Christopher Golden - The Chamber of Ten

Geena folded into her sofa and let the tears come, but when she shifted she started retching. Domenic was with her when she vomited, holding a towel and wiping her mouth afterward. She looked into the towel and all she could think of was that slick stuff dripping between Nico’s fingers.

“What has he done?” she asked. But Domenic shook his head, because he did not, could not, understand.

In Geena’s dream, she relived that afternoon on a continuous loop. They arrived, Domenic made some food, she ate even though she thought she could not, and then he fetched a bottle of wine from the kitchen. Pouring, she knew she could not drink. Drinking, she knew she could never sleep. And finally falling asleep, she would find herself arriving at the flat’s front door again, realizing its emptiness and knowing she could never eat, drink, or sleep until they had found Nico, one way or another. The dream was disturbing partly because it was so normal, and partly because she knew she was dreaming. Her life would be stuck in a loop until Nico was found, and her subconscious stated that most obviously whilst asleep. Each time she reached the drinking part and Domenic reached for the phone, her hopes would rise… but then she’d see his face when he answered, and recognize her friends’ concern when he turned away to tell them how she was. I’m not good , she thought, downing another glass of wine and knowing she would never sleep.

I know I’m dreaming yet still I hope, and how cruel is that? She finished the bottle of wine and Domenic helped her into her bed, her body showered clean and filthy clothes replaced with a loose shirt and pair of sweatpants, and she fell asleep again, waiting for her arrival at the flat’s front door with hope once more burning bright.

This time the door did not open. Darkness flooded her mind, and when she opened her eyes she saw the vague outline of the bedroom windows, curtains shifting slightly beneath the sea breeze.

“This is different,” she whispered, and then she knew she was no longer dreaming. She sat up and breathed in deeply, ran a hand across her chest and felt the buttons of the clean shirt she’d put on. Nico’s shirt. He liked seeing her dressed like this.

Then she turned and saw Nico’s body lying on her bed.

Geena screamed. She couldn’t help it, even when Nico sat upright and reached for her, muttering calming noises, tears glittering on his cheeks. She screamed because her dreams had convinced her there was no hope and that nothing changed, and here she was with Nico lying beside her as he had so many times before.

Domenic rushed into the room and snapped on the light, silver hair in disarray and eyes squinting from sleep.

“Nico!” he shouted, and the joy in his voice drove away the last of Geena’s fear. She fell sideways with her arms out, and because Nico had already been coming for her they propped each other up, hugging and crying.

“I thought you were dead,” she said with her face pressed into his neck. She felt his pulse against her cheek and that made her cry even harder. He stank, and she breathed in the stink because even below that she could smell his familiar scent.

“I thought I was lost,” he said, sobbing into her neck.

“Nico, you crazy bastard!” Domenic said. He joined them on the bed and hugged them both, and Geena took so much comfort from the contact that she did not allow either man to let her go for some time.

“Tell me this isn’t a dream,” she said at last.

“Which part?” Domenic gushed. “Petrarch’s library, almost drowning, or nearly losing this idiot?”

He laughed out loud, and beneath his laughter Geena heard her love whisper, “I can’t tell you it’s no dream.”

She was too relieved for it to register. Later, she’d have cause to think back to that moment, go over what he had said again and again, and she would realize that Nico had lost the ability to discern the difference between reality and nightmare. I thought I was lost … I can’t tell you it’s no dream .

But right then all that mattered was the rising sun, the City of Bridges welcoming in another day, and that they were alive.

III

I’M NOT used to being away from you,” she said. “Being so out of touch. I didn’t like it one bit.” And it scared me , she wanted to say. But now was not the time, because being scared was connected to whatever had happened down there. Maybe later they would talk about that, but not now. Nico looked so tired, so drained, yet unprepared for sleep.

“Neither did I,” he said. “I didn’t do it on purpose, Geena. It wasn’t my …” Had he been about to say fault? If not his, then whose? “Wasn’t my intention,” he finished.

“I don’t blame you,” she said. “I’m just glad to have you back.”

They were sitting at the small tile-topped table in front of the open French doors of her living room, daylight washing over them. The balcony was so small that it housed only a couple of plant pots containing herbs—rosemary, coriander, some garlic bulbs—but she had the table placed so that it gave the impression of sitting outside. At this time of the morning, sunlight streamed over the rooftops of the facing buildings, splashing the table and warming the room, offsetting the refreshing coolness of the retreating night.

Sometimes blinds clattered open across the narrow street from her, and she would always wave a polite greeting to anyone who glanced over instead of pretending to ignore them. She knew that was appreciated. There was the old man who lived with a dozen cats, the young professional couple with two delightful kids and a live-in nanny not much older than her charges, and the young single man who always made sure he looked her way. She indulged in an innocent flirtation with him, but not this morning. She saw his curtains drawn back and his own doors opening onto his tiny balcony, but she kept her eyes on Nico. He had so much to tell her, but she did not want to scare him off.

That was how he seemed this morning—scared. There was a fragility to him that she had never seen before, and he would not meet her gaze.

“Where did you go?” she asked. She wanted to say, What happened down there, why did you pick up the stone jar, why did you scream, what did you see, why did you run? But there was still a rawness to things, as if the previous day’s events involved blood and death rather than water and worry.

The knives, the dripping blood …

“I wandered for a while,” he said, picking at a plate of dried meats. He had not actually eaten anything yet, though he’d drunk three cups of coffee and was working on his fourth. “After I finished running, that is.”

“But what were you running from?”

He dropped his gaze, unable or unwilling to respond.

She tried again. “Where did you go?”

“Nowhere,” he said. “No destination, I mean. Through alleys and courtyards. Into places I didn’t think I’d been before, but which I found myself remembering. And even the streets I travel every day had a familiarity about them …” He shook his head, draining the coffee and checking to see if there was more left in the pot. “But it was a strange feeling.”

“Strange how?”

Nico thought for a moment before replying, and when he did, he gazed into the middle distance as if he were trying to remember the answer to a riddle he’d first heard years before.

“You know how sometimes when something is removed from a familiar landscape—a line of trees, or a building, a fence of some sort—and at first you don’t recognize exactly what is missing, but you know something is different? Absent?”

Geena nodded, buttering some bread.