriggling lines like cilia. At the center of the pupil was the scar. You could hardly see it now, it looked like a shadow, the eye’s dark heart.
“There.” I drew back, shut the machine off, and nestled it in my lap. “It’s finished. What do you think?”
He pulled his arm toward him, craning his head to look. “Wow. It’s gorgeous.” He looked at me and grinned ecstatically. “It’s fucking gorgeous.”
“All right then.” I stood and put the machine over by the sink, turned to get some bandages. “I’ll just clean it up, and then—”
“Not yet. Wait, just a minute. Ivy.”
He towered above me, his long hair lank and skin sticky with sweat, pink fluid weeping from beneath the radiant eye. When he kissed me I could feel his cock against me, heat arcing above my groin. His leg moved, it rubbed against my tattoo, and I moaned but it didn’t hurt, I couldn’t feel it, anything at all, just heat everywhere now, his hands tugging my shirt off then drawing me into the bedroom.
Not like Julia. His mouth was bigger, his hand; when I put my arms around him my fingers scarcely met, his back was so broad. The scars felt smooth and glossy; I thought they would hurt if I touched them but he said no, he liked my fingernails against them, he liked to press my mouth against his chest, hard, as I took his nipple between my lips, tongued it then held it gently between my teeth, the aureole with its small hairs radiating beneath my mouth. He went down on me and that was different too, his beard against the inside of my thighs, his tongue probing deeper; my fingers tangled in his hair and
I felt his breath on me, his tongue still inside me when I came. He kissed me and I tasted myself, held his head between my hands, his beard wet. He was laughing. When he came inside me he laughed again, almost shouted; then collapsed alongside me.
“Ivy. Ivy …”
“Shhh.” I lay my palm against his face and kissed him. The sheet between us bore the image of a blurred red sun. “Christopher.”
“Don’t go.” His warm hand covered my breast. “Don’t go anywhere.”
I laughed softly. “Me? I never go anywhere.”
We slept. He breathed heavily, but I was so exhausted I passed out before I could shift toward my own side of the bed. If I dreamed, I don’t remember; only knew when I woke that everything was different, because there was a man in bed beside me.
“Huh.” I stared at him, his face pressed heavily into the pillow. Then I got up, as quietly as I could. I tiptoed into the bathroom, peed, washed my face and cleaned my teeth. I thought of making coffee, and peered into the living room. Outside all was still fog, dark gray, shredded with white to mark the wind’s passing. The clock read 6:30. I turned and crept back to the bedroom.
Christopher was still asleep. I sat on the edge of the bed, languidly, and let my hand rest upon my tattoo. Already it hurt less; it was healing. I looked up at the head of the bed, where my mother’s books were, and Walter Burden Fox’s. The five identical dust jackets, deep blue, with their titles and Fox’s name in gold letters.
Something was different. The last volume, the one completed posthumously by Fox’s editor, with the spine that read ARDOR EX CATHEDRA * WALTER BURDEN FOX.
I yanked it from the shelf, holding it so the light fell on the spine.
ARDOR EX CATHEDRA * WALTER BURDEN FOX & W. F. FOX
My heart stopped. Around me the room was black. Christopher moved on the bed behind me, yawning. I swallowed, leaning forward until my hands rested on my knees as I opened the book.
ARDOR EX CATHEDRA
By Walter Burden Fox
Completed by Walter F. Fox
“No,” I whispered. Frantically I turned to the end, the final twenty pages that had been nothing but appendices and transcriptions of notes.
Chapter Seventeen: The Least Trumps.
I flipped through the pages in disbelief, and yes, there they were, new chapter headings, every one of them—
Pavell Saved From Drowning. One Leaf Left. Hermalchio and Lachrymatory. Villainous Saltpetre. The Scars. The Radiant Eye. I gasped, so terrified my hands shook and I almost dropped it, turning back to the frontispiece.
Completed by Walter F. Fox
I went to the next page—the dedication.
To the memory of my father
I cried out. Christopher sat up, gasping. “What is it? Ivy, what happened—”
“The book! It’s different!” I shook it at him, almost screaming. “He didn’t die! The son—he finished it, it’s all different! It’s changed.”
He took the book from me, blinking as he tried to wake up. When he opened it I stabbed the frontispiece with my finger.
“There! See—it’s all changed. Everything has changed.”
I slapped his arm, the raw image that I’d never cleaned and never bandaged. “Hey! Stop—Ivy, stop—”
I started crying, sat on the edge of the bed with my head in my hands. Behind me I could hear him turning pages. Finally he sighed, put a hand on my shoulder, and said, “Well, you’re right. But—well, couldn’t it be a different edition? Or something?”
I shook my head. Grief filled me, and horror; something deeper than panic, deeper even than fear. “No,” I said at last. My voice was hoarse. “It’s the book. It’s everything. We changed it, somehow—the card …”
I stood and walked into my studio, slowly, as though I were drunk. I put the light on and looked at my worktable.
“There,” I said dully. In the middle of the table, separate from the rest of the deck, was the last card. It was blank. “The last one. The last trump. Everything is different.”
I turned to stare at Christopher. He looked puzzled, concerned but not frightened. “So?” He shook his head, ventured a small smile. “Is that bad? Maybe it’s a good book.”
“That’s not what I mean.” I could barely speak. “I mean, everything will be different. Somehow. Even if it’s just in little ways—it won’t be what it was. …”
Christopher walked into the living room. He looked out the window, then went to the door and opened it. A bar of pale gold light slanted into the room and across the floor, to end at my feet. “Sun’s coming up.” He stared at the sky. “The fog is lifting. It’ll be nice, I think. Hot, though.”
He turned and looked at me. I shook my head. “No. No. I’m not going out there.”
Christopher laughed, then gave me that sad half-smile. “Ivy—”
He walked over and tried to put his arms around me, but I pushed him away and walked into the bedroom. I began pulling on the clothes I’d worn last night. “No. No. Christopher—I can’t, I won’t.”
“Ivy.” He watched me, then shrugged and came into the room and got dressed, too. When he was done, he took my hand.
“Ivy, listen.” He pulled me to his side, with his free hand pointed at the book lying on the bed. “Even if it is different—even if everything is different—why does that have to be so terrible? Maybe it’s not. Maybe it’s better.”
I began to shake my head, crying again. “No, no, no …”
“Look—”
Gently he pulled me into the living room. Full sun was streaming through the windows now; outside, on the other side of Green Pond, a deep blue sky glowed above the green treetops. There was still mist close to the ground but it was lifting. The pines moved in the wind, and the birches; I heard a fox barking, no, not a fox: a dog. “Look,” Christopher said, and pointed at the open front door. “Why don’t we do this—you come with me, I’ll stay right by you—shit, I’ll carry you if you want—we’ll just go look, okay?”
I shook my head no, but when he eased slowly through the door I followed, his hand tight around mine but not too tight: I could slip free if I wanted. He wouldn’t keep me. He wouldn’t make me go.
“Okay,” I whispered. I shut my eyes, then opened them. “Okay, okay.”
Everything looked the same. A few more of the asters had opened, deep mauve in the misty air. One tall yellow coneflower was still in bloom. We walked through them, to the shore, to the dory. There were dragonflies and damselflies inside it, and something else. A butterfly, brilliant orange edged with cobalt blue, its wings fringed, like an eye. We stepped into the boat and the butterfly lifted into the air, hanging between us then fluttering across the water, toward the western shore. My gaze followed it, watching as it rose above the Ledges then continued down the hillside.
“I’ve never been over there,” said Christopher. He raised one oar to indicate where the butterfly had gone. “What’s there?”
“You can see.” It hurt to speak, to breathe, but I did it. I didn’t die. You can’t die, from this. “Katherine—she always says you can see Ireland from there, on a clear day.”
“Really? Let’s go that way, then.”
He rowed to the farther shore. Everything looked different, coming up to the bank; tall blue flowers like irises, a yellow sedge that had a faint fragrance like lemons. A turtle slid into the water, its smooth black carapace spotted with yellow and blue. As I stepped onto the shore I saw something like a tiny orange crab scuttling into the reeds.
“You all right?” Christopher cocked his head and smiled. “Brave little ant. Brave Ivy.”
I nodded. He took my hand, and we walked down the hillside. Past the Ledges, past some boulders I had never even known were there; through a stand of trees like birches only taller, thinner, their leaves round and shimmering, silver-green. There was still a bit of fog here but it was lifting, I felt it on my legs as we walked, a damp, cool kiss upon my left thigh. I looked over at Christopher, saw a golden rayed e
ye gazing back at me, a few flecks of dried blood beneath. Overhead the trees moved and made a high rustling sound in the wind. The ground beneath us grew steeper, the clefts between rocks overgrown with thick masses of small purple flowers. I had never known anything to bloom so lushly this late in the year. Below us I could hear the sound of waves, not the crash and violent roar of the open Atlantic but a softer sound; and laughter, a distant voice that sounded like my mother’s. The fog was almost gone but I still could not glimpse the sea; only through the moving scrim of leaves and mist a sense of vast space, still dark because the sun had not struck it yet in full, pale gray-blue, not empty at all, not anymore. There were lights everywhere, gold and green and red and silver, stationary lights and lights that wove slowly across the lifting veil, as through wide streets and boulevards, haloes of blue and gold hanging from ropes across a wide sandy shore.
“There,” said Christopher, and stopped. “There, do you see?”
He turned and smiled at me, reached to touch the corner of my eye, blue and gold; then pointed. “Can you see it now?”
I nodded. “Yeah. Yeah, I do.”
The laughter came again, louder this time; someone calling a name. The trees and grass shivered as a sudden brilliance overtook them, the sun breaking at last from the mist behind me.
“Come on!” said Christopher, and, turning, he sprinted down the hill. I took a deep breath, looked back at what was behind us. I could just see the gray bulk of the Ledges, and beyond them the thicket of green and white and gray that was the Lonely House. It looked like a picture from one of my mother’s books, a Crosshatch hiding a hive, a honeycomb, another world. “Ivy!”
Christopher’s voice echoed from not very far below me. “Ivy, you have to see this!”
“Okay,” I said, and followed him.
October in the Chair
Neil Gaiman
—For Ray Bradbury
OCTOBER WAS IN THE AIR, so it was chilly that evening, and the leaves were red and orange and tumbled from the trees that circled the grove. The twelve of them sat around a campfire roasting huge sausages on sticks, which spat and crackled as the fat dripped onto the burning applewood, and drinking fresh apple cider, tangy and tart in their mouths.
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