Hunters & Collectors

by M. Suddain

  What’s more, what cuts deeper than the sharpest shears: he didn’t even lose a whole finger. He sacrificed, in the end, a third of his smallest. He gave the tip, and I got shafted. And that’s why I hire him.

  We returned to our room to find the heat turned up, flasks of cocoa waiting, and, miracle of miracles, some of our clothes and books. My pharmacopoeia was there. And there was a note on the table.

  Mr Tamberlain,

  I would like to apologise for my behaviour. I am tasked with balancing the will of Management against the wilfulness of our staff, and it’s sometimes necessary to sacrifice niceties. I know how hard it is for inductees to comprehend our ways. It’ll not have occurred to you that my gesture was not directed principally at you, but rather at the staff who permitted you to enter the Winter Garden. They are an unruly bunch at Harvest. Sometimes I feel like I’m completely alone downstairs.

  You and I, I hope, can still be friends. And I hope this has taught a valuable lesson about the consequences of wandering our establishment alone at this challenging time of year. You can consider this an apology, accompanied by a final caution. You MUST stay in your apartment at all times during the Wild Hunt unless on a sanctioned excursion under approved escort. Your next misstep could cost far more than a small part of a finger.

  (This could be beyond my remit, and I apologise if it seems so, but your agent seemed more than eager to step into your shoes. In my experience a business-minded individual never makes a sacrifice without expecting to recoup with interest. I only point this out because I am concerned for your well-being.

  Likewise, I have it from reliable sources that it was your girl, Ms Green, who instigated your excursion. And I expected as much. I know, too, that she has been attempting to make unsanctioned contact with certain parties, and together to engage in disruptive activities. Her main objective seems to be our fire extinguishers. I’m sure I don’t need to emphasise to you how dangerous it is to tamper with our fire-safety features, and I know that you’ll be as concerned about her activities as I am, and that you’ll want to work with me to control her.)

  But enough of my meddling. A nurse has been dispatched to treat Mr Woodbine. She will arrive in precisely forty-seven seconds.

  But this is not enough, I know. I have spoken to Management, and they have given me permission to arrange a special enhanced birthday dinner for you as a conciliatory gesture. It’ll be served at precisely 5 p.m. Hotel Time, so please dress accordingly. (We would not want to find you in your gown and slippers. Ho, ho.) I can promise you an outstanding meal, prepared by Chef Donqueron.

  As a further gesture of goodwill I have returned some of your personal items. We hope to give back the rest of your written materials soon.

  Know that, as always, I am on your side, and that I want more than anything for you to join our establishment.

  I hope this makes amends, and that you have a truly memorable birthday meal.

  Warmest regards,

  Murial Shabazzniov,

  Your Concierge

  The knock came as I finished reading. I ignored it. Beast could wait. Since when is returning someone’s possessions a gesture of goodwill? And birthday theme or not, how can feeding your guests be regarded as a conciliatory gesture? Some of our books were in a neat pile, tied with a crimson bow, on the writing desk in the den. My horse and ponies weren’t there, and nor were Gladys’s journals. Not that she cares. She hadn’t even looked at me on the way back from the Winter Garden. I said, ‘Hunter would have escaped the pools before they got there. He’s a clever little filter unit.’ She said nothing. Not with her voice, nor with her face. Her eyes were fixed, lizard-like, on some unknowable future.

  The ‘glitches’ we’ve noticed are intensifying. On the way back to our room we saw a maid pushing an invisible laundry cart. We heard the squeak of wheels, the sound of the cart rumbling over marble floor, then back onto carpet. But no cart was visible. A boy carried a tray loaded up with glasses – only there was no tray. The glasses floated over his hands. Sometimes, and terrifyingly, a voice beside you might say, ‘Good day, sir,’ or, ‘That’s her. The girl who killed Franz.’ But when you turn no one is there. This palace of ghosts is unhinged. But is it unhinged because of us? Did we do this? G didn’t seem to notice any of these strange happenings. When she falls she falls hard. And she’s clearly fallen harder for Hunter than I realised. How quickly people fall for one another. No one takes the time to destroy their happiness and independence slowly any more. After thinking about it have decided that his death is regrettable. Though he was an annoying and pretentious man, he had a rare charisma. On the other hand, not having him around would make our lives less complicated.

  ‘Gladys, what’s all this about fire extinguishers?’ I leaned out through the door to the den, waved Shabazzniov’s note. She said nothing. Didn’t even look at me. She stood, went to her room, and quietly closed the door. She is an inverse slammer. The more upset she is, the more quietly she slams doors. Was she blaming me for Hunter’s death? I let in the nurse. Beast lay in an armchair with a washcloth on his brow. The nurse repaired his small wound. The stump embroidered, she put the whole arm on display in a sling. I ask you. Then he and the nurse began whispering together.

  The phone rang, I answered it.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Tamberlain.’ Unmistakably him, unmistakably angry. ‘Did you tell them I was at the pools?’

  ‘What? Listen, we didn’t tell them a bloody fucking thing. We had another drink. We went to the Winter Garden. Fuckers ambushed us. How could we have warned you? Passenger pigeon? What century is this?’

  A long silence, heavy breathing. ‘What the hell are you trying to do here, Tamberlain? What’s your angle?’

  ‘I told you already, I’m just trying to have my meal in the Undersea, and if possible leave here in one complete unit.’

  ‘… Put Gladys on.’

  ‘She is currently indisposed.’ It was true. She was in her room, indisposed by her music, and by feelings of overwhelming sadness which reveal themselves at the corners of her mouth when she has boy trouble, and which I knew could be smoothed away by the act of knocking on her door and handing her this receiver, which somehow I couldn’t do. She works for me, not this hairy strumpet.

  ‘Tell her I’ll be in touch. Tell her … well, just tell her that first part.’

  I hung up. Gladys appeared a few seconds later.

  ‘It was just the front desk asking if we had enough towels.’

  What can I say, Colette? I had my reasons. I needed G to move on. I needed her to be focused on the task at hand. Whatever that is. She knew I was lying. She went back to her room and ‘slammed’ the door. I went to my own room to lie down. Put some ice on my head-bumps. Found my bed had vanished. I am being profoundly fucked with. Went to watch Beast wax his torso and listen to him go on about Hunter. ‘“I’ve never worn drag before.” Pah-lease! That rouge was blended perfectly.’ Beast uses waxing as stress therapy. After his last boyfriend dumped him he stripped his whole body except his hair and eyebrows.

  After that I went back to the study to write up these notes.

  The staff arrived at 5 p.m. to prepare our apartment for dinner. They paused at the door like polite vampires until invited in, came through with palms raised and spun once to prove they were unarmed. A porter with dark skin and glowing eyes arrived with fresh towels. ‘We have towels already.’

  ‘You’ll need more, sir, I venture.’ A stack six high, burning white and monogrammed in gold stitch, the top-most had a loose thread which quivered electrically in the air. He deftly folded the towel’s corner with his shiny-nailed thumb to reveal … ‘Some Feast Day messages, sir. We thought they would best be sent to you.’

  ‘Oh. Well, thank you.’ I took the stack of towels, the boy left quickly. Then immediately rematerialised.

  ‘Something else?’

  ‘Your towels, sir.’

  ‘You just gave me towels.’ The same ones: that monogram with
its loose thread. I took them – again – if only to end the exchange. Took the towels to the den. The staff watched me. My Feast Day notes would cheer me up, I supposed. If nothing else, they’d bring comic relief. I poured myself a whisky. There was a large, heavy, orange envelope marked ‘GLADYS’ which I put to one side. There were a great number of small Feast Day notes hidden in the puffy folds of the towels. Several were for me …

  Mr Tamberlain, could it be possible that someone like you could think of a ginger biscuit like me? I dream of your answer. Lustfully, Mavis Z.

  Not from her type-machine, I could tell. Someone trying to fuck with me. This, though …

  I am honoured that someone of your status would take the time to write to someone of mine. Thank you for offering to read some of my work. With warm affections, Mavis Zhivast.

  And …

  She is ginger and tiny. If you want a rocket in you, come to the West Pagoda tonight. L.

  But the bulk of them, surprisingly, were not for me …

  If you are my Harvest Queen, listen: I will come in the night and carry you away like a sexual raven. Think of me. The Raven.

  And …

  I will give my zombie body to you. This very night? Tell me how! x

  And …

  Die, slut-witch! You will be RAPPED.

  And …

  If you were my Qeen Id fill a bath with lust and let u bave in it. Admirer.

  And …

  If you was my Harvest Queen, Ms Green, I’d give you a palace made of diamonds and a toilet made of pearls. x

  I have no fucking idea.

  We will be in your dreams tonight and do your bidding. We are yours forever. We are your army of the night. The Enchanted Huntresses.

  Them again. There was a dozen more. All insane. But there was one which almost stopped my heart with its sheer unbridled insanity.

  Gladys. Please forget him. I meant what I said. I am the only one who loves you truly. I always have. – J.

  Had to stand and walk around the room. Eight, nine laps. Take a few deep breaths. What the fuck is happening? This is all getting horribly out of control. Who the fuck would fuck with us like this?

  I took the reading glass from the desk and examined the note closely. The lines were hard and deliberate. No telltale fur. Definitely, categorically my writing. But definitely, categorically not written by me.

  To the main room. G was back, too, wearing her hotel dressing gown, and her phones. She looked around, sensing the disturbance. She looked at me. I looked at her. She knew something was up but didn’t have enough in her to care. She looked smaller, if that’s possible. She looked heartbreakingly small.

  Another knock. Beast went, shirtless, pink rectangles across his chest. ‘What?’

  ‘Fresh towels, sir?’

  ‘Tell him we have enough fucking towels, Beast!’

  A birthday dinner served in our rooms: as it is to the high-class lunatic, or the person with a terminal disease who’s won the pity of a charity. Our service was Silverweld, our apertif was a bitter black sherry – non-vintage, but outstanding – served with creek-frog eggs in amber fig vinegar mushed and doused in a fragrant moose of condensed ‘sea-fog’. Astonishingly, it had been served in a copper cup which gave the eggs a metallic taste.

  I could hardly enjoy myself anyway. Steaks of net-caught high mountain marsh snake were long-roasted in hot ash at our table and laced with nine varieties of ground pepper mixed on the skin of a drum. This variety of snake is among the ‘snakier’ tasting, but Chef had balanced the flavour by soaking the reptile in aromatic sherry. Our steward had selected that same sherry to accompany, so the flavour was somewhat monochromatic.

  Hard to concentrate. Gladys wasn’t eating. They cleared her dishes. She hadn’t dressed for dinner. She hadn’t removed her phones. They brought in a birthday cake. Beast ate my piece, and hers. A silver tray arrived with party hats and blowers. Not wanting to lower the mood further, I took a hat, folded it into a square which I slipped into my jacket pocket. There were no hats large enough for Beast’s head, and this made him sad, so I constructed him a pocket square too. Even Gladys joined in. She took a hat and tore it into tiny, tiny pieces with her nimble fingers. Then the waiters sang the saddest, strangest version of ‘Happy, Happy, Namey, Namey Day’ I’ve ever heard.

  But how quickly the weather can change in this place. There was an assertive knock, and no less than seven new waiters arrived bearing one silver tray on a black velvet cushion. ‘A special birthday gift from Chef Rojiibo, and the staff in the Undersea,’ announced one. Chef Donqueron and her staff scowled from the shadows. We heard snake hisses.

  ‘From Rojiibo?’

  ‘He came out of meditation just for you. He says that while he wandered the Windblown Kingdoms he heard a voice telling him to return. He wishes you to know he’s honoured to have spent several lifetimes mastering his art just for the challenge of providing for such a distinguished palate a meal unlike any other you’ve had – should you ascend – one which will match the ancient poems for their cohesiveness, their delightfulness and their ability to be almost indistinguishable from the nature which inspired them.’ The seven left to more hisses and whispered threats of violence from the shadows. The last of the seven waded ankle-deep in the floor as if it were a shallow pond.

  The tray was covered with a scent-eliminating cloth, and its removal was like the opening of a vortex. A thing arose shyly, humbly. It seemed so delicate I felt like I might vanquish it by breathing. So I didn’t. The shy, shadowy thing invited me to eat it. The delicately folded fortune biscuit was the colour of sunlit wheat. It broke easily, and the small corner I ate seemed to vanish on my tongue and leave a succession of flavours which entangled and played tricks with time and space. The flavours weren’t complex, or exotic. Just so perfectly balanced that I wished it was poison I was eating so this would be the last thing I tasted. Buried inside was a kind of grassy butter I’d had in Kervotz, and a bitter caramel from Endolscina, and even the electric chill of a liquor called pěsttvář. It’s as if my memories from fifteen years of travel had been distilled into one perfect biscuit. Each layer of flavour fell sweetly upon the next, creating the feeling of standing beneath a crashing wave of happiness and loneliness. It was so good you could hardly even call it food. I became aware that a tear had rolled down my cheeks. Heard Beast say, ‘Gods.’ He turned to nudge G. She shrugged him away. But she must have smelled it, because she sighed, took off her phones, smashed her cookie with her flattened palm, threw a small piece into her mouth, and then she evaporated. Simply dissolved before our eyes. It was a marvellous sight. That mercenary creature vanished and was replaced by an ordinary girl who had no power to stop the flush running up her neck and invading her cheeks, her eyes misting, her lips parting to expel a breath. We watched her take, with fingers that in the time I’d known her had never trembled, the thin strip of edible paper from the shattered biscuit and read the words printed on it. Who knows what they said. But they brought more tears to the surface of her eyes. Maybe they said what mine did: ‘INSERT MESSAGE HERE.’ Or maybe it was completely blank, like Beast’s.

  I don’t remember the band leaving, or the table being cleared. G went to her room. I went to the bathroom to splash some water on my face. My whiskers still hadn’t appeared. My face was perfectly smooth.

  Beast poured us healthy shots of whisky. I took the glass he handed me and balanced it on a knee as I lay back on a leather lounger. Shook the stars from my head.

  ‘Who was on the phone?’ Was it Hunter? Beast and I have learned to speak in a kind of telepathy when she’s nearby.

  ‘Just cleaning asking if we need more towels.’ Yes, it was him.

  ‘Uh-huh.’ You gonna tell her it was him?

  ‘We have enough towels, Beast.’ It’s better this way. Someone else just complicates things.

  ‘She’s a mess, Boss. Never seen her like this.’

  ‘I know. Why did we even bring her here, Beast?’

 
‘To keep you alive.’

  ‘Right. And why are you here?’

  ‘To stop you from killing each other.’

  ‘Right. And why am I here?’

  ‘No idea. Nothing makes sense. What was the Winter Garden about? Insane.’

  ‘Oh, I told Doctor Rubin she’s into ice skating.’

  ‘Is she?’

  ‘Yeah. But she’s not off skating love hearts in a woodland setting. She’s in an Ultimate Arena skating league. Brutal shit. People get killed. It’s like he isn’t even trying to get her. Even Hunter knew to throw cheap jewellery at her.’

  ‘Smart people are pretty dumb.’

  ‘Yep.’

  ‘Anyway, some more towels came while you were in the bathroom.’

  ‘Seriously?’

  I took the towels, my whisky, went into the den.

  I waited for you in the West Pagoda. Now you will DIE!

  Great. There was also a small, sealed envelope with a note from Hunter.

  Dear Ms Green,

  I feel nervous writing to you. I’m alive. I hope you weren’t worried. We managed to get out just before they arrived. They brought in giant fans to blow the steam away.

  I was right about it being no accident you came here. Think what they could do if they cracked your head open. They’d be impregnable. They’ll already be working on your friends to sell you out. They’re at Stealth Four, which means the Marine Patrol must be close.

  I don’t know if you feel the same, but I felt like we made a connection earlier. Anyway, I’m not one for romantic talk. But please come find me later if you can. I rubbed this paper on myself so you can follow the scent.

  Thinking of you.

  Hunter. x

  Had dropped the letter after ‘rubbed this on myself’. Picked it up by the corner with a tissue and let it fall into the waste bin. I opened the heavy orange envelope marked ‘Gladys’, the one I’d set aside earlier. I’d set it aside because I had a good idea who it’d come from. Inside was a stack of battered old journals – like school composition books – and a note.