Necessary Monsters

by Richard A. Kirk

  Working in conditions that killed many of them, the laborers brought in by the women built a great monastery house. The foundations and walls were constructed from the stone that the asteroid had left behind. They pulled the trunks of the ancient trees from the swamps and used the remarkable wood to create the floors, balconies, staircases and tables for the house. The house itself became known as Little Eye and was from the first, a melancholy place, though it is said, many caged birds lit the rooms with song. Within a few short years only the women of the Sisterhood of Little Eye remained. All others had fled or succumbed to disease or suicide. The sisters conscientiously rubbed the wood with beeswax, and stared often over the black waters of the swamp to the impenetrable forest as if waiting for something to emerge.

  —Introduction to The Songbirds of Nightjar Island

  Was the intruder's interest in Nightjar based on some connection to Little Eye monastery? The books on celestial impacts led in that direction. By the time he had reached the end of the passage, Moss wondered if he had found an important clue to Memoria's story. For the moment, though, he was stymied.

  Gale had missed the agreed-upon appointment. This angered Moss. Despite the inevitable discomfort the meeting would entail, he wanted it over with. He did not want to leave the business unresolved, only to have it pop up again at some less opportune time.

  Moss was also worried that Lamb or the tattooed woman were watching the house. It was not a good combination of circumstances. He was pinned down and such confinement led to dubious coping mechanisms.

  His eyes ached at the brightness of the atlas pages. Too much brandy, he thought. Andrew shifted the weight of the book and leaned forward, bringing the smudged lenses of his glasses close to the northern region. On the couch opposite, Moss rubbed his face. He rinsed his mouth with brandy from a tea mug and sucked the drops from his beard. It flowed down his raw esophagus like a bolus of molten glass.

  Andrew was a street kid. Moss had collared him several weeks earlier attempting to break into the apartment through a door in the attic. He had grabbed the boy intending to send him out the way he had come in, but when he saw how thin Andrew was he invited him to have something to eat. The something ended up being a tin of sardines, and toast, but Andrew had not minded. He was more interested in the books in Seaforth's library. He was an intelligent boy, and they had soon struck up a surprising friendship.

  "It isn't, not really. There's just not a lot of manmade things there," said Moss. "Not any more. Nature swallowed it up after the war." He half smiled at the boy. "Maybe someday you'll go. When you get back you can fill in the map." Andrew searched Moss's face for a moment. He returned his attention to the book.

  "What would it look like? If I was there, in the empty part?"

  He thinks I know everything, thought Moss. "Grasses, sedges, boreal forest, a lot of coniferous trees. It would be windy. In the winter, the sky would be so clear you might see stars in the daytime, some of them anyway. The ground was left very polluted after the war, unexploded shells, abandoned weapons, those kinds of things."

  Andrew sat back in the chair, his eyes wide.

  "It sounds awful," said the boy.

  "Places like that have their own beauty," said Moss, shrugging. "The earth heals."

  "Who do you think lives there?"

  "Very few people live there now. You'd get sick, I imagine, if you stayed too long."

  "I mean other things."

  "Animals?" Moss massaged his temples. "Let me see, small mammals like martens and foxes, birds, lots of birds. Fish." Andrew slumped. Moss sat forward. "But in the fjords I imagine there's still a killer whale or two. Did you know they can toss a grown seal forty feet in the air?" Andrew grinned. Moss rolled a cigarette of tobacco taken from a humidor pulled from his dressing gown. He picked small pieces of apple from the tobacco and set them on the table of burled wood. The boy fixed Moss with a direct gaze.

  "I thought you said nobody lives there? How do you know so much about it?" He watched, attentive, as Moss licked the edge of the rolling paper and curled it inward.

  "That's not exactly what I said. I'll tell you a secret," said Moss, squinting as he lit the cigarette with a candle. Smoke streamed from his mouth. He swatted it away from his face. "And no matter what, you can't tell anyone."

  "I won't," said Andrew.

  "I was sent there once, to prison, a miserable place called Brickscold. Nothing but forest for miles around."

  "No shit," whispered Andrew, after a moment of reflection. They both burst out laughing. When they had quieted down, Andrew pointed to a pale blue line of longitude where the green gave way to grey and then white. "I'd like to go there one day and see what it's like. Do you think I could?"

  "Of course," said Moss. "How old are you, eleven, twelve?"

  "Ten."

  "Well, first you have to attend to your education. You'll have to study the sciences so that you are prepared."

  "What do you mean?"

  "You must be educated, to understand what you are seeing, to see the patterns and hidden connections. It's not enough to look. You have to see."

  "What about courage? I think it would be a scary place."

  "That can't be taught in school." Moss grew serious. "Courage is something you have to teach yourself."

  "How long would it take to get there?" asked Andrew.

  Before Moss could answer, there was a knock on the apartment door. They froze and exchanged glances. The grandfather clock ticked. Moss knew that it was risky to ignore Mr. Morel, the building manager. It just made him that much more inquisitive. For weeks, Morel had used every opportunity to interrupt Moss's day. Every small drama within the walls of the building was cause for an immediate and exhaustive consultation. Moss put a finger to his lips. Andrew giggled.

  It was Morel's often-expressed belief that Moss, as the instructor of Seaforth's children, was the de facto family representative during their absence. As such, he was to be accorded, or at least appear to be accorded, the same respect due to the family. While arguable, this belief had one positive side effect. It precluded Morel from entering the apartment out of respect for Moss's privacy. It also meant that Morel was forever knocking on the door to impart informational updates from the threshold, which Moss had to hear with a certain amount of grace.

  "Don't move a muscle," Moss whispered.

  The previous day had been a cascade of minor catastrophes. Apparently, Morel was intent on making a pest of himself today as well. Earlier in the morning, Moss had removed the newspaper and a milk bottle from the landing. Morel, ever vigilant, must have interpreted this as a sign that Moss was awake and available to receive the first report of the day. It was easy to imagine Morel standing inches from the door, head cocked like a terrier, waiting for any sound that might confirm his conclusion.

  Seeing Andrew about to open his mouth, Moss made a zipping motion. The boy shrugged, happy to play along. Moss glanced at the clock. It's conceivable that I might have gone back to bed, he thought. Had Morel heard them talking? He might imagine that he had heard a radio. There was another knock, but it was half-hearted. Moss scratched his chin and ran his fingers through his hair. He stubbed the cigarette in the bottom of a cup where it sizzled aromatically.

  "You'd better go," he said in a hushed voice, as he slipped the humidor back in the pocket of his dressing gown.

  Andrew remained where he was. The empty milk bottle sat on the cushion beside him, a bluish film forming on the inside of the glass. He leaned against one armrest, leaving half of the chair empty. His skinned knuckles and bruised shins jutted from the suit that he had stolen from a manikin in the high street. Scuffed brogues dangled on bare feet, held on by knots of shoelace. He was the antithesis of Seaforth's privileged brats, or so Moss surmised from the smug portraits scattered throughout the apartment. Moss felt an affinity for him.

  Under Moss's stern gaze, the boy relented. He closed the book and put it on the cushion. As he jumped to his feet, Moss stopped h
im with a hand on his sleeve.

  "Quietly," he said. The boy's wrist was like a piece of smooth driftwood. "You can't come back here for a while; do you understand me? It's not safe." Andrew nodded. He pulled his sleeve from Moss's grip and ran. The boy ran everywhere. "Go the back way, and don't let Morel see you," said Moss over his shoulder. Andrew was already gone, flowing over the sill of the lavatory window and up the gutter pipe with feline agility.

  Moss pulled the atlas onto the coffee table and opened it to Nightjar Island. As a boy he had spent hours imagining what it would be like to sail through the mine-infested waters that surrounded the island and walk through the empty streets of Absentia. He had shared these fantasies with Memoria. As children they had lain side by side watching the canal reflections on the ceiling, or leaning out of the window as she levitated unsuspecting frogs in the moonlight. He had talked with excitement about Nightjar and the ghosts he imagined there. Memoria had always been too busy laughing at her own mischief to take in what he was saying. He thought about the stacks of books in the house, the map and the Luna moths. Perhaps she had heard more than he thought. Was she alive, right now, somewhere in the City of Steps?

  A final thump from Morel preceded the creak of retreating footsteps. It was a temporary victory. Beside the atlas, an empty glass medicine bottle cast an oscillating point of light on the tabletop. The word sinispore was hand-printed on its label. The bottle's tiny cork, itself made of a bark containing several hallucinogenic alkaloids, had dropped through the neck and rolled loose in the bottom where it had accumulated a coating of the narcotic residue. Lost in thought, Moss stared at the light on the table until he became aware of a soft cooing. He turned his head and followed the shaft of sunlit dust to the window. On the other side of the glass, a pigeon paced back and forth. Like a prison guard, Moss thought. He drank now from the open bottle of brandy that he had kept out of Andrew's view beside the couch. As it once again bathed his throat with fire, he was seized with a conviction. It was obvious. The books, the maps and moths were not accidental discoveries. Someone, maybe Memoria, intended for him to find them. They were leaving a trail of breadcrumbs.

  THE RETURN OF THE BEES

  Just after 7 a.m. the next morning Moss heard a door shut in the attic. It was barely audible, but in the isolation of the prison Moss had trained his ear to pick up and interpret subtle patterns of sound. Judge Seaforth's building was number 2 in a row of seven houses. The sound meant that someone had entered the vacant building at the end of the row, number 7, accessed the roof through the broken skylight, and made their way, building by building, to a door that opened into Judge Seaforth's attic. The purpose of this exertion was to enter the house undetected from the street. The route was complicated enough that the probability of someone chancing upon it was remote.

  Moss opened his eyes, assuming that Andrew had returned, despite being told to stay away. Footsteps, too heavy to be the boy, passed overhead, creaking toward the ceiling of the next room, the judge's library. A pause was followed by the thump of the counterweighted ladder sliding from the ceiling. The visitor descended. Moss felt a cool draft on his skin from under the door.

  Irridis, he thought, sitting up on the couch. Moss had hoped for this visit since drawing the bird inside the telephone booth. The bird was a private symbol. It meant check public locker 12 in Central Station. The locker was a method of communication they had established before Irridis left the City of Steps months earlier. It was a way for him to find Moss, who was, of necessity, untraceable. In the remote train station locker, Moss had left Seaforth's address, written in a private code, along with a note describing how to access the house via the rooftops. Moss had placed the instructions in a sealed envelope a short time after taking the job. The system had seemed comic when they devised it, but Irridis had as many reasons as Moss for discretion, so it stood.

  Moss concealed the sinispore vial in his robe and kicked the empty brandy bottle under the couch with his heel. The ladder in the other room rumbled in its tracks as it withdrew into the attic. Footsteps crossed the library floor to the closed door separating it from the living room. Moss waited, elbows on knees. Between his fingers, he twirled a pencil stub left behind by Andrew. The door slid into its side pocket and Irridis entered, tracking mud.

  Water dripped from Irridis's coat onto the acanthus-patterned carpet. It ran in rivulets from the hood that shadowed his face. Finger by finger, he removed tight-fitting gloves, and dropped them on an antique sideboard. Moss flinched. Irridis pulled back his hood. The milky-blue translucence of his skin appeared ghostly in the dim room. Moss, never at ease with Irridis's appearance, tried to look past it. Five glass stones, called ocelli, floated above Irridis's head. They were a source of spectral light.

  Moss stood up and shook his friend's hand, knowing that an embrace would be unwelcome.

  "Irridis," said Moss. "It's wonderful to see you. How are you?"

  Irridis broke his gaze with a faint smile. "Desperate for sleep. The sea was rough and I haven't slept since I arrived. I found your sign in the telephone booth just last night." Irridis looked around the room, frowning at Seaforth's curios. "How long ago did you put it there?"

  "A few days," Moss said. "God, it's great to see you."

  "And you too, Moss."

  "Where did your travels take you?" Irridis's inexhaustible thirst for knowledge often took him away for months at a time.

  "I spent some time in the Minnows, an archipelago in the far northeast, studying the biome. It wasn't an easy journey."

  "I've heard of them, a scattering of tiny marks on the map. Almost the end of the world."

  Irridis nodded. "Trust me, there is no almost. You couldn't find a more barren place. It took some time to learn the moods of the land, but I had help in that. At first I found the aboriginal people in the remote fishing settlements wary of my appearance, especially the ocelli. I told them I was a religious pilgrim, which seemed to put the matter to rest. After that, they were willing to offer me assistance, although somewhat reservedly." The ocelli drifted through the room throwing odd shadows. "Their own spirituality steers toward the supernatural, so maybe that had something to do with it. Nevertheless, I didn't stay in any one place for long. I spent most of my time hiking in the wilderness far from settlements. I followed the hunting corridors, resting in huts. It is a desolate and beautiful landscape. Caribou and seals are stolid company. Timber wolves and brown bears, less so."

  "Yet here you are," said Moss.

  "The season was changing. By sheer happenstance I found a privately operated ship willing to take me on. It's been anchored here for two days. I would have looked for you sooner, but I had other business to take care of." He picked up a glass paperweight containing a sea urchin.

  Moss sat down, waiting for an elaboration that did not come. He had so many questions, but he knew better than to ask them so soon. Irridis would tell his stories in his own way, or not at all.

  "How have you been?" asked Irridis.

  "Something has happened, and I need your help."

  "Go on." Irridis held the paperweight to his eyes, squinting out of one and then the other as he turned it. One of the ocelli swept behind it to provide illumination. "These are protected, you know. Harvested nearly to extinction to satisfy the demand for paperweights." He put it down on a polished hutch with a hard knock. "Sorry, go on."

  "I think Memoria's alive."

  Irridis leaned against the hutch, arms folded. "You told me that she drowned."

  Moss nodded. "Yes. That's what I thought. For so many years, I've had this horrible image of her falling off the seawall. I—" He pulled out his humidor and rolled a cigarette. He rolled it too tightly and started again. "Sorry, I'm not making any sense. She's been dead to me for so long I can't get my head around it."

  "What's happened to make you think otherwise?"

  "I went to the old house on the canal. You remember, I told you about it once. Fleurent Drain? It's where John Machine moved my fami
ly after he brought Memoria to live with us."

  "Yes, with the frogs. I've seen it."

  "Exactly. Nobody has lived there for years. When I checked on it a few days ago, it was vacant, but in one of the rooms I found a setup for raising Luna moths. It was a hobby she had."

  "Hardly conclusive. Something left from years past."

  "No. These were live moths, Irridis. Someone was tending to them very recently, somebody who knew what they were doing. It's too much of a coincidence." Moss lit the cigarette. The smoke eddied in a diagonal band of sunlight creeping across the room.

  "Unless someone wanted you to make that assumption."

  "I thought of that. But why?" Moss had dwelled on this possibility. If Lamb had contrived such a thing to convince him of Memoria's existence, it was smart. But, to do so depended on knowledge of a trivial detail from Memoria's past.

  "I don't know," said Irridis. "Did you see anything else?"

  "Some books, maps of Nightjar Island. I know it sounds peculiar but I can't help thinking that these are clues that she left for me."

  "If she were alive, why wouldn't she approach you directly? Why be so mysterious?"

  "Think of our bird symbol. Maybe she has something to hide, or maybe she is afraid."

  "Of whom?"

  "John Machine exposed her to a lot of strange people. They were excessively curious about her, because of her so-called gift, as if she was something to be possessed."

  "So what are you going to do?"

  "Find her, of course. Irridis, I need your help."

  "Well, even assuming that you are right, how would you recognize her? It's been years. Do you even have a photograph of what she looked like then?"

  "I'll recognize her, no question. I'm going to go back the house for a start and see if she's been back since I was last there."