Resonance (36 page)

Luke frowned. ‘Captain,' he said. ‘Maybe it's best just to do what we've allus done. I ain't—'

‘You are not enough for him,' interrupted Tina. ‘You are less and
less
enough for him. Soon you will just stop, and then
he
will stop.'

‘You don't
know that
,' cried Cornelius. ‘Everything will be
fine
after the spectacular.'

Vincent sighed. ‘Cornelius, can you not even begin to consider—'

Raquel's sharp cry cut him short. ‘Stop it! You are being
disgusting
, Vicente! You are being
ungrateful
.'

She strode through the candles until she was standing over him and the jar, a fierce, angry shape against the light.

‘In six days' time, the entertainers will come to my theatre. They will come, and they will give their all for the Angel. Then you will be
cured
, Vicente, and Cornelius
will be
happy
and Matthew will come
home
. This is what Cornelius has promised will happen. This is what
will
happen.' Vincent jumped as she kicked the jar. The impact caused it to ring dully like a broken bell. ‘Take this thing from my house!'

She swept from the room in a fluttering of candlelight. There came the sound of footsteps on gravel as she crossed the driveway.

‘Well,' grunted Luke. ‘You've gone and upset the missus.'

Vincent sighed.

Cornelius regarded him from his position by the wall. ‘You will ruin everything.'

‘You do not know that for certain.'

‘It is not worth the risk. We are perfect as we are.'

‘By the devil, Cornelius. Tell me you are not serious!'

Vincent spread his arms as if to encompass the echoing ballroom, the dusty, silent house. ‘You call this perfect?' he said. ‘
Perfect
?' He began to laugh, a coarse noise that surprised even him with its unhappiness. Cornelius turned from the sound and fled into the dark.

‘Have people come back from the dead before?' asked the seer.

Vincent tore his attention from the empty doorway and looked at her. She was slumped into the sofa, her hand clasped loosely in that of the boy called Joe. The only thing in any way alive about her was her eyes, and they watched from beneath lids pale as marble, lashes dark as ink.

Vincent flicked a glance to Joe, then back to her. ‘No. I have never seen anyone return from the dead before.'

She turned to Luke, and he shook his head. ‘Why?' he said. ‘Who's returned from the dead?'

Without replying, the girl heaved herself from the sofa, tentatively released the boy's hand, and waited. When there seemed to be no ill effect from their lack of contact, she left him and lowered herself to the floor on the opposite side of the jar from Vincent. Looking across the light-addled surface at her was like gazing into a dark well. There was no glitter left to her at all. Still, Vincent couldn't look away.

‘If you give this animal to the Angel,' she said, ‘what is it you think will happen?'

‘I do not know.'

She thought about this a moment, then glanced at the two boys sitting on the sofa. The American was hunched, his eyes half closed, his mouth twisted against a nausea that Vincent guessed was considerably worse than his own. The boy called Joe was sitting forward, frowning attentively.

‘Your friends seem to think something bad will happen,' said the girl.

‘My friends are frightened of change.'

‘What about you? Aren't you frightened you'll die?'

The question surprised him.
Am I frightened to die?
he thought.

Cornelius was, Vincent was certain of that. Poor Cornelius, so thoroughly disgusted by himself that he could conceive of nothing other than an angry God – he was scared of the torments of purgatory and of hell.

And Raquel? Who could tell what Raquel was frightened of? Her beliefs were so convoluted a tincture of all she'd been taught, and then taught to despise, that Vincent doubted even she had a clear handle on them. She simply revelled in her ongoing vengeance against God – the holding captive of one of His precious children – and the barricade it had
allowed her to build against a world that had shown her nothing but pain.

‘How odd,' whispered Vincent.

‘What?' asked the girl.

‘You ask if I am afraid to die, and my first thoughts were not my own, but those of my friends.'

She tutted. ‘That's nothing special, mister. I can count on the fingers of one hand the number of people I know who think for themselves.'

‘That is not what I meant!'

‘Oh, was it not?' she snapped, and he recognised at once the hard, dry sarcasm of the street; the impatience of one who'd learned to trust no one's judgement but her own.

Strange girl
, he thought.
I believe I could have come to like you.

‘Had I not been fodder for your angel,' she added.

He startled.
You hear me?

She just smiled coldly. ‘What do you think will happen once you sacrifice the theatre folk?'

‘We'll be better again,' said Luke, who had gone to the window. ‘The Angel will be strong and so
we
will be strong and everything will be fine.'

The girl did not shift her attention from Vincent. ‘I asked what
you
think, mister.'

‘I think the Bright Man will stagger along for another hundred years or so, sipping from whatever nasty brutalities the children inflict on the world and whatever contentment Luke gets from the gardens. I think Cornelius will eventually disappear below-ground, never to return, and I think Raquel will simply sit at her window, waiting for Matthew, until she turns to stone.'

‘And you?'

I will get thinner and thinner. Blood will fill my mouth with every breath. I will lay myself down in a room somewhere, and the dust shall coat me
.

He shook his head and did not reply.

‘Your friends are afraid that if you give this to him, the Angel won't need you. They're afraid he'll take his gifts away.'

‘Are they right?'

Troubled, the girl glanced to the boy called Joe. ‘I don't know,' she said.

Joe's face hardened. ‘What became of your last seer, mister?'

‘She lost her mind. And died.'

‘This place killed her.'

Vincent nodded. ‘Her communion with the Bright Man wore her out.'

The boy glared at the girl. ‘See?'

She closed her eyes. ‘Stop it, Joe.'

By the window, Luke suddenly straightened, peering out into the dark. ‘Captain, there are lights on the ice.'

Vincent lurched to his feet. At first all he saw was his own reflection looking back at him, then there they were: distant torches bobbing; a crowd advancing through the fog. ‘What the devil can it be?' he whispered. ‘Let us go investigate.'

‘I'll get the pistols, Captain.'

Vincent looked at Luke in astonishment, and the man tutted. ‘I might as well've been on my own here these past fifty year or more, Captain. You think I'd feel comfortable without weapons at the ready?'

Luke grouched from the room, and Vincent trailed behind, feeling uncomfortably like an admonished child.

At the threshold, he hesitated. The creature bobbed in its jar of water, silent now that it was no longer part of something else's consciousness. The girl sat in a sprawl of sky-blue skirts, watching him, her two boys like sentinels on the sofa at her back. Lost children. What danger or use were they now?

Luke called from the depths of the safe room by the front door, ‘Pistol or fowling-piece, Captain?' and Vincent went to join him.

The Heart That Pushes

T
INA WENT TO
the window and looked out. Wolcroft was on the porch steps, accepting a pistol from the man called Luke. Wolcroft and Vincent murmured to each other as they checked the weapons, their attention on the lake. The woman, Raquel, was standing halfway down the lawns. Nothing but a crinolined shape cut from the illuminated fog, she too was watching the lights advance.

Weapons in hand, the three men descended onto the drive and strode into the dark. Tina knew they would remain lost from sight until they reached Raquel and were silhouetted against the torchlight.

Behind her, Harry rose from the sofa. He had one hand pressed to his stomach, his face the colour of old milk. ‘Let’s go,’ he gasped. ‘Now, while they’re distracted. Tina, you grab the pram. Joe, help me with the jar. After we’ve brought that creature down to the Angel, we can head to the stables, rig up the carriage and make a run for it.’ He staggered over and crouched to grab the jar by its rim. ‘Come on, Joe. I don’t feel too good. I can’t do this on my own.’

Tina knelt by his side. She laid her hands on his.
Harry
, she thought.
Wait
. She allowed her thoughts to caress his mind – felt him succumb and rebel at once, a fuddled, terrible mixture of affection and resentment.

Don’t you do that to me!
he thought. Still, his fingers loosened on the rim of the jar, and he dropped to his knees before her as if awaiting instruction.

Joe and me will take care of the Beloved, Harry. You go to the stables now, get yourself a horse. Leave while you can.

Harry tried to pull away. ‘No,’ he whispered.

Tina tightened her grip on his hands. She smiled.
Yes, Harry. Joe and me have things to do here. But it’s much better for you to leave. Go back to the theatre – back to your plans. You’ve so many plans, Harry. You’re going to be so famous. You’re going to be so rich. You need to go back to that.

Harry turned his head the miles and miles it took for him to see Joe.

‘Joe,’ he managed. ‘Stop … stop her.’

Joe looked at him – one of those rare, direct looks that showed the world just how blue his eyes were. ‘It’s all right, Harry,’ he said. ‘Go to the stables. Get two horses ready.’

His words seemed to undo a thin black thread in Harry’s chest, and, just like that, Harry was rising to his feet and walking from the room.

When he reached the door, Tina said,
Harry, put in your earplugs
. He smiled back at her and did as he was told. Then he was outside the candlelight and crossing a dark hall. He was in a book-lined room. He was pushing open a
glass-panelled
door and stepping into the moonlit night. He walked through the scent of roses and gave himself up to the darkness of a shrub-crowded path. His mind was set and
sure, the clock-tower of the stable yards a beacon, guiding him through the maze of the garden.

Every step of the way, Tina was with him, her gentle assurances sounding in his mind:
It’s all right, Harry. Don’t worry. It’s time to go home.

J
OE CALLED HER
mind back to itself, and Tina sagged, drained.

‘He won’t be safe out there,’ he said.

She heaved herself to her feet and took hold of the jar. ‘Harry crossed an entire ocean on his own, Joe.’ She began to drag the jar across the room. ‘He dived to the bottom of a lake and back. He’s well able to wriggle past some kids and steal himself a horse.’

She paused, breathless already, and looked up. Joe sat with his hands laced together, his elbows on his knees, as if calmly watching the sunset on the Royal Canal. He looked like a prince in those fancy clothes, his hair all soft and gleaming. He was something completely different now, completely different but still the same: her Joe.

Down in his lonely cave, the Angel was shifting and turning about, trying to find a connection to the beloved. He had his own dead beloved slung about his neck. He carried it with all the grief of someone carrying a dead child, but he was torn by hope, too – and by need. Any moment now, he would begin to notice her again. He would begin to touch, then paw, then hammer at her receptive mind, demanding answers she couldn’t give.

This jar was so heavy; her time was so short.

‘Are you going to help me or not?’ she snapped.

Joe’s eyes dropped to the creature, then back to her. ‘What are you going to do with it?’ he asked.

‘I’m
hiding
it! What else? We’re not going to let them give it to the Angel! What would happen you then?’ She tried again to drag the jar. She felt so bloody weak and useless. Her head was starting to swim. Why wouldn’t he help her?

Joe got to his feet. His expression sent a spear of rage through her, because she knew what he was about to say. The Angel paused his frenzied prowling and lifted his head. Oh, he had found her. By her pain, he had found her. He lifted his hands and his wings, feeling his own loss echoed in the rise of her panic. He began to sing, and Joe’s next words were barely audible above his voice.

‘This place will kill you, Tina.’

‘To hell with that!’ She stopped, gathered her anger, then lowered her voice, purposely using the tone she had only recently learned, the one that had turned Harry on his heel and sent him into the dark.

Help me, Joe. Help me hide this thing.

Joe just tutted, disapproving, and Tina cursed him as much as she loved him for the very same strength. He had never been one to do what he was told – sure, hadn’t that been the very thing that attracted her in the first place? In a world crippled by poverty, and cowed by violence, hadn’t Joe’s quiet sense of his own worth drawn Tina to him like a charm?

‘You’re not staying,’ he told her.

‘I bloody am!’

She took hold of the jar again, and the Angel roared in sudden understanding.
Beloved. Here. To me
. Tina clenched her teeth against its terrible voice. Shuffling backwards, she began dragging the jar through the stands of flickering
candles, squinting behind her for the trail of water that betrayed Wolcroft’s earlier journey from the well. She had so little time. The Angel was so loud.

Silence clamped down as Joe’s hands grabbed the top of her arms. He dragged her up so they were face to face. ‘You want the theatre folk killed? Is that what you want?’

‘That doesn’t have to happen.’

‘It
will
happen if we don’t give your angel its creature. You know that.’

‘We can figure that out later. It’s not important now.’

She shook free of him, reaching for the jar, and he grabbed her again. Tina felt the tiniest flare of fear, as he jerked her back around to face him. She’d seen so many men turn this way. Tenement love letters, Nana called them: black eyes and bruises, the language of men who knew only one way to find respect.

But that wasn’t Joe. Never Joe.

Tina pulled herself to her full height. ‘Let go of me,’ she said. ‘You’re not some back-alley bully with your mot.’

‘And you’re not some stupid young wan giving everything she is for some
lad
. Haven’t we both seen enough of that?’ He shook her, just a gentle shake, to emphasise his fear. ‘You have plans,’ he said softly. ‘Did you think I hadn’t noticed? There’s so much you want to do. Are you really going to give that up just to stay here, Tina?
Here?
’

The candles were making everything about him gold – his hair, his eyelashes. Threads of light were falling and melting into him like snow. Tina took his face between her hands. He was hers: so utterly, so tenderly her own. Could he not understand that?

‘You’re
part
of my plans, Joe. We’re a team. You’ve never let
me down. Do you think I’m going to run away and leave you?’

He drew her hands from his face. ‘I’m finished, Tina. And this place will kill you.’

He stepped back, releasing her, and the Angel’s voice flooded in, shredding, roaring, deafening.

‘This place will kill you,’ Joe said. ‘Tell me you’ll leave.’

She lurched for him and he stepped back again, coming to a halt a scant two yards away. She pressed her fists to her temples, regarding him across the forest of the candle flames. Without his touch, the Angel’s voice was a knife in her head, hacking the inside of her skull.

‘Tell me you’ll leave,’ Joe whispered.

‘I’ll leave.’

He looked away, as if ashamed. Tina held herself in place, fists clenched against her head, eyes narrowed against the pain.

‘Don’t be angry at me, Tina.’

‘I’m not angry.’

He came and offered his hand. She took it. He stooped and gripped the lip of the jar with his free hand. She leaned to help, and between them they dragged the jar across the musty dimness of the hall and into the library. ‘It won’t be easy to get this over to that castle,’ Joe grunted. ‘But between us both …’

‘That won’t be necessary,’ said Tina. He straightened warily, as if suspecting she’d changed her mind. She pointed to the chill gap in the bookshelves, the books scattering the floor. ‘They left the secret door open,’ she said.

At the threshold of the door, they stood gazing down into blackness.

‘It’s very dark,’ said Joe. ‘Maybe …’

Her hand tightened on his. ‘Joe! There’s something moving down there.’

He crouched slightly, pushing her behind him. ‘Where?’

She pointed a shaking finger. ‘Can’t you see it? There! About three steps down. I’m scared, Joe.’

He pushed her further behind him, straining to see. ‘I can’t see it,’ he whispered. ‘Are you sure?’

‘I’m sure, Joe.’

She pushed just hard enough to send him stumbling down the top few steps, and was already swinging the door shut as he turned. She had just enough time to see the panic in his eyes before the latch clicked shut. He began hammering almost immediately, and she pressed her face to the door, feeling the pounding of his anger through the wood.

We’ll figure it out, Joe. We’ll think of something better than you dying and my going on alone.

For a moment, the hammering ceased.

I’ll be back for you
, she told him.

The hammering recommenced as she dragged the jar through the French doors, but once she was out on the terrace it fell from earshot. She was left only with dim and silent moonlight, and the terrible voice of the Angel gnawing at her mind. Across the flagstones, a spattered path of rapidly drying water betrayed Wolcroft’s route from the well. Tina regarded it a moment, in weariness and pain, then began the slow, scraping task of dragging the jar away from the house.