Neil Gaiman & Caitlin R. Kiernan & Laird Barron (17 page)

“For which we are the richer,” Sebastian told her. “I’m exceptionally fond of the gift of this ring. Its ancient metal, slipped so snugly around my flesh, feels very old indeed. Please tell me that you found it during one of your excavations, adorning the finger bone of some long-interred fellow. That would give me such delicious dreams.”

“I’m happy that you like it. And in exchange, you will keep your promise.”

“Ah, a journey to our cemetery isle. I have visited it but once; so much nature hurts my eyes, and the leaves are particularly bright at this autumnal time.”

“I’m anxious to see it in reality. Your beautiful verbal portrait of it has danced in my imagination. I can well believe that you were once a poet. Come, take my arm and let us leave this smoky chamber. I’m in need of moonlight. We’ll stroll beneath its glow and you can tell me what brought you to this remarkable city.”

Linking arms, they vacated the building. The night was very still and very silent. As they walked past factories and old brownstones, Sebastian Melmoth began to tell his tale. “I came to Gershom because of what the world calls sin. I came because I heard that this is a godless town, and without god there can be no fall from grace. I confess that I miss sin horribly. It gives such texture to existence. This spectral place has a way of luring lost souls to its confines. I find it a comfortable nether world. One meets such interesting sorts. As for transgression, well, I am hopeful that in time I shall find a new form of sin. And yet, the longer I remain in this city, the more intense my sensations become, innocent as they are. Gershom teases the brain with singular dreaming, and in such visions we find new forms of thought and novel ways in which to express innovative ideas. Ah, but here we are at our destination.”

He led her onto a pier, and she saw the means of their transportation. “Oh my,” she moaned.

“No, no. This teakwood raft is far sturdier than it looks, and the couch, though tiny, is quite comfortable. This small gap between pier and raft is easily stepped over. You see how even a heavy fellow like me can manage it. Take my hand and—
voila!
No, you sit on the couch. I shall stand and hold onto this pole. This pale young creature will be our Charon.”

The ugly woman sat on the cushioned seat and watched as the child who was their navigator unwound the craft’s brittle sail; and she wondered what was the good of such a canvas, on this windless night. Her interlocutor bent so as to whisper at her ear. “The poor child suffers from poliomyelitis or some such ailment. His limbs are quite curved. I like the way he walks, like some pathetic puppet. He will love you for any pennies you may throw his way. I seem to have forgotten my purse.”

Charlotte reached into her pocket and produced a silver coin. Bowing to her, the child took the coin and pressed it against his forehead. His wide eyes looked past his wayfarers, into eventide, and when he began to sing the sound of his voice caused a chill to tingle Sebastian’s spine. Charlotte listened to the wind that rose above the water. The raft began to move away from land, toward mist. That cloud of liquid air kissed the woman with beads of moisture, which she brushed away from her face with a rough hand. At last the mist began to thin, and Charlotte could see the mass of land that was their terminus. Eerily, Sebastian Melmoth began to whistle.

“Why do you make that sound, monsieur?”

“Because I am afraid.” The winds extinguished, and yet the raft continued to move toward the island, as if pulled to it by some force. “The Isle of Moira,” Sebastian continued, “draped in darkness. Her sand aches for the touch of our hot naked feet. She would drink our vitality with those mouths that are her barrows and her pits. Ah, and there—do you see her? Our desolate receptionist.”

Charlotte peered at the place of stone steps toward which their craft sailed, and saw the grim figure that stood like some obsidian statue. The raft lodged itself perfectly against the pitted platform of the lowest step. Kicking off his shoes, the child limped toward the waiting figure and offered it his hand. Swiftly, the creature lowered itself until its cowled head was in alignment with the child’s. The infant moved his mouth, as if whispering secrets. A dark face parted its lips and fed upon the lame boy’s living breath. As the child began to shudder, the woman took him in her arms.

Sebastian removed his slippers and indicated to Charlotte that she should discard her shoes. He tried not to gape at the sight of her bestial feet, which were far more feral than her ungainly hands. Offering assistance, he helped her from the raft, onto the weathered stone steps. They approached the woman and her captive. Charlotte watched the dusky hand that loosened the lad’s shirt and manipulated the flesh nearest the child’s heart.

Sebastian’s musical voice began to pipe. “Mistress Atropos, may I present Miss Charlotte Hund, of Boston? She has come to dance naked beneath your moon.”

The black woman chuckled as she rose, not relinquishing her hold on the child. “You will want to climb the highest hill, where the wind is exquisitely musical among the numbered sarcophagi. You know the place, Melmoth; you capered there once yourself.”

“In one of my Greek moments, yes. I was much younger then. And far less innocent. But we shall have to ascend slowly. These thick old limbs are no longer in fine fettle. Do release the child, Mistress, that he may playfully lead the way.”

The woman spread her arms and the child hobbled forward, to Charlotte, whose hand he held. Sebastian watched as they began to climb the upward path, and then he touched his brow to the Mistress and followed his friend. The moon was as orange as many of the decorative leaves, and mauve shadows hovered behind the many trees and shrubs. Sebastian did not like the silence of the place; he could hear too loudly his labored breathing. Now and then, in places of deep shadow, he sensed that he was watched by shapes in the night. He followed the path, past tombs and angels and obelisks, watching the two before him. He saw the child suddenly stop and place a tiny hand to its heart. Stopping, Sebastian produced a gilded case, from which he snatched a cigarette.

“The child has been too active, too excited,” Charlotte concluded as she folded her arms around the boy. “His heart is racing and he burns with fever.”

“Yes, he suffers from that dread contagion called Life. But we are almost there, and he may rest upon one of the paws of the great beast. Shall I carry you, boy? Would you like a cigarette?”

Ignoring the man, the silent child took one of Charlotte’s hands and continued to lead the way. They reached the crest, and Charlotte gazed in admiration at the moon-drenched colossus. She and the child watched as Sebastian approached the gigantic stone Sphynx, before which he raised his hands and snapped his fingers. His high voice hummed an ancient tune, and he smiled as Charlotte joined him in the danse. Happily, the lame child began to move with them, his crooked feet moving in imitation of the woman’s hoofs. They moved beneath the moon for quite a while, until finally the child tripped and fell, clutching again at his chest. Charlotte dropped beside him and smoothed his brow with her rude hand. Sebastian watched as her expression altered, as she lowered her face to the earth and began to snuffle.

“Whatever are you doing?”

She looked at him with shining eyes. “There is something here, beneath this ground; something rare yet familiar, something seductive. It is a memory that I once knew, long ago; it has taste and texture, and it calls to me.”

“Really, you are too fantastic. I think you’ve been touched by the corroded light of that torrid moon. I hate the moon when it resembles a scab on diseased flesh. Ugh! Those awful crimson shadows around the tombstones, it’s too macabre.”

Charlotte ignored his histrionic chatter and continued to smooth the ground with anxious fingers, the limping child beside her. She crawled until coming to a toppled obelisk, beside the base of which she found an opening in the earth. Peering into that cavity, she saw the steps that led beneath the surface. “Do you sense it,” she asked the child, “how this hollow summons? Are you game, boy? Shall we investigate?” Standing, she took the lad’s hand and led him down into the pit.

Sebastian Melmoth raised a white hand and sang some lines from Jonson:

“Farewell, thou child of my right hand, and joy;

My sin was too much hope of thee, dear boy…”

He watched them vanish into dank shadow. Then he turned to the gigantic Sphynx. Would she answer the riddle of what his friend would find? Was there anything that would appease doom? He looked to the moon, which had paled to a shade of ocher. Sebastian raised his hands to the sphere of dead refracted light, and then he began to remove his clothing.

The steps of loam felt strangely familiar to Charlotte’s naked feet, like something she had known while dreaming. She paused one moment to press her brow against the earthen wall, breathing its aroma, which stirred a cloudy image in her brain of something she had known, now forgotten. Touching lips to the dark wall, she trembled at the taste. Something in the sensation filled her with happiness, and turning to the child she began to dance upon the steps. Weirdly, she could easily see the child’s bright flesh in the dark place, the small hands held out to her. Eschewing caution, she took those hands and led the boy into a clownish dance upon the sleek and narrow steps. She seemed not to notice the heaviness of his breathing, and thought that he was clowning when he began to jerk with spasm. When she let go of his hands, she was too slow to catch his falling form. He tumbled down the stairs, to a level of rocky surface. Crying, she rushed to him and took up his still limp form in her embrace. She held him as is flesh grew cool and dry. She pressed him tighter to her breasts and whispered to his uncomprehending ear. How keenly she could smell his death, the fragrance of the stuff that clothed his bones. At last, she set his still form onto the surface to which he had fallen. Pressing fingers to his mouth, she pushed it shut. “Rest in peace, sweet innocent,” she murmured.

Before her was a passageway, through which a charnel breeze wafted to her. She could smell the bits of old bone that, over time, had sifted through the ground, some poking through the earth, others littering the place. Their stench was like something she had known, intimately, in Boston; but the memory was vague, like a favorite delicacy from childhood that had been forgotten in dull adulthood, until happened on by chance. Charlotte followed the chthonic blast, through the passageway, until she came to a spacious grotto, which seemed to her like the forgotten catacomb of some deserted cathedral. Broken statuary stood among the boxes of discarded death. She peered at a raised platform, a kind of bema, and saw two figures huddled over an altar, whispering as they watched her approach. She did not look away from the green eyes set deep within the rubbery faces, eyes that resembled her own. The eldest creature moved to meet her at the steps leading to the platform, and offered her his bestial hand. He smoothed her face with that hand, and combed her hair with thick strong nails. His mouth found her own. His kiss was revelation. She knew from that kiss exactly who she was.

She turned at the sound of another who approached them, and sighed at the sight of the burden in his arms. She helped to place the broken body on the altar and touched a hand to the bright small face. His carrion bouquet made her mouth to water.

“Found him just above,” the new arrival muttered. “Freshly dead.”

The elder beast pressed his hands together and moaned in pleasure. “Excellent. A welcoming feast for our sister.” He hissed as one of the others tilted toward one thin bent limb. “Where are your manners, Erebus? Our sister shall have first pick.” Turning to Charlotte, he motioned to the child.

“Give me his tender heart,” was her request.

∇

The Infernal History
of the Ivybridge Twins

Molly Tanzer

for a number of people, whom, the author is certain, would not wish their names mentioned here

I.

Concerning of the life and death of St. John Fitzroy, Lord Calipash— the suffering of the Lady Calipash—the unsavory endeavors of Lord Calipash’s cousin Mr. Villein—as well as an account of the curious circumstances surrounding the birth of the future Lord Calipash and his twin sister

I
n the county of Devonshire, in the parish of Ivybridge, stood the ancestral home of the Lords Calipash. Calipash Manor was large, built sturdily of the local limestone, and had stood for many years without fire or other catastrophe marring its expanse. No one could impugn the size and antiquity of the house, yet often one or another of those among Lord Calipash’s acquaintance might be heard to comment that the Manor had a rather rambling, hodgepodge look to it, and this could not be easily refuted without the peril of speaking a falsehood. The reason for this was that the Lords Calipash had always been the very essence of English patriotism, and rather than ever tearing down any part of the house and building anew, each Lord Calipash had chosen to make additions and improvements to older structures. Thus, though the prospect was somewhat sprawling, it served as a pleasant enough reminder of the various styles of Devonian architecture, and became something of a local attraction.

St. John Fitzroy, Lord Calipash, was a handsome man, tall, fair-haired, and blue-eyed. He had been bred up as any gentleman of rank and fortune might be, and therefore the manner of his death was more singular than any aspect of his life. Now, given that this is, indeed, an
Infernal
History, the sad circumstances surrounding this good man’s unexpected and early demise demand attention by the author, and they are inextricably linked with the Lord Calipash’s cousin, a young scholar called Mr. Villein, who will figure more prominently in this narrative than his nobler relation.

Mr. Villein came to stay at Calipash Manor during the Seven Years’ War, in order to prevent his being conscripted into the French army. Though indifference had previously characterized the relationship between Lord Calipash and Mr. Villein (Mr. Villein belonging to a significantly lower branch of the family tree), when Mr. Villein wrote to Lord Calipash to beg sanctuary, the good Lord would not deny his own flesh and blood. This was not to say, however, that Lord Calipash was above subtly encouraging his own flesh and blood to make his stay a short one, and to that end, he gave Mr. Villein the tower bedroom that had been built by one of the more eccentric Lords some generations prior to our tale, who so enjoyed pretending to be the Lady Jane Grey that he had the edifice constructed so his wife could dress up as member of the Privy Council and keep him locked up there for as long as nine days at a stretch. But that was not the reason Lord Calipash bade his cousin reside there—the tower was a drafty place, and given to damp, and thus seemed certain of securing Mr. Villein’s speedy departure. As it turns out, however, the two men were so unlike one another, that what Lord Calipash thought was an insulting situation, Mr. Villein found entirely salubrious, and so, happily, out of a case of simple misunderstanding grew an affection, founded on deepest admiration for Mr. Villein’s part, and for Lord Calipash’s, enjoyment of toadying.