Wonders of a Godless World (14 page)

All I can tell you is that this heat burst—the one that hit me and my forest that day—was more intense by far.

The foreigner exerted his will, and the orphan felt herself hurried downwards, moving faster than the dry wind, until she emerged into cool, damp air. She swooped out of the sky, aiming for the little forest. Glancing back, she could see no sign of the beast that was ravening down out of the clouds in her wake.

I was camping in my forest that day, as I often did. I had fallen in love with the place. With its beauty, and its fragility
.

And it
was
beautiful, the orphan saw, as she flew low between the hills. It wasn’t like the jungle back on her island. This was a sparser, cleaner forest, with tall straight trees and lighter undergrowth. A tangy scent rose up from it, the very embodiment of health. It all seemed so peaceful. The sun was breaking through the clouds, making the hills glow. The air smelt of rain, the treetops glistened. And in a low valley, at the centre of a grassy clearing, there was a tent, and a figure standing beside it.

I’d paid hardly any attention to the storm. Yes, I’d been forced into my tent for a while, but there’d been no hail, no lightning strikes. In
fact, I was glad of the storm, for it had been a hot day, and there’s nothing so refreshing as a forest after rain.

Small golden shapes, their wings fringed with red, were dancing in the air about the figure, dozens of them.

My butterflies. They had hidden away during the worst of the weather—they can’t fly if their wings get wet—but now the sun was out again, and so were they.

But as the orphan slowed and descended to land near the tent, a ghost in the landscape, she saw that the figure standing amid the butterflies was not, as she had expected, a younger version of the foreigner. Instead it was someone else, someone familiar, yet shockingly out of place. It was the witch.

It was me by the tent, don’t mistake that. But for our purposes here today, the witch will do just as well, so I’ve brought her along.

But why? What did the old woman have to do with it?

I’ve already said. We share a madness, she and I—or at least we once did. I’ve long been cured of it. Indeed, the events we’re about to witness were my awakening.

The witch hadn’t noticed them. She seemed entranced, as if in a dream. And perhaps that’s all it was for the old woman, the orphan hoped, guessing what was to unfold. A dream where butterflies danced for her.

Look. It’s coming.

The orphan gazed up. There was, essentially, nothing to see, but she saw it nonetheless—the downdraft, huge, a cascading mass of air. Unaware, the witch was laughing at the butterflies. The old woman reached out to touch a silken wing, and the orphan would have cried a warning if she’d had a voice.

There were no warnings for me. No time to run.

No time at all. The avalanche of air slammed into the hills on the other side of the valley. The forest there shuddered, and the
orphan saw the trees turn almost immediately brown, as if dirtied by dust. But it wasn’t dust. Then the winds came roaring across the valley floor, and the oven blast was upon them.

The butterflies were the first to die. They crumpled and disappeared, tossed away like dead leaves. The heat was even worse than the orphan had feared. She knew that she could not be burnt—that she wasn’t really there—but even so, she curled in on herself, eyes shut, trying to shield her body from the scorching air.

But notice—no fire. Nothing is alight.

She forced herself to look. The foreigner was right. It felt as if the wind howled at her directly from a furnace—but there were no flames anywhere. The trees writhed and swayed in their distress, but they did not burn.

A fire, in many ways, would have been better for the forest. Fires pass quickly and leave the core of most plants unharmed, the seeds still fertile. But a wind like this—so brutally hot, so prolonged—can desiccate everything completely, slowly sucking out every hint of moisture and destroying life right down to the microscopic level.

Oh, it didn’t happen as quickly as I’m showing you now—it took hours to do the real damage, not merely a few minutes. But eventually even the large trees were baked right through. Their sap turned solid inside them, their wood became effectively petrified. They went from living things to being virtually made of stone.

For me, flesh and blood, it was even worse.

The orphan could hear, through the wind, a high-pitched mewing sound. She turned and there was the witch, huddled on the ground.

At first I wasn’t really aware of it as pain. It was more that it was hard to breathe. The air felt too hot to inhale, my throat too dry. But
there was to be no quick end for me, no merciful suffocation. Oxygen got through. I lived on
.

The witch staggered upright. Half-blinded, grimacing bizarrely, she stumbled across the clearing, the wind hammering her to and fro. The orphan drifted in her wake, cutting easily through the heat, untouched and unharmed.

I tried to shelter in the forest.

The old woman reached the cover of the trees at last—but it was no better there. The wind was inescapable. A yellow haze whipped across the ground, as thick as smoke, and the witch went blundering through it from tree to tree.

Eventually my skin turned to leather—cooked, pulled tight, no give at all. It was agony just to bend an arm or a leg. Later my flesh split open, like a chicken’s skin roasting in a pan. But the pain wasn’t the worst thing, you understand. What was far worse was the sense of betrayal. How could the earth do this to me? That’s what I wondered, as I suffered that day. How could the planet inflict such torture upon someone who had done so much to protect it? And why—after I had saved that little piece of forest and those last few butterflies—why had nature itself decided to obliterate them?

The witch was clawing at the ground. She was trying to dig a hole, the orphan saw, but the soil had been baked as hard as pottery. Around her the forest had become a skeletal thing, the trees stripped of all leaves, reduced to dead pillars.

Do you see why that appalled me so? The earth was breaking the bargain I’d made with it. There was no cycle of regeneration here, no life emerging out of destruction. On the contrary, life in this one spot was being made irreversibly extinct. This disaster was going to leave only sterilised dust and fossilised tree trunks.

And for what purpose? For no purpose at all. Thus was the great secret of nature revealed to me. And that secret is this—life doesn’t matter to the earth
.

The witch gave a despairing cry. She rocked back on her haunches and stared upwards, her ghastly face set like a thick mask. Haze hid everything now, but the downdraft was still an open hole in the sky, and the hot winds still fell from above.

Such is the clarity bestowed to the dying. I understood then, in my last agonies, how wrong I had been. I recognised the randomness of the process that was killing me. I realised that it had no meaning, but was merely the result of gravity and convection. I saw that the earth was nothing but a collection of such systems, and that against such systems life, no matter how beautiful, had no special claim
.

The witch cried again, incoherent. She was peering at her arms, at slashes that had opened on her wrists, the skin tearing apart like old cloth. Her insides were already dried flesh, bloodless. And there was bone. Her own bone.

See. She will leave no blood-filled corpse to fertilise the soil of some damp garden. She will become part of no plant or tree, she will not commingle with mother earth. Her hope has been a lie, and her death will be barren and useless
.

But the orphan didn’t want to see any more. It was too cruel. It was time to let the old woman go, surely.

What—you don’t want her cured? This experience will do more to bring her back to sanity than anything the hospital will ever do for her.

No cure was worth this. No sanity either.

But it isn’t finished. It took me so long to die. The end only came when my core body temperature rose to fatal levels. I was blind by then, and incapable of movement, my legs and arms locked into place. But I was granted that last hour of consciousness…

No, no one deserved such pain.

Did I?

But the orphan no longer cared. She reached out with her mind to the mummified shape of the witch, grabbed hold, and pulled. Away from the wind, away from the hot air, away from the foreigner’s pain. And instantly, it was all gone. The forest, the wind, the heat.

Something sharp and cold stung against the orphan’s skin. Her real skin. It was rain. She was back in her body, back in her bloodstained nurse’s dress, lying flat upon the wet concrete behind the laundry. The rain splattered heavily for a moment, then eased away. Thunder rumbled distantly across the mountain. The orphan sat up. The storm had almost passed by. The sun was setting, a rainbow gleamed in the last shafts of light, and there was no hidden downdraft coming. No burst of heat.

She laughed. None of it was real. It never had been. Beside her the foreigner sat slumped and soaked in his wheelchair, his head askew, gazing at the clouds. And such was the orphan’s relief that no actual harm had been done, this time she did grab hold of his face and kiss him, quickly, on the lips.

But then the witch was screaming, and rolling on the ground, and clawing at her clothes and skin as if she was on fire.

By the time the orphan had alerted the nurses, the witch had disappeared from behind the laundry. When the old woman was finally located again, hunched in a cupboard, she had shredded her clothes and lacerated her skin all over. Worst was her left arm. She had gouged it open with a sharpened stick. Blood was everywhere and, horribly, the fingers of her good hand were wrapped around the yellow bones of her left wrist, apparently attempting to pry the bones out.

When the nurses tried to take the sharpened stick away, the witch turned wild, shrieking and flailing, and stabbing one nurse’s thigh so deeply the young woman had to be hospitalised overnight in the front wards. Mayhem. But at length the old woman was immobilised, and sedated, and strapped onto a stretcher. Then they carried her off to the only place she could be safely held—the locked ward.

The orphan was following behind the stretcher, but past the locked ward’s iron door she was not permitted to go. She could only watch from the threshold as the witch was carted down
the dark corridor beyond, and listen as there rose, in greeting, a chorus of sobs and moans from the other unfortunates already imprisoned within.

Then the iron door was slammed shut.

All night long the orphan stood vigil outside that door. She didn’t even take time to change out of her dress. The old doctor and various of the nurses passed in and out, and she heard the bemusement in their voices as they went, discussing the alarming developments. She knew what they must be thinking. The witch had always been so harmless. What had brought about such a change? Who or what was to blame?

The orphan knew. She should have acted earlier, she should have made the foreigner stop, but she hadn’t, she had stood by and watched, too fascinated in spite of the witch’s suffering, too interested in what it
meant…

Late in the night, the old woman awoke from sedation and began to rave. Her voice was quite audible if the orphan put an ear to the metal of the door. Up until then, she had been hoping that the witch’s condition might be temporary, that she would be better by morning. But listening now, the orphan realised there would be no such recovery. She could hear, beneath the babbled words, how the heat burst still howled in the old woman’s mind. The witch remained trapped in the forest.

That was why she had dug into her own arm. She had seen her bones laid bare by the hot winds, and in her madness and terror the witch had reasoned that if only she could dig those bones out—her
own
bones—then perhaps she could make the earth listen to her again, and ask the wind to stop. But now she had been prevented and tied up, and anyway, she had decided that the bones of her arms would never do. They were too thin. They were useless against the furnace wind.

She needed to dig deeper, into her leg, or her chest maybe, to find bigger bones. Stronger bones. If they would only untie her, she would get her stick again and dig, and dig…and the orphan couldn’t stand it. Towards dawn she shut her mind, and fled to her little hut. Safely inside, she stripped off her nurse’s uniform, all filthy with its mud and blood, and kicked it into a corner. She didn’t want to wear it ever again.

It was her fault, all her fault.

Hers, and the foreigner’s. There could be no argument this time. What they had done was wrong. She had denied it the first time, when they had gone rummaging so disastrously in the duke’s mind. The foreigner had calmed her fears about that, distracting her with new wonders, but now, for the second time, they had taken a patient, helpless and old and mad, and destroyed her.

No more denial then. The foreigner was dangerous.

Oh, not to the orphan. She felt no fear of him at all for her own sake. On the contrary, she was at her safest with him. He had a purpose for her that he would reveal one day, and she had no doubt that it would be a
good
purpose.

No, it was just that his singlemindedness could be a problem when it came to others. He hadn’t
intended
to be cruel to the duke or the witch, she was sure. They had been convenient tools, close at hand, that was all. But he was so preoccupied with his greater mission that he’d overlooked how vulnerable they were.

So yes, that made him dangerous. But not…
bad.
He couldn’t be that. Not when he had given her so much joy. Not when she loved him so.

Yes, loved him. There, she had admitted it, and she didn’t care how people would laugh—that she, the fat fool of an orphan, was in love with a man. And more, that she dared to hope he might
love her back. Why, she had kissed him, hadn’t she? Right on the lips. And the truth was, she wanted to do more than kiss him.

But that led her hard up against a wall, and even in thought she could go no further. She had not forgotten the awesome possibility—that he might not be a stranger to her, but someone far closer. And there were things forbidden between fathers and daughters. Even as an orphan she knew that. And right now she couldn’t tell what she wanted more—a father she could never touch, or a stranger she could.

But none of that changed the fact that the foreigner had shared the crematorium with four other patients, and now two of them were gone: one to prison, one to an isolation cell—and it was his interventions that had driven them there. That only left the archangel and the virgin. What might happen if the foreigner decided to play havoc with their minds too? The orphan pictured them briefly—the boy and the girl—each lost in their sad manias, and each strangely innocent because of that. A resolve hardened in her. No, it mustn’t happen. They must be left alone.

But how to ensure that?

She lay naked on her bed, pondering the dilemma, and watching through the window as the sky turned blue with sunrise. Clanks and clatters came from the kitchen, but she didn’t rise to go and help. This was more important. Nor did she stir when the smells of cooking wafted through. She had no appetite. In fact—a part of her noted—she never seemed to be hungry anymore. It was strange, she was a big eater normally—the reason, no doubt, that she was so fat. But lately…

She wasn’t as tired as she should be either. She hadn’t really slept in three nights now, but she felt quite alert, as if there was some independent source of energy—not linked to food or sleep—that was burning within her. She flexed her limbs experimentally. Were
they lighter? Stronger? She sat up and stared down at herself, at her breasts and belly. Was it an illusion, or was her squat body becoming leaner somehow?

Impossible. But this feeling too, she was sure, was something to do with the foreigner. And this too she did not want to lose…

Well, there was only one thing to try. She would have to go and see the old doctor. She would have to convince him somehow. There was no one else with whom she could hope to communicate.

She rose at once, put on her old clothes, and went out. It was a clear morning, and only a few puddles remained in the yard from the storm. Crossing the compound, the orphan stared up, reading the movements of the air. But although it would be humid and hot later, the atmosphere felt flat, there would be no storm today. And no joy of flying within the thunderheads…

Enough! She would not go anywhere with the foreigner again—this was her firm decision—until she could be sure no one else would be harmed.

The old doctor was in his office, drinking tea. He smiled at her over the cup when she entered, but the orphan knew him well enough to see that the smile was strained. He was very weary. He had been up all night monitoring the witch, and that was after his long day in town injecting the children and then dealing with the uproar over the duke. So much bother and trouble for him. But did he suspect the cause?

She had no way to tell him. Not by speech, anyway. But she could
show
him. She went to his chair and took his hand. He smiled again, and said something that she couldn’t understand but which she knew was kind, perhaps telling her that he was too busy and had no time for play. But this had nothing to do with play.

She tugged at his hand, serious, and pointed towards the door. He sighed and put down his cup and rose reluctantly, but he allowed her to lead him through the front wards, and then on through the back wards. From time to time he protested, but the orphan ignored his questions. They came at last to the crematorium’s little dayroom. Both the virgin and the archangel were there, but for the moment they weren’t the orphan’s concern. She dragged the old doctor through to the foreigner’s room.

He was asleep, serene beneath the sheet, his eyes shut. She reached out with her mind, but felt nothing from him, and heard nothing.

What would he think of what she was about to do? Would he be angry with her? But why? It was no attack on him. It would make no difference to anything he and the orphan might do together. It didn’t mean that she loved him any less. But she had other loyalties too. The patients must be protected.

She pointed at the foreigner, and then pointed at the door, all the while staring at the old doctor. His gaze followed her finger, then came back to her, his gentle eyes cloudy with pain and puzzlement. The orphan repeated the gesture, her face set urgently. But still he only frowned at her. Frustration growing, the orphan went to the foreigner’s side and, gripping his shoulder, made as if to roll him out of bed.

Understanding broke for a moment on the doctor’s face. He saw that she wanted the patient moved. But then he was frowning again, asking a series of questions, none of which the orphan could decipher—no doubt he wanted to know
why
the foreigner should be shifted. Oh, it was so annoying being unable to speak! How to make him comprehend the danger?

Inspiration struck her. She grabbed the old doctor’s hand again and took him next door, into the room the duke had shared with
the archangel. She pointed at the duke’s empty bed. Then she raised a hand to her eyes and grimaced in pretend agony—she was miming the awful moment in town when the duke had impaled the tourist. Then she took the old doctor back to the foreigner’s room and pointed an accusing finger.

Did he understand? No, he didn’t.

This time she went to the other bedroom. She pointed at the witch’s empty bed, then dragged the old doctor through the halls to the locked ward. She rapped her fingers upon the iron door, then pulled the old doctor—she could feel his impatience growing now—back to the crematorium and with an explicit flourish denounced the foreigner yet again. It couldn’t be any clearer, surely.

But the old doctor only stared at her thoughtfully. Then he took her by the shoulders and led her out into the dayroom. He closed the door to the furnace room behind him, then pointed at it, wagging his finger back and forth and shaking his head solemnly. This she understood perfectly well. He was telling her to stay away from the foreigner.

The orphan’s frustration boiled over. She shook her head, gesturing furiously to the archangel and the virgin. Up to this point, they had ignored all of the comings and goings, the archangel bent over his book, the virgin lost in her television screen. Didn’t he see? They were helpless, their minds were wide open! They couldn’t be left so close to the foreigner, or they might be next.

In exasperation, she even clutched the archangel’s hand, pulling it away from the page of his book, trying to get him to his feet so that she could drag him out of the room. She was saying that if the foreigner was not going to be moved, then the archangel and the virgin should be moved instead.

But the youth merely hunkered lower in his seat, resisting her passively, his lips moving in whispered prayer. And the old doctor, frowning deeply now, turned and disappeared down the hall. The orphan gave up and released the archangel’s hand. She watched his finger slide back to the words on the page. But there his finger stopped. She lifted her gaze, and her breath caught—he was looking straight up at her.

The virgin was too. The girl had turned her head away from the television, and was staring at the orphan in silence. Both of them, archangel and virgin, wore dead expressions that somehow didn’t seem to be their own. It was as if someone else was looking out from behind their faces. Borrowing their eyes.

The orphan went cold. Was it
him
?

Was he angry after all?

It lasted only a moment, then she could hear the old doctor coming back along the hall. The archangel and the virgin blinked once in unison, slowly, and looked away. The orphan breathed out. But when the old doctor entered, she saw that he was now carrying, of all things, her mop and bucket. Any expectations she’d had of him sank away. He wasn’t going to help her. He was as good as telling her that she was overwrought, that she needed to forget the foreigner and get back to her chores.

The fool! If he knew the amazing feats she was capable of now. But then her outrage turned to despair. Amazing feats, yes, but only with the foreigner. Without him she was useless. Indeed, now that she had lost even her limited understanding of speech, she was more useless than ever before. Even to the old doctor. His expression as he looked at her now, despite the kindness, was clinical. Measuring.

The way he would look at a patient.

The orphan felt loneliness freeze her. Maybe the foreigner hadn’t glared at her through the eyes of the archangel and the virgin. Maybe he wasn’t angry. But she felt she was being taught a lesson by him, even so.
He
was the only person, in the end, with whom she could communicate, and
he
was the only person, in the end, to whom she owed any loyalty. Everyone else was dispensable, innocent or not.

That’s what being in love really meant.

She bowed her head, and took the mop and bucket.