‘I believe the name Daund comes from the northeast of England: Durham, or possibly Northumberland. I’ll let them fill in any other details themselves. Now, I’d like you to fulfill the second part of our arrangement.’
‘Cambion is in Hunts Lane, over in Brooklyn,’ said Louis, ‘assuming he hasn’t already moved on. He’s holed up in an old apothecary.’
‘Does he have anyone with him?’
‘A big man named Edmund.’
The Collector stood.
‘Then we’re done here,’ he said. ‘I wish you luck in your investigation.’
He buttoned his coat, and stepped around the table.
‘And you can keep the file,’ he told Louis as he passed him. ‘We have more than one copy now.’
They let him go, and he lost himself in the crowds on Lexington.
‘I notice that you didn’t mention the possibility of a third person at Hunts Lane with Cambion and his buddy,’ said Angel.
‘No,’ said Louis. ‘I guess it must have slipped my mind.’
50
I sat at the edge of a lake, on a wooden bench painted white. I was cold, even with a jacket on, and I kept my hands in my pockets to hold the worst of the chill at bay. To my left, at the top of a small hill, was the rehabilitation center, an old nineteenth-century sea captain’s house surrounded by a series of more recently built single-story redbrick buildings. Evergreen trees bounded the lake, and most of the snow had been cleared from the grass. The grounds were quiet.
All was quiet.
A small black stone lay by my feet. It looked incredibly smooth. I wanted to hold it in my hand. I reached down to pick it up, and found that it was flawed beneath. A shard of it had fallen away, leaving the underside jagged and uneven. I stared out at the still expanse of the lake and threw the stone. It hit the water and the surface cracked like ice, even though it was not frozen. The cracks extended away from me and across the lake, then fractured the woods and mountains beyond, until finally the sky itself was shattered by black lightning.
I heard footsteps behind me, and a hand lit upon my shoulder. I saw the wedding ring that it wore. I remembered the ring. I recalled putting it on that finger before a priest. Now one of the nails was broken.
Susan.
‘I knew that it wasn’t real,’ I said.
‘How?’ said my dead wife.
I did not turn to look at her. I was afraid.
‘Because I could not remember how I got here. Because there was no pain.’
And I was speaking of the wounds left by the bullets, and the wounds left by loss.
‘There doesn’t have to be any more pain,’ she said.
‘It’s cold.’
‘It will be, for a time.’
I turned now. I wanted to see her. She was as she had been before the Traveling Man took his knife to her. And yet she was not. She was both more, and less, than she once was.
She wore a summer dress, for she always wore a summer dress in this place. In every glimpse of her that I had caught since losing her she had been wearing the same dress, although at those times I never saw her face. When I did, it was under other circumstances. The dress would be stained with blood, and her features a ruin of red. I had never been able to reconcile the two versions of her.
Now she was beautiful once again, but her eyes were distant, focused elsewhere, as though my presence here had called her from more pleasant business and she wished to return to it as quickly as possible.
‘I’m sorry,’ I said.
‘For what?’
‘For leaving you. For not being there when he came for you.’
‘You would have died with us.’
‘I might have stopped him.’
‘No. You weren’t as strong then, and he had so much rage. So much rage …’
Her nails dug into my shoulder, and I was transported with her, back to our home, and I watched with her as the Traveling Man had his way with her and our daughter. As he worked, another version of my wife stood behind him, her face a blur of blood as her head and body shook. This was the one whom I had seen before. This was the wife who walked through my world.
‘Who is she?’ I asked. ‘What is she?’
‘She is what remains. She is my anger. She is all of my hatred and my sorrow, my hurt and my pain. She is the thing that haunts you.’
Her hand stroked my cheek. Her touch burned.
‘I had a lot of anger,’ she said.
‘So I see. And when I die?’
‘Then she dies too.’
The remains of our daughter were stretched across her mother’s lap. Jennifer was already dead when he began cutting. It was, I supposed, a mercy.
‘And Jennifer?’
I felt her hesitate.
‘She is different.’
‘How?’
‘She moves between worlds. She holds the other in check. She would not desert you, even in death.’
‘She whispers to me.’
‘Yes.’
‘She writes upon the dust of window panes.’
‘Yes.’
‘Where is she now?’
‘Close.’
I looked, but I could not find her.
‘I saw her here, in this house, once before.’
I had been stalked through these rooms years after their lives were ended, hunted by a pair of lovers. But my daughter had been waiting for them – my daughter and the creature of rage she tried to control, but which on that occasion she was content to unleash.
‘I’d like to see her.’
‘She’ll come, when she’s ready.’
I watched the Traveling Man continue his cutting. There was no pain.
Not for me.
We were back at the lake. The cracks and fissures were repaired. The fragile world was undisturbed. I stood by the shore. The water did not lap. There were no waves.
‘What should I do?’ I asked.
‘What do you want to do?’ she asked.
‘I think I want to die.’
‘Then die.’
I could not see my reflection, but I could see Susan’s. In this world, it was she who had substance, and I who had none.
‘What will happen?’
‘The world will go on. Did you think that it revolved around you?’
‘I didn’t realize that the afterlife had so much sarcasm in it.’
‘I haven’t had cause to use it in a while. You haven’t been around.’
‘I loved you, you know.’
‘I know. I loved you too.’