He bowed and unfolded a hand toward Elsie. He kept the bow uncomfortably low while he waited for her to accept his invitation. Burns tried to smile (something about the man's mishmash of a costume irritated him), and tried to walk around the reveller with Elsie in tow, when her hand slid from his, and she accepted the reveller's grip. The reveller's spine sprung straight, and he tugged her to him.
Burns had stopped paying attention to the music, but he took account of it now, and he took account of those dancing nearest them. The music was a hurtling mixture of strings and brass that incited the dancers to sway with dizzying speed. Burns found it impossible to keep up with the movements, other than notice the tangling clutches, the suggestiveness inherent among the bodies.
A woman came from the crowds with her arms out to him. She couldn’t have been older than twenty. Burns stepped back when she tried to grab his hands, and walked around her to keep an eye on Elsie.
Suddenly angry -- either with Elsie, or with the reveller holding her; probably both -- he reached to bring Elsie back to him, but the reveller tugged her until they pressed against each other. Burns saw her wide smile, before he realised it wasn't a smile, she was scowling. The masked face leant toward her face. A tongue slid through the frozen smile to lick her cheek. She tried to twist back. The reveller leant to keep the tongue moving over her cheek. To Burns, the man's tongue seemed too thick, too coarse, and too long. He leant forward to put a hand on the man's shoulder, and shoved him back.
The reveller and Elsie separated. His tongue tasted the mask's set smile and slid behind the fleshy lips inside. Through the mask's eyeholes, Burns stared at glittering dark masses that left him unsure if he should hope they were eyes -- they drew the warmth from his chest. The man turned and stumbled through the crowd with a gait that had Burns recall the lyre player.
Elsie wiped her cheek. Her lips mouthed, "Asshole," but she was already brushing it off. When Burns reached to her, she patted his hand away and then smoothed her clothes as if they were ruffled, before she walked through the crowd. Burns wondered if she would try blaming him for letting the reveller near her. After a few minutes, once they'd left that corner of the square, Elsie took the whisky from his hand, and drank enough to start her eyes watering. Burns saw she had dropped her cup. She kissed him on the cheek, and curled her arm around his. They shared the rest of the bottle.
*
Burns only realised he'd drank too much after the warmth of the whisky filled more of his head than his stomach. Thoughts mixed with the fog of the whisky-warmth and the clamorous festival, loud people and louder bands and singing that must fill every nook of every street in Rodenje, until his mind couldn't separate his stumbling thoughts from Rodenje. Yet some buried and crystallised part of him suddenly insisted it was not his thoughts that were softening and senselessly melting together, it was everything around him; the world was supple, it yielded.
-- even Elsie? He wondered.
-- yielded to what?
He started to suspect the alcoholic haze was not natural. He'd never had a spiked drink, but he wondered if he had tonight. Who knew what foreign substance he might have chugged, disguised within the oaky liquor?
Someone kept an eye on him; he felt it. The square tilted like a ship over restless water. With each step, he felt more eyes over him, troubling the hairs of his legs, of his chest and neck and scalp. His neck and head tucked downward and his shoulders shrank. He heard animals from the streets, dogs and cats and maybe a few young children crying, if it wasn't just more cats. They sounded frightened.
Burns let go of the bottle of whisky, meaning to set it on the counter of a nearby kiosk. Yet when he removed his fingers from the neck, the bottle drifted to the ground -- drifted as if sinking through water. He thought he could easily kneel to catch it before it reached the ground, but he suddenly moved through the same syrupy atmosphere. Despite its gradual fall, the bottle smashed over the cobblestones. The remaining liquid pounced as if to flee the glass shards that manifested like glistening teeth.
He stumbled and found his eyes trying to focus on the surrounding rooftops, the only steady thing around him. He caught a form on the low rooftops. As with the crippled lyre player, it lunged from his sight before he could properly register it. This silhouette split apart like old cloth. A flock of birds, his entangled mind claimed, but over the buildings and the child-sized grotesques hunched above the square, there was just the night sky.
He felt fingers take one of his hands. Elsie must know something was wrong. His skin felt cool against hers, and unpleasantly moist. It reminded him of moss and packed earth. He swayed as he turned to her.
It wasn't Elsie holding his hand -- it was an arm that reached from the crowd. It was too low for an adult, and too slender, with grimy white or yellow skin -- yet the fingers between his were strong, and too long to belong to a child.
Burns jerked back, thinking it wouldn't let go, but it released him, and slipped behind the crowd. He teetered, as if unseen to him dozens of other taunting hands tugged and shoved him in several directions at once.
He sensed movement above the rooftops, in the sky -- as much movement as within the crowded square -- but couldn't pin the source. Whatever he felt, it was part of something so massive he could feel it move, even as he became positive that he was sensing just the edge of it. It moved over the Rodenje's hills like the shadow of a cloud dipping between every blade of wild grass. It touched the spines of animals and caused them to mewl and tremble and hunker to the weeds.
The sky spun. The stars were cold. The moon was a bloated cataract. Burns felt like an insect in the shadow of a sundial, incapable of understanding the mechanism that dwarfed him.
When another hand grasped his right hand, he didn't reject it; it didn't matter if it was Elsie or the thing (child?) that had held him a few moments ago, he could concentrate on that touch -- it was better than sensing some near-limitless entity shamble toward Rodenje.
The bands created a random commotion that had nothing in common with music. The crowds spoke louder, sang louder, and where they danced, they moved so quickly that for Burns their blurred limbs became formless. All sound transfused into his mind. His body felt like a mist, except where that hand gripped him. It tugged him aside. Come. Quickly.
He tried not to look - the touch was enough. It anchored him. He had the idea that if he looked, he might not have the courage to abide the grip. Better to shut his eyes and let the grip take him where it would.
Yet he had to look. He saw Elsie ahead; she took him through the crowd. He glimpsed her expression, confusion and maybe concern, maybe anger. She kept her eyes forward to get them through the square. As they went, Burns felt hands tap his back and shoulders and neck -- revellers teasing them to stay? He doubted it. The touches were fast and precise, taunting him to turn and see who -- what? -- touched him. This time, he refused to turn, refused to look.
Poisons.
He woke to a sickly pit that hollowed his body. When he moved, swampy weight collapsed into the pit, and pressed him back to the bed. His pores exuded the same damp and stale odour that he breathed. He turned slowly on the pillow to face Elsie's side, and found himself alone. He heard her walking in the lounge.
Thoughts of moving persuaded the nausea to worm to his throat, where it choked him before sliding back to leave him in a shivering sweat. The muddy pit collapsed and collapsed again as if to suffocate everything inside him. The sun through the uncovered window was too strong. His eyes ached like gelatinous infections. He'd never felt anything like this; more than alcohol must be responsible.
When he managed to sit over the side of the bed, he barely noticed he was still in yesterday's underwear and socks. The bruising twitched down his back. He hardly trusted his trembling limbs, but pressed his socked feet on the carpet and stood. The room teetered, though not with the same swirling imbalance he barely recalled while in the town square last night. He pressed on his makeshift worktop to help him stand. The counter complai
ned, but held as he turned to the doors, and staggered into the lounge.
*
The alcohol (and whatever poison coursed through him) soured everything in him, and somehow soured everything around him. Burns found nothing out of place, yet the lounge seemed different. Only Elsie was missing. He must have heard someone in another apartment. Elsie must have grown bored waiting for him to recover, and gone sightseeing. He looked at the tabletop (where the scarf he vaguely remembered around her neck last night spiralled like shed skin), and then anywhere she might have left a note, before he wondered about the time.
He wasn’t wearing his wristwatch. An aged, rusted clock above the suite door had just one hand, the hour hand, and while the motor inside clicked, the hand twitched without travelling around the face -- it still pointed to the first hour, as it had yesterday.
He fell onto the couch. Everything inside him shook as if barely solid, barely connected. His body shuddered, as if repulsed by itself. He realised he didn't fit with the surroundings, that somehow he had become estranged.
-- nonsense, he thought. It occurred to him Elsie must have the same poison in her body, and tried to recall arriving back together. They had left the square together, Elsie leading him, he remembered that much...
*
... he opened his eyes. He'd fallen asleep, but it took his dulled senses a little while to register the tapping on the suite door. He considered ignoring it (if it was a call from the university, the receptionist would assume he was out and pass on the same), but it could be Elsie -- she still needed a key.
He felt as if he moved through fog. When he opened the door, it wasn't Elsie on the other side, but a woman of maybe eighteen, a local. She had tired eyes (or maybe she had recently cried), and she was daintier than most of the women Burns had seen around Rodenje. Her clothes were similar to those worn by many locals, with a modern flourish.
While she looked familiar, Burns couldn't recall anything specific. He offered a hazy, "Good morning," though it might be afternoon, or evening.
"Not for some," she said with the air of a prophet. Burns assumed she was mocking him. Then he realised he was still in his underwear, and tried to step behind the door. The woman continued to wait without an expression, while she emitted an air of expectation. She said, "There are many sick people in Rodenje today."
"After the festival," Burns said for the sake of saying something, but he was beginning to feel more foolish for attempting small talk.
"The festival is still ... small -- beginning. More nights are ahead."
"Not for me," Burns groaned. The air from him tasted as if it came from someone else. "Look, I don't know why you're here," he started by way of getting rid of her, when images broke from the quagmire in his head. "You're the girl from the chapel, the dancer," he said. She raised a brow as if disapproving of the term. "Sorry," he said.
"I helped you last night," she told him. "I helped your wife bring you here."
"Elsie isn't my wife," he felt obliged to say.
She gave him another of her shrugs, an anyways-shrug, Burns decided.
"You asked about the festival and I told you. Then you saw this," she tapped the brooch, "and you said I must be a witch, and we must talk."
Apparently, he had been more cognisant in his drunken stupor than during these dumbing aftereffects.
"I'm sorry I called you a witch," he said. "I didn't mean--"
"You said you wanted books."
It took his dulled brain a few moments to find the connection -- the waxing moon on her brooch was an ancient pagan symbol for a young woman, she was a witch, and when she said books, she meant reference material -- texts -- research!
"You mean a library?"
Another anyways-shrug confounded him. It was unclear if she understood him, or dismissed his question as obvious. For the first time an expression -- irritation, impatience -- affected her. It focused the woman's beauty. Burns became more aware of his near-nakedness, and of how foolish he appeared with yesterday's socks collected around his ankles.
"You need to dress," she told him.
Burns mumbled apologetically and let her in before he went to the bedroom. He opened the wardrobe and removed whatever his hands found -- a summer shirt and light trousers, clothes he would have worn if he planned to spend time with Elsie. He almost rummaged for something more suitable, but felt too tired and too sluggish to find formal wear.
He moved his limbs into the clothes with greater control than he expected, and found the shoes he'd worn yesterday cast to one corner. They felt loose on him now, and made him feel clumsy as he returned to the lounge. He paused before pushing through the flimsy twin doors; he heard her speak to someone. When he pushed through, he found her in the same chair he had collapsed on, singing. The second person was just her singing voice. She looked comfortable and patient, and kept her eyes on the large window. Burns thought she looked at home.
To Burns, her song sounded a little like a playground rhyme, something a child might sing as a taunt. She stopped singing to ask, "You are ready?" She hardly glanced at him, and stood with a fluid motion that became three strides to the suite door.
Her manner, her way of dismissing him while simultaneously addressing him, irritated Burns, but her demand to leave surprised him. He was willing -- grudgingly -- to question her today, but anything more active would have to wait until his body and mind recovered. He prepared a protest, when she dropped her shoulders impatiently and said, "Everything is ready. We can go, or you can stay."
"I can't go. My girlfriend--"
"She is outside."
"You know where she is?"
"She is in the streets."
His relief didn’t cloud his irritation -- he had intended to use Elsie's absence as a reason to stay. If his mind were sharper, he might create a reasonable excuse, but the woman opened the door and strode out, leaving Burns to look for his room key. He was sure Elsie had it. He felt a flare of anger toward her, but he had the opportunity of reading authentic historical text, and hurried from the suite.
He had a flurry of panic when he found the corridor empty. He heard the stairway door close, and went as fast as his muddied insides allowed. On each table, someone had intermittently filled bowls with water or broken pieces of dry bread. Salt made a small hill between the bowls. On the landing, he didn't see the witch, but her steps echoed through the stairway, above and below, as if to taunt his senses. In the lobby, he barely noticed the receptionist stumble against the counter (the man looked as sickly as Burns felt.) He heard feet tap the steps to the street. Beside the exit, someone had set tables with bowls of water. They reminded him of fonts in a church.
The Corridor.
He found the woman standing at the end of the steps, but for a moment, Burns wasn't sure where the road had gone. Sun-soaked petals of all colours concealed the cobblestones. Before he registered the plucked wild flowers, ferns, petals and fronds, and the lengths of coarse grasses that blanketed the street, he saw the witch as if he saw her for the first time. She startled him; she beguiled him. He understood why the town chose her to lead the festival. He felt a nervous rush, thinking she had come to find him, seeing her wait for him.
"You haven't told me your name," he said.
"Nina."
His mind wasn't so clouded -- or enamoured -- to recall some of his Spanish from school. He wondered if she knew more Spanish than the word for girl. Maybe she was telling the truth; or maybe she was having fun at his expense.
"I think you're being deceptive."
She gave another shrug.
"My name is Virgo," she said.
The Latin for virgin. She meant to annoy him. He tried to smile. He shook his head.
She also smiled; it was as unconvincing as his attempt. She said, "Lacuna."
A term he was familiar with, since it meant a gap or missing part of a manuscript, a frustration people in his profession dealt with often. "I'm going back inside if you keep this up," he warned, but he wasn
't sure of his own threat. She suddenly made him nervous as a child who had spoken out of turn.
"Pais," she said, and because Burns couldn't recall the word, he took it as her name. "Will you come?"
Burns looked down the street, along the brilliant carpet of plants. The sun softened and mixed their elaborate fragrances, a honey-sweet concoction thick as liquorice that even managed to fill his stomach, like a soft cordial. It had a calming effect on his nerves, and even the effects of last night sank beneath the perfume.
He stepped onto the flowered street, and was surprised when the woman -- Pais - - took his hand. He didn't resist, didn't even think to. He let her guide him to the crossroad, where the carpet continued over just one of the following streets. The other streets were bare cobblestones. Burns wondered at how much work the picking, transporting, and setting of the plants through Rodenje had taken -- how many more streets were prepared?
He asked Pais, "What is this?"
She smiled. It was the first genuine emotion he'd seen on her. "This is our corridor."
"It's part of the festival?"
"Today's festival."
She led him toward the fork and took him down the next carpeted path. He thought her skin under his fingers were soft as petals, and felt a pleasant spin in his stomach.
"What are these festivals celebrating?"
She frowned as she concentrated, before she said, "Change." If not for her expression, Burns would have thought it another attempt to annoy or tease him. "Change is eternal," she added, as if he'd challenged her aloud. "We have no choice but to accept it."
Dead Birds: The Dark Orphans Collection Page 7
