The girls steps aside, allowing her access to the back of the cave. Beyond them, the tunnel opens up into yet another cave, and then there is only darkness. She steps forward, moving past the girls, and is only dimly aware of the girls blending into the rock walls, becoming part of the cold, damp stone. There are no electric bulbs here, just the cold air, the constant dripping, and a strange, barely perceptible luminescence which emanates from the rock itself.
She walks across the uneven ground, over a small, natural walkway that spans an underground stream. She looks down, into the rushing water, and sees faces staring up at her through the churning white foam. She does not recognise any of the features, but she feels a connection to their pain. They are trapped here, in the endlessly running stream, but they are not unhappy. Their pain has brought them here, just as her own pain has allowed her to access this strange, desolate place. It is a pain that has no place in the real world, the world she’s left behind; but here, underground, and even in the greater world beyond, through which she’s passed, it is welcomed.
Those faces belong to dreamers, and they are dreaming of themselves.
At the end of the walkway is a low stone plinth, a pedestal carved out of the solid rock. As she draws closer, Abby sees that there are two tiny hummingbirds hovering above this plinth, facing each other. When she reaches them, she goes down on her knees. It feels right to show respect to the wonder before her. It isn’t prayer, exactly, but it is a subtle form of worship, a willing act of subjugation.
One of the birds is black, the other is white. No other colours mar their purity. Their wings move in a blur; the beating of those wings equal, the sound they make a single endless note. Not one of the two birds is stronger than the other. It is unclear whether they are mates or enemies. They simply hover there, balancing what at first she thinks is a diamond between the tips of their beaks.
She shuffles forward, not caring that the skin of her knees is torn by the rough stone. Bending forward, she inspects the scene more closely. The black hummingbird is pure black. The effect of looking at it is hallucinatory. She feels as if she is staring at a hummingbird-shaped hole in reality, and glimpsing the utter blackness beneath. The white hummingbird is so bright that it almost blinds her to stare directly at it, so she is forced to look askew. Yet, curiously, it sheds no actual light. These are not colours: they are an absence of colour. And they are locked into a battle that can never have a victor.
The thing she initially thought was a diamond is shaped like a teardrop. It is tiny, but it draws her gaze, growing massive at the centre of her vision, like a black hole sucking towards it all of time and space.
“It is a teardrop. It’s a frozen tear…”
She has no idea who has shed the tear, whose sorrow has given birth to such a magical thing, but there is no doubt in her mind that it is here, underground, in this dark cave, protected by — or perhaps imprisoned between — the twin hummingbirds, one black, the other white. Everything is focused on this scenario; this is the pivot around which everything else turns, and she’s been given a glimpse of the mechanics behind the universe.
Behind her, the three girls giggle softly.
She stares deep into the frozen teardrop and sees it all: tectonic plates shift, carving up the planet; icebergs collide; caverns fill with seething magma; above the surface, dinosaurs roam, then die, take flight to live in the trees; monkeys come down out of trees and begin to dream the dreams of humanity; and this place is born, it comes into being on the strength of those first fleeting dreams; the first tear that is shed in this place is encapsulated, frozen into a solid gemstone, and it becomes the centre. Balance is achieved; eternal, everlasting, a fulcrum upon which nothing will ever turn, because the energy will never tip one way or the other.
“Is this place the dream the world has when it’s sleeping, or was the world dreamt into being by that grove of trees out there?” She is talking to herself and doesn’t expect an answer.
The teardrop shimmers; the opposing hummingbirds are unchanging, infinite.
The girls giggle again. The sound is eerie yet strangely comforting. It reminds her of her daughter.
When she turns around to confront the girls, to chastise them for sullying the purity of this subterranean grotto, she is back inside her daughter’s room. Shards of fractured moonlight shine through the window, their brightness making her wince. The sky is overcrowded with silly stars, each one of them a dead world, a place where life will never be possible.
ABBY STOOD AND walked out of the room, pausing outside the door. Her cheeks were wet with tears.
The three girls giggled again… but, no, this time it was only one.
She turned back and entered the room.
“Tessa, is that you?”
She felt the beating of her heart like a tiny fist within her chest. The tears rolled freely down her face, dripping off her chin, smearing against her naked throat and chest.
The top of the shrine had slipped, toppled at an odd angle. The point of the cone, so carefully modelled, had sheared away. She walked over to the mound and was forced to struggle onto her tiptoes to inspect the damage. She peered inside the gap, straining to see down inside the pyramidal mound.
There was someone inside there, crouched low, arms up and wrapped around their head. It was a small figure, barely formed, yet recognisably human. Like a new-born child, it looked wet, slimy.
“Tessa?”
The arms moved, snaking downwards across the slick, bald scalp. They made a sound like liquefied flesh sliding off bone — or at least how Abby imagined that might sound. The figure was breathing. She could hear the gentle, regular rhythm of its inhalations and exhalations. Its shoulders rose and fell fractionally. More movement: small, silver branches erupting from the slick head, reaching upwards, towards the top of the totem, quivering as they climbed.
Abby fell backwards, stumbling across the floor until her back hit the wall. She raised her hands, but had no idea what to do with them. She lowered her hands, feeling foolish.
The pointed tip of a silver branch emerged from the hole, waved around for a second, and then vanished back inside, dislodging a doll’s arm from the pile.
What was it, human or flora? When she’d been looking down inside the totem, she could have sworn that she’d seen arms cradling the top of a head… but now there was only a knot of branches, like those of a budding sapling.
Mind racing, blood pumping, heartbeat doing double time, she did the only thing that seemed sensible in her distressed state. She went into the bathroom to get some water for her new plant.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
THE CAT BOX was resting on the back seat as Erik drove out to the old country house. He hadn’t wanted to put it in the front, beside him, didn’t feel comfortable having it in such close proximity. He knew this was unreasonable, but it didn’t make him change his mind.
He kept his eyes on the road, not wanting to have an accident or draw attention to his presence from any passing police vehicles, but he was acutely aware of what had become of Monty Bright curled up in the box behind him. He’d realised, of course, that there was far more different about Monty than just his appearance. The twisted remnant of the man was somehow reaching inside Erik’s mind, grabbing hold of his will, and gently coercing him. It felt like soft waves of energy, caressing his brain, massaging the lobes and releasing chemicals that softened all the hard edges.
Erik wasn’t exactly doing things that were out of character, or that he wouldn’t have done anyway. No, it was more down to the fact that he was doing them without thinking, and not even questioning his motives. He was like Erik Best turned up to eleven; a rock n’ roll version of himself with no holds barred and lacking an off switch.
He realised that he was on his way to meet a man he was planning to kill — he wasn’t befogged enough to blank out that particular piece of information. But somehow it didn’t matter. He felt… well, he felt nothing. That was the thing. His emotional responses were empty, as if the emotions themselves had been drained away, leaving behind only a faint residue, an echo.
It was like rushing on strong drugs, but better: easier to relinquish control.
