Hannah Green and Her Unfeasibly Mundane Existence

by Michael Marshall Smith

  Her mom shook her head miserably. Trees, a picnic bench. It still meant nothing to her.

  ‘You will,’ Hannah said.

  It wasn’t easy to get Mom through the window. Her frozen limbs weren’t moving fluently, and she was a lot bigger than Hannah. She went in head first and for a minute it looked like she was stuck, but she managed to get purchase and pull herself further, though then there was the question of the four-foot drop on the other side. In the end she inched forwards until the shift in her centre of gravity did the work. There was a soft thump as she landed on the grass.

  Hannah had to stretch her leg up over the frame, but after that it was easy until she too had to confront the drop – which suddenly looked kind of high.

  Her mother was on her feet by then, however, and reached up with her arms. Hannah let herself fall into them. Kristen had to put her down quickly afterwards – Hannah was far too heavy to carry now, and had been for several years – but for a beautiful moment Hannah experienced that old sensation of being held up high on Planet Mom.

  Hannah led the way towards the path. ‘This … this is Ocean View Park,’ her mother said, confused.

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘But how?’

  ‘Doesn’t matter. Come on – push me,’ Hannah said, running off through the trees towards the swings.

  Kristen followed, staring all around. The stand of redwoods on a hill, old picnic tables battered by generations of birthday parties with cake and carrot batons and taco chips, relatives standing round with folded arms and smiling eyes. Wooden houses nearby, a couple of which they’d looked at when it came time to move, before realizing there’d come a point soon when Hannah would be too old for the park and so buying proximity to it made less sense than heading to the West Side, where the schools were better. Calculations, decisions, always weighing the future instead of the present, worrying about the second and third acts when the first is still going on all around you. Welcome to adulthood. Please leave your dreams at the door.

  Kristen glanced along the path that led towards the ocean, expecting to be able to glimpse it and the boardwalk, but there was only cloud.

  ‘Come on, Mom!’

  Kristen made her way through the trees to the swings, surprised to see that her daughter had ignored the grown-up ones and instead wedged herself – barely – into one of the toddler buckets. ‘You’re too big,’ she said.

  ‘I know. But please.’

  And Kristen did, bending way down to nudge the seat forwards. Hannah had to hold her legs up high to stop them dragging along the ground, and looked kind of like a grasshopper, and felt like one, or so she said, and soon they were laughing, the sound strange in the quietness.

  Kristen pushed harder and harder, and eventually they got a rhythm going and Hannah soared up and down, until her mom’s arms got tired and had to stop.

  Hannah kept her legs up, letting the swing run out of momentum by itself, reaching the end on its own. After it was still she reached up the chains and pulled herself out.

  When they were standing together again Mom looked down at her, trying not to let sadness rule her eyes. ‘We can’t get back here,’ she said.

  ‘I know.’

  ‘I’ve messed that story up, Hannah. It’s broken. I can’t fix it any more.’

  ‘You don’t want to, though, do you? I mean … even if you could?’

  ‘You can’t ever go back.’ Her mom was crying now. ‘It doesn’t work. I’m sorry. It was so good here.’

  ‘I know. And it’s sad. It’s nice to come visit, though, even if we can’t stay.’

  Her mother nodded jerkily, and Hannah finally yielded to a suspicion which had been tickling the back of her mind since they’d got here, and which she’d pushed away while she was on the swings, wanting a last go on them.

  She looked across at the tops of the long slides and saw things were now emerging from them. Black shadows, with pointed hats.

  All the dreams that never happened. The winds that blow your house down. She could only see four for now, but she knew there would be more on the way. There was a buzzing, whispering sensation in her head. The sound of Big Sur. The aura of the Fallen. The underlying currents. The things we do.

  ‘We need to leave,’ she told her mom.

  ‘There’s no hurry. We can—’

  ‘Actually, there is.’

  The shadows were arriving more quickly. They weren’t stopping at the top of the slides, either, but advancing across the grass with firm intent, as if shepherding them.

  Mom noticed where Hannah was looking, turned and saw for herself. ‘What … the hell are they?’

  ‘They’re “it’s time to go”.’

  They hurried down the path. ‘But … go where?’ Kristen said, scared. ‘I don’t want to go back through the window.’

  ‘We can’t anyway. It’s gone. You can’t get back in that house any more, Mom.’

  All eleven shadows had appeared now. The buzzing was much louder: the angels saying their names, over and over, repeating their own darkest spells. Eager to act through people, because without us the gods are only empty words and old ideas.

  ‘But …’

  ‘Just follow.’

  Hannah grabbed her mother’s hand and began to run. Kristen stumbled at first, her legs still stiff with cold, but started to pick up speed. They sped together down the gravel path, past the tall trees, through air as soft as the breath on your forehead when someone bends over to kiss you goodnight.

  Hannah ran faster and faster, and her mom kept pace alongside. The path led onward, she could see, but she knew that it led to a precipitous drop, and that where the view of the ocean and the boardwalk should be, there was only space.

  ‘Where are we going?’ Kristen panted.

  ‘Trust me,’ Hannah said.

  ‘I do. But …’

  ‘We’re leaving.’

  And they ran to the edge, and Hannah gripped her mother’s hand to stop her ever letting go, and at the end of the path they leaped together into the cloud.

  Chapter 50

  The moment they left the park, the Behind folded in upon itself. Once Hannah had glimpsed the workings of the grown-up story of which she was a part, and shed upon it a child’s clear light – which does not comprehend every shadow but is nonetheless exceedingly bright – the Behind ejected everyone who’d been pulled into it like a cat coughing up a hairball, and the edge resealed itself with a sound like a thunderclap.

  Granddad and Hannah’s father were enormously relieved – right on the verge of pulling the lever, afraid the Giant Dipper was going to finally shake itself apart – to see people suddenly sitting in the rollercoaster’s front carriage again. Hannah, Kristen, Aunt Zo. A squirrel, who quickly bounded away. And the Devil, in the second carriage, with Vaneclaw still riding on his shoulders.

  Hannah’s dad yanked on the fail-safe with all his strength, the edifice of machinery above him clanked and sputtered, and the carriages rapidly slowed. The rollercoaster completed a last decelerating lap around the track’s swoops and falls before pulling into the disembarkation area, where it finally came to rest, accompanied by a monsoon rainfall of rivets. Everyone climbed out of the carriage, hugging one another, laughing with relief, and hurried out of the building.

  Where they found four men barring their path.

  The suitcase holding the Sacrifice Machine was on the ground in front of them. Nash was holding a gun.

  ‘We can do this the easy way or the hard way,’ he said, raising the gun and pointing it at Granddad’s head. ‘Personally I hope you choose the tough one.’

  Hannah also saw that eleven dark figures were perched in a circle around them, up on the roofs of concessions and rides. Watching. Waiting. She felt the heft of their sadness and hatred, a weight so immense it made you feel nauseous. She understood that their combined power was such that the Devil could not simply kill the man with the gun, that he might in fact not be able to do anything at all.

 
; And she knew the world was about to end.

  ‘I know you,’ the Devil said. ‘The warehouse. Miami.’

  ‘That’s right,’ Nash said. ‘You seemed to think I wasn’t good enough for you. Or bad enough, maybe.’

  ‘I was wrong, evidently. And now you have something that is mine. It was never in the Behind after all.’

  ‘Right about that, too. Except now it belongs to me.’

  The Devil laughed sourly. ‘Really? You think it’s possible to possess something like this? What would that even mean, to own it? What would it say?’

  ‘That I have it and you don’t,’ Nash said.

  ‘It would be more accurate to say that it has you, but never mind. What do you intend to do with it?’

  ‘Make it work in the other direction.’

  ‘You don’t want to do that,’ the Devil said. ‘Do you have any conception of what would occur if all the evil wrought since the dawn of time came flooding back into this world? Someone tried it once on a much earlier iteration of the machine. That device was barely a fraction as efficient as the Engineer’s, but the results were still dire enough to become enshrined in the legend of Pandora’s Box.’

  ‘Never heard of it.’

  ‘It does not end well.’

  ‘Good,’ Nash said. ‘I like that kind of story.’

  The Devil glanced up at the shapes on the rooftops. ‘And what have they promised you? My former associates?’

  ‘Nothing.’

  Jesse glanced at Nash, surprised and dismayed. He’d assumed a deal had been struck – that when the boss had received the messages of these beings in his head, some payment structure had also been agreed. He’d got that it probably wouldn’t be as simple as something like cash or a really cool car, that money and things had only ever been a poor substitute for real rewards like power. But something, surely?

  ‘True evil is never done for recompense,’ Nash said. ‘Only for its own sake. It stands alone.’

  ‘I underestimated you,’ the Devil said.

  ‘Yeah. And now it’s too late.’ Nash nodded towards the suitcase. ‘That thing is going to be opened now, and reversed. Sounds like there’s only one person who can make that happen. The old dude here.’

  ‘That is true,’ Granddad said calmly. ‘And therein lies a problem, I’m afraid.’

  ‘And what’s that?’

  ‘I’m not going to do it.’

  Nash nodded. ‘I figured you’d say that. Sell your soul to the Devil and it stays sold, right?’

  ‘No,’ Granddad said. ‘You don’t understand. There is no cost too high to prevent you from going through with this.’

  ‘Not even your life?’

  ‘Certainly not something that insignificant.’

  ‘Plus if I shoot you, I’m screwed, right? I had already thought of that. I’m not dumb.’

  Nash moved his arm until the gun was pointing at Hannah’s father’s head. ‘So how about I shoot your son?’

  Hannah saw the expression on her grandfather’s face change. How it went from resolute to beaten in an instant.

  ‘Don’t do it, Dad,’ her father said, however.

  ‘Seriously?’ Nash said irritably, lowering the gun for a moment. ‘Has this entire family got a death wish?’

  He flipped off the gun’s safety with his thumb. The click was very audible. It sounded like the last tick of a clock before it stopped, never to work again.

  ‘Dad, no,’ Hannah’s father said. ‘If I understand even a tenth of what’s at stake here, or a ten-thousandth, you can’t.’

  ‘But, Steve …’

  ‘No.’ Hannah’s father’s voice was firm.

  ‘The machine is my responsibility. I built it.’

  ‘And I’m your son. So it’s mine too now. It’s part of our family. Our history. Do not do it.’

  ‘Jesus,’ Nash said. ‘People apparently just aren’t taking me seriously here.’ He raised his arm so the gun was pointing straight at Hannah’s father’s head again. ‘And here’s how we change that. Bye, dude.’

  Terrified, rooted to the spot, Hannah saw the man’s finger tightening on the trigger.

  ‘Stop,’ the Devil said.

  The world went still, and quiet. Nash’s finger remained exactly as it was, an infinitesimal twitch away from firing the gun. Each of the Fallen Angels seemed to lean forwards.

  The Devil turned to the Engineer. ‘Open the machine.’

  ‘You know I can’t do that,’ Granddad said.

  ‘You can. You will. This man will not stop at your son. You serve me, and have served me well. Your responsibility passes on to the second generation, and unto the third. The child has your blood too.’ The Devil glanced at Hannah for a moment, his gaze boring into her. Then back at Granddad. ‘Open it.’

  For a long moment, Granddad didn’t move. Then his shoulders seemed to slump.

  ‘Very well,’ he said.

  Chapter 51

  Granddad stood in front of the suitcase, looking down at it as though it were his own tombstone. He reached into the pockets of his waistcoat and pulled out a couple of tools. Lowered himself to his knees on the cold ground and ran his hands over the worn leather of the case – as if it were an old, much-loved dog, rather than the most dangerous thing in the universe.

  Then he applied one of the tools to an area near the handle, and began. Everybody watched in silence. Hannah knew that neither her father nor mother had any idea of what they were about to witness, or much idea of what it meant. She could feel the glee of the angels: the dreadful joy of shadows who had waited a long time for revenge against both the world in which they had found themselves imprisoned, and the being who had dragged them down here with him when his rebellion failed.

  She got a glimpse of what it would be like if all the dreadful, terrible things humankind had done were to come back into the world, back into everyone’s lives, instead of being corralled into Hell’s domain as they were supposed to be. Just a glimpse, because the mind cannot handle more than that.

  More than a glimpse is stark madness.

  Meanwhile, Granddad lifted off the front of the case, revealing the first of the inner panels. He undid further screws. There was nothing any of them could do, except …

  Hannah looked at the Devil. If anybody could stop this, surely it would be him? Even though he’d told Granddad to do this, even despite the terrible strength of the Fallen Angels up above? The Devil was simply watching the process, however. It was impossible to tell what he was thinking.

  She looked then at the bad man with the gun, while her grandfather undid screw after screw and then swivelled a panel aside, giving the first glimpse of the wondrous, golden mechanism within. He folded part of it out, starting the process of expanding the device to its full, impossible size. The other men were staring at the process, bewildered, awestruck. But the bad man remained focused, his arm still held out, unwaveringly pointing the gun at her dad. He would not be distracted.

  He was here to do what he was going to do.

  She glanced back at the Devil and realized he was looking at her too now. ‘You must be able to do something!’ she shouted.

  ‘There is nothing I can influence here,’ he said, keeping his eyes upon her. ‘Sometimes there is no … last resort.’

  And still her grandfather worked.

  Until eventually, ten minutes later, he nudged the levers and touched the dials that caused the final unfolding.

  Everybody watched as the machine unfurled to its true size. Then Granddad pressed the button that caused the front to swing open properly, revealing the mind-melting complexity of wheels and gears and cogs of the interior space.

  ‘That’s impossible,’ Jesse whispered.

  ‘Be quiet,’ Nash said. ‘Now what? How do I reverse it?’

  ‘It’s simple,’ the Devil said. ‘Too simple, perhaps, in retrospect. A single switch is all it takes.’

  ‘So flip it.’

  ‘I cannot. This machine was built with human
hand because it is for humankind’s sake. I cannot make the change myself. But I can show you how. If you truly insist.’

  ‘Show me.’ Nash handed the gun to Jesse. ‘The old guy tries anything, you know what to do.’

  Jesse nodded glumly, and pointed the gun at Hannah’s father.

  The Devil stood in front of the machine. ‘Follow me.’

  ‘Tell me what I’m looking for.’

  ‘All I can do is lead you inside. One switch will be yours. You have to make your own choice as to which it is. That’s how it always works. That’s free will.’ He crooked his finger at Nash. ‘Come.’

  He backed into the machine. Tall though the Devil was, there was still a clear six inches above his head. Nash took a step closer, keen not to be left behind.

  The Devil took another backward step and disappeared full-body into the interior of the device. Disappeared, that is, apart from the reflection of his eyes, which Hannah glimpsed in the sparkling gold of the interior.

  His dead, black eyes – once more seeming to look straight at her.

  Nash stepped halfway into the machine. Hannah saw that Granddad’s face was pale, as if he was finally accepting what was about to happen, that a thing he had made with his own hands was about to bring about the downfall of the stars. She also saw a tear slowly rolling down her mother’s face.

  ‘So where are the switches?’ Nash asked as he prepared to take the step that would have him fully inside.

  ‘All around,’ the Devil’s voice said. ‘Don’t you see?’

  ‘Whoa,’ Nash said as he saw.

  ‘One of them will be yours. If you’re really going to do this, you will know which it is.’

  Nash stepped inside. And as he did, he revealed something: he stopped blocking Hannah’s view of something she’d seen before, the first time she’d witnessed the interior of this infernal machine.

  A pin, with a jewel on its head – a jewel that was the red of old blood.

  And she remembered the Devil saying: The child has your blood too.

  She blinked. Took a small step closer to the machine. Nobody noticed.