Bryony Pearce: The Weight of Souls

Dad had taken it away from me after the accident, but by then I had it memorised anyway, just as, I suppose, Mum had intended. Initially the story had squatted like a toad in the back of my mind, but now I was grateful for every twisted word. Through them I could hear Mum’s voice and feel her hand over mine.

Sit me in front of an exam paper and my mind can go blank, yet The Tale of Oh-Fa, unseen for three years, clung to my memory with an unshakable grip.

I barely had to think about it and the words were there, describing the moment my ancestor sold our family out. The pages were always ready to appear in front of me, every word etched in the sound of her voice:

“Greatest of the Lords of Death, forgive me.”

In tones like rolling thunder a voice, unsuited to its jackal’s muzzle, spoke. “Last of the grave robbers.”

I gabbled a desperate apology as the Lord’s tongue flicked his canines. “Your aura carries death. Your baby is trying to be born, but your wife can push no longer.”

“Can you save them?” I could hardly believe I was asking a boon of the beast.

“I will send aid to your wife and child, but you will serve me. The child birthing as we speak will serve me. Her children will serve me. Their children will be mine.”

Visions of my newborn daughter filled my head. Perhaps I could trade my own soul, but not that of my child. “Yours, Lord?”

“I will gift you with the power to see those in need of justice. You will track down the unrighteous and send them into the Darkness – to me.”

A hole opened a hand’s span from my outstretched arm. In it my eyes perceived the glimmer of gold. To my shame I could not drag my gaze away. “Yours if you pledge yourself to me.”

Of course he made the pledge. The promise of treasure was enough to push him towards the decision he secretly wanted to make. Facing a monster, who would really choose to die in order to save a bunch of children that hadn’t even been born?

And so he doomed us all. My mother, my grandmother, great grandmother, endless cousins and second cousins, the list went on. If I had children of my own, they would likely suffer the same fate, driven to insanity and early death.

Now the book was open; Dad must have been reading it for some reason. I couldn’t see which page he had been looking at so I glanced away from the memories it brought. It hurt to think of Mum and her ancestor’s legacy of death.

“You’ve got new equipment.” I nodded dully at the large microscope that stood at the back of the room.

“I know you hate this, Taylor.” Dad rolled closer. “I know you think things would be different if your mother was still here. But this thing you have, it’s a genetic condition and if I can’t cure you, maybe I can make it so you can have kids without passing that particular gene on.”

I stared at him. “You think I want kids?”

His eyes widened. “Don’t you?”

Laughter bubbled up, until I vibrated like the chandelier in the hallway. “ Who’d have kids with me ? ”

Dad looked sadly at his wasted legs. “You’re a beautiful girl, one day you’ll fall in love.”

I snorted. “Yeah, then maybe the guy will ask me out, I’ll run out on him because there’s a ghost he can’t see and that’ll be the end of it. Give it up, Dad. I’m not falling in love with some guy who thinks I’m crazy, not like Mum did.”

The words spilled out before I could stop them, and as soon as they tainted the air, I wished I could take them back. Dad’s face whitened.

“What did you say?”

“Dad, I–”

“You know nothing about your mum and me.”

I straightened. “You think I don’t remember? You tried to make her go into a hospital because you thought she was a nut-job. You tried to stop her teaching me how to deal with this.” I waved my newly empty palms. “You never believed her, not for one minute. I don’t know why she never left you.”

Dad’s fists gripped the arms of his chair so tightly I could hear the creak of metal.

“She’d never have left–”

“That's true, if she left, she’d have lost me, you’d have made sure of that. Any court would have sided with you and had her locked up for her own safety.”

“You think that’s the only reason she stayed?”

“I can’t think of any other,” I growled.

Dad wheeled himself backwards, his arms shaking. His eyes when he looked at me had no recognition in them. Then he reached blindly out to the desk beside him. His hand groped until it knocked the ever-present picture on its side and he picked it up, cradled it to his chest, then tilted it back and stared into the flat emulsion of my mother's eyes. I wondered what he saw behind the glass.

“It's true, your mum and I fought about the fact she wouldn’t seek treatment for her illness. But that isn’t the whole story, how could it be? She used to say I was the great love she had been promised.” His voice hoarsened. “She was certainly mine.” He stroked her picture. “When the Mark was on her she said I kept her sane, that looking after us helped her life make sense.” He sighed. “I think that without us, her hallucinations would have taken her over completely.” His fingers continued to move restlessly over the image of her face.

“I never told you how we met.” He spoke without looking at me, still I shook my head.

“I had just finished university. I was doing rounds of interviews, trying to get a position in a reputable lab, but there weren’t that many places out there. I’d just had a really bad time with an old goat who hated me from the moment I opened my mouth.” Strangely this made him smile. “It had been one of the worst hours of my life.” He shook his head. “I was drowning my sorrows in the nearest pub when this vision walked in.” His eyes clouded with memory. “God, she was incredible. She wore her hair loose in those days and it just seemed to float around her like a…” he paused, then smiled. “Like a fairy cloak, black as night. She was wearing this elegant dress thing and high heels like she’d just come from a party. But she walked into this rough pub like she had every reason to be there, no hesitation, just total confidence. She looked around for a moment then walked up to this enormous bloke at the bar. She stood next to him then offered to buy him a drink. As soon as the pint was poured she shook his hand and turned to walk out of the pub, like that was it.” He shook his head again. “The bloke got all bolshy, trying to make her stay, thinking he had a right to something because she’d bought him a beer.” He grinned. “I was about to stand up, to try and help her out, but I got my feet tangled in my briefcase. It didn’t matter though. She leaned into the idiot and whispered something in his ear. Then she did some fancy martial arts thing on him and dumped him on the floor.

“She was walking out and my heart was just tearing out of my chest, trying to go with her when she stopped at my table and looked at me with these eyes like pools of still water.” He sighed. “She just stared at me, long and steady, for a moment then she took my hand.” He tightened his hand on her picture. “She said something odd, I’ll never forget it. She said ‘I was wondering when you’d be along’. Then she led me out of the pub and into a wine bar down the road. That was it for me. I never loved anyone like I loved her. I never knew why she was in that bar.”

“Yes, you do.” I edged towards him. “She was Marking a murderer.”

Dad ground his teeth. “I loved your mum so desperately I was willing to ignore her hallucinations. I didn’t think they were a problem for us, not until I realised they could affect you. That’s when I started pushing her to get treated.”