Gordon Dahlquist - The Dark Volume

Elöise stiffened beside her. “I beg your pardon?”

“I merely wondered.”

“I—I'm sure I have not given it a thought—we have been too busy seeing to you, haven't we? And, my goodness, it feels we have not exchanged ten words of friendly conversation.”

“You seemed quite disposed to one another.”

“I barely know him, truly.”

“When you were captured by the Comte, and taken away by Francis Xonck—at Harschmort House—the Doctor was especially keen that we save you.”

“He is a kindly man.”

“Why did you quarrel?”

“I'm sure I do not remember.”

“Perhaps you prefer Cardinal Chang,” wondered Miss Temple, her voice airy and musing. “He is more… dangerous…”

“I have had enough of danger,” replied Elöise, with a touch of tartness. “Though I owe the Cardinal my life.”

“What do you think of his eyes ?” asked Miss Temple.

“It is a terrible thing,” Elöise said, after a careful moment. “Im possibly cruel.”

MISS TEMPLE recalled seeing Chang's scars for the first time at the Hotel Boniface, when he removed his glasses to look into the blue glass card Doctor Svenson had found. After several strange glimpses of one another, on trains, across the ballroom of Harschmort, in secret tunnels, the three had met unexpectedly at Miss Temple's own hotel and, in an even more unlikely turn of events, joined forces. Chang had looked into her eyes upon taking off his glasses, a deliberate mocking challenge to what he assumed was her tender, ladylike sensibility. But Miss Temple had seen such scarring before, in fact quite regularly, on the faces of her own plantation. Yet even so, she had never considered disfigurement as a regular part of her life, for it had never afflicted anyone for whom she cared. She wondered if she could have loved Roger if he had been lacking one hand, and knew in all truth she never would have opened her heart to begin with. But that was the queer thing, for she had not purposely opened her heart to Cardinal Chang—nor to the Doctor or Elöise—yet somehow he had entered its confines. It was nothing like what Miss Temple had felt upon choosing Roger Bascombe—that was a choice, and for a type of life as much as for the man himself, though she had not fully understood it at the time. Of course, it was impossible to relate men like Chang or Svenson to any reasonable type of life whatsoever.

She looked up again at the trees, aware that a nagging itch had grown between her legs as her thoughts had wandered. If she had been alone in her room she might have allowed her hands beneath her petticoats, but with Elöise so near Miss Temple merely pressed her thighs together with a frown. It was the glass book again, the one she had looked into—been swallowed by—in the Contessa's rooms at the St. Royale. The book had contained thousands of memories—the lives of courtesans, adventurers, villains of every kind, decadent sensualists, the indulgent and the cruel—together creating a sort of opium den that had trespassed every border of her own identity, and from which she had wrenched herself free only with the most desperate effort. The problem for Miss Temple was the way the glass books captured memories—insidious, delicious, and terrifying. Looking into a book caused the viewer to physically experience the memory from the point of view—the experiential point of view—of the original source, whether this was a man or a woman. It was not as if Miss Temple had merely read a lurid account of the goings on at the Venetian Carnivale — she now remembered performing the same deeds with her own body. Her mind teemed with false memories so vivid they left her breathless.

She had not spoken of the glass book to anyone. Yet a part of her craved a moment of conversation with the only people who would have comprehended the true extent of what she'd undergone—her darkest enemies, the Comte and the Contessa. She felt the warmth of Elöise's arm around her—for Miss Temple was a woman unused to being touched by any person save a maid doing up her corset—and at even this meager contact unbidden visions began to rise, like smoke from a slow-catching fire, abetted by the jostling cart wheels until every tingling nerve had grown to glowing. She could help it no more and shut her eyes…

Suddenly she was inhabiting a man's body, with such wonderful strength in her arms, and in her deliciously thrusting hips… then it was the rushing thrill of another girl's greedy tongue between her legs… her hands caught the girl's head and raised her up, a smiling kiss and she tasted herself… one after another the visions flowed together—Miss Temple's face flushed as red as if her fever had returned—until another kiss, another liquid tongue, became—she realized quite abruptly with horror—the Contessa di Lacquer-Sforza dragging her tongue across Miss Temple's eye with a knowing, angry, sensuous sneer. Miss Temple gasped aloud. That incident had really taken place, in Harschmort House. What did it mean that Miss Temple's true memories could be entwined so seamlessly with what she remembered from the book, as if such distinction was a boundary for the weak, or no real boundary at all? If she could not keep her own life apart from what she had consumed from the lives of others, how could she retain who she was? She sat up at once.

“Celeste?” asked Elöise. “Are you all right? Are you too cold?”

“I am fine,” said Miss Temple. She dabbed a pearling of sweat from her upper lip. “Perhaps there is something to eat?”

LINA HAD packed cold mutton, hard cheese, and some loaves of country bread. Miss Temple unhappily chewed a mouthful of meat while gazing about her. The woods had continued to deepen.

“Where exactly are we?” she asked Elöise.

“Heading south. Beyond that I cannot say—past the forest there are apparently hills. On the other side of them we may have hope of a train.”

“The road seems perfectly fine,” Miss Temple observed.

“It does.”

Miss Temple watched Elöise closely until the woman met her gaze. Miss Temple made a point of speaking loudly.

“This forest… is this where the people were killed?”

“I've no idea,” said Elöise.

“I would think it must be.”

“It is entirely possible.”

“Did you not go there?”

“Of course not, Celeste. The clothing was brought to me—Lina knew what we needed.”

“So no one has seen the Jorgenses’ cabin?”

“Of course people have seen it—the villagers who found them—”

“But that is not the same at all,” cried Miss Temple. She called to the driver in her firmest voice. “Sir, we will require you to take us to the cabin of Mr. and Mrs. Jorgens. It is most urgent.”

The man pulled his horse to a stop and turned. He glanced once at Miss Temple but then settled on Elöise as the person in charge. Miss Temple sighed and spoke in the most patient tone she could muster.

“It is necessary we visit the cabin of Mr. and Mrs. Jorgens. As you can see, I am wearing the poor woman's dress. It is incumbent upon me—for religious reasons, you understand—to pay my respects to her memory. If I do not, it is impossible that I shall sleep soundly ever again.”

The man looked again at Elöise. Then he turned and snapped the reins.

Miss Temple took another bite of mutton, for she was extremely hungry still.

IT WAS perhaps twenty more minutes until he stopped the cart and pointed to their left. Through the trees Miss Temple saw a winding path washed away in more than one spot, like a penciled line incompletely marred by the jagged pass of a gum eraser. She scrambled from the cart without assistance and then gave a hand to Elöise, whose expression was far from her own excitement.