Winterlong w-1, page 22
part #1 of Winterlong Series
Knock knock knock. Benedick and Small Thomas yell.
—Here is the Mayor!
They run to the door. Benedick knocks over the big thing with all the presents on it and Ketura picks them up, she looks so sad since she got back. The one wrapped in blue silver with the featherbells is mine from Raphael. It’s a mirror made of faĕ’ro eggs. I peeked.
—The Mayor, the Old Gray Mayor! yells Benedick. He goes to pull the door open but Neville Warnick grabs him.
—Ho ho ho little boy, I wouldn’t do that!
Benedick starts to cry because Neville is taking him to the Lustrous Chamber and he’ll miss the guise. I want to cry too because Raphael isn’t here yet. Small Thomas opens the door instead.
They are all there, the mummers in disguise for the Winterlong masque. Doctor Foster has on a big hat but I know it’s him. One of the Curators pretends to be afraid of him but Miramar tells him Shush, Listen.
—Who in this House will let the Winter in?
That is Galatea Saint-Alaban dressed as the Old Gray Mayor. She wears a black tuxedo and a horse’s head from the Zoologists. Mandala Persia showed me once where they keep the bones.
—Who will let me in?
—Not I, Miramar says very loud.
—Who will let the Winter in? That is Doctor Foster, he makes the Dead Boy in the masque better after he dies.
—Not me! Not me!
I yell too, I am laughing too even with Jada and Quistana, it is not such a bad dress. Malva Persia is dressed just like Aspasia Persia, when he walks in everybody laughs. He looks so funny! He lifts his dress and he has bells on, the Mayor pretends to bite him and he screams just like her.
—Who will let the Winter in, who will let the Winter in?
But nobody does. Old Nick comes, he was behind Malva. He kisses Ketura and gives her a golden hat but he gives me a peacock mask and throws comfits in the air.
—Send her on, send her on, we won’t keep the Winter here! everyone yells to Winter the Old Gray Mayor.
—Take her to Persia, take her to Illyria, take her to Saint-Alaban!
—Take her to the lazars! says Small Thomas, Take her to the la —
Constance Beech kisses him so he will shut up.
— I will be back! screams the Mayor. The bones clack and she takes off her top hat and paper snow comes out and her teeth snap clack-clack-clack. I know she is Galatea Saint-Alaban but it is scary anyway. I wish Raphael was here, I wish so hard I close my eyes. I open them, here he is.
—Fancy!
He smells so good, like opium and silver powder.
—They made me cacique! I can’t stay, Whitlock is paired with me, Miramar is late too and why are the masquers still here?
He grabs me and throws me in the air, I sit on his shoulders and pull his hair and everyone is looking at me because I am his favorite and he is everyone’s favorite, Raphael, they say Raphael! The Mayor goes snap and bites at his hair, he yells because his costume is getting messed.
—They’re waiting for you for Winterlong! he says. Hurry up! I have to go back —
No one hears him, they are singing now. Doctor Foster takes the Mayor by a white rope and hits her, not hard. They hurry because they have to go to Illyria and Persia and Saint-Alaban last of all for the Masque of Winterlong. Everyone starts singing.
We will walk, we will wander
Farther on and over yonder
Not a song not a word nothing more is spoken
Hang the boy and raise the girl ‘til Winterlong is broken.
—Don’t go, Raphael.
— I can’t stay, Whitlock is waiting! Hurry, Miramar!
— I want to come!
—You’re too little.
Constance Beech frowns at me.
— I want to come, I want to come!
—Let her! Raphael smiles, he takes me in his arms and swings me around and kisses me, his hair falls in my face and I see his eyes looking at me, gray eyes shading to green and he shakes his flaming hair and it falls in my face and it is him, Raphael Miramar, I can see him now and it is me, I am seeing my brother —
I scream, thrash, and tear at wires that are not there.
“Go!” Justice is shouting. Something falls from my hands, another voice cries out, but it is too late, he is gone—
A door slams. Later it slammed again.
“She’s gone. I had their Doctor give her something. Maybe she won’t remember.” Justice’s face was dark with anger. “How could you be so careless? Didn’t you hear Miramar? The Ascendants are looking for someone, they may still be searching for you. If they hear of this—”
“You told me they think I’m dead. Leave me alone.” I stumbled toward the bed. Before I reached it he was there behind me, pulling me to him as I tried to push him away.
“Then why not me, Wendy? Why her and not me?” His voice cracked as he sought to caress me.
“Justice, don’t—” I rolled away from him.
I shut my eyes and tried desperately to retain that image of a face so like my own. A hundred tree-strung candles cast golden light upon his hair as he turned from me, from the child Fancy, the smell of him like jasmine and opium, burning wax and balsam, his pale gray skin, his eyes—
“Yes, Wendy!” Justice murmured in my ear, mistaking my silence for compliance. I pushed him away, his lips leaving mine with a sigh.
Too late. Already the metallic taste flooded my mouth and my heart pounded, as it had each time he had approached me thus backstage. Then it had always been furtive, a stolen embrace with blood bartered in exchange; his swollen mouth in no need of rouge because I bled it each ‘evening, but slowly so that I could taste his own desire and climax as he moved against me.
But it infuriated me now, when I had for a moment glimpsed my brother’s heart and past. I punched him in the ribs.
“Leave me,” I yelled. “Go away!”
Justice gasped. Clutching at his stomach he sat up, tears glittering in his eyes. “Why?” His voice tripped into a fit of coughing. “Why, Wendy? Why won’t you let me? I understand—”
“You don’t understand, or else you’d leave me.” I kicked aside a pillow so that I could slide beneath the blankets. “Emma and Morgan and that other woman are dead, Justice. It killed them, I killed them—”
“But you slept with other empties at HEL ,” he protested, yanking back the coverlets. “They didn’t die. And you just took that girl—”
“She knew something,” I said. “About me; about my brother. I care nothing for her, nothing at all. And you understand nothing, Justice, or you’d be afraid even to touch me.”
He knotted the blankets, avoiding my eyes. I felt a sudden pang, pity mingling with my anger. “Don’t you see, Justice? It kills them sometimes—what I see, what I am—and I … I don’t want to hurt you.”
Still he refused to look at me. I waited, then said, “Why am I so important to you? You could have anyone in this House, in this whole forsaken City. Why do you want me?”
He pushed the blanket from him and looked up, his hair falling into his eyes. “Because you are beautiful. Because they hurt you at HEL . Because I love you.”
I thought of how he had saved me; of him standing over me in the Home Room, watching silently through the night while I tossed in the bed with the Ascendants’ machines hooked into my brain. And I thought of tapping Fancy, her joy as she greeted Raphael; her delight when she first saw me and thought I was he. Raphael Miramar, beloved of the House Miramar.
And who loved Wendy Wanders? Who even knew who I was, except for Justice and Miss Scarlet?
But I couldn’t risk returning their love; could only imagine it, really, for I had nothing of my own to give. Only nightmares and despair and suicide.
I laughed harshly. “Love? Your people are whores. You want to use me, just as Dr. Harrow did—you’re no better than any of them!” But I knew my words were not true.
Pain and yearning so distorted Justice’s face that I looked away.
“Oh, Wendy …” He took a deep breath, shook his head before going on. “It’s not just that you are beautiful—”
“But you are beautiful, Justice. All of your people are beautiful! Any of them would welcome you as a lover.”
In the soft light his eyes burned a vivid sapphire blue. Angular face rounded just enough to keep its lines from gauntness, smooth brow raked with that golden hair above slanted deep-set eyes. I had seen how other Paphians gazed upon him with presumptive pride, as if in his even features each recognized his own. But to me they all seemed too much alike; only something in Justice’s face marked him, lines left by his time at HEL , the relative hardship of our life with the Players.
“Beauty is too common among your people for it to move me,” I said at last.
He sighed and wrapped a blanket around his knees. “There is a saying we have: ‘Empty vessels are the loveliest.’ That is why we love children, innocents, anything that is young and new, before the world changes it and it begins to die. Maybe that is why I love you.”
“But I am no innocent, Justice. And I think I am Death itself sometimes.”
He reached to stroke my hair where it had grown back to cover the nodes and scars upon my temples. “You are not Death, Wendy.” He drew me closer to him. “But even if you were …”
I shut my eyes and let him touch me, felt an odd dizziness that frightened me. I opened my eyes and took his chin in my hand, brought his face close to mine, kissed him until I drew blood once more from his broken lip. He cried out and drew back, but not soon enough.
Giggling, I fell upon the bed, exhilarated by the taste of his dismay, those few drops burning like some hot liquor upon my tongue.
“Oh, it’s lovely, lovely!”
A blurred glimpse of his face, Justice shaking his head, his mouth moving though I cannot hear the words. And then it comes …
Strands of blood and saliva entwine within my mouth. Fire flares back to my temples so that the blood dances beneath my skin. I shut my eyes tightly, the better to see what sings there so bright and clear—
Eyes, eyes, eyes dancing, green as the highest branch upon the tree, eyes so clear that they show no pupil, nothing but the reflection of what He sees before me, Justice’s white face dancing now too as he tries to hold me and suddenly I am clawing at him, grunting deep in my throat as my nails tear his face and —
With a cry Justice rolled across the bed, and I wailed to lose my dream. I scratched at my own face, dragged my fingers across my cheeks until I felt something warm, jammed my fingers into my mouth and gagged: because it was my own blood I tasted, the shining strands snarling into clotted chemicals. On the other side of the bed Justice wept.
My stomach stopped heaving. The shrieking in ‘my mind stilled. I raised my head to see Justice crouched on the corner of the bed.
“Why won’t you let me?” he cried. “I could make you happy!”
I held my head in my hands, pressing my thumbs beside my eyes to stop the pain raging there. As he reached for me I spat at him, pointing to a thread of blood trailing from my lip.
“That makes me happy,” I snarled.
But as I spoke I reeled back as though I had been struck. My sight dimmed as something black and huge and cold loomed in front of me. I began to shake uncontrollably and choking reached for Justice.
“No—stop Him—”
But it is too late.
“Baal is dead,” a Small Voice wails. “I have killed my brother: puissant Baal is dead.”
My hands fall back helplessly; Justice’s face ripples as though reflected in dark and quickly moving water. A cloud across the surface. From the depths rises another face, leaden-hued, soft and pallid as a salamander. As He turns to smile at me the skin droops from his cheeks. From His neck floats a rope — no, a vine — but then it too falls away, its flaccid curve tracing the outline of His mouth. His smile widens to show white broken teeth, swollen tongue, the waxen tendril of a feeding maggot.
Another Voice whispers, “No. Baal is risen; his sister Anat we take now —
“With sword we cleave her,
With fire we burn her,
In the field we doth sow her.
Birds eat her remains,
Consuming her remains,
Devouring her remains.
Puissant Baal died;
And behold, he is alive.
And lo, Anat we take now.”
His grin is hideous. I scream, try to escape those livid eyes but He is there reaching for me. His hand beckons me and all He has to do is touch me and I will lose all this, this room and earth and the warmth of air and blood, He will take me as He took them, all of them, and I feel Him, He is inside me the blink of His eyes His mouth opening to rend me my beautiful brother in the dark—
His eyes close, his mouth snaps shut, his lips furl into new green leaves spilling from a tree where stranger fruit grows. Another boy, yellow hair plaited about a leather belt, smiling, smiling as he always does seeing me in the mirror: Emma, Aidan, Raphael, my brother, we three there …
The face that rears to gaze upon me with hollow eyes rimmed with bone is not his: not Aidan’s or the laughing Boy’s. I scream because as the belt slips from the neck it leaves no scar, no burning flesh, but instead skin soft and s mooth as Justice’s had been beneath my nails. The swollen eyes that stare from the corpse are my own.
“Wendy. Wake.”
Dr. Harrow’s voice rings clear and strong enough to pull me from a profound stupor. Beside me Justice stirs, then moaning turns to hug a pillow. I sit up, keeping my eyes shut so that the vision is not disturbed.
I know she is not really here, not in the Paphians’ chamber where I have finally collapsed. She is a Small Voice now, but it is Emma Harrow I hear and not my own thoughts.
“Dr. Harrow,” I whisper. My hands tremble as I pull the coverlets to my breast. I can still taste the bitter residue of my brain’s own bile. “Dr. Harrow—please help me. I have entered a fugue state. Please—”
She laughs. A starburst of pale yellow light as the threads of her consciousness leap neural chasms.
“You live in a fugue state now, Wendy.” Her voice fires along my locus ceruleus so that I begin to sweat in fear. The neural threads twist and spiral into a brilliant trail. Her sour laughter plunges into the utter darkness of regret.
“Too soon, too soon,” she sighs. “And now swallowed into the void Poor Wendy wanders alone now …”
“No!” I try to follow the faint spark of her consciousness as it soars and plummets through endless canyons. “Don’t leave me! Help me, Dr. Harrow—”
“Help you?” In my mouth a faint sweetness as of old apples. “You killed me, Wendy —”
“Not me!” The sweetness roils into norepinephrine’s cloying honey. She leaps into flame, white and blinding. I start to cry out, to press my face into a pillow so that I will not see the room and wake to lose her again. “The Boy, Dr. Harrow—who is that Boy?”
“Ahhh
Two Voices now, two bright flecks in my spinning firmament.
“My brother— ”
“My sister— ”
Faint as first light the Boy’s bleak consciousness touches the rim of my temporal lobe. I groan in disappointment and terror. Already I can feel Dr. Harrow’s retreat into my corpus callosum, those gray mountains.
But Dr. Harrow lingers a moment longer. Axons whip and slash against the Boy’s first firings. I derive a numb solace from her presence, unclench my fingers from the pillow and draw a deep breath. Something had stirred her to wake me; something she would warn me of. A moment longer and she will be gone and only the Boy will remain to torment me.
“Dr. Harrow—”
A sigh echoes through the gray chasm. “Wendy,” it breathes. “Oh Wendy it is cold, He is so cold …”
I shiver at her anguish, but another urgency forces me on. “A brother, Dr. Harrow. Do I have a brother?”
Her consciousness wavers. A pulse of noradrenaline. Emerald novas burst to send her spinning into the shadows. A last cry soars through my mind’s abyss and I shout in pain as a blocked pathway erupts into crimson flame.
“There is a Boy, “she cries at last. “Our brother — Baal —”
My head pounds from the effort of trying to hold her another moment. Who is Baal? my mind shrieks. Aidan? Raphael?
Her consciousness a crimson streak as she spirals into the void—
“He is our brother, the dying god — we woke Him and now there is no peace until He is slain —
“ ‘But oh, my offense is rank, it smells to heaven;
It hath the primal eldest curse upon’t
A brother’s murder!’
“Find him, Wendy— ”
She is gone. I am alone with Him, the One she woke, the One who slumbers within my tangle of dendrites and neurons and axons: the One who uses me as a flail to reap His harvest, His tribute of souls. The God in the Tree, Dionysus
Dendrites. The Gaping Lord. My hands pummel the bedcovers as He strives with me. My fingers curl helplessly, then flex and open as the blood pumps into them.
I feel Him, the cold and iron pressure of His limbs within mine, my blood streaked with the raw fluids He has released within my brain. A roaring as of some vast beast freed from its prison. A cry that I know is Justice’s as he wakes, as I claw and scream and tear at the sheets.
“No, Wendy!”
I do not see Justice as I fight Him, try to keep Him from seizing Justice like an animal, until finally I fall back onto the bed, grunting as I rip the comforter into shreds.
“Find him, Wendy!”
Her last words echoing as above me Justice hovers, in his hands some heavy object that smashes against my forehead. I hear a howl of frustrated rage, and plunge into unconsciousness.
Somehow Justice and Miss Scarlet engaged palanquins to bear us back to the theater. Justice pleaded I was ill. I recall only Gower Miramar leaning over me in our small chamber, and a fleeting impression of sunrise striking the minarets of the House Miramar as the elders carried us off.
