Through Dead Eyes

by Chris Priestley

  Alex frowned, imagining Hanna, day after day, the relentless ticking of the clock, the airless room, the window, and her silhouette against it, staring out across the canal, the sound of running feet in the street outside.

  ‘And she never left the house?’ said Alex.

  Angelien shook her head.

  ‘Never?’ he said.

  ‘Doesn’t seem like it,’ said Angelien. ‘And it seems – not surprisingly – as though her time spent holed up in that house had driven her a bit crazy. All that talk of seeing the ghosts of plague children . . .’

  Alex turned away and looked towards the canal. Leaves were drifting by on its sepia waters. He had to say something. He had to tell her that he had seen those ghost children himself.

  But even as he thought this he was full of doubts: was he seeing the past or was he seeing the madness of Hanna’s damaged mind? Was he dreaming? Maybe he was the crazy one.

  Then Alex heard footsteps and when he looked round, Dirk was walking towards them, grinning. There was something lupine about his face.

  ‘What’s he doing here?’ said Alex coldly.

  ‘Nice to see you too,’ said Dirk.

  ‘You said he wouldn’t be coming along any more,’ said Alex.

  Dirk put his arm round Alex and clutched his shoulder, his fingers digging into him. He made it look friendly but Alex could tell it was meant to hurt and it did.

  ‘You won’t tell, will you, Alex?’ he said.

  Alex shrugged him away.

  ‘Get lost!’ said Alex.

  ‘OK, tough guy,’ he said.

  ‘Shut up, Dirk,’ said Angelien.

  ‘I’m not scared of you,’ said Alex unconvincingly.

  ‘You should really be quiet,’ said Dirk. ‘I don’t like bullies. They are usually cowards, you know.’

  ‘You would know,’ said Alex.

  ‘Me?’ said Dirk with a shrug. ‘No. I’m not a bully, my friend. I don’t hassle girls with emails and Facebook and so on. It makes me sick, actually – cyber-bullying. That really is a coward’s way, huh? They should be a lot stricter with people who do that kind of thing . . .’

  Alex stared at Angelien and she put her hands to her face and cursed under her breath.

  ‘What?’ said Dirk, laughing.

  Angelien looked at Alex but he could see by her expression that she really had said that. She turned angrily to Dirk and slapped him in the stomach with the back of her hand.

  ‘Hey!’ he said with a laugh. ‘You said you were sick of babysitting. You said it wasn’t worth the money your mother was paying you and –’

  ‘Dirk,’ she hissed and turned to Alex, reaching out towards him.

  ‘She’s paying you to look after me?’ said Alex.

  ‘I know how it sounds,’ said Angelien. ‘But –’

  ‘I don’t care,’ said Alex. ‘You said I’d change my mind about you when I got to know you better. You’re right. You are weird. Weird and –’

  ‘Alex.’

  ‘Leave me alone.’

  He shook his head and, ignoring the shouts behind him, walked away over the bridge, tears filling his eyes.

  Alex had been walking for a few minutes when a hand tapped him on the shoulder. He turned expecting to see Angelien but was instead faced by Dirk. He saw Alex’s reaction and put his hands up and backed away a little.

  ‘It’s OK, man,’ he said. ‘Look, I’m sorry, OK? I acted like an idiot. Angelien told me to come and say sorry.’

  ‘OK, so you said it,’ said Alex, turning away and starting to walk off.

  Dirk stepped around and in front of him blocking his way. Alex stopped and stared back at him coldly. Behind him further down the road, he could see Angelien waiting.

  ‘Hey,’ he said. ‘Come on. I’ve said sorry.’

  Alex bit on his bottom lip. He felt sure that it was only Angelien watching that prevented Dirk from grabbing him by the throat.

  ‘Look,’ he said. ‘I just want to get back to my hotel.’

  Dirk smiled.

  ‘Then you’re heading in the wrong direction, my friend.’

  Alex didn’t reply.

  ‘Come on,’ said Dirk, stepping a little closer. ‘We can be cool about this, huh? Angelien thinks you will go to your dad and get her into trouble again. But I said you wouldn’t do that.’

  ‘Why’s that?’

  ‘Because you like Angelien,’ he said with a smile. ‘And you won’t want to get her in trouble.’

  He felt sick. Angelien had told Dirk everything. Alex imagined them in a café together laughing about him. He felt like Dirk had reached into his chest and was squeezing his heart.

  Dirk leaned closer and dropped his voice.

  ‘I don’t want to hear that Angelien’s witch of a mother knows about this,’ he whispered. ‘Don’t make me come looking for you, OK?’

  Angelien slowly walked towards them.

  Dirk slapped him on the back.

  ‘Cool!’ he said loudly. ‘You’re OK, my friend.’

  ‘Everything OK, boys?’ she said.

  ‘Sure,’ said Dirk. ‘Alex is cool. Aren’t you, Alex?’

  ‘Yeah,’ he said.

  Angelien looked relieved.

  ‘So where shall we go next?’ she said. ‘Dirk was just going and –’

  ‘Actually I think I’m just going to head back to the hotel,’ said Alex.

  ‘Really?’ said Angelien. ‘We’ll walk you back.’

  ‘Nah,’ said Alex. ‘I’ve got a map. I’ll be fine.’

  ‘But –’ began Angelien.

  ‘You heard the man,’ said Dirk, grabbing hold of Angelien. ‘He’s fine. He’s not a baby. He can find his way back to the hotel without you, can’t you, Alex?’

  When they had left him, Alex took out his map. Initially he had every intention of returning to the hotel, but as he walked he found that he was being irresistibly drawn in another direction.

  Alex walked on, head bowed, staring at the cobbles, his feet seeming to have a will of their own.

  Every step he took reminded him of Dirk’s sneering face and the bitterness he felt ran through his whole body like a disease. He ached with it.

  All of a sudden Alex stopped. When he looked up, he found himself outside of a shop. He looked in through the window and saw that it was filled with rolls of fabric, multi-coloured buttons and spools of thread.

  Alex opened the door, pinging a bell. The woman serving in the shop seemed surprised to see a teenage boy when she looked up but she smiled and said hello.

  Alex smiled back and headed to the back of the shop. He seemed to know exactly why he was there and what it was he needed.

  In front of him were spools of ribbons in dozens of different colours.

  ‘English?’ said the woman stepping up beside him.

  ‘Yes,’ said Alex.

  ‘Can I help you?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Alex. ‘Can I have some of that ribbon – the dark-blue one?’

  Chapter 14

  Back in his hotel room, Alex picked up the mask and threaded the ribbon through the holes at the sides, knotting them.

  He did these actions mechanically. The bitterness he had felt about Angelien and Dirk had turned to numbness. He felt nothing. He just knew that he had to do this and do it now.

  Alex put the mask up to his face and, with some difficulty, tied the ribbon in a bow at the back of his head. It felt cool against his skin, like plunging his face in cold water.

  He was startled by what a difference this made to the feel of the mask. Holding it in front of his face had been strange enough, given the weird effect it had on whatever was viewed through it.

  But actually tying the mask on made it seem as though it belonged there, as though it was made for him. It fitted his face perfectly, almost as if it was adapting itself to Alex’s features. The shape hugged his face and settled coolly across his nose and cheeks and forehead until he could hardly tell where his flesh ended and the mask began.

&
nbsp; The view through the eyeholes was as dark as ever, although the time it took to adjust to the difference seemed less somehow and he was definitely seeing more now.

  The room was no longer his hotel room, but the room that Hanna had spent her life in. It was sparsely furnished and Alex had the impression that the darkness was not wholly down to the mask. A single lamp provided all the light and its glow barely reached the far side of the room.

  Alex walked across to the window and pulled aside the curtain – not the bland curtain of his hotel room, but a heavy damask curtain. Again he heard the echo of his own short breathing. Was it Hanna? Was it her breath that echoed with his own?

  Alex looked out through the window and saw the children standing in a group below, all staring up at him as though they had been waiting for him to come to the window.

  He let the curtain fall back across the window, blocking them out. But the memory of their faces lingered in his mind.

  Alex walked backwards away from the window, the heavy curtain still swaying slightly, pulling the mask off as he did so. Light flooded back into his sight, dazzling him and making him blink.

  He put the mask down on the top of the chest of drawers and stared at it. The face seemed to look back at him, with its inscrutable smile. It seemed to mock him. Alex sat down on the bed and put his head in his hands.

  Alex heard his father come into the room next door and got unsteadily to his feet. He opened a drawer and slid the mask inside and then went over to the adjoining door.

  ‘Hi,’ he said as he opened it.

  ‘Alex,’ said his father, looking up from the papers in his lap. ‘I thought you were still out with Angelien.’

  ‘Nah,’ said Alex. ‘She had to be somewhere so I came back.’

  ‘Hope you haven’t had to hang around for too long,’ said his father. ‘Saskia had a meeting, so it looks like we are both at a loose end. How about we go and eat, just the two of us?’

  Alex smiled.

  ‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘That’d be good.’

  They went to a restaurant on the banks of a small, straight stretch of canal, lined with trees with a humpback bridge nearby, crowned with a tiara of bicycles chained to its railing. A garland of lights echoed the curve of the bridge and they reflected in the water, forming a near circle.

  ‘Everything’s going to be fine you know,’ said his father as they waited for the waiter to bring their food. ‘It all seems like it’s overwhelming now, but it will pass.’

  ‘I suppose so,’ said Alex.

  ‘I’m so sorry that we did this to you,’ he said. ‘Your mother and me. It was the last thing I wanted, you know that – but I couldn’t make your mother stay.’

  ‘I just wish . . .’

  But Alex was not really sure what he wished for any more, except for everything to be back to normal.

  ‘I like it being just us two,’ said Alex. ‘I like Saskia and everything. It’s not that.’

  His father smiled.

  ‘I’m glad you like her,’ he said. ‘I’m pretty fond of her myself. We just met at the wrong time. We were too young.’

  ‘Will you marry Saskia, Dad?’ asked Alex.

  ‘Marry?’ said his father, pouring himself some wine. ‘Where did that come from? I think we are a long way off making that kind of decision.’

  ‘It’s just that she lives here in Amsterdam,’ said Alex. ‘Her job’s here. Her whole life is here.’

  ‘Alex, Alex,’ said his father. ‘I don’t want you worrying yourself about all this. Who knows what might happen in the future? Let’s talk about something else. What did you do today?’

  ‘Nothing much,’ said Alex, remembering Dirk’s grip on his shoulder.

  ‘Everything OK?’ said his father. ‘I shouldn’t have gone on at you about Angelien.’

  ‘No,’ said Alex. ‘You were right. I was being stupid. Of course she wouldn’t be interested in me.’

  ‘Well,’ said his father. ‘Never mind, eh? No harm done. How about pudding?’

  Alex felt in no hurry to return to his room and was happy when his father suggested that they walk off their meal by wandering along the canals in a meandering stroll back to their hotel.

  The tick-tock of his father’s brogues echoed along the dark streets and canals and Alex felt lulled and calmed. Perhaps his father was right: perhaps everything would be fine in time.

  This attempt at optimism lasted right up until he said goodnight to his father and found himself alone in his room once more. Within seconds of closing the door, Alex felt the chill eating into the pit of his stomach.

  He turned back to open the door and return to his father, but the darkness already had a hold of him. Instead he reached for the chest of drawers.

  He knew that the mask was calling to him again. He knew he was not going to be able to resist; he didn’t want to resist.

  Alex couldn’t stop now, he knew it. He had to find out more. He was hooked now and could no more resist the mask than stop breathing. This was not about proving anything to Angelien; this was a raw compulsion. Alex just needed to look into that world. As frightening as it was, he needed to see more.

  Alex picked up the mask and tied it quickly round his head, knotting it at the back. It felt tight at first but within seconds he barely noticed it was there. Darkness descended once more, and all the modern trappings of the room fled at its arrival.

  He walked across to the window. Resisting all impulses to look down at those pale blue children, he looked straight ahead into the darkness of the houses on the opposite side of the street.

  He let those houses shift out of focus and he focused instead on his reflection in the window. It was a dull and vague reflection but he found that, with concentration, he could make the image clearer and sharper.

  The mask stood out pale against the blackness behind, but the eyes that twinkled in the shadows of the eye holes were not hazel like his own, but pale and limpid. The flaxen hair that tumbled down on either side was likewise not his own, but Hanna’s.

  And as he realised that he could see her, he could feel that she made the same realisation. Across the centuries they made contact.

  Alex’s hands moved up behind his head, but it was Hanna who moved them. It was her fingers that now worked at the knot he had tied in the ribbon.

  Alex’s heartbeat quickened as he realised what was happening. She was taking the mask from her face; a face that Angelien had said was horribly disfigured in the fire. He braced himself.

  Then suddenly, he saw a black shape loom up behind Hanna’s face. It was Van Kampen appearing like a huge crow. He stopped Hanna’s fingers as she tried to untie the bow, looking out into the street, clearly concerned at who might be watching.

  Hanna pulled away from his touch and walked away from the window. Alex could feel her temper rising. Van Kampen turned and began to walk away but Hanna called after him. Alex couldn’t understand what she said but he could see through her eyes the effect it had on her father. He staggered backwards as though shot and put his hands over his ears.

  She shouted again, louder this time. Hanna’s father turned and walked back to his room and though Alex was relieved, the relief was short lived, because Van Kampen strode back, his cane high over his head.

  Without pause or warning the cane cracked across Hanna’s back. Hanna curled up to shield herself against the next blow, but it came too quickly. Alex felt the pain that Hanna felt and it was almost too much to bear.

  Hanna screamed as the next blow came down and Alex cried out too. He turned to see a look of wild fury on Van Kampen’s ashen face: fury, tinged with a kind of terror. He was lashing out at them as someone might strike out at a snake or a rat.

  The cane came down again and cracked, the handle breaking off and skittering across the floor. Van Kampen raised the broken cane above his head and Alex cried out again. Another blow from the cane knocked the mask from Hanna’s face and sent it bouncing across the floor.

  As soon as the mask came o
ff, the modern world flooded back in. He heard his father’s footsteps approaching the door and he leaped back into bed, shoving the mask under the covers.

  ‘Alex!’ said his father walking in and turning on the light. ‘I heard you scream. What’s the matter?!’

  Alex was still disorientated. The past world of Hanna still clung to him. He tried to speak but a wordless sound emerged. His father’s voice sounded distant and faint.

  ‘Alex!’ repeated his father.

  This time the voice rushed in through the haze, like a wave crashing on to a fog-bound shingle beach. The world of the mask fled from the light, reality reappearing, crisp and sharp. Alex felt as though he had been slapped awake from a deep sleep.

  ‘Alex,’ said his father, more quietly this time, putting his arm round his son’s shoulders. ‘What’s wrong?’

  ‘The mask,’ said Alex. ‘I had a nightmare. A bad one.’

  ‘That bloody mask,’ said his father. ‘It’s an ugly thing if you ask me. There’s something unpleasant about it. If Angelien thinks it’s worth so much, then why not give the thing to her.’

  ‘No!’ said Alex, more aggressively than he intended. ‘I want to keep it, Dad.’

  His father sighed. ‘What was the nightmare about?’ he asked. ‘It sometimes helps to talk about these things, you know.’

  ‘It was about this house,’ said Alex. ‘About the way it was in the Golden Age, you know, when Van Kampen lived here with his daughter.’

  ‘He had a daughter, did he?’ said Alex’s father. ‘I suppose Angelien has been telling you all this.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Alex. ‘The girl used to wear a mask like the one I bought. I suppose it must have creeped me out a bit.’

  His father stroked Alex’s hair and stood up.

  ‘I’m OK, Dad,’ said Alex.

  ‘Sure?’ he said, standing up.

  Alex nodded.

  ‘OK then,’ said his father. ‘If you’re sure. Stop thinking about the seventeenth century. It’s a gloomy age. Try and concentrate on something cheerful.’

  ‘Like World War Two?’ said Alex.