Elizabeth Hand - Black Light

“Oh—!”

I shrieked and backed up against the inner wall. On the floor beneath the window lay a twisted piece of wreckage. It stirred wildly in the wind, and at first I thought it was alive, struggling amidst the glitter of rain and broken glass. But then I saw it was a branch, ten or twelve feet long, rain-blackened and so thick with lichen it resembled a piece of coral dredged up from the sea. I stared at it, then stood on tiptoe to peer through the shattered dormer.

There were no trees. Far, far below, Bolerium’s ragged lawns gave way to the black swathe of old-growth forest. Oaks and hemlocks tossed angrily in the wind, and skeins of dead leaves like a net thrown up against the sky.

But between here and the first trunks rearing up from the mountainside was a good quarter-mile. There was no way any branch could be hurled such a distance, not with enough force to reach Bolerium’s upper stories. I stepped back and nudged the tree-limb with my boot. A slab of bark fell to the floor, revealing a soft white pith like marrow. I stooped to examine it more closely when the dormer above me shook. There was a dull roar, a violet flash that left skeletal afterimages burning in the air around me. Something bit at my neck. I clapped my hand there, saw my fingers gloved in red. Glass and wood flew everywhere; acorns rattled down like hail. The window’s lead muntins buckled as a massive branch ripped through them. With a cry I fled, stumbling blindly until I found the door just past the window—an arched wooden door made from a single board, furrowed with dry-rot and scabs of grayish moss.

But there was no knob, no handle; nothing that would serve as a means of opening it. Behind me echoed the steady crash of glass, and worse. When I glanced back, I saw tree-limbs thrusting through the ruined dormer. The corridor was impassable, a black thicket of glass and broken tree-limbs; but when I looked desperately in the other direction I saw only darkness, with not even a seam of light to show where I might escape. The wind rose to a howl, the wall of tree-limbs shook as though something moved within them—

And then it seemed that something did move there. Something black, its head crowned by spars of lightning, its forelimbs jagged as the dead branches. I could hear it breathing and measure its approach by the sound of glass and wood splintering beneath its tread. Frantically I pounded at the door, kicked and pushed until with a grinding sound it gave way. An explosion of rotten wood, and there was a hole big enough for me to pass through. I forced my way in, the splintered panels scraping my arms. Cold air rushed by, the floor felt rough but I saw nothing save the pall of dust swirling around me. Only when I straightened, wiping grit from my eyes and coughing, did I see where I was.

“Jesus…”

I stood upon a vast plain, a dead white sky burning overhead and stands of birches scattered everywhere like standing stones. Wind beat relentlessly against me, a wind that had beaten down the trees as well—they all grew leaning in the same direction, branches rippling as though trapped in a dark current. Tiny midges swarmed everywhere, evil things with rust-colored wings and red eyes. I slapped at them but it did no good. They bit at my flesh and clustered so persistently around my face that I began to run, half-crazed.

“Get away, get away !” I could scarcely hear my own voice for the wind. I stumbled on, my boots crushing the undergrowth; then stepped into a hole and fell, wrenching my ankle. “Ow—”

Underfoot was a springy mat of moss and some coarse shrubby plant, clouds of lichen and small gray stones. The midges were even worse down here, but I refused to get up. I was bleeding from scores of tiny cuts, my dress torn and blotched with dirt. I felt numb, no longer frightened but completely blank, as though I’d just come out of some beer-stoked blackout. I lay there as the midges crawled across my hands, watching as crimson beads welled up behind them and the insects lifted back into the air. The wind wailed, my fingers grew white with cold. I knew I could freeze to death but I didn’t care. I buried my face in my arms and cried, wishing I were home in bed; wishing I were asleep, or dead: anything but here.

I must have fallen asleep then, and dreamed. Not a dream of home, or even of Bolerium’s damned chambers, but a dream in which the wind became the sound of my own name.

“Lit…Lit…Lit…”

I was dimly aware of the cold and thorny underbrush, the ripple of insects across my face. But gradually the voice became as irrevocable as those other things, persistent as water falling on my face. I stirred, blinking painfully. Dried blood adhered to my eyelids; when I licked my lips they felt cracked and raw.

“Lit.”

I lifted my head. Overhead the sky had gone from deathly white to a violet dark and rich as claret. The horizon was slashed with red so brilliant I had to shade my eyes. It took me a full minute to make out anything in the unearthly light.

“Lit…”

A figure was moving across the plain. I whimpered, thinking of shadows taking shape within fallen trees; but as the figure drew nearer I saw that it was not some awful spectre but a man in an ultramarine suit jacket, his long hair a bright corona around his face. He had his hands in his pockets, and walked matter-of-factly to where I had fallen, as though this were the most normal thing in the world.

“Hey,” he said, and stopped. For a moment he stood looking down at me, face glowing in the carnival light. His expression was tender, tinged with what might have been regret or just exhaustion. A halo of midges formed around his face. He waved his hand absently; the insects flashed bright as embers, then in a burst of white ash disappeared. “Are you all right, Lit?”

He crouched in front of me, smoothing the hair from my face, ran a finger along my eyelid and winced. “You’re hurt,” he said. “Come on—”

I held my breath, fighting tears; then nodded and let him help me to my feet. My fingers and toes throbbed, but Ralph seemed immune to the cold. He shrugged out of his jacket and I put it on, its warmth enveloping me as though it had been a down parka.

“B-b-b-but you’ll f-f-freeze,” I protested.

Ralph laughed. “Neither rain nor snow nor hellfire can touch me, kiddo.” He lay one hand against my cheek, and yes, it was warm—not merely warm but hot.

“H-h-how—”

“Something I learned at college. Feel better? Yeah? Think you can walk? I want to show you something…”

We walked, me huddled in his jacket, Ralph with one arm slung over my shoulder. Reindeer moss crackled beneath our feet, and while the midges buzzed everywhere, they now stayed away from us.

“Where is this place?” I asked when several minutes had passed.

“The Land of the Dead.” Ralph’s voice was flat, his arm around me the only comforting thing in that vastness. “The charred forest. The taiga—”

He extended his free arm, indicating the endless steppe, bowed birch trees like the ribs of fallen giants and lichen covering the earth like mist. The wind was a wall crashing down; the sunset the world behind the wall, nightmarish yet inescapable. There were no stars, no moon. A few yards in front of us stood a single large birch tree, its bark tinged pink from the sunset, its leaves blade-shaped and yellow as buttercups. Behind it the sky glowed like a furnace, black edged with purple, the horizon riven with crimson and a single brilliant ribbon of gold that spewed from the earth like a flame. It was so beautiful it made me shiver; but it was a beauty composed mostly of terror. I could imagine no people living there, nor even animals; nothing save those bloodthirsty midges.