Ink (41 page)

It leaves a bad taste in his mouth, that blend of opportunism and idealism.

“Actually, I think that's about covered it,” he says. “Sorry to keep you so long. I'll let you get back now. How is the boy, anyway?”

“Tomas? Wonderful,” says Reynard. “Looking so much like his mother— God, I'm sorry, Joseph; that's hardly what you want to hear. I—”

Pickering forces a smile.

“No, don't be silly. That's … exactly what I want to hear. It's good to know you're happy.”

I look into the mirror in the bathroom, at my close-cropped hair, and I think that even if I were to find the Book again, and the jewel, even if I were to carry out some arcane ritual full of blood and horror like my brother's, I do not think it would transport me back into the world I came from. I think if the Book even exists here, then this world will have found a place for it within its own more rigid system of possibilities, as it has found a place for me—as an anonymous inmate in a mental hospital. I imagine the jewel as no more than a pretty bauble in the royal treasure of some ermine-decked buffoon. I imagine the Book as some eighteenth-century hoax, relished by mystery hunters as a curio, its authenticity long since discredited. I imagine my brother as the hero that he dreamed of being, this blond, blue-eyed adventurer in flying jacket, pistol blazing, captured in gauche ink in the flat paneled frames of an American comic book. There are these … stories of Jack Flash in this world. Visions. Myths. But he exists now only in these fictions and delusions, I believe.

There are no Futurists in this world either, of course, but we don't need them; the Nazis are more than enough.

I shuffle across the linoleum in my slippers and pajamas, sit down on the side of old Kurt's bed. His breathing is as distant and dry as the radio when the guard listens to it late at night, the slow wheeze of an accordion, in and out, in and out. The nurses are letting him die, one less half-wit to take care of. I can hear the weak voice of his thoughts among the river in my head. That much is acceptable in the logic of this world, you see, something that only
might
be magic, that might just as easily be madness. I pat his wrinkled, liver-spotted hand and mutter some words of comfort.

After a while, the breathing stops and only the voice remains, the whisper of his life among those others in my head.

Reynard lays a hand on his shoulder.

“How are the nightmares, these days?”

Pickering shakes his head.

“Not so bad. Not so frequent.”

He still finds it hard to talk about his never-ending dream, where he's home that night instead of out carousing in some pub with Carter. But he understands it now, at least, the truth of Carter running after him through the shattering streets, following him into the burning shell of the house to drag him from the buried crib—how that becomes this other scene. He understands why the events of that night are transformed in his sleeping imagination into something more grotesque, more crude in its horror, with Carter as the flame-haired fiend, the very slaughterer of his wife and child.
Survivor's guilt
, Reynard once called it.
He's just the part of you that you blame.

“But it's strange,” says Pickering. “I've had the dream so many times now, sometimes I remember it better than the actual…”

“I know,” says Reynard. “We all have dreams like that. I sometimes think the world would be better if we never dreamed at all. God save us from our dreams, Joseph.”

“Thus speaks a dreamer, Reynard.”

“I know. I know.”

Phreedom wakes to find Don leaning over her, a damp cloth in his hand mopping her forehead. She's still weak with the fever, but she pulls herself upright, tries to
pull herself together. The room is barren, dirty wooden floorboards and an empty window frame with polythene nailed across it to keep the Hinter out.

“Why so solemn, old man,” she says. “Why so grim?”

“Ye know ye've been out of it fer nine days,” he says.

She can tell by his expression it's been rough. There are six—no, seven— disrupters stuck like posts into the floorboards round them, buzzing with that deep, low sound. Candles in every corner of the room. A circle of salt around the mattress sordid with her sweat. It must have been bad. But she feels so happy, such… relief.

“I was with Jack,” she realizes as she says it.

The image of her son summons itself so sharp, so clear, filling her head with a delight that pushes everything else out of her mind. Yes, they were laughing together. And he's out there, grown up now, following in his mother's footsteps and as much a hunter as herself, as zealous as herself in waging war against the gods. Yes, it was Jack, and there were soldiers, and a town called Themes, and—fuck! There was some creature, some mad creature with its claws at his throat. She has to warn him. Her legs buckle under her as she tries to stand up, head still spinning. Shit.

“Where is he?” she says. “I saw him. I need to find him.”

Phreedom tries to shake the dream off, but the image of him, Jack, among a company of young warriors—it feels so right. It makes her feel so right. So what's the problem with this picture?

“Ah lass,” says Don.

There's a sympathy in his eyes, a look as if there's something she's forgotten in the fever—
no
—some grief that's waiting to destroy her—
let me hold on to the lie
— and she can feel it pressing through—
no, I could live forever in the dream, and life would seem less cursed with sorrow
—and something rises in the turmoil in her soul.

“What do you mean?” she says.

There's no need to feel sorrow. Jack's alive; she saw him. And her head is clear, it is. The fever's gone. Phreedom fights the ruin of her bliss.

“Look at the sky,” says Don. “Diz it look the same? D'ye see any change?”

He pulls the polythene down from the window and she's looking out into the devastation of New York. Snow falls white against the blue-black night and—

—it seems brighter, clearer than it was, but she's so cold. The lad crouches down in front of her.

“Can you unnerstaun me, missus? Can ye unnerstaun whit ah'm sayin, like?”

Anna nods and he asks her something else. She keeps forgetting what they were talking about, so she does, though, so she invents the questions to her answers, telling him that she still has a little of the money Seamus gave her, but it's running out so fast and she's got Jack to feed and clothe as well as herself, and where else can she turn, an exile from her own country? That's why she went there, ye see. She knew they'd take her in.

“Come oan. We've got tae get ye off the street or ye'll catch yer death of cold.”

And she nods and she tells him about the house she lives in, how she found it by the sound of the songs sung by the girls round the piano carrying out into the streets all dark and filthy and spattered with snow and this church of bawdy hymns and a different sort of marriages, the House of Aching, so they called it, the bordello down by the muddy Hudson with its red light in the window and the songs so sweet, what was it they were singing, was it
love is pleasing and love is teasing
, yes, it was. How does it go again? Yes,
love is a pleasure when first ‘tis new.
And she tells him about the little Pierrot doll up on the mantelpiece all covered in dust and made of porcelain, it was, so easy for something like that to break up into little pieces, oh, so easy to break her little baby into little pieces, just a bit of wire was all it took when they took her to the doctor, and the Russian standing there behind him with the winter eyes himself who fathered the child in the hallway of his bordello when he wanted it he took it so cold he was like ice and hard and it wasn't love oh no that wasn't the ache that had the men coming to the house or maybe it
was
love of a sort d'ye think because love changes over time it does starting so sweet at first so sweet and she sings
but as it grows older it grows the colder…

“Whit's that yer haudin in yer arms?” he says, his voice so gruff but so soft, sounding old for one as young as him, just a boy he is really. Don he said his name was.

And she nods and explains how she feels so cold now, so she does, with all the blood poured out of her, all the blood that made them panic and bring her out here to this alley and the doctor saying for God's sake man and the like but he still left her didn't he and she could see the fear in his eyes not like the Russian's not cold like the Russian's no but oh what is it that she's holding in her arms? But silly it's the head of her stuffed lion Leo oh she loved the toy so much even after Thomas was so mean and pulled its head right off she kept it and she didn't cry but she kicked him in the shin and
he
cried and it served him right.

“Ur ye sure?” he says. “Mibbe ye want tae take anither look, missus. It's a'right, missus. Ye don't huv tae be feart noo.”

——

She looks down at the little bundle of blanket, patchwork quilt and ragged bedspread wrapped around it, held so tight in her arms they're almost locked around it as if frozen into place. Ah, Christ. What is she looking at? What is this thing in her hands?

“Look close,” says Don. “Be sure ae whit yer seein.”

Oh, Jesus and Mary. Jesus and Mary, but his tiny face is frozen. No. It can't be true. It can't be. Sure and there's enough woe in her life without this sorry sight.

“Dis it still look like a lion's head tae ye?” says Don.

Oh no. It's not her Leo but his hair is just as golden and his eyes as blue as the savannah skies of her imagination but his cheek it shouldn't be like that his skin is fair but not so white oh not so white as the snow oh no oh not so white and blue as porcelain Pierrot's head when she knocked it off the mantelpiece oh she was only trying to dust it no and the Russian dragged her out into the hallway for it those nine months ago and Mary-Jane took Jack up to her room to hush him in safety as she cried as the Russian tore her best green dress open and forced himself on her and left her there as he left her here he did he's left her here to die after the botched back-street abortion and Jack's never liked the cold he hasn't no and now his tiny hands are frozen.

She can feel her heartbeat slowing.

The truth is here now, cold and timeless. It's 1921 and Anna lies dying in the back alley, one child frozen in her arms, the other torn to pieces in her womb. It's 2019 and Phreedom lies against a Dumpster, shivering with the cold and with the hunger for the needle, arms as empty as her belly now the men in clean suits have taken her Jack away from her. It's 2037 and she's in another New York, yes, there's thousands of them on this long road through the Vellum, and she has to look in every one of them in case he's here in this one, in this fold. And it's eternity. It's out so far into the Hinter that years have no meaning, time itself measured in hours that rise as cities, cities of noon, cities of Evenfall, and cities of eternal night.

Phreedom stands before an empty stage in a solitary spotlight, Don beside her. She feels the weight of the severed head in her hand, the full weight of this murder committed by herself and her bitmite sisters. Christ, what's she become to do this to him? What's she doing holding his head up like a fucking trophy?

Her arm drops to her side, but she can't let go of the gray hair that still has a few gold streaks in it. Say something, she thinks, but there's nothing to say. The bitmites have no line for her.

——

“Mourned by me before
you
even knew,” says Don.

I flick the page over to read my sister's line, the stand-in Columbine for our rehearsal. Jack and Joey hoist the rigging round the wagon, cranking handles round and locking bolts, and hoisting sandbags up on ropes. Guy waves some of the Duke's guards back, directing them to take the thrones and chairs and place them here and there, leave space between them and the stage. He stands out in the center of the room and looks back at the rig, trying to reckon, I assume, exactly where the Duke will lie. I rub my finger with my thumb, the ink still wet upon the page.

“Where did Pierrot die?” I say. “Here in the house or somewhere else? Where did Pierrot lose his head?”

“In the same place where Action,” Don recites, “was ripped to shreds by his own hounds.”

“He went to Zithering?” I say. “He went to Zithering's mountain heights?”

“He had to mock the Harlequin,” says Don, “and you and your pack at his rites.”

“What were we doing there? Was I insane?”

Don nods his head toward the entrance to the hall.

“The whole damned city was deranged.”

The Duke is entering, all armor-gray and swaggering pride, a consul skittering at his side. I whistle at Jack, who clocks the Duke, ducks out of sight.

“I understand,” I read. “The Harlequin has been our ruin. We insulted him with our disdain, denied he was divine.”

I read the line without emotion, my attention drawn to this old warrior, this thing halfway between an angel and a king. He looks so much like Jack— an older Jack without the flashing grin—that suddenly I feel this horror in my queasy stomach and scrunching balls. He's got my sister trapped here in this castle in the sky, I have to tell myself. A fucking princess in his dream, his lie.

But does that really mean he has to die?

Don nudges me and hisses—
the next line.

“Old man,” I say, “where is the corpse of my dear son?”

“I found it after a long search,” he says. “I've brought it back myself, all pieced together limb to limb.”

I try not to think of what we're going to do to him, what Phreedom has to do to him to break free of the lie. Jack is back now from behind the curtain, with his patchwork costume on, tying the mask around his face so that the
Duke won't catch on. Patchwork costumes and patchwork worlds, I think. A million Jacks scattered across the Hinter. All of us—
all of us
—broken up, torn into pieces by the dogs of our pasts. Christ, is it such a crime for someone who has a little bit of fire in them, a little touch of gold in their gray hair, to offer lost souls sanctuary in the Hinter wilderness? What if we bring this miserable Haven down, tear this lie apart, and Phreedom with it… and what if we can't put the pieces back together? What if you can't ever put the pieces back together?