Projections, page 21
“A premium,” Gus groused. “And I suppose you’d like your cut for making the introductions.”
Asterion said nothing to this. His pretense of friendship for Gus was spotty at best.
“All right,” Gus said at last, quite as wanly as if the magic in question were truly his own and not mine. “How much?”
“Oh, well.” So great was Asterion’s expanse of flaccid lip that when he mused, or pretended to muse, it rippled in a truly revolting manner: a babbling brook made flesh. “Let’s say eighty—or a hundred at the outside—”
Gus’s head perked. “A hundred talens? Why, from how you went on I thought—but that’s no trouble!” A small laugh squeaked out. “No trouble at all!”
“A hundred thousand, of course I meant.”
I could not join Gus in his appalled silence, but for once my feelings neatly matched his. Asterion, of course, stood to profit thrice, drawing his share as the magic was drained from me, next his payment for the living boy, and again when Gus yielded up the minotaur’s commission for this unholy operation. Oh, how plainly the vista opened before me, of being drained, and drained, and drained, until that exorbitant sum could be achieved—that ghastly sipping static, that thirsting buzz, as the umbrastring was jabbed into my immaterial person and sucked—
Asterion had kept his promise to me and proofed his umbrastring against abrupt surges. I could not even take advantage of our sessions to try again to destroy Gus.
Gus meanwhile had jumped up—for he had been huddling the while at Asterion’s feet, pitiful as a beaten puppy—and began to pace, kicking drifts of dirty laundry from his path. The flash came back in his lichen-pale eyes, the thrill of a challenge accepted.
“No,” Gus said. “No. There has to be another way.”
I greeted these words with thoroughly misplaced relief. Why did I imagine even for an instant that Gus would leave me out of his schemes?
Asterion had worn a sort of butter-fed smirk as he counted his imaginary riches. Now his long mouth drooped and the brow furrowed between his horns.
“Another way? How could there be? Put in the effort yourself, or pay to have it done. Those are the choices, here as in the unworld. Dear Gus, don’t delude yourself. Only in the silly fantasies of the common herd is magic ever a shortcut!”
But Gus’s steps acquired an excited snap that I remembered well from his adolescence, and he shook his head with dismissive vigor and held up a hand for silence. Asterion watched with limp sullenness as his imagined talens whisked away in the blast of Gus’s inspiration.
“Catherine,” Gus said. He stopped short.
What? I thought.
And, “What?” Asterion said, in perfect synchronicity. “Of course Catherine—of course she’ll continue to supply you with the power you’ll need to, to pay. But my dear friend—”
Gus waved a hand, brushing the words away. “That isn’t at all what I mean. Yes. Catherine!” He beamed at me as if we were tangled together in some playful conspiracy. “We’ve drawn magic from her mind. Well, it’s time to make use of her body!”
Asterion reeled at this. He covered his eyes with one hand, as if to shield them from the sight of such madness.
“Gus. Gus, Gus, Gus. She doesn’t have one. How long has it been since she did?” An unwelcome thought struck him. “If you mean to dig her up, I feel confident you’ll find she’s not in usable condition.”
“No, no.” Gus was glimmering now, his every movement jerky with excitement. “That one.” He flourished in my general direction. “The cloud of energies that presently composes her, of course I mean. We know she can’t interact with the physical world under ordinary conditions. Can’t lift a feather, can’t even seem to control her own movements in any but the sloppiest way—ugh, the way her hands and arms flail—”
“Exactly. And something that can’t affect material things in the slightest isn’t going to be very helpful when it comes to a procedure involving a material body. Gus, if I may be plain, you are often an original thinker. But this is simply preposterous.”
“It must be tremendous, the energy of which Catherine is made. The force of an entire life, released all at once and then caught in a permanent field, an oscillation—the energy that would have borne her children, powered decades of laughter. Think of it!”
Oh, I did. I was surprised to discover, though, that Gus had considered me in such terms.
“Well?” Asterion snapped. “So? Say your theorizing holds, say that’s what a ghost is. Whatever she is, we can’t touch it.”
“That’s not true.” Gus stopped his pacing and pivoted toward Asterion, spreading his hands as if he held out his triumph for inspection. “Your umbrastring sticks in her. It creates a local stabilization, enough that we can skim off her power.”
Asterion sighed with a great flubbering of his lips, as much as to say that the point of all this eluded him. But I began to guess where Gus’s reasoning tended. I felt my flashing tumble into a queasy acceleration, a spasmodic dread.
“Who made it?” Gus demanded. “Your umbrastring? I must speak with him at once!”
“I haven’t the faintest,” Asterion lied. His voice took on a sort of puckered sound, so loath was he to surrender this information. If Gus acquired a similar implement of his own, how would the minotaur continue to profit off him? “I bought mine secondhand, from a very seedy dealer who was later exiled. Cornelius somebody. Now that you mention it, I don’t think I’ve ever seen another one.”
Gus shrugged off this attempted discouragement, pacing again and nodding briskly to himself. “I’ll need two, I think. But they might require a few modifications; I suppose I can practice on birds or some such until I get the knack of it. Well, if you don’t know, I’ll make inquiries on my own. Not many umbrathurges out there, as I believe you’ve mentioned. Ghosts aren’t a popular specialty, isn’t that right? Shouldn’t be too difficult to find someone who can direct me.”
Asterion’s globe eyes protruded so far at this show of unwelcome independence that it put me in mind of a snail’s eyestalks. He had overreached, grasped too greedily, and now he was in danger of losing even his regular percentage of my magical production. Appalled though I was at what I suspected Gus was planning, I yet found the inner resources to enjoy Asterion’s consternation.
“I can introduce you to someone,” Asterion sputtered, desperate now to retain any hold on Gus at all. “A certain lady, perhaps more a dabbler than an actual expert. But—”
Gus swung toward him. “Now,” he said. “Now, this very instant!”
I’ve spoken a great deal of memory, and it’s true that much of my hideous existence has been given over to visions of the past. One might be forgiven for supposing I do little else than remember. But no: I also watch. I plan. I’ve learned over the centuries how to perform several tasks simultaneously.
Take as an example the present moment. I go on screaming in my crevice of Nautilus, of course; I cannot do otherwise. I remember Gus’s revelation as to how he might make an additional and still viler use of me. But I also watch from a second, a secret redoubt.
I watch you.
Distractible creature that you are, you stare out a broad glass window and slurp sugared coffee through a hole in a plastic lid. I’ve had time to grow familiar with such innovations, you see; I know about parking lots and cell phones and bright orange chairs swiveling on dirty metal branches.
You stare, so caught up in your inhuman thoughts that you forget what your own hands are doing. Those hands, so olive-golden and strong and finely crafted, are presently in motion with cup and pen. And only one of them is taking its orders from you.
Those hands, those arms, shoulders, jaw, every detail of every part excessive in its beauty: you, of course, have never given the least thought to the substance of which your body is made. You believe, quite mistakenly, that that substance is unquestionably your own, hair and nails, pores and particles. But oh, it is not yours; not one cell of it is your property, any more than I was.
It belonged to a boy named Christopher Flynn.
And I killed him.
Catherine Accused
“You do realize that poor Gertrude is utterly despondent, don’t you? Or is it simply that you can’t be bothered to help? She hardly gets out of bed these days. Mind, I know as well as anyone that she’s not a pleasant woman, but even I can’t help but pity her. And you, who think you’re so exalted that the very clouds bow down to you, you can’t spare a few hours to lift her suffering? Really, Catherine. How much revenge do you need over one impulsive slap?”
It was October or November of 1854; the intervening months had passed in a whirl of excitement over my new studies. I no longer cared when I caught Darius or Dr. Lewis staring at me. I tolerated Gus’s excitable displays of his new magic in a spirit of slightly condescending indulgence. What did I care if he could make a blue heron shine like mercury when I could examine the structure of that same heron’s feathers? His passion struck me as fundamentally superficial, all spangle and illusion, where I was delving into the deeper realities.
So when Margo ambushed me on my walk home from the Reverend’s house, I was nearly able to shrug off her accusations, as well.
“Reverend Skelley told me she’s doing poorly. I’m very sorry to hear it. Of course I would help her if I could do so in good conscience.” My prim tone betrayed that I hadn’t entirely forgiven Margo for her deceit. Our shadows spindled out in the late afternoon light, warped by the uneven road.
“What abject nonsense, my dear. You were there. You heard Viviana speak as plain as day through your own lips. And if you deny our little lost darling the chance to speak to her grieving mother again, well, I can only assume you do it out of spite. I thought better of you.”
I remember the cresting gold of the autumn elms, the sharp effervescent smell of fermenting apples. My own feelings resembled the scent: an intoxicating tang just on the edge of rot.
“As you say, that voice spoke through my lips. I could feel—I could taste—that it wasn’t who it claimed to be. You accuse me of seeking revenge on Mrs. Farrow. Well, if I were, I would do exactly what she asks, and make that voice say anything that suited me!”
I realized at once that I had said too much. Margo’s face went hard with consideration.
“How?” She paused. “It didn’t sound like you in the slightest, not even if you tried to disguise your own voice. And Viviana died when you were all of ten months old, you couldn’t possibly remember how she sounded!”
We were on treacherous ground. I could not mention magic without betraying Gus.
“I don’t know quite how it was done,” I said, carefully truthful. “But I believe Mrs. Hobson was telling me, in a veiled way, that I could learn the trick of it.”
Margo bristled. “Mrs. Hobson is a lady of the greatest integrity. Congressmen attest to her character, for heaven’s sake. She was generous beyond words in offering to guide you, and I still can’t understand how you could find the impudence to refuse her.”
I had thought that Margo was my friend, after her fashion. To discover her true valuation of me salted through each disdainful turn of phrase—it had its effect. Shame and fury heated my face. But I had absorbed Reverend Skelley’s Spiritualist values, if not his actual beliefs, and here those values came to my defense.
“I can’t allow another person to dispose of my conscience merely because of who her friends are,” I said. I admit my tone was haughty in the extreme; it was the only way I could control the tumult of my feelings. A dust devil spun around me, and the elm leaves streaked by like bands of gold.
Margo let out an exasperated huff and caught my face between her hands. “Catherine, my dear, don’t be so bull-headed! Gertrude has her pride, too, you know. It cost me a great deal of trouble to persuade her—”
Why did I find this speech so provoking? I jerked away.
“To do what?” I snapped. “To try a second time to use me as your marionette?”
“Gertrude would pay you very well, of course,” Margo soothed—which infuriated me even more. “And Mrs. Hobson still takes an interest in you, her letters have been explicit on that point. But I can’t help you if you won’t meet us halfway. Come tonight, please. For my sake and Gus’s, if you can’t do it for Gertrude’s.”
Her words reminded me vividly of the séance, and the repellent impression I’d had that night of a silent conspiracy licking and probing at me. And what did she mean by bringing Gus into it, when she knew he didn’t believe in spiritual communication any more than I did?
“Tell Mrs. Farrow that I hope she finds peace,” I said. “I’m sorry she can’t find it through me.”
We stared at each other: the sort of mutual regard that sets the air ringing with its percussion.
“She won’t appeal to your better nature again, Catherine,” Margo said at last, in grave tones. “I’ve tried all I can. I’d do anything for Angus, and that means I have to do my best for you as well. The two of you are unquestionably spiritual affinities, though in practice all it means is that you’re equally insufferable.”
If I had possessed a clearer understanding of the doctrine of spiritual affinities, I might have focused on that last assertion rather than on the warning that weighed down her voice.
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“Think it over,” Margo rejoined, and turned on her heels. She wore the same silvery dress as she had at the séance, its color dissonant against the golden streams of sunlight. “Come tonight at eight. It will be the best thing for everyone, I promise you.”
As she walked off I felt a cold clenching in my stomach. Suppose I went, and paid back Gertrude Farrow’s contempt with my own falsity, and then strolled away laughing with a fistful of her money? I was nearly sure I could conjure that voice again; that the lurking, fidgeting pressure just above my spinal cord would be all too delighted to play tricks if I let it. It reared up now as if excited by the prospect, hot and waggling in my brain’s abyss.
If I did not like to admit it, still I knew what that presence was. I imagine the sensation of it was similar to what Mrs. Hobson termed her guide, in her ignorance of her power’s real nature.
In truth, I’d felt it ever since my confrontation with Darius in the field, and I wonder now if that was his real purpose in frightening me: to make me release a force I would have corked up otherwise. Once I learned to recognize the feeling of it, it never went away. I could not stop dabbing at that little magical protrusion, worrying it, as if it were a loose tooth.
But if I allowed the Farrow ladies to pressure me into acting against my own judgment this time, there would be no end to it. And then if I played the medium, Thomas and the Reverend would know that I did so insincerely. The more I argued against his rather ethereal beliefs, the prouder the Reverend grew of me, the brighter and warmer were his smiles. I couldn’t bear to disappoint him.
I let the evening sidle by, focusing as hard as I could on my mundane tasks. When eight came and went and I was still at home, I felt nearly limp with relief—just as if I had fought off an overbearing influence, a nudging in each current of the air, that meant to herd me where I did not want to go. By the next morning I felt obscurely proud of myself, sure that I had won some unseen victory.
I felt that way, that is, until I returned home from the Skelleys’ house two days later, and found Gertrude Farrow and my father standing by the bed I shared with Anna. I didn’t understand what Gus’s mother was doing there until I caught a flash of burgundy leather in her hand, the spark of gilt on a spine. My Wordsworth.
A dozen more volumes were spread across the mattress. The room was dim, and blue shadows blotted her face until it looked like a footprint pressed in the snowy mounds of her pale hair. Her eyes stared with a hectic glimmer and her mouth was pursed into an expression of desperate vindication.
“Don’t tell me to ask Gus!” she said, or nearly shrieked, with no preamble whatsoever. I had the impression that she’d been waiting some time; that suspense had pressurized her voice until it whistled out of her like steam. “As if I didn’t know he’d lie for you! As if we all didn’t know! If you seduced him into stealing from us, destroyed his morals, that’s even worse than if you stole the books with your own hands! Oh, of course I’d suspected, of course I had. But when you have only one surviving child, how can you harden yourself to correct him? Even as you watch him drawn into—turpitude, disobedience—”
The two Mrs. Farrows believed passionately enough in those aspects of Spiritualism they found congenial, but its great message of radical human equality had apparently bypassed their understanding. If Gus had defied his parents in slipping me that contraband knowledge, had he not followed something in himself better than their unfeeling dictates?
“Catherine?” my father said, barely above a whisper.
“Gus gave them to me,” I said, as levelly as I could. “I believed they were his to give.”
This was not, of course, entirely true. But it was enough to elicit a sorrowful nod from my father.
“You hid them under your mattress, though. If you weren’t ashamed, you wouldn’t have concealed them.” He turned to his employer. “My girl knows she’s done wrong. What will satisfy you, Mrs. Farrow?”
She looked at me, plainly evaluating how best to wound.
“Well, of course she must never speak to Gus again. I can’t allow her to be the ruin of my only son.”
My knees wavered, and I opened my mouth to protest, but my father’s look quelled me. Defiance now would surely cost him his job, cost my siblings their bread. Haven’t you done enough? his gaze said. Control yourself before you wreck us all.
“But that’s hardly enough to make her answer for her theft,” Mrs. Farrow pursued. The last word was loaded with such venom that it was clear she was alluding not to a stack of books, but to a voice, bright with childish innocence; to Gus’s disaffection; to a lifetime of loss that she now chose to blame on me. At that moment I hated her too much for pity, but it was a near thing. “You’ve allowed her to get above her place, and look what’s happened. If this goes on she’ll end up as a streetwalker.”
