The Wraiths of War

by Mark Morris

Pizza. I briefly closed my eyes and actually shivered with pleasure at the thought.

  ‘Well, it doesn’t put me off. I’ll have yours as well as mine if you don’t want it.’

  She smiled a crooked smile. ‘I’ll run a bath for you. Do you want me to wash those clothes?’

  ‘Better not. It’d be weird if I arrived back in the trenches looking spotless.’ With an effort, my limbs so tired I could hardly manipulate them, I struggled out of the overcoat. ‘You can chuck this, though. Or preferably burn it. I won’t be needing it again.’

  She pulled a face, picking the coat up by pinching the edge of its collar between her thumb and forefinger, holding it at arm’s length. She carried it across the room to the open door. At the threshold she paused.

  ‘Why did you come back? Why here and now, I mean? I can understand you needing a break, but if you didn’t want me to find out what you’d been up to, why didn’t you come back to a time when you knew the house would be empty?’ She nodded at the heart, which was still lying on the carpet a foot or so away from me. ‘I thought you had better control over that thing. I mean, I knew it made you ill, but in terms of where and when, I thought you just had to think of the date and place and there you’d be.’

  ‘Me too,’ I said, and rubbed a filthy hand over my filthy forehead. ‘But I was stressed and exhausted. Maybe I wasn’t thinking straight. I didn’t even mean to have a break at all, to be honest. I meant to go back to the trenches. Maybe the heart… I dunno… picked up on my subconscious or something. Maybe it brought me where I needed to be rather than where I wanted to be.’

  Still standing by the open door, Clover was peering at the heart, a frown on her face. ‘Is it okay, the heart? It looks… different somehow.’

  ‘Yes, it’s fine,’ I said automatically. But when I looked down at the heart, when I looked at it properly for the first time since I’d got here, I realised she was right: it did look different.

  ‘It’s just got mud on it,’ I said. ‘From my hands.’ Though even as I spoke the words I knew it was an attempt to convince myself rather than because I truly believed them. Then, when I picked up the heart and felt how light it was, my worst fears were confirmed: there was something wrong with it. Something seriously wrong.

  Cupping the heart in my palm as if it were a sick hamster or an injured bird, I held it up to my face and examined it. As well as feeling light, as if all the life had been drained from it, it looked dull and misshapen, its fine detail scoured away, like the face of a stone gargoyle on the outside wall of a church that has been eroded by the elements.

  I touched it with my fingertip, and realised it was brittle and flaky, shreds of it coming away and leaving a residue on my skin. I felt a spasm of alarm, which manifested as a stab of actual pain somewhere between my breastbone and my belly.

  ‘It’s sick,’ I said, as if the heart were a pet. ‘There’s something wrong with it.’

  ‘It looks old,’ Clover said. ‘Ancient, in fact.’

  Her words transported me back to my time in Victorian London, to a night just after the Christmas of 1895 when Hawkins and I had been lured to a riverside dock called Blyth’s Wharf in Limehouse. The Dark Man and his cronies had been waiting for us there, and in his possession that night the Dark Man had had a heart which looked, if anything, even more ravaged than the one I held now.

  Could it be possible…? My mind raced as I thought again of the dead rising from the mud of No Man’s Land; of Heidrich’s savagely mutilated body; of the way the heart had been nestled snugly – and conveniently – in his outstretched hand.

  ‘It was him,’ I breathed.

  ‘Who?’ When I didn’t immediately answer, Clover’s voice hardened. ‘Alex, who do you mean? What are you talking about?’

  I looked up at her, my mind still whirling. ‘The Dark Man. He was there. He must have been. He knew what would happen, so he took advantage of the situation. He stole my heart and left his old one in its place. That’s why it didn’t take me where I wanted to go. Because it’s… malfunctioning. It’s clapped out. Unreliable.’

  ‘But the Dark Man’s dead,’ said Clover, and then she checked herself. ‘Hang on. I get it. Time travel, yeah? The Dark Man you mean is an earlier version, before he died.’ She checked herself again, rolled her eyes. In a goofy voice she said, ‘Duh. Obviously.’

  ‘Shit,’ I muttered, looking at the brittle, gnarled lump of stone in my hand and trying to work through the implications. ‘Shit, fuck and bollocks.’

  ‘Sounds like a pretty accurate summing up of the situation,’ she said, though her expression told me she was thinking hard too.

  Sure enough, a few seconds later she said, ‘We saw the Dark Man die in Victorian London, yeah? He was so fucked-up that the power of the heart – your heart, I mean – was too much for him and it killed him.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘So,’ she said, ‘judging by that heart,’ (she nodded at the one in my hand) ‘which is old, but I’m guessing not as old as the one the Dark Man showed you back in 1895, the Dark Man who took your heart and left you that one must be pretty old too – but he must be young enough to be able to handle the power, or at least he thinks he is. I guess it depends on whether he knows what happened to the older version of himself or not.’

  I scowled. ‘None of this is helping. Whether he knows or not, the fact is, he’s got my… Ferrari of a heart, whereas I’ve been left with his old, clapped-out Hillman Imp.’

  A wave of despair washed through me, and seemed to take with it what little energy I had left. I slumped forward until my forehead was resting on the carpet.

  ‘So how the fuck am I going to find him and get my own heart back now?’ I said.

  ELEVEN

  IN LIMBO

  I had no idea what to do next.

  So for the next few days I did nothing.

  Well, no, that’s not strictly true. I spent a lot of time shut away with the heart, trying to ‘commune’ with it as I’d done on several occasions before. This involved holding the heart in my hand and staring at it until my perception changed and I slipped into a meditative, almost trance-like state, whereupon the heart would seem to blur, to shimmer, to both shift out of phase and become intrinsically linked to my mind.

  Although I’d had visions before, I didn’t know – particularly on this occasion – how much of what I’d seen had been conjured from my own subconscious and how much had been a consequence of the heart gifting me the ability to view the world through its eyes. I do know that whereas before I’d let my mind roam free, had let it go wherever the heart, or my own subconscious, had wanted to take me, this time I was more tentative. Because of the state of this particular heart, I didn’t know how reliable it was, or how dangerous. I didn’t want to risk using it to travel, not yet anyway, because who knew what might happen or where I might end up? If it had brought me here when I had intended to go back to the trenches, who was to say that next time it wouldn’t simply return me to my starting point – the farmhouse in the German camp, where I’d have to face down a horde of drunken German soldiers who thought I’d murdered one of their comrades? Or maybe it would plunge me into the midst of the Dark Man and his cohorts? Or what if it simply shattered through overuse and I shattered along with it, my pieces scattered through time?

  My aim, during these ‘communing’ sessions, was to see whether I could somehow get the ‘old’ heart to link with its younger self, or at least give me some clue as to where or when the Dark Man might have gone with it – though to what end I don’t know.

  ‘Maybe this is what’s supposed to happen,’ Clover said, trying to reassure me.

  ‘Well, if it is, why the fuck doesn’t someone enlighten me? Why doesn’t a future version of me pop back to explain what I’m supposed to do next?’

  The simple fact was, I was in limbo, and I’m afraid that didn’t make me easy to live with. I stomped about the place, being grumpy and snappy, feeling like a caged animal.

  ‘Maybe you shou
ld just look at this as a chance to recuperate for a while,’ Clover suggested one evening as I sat slumped miserably in front of the fire.

  I scowled at her. ‘I don’t want to fucking recuperate.’

  ‘Because you’re enjoying the War so much you’re eager to get back to it?’

  I glared at her. ‘Do you know how fucking insensitive that question is? If you had any inkling of what it’s like in those fucking trenches—’

  ‘Stop!’ she barked, raising a hand. ‘Just stop right there!’

  Now we were both glaring at each other. In a steely voice she said, ‘I’m sick of you mooching around, whining like a spoiled brat. That’s why I said what I said – because you’re driving me up the wall. Now, I’m going to get a bottle of good red wine and we’re going to sit by the fire and talk this through. Okay?’

  Frustration that manifested itself as anger was still boiling inside me, but I could see how earnest she was, how much she wanted to help. It caused my anger to evaporate a little, leaving a residue of melancholy tiredness behind.

  I rubbed a hand over my face. ‘Okay,’ I said. ‘Sounds good.’

  And it was good. Good just to sit by the fire and drink fine wine and talk things through.

  Admittedly we didn’t get very far. We didn’t come up with any answers. But it untangled the angry knots inside my head, helped me see that when it boiled down to it I had two choices.

  Either I could do nothing and hope that at some point Fate would intervene, as it had in the past.

  Or I could be both proactive and reckless. I could try using the heart, whether to take me back to the trenches or in pursuit of the Dark Man, and see what happened – which I guess was merely another way of giving myself up to Fate, albeit in this case having first given Fate a boot up the backside to stir it into action.

  ‘Is that all we are, though?’ I said, swirling the wine round in my glass, enjoying the way the firelight turned it into a glowing, blood-red whirlpool. ‘Puppets? Creatures of Fate? No will of our own?’

  ‘Guess we’ll never really know, will we?’ We were well into the second bottle and Clover’s words were slightly slurred by now, her eyes sleepy with heat and alcohol. ‘Do we do what we do because we choose to or because we’re meant to? It’s an enigma. An enigma wrapped in a conum… com… comundrum.’ She pushed herself to her feet and gave a cat-like stretch. ‘And with that tongue-twister I’m off to bed. G’night.’

  After she’d gone I took the heart from my pocket and sat staring at it again, my eyes smarting, my thoughts fuzzy. I’d seen the Dark Man die in this very room, had seen the heart consume him. But what did that mean? That the future was secure? That I was destined to get my heart back, leaving him with his? Or was the Dark Man a rogue element, a trickster who rode roughshod over the timelines, twisting and breaking them without compunction? Maybe, by stealing my heart, he had already caused things to start unravelling? I couldn’t help but see time as a complex plait, composed of many threads, all of which were now not only fraying, but actually coming apart, each strand separating from the others and spinning off into God knew where.

  Or maybe that was bollocks. Who knew whether our actions were already pre-ordained, part of some great cosmic scheme or structure from which there was no possibility of deviation, or whether we had been given free will, in which case every little thing we did, every decision we made, subtly – or maybe not so subtly – altered all our pasts and presents and futures, creating a multiverse, a realm of endless alternate realities?

  The questions swirling in my head felt like a multiverse in themselves, a cascade forever tumbling and intertwining, never coming to rest. Was there an answer, or answers, to these questions somewhere? And more to the point, would I ever find those answers?

  ‘Do I want to?’ I murmured to myself. ‘Do I want to know everything?’

  Still holding the heart, my mind broke up, my consciousness washed away in the torrent of thoughts and questions that were rushing through it. And in front of the fireplace from which, over a century before, I had seen a shape-shifter emerge in the form of a black crow and kill my butler and friend Hawkins, I fell asleep.

  And dreamed.

  I have an impression of noise, people, dim lighting. I’m with someone, but I don’t know who it is. My attention is drawn to a figure across the room. It’s as if we’re linked in some way, but at the same time I feel repelled by the figure; it exudes an aura of horror or dread. Although I’m staring directly at it I can’t seem to properly focus on it. Is it standing in shadow, or is its face partly concealed, perhaps by a hood or a mask? I know the figure is aware of me, and when it sees me looking at it, it turns and flees. Although I’m afraid, I immediately give chase.

  It was a simple dream, and yet it seemed forbidding, overwhelming, as if it possessed a peculiar and terrible darkness all its own. And although I thought I had remembered all of it, in my memory it still seemed somehow more protracted than my telling of it, as if each individual second had been saturated, engorged, with its own dreadful significance.

  Despite feeling sure I’d recollected the dream in its entirety, I nevertheless had the sense that something had happened within it that had shocked me out of it, though when I snapped awake, shivering and disorientated in front of the grey embers of the fire, weak daylight leaking through the gaps in the curtains, I couldn’t for the life of me remember what it was.

  I was still gripping the heart. Gripping it so hard that my white-knuckled fingers ached when I uncurled them. Slipping it into the pocket of the hoodie I was wearing, I looked at my palm and saw a black imprint had been left there, like a charred stigmata. I staggered upstairs, and into the bathroom. After turning on the tap, however, I paused, my hand hovering inches from the column of running water.

  Was it wise to wash part of the heart down the sink?

  ‘Fuck it,’ I muttered, and put my hand under the running tap. Because when it came down to it, what else could I do? Even if I cleaned my hand with a Wet Wipe, and then burned the Wet Wipe, the particles would still end up in the air, where they’d be breathed in, absorbed.

  Besides, it wasn’t as if the heart was something alien. It was of the earth, part of the planet. I had seen myself as its creator, forging it from the clay and sand with my bare hands. It was ancient and elemental; it was a repository for primal forces.

  My head was pounding. I leaned forward over the sink until my forehead was resting against the cool glass of the mirror.

  ‘You look how I feel.’

  My skin squeaked against the glass when I turned my head. Clover was standing in the bathroom doorway in a white vest top and blue-and-yellow checked pyjama bottoms. She looked pasty, though her eyes were dark-ringed, partly due to smudged mascara, which she’d evidently been too tipsy to remove before going to bed.

  ‘What time is it?’ I asked.

  She held up her mobile. ‘Nine twenty-two. I had a text from Jackie, Hope’s nurse at the hospital. She wants to see us.’

  ‘Which one?’

  ‘What?’

  I closed my eyes. My thoughts still felt jumbled and jittery. ‘Who wants us to see us? Jackie or Hope?’

  ‘Oh. Jackie.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I don’t know. She doesn’t say.’

  ‘Is Hope all right?’

  ‘As far as I know. She was yesterday when I spoke to her. So do you think you can find a window in your busy schedule?’

  The question was delivered as nothing more than a gentle quip, but I was in the mood for neither banter nor sarcasm.

  ‘What time?’

  ‘Jackie asked if we could be at the hospital by midday. That’s when she has her lunch break.’

  ‘Sure. I’ll need a shower first, though.’

  ‘And I need coffee,’ said Clover. ‘Lots and lots of it.’

  We arrived at the hospital at ten to twelve. The plan was to speak to Jackie first, who I’d met a couple of times, and then go see Hope afterwards.

>   When we entered the swish foyer of Oak Hill, Jackie, a slim, attractive, dark-haired woman of about thirty, rose from one of the plush armchairs in the waiting area and came hurrying towards us, hand outstretched.

  ‘Hi,’ she said. ‘Thanks for agreeing to see me.’

  Her velvety voice had the barest hint of a Welsh accent. Her large chestnut-coloured eyes regarded us earnestly beneath a fringe that seemed to be balanced on her long upper lashes.

  ‘No problem,’ Clover said, shaking her proffered hand.

  It was only when I shook it too that it struck me for the first time how small and fine-boned she was. My own hand swamped hers.

  ‘Shall we grab a coffee?’ Jackie said, gesturing towards an open door on the left-hand side of the wood-panelled corridor behind her, beyond which I knew was The Library Café, whose walls were lined with shelves of leather-bound books. ‘My shout.’

  ‘Sounds good,’ said Clover.

  When I nodded Jackie gave me a quick, hesitant smile, then turned and led the way.

  Once we were installed around a corner table with our various beverages – a cappuccino for Jackie, a mocha for Clover and a double espresso for me (I needed the caffeine kick) – Jackie said, ‘As I’m sure you’ve guessed, I wanted to talk to you about Hope.’

  She was clearly nervous, and that made me nervous too. Anyone who spent any time with Hope, as Jackie had, would realise pretty quickly that she was anything but a normal girl. I braced myself for a barrage of questions – and hoped not only that I’d remember the fictional back-story that Clover and I had hastily worked out in the car on the way over, but also that I’d be able to make it sound convincing as I lied through my teeth.

  ‘Okay,’ Clover said easily, and sipped her mocha, leaving the floor open for Jackie to continue.

  Jackie glanced briefly at each of us and then down at her drink, her finger prodding at the handle of her china mug as if she didn’t quite trust it. A little falteringly she said, ‘She’s a lovely girl. A real sweetie. My son Ed thinks so too. This last week or two they’ve become great friends.’