And then, of course, there was the girl. The girl and the chores she’d asked him to carry out — the deliveries he’d made to three men on her behalf.
The pretty, pretty girl, with her pretty, pretty wings. She’d told him her name once, but he couldn’t remember it right now. He forgot a lot of information this way, as if his thoughts were leaking out through holes in his head, like water from a colander.
He walked along a short hallway with an exposed concrete floor, his arms held out at his sides and his fingers scratching the walls. It was dark in here; the windows were covered with security shutters.
There was an open door at the end of the hallway, and he could not fight the urge to enter whatever room lay beyond. He knew that it might lead him into trouble, and that he would probably regret following the impulse, but he was too weak to turn around and walk away.
Something moved behind him. It sounded like a mouse or a rat scurrying across the floor. He pretended that he had not heard the sound, preferring instead to focus on the doorway up ahead. Now that he was closer, he saw that there was soft green light spilling from the rectangular frame. The door was open. He smelled burning.
Burning.
But no, it was not the same as before: this fire would not hurt him.
He studied the open doorway. On the other side, positioned along the far wall, was a row of televisions. Their screens had been removed and fires had been set in the guts of the appliances. The flames were bright green. A small pyre burned inside the shell of every set.
Unable to turn away, Banjo stepped into the room. He closed the door behind him, yet he had no reason to block his escape route. He was puzzled by his own actions; his hand seemed to move of its own accord.
Banjo moved to the centre of the room. The walls were bare: no paper, no plaster, and no paint. Just squares of bare concrete. Shadows clustered at the corners of the room, at floor and ceiling level. The fires shed little illumination, despite the healthy green flames. The weak, swampy light spilled across the floor for a foot or two, and then diminished, expired, as if eaten up by those shadows. The flames did not destroy, they simply burned. They burned perpetually.
Banjo sat down in the middle of the floor. The concrete was cold, even through the seat of his jeans. He reached out his hands, opened them, and tried to gain warmth from the flames. He felt nothing. Banjo moved closer, shuffling forward on his backside, but still he felt no heat. The fires were cold.
Something shifted up above him, at the apex of wall and ceiling, and when he looked up he saw a long vine or a creeper curling back like a tongue withdrawing into its mouth.
The ceiling was growing a thin layer of vegetation. He felt so close to that other place — the one the girl had told him about — that he could almost breathe its air. The cold green fires crackled and popped; the air moved with a draught; the vines moved like snakes across the ceiling.
Banjo felt as if he was standing on the border, just about to take a step across but somehow barred from doing so. It was over there; he could see the rim of a new horizon. But he was not allowed into those territories.
A shape drew itself together from the shadows and the vegetation, forming a long, narrow ovoid. It made no sound as it slowly detached itself from the ceiling, hanging down on trailing vines, to drop onto the floor to his right. The shape was upright; it resolved into a figure.
The girl.
“Hello, Banjo,” she said, stepping out of the shadows. She was wearing the skin of an animal and her long black hair was knotted with leaves and twigs. Her bare legs were thin, the bones of her knees as prominent as her elbows. Her face was pale, narrow. She looked hungry.
Banjo smiled. She meant him no harm, this child of that other place.
“Thank you for your help.” She took a few steps towards him and then stopped. She opened one hand and a tiny hummingbird flew out of her fist, circled his head, did a lap of the room, and then flew into the shadows from which she had emerged. “It’s almost set now. Not long to go. All the pieces are in place, and we just need to wait for them to move closer together.” She smiled. Her teeth were stained dark from the leaves and berries she ate in order to survive.
Banjo nodded. He tilted his head, eager as a hound for his mistress’s affection.
“You remember me, don’t you?”
He nodded again, excited this time. Keen to impress.
“That’s right. It’s me. It’s Hailey.” She covered the next few paces in an instant, and suddenly she stood right before him, reaching down to stroke the side of his bandaged face. “Don’t worry,” she said. “It’s okay… I won’t hurt you. Not me.”
He realised that he was crying.
“Remember? I’m your friend. We help each other. We help each other hide from him — the other one. You remember him, too, don’t you? The bad one.”
Banjo pulled back, as if from the chill green fires in the television screens. He heard himself whining like a whipped cur.
“That’s right. The other one: the Underthing. It’s because of him you’re the way you are, with your face all torn apart and your mind in pieces. The Underthing did this to you. The television things were his. The Slitten were mine, but they’ve gone now. All used up. We all make our own monsters over here, in the grove and the little place beyond the grove. Some of them are forever; some of them are temporary, not meant to last beyond the moment when they are needed.”
He had no idea what she meant, but her words soothed him. They made him feel whole and happy and loved. He pushed his bandaged cheek into the palm of her hand, wishing that he could fly away, like the hummingbird.
“Here, let me help.” She crouched down in front of him, her white features hovering like a vision in the gloom. Her eyes were dark, nearly all pupil, and her cheekbones were as sharp as blades. “Let me take a look.” She smelled of fresh air and wild flowers and herbs — honeysuckle, jasmine and rosemary. Her sweat was nectar. “The doorway must be clean, unsullied.”
Banjo smiled; he opened himself up to her, yielding to her touch.
The girl began to remove the wrappings from his face. She did so slowly, carefully, smiling all the while. Her hands moved slowly and easily, and he felt no pain. The bandages came apart, peeled away, and fell from his damaged face like shedding skin.
“Oh, you poor, poor baby,” she said, and then she leaned forward and kissed his scarred cheek, keeping her lips there, cooling his maimed flesh.
Banjo was dribbling like a baby. She was his mother, this strange, sombre girl, and she loved him.
“It’s looking better,” she whispered. “Your face. It looks much better than before. Some of the power of the grove has touched you. I’m not sure how, or why, but it’s helped a little.” She removed her hands from his face. “Would you like to see?”
Banjo shrugged. He tilted his head again. Then, trusting the girl, as he always did, he slowly nodded his uncovered head.
The girl stood and walked across the room, then bent down to pick something up. The fires glinted on the reflective surface in her hand, and as she walked back towards him Banjo watched the play of the flames in the glass.
“Let’s see… come on, don’t be shy. Take a good look at yourself. Look at the doorway.”
The girl raised the shard — not a mirror exactly, but a piece of broken glass that served just as well. She pressed it closer to Banjo’s ruined face, and at first he twisted out of the way, trying not to see. But then, as she stroked his head with her free hand, he relented and waited for the looking-glass to show him what he had become.
The fires shimmered in the cloying, shut-in air. The girl said nothing. Banjo held his breath.
Then he stared into the glass.
The flesh had not grown back; his face still looked…
