The Sphere (7 page)

“The hotel!”

I point with my right hand, craning my neck as far as I can to keep it in view.

“There, the hotel!”

I don’t know if it’s my words or my gestures that have upset the gypsies. One of them stops playing and gets up, clearly agitated. He drinks down the rest of a bottle he has in one hand, then leans over the railing of the bandstand and chucks the bottle lazily in the direction of the hotel.

Everyone claps, whistles, roars with laughter; some of them make fun of his terrible aim. The bandstand is so far from the hotel that the bottle falls, defeated, on the grass.

“My aunt and uncle...”

I can’t shake off my bewilderment. I don’t even try to figure out who these strange people are. I’d give anything to be able to sleep, to go to sleep and finally forget all this craziness.

“The hotel is closed,” I whisper.

“Of course,” says the man dancing with me. Only then do I realize that although the music has stopped he hasn’t let go of me. “For us it’s closed, but if you came all dolled up like them, they’d let you in.”

I look at him, utterly lost.

“If you ask me, you’re the prettiest. I mean it from the bottom of my heart. If it was my hotel I’d let you in.”

His toothless smile makes me grimace, which he evidently interprets as pleasure, since he squeezes me even more tightly.

“Here’s what I think of all your swanky stuff!” shouts the man who was playing the accordion.

He goes over to the railing of the bandstand and throws an arm around the guy who threw the bottle. Then comes a sort of long inhaled groan, and a huge gob of spit takes flight.

“You’re too far away!” yells the one with the guitar. “You gotta get closer.”

The one who just spat leans halfway out of the bandstand.

“I’ll land one right on that high-falutin’ doorman’s lapel!” he shouts, triumphant.

The others laugh wildly as he prepares for a second try.

“
What
doorman?” I ask in exasperation, still trying to get away from my dance partner.

“The one on the right, with his hair all slicked back,” yells the guitarist, without leaving his post.

I still haven’t managed to get free. A shout comes bursting out from deep within me. “Are you all
crazy
? It’s abandoned! The hotel’s abandoned! Are you blind, or what? Can’t you see the boards over the windows?”

As soon as the last word leaves my lips I realize my mistake. All the empty-socket faces swivel towards me. I look frantically around for an escape and my heart starts racing. I’m right in the middle of the bandstand, and if I try to make a run for it someone will stop me. Plus I’m still trapped in the wooden embrace of my dance partner.

He lets me go. He clutches his head and walks away, dragging his feet. They all put their instruments down and go into a kind of sorrowful trance. It seems like what I said didn’t make them angry, only deeply sad. The gypsy woman shakes her head in disapproval.

“I’m sorry! I didn’t mean to... I didn’t want... The last few hours have just been horrible.”

The gypsy goes on shaking her head. I go to leave, but she takes me by the hand and leads me over to a little table with two chairs. I try to resist but she pulls insistently until I sit down.

“Poor thing! You just got here, that’s why you’re confused.”

“No, no, that’s not it. I know St Andrews. We’ve been here a few days already.”

The woman’s plump face tilts to one side, like a dog when it hears a strange noise.

“The hotel was open this morning, there were people there,” I insist. “A whole lot of things were different. I mean—everything was different.”

I bury my face in my hands, dejected. I wonder if my sanity is gone forever.

“Very strange things are happening, yes,” says the woman softly, so that the others can’t hear her.

My head pops back up like it’s on a spring. Maybe—strange as it all seems—there’s some explanation for this.

“So you don’t think I’m crazy? You believe me?”

The gypsy nods almost imperceptibly.

“Do you know what happened? Can you explain it to me?” My questions flicker across my face. “My family disappeared.”

“The shadow,” murmurs the gypsy. “Dark times are coming...” she lifts a finger to her lips, telling me to keep all of this secret. “Cruelty like the Sphere has never known. The shadow... Only a few of us have seen it, and I’m afraid you’ve got the bad luck to be among us.”

“
Us?
”

“We who have seen the shadow.”

“I haven’t seen anything,” I protest. “What shadow? What sphere?”

There something covered with a handkerchief sitting on the little table. The gypsy pulls the cloth away, revealing a crystal ball. Her hands begin to dance rhythmically above the ball, almost caressing it, though she never touches it. The branches of the strange woman’s hands are studded with rings. Inside the crystal something begins to move, and smoke comes spiraling up, tracing elongated shapes that linger for an instant before vanishing. A face appears, perfectly visible. A chill passes through my whole body.

“I knew it,” says the gypsy, with a smile. “You can feel it.”

It’s all so absurd, so unreal. I know this is happening, but I keep hoping that if I deny it it will go away. The madness will disappear, like in a bad dream, and I’ll go back to the real world.

“I don’t feel anything,” I say, trying to sound convincing.

“You are the chosen one...”

I feel a chill again, strong enough to shake my entire body.

“I’m just cold.”

I say it resolutely, trying to convince myself, too.

“No, not cold, no. It’s something very dark, evil... only a few people can see it. Let me see your hand.”

“For what? No!” I try to pull away, but my right hand is already trapped between the woman’s rough hands of unsanded wood.

“You’ve slipped into the Sphere without permission.”

“What sphere?”

“You see?” The gypsy points at the crystal ball, but I don’t see anything. I try to move my hand but she holds it tighter. “The membrane is torn.”

“I don’t see anything. I have to go, really.”

“More and more are disappearing,” she whispers. “No one knows where they go. Only you.”

“I don’t know anything!” I yank my hand away and stand up, ready to get out of there any way I can.

“You know it. You’ve come in through the torn place.”

“I didn’t tear anything, I didn’t do anything, I don’t know what you’re talking about. I have to go. They’re waiting for me.”

“So it is,” says the woman, placing her hands over the crystal ball again, “someone’s waiting for you. But you can’t go anywhere. Not until you finish your mission.”

I’m dying of fear. This is really more than I can take. My feet and hands have gone to sleep. I open my mouth so I can beg her to let me go, but my muscles won’t budge.

“You’ve come to put things in order, but that’s just one of your missions.”

“What are you saying? Let me go, please!”

“Whether you go is up to you. I told you already: you can’t do it until you finish your task.”

“What task? Leave me alone!”

“Ask for whatever you want, whatever you need, you’re the one who was sent.”

The gypsy strokes my head gently with her rough hand, and for some reason beyond imagining, I find it soothing.

“I need to
sleep
.” My words come out in a wail.

“Why?!” the woman screeches in surprise. They all look at me like I’ve just said the strangest thing in the world.

“I’m very tired. I need to sleep.”

My house is gone and the hotel is in ruins. I truly have nowhere to go.

“Can I stay here?”

The woman shrugs.

“Can I have something warm to put on?”

Still stroking my head with one hand, the gypsy uses the other to take off her shawl and give it to me. She leaves, along with the others. The musicians begin to play a slow, soft melody. I rest my head on my arms on the table and fall fast asleep.

––––––––

T
he bright morning light forces my eyes open. It takes me a few minutes to figure out where I am. I sit up and slowly turn my head from side to side, my neck aching from having slept sitting up. The bandstand is empty, with just a few cigarette butts left lying on the ground. The flower-embroidered shawl that I slept under last night is hanging over the wooden railing, flapping in the wind.

I look out at the beach. The tide is out, revealing a stretch of endless sand. To my right are the medieval towers of the cathedral. I bring my hands to my face and squeeze my eyes shut, then open them again. Everything is in black and white. I blink and blink but it doesn’t help. Everything has lost its color. It’s dawn, and there’s a sort brightness, you might even call it light—but no color. Little by little images from last night come back to me: the party, the accident, the clowns and the tattered tent in Market Street, the gypsies. Last night everything had already lost its color, but I didn’t pay any attention at the time. But now... I walk over to the side of the bandstand and my breath comes faster and faster. The hotel is just like it was last night: closed, in ruins.

Now I’m sure something really strange happened after the accident. I snap my fingers: I can hear the sharp sound perfectly. At least my hearing is back to normal. I wonder if it’s possible to stop seeing colors because of an accident. It wasn’t a little fender-bender or anything—the car flipped over. Carefully I examine my arms, my legs, my hands. Not a single scratch. My skin is unbroken, grayish, but unbroken. Suddenly a pit opens up in my stomach. Fear takes over and my heart races—terror has me by the throat. Could it be? No. Not that. No.

NO!

I think back to the fight with Axel. Even now I can hardly believe he deceived me so completely.

Fear knocks again, hammering at my skull like someone banging on a door. No. What I’m thinking just cannot be. I need to go home. I walk across the springy cushion of gray grass from the bandstand to the street and head downtown. My footsteps are quick and clipped. The sound of my heels tapping on the ground travels up my spine to my head, where the sound chisels a warning I can’t ignore: DON’T LOOK! And if...? What if I get to my street and everything is the same as last night? What if I find nothing but trees, and my house is really gone? I keep walking, trying not to listen to my thoughts, but it’s no use. The words keep whirling around in my head. One step and I’m convinced everything is fine and I just need to see a doctor; another step and I’m filled with terror. A doctor, that’s it—surely there’s a logical explanation for all this. I try to focus, to search my memory for the information that will make sense of everything, but my mind just runs away with me again. Fear takes over my body. I tell myself a thousand and one times that I just need to find my parents, once I find them everything will go back to normal. But no matter how many times I say it the thought tormenting me springs back up with its thorny branches. Logic. Be logical, Dissie, like you always have been. That thought creeping up on you can’t be true. If it were, my neck wouldn’t hurt from sleeping badly. In fact I wouldn’t have even slept at all— but I was tired! And I did sleep. Though the gypsy was surprised that I wanted to...

All the people I met last night were so strange. They could have been dead.

I’m not dead! I shout inside my head. Enough! I’ve got to find my parents. And I have to learn to control my imagination. I can’t be dead. Dissie, stop this nonsense right now. I have no idea what you feel when you die, or where you go when it happens. Naturally I wouldn’t choose to wander around the streets of St Andrews. If I could choose, I’d go back to my beloved Edinburgh. That’s what I always thought I’d do when I died: wander around my old haunts, maybe go back home, torment the twins. I’ve always had a clear picture of my role as a wandering ghost. I’d while away the hours of the day floating around the tombstones in the Edinburgh cemetery, watch the people mourning their dead, smell the flowers without anybody seeing me. I remember all the times I lay in bed with my eyes closed, imagining my ghostly pursuits. I had it all planned out. At night I’d lurk around the castle wall and blow on the necks of passers-by to give them chills. And best of all, I’d slip in between the young couples on the street, interrupting their kisses without them even knowing I was there. Getting stuck in St Andrews when I died was never part of the plan, though of course I hadn’t planned on dying here and now, either...
What
am I thinking? I deserve a prize for the most ridiculous imagination. Even my mind won’t obey me. I can’t get a handle on it.

The streets are completely deserted. Is it odd that there’s no one here? Maybe it’s too early for people to be out and about. I wish I had a watch. I head for the Quad to check the clock on St Salvator’s tower. I’m freezing. The chilly morning air is making my nose run, and I’m huddled over my crossed arms. I go into the Quad, the enclosed plaza where the first-years have their big shaving-cream fight. I know all about the tradition—lucky I don’t have to go through it now. Wait, why did I just think that? Everything is fine. I
still
have to figure out a way to get out of the tradition.

The fog is resting heavily above the square formed by the ancient buildings. The dampness has painted eerie stains on the stone walls. I look up: the rounded peaks of the stone walls have always looked like meringues to me, but now they’re just big ink-spots, blurred by the fog. The grass in the center of the Quad is a grayish cushion. This place has never seemed so melancholy, but somehow I almost find it soothing.

Then my blood goes cold and I stand stock-still. Something is moving beneath the arches of the St Salvator’s Chapel—a huge black wing. My feet are rooted to the spot. The shadow flits between the columns as I struggle to move my feet. I take a breath to scream, but then I see that it’s a small female figure. Her head is covered with a veil and her arms hidden inside a cape that flaps in the wind. Her footsteps are light and ethereal—she practically glides instead of walking. She vanishes into the church like a sigh.