Stephen Irwin: The Darkening

‘Your church was a lie, too,’ he hissed. ‘A church to one God, but meant for another.’

She hovered over him, her lips so close to his the air tingled as if lightning were ready to leap between them. She smiled.

‘What makes you think they are not one and the same?’

Nicholas blinked. Did Pritam once say that, too? It was so hard to think. His groin throbbed painfully, ravenously. His chest hammered. His mouth felt at once wet and dry. What was she saying? Church of Christ? Church of the Green Man?

Her tongue danced behind her white teeth. Her eyes were wide, her pupils dark and large with excitement, her breath was sweet and lightly spiced.

‘He has gone by many names in many ages. But His story is the same,’ she said. ‘He dies so we can live. Each year He dies for us, and then is reborn for us. And all He asks in return is humility,’ her lips touched his, ‘and a little sacrifice.’

It seemed so simple now. Stay . All he had to do was stay. Wasn’t this what people dreamed of? An idyll, a singing nest of trees in which to live a life so long he would be like the trees themselves: deep-rooted and protected and safe. A woman who understood him, who knew his gift, who wanted him enough to kill for him, who was achingly beautiful and raised his flesh like a drug. Time would lose its weight. Life would be perfect.

Rowena smiled at him, as if reading his thoughts. Her fingertips ran down his throat — her lips gentled the air above his own. His mouth was wet with the need to taste her flesh. Her body was so close its heat poured down with the erotic rhythm of the rain. Yes , she said without words. Life would be perfect.

Except. .

‘Except for the ghosts,’ whispered Nicholas.

He spat in her face.

As she shrieked, the mask of youth ripped apart like smoke in a sudden gust and the old hag Quill reared over him, wrinkled and rotting. She slapped his face so hard that white stars joined the orange sparks in the air.

Rain clouds rolled overhead and what little light the night sky had given was vanished. Where moonlight had sliced three white knives through the gaps between the heavy timbers of the cellar doors, raindrops now leaked, accreting into globs of cold water as big as marbles that fell and spattered on the brick stairs.

Hannah was soaking wet and sobbing. Her fingers were frustrating millimetres too thick to slip between the boards of the trap doors and reach the bolt. So, she crouched on the stairs on the underside of the doors, reaching between the heavy timbers with the paring knife, trying to snick and persuade the barrel bolt to move. . but it was fruitless. The bolt needed to twist ninety degrees before its loop would clear the guide and it could be slid aside. The blade found no purchase on the round steel.

Hannah could feel her heart trotting faster. She didn’t know how long she’d been down here, but it had certainly been hours. She remembered that it had rained this heavily the night Miriam had been taken. Time surely was running out. She was going to die.

She slid on her bottom back down the stairs into the inky gloom. She had to find something to move the barrel bolt, but what? Such an idiot! If only she’d worn her sneakers instead of the slip-ons, she would have had shoelaces! She could picture slipping the lace over the bolt, pulling down hard on both ends, and gently rolling the bolt free. If wishes were horses, beggars would ride , Vee would say.

As soon as she moved away from the miserable glow admitted by the door cracks, the room was almost pitch black and she could only make out the vaguest forms. Her fingers probed the dark: hunting, feeling. Shelves were cut into the walls of the cellar like catacombs. Jars of all sizes. She pulled one out and shook it. A faint rattle. She unscrewed the lid, and tipped the contents into her hand, and guided her fingertips over it. The object became so instantly and horribly familiar that she let out a yelp. A tooth, long pronged roots still attached. She dropped it to the floor and went to the next jar, rattled it. A faint sloshing inside. The next felt empty, and when she opened it, a small piece of furry paper fell onto her palm. As she felt the patch, her stomach twisted. It was a piece of dried skin, short hairs still attached. Her heart raced faster, and she kept going through the jars. One after another, their contents were equally repulsive and useless to her. Useless, useless, useless!

She felt tears start to salt her eyes, and blinked hard. This was no time for crying. There had to be something . There were four walls, that was clear. One wall was hewn shelves full of jars. One had the stairs. The next was blank. The last was where she herself had hung, and where the mummified black boy still slumped in his cobweb cocoon. This wall was the last one to search.

Hannah put her arms out in front of her and gingerly stepped towards the last wall. Her fingers touched silky threads and jerked back involuntarily. Okay , she thought. That’s him. What’s beside him? Her fingers delicately slid past the wispy strands until they again touched the wall. Nothing, nothing. . cold earth and the mute heads of rocks. Then her fingers slipped into space. Another shelf?

She used both hands to map the hole.

Where the excavated shelves were perhaps twenty centimetres or so high, this was taller; so high that she couldn’t reach its top, and it was at least a metre wide. She put her hand into it, then pulled back sharply. What if there are spiders in there?

Vee’s voice came back at her, at once cheerful and serious: There’ll be spiders in here soon enough, girlie, so get a wriggle on.

Hannah stood on tiptoe and reached into the hole. .

Her fingers touched something hard and flat and cold. Steel. She probed, and her hand closed around a looped iron handle. It was a box.

Or a coffin .

‘Shush,’ she hissed at herself.

She gripped the handle and pulled. The box chuckled unhappily, steel scraping on rock. It was heavy, but it moved. Well , she thought, if it’s a coffin, it’s empty . She pulled more and the end of the box cleared the wall. It still rested flat in its hole. She pulled and took a step backward, then another. How long was this thing? And when should she put up her other hand to stop it overbalancing? But just as she asked herself, the far end of the chest cleared the wall and it fell fast and hard. One sharp metal corner pounded into her cheek, then the box slammed sharply on the damp ground with a booming clang. Hannah lost her grip on it completely and the metal box tottered forward and fell, scraping skin from her shin on its downward arc.

Tears sprang out of her eyes and she bit her lip to stop herself howling at the bright pain.

At least it’s down.

Hannah knelt. She seemed to be hurting everywhere, worst of all her hot-and-cold throbbing shin. She gritted her teeth and made her fingers feel the chest. It had fallen onto its lid. She gripped the cold corners of folded steel and lifted. The chest rolled slowly and, as it did, its lid opened: its catch must have broken loose. Stuff spilled out over her hands and forearms.

Papers. Lots and lots of papers. Small pieces of paper — thousands of small rectangles.

Oh, wow , she realised. This is. .

She picked up a handful and sloshed over to the dull grey light leaking in from the trapdoors. The golden yellow plastic of contemporary fifty-dollar notes. The red paper of old twenties. A grey-green note printed ‘?100’. Hannah blinked. There was a fortune.

But it won’t buy your way out of here , she thought acidly.

She felt her way back over to the chest and started sifting through the money. Please, please, please , she thought, please let there be something in here. Something . . She shovelled the notes aside, feeling, probing, digging. .