whispering in the space between walls. The ones warming backsides on the hotel’s hearth and the ones bent over schoolbooks and the ones raking leaves from the lawns — most of these have heard from me, although they couldn’t say exactly how. I’m the voice of reason, of conscience, of spooks. For some I’m the voice that’s little by little sending them mad.
None of this matters anyway, this is a waste of time. Surrender’s watching with his kind copper eyes and I jump up, abandoning fun and games. Now the bones are found, the heat will turn up. The spiders will start crawling down the walls for Gabriel. It’s time, I think, to visit the angel. Come, Surrender. Are you pretty, boy?
They’ll want to speak to me, now the bones are found. That poor simpleton McIllwraith, from whom Finnigan derives such amusement; who knows who else. They’ll come on bent knees to my bedside, furrow-faced and
sotto voce
, breaking the news as if it’s news to me. Already I can smell them in the room, the cloistered reek of damp suits and the mud they’ll track in on their shoes. I see them jostle, knocking elbows, imperiling the jug and tray. They’ll want to get close, to see the look on my face; they’ll want, out of fear of the illness, to keep away. “We’ve identified a female,” they’ll say. “Do you recognize the clothes?”
Suddenly, my lungs seize: ursine claws split my ribs, bow my spine like a hook. Gruesome slugs of blood spit across the floor. I gasp for air, fight for it, my heart thuds with terror. Flame rears inside my throat, bells clang inside my ears; my legs jump epileptically, fighting off my fate. Tears race away from my eyes, my bones are dragged apart. I remember, through tortured blackness, Vernon stuffed with cloth.
Sarah comes running, though I’m too blind to see. Against my sweating face she rams the shell of an oxygen mask. The clear clean plastic is instantly spotted with blood. My body takes minutes to calm down, to slow the thud and still the bells. My mind, though, quietens in moments. In my mind I’ve largely accepted death — it’s only my body that hasn’t. It has a right to protest, I suppose: in the remote likelihood of an afterlife, it knows it isn’t invited.
My nightshirt is dotted and Sarah slips it off. While she rustles in the cupboard for a replacement I look down at my chest. My flesh is the color of watery milk; veins crisscross me like circuitry. My forearms are speckled with puncture wounds, peepholes into my being. Where the spike of the drip invades my arm the skin is tender and pink. My stomach falls away emptily. My ribs are like steps, and I wonder to where.
I want all of this finished — I want them come and gone. I want the questions answered and notes taken and then I want them gone. I don’t want them to be here, if and when she comes.
Unless she has already been. “Sarah,” I say, “has anyone come?”
Sarah shakes her head. No.
“You’d tell me if someone had, wouldn’t you?”
She wraps a hand around my own. She wouldn’t lie to me.
The first time I saw Sarah, I was just a boy, and she was just an image in a black-and-white photograph. Her hair was pulled up in a ponytail, her dress was fit for a party, and on the wooden fence behind her was a curled, sleeping cat. On the flip side of the photograph a few inky words were written.
Sarah, age 12
. There was a date below the words, and I counted on my fingers: Sarah would be grown-up now, unimaginably old.
Sarah
: she had sent me toys in paper-wrapped parcels, money folded inside birthday cards. Gazing at her image, my heart was filled with warmth. I took the photograph to the kitchen and showed it to my mother. “That’s Father’s sister, isn’t it, Mama?”
My mother plucked the photograph from my fingers. Immediately I realized my mistake. Mother dropped the image into the bin, said, “That’s the best place for her.”
I stared at the smug-mouthed bin. I asked, “What did she do
None of this matters anyway, this is a waste of time. Surrender’s watching with his kind copper eyes and I jump up, abandoning fun and games. Now the bones are found, the heat will turn up. The spiders will start crawling down the walls for Gabriel. It’s time, I think, to visit the angel. Come, Surrender. Are you pretty, boy?
They’ll want to speak to me, now the bones are found. That poor simpleton McIllwraith, from whom Finnigan derives such amusement; who knows who else. They’ll come on bent knees to my bedside, furrow-faced and
sotto voce
, breaking the news as if it’s news to me. Already I can smell them in the room, the cloistered reek of damp suits and the mud they’ll track in on their shoes. I see them jostle, knocking elbows, imperiling the jug and tray. They’ll want to get close, to see the look on my face; they’ll want, out of fear of the illness, to keep away. “We’ve identified a female,” they’ll say. “Do you recognize the clothes?”
Suddenly, my lungs seize: ursine claws split my ribs, bow my spine like a hook. Gruesome slugs of blood spit across the floor. I gasp for air, fight for it, my heart thuds with terror. Flame rears inside my throat, bells clang inside my ears; my legs jump epileptically, fighting off my fate. Tears race away from my eyes, my bones are dragged apart. I remember, through tortured blackness, Vernon stuffed with cloth.
Sarah comes running, though I’m too blind to see. Against my sweating face she rams the shell of an oxygen mask. The clear clean plastic is instantly spotted with blood. My body takes minutes to calm down, to slow the thud and still the bells. My mind, though, quietens in moments. In my mind I’ve largely accepted death — it’s only my body that hasn’t. It has a right to protest, I suppose: in the remote likelihood of an afterlife, it knows it isn’t invited.
My nightshirt is dotted and Sarah slips it off. While she rustles in the cupboard for a replacement I look down at my chest. My flesh is the color of watery milk; veins crisscross me like circuitry. My forearms are speckled with puncture wounds, peepholes into my being. Where the spike of the drip invades my arm the skin is tender and pink. My stomach falls away emptily. My ribs are like steps, and I wonder to where.
I want all of this finished — I want them come and gone. I want the questions answered and notes taken and then I want them gone. I don’t want them to be here, if and when she comes.
Unless she has already been. “Sarah,” I say, “has anyone come?”
Sarah shakes her head. No.
“You’d tell me if someone had, wouldn’t you?”
She wraps a hand around my own. She wouldn’t lie to me.
The first time I saw Sarah, I was just a boy, and she was just an image in a black-and-white photograph. Her hair was pulled up in a ponytail, her dress was fit for a party, and on the wooden fence behind her was a curled, sleeping cat. On the flip side of the photograph a few inky words were written.
Sarah, age 12
. There was a date below the words, and I counted on my fingers: Sarah would be grown-up now, unimaginably old.
Sarah
: she had sent me toys in paper-wrapped parcels, money folded inside birthday cards. Gazing at her image, my heart was filled with warmth. I took the photograph to the kitchen and showed it to my mother. “That’s Father’s sister, isn’t it, Mama?”
My mother plucked the photograph from my fingers. Immediately I realized my mistake. Mother dropped the image into the bin, said, “That’s the best place for her.”
I stared at the smug-mouthed bin. I asked, “What did she do
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