by Lisa Tuttle
Some weeks later, attending the market at Carnarvon, she happened to see the fine gentleman again, and asked him, “How are Eilian and the baby?”
“They are well enough,” he said. “But, tell me, with which eye do you see me?”
“With this one.”
Quick as a flash, he struck her there, and she was blind in that eye forever after.
28. Peri
I opened my eyes, and immediately had to shield them against the bright sunlight. I rolled on to my side and pushed myself up to sit.
Hugh and a young woman in a rather ragged black dress stood with their arms around each other, looking down at me, and I was my normal size again.
Beside me, I heard Laura cry out. “Peri! Oh, sweetheart!” She scrambled to her feet and rushed, arms open, toward the girl, who shrank back against Hugh, a look of alarm on her beautiful pale face.
“Hey, it's OK, that's your mum,” Hugh murmured. “She's just glad to see you. Go on.”
If he hadn't given her a small push forward, would she have let Laura hug her? Because she certainly didn't hug back. I saw how her arms hung down limply, how she stood there unresponsive, passive in her mother's embrace, so different from the way she'd clung to Hugh.
Laura was crying, her whole body shaking with sobs, and it seemed to me that these were not tears of joy, but that, maybe for the first time, she'd really let herself feel the magnitude of her loss, all the grief and terror she'd kept locked inside.
Peri shot a desperate look at Hugh and pulled away. I couldn't bear the thought of Laura so bereft. In two long steps I was beside her, my arms around her, and she was crying into my chest.
“We should go,” said Hugh.
I looked at my watch over Laura's shoulder. Surprise made me swear. “It's afternoon! What happened to the morning?”
“It was a long way back,” he said. “We've been walking most of the night.”
For the first time, I really looked at Hugh. His eyes were bloodshot and red-rimmed, he looked exhausted, and there was an angry red weal across his brow.
“You're hurt!”
“I'm all right. I thought at first I'd gone blind. Come on, let's go. We're not safe here.”
I believed him. We paused long enough to gather up the blanket and water bottles, but left the burnt-out remains of candles and hurried down the hill.
At the car there was an awkward moment, as Peri hung back.
“I'm driving,” Hugh told her. “You go in with Laura. It's not for long.” He spoke in the firm tones of a parent, and Peri obeyed without a peep of protest, although her face said she was not happy.
This put me in the front seat beside Hugh, which suited me. He had some explaining to do. “What happened?”
He didn't answer, frowning out at the empty road as he turned the car completely around.
I repeated my question, and he sighed.
“It's hard to describe.”
“Try.”
“I'm tired, and I'm driving.”
I ground my teeth. “I'll bet you can talk and drive at the same time. How about some answers? You said you'd let us know as soon as anything happened, but the first thing I knew was you'd disappeared!”
“I'm sorry. But when I saw the door open—”
“You saw it open?”
“I didn't actually see it open, no, but it was. I saw this dark space stretching away inside the hill. I was afraid if I called out, or looked away for even a second, it would disappear. It might be my only chance, so I took it and went in. I was in a tunnel. I couldn't see where it went, but there was light ahead, so I went on toward the light, and after a while the tunnel opened out into a cave, and . . . there was a dead body in it.”
“Human? Male or female?”
“Neither. I mean, I don't know.” He frowned, gripping the steering wheel more tightly. “Look, could we talk about this later?”
“Later you won't remember.” I felt sure of that. “Tell me now. How did you know it was a dead body?”
“The shape of it, lying sprawled on the floor. The smell. It had been dead a long time. I didn't want to go near, but I had to go past it or turn back. As I did, it suddenly sat up. And then it stood up and came toward me—Christ! I felt like running!—and then, I don't know—” He faltered and shook his head in remembered confusion. “All of a sudden I recognized Mider. And there was no way he was dead—I couldn't figure out why I'd ever thought that, because he was more alive than anybody I'd ever met, more alive or, anyway, more powerful than I was. It was kind of like, I don't know, if I touched him, the shock might kill me. That's when I realized he wasn't human,” he went on more calmly. “And I really shouldn't have been able to see him, or to be there, but somehow I was. And I could tell this made him furious—he didn't like it that I was there—but he couldn't deal with me the way he would have liked; he couldn't just casually destroy me, because . . . well, because. I don't know why, but it was all to do with the fact that somehow I had been able to get there, to beard him in his own den as it were, against his will. I had my own kind of power, I guess. I didn't know the rules, but at least I was pretty sure there were rules and they applied to him as well as to me. So, we started—”
He slammed on the brakes. Another car had appeared from around a bend, and was heading straight for us. Glancing into the rearview mirror, Hugh began reversing, fluidly and fast. The approaching car never even slowed, and would likely have hit us if he'd paused or hesitated at all. As Hugh backed into a passing place the other car sped past, the driver waving one hand in royal salute.
I let out my breath and turned to look in the backseat. Peri was curled half on her side, her head resting on Laura's shoulder, as her mother gazed tenderly down at her. They were both utterly unaware of our close brush with death.
“I have to stop soon,” said Hugh. “I need food and rest.”
“We'll find somewhere around Lochgilphead. Anyway, you were saying?”
He sighed. “I can't remember.”
I clenched my fists and breathed deeply. Not yet! “Try! What did Mider say to you? What did you say to him?”
“Oh . . . hmmmm. I'm not sure I remember his words, exactly, but . . . he challenged me. Asked me what he'd done to deserve this invasion, or something. I told him I'd come to take Peri home. He said this was her home because she'd been his wife since before she was born. We got into a big argument.” He sighed wearily. “Blah, blah, blah. He would say she was his, not mine; I'd argue that she wasn't anybody's property, so he'd say in that case she'd made her choice by going with him freely; I said I wanted to hear that from her, and I wasn't going to leave until I saw her and asked her myself, and finally he said he'd make a deal with me. If I could find her, I could take her back with me.
“Then I saw her, at the far end of the room, coming from the tunnel there. At least, I thought it was her. I almost ran right over and grabbed her, but luckily I waited, to make sure, because right behind her was another girl who looked exactly the same. And then another, and another . . . in the end, there must have been fifty of them. And all of them absolutely identical. Down to every detail. In fact, they were so completely alike that after a while, as I looked from one to the other, they seemed less and less like the Peri I'd known, more and more like strangers. They were all identical strangers—and I started to think that maybe none of them was my Peri.
“It had been too long. I should have done this, gone after her, as soon as she went away. Then, I might have had a chance. But now, I couldn't be sure I remembered what she was really like.”
He fell silent as the road became more twisting, and I let him concentrate on driving. We'd passed the farmhouse B&B, and were moving inland, away from the sea. Another couple of minutes, and we'd reached a T-junction.
“Which way?”
“Right,” I said. I hoped memory served because the map was bundled away somewhere.
He turned right onto a slightly wider road and continued.
“Anyway, they
all just stood there and smiled at me, or pouted, or frowned, or stared down at their feet, but apart from the way they were looking at me, or not looking at me, they were absolutely the same. I couldn't see any differences between them. But I kept trying.” He shook his head, impressed by his own tenacity. “I went from one to the other, sniffed her hair, looked inside her ears, stared into her eyes . . . I don't know how long it went on, but Mider got impatient. I could feel his annoyance building up like a bad smell, and finally he said, with a real threat in his voice, ‘Make your choice. Find your woman, or choose one of these to take away with you and let that be an end of it.'
“And then I remembered what I'd decided before I came to Scotland, and that was that I wasn't going to choose. I wasn't going to let him make me choose. This wasn't about me, it was about Peri, what she wanted. She had to choose. I couldn't know which of these clones was the real one unless she let me know. And if she didn't want to come back with me, she wouldn't reveal herself. So I'd let her stay, I'd leave alone rather than risk making the wrong choice.”
“You didn't come back alone,” I pointed out.
“That's right. I realized finally that I could only rescue Peri if she let me. She would have to show me who she was. As soon as I thought that, she did. Look, I'm stopping, we can get lunch here.”
I saw the hotel sign in front of a modest, white, two-story building.
Hugh swung the car smoothly around onto a shell-covered drive and parked between two other cars, just beside the portable sign advertising in gold letters on brown that Costa Coffee was served there.
“What did she do?” I asked.
“I just told you.” He looked absolutely exhausted
“Not exactly. Did she wink, or nod, or what?”
He sighed and shrugged wearily. “I don't know. No. Of course I do. It was her look; the way she looked at me. So I knew it was her.”
A look. The hardest thing to be sure of, so easy to misinterpret, especially in poor light or between strangers. He'd so desperately wanted to find Peri that he could not allow himself to fail.
I left it for the moment. I had no choice, really, as Hugh was getting out of the car.
“Where are we?” asked Laura from the back. Peri blinked sleepily.
Hugh pushed the driver's seat forward and helped her out.
“It's a hotel,” I said. “We can get something to eat.”
Inside, we were directed through a dark, book-lined bar to the bright, warm conservatory at the back where lunch was served. The meals listed on the chalkboard sounded substantial but strange: lamb-and-apricot casserole, venison stewed with prunes, seafood lasagne. When Hugh asked Peri what she wanted, she shook her head.
“I'm sure they'll do you a sandwich. Or just have a starter. Soup? A salad?”
She kept shaking her head.
“Come on, choose, or I will. You have to eat something.” He sounded angry.
“She's tired.” Laura spoke up defensively. “She needs sleep more than food, if she was up all night. I'm not hungry, either. I'll go see if they can find a room for us. Come on, sweetheart.”
Without seeming to notice Hugh's threatening scowl, she led Peri away.
“She can't do that! Peri's not a child. She has no right to treat her like that!” he burst out, rising from his chair.
“Because that's your job?”
He flushed, subsiding. “She does need to eat. We were walking for hours. I'm starving!”
I shrugged. “So'm I, and all I did was sleep. Vivid dreams, though.” I looked up at the young waiter, who was staring at us wide-eyed. “I'll have the seafood lasagne, please.”
Hugh nodded. “Same for me. I'll want a starter first, something quick . . . er . . . the venison pâté. With a glass of the house red.”
“Want to split a bottle?”
“Sure. We'd better hope they've got rooms for us, though, because I won't be in any shape to drive—not even as far as the next village.”
“There are rooms available,” said the waiter eagerly.
“Good.” Hugh rubbed his eyes, which were still very bloodshot. I noticed though that the mark on his brow, so vivid when I'd first seen it, had already faded.
“How'd you get that mark on your face?”
“Mider.” His mouth twisted. “A little something to remember him by, I guess. I'd just gone into the tunnel with Peri when I heard his voice saying, ‘You've had your will, now I'll have my way.' And then this horrible pain, like the worst headache ever, and a bright flash—and I was really scared that he'd blinded me. Forever, I mean, because I was definitely blind for a little while. Peri said she could see a light up ahead, so I let her lead me toward it, and gradually, after a really long time—I mean, we must have been walking through that tunnel for at least an hour—I began to see a kind of greyish light, and by the time we came outside I could see perfectly normally.”
The waiter was quick with the wine and a basket of bread and butter. I waited until Hugh got some food and drink into him before I asked a much more difficult question.
“Are you sure that's really Peri?”
“Of course.” He frowned, puzzled. “Laura recognized her, too.”
“I'm not saying she doesn't look like Peri . . .”
“Please don't tell me you think that's my daughter! You do realize that if I had one, she'd still be a baby?”
I had been thinking, not of mythical incest and the story of Etain, but of stocks: the illusions traditionally created by the Good Neighbors to cover their tracks when they stole someone. Stocks didn't always appear to be corpses; occasionally they could move around for a brief while before sinking into a decline and seeming to die.
“Of course it's Peri. Who else could it be?”
“Nobody. She's not real.”
“Are you insane?” He pushed his empty plate to one side. “You never met Peri before today. And you weren't even there.”
“Actually, I was.” I told him of my experience in some detail, ending just as our lasagne arrived.
“That sounds like a dream to me,” he said dismissively.
“So does what happened to you.”
“But I saw you, fast asleep on the ground. You didn't see me. No.” He held up his hand like a traffic cop. “Forget it. How would you know? You don't know Peri; I do.”
He dug into his steaming plate and began to eat.
We didn't talk much after that. Clearly, there was no way I could convince him he was wrong. And maybe he was right. I wished I could believe that.
Laura turned up when we'd nearly finished and took the empty seat between us. “Peri's asleep. I got a room for us, and one for you guys. I didn't think you'd mind sharing just for one night.”
Hugh pushed back from the table. “Any bed, anywhere. I've got to crash, now. If you'll excuse me.”
“Sure. Here's your key.” Laura handed it to him, and he stumbled away.
The waiter came over to ask if I was through, and if Laura wanted to order anything before the kitchen closed.
She shook her head. “I'm good.”
When he'd gone, I indicated the wine bottle. “Have a drink?”
“Why not.”
I poured some wine into one of the unused water glasses, then raised my glass and paused to think of a toast.
“Are we celebrating?” she asked, looking unhappy.
“What do you think?”
She shook her head. “It's crazy, what I'm thinking, but . . .” She trailed off, staring into the distance.
“What happened to you last night?” I asked.
She watched me warily. “What do you mean?”
“After I got up and went to look for Hugh.”
“You didn't go anywhere.”
I raised my eyebrows.
“You said you'd seen him. Then I heard Peri calling.”
“You heard her voice?”
“Yes. Well.” She frowned into her glass. “Maybe not. Maybe I was already asleep, because what happened
next must have been a dream. It seemed to me that I called back to her, then got up and went in the direction that I'd heard her voice. Somehow, I wandered into a cave. I could hear her crying, the way she sounded when she was really little. I called but she didn't answer—I thought maybe the acoustics meant that I could hear her but she couldn't hear me. I went from one tunnel to another, looking for her, all night, or so it seemed, but it must have been a dream, because suddenly I was awake, sitting on that rug beside you, and there she was, with Hugh, in broad daylight.
“At least, I thought it was her.”
My pulse quickened. “And now you don't?”
“Oh, it must be, I know, I'm just . . .” Her voice trailed off. She shook her head, frustrated. “She's like a stranger, but that's only natural, isn't it, after so long? Of course she's changed, she's not like I remember; but it's Peri, really, it must be. She looks just like her, and who else could she be? It's only this feeling I had, sitting upstairs, that my Peri is still missing.”
“You could be right.”
“Then who is she?”
“Maybe no one. Maybe an illusion that will fade away in a few days, seem to die, or just disappear.”
She didn't react with the knee-jerk disbelief or anger that I'd come to expect; she'd learned to take the impossible seriously. “What does Hugh think?”
“Hugh thinks he can't be wrong. He made his choice, and he's sticking to it. I think—no, I'm sure—Mider tricked him. The clue's there, in Hugh's story. Most of it's fairly vague, but he quoted Mider exactly. Mider said, ‘Find your woman or choose one of these.'”
Laura caught her breath.
I nodded. “Yeah. What that translates to me is: Look for her somewhere else, or take one of these as a consolation prize.”
“He chose one of the illusions?”
“He's convinced she gave him a sign, but I think he's kidding himself. He said he wasn't going to let Mider force him into the choosing game, but that's just what he did. It never occurred to him that the choice itself could be a trick; that Peri could be hidden somewhere else—in another room, or in another form.”
