Borderliners, page 19
A cloaked figure stood gaunt and tall, its face taut. I looked again, hardly trusting myself, but despite the sudden appearance of a cloak I knew who this was. The height and presence, the long, dark hair plastered against her face and shoulders in flattened, separated ringlets. A slow, crawling feeling of horror clutched my heart and lungs, making it difficult to breathe. For the second time that night I wanted to scream, to break into a run, but I was unable to move.
I craned my neck to see better. She looked much younger, her legs and arms sinewy and taut, her hair glossier and her eyes darker than before as she bent over a figure kneeling at her feet. The crowd around her, all tuxedos and gowns, was faceless. They swayed together and emanated an unworldly hum. Behind the kneeling figure was another cloaked figure, a man, small and dark, like a thief in the night. A black panther. Little and wiry, I barely recognised Iain in this form. He, also, appeared much younger, thinner and a lot stronger. Why the cloaks? I didn’t like it and I suppressed a shiver and the desire to flee the scene.
Hands clenched into balls, I stole a glance at Vince who was focussed on the phone camera. He did not look at me. Turning back to the figures in the middle, it was then that I realised the man in the middle was stripped to the waist, his hands tied behind his back, his eyes tightly closed and his mouth torn open in a silent scream. Noise, a kind of pleading, emanated from him.
‘Julia, Julia, Julia!’ he was saying. ‘I beg forgiveness. Please. Please!’
Through the trees, the smaller cloaked figure picked up a dark canister which had been sitting on the ground on the edge of the crowd, and began to unscrew its lid. I watched, aware of Vince who was standing perfectly still just in front of me, his hair obscuring his profile so that I could only see the line of his jawbone, hard and straight, giving nothing away. Looking back at the clearing, I fixed my eyes on the cloaked figure as he trailed the canister in a line then crossed over to the other side of the clearing to begin again in the opposite direction. When he was finished he stood back. It was then that I noticed the wind had dropped completely so that the air hung in stagnant pockets around us, and the hum increased in volume before splitting into several parts. The sound was disharmonious, rising and falling, and it sounded like nothing on earth. I couldn’t make out words, just sounds, like an elongated form of the babbling I’d heard at the prayer group.
I craned my neck but Vince’s hand shot out behind him, the pressure of his hand on my shoulder firm and decisive.
A lone voice continued, ‘I’m so sorry for doubting you. I'm sorry for writing those things about you. I'm sorry for the smoking and the drinking, for the vices.’
The Julia-figure appeared not to hear him.
‘Tony!’ A voice in my head screamed but no sound would leave my lips.
‘Not yet!’ hissed Vince in my ear.
Then. Breakdown. His voice cracked and dissolved into a sob as his head was released by the black panther. At the same time, another figure was pushed into the circle, a younger figure with short hair matted around her pale face. Her eyes stood out from the white of her skin which reflected the light of the moon. Julia started chanting again and I felt something within me begin to snap.
I’d heard about ceremonies like this, and as well trained as I was in controlling my emotions, I could feel cold fingers of fear crawling across my body. Everything seemed to be happening in slow motion, almost as if my brain wasn’t able to process what I was seeing. Even with the prior knowledge I’d gained from reading through the clippings file and talking to the other councillors about the suspected practises of the Community, I was not prepared for the reality.
A demonic voice sounded from somewhere deep in the forest.
‘Transeas a Diabolo. Nos eiiciamus vobis!’
Four more cloaked figures appeared holding burning torches, one at each end of the crossed lines they had drawn on the ground with the substance from the cannister. Oil! The realisation hit me just seconds before each figure raised an arm. With an almighty crack the ground exploded into four rivers of fire, each travelling at speed towards the other, so that when they met in the middle, a gigantic cross formed.
Then Tony just disappeared. With him, the wind rose with an almighty howl and blew the fire out. Again, Vince's hand shot out, before I could move, to hold me in place. But someone must have heard us. A whirlwind of movement saw the faceless troop close its circle as the girl in the middle was lifted up and dragged by the mass across the grass to the edge of the clearing.
Without warning, a glint of metal on the crowd side of the troop accompanied a cracking sound, like a firecracker. ‘Gun!’ I pushed both of us down to the floor, my face so close to the ground that soil pushed up into my mouth and nostrils. I don't know how long we stayed like that, the warmth of Vince's body next to mine, whilst the leaves and earth threatened to suffocate me. After what seemed like an eternity, I jumped to my feet, spluttering as I wiped grime and leaves from my face with my arm. Vince stood up in front of me revealing he was in a similar state, his tux glistening wet. His eyes seemed both greener and darker than ever, the light of the moon picking up his usual critical glint which intensified as he surveyed his surroundings. He took in everything, as quick as a flash. Me, the newly emptied woods, the clouds moving back in to obscure our light source.
‘What was that for?’
‘They’ve got guns. I might be able to fight but I can’t dodge bullets.’
‘You can fight?’
‘Yes.’
‘So what now?’
‘You tell me,’ I replied, still looking around. ‘They went in that direction, towards the road at the back. Come on.’ I took his hand, hard and dry in my own cold, wet one. ‘Looks like they don’t know where we are. Let’s try and follow them. You saw what they were doing.’
I was still breathless, and my chest was hurting, but I didn't care. I started walking towards the trees at the opposite end of the clearing, Vince behind me.
‘They looked like they were going to kill that girl.’
‘I know.’
We walked in silence for a few minutes, back into thick, black darkness. I had to feel, rather than see, my way through the trees which appeared to thicken up and impede our progress. I stopped to listen but could hear nothing to point me in the direction of the crowd and their helpless victims. The clippings file burned a hole in my mind's eye, burning ever brighter the more hopeless our progress through the deserted wood became. As failure beckoned, the fates of past victims rose up before me, and their anguish ripped me apart. The minutes stretched out.
Vince stopped and tugged on my hand so that I came to an abrupt halt.
‘They’ve disappeared Elena. They knew they were being followed and they’ve done a runner.’
I glared.
‘We're not going to find them here now.’
We stood in silence for a few moments as I tried to accept we had lost them, and with them our opportunity to protect Linda and Tony. I looked around me, desperate for the game not to be up. Vince, too, scanned the woods around us. Eventually we gave up and began to walk back.
We hadn’t been walking for long when he stopped me. ‘Elena, you’ve dropped something.’
I stopped and grasped the handle of my clutch bag to be sure. Checking its contents, I shook my head, ‘No?’
‘This - look - is it yours?’ He bent down in one fluid movement to pick up a small, silver talisman from the floor. Wiping earth from the top, he turned it over in his hands, which I noticed were streaked with mud just like mine. I squinted to take a better look, but it was too dark to see much and the rain had started coming down again. When I realised what it was, I took a step back.
‘It’s one of their talismans,’ I said. ‘Just throw it. Evil-looking thing.’
‘No, stick it in your bag. It proves they were here.’
He held it between his finger and thumb. Without a word I reached over to pluck the silver object from his fingers, but as my hand brushed his, the air between us changed. I closed my eyes and leaned into him, feeling his lips brush my temple as he spoke into my hair, his hands encircling mine. ‘Now might be a good time for us to have that talk.’
A gap opened up for me to fall into. I felt as if he was propping me up, as if the ground was disappearing beneath my feet. I took in a breath, hoping to steady myself, and I opened my eyes. Chucking the talisman on the ground, I took his face in my hands.
‘Does it need to be said?’ I asked, holding his gaze for a second, seeing the darkness I'd observed the night he'd followed me home from the pub return. With one swift movement I clutched his hair and pulled him closer. As I kissed him, time stopped. I forgot about the cold. I forgot about my patients, the hooded figures, the fire and the flash of metal. I forgot about everything. This was the kind of embrace which wouldn't end there, which unlocked worlds.
He moved his hands up to clutch the back of my head, and kissed me back, his passion increasing the depth and intensity of what passed between us. The moon came out and lit up the long curve of my neck as he worked his way all the way to my collarbone. I threw my head back, and stared into its bright white light, which was at once clear and mysterious, grasping thick strands of his hair as they tickled the expanse of skin just above the neckline of my dress. We fell to the ground, and this time it was no illusion. The freezing damp seeped through the back of my dress but I barely noticed it as the world around us started to spin.
‘I've been watching you,’ he seemed to say, his voice far away. ‘Waiting for a sign.’
‘I know,’ I said. ‘I know.’ But sometimes all we can do is stand and stare, I thought.
Afterwards, he pulled me up and warmed my hands in his before turning to lead me out of the woods, back to the real world.
‘Come on,’ he said as we moved off. ‘Time to go home.’
Chapter 27
Tony
1 November
A voice in the woods drew me out. I saw her, my pale lady, watching from the shadows, I saw her beckoning for me to come. She was with another, a man I’d never seen before. The others who stood around me in a circle and Julia who stood inside with me neither saw nor heard her. It seemed that they could not, but I did.
She saved me.
I cast away my shackles whilst they got to work on another. I cast them away and fled. I understood, finally, where my strength was. Where it had been all along. It just took a glimmer of hope, a suggestion of another life, to bring it out.
She didn’t see me running towards her, fleeing the confines of this short, sweet life of mine. She didn’t see me running in and out of the years and the days until my life was condensed into a second. She didn’t see me, but it doesn’t matter. It only takes one person, one voice from somewhere beyond, to save a life.
She saved me. So I will save her.
I will find her and I will save her.
Chapter 28
An empty feeling swirled around my insides as I sat, ignoring the weak rays of sunlight which reached through the window through the branches of the mulberry bush outside. I sat at my kitchen table, staring at the window glass opposite, more at my own reflection than at the outside world beyond it. My ghostly, refracted form made me flinch. I was all wispy hair, deadened eyes, slack skin taut on cheekbones and lips turned down into a frown which I imagined would eventually wear deeply grooved lines into my face where happy dimples might have been. I was still wearing my silver-grey ball gown, now ripped and bedraggled, more of a grimy grey than the resplendent silver of the night before. There was no sign of the glint in my eye, the curl of my lip or turn of my neck, long and white in the moonlight. That was yesterday, many worlds away from where I was today. My hair was matted and straggly, falling over my shoulders, in places damp and tangled with red and golden leaves. The back of my dress was streaked with mud, a reminder of the previous night: the chase, the ceremony, the bewilderment, horror and desperation which washed over me in waves.
I looked down at my hands, which were covered in tiny cuts. My nails were chipped and broken. The thick, rust coloured bangle I’d worn on my wrist was sitting in front of me on the table and I picked it up, turning it over and over as I tried to sort out my thoughts.
I could still feel my feet flying across the ground, my heart beating and the combination of terror and anticipation which burst from my chest. I relived that terrible temptation within me to loosen my soul to allow all the strands to escape, once and for all. I recalled the feeling of loss and failure. Then what, then what? What of my patient, what of my friend? What of those who were in mortal danger, who were still in danger, for I knew only too well how this worked. How the minds of the borderliners ran on and on, tortured by the horrors which twisted, like poison ivy, around their hearts and souls.
I don't know how long I had been sitting at my desk when Dan came down from the spare room. His eyes were rough with sleep, pyjamas wonky and ruffled. I heard him as he padded down the staircase, but I couldn't be bothered to move, and the house was so silent, I wanted to embrace the peace of it for a few moments longer.
‘Morning, or should I say “evening”?’ he joked, eyeing me critically as he did so.
I turned my face towards him slowly. ‘Hi Dan.’
He stopped in the doorway, wary now. ‘You OK?’
‘Yes, but I got in really late.’
This was an understatement. Not only was I still wearing my ball gown, I must have looked like I had been sleeping rough.
‘Do you want me to run you a bath or something?’ he asked. The question surprised me: nurturing wasn’t normally his thing just as being nurtured wasn’t normally mine.
‘That would be lovely, thanks.’ Even to my own ears I sounded distant and indistinct.
Dan didn't pry any further, but that made things worse. I needed to make sense of the previous night but my mind was confused. I wanted to get cleaned up and dressed and go over to my consulting room to look something up on my work computer. I wanted to ring the hospital to check if Linda had arrived and I needed to talk to Kate. I was both afraid of and desperate to do all these things.
And I had to find a way to check on Tony. I turned the dream diary over in my hands, thinking. The author had to be him. I couldn’t think how, but somehow his thoughts had ended up in Martha’s hands.
Lastly, I had to confront Julia and Iain.
The creak of water through the pipes signalled it was time to pull myself together and get cleaned up. Climbing the stairs lethargically, I was aware of how odd I must look in yesterday’s dirty and torn ball gown and was thankful that there was only Dan here to witness it. I went into the bathroom and closed the door quietly behind me before turning off the bath taps. Peeling off my clothes, I lowered myself into the bath, the white of my skin almost translucent against the foamy water. I was vaguely aware of Dan’s voice, as he spoke to someone on his mobile. After a brief soak, I got out of the water and pulled on a pair of jeans, a T-shirt and a fleece. My muscles ached as if I’d been on a long run and I was reminded again of my strange night. Shaking the memory off, I told myself to get on with the day and the task at hand.
Stepping outside I saw that it was raining again. Dirty pavements glistened but despite this, I wanted to walk to the surgery in the rain, to feel the damp, cold air in my lungs, to be there, outside, when the rainfall intensified.
My senses were heightened but dampened at the same time as my mind threatened to drown me in its deathly embrace. I shook myself. I needed to keep my head above water and get a grip. I thought of the workings of the mind and how the unconscious and the conscious fought a furious fight, each blow against the other increasing in intensity as time wore on. In my case, the village had reached into my subconscious and robbed me of my piece of mind. It was as if reality had been stripped away and I’d been conned into a twilit world where the rules of engagement were hazy and uncertain. The village was the face under the lake which promised great secrets beyond its unruffled surface whilst the stars in the sky twinkled an impotent warning from far above. And if I hadn’t guessed already, that tranquil water had already transformed itself into a fast moving, turbulent river, which was carrying me far from safety. Seduced by its secret promise, I was torn between letting myself be taken with the current and attempting to climb out and claw my way back to higher ground.
I pushed on the door of the surgery, remembering, too late, that it was Sunday and very much closed. I had been so wrapped up in my thoughts I had neither considered this nor noticed how shut up and dark the surgery windows and doors were. Fumbling around in my pocket for the keys, I walked round to the other side of the building and let myself in through the back door of my consulting room. As I closed the door behind me and walked across the room, a feeling of déjà vu crept across my shoulders. A piece of folded A4 paper sat upright in the middle of my otherwise clear desk, beckoning me to draw closer, and as I stopped in my tracks to consider the sight a familiar feeling of adrenalin pumped through my veins.
I opened up the paper and let it drop, watching it float to the floor like the last leaves of autumn which were drifting around aimlessly outside. The sheet landed face up, its content cradled by protective folds which remained partially in place. I knelt down, took a deep breath and peered at what I had seen. Taking it between my finger and thumb, I straightened it out with my other hand and scrutinised what I saw: a photo of the juxtaposed Tarot cards sitting on the coffee table at my house.
There was no message scrawled across this photocopy, although thinking of Linda again, I remembered I still had the paper she had given me of a photocopied Tarot card. Opening up my top drawer to pull out Linda’s sheet of paper, I compared the two. Unsurprisingly, they looked the same.
I picked up the phone to ring the psychiatric ward at the hospital, a sense of renewed urgency gripped my stomach, turning it inside out. A bemused ward sister on the other end of the phone told me that the patient had failed to turn up.
