Vivian Amberville - The Weaver of Odds

by Louise Blackwick

  Sometimes her eye would catch movements – distant squirming, wringing and fighting – that would disappear under a closer examination. Vivian didn’t understand how one could lose their mind so utterly. She lifted her head a notch, her eyes on the horizon.

  A sudden urge to ink something down had taken her by storm. No wonder, given the oddness of the week. These mad times could only be resolved one way, she thought – by writing things down.

  Writing about how a terrible chill woke her up in the dead of night, only to reveal another hole in reality. Write how it brought about snow in her room, snow of a sickish shell-pink (Vivian fought to suppress her imagination telling her it retained blood). Write how a second hole fetched a ridiculous amount of dark sand, which Ayesha had to dispose of, complainingly.

  Vivian rubbed her eyes, trying to fight the hallucination of a faceless boy picking his tears and collecting them in a vial. Madness was winning her over, she felt sure of it. In the stillness of the garden, she closed her eyes.

  The wind gently caressed her silky black hair while the pages of her journal slowly began to turn. As sleep rolled over her like a dark shroud, a strange shadow followed her into her dream.

  She was in a spacey chamber, whose every wall had been stuffed to the brim with books. She found herself facing a heavily-scratched wooden desk highlighted by the tiniest light. An inbuilt lamp had been dimmed down to such awful extent Vivian could barely spot the pages before her. Clearly, she wanted no one to know she was using the library.

  Vivian recognized the yellowing sheet before her as belonging to her journal, and the small, crumpled handwriting was surely hers. Maybe the dim light played tricks on her eyes, yet the writing looked hollow, as though carved into paper by the tiniest chisel.

  Vivian gazed at her last passage and felt surprised by her own courage. Running away – she had been contemplating it for months.

  “…Won’t be a prisoner in my own home. I’ll run away… a world’s away from here!

  I’m sure my life can amass to more than just filling the hole left by Mira’s death. I’ve grown to hate this house and the emptiness it fills me with. I’d rather be anywhere else but here. For the sake of my sanity, I must leave the Manor as soon as – tomorrow. They sleep late on Sundays. I’ll do it just before dawn.”

  The thought of breaking free from the Manor at last both scared and excited her. Darien and Aniya were overprotective and far from perfect, but she had never felt more cared for, more loved. They had done everything in their power to offer her a sturdy education while at home; they had provided for her; raised her; offered Vivian the very best money could buy. She had mixed feelings about leaving the pair of them behind.

  On the other hand, Vivian had always wondered what lay beyond the poverty and the opulence of Milton Keynes. Her curiosity was by far, greater than her fear of Filth. She couldn’t bear to live a jailbird’s life; not after having spent the greater part of her childhood in complete isolation from the world at large. It was perhaps, fortunate that she was yet to receive an identity chip.

  It would make things easier , she thought, the faint light of the lamp now swallowed by a mounting darkness, and from that darkness detached a long, thin shadow. She felt her eyes dropping.

  The thin man stared her down; she distinctly felt the pressure of his empty eye-sockets on her cheek. A breath of rot blew inches away from her face. He lowered his hood and warily bent over her, his grey rotten teeth cracking into a wide grin.

  His shapeless mouth broke into a dim whisper. Sunya . Sunya.

  All thoughts of sleep forgotten, she stood up at once.

  ‘You killed my parents!’ she yelled at the darkness.

  The Darkness grinned back. ‘You did so yourself.’

  Its shadowy claw brushed against her velvet-black hair. Its thin limbs had cupped her shoulders.

  ‘L-let go!’

  ‘Oi, wake up already!’ she heard a voice shouting above.

  Vivian opened her eyes just to find herself lying flat on the grass, her hands clenching her journal. Patricia Kate was holding her sideways, making her shoulders twinge.

  ‘Sods!’ Kate squabbled. ‘Oi, stop punching. It’s me!’

  Vivian rubbed off a drop of sweat off her forehead. Kate looked at her in alarm.

  ‘Kate? What happened?’

  ‘You set the sodding garden on fire, that’s what!’

  ‘I—what?’

  Vivian gingerly stroked her eyes, pushing herself into a standing position. Looking down, she immediately identified Kate’s cause of distress. A large patch of grass had been singed right under her, and the lightning stricken willow above looked deplorably scorched.

  A clicking noise caught Vivian’s attention. There was Lucian the journalist, taking pictures of the grounds with a large, transparent tablet. When he finished, he walked towards her, extending an arm. Cornered by the gesture, Vivian shook it.

  ‘Lucian Blossom,’ he pompously said. ‘I write for—’

  ‘I know who you bloody are,’ said Vivian curtly, giving him a surveying look. She lost count how many times the Ambervilles and their private affairs had made Lucian’s headline. ‘Now get your camera out of my garden!’

  ‘Vivian, you’re being rude!’

  Lucian was tall, yet still wiry for his age. His waxy countenance was adorned by rather large pale-blue eyes obstructed by rectangular glasses. He had short blond hair, which he wore with a smirk. Like all nobletons, he afforded Sporex—the new trend in point of nano-tubed clothing. The sight of him made Vivian cross.

  ‘We saw a fire from the sitting-room,’ Kate eyed the charred tree, ‘came out as soon as we— why is the grass—?’

  Click, click, click: clicked Lucian Blossom’s camera.

  ‘Didn’t I tell you to stop taking pictures?’

  ‘OI! WATCHA THINK YER DOIN’?’

  A raging Angus Trimmings was rushing across the grassy knoll, with a huge shears in hand, his ginger stubble alit.

  ‘DIS BE PRIVATE PROPERTY, LADDIE, NAWT YER SHOOTIN’ STUDIO. NOW PUSH OFF, BEFORE OY CALL DA MADHADS ON YA!’

  ‘Thanks for the interview, Kate!’ Lucian worded, before rushing across the grounds and leaving through the rust-ridden gate. ‘Be seeing you later!’

  ‘ME LAWN! ME PRETTIE TURF!’ Angus waved his gigantic shears threateningly. ‘OY’LL SHORTEN YER NECKS FER IT!’

  Vivian and Kate wordlessly agreed it was their cue to clear off the premises and returned to the Manor. The moment they were alone, Kate’s eyes locked onto Vivian.

  ‘What in sod’s name’s going on?’

  ‘Not now, Kate, I— I don’t feel so—’

  Kate grabbed Vivian’s hand and examined it. ‘You’re cut!’ she rolled up Vivian’s sleeve. ‘All over cut. And you torched half the garden. Don’t you think I didn’t see you back there! Lucian and I both saw the flames. Thought you were a goner. Was about to call the ambulance on you until I saw you were fine.’

  ‘Kate—’

  But Kate just grabbed Vivian sideways, her hands gripping Vivian’s small shoulders. ‘Are you trying to do yourself in? Is that it? Because I don’t care what you think you did to your folks – it wasn’t your fault.’

  ‘I’m not feeling well today. I... I think I’m going to bed,’ Vivian said, averting her eyes.

  She looked the part too. Her face was a sickening shade of beige. But before Kate could comment on that, Vivian turned on her heel and ran upstairs, the journal securely tucked under her arm.

  A sharp tinkle of breaking porcelain made Kate jump. In her rush upstairs, Vivian had nudged a nearby cup, smashing it to the floor. Kate instantly recognized the white dove with a bleeding wing as Ala Spuria’s logo, followed by Room 209 , now broken beyond repair. Kate sighed, shaking her head in disbelief. She couldn’t see how Vivian had kept that old cup for so long.

&
nbsp; Making her way to the kitchens, Kate opened a tap and submerged her face in ice-cold water. The instant her face met the water, all traces of doubt melted off as if washed away by an invisible sponge. Whenever struggling with a thought, the cold water had done it for her. Once more, Kate emerged, knowing exactly what to do.

  ‘Come on Viv, it’s me. Open the door!’

  Kate didn’t understand. The direct approach had always worked before. Why was Vivian suddenly hiding behind a locked door? She pressed her ear to the door, listening hard.

  Vivian seemed to be writing something down; she could hear the pen frantically scuffing up the paper and the pages turning. At least she was alright.

  ‘Get some rest, alright? I’ll come back later.’

  Hours past, and the beautifully-sculpted coo-coo clock chimed twenty-three times, announcing the exact hour. With the clock silenced, Kate softly planted herself once more before Vivian’s bedroom door, eavesdropping. What sounded very much like muffled sobbing and blubbing escaped the room, and Kate knocked once more. At once, the sniffling stopped.

  ‘Still feeling ill?’

  Behind the locked door, Vivian didn’t answer.

  ‘I could get you something.’

  The silence persisted.

  ‘Talk to me, please,’ Kate said imploringly, but no sound met her request.

  ‘Fine,’ Kate finally uttered. ‘Very mature. Just go on and ignore me!’

  Kate heatedly went back to her own room and waited. Half an hour later, she overheard Miles ringing the bell that announced the Manor’s lockdown. As no sound of human presence followed such notice, Kate tip-toed her way to the room adjacent to Vivian’s and with the most cushioned movements, unbolted the windows.

  It was tremendously windy outside. Afraid the clatter might give away her presence Kate locked the window panes into position and stepped onto the cold windowsill.

  The stone ledge was barely wide enough for Kate to walk on and the powerful winds made it no easy task. One side-step at a time, she proceeded onto the outer rim of the Manor’s façade, determined to break into Vivian’s room.

  Step. Step. Step. The stone ledge felt cold under her feet, but the wind blew soothingly under her negligee. With every small step, her balance was put to a new test. A treacherously long distance spread from the window down to the grassy knoll at the foot of the Manor; a distance Kate found increasingly difficult to ignore. She could not afford any slips.

  To her surprise, her ordeal barely revealed a sound-sleeping Vivian, and right next to her bedstead – Kate’s last hope at finding some answers – Vivian’s journal . For the life of her, she needed to sneak a peek.

  Kate waited in silence on the outer rim of the building for Vivian to fall into even deeper a sleep. As good minutes passed without any sign that Vivian would wake anytime soon, Kate resorted to opening the window in the softest manner available.

  She cautiously inserted one single hair from her scalp in-between the two windowpanes and pulled. The silver hair had soundlessly lifted the bolt and Kate slithered into the room without as much as a groan from the sleeping Vivian.

  The identity chip lay by Vivian’s side on a minuscule pillow. It had oily fingerprints all across its little glass case, revealing Vivian had been turning it in her hand quite a number of times. The large metallic piercer was on her nightstand, untouched. It seemed that Vivian was in no hurry to become “Vivian Amberville”.

  Vivian’s favourite many-faced die was also on her nightstand, catching dust. Kate gave it an indifferent look, before turning her attention to the object of her quest. Beside a dozen wet discarded tissues was a thick book bound in leather.

  Threading on the balls of her feet, Kate extracted the journal, and with a predatorily glint in her eyes, she read the latest entry.

  “ I’m a raving loony these days. Not your regular loony, but the-world-is-glitching-before-my-eyes sort of thing. What kind of person sees “ holes ” in reality? And in those holes, sky cities that float, and strangers who talk weird?

  The white rose connects it all, I’m sure. There’s something unnatural about it. It’s like it didn’t even come from this world…”

  Kate’s eyes jumped to the white rose on Vivian’s nightstand. Its white was so pure it seemed to inhibit nearby darkness. Where did Vivian get such flower? What could it all mean? Kate quickly returned to the journal, determined to find out.

  “I’m like a walking special effects studio – the kind that bites and grins back at you through a mouthful of gore. Mad stuff, if I ever saw any. And I did.

  I’m seeing things – plenty of them – and they are seeing me back. Some of these things have quite charming personalities. I threw a Swiss knife at one… a man with metallic eyes.

  Whoever digs this journal up is going to bust a gut laughing. That or they’ll put me in a pillowed room – the scratchy sort, without pillows. Should I tell someone about it? And if I’m mad and land myself somewhere? Don’t think I can bare living under lock and key. Had enough of “Madhad state custody” to last me a lifetime.

  Wish I knew what was happening to me. I’m more and more afraid those visions will return if I leave my room.”

  Vivian snorted in her sleep and several things happened at once. Kate promptly seized the journal and shot behind Vivian’s changing screens – and because the universe greatly believed in the art of irony – a hole the size of a sewer-cover appeared at the heart of the room.

  Patricia Kate let out a yelp, which awoke Vivian with a start. What Vivian said next, drove Kate into an even deeper state of shock.

  ‘For the love of—Not another one!’

  Kate dared not breathe, unsure whether she had been seen. Vivian sprang to her feet, the bed-mattress announcing her progress with a creak. From behind the changing screens, Kate heard Vivian break into a monologue. She seemed to be talking herself into something.

  ‘Just the opposite side of your fear,’ Vivian muttered. ‘Nothing really there. Anxiety, is all. Deep, deep breaths. Miles said it’s harmless. It’ll be gone in a second.’

  But the seconds lengthened into minutes, and the anomaly continued to linger. It looked like the substance of space itself had too much of a drink. Like the soup of reality had somehow gone bad. The reality around it looked distorted by a heat haze, like distant buildings on a hot, sunny day.

  There was a long pause during which Vivian’s sporadic breathing barely disrupted the stillness of the room. Kate heard Vivian say, “don’t trust this at all” and something about “fetching Miles” and “changing her clothes”.

  Kate inhaled no further. If Vivian stepped any closer to the changing screen, she would be discovered.

  A foot away from the screen, Vivian changed her mind, turned on her heel and went for the wardrobe instead. Kate seized the distraction to dart behind a set of red curtains, where she used the folds of the fabric to remain concealed from view. Her entire mind was now set on remaining absolutely and perfectly motionless. One move—one breath perhaps—and the curtains might shift, if ever so slightly, and reveal her presence.

  As Vivian returned wearing a house-robe, scents of charcoal, sulphur and brimstone reached Kate’s nostrils. Their origin was linked to the hole in space. Moreover, there were odd sounds coming from the other side. Kate heard the voices – or were they more on the lines of “groans” and “grunts” – and ushered herself to remain extra still.

  A booming sound emerged from the deep. From the other side of the room, Vivian gasped. There were sounds of metal clashing against stone, sounds of smithing or perhaps mining? Kate now fought the impulse of revealing herself. Whatever the opening in the floor was, it inspired no trust.

  Vivian too heard the sounds and felt the foul odours, for she now appeared to
be struggling with her decision of leaving the room.

  The hole looked like it had been carved into empty space by a very clumsy tailor. Thin-as-hair metallic threads – silver and ghost-like – fluttered aimlessly around the mouth of the hole, as though disturbed by an unseen breeze. Furthermore, a fresh bunch of white roses had found the audacity to sprout on the lips of the opening.

  Loudly wheezing with fear, Vivian stepped back, but just then, she caught strange movements in the curtains. Her eyes spotted a faint disarrangement in the red velvet, before they jumped to her nightstand. Her leather-bound journal was missing.

  A look of emerging comprehension stowed Vivian’s features. Her anxiety momentarily forgotten, she made for the curtains and pulled them aside. Crouched behind the velvet was the pink-cheeked Kate, her expression frightened.

  ‘Kate!’

  Kate made to hide the journal, but to no avail. Vivian had seen it. Her coal-black eyes shot daggers, her clenched fists shaking with rage.

  ‘You here, hidden—’

  ‘I’m sorry! I didn’t—’

  Vivian looked positively cantankerous. ‘—mean to pry? To spy? Onto me for weeks, were you? Playing tricks on me. Trying to drive me loopy!’

  Kate’s hands held the journal, her porcelain countenance flashing pink. ‘That hole, you mean?’ her hand drew an arc through the textured air. ‘Whatever that is, Viv, I’m seeing it in first.’

  ‘Too right! Too damn right!’ Vivian vociferated.

  Kate jumped to her feet so quickly, one would have thought she had springs for legs.

  ‘Doesn’t seem to be your case, though,’ said Kate, ‘“ Not another one ” this, “ Holes in the substance of reality ” that. Heard you loud and clear back there. What else have you been keeping from me?’