Elizabeth Hand - Black Light

“Oh, Christ. Ali.” I whispered, anguished, and opened my hand. A single crimson petal lay pressed against the palm. “Ali…”

I knew then that it was as Jamie had said. Bolerium was a trap, a labyrinth; and I was ensnared. The only way I could truly escape would be to do as Jamie planned—leave right now, taking nothing, saying no farewells, with no money in my pocket and no idea of what I was really doing, except running away.

But that would mean leaving Ali nodded out in an empty room upstairs. That would mean leaving my parents, and Hillary; leaving Duncan and all the rest of them—Mrs. Langford and Moe and Flo and Ali’s father with his crapped-out car. It would mean leaving Kamensic itself.

And suddenly I didn’t know if I could do that. I wasn’t even sure if it was possible.

Because Kamensic wasn’t just a town. It was something that had seeped into my veins like a drug, something that had filled all the hollow places in my bones and heart and head, until even if I died the shadow of the town would be there, taking my shape, using my voice—and how would anyone even know I was dead?

How would I know?

I shuddered. The smell of spilled wine grew stronger as Axel Kern’s voice crooned in my ears, and Ralph Casson’s—

Nothing happens only once…

She is their pathfinder: She travels between this world and the realm of the dead …

I thought of Ali’s stories of the drowned village, of suicidal children given as tithe to a dark man in the back of an unconsecrated church. I thought of Hillary smashing a terra-cotta mask in a drift of autumn leaves, and Ali dancing drunk across her room, crooning gimme shelter as she waved a burning joint at me. I thought of all these things; and of my parents, and a silver-framed photograph of Axel Kern with me beside him, my hair crowned with a wreath of red flowers.

No, I had said when Ralph Casson held out the small swollen globe of a poppy husk to me, No, I don’t want it.

With every ounce of fury and despair I had, I beat my fists at the air and shouted—shouted until I drowned out the droning music and the entire hall became an echo chamber with only my voice roaring inside. The streams of candle wax snapped and shattered. From the long outer wall came a muted thump, and then another, as one by one the tall tubes of UV light flared like Roman candles and went black. My voice died into a rasp. I let my hands fall to my side and listened for the music.

There was none. A flood of frozen wax covered the floor, shards of white glass and metal threads. The French doors banged open and closed as the wind sent a spume of dead leaves into the hall. I watched them, but only for a moment. Then I turned away, terrified but resolute, and walked through the wreckage until I reached the row of closed doors. Some were veined with ivy, others covered with thumbtacked messages, bits of paper and strips of sequined fabric clinging to the wood like vines.

But there was never any doubt which entrance was meant for me. Toward the end of the long wall was an arched door of unpolished oak, its panels flaked with black; no knob, no latch. Set within the center, like a sundial in a garden, was a terra-cotta mask. Its slanted eyes glittered as though ruby glass winked behind them, or flame. Its mouth was set in a half-smile as though it were asleep.

“Axel Kern,” I said, and raising my fist I smashed it.

There was a satisfying crack, more like bone on bone than shattered clay. I drew back, to protect myself from flying debris, but there was no hail of broken terra-cotta. Instead bits of torn greenery rained down, stems and stamens stripped of their blossoms, ragged petals, crushed lilies and the fragile trumpets of narcissus. They covered me, tangling my hair and catching in my sleeves, their fragrance thick and choking as honey.

“God damn it, let me in !”

I kicked blindly at the door. The panels splintered beneath my boot and a lancing pain shot through my leg. Still it didn’t budge.

“Open!” I pounded where the mask had been. A rusty hand-shaped stain bloomed beneath my touch, grains of powdered stone trickling to the floor among the falling blossoms. “Open — !”

A sound like the tolling of a vast bell, a smell of burning leaves. As though it were a slab of ice the doorway seemed to melt. Its edges blurred into daylight. The storm of flowers subsided. I stood, breathing hard and glaring at the portal. Then I lifted my head, fists drawn before me, and walked through.

There was a sickening rush of vertigo, a flare of violet-blue light. My skin burned and my hair crackled with static. Then there was only darkness: no floor, no walls, no sense of whether I was falling up or down but only that the world had been ripped apart, like a tree torn by a hurricane. I couldn’t breathe but I felt neither fear nor panic; only numbness and exhaustion. The darkness spiraled away, sucked into a point of radiance that grew larger and larger until it enveloped me.

And suddenly I was falling, plunging down so fast that when I tried to scream the air felt like a stone thrust into my mouth. I saw a room racing toward me, walls and chairs and windows atop jeweled carpets. The sudden hiss of air mingled with my own voice, shrieking, as I crashed onto the floor.

“Giulietta!”

I moaned, turning slowly onto my side, opened my eyes and saw someone crouching beside me.

“Giulietta—what have you done! You should have waited, I would have—”

“Aw, shit,” I moaned again, sitting up. My head spun viciously. For a horrible instant I thought the whole scene was going to run backward, and I’d end up crashing back into some other awful place. But then warm hands were on mine. Carefully they opened my fingers and placed something heavy in them. I looked down and saw a cut-glass tumbler full of amber liquid; looked up again into the incongruously boyish face of Balthazar Warnick.

“Giulietta—”

I nearly dropped the glass, but he touched my wrist to steady me. “It’s all right, Giulietta, you’re here with me. Drink, it will calm you—”

I shook my head. “No way—”

“It’s only cognac. Very expensive cognac. So please—”

I sniffed at the tumbler, glanced back into his sea-blue eyes. With a shrug I drank.

“Ugh.”

He laughed. “That’s a bit fast for cognac—”

I shoved it back at him, my eyes watering. “Gross! Take it—”

“Here, Giulietta. Let me help you…”

He took my hand and got me to my feet. I stood woozily, unsure whether it was me or the cognac making the room look unnaturally brilliant—a gorgeous, Pre-Raphaelite vision of a scholar’s study, with paneled walls and Oriental carpets on the floor, rows of bookshelves and a huge bay window overlooking mountains.

And, while it had been after midnight in Kamensic, here sunlight streamed through the sweeping windows. Everything gleamed with a primal intensity: the crimson and indigo of the carpet so saturated they looked wet, the gold letters on the spines of books sparkling like flame. Decanters on a small round table glowed as if they held paint rather than liqueurs—emerald green, blood-red, sunflower yellow. A daybed was heaped with tapestried pillows, and there was a small cast-iron woodstove set into one wall, its isinglass window glowing beneath one of several beautifully carven plaques inscribed with Latin phrases—

It was all like some Victorian fever-dream, or a movie set. I rubbed my eyes, heedless for the moment of Balthazar’s hand on my arm.

“What—what is this place?” I finally said.