Elizabeth Hand - Black Light

The leaf-cloaked mannequin lifted its arms. Ivy fell from them in a rain of green, and other vines sprouted as well, leaves larger and less variegated than the ivy, with pale yellow tendrils coiling like fingers about its shoulders and throat. Tiny globules erupted from these vines, burgeoned into darker globes that began to ripen, until a crawling mat of purple covered the green man. He thrust his head back, chest exposed to the rising sun. Bunches of grapes exploded from him, raining onto the ground and bursting, their juices soaking into the earth. I could smell them, a sweetness so intense my mouth watered.

“Not now,” a voice said softly. “Turn quickly, Lit, don’t look—”

Strong hands closed around mine. I ignored the warning, and strained to see what was happening as he pulled me after him.

The taiga was gone. In its stead was a softer landscape, hills climbing into mountains, slopes covered with trees, sunrise touching their limbs with gold. Of Ralph there was no sign. But the girl remained, unclothed, her breasts and pale skin and hair turned to copper by the dawn. At her feet poppies rippled in the wind—I could see their papery petals, white and red and pink, the green-furred stems and, on some of them, the swollen seed-calyx where the blossoms had already fallen. Once more she was embracing someone, not the man-woman but someone else, a tall man with hawkish features and dark hair that fell to his shoulders. He was naked, and in one hand held a staff topped with a carven pinecone. As he crushed the girl to his breast, wine streamed down her back, staining her hair reddish-violet.

“No more!”

I was yanked away roughly by the man-woman. In the deepening sunlight his leather robe looked burnished. But as we ran the robe seemed to unfurl like a long ribbon, until I saw it was not a leather robe at all but a gown of dark-green cloth, embroidered with five-petaled flowers. His careful braid unraveled, long hair snaking in the wind. Ahead of us the sunrise grew blinding. I shaded my eyes, found that I could make out an eerie darkness within the brilliance, like spots on the sun’s corona. I staggered after my rescuer, and with each step the darkness grew more palpable and took shape, until I was staring at a rectangular pillar in the air.

But it was not a pillar. It was a door, only a few inches taller than the man who led me and half as wide. A door made of shadow and light, the shadow the utter blackness of a starless night; the light more blinding than the sun, brilliance like a red-gold sea boiling up from the portal’s center.

“Close your eyes!” the man shouted. “Stay beside me!”

His voice was familiar. But I had no time to question him, no time to do anything but race, gasping, until I was beside him.

Before us the portal opened like the world’s molten core. A moment when I felt the ground beneath me drop away; a moment when air and wind and even the flesh upon my face were sucked away, devoured by a ravening heat. A column of flame ripped through me, erupting into pure white light as a voice shrieked deafeningly.

“Jump! Now !”

I jumped. There was silence and annihilating darkness, no sense of falling, of being; of anything at all. Then with a roar the world crashed all around me. I was thrown facedown onto a cold floor. The core of light exploded into pain, and for an instant I blacked out.

Then I heard a sound, a soft repetitive thumping, the murmur of voices that were not forming words. When I managed to open my eyes, I found myself lying on the floor of a darkened room, window casements thrown open so that a spatter of icy rain came down, and scattered oak leaves. I was back in Bolerium. On the floor beside me, holding her head and moaning, was Precious Bane.

IT TOOK ME SEVERAL minutes to catch my breath. I didn’t just feel winded by falling, or whatever I’d done to return. My heart pounded dangerously fast and my skin burned; whenever I tried to focus on the room around me, streams of cobalt and violet light flared and faded at the borders of my vision. Even my teeth ached.

But gradually all these symptoms faded; gradually the phantom lightning disappeared, and I could see that the casement above me was tall and narrow, with two sets of windows opened outward into the rainy night. Watery blue light filled the room, a long raftered space tucked somewhere under the eaves. The outer walls were granite, the floor unpolished wood and very cold. There were no rugs or furniture; only an odd, propane-blue light whuttering in the distance. I blinked, trying to bring the light into focus; and that’s when I realized there were other people in the room beside myself and Precious Bane. In fact, there were a lot of people, all gathered at the far end of the chamber. Before I could figure out what to do about that, Precious Bane sat up with a groan.

“God, I told you I hate this place.” She brushed back a tuft of cotton-candy hair. “Every time I come here I tear something.”

She stared ruefully at the band of shiny black polyester that was her miniskirt. It was slashed as though by a razor. “See? You think Axel will pay for this? He won’t. Thank god they’re too busy to notice—”

She inclined her head toward the people at the far end of the room, then got to her feet, long arms and legs unfolding like an accordion doll’s. She reached down to grab my hand. “Upsy-daisy, Miss Charlotte. My, your new party clothes are a mess.”

I stood groggily and looked down at myself. My dress was ragged and filthy, stuck with twigs and leaves; my Frye boots caked with mud. I touched my hair. It felt like the reindeer moss, brittle and damp. Precious Bane gave me a sympathetic look.

“Aw, don’t worry, honey. A little Prell, you’ll look super. Come here and let’s see what we can do to shine you up—”

“Wait—hang on a second…”

I slipped from her and darted to the window. It was set halfway up the wall, so that the bottom sill was level with my chin. If I slitted my eyes, the out-of-focus image was the exact inverse of that I had seen with the portal, its perimeter etched with light and the center a seething darkness. Very carefully I extended my hands, until my fingertips brushed the edge of the sill.

“Charlotte!”

“No. Wait—”

It was like being too close to an incredibly powerful electrical appliance. The air felt warm, almost furry; the hair on my arms stood on end. When I moved my fingers, threads of blue-violet light streaked between them, like paramecia swimming through the darkness. Out of nowhere words echoed around me, faint but clear, as though broadcast from a radio in an adjoining room. There was the smell of upturned earth, and my mother’s clear voice reciting—

“That’s what it is,” I whispered. “Black light…”

I took a deep breath, opened my eyes and firmly grasped the sill. As though I’d rammed my hands against a stone wall, a shock raced through me, from fingers to elbow and on to my shoulder. The pain made me shout, but I kept my hold tight on the window. The violet threads thickened, became ropes of light that encircled my wrists and arms, twisting about my shoulders until I could feel their pressure at my throat. Then suddenly the luminous bonds fell away. There was the summer-charged smell of ozone, a sound like the sea. With a gasp I let go of the sill and staggered backward.