Weaveworld

He stood up and started to unpile the chairs, deaf to the sound of approaching footsteps at his back.

3

The first thing Suzanna saw was a shadow on the ground. She looked up.

A face appeared between two wardrobes, only to move off again before she could call it by its name.

Mimi! It was Mimi.

She walked over to the wardrobes. There was no sign of anyone. Was she losing her sanity? First the din in her head, now hallucinations?

And yet, why were they here if they didn’t believe in miracles? Doubt was drowned in a sudden rush of hope – that the dead might somehow break the seal on the invisible world and come amongst the living.

She called her grandmother’s name, softly. And she was granted an answer. Not in words, but in the scent of lavender water. Off to her left, down a corridor of piled tea-chests, a ball of dust rolled and came to rest. She went towards it, or rather towards the source of the breeze that had carried it, the scent getting stronger with every step she took.

4

‘That’s my property, I believe,’ said the voice at Cal’s back. He turned. Shadwell was standing a few feet from him. His jacket was unbuttoned.

‘Perhaps you’d stand aside, Mooney, and let me claim what’s mine.’

Cal wished he’d had the presence of mind to come here armed. At that moment he’d have had no hesitation in stabbing Shadwell through his gleaming eye and calling himself a hero for it. As it was, all he had were his bare hands. They’d have to suffice.

He took a step towards Shadwell, but as he did so the man stood aside. There was somebody standing behind him. One of the sisters, no doubt; or their bastards.

Cal didn’t wait to see, but turned and picked up one of the chairs from those dumped on the carpet. His action brought a small avalanche; chairs spilling between him and the enemy. He threw the one he held towards the shadowy form that had taken Shadwell’s place. He picked up a second, and threw it the way of the first, but now the target had disappeared into the labyrinth of furniture. So had the Salesman.

Cal turned, his muscles fired, and put his back into shifting the chest of drawers. He succeeded; the chest toppled backwards, knocking over several other pieces as it fell. He was glad of the commotion; perhaps it would draw Suzanna’s attention. Now he reached to take possession of the carpet, but as he did so something seized him from behind. He was dragged bodily from his prize, a small section of the carpet coming away in his hand, then he was flung across the floor.

He came to a halt against a pile of ornately framed paintings and photographs, several of which toppled and smashed. He lay amid the litter of glass for a moment to catch his breath, but the next sight snatched it from him again.

The by-blow was coming at him out of the gloom.

‘Get up!’ it told him.

He was dead to its instruction, his attention claimed by the face before him. It wasn’t Elroy’s off-spring, though this monstrosity also had its father’s features. No; this child was his.

The horror he’d glimpsed, stirring from the lullaby he’d heard lying in the dirt of the rubbish tip, had been all too real. The sisters had squeezed his seed from him, and this beast with his face was the consequence.

It was not a fine likeness. Its naked body was entirely hairless, and there were several horrid distortions – the fingers of one hand were twice their natural length, and those of the other half-inch stumps, while from the shoulder blades eruptions of matter sprang like malformed wings – parodies, perhaps, of the creatures his dreams envied.

It was made in more of its father’s image than the other beasts had been, however, and faced with himself, he hesitated.

It was enough, that hesitation, to give the beast the edge. It leapt at him, seizing his throat with its long- fingered hand, its touch without a trace of warmth, its mouth sucking at his as if to steal the breath from his lips.

It intended patricide, no doubt of that; its grip was unconditional. He felt his legs weaken, and the child allowed him to collapse to his knees, following him down. The knuckles of his fingers brushed against the glass shards, and he made a fumbling attempt to pick one up, but between mind and hand the instruction lost urgency. The weapon dropped from his hand.

Somewhere, in that place of breath and light from which he was outcast, he heard Shadwell laughing. Then the sound stopped, and he was staring at his own face, which looked back at him as if from a corrupted mirror. His eyes, which he’d always liked for the paleness of their colour; the mouth, which though it had been an embarrassment to him as a child because he’d thought it too girlish, he’d now trained into a modicum of severity when the occasion demanded, and which was, he was told, capable of a winning smile. The ears, large and protuberant: a comedian’s ears on a face that warranted something sleeker …

Probably most people slip out of the world with such trivialities in their heads. Certainly it was that way for Cal.

Thinking of his ears, the undertow took hold of him and dragged him down.

X

THE MENSTRUUM

uzanna knew the instant before she stepped into what had once been the cinema foyer that this was an error. Even then, she might have retreated, but that she heard Mimi’s voice speak her name and before any argument could stay her step her feet had carried her through the door.

The foyer was darker than the main warehouse, but she could see the vague figure of her grandmother standing beside the boarded-up box-office.

‘Mimi?’ she said, her mind a blur of contrary impressions.

‘Here I am,’ said the old lady, and opened her arms to Suzanna.

The proffered embrace was also an error of judgment, but on the part of the enemy. Gestures of physical affection had not been Mimi’s forte in life, and Suzanna saw no reason to suppose her grandmother would have changed her habits upon expiring.

‘You’re not Mimi,’ she said.

‘I know it’s a surprise, seeing me,’ the would-be ghost replied. The voice was soft as a feather-fall. ‘But there’s nothing to be afraid of.’

‘Who are you?’

‘You know who I am,’ came the response.

Suzanna didn’t linger for any further words of seduction, but turned to retrace her path. There were perhaps three yards between her and the exit, but now they seemed as many miles. She tried to take a step on that long road, but the commotion in her head suddenly rose to deafening proportions.

The presence behind her had no intention of letting her escape. It sought a confrontation, and it was a waste of effort to defy it. So she turned and looked.

The mask was melting, though there was ice in the eyes that emerged from behind it, not fire. She knew the face, and though she’d not thought herself ready to brave its fury yet, she was strangely elated by the sight. The last shreds of Mimi evaporated, and Immacolata stood revealed.

‘My sister …’ she said, the air around her dancing to her words. ‘… my sister the Hag had me play that part. She thought she saw Mimi in your face. She was right, wasn’t she? You’re her child.’

‘Grandchild,’ Suzanna murmured.

‘Child,’ came the certain reply.

Suzanna stared at the woman before her, fascinated by the masterwork of grief half-concealed in those