Resonance (23 page)

Bravissimo

R
UNNING FRANTICALLY ACROSS
the lawn, Cornelius howled as his dog disappeared from sight. The children did not even look up, so entranced were they by their deed. They simply crouched in the place where the vase had been, watching, enraptured, as the great flat head of Cornelius’ dog came bursting to the choppy surface below. They smiled as the poor creature battered the water, fighting for purchase on the edge of the ice.

With another cry, Cornelius shrugged out of his coat and crashed through the brittle wall of rushes. The children turned their attention on him then, and to his horror Cornelius felt the Angel latch on to him and begin to feed. It was an awful, crippling sensation. Cornelius battled though it, falling to his knees on the treacherous ice, crawling to where his dog fought the water.

‘Here, Beauty!’ he gasped. ‘Here, girl!’

The dog’s white-rimmed eyes rolled to him. Cornelius flung the end of his coat to her, yelling at her to ‘hold’. Somewhere in the terrified recesses of her brain the poor creature must have recognised the old order, and her strong
jaws closed around the twisted fabric as they had used to close around the tarred ropes of the boarding boats. She grabbed hold and almost immediately went under again, sucked below by the strange currents that ran through the pond.

Cornelius scrambled backwards on the water-slicked ice, heaving on the sodden coat. ‘Hold, Beauty!’ he yelled. ‘Hold, girl!’

The dog broke the surface again, her jaws still clamped around the fabric, and Cornelius laughed in horror and relief. ‘Come on, girl!’ he yelled, bracing himself against the pillar of the bridge. ‘
Try
.’ And she did, struggling valiantly as he heaved, her massive paws scrabbling.

Eventually, incredibly, the animal managed to haul her drenched body over the crumbling edge of the ice. Cornelius dropped back to his knees. The dog staggered to his side, and he put an arm around her dripping neck. Overhead, one of the children gave a short, sleepy round of applause.

‘Bravo, Pap,’ they murmured. ‘Bravissimo.’

They were lying on the central plinth where the vase had been, curled around each other like kittens. He could see the bright gleam of their eyes as they transferred their attention to the hole in the ice, their focus back on the water as they squeezed everything they could from the notion of the American boy down there, dead or dying in the frigid dark.

The Angel was feeding through them. Cornelius had felt it. His anguish, his pain, had been an entertainment to them – and thus, the Angel had fed.

This was an horrific thought. Horrific. These revolting children – these awful, awful mistakes that he regretted so
very much … their cruelty nourished the Angel just as easily as any ecstasy of happiness or awe. Luke had been right all along.

The name ‘Matthew’ whispered soft and sly in his mind.

Cornelius groaned and turned away.

Normally, such a slip of memory would be enough to send him running for the tunnels. But even as the horror rose within him, Cornelius felt it drift away – unimportant, easily dismissed. The Angel’s bliss was so strong now. Bolstered by the children’s glee, enhanced by his own recent wonder, it almost instantly soothed any strong emotion. He allowed it to embrace him as he staggered to his feet; felt it gift him its smooth, dreamy detachment.

The water in the hole was still now, mirror-like, a brittle crust of ice already beginning to form over its surface. Cornelius swayed slightly as he stared down into its darkness.

‘You were a brief thing, American, but at least your ending served a purpose. It’s not everyone can say their demise fed an instrument of God.’

He turned his attention to the dog, who still cowered, trembling, by the pillar. The memory of her rescue was a distant thing, from years ago – something from another life. He waved her away.

‘Go to the house, Beauty. Go find King.’

She whined, as if reluctant to leave, but Cornelius was already turning away. Without further thought of her, or the children, or the drowned American boy, he staggered out into the fog, heading for the centre of the lake and the green light that still burned there like a beacon beneath the ice.

Jetsam

V
INCENT ROSE TO
the surface of himself, feeling stifled and fat somehow, overly replete. Had he been feverish again? He cracked a heavy eyelid. Overhead, a white-painted ceiling flickered with candlelight. The air was heavy with the scent of melting wax. Vincent groaned. So, Cornelius had, once again, brought him to a convent to be cared for.

Why do you insist on turning Catholic every time the disease brings me low, cully? My condition is not something to atone for. Especially not by a return to the breast-beating guilt of your tyrannised youth.

Wearily, Vincent listened for voices, for mission bells, for gulls – any sound to tell him which port they had pulled into and how far they were from the sea. There was nothing. Nothing but a warm and breathing weight on his chest and the resonance of old music vibrating through his bones.

Music.

Vincent opened his eyes, remembering. He was not in a convent. Nor was he aboard his ship. He was in the house, as he had been for centuries. The house. How could he have forgotten?

He took an experimental breath. The weight on his chest shifted and he looked down, amazed to find Raquel in his arms. He gazed into her sleeping face. She had spent so long pained and fretful that seeing her thus – calm, and fresh, and peaceful – almost brought him to tears.

Slowly, clumsily, Vincent released the plait from over her right ear and undid it. He spread the hair in glossy ripples across Raquel’s shoulder and neck, letting it frame her face as it had used to.

‘Love,’ he whispered. The word was rare in his mouth, the only person he had ever said it to being the one now curled in his embrace. ‘Love,’ he said again.

She smiled and tightened her hold on the doll in her arms. Vincent regarded its bland, staring china face with the mildest spike of hatred. Cold dead thing. Sometimes he felt like they had sucked the life from Raquel – all her ‘good babies’. One day he would go into the nursery and take a staff to them, all those simpering, dimpled rows of china children with whom she had replaced Matthew. He would smash them, and he would grab Raquel and force her outside. They would walk together as they had used to. They would laugh.

We shall live
, he thought.
We shall all live again, as soon as …

As soon as what? Was there something he had meant to do?

Vincent frowned. His head had found its way back against the cushions again, Raquel’s warm gentle weight pressing him down as if into a giant feather pillow … deep down, where all was muffled … the world further and further away.

Gasping, Vincent snapped his eyes open. This was not good! He did not like it. It was suddenly all he could do not to heave Raquel’s weight from him and send her toppling to
the floor. He slipped from beneath her and slid to his hands and knees beside the sofa. Still sleeping, Raquel settled against the cushions he had just vacated.

The world tilted and spun. Vincent was reminded of the first time he’d drunk to excess, when as a boy of ten the sailors had brought him on shore leave. He’d been the crew’s little mascot then – the darkie boy of the ship’s captain, just as much a pet as the bevy of little green monkeys and African parrots the sailors doted on. They’d fed him rum as if it were milk, and he’d ended in the gutter, his head in a whore’s lap, puking his heart out to a chorus of, ‘Better out than in, laddie.’

Vincent had felt the same self-loathing then as he did now. The same desire to never again debase himself and be so out of control.

He staggered to his feet. The change in altitude broke him out in a cold sweat and sent the floor a-lurching, but he took a breath, set his sights, and launched himself into the hall and out onto the porch.

At the head of the steps, Vincent clung to one of the pillars, breathing deeply. He found himself confronted with a great round stupidity of moon. It dominated the sky and the landscape before him. Vincent followed its light down to the pond, and there he saw a figure outlined dark against the silvery fog. It was Cornelius, coatless and alone, standing far out on the frozen surface, his back to the house, his attention riveted on a strange green light that pulsed beneath his feet.

T
HE ICE OF
the lake was humming, a deep vibration that came up through the soles of Vincent’s boots. There must
be a vast movement of water down there, one of the pond’s strange currents. But what was the light?

Answers tried to surface through the syrup of Vincent’s thoughts. Theories struggled to form. He glanced at Cornelius. The man was swaying as if intoxicated, mumbling a
one-sided
conversation to himself as he stared down through the ice into that slow pulse of green far below.

‘Why are we like this?’ called Vincent.

The words startled Cornelius, and he spun as if guilty. The sight of Vincent seemed to delight him, though, and he spread his arms in welcome. ‘Do not fret, Captain! He will never find us.’

‘Who?’

‘God. We shall remain here as scarlet as he made us, and always beyond his reach!’

Vincent dismissed this with irritation. ‘What has happened?’ he said. ‘I feel like some back-alley crimper slipped me a cosh.’

He lost his footing, and Cornelius caught him. They slithered a brief half circle together, turning like dancers on the frozen surface.

‘Don’t fret, Captain,’ laughed Cornelius affectionately. ‘It is but the Angel’s bliss.’

Impatient, Vincent shook free. ‘I … I can hardly think,’ he gasped, pressing his temples. ‘Why am I affected thus? Why do I feel as though I am trapped in syrup?’

Cornelius frowned, not understanding his meaning, and Vincent lowered his hands from his head.

‘Cornelius, you understand that this is not normal, don’t you? This is not how the rest of us usually react to a feeding?’

Cornelius took a step back, suddenly wary. Vincent sighed.

‘Of course you do not understand. How could you? While we’ve gone about our daily lives afterwards, refreshed and renewed, you’ve always been a little lost, haven’t you? Your mind dulled. Nothing but a smiling child in your corner. Things seem to have changed for the rest of us, though, Cornelius – I do not know how, something altered in our bodies over the years, perhaps – and we have become like you. I need you to tell me: these symptoms I am experiencing, are they what the opium feels like? Certainly you have always exhibited the same behaviour under the creature’s influence as you do under the drug’s.’

With a cry, Cornelius turned and began to stumble away.

Exasperated, Vincent pursued him. ‘Where are you going? I need to know this! Talk with me! Is this what the opium feels like?’

‘Oh God!’ cried Cornelius, as if this possibility were some great horror only now revealed to him. ‘Oh no.’

Vincent grabbed him. ‘I must figure this
out
, cully. It would not do, should we all become like you. What would befall us then? We should be so dull and useless, it would make us vulnerable to all.’

Cornelius shoved him backwards. ‘Let me
go
, you ungrateful churl. What good is it to ask me questions when I am so
dull
, when I am so
useless
and
broken and vile
!’

‘Cornelius! I never said—’

Cornelius tried to turn and almost fell.

‘Oh, calm down!’ bellowed Vincent, grabbing him again. There was real anger rising in him now, an element of brutality beyond his control, and he felt Cornelius’ rage blaze hot in
response. With it came a thrill of fear, the understanding that they were on the edge of something with each other: something sharp and dark and violent. Something that had been brewing for lifetimes. Cornelius clutched Vincent by his jacket, his fists clenched in the lapels. He bared his teeth into Vincent’s face.

Vincent was just realising that he was ready for this – had been
wanting
it – when there came a loud
thump
beneath his feet and the ice leapt, as if struck by a cannonball. The shock jolted the anger from them and they stared down, great wads of each other’s clothes still bunched in their fists.

Something was falling away from them, a pale thing dropping from the surface of the ice down into the darkness. Then,
bam
, it came again – the impact of something big hitting the ice right below them – and suddenly there was a boy, his wiry hair streaming out with the current, his eyes staring wide and unseeing as he clung to the ice below. He was backlit by the glow of that green light, his face beaded with bubbles, his hands starfish against the under-surface.

Vincent dropped to his haunches, amazed. ‘Well, look at that,’ he cried. ‘Where did he come from?’

The boy began a slow, painful upside-down crawl on the underside of the ice. There was no indication that he knew Vincent was there or that his water-blinded eyes could see up through the ice as well as Vincent could see down. But when Vincent moved, the boy faltered, his eyes seeking, as if he had seen Vincent’s shadow above.

Cornelius, oddly indifferent, met Vincent’s eye when he looked up.

‘It is the magician, Cornelius! Did you know he was down there?’

Cornelius did not answer. Vincent looked back down.

‘How can he still be alive? It must be freezing down there. Surely he has not been on the estate long enough to have attained our own endurance?’

He laid his palm flat against the ice, and to his delight the boy responded by slapping his own hand against the opposite surface. ‘He sees us!’

Standing, Vincent began to stamp hard against the surface, hoping to crack the ice and get to the American.

‘It is too thick,’ said Cornelius flatly. ‘You shall never break it.’

Vincent looked around him in a mix of desperation and excitement. ‘He must have fallen in somewhere! Perhaps we can guide him back to the hole? Cornelius! Can you guess where it is he went in?’

The boy slapped the ice again, demanding attention.

‘We should guide him to the bridge!’ cried Vincent, beginning to back slowly away, his arms spread to make as large a shadow as possible. ‘Let us see if he can make it that far! If he does, we may well be able to throw something over the side and break through for him!’

The boy began to follow, and Vincent, almost boyishly delighted at the adventure of it all, led him on.

‘He is certainly a determined fellow, cully! I wager he might even make it!’

He continued backing away, leading the boy to shore.

Cornelius watched unhappily for a moment before trudging in their wake.