The City of Mirrors
Page 20
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“Amy,” he yelled, “it’s me! It’s Lucius!” He shoved the bolt into place and smacked it with the head of the wrench, driving it home. “The blood is there! Follow the scent of the blood!”
Three turns on the wrench and the bolt locked down, bringing the fourth hole back into alignment. He rammed its bolt into place. One last pound on the underside of the hatch, halfhearted; then it was over.
Lucius, I didn’t mean it…
“It’s all right,” he said.
I’m sorry…
He picked up his tools and put them in the empty duffel. Below him, in the hold of the Chevron Mariner, Amy and Carter were drinking their fills. It always happened like this; Greer should have been used to it by now. Yet his heart was pounding, his mind and body flying with adrenaline.
“I’m yours, Amy,” he said. “I always will be. Whatever comes, you know that.”
And with these words, Lucius made his way across the deck of the Mariner and climbed back through the window.
* * *
7
Amy returned to awareness to find herself on all fours in the dirt. Her hands were gloved; a plastic flat of impatiens rested on the ground close by and, beside it, a rusty trowel.
“You all right there, Miss Amy?”
Carter was sitting on the patio, legs akimbo beneath the wrought-iron table, fanning his face with his big straw hat. On the table were two glasses of iced tea.
“That man takes good care of us,” he said, and sighed with satisfaction. “Haven’t eaten my fill like that since I don’t remember when.”
Amy rose unsteadily to her feet. A deep lassitude enveloped her, as if she had just awoken from a long nap.
“Come and sit a minute,” Carter said. “Give the body a chance to digest. Feeding day like a day off round here. Them flowers can wait.”
Which was true; there were always more flowers. As soon as Amy finished planting a flat, a new one would appear by the gate. It was the same with the tea: one minute the table was bare; in the next, two sweating glasses awaited. By what unseen agency these things arrived, Amy did not know. It was all part of this place and its own particular logic. Every day a season, every season a year.
She removed her gloves and crossed the lawn to sit across from Carter. The greasy taste of blood lingered in her mouth. She sipped the tea to clear it away.
“It’s good to keep your strength up, Miss Amy,” Carter said. “Ain’t no prize for starving yourself.”
“I just don’t…like it.” She looked at Carter, who was still fanning himself with his hat. “I tried to kill him again.”
“Lucius knows the situation well enough. I doubt he takes it personal.”
“That’s not the point, Anthony. I need to learn to control it the way you do.”
Carter frowned. He was a man of compact expression, small gestures, thoughtful pauses. “Don’t be so hard on yourself. You ain’t had but three years to get used to things. You still just a baby in the way of being what we are.”
“I don’t feel like a baby.”
“What you feel like then?”
“A monster.”
She’d spoken too sharply; she glanced away, feeling ashamed. After feeding, she always passed through a period of doubt. How strange it all was: she was a body in a ship, but her mind lived here, with Carter, among the plants and flowers. Only when Lucius brought the blood did these two worlds touch each other, and the contrast was disorienting. Carter had explained that this place was nothing particular to the two of them; the difference was that they could see it. There was one world, of flesh and blood and bone, but also another—a deeper reality that ordinary people could glimpse only fleetingly, if at all. A world of souls, both the living and the dead, in which time and space, memory and desire, existed in a purely fluid state, the way they did in dreams.
Amy knew this to be so. She felt as if she’d always known it—that even as a little girl, a purely human girl, she had sensed the existence of this other realm, this world-behind-the-world, as she had come to call it. She supposed that many children did the same. What was childhood if not a passage from light to dark, of the soul’s slow drowning in an ocean of ordinary matter? During her time in the Chevron Mariner, a great deal of the past had become clear. Vivid recollections had inched their way back to her, approaching on memory’s delicate feet, until things that had happened ages past felt like recent occurrences. She recalled a time, long ago, in the innocent period she thought of as “before”—before Lacey and Wolgast, before Project NOAH, before the Oregon mountaintop where they had made their home and then her long, solo wanderings in a peopleless world with only the virals for company—when animals had spoken to her. Larger animals, like dogs, but also smaller ones that nobody paid attention to—birds and even insects. She’d thought nothing of this at the time; it was simply the way things were. Nor did it trouble her that nobody else seemed to hear them; it was part of the world’s arrangement that the animals spoke only to her, always addressing her by name, as if they were old friends, telling her stories about their lives, and it made her happy to be the recipient of the special gift of their attention when so much else in her life seemed to make no sense at all: her mother’s lurching emotions and long absences, their drifting from place to place, the strangers that came and went with no apparent purpose.
All this had gone on without repercussion until the day Lacey had taken her to the zoo. At the time, Amy did not yet fully comprehend that her mother had deserted her—that she would never see the woman again—and she’d welcomed the invitation; she’d heard of zoos but had never been to one. She entered the grounds to an animal buzz of welcome. After the confusing events of the previous day—her mother’s abrupt departure and the presence of the nuns, who were nice but in a slightly stilted way, as if they were reciting their kindnesses off a card of instructions—here was a familiar comfort. In a burst of energy, she broke away from Lacey and dashed to the polar bear tank. Three were basking in the sun; a fourth was swimming under the water. How magnificent they were, how amazing! Even now, so many years later, it gave her pleasure to remember them, their wonderful white fur and great muscular bodies and expressive faces, which seemed to contain all the wisdom of the universe. As Amy approached the glass, the one in the water paddled toward her. Though she knew that her communication with the creatures of the natural world was best conducted in private, her excitement could not be contained. She felt suddenly sorry that such a stately creature should be forced to live like a prisoner, sunning himself on phony rocks and being gawked at by people who did not appreciate him. “What’s your name?” she asked the bear. “I’m Amy.”
Three turns on the wrench and the bolt locked down, bringing the fourth hole back into alignment. He rammed its bolt into place. One last pound on the underside of the hatch, halfhearted; then it was over.
Lucius, I didn’t mean it…
“It’s all right,” he said.
I’m sorry…
He picked up his tools and put them in the empty duffel. Below him, in the hold of the Chevron Mariner, Amy and Carter were drinking their fills. It always happened like this; Greer should have been used to it by now. Yet his heart was pounding, his mind and body flying with adrenaline.
“I’m yours, Amy,” he said. “I always will be. Whatever comes, you know that.”
And with these words, Lucius made his way across the deck of the Mariner and climbed back through the window.
* * *
7
Amy returned to awareness to find herself on all fours in the dirt. Her hands were gloved; a plastic flat of impatiens rested on the ground close by and, beside it, a rusty trowel.
“You all right there, Miss Amy?”
Carter was sitting on the patio, legs akimbo beneath the wrought-iron table, fanning his face with his big straw hat. On the table were two glasses of iced tea.
“That man takes good care of us,” he said, and sighed with satisfaction. “Haven’t eaten my fill like that since I don’t remember when.”
Amy rose unsteadily to her feet. A deep lassitude enveloped her, as if she had just awoken from a long nap.
“Come and sit a minute,” Carter said. “Give the body a chance to digest. Feeding day like a day off round here. Them flowers can wait.”
Which was true; there were always more flowers. As soon as Amy finished planting a flat, a new one would appear by the gate. It was the same with the tea: one minute the table was bare; in the next, two sweating glasses awaited. By what unseen agency these things arrived, Amy did not know. It was all part of this place and its own particular logic. Every day a season, every season a year.
She removed her gloves and crossed the lawn to sit across from Carter. The greasy taste of blood lingered in her mouth. She sipped the tea to clear it away.
“It’s good to keep your strength up, Miss Amy,” Carter said. “Ain’t no prize for starving yourself.”
“I just don’t…like it.” She looked at Carter, who was still fanning himself with his hat. “I tried to kill him again.”
“Lucius knows the situation well enough. I doubt he takes it personal.”
“That’s not the point, Anthony. I need to learn to control it the way you do.”
Carter frowned. He was a man of compact expression, small gestures, thoughtful pauses. “Don’t be so hard on yourself. You ain’t had but three years to get used to things. You still just a baby in the way of being what we are.”
“I don’t feel like a baby.”
“What you feel like then?”
“A monster.”
She’d spoken too sharply; she glanced away, feeling ashamed. After feeding, she always passed through a period of doubt. How strange it all was: she was a body in a ship, but her mind lived here, with Carter, among the plants and flowers. Only when Lucius brought the blood did these two worlds touch each other, and the contrast was disorienting. Carter had explained that this place was nothing particular to the two of them; the difference was that they could see it. There was one world, of flesh and blood and bone, but also another—a deeper reality that ordinary people could glimpse only fleetingly, if at all. A world of souls, both the living and the dead, in which time and space, memory and desire, existed in a purely fluid state, the way they did in dreams.
Amy knew this to be so. She felt as if she’d always known it—that even as a little girl, a purely human girl, she had sensed the existence of this other realm, this world-behind-the-world, as she had come to call it. She supposed that many children did the same. What was childhood if not a passage from light to dark, of the soul’s slow drowning in an ocean of ordinary matter? During her time in the Chevron Mariner, a great deal of the past had become clear. Vivid recollections had inched their way back to her, approaching on memory’s delicate feet, until things that had happened ages past felt like recent occurrences. She recalled a time, long ago, in the innocent period she thought of as “before”—before Lacey and Wolgast, before Project NOAH, before the Oregon mountaintop where they had made their home and then her long, solo wanderings in a peopleless world with only the virals for company—when animals had spoken to her. Larger animals, like dogs, but also smaller ones that nobody paid attention to—birds and even insects. She’d thought nothing of this at the time; it was simply the way things were. Nor did it trouble her that nobody else seemed to hear them; it was part of the world’s arrangement that the animals spoke only to her, always addressing her by name, as if they were old friends, telling her stories about their lives, and it made her happy to be the recipient of the special gift of their attention when so much else in her life seemed to make no sense at all: her mother’s lurching emotions and long absences, their drifting from place to place, the strangers that came and went with no apparent purpose.
All this had gone on without repercussion until the day Lacey had taken her to the zoo. At the time, Amy did not yet fully comprehend that her mother had deserted her—that she would never see the woman again—and she’d welcomed the invitation; she’d heard of zoos but had never been to one. She entered the grounds to an animal buzz of welcome. After the confusing events of the previous day—her mother’s abrupt departure and the presence of the nuns, who were nice but in a slightly stilted way, as if they were reciting their kindnesses off a card of instructions—here was a familiar comfort. In a burst of energy, she broke away from Lacey and dashed to the polar bear tank. Three were basking in the sun; a fourth was swimming under the water. How magnificent they were, how amazing! Even now, so many years later, it gave her pleasure to remember them, their wonderful white fur and great muscular bodies and expressive faces, which seemed to contain all the wisdom of the universe. As Amy approached the glass, the one in the water paddled toward her. Though she knew that her communication with the creatures of the natural world was best conducted in private, her excitement could not be contained. She felt suddenly sorry that such a stately creature should be forced to live like a prisoner, sunning himself on phony rocks and being gawked at by people who did not appreciate him. “What’s your name?” she asked the bear. “I’m Amy.”
