Two years later, and the Beast hadn’t returned. I had been fired from the constabulary for being implicated in the death of my partner. It was my bullet they found in his forehead. I’d tried to explain but had no energy for it and let them railroad me out of the department. I wasn’t even sure why they felt they needed to get rid of me. I suppose they had some other hapless Answer Islander on the case. My reputation and name were derided in the newspapers as if it was all my fault that my partner and the other victims of the creature had died. Incompetence, a lack of professionalism, an implied lack of intelligence were my résumé by the time the affair had settled down. I never even made it to Jallico’s funeral. I was in the hospital for six months with two broken legs, broken ribs, a dislocated shoulder, and headaches like a sudden axe attack.
Eventually, I wound up back at my empty apartment. I’d never married, as the work demanded too much of my time and self. The commissioner got me a small pension to live on, knowing what the truth was behind my service. It was good to know that not everyone in the Pellegran’s Knot hierarchy was a complete scoundrel. I stayed away from people. Lived for myself. Walked everyday through my loneliness. I tried not to think about the case, but it came back to me, springing out of the dark like a cat. I couldn’t help but see the headlines in the racks outside the stores I passed on my daily constitutionals. I skipped the park on October 15 the first year after my dismissal from work. There was a killing that winter. Stokes, the secretary at the Lyceum in charge of Clifford Von Drome’s old papers and experiments. The fact that he was connected to the Von Dromes was another maddening detail. I pushed it out of my mind and waited for the warmer weather when the bustle of tourists seemed to drive the nightmare from the mind of the city.
As the temperature became more accommodating, I took to ending my walk each day in the lemon tree orchard on the west side of town, near the observatory. There was a small café there, and it was a place even the tourists usually weren’t aware of. Sitting quietly, daydreaming—in other words setting my imagination against the images of my past—I drank lemon gin until night came on and covered my drunken retreat home. One evening while sitting there I was approached by a very young woman, wearing a boy’s shirt and trousers. She didn’t wait to be invited but pulled the empty seat at my table out and sat down. At first, she said nothing but stared at me. Then I recognized her red hair and her eager face. It was Meralee, the messenger who worked for the constabulary.
“Do you know me?” she finally asked.
I nodded. “Thank you for saving my life,” I said.
She took a slip of paper out of her pants pocket and slid it along the tabletop toward me. “When Stokes was killed this past winter, I was on the scene at the Lyceum when the constables found him. In his office, where I was poking around, I uncovered this beneath the blotter on his desk. It’s a note made out to you. You might find it interesting. I’ve shown it to no one else.”
“I don’t know that I want it,” I said, but reached into my pocket and brought out a few bills as a tip for the messenger.
“No, no, Inspector. It’s for nothing. I recognize you’re a good person. My father was from the Answer Islands. I’m young but I see everything.” She got up and walked away down the row of lemon trees and disappeared amid the white blossoms. I sat for another hour, had two more drinks. When I paid, I decided to leave Meralee’s note behind. “I can’t,” I told myself. I got twenty yards toward home and then stumbled back and grabbed the slip of paper before the waiter cleared it away with the trash. I waited till the next morning to read it, when I was sober.
After a night of troubling dreams, slightly hungover and standing in my kitchen, reading by the sunlight streaming through the window, I learned that Tessa and Vienna both were born with a rare disease that attacked the immune system. Stokes wrote, “Forgive me for lying to you about the fact that Tessa contracted her disease in Lindrethool. I was trying to put you off the truth.” Elite physicians of the empire who were aware of it called the congenital disease Pedlep’s Coronation, a condition where the body’s immune system stripped off layers of brain matter, eating away toward the reptilian center of consciousness and revealing different evolutionary stages of awareness as it went. It was Clifford’s desire to cure his wife and daughter. Instead, his chemicals and techniques, elixirs and minor electrocutions, had made them more or less than human, depending on how you saw it. Stokes revealed in the note that he knew Tessa wasn’t dead but instead escaped from her coffin with the help of her husband and now roamed the underground of the old town and other secret spots until she needed the platelets produced by the spleen to heal the ravages of the mutation Dr. Von Drome had initiated. I didn’t know whether to believe it. I thought maybe Meralee was sent by the other constables to torment me with this farfetched story, but how farfetched was this really in relation to what I’d already witnessed?
After that morning in my kitchen, I did three things—stopped drinking, bought a gun, and waited for October. At the end of the summer, I contacted Priscilla by mail and asked that she retrieve a daguerreotype of Tessa Von Drome from the apartment for me. She met me one day at the Coffee Exchange with an envelope and the picture I’d requested.
“I’d read that you were responsible for Jallico’s death,” she said.
I didn’t try to explain. All I responded was, “You can’t believe everything you hear.”
“His wife and children have returned to Answer Island, and she is certain you are a murderer. She’ll defame you in your village.”
I nodded and sighed. My hands were clasped on the tabletop and she covered them with her own. “I trust you,” she said.
“Tell me about the girl.”
“She’s hardly a girl anymore,” said Priscilla. “A young woman is more like it. She is somewhat more cognizant. I can get her attention and speak to her and she seems to understand, but . . .”
There was a pause. “But what . . . ?”
“She’s changing. There’s something about her. Her nose is becoming pointed and she’s become thinner, lighter, and always anxious. Meanwhile her shoulders appear more powerful. I never see her not bundled up in heavy shirts. The nails on her toes grow long and sharp. I find indigo feathers about the apartment that I know are not Mortimer’s. She must be keeping another pet a secret from me.”
I lifted the daguerreotype of Tessa Von Drome and compared it to my fleeting memory of the Beast as it lunged across the room at me in the house on Marfal Street. At one moment I could see her face amid the wild white hair of the creature, and in another it didn’t seem possible that this lovely woman could be the same animal/person. No matter how many times I looked, I just couldn’t decide. I gave the picture back to Priscilla and asked her to return it. After that we sat for a while and talked about the old days back home. She mentioned my little brother, who died of the fever when he was very young. “I thought of him just the other day,” she said. “He was such a mischievous little scamp.”
I nodded and smiled. “Jallico reminded me of him,” I said.
We both wiped tears from our eyes; so far away from home.
On October 15, I awoke early, made my way to the park, and took a seat on the bench that offered a view of the front of the carousel. I waited for hours, but then I caught sight of someone shuffling out of the woods. I’d not seen her in quite a while but was able to spot her due to Mortimer riding on her shoulder. Vienna had changed a great deal, as Priscilla had suggested. She sat down on her bench, and I eased back on mine. Some time passed but throughout it I was in a state of alertness. I relaxed finally when I saw Mortimer take off into the treetops of orange leaves alive with the chatter and whistle of starlings. When the murmuration began, I had tears in my eyes. The flock made beautiful designs in the air, as if they were making it special because it would be the last I’d see. At the end they created an image of the cathedral—the whole weighty edifice moving through the sky for several seconds before dispersing.
Mortimer returned to Vienna’s shoulder and she rose and started across the field in my direction. I didn’t move, and I didn’t pretend to be asleep. She passed and stared directly into my eyes. Her look was hypnotic at first, but when I heard that low trilling sound, I had to turn away. When I looked back she had passed on. I got up to return home and on my way found a beautiful indigo feather in my path. I picked it up and slipped it in my pocket.
It was a little early for snow, and the old women in the city square didn’t foresee it, but I paid no attention to them. Instead, I prepared my pistol and headed for the old town. It was still early in the day when I arrived. Mass was under way, so I sat in the back pew in the corner and watched the proceedings with a kind of dull awareness. When the prelate had droned his last invocation and the sacraments had been divvied out, the assembled rose and headed for the doors. As the great oaken panels swung open, a stiff wind blew up the aisle of the cathedral carrying with it a dusting of snow. The place cleared out quickly, and all that were left was myself and the two volunteers who cleaned out the pews. One of these, a girl caught my eye. She had red hair, and it only took me a minute to discern that it was Meralee. I didn’t bother her in her duties but stayed still. I don’t think either she or the young man who assisted her saw me there in the back corner.
I watched the two sweep and polish, and move up and down the aisles. Every now and then I looked to the three clear panels in the giant stained-glass window behind the altar and checked the increasing severity of the snowfall. It was still coming down, more rapidly now than before. It struck me then that I never got a grasp on why these killings only happened when it snowed. “Something to do with body temperature?” I wondered. It was beyond me. That and why Tessa might have killed her husband. Perhaps it was for what he’d turned her into. I closed my eyes and dozed.
I don’t know how long it was later, not more than an hour, that I was awoken by a scream. Groggy and off-kilter, I rose and stepped out into the main aisle between the sections of pews. I scanned the altar and the seats but saw no one. Lifting the gun, I bent as low as I could, ridiculously trying to conceal my presence, and moved toward the front of the area of worship. As I drew closer to the altar I saw out of the corner of my eye, Meralee, a white, clawed hand covering her mouth, being dragged by the Beast down a side hallway toward a door. She saw me and managed to free her mouth and cry out again. I leveled the gun, but the creature held her tightly as a shield. I wasn’t a good enough shot to guarantee I wouldn’t kill the girl. As the Beast dragged her and itself through the doorway, I saw that old, rusted serrated blade in its other hand. An instant later, the door slammed shut and they were gone.
I shoved the door open with my shoulder, the gun directly up in front of my face. Instead of being met by the fierceness of the Beast on the other side of the door, I was confronted by a spiral stairway that led up and up. I took the stairs as quickly as I could for an old man, huffing and wheezing as I climbed, leaping two steps at a time when my knees would allow. There were flimsy banisters to either side, something of a comfort as heights frightened me. The creature was strong and had no difficulty on the ascent, but it was dragging Meralee, which slowed it down just enough that with my best effort, I was able to catch up. They were two turns ahead of me and at times I could clearly see them. At other points the construction of the steps obscured them. I surmised that we were heading to the bell tower, and I was unsure if I was trapping the Beast or she was drawing me in. As I came around another twist of the stairs, I saw an open shot at the flank of the creature and was fairly assured I had little chance of hitting the girl. I took it.
Just before the thing darted around another turn, I saw a burst of red against the white hair. I heard an animal screech and then the screech of Meralee. The Beast had dropped her and she came sliding down the stairs. I lunged ahead and caught her by the calf just before she slipped out beneath the bannister and fell to the stone floor below. I laid the gun on the next step and used two hands to pull her out of harm’s way and set her upright. She was breathing heavily and in shock. I made her sit and leaned her back against the step. Lifting my pistol, I told her, “Wait till you can breathe and your head is clear and then run to the station house.” She nodded. I started up the stairs again. She tried to hold me back by wrapping her arms around my leg, but I disengaged myself and continued.
There was a doorway at the top of the steps that I guessed led into the belfry. I was terrified, but I so badly wanted to squeeze off the rest of the pistol rounds into the damnable creature that I charged in. As soon as the door opened, I realized the area I’d just entered was open to the weather. It was freezing and the floor was slippery with snow due to the two wide-open sides to the left and right. There were no railings. I lost my footing and went down, sliding toward one of the open sides till my head and shoulders were leaning out into the air above the courtyard. I’d managed to hold onto the gun, though, expecting an attack from the Beast. The white hair appeared above me. I fired and heard the bullet ricochet off the bell. In the next instant the serrated blade lacerated my hand with a deft slice and the pistol went flying out over the side and to the roof of the cathedral’s dome. A set of claws came down from above and ripped through my face on one side. I screamed as the agony nearly made me pass out. Warm blood seeped everywhere.
Through the blur of red on that bad side and my one clear eye, I saw the Beast rise up above me, lifting the knife to plunge into my chest and cut through my stomach. It was Tessa Van Drome. I could make her out behind the deformities and the catlike monstrosity she’d become. The look of fierce desire on her face shocked me, and I couldn’t move. At first I thought it was that the wind had increased and the snowflakes had grown enormous and black. They came with such rushing force that they pushed the Beast back away from me. As I watched the dark storm pound against the white monster, I realized it wasn’t the weather. It was a swarm of starlings. Their familiar chirps and warbles and high-pitched chatter became clear to me. Tessa was forced backward to the opening on the other side of the belfry and then the murmuration became a hand that gave her a fateful push into nothing. I heard her hiss and wail as she descended through the snow.
The birds as quickly disappeared, and I heard the tramping of footsteps ascending the spiral staircase. Meralee was to rescue me again. Still, when they were only halfway to me, I noticed something quietly move out of the shadows in the corner. It was thin and frail and the same color as the heart of the night. Vienna Von Drome covered in indigo feathers, with a nose and mouth that had become a beak and feet like talons. Her wings lifted in the back. She leaned over and gently touched my forehead. Then with one graceful move she stepped out into thin air, flapped her wings, and climbed toward the clouds. She moved with such grace, it soothed the mess that had been made of the side of my face. When Meralee and the constables finally reached the belfry, Vienna could still barely be seen, disappearing into the falling snow, followed by Mortimer. I said nothing and did nothing to point her out. The killer had been stopped, and the city that did not want me had lost something wonderful.
Blyth’s Secret
MIKE O’DRISCOLL
In the winter of 1995, six weeks after I turned nine, I discovered the partially devoured body of my mother in Glasfynydd Forest. She’d vanished one month after my birthday. Three days passed before my father, Wyn Blevins, reported her missing. It wasn’t her first disappearance, but after three days, it was the longest she’d been gone without contacting us. Father said she’d been suffering one of her “episodes” and had probably gone to spend some time with her sister. I didn’t understand the nature of these episodes, other than that they induced in my mother periods of frantic industry or of prolonged silence when she could scarcely bring herself to step foot outside the house.
I have only a vague memory of the days between her disappearance and my discovery. Police came and spoke to my father. He mentioned words like depression and bipolar, strange words then, and all too familiar now. A policewoman spoke to Sara and me, asking what kind of woman mother was and if we’d noticed anything different in her behavior. Aunt Mary came to stay. We went to school and in the evenings I played with the pair of red canaries Mother had given me for my birthday. I’d named them Mickey and Icarus and taught them to leave their cage and alight on my fingers, where I’d feed them little tidbits. Over dinner Father would do his best to distract us, asking about our day and how was school, all the time seeming more distracted than either Sara or me. Some evenings, he’d sit me in his lap and ask me to read to him. While I read he’d stare at nothing at all. If the phone rang I’d feel his body stiffen. He’d wait for Aunt Mary to answer it. While she listened, I’d feel his heart beating like a canary’s, loud and fast. And only after she’d let him know there was no news would I feel the agitation flow from his body.
The police searched the house and the brick garage from which Father ran his car repair business. They searched the open country to the south and the woods to the north and after a week they stopped. They said she must have left of her own volition. There was no evidence to the contrary, and so little more they could do other than to keep her listed as a missing person.
I don’t recall much of what I felt at that time. I thought perhaps it was a game and that she’d turn up any day and laugh at what a big fuss we’d all made about nothing. Or maybe that she’d scold us for not making more of an effort to find her. One afternoon, shortly after the search was called off, I managed to escape the fretful concern of Aunt Mary and set off into the forest. I knew parts of Glasfynydd well from frequent explorations with my sister and had no fear of getting lost. I headed west with the ground rising steadily, until I came to the crest of a steep, wooded gulley. Dusk was in the air and I was about to turn for home when I heard a squabbling in the dense pines below. I scrambled down the slope, struck by a strong, sickly smell. Covering my mouth and nose I pushed through the undergrowth and saw a dozen or more large crows fighting over what I took to be an animal carcass. Moving closer I saw the familiar blue dress, all torn and dirty. And yet, I still didn’t fully understand what I was seeing, not until I stepped closer again and saw the open chest and pale, shredded ruin of my mother’s eyeless face.
Time contracts and expands without regard for reason. The events of childhood seem more recent than things that happened a few short weeks ago. I was busy defleshing a crow when a tapping at the window disturbed me. Looking up I saw Blyth perched on the sill. He ruffled his black feathers and called out kaaaarr, alerting me to the presence of a car driving toward the house. Though a somewhat unpleasant task, I found the removal of the organs and the sectioning of the body a welcome distraction from the more rigorous demands of my real research. I set the bird aside, washed my hands, and went out in time to see the police car turn in through the open gate. A policeman of medium height and stocky build got out. He was jacketless, with his shirt sleeves rolled to his elbows. “Wil Blevins?”
“Yes?”
“PC Carroll,” he said. “David Carroll.”
“So?”
He took off his cap and wiped perspiration from his forehead. “You don’t remember me, do you? We were in the same school.”
“No.”
“No matter,” he said good-naturedly. He looked past me, his gaze taking in the brick workshop and the stand of rowan and sycamore beyond. “You escaped, didn’t you?”
“What?”
“Made it out of Cray. One of the lucky ones, went off to university. Biochemistry, wasn’t it?”
“Zoology,” I corrected him. “How do you know all this?”
“Your sister. We were in the same year. She told me you were home. You’ve been back . . . two years?”
“Three. Is there something . . .”
“Sorry. I don’t know if you’ve heard. About a boy gone missing.”
“No.”
He scratched the side of his face. “Seven-year-old named Jon Walters. Disappeared yesterday afternoon, in Glasfynydd Forest.”
“He was alone?”
“No. Three families on holiday. Spent the day at Usk reservoir. Kids went off exploring in the forest. When they got back to the lake, they noticed the boy was missing.”
“That’s terrible.”
“You know the forest well?”
“I guess.”
He took a photograph from his shirt pocket. A young, fair-haired boy with a red baseball cap worn backwards. “That’s him.”
I stared at the picture. “Poor kid.”
“Any chance you were in Glasfynydd yesterday?”
I shook my head.
“When were you last there?”
“I don’t know—a few days ago.”
“Doing what?”
“Watching birds.”
“Birds, yes. Sara used to talk about it.”
“Talk about what?”
He gave me an odd look, then smiled. “Just that you always had this fascination with birds. You study them, right?”
“She talked to you about me?”
“We went out together, for a short while. We were eighteen. Then she went off to university, and I went off to work.”
“I didn’t know that.”
“We stayed in touch.” He gestured in the direction of the house. “You don’t mind living out here now, on your own, I mean?”
“I wouldn’t be here if I did,” I said, resenting the implication. “I’ve been managing for three years.”
“Well, it’s good you’re back. How’s your dad? Haven’t seen him in—”
I flinched. “I have nothing to do with him.”
He seemed surprised. “I’m sorry to hear that.”
“Don’t be.”
He showed me the photo again. “You’re sure you don’t recognise him?”
“I’m good at faces,” I said.
“I guess you have to be. Well, thanks anyway.” He stuck out his hand and we shook.
As he got in the car, I said, “What you said, about escaping—did you ever leave?”
He stood there, half in, half out of the car. “As a kid I used to dream about leaving Cray. Making a new life in Cardiff or London. I did for a while. Never thought I’d come back but, I guess this place, the Black Mountain, it gets a hold on you, calls you back.”
I nodded. “I had that same dream.”
“Don’t feel bad about it.” He got in the car and drove away.