by Patrick Ness
‘Taunt you?’ she asks. ‘How is this true?’
‘My thoughts are filled with you,’ he says. ‘You enter my dreams, yet you stay out of arm’s reach.’
‘You enter my dreams,’ she says, crisply, ‘and you do not.’
The volcano smiles, and she sees, again, the malevolent merriment behind his blazing eyes. ‘My lady dreams of me?’ he says.
She takes off in flight again.
14 of 32
‘Wait, my lady!’ he calls after her. ‘A gift!’
She soars around behind him, over the vast countrysides of factories and mines that have replaced the nations he once warred upon. ‘What gift would I accept from you?’ she asks. ‘You are a volcano. You destroy.’
‘And create.’
‘And destroy again.’
‘And create again, my lady. You know this to be true.’
‘What is your gift?’
‘Alight once more, so that I may give it to you.’
‘You are dangerous to me.’
‘You are just as dangerous to me, my lady. If I harm you, you will turn me into a mountain. It is a risk to us both. Either we both live, or we are both destroyed. And I wish to live.’
She considers this. After a moment, she lands.
‘What is your gift?’ she asks.
‘An unexpected truth, my lady.’
Across the length of a continent, he holds out his hand for her to step onto.
A fraction of a second more quickly than she would have liked, she does so.
15 of 32
The volcano erupts, causing the world to crack in two. Factories, towns, cities, nations fall into chasms in the earth. The skies fill with ash and fire. Rivers of lava make the seas boil. All is darkness and flame and destruction.
‘But you, my lady,’ he says, as she stands on the palm of his hand, ‘are unharmed. I cannot, do you see?’
He brings up a wave of lava to fall on her, but it parts as it does, leaving her untouched. He waves his hand to spin a torrent of fire around her, but again, it does not touch her skin. He brings a burning fist down to smash her in his palm, but it stops before harming a feather on her head.
‘I wish to destroy you, my lady,’ he says, ‘so that I may create you again. But I cannot, despite what we both have believed.’ He holds her up high, over the ruined world, up to his green, green eyes. ‘Do you see what this means?’
‘I do,’ she says. ‘And my answer is yes, I will marry you.’
On the palm of the volcano’s hand, grass begins to grow under her feet.
16 of 32
They set about recreating the world. They call it their child, a joke that neither is particularly comfortable with, especially when the speaking of it makes it true. He raises lava to build new plains. She brings in seasons to wear them down, plant them, fill them with green.
Their regular couplings are violent yet unsatisfying. His hands wish to burn her, blast her to steam, and hers wish to turn him to stone, sending sheets of rock crashing to earth. But they cannot harm one another. He must constantly, viciously boil, she must constantly, violently forgive, but the fruits of their efforts are as naught.
Yet it works. For a time.
17 of 32
Neither ceases to be what they were before.
She suspects he is behind the wars that blight the face of their child, and when he returns from absences his horses sweat fire and blood, as if they had run to the end of time and back.
He suspects, in turn, that her absences are spent bestowing her forgiveness on others, and when she returns from periods away there is a contentment to her, a glassy-eyed satisfaction she is slow to stir from.
He has thought himself too big, too all-powerful for jealousy. She has thought herself too free, too quietly sure of her place in the world for jealousy to even occur to her.
They are both wrong.
18 of 32
She begins to follow him on his trips across their child, keeping distant and out of sight, but watching him raise armies that swarm across the land, watching him build factories that belch black smoke into the sky, watching him create a kind of link amongst all the creatures living there so that, by their own choice, they allow themselves to be more easily controlled.
He, meanwhile, hides in hot springs and geysers, travels via ash falls and earthquakes, dances across tectonic plate stresses and the slidings of continents to follow her, watching her deal with the people of their child, watch them try to take from her, watch her forgive them with her touch, releasing them from their burdens in an exchange more intimate than any of their own closenesses could ever be.
Their child senses their disquiet, as any child would. It frets and turns and soils itself under their increasingly neglectful eye. Occasionally, it shames them into submitting to its needs, and they repay it in caresses, in seasons of peace and fair weather, in nights of endless moonlight and days of crisp sun.
But it is never long before their eyes return to one another, and when that happens the world knows to cower and take itself early to bed.
‘Are we ready?’ George asked.
‘Would it matter if we were not?’ Kumiko replied, reaching up to straighten his tie, which needed no straightening and made the gesture almost ironic, a mockery of an infinite number of black-and-white TV housewives straightening an infinite number of black-and-white neckties on an infinite number of patiently loving black-and-white advertising executive husbands.
But it was also affectionate. Yes, George insisted to himself.
‘They’re going to be surprised,’ he said.
‘A good party needs a few surprises. Is that not what people say?’
‘I’ve never heard that.’
‘Then it is possible you have gone to the wrong parties.’
He moved to kiss her but there was a knock on the front door. ‘Already,’ he sighed.
‘They have to arrive sometime. Your friends.’
‘But not yours.’
A faint strain furrowed her forehead. ‘I do wish you would not–’
The knock came again. He released her and moved to the front hallway, the tension from Kumiko staying with him, like a rung bell. He stopped in front of the door for a moment, took a deep breath.
He opened it.
‘Sweetheart!’ he said, greeting his daughter. He leaned down to pick up his grandson, and as JP launched into a breathless analysis of a paradigm-shifting cast change in the Land of Wriggle, George found his eyes not quite believing who he saw behind Amanda, here as an apparent guest, gift bottle of champagne in her hand.
‘You remember Rachel?’ Amanda said, innocent as baby poo.
And the party was under way.
‘Who on earth are all these people?’ Clare said, arriving with Hank and finding Amanda in the rapidly building mêlée of George’s sitting room. The furniture had been pushed back, but even so, it was only 7.40 and they were crammed into the space like a disco.
‘Not a clue,’ Amanda answered, embracing her mother and kissing Hank on both cheeks.
‘How you doin’?’ he said, his voice deep and friendly as a talking forest. ‘Where’s the munchkin?’
‘Helping with the coats. Which means pretending they’re seals and he’s a penguin.’
‘I’ll go and find him,’ Clare said, taking off her jacket and relieving Hank of his.
Amanda was left alone with her stepfather, which was absolutely fine, he was lovely – kind to her mother, warm to JP, sane – but she felt keenly aware, as she did all too often with Hank, that she was talking to the only black person in the room. There was also the additional problem that she’d now spend the rest of the evening worrying about whether to apologise for it on behalf of England.
‘So,’ he said. ‘Where can a Texan get a drink?’
‘Mehmet’s here,’ Amanda blurted out.
Hank stared at her. ‘Is he now?’
‘I think he’s in the kitchen.’
‘Remind
me of how I might know a Mehmet.’
‘He works for George. He’s Turkish.’
Hank understood and placed a hand on either of her shoulders. ‘I’ll make sure to find him to celebrate the rainbow nation. Can I bring you a refill?’
She sighed, but relaxed. ‘Glass of white wine? Maybe two.’
‘Not on my account.’
‘No,’ she said, tapping her wedding ring on her glass, a wedding ring she was almost only now realising she still wore. ‘There’s an odd vibe here. I mean, look at everyone.’ She leaned forward in a whisper. ‘Does George know them, do you think? Or are they just, you know, art people?’
‘Why would you invite strangers to your house?’
Amanda knew Hank’s question was actually, Why would you invite strangers to this house? She loved that he was a little bit of a snob – it was always so socially unexpected in an American – but she knew what he meant. The house was too small, too rundown and, the real issue, far too many miles out of Zone 1 for the way some of the folk here were dressed, a few of whom were currently looking in wonderment at George’s utterly non-flatscreen telly.
Hank headed to the kitchen, and Amanda saw a thunderstruck Clare returning downstairs, JP in tow. ‘She’s moved in,’ Clare said.
For a second, Amanda couldn’t compute the meaning of this. ‘Who?’
Clare lowered her voice to a whisper. ‘Kumiko.’
‘Has she?’
‘You didn’t know?’
‘No. How do you know?’
Clare frowned, guiltily. ‘I looked through his wardrobe.’
‘Mum–’
‘It was half-full of lady’s things. So either she’s moved in or George has something very interesting to tell us.’ Clare looked around the small, crowded room, and they heard the voices of more guests arriving. ‘Where is she, anyway? What does she even look like?’
‘She’s got brown hair . . .’ Amanda started but then wasn’t quite sure where to go next.
‘Thank you, darling,’ her mother said. ‘That narrows it down to almost everyone.’
The party spread quickly, moving into the kitchen and even the garden, despite the coldness of the night.
‘Welcome,’ George said, pouring wine into rented glasses. ‘Welcome.’
A woman he’d never met before pinned him with her stare, an almost pleading look in her eyes that he’d come to recognise. ‘I don’t suppose you could direct me to the host?’
George blinked. ‘The host?’
‘This George Duncan person,’ she said, drinking the wine, making a face at it. ‘I came all the way out here to talk to him about his extraordinary art, and instead I’m standing in a freezing garden in–’ she made another face ‘–the suburbs.’
‘Yes, well,’ George said, ‘when I see him, I’ll be sure to send him your way.’
‘I mean,’ the woman continued, gesturing with her cigarette at George’s precarious breeze-block garage, ‘is this some kind of prank? Or do you suppose this whole place is an extension of his art?’ She turned to him, suddenly inspired. ‘Like Rachel Whiteread! Yes, except instead of the empty spaces of a house, we have the house itself.’
‘No, I think he just lives here.’
The woman snorted. She turned to the man next to her, who George had also never met, and said, ‘Do you think he lives here?’
‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ said the man. ‘When do you think they’re going to bring out the new tiles?’
George felt a hand at his elbow. He turned. Kumiko.
‘The house is full,’ she said.
‘Is it?’ He looked at his watch, and accidentally spilt a good portion of the bottle of wine onto the back patio. Men and women whose names he didn’t know jumped back in complaint. ‘It’s barely eight o’clock.’
‘Who are they all?’ Kumiko whispered.
George wished he knew. It wasn’t supposed to be anything like this, just friends and family, plus a few people from this new world they’d suddenly found themselves in, art buyers who kept saying how connected they felt to George and Kumiko through the tiles, all coming together at the comfortable intersection of his home. A simple party. Small.
Not this.
‘Well, the guy who bought the first tile asked if he could bring a friend along, and I guess it just snowballed–’
Kumiko looked around at the crowds, but even her alarm was mild. ‘We will not have enough tiny sausages.’
‘They don’t really look like tiny-sausage people–’
‘George?’ Rachel said, appearing at his shoulder like poison gas. He tensed, so much he was sure Kumiko could see it. He’d come out here because it was the furthest place he could get away from Rachel without actually leaving the neighbourhood. The light from the kitchen window caught her eyes, and they blazed green for a second. Like devil eyes in a photograph, George thought.
‘And you can only be Kumiko?’ Rachel said.
‘Yes,’ Kumiko said. ‘That is who I can only be.’
George realised it was the first time he’d ever heard her speak to someone else in a way other than completely friendly. It made his stomach hurt, not least because he felt as if it could only be his fault.
He refilled his own glass of wine and drank it, quickly.
‘It’s not like they’re even that good,’ Mehmet said, enunciating in the careful way of the marginally too intoxicated. ‘You know what I mean?’
‘I’ve only seen pictures of them,’ Hank said, skilfully mixing a gimlet for Clare, ‘but they look pretty amazing to me.’
‘Yeah, okay, I’m lying, they’re brilliant. Can you make me one of those?’
‘I could, but I’m guessing you haven’t exactly been pacing yourself this evening.’ Hank waited near the refrigerator door until the man in front of it noticed him and hurried apologetically out of the way. It was one of the things he liked about this country, the solicitude. People apologised if you stepped on their foot. Though it probably helps if you look like me, he thought. He pulled out a bottle of white and judged its label with a raised eyebrow. ‘Oh, well,’ he said and started looking for a corkscrew anyway.
‘I mean, I shouldn’t even be here,’ Mehmet said. ‘I’m missing a party for this.’
Hank gestured with the corkscrew at the bodies pressed into the surprisingly narrow kitchen. ‘This is also what many people would call a party.’
‘George said he wanted me to come in particular tonight, since I was there when he met her first.’ Mehmet gave him a shifty look. ‘I think there’s going to be some big announcement.’
‘Oh?’ Hank said, feeling slightly interested as he poured himself the mediocre Pinot Grigio. He didn’t much care. George was a nice enough guy, but so far in his acquaintance George’s actual friends – as opposed to the alarming number of art buyers and hangers-on currently besieging Bromley – seemed limited to women and this slightly drunk gay person. George wasn’t exactly a man’s man, and though Hank wasn’t so much of a Texan that he wore a cowboy hat, he was a Texan. On the other hand, Clare still liked George, and if there was gossip to be had, Hank was more than happy to be the one to deliver it to her. It would make her smile and, fool that he was, Hank’s heart would thump quite off rhythm when that happened.
‘They’ve moved in together,’ Hank said, re-corking the wine and shooing the same man out of the way of the fridge again. ‘Something like that.’
‘Can’t you feel it, though?’ Mehmet said. ‘It feels like something’s coming.’
‘I’m guessing for you it’s a hangover.’
‘Please. I’m not even straight-girl drunk.’
‘I genuinely haven’t the slightest idea what that means.’
‘Something’s on the horizon. Something about where this–’ Mehmet mimicked Hank’s corkscrew gesture to include the party and all the events leading up to it ‘–is headed. Something big. Something wonderful and, I don’t know, terrible.’ He leaned back on the counter. ‘I’m just saying.’
/> ‘You’re just saying.’ Hank picked up the drinks and made to head back into the sitting room.
‘Hey, wait,’ Mehmet said.
‘Yes?’
‘Did Amanda tell you to talk to me because I’m Turkish?’
Hank looked thoughtful. ‘She more implied it.’
‘There you are,’ Amanda said, entering George’s bedroom. Kumiko was using her fingers to eat what looked like a rice dish out of a large bowl. Amanda held up JP. ‘Mind if I put him down for a little snooze?’
Kumiko nodded at the avalanche of coats on the bed. ‘He will be warm, at least.’
‘8.43,’ JP said, reading the red digital clock on the side of the bed.
‘Can you say it in French?’ Amanda asked him.
‘Papa says time isn’t French. Papa says time is only ever English.’
‘Either way, sparky, it’s way past your bedtime.’ She tucked him under a long trenchcoat, and he pulled several more down on top of himself until only his nose and the top of his head were poking out. ‘Don’t suffocate.’
‘I won’t.’
She turned to Kumiko. ‘He’ll be out in a minute, you watch.’
‘He is a lovely boy,’ Kumiko said.
‘Yes. Thank you.’
Kumiko gestured to the bowl. ‘I am taking a quiet moment. Hiding from the party so that I can face it again afresh.’
‘They’re all dying to meet you. All those strangers with money.’
‘It is not, perhaps, a mutual feeling.’
They smiled together and Kumiko said nothing more, just ate another fingerful. This was actually the first time Amanda had laid eyes on her since the gift of the tile, and she felt herself almost bursting with everything she wanted to say, everything she’d been holding for all this time. It was like when she used to return home from school, filled with so much new knowledge to share with her mother and father that it felt like she was going to pop open and bleed it out onto the dinner table along with her guts and blood and brains. She wondered, not for the first time, if that was something that happened to only children, if brothers and sisters knocked that kind of enthusiasm right out of you. She stroked JP’s already sleeping head and wondered if he’d come home in a year’s time, at death’s door with the need to tell her about dinosaurs or triangles.
