Histories of the Void Garden, Book 1: Pyre of Dreams (2 page)

The shots were
still ringing out.

David blinked
his eyes, trying to focus, trying desperately to see the stage or
the monitor, but the panicking crowd made that impossible.
Stephanie was patting her father’s chest, yelling at him to put her
down. She didn’t understand why he wasn’t moving, what was wrong
with him? Why wouldn’t he help her climb down? She was too scared
of being knocked off his shoulders by the people who were running
around. She would worry about why her father wasn’t moving once she
got to the ground. She eased herself lower down his back, gripping
tight with her knees, arms around his neck, then she dropped to the
ground, stumbling slightly as her feet hit the floor. She tugged at
her father’s hand, trying desperately to get his attention. “Dad,
c’mon, Daddy … Dad!” She yelled at him, her voice breaking as tears
started to flow.

David Beach
looked down at his daughter, and he didn’t know what to do. He
didn’t really recognize her in that instant. He couldn’t hold on to
the fact that she was his daughter, and she needed him. Reality
only gripped him when he realized that Stephanie was crying. He
bent quickly and scooped her up in his arms, hugging her close to
his chest. He started to try and dodge between the crowds of people
to make his way toward the stage, unsure of what good it would do
if he could reach that destination. Would anyone there allow him
close enough to find out what had happened? Nonetheless, he obeyed
his instincts.

By the time he
reached the vicinity of the stage, he could barely hear Stephanie’s
sobs over the wail of sirens and announcements being made through
bullhorns. He patted the back of his daughter’s head and kissed her
ear, “it’ll be alright honey, don’t worry.” He tried to sound
reassuring, but his voice trembled as he spoke.

There was
already a pretty intimidating line of police in riot gear
surrounding the stage. David could see what looked like paramedics
and a number of governmental agents swarming the stage. He
entertained the notion that his White House credentials would get
him closer, but when he arched his head back to see Stephanie’s
tear-stained face, he thought better of it. What did any of this
really matter anymore? This was the culmination of all of his worst
nightmares. He didn’t feel vindicated in his paranoia. He might be
out of a job. The president might be dead, and from the sounds of
gunfire that he had heard, it was possible that more than one
country would be left in turmoil.

I could just kill
them, West thought to himself, that would put a stop to it easy
enough. He gazed vacantly at the television and he imagined the
feeling of his fingers stroking the cold leather arm of the couch.
He couldn’t remember the feeling of leather, or cold for that
matter, these pleasantries long since lost to him. He was slightly
melancholic for such things. Friends too … god knows how many
friends he’d lost over the years, each of them as distant now as
his sense of touch. He could recall them, friends, leather, places
and all, if he could muster the courage to step up to the hopper,
but even that had lost its appeal.

Weary, he cast
an eye over the images of the riots on the large flat screen, well
aware that if he walked up to the window, he would be able to see
the lunacy unfold in real time on the streets below. This had been
the state of affairs since the assassination three weeks earlier,
but he was distracted and detached from it all, and this feeling
had been building in him for months now, engulfing him.

Hearing had
become somewhat of a problem. If he put his mind to it, he used to
be able to hear conversations all over the city. Over the past
year, he had struggled to restrain that ability, and it had reached
a point where now, it required exhausting feats of his imagination
just to block out the wall of sound. He would sit in darkness,
imagining blazing infernos swallowing the city, or tornadoes
sweeping through the streets of New York, sucking up the unwitting
citizens as they went about their business. Anything, just to turn
off the infernal babble of humanity.

The neighbors
had been talking about him. Watching the news reports of the riots,
he was beginning to understand his neighbor’s concerns at least.
The screen went momentarily dark as the news coverage cut to
commercials, there in his own shadowy reflection, unkempt, bearded,
gaunt and brooding, definitely a terrorist. In another moment, he
saw President Tiernan’s image, accompanied by that same sickening
diatribe they had been playing over and over; the inaugural ball,
the handshakes in front of the white house, and always such
saccharine headlines, ‘The Nation Remembers President Tiernan: Too
Young to Die.’ He shook his head in disbelief.

These were the
end times, sure enough. All portents pointed to it. The bones had
been cast. West needed someone. He needed someone who he could make
understand. In that moment, West knew what he had to do.

Miss Osterman lived
several doors down from West, apartment 412. When she heard the
gentle knocking at her door she decided that whoever it was would
go away if she ignored it. When the knocking was repeated, she
rolled her eyes and braced herself, one fragile hand on the arm of
the cushioned chair, the other hand grasping her dully aching right
hip. Again, there was the knock and she hissed under her breath,
shouting as politely as she could manage, “Just a minute will you?
I’m eighty-five years old you know?” She breathed heavily, closing
her eyes as the memory of some of those years flowed through her.
She sometimes wished that she had been blessed with a little more
grace and dignity along with her advancing years, but Miss Osterman
reconciled herself to the fact that the younger woman in her, the
one who would have already made it to the door, was pissed off.

She undid the
deadbolt, pulling the door open a crack, the thick and reassuring
chain preventing it from opening further.

Her eyes
adjusted to the light in the hallway beyond and she managed to make
out the hulking unruly form of that damned foreigner from down the
hall. Definitely a terrorist that one, no doubt about it. She made
to close the door, but his voice rang out, “Miss Osterman I need a
haircut.” His voice was clean, almost practiced, Ford A-type, Apple
Pie and Elvis American. Not what Miss Osterman had expected, and
she was suddenly aware of the fact that she’d never heard the man
talk, other than the occasional agitated utterance as she had
passed him in the hallway.

She moved back
towards the opening in the door and peered out, apprehensive but
curious. The man needed a haircut, she was willing to agree with
him on that issue at least, and that small concession was
something. “So?” she asked. As she watched the man’s face, she
thought she could see the suggestion of a smile somewhere amongst
all that hair. The man’s hand moved to his beard, fingers moving
slowly through the thick bristles, then up over the sandpaper
stubble, and into his shaggy fair hair, brushing a few wavy locks
out of the way of his eyes as they went. Those eyes. As the man
looked down at her, Miss Osterman saw something vaguely familiar or
welcoming in his eyes.

“So … I hear
you are a girl who can cut hair Miss Osterman.”

Her mouth
puckered up and her eyes narrowed as she broke into a slow and warm
laugh. He certainly sounded wholesome and harmless, possibly a wolf
in sheep’s clothing she thought, but possibly just what he appeared
to be. Still, he’d called her a “girl,” which certainly won him
brownie points.

“I’m old you
know; I don’t do hair anymore.”

The man smiled
broadly, white teeth beaming through the dirty blond undergrowth of
hair, “I’m sure you’ll find it’s like riding a bike Miss Osterman
…”

She frowned and
laughed cynically, her voice breaking up slightly as she
interrupted him, “Riding a bike would be a slice of misery, what
with my joints aching the way they are nowadays.”

The man smiled
and nodded apologetically, “I meant, it’ll come back to you,” he
scratched his beard, smirking, “and let’s be honest, you couldn’t
make it any worse.”

Miss Osterman
was unsure of herself as she moved her hand to the chain on the
door, but that hair … that big mop of hair. She had always reveled
in a head of hair like that. You could really get to know someone
over a haircut like that.

She led him
into the apartment, making her best effort to walk casually and
steadily, the pain in her hips and knees making the act rather
difficult. She led him to the den, where her television silently
played the daytime soap operas, the flickering light playing on a
thousand tiny collected memories; painted shells, paper umbrellas,
embroidered fans, Russian dolls, china bulls, all things Charlene
Osterman had collected on her travels during her wilder days. She
momentarily relished the thought that the gentleman might ask about
them … about her. A faint smile played on her lips as she rummaged
in a side table for her tools.

West enjoyed the sound
of Miss Osterman’s voice, the slightly cracked southern lilt, New
York pouring through those cracks here and there, neither side of
the Mason-Dixon line conceding much ground. He closed his eyes to
the room as she addressed him, “So, who told you I was a
hairdresser hmm? There’s not many around who even know anymore.”
West was quiet, hoping to sit out this particular verbal dance, at
least for now. The sound of Miss Osterman rattling and rummaging
through the drawer, metal on metal, pulled West out of his reverie
and he coughed politely, “Oh, you know Miss Osterman, you live in a
building long enough, you hear things.”

The woman
stopped still, thoughtful. She’d lived at Madison and 30th on and
off for most of her life. Her parents had owned an apartment there
from the 1940s and she had taken it over in 1963 when her parents
had died, too young, her Father from a series of heart attacks, and
her Mother only months later, from throat cancer. Her Mother’s
death had prompted her to spend some time visiting with family on
her mother’s side in South Carolina and she’d held on to some
inherited land there until the late seventies, but she eventually
sold it for a pittance when the last of her Southern relatives had
passed away. She started to wonder why her mind had skipped off
down that path, then she remembered the young man’s statement about
hearing things. She supposed he hadn’t meant any offense by it.

Of course she
wasn’t a busy body, not at all, she was a concerned citizen, but
she did try to pay attention to the comings and goings of new
residents. Now that she thought about it, although she had heard
his name mentioned often enough, especially over the last couple of
years, she couldn’t remember when Mr Yestler had taken up residence
there. She shrugged off the thought, having spied her favorite
scissors and razor deep in the recesses of the sturdy Edwardian
dresser. Plenty of time, she thought as she picked out the finely
crafted scissors, only the bows showing from the neck of the velvet
pouch. Nice thick hair, good facial growth, she’d figure him out
soon enough.

Miss Osterman had, for
several years, run a small salon near Madison Square Park. It had
been a tribulation and a joy, often in equal measures, but her
regulars had always given her a reason to show up each day. It had
been her and Magda Breckon for the most part, Magda always trying
to avoid taking on anything grandiose and complicated, pouncing on
the few gentleman callers they had, because she knew it would make
for an easy half hour. She had been good company, and when Magda
announced to Charlene Osterman that she would have to part ways, it
had come as a blow. It would be several days before Charlene
Osterman would realize quite how serious a blow Magda had struck
and by that point it was too late. Magda Breckon had cleaned out
Charlene’s account and had left town, never to be seen by Charlene
Osterman again.

The comfortable
and worldly worn chair which Miss Osterman led Mr Yestler to now,
was the only real remnant of her shot at the American dream.

“It’s a
beautiful chair.” West smiled as he remarked to Miss Osterman. He
watched her through the reflection in the large oval mirror mounted
on the wall in front of him. He ran his fingers over the soft
leather arms and patted them, “I love the feel of an old leather
chair; it’s so comforting.” He lied casually.

She ran her
fingers through his hair, plying the parting and allowing the long
greasy ringlets to fall in their natural pattern. She should have
offered to wash it for him she thought, but she didn’t have a wash
sink, only the shower; she would have to spray him down well.

“So Mr Yestler,
how much would you like me to take off?”

West’s smile
broadened, taking on an almost mischievous countenance, “I’m sure I
can trust your judgment, do whatever you think is necessary to make
me human again.”

Miss Osterman
returned West’s smile, nodding gently. It had always entertained
her when the chair was taken by someone who had so obviously not
had a haircut in a long while; there was often an air of pride
about them, like they were every hairdresser’s dream. She didn’t
keep a misting bottle around for the express purpose of doing hair
anymore, so she moved discretely to the windowsill and picked up
the bottle which she used for misting her window-plants, not
concerned that the water might be stagnant because she did change
it at least twice a week. Stepping in front and to the side of
West, she placed a hand, palm facing down over his forehead to
shield his eyes as she sprayed the water into his hair, then moving
around behind him, she made sure his hair was wet through, with
little pulses of her finger on the trigger of the plastic
bottle.