The Sphere (22 page)

“Roman architecture?” he said, reading the title sarcastically.

“Hush, they’ll kick us out!”

Axel opened the book and started reading like he was really interested, then lifted it up to hide our faces. He kissed me with one of those kisses that erased my memory and tamed my temper. Sometimes, when I dropped my guard, Axel’s kisses could make time and space disappear, and leave me floating someplace where I felt light and free. I went back to my seat without looking up. It was not possible that a boy so unlike me could be slipping into my life that way. Making my friends jealous was one thing, bragging about going out with a college boy—that was all well and good. But this thing with Axel was starting to get out of hand.

“You still haven’t let me see your eyes,” he said a few minutes later.

I kept my head down, breathing slowly to try and concentrate. Highlighting entire pages. Axel blew in my ear and I jerked my head around to face him.

“Gray!” he said, raising his voice a little. “Danger! I’m really in for it today. Your eyes are all cloudy.”

The librarian shot us a death glare from the desk. I elbowed Axel in the ribs.

“Ow!”

On a scrap of paper he wrote: “See? I knew I was in for it! I can see the future.” He passed me the note with a smile. How could he be so happy all the time? I gathered up my things and got up, ready to walk out. I liked him. I liked him too much, and I knew it. According to my foolproof formula I was in danger. Besides, who was I kidding? It was already a miracle that he had been with me all that time, that he had even noticed me in the pub. A college boy! Even my friends had been surprised. Axel followed me out.

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” I said, turning to face him.

“That face doesn’t look like nothing’s wrong.”

“I’m done studying. I’m going home.”

I started walking, Axel right at my side. I thought he would get tired, or he would say something, but he kept walking along next to me, silently, for several blocks. We crossed the sidewalk, we turned into narrow alleys, and still Axel said nothing.

“You’re taking a really roundabout way home.” I glanced at him and stopped. “I only want to see you happy.” He put his arms around my waist, draping himself around me like a cat. “One smile and I’ll leave you alone.” My cheeks rose up and my lips stretched tight. “That’s a smile?” I exaggerated my grimace even more, until my eyes turned into two tiny slits. “Now you’re smiling... Actress, what an actress.”

Axel moved away from me but kept his hands on my hips. He wiggled me back and forth until he got a genuine smile. What was I supposed to do with him?

“I have to go home.”

The sadness in my voice was apparent. Right then my fear was stronger than I was. Laura had diagnosed me with galloping pessimism, but I thought it was just healthy realism. Either way, life hadn’t been too kind to me. How little I meant in my own house was enough to tell me what I could expect outside of it. Finally Axel’s expression became resigned.

“All right. I’ll walk you home.”

He gave me his hand and we walked silently to the place where, by tacit agreement, we always said goodbye. It was a corner far enough from my house that neither my parents nor the twins could see us. I never had to explain to Axel why I wanted to avoid being seen by them. He seemed to intuit it, like he could read it in my eyes. It was just that kind of thing that made me saddest—being with someone who understood me that well, and being paralyzed by the fear of losing him.

Axel kissed me goodbye and then, like every other time, asked me to tell him what was making me so sad or irritable.

“There doesn’t have to be a reason,” I said. He wanted me to tell him about my life, but there was just no way. “What, are you a psychologist or something?”

Then we got tangled up in an argument about the point of life. We could not have more different points of view, I knew, I’d known it the moment I met him. And still I went looking for him time and time again. Maybe that was why I was permanently pissed off—my hopeless inconsistency. Axel wasn’t always the one who called or wrote. More than one night I found myself suddenly upset, and reached for the phone to send him a message. Axel would call, and as soon as I heard his voice I would feel a comfort I’d never known before.

“I have to go.” I didn’t know how to put an end to the argument.

Axel took my hand. I remember it like it happened yesterday. Our fingers slipped apart, little by little, until they were no longer touching. I walked home without looking back.

I was falling. I was falling in love with him. I had to keep reminding myself of what, up until then, had always been my greatest truth: happiness does not exist and is not necessary. A few moments of joy are good enough. I walked slowly back to my house, saying over and over to myself: “I’m fine alone. I don’t want or need anyone.” “The world is an unfriendly place that disappears right where the lines of my own private world begin. My world of pencil and paper.”

What would happen if I really did fall in love with him? I didn’t even want to think about it. I didn’t like feeling permanently happy. What if I started to confuse that with real life? Sooner or later the bubble would burst, and reality would punch me right in the face.

A sudden chill pulls me away from my memories. I look up and nearly tumble out of my chair: an enormous crow is perched on one of the bookcases in the distance. Its brilliant black wings stand out crisply against the white wall; its talons curve over the faces carved into the antique bookshelf like it’s trying to rip out their eyes. Very slowly I reach out a hand to touch Morgan. I lift one finger to my mouth to tell her to keep quiet, and look. Both of us see it, otherwise I might have thought it was just my imagination. In a few seconds the shape of the bird has stretched out to human proportions. It becomes a tall, thin man, so thin that he looks like a sack of bones in black clothing. In the blink of an eye he vanishes, as if he’d melted into the bookcase.

We leap to our feet, stunned, and run over to the place where the mysterious man disappeared. Morgan takes the books down and touches the back of the shelf. There’s nothing out of the ordinary. Our visit to the library is over—we have to run and tell Sherlock what happened. As we leave the building I feel a chill run down my spine. I look back at the windows. I’m absolutely certain someone is watching us, but I don’t see anyone there.

We hurry away. I look back now and then, still convinced that someone is following us. 

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W
hen we reach Sherlock’s house he’s nowhere to be found.

“Where could that man be?” Morgan exclaims. I’m surprised by how upset she is.

I hurry after her; she’s walking so quickly that it seems like she could take flight at any moment. As we walk past the Criterion pub we hear shouts and the sound of punches landing. There must be a real brawl going on inside.

“Something really odd is going on here,” says Morgan.

The Sphereans gathered around the door move out of the way just in time. A chair comes flying out, and right behind it a whirlwind of arms and feet and hands. The strange mass falls to the ground and begins rolling around, propelled by the punches and kicks coming from its center.

“It’s Heathcliff!” cries one of the people watching.

Beatrice comes running out of the Criterion with a rather disheveled Sherlock trying to hold her back.

“At least now we know Frankenstein hasn’t disappeared,” says Morgan.

So the ball rolling around in front of me is Heathcliff and Frankenstein fighting. They’re just as savage as Morgan said, she didn’t exaggerate a bit. I can see the crude stitches she described on one of them. I can hardly believe that the other one, the one foaming at the mouth, is the sensitive, love-deprived soul that Beatrice sees. They’re tearing splinters of wood out of one another’s arms and chest, trying to destroy each other, but no one makes a move to stop them. Something slightly blue flickers in my peripheral vision, and when I turn I see that it’s Beatrice’s dress. The fabric is still gray, but now I can see a hint of blue in it. I take off running toward her like it’s some kind of signal. I know I have to get to her, to try and stop whatever is about to happen. Then the strangeness of what’s happening to me makes me pause: I can
feel
Beatrice’s thoughts. I feel like I can guess what she’ll do next, as if I’ve spent enough time in the Sphere to know just how she’ll react. I reach for her hand, but it’s too late. Her wooden fingers slip free from my fingers of flesh and blood.

“Bice!” I shout.

Beatrice’s only thought is to protect Heathcliff. She tries to pull Frankenstein away. The monster stops, paralyzed, and stares at her in astonishment, which gives Heathcliff just enough time to stand up and knock her out of the way with a fist to the face. Then he grabs Frankenstein by the shreds of his shirt and goes on fighting.

Beatrice tumbles to the ground, her head bounces against the cobblestones, and she falls unconscious. A deafening silence follows. Everyone stares in horror. Sherlock runs to Beatrice and gathers up her limp body while Morgan shouts for the crowd to make way. The air is charged with the Sphereans’ fear, and I know they’re just as afraid for themselves as for Beatrice. Little by little I start to hear the muttering about imbalance, darkness, the breakdown of roles. I debate whether I should go with Sherlock and Morgan or take advantage of the confusion. The sun is starting to go down and I probably won’t get another chance like this. This isn’t my world. I feel it now more strongly than ever. It isn’t my world, and these aren’t my people. But there is someone in that monk’s cell who needs my help. Someone like me.

As I walk away I expect Morgan to show up and stop me at any moment. It’s happened before. I can’t shake the feeling that someone is following me, watching me. Fortunately I manage to reach Madras College, or rather, the monastery where Ambrosio lives. I hide behind some shrubs and wait until I hear the monks singing vespers. When their voices ring out, my heart speeds up. I look up at the sky. The clouds are skimming quickly along on the wind, and there’s not a soul in the streets.

I sneak out from behind the shrubs and go inside the building, trying to make my footsteps as quiet as a cat’s. My breathing is heavy, from the adrenaline and from the way I’m flaring my nostrils to try and detect a trace of blood. There’s nothing; not even the smell of a single drop. My hands shake as I open the door to Ambrosio’s cell. The symbols on the floor have vanished. The light is fading quickly, just like when I was here with Sherlock, so I have only a few moments to see what there is inside the cell. The little stub of candle isn’t there anymore; in its place is something that glitters dully.

I walk toward the back of the cell. I need to get to the trunk before the light is gone, but darkness falls all at once and suddenly my hands are the only guide I have. I touch the trunk, feeling my way over its metal rivets and the rough wood, swollen from the humidity. I try to concentrate, but the slight glitter of the object sitting on the little table keeps drawing my eye, and I can’t focus. The thing is irresistibly magnetic. I can feel it calling to me. I shake my head hard. My hands move back to the trunk and search for the padlock, but it isn’t there. The latch opens easily. When I push open the lid the noise of the rusty hinges echoes in the monastic silence. I prick my ears up to see if the sound has given me away, but the only sound is the distant chanting of the monks in the chapel.

It’s impossible to see whether there is anything inside the trunk. I search slowly, cautiously at first, just at the very top. Then, little by little, I go farther in. My fingers move forward and back and then to the right, drawn by the glittering object. I can’t control them. Finally I lunge for the tiny sparkle, quickly, desperately, anxious to touch the light. When my hands finds the thing I’m longing for I see that it’s a branch divided into narrower branches, fine as threads, with incredibly thin leaves. My hand has its own will now: I tuck the treasure into the pocket of my jacket. Once the glitter disappears, hidden beneath the cloth of my jacket, I seem to regain control of my body and mind. I go back to the trunk. This time I search with more determination and get all the way to the bottom. There is absolutely nothing. My hands tell me that there’s nothing. What’s wrong with my instincts today? I lower my head to sniff at the wood, but I can’t smell anything at all. I’m so frustrated.

Someone shoves me forward into the trunk.

The lid slams shut and I flail around inside, struggling to push it open again. My shouts are lost in the noise of loudly beating wings from whatever it is that is lifting me, swinging me up, carrying me out of the cell. The racket as we run through the gallery interrupts mass, and in the blink of an eye the drumming of a great many sandals joins the chase after my kidnappers. I fall silent and try to listen. The monks are shouting at the kidnappers, but between the noise of my body thumping against the trunk and all the different languages they’re yelling in, I can’t understand a word. In the street there’s a little more light; I can see it through the tiny cracks in the wood. I bring my face close to one of them and get a violent blow to the cheek, which brings silent tears to my eyes. I can see black gloves. We’re running down the street. The sound of flapping wings is so loud that I have to cover my ears against the thunderous noise. The cries of the monks grow more distant, and finally fade away, but the rattling continues. We go up, then down, my body slamming against the old planks of the trunk. Finally the movement stops. My heart beats faster. A few seconds pass, and it feels like an eternity. They drop me. I haven’t fallen from very high, but the impact is so brutal that it almost destroys the trunk. I can hear shrieks and metallic sounds, followed by a siren that sounds like a car alarm.

“What have you brought me? Imbeciles! Good-for-nothings!” says a ridiculous canned voice.  “Get rid of that at once.”

The movement starts again, though now it’s much slower. The noise of the beatings wings is dejected and sad. We stop and they swing the trunk and send it flying through the air. I fall, bouncing here and there against rocks. They must have tossed me off a cliff. I cover my head with my arms as some of the planks are knocked off, leaving long, pointed slivers of wood. Luckily when the trunk finally stops, it’s on the sand.