
PLATO'S CAVE
a slightly peculiar novel by
RUSSELL PROCTOR
Copyright © 2011 Russell Proctor.
All rights reserved.
Author's contact: rjp@cqnet.com.au
For my mother
Elaine Proctor
Contents
Envoi
Plato's Cave
ENTERING THE UNIVERSE
Branwell's First Law: A pessimist is never disappointed.
I stood stark naked in front of the bathroom mirror and stared at the raw pork sausage that had appeared in the vanity basin.
It lay curled around the plughole, maybe twenty centimetres long, with those little pig's tails on the ends where they get pinched off to keep the contents in. Certainly nothing out of the ordinary about it, except that it was in my vanity basin.
The basin itself was not that clean, I had to admit. Maybe I leave the odd brown hair clinging to it after I've brushed, and there were a few patches of soap residue and the odd water stain. But I certainly wasn't in the habit of leaving processed meat products behind me.
Until now, apparently.
I gazed at the sausage carefully, forcing my eyes to focus despite my hangover. It wasn't easy. Even the shower had failed to stir my higher thought processes. They were still in bed, trying to snuggle under the blankets, muttering profanities.
The sausage certainly hadn't been there a few minutes before. I couldn't remember going into the bathroom, but once there I'd spent a couple of moments leaning over the basin wondering if this was the best place to die, or whether the toilet would be more appropriate. I had looked into the basin then and it had been sausageless -- not that I was specifically looking out for one, of course, but it was a hard thing to miss, given the circumstances.
Waking, showering: that was it, my entire morning so far. I was unable to fit a pork sausage into the picture anywhere. It must have been put in the vanity basin while I was in the shower. I hadn't put it there. I was quite certain of that.
A little gingerly, I reached out and poked it with a finger. Nothing. Not that I was expecting anything, of course, but at least if it was an hallucination, it was fooling my sense of touch as well. It felt like a raw sausage should: cold, soft, a little clammy. There was an indentation left from my finger in its skin.
Suddenly the thing moved. It curled a little, squirmed around the plughole for a moment and then lay still again, obscene and pink in the bottom of the basin.
Ok, so my hangover was worse than I thought. Lifting the sausage out carefully, I sniffed at it. The meaty smell almost made me vomit on the spot, but it was just my abused stomach reacting, nothing unusual about the smell itself.
Hmm, I thought, and looked in the mirror.
Not a pretty sight. There were too many of those little broken blood vessels in my eyes, and in my stomach was a lethal mix of vodka shooters and a three-year old Merlot. They had both tasted good at the time of drinking, but weren't doing too well in combination. A war had started down there, and I was copping the worst of it.
There was a foul taste in my mouth. I poked my tongue out. It was coated in some horrible white goo. I could actually feel my bad breath.
I brushed my teeth thoroughly, after placing the sausage down next to my deodorant stick. Then I dressed, picked up the sausage again, and went into the kitchen, hoping that a change of scene, and some food in my stomach, might make the world a saner place.
Which shows how wrong you can be.
Heather was there, watering her fucking plant.
Sorry about that, but I hated Heather's plant. I know I'm exaggerating when I say she spent fifteen hours a day looking after the thing, but I can't help it. The plant was about thirty centimetres high and had broad, spear-shaped leaves. Once a year it extruded a pale yellow flower that sent the houseflies mad with desire -- at least they congregated around it, burrowing into its depths, fighting each other over the sickly perfume. It was called Mike. It was the ugliest plant in creation.
It sat in a green plastic pot on a white saucer. I mention this solely because, like many ordinary things that surrounded us on that last normal day, these three objects -- the pot, the plant and the saucer -- were shortly going to assume cosmic significance. Please be patient.
Heather was my flatmate. She was twenty-two, with tidy black hair, a rather dumpy figure (all right, fat, but I didn't want to get personal -- I could stand to lose a kilo or two myself. Or three. Let's not go there) and a round head. She was short in a jolly gnome sort of way. I'm now going to make up for all this and say that she had the most beautiful eyes I've ever seen: deep and black and somehow, even to me, invitingly sexy. I actually liked her a good deal. Even when she was at her most aggravating (or I was at my least tolerant -- it's the same thing), it was impossible to deny she was almost always right. Except about Mike.
She also had the most monotonous wardrobe on earth. Heather only ever wore tracksuits. Today's combination was navy blue and red, and she had combined this with her fluffy orange slippers, which she claimed she won in a poker game. I think her opponent lost deliberately.
Heather looked up from watering the Plant.
"Hi Emily," she said.
Emily Charlotte Anne Branwell, that's me. My mum has a thing for the Brontës; even married a guy named Branwell. I mean, jeez.
Just don't call me Em. I'm not a frickin' letter of the alphabet.
"Morning," I replied, which was usually the warmest greeting I could do at that hour (i.e. before lunch).
She put the watering can down on the table and indicated the sausage I still held in my hand.
"What's that?"
"A sausage," I replied. "I don't suppose you know anything about it?"
She frowned. "Should I?"
She looked innocent enough. Even Mike had a guiltless shine to his fronds. I was prepared to believe Heather had not put the thing in the basin while I showered. Heather had a horror of naked women. There was no way she was going to enter the bathroom while I was less than fully clad. This was why I was forced to dress in there rather than casually strolling unclothed to my bedroom, perhaps pausing on the way to open the curtains in the lounge and stare out at the street for a while.
"No," I said. "It was in the vanity basin. It moved."
I filled the jug to make coffee and then dropped the sausage into the garbage disposal. A few seconds of its hungry growl and the minced remains were off on that long subterranean road to wherever it is things go down garbage disposals. Like I care.
"Moved?" said Heather. "What do you mean, moved?" She was persistent, I'll give her that.
I had no choice but to go into detail. "It twisted round the plughole," I said. "Like when you cook a sausage and don't prick it. It curls up."
"You did get drunk last night, didn't you?"
This is perfectly true. I not only got drunk, I got rat's-arse shit-faced. I felt no embarrassment about it -- such things were not unknown in the Emily Branwell scheme of things, and was a good deal less embarrassing than some other stunts I had managed to pull off in my time.
But at least now I remembered waking up; Heather's comment had set a few memories sparking. Dawn had pierced into my eyes as I lay head downwards on the cushions in the lounge room, spread-eagled on my back with the empty bottles beside me, drool spilling from my mouth. Neither a comfortable position, nor a flattering one, and certainly a little dizzying.
It had been quite a night. My boyfriend, Jack, had announced in no uncertain terms that he hated my guts and never wanted to see me again. I had responded by drinking myself stupid.
I still wasn't sure if I felt sad about our break-up. Certainly, I was disappointed. Angry, a little, but it wasn't as if I had loved him or anything. Not really, not like that. I had liked him a lot, sure, but I always seemed to have problems with male friends -- those I became intimate with, that is. Before too long one or other of us would start to feel stifled or bored, and take off. But Jack was slightly different. In my own selfish way I was more upset by the missed opportunities he had presented rather than the loss of his brawny, suntanned arms around my slightly overweight but diet-conscious body.
The bastard.
In any event, Jack's splitting with me was why I had decided to get drunk. Destroying brain cells with alcohol following a break-up had become a sort of tradition with me. So when I finished the bottle of vodka that we had been drinking, and realised I could still feel my legs, I opened the wine. Even that had been a disaster: my finger still hurt from where I had stabbed myself with the corkscrew. And although that morning I felt less than one hundred percent, I was fairly sure I was not suffering from the DT's.
Basically, therefore, life pretty much sucked this morning, and the future wasn't looking too hopeful in the emotional stakes either.
I didn't know how much Heather guessed about all this. But it wasn't my future with Jack that concerned her just then.
"I mean, are you sure there was a sausage in the vanity basin?" she asked.
"You saw me with it, didn't you? You saw me flush it down there." I pointed to the garbage disposal like it was Exhibit A.
"I saw you with a sausage. But how do I know if it came from the vanity basin?" retorted the learned counsel for the prosecution.
"It's hardly something I'd make up. Believe me, it was in the basin. And it moved."
Sensing perhaps the point had gone out of the discussion, Heather flounced out the newspaper and turned to her favourite section, the weekly horoscope.
I finished making the coffee. The few minutes it took to brew before I gleefully pushed down the plunger were always a torment of anticipation. I love my coffee, but it has to be the genuine, unadulterated article. A friend once introduced me to the outrageous horror of that decaffeinated stuff, but I quickly returned to the real thing. What's the point of coffee with no soul?
I fetched out two cups and checked that they were at least fairly clean. My fault: I hate washing up.
Heather choked from behind the newspaper. Perhaps her stars weren't that good.
"What do yours say?" I asked. Funny, that. Astrology did not interest me at all but, like everyone else, I couldn't help wondering what someone's horoscope has to say. As an idiosyncratic quirk, it's harmless enough. At least it's better than slowing down to gawk at traffic accidents or wearing your baseball cap backwards.
Heather read out the following:
SCORPIO Beware of a mysterious stranger. Money matters could be rather better than they have been for a while. You will have a flat tyre.
She tossed the paper down on the table, as if daring me to deny what was there in black and white. I read it for myself and decided not to.
"That's fairly precise," I said.
She picked up the paper again and offered a bigger choke. "Just listen to yours."
LEO Beware of a mysterious stranger. Money matters could be rather better than they have been for a while. You will find a raw pork sausage in the vanity basin.
I slowly put sugar into the cups - one teaspoon for me, 2.17 teaspoons for Heather - then picked up the paper and looked at the LEO section myself. My reading glasses were lost somewhere in the avalanche that was my bedroom, but I could make out enough to see that at that precise moment everyone born under the sign of the Lion was awakening to the sight of a sausage in the sink. Picture it in your mind's eye for the moment. Frightening, isn't it?
"If this is a joke," I observed, "it's a bloody good one. Who wrote this column?"
It was done by some horoscopically inclined person styling herself Joanna with your Stars, I noted from the head of the page. I looked to see what was on offer for the other signs of the zodiac. Capricorn was good.
CAPRICORN Beware of a mysterious stranger. Money matters could be rather better than they have been for a while. You will read Faust.
- Whose version? I asked myself. But I wasn't listening.
And even Virgo, that slightly unpopular sign (having as it does a certain unavoidable smutty innuendo) was somewhat unusual.
VIRGO Beware of a mysterious stranger. Money matters could be rather better than they have been for a while. You will have a wild, passionate session of uninhibited sex.
"Well," I said. "Kind of makes you wish September was your month, doesn't it?"
Ever the practical one, Heather remarked: "It has to be some kind of a joke. I mean, it couldn't be real."
"I just said good morning to a very raw pork sausage," I said. "It was real enough."
"But I don't have a car," persisted Heather in her ox-like way. "How can I have a flat tyre?"
"Checked your bike this morning?"
It was apparent this idea had not occurred to her. She frowned and started ingesting a mound of bacon she had slipped from the frying pan onto her plate. Watching her eat reminded me of a whale surrounding a school of krill. She strained her baleen for a moment in silence. With me, a silence is always a silence. Not a peep out of a single neuron. My brain just shuts down for minor repairs. With Heather, a silence is always significant. It can portend either a wry comment or the eruption of Vesuvius. But she is never silent for long.
"All right," she said at last. "I'll check my bike later."
I decided her comment had not been worth the wait. I buttered some toast and took out the Vegemite.
"On the whole," Heather concluded, "I'd prefer to find a sausage. You got off lightly."
I picked up the paper again. There was a photograph of Joanna at the top of the column. A thin sort of woman, with intense features, and probably stark raving vegetarian. Joanna with your Stars it said, next to a picture of one of those little wheels with the signs of the zodiac around it. I read through the signs again. They all had the same first two sentences, then dropped a bomb in the third.
Heather finished her last 44-gallon drum of coffee and prepared to leave. She did voluntary work at a women's shelter downtown. She was good like that: better than me, in fact, since I have no time for charitable stuff.
"I'm off," she said unnecessarily.
"Then get back in the fridge," I remarked in my frustrated-stand-up-comic voice. She didn't laugh. Neither did you.
"Will you be in for tea?" I continued. This was a vitally important question, as it was my turn to cook, and I knew there was nothing worth eating left in the refrigerator: the last of the steak (that had developed a funny colour) and some frozen minted peas that had also seen better days.
I was impressed by how well my brain was working, given the sorry state of it that morning. By the time Heather answered, which was really very little time at all, I had managed to think the entire previous paragraph to myself. And this paragraph as well. Amazing.
"Yes," she said. "I'm only going for a few hours."
I knew then that I had to go shopping and find something to slap on a couple of plates, or else go hungry. But I knew that was out of the question, because neither Heather nor I had much money.
Heather is unemployed. This is not her fault. She is, in fact, a fully trained shorthand typist, with all the necessary word processor skills. She just can't get a job, which is no surprise in these troubled times. I'm studying hard at University (a contradiction in terms?) for a BA. I'm in my second year. My majors are Literature and Ancient History. That ought to get me far in life, no doubt.
Between us, therefore, our monetary resources were not overwhelmingly large.
"I'd better go to the shop then," I replied. "What do you want for tonight?"
"What is there?"
Now, Heather knew as well as I did there was nothing in the fridge, especially since she'd just eaten the last of the bacon (see above). Nevertheless, being human, she had asked what I thought was a rather dumb question.
"Nothing," I said, entering into the level of the conversation with an inward sigh.
"Well, get anything," she said.
"Right," I said, and that was the end of that brilliant piece of dialogue.
Heather left. I don't know if she checked her bike to see whether she had a flat tyre. She was gone when I stepped outside a few minutes later and called to Bruno for him to come and have his breakfast.
"Bruno!" I called, only a bit louder than that.
Bruno is a white cat with a brown tail and a couple of brown spots on his back. He emerged from under a bush at the bottom of the baked desert we called a garden, and scurried up to lick at the plate of PussyChow or whatever the stuff was called. I had to go to the shops urgently, otherwise Heather and I would be eating PussyChow as well. I grabbed what little there was in the kitty (ha-ha). This was the bit of money Heather and I kept in the blue coffee mug on the top shelf of the second cupboard from the right in the kitchen, if you ever break into our house looking for the spare cash.
As far as I remembered, the kitty contained $4.65 and a plastic toy from the corn flakes packet. When I lifted the mug, though, it seemed rather heavy. Glancing in, I noticed it was full of $100.00 notes.
I stared at them for a moment but they didn't go away.
Hmm...
I put the mug back and went over to where the newspaper lay on the table. I read my stars again.
LEO Beware of a mysterious stranger. Money matters could be rather better than they have been for a while. You will find a raw pork sausage in the vanity basin.
Well, I couldn't deny it. Money matters were rather better than they had been for a while. I lifted the wad of notes out and counted them. There was $4004.65 and a plastic toy from the corn flakes packet.
Bruno had come inside now and jumped onto the table (a bad habit) to sniff the money as it lay there in front of me, then he sat down and licked around his mouth, scraping the last traces of PussyChow onto his tongue. I sat and watched him, contemplating many things, such as:

Had Heather put the money there?
Was this a dream?
How could Joanna with your Stars have hit it so accurately?
Should I count it again?
Should I run naked down the road yelling "Eureka"?
Is there any more in the other mugs?
Was there a rational explanation for all this?
What was I supposed to do now?
Had Heather stolen it?
Had I stolen it?

Bruno was looking at me as if I was mad. He was probably right. He started to play with the money so I shooed him off the table. I picked up a couple of the notes and had a good look at them. Dame Nellie Melba looked back at me in that haughty way of hers and offered no explanations. The notes appeared genuine enough. I looked at the serial numbers and noticed they were consecutive. All the notes were crisp and new and smelled lovely.
I rushed to my bedroom and tossed things around until I found my reading glasses underneath my essay on Thackeray, still with 1,545 words (and three days) to go, then groped my way through the crinkling pages of the newspaper until I found where they had printed their phone number. I grabbed my mobile phone and dialled. There was the usual buzz-buzz, so I waited.
Buzz-buzz.
Buzz-buzz.
Buz-
"Good morning, The Trumpet," said a woman's voice. She sounded brunette, about twenty, white blouse and crumpled dark red skirt, too much make-up. "Can I help you?"
"Can I speak to Joanna please?"
"Who, sorry?"
"You know, Joanna." It occurred to me I was totally ignorant of her surname, mainly because she chose not to publish it. "The astrologer. Joanna with your Stars."
That sounded hopeful.
"Oh. Sorry, she doesn't work here."
That didn't sound hopeful at all.
"Well, how can I contact her?"
"I don't know."
"You don't have her number?"
"We don't give our contributors' numbers out, I'm sorry. Could somebody else help you?"
Probably not -- how many astrologers did they have there? But I had to admit, I was not surprised about Joanna's anonymity. If I had made such predictions as she had that morning, I'd be keeping a low profile too. I decided on a different approach.
"What's your star sign?" I asked.
"What?"
"Your star sign. What is it?"
She seemed to think for a while. Difficult question, really.
"Taurus."
I glanced at the paper to see what Joanna had said about our bovine friends. "Have you had a visit from a Russian gymnast today?" I asked.
There was a longer pause. Perhaps I wasn't making myself entirely plain. I could hear her shift uneasily in her chair. No doubt she was wishing someone else was handling my enquiry.
Then, "No" came the tentative reply, as if from a great distance.
"Could you please open your purse?"
"I don't think so."
"Please? This is important." What was she afraid of? I was hardly in a position to steal anything. It was a perfectly ordinary request. If she had $4000.00 in it, the world would not make any more sense, but my insanity would at least feel less lonely.
"No."
The click sounded exactly like a telephone being hung up.
I was tempted for about three seconds to ring her boss and complain about the telephone manners of those persons in his employ, until I realised my call would have to go back through her first.
I grabbed the yellow pages and looked up Astrology/Clairvoyance. There were quite a few listings, to my surprise.
Joanna...Joanna...Joanna...I ran my finger down the column. Ah, Joanna. There she was. At least, there was an ad for: Joanna Clifford, Palmistry, Tarot Reading, Clairvoyance, Horoscopes and a phone number. I was dialling very fast, punching the numbers hard.
Buzz-buzz
"Hello?" A female, sounding a bit peeved.
"Hello," I replied with some trepidation. "Could I speak to Joanna Clifford please?"
"Wrong number, you dickhead."
And there was another unfriendly telephone click, louder this time, like force was being used.
Well, it happens to us all. I didn't even have a chance to ask her what star sign she was. Perhaps she was at that moment preoccupied with a sausage in the vanity basin. Or a Russian gymnast. Or was she a Virgo? If that was the case, I could understand her annoyance at being disturbed.
I dialled again, paying a little more attention to what I was doing.
Buzz-buzz
Buzz-buzz
It went on for some time. No answer.
I hung up. There was also an address in the phone book for Joanna Clifford, Palmistry, etc, so I looked vainly for a piece of paper to write it down on and, finding none, tore the page out of the book.
I went into the bathroom to wash my hands. I do my best thinking in the shower, but since I had just had one, this was the next best alternative. Somehow, my neurons perform better when surrounded by ceramic tiles, when I'm staring at a blank wall. I don't know why. Anyway, there I was, thinking hard, to no avail. No lights illuminated the dark, empty cavern of my skull.
I was slightly worried while doing this, in case another sausage appeared in the basin. It didn't. I went back to the kitchen.
There was a raw pork sausage on the table.
\*\*\*
I stood outside Joanna Clifford's house, wiping bubble gum off the bottom of my shoe. The house was one of those renovated Queenslander jobs in Hamilton, which is a very posh suburb on the north side of the Brisbane River. In fact, Joanna's house actually had a view of the river, which is always desirable, if rather expensive. The house had wide verandas, the front garden planted with pink and white frangipani, and a driveway leading down one side. I quite liked the look of it.
I scraped the green, sickly gob of bubble gum away with a stick. A boy raced past on a skateboard and laughed. I told him to fuck off, which he did, jumping up and spinning around and landing back down without breaking his neck. Show off. It was probably his bubble gum.
I walked through the wrought-iron gate of the house and up the pathway. My shoe stuck to the path with each step and came away with a jerk, which was exactly how I felt.
There were six steps up to the veranda. I paused at the top and looked for a moment over the well-kept garden. The lawn was closely mown and all the edges trimmed, but the garden still had a natural look about it. I wondered vaguely what star-sign Joanna was. My interest in astrology had grown somewhat that morning.
I pressed the bell beside the door.
There was no ring. Either it was one of those bells that are designed to infuriate callers because they are inaudible from outside, or else it didn't work. As I had no idea which was the case here, I pressed the bell again and held it down. After about ten seconds I lifted my finger. Waiting...
I was buggered if I was going to knock.
While I waited, I tried to gather what other information I could about Joanna from the appearance of the house, like I had with the garden. I play this game with myself all the time: imagine what a person or place is going to be like, then compare it with reality. I invariably find I was totally wrong in every way. It's good for deflating the ego.
A mobile of the planets hung from the veranda roof, which was dusty and needed repainting. Around me, a few potted plants; no flowers; a banana lounger next to a low plastic table; a blue ceramic bowl in the middle. Nothing out of the ordinary at all except for the mobile, but given Joanna's astrological interests, it too was hardly out of the ordinary.
Still nothing on the door-opening front. Perhaps she was out after all, which would go a long way towards explaining why she hadn't answered the telephone. See, not just a pretty face. I debated whether or not to try the doorbell again, but elected this time to knock. The screen door was locked and, as the edge of the front door was hardwood and likely to bruise my knuckles, I had no choice but to knock on metal and listen dispiritedly to the pathetic rattle of aluminium.
Surprisingly, this had results. Almost instantly I heard a voice within say "Just a minute", and footsteps.
Encouraging.
So I waited again. I amused myself this time by blowing at the mobile so that the planets jiggled and spun. Then the door opened just as I was giving a really good blow and Joanna Clifford saw me with lips pursed and making a complete fool of myself.
"Yes?" she said.
Joanna Clifford was a hippie chick, like something off the Beatles' Sergeant Pepper's album. She'd not only gone to San Francisco with some flowers in her hair, she was posting the photos on Facebook. That said, I had to admit her picture in the paper did her no justice at all. She was actually forty-three years old, I was later to learn, but looked about thirty; tall and slim, with a peaches-and-cream complexion. She wore a blue and purple blouse and a blue skirt that reached to her ankles and looked just exactly right for her, plus the obligatory beads around her neck and sandals on her feet. There were rings on five fingers and a couple on her toes.
I stood there for a moment under the mobile, wondering what the hell I was going to say. Jupiter swung around and hit me on the forehead.
"Can I help you?" asked Joanna.
"My name is Emily Branwell," I said. "I was wondering if I could talk to you for a minute."
"I'm a bit busy. What's it about?"
Now what was I supposed to say? Sausages? Large sums of money? "Can I come in?" I asked. "It's about your horoscope in the paper."
"Oh. Fine."
She opened the screen door and stepped back. "Come in," she said. "Mind the rug."
The Rug was a Turkish affair on the hall floor. It was the usual multi-coloured, fifty-million-stitches-to-the-square-inch affair. I wondered what I had to do to mind it. I could not help walking on it. I stepped in Joanna's footsteps as we went along the short hall, walking on my toes to keep the remains of the gum off it.
The Rug ended and polished hardwood boards took over. I liked the house, which was not hippie at all: no burning incense, no posters of Joni Mitchell or Donovan. Joanna directed me to the living room: tongue-in-groove walls, with a scattering of black leather furniture, a big African mask above one chair, and a sound system with an iPod dock. It gave itself away with some soft classical music. There was a television in another corner.
I sat where Joanna invited me to, at one end of the leather sofa. She sat in a leather recliner chair, her hands over the arms, her long, sunlight-coloured hair draped over her shoulders, perfectly straight, framing her thin face, which held a pair of intelligent brown eyes. By comparison, I felt plain and awkward, with my scrappy brown hair, slightly pointy chin and my hands clasped between my knees.
"Right," she said, smiling. "What can I do for you?"
"I read your horoscope column this morning," I began, feeling as confident as Julius Caesar had when he stood in the Capitol and noticed everyone kept one hand under their togas. "It was...remarkably accurate."
"Thank you," she said. "You're a Leo, aren't you?"
Oh, she was good. Or lucky -- a one in twelve chance. She probably expected me to ask how she knew, so I refrained from doing so. I remembered I wanted to know what star sign she was, so I asked, before I realised it made me appear even more pig ignorant than I usually am, which is saying something. But I was desperate to put off mentioning the real reason I had come for as long as possible.
"Sagittarius," she said.
I pulled out the horoscope column I had torn from the paper and glanced at it, holding it slightly away because I had forgotten my glasses again.
SAGITTARIUS Beware of a mysterious stranger. Money matters could be rather better than they have been for a while. You will look for Macquarie Island in the atlas.
Nothing much to go on there. Trust her to give her own sign something innocuous, if rather baffling.
I decided to go for broke. If this was all a funny ha-ha hoax on her part, now was not the time to hold back.
"I found a sausage in my vanity basin this morning," I said.
Ever had that feeling halfway through saying something that you should never have opened your mouth in the first place? Like, the person you're speaking to suddenly retreats a million miles away and you're left with your mouth flapping and these idiotic words spewing forth and you feel completely alone and ridiculous, but you can't stop yourself? Yeah? So did I, just then. I wanted to shut up after about sausage but my brain was having trouble getting the message to my mouth. At the end of the sentence I watched Joanna from the wrong end of a telescope, all small and yet perfectly clear, sitting there staring back at me, or rather at a point in the air between us. Electrical impulses shot from my brain down to my legs saying Get me up and out of here, you stupid bastards. But nothing happened.
Joanna looked like her own brain was doing something similar, but of course this was her house, and it would be silly if she ran out of her own door, so she just sat there. Ten thousand years later she said:
"I see. And...?"
It was really clever the way she worked those dots in before the question mark. No kidding, they were there. I could hear them.
"And," I said, "I was wondering how you knew."
This just seemed to make things worse. The first signs of complete stupefaction appeared on Joanna's face: a tiny crinkling of the brow and a drawing together of the extremities of the mouth. Irrelevantly, I felt a burning desire for a cup of coffee and a chocolate biscuit.
"Knew what?" she asked eventually.
"That I was going to find..."
I trailed off. This was pointless. Everything I said sounded totally stupid. I knew that this was normal for a lot of people, but I hardly counted myself among them. Nevertheless, I tried again.
"Your horoscope said Leos would find sausages."
I held the newspaper clipping out to her. My hand trembled slightly. She took the clipping, cast her eyes down it. She smiled. It started out as sort of lopsided grin and grew from there. I felt suddenly better. She finished reading it and looked at me.
"Where did you get this?" she asked.
"This morning's paper," I said. "Your column."
"I didn't write this."
The African mask on the wall suddenly took my attention. He was a big, ugly dude with bones and feathers coming out of his nose and ears. Nasty if you had a cold. I felt a sudden affinity with him: we were both out of place and ridiculous. I glanced back at Joanna. She was sitting there, one hand holding the clipping, her head to one side, a puzzled-to-say-the-least expression on her face. She thought this was a joke. But that's exactly what I thought too, so we were both getting nowhere.
I broke the silence at last with: "You didn't write that?"
"No," she said. "I mean, it looks like my column, but that isn't what I wrote. Where did you get this?"
"Out of the paper this morning."
I wanted to grab the clipping back, but she was still reading it.
"It's certainly...very...interesting."
Those dots again. Her voice, I concluded, was most expressive. The word nuance came to my mind in a single leap of blinding articulation.
The next sentence that came to mind was, of course, If you didn't write this, who did? but I hesitated to say it. If she had known, she would have said so, I suppose.
"I wouldn't write crap like this," she continued. "Give me a minute."
She stood up and left the room. The mask and I stared at each other for a minute. He said nothing. Neither did I. Joanna returned with a newspaper before the silence grew awkward. It was open at her column. She handed it to me. I cursed again that I had forgotten my glasses and read the blur for Leo that she graciously indicated with one immaculately manicured fingernail.
LEO Business affairs are likely to occupy your time this week, but make sure you don't let greed dictate your actions. Be careful with money and you should have few problems. The colours red and purple are lucky.
Of all the non-verbal expressions that people find so useful in everyday communications, the one I uttered after reading this was the ever-popular Hmm. I read Sagittarius, Joanna's sign.
SAGITTARIUS Romance is indicated with Venus in your sign this month. Be careful, though, that you don't rush into anything. Consider carefully what others tell you. Yellow and red are lucky.
"I think," said Joanna graciously, "that someone is playing a joke on you."
I had to admit, it seemed that way. "But how?" I asked. "I mean, who?"
I immediately thought of one person who might do such a thing: Jack. But there had been no time. He had only broken up with me last night. Besides, I was the wounded party, not him. I was the one who should be exacting revenge. I did the only thing possible in the circumstances.
"I'm sorry," I said. "I must have made a mistake."
I started to leave. That is, I had unbent my legs to a 45o angle with my head thrust forward and on its way up, when Joanna spoke again, stopping me.
"Wait on, it's not that simple."
I fell back onto the sofa. It made a soft plplplplpl noise. I hoped this was usual, and not just me. Joanna went on.
"I don't appreciate people making fun of what I do," she said. Her puzzled expression had matured into a frown.
"I'm not making fun of you," I said defensively. "Someone's making fun of me."
"Lots of people believe in astrology, you know."
"I know. I mean, I don't, but obviously some people aren't as...that is, they don't have..."
Joanna's frown deepened. My internal censor shoved a note into my mental suggestion box.
Shut up now, it said.
But I was never one for taking my own advice. "Perhaps if I started at the beginning," I suggested. "Give me ten minutes, then throw me out if you like."
"All right."
The truly marvellous thing was that by the time I had finished, Joanna had produced coffee and we were sitting together on the sofa and I felt a lot better, if no more enlightened. The main reason for this was that Joanna, besides being drop-dead lovely and apparently well-off financially, was also a very good listener, even if she didn't give the appearance of total belief. Apart from making the coffee (which was extremely good coffee), she sat there in silence and at least acted as if she was interested. I also felt better explaining things to someone.
I finished my tale with the disposal of the second sausage, which had joined the first down the garbage disposal before I had left to catch the 305 bus to Joanna's side of town.
Joanna was now sitting with her feet up on the chair, her knees tucked under her chin, hands wrapped around her ankles, holding her skirt close. I liked the look of the silver bangle on her right wrist, a kind of snaky thing with runic sort of symbols on it. I made a mental note:
MEMO: Remember to ask Joanna where she got her bangle.
I took another sip of coffee as a full stop to the end of my story and waited. I had no doubt that Joanna had assumed charge of the situation. Normally, that would have irritated me, but not now. Another interesting thing about her character, I guess. There had to be something wrong with her, I thought. She was too bloody perfect.
"Who got the paper this morning?" she asked. From the tone of her voice I could imagine her pulling out a Meerschaum pipe and deerstalker hat. Perhaps she believed me, perhaps not. Whatever, at least she wasn't showing me the door.
"Heather," I said. "But she didn't do it."
"How can you be sure? She's your only suspect. She could have planted the sausage."
"The first one she could have," I said. "But not the second. That appeared after she left."
"Whoever it was must have accomplices at the paper. You saw the whole paper, you said, not just the clipping?"
The interrogation went on for some time, but I didn't mind. Joanna was helping, even though we could not solve the mystery. At least two minds were working on it now.
After a while I began hoping Joanna would mention something about food as well as the coffee. My stomach had decided lunch was a good idea, and who was I to argue? The thought flashed through my mind that perhaps I should ask Joanna to lunch as a sort of compensation for the trouble I had put her to. Fortunately, something happened before my conscience could force me to make this uncharacteristically social step.
Joanna broke off from her questioning and stared down at her coffee cup. She put three fingers into it and pulled out a pork sausage.
The end of the sausage dripped with coffee. We both stared at it for a moment, then Joanna squealed (ha! I knew there was something: she squeals like a little girl) and dropped the sausage.
It lay on the living room floor, writhing in that same way the first one had done in my vanity basin. Then it stopped.
"See?" I said. "Happens to me all the time."
I was feeling really good now. I had a witness.
Joanna was marvellous. Apart from that one little squeal, for which I have long ago forgiven her, she did not lose control of the situation.
"This," she said, "is not going down the garbage disposal. It's similar to the others you've seen?"
"As far as I'm aware, it could be the same one. But then, if you've seen one pork sausage..."
I stopped before stating the obvious.
\*\*\*
Time passed. Joanna and I stood together, united, at the desk of Bob Kirke, the Editor of that ridiculous scandal sheet The Trumpet. He was loud, with unsightly sweat marks under his armpits and a chain-smoking habit that would bring joy to a cardiologist.
"I'm busy," he said without looking up, as we stood at the door to his office.
"Hello, Bob," said Joanna, but there was no warmth in her voice.
He noticed us then, sighed inwardly, and gave a small shrug.
"Joanna Clifford," he said. "What can I do for you?" At least, those are the words he used. His tone implied that anything that even approached asking for a favour would be met with a stern refusal.
I figured if you were that bad-tempered at this hour of the morning, you needed to find another job.
"This is Emily Branwell," said Joanna. "She found this in her paper this morning." And she placed the clipping from the paper on Bob's desk.
We waited while he read it.
"Good one," he chuckled. "Who did this?"
"We don't know," I replied.
"Says here I'm going to choke on an egg sandwich. And I'll meet some stranger or something."
Joanna nodded. "Could someone have printed a fake issue of the paper?"
Bob shook his head. "No way. Are there more like this?"
"Just that single copy as far as we know," I said, determined to enter the conversation somehow.
He looked at me suspiciously, as if trying to decide if I was some sort of joke myself. After a moment he slid the clipping back across the desk.
"I wouldn't have a clue," he said. "Nothing to do with me. Looks like someone's just trying to be funny." As if to emphasise his point, he gave another small chuckle.
"I don't appreciate anyone trying to mock my column," persisted Joanna.
"Mock your column?" His phone rang. Bob spun around on his chair and lifted the receiver. "No one has to mock your column," he continued. "It's a crock of shit anyway."
"Enjoy your sandwich," I said as we left his office, since Joanna seemed unable to find the right words for a moment.
But she wasn't finished at the paper. She had other friends there, among the journalists and secretaries. None of them had seen any bogus copies of the day's edition, however, nor did they know of any clandestine tampering with the print run.
We left the building and went back to her car.
I was almost prepared to drop the whole thing. An unlikely notion entered my head that all this was an elaborate global conspiracy designed to give me an excuse not to finish my Thackeray essay, but I knew that was mere paranoia. Unfortunately.
Joanna asked me what I wanted to do. I was keen to pursue investigations, since my mind still seethed with questions. What was going on? Why were sausages randomly appearing? Why sausages? Why pork ones? What did the fake horoscope have to do with it? Why me?
Joanna said that the answers to these questions existed, but we would have to wait for them. Being a Leo, she added, I was by nature prone to regarding myself as more important than others. I replied that since I seemed to be the only person affected by these things, that was a fairly understandable point of view, no matter what star sign you were. All the sausages appeared in my presence, I added. Had I become some sort of meat magnet?
"A meat magnet?" she asked. "That's an interesting way of looking at it."
She laughed.
I was glad she did. We might have started arguing otherwise. I had this feeling that Joanna was going to become a good friend. She was taking this whole thing rather well. I was a little more hysterical but hey, that's just me. Joanna dropped me off at my home and told me to let her know if any other mysterious things happened. I said okay, but I hoped nothing would. We swapped phone numbers.
I was a little cautious as I opened the door. I half expected to see pork sausages filling the hall.
But there was nothing.
I mean that literally. There was nothing. The house was empty. No furniture. No carpet. No light fittings. Bare boards throughout the entire place. Absolutely nothing.
Even the paint was gone from the walls.
All in all, not a good day.
\*\*\*
My bum hurt.
After sitting on bare wooden boards (see above description of empty house) for several hours, pondering the infinite mysteries of the universe and having a bit of a cry about half way through, the only conclusion I had arrived at was that my bum hurt.
It was the only thing I was sure about. That, and the fact that I had absolutely nothing left in the world apart from my clothes and the $4004.65 that I had sensibly taken with me when I went to see Joanna.
Bruno had been outside, thank goodness, and hadn't vanished with everything else. I patted him absent-mindedly as he alternately licked his paws and stared around at the stripped house. I thought I could detect a rebuke in his expression. Never mind the furniture, he seemed to say, my toy mouse is missing. What are you going to do about that? I wished I had his purely feline priorities.
My life sucked. Jack, the sausages, and now this. Heather was going to be pissed. The landlord was really going to be pissed. How could I possibly explain this to anyone?
ME: Sorry, I went out and when I came back the interior of the house was gone.
ANYONE: Oh that's all right, Emily, these things happen. Here, have a chocolate biscuit.
That was the problem. Apparently, these things did happen. But why were they happening to me?
My computer was gone, of course. I could see the ends of the wires where the plug had been attached on the wall. Whatever had cleaned the house out had stopped at the inside. I would have phoned Joanna straight away, only for some strange reason my mobile's battery had died. I had to go to a public phone to call her now and my body was not yet capable of that much physical action. Besides, I had this hesitation about calling Joanna again so soon. One mysterious unexplained phenomenon per day was enough for a new acquaintance. Like anybody, I could be a nuisance occasionally, but I didn't want to be a persistent one.
The kitchen and bathroom were a mess: taps, sinks and bath had all gone, with water spraying from the severed pipes. I had rushed outside and turned off the water main. It was when I got back to the kitchen I noticed that not everything in the house had vanished.
Mike was still there.
In his pot. On his saucer.
Surrounded by the empty house and the water.
Strange...
The water had not been pouring out for very long. There had been a couple of minutes while I stood in a state of shock looking at the nothing that filled the house, then the mad dash out into the garden to find the water main: maybe five minutes in all. The water heater was not yet empty. I still had enough wits about me, as I sat there getting a sore bum, to conclude that whatever had happened to the house had happened just as I arrived home. Perhaps in the few seconds I had stood outside fumbling for my key.
I hadn't heard anything. I hadn't seen anything. But the water clue told me that the Great Removal had taken place as I entered the house. That was the scariest thing of all. Had I been a few seconds earlier, would I have vanished too? Or did the whole thing happen because I arrived? It was the finest example of the chicken/egg conundrum I'd ever encountered.
I seemed to be the focus of whatever was going on. And I hadn't even asked.
I stood up and paced the bare rooms. My bedroom was the tidiest it had ever been. My books were gone, my bed (my lovely, precious bed!), my clothes, my guitar, my CDs. I had collected cat statues all my life: I had about a hundred of them, ceramic, wooden, cloth, metal -- they were all gone, as was the glass-fronted cabinet in which they were displayed. My life had been reduced to a bare wooden cube. It all looked so sad and forlorn. I couldn't stand it any longer. Making sure that Bruno had the run of the back garden, just in case whatever had stolen the house came back for more, I headed out the gate and down the street to the garage on the corner where there was a public phone.
I never reached it.
About twenty metres before the garage, I heard a scream of brakes and the unmistakable sound of two large metal objects colliding. I was so used to sudden occurrences by then I was almost tempted not to turn round. But I had to know just how close I had come to being killed. Besides, deep down was the thought that maybe someone else had been. So I looked.
Two cars -- a Mazda hatchback and one of those urban four-wheel drives popular among the asset-rich who never actually take their off-road vehicles off-road -- had met in a nose-to-tail sort of way that looked expensive. A young man stepped out of the Mazda and looked at the back of his car. The man in the four-wheel drive stared up at the sky. I wondered for a moment if he was injured, you know, broken neck type of thing, but he was gazing fixedly upwards so intently that despite the vehicular carnage I felt obliged to follow his gaze.
It didn't take more than a second to find out what he was staring at.
The sky had been ripped apart. Right down the centre was a black tear, through which the stars were shining. The sun was off to the right, thermonuclearising just as brightly as always, apparently in total ignorance of the fact that night was breaking through right beside it. The tear was jagged, like someone had taken both sides of the sky and given a good pull.
"Look what you did to my car!" the Mazda driver complained.
"Look at that!" the other driver yelled.
The Mazda driver did. He stopped complaining and started frowning. With both of them looking up I surreptitiously kicked into the gutter the two sausages that had appeared on the footpath. Wouldn't want anyone slipping on them.
"You guys ok?" I asked as nonchalantly as one can while the sky is being destroyed. Hey, someone may as well stay calm in a crisis, and I didn't know anyone else I could trust at that moment. Besides, it was just a tear. It wasn't as if actual bits of sky were falling on top of us. Now that would have been scary.
"Look at that!" the drivers said in unison, one in A flat, the other a third higher. It sounded harmonious, despite the strident overtones.
Several other people had by now appeared and were craning their necks at the tear, mouths open. I was the only person not walking around like a sideshow clown.
The four-wheel driver had recovered sufficiently to apologise to the man driving the Mazda. "Sorry, mate," he said, "I was looking at that and I didn't see you."
The Mazda driver didn't appear to hear him. His car was damaged quite badly. The rear fender was pushed in, as was the panel below the hatchback. Broken plastic from the tail-lights littered the road, orange and red jewels on the bitumen. The four-wheeler had a bull-bar, which had prevented a lot of damage: a few scratches maybe.
People were starting to talk quite loudly now, pointing at the sky like what was up there wasn't bloody obvious, or shading their eyes with their hands -- a far more intelligent gesture. More people were emerging along the street. I guess the same thing was happening all over the city, maybe all over the country.
Noises, rising in volume as more people joined in, a symphony of street sounds around a theme of uncertainty:
- a police siren wailing away a few blocks off;
- dogs barking;
- mobile phones starting to ring in a dozen pockets at once;
- oohs and ahhs;
and the endless repetition of "What is that?"
I looked up the street and noticed Heather, wheeling her bike along, the back tyre flapping flatly. She, like everyone else, was staring up at the sky. She almost bumped into me. I put one hand on her handlebars and grinned.
"How's your day been?" I asked.
She noticed me, and I could tell she was a little scared. And who could blame her? I must have been quite a sight by then.
"Emily..." she began, and then stopped.
"You want to know what's going on," I filled in. "I don't know." I pointed to her bike. "Got a flat tyre, I see."
She frowned, wrinkling that broad brow of hers as she continued to look at the gash in the wide blue yonder. I glanced up at it for the first time in five minutes. It was still there. I could not explain why, but I was feeling little surprise about the whole event. It seemed almost natural, given the other things that had happened to me that morning. I was reaching a sort of surprise surfeit. Any psychologists among you can debate whether or not there is such a thing.
"Heather," I said, tapping her on the shoulder.
She glanced at me. "What?"
"You got a flat tyre."
"Yes. Coming back from the refuge. Must have been a nail."
So whoever had written those predictions in the paper had been accurate with more than just me.
"When did it happen?"
She was looking at the sky again.
"Heather," I said: louder, slower. "When did the flat tyre happen?"
"Emily, the sky..."
Someone bumped into me from behind. The street was packed now. There must have been a hundred people walking around. Cars had stopped and quite a traffic jam was in progress. The volume of noise began to peak. The crowd became edgy as a distinct wedge of fear started to drive its way through it.
Then, to everyone's infinite relief, the tear started to repair itself. It contracted, the ends down near the horizon creeping gradually towards the zenith. The middle part, which had initially looked a couple of centimetres wide from the ground, became narrower. I looked steadily upwards then, and in five minutes the tear had shrunk to a hole, which slowly closed over and everything was nice and blue again. A cloud drifted across the last bit of blackness before the final healing took place. I thought I caught a glimpse of a single star twinkling brightly just as the hole closed over, but maybe it was just my imagination. My eyes were starting to hurt by then, staring up at the bright sky for so long.
The crowd's noise, which had died down during the disappearance, started up again. The ugly, scared mood had not subsided. For once, I agreed with it.
I turned to Heather. "Let's go back to the house," I said. "You're going to love it."
The unreality of it all had not yet sunk in. My words fell strangely from my mouth, as if my whole life had become a movie or a stage play, and I was watching this piece of theatre as an audience member, not an actor.
(SCENE: The living room of EMILY's perfectly bare house. Stage right, HEATHER, sitting on the floor, with MIKE THE PLANT beside her. Stage left, EMILY, pacing back and forth, while BRUNO THE CAT sits stage centre and licks himself. He somehow presents the image of being the most in control of the four of them.)
HEATHER: This is unbelievable.
EMILY: You think so? This is the second time today I've told someone about what's been happening and I still can't believe it either.
HEATHER: (indicating the bare room) You've checked? Everything's gone?
EMILY: Everything except Mike.
(HEATHER detects a note of sarcasm in EMILY's voice. She closes her eyes in a condescending way and pulls Mike a fraction of a centimetre closer.)
HEATHER: All my stuff?
EMILY: Yes. Everything. I told you.
HEATHER: But this is impossible!
(BRUNO crosses to MIKE and sniffs at his leaves. The cat wrinkles his nose and turns away. He walks to the kitchen door and sits, silently contemplating the loss of his food bowl.)
EMILY: Of course it's impossible! But it's happening!
HEATHER: Okay, okay. Calm down, jeez, it's not my fault.
EMILY: No. It's mine. Somehow, it's mine. Ever since I woke up this morning, ever since the sausage in the basin. And now it seems the world is coming to an end. And it's linked to me.
HEATHER: Do you think it's safe to be in here? I mean, as you say, the whatever-it-is might come back for more.
EMILY: I don't know. I hope it does. Maybe then I'll find out what's going on.
(HEATHER shifts uneasily, glancing around.)
But somehow I don't think it will. Maybe not yet. Or maybe not in the same way. Although I'm still finding sausages.
(EMILY reaches into her pocket and extracts a slimy sausage. She drops it on the floor and they both watch it squirm briefly. Long pause, long enough to make the audience shift in their seats, wondering if someone forgot a line.)
HEATHER: Maybe Mike didn't vanish because he's organic. You know, maybe only objects were taken, not living things.
EMILY: I thought of that, but what about his pot and saucer? And you'll notice our food has gone too. Not a scrap of anything left. This thing didn't seem very selective.
HEATHER: (on the verge of tears) So what happens now?
EMILY: Now, I think I should do nothing.
HEATHER: Nothing?
EMILY: Well this whole thing seems to be linked to me. When did you get that flat tyre?
(HEATHER pauses. A shocked look comes over her face. She twitches her eyebrows.)
HEATHER: Just outside the house. I saw you walking towards the phone box, and felt my back tyre deflate suddenly. Then those two cars hit each other. I was going to see if they were all right, then noticed they were looking at the sky. I did too and saw -
EMILY: Exactly. When you saw me you ran over a nail. And what did your horoscope say this morning?
(EMILY holds out the horoscope , now greasy with sausage fat.)
"You will have a flat tyre."
HEATHER: But this is stupid!
EMILY: Of course it is. But let's do nothing. I don't want anyone getting hurt. Who knows what's happened as a result of the rip in the sky? Panic no doubt. What we saw in our own street was probably mild compared to elsewhere. Wish we could get some news.
(She stares wistfully where the TV used to be.)
HEATHER: But how will doing nothing help?
EMILY: Look at the horoscope. It's come true for you and me. It probably will for everyone I come into contact with. The next one could be something really drastic. If these things happen only when I'm around, I don't want anyone getting hurt.
(HEATHER grabs the clipping from EMILY and scans it quickly.)
HEATHER: Reading Faust? Russian gymnasts?
EMILY: Don't forget the uninhibited sex.
HEATHER: I don't see how anyone could get hurt with most of these.
EMILY: Put yourself in my place. They're creepy. I don't want them happening!
HEATHER: But none of them says "you will die" or anything. The worst is probably AQUARIUS: "You will have a slight headache." Do we know any Aquariuses?
EMILY Aquarians. I don't know!
HEATHER: Emily, we have to do something!
(Pause. The silence is broken only by BRUNO sniffing at the sausage on the floor and then grabbing it in his teeth. EMILY makes a move to stop him, but halts, watching fascinated as BRUNO bites off the end of the sausage and starts chewing. He shuts his eyes as he swallows, then proceeds to eat the rest of it. The two women wait as if expecting something to happen. Nothing. The rest of the sausage vanishes between the cat's jaws.)
EMILY: I guess it really is sausage.
HEATHER: We should have kept that. Had it analysed or something.
EMILY: Bruno just analysed it. No animal would eat anything that was going to harm it. They have an instinct about these things. I guarantee you, it's sausage. Besides, I think there'll be plenty more where that came from.
HEATHER: And the sky -- what was all that about?
EMILY: Maybe that's where all the sausages are coming from.
HEATHER: What?
EMILY: Well, look at everything: astrology -- admittedly not scientific, but it has to do with the sky, right? - the split sky... maybe they're connected. They have to be connected. Nothing like that could happen and not be connected. So maybe the sausages are coming from the sky.
(HEATHER regards EMILY carefully, and across her face passes a curious expression that hints that a cup of tea and a good lie down might be in order. BRUNO licks his paws. If the stereo still existed, it could play some dramatic chords.)
BLACKOUT
\*\*\*
I saw myself on the evening news.
Of course, the television set had gone from our house, but that was no great loss as far as I was concerned. Heather, however, would miss it quite a bit, addicted as she was to the slightest crap that the media magnates thrust upon the unsuspecting populace. Do they imagine we're stupid or something?
Don't answer that.
As I said, I saw myself on the evening news. I watched it at Joanna's house. Heather had gone to her parents' place in, I have to confess, rather an upset state. She had taken Mike the Plant with her. I had Bruno. Fortunately, Joanna loved cats.
Joanna had not seen the split sky, having been in the shower at the time. I forgave her. She had no opinion yet about what had happened, and seemed strangely calm. I guessed she was used to dealing with unusual events. The books in her home library dealt largely with unexplained phenomena, ghosts, astrology, the occult, that sort of thing. They freaked me out.
But, as I said, I was on television. My fifteen minutes of fame actually lasted less than three seconds, so I guess the remaining fourteen minutes and fifty-seven point something seconds will be along later. It was all quite interesting. Apparently there had been some guy with a camcorder on the scene -- actually in one of the houses on the street -- when the sky had torn in two and he captured a few moments. (Ever notice there is always someone with a camera whenever some major event is going on? A landslide, a crashing aeroplane, whatever: someone is always there, camcorder in hand, calmly filming the death and destruction. Maybe he was trying to capture a bit of "real-life TV" and have his fifteen minutes of fame by selling the results. Maybe. Perhaps he was just doing something unspeakable in the privacy of his own home.)
And I appeared in it, one of the people hanging around the street after the cars had collided. Incidentally, I am conspicuous as the only person looking at the cars and hoping the drivers were all right, rather than staring up at the sky. I hope whoever hands out the karma was watching.
But of course the camera then swung up and the jagged split across the blue dominated the scene from that point.
But the story had, as the journalists say, broken.
There was a scientist at the end of the news item saying that everyone should stay calm and that even though he didn't have the slightest clue as to what was going on, there was no doubt a perfectly satisfactory scientific explanation for it all. The end of the world, he announced with a slightly superior smile, was not about to happen.
I must confess this made me feel a bit better. I had my doubts up to that point. He was quite a good-looking scientist too, Dr Max Fisher from the Brisbane Planetarium. He exuded, if that is the right word, confidence. Actually, I don't think it is the right word. It makes it sound like the stuff was oozing out of him in a yucky way. Actually it sort of surrounded him in a warm glow that probably would have looked even better had he taken his shirt off. That sort of confidence. The sort that a girl could get interested in.
"Crap," said Joanna.
I tore my gaze away from Dr Fisher's body to acknowledge Joanna's remark with a carefully considered "Huh?"
"'A perfectly satisfactory scientific explanation'," she scoffed. "This is patently supernatural."
"And what about this not being the end of the world?" I asked. "Is that crap too?"
"I think we're safe enough on that score. There'd be a few more signs about something like that."
"Like what? The sky splitting in half isn't enough?"
She sighed loudly. "I would have seen something in the stars." Her tone indicated that any further doubt on my part would not be appreciated.
So presumably the planets still spun as they always had, and no ominous conjunctions or oppositions or foreboding comets had announced dire news.
I glanced back at Dr Fisher and thought briefly how at that very moment the uncountable billions of electrons that formed his image on the television were plunging through my body. Somewhere deep inside a seldom exercised, but unmistakably libidinous, part of me broke out in a heated sweat at the thought.
"Well," I said. "I hope you're right."
I had been having doubts myself, as I said. I still felt enormously central to all this, and I was wondering, too, if I should say something to someone. Maybe to Dr Max Fisher, over coffee. Or dinner. With my luck, he was married.
"He never knows what's under his nose," Joanna continued. "I keep telling him, but he never listens."
Jealousy appeared in the form of a huge green-eyed monster that leaped out of the closet, grabbed me and threw me into its mouth, swallowing me down in one huge gulp. I desperately fought against it, trying to force my way out of its digestive system before I was dissolved completely.
"You know Dr Max Fisher?" I asked.
"He's my cousin."
The monster spat me out again. I landed, sticky and covered in hydrochloric acid, on the living room floor.
"Your cousin. I see. Quite a coincidence."
Joanna shrugged. "They always drag him out whenever anything needs to be explained up there." She pointed to the ceiling. "Actually, he and I have never agreed on anything in our entire lives. He's a scientist, you see."
The word scientist sounded like she was spitting out a bad bit of cheese.
"But does he know much about astronomy?" I asked.
She shrugged. "Astronomy, yes. Astrology, not a clue. He thinks he does, though. Tries to tell me about the precession of the equinoxes. Or there are thirteen signs of the zodiac instead of twelve. As if it had anything to do with astrology. Though he does put on some good shows at the Planetarium, I must admit."
The news report had said that the split sky had been visible over a good section of the Earth, running roughly north to south between longitudes 152ºE and 165ºE. It had been seen as far south as Macquarie Island and had certainly protruded to some extent into the Northern hemisphere. And that was all anyone knew about it. Except that, according to Dr Max Fisher at the Planetarium, it wasn't the end of the world.
But was it the end of me?
"I think I'd like to talk with your cousin," I said. "Can I do that?"
Joanna had the atlas on her knee and was trying to work out how far the sky had been split on the world map. "Where's Macquarie Island?" she said. "Don't worry, I found it. Yes, I suppose so. I'll give him a ring."
(That's why I liked Joanna. She Got Things Done, even if she did ignore the precession of the equinoxes -- not that I knew what that was myself until I looked it up. I just wish the astrologers were consistent about things: when Uranus, Neptune and Pluto were discovered, they somehow managed to include them in their calculations. But update the fact that the Earth now points in a different direction than it did 3000 years ago? No, that would be too much to ask.)
\*\*\*
I hate sleeping with women. Well, to put it more correctly, I hate waking up with them beside me. I have done so on the odd occasion throughout my life: sleepovers with girlfriends from school when we spent half the night giggling and talking about boys; once at my grandmother's when I had to share with a distant cousin because there weren't enough beds. That sort of thing. But I don't hate it because I'm rampantly heterosexual and the thought of close physical proximity with a woman makes me cringe. I'm hardly in a position to criticise anyone's sex life. No, the problem is me.
I go loose in the night. Somehow, all the different parts of my body relax during sleep and fail to rally sufficiently once consciousness returns. My skin sags and my eyes accumulate wrinkles like the trenches of Dante's Nether Hell. My hair, in contrast, becomes almost violently active and each separate strand goes on its own nocturnal journey in a different direction from all the others. I wake up looking like a witch. Now, a man is not so fussy about whom he wakes up next to; women tend to cast judgments on their bed partners. Hence my aversion to being seen by another woman in the unforgiving light of dawn.
Joanna had been very kind in letting me sleep in her bed instead of the sofa that was apparently fun to sit in but dreadful to sleep on. Nevertheless, I wished she had a spare bed. But she used one of the spare bedrooms as a study and the other as a library. Of course, she woke up next to me looking absolutely stunning, which wasn't fair.
"Morning," she said. I tried to roll over and ignore that she was apparently as much a morning person as I was not. I was surprised she had not grimaced more at encountering The Hag lying next to her.
But her happy mood dissolved when she stepped out of the bed. There was a pause, and, in a voice that sounded like she was trying to stay very, very calm, she said, "The bedroom's full of sausages."
Now, that was not literally true. If the room had been full of sausages we would of course have been buried under them. They didn't even come up to the bottom of the bed. But there were hundreds of them that had appeared during the night. All over the floor. Arranged like soldiers across the polished floorboards. On top of the wardrobes. In my shoes.
"I've had enough of this," I said.
It took a long time to clean up the bedroom. I did it by myself, feeling somewhat responsible. Or somewhat irresponsible, depending on one's view of the situation. But, I thought, if the room was full of sausages it was, at least, full of something, and there had been no Great Removal of Joanna's belongings while I slept.
At least not yet. Perhaps it was something to look forward to.
Things became worse when Joanna tried to cast her horoscopes for next week. I heard a little scream from her study and ran in, thinking maybe something heavy had fallen on her (never let it be said I can't whip up a crisis from the most paltry of events), only to find her staring at her laptop and desperately clicking the mouse buttons.
She used a computer to do the horoscopes. It saved time and the necessity of keeping a huge book full of boring figures and rising and setting times of stars and planets and stuff about nodes and phases. At least that's what I called it. Joanna called it an ephemeris. She had a computer program for doing that sort of thing, but it wasn't working today.
"The computer's ok," she said with a wail. "But the program's screwed. Look at that."
I looked. There was a picture of Mars and underneath it some numbers in two columns, one headed Right Ascension and the other Declination, only the first were in hours and minutes and the second was in degrees and minutes and couldn't they be a bit more consistent?
"Looks -- um - yes. I see what you mean," I said vaguely, hoping I sounded at least slightly intelligent.
Dismal failure.
"Those numbers give the current position of Mars," she said. "But Mars can't be there. It's on the other side of the Sun at the moment."
That seemed a good place to be myself. Or even further.
\*\*\*
I left Joanna desperately trying to salvage the program and headed off to the Planetarium. I had a theory forming that, as soon as I was out of the vicinity, her computer would return to normal. I hoped so. I felt bad.
On the way I indulged in some retail therapy and bought some clothes with the $4,000.00 I still had. My wardrobe quadrupled its contents within a very short time, considering all I owned in the world was what I was wearing. Joanna had offered to lend me some of hers, but I had imposed enough. Besides, I was in desperate need of bras and knickers, and I wasn't about to borrow those.
I took a bus to the Toowong Cemetery, walking the remaining few hundred yards up Mt Coot-tha Road to the Planetarium, carrying my shopping bag of clothes. There had been a threat of rain all morning, and it had started to come down in buckets (or, more correctly, bucketfuls) just as I entered the gates to the Botanic Gardens. The Sir Thomas Brisbane Planetarium was a white dome a short way inside the gates, and I ran through the downpour to the entrance.
The foyer was dark, the sole occupant being the man behind the ticket counter. Backlit, poster-sized slides of all sorts of astronomical phenomena decorated the walls. I looked for Mars among them, remembering it from the image I had seen on Joanna's computer (my total knowledge of astronomy) but I did not see it anywhere. The slides seemed to be mostly taken up with lots of star fields with coloured clouds behind them. The legends under the posters called these clouds "nebulae". They looked out of place to me. Wasn't space supposed to be black? And what were they doing behind the stars? Maybe Max Fisher could explain it.
My appointment with Dr Fisher was for 1.00 pm, his lunch hour. The man behind the counter pointed down the corridor when I asked where his office was. As the few remaining minutes passed, I checked that my new white top was not too wrinkled and my new light green skirt was flounced out enough. Normally I hate to appear too girly, but this was an emergency. The world was at stake. I also made a quick check to make sure there were no stray sausages lying around. I'd left a couple on the bus.
I went along to the door marked Dr M. J. Fisher, MSc, PhD, Director. (Impressive. He should know something). I knocked.
"Come in," said his voice. I knew it was his: I'd heard it on the television last night. It was still full of that confidence with which he had scoffed at the idea of the world coming to an end. It was a voice that perfectly matched the rugged good looks I had seen on the news.
I opened the door. He was sitting behind his desk. At least, I think there was a desk there. There was a lot of paper, some photos, a laptop, and a mobile phone, together with the usual office junk like paper clips and an open diary. He could have been busy with all of it, except he was leaning back in his chair, chewing. He held a curried egg sandwich in one hand and a plastic bottle of water in the other.
"You must be Emily," he said, spitting tan-coloured egg at me.
Charming. He looked slightly less desirable in real life. Maybe I didn't want him to be the father of my children after all.
Then he choked, shifted in his chair, lost his balance and fell onto the floor. Some of the egg must have gone down the wrong way. I had this horrible view of his mouth wide open, dripping egg while he coughed. He took a drink from his bottle of water.
"I don't usually do that to people," I said.
The famous Branwell wit worked its usual charm, which is to say, none at all. He was still too asphyxiated to laugh. That's my excuse.
I watched him struggle for life while I compared my former vision of him with the reality. He was shorter than he seemed on television, but then everybody is. His dark hair that had been neatly combed for the camera was now a little too unruly. And his image was in no way helped by the 1970's-style department store shirt he was wearing. It was a bit of a letdown. Still, coming as I was from less than forty-eight hours after an emotional break-up, perhaps my imagination had aimed too high.
"Hello," I said, because I refuse to say "Hi."
He finished choking and was looking at me from the floor. Actually, gaping is probably a better word. It took a few seconds to realise that there was something wrong. I did that thing of looking over both shoulders to see if the man with the gun was standing behind me to my left or my right, but there was no one there. Which meant it was me. Like when you're standing in a crowded elevator and someone has BO and you look at everyone in that accusing way, until you realise that everyone is looking right back at you and the awful truth hits that the olfactory assault is your own doing. Not that it has ever happened to me, of course.
So I looked down at myself.
I could understand now why he had choked.
My body was made of stars, with nebulae in the background. I looked like one of the posters in the foyer: swirling clouds, behind a spray of stars, and darkness between them.
Then the vision of space vanished; I was made of me again, with the white top and the green skirt and all that they contained, which was infinitely more comforting than burning spheres of gas, let me tell you.
"Sorry about that," I said after a moment.
I helped Max as he scrambled quickly to his feet, as if he had suddenly realised the indignity of his position on the floor. After all, he was a PhD and I was a humble undergraduate who was not worthy of carrying his pencil case. He righted his chair and sat down.
"Are you ok?" I asked. There was half a sandwich in his hand, but it was squashed now and there were bits of egg on the quiet grey carpet.
He nodded slowly. He was still staring hard, as if expecting me to do my trick again. I was starting to feel uncomfortable under his gaze.
"Are you...?" he muttered. At least that's what I think he said. His lips hardly moved. There was a pause.
Am I what? Intelligent? Attractive? Human?
"Emily Branwell," I confirmed. "You got it right the first time." I held out a hand to shake his.
He took it a little hesitantly, as if unsure I was solid. But there were no more stars or coloured clouds or vast tracts of unfathomable vacuum to be seen. My body had returned to its usual self. I smoothed my skirt down and sat opposite him.
"Sorry for the unusual entrance," I said.
"What?" he asked. He had recovered somewhat now, was probably even trying to dismiss the whole incident as a mistake. After all, it's not every day a galaxy walks in the door, even at the Planetarium. There was, as he no doubt would have put it, a perfectly satisfactory scientific explanation.
"This is just the tip of the iceberg," I said, sinking into cliché because I had nowhere else to go. "But whatever happened just now, I missed most of it. It looked as if I just turned into stars, right?"
He nodded. "You opened the door and as soon as you stepped in, you -- I don't know, faded - or vanished - and there was just an outline of you filled with stars. I could see the rest of the room around you, but you were like a patch of space."
"Recognise any of the stars?"
"Sorry?"
"You're an astronomer. Did you recognise what stars they were?"
"No. Just stars. I didn't...there were nebulae I think, but I didn't get a good look at them. It was only for a moment. There were no recognisable features."
He was starting to talk like a scientist at last.
"Then what happened?"
"Well, nothing. You were standing there. Then - then you were you again. Has this happened before?"
"No. First time." I tried to sound casual, to prove that I was in charge of my emotions as well as he.
He ran his hands through his hair. It helped to smooth the unruly mop and improved his appearance. Then, as if the gesture had dispelled the vision of a moment before, he smiled and leaned forward in his chair, as if daring it to topple him again.
"Want to get some coffee?" he asked.
I nodded. "Ok. Thanks."
I was taking it all very calmly. But what had happened to me? A patch of space? I hadn't felt a thing. Yet I couldn't help looking down at myself, just to check I was all still there. I was. That was something at least.
\*\*\*
The coffee shop was in another part of the Botanic Gardens, set among some trees and overlooking the lake. Some ducks were swimming about, quacking and splashing in the rain. We both ordered a flat white. The barista behind the counter (obligatory black t-shirt, apron and pierced eyebrow) looked a little disappointed, perhaps because he had all this high-tech coffee-making machinery banked behind his little counter and fifty-seven exotic varieties of coffee like Orange Cinnamon and Irish Cream and Kenyan Dark Roast, and all we wanted were flat whites. He looked out gloomily at the rain and dreamed of a more enlightened world.
We found a table near the ducks. Max was still a little cautious, I noticed, and kept staring at me like I was a bomb about to go off or something. (Actually, never having seen anyone looking at a bomb about to go off, I really can't say if that simile was correct.)
The rain was still pelting down. I glanced up at the sky, partly to check on it and partly as an introduction to the topic at hand, which, as usual in my conversations, was me. The clouds were matte grey, dumping water. There was no blue at all. I watched the water tumble down, following the drops as they left the sky and hit the surface of the lake. A duck shook its head and a sparkle of drops splashed off. Some of them hit another duck, which flapped its wings and stepped back a pace. Around us, the saga of life went on.
"If there's another split in the sky today," I said, "we won't get to see it."
"True," said Max. "You saw it yesterday, I take it?"
As I said, the topic of conversation was me. I had no doubt the hole in the sky and I were connected.
"I sure did," I said. "Do you have any theories?"
He picked up a spoon and tapped it against the sugar container nervously. "Only what I said last night on the news."
"But any private ideas?"
"Well..."
He shrugged. I guessed the message and decided to tell him what had happened to me since yesterday morning. He listened carefully, nodding as I wound up the tale to the moment I stepped into his office and turned into outer space. The coffees had arrived, accompanied by little pieces of dark chocolate on the side. Max loaded three teaspoons of sugar into his. I added one to mine.
"So," I said after the silence was getting a little too long, "any ideas?"
"Joanna was right on the phone," he said. "You're an interesting girl."
"Not normal then?"
He put down his coffee cup quickly.
"I'm sorry, I didn't mean --"
"It's ok. Normal's boring. Are you still convinced there's a scientific explanation?"
He raised his cup again and took a sip. "Of course. I'm a scientist. Joanna is great, but these pseudo-scientific ideas of hers will never stand up to cold, hard facts."
He had a satisfied air about himself, as if pleased he could fit the word "pseudo-scientific" into a sentence.
"You mean the astrology? What about the horoscope in the paper? What could cause that?"
"Obviously someone made up a fake paper."
"And the sausages?"
"Well, until I see one appear out of thin air I have to reserve my judgment."
"And the sky?"
"Mass hallucination. More common than you think."
He had a point there. Millions of people lived in the mistaken belief that what they saw on television was real.
"And what happened to my house?"
"You weren't there. Maybe whoever doctored the paper moved you out."
"But the paint on the walls was gone. The water pipes cut. It happened in a second, while I was standing at the front door."
"I'll go and have a look at it if you like, see if there're any clues."
"Ok. Do that. But what about when I came into your office today? How do you explain me looking like I did?"
"Again, hallucination. Maybe my egg sandwich was off, the disorientation caused by an upset stomach giving me a waking nightmare."
"You're a tough nut to crack."
He smiled. He had a bit of chocolate on his teeth. "Actually, I like to have an open mind. One that retains a position of scientific enquiry. Healthy scepticism. I don't form any real conclusions until I have hard evidence. I'm more open-minded than Joanna in that respect."
"So, if it turned out there was some sort of paranormal event going on, you'd be prepared to accept it?"
"Yes I would," he said. "But I would first seek an explanation for it that stood up to hard, scientific scrutiny. If no other explanation, based on physical laws, could be found, I would be prepared to acknowledge the existence of some other laws, as yet unknown to us, that are applicable in this case. But the event would need to conform to those laws. And if those laws are proven to exist, they are part of nature, and consequently what was identified as paranormal becomes normal. Paranormality excludes scientific investigation. Once something is explained in scientific terms, it is no longer paranormal."
I stared out at the ducks, thinking.
There are four types of ignorance:
(1) What we know we don't know. For example, we know that we don't know if there is life on other planets.
(2) What we don't know we don't know. Ignorance is bliss.
(3) What we think we know, but don't. Maybe apples don't really grow on trees, it just looks that way. We've been fooling ourselves with appearances.
(4) What we don't think we know, but do. Maybe we already possess the key to time travel. We just haven't realised it yet.
I had the feeling that all four of these could apply to my case. It was not helping. I was completely ignorant of what was causing all these effects. I knew that I didn't know. Or did I? Or was I imagining that I didn't know, and the answer was right there in front of me? Or was I misunderstanding the entire thing and something else completely different was going on? Maybe sausages weren't appearing all around me, maybe the sky had not split, and maybe I really was not looking at ducks in the rain. Was I a monk dreaming of a butterfly, or the other way around -- or were we both the dream of something else?
"Maybe I'm just nuts," I said aloud.
Max said nothing. Perhaps he was reserving his judgment on that issue. I didn't know. I guessed he was, but maybe I was wrong. I knew that I guessed, but I didn't know if what I guessed was something I knew, or something I didn't.
I gave up. There was an awful lot of ignorance in the world. I had long suspected this. What was taking me a moment longer to assimilate was that my personal degree of ignorance was on a par with that of the world at large.
"Maybe you should take a look at my house," I said. "Go over there and see for yourself."
He nodded. I was startled to see a little gleam in his eye. Perhaps he was pleased I had invited him back to my house, even if it was an empty shell.
Were his intentions purely scientific? An image flashed through my mind:
Max and I. On the floor. Doing it.
I shoved it to one side, shocked at myself. It was just too sleazy. Fortunately, he seemed to agree that business took priority.
"I have scientist friends," he said. "Certainly if what happened at your house is linked to yesterday's sky phenomenon they'll be only too happy to help. Of course, you must realise that I'm not saying that there is a link. That will require some evidence of connection."
"It's all linked as far as I'm concerned."
Even as I said this, I knew I didn't want to go back to the house with him. I couldn't face the stark vacuum of it again so soon. Since the house now contained nothing and I literally had nothing to lose, I handed the key to Max and wrote my address down on a serviette. He said he would try to get around to having a look in the next few days. He would let me know. He also said I should start Googling for some clues. No doubt there would be a lot of debate going on at the moment, inspired by yesterday's events, and maybe someone had some ideas. Yeah, right. As far as I was concerned, most of the Internet was crap. Like everything else. Any answers I found on there would be of dubious origin. But I chose to keep my mouth shut about that.
The rain had started to let up and we hurried back to the Planetarium. He said he had a show to do and asked if I wanted to stay and see it, no charge, but I thanked him and said I had better let Joanna know what was going on. He looked disappointed. Actually, I was just glad to get away from him. His glances at me had changed from scientific curiosity to a more blatant physical interest. Perhaps I had been too hasty in handing over my keys, but it was too late now.
I walked slowly back to the bus stop, not only no wiser, but even more aware of my ignorance.
The world was an Escher woodcut, folding back on itself, shifting to conform to impossible angles and contorted realities. A car drove by, spraying water from its wheels, drops arcing slowly back to the glistening road. Ahead I could see the cemetery, where it started its long rise up the hill, but nothing within was distinct through the drizzling rain. The tombstones and spires of the vaults had somehow faded into the background of hill and sky: smeared watercolours in a laundered world.
Feeling morbid, I walked through the cemetery gates and along the bitumen road. Tombstones to right and left, broken teeth sticking out of the ground, the relics of past days, past lives, past minds. The silence was welcome.
Intimations of mortality filled me. I felt alone, vulnerable, lost, as I read the inscriptions on the graves. Where was I going? Was this to be the sum total of my existence when it was my turn to die, a few lines of forlorn sentiments? Somehow, there had to be more to it than that. I had never been comfortable with the yawning gulfs of darkness surrounding the brief candle of life. It was so vast, like the endless tracks of the universe. There had to be something else, something to make it all worthwhile. But I had so far found no answers, and certainly none came from the dusty contents of the graves around me. Their occupants had taken their opinions with them.
I walked to the bus stop, sullen, brooding.
It started raining again before the bus came. I sat in the back, steaming as my wet clothes dried, smelling the damp mould of the other passengers.
I hated everything.
I wished I was a duck.
\*\*\*
Joanna's house was crowded with people when I arrived. There were perhaps thirty or so, some working away on her computer, some watching the television which was on VERY LOUD so that everyone could hear. On the screen a news reporter was saying something but, even though he was saying it VERY LOUDLY, I could not hear him because everyone else in the room was EVEN LOUDER. There was a small group sitting on the sofa with their heads together bent over some crystals, and another group intent on some tarot cards. Bruno, contrary to his usual bad-tempered self, was curled up on one arm of the sofa, being patted by various people as they passed by. Candles and incense burned everywhere. Joanna was in the middle of it all, moving from group to group, but when I walked through the door she smiled and shouted: "Here she is!" and everyone stopped talking and twenty people turned in my direction.
"...-NOMENON HAS NOT BEEN DETECTED BY THE HUBBLE SPACE TELESCOPE. NEVERTHELESS, SCIENTISTS ARE CERTAIN THAT IT EXISTS WITHIN THE SOLAR SYSTEM..." yelled the news reporter until someone turned him down.
Joanna came and guided me into the living room. "This is Emily Branwell, everybody," she said.
There were thirty versions of "Hello." An elderly woman in a flowing caftan, with about a dozen kilos of jewellery hanging from her various extremities, pushed her way through the crowd and looked at me. Or rather, she looked at the space around me.
"What an incredible aura," she muttered, and kept looking five centimetres away. It was a little unnerving, even more so than it would have been had she been staring straight at me.
"I have an aura?" I said.
"I can't wait to see who she channels," said someone from the back. A tall, weedy guy had thrust a pack of tarot cards towards me with an enthusiastic leer, as if hoping I'd lose a round of strip poker. There were crystals doing whatever it is they do at full bore all over the place: at least they did it quietly. I hoped no one was going to examine any chicken entrails.
"Joanna," I said, "can I have a word?"
Joanna held up her hands and smiled. "I'm sorry, Emily," she said. "But the most amazing thing happened when you left."
"Yes," I said, "you phoned all your friends."
"That's not the amazing thing."
"It would be for me. I don't have any."
The crowd had backed off a little as Joanna took charge. Or maybe they just didn't want to be too close to my jokes. In any event, Madam Aura had at least stopped staring, and I could breathe again. "Emily," Joanna continued, "these are some of the best psychics, clairvoyants and other practitioners of the paranormal in Brisbane. And we have people from all over the world on-line right now." She indicated the computer. "You're a positive sensation."
"I just told Winifred she's here," said one of the computer people. "She wants to chat with her."
"Scotland Winifred or New Zealand Winifred?"
"Scotland. She's called a meeting of her coven, and they're getting together right now. They'd like to have Emily on-line with them at the same time."
Her coven? Wtf?
"Stars," said an old man. He had been sitting quietly in one corner, underneath the African mask. He still sat there now, but his one word had caused a reverential hush to fall over the assembly. All eyes turned to him, and anatomy being what it was, all heads soon followed.
He wore a dark suit and neat tie. White hair hung to his shoulders. One hand rested on a walking stick of black wood, and his eyes glittered brightly in contrast to the darkness of the rest of him. His face would probably have shown poise and grace and elegance and deep respect for the mysteries of the world, if a handkerchief, which he was currently using to blow his nose, hadn't obscured it.
"This is Turhan Birgili," said Joanna. "He's the Maestro."
"Merhaba," he said thickly through the handkerchief. He folded it neatly and slipped it into his pocket.
"I beg your pardon?" I said.
Maestro? What...?
"He said 'Hello'," translated Joanna. "It's quite a coincidence the Maestro's here. He's just flown in from Istanbul on a lecture tour. Maestro, this is Emily Branwell."
I was hurried forward into the good Maestro's presence. He smiled and nodded. A ring with a dark blue jewel gleamed on his finger. It matched the colour of his eyes.
"I see stars," he said in a deep voice. "Her whole presence. She is like a -- like
a -- how can I say...?"
"Like a patch of space?" I offered.
He smiled. "A patch of space, yes." His Turkish accent was heavy and slow, with lots of long vowel sounds and sibilants.
"Do I still look like stars now?"
He regarded me carefully. "Oh yes. I see them very clearly. Bir sürü yıldız. A lot of stars. You are just an outline, filled with the void."
Behind me I could hear various rapturous exclamations. Madam Aura came close again, jewellery clanking, running her hands around the air near my body. I guessed she got some sort of thrill from that. It made my skin crawl.
"After you left," Joanna was offering, "I tried to ring you, but your phone still doesn't work apparently."
True, it hadn't worked since the Removal. I'd tried charging it and even replaced the battery. Nothing.
"My computer program started working again," Joanna continued. "Almost as soon as you closed the door. And I cast your horoscope immediately. You are enormously important, Emily. There is something huge happening."
"I could have told you that," I said, a little callously. I was hoping Joanna would be a good friend; she had been very kind, but I was a little resentful of all these people psychically probing me like I was some sort of specimen.
"And not just your horoscope. I tried tarot cards as well. After that, I just had to let everyone know." Perhaps she hadn't noticed my comment, or was too caught up in her own excitement to care.
"So what did you find?"
"You are a vortex," said a young man with a completely bald head, trying to get close enough to read my palm. I put my hands behind my back. "A centre of enormous power," he added, thus proving he had no idea what a vortex was.
"There is a psychic storm coming," said Madam Aura. "And you are the focus."
"It's like the universe is coming to a point," said someone else. "And you are that point."
"Great times."
"Probably the most important person since Nostradamus."
"A quintessence."
Any moment now, I knew, someone was going to mention the Great Pyramid. Whenever some unexplained mystery is taking place, old Cheops and his pile of rocks manage to sneak in somehow.
"You are stars," said Maestro Birgili, briefly but mysteriously. Again, his voice silenced the room.
I turned back to him, since he seemed not only concise but also accurate, given what had happened in Max Fisher's office.
"Do you see me at all?" I asked. "Or just me-shaped space?"
He smiled. "Oh, I see you. But you are space. You are like a summary of the entire universe around you. You are as large as the universe, and the universe is as small as you."
"But why? And what does it mean?"
"Both of those I cannot answer," said the Maestro. "Bekleyin. Wait. We will soon have the answers, in one way or another."
"But - I don't want to -- I don't want to be -- whatever it is I am." And then, in the midst of my sputtering, a neologism popped into my head:
Emilyspace. Like cyberspace, only more intrapersonal.
There was a sigh from the other side of the room. Three people were examining a sausage that had appeared on the floor. They were bent over its slimy length, making various rapturous noises, but giving it a wide berth all the same. It squirmed in the usual way and then stopped.
Madam Aura looked at it. There was a moment's silence, as the whole room hung on her verdict. She took the sausage gravely and peered closely at it, then closed her eyes and seemed to drift off for a moment, then opened her eyes again.
"Nothing," she said.
"And that is very significant," she added after a moment. "There should be something."
- Sorry to disappoint you, I thought. I'll try harder to make it more interesting next time I create a sausage out of nowhere.
The sausage was passed from hand to hand. Various crystals and cards were consulted, but apparently to no avail. Not even the Maestro could venture an opinion. For the first time since I had entered the room, doubt had set in. The sausage was a psychic vacuum. The room was vexed. I confess I was delighted.
"I guess it's like ectoplasm," I said cheerily.
All those eyes turned on me again.
"You know," I said, opening my mouth again and thrusting my foot in up to the kneecap. "You guys are supposed to extrude ectoplasm, aren't you? I do sausages."
Silence descended like a lead weight.
Joanna touched my arm gently. "Can we have a word?" she said.
"Sure."
We went out onto the back veranda and sat in wicker chairs. There was a huge flowering Poinciana tree overshadowing most of the back lawn. The veranda looked a cool and friendly place, in contrast to the hectic living room. Joanna was looking slightly abashed now. She knew I was embarrassed and maybe a little angry. She fiddled a bit with her bangle.
"Sorry, Emily," she said. "I should have warned you. Are you mad?"
A damn good question -- was I? Perhaps my sanity was a little unstable. I knew that wasn't what she meant, but still...
Before I could answer, several things happened.
I heard a
!Click!
from somewhere close by.
A camera, stage right. Coming from the bamboo stand that grew near the end of the veranda.
I stood up.
And instantly turned into stars. Physical Me vanished, replaced by the Stellar Me, an outline of dark space, like before, filled with spheres of burning gas. My mind exploded into infinity; there was a sense of rushing headlong through the void; vast chasms of nothingness all around me; then it was gone. My body was still stars, but my mind was earth-bound again.
At the same time there were two strangled cries, one from behind the bamboo, the other from Joanna. But they were not quite the same. The one from the bamboo was more of an inrush of breath; Joanna's was a strangled Glurk!
Then there was another
!Click!
and a man started running before I could get to where he was hiding.
A photographer, in the bamboo. Taking pictures of me. I launched myself from the veranda after him, went high into the air, but managed to keep my feet when I came down again, and chased him. I felt very light in my star-state. He sprang over the back fence, clutching his camera, and raced across the neighbour's lawn. I followed, leaping the fence in a single bound.
Halfway across the neighbour's yard was a swimming pool. The man pulled up sharply, swung the camera round, and
!Click!ed
again.
I was not going to look good in that one.
He turned to run again, too late spotted an inflatable plastic pool toy in the shape of a sea horse, and planted his foot firmly on it. It went bang. His feet became entangled in the suddenly limp plastic and he fell heavily onto a folding chair and small table set up beside the pool. That must have hurt. I felt no sympathy at all.
I was on him in an instant, before he could rise. I am not given to throwing myself at men, especially those who take sneaky pictures of me, but I decided under the circumstances to set my reputation aside. He was holding the camera carefully away from his falling body, no doubt trying to keep it from continuing its momentum into the water, so when I hit him somewhere between his ribs and the top of his legs, I was expecting him to fold up neatly and lose most of his breath, particularly as I was coming in with my right shoulder straight at his solar plexus. I played touch football in my high school years, and I had been curious to try the real thing for some time. I came in low, sliding the last few inches along the grass, not caring if I lost a bit of skin providing he lost more.
I went right through him. It was like I was made of nothing at all (I was in fact still made of stars at this point). Yet despite being insubstantial physically, I apparently still had mass, because my momentum continued unimpeded by his intervening body. Good old Sir Isaac had laid down the law three hundred years ago and he wasn't hearing appeals. I slid right through his body, which was of course totally dark inside but no doubt filled with warm rushing blood and viscera and other yucky things which I just swept through, emerged from his back, continued on through the collapsed wreck of the table and chair, and finally ploughed straight through the concrete edge of the pool.
At a point just above the water, I suddenly ceased being stars, shuffled on my mortal coil, and headed downwards.
Splash, I went.
When I surfaced, I heard yet another
!Click!
which was becoming really boring by now, and noticed after I had dragged my hair away from my face that the photographer had gone. I was standing in about four feet of water. I waded to the edge of the pool and began to haul myself out as Joanna ran up. She put out a hand to help me.
"Are you all right?" she asked.
"Did you see that? I went through him. Did you see that?"
"Yes."
She was looking at me funny. I would have, too.
"Are you all right?"
Another good question. How did it feel to penetrate solid objects like they didn't exist? I was not hurt, except for my dignity. I was surprised in fact by the lack of sensation, both in being in my star-state, and after my ghost-like penetration of corporeal things. I felt perfectly normal, and that was more surprising than anything.
There was something squishy under my feet. I looked down through the water, then clambered out. Joanna helped me across the lawn and over the fence. I didn't tell her the squishy things were half a dozen sausages I had left in the pool. Maybe I should have. It sounded hilarious, and I needed a good laugh at that point.
\*\*\*
Later that night.
Me: ensconced on Joanna's sofa with a soft pillow under my head. Joanna: in her armchair, consulting a pile of books whose titles were as esoteric as the diagrams and symbols that decorated their covers and pages. Bruno: asleep between us, dreaming pussycat dreams, blissfully unaware of anything except his stomach full of dinner. Maestro Birgili: in the same chair as before, apparently not having moved a muscle in the last six hours.
Everyone else had gone. Joanna had very tactfully sent them packing after we had limped back to her house, me soaking wet and her getting wet by her proximity to soaking wet me. Most of them had gone quietly, assured by Joanna that she would be consulting them again soon. A few had begged to continue their use of me as some sort of exotic specimen for their various investigations, but even they backed away when I scowled, which I do very well even under normal circumstances. Maestro Birgili had just sat there as if the call for dismissal could not possibly apply to him, and Joanna had seemed happy for him to stay. So all but he had left, taking their crystals, horoscopes, cards and other paraphernalia with them. The house seemed very empty.
"You are still stars," the Maestro said, looking at me. There had been no more reversions to my star-state since the afternoon, but he seemed to be able to penetrate my exterior resemblance and find something more sinister beneath.
"Well I was for a minute, while I chased the guy," I confirmed. "That is, I could see it for myself, and I think Joanna did too."
Joanna nodded without looking up from her book. "It sure took me by surprise."
"You glurked," I said.
Joanna looked up from her book this time. "I what?"
"Did you recognise him?" I asked. "The photographer?"
"Yes. He's with The Trumpet. Conrad someone-or-other. I thought he was a nice guy until today."
"And I guess Bob Kirke sent him?"
"Probably. He's still a newspaperman, even if he is a dickhead. He paid more attention to us yesterday than I thought he would. I didn't tell you before -- the paper rang me this afternoon and asked for a comment on what's been happening. I didn't tell them anything. This is their revenge, I guess. You'll be headlines tomorrow."
That would be fun, no doubt. I turned my heavy guns on Maestro Birgili. "What does being stars signify? And why don't I feel anything?"
"That's because you are one with whatever is happening," he said. "When you are stars, it feels natural, so you do not feel any different."
"But why am I stars?"
He shrugged, which was the most movement I had seen him make since I met him. Even then it was the barest lifting of his shoulders.
"My guess is you are somehow reflecting the anthropic nature of the universe. As we said earlier, you are a focus of universal energy, like a magnifying glass refracting the sun's rays. Psychically, there is something big about to happen."
That was no answer at all. I wondered if everyone in my life would speak in riddles from now on. My main concern was whether I was going to die or something. Petty of me, perhaps, but there you are. I always was a practical girl.
"How much longer is it going to last?" I asked. For all their confidence that they knew what was going on, both Joanna and Maestro Birgili were very reticent with how, and why, and when.
The Maestro did not even shrug this time. He just stared at me, his thick monobrow bunching in the middle over the top of his nose. Perhaps he was squinting, perhaps concentrating. Maybe he was farting. Whatever it was, the result was not helpful.
Joanna, in her turn, had seemingly retreated into her books. She seemed to have an extraordinary number of them. Her library was filled with shelves filled with books. Despite being inside them for hours, she had found nothing that quite covered my case. E for Effort, though.
I remembered something from earlier in the day that had been noted when it occurred, and then shoved back into the recesses of my mind while I concentrated on more immediate matters. It came back now and politely raised its hand for attention.
"What was on the TV when I arrived?" I said. "Some sort of news report about something in space?"
The news reporter, I remembered, had been blaring away about it until someone turned him down.
"It was a report about the split in the sky," said Birgili.
"From yesterday?"
"No," said Joanna. "It happened again today, apparently, but we didn't get to see it because, of course, it was raining. But it was visible elsewhere. It was in apparently the same position as yesterday. At about the same time, but a bit bigger."
"Evet," said the Maestro. "Yes. The Hubble telescope could see nothing, however. Of course, they would not. This is something not visible to science."
"That's great," I said, "Just great. Intrusive and invisible. And repeating. And growing."
So now, on top of everything else, we were going to be swallowed by some gigantic hole in the universe? I could not help feeling in some way responsible.
"So it's not in the atmosphere?"
"No," said Joanna. "Max said the Parkes observatory apparently detected nothing at all when the dish was aimed at the split. But I have no idea if they deduced anything from that. It only lasted a few minutes, like yesterday, then closed up again."
"Have they any idea what it is or what's causing it?"
Joanna smiled in that sly little way she used for talking about scientists. Sort of ridicule and sympathy tied into one. "They have many ideas," she said. "None come close to the truth."
"And what is the truth?"
There was a pause. Joanna made a little noise in her throat as her eyes flickered towards the Maestro. The pause grew into a silence.
Eventually: "We don't know," admitted Joanna.
About a dozen sarcastic comments leapt to mind, but I didn't say anything. Joanna had been very helpful and sympathetic to me so far. I was anxious to find a solution from whatever quarter I could, but was not as quick as her to dismiss a scientific explanation, if it was available.
"I wonder how Max is doing?" I asked and, as if in illustration of the enormous number of coincidences that occur in the world at any given moment on any given day, Joanna's phone rang. Joanna answered. It was Max, asking for me.
Joanna handed me her iPhone. I lay back on the sofa. Since meeting Max for real, the thought of him no longer produced tingling in my loins, so I was able to relax more.
"Hello," I said.
"Hi Emily," said Max. There was a lot of distortion on the line, so it sounded more like "Hi -- (crackle) -- ly."
"How are you?" he said.
"Fine," I said.
So far the conversation had proceeded along fairly mundane lines. I tried something more interesting and relevant.
"Did you find out why my house vanished?" I asked.
The distortion was bad. There was a moment's pause.
"Well," he said. "That's where...now...get... (crackle)... and see...(buzz)...rself."
"What? I didn't catch that."
"...esting phenomenon," he tried to continue. "(Crackle)...come on over... (click, click, crackle)".
"You want me to come over there?" I asked.
"Yes," he said. "I think you'll...(hiss)...surprise."
"We'll be right over," I said. "Bye." I sat up and gave Joanna her phone back. "Got to get home. Max has found something."
Joanna shut her book with a snap. "We'd better all go," she said.
I was surprised by her enthusiasm. "I thought you weren't interested in scientific explanations."
"Who said anything about an explanation? You said he had found something. We'd better be there to make sure it's investigated properly."
That's why I liked Joanna. No crap. You go, girl.
\*\*\*
The Moon had set long ago, and darkness shrouded the outside of the house when we arrived. There were plenty of lights inside, however, painfully bright and white. A car and an ancient VW minivan were parked in the front yard. A generator was growling next to the van, with cables snaking into the house. The landlord was not going to like this.
We had collected Heather from her parents' house on the way, as I felt she had an interest in this too, and we four -- me, Joanna, the Maestro and Heather -- walked between the cars and up to the front door.
It was open. There were voices coming from inside. We stepped past the large boxes and various pieces of photographic equipment on the porch and found the hall as bare as it had been since yesterday. The Maestro paused on the threshold and breathed in deeply, his eyes shut. "Space," I thought I heard him mutter, and then he stepped inside. He opened his eyes and looked at me. "I knew it was space," he said. I wondered how he could possibly know what space was like without having been there. Joanna was also looking about keenly, running her hands over the paintless walls. There was a light in her eyes. "This is fantastic," she said.
Heather and I went through to the lounge. It wasn't easy. There were studio lights and video cameras and equipment everywhere. A stack of electronic gear had been set up in the doorway. Two men in the middle of the room were bending their heads close together, tapping on an iPad they held between them. One of them was Max. He looked up as we entered.
"Emily!" he said. "Glad you could get here."
I introduced Heather who, at the sight of Max, stared at him in the same way I had done when he was on television. Max indicated the other man. "This is Dr Nabarlambarl," he said. "He's with the University of Queensland. He's a physicist."
Dr Nabarlambarl was about my height, with a friendly smile and brown eyes that never stayed focussed on anything for long. He was dressed casually in an open-necked shirt with sleeves rolled back to the elbows and green pants. His short black hair had a few flecks of grey through it. I placed him in his early forties. He didn't seem at all like a scientist: there was none of Max's air of superiority for one thing. He wrung my hand firmly and said, "Call me David."
"Call me Emily," I said.
I nudged Heather in the ribs to stop her staring at Max long enough for her to say hello too. Joanna and Birgili had come through by now. Max and Joanna said hello but not in a very friendly way. Ah, yes: cousins, I remembered, and not too fond of each other. Birgili politely shook hands all round. He kept staring about him as if seeing things no one else could. Maybe he was, maybe it was just a habit of his. The others looked at him, not sure who the hell he was or what he was doing there.
"So what have you found?" I asked.
"Well --," began Max, but David stepped in.
"This is a remarkable place," he said. "Almost as interesting as what's been happening in the sky in the last couple of days."
"Any theories on that?" I asked.
He shook his head. "Not yet. But I'm working on it." He flashed his teeth. "So, you want to know what we found? Max, try the camera again."
Max went over to a camera mounted on a tripod and pushed a button. He shook his head. "Sorry, David, nothing yet. There's still too much distortion."
"Unfortunately, we've been having lots of problems with the camera equipment," explained David. "There's a good deal of electromagnetic interference in this room." He glanced at Max. "Maybe I should show them what we found?"
"That might be an idea," said Max.
David spent a few moments taking his glasses off and cleaning them and putting them back on again, then fumbled around again for a cigarette. He took it out of the packet, put it in his mouth, took it out again, held it in his hand, played with it, put it back in his mouth, but never actually got around to taking out a lighter and smoking the thing. I was to discover he did this all the time when getting excited. It drove his students crazy.
The room, and the house, were still completely bare except, of course, for the equipment that had been brought in. One end of the room had been left empty, but there was a green chalk circle about a metre across on the floor, and I noticed it was towards this circle that the cameras were pointing.
"Perhaps the best way to tell you is to show you," said David. "Stand back please, and watch this."
We all lined up against one wall: Joanna, Birgili, Heather and me. Max stayed behind the camera. David nodded at him. "Roll it," he said, "for what it's worth." He stood near the centre of the room and picked up a metre ruler from the floor. He held it vertically and tossed it into the middle of the circle.
The ruler landed on one end, the metal ringing loudly off the bare walls. It bounced into the air again.
And it stayed there. Vertically. Balanced on nothing. It wobbled a few seconds, and then went still. A moment later, it began to tilt, turning in mid-air, settling at last on about a 15˚ angle from the vertical towards one side of the room.
We all made suitable gasping noises, except for Birgili, who said "Görim", as if he knew something we didn't.
David gestured for us to come forward. We moved closer to the ruler, which continued to balance there as if resting against something. But of course it wasn't. I noticed everyone was looking a little expectantly at me, as if they were watching what would happen when I approached the ruler. I didn't blame them, I was a little curious myself, but I held back a bit. I was nervous.
"Incredible," muttered Heather.
"We noticed this effect this afternoon," said David. "It's only this room, and only in the centre, in the circle. It works with anything, though, not just metal. Wood, plastic. Watch this."
He reached forward and touched the ruler, which allowed itself to be pulled out of the circle. David did not seem to exert any effort to do so; as if the ruler was only very lightly held by whatever force was affecting it. David held another object now, a wooden cube. He tossed this into the centre.
The cube described its expected arc towards the floor, then stopped about twenty centimetres from the boards. It spun a little, then settled down as the ruler had done, aligned along two of its vertices that pointed in the same 15˚ angle towards the same side of the room. It stayed hovering twenty centimetres off the floor.
David smiled and passed his hand under the cube. There was no apparent interference.
"Still nothing, I'm afraid, David," said Max, taking his eye from the camera eyepiece. "Nothing but static."
The Maestro suddenly spoke: "Put Emily in the circle."
This was not a suggestion I'd been expecting. No one else had either, by the way they all looked at him. I had serious objections to it myself.
"Will that be dangerous?" I asked, since no one else did. Selfish of me perhaps, but there you go. "I mean, what's going on here?"
The Maestro turned to me and made that slight inclination of his shoulders I had seen before which passed for a shrug. "I don't think it will be dangerous," he said. His confidence was hardly encouraging.
"You're connected in some way with the circle," piped in Max. "That much is obvious. Perhaps we should see what happens when you enter it. Just out of scientific curiosity."
I looked at Joanna. She shook her head quickly, and opened her mouth as if to say something to the Maestro, but he held out one hand, index finger extended towards her. The protest died on Joanna's lips, and that was that.
"Let her approach," said the Maestro.
David reached into the circle and removed the cube. I stepped forward a pace, then halted.
The circle certainly seemed innocent enough, about a metre across, outlined in green chalk. Nothing about it seemed threatening. But...
"It is happening again," said Birgili suddenly. "Her yerde sosis var."
I wondered what he meant and was about to ask Joanna for a translation, then noticed sausages had started appearing in the room, singly and in little bunches, pink and slimy and squirming and obscene.
"I don't think this is a good idea," I said.
But then I couldn't help myself. I started to feel a pull towards the centre of the room. I found my feet scraping along the floor. I was no longer walking; I was being dragged across the floorboards towards the chalk circle. Joanna uttered her little squeal. Max swung the camera on me although I didn't know if it was working now. David was standing next to the circle. As I approached him he took hold of my arm, but did not try to stop my circleward movement. Nevertheless, I felt a comfort in his firm touch. Whatever was happening he, at least, seemed calm.
It took only a few seconds to cross the floor and enter the circle. My feet lifted and I found myself floating like the cube, as if held there by some unseen and unfelt force. There was no bodily sensation other than that of floating in the air, and the touch of David's arm.
And then, slowly, I tilted forward, settling 15˚ towards one wall, my feet pointing down. David slowly let go of me. I continued to float.
"Are you ok, Emily?" he asked.
"Yes, fine," I said. "It's actually -- quite -- comfortable ."
"Can you see anything?" asked the Maestro.
"What?"
"What can you see?"
"Nothing. Well, I mean, the room - you lot..."
And then I saw.
It was no more than a flash of something subliminal, like a shutter opening and closing in the mind, a tiny fraction of a second long, a vision seen only in memory.
Light...coloured light...blue, green...some red off in one corner...movement of the colours, swirls and fractals and moiré patterns...
...there was something like a wave, something like spears of light, something tessellated, something like a cloud, something very like a whale...
...over, above, behind, beneath: darkness...
...lightning, scoring across a shape...geometry turned and twisted back upon itself...point/line/plane/sphere combined in one...
...a glowing centre, a flame there, burning hot and bright, eternal, constant, a nucleus of heat that could not be focussed on, disappearing when looked at directly, always on the edge of sight...elusive...
I felt a thrill of fear. This wasn't just happening now, it was also a memory. I had seen it before. Last night, I had seen this vision of the light in my dreams, as I lay in a pathetic heap and alcohol turned my brains to mush. For an instant, perhaps, it had flashed behind my eyelids. Just like it had now.
Then I saw the room again, and I stood suspended in space.
I was once more in my star-like state. Those who had not seen me as such were showing signs of surprise, but were obviously trying to stay detached and scientific. Max had stopped trying to film me and was now helping David to take measurements with rulers and theodolites and pieces of string.
"Stay there," said Max. "Just a few more moments." He thrust a tape measure in my face and marked my height above the floor.
In one corner of the room, Heather and Joanna were pushing vast quantities of sausages out of the way. They had started to pile up, making it difficult to walk and interfering with the measurements.
The Maestro stood with his right hand on his chin, his left clutching his walking stick, the thumb rubbing at the wood grain, peering intently at me.
Perhaps he expected me to do tricks, spin around, pretend I was swimming. I felt like a circus animal under his gaze. Or a lab rat.
"Ok, thanks, Emily," said David at last.
"Wait," said the Maestro.
But David could see I had had enough. He reached in and touched my arm. His fingers went through me. He snorted with surprise and pulled his fingers away. A moment later, as if in response to his touch, I assumed my real state. He managed to grab me then and gently pulled me from the circle. As I crossed the line of green chalk I dropped lightly to my feet. The circle's grip became weaker as David helped me move away, and soon I was able to walk by myself and I felt wholly normal again. The others gathered around me. Joanna hugged me, looking very concerned. I smiled to let her know I was fine.
It was a lie.
And that, my friends, was the end of the second day.
READING THE FLAMES
Branwell's Second Law: Shit sticks.
There are few situations these days where total peace can be achieved. In fact, rarely in my life have I ever attained a state that could be called peaceful at all, even in the most favourable circumstances. For instance, I once attended a meditation retreat in Nepal, back in the days when I had cause to examine life and question some of the eternal verities, when I was backpacking around the world long ago.
Last year, in fact.
I was made to sit on a cold, hard floor, breathe deeply and think about one hand clapping. The whole experience was only slightly more exciting than death (I presume), and the awareness that I was bored shitless kept nagging at the back of my mind, intruding into my consciousness. As a result, I found no answers, about one hand clapping or anything else. It turns out I've never had much time for eternal verities, or verities of any sort. I hastened out of Nepal, leaving behind a thousand unanswered questions, which quite frankly haven't bothered me since. Life, I decided, must be taken as it comes.
And if it won't come, grab it where it hurts and pull.
However, there is one place where peace comes to me almost unbidden, where the very act of being there allows me to descend into calm, and all is temporarily right with the world.
I was in the bath.
Lying there, eyes closed, hair floating out around me, nothing but face and knees and nipples above water, I was able to forget all the bizarre things that had happened in the last couple of days -- or at least let them sink to the bottom of my mental ocean for a while, until they floated once more, scum-like, to the surface.
Of course, this whole series of weird events in the last couple of days had begun in the bathroom. It had been after a shower that I had found that first sausage the day before yesterday. But they were coming into existence around me so frequently now that the sight of any number in the vanity basin was not going to raise an eyebrow. In fact, in this book I shall henceforth only refer to the appearance of sausages should they require a special mention for narrative purposes.
In the meantime:
ASSUME THAT SAUSAGES ARE RANDOMLY APPEARING
and we can save a lot of ink.
It was the morning of the third day. As the events of the third day are going to occupy the rest of this book, I suppose I should get on with it. But, since we're here, let's just take a moment to lie back and be still. What I did not know then, but will tell you now, was that by this time tomorrow everything would be over and all questions answered. But things were going to get slightly hectic before then, so relaxing a moment will be good for both of us. Put the book down, have a stretch, then lie back with your eyes closed and let your mind switch off for a minute or two. Feel free to have a bath if you like.
Ahh.
\*\*\*
I opened my eyes; calm and relaxation vanished. I was a prune from the hot water. There was a knock on the door.
"Yes?" I said, my voice echoing in the tiled stillness of the bathroom.
"Breakfast's ready," called Joanna.
I sat up and started to squeeze my hair out.
"I'll be two minutes," I called back, groping for a towel.
It took closer to five, but when I emerged it was to breakfast. And I looked and saw that it was good.
Everyone was there. The six: me, Heather, Joanna, Max, David, and, sitting in his usual chair under the African mask as if both he and it shared some unknowable bond of mind and spirit, Maestro Birgili. It was interesting to observe the different factions that had emerged during the night. On one side were the scientists: Max and David, two PhD's. On the other were the psychics: Joanna and the Maestro. Off to one side, not sure who the hell to trust, was Heather. And, of course, in the middle of it all, the object of everyone's interest, me.
The scientists spent a large amount of time typing on their iPads, surfing the Internet and talking polysyllabic words into their mobile phones, presumably with other scientists listening at the other end who inserted suitable jargon in their turn. The psychics were less vocal. Joanna spent a lot of time consulting her books, while Birgili sat and stared at the activity around him. He said little, moved less. It was almost as if he was just observing, making a note of what everyone else was doing, contributing nothing. Poor Heather drifted from one group to the other, making coffee, cleaning up piles of sausages and trying to comfort me. She seemed to have taken on a mother role.
There was one other faction I forgot to mention, but they were less a faction than disinterested observers: Bruno and Mike the Plant. They tended to stay out of things pretty much, kept their comments to themselves, and generally didn't give a damn. Fear not, they seemed to say, our day will come.
As for me, I watched old movies on television and tried to ignore everyone. They were doing all right without me anyway.
This was how much of the night had been spent, after we came back to Joanna's house. No one had had much sleep except me. I had nodded off soon after midnight, my work done in that my adventures had given everyone else much food for thought. But apparently in the wan light of early morn there were still no answers.
Heather had cooked breakfast, and it was the smell of ham and eggs and toast and coffee that drew the factions together in the back yard, where she had set up a table under the twisting boughs of the Poinciana tree. The rain of the previous day had vanished. Late Spring in Brisbane can be wet, but it's seldom wet for long. People emerged from various parts of the house, some (like Max) bleary-eyed and squinting in the sun, others (like Joanna) as fresh and immaculate as ever. We descended on the food.
They even ate in factions. I was a little disturbed by this. I had brought all these people together -- admittedly without meaning to -- and it would have been pleasant if they could be friendly to each other. But each faction drifted to its own side of the table, with me unconsciously gravitating to one end. Conversations continued, dulled only slightly by the necessity of eating at the same time.
David ate quickly, spooning egg into his mouth while at the same time talking about his hopes for the day. The clear sky excited him, and he was hoping that the split would occur again. But that would not happen until later in the afternoon, if at all. He was also keen to have the sausages analysed, to see if they really were meat and, if so, what kind. He had put half a dozen of them in Joanna's freezer. No one besides Bruno had yet dared taste one. Max, who seemed to be confining himself to toast at the moment, which he smothered in enough marmalade to cover half a loaf, had taken the times the split had occurred on the last two days, done some calculations, and worked out when it should occur today. A lot of telescopes all over the country would be looking at it, not to mention things like spectroscopes, infra-red satellites, the Siding Springs Observatory, the radio telescope at Parkes, and many, many pairs of eyes. Max had managed to film some of the sausages squirming, but had not been lucky enough to catch one in the act of coming into being. That was an odd thing about them: you never saw them come into being, you just looked and there they were. It had become a sort of challenge for Max, who was muttering dark things about multiple cameras set up around me and operating full-time. I didn't like the sound of that at all. In the meantime, he kept a camcorder running constantly. He was filming me right now, stuffing scrambled eggs into my gob. Charming. Joanna (no ham, but a small amount of scrambled egg and some slices of tomato) was also looking forward to seeing the split, mainly because she had missed it the last two times. The Maestro didn't eat or make any sound at all, except to lodge a piece of toast in the corner of his mouth and suck at it for a few minutes. He scared everyone. Heather simply ate everything everyone else didn't, and stayed quiet for the duration of this industrial-sized operation.
I mentally drifted away from the table talk. I was not very hungry, but Heather's coffee was as good as ever. I had a large cup of it and leaned back in my chair to stare up at the branches of the tree lacing against the blue sky. The many-fronded leaves wafted back and forth in a lazy way, thousands of tiny fingers in the breeze, surrounding the clumped red-orange flowers. I liked Poinciana trees: they had a certain charm, a way of being scenic without really trying. They were meant to look good.
Leaning back, looking up. Leaves.
I had never really looked at a Poinciana tree before, I realised. They were so weird: tiny fingerlets of spear-head leaves arranged symmetrically along two axes, the fiery red flowers, and those bizarre seed-pods that revealed a similar symmetry to the leaves when opened, the seeds arranged in a neat row. Why were they...
Hiatus
A crack in time/space.
The world disappeared.
The voices of the others faded.
There was a warm waft of breeze against my skin that died as soon as it began. Against all reason, against all will, I felt as if I was floating upwards.
I left the chair, drifted up into the branches among the leaves and flowers, which had either grown larger or else I had shrunk. I could not see the others: my vision was blurred by a green mist. Only the leaves and flowers of the tree were clear, and they were getting bigger. They were everywhere, spear-heads of green, filling my vision; broad, flame-coloured petals sharpening to a point where they met in the centre. The sky, the table, everyone, had gone, lost in a pale green light. The leaves had become enormous. I moved in towards one particular leaflet, which had expanded (or I had diminished) a thousand fold, a vast, growing green plain, rushing towards me (or I was rushing towards it), filling my vision.
I contacted the surface, landed on its face first, like a huge green bed. The leaf was large/I was small enough to see individual cells, globs of goo spotted with chlorophyll. I stood up, found the surface slightly sticky, clinging to me as I rose. I tried to walk, bouncing along as on a trampoline, the surface unyielding but nevertheless continuing to expand beneath me. Slowly, the leaf surface softened and I slipped in further, between the areas of resistance that had supported me. The size differential continued, and soon it was not many cells that were below me but just one cell, a gelatinous expanse of plasma. I slowly sank inside it, the cellulose wall closing over my head like a cool green ocean. There was light inside, light enough to see blobs of matter and strands of what might have been anything. I thought vaguely that I should have listened to my biology teacher more in school. Or perhaps not -- what I was seeing was nothing like a diagram in a biology textbook. The actual experience was on a different level of perception: I was inside the diagram, and it was in three dimensions and very, very large.
(Let's say I was shrinking. But that is just putting a name to a process. I actually had no sensation of that. It really was impossible to tell whether I was getting smaller or the leaf was getting larger. It seemed more that we were simply coming together, and size was altering either way in order to accommodate this.)
The shrinking continued. i (small i now the world was a cell) sank into a vacuole and felt chill, like i was in water. There was no need to breathe and, in fact, i had ceased breathing some indeterminate time ago. i was actually respiring in some other way, taking in what i needed from the plant, like i was a cell myself, or at least a part of this one. i sank down further towards a dark blob that must have been the nucleus.
Like the tree and the leaf and the cell, the nucleus soon became all there was. Jumbles of long threads...flashes of light, darkness around and the sense of coolness continuing...
Where had i seen this before?
In a dream on the edge of a hangover, in the circle in my house: the light, the swirl of shapelessness in a dark universe. The nucleus of a cell and the colours at the edge of the universe: they were the same.
The quickening of fear started again.
Colours.
i drifted in further, the light fading.
DNA loomed up. A double helix, unmistakable. One twisted strand of DNA in one tiny chromosome in one cell in one leaflet out of the hundreds of thousands on the tree, one tree out of all the trees in the world, out of all the worlds in space, and i was there.
i touched it, or it touched me.
Nuclear forces. The slippery contact of individual atoms. Electrons buzzed in my ears like mosquitoes. My feet kicked against atomic nuclei. The shrinking/expanding continued.
Quarks. Everything was up, down, charm and strange for a long while. Darkness...
Bonded, locked. For a single quantum of time i was a fundamental particle, an inseparable, essential component of the chemistry of the tree. i was a part of the tree's DNA.
Then, instantly, consciousness expanded, so quickly it hurt. And i knew, but had no words with which to know.
I was the tree (large I again), the whole tree, and nothing but the tree.
I had been here for years, growing quietly, drinking in the water that fell from the sky, absorbing carbon dioxide and nitrogen and giving shade, standing proud against storms. Ants crawled on me, birds sung in my branches, the wind stirred my leaves. I was life. In Spring I gave out my bright red flowers, fed the bees, let my flowers fall at my roots. I had stood and observed the ways of the world, a silent witness, always accepting. My foundations were buried deep in the good earth, the Gaia that would protect me from the time I had first burst forth from the soil, until it was time for me to die, neither too soon nor too late, but at the proper time, as everything died in its proper time, as everything was born, and the daily turn of the world around the sun continued. It was all so clear to me now: birth = life = death = infinity. My part in the universe, to be a tree. I had no consciousness, no human intelligence, and I needed none. My wisdom was the wisdom of the Earth, and that was enough. And that was everything it had to be.
Concepts, no words...
There were people near me, eating, drinking, talking. I did not see them, did not hear them, but knew they were there and what they did, for all their actions affected me. I could not find words to describe them, for I did not know language, but I was aware. Through the tread of their feet upon the ground, the vibration of the air against my branches, the chemicals that entered the pores in my leaves, I was aware of them, but was not conscious of my awareness. I formed no conclusions, made no judgments, merely accepted, and went on being a tree. That was all I could do, wanted to do, had to do. I did not feel happy, did not feel sad. I felt nothing but right and purposeful. But these were sensations without knowledge.
Time passed, as measured by a tree. The world changed and stayed the same. And I went on being.
Hiatus
...formed that way?
Light. Ouch. My irises were wide open and light pierced through them like a sword. I shut them again. Better, but now I could feel pain in the back of my head. More ouch, bigger ouch.
"Ouch," I said, in an attempt to convey my feelings to whoever was out there. Succinct, if a little understated.
"Somebody get a pillow," came Joanna's voice.
I opened my eyes.
Heather's face was in a strange position, sort of upside down and to one side, and far too close. I blinked as my eyes continued to adjust to the bright sun. I felt unable to move. I tried with my left arm. Nothing.
"Are you ok?" Joanna's voice again. She had appeared in my vision, not upside down like Heather, but still to one side, the other side. Her long hair fell close to my face. It smelled nice. Nevertheless, it disturbed me that she was hanging in mid-air like that.
"You fell off your chair and banged your head," said Joanna.
Something clicked in my brain: two neurons that had not been speaking to each other decided to kiss and make up. I realised it was not Joanna and Heather who were in the wrong position, but me. I could smell grass. My back was against a surface. I was lying on the ground, underneath me.
Sorry, I meant underneath the tree. We had parted spiritual company. It was a comforting thought, although I confess I felt a little twinge of regret.
I tried moving things. Better this time. Left arm: yes. I lifted it and looked at my hand. Did I expect to see twigs? Perhaps, but the act of moving had dispelled the paralysis that had enveloped me. Right arm: yes. It still gripped my coffee cup, although the coffee itself had spilled out.
"Guess where I've been?" I said.
\*\*\*
Same scene, a short while later.
I was still lying on my back, but now with a pillow under my head and a blanket over me, listening. The others were out of my field of vision but within my field of hearing, if there is such a thing. I had asked not to be moved yet, for I wanted to stay there under the tree for a little while longer. But the others had at least tried to make me more comfortable. What they did not realise was that I was perfectly comfortable, lying on the ground. As a tree my roots had been deep inside the earth; now, just lying there brought that sensation back. I didn't want to let go of it just yet.
Perhaps Joanna and Birgili would have understood. Perhaps Max and David would have scoffed. It didn't matter, it felt right for me.
Conversation from unseen people:
David said, "We have to get her to the lab. I don't have the equipment here that I need."
Heather said, "She doesn't want to be moved yet. You heard her."
Max said, "I think I've almost got it now." He was tapping on his iPad, had been for a while.
Joanna said, "Got what?"
Max said, "I'm using the data we took last night from the circle. Working out the orientation of the zero-gravity field from Emily's measurements."
Well I'm glad he found my measurements so useful.
David said, "Good."
Birgili said, "It is almost complete," in that exotic, slow way of his. Mysterious as ever.
David said, "What is?"
Five seconds of silence. Apparently, the Maestro chose to remain mysterious.
David said, "I'd better ring the uni and tell them we're coming."
Heather said, "You're not moving her until she wants to be moved."
David said, "But we need to make arrangements."
Heather said, "Over my dead body."
Max said, "I've got it. Interesting. Microscopium." He had stopped typing. "What the hell's in Microscopium?"
David said, "What the hell is it? A constellation?"
Joanna said, "You don't know that?"
David said, "I'm a physicist, not an astronomer."
Joanna said, "Yes, it's a constellation, one of those named by Nicolas de La Caille in the mid-Eighteenth Century while on an expedition to the Cape of Good Hope." A hint of superiority in her voice, there. There were not many astrologers, perhaps, who actually knew some astronomy as well.
Max said, "She's right. It's a small, perfectly rectangular constellation containing only a few very faint stars. But it doesn't have anything else in the least bit interesting. A few galaxies. Brightest star is only fourth magnitude. Quasar PKS 2000-330 is right next door in Sagittarius, and the M30 globular cluster in Capricorn."
I was pleased that I had actually understood a few of Max's words. This scientist stuff was starting to rub off.
Max had sounded a little superior too, just like Joanna, and he might have continued to enumerate the wonders of that particular constellation, and the several around it, but Heather said, "You're just reading that off your iPad."
Max continued quickly, "Anyway, Microscopium is where Emily's head was pointed last night when she was in the circle. The other objects did the same thing, remember: the ruler and the cube. All aligned along the same direction. I'd like to get back to the house and take more measurements, see if the direction has changed, if it's following the apparent motion of Microscopium across the sky. Microscopium is Latin for Microscope, by the way."
Heather said, "No, really?"
David said, presumably into his mobile, "We'll be there in about half an hour. I'll have some downloads for you from my iPad, so make sure Stuart's available."
Heather huffed in a very Heather-like way, i.e. loud and deliberate. Then, ostensibly for everyone's benefit, but no doubt also with ulterior motives, she took a moment to summarise the situation. She's good at that sort of thing. It must be part of her secretarial training. Her summary went something like this:
Emily is being influenced by some force, be it supernatural or otherwise, which appears to be focussed in the direction of the constellation Microscopium. This force is only felt by her in a small circle inside her house which has been -- apparently -- sucked clean of all contents except for Mike. This circle not only influences her but also inanimate objects placed inside it. In the meantime, she has been plagued by the random and accelerating appearance of sausages in her immediate vicinity, an accurate but weird horoscope that appeared in a unique issue of a newspaper, and periodic conversions to a star-like state that allows her to pass through solid objects, as well as the ability to shrink down to sub-atomic size and assume the spirit of a tree.
There was silence for a little while when she had finished.
David said, rather uncertainly, "That sounds about right."
Max said, "I don't know if spirit should be used there. There's no scientific -- ."
David said, "It's as good a term as any, I think. Until we know more about what happened."
There was another silence.
Joanna said, "Anybody got any ideas?"
Heather had done what the others couldn't. In a single speech she had managed to summarise the strange events that had been happening, demonstrate the basic lack of comprehension of all concerned, and show that neither faction had any better idea than the other as to what was causing all this or how it might be stopped. Plates of humble pie were passed around to all concerned and everyone had a large spoon. I smiled. I liked Heather.
Max said, "So what do we do now?"
David said, "Emily, we need to do some further tests on you, and on the circle. Would you be willing to help us?"
He had asked nicely, so I said, "Yes."
I was waiting for another huff from Heather but she was silent.
I added, "But not yet, I'm still feeling a bit wooden."
Ha-ha. A bit wooden! Unfortunately, the joke went over even worse than I had feared. Joanna gave a little chortle. No one else produced so much as a single ha. Why do I even try?
David said, "Thanks."
Joanna said, "The Maestro and I would also like to look at you, Emily. If you can spare the time." There was a slight strain in her voice, as if daring the scientists to say anything.
She had asked nicely too, so I said, "Sure, Joanna."
Heather leaped in to assume her position as my personal manager. She said, "I'm sure Emily can give you all the time you want for your tests, but right now she needs to rest. So perhaps if you've all finished breakfast, you can go inside and leave her in peace until she's feeling better."
Birgili said: "You should read this."
He came into view, holding a newspaper and tapping his finger against an article on the front page. He must have fetched it from the front lawn.
Joanna said, "Oh yes, that photographer yesterday."
They passed the paper down to me. I read it out, after first cringing at the photograph of me on Joanna's back veranda. Not a good one. I had my head thrust forward and my mouth slightly open. I looked buck-toothed. It must have been the first one he took, whilst hiding in the bamboo. After that I became star-like and, just as Max had found with the video cameras the night before, I was unphotographable.
The article under the photo was as follows:
"Psychic" link to sky phenomena
Psychics have claimed a Brisbane woman is the cause of the mysterious sky appearances over Australia and New Guinea in the last two days.
Emily Branwell, a university student, is believed to be linked to the appearance of the "black sky" of Monday and yesterday.
Whilst the exact connection is unexplained, she has apparently been the subject of paranormal occurrences at her Annerley home in the last few days.
These occurrences have taken the form of showers of stones, unexplained lights in her house, and mysterious "visitors" who have predicted strange futures for those around her.
Professor Henry Montgomery of the University of Queensland's Department of Space Science has discredited any psychic connection with the black sky.
"There is no reason to suspect any causal link,"
he said yesterday.
"The so-called 'black sky' has been identified by scientists as a natural phenomenon, possibly caused by a large cloud of interplanetary dust or gas through which the Earth is currently passing."
"To regard this woman as being in some way connected to the current astronomical oddity is ludicrous," Professor Montgomery said. "Psychic powers are a nonsense."
Ms Branwell is a known friend of leading Brisbane psychic Joanna Clifford, who yesterday refused to comment on the bizarre occurrences surrounding Ms Branwell.
"Showers of stones?" said Heather.
"There's no dust cloud," said Max.
"That just proves they don't know what they're talking about," said Joanna. "I'm going to kill Bob Kirke. He's got the last horoscope he's going to get from me."
"Who's this Professor Montgomery?" asked Heather.
"Dean of Science at the university," said Max. "The paper must have thrown this article together pretty quickly. Ordinarily, they would have come to me." He ran his hand through his hair as he said this. Grooming himself for television? He was too late, it no longer worked for me. "But I've been unavailable since yesterday."
The paper had been stuck for a story, so they invented a few things, or relied on conjecture. The Trumpet was a bloody awful newspaper.
"Montgomery's a good scientist," said David. "But he's as much of an astronomer as I am. Emily, you'd better get over to your house right away. It's going to get crowded. Give me a call when you get there, if you can get the phone to work."
"What's the problem?" asked Heather.
"'Paranormal occurrences at her Annerley home'," quoted Joanna. "I'm afraid, Emily, your house is going to be a Mecca for the curious."
She was right. That article would draw to the house everyone even slightly interested in ghostly and unexplained happenings and who knew how to look up an address in the phone book. It gave me cause for concern. Even though the place was an empty shell, it was still home, and I didn't want anything to happen to it.
"In that case," said Heather, "I'd better get out there. Are you going to be all right, Em?"
Silently I said Don't call me Em. Out loud I said, "Sure. Thanks, Heather."
I defied anyone, no matter how intent on probing the mysteries of the house, to get past Heather once she reached the front door.
David gave her his car keys, and Heather set off, neglecting -- wisely -- to explain to David that although she did have a licence, she rarely used it. But if he was happy to hand over his car to her, that was his business.
I sat up. The Poinciana tree rustled its leaves slightly. My head felt a little light, but I could move everything again.
"You ok, Emily?" said Joanna.
"I'd kill for some coffee."
Joanna had brewed a fresh pot and we all indulged. I sat at the table again, holding a cup in both hands, sipping slowly. It was good and strong. It may have been my imagination, but I fancied that for a fraction of a second I could feel the atoms of the liquid bouncing against my lips.
"I envy you," said Max. He moved his chair nearer to mine, and leaned in close. He slurped his coffee loudly.
"Really?" I said. "That's a first."
He smiled so widely he must have missed the sarcasm. "While I don't understand what happened to you, it's obvious you experienced something peculiar. It may have been an hallucination on your part. I have no comment as yet whether you truly did go sub-atomic, or become a tree. Nevertheless, something happened to you, even if it only affected the creative centres of your brain."
"Of course, I have no doubt she really did enter the tree's spirit," Joanna butted in.
"But what did you see?" I asked her.
"Nothing," said Joanna. "You fell off your chair. One minute you were leaning back, looking up at the tree, the next you were lying on the ground. Came down rather hard, I'm afraid. It was all over in a second."
"I didn't turn into stars or anything?"
"No," said David. "This was something new." He picked up the camcorder Max had been filming with and flipped open the viewing screen. "Take a look at yourself."
I looked at the screen and David pushed Play.
There was me from Max's point of view, in my chair, leaning back and staring up at the tree. I could see right up my nose. Suddenly there was a flash of light, so sudden as to be almost subliminal, and then I had vanished below the table. I watched as Max had stood up, circled around with the tape still running, and focussed on me lying on my back, coffee spilled, saying "Ouch."
"What was that flash of light?" I asked.
"I don't know," admitted Max. "We should get some professional audio-visual people in on this. We're just playing at the moment. Perhaps they can analyse it. Probably just a glitch in the tape."
Joanna had been replaying the scene for herself. "You don't really believe that, do you?"
"Did you see a flash of light just before Emily fell over?"
"No. But that's beside the point. I wasn't looking at her."
David nodded. "I was. No flash."
"But the camera recorded something."
"More of that electromagnetic interference," said Max. "Possibly there's an electrical storm around here somewhere."
I sighed. Just what I needed: one more inexplicable thing. "What's happening to me is impossible, right?" I said.
"Nothing is impossible," said Birgili. "There are merely degrees of improbability."
"Probable impossibilities are to be preferred to improbable possibilities," said Joanna. "Aristotle."
There was an uncomfortable silence. No one had ever met anybody who could quote Aristotle. It was a bit of a shock.
"The Poetics."
More silence.
David looked at me over his coffee cup. His eyes were a very nice shade of sepia, sort of like an old photograph. I recalled the strand of DNA I had seen in the leaf: David's eyes were the product of an inherited combination of atoms in his genes, yet the end result was beautiful. How did that happen? Maybe Joanna was right, maybe there were other forces going on behind the physical laws.
"Interesting man, Aristotle," he said. "Poor scientist, but interesting nevertheless."
"He was curious about the world he lived in," said Joanna. "Curious enough to think hard about it. Maybe he got a few things wrong, but -- ."
"He got just about everything wrong," butted in Max. "He used no scientific method whatsoever."
"That's because it hadn't been invented in his day," said Joanna a little icily. She always went like that when discussing science with her cousin: one more reason I hesitated to question her beliefs.
"You don't 'invent' scientific method," said Max. And they were off. It sounded like they would be gone for some time. I turned to David.
"What happens now?" I asked.
David glanced at Birgili, who was absorbed in the cartoon page of the newspaper, then smiled at me. His smile matched his eyes perfectly. Just the right size, just the right amount of teeth. Now that was not a chance combination of chromosomes.
"Finished your coffee?" he said. "Let's go for a walk."
\*\*\*
We walked; he talked; I listened, for the most part.
"I'm full-blood Aboriginal," he said. "My tribe lives in Arnhem Land. I spent most of my early years with my grandfather, since my parents died when I was young. Grandfather was very wise, taught me a lot about the world. How to survive, find water, find food, sing the songs that would maintain the land."
"In other words, a real education," I said. "One worth having."
He smiled. "Spoken like a true undergraduate. Actually, I had a great time. He inspired my interest in science. He would take me on long walks in the desert, living off the land. We ate goanna, snakes, witchetty grubs."
"Yuck," I said. I had actually tried a witchetty grub once, at a folk food festival. It made me sick. Purely psychosomatic, I'm sure. My mind somehow had a problem sucking down an insect larva.
"Well," he said, "I admit that nowadays I prefer Chinese food, or rigatoni and a glass of Chardonnay. But back then I liked the bush food too, for totally different reasons. We dug for water. Made fires at night and stared up at the stars. He taught me the stories of my people. He taught me respect for the land."
"And that made you become a scientist?"
He nodded. "I learned a lot with him. Not from him, you understand. We learned together. All the time. I liked to find things out. I was very interested in stories, especially about the Dreamtime and the origin of things. In contrast, I didn't learn a lot in school, but I did learn basic science, and that peaked my curiosity as well. I became interested in seeing if there was any way of reconciling the truth of physical laws and the 'truth' of mythology."
We came to the corner of the street and turned. He was walking beside me, hands behind his back, pacing slowly, like he had all the time in the world. He had sent Heather rushing off to do things; he waited, watched, and thought. Rather like a tree.
"You see, I believe mythology is true, but in a different way to strict scientific laws. The stories of my people are just as valid as the law of gravity. They are the product of human beings, and human beings can do nothing that physical laws do not allow them to. So if someone imagines a story about how the sun came into being, for instance, it's only because their brain has taken what they have seen and felt and understood and converted it into something that has meaning for them."
I frowned. This didn't sound scientific at all. Not as I understood the term. I was about to interject, but he seemed to sense my problem, like a good teacher should.
"What I mean is, people's brains function along strict scientific laws. For example, as a scientist, I know that the sun is a ball of gases undergoing thermonuclear changes and producing light and heat as a result. Simple. But it is no more complicated to say, as aboriginal legend does, that the sun is a fire being carried by a woman across the sky every day. Of course, one could ask, where did the fire come from? Who is this woman? How can she stay up in the sky? But with the real scientific explanation, one also has to ask questions. Where did the gas that forms the sun come from? What first started it shining? Every answer poses more questions. Physicists are constantly finding more questions hidden in even the simplest answers. However you believe the sun was created, the result is the same: heat and light, and ultimately life on Earth. And as far as the person who believes the myth is concerned -- in his or her particular circumstances -- the myth has served its purpose."
"I think there's a lot of scientists who would disagree with you," I commented. - A lot of normal people too, I added in thought, if I can be forgiven the use of the word in this context.
"Of course. My students rip into me constantly; I encourage them to do so. And I disagree with myself often. Healthy skepticism must be reflective. But I think every scientist needs a little myth sometimes. Keeps things in perspective. When people thought the Sun went around the Earth, it was the most natural belief in the world, and there was no reason to think otherwise. The farmer struggling to grow crops in the field had no use for the truth about the Sun. Most people don't. They can live full lives without knowing the real situation. Of course, we never would have reached the Moon without knowing it, or have a calendar as accurate as it is. But your average human being can live without either of those things."
He smiled and shook his head. "But I'm starting to lecture. I'm off my point, which is to answer your question: what happens now?
"On those long walks with my grandfather, we would light a fire each night and sit beside it, and he would tell me stories of the Dreamtime. And I would ask him questions about this and that. Why was that range of hills there? What makes a kangaroo jump? Why is the sky black at night, instead of some other colour? What is the wind? And he would sometimes answer me, and sometimes sit staring at the fire. He would stare for a long time, until I would eventually ask him what he was doing. I thought perhaps he had fallen asleep, or could not answer my question. And he would say he was reading the flames.
"The flames could tell him everything. The fire contained all the truth of the world. It was the primal aspect of creation: fire, light, heat. He would find the answer to my question in them. He was a very good physicist, my grandfather. Not what we would call a physicist, you understand, not a physicist like me. He had no knowledge of string theory, say, or differential calculus, or relativity. But he was curious about how the world worked, he was always trying to deepen his understanding of it, and he constantly asked questions. All desirable qualities for a physicist, or any scientist. Only instead of looking for answers in a laboratory or in mathematics, he found them within the flames of his campfire. Not literally, of course, but somehow he could use the flames as a focal point for his mind, and his mind could work out anything once it ceased to think about it."
"So you're not just a physicist," I said. "You're a philosopher-physicist." That was not only interesting; it was also hard to pronounce. Try it. Perhaps they were two words that were not normally supposed to go together. "You sound more like Aristotle than Einstein."
He shrugged. "Never thought of it like that. Of course, I could come up with a strong argument as to why what my grandfather did was simply a fallacy. So could Max. So could anyone who thought about it for a moment. But it was a valid reality within my grandfather's frame of reference. And therefore it worked."
"So everyone has their own valid frame of reference?" I asked. "The truth is different for everyone?"
"There is only one truth," said David. "But many, many ways of arriving at it. The truth remains the same. What differs from person to person is their means of discovering it. As a scientist, I look at reality to find the truth behind it. But that's not the only way to do it. Just remember, everything is possible."
"Like Aristotle said?"
He nodded. "All the things that have happened to you in the last two days are possible."
I smirked a little at that. "Everything? What, the sausages appearing out of thin air? Possible?"
"Of course. They appeared, didn't they? They must be possible. They're just unlikely. Take that gnome in the garden there." He pointed at the garden of a house we were passing. An ornamental gnome stood in the centre of the yard, squatting like he was taking a crap, holding his little fishing rod. "I could calculate the chance that in the next five minutes that gnome will spontaneously roll three metres to the left. Not a very likely event, I grant you. But it is possible. Perhaps there will be a minor earthquake. Or water leaking from the drains will cause a subsidence of the ground. Or a strong gust of wind will send it rolling. It's even possible that every atom in the gnome will simultaneously move in the same direction. A long shot, of course, but mathematically calculable."
"Or I could go and give the hideous thing a good kick," I said. "Which would be far more likely."
"That too. That's the reality. That's pure physics. We just have to find the link between these things that are happening to you, find out why they are happening. That will help us arrive at the truth."
We had circled the block now and stood outside Joanna's house again.
"I don't know what will happen to you, Emily," he continued. "Not yet. But you asked what happens now. Well, now, we do what my grandfather would have done. We find out the truth by reading the flames."
As we walked up the garden path to the front door, I asked: "So, have you ever been able to realise your boyhood dream? Have you been able to reconcile science and mythology yet?"
"No, not yet" he said. Then he reached out and touched me gently on the shoulder. "But maybe you're the means I've been looking for."
\*\*\*
Joanna and Max had apparently agreed to disagree on Aristotle. At least, they had stopped arguing. As we cleaned up the breakfast things and brought the table and chairs inside, David said it was time we went to the lab. Joanna said she wanted to come along. Max seemed a little put out by this, but David nodded.
"I'll follow you in my car with the Maestro," she said. "He wants me to drop him off at the shopping mall. He says there's something he needs to do."
That was good to hear. So far, in my opinion, the Maestro had done very little except be mysterious. He was very good at it, I'll admit, but something a little more practical was in order, despite Joanna's apparent faith in him.
So David, Max and I climbed into Max's car and the Maestro and Joanna into hers. I was in the back seat. I like being in the back seats of cars. It gives me an air of being chauffeured somewhere, like I was a famous movie star. Unfortunately, the back seat of Max's car was as messy as his desk. There was something soft under my feet that might have been a random sausage but probably wasn't. I dared to glance down and saw the remains of what had probably been last Wednesday's lunch. I shifted my feet to a pile of papers and buckled up.
"We'll swing by your house on the way, Emily," said David. "Better check on how Heather's going."
"I need a shower and a shave and a change of clothes," said Max. "Then I have to get to work."
"Ok. We'll make it brief. I could do with those things myself," said David. He sounded a little tetchy. He was still wearing yesterday's clothes and had a dark stubble showing. I wondered if he had a family. I had overheard a telephone conversation he had the night before, explaining to someone why he was going to be away from work today. But no personal details had emerged. I should have asked him during our walk, but the opportunity was gone now.
Our convoy of two set out for my house. David phoned his office and found there was a lot of static on that line. He held the phone close to his mouth, shouting into it sometimes, and pressing it hard against his ear. He hung up looking grave.
"Something big's going on electromagnetically," he said. "There's a stack of messages waiting on my email at the uni. But Fiona -- that's the faculty secretary -- says a lot of them have been corrupted during downloading. She's trying to print off as many as she can. There's telecommunications interference all over the city."
"Has anyone tried to do a fix on the source?" asked Max.
"The phone company has people out now. But no news so far."
"There's no unusual sunspot activity at the moment."
"I don't think this is sunspots," said David ominously.
"Neither do I," agreed Max.
No one said it, but we all knew where the interference was coming from.
\*\*\*
David's car was still parked outside my house, but that was about the only thing that was similar to its appearance the night before.
There were about fifty people milling around, and news cars, with reporters and spectators trampling on the lawn. Overhead a helicopter was going whup-whup-whup. Standing in the doorway, hands on substantial hips and glowering fiercely, Heather was doing a good impression of Horatius on the bridge, or Dermot defending the ford against the three sorcerer kings, or any other suitable noble defence from legend.
Insert preferred fable here.
I glanced at the man standing closest to her, and cringed. It was Mr Sabatini, the landlord. I had not yet had a chance to explain to him that the inside of the house was missing. He was trying to force his way past Heather, who was moving from side to side preventing him from entering. Fortunately, he was almost as large as she, and there was no way two corporeal objects of their girth could occupy the same doorway at the same time. So far, it was a stalemate.
We got out of the car and walked towards the house. People turned in our direction. Cameras and microphones were shoved under my nose, and questions were fired, half a dozen variations of:
"Ms Branwell, what do you think is the cause of the events at your house?"
"No comment," I said, in the way I had seen politicians and crooks do it on television. Had I sunk that low? The reply was as ineffectual as usual in stopping the flood of questions. I curbed my anger, knowing that any emotional display would only give them a bigger story than before.
- Freedom of the press, I thought, and then - Yeah, right, what about my freedom?
We pushed our way through the reporters. Mr Sabatini saw me coming and turned his attention to me. He was, as I said, a large man, with a giant bristled moustache and a face that was flushed tomato red.
"Emily!" he said. "What's going on here?"
"Sorry, Mr Sabatini," I said. "I'll explain in a minute."
"You must let me into the house."
"That's going to be difficult right now."
"But it's my house! What's all this I've been reading in the paper?" He had a copy with him and shook it angrily. Around us, cameras whirred and microphones listened.
"Mr Sabatini, as far as I am aware, you have to give seven days' notice for an inspection. You have not yet given that notice. Do so, and next week I will be happy for you to inspect."
"Don't throw the law book at me," he fumed, turning even redder. Plum now came to mind. I was starting to feel hungry. "This is an emergency, and I can enter without notice for an emergency."
"What emergency is that, Mr Sabatini?"
"I don't know!"
He added beetroot to the facial salad he was making.
"I can enter without notice if I believe it's necessary to protect the premises." He hefted the paper again. "'Showers of stones!' That's enough of an emergency for me."
"There haven't been any showers of stones," I said, raising my voice and looking directly at a nearby camera for the first time. "That was made up by the paper."
"I don't care. I'm going in!"
And go in he did. He hurled himself towards Heather, who had to step aside or else be bowled over as he stormed through the door. We followed, and Heather stepped into the breach again in time to stop the reporters flooding in as well.
I really had to remember to buy her a Christmas present this year. A pair of boxing gloves might be appropriate.
Mr Sabatini stopped in the hall and stared at the gutted house. We ignored him and walked past to the lounge. David and Max started to fire up the electronic equipment in there.
"Keep back, Emily," cautioned David.
"Has the orientation changed?" asked Max.
David went to a computer keyboard and started tapping.
"Almost total reversal," he said. "If you can tell us where Microscopium is now, we can check the alignment."
"Good idea," said Max. "Let's put Emily back in the circle. See what happens." I didn't like the casual -- the almost eager -- way he said that.
David grunted as if he hadn't heard. There were a few moments of tapping on his iPad. An oscilloscope started up and a weird bendy green line appeared. It was impressive, if totally incomprehensible.
Then David knelt down on the floor and drew another circle around the one already there, but about a metre wider. This one was in blue chalk.
"It's larger," he said simply.
The lounge room floor was starting to resemble a bull's eye. It occurred to me that seemed a very ominous analogy indeed.
Joanna had arrived and run the gauntlet of reporters. The mad pace of the last few days was starting to faze her: there were a couple of wrinkles in her peach skirt and she was pushing back a few strands of hair that were out of place. Mr Sabatini was also in the room now, still staring open-mouthed at the lack of destruction -- the lack of absolutely anything -- around him. I'll bet he never expected to find the house this clean.
"I can explain, Mr Sabatini..." I began, but stopped when it was patently obvious he wasn't listening. He wandered into the rest of the house. At least he was no longer beetroot. I decided to ignore him until he chose to speak. Just delaying the inevitable, I know, but cowardice always was a hobby of mine.
"Before we ask Emily to enter the circle," said David -- and it pleased me enormously that there was the faintest sign of emphasis on the word ask -- "let's see what happens with our old friend the metre rule."
I was afraid of that circle. It hadn't harmed me yesterday, but some invisible force associated with it had dragged me across the floor against my will, something which all the chalk circles I had hitherto encountered completely failed to do. I knew, of course, that the chalk part of it was just a means of defining its outlines, nothing more than a perimeter. It was what was in the circle that was bizarre. But the human mind has to latch onto something substantial, and it was the two circles, one in green chalk and the newer, outer one in blue, that were giving me the willies. I had not felt threatened while I was floating inside yesterday (I had in fact felt just as comfortable as when I was lying under the tree this morning), but floating in the air to any extent when not supported by some visible means just didn't seem natural. I was reluctant to repeat the performance. David's words, "It's larger" resounded in my ears. I didn't like their tone at all.
Besides, someone had said that the split in the sky was larger, too, and no one had liked the sound of that.
I was standing as far from the circle as possible, back near the door. David took hold of the metal ruler and stepped towards the circle. I wanted to warn him, to grab him and stop him from getting too close, but dared not approach. Besides, it was already too late. He walked forwards, and in a moment the strange attraction had grabbed him and pulled him towards the blue circle.
He went "Woah!" and let go of the ruler, which flew from his hand. David leaned backwards against the powerful pull, as if gravity was going sideways at that point. He strained backwards as if leaning away from a cliff.
The ruler floated as it had before, twenty centimetres off the floor.
Max tapped madly on the computer, recording the ruler's orientation no doubt, which was slowly turning, but in a different direction to the way I had pointed. David managed to free himself from the grip of the circle's sideways gravity. He looked at me and smiled.
"Are you ok?" I asked.
"Sure," he said. "That was a good couple of g's I think. Straight into the centre."
The ruler stopped turning when it was almost parallel to the floor, pointed at the opposite wall to the one it -- and I -- aligned with the night before.
Max took his tape measure and string out and started madly measuring, using chalk to mark spots on the wall that corresponded to the direction of the ruler. "It's looking good," he muttered. "It's on a different orientation."
"I know," said David. "I already told you that."
Max apparently didn't hear. "Give me a second to work out where Microscopium is at the moment."
I was not feeling good about the situation at all.
"Please take it out of there, David," I said.
He looked at me. So did everyone else. If I could have looked at myself, I would have. I really had no idea what had made me say that, nothing definite, just a vague feeling of danger that had been growing on me. The ruler suddenly looked wrong. Not different, not changed, just wrong. There seemed to be more to it than there had been, like it had grown, or warped. I found it hard to look at and maintain focus. My eyes kept sliding over its polished surface. Then the reason hit me in a flash: it was as if it had too many dimensions.
Mr Sabatini chose that moment to walk back in, and he saw the ruler floating there in the circle. The poor man was not having a good day. He tried to speak, but gave up after a few attempts, apparently deciding that the thin gurgling sounds that emerged were insufficient to express the feelings inside him. I confess to being a little sympathetic.
The others looked at the ruler, too. Joanna said, "That's odd." So I guess it wasn't just me.
The ruler was all wrong: it now had more than two sides, was no longer a simple, flat, narrow rectangle. And somehow it was curved. Not bent, not twisted. Something had happened to the space along its length: there seemed to be too much of it, or not enough, or both at the same time. I couldn't pin it down. Too many dimensions and too much space, and yet too few and too little.
Now what I said next was even more unbidden, and less traceable to a source, than my previous utterance. But it emerged nonetheless. It went something like this:
"Let me get in."
No one moved or spoke. I had decided it was time to experiment. I had seen the swirling lights three times now, and if they appeared again in the circle I would know we were onto something. I wanted to have a closer look at them. There was a pattern -- or a theme -- I had missed so far. If only the damn thing would stay around for more than a second each time.
Max broke the silence first. "I have the direction. Let's see what happens with Emily." And he even took a step towards me as if to push me in right then.
Joanna moved closer to me. "I don't like this," she said, grabbing my hand. "There's bad energy here."
"It'll be ok," I said.
"How do you know?" asked Joanna.
I wished she hadn't asked that.
"Trust me," I said. No one was convinced, least of all me.
Max had removed the ruler from the circle, using a metal leg of a camera tripod to hook it away from the centre. As I had done the day before, it slowly sank as it approached the perimeter -- of the blue circle this time -- and then fell with a clang. But it took a strong effort from Max to drag it away a few feet further, before it left the area of attraction.
"That pull is very strong," said David. "I'll get some more equipment from the university and we can take a few measurements. I'd like to map out the zone of attraction."
"What do you think's causing it?" Max asked.
David shrugged. "I don't know yet. Gravity, probably. But a localised gravity that's separate from the Earth's. Which makes it interesting." At least he was enjoying himself.
"There'd have to be a large physical mass causing that, wouldn't there?" I asked. "So why can't we see it?"
"There's something, certainly," said Max. "A black hole?"
I frowned. A black hole? In my lounge? It was different, if inconvenient. Not the sort of conversation piece one would normally have.
"I don't know about that yet," said David. "It seems - I don't know - it seems a little too clean for that."
To my way of thinking, warped though it is, everything seemed to scream, "Hey, over here!" to whoever might be interested.
But I had a strong desire to go floating in the circle myself. "Let me get in," I said again, and started walking.
"Hold on, Emily," said David. "Let's wait until I can get the rest of the equipment."
But he hadn't stepped back from the circle when I asked him to, so I wasn't going to listen to him. I started to approach the circle, and felt that strange attraction again.
"Careful, Emily," said Joanna from somewhere. Immediately, the sounds in the room grew distant and I accelerated forwards. When my toes cleared the blue circle it was like crossing a threshold. I floated up, my feet about twenty centimetres above the floor, and hung there. Then I turned, as the ruler had done, and pointed towards the wall. Again, I felt extremely comfortable, floating in that unseen force, even though my head was slightly downwards: Microscopium was just below the horizon.
I could see the others and the rest of the room, but there was a slight vagueness about them, as if I was underwater and looking up at someone standing on dry ground. Joanna said something, but I could only see her mouth moving, I couldn't hear any words.
This was peculiar.
Perhaps I shouldn't have entered the circle after all.
But I felt no actual danger, just a disquieting sense that things had been different when the ruler was in here a few moments before.
In here. It felt very much like that, like I was inside something, or somewhere: a room, a space, an enclosure, a continuum.
And something was in there with me.
Years ago, as a little girl, I took my first swimming lessons in my parents' pool. Buoyed up by the inflatable duck around my waist, I kicked my legs frantically, madly and happily propelling myself towards my mother, who was in the water a few metres away, holding out her arms towards me.
When I was only about a metre away from her, maybe even less, I happened to look to one side and noticed a gigantic, horrible, warty toad plop into the pool. He must have been lurking in the bushes nearby, ready to ambush little girls who dared invade his private swimming facility. He was all brown, leathery skin and fat, bloated body and googly eyes.
The effect on me was galvanising. I stopped kicking, started howling, thrashed my arms and swallowed some water. The toad started swimming towards me. My mother, not having seen it, grabbed me and held me up and tried to comfort me. But I continued to squirm, dreading the touch of that slimy thing on my skin. I was literally climbing up my mother, maybe hoping to stand on her head or something, anything to get me out of that water.
The toad never did touch me. But it was years before I learned to swim. And even today I won't swim in the ocean: too many life-forms in there for comfort. The memory of the toad remains.
It was like that now. There was a toad in the pool.
The problem was, I couldn't see it. I had been able to see the real toad of years ago, in fact had seen little else as it breast-stroked towards me. But there was nothing to see here, except the vague, distorted shapes of the others looking at me. I could even see the glaring red light of the camera. But where I was, nothing. That was the worst feeling of all.
"Could someone help me out please?" I asked. But they did not appear to have heard. I tried to swim towards the edge of the circle, but it suddenly seemed to have moved away. I had that same feeling as earlier when I had entered the leaf cell, not certain whether I was shrinking or it was growing. No matter how hard I tried to push myself through the air, I didn't seem to get anywhere.
I started to feel scared. It began inside my stomach, that tight clutching sensation when you know the monster under the bed is just about to leap out and grab the sheets off you. Within a few seconds the fear had moved to the back of my neck, and tingled along my hairline. I had an incredible urge to turn around, and an equally incredible urge to do no such thing, because then It would see me and I would die.
I signalled to the others that I wanted to leave the circle, but perhaps they could only see me as dimly as I could see them. Whatever, my frantic arm-waving produced no effect. I shouted, but still no one moved to help me out. They must know something was wrong.
Something touched my foot.
Instantly, I pulled it back. There was resistance. I looked down, I had to look down, because whether I was about to die or not, It had to be recognised. The murder victim has to try to pull the mask off the face of his assailant before life is snuffed out, has to know who has stolen his soul in the one second before he dies.
So I looked.
My right foot was held by...well, by a Thing. Only that's the wrong word. I wasn't sure what it was, but Thing does not describe it. For a second my mind saw a toad: a big, suction-padded foot that gripped mine, but it wasn't anything like that in reality. It was something else, something altogether indescribable. Not any sort of appendage at all. All I knew was my foot could not move and I was being pulled towards It. Only It was inside the circle, not outside. Despite being almost horizontal as I floated there, and my feet consequently being quite close to the circle's perimeter, whatever was pulling at me was not trying to pull me out, but deeper in. It was as if It existed within an invisible place inside the circle and was trying to drag me there. If It succeeded, I would be in and would probably vanish from wherever I had been, which was out.
Clear about that, are you?
My right foot began to disappear. The toe of my shoe vanished and a cold sensation started up my leg. Slowly my foot followed, dragged by It into wherever It was. My hands clawed at the air, vainly trying to grab something.
Instead, something grabbed them. I looked and found both arms in Mr Sabatini's grip. He tried to pull but he was too near the circle and was being dragged inwards not only by the circle's pull, but also by the Thing that had me.
Events got confused after that. I had the vague realisation that someone had grabbed Mr Sabatini, and maybe someone grabbed that person as well. Their combined efforts were slowing the rate at which my foot was disappearing (up to the ankle by now) but I was slowly being pulled apart, which was less than enormously enjoyable. I liked my height the way it was.
The tug of war, with me as the rope, went on. I kicked my foot but it was held too tightly. The -- whatever it was -- that gripped it tightened and the lower half of my leg disappeared. The sense of cold crept into the rest of my body now, a numbing, Antarctic bitterness. I had the distinct but ghastly sensation that my blood was freezing.
Pain. Pain from being pulled in two directions. More pressure on my arms now, as other people joined the chain. I could dimly see a line of bodies tugging behind Mr Sabatini. His grip was unyielding. Pain in my arms, in my leg. Pain in the middle, where the jagged edges would be when I tore in half.
Slowly, the good guys were winning. A fraction of leg came back into view. That was helpful. It had served me well in the past and I was sure I could find further uses for it. The pain, however, continued.
More leg. More pain. A good thing, though, was that the constriction on my foot was decreasing. More leg. The top of the ankle. Progress was definitely being made in the right direction.
Suddenly, I was free. I became a champagne cork and fell out of the circle on top of Mr Sabatini. He fell on top of someone else, Max I think it was. Someone let out a loud Oof! There was a tumble of bodies.
I looked at the circle. We all did. Something had appeared in it.
Afterwards, we tried to describe what we saw. We failed. Various words were put forward, but none completely worked. Top favourites were:
tendril
tentacle
feeler
manipulative appendage (that one from Max)
growth
extensor
line
stem
and nasty, squiggly, curly thing (Heather).
But none of these were right. A new language, a language with no connections to any that yet existed, would be needed to describe what we saw. Any words we currently knew completely failed to do the job.
It was not like a tendril, because it was too thick. But it was not like a tentacle, because -- well, because it wasn't. Just as it was/wasn't a stem. It was a line because it seemed occasionally to be one dimensional; but it was not a line because (as David pointed out) a line is a mathematical abstraction and did not exist in the real world, and anyway such a thing is one-dimensional all the time. Manipulative appendage, maybe, but it wasn't attached to anything. It most certainly was not a toad.
It moved around a bit in the circle, sort of like the way the sausages squirmed shortly after they appeared. It seemed reluctant to cross the chalk lines, however, which was a relief to all, especially me who was lying the closest to it, my backside on Mr Sabatini's head.
We watched it for a while. Max had the presence of mind to try using the camera -- although I was about ready to shove the thing down his throat by now -- despite its inability to photograph anything to do with the circle.
Then It...well, It didn't withdraw, because there was nowhere to withdraw to. It just ceased being in the circle. No one saw It go, even though we were all looking straight at It. It didn't just vanish. One moment It was there, the next It wasn't, as if It had never been. That's all I can tell you. I'm sorry.
As we sat there watching It not-vanish, my senses went wild.
Colours and images...
Intermittent, fleeting patches of light...
Noises: a slow double-thud of heartbeat, the roar of blood through veins...
Something howled in my head...
Flashes of texture: soft, rough, pain, coolness, heat on my skin...
And a pleasant slipping into oblivion, almost as good as a bath...
\*\*\*
I regained consciousness for the third time that day, including the time I actually woke from legitimate sleep. Once again I was back from the dark place, that shadowy region just a little way removed from the undiscovered country. And it still wasn't lunchtime.
I felt a dull ache in my arms, and another in my foot. My eyes hurt in the light -- there was too much of it, too much white, and it was very bright. Scrubbed walls, their blandness broken only by a still life in pastels directly opposite me. Above my head I saw a contraption of metal that looked either painful or kinky, depending on your point of view. Someone next to me was lying in a bed. So was I.
I was in hospital. This did not auger well: hospitals are places you go when something is wrong. Using the words wrong and Emily in the same sentence was never a welcome idea. I experimented using my arms, found them functional, and used the metal contraption, which was, on more rational inspection, no more than a metal triangle designed for the purpose, to haul myself into a sitting position. I looked at the person in the next bed: female, elderly, no teeth, reading a magazine.
"Hello," I said.
She turned and looked at me.
"Hello, dear," she said. "Have a good sleep?"
"Yes, thanks. What hospital am I in?"
She told me and turned back to the magazine. The cover announced that some movie star was having marital problems. I guessed the old woman needed to find out all about it urgently -- you know, in case she could help or anything.
"How long have I been here?" I asked.
"Well, let me see," she said, without stopping her reading. "It's eleven-thirty now, and they brought you in at about nine-thirty, so that's - what? Two hours?"
I found the little buzzer thing that summoned the nurse.
She arrived a few minutes later in the form of a girl younger than me, with lots of white teeth revealed by a smile that was a little too enthusiastic for comfort. Her name tag announced her name was Sarah Hoskins and she was a nursing student. Joy.
"You're awake?" she said, as if uncertain of the fact. Maybe she hadn't reached that chapter in her textbook.
"Who brought me here?" I asked, getting right to it in my own anti-social style.
"Oh, your friends were here until a few minutes ago. They left you a note."
She fished in the pockets of her uniform and produced a piece of paper. I held it at arm's length, once again cursing the fact that my reading glasses had vanished with the rest of the house, and managed to decipher the following blur:
Dear Emily,
(It was Heather's handwriting, sort of like a drunken spider trying to find somewhere to vomit.)
Sorry, we waited for a long while but I have to go and deal with Mr Sabatini and try to explain what happened. David 's gone to the lab to fetch a thing called a gravimeter and some other stuff I can't spell. And he's going to get someone to do a chemical analysis of the sausages. Joanna has gone to see the Maestro. Max has had to go back to work at the Planetarium, but assures us he will "stay on the case." I'll be back as soon as I can, so stay there and don't worry. Everything is ok.
Heather.
"They only left a few minutes ago?" I asked the nurse.
"Yes. Excuse me, I'll fetch the doctor now you're awake and he can have a look at you."
She left the room, taking her many teeth and starched uniform with her. The room seemed darker without her smile.
I lay back down and listened to the old woman reading. She muttered to herself, going "Tisk, tisk" occasionally and flapping the pages over. Apparently the movie star's behaviour did not meet with her approval.
The doctor came in about twenty minutes later. While I hate hospitals, I like doctors. There's something attractive about a man who knows how you function, and can fix you up when you go wrong. Mechanics are the same, only not so personal, and they get too dirty for my liking. This one was also young like the nurse, fresh out of medical school probably, doing his residency and anxious to please. But he had that tired look about him that new doctors doing time in emergency wards tend to get: too many long hours and too much human drama at short notice.
Perhaps he would like to swap lives with me.
"You were brought here by some friends a couple of hours ago," he said, after having a good look at me and touching various parts of my anatomy. "They said you collapsed after a physical assault."
"Something like that."
"Have you told the police?"
"We might get around to it, but I don't think so."
He pouted his lips, as if wondering what to do next. "Well, you've suffered no major physical trauma," he said eventually. "Only your foot."
"What about my foot?"
"There are lesions. Nothing to worry about. They look worse than they are."
"What are lesions?"
He rattled off the definition like he would in an exam: "Areas of tissue with impaired function as a result of damage. Nothing to worry about in your case."
I had been going to make a joke about the French Foreign Lesion, but I decided against it. I was learning some harsh facts about my humour.
"Are you in any pain?" he asked.
"A little. In my foot."
"There's a bit of bruising, too, in your arms. Looks like someone tried to pull you in two different directions." He snorted (presumably that was his laugh). I failed to see anything funny.
"So there's no reason for me to stay here?" I said.
"Well, no obvious physical reason. Certainly the lesions and the bruising should clear up in a few days. But we'd like to make sure there's no concussion. You hit your head earlier today too, I understand."
"I fell off a chair."
"You've had quite a morning. Two periods of unconsciousness a few hours apart isn't good. You may have hurt your head more than you thought. We'd like you to stay overnight so we can see if you have any more episodes of syncope -- fainting, that is. Do you have any light-headedness, headache, blurred vision?"
"No. I feel fine."
He snorted again. It was a vaguely disgusting sound, as if he was trying to blow something out of his nose. "That's what they all say. Please, bear with us. We wouldn't want you to keep fainting like that."
After he had gone, I looked at my foot. I had been wearing shoes when whatever It was had done whatever It had to my foot and tried to pull me into the circle when I was already in there, if you know what I mean. I had felt no pressure on my foot itself. It had somehow taken hold of my foot and the lower part of my leg, but there had been no sense of touch, merely a resistance. But now there were two dark bruises -- almost black -- on the skin of both instep and ankle. I tried to picture something like a hand or fingers grasping me there, but that did not quite fit. The Thing had had no hand, no claw, nothing but an ending to whatever It was, and that ending had not looked like it could hold onto anything, much less inflict bruising. I prodded the dark patches carefully. They were slightly painful, and the impression of my finger was left in them for a moment afterwards, then slowly flattened out.
The bruising on my arms was more painful, but also more like bruising. This was where Mr Sabatini's powerful fingers had taken their limpet-like hold. His use of force was excusable: I owed him a lot, probably my life, and I felt bad about his house.
But I had to leave the hospital. I was not about to lie there doing nothing. Heather's note had promised she would be back soon, but I wanted things to happen before then. I could try Mr Sabatini's phone number, and it would be good of me to say thank you, but that would also involve me in discussing the house. Heather could do that sort of thing much better than me.
All right, I know, I'm a coward.
I had Joanna's number in my head. I could try her. I stood up and found I could walk. The old lady glanced at me but said nothing. I pretended I was going to the toilet (actually not a bad idea) and left the room, looking for a phone. I had left my mobile back at Joanna's place, and anyway it still wasn't working since the Great Removal. There were a few coins in my clothes that had been carefully folded and put away in a closet so I went looking for a pay phone.
There was one at the end of the hall. I had to walk past the nurse's station to reach it, but she just nodded and smiled with those teeth again. I inserted the coins and dialled Joanna's number.
The buzz-buzz went on until it rang out. I hung up and fished my coins from the return chute. I had no idea of David or Max's numbers. I could try the university. Then another idea hit me. I opened the phone book and looked for the Planetarium.
"Max Fisher, please," I said to the girl who answered. There was interference on the line, background howls that rose and fell in pitch and volume.
"One moment, please."
"Dr Fisher here."
"Max, it's me. Emily."
"Oh! How are you?" He sounded tired, and maybe less than enthusiastic to hear me. I know I would be.
"Fine. But everyone's gone. I need a lift home."
I could hear him breathing, but he paused so long I thought he might have gone away. When he spoke again it was in one of those tight voices that indicate anything: maybe doubt, lying or being slowly strangled.
"The doctor said he thought you should stay in overnight. Isn't Heather there?"
"No. Look, I'm fine. No problems. I just need to get out of here."
"Well..."
"Oh come on, Max. You know what's been happening."
"Yes, but...Perhaps you should stay there where it's safe and let us work on things. David's going back to the house with a lot more equipment. And I'm trying to pin down anything in the vicinity of Microscopium that might give us a clue."
I sighed. "Look, Max, you won't find anything. You know you won't. Whatever it was that took hold of me this morning is not from Microscopium. You know that. It's from - I don't know, somewhere else. Somewhere inside the circle."
Silence for a few seconds. Well, almost silence. There was a long exhale of breath from the other end of the line. He tried not to make it obvious, but it was there. Finally, he said, "We need to do further investigations."
These scientists could play with their toys for ages and never find out anything. Maybe Joanna and the Maestro were on a more productive, if more obscure, track.
"Are you coming to pick me up or what?" I asked, rather rudely. I was having that sort of day, and Max wasn't helping.
"Heather said she would get back there as soon as possible. I suggest you wait."
In other words, he was shifting responsibility.
"I can't wait. What time is the sky due to split this afternoon?"
Things were so weird by now I could ask that peculiar question in a totally casual manner, as if enquiring about the time of the next train into town.
"Three-fifteen."
"Well I don't want to be here when it does. Not in hospital."
"But that might be the safest place, in case you have any -- well, any adverse reactions."
"What, in case I turn into stars or something?"
An orderly walked past just as I said this and looked at me a little strangely. But then he was carrying a bedpan full of piss, so what was his problem?
"What are the doctors here going to think if I do that?" I continued. I had a vision of them trying to plunge a drip into an ethereal arm. "Besides, I haven't had that problem at all today. Becoming sub-atomic and being kidnapped by an invisible Thing, yes. But no stars."
There was another pause on the other end, then: "Look, I think it's best you stay there for the time being. At least wait for Heather."
I hung up after saying, "Thanks for nothing."
Back in my room, I found the old lady puzzling at the half a dozen sausages that had been in my bed when I left. She had picked one up and was sniffing at it. "Sorry," I said. "They're mine."
"I thought you'd left your guts behind," she said. "But then they moved. I saw them."
I grabbed my clothes and left again. Time to take matters into my own hands. I found the Ladies toilet and changed from the hospital-issue gown into my own clothes. That felt better.
Being abandoned by the others irked me a little. Of course, they had not really done that. David was still hard at work on my problems and Heather was being the rock of my foundations and looking after the minor but essential details as always. I found myself reluctant to chastise Joanna for ignoring me, as she had been so helpful up until now. But what was it the Maestro was doing, that she had gone to check on him? Max was out of the picture, for the time being at least. But I didn't mind that so much. He had put me in a bad mood.
When (if) the sky spilt this afternoon, I wanted to be somewhere I could react to circumstances, not lying helpless in bed. I had this feeling that something big was going to happen. Of course, hospital might be the best place for me, if something weird or painful occurred, but I needed people I knew around me, not a group of strange, inexperienced doctors and nurses. I needed Joanna and David's calm assurance if anything was going to grab me and try once more to drag me off into the void.
In any event, I was not going to wait for Heather. She would insist I do what the doctors tell me, a slave to her maternal instincts. I left the toilet a little cautiously. I was supposed to be in bed. Discharging myself was not going to be pleasant. I knew they could not hold me there, if I didn't want to be, but if they suspected I had a head injury they could perhaps pull something under the mental health laws and keep me under observation. It might be better to make an unauthorised exit. I wasn't sure of the legality of that, either. But I had to do something.
A bold exit through the front door would be the best move, I thought. Just walk out. This was a major public hospital, who was going to notice me among a crowd? I looked around the corridor and realised I had absolutely no idea what floor I was on. It was a huge place. The first thing was to get away from the nurses' station and perhaps this whole floor.
I found an elevator and pressed the button.
The elevator came and I stepped inside. There was an orderly standing behind an old man in a wheelchair. The old man looked grumpy, as if he was about to be on the receiving end of something either painful or undignified. He glared at me as if it was my fault.
The ground floor button was already lit. I was on the fifth floor. The doors closed and the elevator descended.
When the doors opened at the bottom, I didn't step out. This was because the doctor who had seen me in my ward was waiting there to step in. He saw me in my street clothes and frowned.
"Hello, Miss Branwell," he said.
"Hello," I said. "Doctor..." What the hell was his name? "...Lesion?"
The orderly beside us chuckled, then turned it into a nervous cough. The old man apparently didn't hear, perhaps lost in his own gloomy premonitions of tubes and needles and invaded orifices.
The doctor stepped into the lift. The orderly suddenly remembered where he was and started to push the old man out. There was a moment's confusion as the wheelchair caught on the doctor's gown.
"Miss Branwell, I have to recommend you stay with us," he said, struggling to unhook himself. "We would like to keep an eye on you."
"I'm fine," I said, trying to edge past.
Then a sausage fell from the ceiling and landed on the old man's head. I almost didn't see it, so accustomed was I to their appearance by now. But the old man wasn't so blasé. He cried out, reaching up to slap it off. It fell into his lap.
"What the...?" the doctor started to say, his gown still caught on the wheelchair. The man's drip was now entering the confusion as he batted the sausage with the back of his hand, the drip tube flapping against the doctor's face.
I took the opportunity to step out of the elevator just as the doors closed. But the doctor recovered quickly. As I hesitated for a second pondering which way to go, the lift doors started to open again. I took another opportunity and ran like hell.
I was in a long corridor, and quite lost. There were signs everywhere, but none were marked "This way, Emily", which would have been most helpful.
There had to be an exit somewhere.
I could hear hurried steps behind me and wondered if it was the doctor. He was my own age and looked capable of a fair turn of speed. I wasn't going to risk looking round to find out. I turned a corner, saw a sign saying: Casualty Reception, with an arrow, and went that way.
I did glance behind me then, because I could no longer hear the pursuing footsteps. But the doctor was there, only this time he was talking on his mobile phone. Perhaps he was arranging an ambush at the main doors. Why wouldn't they just let me go? I had rights. Was there something they hadn't told me? Did they suspect there was more to me than normal? Were the lesions on my foot something unknown to medical science and they wanted me to stay around so they could examine them more closely? They were intriguing questions, but I had no time to think about them.
I decided against going to the casualty reception and ducked into another ladies toilet. There were three cubicles, the last one unoccupied. I entered and slid the catch to Engaged.
This was what my life had become, then: trapped in a toilet cubicle, all exits blocked.
Perhaps I should give in and go quietly back to bed. But no, I had to see this through. Once good old me started on some stupid, impulsive enterprise, it had to be followed through to the bitter and, no doubt, embarrassing end. No intelligence permitted.
But what now? Doubtless, if I tried to leave the toilet, they would be waiting for me. I looked around but there was nothing to inspire brilliant ideas: a toilet, a toilet paper holder, a sanitary disposal, a wall and, high up, a small, louvered window. I might be able to break the glass or remove the louvers, but the window looked too small for me to fit through.
If only I was in my star-state again, I could slide through the wall easily. But I wasn't.
Then I thought, maybe I could be. I had slipped in and out of that state involuntarily on several occasions now. What if I tried to do it? I was on the ground floor; there was probably nothing on the other side of the wall to get in the way. And even if there was, I could move through that too. It was worth a try.
I closed my eyes and concentrated. It's harder than you think to will yourself to be a patch of space. Ever done it? You stand there furrowing your brow, maybe with your tongue sticking out a bit, with random and quite irrelevant thoughts popping in and out like unwelcome guests, and the more you try to concentrate the more the other thoughts get in.
...Think, think, think, stars...come on, stars...
(...It smells in here...)
...Stars, let's see some nice inky black space, come on...
(...This is stupid, it isn't going to work...)
...Just a little more, I'll open my eyes and look down and there I'll be, nice and spacey...
(...How come my clothes always change with me?...)
...No, think! Concentrate! Ok, this time, we'll do it...
(...Seriously, why don't I end up naked each time?...)
...I'll count to three and then it will happen...
(...Did I hear a knock?...)
After a minute or so things settled down a little. I tried to remember how I felt before I had become star-like on the earlier occasions, but could not recall if I had been thinking of anything or doing anything particular when it had happened. Once outside Max's office, once on Joanna's back veranda.
I gave up and opened my eyes.
Me: darkness and vast interstellar distances; a few nearby stars, and a big blob of something cloud-like in the foreground, near my navel. I was space again, and my real body had slipped aside somewhere. Nothing to it.
I turned to the wall and hesitated a second. Sliding accidentally through the edge of a swimming pool was all very well, but I had never done this deliberately before and my mind was holding me back from just walking forwards and stepping through a wall. There was no knowing what was on the other side. I might turn corporeal again halfway through. That would be a real problem for the cleaners. Would I die immediately, the atoms of my body mixed in with those of the wall, or slowly and painfully, still conscious and encased in brick? Or would everything just explode as two solid objects tried to occupy the same space? But of course the longer I stood there deciding if it was going to work the more likely I would lose the ability to do so.
Flinching a little, I stepped into the wall.
Things went black as my body moved through concrete, steel reinforcing, more concrete, and then the outside world came into view.
I was standing in an industrial rubbish bin, garbage piled around and through me. It smelled bad. I kept walking, passing through the garbage and then the metal side of the bin.
Safe. I was in a little courtyard, several doors from the building leading into it. I closed my eyes again, concentrated on not being space-like, but when I looked again I still was.
Hmm, this could be a problem.
"Hey!" someone shouted.
I turned to see a hospital orderly standing in one of the doorways. He was staring at me, mouth-open. I felt like saying "What are you looking at?" but decided against it. There was an open side to the courtyard that looked like it led to a parking lot. I started running. The man in the doorway yelled something but I kept going. It would be something to tell his grandchildren.
I ran through the parking lot, and could hear people shouting or otherwise expressing surprise. I really couldn't blame them: I probably would have muttered some mild expletive myself in their place. A couple pushing a pram were a little perturbed when I ran through their baby, but I hadn't seen them until it was too late. Then I gained the street, and saw a taxi rank. Ignoring the calls and the stunned people, I went to the nearest cab. I looked at the driver through the window.
"Hello," I said.
"Where to?" he asked.
That was a very calm reply to give to a drift of stars. I looked at myself and found that, without noticing the change, I had ceased being ethereal. This was welcome, but it would be even more so if I could learn to control both sides of the equation, the coming and the going.
I opened the door and climbed into the cab. But I had forgotten my public. Several people who had seen me running through the parking lot had gathered round the cab. One was trying to reach me through the window.
"Excuse me!" he was yelling. What did he want? An autograph?
"What's going on?" asked the driver.
More people were gathering around now. I must have made quite an exit.
"Nothing," I said. "Just some fans."
"Fans? What, are you some kind of movie star?" He was looking at me over his shoulder.
I gave him Joanna's address. He squinted at me again, as if trying to recognise me, then shrugged. The people around pulled back when they heard the engine start.
I was trying to wind the window up against the arm of the man who had reached inside. I didn't want to hurt him, much less catch his arm and drag him through the streets, but he was being persistent. I grabbed a couple of sausages that had appeared on the seat next to me and put them in his hand. He felt their clammy coldness and pulled his arm out of the window just as I wound it shut.
We eased out into traffic. I looked behind at the little group of people on the pavement, staring after us. It looked like I was going to be in the news yet again. The driver was still trying to place me.
"You in TV?" he asked.
"No."
A few moments later: "I know, sports."
And then: "You a model?"
I was tempted to admit to that one. But I just kept shaking my head and glancing behind all the way to Joanna's house.
\*\*\*
"You panicked."
"I didn't panic."
"Emily, it's ok to panic. You've been through a lot."
"What's all this, anyway?"
There was a large star -- Joanna called it a pentacle -- drawn on the floor of her study, which had been cleared of furniture. Candles had been arranged around it, and some herbs were burning in a bowl somewhere. So this was the stuff the Maestro had gone to purchase this morning. The set-up looked a little too much like devil worship for my liking -- and was very reminiscent of the two circles in chalk on the floor of my house. I kept well away from it.
"The Maestro is preparing a ritual." At least Joanna had the decency to look a little dubious when she said this. Astrology I could cope with, but I was less tolerant with friends who indulged in the arcane arts. I had read a few books on magic, and thought it all very interesting, but best left to complete strangers. The Maestro was weird enough already; I didn't need Joanna to emulate him.
"What sort of ritual?"
"He calls it a warding."
That was information, even if it meant nothing to me.
"Who is he, anyway?" The question, which had been hanging around ever since I had met the man, nevertheless surprised even me when it suddenly stepped forward.
It seemed to upset Joanna, too. She deliberately avoided eye contact and paused ominously. "Um -- he's a wizard. A white wizard. The best one I ever met, actually. He's very good." She was trying a little too hard to convince me.
"A wizard? What, turning people into frogs and stuff?"
"No," she said earnestly. "He doesn't do that. In fact, he doesn't like the term wizard at all. We call him Maestro."
"So he's not a musician?"
"It's Italian for master."
"He's not Italian. He's Turkish."
"Well, I guess we could call him Üstat." Her voice was now a little hysterical. "But more people understand Maestro."
"Where did you run into him?"
"In England. He's a world authority on alternate planes of existence. I studied with him in Istanbul. We..." she hesitated.
"You what?"
But she said nothing, just flushed red a little, and in doing so spoke volumes. I had this nasty feeling Joanna had been more than a student of the Maestro, and I looked back at the pentacle to avoid betraying myself.
The pentacle was drawn on Joanna's polished wood floor. Strange and mystical runes had been scrawled at various points around it. The candles dripped wax onto it as well. There was going to be trouble, I could see: Joanna cherished her floors.
"What does he intend to do?" I asked, not quite sure if I wanted an answer.
"He's going to protect you from the force that tried to abduct you."
"Does he know what it is?"
"He believes it's some form of evil force from beyond our universe."
"Well, that's a relief. I thought I was in trouble."
"Emily, please." She looked at me and pouted a little. "I'm a prognosticator. Astrology, tarot, palm reading. That sort of thing. He's -- he's a higher order of psychic. If he knows something that can help you, then let him try it. His idea of putting you in the circle almost got you - well, the Maestro says something tried to take your soul. He's very sorry. But he thinks this way is better."
"Do you believe that?"
"I don't know."
"So the Maestro wants to put me in a pentacle. May I ask how that differs from a circle, except that it's pointy instead of round?"
Joanna said nothing.
I rolled my eyes. This was getting ridiculous. "Ok, you foretell the future. Why don't you tell mine, then? Tell me what's going to happen to me. Am I going on a long journey, meeting a tall, dark stranger or something?"
Joanna looked really angry. I regretted my outburst, but refused to apologise.
"I've tried," she said at last in a quiet voice. "It doesn't work. Somehow you're blocked. Remember how your presence threw my computer program out? I wasn't able to make any sense with it. It's the same with cards."
"So if I'm blocked, how is the Maestro going to get through?"
"He's very powerful."
"You sound unconvinced."
"I'm frightened, Emily."
At least I wasn't alone.
"I thought the Maestro was happy that this is happening to me. All that bit about being a 'patch of space' and so forth. He seemed to want this to happen. Now he wants to protect me from it."
"He's revised his opinion. He thought you were the focus of some enormous cosmic energy that was coming to our primal plane. Initially, he was going to perform a ritual to enhance the process, but since he heard what happened to you in the circle..."
I shook my head. Despite having my mind opened to new possibilities lately, this magic pentacle demon-warding crap was going too far. My allegiance had swayed again: I was now leaning heavily towards the Scientists and their possible explanations, rather than this stuff which looked just as dangerous as what was happening to me already.
"What do you think, Joanna? What's going on?"
Maestro Birgili suddenly walked into the room. He was quite a sight. He was dressed now in a long white robe, with a white hat on his head, and clutching a book. I wondered if it might be some esoteric tome of mystical power, then saw it was a paperback and still had the price sticker on it -- bought at the same New Age shop he purchased the candles, no doubt. He looked ridiculous, although his expression was set on Extremely Serious.
"Merhaba, Emily," he said, with some degree of warmth, certainly more than he usually had. "I am so glad you have come. I will be ready in a few minutes."
"Fine," I said. "Hang in there. Love the look." I gave him two thumbs up and hoped he understood the sarcasm.
I took Joanna by the arm and led her out of the room. I needed to get away from the heavy stench of burning herbs and the wacky figure in surgical white.
We sat in the lounge and I asked my question again. Joanna looked sad.
"Well?" I asked.
"You want to know what I think?"
"Yes."
"Me?"
"Yes. You. Put aside everyone else's opinion and just give it to me straight. You and David are the only ones I really trust anyway. He hasn't formed any conclusions yet. How about you?"
"Neither have I. But," and she lowered her voice, "I don't think it's a demon."
"That's good."
"I think you're tapping into cosmic forces on a major scale. That's all I can offer you at the moment. These are paranormal things and there has to be a paranormal explanation."
"Ok. And I know you can't foresee anything about me, but what do you think is going to happen?"
"Oh, Emily..."
"Please Joanna."
"I think -- I'm worried you're going to get hurt."
Me too.
\*\*\*
Joanna and I had lunch: pasta and salad. Birgili was not with us. He was conducting his ritual, having taken samples of my hair, fingernails and sweat. He had cut the lock of hair and fingernails himself and used a white gauze pad to collect sweat from my forehead. There was plenty there: I was thinking about what Joanna had said and I was feeling very hot indeed. I had no intention of watching what he was going to do with these. I didn't want to know. We let him get on with it. It was a crock anyway, with his paperback spell book, economy pack candles and hastily-sewn bedsheet.
David rang. I was closer to the phone and answered it with my mouth full of fettuccini. There was a large amount of static on the line. We had noticed the TV reception was shot, too, when we tried to watch the news updates. David and I went through the "Yes, yes, I know I should be in hospital" bit fairly quickly. He had rung there first and was told I had discharged myself unofficially. He didn't sound too upset.
"We're at the uni lab," he said, his voice modulating in volume and with a background of clicks and hisses. "We're going to watch the sky spilt from here. It might be a good idea if you joined us."
"Can Joanna come?"
"Sure. And bring the plant too."
"The what?"
"Heather's plant. What's it called? Mike. I want to have a look at it, too."
"I'm not sure she'd like that."
David had suggested that Heather bring her precious plant to Joanna's place the night before. He had not yet said why. I wasn't sure if he understood Heather's curious fondness for Mike -- I sure didn't -- or how upset she might be if he was removed without her permission. After a second, however, he said, "Well, just bring one leaf or something. And some of the soil, too. I need some samples."
If David had taken a sudden interest in botany that was his concern. Anything was better than hanging around Birgili. The chanting that issued from Joanna's study was beginning to be obtrusive. Besides, he had started to burn something really stinky, redolent of old socks and stale fart.
"When do you want us?"
"As soon as you like."
I paused a second. "Are you going to hook me up to anything? I mean, are we talking electrodes here?"
I could hear him smile on the other end of the line. "Only about twenty thousand volts direct to the cortex," he said. "Nothing you can't handle."
It sounded inviting. "At least it means I have a brain," I said. "There have been times."
He chuckled and I liked the sound of it. "See you soon."
We wrote a note for anyone else who might turn up, finished lunch, and headed for the university, closing the door on the Maestro and his chanting, which had taken on a cold, menacing edge. I hoped he wasn't going to involve Bruno as a familiar or anything.
\*\*\*
We were being followed. Joanna noticed the car in her rear view mirror soon after we turned onto Coronation Drive: a station wagon with a TV news service logo on it. It moved up from a few cars behind and sat on our tail. I gave them the finger; they pretended to ignore me. A stand-off.
"I'm going to sue Bob Kirke," said Joanna. "That newspaper article mentioned me as well as you. These guys must have been waiting for us outside my house."
We drove through Toowong. The news car kept following. Just before the bridge over the railway line, Joanna indicated a right turn onto the bridge, even though the university was straight ahead. The station wagon obediently followed us into the turning lane. Joanna slowed down, trying to time things correctly with the traffic lights. At the last minute she glanced over her shoulder, dropped down a gear, swung back into the left hand lane and kept going. We narrowly missed a car coming up in the lane, the driver of which honked his horn angrily and slammed on his brakes. The station wagon was almost caught. It had to brake suddenly and slip into the left hand lane behind the other car. There was a satisfactory squeal of tyres. We continued on through the lights.
"Nice try," I said. "Where did you learn to drive like that?"
"Peak hour," she said.
At the next set of lights where we had to turn left onto Sir Fred Schonell Drive, Joanna sped up as the lights turned amber, trying to leave the news car with the red. I was flung sideways as we rounded the corner, clutching the door with one hand and the leaf we had taken from Mike with the other. The news car was too close behind: it made the corner and kept with us.
"I'm going to complain to their boss," said Joanna. "They're getting dangerous."
It was now obvious where we were going, but the news car kept close behind. Any attempt to lose them in the side streets would not work because they could still catch us at the university gates. We turned left at the roundabout and headed for the public car park.
"We'll just have to brazen it out," I said. "I hope David can stop them entering the lab."
We spied a young man in a lab coat standing beside David's car as we swung into the car park. He waved and we pulled up beside him.
"Hi, my name's Stuart Whittaker," he said. "I'm with Dr Nabarlambarl. He sent me to meet you."
We climbed out of Joanna's car just as the news car pulled up. Stuart was thin, tall and a bit weedy, but he glared at the reporters and squared his shoulders under his loose-fitting white coat as if spoiling for a fight.
"Trouble?" he asked us.
"Call campus security," said Joanna. "They're being a pain in the butt."
There were two men in the car and they were fishing out a microphone and a camera. As we got out of Joanna's car, Stuart went over to them, smiled and said "Hi."
"Hi," said the one with the microphone, in a tone that showed he was really not interested in him. The cameraman hefted his equipment onto his shoulder and pointed it in my direction.
I held Mike's leaf in front of my face, the broad frond a nice screen from the camera. Max's camera I only just tolerated; I certainly wasn't taking it from these guys. I also hate having microphones pushed in my face. And I especially hate being asked demanding questions that are really none of anyone's business.
"Ms Branwell," said the man with the microphone as we tried to go through the exit. "Have you any comment about the recent events that have taken place around your home?"
I decided that attack was the best form of defence. "Are you married?" I asked.
"Sorry?"
"How old were you when you stopped wetting the bed?"
"Ms Branwell, will you be watching the split sky this afternoon?"
"When did you lose your virginity?" If he was interested in personal questions, I could certainly oblige.
Stuart was leading us out of the car park towards a brick building fronted by a courtyard. A sign over the glass doors read PHYSICAL SCIENCES. The reporters were following us, the camera whirring away. It swung onto Joanna.
"Ms Clifford, as a leading psychic, what is your opinion about..."
"It's Miss Clifford," she said. "Arsehole."
Stuart led the way into the building, standing aside to let us past and closing the door behind us. "Left at the end of the corridor," he said. "Room 122." We hurried on, while he turned to face the reporters, pulling out his mobile and dialling.
"Hello, Security please," I heard him say as we turned the corner.
"They're going to crucify us on TV tonight," Joanna said to me.
I shrugged. "I had no reputation to start with."
Room 122. The door was open and David was inside. He was still in last night's clothes. In contrast to Max's mess, David's office was quite neat, although filled with books and various bits of apparatus. He was also wearing a lab coat and was, as usual, tapping away on his iPad. This obsession of the scientist faction with small computers was beginning to be stereotypical. Still, at least none of them sported thick glasses that had been repaired with sticking plaster, or had pens sticking out of their top pockets. As we entered, he stopped typing and stood up, smiling.
"Stuart find you ok?" he asked.
"Yes," said Joanna, "We brought some unwelcome visitors with us. Reporters. He's just calling Security."
"Fine. Well, thanks for coming. And for bringing the leaf."
I put it down on the desk together with the little jar of soil I had scraped from around Mike's roots. I thought Mike had looked a bit dry when I took the sample, but I couldn't care less. If Heather wasn't going to water him, it was none of my concern. "What did you want these for?"
"They could be very important."
I stared at the horrible leaf and the soil and hoped David might do something nasty to them.
"Going to chop it up into little pieces?" There must have been a gleam in my eye, because David looked startled.
He examined the leaf carefully and moved his iPad around so I could see the screen. There was a picture of Mike on it. Max had used a digital camera to take some shots of him the night before.
"I emailed these pictures to a friend in the Botany department here at the university," he said. "I wanted to see if he could identify it. He was curious as to where the specimen came from. Do you know where Heather got Mike?"
"I've no idea," I said. "She had him when she moved in. That was two years ago. Why?"
"Because it doesn't seem to belong to any known plant species."
David referred to Mike as it, whereas I thought of him as a him, mainly because Heather always did. But this last remark made me reconsider: Mike was more of an it. Maybe more than I had first realised. The comment took me by surprise. Strange to say, I had never wondered what sort of plant Mike was. He was just Mike. Bruno was the same: he was just a cat, no particular type.
"I was interested in it because when everything was removed from your house, it was the only thing left. What further intrigued me was how not just Mike survived, but also the dirt in the pot. And the pot itself. And the saucer."
That had crossed my mind also, but I had been too busy to think about it since.
"So you have a theory?" Joanna asked. She had been sitting there quietly so far.
Stuart came in, looking a little harassed. "They've gone," he said. "But they aren't happy."
"Too bad," I said.
David picked the leaf up, looked closely at the stub of stem, rubbed it between his fingers. He opened the jar of soil, took some between his fingers and gave it a good feel. Then he sniffed at it. "My grandfather," he said, "taught me a lot about soil. How it feels, how it smells. You can tell a good deal from it. It literally is the Earth." If he was trying to impress me with his wisdom, he was doing a good job.
"I needed samples because I want to put them through the mass spectrometer," he said. "Analyse what Mike's made of. I'm not sure it's normal at all."
"What about me?" I asked.
"You wouldn't fit in the spectrometer."
That was scientist humour. But who am I to talk, with my record of failed one-liners?
"Of course," he continued, "your affair with the Poinciana tree this morning may also be a link. Plants are starting to feature heavily in whatever is going on."
I pondered this for a moment.
Joanna shifted in her chair. "So you think the plant is not just a new species, it's actually unique?"
"I don't know," said David. "All I do know is that it has the Botany Department here stumped. I'd like them to have a look at it in the flesh as it were, and see if they revise their opinion. If it is unique, then I'm afraid Heather may have to abandon her plant to science."
I had a mental image of him trying to persuade Heather to give up Mike. I pushed it aside before it got bloody.
"Ok," I said. "Mike is unique and for some reason he wasn't sucked into the void with the rest of the house. But what about the pot and the saucer? You mentioned them before."
"Yes. That still has me stumped, I'm afraid."
Joanna leaned back in her chair and folded her arms with a self-satisfied expression on her face.
The movement was not lost on David.
"However," he continued, "I believe both you and Mike -- I mean the plant -- are either generating, or situated within, some sort of field which extends out from you for a few centimetres. When you were floating in the circle yesterday I touched you, if you remember, as did your landlord this morning when he pulled you away from the Thing."
"Yes."
Was that only this morning?
"I felt a slight tingling when my fingers went through your arm," said David. "Like pins and needles. And look." He held his left hand out for us to see. I looked. His skin was of course very brown, but the black hairs between the first and second knuckles of each finger were easily visible. I frowned at him. So what? "Now look at this one." And he held out his right hand, the one he had used to pull me out of the circle. There were no hairs on his fingers. The contrast between his two hands was quite startling.
"Why didn't you say anything before?" Joanna asked, after scrutinising his hands for herself.
"Because the alopecia, the hair loss, only happened about an hour ago. I haven't been in contact with any chemicals or processes which might have caused it. Perhaps something in a field being generated by you damaged or killed the hair follicles in my hand. Eventually they atrophied and the hair fell out."
"Sorry about that," I said. I meant it, too. He had nice hands. I hoped the hair would grow back.
"Mr Sabatini has quite hairy arms," said David. "And he had both of them in close contact with you for a few moments. It'll be interesting to see if he experiences the same result."
Just another reason for my landlord to hate me. I didn't like where this was going.
"So," said David, "you and Mike both have this field, or continuum, surrounding you. Perhaps it protected Mike from disappearing with the rest of your furniture. And it prevented his pot and saucer from doing the same thing. It also protects your clothing when you change states."
"But how?"
"Well, we don't know."
Joanna spoke up again. "But why doesn't Emily's hair fall out?"
A good question. I was attached to my locks, and not just on a physical level. Bald would not be a good look for me. And while the hair on my arms was pale and sparse, it was also still there.
"Possibly because she is the source of the effect, or immune to it in some way," said David. "A snake is protected from its own venom, for instance. There could be an equivalence here."
A snake? Oh well, there was no reason to take the analogy personally. I tried to remain scientifically objective.
"It may also explain why events like the sausages only appear when you're around," said David.
Joanna had said the same sort of thing about her computer program. And Heather's flat tyre had only occurred when I was in the vicinity. I had never been so influential before.
A thought occurred to me. "Have you seen my lesions?" I said.
They hadn't. I took off my shoe and sock and put my foot on the desk. It felt cool in the air conditioning blowing from up near the ceiling. The others crowded round, leaning in close (brave souls, to be that close to my feet) to have a good look.
"Interesting," said David, and I don't think he was referring to my coral toe-nail polish. "What was the medical opinion?"
"All the doctor said was there was nothing to worry about."
"May I?" asked Joanna. She touched the lesions gingerly. There was a sharp snap! sound and the flash of a blue spark between her fingers and the lesion. She pulled her hand back quickly. "I got a shock," she said. "Like static electricity."
David put his hand out and touched them. "Nothing," he said. "Maybe you generated some static from the contact between your shoes and the carpet."
She put her fingers out again. There was another snap! and a spark, as strong as the one before.
"That hurts," she said.
"Well don't do it," I said forcefully. It had hurt me, too.
"Interesting," said David, and I could hear the wheels start to grind in his head.
Joanna stepped back a pace and looked a little worried. If she felt there was a cause to be, then I did, too. A squadron of butterflies launched themselves from the runway in my stomach.
"I've heard of this before," she said, "but never experienced it for myself. It happens only in strongly psychic people. It's a discharge of energy between points of opposite alignment."
"Well, electromagnetism also causes -- ," began David, but Joanna interrupted him.
"This isn't good."
I had been prodding the lesion with my finger. "How do you mean opposite alignment?" I asked. "Sort of like good versus evil?"
"I don't like those terms," she said. "To categorise them like that is to neglect that both are necessary to a balanced universe. I call them points of opposite alignment. And if one is very strong, it can cause a discharge of energy like that when they come in contact with each other. Everyone has centres of energy that can be seen and measured: aura, Chi, chakra points. This energy is real and influences things around it. We just had a demonstration of it."
I said, "So you're saying these lesions are a strong source of some opposite energy to yourself?"
"Yes."
Stuart smirked. The smirk actually made a noise as his cheeks drew apart, all moist and slurpy like he had a mess of saliva in there. He had been standing there quietly all this time, scribbling a few notes and watching with rapt attention. Now he drew attention to himself. Not wise.
"Looks like static electricity to me," he said.
Joanna had heard the smirk, and now turned her big guns on him. She must get tired of not being believed.
"It's odd, though, isn't it," she said slowly, "how it only happened when I touched Emily's foot, and not David?"
"What sort of shoes are you wearing?" Stuart asked, still dangerously supercilious, with a glance at Joanna's coconut fibre sandals. She even dressed vegetarian.
David intervened quickly. "Perhaps," he said, "it deserves further investigation. I'm not dismissing Joanna's idea completely, just withholding judgment until we have further data."
Stuart took the hint, but didn't look happy.
I started to put my sock and shoe back on. "That still doesn't explain why one of your points of alignment seems to be in my foot," I said to Joanna. It seemed to me that if the universe did have a centre of dark, negative energy or whatever, my instep was a strange place for it.
"I'd say whatever that Thing was in the circle is an even bigger point," said Joanna. "It left those marks on you, and they carry a mere trace of its full charge."
"I'm not sure about that Thing," said David.
Creases furrowed our brows as we wondered what was coming next. A claim of mass hallucination? Max had been keen on that idea, too.
"Can we agree on what we saw?"
That proved to be a problem. We were yet to have our major discussion of what the Thing was, trying to put a name to the part of something we could not define in the circle of infinite size in my living room, but it was obvious even now that we had all seen something different. We tried a few words, but none of them fitted.
David had taken out a cigarette and was fiddling with it in his nervous way.
"Right. So it's possible we're all placing different interpretations on what we saw. I mean, we saw something. But our brains have interpreted it differently, because we are different in ourselves. It's like interpreting a poem. The words are the same, but different people can find different meanings in those words."
"I know what I saw," said Joanna. "I just can't describe it."
"So what do you think the Thing was?" I asked David.
He shrugged. "That's the problem. It could have been anything. But it doesn't have to be anything corporeal. A trick of the light. The gravity around the circle is totally screwed. Electromagnetic distortion is huge. It's the same all over the city. If there is something in the circle, it could easily influence our senses."
"That's what Max suggested about the split in the sky," I pointed out, hoping he would take this in the negative way it was intended. Where had the philosopher-physicist gone? "Something tried to pull me into the circle," I continued. "My leg disappeared. If it wasn't for Mr Sabatini..."
"I'm not saying there was nothing there," said David. "I'm just saying we are interpreting it differently. Of course you were closest to It. But we are no nearer to determining what It is."
"I take it there's another theory coming up?" This was from Joanna, in a blatantly sarcastic voice.
Her tone proved too much for Stuart. He had been driven back once; now he charged forward again, into the valley of death. "I don't hear you coming up with much," he said snappily. "Just a lot of unfounded stuff about - I don't know, magical energy and stuff. At least my idea is founded on scientific -- ."
David put up a placating hand. "All right, all right," he said. "Please, this is not meant to be a debate about individual methods, just a discussion of ideas. Stuart, perhaps you should get these specimens into the spectrometer. Let us know as soon as you get something."
Stuart grabbed the leaf and the soil sample and headed for the door. He closed it a little too quickly and some delicate-looking instruments nearby rattled.
"A good student," said David. "But of course, still in the dark as far as our business is concerned. I apologise for him."
"I have perfectly valid theories," said Joanna, not backing down despite withdrawal of the enemy. "They're just based on different principles, principles you can't explain and therefore dismiss as invalid." Her tone was icy.
All right, it was my fault. I'd better be the one to spread the oil on the troubled waters in Room 122.
"Ok. Let's just remember we have a problem to solve," I said, my voice getting all hard and loud, which might have been commanding if there hadn't been a tiny trace of a tremor about it. "Now, as I'm at the centre of it all, I think I have some say. I'd like to hear from both sides about whatever theories are currently being tossed around. I won't judge either of them. And I don't want you to judge each other. Agreed?"
There were sulky nods from the antagonists.
"All right," I said. "Joanna. Do you have any ideas?"
Joanna nodded. "Thank you. I appreciate that not everyone has an easy time coming to terms with new beliefs. I also am well aware that not everything I believe is capable of scientific proof. But I fail to see why that should disprove it. Science operates along certain laws. It dismisses as impossible anything that does not operate in accordance with those laws. But perhaps some things just don't."
"Joanna, please," I said. I was starting to get a little edgy myself. "This is not what I asked. Do you have any idea of what is happening to me?"
She bit her lip and sighed. Then she said slowly, "Sorry. It's my belief you are the focus of a point of opposite alignment that is manifesting itself by the means we have seen. I believe it is encroaching more and more on our material world. I don't know if it is malign in intent, but I suspect it is. It is able to influence psychic abilities, both by screening you from them and by causing such peculiar events as the bogus horoscope you received."
That was all. I thanked her and turned to David. "And what's your theory?"
He leaned forward and clasped his hands in front of him on the desk.
"Very well. I -- we -- think that the circle and you are the foci of an inter-dimensional rip in the space-time continuum. Random occurrences of seemingly impossible physical events are being channelled through the circle and you. How this rip occurred or what will result from it I can't conjecture."
I sat back.
"Now," I said. "can anyone tell me how those two theories are different from each other?"
No one said anything.
"I thought so. You both think the same thing."
"No we don't," said David.
"Yes you do. You both agree that this is something powerful from outside the normal world that is influencing both me and events surrounding me."
David pouted. "I guess so."
"In other words, you haven't got a bloody clue."
David must have been really put out, because he fumbled inside a desk drawer, produced a cigarette lighter and actually connected the flame to the end of his cigarette. He took only a few puffs, though, before stubbing the cigarette out.
"The question is," I continued, "what do we do about it?"
The room went very quiet. And it stayed that way for some time.
\*\*\*
Showtime.
Most of Brisbane was preparing to watch the sky split. News teams were setting up cameras and outside broadcast units. The road to the summit of Mt Coot-tha was lined with cars, although the view was going to be good everywhere. The Kangaroo Point cliffs were packed. Any open space was filled with people, many of them taking a few unofficial minutes off work to watch the display. The police were out in force and, in the true spirit of paranoia, emergency services had been put on alert. There was fear, too. Listening to a radio broadcast crackling with static and electronic howls, we heard of some people hiding, shutting their curtains and refusing to watch. It was Y2K all over again and there was a similar mix of expectation and uncertainty. The broadcast also told of similar scenes up and down the east coast of Australia, from Hobart to Cooktown. It was predicted, however, that the centre of the split was going to be over Brisbane, towards the south-east. No surprises there.
We chose to watch it at the University, because David wanted to be close to his computer. Despite the electromagnetic interference that still plagued all communications systems, he had established a fairly good landline with Parkes Observatory and he wanted to keep it open. We assembled in the courtyard outside the Physical Sciences building: me, Joanna and David, and a number of other staff and students. Someone had brought a carton of beer and was handing them around. A few people were sitting in folding chairs. There was a building between us and the south-east, where Microscopium lay, although our view in that direction was still fairly good. A few clouds had moved in from the west, but they were not going to trouble us.
Most of the spectators there were scientists, with a sprinkling of postgraduates and a few from other faculties, and most were curious about me. The word had spread that I was rather special. I received some interested glances but no one pestered me, for which I was grateful. I still felt a bit like a specimen, though. Joanna stayed beside me and gave warning stares to anyone who came too close.
"Ten minutes," said David, standing at the centre of a group of students, Stuart among them.
He was sipping a beer and setting up a pair of binoculars on a tripod. "Want one?" he asked. I declined; I was feeling nervous and the thought of gassy beer in my stomach made me sick. Joanna accepted one from the man passing them out, popped the tab and drank straight from the can. I admired her cool.
"Are you getting anything psychically?" I asked her, mainly for the sake of making conversation. I wasn't sure what the hell she was supposed to be "getting" -- wasn't even sure what my sentence was supposed to mean, for that matter -- but it was good to talk.
"No," she said. "But I'm not trying. I know people who are, though, and they'll let me know if anything happens. In the meantime, I'm just here for you."
That made me smile.
"Thanks," I said.
"Five minutes," said David. He was consulting a piece of paper. "According to Max, the centre of the split -- the widest part that is -- should appear over that building there, just near the satellite dish."
"How long should this thing last?" asked a man nearby.
"Not long," said David. "It lasted six and a half minutes the first day, ten minutes yesterday. Maybe twenty or so."
I stared at the top of the building over which the split would appear. There were a couple of people there, looking to the south-east like we were. All of the city, all over the east coast of the country, thousands and thousands of eyes were straining into the bright blue. Through the media, eyes all over the world were watching live broadcasts.
Joanna drained her beer and belched quietly. It was good to hear her being so down-to-earth. I thought maybe I should have one. Perhaps it would calm my nerves. I looked around for the man with the beer, but he was busy talking to other people, and couldn't see me.
"Almost time," said David.
The conversation subsided. Everyone turned and stared at the innocent patch of sky above the satellite dish. The world was still.
Pause.
Then:
"Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord," sang someone. There was a groundswell of laughter. I silently wished he would just shut up, as I strained my eyes into the south-east.
Then:
A twist of air; distortion; a sort of heat haze effect, very brief, almost invisible.
"Did you see that?" I asked Joanna.
"Yes."
Another near-invisible twist in the blue. It could have been an illusion produced by eyestrain, if only others weren't seeing it too. Then, a few seconds later, a black dot appeared in the sky.
I remembered lying back on the beach a couple of years before, sun blazing, staring up at the endless sky, and seeing an eagle high, high above me, no more than a pinprick in the cloudless expanse, so tiny it had been the merest chance I had seen it at all. But once I had seen it, I was able to follow its flight, as long as I didn't blink or look away. If I did, then it would take a careful search to locate it again. This black spot was like that, only it stayed still, and was almost too small for my eye to focus on it.
It stayed that way for a minute, perhaps two. Some in the crowd had spotted it, others were trying to find it, following the pointing fingers of those who had. David was madly twiddling the focus knob on his binoculars. "It doesn't magnify at all," he said.
As if on cue, it started to swell. After another minute, it was quite visible, a black dot apparently only a few millimetres across and still growing. Everyone had seen it now. A collective sigh went up.
When it was an apparent two centimetres across, it changed shape, extending along its north-south axis. Soon it was a strip of night, pushing back the blue of the day. I looked for stars within the split, but the rest of the sky was still too bright to see any.
The strip lengthened and widened. It was much bigger than when I had first seen it, expanding even more, opening a dark gap in the sky.
Stars appeared in the split as more day-sky was consumed. "That'll be Alpha Gruis," some enlightened soul said. I hoped he knew what he meant.
The ends of the split had almost touched the north and south horizons now. More stars were visible. It was much wider than before, with almost a quarter of the daytime sky obscured. And it was still growing.
"David," I said. "I don't like this."
He glanced at me sharply. "How do you feel?" he asked.
"Fine. I mean, I don't feel odd in that way. I'm frightened."
And I was. Joanna grabbed my hand. "You want to sit down?" she asked.
I shook my head. "It's nothing like before. The first time, when I saw the split, I wasn't afraid, just curious." I remembered I had been more concerned about the traffic accident than myself. "But this - it's..."
It was like being in the circle, when the Thing had grabbed me.
There was something in the sky, some Thing that was related to what had been in the circle. I felt very alone and helpless and obvious standing there in the courtyard, staring back at it. There was a sudden pain in my foot where my lesions were. I was trembling all over my body. Joanna looked at David.
"Should we get her inside?" she asked.
I shook my head. "It won't make any difference." I forced myself to look at the dark split, at the stars impossibly shining there in the day, at the rip in the sky through which something was coming: inexorable, huge, eternal. In contrast to it, the whole world was a speck of dust, a mote of cosmic nothingness that circled a tiny sun in an obscure galaxy in a very ordinary part of infinity. Everything, everyone, all of history, all the achievements of humanity, all the suffering, all the intelligence and stupidity, was absorbed into the vastness of the Thing that was approaching. The world would be trampled on, tossed aside, crushed without recognition, of no more concern than a bacterium to the consciousness that was moving through the void. The Earth did not matter: It moved towards me. I was the focus, the centre, the hub of Its motion and purpose.
I fell to my knees. Joanna and David were beside me in an instant, and they lay me down on the ground. The split continued to grow, filling half the sky. The myriad stars grew brighter. The western edge was approaching the Sun.
"Ok," said Stuart, noting this fact. "This is going to be interesting."
As the darkness met the Sun, it seemed to slow very slightly, but soon it was crossing the solar disc, not with a curved shadow like the moon does in an eclipse, but a straight line. I stared at the horrible sight longer than I should, until my eyes hurt. When I shut them I could still see the half-eaten sun, red and black, under my eyelids. I opened them again and forced myself to look at the rest of the split.
Already the light had dimmed. It was twilight in the early afternoon. But, after a while, it seemed to darken no more.
"The sun is just keeping ahead of it," said David. "The splitting must have slowed."
He was right. The Sun was moving westwards, and the edge of the split was following it, still half eclipsing it, the rate of expansion now matching the apparent motion of the Sun across the sky.
"How are you, Emily?" said Joanna. I was lying on the ground. A cold drop of sweat fell off her forehead onto mine. She was as frightened as I was.
"Never mind me," I said. "I don't like the look of you."
We lay there for a long while under the half-dark sky and wondered what would happen next.
When Next did happen, it took everyone by surprise. If that was still possible.
"Um, I could be mistaken," said Stuart, "but I think one of the stars just went out."
He pointed up vaguely into the sky, like we could all follow his finger.
Nevertheless, we all looked. There were so many stars visible now it was quite impossible to tell if one was no longer there, but then it happened again. I was looking at one big one, near the centre, when it just winked out, like someone had flicked a switch. Then another beside it. Other people were calling out when yet another star disappeared.
One by one, they were turning off.
I couldn't help feeling just the tiniest bit responsible.
Soon they were all gone. The strip of darkness was unrelieved, velvety black and menacing. Darkness had descended. The darkness of hell, the darkness of oblivion.
Almost.
There was the night of the third day to come, and I will deal with that next. But don't panic, your hapless heroine is still with you. Just.
QUANTUM SEX
Branwell's Third Law: Reality is just the beginning.
I see no reason to break with tradition. I started the last two parts of this book naked, and you seemed to like that idea, so I'll do the same with this one. Instead of starting, as I was going to, with me having changed my clothes and preparing to talk with David, I'll start a few minutes before that, with me actually naked and about to put new clothes on. Of course, I didn't really take all my clothes off and stand there completely unclothed before adding new items. No one does that, unless they have a shower or sex in between. But let's call upon some artistic licence and pretend I did.
Imagine me, therefore, pausing after removing my clothes and having another look at the lesions on my foot. They were quite black now, accompanied by a dull, throbbing pain that was bearable but persistent. Prodding them produced more pain, but no sparks such as we'd seen when Joanna had done the same thing. I tried to ignore them, but every so often they would twinge and remind me they were there.
I dressed after ruminating on this fact for a moment, in something more all-purpose this time: chinos and a black sleeveless top. I plaited my hair too, a single braid down the back. Things were moving quickly and I had to be prepared for anything. If you're going to be defending the universe, the last thing you want is hair getting in your eyes.
So there, all dressed again. Hope you enjoyed it.
\*\*\*
The gang was once again assembled at Joanna's house.
What is the proper collective noun for reporters? A press? A shove? Whatever, there were a lot of them outside, taking photos of anything that moved (and a lot that didn't). And how about the collective noun for spectators...a goggle? They were there too, drawn to Joanna's place like they had previously been drawn to mine, pushing up against the fence, having a great time. We kept the curtains closed and stayed away from the windows. The police were there, too, which was actually all right by us as they kept people outside the gate and prevented unwanted intrusions. I don't think that's why they turned up in the first place, though: the authorities had decided I could no longer be ignored. They knew that I had unofficially excused myself from hospital by walking through a wall, and it was suspected that I was linked somehow to the split in the sky. So the police were there partly for our benefit, and partly to see what stunt I would pull next.
I hoped it was a good one -- I'd hate to disappoint them.
The main reason we had come back to Joanna's place, apart from it being our unofficial headquarters, was that Mike the Plant had gone and done something silly. I'll tell you about it shortly. It deserves a few paragraphs all to itself. But first I have to do a bit of flashbacking (i.e. recounting a flashback. Inventing words is fun, isn't it?)
The world was troubled. Night had fallen, both astronomically and metaphorically. So soon, so quickly, the world had become ugly. It had taken us a couple of hours to drive home from the university: there was panic in the streets, I'm sorry to say. People were scared; some were out of control. Already, reports of suicides, robberies and other violent acts were coming in over the radio and on Facebook and Twitter. It was all the usual behaviour predicted for a society in crisis. Some people were no doubt convinced the end of the world had come. And maybe it had; I just saw no need to get emotional about it.
The split had come as the biggest thing to happen maybe in the history of anything, certainly as the word anything is defined on this planet. People were reacting in their many and varied ways, each according to character and ability. Here are a few images that burned themselves into my brain as I gazed out of Joanna's car on the way home:
The police dealing with a guy who had taken his family hostage and was declaring he had brought the split down on the world by not going to church often enough. He was very sorry and all that, but now he was going to shoot himself, unless the police obliged by doing it first;
A smashed shop window, people helping themselves to the TVs and videos and DVDs, the pavement littered with shining glass shards. (Why not? When the world is about to end, the most important thing is to watch it all unfold on widescreen);
A huge traffic jam on the Victoria Bridge, with a bus in the middle of it, caught in the act of trying to do a U-turn; (I mean, really!)
A man directing traffic around a woman lying on the ground, her bag of shopping spilled out around her, three tomatoes forlorn in the gutter;
A dog yapping and barking and running in circles, stopping every few seconds to look up at the split;
A train pulled up at Toowong station, with the head of every passenger pressed against the windows, trying to look at the sky, as well as the driver and the guard. They looked like they had been doing this for some time.
These were, however, isolated scenes. For the most part, people behaved themselves, the emergency services were doing a fantastic job, and those not involved in the saga of humanity-in-crisis were giving saner, and more considered, attention to the situation.
I'll get the science out of the way in as few words as I can. I don't understand science and really most of the rest of this paragraph is over my head. I'm just repeating what was told to me by David, who summarised the reports and discussions he received from his various colleagues following the split. It was still there, the stars shining as usual outside it, with nothing but the deepest night inside. In fact, the split no longer looked like a split and was now being referred to as The Gap. It covered half the sky, from the south-eastern horizon almost to what Max called the zenith, which is apparently the point in the sky that causes the most neck injuries when being looked at, since it's absolutely overhead. At that time (8:15pm) the north-western side of the Gap lay halfway through the constellation Pegasus almost into Pisces (I think that means it was pretty big. Don't ask me to point to them). The south celestial pole was completely obscured. Observers in New Zealand and Fiji had confirmed that the eastern edge extended as far as the constellations of Scutum and Aquila. The bright star Altair (or α Aquilae as it was known to those who like to show off newly acquired knowledge, i.e. me) had just emerged from the other side.
(Scutum means the Shield and Aquila means the Eagle. I hadn't even known these were constellations until now, much less where they were. It's amazing what you learn when under stress. Most times I can spend all day looking at a book and learn nothing, but give me a catastrophe and my head is a sponge.)
The Gap had stopped expanding, but showed no signs of going away. The most interesting thing, according to the astronomers and the physicists, was that it was not moving across the sky with the constellations. It was stationary and the stars were turning behind it. They would disappear when they entered the Gap and reappear on the other side, apparently none the worse for wear. Astronomers concluded, therefore, that the Gap was situated between the Earth and the Moon in a geostationary orbit, which is a big word to say it didn't move in the sky. It had proved unresponsive to all instruments, however, and its precise distance was not yet determined. Artificial satellites, however, were passing in front of it. The Moon had set before the Gap appeared, so the astronomers had to wait for it to return tomorrow and prove their theory by passing behind it. The Gap showed no infra-red or ultra-violet images and nothing in gamma or x-ray wavelengths. Spectroscopy showed perfectly blank results, with no lines whatsoever. Radar didn't bounce off it. And no information was coming through it either; optical and radio telescopes could pick up nothing from any objects that were obscured by it. Some people were talking about black holes and such things, but were being dismissed: if this was a black hole, the physicists were saying, we could hardly be this close and still be alive to observe it. The scientists had no information, and therefore no theories, and were therefore fairly useless. But they were working on it.
By contrast, theories were rife on an unscientific level, and were being touted by anyone who had decided reality and common sense were best avoided as often as possible. The end of the world was popular, as were, of course, aliens in UFOs, the prophecies of Nostradamus, the second coming of Christ, Nibiru, the Mayan Calendar and even suggestions that the CIA was behind it: in other words, the usual nuts and conspiracy theorists that had been heard time and time again as human beings failed to cope with the stresses of modern life and took refuge in fantasy. What was notable here -- if not exactly unexpected -- was that there were no new theories being touted, just the same old crap. Come on, guys, surely you can do better than that?
Not even Joanna and her friends, on the psychic rather than the purely unscientific level, could find out anything about it, although that did not stop them having opinions either. Like the sausage that Madam Aura had had a look at yesterday, the Gap produced no effects whatsoever. No amount of psychic probing, scrying, card-reading or ESP could discover the slightest thing about the Gap. It was a scientific and psychic blank.
Surprise, surprise.
Oddly, however, telecommunications had cleared up. There was now none of the whining, howling, hissing static that had been around for the whole day. As soon as the Gap had stabilised into its present size and position, the airwaves had cleared. My mobile phone started working again. Oddly, too, sausages had stopped appearing. There had been none since the university. I almost missed them, although it was a relief not to have them underfoot, or making unexpected bulges in my pockets. But at least something useful had come out of the whole thing.
But the really scary aspect about all this was the total lack of anything actually happening. So there was a big black thing in the sky. So what? Other than looking ominous, it was doing nothing. But that was not to say it wasn't going to. The world had its neck in the guillotine, waiting for the ghastly sound of the blade falling in the grooves.
So that was how things were after the coming of the Gap. Now comes the flashback I promised. Sorry about the delay.
\*\*\*
We parked both cars -- David's and Joanna's - in the driveway at the side of her house. Heather had rung and demanded our immediate return to Joanna's place; something had happened to Mike, she said. The police were already there, doing official things and generally letting people know who was boss. They threw a few dark glances in my direction, but didn't stop us. There was a big sergeant who looked like he wanted to arrest me on the spot, though. He carried a gun on his hip and kept his hand near it as he escorted us to the front door. Whether he was protecting us from the crowd that almost blocked the road, or whether it was the other way around, was something I refuse to speculate on. Let's just say we arrived at the door, under the planet mobile, and the mood was strained. The screen door stood open; the main door was locked, even though we knew Heather at least was inside. Joanna used her key.
Normally, walking through a door is considered an easy thing to do. That is the purpose of doors, to make entry and exit easy. But the basic principle requires that the door open with a minimum of fuss -- far less fuss, one should expect, than trying to make a hole in the wall from scratch. This door, however, proved to be very fussy. Joanna inserted her key and turned it. So far so good. Then she pushed, and things suddenly became tricky. The door opened a few centimetres, then stopped. She pushed harder; it stopped harder.
"Heather!" called Joanna.
The police sergeant was standing at the edge of the porch. "Problem?" he said.
"Hang on a minute!" shouted Heather from inside. "I'm coming!" Her voice sounded strained, preoccupied. A strange odour drifted through the gap in the doorway: thick, sickly. It didn't match any perfume Heather liked to wear. It smelled like over-ripe fruit.
The sergeant stepped up. "Something blocking the door?" he asked, giving it an ineffectual shove. Queensland's finest in full flight; I was impressed.
Joanna leaned against the door.
"Don't push!" called Heather. "Close the door."
We heard some weird sounds: a scraping, a rustling, a rather filthy epithet from Heather, and then silence.
"Try it now," she called.
The door opened halfway, then stopped again. Something green was pressed up against it. The sickly-sweet perfume grew stronger. We could see now what the problem was.
"Thank you, sergeant," said Joanna flatly, as if it was the most natural thing in the world. "I think we'll be right now." He just stood there, looking through the door like we all were. And, like all of us, he was a little surprised.
The half-open door allowed entry, but Mike didn't. He had done his silly thing.
He had grown. And bloomed. Green leaves, yellow flowers, and nasty, twiggy, spiky branches filled the hallway. It was literally a jungle in there, and it was all Mike. A huge vine, about ten centimetres thick, lay against the door. Other vines and branches came off it. The broadest leaves were half a metre across, with the tops of the highest flowers near the ceiling. In the middle of it all stood Heather, glaring, red-faced and puffing hard, in a lolly-pink tracksuit, armed with a pruning saw. She resembled a gigantic scoop of strawberry ice-cream exploring the upper Amazon.
"Doing a little gardening?" I asked.
I think the smile she gave in return was supposed to sarcastic. At least, I hoped it was, because it was packed with venom.
She kicked at the vine against the door. "That's as much as it's going to open," she said. "Better squeeze through."
I went in first. Mike filled the hallway, trailing across Joanna's Turkish rug and into the living room, which looked like the set for a B-grade jungle epic. I wouldn't have been surprised if a troop of monkeys had swung past, chattering. For a unique example of a species with no known friends in the world, Mike had certainly done well for himself.
The others followed, forcing Heather and I to enter the living room. She hacked at intervening foliage with the pruning saw. Many examples of her previous work were visible: severed vines and branches lay everywhere. The scent from the bell-shaped yellow flowers was almost overpowering. Joanna started to cry when she surveyed the devastation.
"When did this happen?" I asked.
"As soon as the sky split," said Heather, turning around suddenly and almost taking my nose off with the saw. "I watched him grow, just boiled up and out of his pot. It took about ten minutes to fill this room."
"So where is the pot now?" asked David, looking round for it.
"It's in the back yard," said Heather. "This is just one branch, you see. The rest of him is out there."
"The rest of him? How much is there?"
Joanna gave a little squeal and headed out the back, clambering through the tangled vegetation. I almost followed her, pleading apology. This was the second house I had destroyed in three days. But I held my ground. I was as much a victim as anyone else.
"Is it still growing?" asked David, surprisingly calm.
"It seems to have stopped," said Heather, a little doubtfully. She was sweating. "I've been trying to clear the house, but I need a bigger saw."
She started hacking at Mike again, a little too earnestly for comfort. After all, she had loved that plant like a brother. But now she slashed and hacked and cut with an intensity that would have made her a formidable serial killer. We all pitched in and lugged out fallen branches and snapped off some of the thinner vines.
David asked Heather for the details about what had happened.
"Well, I wanted to see Mr Sabatini after leaving Emily at the hospital," said Heather without pausing in her clearing work. "But I couldn't find him. So I came back here. The Maestro let me in. I was sitting here watching TV. There was a special broadcast to cover the split, as you know. Mike was over there." She used a severed branch to indicate the corner table. "The split began, and I was watching it, as I said. Then I noticed something out of the corner of my eye, and looked and saw Mike was already about a metre tall, with three flowers that had appeared from nowhere. They were drooping over the side of his pot. As I watched I could see him growing. Only it wasn't like he was growing, actually, more like - like he was being added to. It wasn't as if he was getting bigger, you understand, like you see plants growing in time-lapse photography or anything. It was as if bits of him were just appearing on his ends. He wasn't growing from his base, do you see? Flowers and leaves and vines were being added to his extremities. It was the weirdest thing I ever saw."
She finished sawing through a major vine and tugged hard.
"After about ten minutes, he had almost filled the room. I couldn't see the TV any more. He had already knocked over some of Joanna's vases and stuff, so I grabbed his pot and managed to get it out the back door. It was a bit of a struggle, of course, but I found this pruning saw in the kitchen drawer and was able to cut off some of the worst stuff and I threw him onto the back lawn. He just kept growing for a while. I've been at it ever since."
"When did he stop growing?" I asked. The split had taken about half an hour to reach full width.
"I really couldn't say," she said mournfully.
"I wonder..." said David, and out came the cigarette to do its little dance. "I'd bet anything you like that Mike stopped growing at the same time as the Gap stopped expanding."
That seemed a reasonable guess to me.
Joanna reappeared in the living room, a tear poised on the top of one cheekbone. I did apologise, then. The sight of her crying was just too much.
"I'm ok," she replied as I gave her a hug. "It seems to be mostly this room and the kitchen. The back yard is full though. He's leaning over the neighbour's fence. And he's taken over the Poinciana tree."
David nodded. "Ok, I suggest we cut the main branch leading into the house, and clear this out. If it starts growing again, it can do it outside."
So we did that. It took a while, and we were all exhausted by the end. We had bits of greenery everywhere, down the backs of our shirts and in our hair, in addition to which Mike had a gooey green sap inside him which was soon smeared not only on us but also the furniture and floor. I took a look out the back, and shuddered when I saw the awesome size he had attained. There was hardly any back yard visible. I couldn't even locate his pot, hidden somewhere underneath. I went back inside to where the others were gathered once more in the newly salvaged living room.
Heather, no doubt as hungry as the rest of us, asked if anyone wanted pizza.
The Maestro appeared in the door to Joanna's study. His white robes were disheveled now, and the little cap on his head was almost falling off. He surveyed the room, blinking sleepily as he turned his gaze from us to the shreds of plant still left in odd corners.
"I must have fallen asleep," he said. "What has happened?"
And that's where we came in. Flashback over.
\*\*\*
David had what he called "a few pertinent questions" for me. After I had changed my clothes, we sat on the back veranda, contemplating the dark bulk of Mike, with Bruno on my knee. David had his iPad on his, and was taking notes as we talked. A policeman stood at the corner of the house, keeping an eye out for any intruders trying to climb the back fence. He would glance at the rainforest that was the back yard every so often, shaking his head. Joanna was not with us, and David made no attempt to hide his hope that she would not appear before he was through. It was time for more science and less conjecture.
"I sure could do with some sleep," he said by way of introduction. I had forgotten I was the only one of the group who had had any sleep the night before. He yawned prodigiously, which had the effect of setting Bruno off too. I clamped my jaw so I wouldn't start doing it as well. "Sorry about that," he muttered. He leaned forward in his chair, his eyes gleaming in the dark. Silence for a moment. I thought he had fallen asleep.
"I think," he said eventually, so suddenly it startled me. "I think I'm starting to see a pattern."
Patterns, of course, are a basic component of human insight. Until we see a pattern, until we can link things with other things, we aren't happy. Nothing is allowed to exist in isolation in the human frame of reference. No man is an island, wrote Mr Donne in one of his more cheerful moods. Every man's death diminishes me. I am a peninsula at best, and no matter how small I choose to make the isthmus, the tide can never cover it. I think I've taken analogy for enough of a walk.
When you think about it, actually, it is a rather comforting thought to belong to a group. People like to congregate: gangs, teams, bands, cultures. Patterns are reassuring. The problem with patterns is they very often produce optical illusions. Or give you a headache.
"I think I'm starting to see a pattern," said David. "But I need to ask you some questions first."
"Ok."
"I've been wondering why you seem to be the centre of everything."
I didn't know. I had always thought I was the centre of everything, of course, but that was just natural selfishness. No reasons were needed then. However, since I had actually started being the centre of everything, and reasons were now demanded, I was suddenly bereft of a reply.
Still, David had asked as if he expected me to provide an answer. As this wasn't possible, I sat there in silence for a few moments, hoping he would continue. He did.
"I've been trying to establish a link. Now that Mike has gone off the rails and shows every sign of being involved in the whole thing as much as you, I need to find what links you and it."
Oh, leave him out of this, I thought. Mike and I? Linked in some way? The idea was too revolting to contemplate.
"Are you suggesting I'm some sort of new species too?"
Actually, that thought had some appeal to me. It would take me out of the pattern. Homo branwellii. It had a nice ring to it.
"No, no, not at all," said David quickly. "Sorry, that's not what I meant." Then he saw I wasn't offended, and continued.
"Things only started happening Monday morning. Before that you were perfectly normal."
(Please excuse him, he didn't know me very well.)
"So I'm wondering if there was anything immediately prior to that that might have changed you or affected you."
"What, like Sunday night?"
"Perhaps. Why, did something happen on Sunday night?"
A little scene replayed itself in my mind's eye (wherever that is -- I've often wondered). It even had a title.
Sunday Night
I'm opening two Vodka shooters. They were Heather's, but we are celebrating Jack's new job and don't have any champagne. The new job means a lot more money and possible business trips to faraway places with exotic names, places to which it is more than likely Jack will take his loyal, honest girlfriend who has a penchant for faraway places with exotic names. But pride goes before a fall, as they say. I am just handing him one of the drinks when he says something that makes me pull my hand back.
JACK: I don't think we should go out anymore.
ME: What?
JACK: I think you're very selfish, and...and I think we should go our own ways.
ME: Selfish?
JACK: Look, Emily, it's just not going to work out.
ME: Get out you bastard!
And then I get drunk, using the Vodka shooters as a convenient starting point. Mine anyway: his I throw after his rapidly retreating form. The faraway places move even further away, and are lost to view.
That was sort of how it went, with all the rude words taken out. But it still hurt a lot to think about it. Jack may have been right when he called me selfish, but I had actually liked the ignorant sod quite a lot. Maybe he wasn't the man of my dreams, but he had been pleasant reverie nonetheless, an enjoyable stopover on the road to true love. Still, I hesitated to tell David about my farce of a love life, purely because it was likely to embarrass the hell out of me. But perhaps he needed to know. I sighed deeply and said:
"I broke up with my boyfriend."
"That's not normally going to have the effect of linking you with some cosmic event. Anything else?"
"I got drunk."
"Or that."
I wasn't being very helpful. Then David had a thought.
I could see he had one. There was a spark that leaped through his eyes, a small uplifting of his right eyebrow and the slightest movement of one side of his mouth. Doubtless what scientists call an Insight. I was privileged to witness at first-hand the birth of a theory. Even Bruno noticed it, pausing in the act of licking his left rear foot, as if waiting for the delivery of infinite wisdom.
"Where was this?" he asked. "Where did you break up?"
"At my house."
"But where in your house?"
Good question. Where had we been when Jack had taken that one simple step from adorable hunk of manhood to reviled outcast? Everything had been made fuzzy by the wash of alcohol that had succeeded it. Let me see: we had come home from the movies, he had not been saying much, we got out the booze to celebrate the fact that he had the new job and we had been...oh, no. It dawned on me.
"We were in the lounge," I said. "On the cushions."
"The cushions?"
"We had some large cushions in the middle of the floor. We used them to sit on because the sofa had a habit of sticking broken springs in your arse. Jack and I were sitting on them. They disappeared with everything else in the house, of course, but they were in that spot."
"That spot?" He was leaning forward even more now, almost out of his chair, hoping I would say the right thing and prove his nascent theory.
That Spot. Where the green and blue chalk circles now were. The place where I and certain other objects found it amusing to float and point towards obscure constellations. We had been sitting on the cushions, drinking. Jack had walked out of my life, and I stayed there to finish the Vodka shooters -- and then I opened the wine and drank that before passing out. And I was still lying on the cushions.
I had woken up on them the following day. Which was how Heather knew I had been drunk. She had commented on that, but I never asked her how she had known. She had been out when Jack was there and would not have come in until very late. But she would have seen me passed out on the cushions when she came in.
David listened to me tell him this, but he was still not happy. At least he wasn't judgmental about my relationship or my drinking habits. After all, he was a scientist and understood the need for objectivity. Of course, if he gave even the slightest sign of a chuckle, I would have to kill him.
"Simply being drunk isn't enough," he said. "There still needs to be something to link you with the Gap and everything else. Did anything else happen?"
Nothing. There was nothing else. I had rendered myself unconscious and woke up plagued with sausages and other phenomena.
"Anything involving Mike?" he prompted.
I thrust at the closed portals of my memory. My drinking bout had resulted in chemical changes within my body that formed a complicated path; one of those linked patterns David was so keen on finding. The trouble was, I couldn't see where Mike might fit anywhere in this. He had been in his pot, in a corner of the kitchen, and had nothing to do with me lying on the cushions in a stupor, synthesising alcohol. I hadn't gone into the kitchen at all, except when I had taken the bottle of wine there to use the corkscrew. I had stabbed myself with the knife on the corkscrew when I was trying to cut away the foil wrapping around the neck of the bottle. It had been an old bottle of wine, probably stolen from my father's collection years ago. It hadn't been one of those twist-top ones, it had a cork. If it had been a twist-top, none of this might ever have happened.
I held up my finger now and looked closely at it. The cut had been bad, but a bandaid, long since dispensed with, had taken care of it. I had rummaged through the kitchen drawers looking for the bandaids for a few minutes...
And suddenly I had an Insight of my own. I looked at David, and he must have seen the same sort of thing in my face as I had seen in his. Full memory returned.
I had bled on Mike.
While I looked through the drawers, I had held my finger up and over that part of the kitchen bench where Mike sat. A single drop of my precious A+ bodily fluids had fallen from my finger onto one of his leaves, and I had hastily used my finger to wipe it away. This only resulted in my spreading the blood further over the leaf, of course, and I had had to use a paper towel to clean him so Heather wouldn't get upset. But it meant that Mike and I had come into contact with each other. His leaf had met my bleeding finger.
"Plants have tough cellulose coatings to their cells," he mused when I had related my adventures to him. "There would be little chance of any material passing from Mike to you in such a slight contact. Of course, even a single molecule might be sufficient to induce some sort of symbiosis."
Whatever.
He didn't have to tell me about plant cells. I had been there, remember? I had found plenty of goo on the outside of the Poinciana leaf when I was the size of a cell. DNA or whatever could easily have transferred from Mike to me. And that thought gave me, as it has probably given you, another Insight.
"That's why I turned into a plant this morning," I said, indicating the Poinciana tree that rose above Mike's twisted branches. We looked at its dark bulk for a few moments and pondered the miracles of the natural world.
\*\*\*
After my conversation with David, I went to find the Maestro. Following our departure for the university, he had finished his incantations and fallen asleep in Joanna's study. He had been worn out, he said, by the release of so much energy. He had been woken by Heather's arrival and let her in, and then staggered back to the study and promptly gone to sleep again. He had he seen or heard nothing about Mike's prodigious growth until he had been woken by the sound of us sawing and snapping branches.
The study was now a mess. The pentacle was smeared all over the floor (since he had apparently gone to sleep in the middle of it) and the candles had burned down to stumps of congealed wax. Joanna was less than impressed. Nevertheless, he had managed to finish his spell and was ready to give me the benefit of it. I smiled, nodded and said thanks -- and meant none of it. He was sheepishly cleaning up the mess in Joanna's study while Joanna herself was trying to scrape the wax off the floorboards. I could tell she was in a foul mood. The Maestro beckoned me into the study. "I have this for you," he said, closing the door and holding out a chunk of metal. "Nazarlık. What you call an amulet. A talisman. You must wear it on you at all times, and it will protect you."
I took the thing from him, a disc of metal that looked like brass, about six centimeters across, with a raised bump with a hole through it on one side, and a lip surrounding the other. On one side was a copy of the pentacle he had drawn on the floor. On the other was a queer symbol, sort of like a T with a square and a circle next to it. To someone into that sort of magical stuff it looked mysterious and powerful, I guess.
It just looked stupid to me.
Both designs had been cut with some care, the raw edges filed down smooth.
"Um...thanks," I said.
"It is a ward to guard you from the forces that attack you," he said.
"Isn't it a little late for that?" asked Joanna sarcastically, still on her knees with a knife, scraping at the wax. She spoke through gritted teeth: probably not a good sign. "Or haven't you seen the sky lately?"
"It is never too late," the Maestro said. "There will be much more to come, that is certain."
"Goody," I said dryly. "But how can you protect me against something you don't know anything about?"
He smiled. "But I do know." He reached behind and picked a book off the desk. I looked at the cover: Shadowplanes. Alternate Realities and Parallel Existence, by Turhan Birgili.
I flipped to the blurb on the back.
"Birgili postulates the existence of new worlds and higher forms of being."
"Amazing revelations...a world bestseller."
"One of the world's greatest magicians reveals the secrets of the universe."
"Everyone pondering life's mysteries should read this book."
"You are part of a whole new level of existence," he said. "Read my book. It will explain much."
I started to explain that I didn't quite have time right then to digest what looked like 400-odd pages, when Joanna suddenly noticed the talisman. "Let me see that thing," she said, standing up and holding out her hand. I gave it to her.
"Where did this come from?" she asked. I didn't like the tone in her voice, but as her question was directed at the Maestro, I could stand there and watch someone else in trouble for a change.
"I made it," he replied, quite proudly. "From the plug in your bath."
Even if the Maestro hadn't confessed to his handiwork, the evidence was still in the room: a hammer and cold-chisel lay on the desk, both no doubt purchased by him on the same shopping expedition on which he had secured his paperback grimoire. And now that he mentioned it, the talisman did look amazingly like a bath plug.
Joanna was furious. "The plug? My solid brass bathroom fittings? Are you mad?"
The Maestro shrugged, and managed to make it a pathetically condescending gesture. "Üzgünüm. I am sorry. It had to be brass, you see," he said. "For the spell."
"You couldn't buy one for yourself while you were out?"
He smiled weakly. "Vaktim yoktu." He seemed to feel that covered the situation. Not understanding it, I could hardly disagree.
Joanna and the Maestro started chattering away in Turkish. They seemed to be arguing, although Joanna was doing most of the talking. She had somehow acquired the habit of using her arms a lot when she became effusive. She nearly hit me in the eye at one point. I stood there with that distant, faintly distracted look that people have when listening to an utterly incomprehensible conversation.
By this time, the Maestro was sweating heavily, and I had to stop myself several times from sneaking quietly out of the room. I had this image of the others in the living room, ears pressed against the door, listening to Joanna's unfathomable tirade. She even had me scared by the end of it.
I think Joanna won. At any rate, the flow of Türkçe eventually dribbled away. Joanna reverted to English, perhaps in order to include me in their little chat.
"Not only do you hammer my bath plug into scrap," she said, "you destroy my study! Do you know how much these floorboards cost to polish?" And she was off again.
I eventually came to the Maestro's rescue, more to give Joanna a rest than because I felt any sympathy for him.
"Are you sure this will work?" I asked in a moment when she had paused to suck in much-needed oxygen.
"Of course," said the Maestro. He pulled himself up to his full height and waved his eyebrows at me, as if I had called his mother something unspeakable. "It has all my power and knowledge in it."
"Have you read this?" I asked Joanna, proffering the book.
"Of course," she said. "One of the best of its kind. That's the book that made the Maestro famous." Despite her anger, there was the unmistakable sound of admiration in her tone.
"Joanna's bath plug will help you learn," said the Maestro. "And it will protect you from all dangers you may face."
Joanna made a scoffing noise that quite defies transcription into print. "Well, there's one way to find out," she said. "Emily, take off your shoe."
I could see what she had in mind. "Maybe that's not a good idea," I said. "That blue spark thing hurts. Who knows what will happen with this?" Of course, I knew nothing was going to happen with it, since all this magic stuff was garbage anyway.
Nevertheless, I took off my shoe, my lesions exposed once more. I sat on the floor and Joanna took my foot onto her lap. "Now," she said, "I'll just bring the talisman close to them. I won't risk actual contact, even if nothing happens, ok?"
I nodded, but felt very bad about all this. Surely the thing was just a lump of metal, but there was still a nagging thought in my mind that something bad was going to happen.
The Maestro was leaning over us, his thick breathing noisy in the room. Joanna took the talisman in her right hand, cradling my foot with her left.
"Wait," I said.
Joanna hesitated.
"Maybe you shouldn't do it. I mean, your touch causes the sparks to appear. That might happen if you are holding the thing anyway."
"True," said Joanna.
"Sparks?" said the Maestro. "What sparks are these?"
We told him about the blue sparks that happened when Joanna came into contact with the lesions. He seemed impressed.
"You should have told me about these," he said. "They could tell us much."
"Do you want the Maestro to do it?" asked Joanna.
"No," I said quickly. He looked a little disappointed, but this was no time for niceties. I actually didn't want anyone to do it, but if anyone had to, it should be me.
I took the plug and glanced at Joanna. Her eyes met mine.
"This isn't going to work anyway, is it?" I asked.
She shrugged. "I have faith in the Maestro," she said. "Despite his - aggressive methods."
Something inside me said Big fat hairy deal.
I held the plug/talisman gingerly, keeping my foot in Joanna's lap. Slowly, I brought it close to the uppermost lesion. No sparks. Nothing. I moved it closer. Still nothing. I touched the cold metal to my skin.
Well, that was an anticlimax.
I glanced up at the other two. There was nothing revealed in Joanna's face. The Maestro was beaming.
"Gördün mü?" he said. "See? You do not have the blue sparks. It protects you."
I remained unconvinced. I suddenly grabbed Joanna's right hand and placed it on my foot, gritting my teeth slightly against the anticipation of the pain.
Again, an anticlimax. Not a spark snapping anywhere. Joanna took her hand away slowly, then put it back on my foot. Still nothing.
"Sorry, Maestro," I said. "It looks like it doesn't do anything after all."
"No, no," he said, pressing my hand. "You must keep it. Very important." His eyes glittered eagerly.
Joanna was touching my foot over and over again, but still nothing happened. I slapped her hand away. She looked disappointed. I was sorry for her sake.
"Geçmiş olsun," said the Maestro. Joanna didn't bother to translate, which was rather unfair: he sounded sincere.
\*\*\*
"Max is on-line," said David.
Max was indeed. David had set a laptop up in the living room and plugged in a small digital camera. On the screen were two little boxes, one with Max's head in it, with a glimpse of his office at the Planetarium. The other box held a picture of the living room. I was in it, standing beside David. They had been chatting. I looked at the last few lines of chat text under the boxes.
Starman: the gap is still stationery. saturn is about to go behind it
Starman? Give me a break.
DavidNuq: Is that significant?
Starman: nasa has asked parkes to try to send a signal to the cassini probe through the gap. it's between jupiter and saturn now. the probe will acknowledge receipt of the message. if so, that will give us something coming back the other way which should carry some information. there aren't any radio signals coming from any celestial objects behind it so far, but even if cassini can only confirm after it has reappeared, that will be something
DavidNuq: Good idea. Have there been any other observations?
Starman: nothing so far. siding springs is trying everything they have. will let u
know
DavidNuq: Everything's quiet here, except for the Plant.
Starman: yes, wish id been there. must have been quite a sight. ill see if i can get there later
DavidNuq: Ok.
Starman: by the way, im back on tv. prof montgomery is out of favour again now we know it certainly isn't a dust cloud. ill be on the late news
DavidNuq: We'll look out for you.
The printer attached to the laptop was spitting out many sheets with columns of numbers on them. "Max is sending me the data from Parkes and Mt Stromlo," said David. "Apparently they're supposed to mean something." He scanned the list of numbers carefully, but he was no astronomer. He relied instead on the abstract Max had thoughtfully added at the top of each page. "Everything's still quiet up there," he said, indicating the ceiling.
"It hasn't been too quiet down here," I said, and I told him what had happened in the study. He didn't care less about the talisman, but picked up when I mentioned that Joanna no longer produced any sparks on my lesions.
"Then it must have been static in the lab," he said. Perhaps I still showed some doubt about that, because he added. "Emily, they're just lesions. The doctors were right, they'll clear up in a few days."
Starman: s springs reported saturn just got occulted.
"Huh?" I asked.
DavidNuq: Emily said Huh?
Starman: tell her it means saturn just passed behind the gap
DavidNuq: Is the Gap showing any signs of moving at all?
Starman: no. steady as a rock. bizarre. its either in geostationary orbit or we're looking at something utterly out of this universe.
"Can I type something?" I asked. David stood aside and my head replaced his in the little box on the screen.
DavidNuq: How long will the Gap be here this time?
Starman: no way of telling. indefinitely by the looks of it. its been almost 7 hours now
Just great.
There was a knock on the front door. We looked up, startled.
"Pizza's here," called out Heather.
DavidNuq: Pizza's here. Shall we eat yours?
Starman: J
DavidNuq: I'm serious.
I decided to pay for the pizzas and joined Heather at the front door with my purse. There was a heavy-set young man standing there, pizza boxes in hand. He wore a jacket with the pizza company's logo and the name Steve printed on it. Next to him stood our friendly police sergeant, hand again close to his gun, scowling at us. Behind them, out in the street, the crowd still mingled. A few flashbulbs went off when I appeared. The pizza boy turned towards them and then back to us. He grinned nervously.
"Hi," he said to Heather. "Er -- you ordered some pizzas?' He looked at the docket. "One supreme, one veggie, one ham and..."
Then he looked at me more closely. "It's you," he said.
It was indeed. I knew this already, but it was thoughtful of him to remind me.
"You're the chick on the news."
What an interesting phrase. Given the number of people in the world, there must be a large number of "chicks" on a large number of news services all over the globe at any one time. But I had become the chick on the news, at least as far as this guy was concerned. No doubt he had seen the broadcast of my less-than-amiable interview in the car park at the university. It had featured high up on the headlines, just under the big story about the appearance of the Gap itself.
I said nothing, just opened my purse.
But at that point he wasn't interested in money. He was looking past us at the scene in the living room. I looked too. David was there, shuffling the paper pouring out of the printer and tapping on the laptop. The Maestro wandered past, still in his white robes, sniffing loudly and scratching his backside. Joanna was just visible in the kitchen, clearing out some of Mike's foliage she had found in the pantry. And beside me was Heather, a hill of shocking pink, wide-eyed at the sight of the cooling pizzas.
"Just having a few friends over," I said nonchalantly. "How much?"
"Er - $21.95."
I took out twenty-five dollars and said, "Keep the change." I had delivered pizzas myself once, and knew how welcome tips were.
He turned his attention back to me and gawked a bit at the sight of the wad of hundreds I still had in my purse.
"Casket win," I said.
"Lucky."
His eyes never moved from me as he put the money away. His attention was starting to make me nervous. A little warning light blinked on and off in my brain:
CAUTION CAUTION CAUTION
But it refused to give any details. I guessed the crowd was making me nervous.
Heather had meanwhile grabbed the boxes and opened them for inspection. "Is there extra cheese on this?" she asked.
"Did you order it?" he asked, a trifle patronisingly I thought.
"I ordered the three cheese special on the supreme." If Heather said so, it had to be true. She never made a mistake with food. "This is a standard supreme."
"Sorry," the guy said. "It's been a crazy night at the store. All the excitement of that thing in the sky, you know." He turned back to look at me one more time.
But Heather had not finished. "Did you charge us for it? Let's see the order slip."
While this enormously interesting exchange was taking place, I looked out at the crowd on the street. Camera flashes were popping off. Some of the reporters yelled out questions when they saw me. I ignored them. A couple of police officers were directing traffic past the house: the crowd had spilled out into the road. Two more were vainly trying to tell people to go away: "Nothing to see here" and so forth. There was a guy hanging over the fence, with a mullet hairstyle, dressed in grubby t-shirt and track pants, grinning widely. He called out: "Hey, Emily! Why don't you walk through me?" I ignored him too. But that little warning light in my head was still blinking on and off.
Then I noticed a disturbance in the general mill. A young man had appeared on the edge of the crowd, yelling incoherently while trying to struggle through to the front gate. The police were on him quickly, but he pushed against them. I finally caught what he was saying: "That guy stole my pizzas!"
The sergeant on the porch turned at that and yelled out to his constables: "What's going on there?"
"This guy reckons that guy stole his pizzas," one of them called back.
The sergeant looked at the pizza man beside him. "Is this true?"
"No," the guy said. But he glanced nervously at the man in the street.
"Bring him up here, constable," the sergeant called out. The police guided the man into the garden and they arrived, puffing hard, beside us.
"Now, what's going on?"
The front porch was getting crowded. Heather had pulled back slightly to take another look at the pizzas, probably counting the mushrooms by now. I was still in the doorway. The sergeant, the pizza man, the other man and one of the constables now stood before me. No one was smiling.
Behind us, Joanna stepped into the hall. "Is there a problem, Emily?" she asked. This was her house, after all.
"I don't know," I replied.
"I was delivering these pizzas," said the other man. "I had to pull up down the street because of the crowd. This guy jumped on me, grabbed my jacket and the pizzas, and punched me." He pointed at the name on the guy's jacket. "That's my name. I'm Steve."
The sergeant frowned. "Well?" he asked the pizza man, who said nothing.
"Ask him for his identity badge," Steve said. "We all carry one." He reached into his jeans and pulled out a plastic badge that matched the logo on the jacket.
"Ok, ok," the impostor said, taking a step back. "I did it. Sorry. I just wanted to see her."
He indicated me: the chick on the news. He was prepared to steal and assault someone just to catch a glimpse of me, the celebrity of the hour. This was a first. I can't deny I felt a little flattered, even if he was a fruit loop.
"Well, now you've seen her," said the sergeant, taking his arm, "you're under arrest."
He didn't take that too well, though. Perhaps he hadn't thought his plan through enough, hadn't seen past the initial step of robbery with violence to the unexciting but no less important phase of languishing in jail. I bet he hadn't even thought to bring his toothbrush.
"You can't arrest me!" he shouted. "It's her you should be arresting. She's the alien!"
Had someone said that to me a few days ago, I would have dismissed it as an honest mistake. But now, a part of me considered that perhaps he had a point. I was certainly less human than I had been lately. Nevertheless, his statement was not likely to win much sympathy given the present circumstances.
"Is that so?" said the sergeant. "Well on this planet we don't arrest aliens for no reason." He went to haul the guy off the porch.
The guy shouted again, no words, just a loud yell that took us all by surprise, and wrenched his arm free. He dived through the door at me. I ducked sideways, barrelled into Heather who had time to yell "Watch the pizzas!" before the guy had passed by and down the hall.
The sergeant followed him, pushing me aside. The other policeman, sensibly, started to run around the side of the house to cover the back. Things became confused.
Joanna squealed as the guy's shoulder connected with her chest and she collapsed against the wall. He continued his flight, entering the living room just as David walked into his path carrying his pile of papers.
He held up his arms to stop him, but could not halt the force of his charge. The papers went everywhere as David was thrust aside, falling across his laptop.
The sergeant fell over David, landed heavily on top of him and both of them struggled and thrashed for a second on the floor as the guy left the living room, raced through the kitchen and out the back door.
I stopped to check on Joanna, who waved me off. "I'm ok," she said. "Just help me up."
But she had been knocked fairly hard and, after I had helped her to stand, she stayed there breathing heavily for a few moments. The sergeant finally untangled himself from the computer cables and continued the chase. David followed.
There were various noises and shouts from the backyard. I helped Joanna onto the sofa just as the sergeant came back into the house and stormed over to me. "What the f...flying hell is that thing in the back yard?" he yelled.
"Oh," I said, deliberately flippant because if I wasn't I would have started tearing my hair out, "you've met Mike."
"The guy disappeared into that jungle you've got out there. How far does it go?"
David then re-entered, shouted "Get out here!" and ran back. I started to follow, but the sergeant said: "No, just stay here, please. This guy could be dangerous."
I said, "I'll risk it," and left the room, with Joanna behind me.
On the back veranda things looked calm enough. David was standing at the foot of the steps, peering into the black, ominous bulk of Mike. The two policemen -- the one who had chased the guy around the back and the other who had already been stationed there -- were beating at the edges of the scrubby tangle, flashing their torches into it. The beams revealed nothing.
"How did he get in there?" I asked. Mike was a complete tangle of vegetation, with no large gap anywhere.
"He just dived off the veranda into it," said David. "He must still be in there somewhere."
The sergeant emerged from the house and took charge. "Get back, everyone," he said. "Fraser, cover the back fence."
The officer called Fraser scratched his head. "How do I get through this lot?" he asked.
"Don't be stupid, man!" called the sergeant. "Go through the neighbours' property!" Fraser shrugged, settled his cap on his head and climbed over the neighbouring fence.
The Maestro emerged from the house and stared hard at the tangle of Mike. "Something is wrong?" he asked calmly.
Joanna had turned the veranda light on but it cast almost no illumination over the backyard. The sergeant breathed in and out a few times, then pulled out his walkie-talkie and started being official into it. He was calling for reinforcements.
Whoever the guy was, he had vanished. What was nagging me was whether he was just a nut who wanted to get close to someone he believed was an alien, or whether he really did know something about me I didn't. His actions certainly did not lead one to suppose he was in a healthy state of mind.
"One thing is for sure," said Joanna, "I'm not going in after him."
"Not a good idea, I think," agreed the Maestro.
The sergeant broke off from his walkie-talking to say, "No, ma'am. You stay away. Don't worry, we'll get him out of there."
"Um -- I wouldn't advise that," said David, coming up to stand beside us. "We're not entirely sure what this thing is."
"What do you mean?" asked the sergeant.
Then we heard something. A sound, quite loud, coming from Mike, or somewhere underneath him, a sort of rustling noise, or maybe a rasping, like dry branches rubbing together.
"Can you hear that?" asked Joanna.
"That must be him," said the sergeant. "Constable, can you tell where it's coming from?"
The other policeman, still down near Mike and flashing his torch around, waved the beam vaguely. "No, sergeant," he said.
"Useless as a dog with two legs," I head the sergeant mumble, as he started down the steps into the garden.
The sound stopped.
The centre of the mass of vegetation started moving. Branches rattled and writhed; leaves rustled. Then something emerged.
"Look!"
A man's head and shoulders. It was very dark out near the middle, but the porch light managed to throw enough to reveal the phoney pizza man, still in his bright red jacket. He was struggling out of the vegetation, flailing at the branches.
"Help!" he cried.
"Stop there!" called the sergeant. "An officer is coming to assist." He began to struggle into the tangle of vines.
David ran down the stairs. "Please don't do that," he said, grabbing at the sergeant.
"Back away, sir!" the sergeant shouted. "You're interfering with an arrest."
David glanced back at me. "I don't like this," he said.
The Maestro was standing next to me, and I felt his hand on my shoulder. "It will be all right," he said. "Watch."
Then it happened.
The man was snapping a branch in two when part of Mike seemed to move of its own accord. A long vine twisted around the man's chest and lifted him up, pulling him out of the rest of the undergrowth. It was like some great tentacle, raising him up and holding him aloft, while he writhed and screamed and shouted.
"Holy crap!" said the sergeant, stopping in his tracks, up to his waist in Mike already.
Then the Thing appeared again.
Now, we aren't certain if this was the original Thing, the one that tried to pull me further into the circle in my house, or some other Thing that had decided to inhabit Mike. We could not even agree if it was the same type of Thing at all. As before, words failed an adequate description. But someThing appeared and, just as suddenly, the man disappeared.
He was there one moment, gone the next, sucked or pulled or tugged or moved into nothingness as quickly and as quietly as a candle going out. His voice cut off abruptly. The Thing itself vanished with him. The wayward vine that had lifted him up fell back. And that was that.
The sergeant wrenched his gun from its holster and pointed it where the man had been. But of course, by then it was too late. He paused for a second, realised where he was standing, and backed out of the foliage hastily.
"Everyone move back!" he called. "Fraser? Are you there?"
From the back fence a weak voice called out "Yes, sergeant!"
"Get back here!" He pulled out his walkie-talkie again and gibbered into it.
The rest of us remained calm, if a little shaken. Joanna stood there with one hand to her mouth, staring wide-eyed at the spot where the man had disappeared. The Maestro was waving his walking stick triumphantly, absolutely delighted, a huge smile on his face. David came over to me and took my hand.
"Ok," he said, his voice trying to convey assurance. "Ok, now we know what was going to happen to you this morning."
"Where's he gone?" I asked, although I had a better idea than anyone. He had gone in, into the dark place in the centre of the circle, into the nothingness from the threshold of which I had barely escaped, to that space that was no space inside our own space.
David tried to help me into the house, but the sergeant stopped him. "One moment, sir," he said. "Do you know what happened just then?"
David nodded. "I think so. But that's not going to help anyone. I'd suggest you cordon off this whole section of street."
The sergeant's walkie-talkie squawked. He pressed the button angrily. "Get everyone away!" he shouted into it. "This whole block is to be sealed off. No one allowed in. And get the Chief Inspector down here ASAP."
We went back into the house.
Heather was sitting on the floor, calmly eating the pizzas. "Catch him?" she asked, guiding a slice of ham and pineapple to her mouth.
"No," I said. "Mike ate him instead."
"What do you mean, ate him?" She looked dubiously at the half-slice in her hand.
"Well, maybe ate is the wrong word. He's gone."
David retrieved his laptop. The connection with Max was still open.
Starman: what's going on? the camera went crazy there for a while
DavidNuq: The laptop got knocked over. There's been a bit of trouble.
Starman: what sort of trouble?
DavidNuq: You'd better not come here. They're closing the street to the public. We'll get back to you as soon as we can.
He disconnected before Max could ask any more questions.
"You mean he got away?" said a voice from the front door.
We had forgotten Steve, the real pizza guy. He was still standing in the doorway, looking rather sad. He'd been having a bad night too, I guess, and had been punched hard as well. Outside, police were trying to push the crowd away, but not finding it easy. The reporters were having none of it; even the general public seemed to feel that, if they had been allowed here initially, there was no way they were going to be excluded now, particularly since there was some excitement at last.
"The area's being cordoned off," I told him. "You'll have to go."
"What about that guy?"
"The police have got him."
"I heard screaming."
"Yeah, they really got him."
He looked at the mass of confusion in the street, sighed, and headed off. He had a few things to tell his boss, and wasn't looking forward to it.
I secured a slice of supreme and ate slowly. I really had no appetite. I could hear David having an argument with the sergeant.
"You don't understand," David was saying. "That plant is a very valuable specimen."
"I don't care," the sergeant replied. "The Chief Inspector is coming down now. I'm going to recommend it be burned."
"But why?"
"You were there. That guy was either killed or seriously injured."
"But you've sealed off the street. No one is going to go into the back yard now. Look, I know some people from the university who can come out and have a look at it. Scientists. This is a unique plant and I know they're very interested in seeing it. They can advise you what to do."
"I'm going to wait until the Chief Inspector gets here. In the meantime, you'd better just calm down and wait. You can discuss it with him."
"Wait? We can't wait. We - we have things to do."
"No one is leaving. Not until we sort this out."
"But..."
The sergeant squared up to David. They were both fairly large men, but the sergeant had a few extra kilos on his side, as well as police training. "No one is going anywhere," he said.
David nodded and backed down. He started to pack up his laptop. He caught my eye and by the slightest raise of an eyebrow called me over. I went and stood next to him, helping to wrap the camera cable.
"What do we do now?" I asked softly. The sergeant had gone to the front door to check on crowd control. We could hear him yelling at his constables. He was a good yeller, rich and full-throated. He obviously did a lot of it.
"I'm calling in reinforcements," said David. "The police may be able to stop us leaving, but I'll get the uni guys to join us here. Maybe they can talk sense into the Chief Inspector."
He nodded over to where the Maestro was standing in the middle of the room, rocking back and forth on his heels, eyes closed, looking almost ecstatic.
"He's beginning to give me the creeps, though," said David.
I must say, he wasn't doing me any good, either.
I felt bad. However much of a jerk he'd been, the fake pizza guy had probably been killed, and it was my fault. He'd gone where I'd feared to tread - or rather, where I'd been stopped from going by the combined efforts of my friends. He was where I was supposed to be. Something had to be done about it.
Heather was still sitting on the floor, transferring pizza crumbs from the empty boxes to her mouth. She sucked a greasy finger as I sat down opposite her.
"Heather," I said. "I need your help."
"I know," she replied. "You always do. What is it this time?"
I ignored her smug tone. The situation called for honesty, not conceit. What was on my mind was a question I'd been wanting to ask since Heather had first moved in with me, bringing her bicycle, her DVD collection, her posters of various black American rap artists, and the various other bits and pieces of her life that had now been forcibly removed by the circle in our house.
"Where did you get Mike?" I asked.
"I found him," said Heather. "On holidays at the beach. He was growing in a little patch of dead grass behind one of the sand dunes. I dug him up and kept him."
"Why?"
She looked puzzled.
"I liked him," she said.
Bizarre. Nobody liked him.
"That's it? You liked him?"
Was she in the habit of collecting plants at the seaside? I know my collection of cats -- both the living, which was still with me, and the manufactured, which had vanished into nothingness -- might be viewed as a little obsessive, but digging up a plant and taking it home to keep in your kitchen was downright weird.
"Did you feel...I don't know...attracted to him?" I didn't know if that was the right word -- how do you describe the subtle but obviously meaningful relationship between a young woman and a houseplant?
"Not anymore," she said. "Not since he outgrew the house."
I must have looked unsatisfied by her explanation. At any rate she sighed deeply and continued:
"It was three years ago. I was walking by myself, one evening. On the beach. Just as the sun went down I came across Mike. He was totally alone, nothing else was growing around him. I guess I felt a little sorry for him. I wanted to take him home and look after him."
My silence spoke volumes. I'd never been sorry for a plant. But since Mike had done his Silly Thing I found I could be angry with one, so I guess sympathy was possible too.
"Well I think your little pal just killed someone," I said. It was cruel, I know, but I was feeling bad about it myself, and had to share the blame. I was generous, if nothing else.
Heather suddenly couldn't look at me. "Yeah, I know," she said. "But what can we do?"
The Maestro had been standing quite close, looking at us. We had all gradually become used to ignoring him. He was always eavesdropping, sitting or standing quietly, saying nothing himself. But now he stepped across to us and leaned down.
"A word with you, my ladies," he said.
Polite as always. He was a gentleman, even if I had never seen him change his clothes, or wash, or even (and this was the really eccentric part) visit the bathroom. I mean he had to, sometime, I'd just never seen him do it.
He had removed his white robes now, and was a little more acceptable in the dark suit he'd had on yesterday, his flood of white hair surrounding his face, spilling onto his shoulders. He looked like some ancient druid in modern dress. He could have been a thousand years old. As he stood over us I could actually hear him creaking. I wondered which part of him it was, then noticed the book in his pocket, his book: Shadowplanes. I had left it in Joanna's study. The Maestro followed my glance and smiled.
"It may seem a little strange," he said, smiling. "But I do actually know something of what I am talking about."
He led the way to the library. I had only been in here once before, and had been a little spooked by it, surrounded by all the mysterious books Joanna had collected. We stood between the shelves and the Maestro pulled the book out of his pocket.
"A Shadowplane is my name for an alternate reality," he said. "A world that is not ours."
"Another dimension," I hazarded.
"Evet. That is where your man with the pizza has gone."
Suddenly something clicked. My mind isn't always quick to grasp what's going on. Sometimes it's fogged by alcohol, sometimes it's just too busy or too selfish to take things in. Sometimes -- rarely -- it's actually thinking of other people. But not now. I grabbed the book off the Maestro (rather viciously, actually) and stared at the front cover.
"What the hell?" I said.
There it was, on the cover, behind the printing. The maelstrom of light and form I had seen several times now, the clash of colour and shape that was undefined and multi-layered. The Thing in the circle.
"That's it!"
The other two were looking at me like I would have had I been in their place, heads on one side, faint smiles of incomprehension playing over their mouths. But I knew what I meant. The indefinable pattern of colour and form was not new to me.
"I have to go back."
Heather shook her head. "Back?"
"Into the circle."
The Maestro nodded. "That is what I would suggest," he said, completely without surprise. "And remember to take the talisman with you."
\*\*\*
I must have been crazy. But I saw no other way. The circle frightened me beyond belief, but things were getting rather out of hand. Whatever it was I'd seen in my visits there was printed on the front cover of the Maestro's book about alternate realities. The multitudinous links and correspondences that make up the continuum of being were starting to all connect, and I was the main plug. Mike; the book; the circle; the sausages. They were all related through me.
Heather was, of course, dead set against it. So were Joanna and David, when we broke the news to them. But I vetoed them all. Let's face it, I was the one who was going back in, not them, and I was the one who had to live with it. Only the Maestro was on my side, and now he stuck to me closely, flipping through his book and reading out various sections that made absolutely no sense at all. The worst part was when he tried to elaborate on his ideas and lapsed into Turkish in order to do so. Even Joanna gave up trying to translate.
"You don't know what's going to happen to you," she persisted, following me round as I tried to walk away from her. I had enough on my mind without worrying about Joann's concerns about me.
"That's why I'm going in," I responded.
David, after some reluctance about my intentions, had reconnected his wireless broadband and was telling Max what I intended to do. The latter seemed quite unconcerned about my safety -- even as eager as the Maestro to see me lay my existence on the line. All in the cause of science, of course.
Starman: fine. ill meet you at emily's house. just one thing. there's been some activity in the gap.
DavidNuq: What sort of activity?
Starman: some movement. the main part of it hasn't shifted, but it seems to be changing shape. u should be able to see it if u look.
I didn't like the sound of that at all.
The Maestro had come up with a plan. I was hesitant about it when he told us, but then decided that since I had probably just been responsible for someone's death, then escaping police custody and resisting arrest would be no problem at all. I mean, once you've done the big one, all the little ones are pot boilers, really.
He also insisted on taking Mike with us. Why, he wouldn't say. Heather pointed out this was a little difficult, as he would hardly fit in the car, but the Maestro said that just part of him would do, the main stem.
Surprisingly, Heather agreed to this, and even insisted on grabbing the specimen herself.
"He won't eat me," she said, picking up the pruning saw. "Besides, I threw him out there, I'm the only one who knows where the pot is in all that mess." She slipped out the back door before anyone could stop her -- not that anyone would have been able to anyway.
A moment later we could hear a policeman shouting, and Heather's calm voice replying. Then she came back inside, the white pot in her hand, with almost a metre of Mike's main stem, a few leaves and single yellow flower growing from it. She smiled in triumph.
"That was either incredibly brave or incredibly stupid," Joanna said.
"Probably both," she agreed, puffing hard. "But if anyone could convince Mike to let us have a piece of him, it had to be me."
She was right there. I shook my head. "Please don't do that again."
The sergeant came barrelling through into the kitchen. He was not happy.
"What are you doing with that?" he asked, pointing a rude official finger at Mike. "That's a piece of evidence in a police investigation. Put it down, girlie."
That was his big mistake. If there is anything Heather will not be called, it's girlie. The fire ignited in her eyes. Deep inside her terrific frame something began to build, something akin to the Big Bang -- or to an even Bigger Bang. The spark began very far within her pink-clad exterior, spread like a fire to every fibre and muscle, before finally exploding with irresistible force. I had seen nothing like it since I had accidentally scratched her favourite CD a year ago. I had managed to escape with my life on that occasion. However, I feared greatly for the sergeant.
It all happened too quickly for me to intervene. There was just time for the words "Oh, shit," to run through my mind before she struck: a right uppercut that connected beautifully, dislodging the sergeant's cap which flew off and hit the wall. He fell stiff as a board, straight back, landing between the table and the refrigerator. The rest of us stood there, almost as stunned as he was.
Heather shook her hand. "Ow," she said.
Joanna was the first to recover, perhaps because it was her house and she was worried about further damage.
"I think it's time to go," she said.
The plan for getting to my house was simple. If it worked, we would be away and free. If not, all of us would probably be spending the night in jail. Which, as Heather pointed out, might actually be the safest place around at the moment.
I suddenly realised they were now supporting me. Once they had stated their opposition to my intention of re-entering the circle, they were on my side. Of course, they weren't the ones who would be going in, and maybe they just felt that if I vanished like the pizza man, they would be rid of me once and for all. They could go down to the coffee shop and chuckle about how they put one over poor old Emily.
Once it takes root, paranoia is a hardy plant indeed.
The policeman in the yard -- Constable Fraser, the officer who had bravely clambered over Joanna's fence into Mike, trying to save the pizza guy -- was arguing with the Maestro, who was trying to open the door of David's car. Of course, the sergeant had given orders that none of us were to leave, but that was a minor problem as far as the Maestro was concerned. "You had better help the çavuş," he called, and pointed towards the house where the unconscious sergeant lay.
The policeman turned away from the Maestro long enough for him to slam the car door and start up. The rest of us piled in there with him, David patting his pockets and wondering how the Maestro had acquired his car keys. But he realised it was no time to argue the issue. He climbed in the back with Heather and Joanna; I sat next to the Maestro. We locked the doors hastily.
Fraser had one of those pesky gun-shaped objects hanging off his belt which make things so awkward when you're trying to sneak away quietly from something illegal. He paused for a moment, then placed his hand on the butt, but didn't draw it. Perhaps he wasn't sure of his authority in detaining us. We hadn't threatened him in any way.
He hammered on the door of the car, calling for us to open up.
"Let's go!" I shouted at the Maestro.
"They have blocked off the driveway," said the Maestro, revving the engine. "I am sorry, Joanna'cığım," he muttered under his breath as he floored the accelerator and we took off forwards, straight towards the back fence.
"No!' screamed Joanna, but it was too late as we skirted the Poinciana tree, crunching over the outer edges of Mike, and hit the back fence at about thirty kilometres an hour. It was constructed of wooden posts and folded very nicely under the impact of the bull-bar mounted on the front of the car. We drove into the neighbour's property, turning left just before the swimming pool, and headed down their driveway. The gate had been left open, and there were no cars in the way. The Maestro drove out into the street, turned right, and accelerated.
Joanna was scowling behind me. I was expecting another withering blast of Turkish to be flung in the Maestro's direction, but she was menacingly quiet. Too quiet. Scary stuff quiet. I flinched at the thought of what was to come when there was time to complain, and took the opportunity to put my head out of the window and glance up at the Gap.
Things weren't too good up there, either. It had changed, just as Max had warned.
The straight edges weren't straight anymore. Thin streaks had emerged from the main mass of blackness and were spiralling away, obscuring more sky. I didn't like the look of it at all. The streaks looked almost purposeful, like the Gap knew what we were doing and wanted to stop us. Some of the streaks looked like they were reaching down towards us. I was reminded of the ruler in the circle, as if there were more than three visible dimensions to the thing.
I pulled my head back into the car. Everywhere I looked, the view was disturbing. Even here.
The Maestro was driving too fast for safety, and slamming through the gears in a way that wasn't at all good for them. Or for us, perhaps.
It was only a matter of time before the police tracked us down. None of us had any desire to be in a car chase, as they almost always ended badly for the people in front. I'd watched those reality shows on TV, the ones where they show you the results of police pursuits - "World's Most Pathetic Morons Behind a Wheel" -- that sort of thing. Final shots lingering over a pile of twisted metal and shattered glass, with occupants bisecting power poles.
I wondered what the Turkish was for "For God's sake slow down!" then decided it sounded urgent enough in English.
"For God's..." I began, until a particularly violent swerve, by means of which the Maestro managed to avoid an aforesaid power pole, made me change the ending.
"...sake, look where you're going!"
David was being thrown around in the back seat. "Do you actually have a licence?" he asked breathlessly. But the Maestro was concentrating too hard.
Then the car chase started, just as we crossed the bridge over Breakfast Creek. I heard the siren behind us. This time I didn't look around. There was no need to confirm what my ears told me, and Heather was giving a running commentary anyway. My eyes stayed glued to the road, since the Maestro seemed to feel that was a fairly low priority when driving, and one of us should be doing it. He was staring hard into the rear-view mirror most of the time.
"They're about two hundred metres behind us," said Heather. "One car. Lights and everything."
"Left!" I called out to the Maestro and he swung the wheel just in time. The tyres on the right side of the car left the asphalt momentarily, then came back down with a bounce as we entered the new street, heading for the apartment blocks in Teneriffe. This was turning into an action movie, and I was on the wrong side of the screen.
"They made the turn, too," said Heather, "They're gaining on us."
The ongoing commentary from the back seat was not comforting. If I shut my eyes really, really tight, and took three deep breaths, maybe everything would just go away.
I tried it.
No good. Reality stubbornly continued to exist. I'd noticed it had a nasty habit of doing that.
"Let's take the Captain Cook Bridge," I said. "It's the easiest."
The Maestro actually looked at me as he veered across the centre white line and asked: "Where is this Captain Cook?"
I grabbed the wheel and moved us into legality again. "We drive on the left in this country!" I shouted into his face. He took my panic well, far better than I had, actually, and even seemed pleased to know a new road rule. He kept on the left while the rest of us argued the way.
"But that means going through the city," said Heather. "Head for the Story Bridge."
"The city will make it harder for them to chase us," David said.
"And there are more things to crash into," persisted Heather.
We had veered through a few more corners, managing to find our way back in vaguely the right direction. Around us, the inner suburbs were still happening. The Gap hung over everything, and the crowds and alarm that it caused was about to save us from further pursuit, at least for the moment. As we entered Fortitude Valley a gang of about six young men were looting a shop. They had driven a car into the front window and were climbing over the hood to snatch what they goods. Electrical goods it looked like. In any event, the police car stopped and we didn't, heading further in. I glanced behind but all I could see were the heads of David, Joanna and Heather as they, too, peered out the back window.
"Maybe they weren't after us at all," said Heather.
Who cared? Crime had apparently reaped dividends, even if it wasn't for the people actually committing it. We were alone.
Relatively speaking. There was denser traffic, now. The Maestro's driving was not improving with practice, and our near misses were threatening others more frequently. This was the Valley, where the usual night-time crowds had evidently not been put off by the threatening Gap or anything else. A lot of weird things happened as a matter of course in the Valley.
"Pull over!" David yelled, so suddenly we all jumped. The Maestro did so, crossing two lanes right outside a strip club, double parking beside a Holden Commodore. Behind us someone unseen -- but not unheard -- swerved just in time to avoid us, horn blaring.
"I'm driving!" said David. "Out!"
The Maestro was obedient, opening his door and clambering out, changing places with David. Just then there was a terrific blast beside me and the driver of the Commodore was waving his fist at us, only centimetres from my face, and leaning on his horn.
"Out of the way, dickhead!" he screamed.
Then a rather disturbing thing happened. Well, to be more accurate, a big black something happened. The man and the Commodore disappeared behind a darkness.
That's the only way I can describe it. One second he was there, then he wasn't -- or at least he was, just hidden from sight behind a wall of utter blackness.
Just in front of my face was an almost tangible strip of starless night. I flinched away, slammed into David and shoved him rather rudely aside as I exited through the driver's door. I felt bad about that, since I almost pushed David into the path of a car behind him. But he hardly noticed, staring as he was at where the Commodore used to be.
I turned and stared myself. It was worth staring at, so I had a really good one. We all did -- six pairs of bug eyes and not a single rational thought amongst us.
A column of blackness had descended from the Gap. One of the tendrils I had seen coming out of it had come down all the way to Earth and covered the Commodore and its angry occupant. The strip was very narrow, and seemed just wide enough to cover the car. I stared upwards at the Gap, and could see the tendril where it joined the main mass far above us.
"Bombok!" cried the Maestro, which I later learned meant "That's really enormously interesting", but expressed the sentiment by referring to one of the excretory functions.
Each of us expressed our surprise in our own way. David was apparently maintaining a silent, scientific curiosity. Joanna had issued another of her girlie squeaks, eyes wide. Heather craned her neck back to gaze along the length of the tendril as it reached down from the sky and said "Well, that's something you don't see every day."
As for me, I just thought a few colourful phrases to myself as we backed away. People on the footpath were doing the same thing. It seemed a popular choice of activity at the time.
Heather managed to recover sooner than most. She grabbed my arm and pulled me onto the footpath, well away from the strip of darkness where the Commodore had been. The Maestro alone remained near it, peering closely, warily moving his head side to side. He prodded it with his walking stick. The end of the cane disappeared into the darkness, then appeared again as he pulled it out.
"Nothing," he said. "I cannot feel the car inside."
We started to move away further, trying to blend into the gathering crowd. The others caught our subtle retreat and joined us. Just as they did so the strip of night vanished.
The car was there again, the driver inside. I was glad to see him. He was sitting there stunned, immobile, gripping the wheel, his hand still pressed tightly on the horn. It was only then that we realised there had been no sound of the horn while the car had been gone. Its strident tone came back and drowned the muttering and tight-lipped fear of the crowd.
"Let's go," said Heather quietly, and while everyone else stared at the scene, the five of us slipped aside. We kept our distance from David's car. Certainly I wasn't about to climb back into it. Nothing had happened to it, but I had the vague feeling the strip of night had been meant for me, and had missed. Narrowly. I wanted to present as small a mark as possible, just in case.
There was a café beside us. We went inside, not so much because it as a rational thing to do, but there were less people there and we needed a moment to gather our thoughts.
No one said anything really stupid like "What was that?" or "Did you see that?" or even "Golly!" We just stared at each other for a moment.
"The driver looked all right to me," said Joanna eventually.
"Yes," I said, equally unconvinced.
The Maestro nodded.
"Perhaps we should..." David ventured, with a vague sort of gesture towards the Commodore but I shook my head quickly.
"Probably wants a moment or two to himself," I said.
"Of course."
"I mean, wouldn't you?' said Heather.
"Of course."
I kept glancing at the ceiling. There was nothing terribly threatening there -- or to be more precise there were many threatening things there. If you ever go into a cheap café and are incautious enough to look up at the ceiling you may see quite a number of (mostly unidentifiable) things likely to drop into your coffee. But they were not the ones I cared about just then. I was more worried about fingers of blackness lancing down from the sky and finding me. The fact that there was a ceiling in the way didn't reassure me in the slightest.
"Any ideas?" I asked the Maestro. "I mean, I presume the Gap is one of your shadowplanes, then?"
He shrugged, his usual non-committal move. "It was certainly very interesting," he said.
And he went over to the counter and calmly ordered a cappuccino.
I followed him. "Well, is it?"
"I do not know," he admitted, sighing. "Emily, it is very painful for me to admit, but I am once again uncertain what is happening. The -- Gap, as you call it -- it is unlike what I imagined shadowplanes to be. But it is some sort of gate. If you enter, you will find out."
"If I go into the circle, you mean?"
"Yes."
There were several other people in the café. Not everyone had noticed the commotion outside. Life goes on, even under the most unusual circumstances. A girl stood up from her table and walked towards the door. Just as she reached it, a thin tendril of darkness appeared in front of her. Too late, she walked into it, and the girl became a split in two by darkness, then became normal again as she emerged out the other side.
She hadn't even noticed. She continued out of the door and was lost in the swirl of humanity.
It had taken all my willpower to stop myself diving under a table at the appearance of the tendril. But as soon as the girl had passed through, apparently without any harm at all, the tendril disappeared. It happened so fast I doubt anybody but us had seen it.
"Okay," said Joanna. "That was too weird."
David shuffled me into a booth. He placed his hands on the table, the depilated one over the other, and stared at me intently.
"How do you feel?" he asked.
"Fine," I replied. "Well no, not fine at all. Why?"
"I think the Gap is trying to find you," he said, taking out his mobile and tapping the keys.
"I know."
Someone answered his phone. He started talking.
Behind us at the counter, the Maestro ordered another cappuccino.
There was one already on the counter, the one he had just ordered a moment ago.
I went over to Joanna. She was standing near the café door, looking out at the street. The crowds had returned to their usual doings, as if nothing had happened.
"Did you see that?" I asked.
"See what?"
"The girl...she...obviously not."
"Oh, her? Yes, of course I did. Sorry, Emily. It's just that you're ceasing to surprise me anymore."
Me. Of course, it all had to do with me. The tendrils of darkness that were momentarily removing people or bits of people from the world were after me. Why didn't that give me the slightest bit of comfort?
The man behind the counter put a second cup of cappuccino in front of the Maestro. The thing that really caught my attention was that he put it on top of the one already there. The Maestro didn't seem to notice. He was digging in his pocket for his wallet.
David shuffled me into the booth again. He sat down, placing his hands on the table, the depilated one over the other. He stared at me intently.
"How do you feel?" he said.
"You just asked me that."
"Did I?"
"Yes. A moment ago."
He took out his mobile -- again - and tapped the keys. I stared at him until someone answered. He started talking.
I slipped out of the booth once more and went over to Heather, who was sitting next to the Maestro, watching with fascination the two cups of coffee in front of him.
"We have to get home. Soon."
"What's the Maestro doing?" she asked, nodding towards him.
What in fact the Maestro was doing was ordering yet another cup of cappuccino. I watched, fascinated. The guy serving him carefully went over to the machine, which made all the appropriate gurgling and slurping noises, and topped it off with the frothed milk. Then he put the third cup down on top of the other two. There was a neat tower of cappuccinos building up in front of the Maestro, who didn't seem to take any notice at all. Neither did the guy serving him.
David shuffled me into the booth. This was becoming monotonous. I tried to resist, but he was firmly guiding me to where I already sat twice before, just a moment ago. He placed his hands on the table, the depilated one over the other, and was staring at where I had been sitting.
"How do you feel?" he asked.
Time was out of joint, as a certain poet once wrote. His hero cursed his fate -- so did I.
"You said that before," I said, waving my hand in front of his face, the way people do when they feel invisible. Apparently I was, for all the notice David took. He reached for his mobile -- again again -- and tapped the keys. A few seconds later someone answered. What a surprise.
"Maestro!" I called. "Stop playing around and let's go."
"Ah, Emily," he said, as if I hadn't been standing beside him for the last five minutes. "I am sorry. It is very painful for me to admit, but I am uncertain what is happening. The -- Gap, as you call it -- it is unlike what I imagined shadowplanes to be."
Hadn't he just said that?
- Great, I thought. I'm being chased by a dark thing in the sky, and the Maestro and David seem to be in a time warp. Anyone else want to give me a bad day?
"The cops are here," said Heather.
They were. A police car had pulled up beside David's car. I didn't wait for the inevitable, but turned inside, just as a crash brought everyone's attention to the counter. The tower of cappuccinos had overturned, flooding the floor in boiling hot, caffeine-rich brew. The Maestro had leaped back, just avoiding the scalding torrent. Crockery smashed.
At the same moment David stopped placing his hands one on top of the other and staring at the space I had been. He noticed me near the door.
"Trouble?"
I decided against telling him that he had been looping around and around in a tight time-ring, perhaps because he might have been upset, but more probably because he would stop and think about it, and we didn't have time for any scientific analysis at that precise moment.
"How much do you like your car?" I said.
He came over to the door and looked at the police walking around it, checking the licence plate and saying things into the squawking radio in the police car.
"It's a university car," he said. "This won't be good. Fortunately, we won't need it." He glanced at his watch.
"What do you mean?"
"I phoned Max and told him to pick us up."
"Three times, apparently."
David stared at me. "Three times? Funny, that's what he said."
"Tell you later."
The Maestro was arguing with the man behind the counter over the spilled coffee. Joanna grabbed him and we entered the street, the five of us tumbling out and heading away from the police and David's car.
The man in the Commodore was still there, gripping the wheel tightly. One of the police was bending over him through the window, arguing and trying to prise his fingers from the wheel. Heather leaned into David's car through the open window and hauled out the stub of Mike, still calmly sitting in his pot. Alone of all of us, he was taking it all remarkably well. The other policeman glanced up just as she straightened up, clutching Mike tightly.
"Hey!" he said. I recognised him: it was Fraser. Again. A persistent bloke, when it came to pursuing suspects. Commendable in other circumstances, inconvenient in these.
"Don't move," he said, and he did draw his gun this time. I didn't blame him -- I would have too. We stood in a line, hands up resignedly -- all except Heather, who had to hang onto Mike. "Hello, Fraser," she said.
"Hi," he said, and smiled before he could stop himself. He was a good guy, really. Probably like him much more if we met him socially.
It was a shame, then, when Max ran over his foot.
Of course, as Max explained later, he hadn't meant to run over his foot. Fraser just had it there when Max drove his minibus onto the pavement and pulled up beside us.
Fraser shouted something alarming. If he had bothered to listen, he would have had to arrest himself for obscene language. As it was, he merely let go with a colourfully abusive epithet about Max, which perhaps at other times I might be prepared to agree with.
"Sorry," said Max as we crammed into his minibus.
The other policeman stopped talking to the man in the Commodore when he noticed Max's minibus on the pavement.
"Hey!" he shouted, which was exactly what Fraser had said a moment ago - police training, I guess. But we weren't prepared to listen this time. Max drove off as soon as we were all aboard.
David sat up front next to Max, with Joanna, the Maestro and I sitting behind, surrounded by a mass of cameras, tripods, snaked cables and other equipment. Heather filled the back seat.
As we left the pavement and hit the road again, I glanced up at the sky once more -- it was becoming a habit, now, every few minutes. The side-bars of darkness had grown longer, and more stars outside the main Gap area were being obscured. I almost fancied I could see dark moving shapes within the main mass. Certainly there seemed to be something big going on up there.
"Comfortable?" Max asked from the front seat, turning his head to smile broadly at us.
"No," said Joanna. "Drive!"
He did so, turning onto the approach to the Story Bridge. Just as he pulled onto it a police siren screamed behind us.
"Here we go again," said David.
Why couldn't they just leave us alone? Saving the universe is hard enough without the police on your back, trying to be official all over the place and doing inconvenient things like putting people in jail.
They were not the only ones we had to deal with, though. As we moved onto the bridge we could see two more police cars at the other end, forming a partial roadblock, lights flashing, one cop standing in front of them, signalling us to stop.
"Damn!" said Heather. "End of the line."
"Go back!" yelled Joanna. I couldn't look. Max was speeding across the bridge straight towards the two cars forming the roadblock. Collision was inevitable. My life flashed in front of my eyes, but I wasn't interested in looking at it. I'd seen it already. Joanna dug her nails into my arm. Someone screamed "Max!" in a tone that combined fear, anger and panic in one ear-splitting howl. I think it was me.
"Here we go!" shouted Max, his grip tightening on the wheel. "Hang on!"
We cleared the main superstructure of the bridge. Max spun the wheel and hauled on the handbrake, sending the minibus into a 180° spin. It tipped over dangerously on two wheels. Heather saved us there, moving to the high side and bringing the vehicle back on all fours. The back of the minibus swung round within two metres of the cop standing in front of the cars. He jumped out of the way. Max threw the gears into forward and accelerated back the way we had come.
"There," he said, a little breathlessly. "A simple demonstration of Newtonian dynamics. Piece of piss." In the seat beside him, David ground his teeth and said nothing.
"But we're going the wrong way," said Joanna icily.
Not only that, the third police car, which had been chasing us all along, was now coming up fast. It swung towards us, probably trying to ram the rear end of the minibus. Max swerved to avoid it, scraping the metal crash barrier on the side of the road. The police car stopped and turned side on, jamming us in. The other two cars had now come up and joined the blockade. There was no room left to go around or between them. Max slammed on the brakes, the minibus screeching to a halt just before collision.
Police swarmed out of their cars, some of them drawing their guns and pointing them at us, the unfortunate Fraser hobbling on his injured foot.
"Oh well," I said for Max's benefit. "We nearly made it."
"Step out of the vehicle!" shouted one of the police, his huge gun aimed straight at Max's head. I felt disinclined to refuse the request, for his sake. I slid the side door of the minibus open, then stopped.
Something white had fluttered down onto the road.
It was close enough for me to see the writing on it, large black letters on white, a title that I recognised instantly, even without my glasses.
Social Commentary and Artistic Licence: Exaggeration in "Vanity Fair."
I paused, my hand still on the door handle.
"That's my essay on Thackeray," I said quietly.
"Hurry up!" shouted the policeman. "Move it!"
No one did. He waggled his gun again, then even he stopped, staring at the white pages that had begun to flutter down from above. I looked up. Paper was appearing from nowhere about six metres above our heads, up near the first cross-girders of the bridge. Slipping quietly into existence, they fluttered down around us. Some I recognised as my half-finished Thackeray essay.
(And even in that moment a nasty thought crossed my mind that it was due tomorrow and I had forgotten to ask for an extension.)
Other paper was there too, manila folders and scraps of notepaper, all from my desk that had been taken with the rest of my house contents during the Great Removal. The Gap was returning them to me.
"What the hell?" said the policeman, staring up at the stationery pouring down around him. He stepped aside just as a pencil fell at his feet. Then a shower of paper clips started. I really should have cleaned my desk out more.
What happened next was not my fault, I swear. After all, I hadn't asked for any of this to happen. But I don't think the police saw it that way.
Something hard hit the bonnet of one of the police cars. There was a loud bang and a scatter of debris. It was like a bomb had gone off. The police ducked for cover. Even in the minibus there were shouts of surprise. I looked at the fragments that hit the road.
"My glass paperweight," I said. "This is all my stuff."
I slammed the door shut. "Get us out of here," I yelled at Max. One of the police pointed his gun, but whether or not he was going to shoot we would never know. Something hit his hand and he dropped the pistol. It was one of my textbooks.
More missiles were falling now, as Max put his foot down, scraping between two of the police cars and turning the minibus back onto the main part of the bridge. The police had ducked into their cars to avoid the rain of books, pens, scissors, rolls of tape and other crap that had once littered my study area. A compass, steel point straight down, bounced off the bitumen. A coffee cup, one of my favourites that I always drank from while studying, smashed into a thousand fragments close to us as we turned.
Max drove away. The police cars started to chase us, but then the heavy stuff began.
My desk lamp smashed through the windscreen of one vehicle. Then another had its bonnet caved in completely as my entire desk came into existence and slammed down. The third car was stopped by my computer hitting it in the middle of the roof. Bits of plastic and metal exploded outwards. There was a shatter of glass and a yell from Heather in the back seat. I turned to see her clutching her face, where blood was trickling between her fingers. The rear window behind her had a huge hole in it.
"Heather!" I shouted. "Are you ok?"
"Fine," she said. "Just a scratch. What's that?"
She pointed to a plastic disc lying on the floor. The Maestro picked it up.
"It appears to be the hard drive from a computer," he said.
Joanna moved back to look at Heather's face. "We have to go back and help those police," she said. "They might have been injured too."
"We can't go back!" said Max.
"We have to!"
Max slammed on the brakes hard. Joanna almost fell to the floor. The minibus stopped and we looked back at the three police cars. The damage to the cars was quite extensive, but it looked as if the rain of objects had ceased. Two figures were stepping cautiously out of the cars. One noticed us, aimed his gun and started firing.
"Fuck!" yelled Max and hit the accelerator again. We sped off as more shots followed.
"I think they will be all right," said the Maestro. "İnşallah."
Joanna sneered at him and continued to wipe at Heather's face.
The Maestro had no argument from me. There was no need to go back; the police had radios to summon an ambulance if necessary.
No further objects were appearing. Yet, as we sped away again, it crossed my mind how accurately the objects had fallen. If my possessions were at last returning to me, why were they doing so in this careful manner, crippling our pursuers' vehicles and not ours?
Heather's face was not too bad. Either the edge of the disc drive had caught her cheek as it crashed through the window, or else she had been hit by glass. The wound had stopped bleeding in a few minutes.
We left the bridge and passed through the inner southern suburbs. There was no further pursuit on the way to my house. The streets were still quiet, just the occasional car or group of people. We passed a few more police cars cruising along, keeping an eye on things, but they were not interested in us. More objects fell from the sky, however:
some cutlery
books
three cakes of soap
the TV guide
a carpet square from the hallway
two metres of electrical wiring
shoes
a tin of PussyChow
six buttons
Heather's beach towel
the frying pan
string
the toilet brush
and some small, hard, yellow objects that we later realised was loose macaroni.
Max drove on through the fall of debris.
About a block away from my house, Max pulled over. "Your house is almost certainly being watched," he said. "In fact, I drove past a little while ago and noticed a large car parked across the street, with a couple of guys in it. Probably plain clothes, watching out for you."
"Wonderful," I said tightly, hardly able to breathe, squeezed in between Joanna and Heather. "So what do we do?"
"We can sneak round the back and go in through the kitchen," said Heather. "Although they'll probably notice us in the house."
"No other choice," said David. "We have to get to the circle."
"Yes, and then what?" I asked. David looked at me. "Let's face it," I said. "We really don't know what we're doing. You want me to communicate with this Thing? We don't even know if we can."
I felt the Maestro's hand on my shoulder. "It will be all right, Emily," he said in his quiet way. "You will find a way."
I started to feel very doubtful about this whole enterprise. The sky loomed darkly, growing, and something stirred inside it. I didn't need to look at it to know this; I could feel it. Deep within the darkness of the Gap it grew darker and closer.
"We won't do anything you don't want to, Emily," said Joanna. "No one can make you go in the circle." She stared at Max when she said this. He said nothing, just tapped his fingers on the steering wheel.
"Of course it's your choice," David said. "We could put Mike in there first and see what happens, perhaps. But the important thing is to try."
A dull thud on the road beside us. Something large and soft fell from the sky and hit the bitumen. It was a mattress.
"That's mine," said Heather.
A few other things followed: one of my bras, some pine cones we had piled in a basket by way of decoration, and then -- smashing loud and destructively onto the road -- a large ceramic vase. Heather's mother had given it to her as a Christmas present last year.
"That does it," said Heather. "We have to do this before someone gets killed. Time for another decoy. Let me out here."
"Heather," I said, "what are you doing? You're in enough trouble."
But she opened the door and heaved herself out. "Don't wait for me," she said. "I'll keep them busy at the front. You climb over the back fence and get in. Do what you have to do."
"But what are you going to do?"
She pointed to her bleeding cheek. "I'm a poor woman injured by a looting street gang. I need urgent medical attention."
She headed off before I could argue further, walking quickly down the road towards the front door. I was starting to feel really bad: sturdy, independent Heather, the rock of our little band, putting herself on the line. Of course, I was the one who had to go into the circle, and so maybe she was getting off easily. But that didn't make me feel any better.
"Let's all get out," I suggested mournfully. "We can cut through the neighbour's yards from here to the back fence."
We hurried along in single file, doubled up, keeping to the darkness of trees as much as possible. Halfway across one lawn a dog started barking furiously and didn't stop even after we had climbed into the next yard. But soon we were behind my house.
All was dark. Nothing had apparently changed. We climbed the back fence and crossed the yard. At the top of the back steps was the kitchen and, beyond that, the living room. No further objects fell around us, but we kept glancing up, hoping to dodge anything really large, like the refrigerator or the armchairs. Or even the bath.
We ran up the back steps and I used my key to unlock the door. There had been no sound from the front of the house. Inside all was dark and still. We should have brought a torch, I realised, then jumped as a tight beam of light stabbed out beside me. David had a tiny flashlight attached to his key ring.
"Always hoped this would come in handy," he said. "I picked it up at a conference on wave mechanics three years ago."
I stared at him blankly.
"They were giving them away free if you bought a t-shirt," he added.
At least he wasn't wearing that.
Max had followed him, with the Maestro and Joanna bringing up the rear. I led the way into the living room, and stopped.
Two things:
A glow, very faint, from the direction of the circle. Just a diffused white radiance, almost too pale to show even in the darkness of the room.
And a bulking shape next to it, low and menacing.
There was a pause. Then a voice:
"Stop right there!"
David's torch swung around, illuminating enough to reveal the business end of a large shotgun pointed in our direction.
"Put the light down!" came the voice.
This was the second time that night I'd been on the business end of a gun, and I was a little sick of it by this time. Nevertheless, although actions may speak louder than words, guns speak louder than either of them.
David lowered the torch and we blinked as a lantern was turned on, a battery-operated job on the floor. In its glow we could see the owner of the gun.
I had thought I had enough problems. I was wrong.
"It's me, Mr Sabatini," I said.
\*\*\*
My landlord was not in a good mood. It was understandable, really. Not only had I emptied his house, created an inter-dimensional rift in his living room, been responsible for hundreds of sight-seers trampling his garden, and almost had him sucked into oblivion, I was also behind on the rent.
"Do you know how long I've been sitting here?" he asked.
He still had the shotgun raised, waving it within inches of my face. His finger was way too near the trigger for me to feel at all confident about my immediate safety. There was something wild about his eyes.
"Excuse me, Mr Sabatini?" I said. "What do you mean, sitting here?"
"Keeping guard." He waggled one hand at the circle. "All day. Making sure that Thing doesn't come out of the circle."
We had sort of forgotten Mr Sabatini after he saved my life. Remiss of us, perhaps. But he had obviously taken it upon himself to stand watch on the circle, protecting what property he had left.
"Has anything appeared?" asked David. The shotgun swung onto him. David flinched involuntarily.
"Oh, it's you," said Mr Sabatini. "No, nothing but this strange glow. But look at this!" He held out one brawny arm: it was completely hairless. "The other one, too!" he cried. "Whatever did this will pay."
"I'm sure the hair will grow back, sir," said David. "I have a similar problem."
Mr Sabatini waggled his thick moustache proudly. "As long as it does not take this from me, I do not care what it does!"
The glow from the circle was almost swamped by the lantern. We all glanced at it: a soft, delicate white illumination.
"Please put the gun down, Mr Sabatini," I said. "We just want to have a look at the circle."
He noticed the gun as if for the first time. "Sorry," he said, pointing it at the floor. "I just want to be ready in case that Thing decides to appear again."
"Of course," said David. "Commendable. But we'd just like to have a look at it first."
The front door opened suddenly. Mr Sabatini cried out, swung the shotgun round and aimed. It was Heather.
"There you are, Mr Sabatini!" she cried, completely ignoring the gun aimed at her head. "I was looking for you earlier, to explain what's going on."
She walked over to him and held out her hand. "You certainly won't be needing that," she said. "Not for me at any rate." She took the gun from his hands, expertly broke it and removed the shells. Was there anything she didn't know how to do?
"Nasty things," she said, handing the gun back to him. "I called into your office after we took Emily to hospital, but they hadn't seen you all day. I didn't think to come back here."
Now she was no longer under threat of being shot, Joanna moved to the front door. "What happened to the stakeout?" she asked.
Heather shrugged. "Gone. They must have got bored. Or called away: there's probably quite a bit of trouble around the city tonight. All hands to the wheel, as it were. Would have been more interesting if they'd known Mr Sabatini was in here armed to the teeth."
There was a thud on the roof. Something rolled over the tiles and fell into the back yard.
"More debris," said Max. "We'd better get a move on."
I looked at the circle, at the pale glow within that illuminated nothing beyond the edges. I had a bad feeling inside me, a knot of nerves that had been quietly building up, waiting for the chance to say that this was a really bad idea. It voiced its opinion to my brain now.
David and Max had been looking at the glow. "Ionisation, I'd say," said David, "caused by the interaction of the circle's energy field with the air molecules in the room."
Joanna had also been looking at it. "No, it's an aura," she said.
"Oh, please," said Max.
Whatever, it wasn't going to help me.
"Let's test it," said David. "Put Mike into the circle, see what happens."
There was some debate about this. Heather thought putting Mike in was a really bad idea. Joanna wasn't too happy about it either. Their opinion was basically that if Mike and the Gap were connected, bringing the two together might make things worse. How, they could not say.
The Maestro thought it totally unnecessary to test things on Mike first, and was all for pushing me in without further delay. I edged out of reach before he could gleefully shove me into the unknown.
In the end, much to my personal relief, David and Max won, and Mike was pushed across the floor towards the circle.
The gravitational anomaly was still there. When he was within a metre of the outer circle, Mike started to slide across the floor of his own accord. He passed across the blue circle, lifted off the floor and hung there, as I had before, slowly turning upside down. Dirt trickled from his pot, but stopped short of the floor and started to form a small cloud underneath him.
"Still doing your old tricks," said Mr Sabatini. "What is the meaning of this?"
Then Mike vanished. Like the fake pizza man had done, like I had almost done. He was pulled by something unseen further into the dimensionless places within the circle.
And then nothing happened. We waited a few minutes, and nothing continued to happen.
"Interesting," said David. He almost sounded disappointed.
More bombardment on the roof. Some very heavy objects thumped down. Mr Sabatini cried out. "What is that?" he asked. "Someone throwing stones on my roof!" He hefted his unloaded shotgun and headed for the door. "I will show them!"
"No!" shouted Heather and ran after him, grabbing his arm before he could step outside. A dining chair hit the front yard and bounced, shattering into several pieces. Mr Sabatini shook his head. "What's going on?"
"The re-materialisation of objects is staying very localised," said Max. "I guess Emily is still the centre of things."
"Certainly looks that way," muttered David. "Well, Emily, are you prepared to enter the circle yourself?"
A good question. Was I? I stared at where Mike had disappeared without a trace. They were mad to send me in there -- I was mad to go -- yet I knew I would not rest until I had found out what was going on.
"Let's do it," I said quietly. "Before I change my mind."
"How do we know she can get back?" asked Joanna.
David hadn't thought of that.
"Maybe we could tie something to her," suggested Max. "A rope, say."
"We don't have any," said David.
"I do," said Mr Sabatini. "I brought some with me, in case I needed to tie up a monster. About thirty metres of it."
I noticed that he had a large pack beside him, the contents spilling out onto the floor: packets of biscuits, a flask of coffee and several items of an emergency nature, including a coil of rope. Mr Sabatini had certainly taken his self-imposed vigil seriously. Nevertheless, the thought of Mr Sabatini struggling single-handed against the Thing in the circle, with a rope in one hand and his shotgun in the other was rather amusing.
He uncoiled the rope. It certainly seemed strong enough. One end of the bright orange nylon was tied around my waist, the other led out the front door and secured tightly around the railing of the steps down into the front yard.
"You're really going in there?" asked Mr Sabatini, indicating the circle.
"Yes," I said.
"Then you better have someone strong on the other end of this rope," he said. "You better have me."
I nodded gratefully. Mr Sabatini had been able to pull me to safety once before. I would feel better knowing his enormous, if hairless, arms were once again ready to haul me back out.
David was talking rapidly to me. "Now, Emily. Just take a look and come straight back. Give two tugs on the rope if you can't reverse out and we'll all pull. Just see what's inside there. Don't hang around. We can always go back later."
"What about air?" said Joanna suddenly. "What if the other side is nothing but open space or something?"
"All the better to have a quick look," I said. "I'll hold my breath. Don't worry."
I was worried enough for all of them.
\*\*\*
I stood close to the circle, just outside the area where I would be dragged inwards. The rope had been coiled carefully on the floor at Mr Sabatini's feet, so he could pay it out as needed. The nerves in my stomach had finished their protest and were working on making my hands tremble now. I swallowed hard, looking around at everyone in the room. They were all waiting for me to move, but no one dared tell me to hurry up.
I've always worked on the basis that, if you have something unpleasant to do, do it and get it over with. Like boiled cabbage for dinner: eat the cabbage first and save the chips for after. Take the spoonful of medicine without hesitation, and then it's out of the way and you can have the lollipop. Walk into an unknown dimension now, and then you can...what? Ah, you see that was the stumbling block in this instance. Do it now, and then - then you'll know what the hell is going on. Probably. Or die. More likely.
"See you in a minute," I said. I stepped forward, my right hand gripping the rope, ready to signal for Mr Sabatini to pull me back.
As expected, the drag started immediately, pulling me towards the circle. As my toes crossed the blue circle they lifted off the floor and soon I was floating as before, tilting around with my head downwards. Microscopium must have been in that direction now, sunk below the horizon for the night. For a moment I could see the others dimly, like I was underwater. Then something tight grabbed my feet, I felt a powerful tug, and everyone vanished.
Or I suppose I did. It depends on your point of view.
ENVOI
PLATO'S CAVE
The space again, the space I had been in before, the space that was no space, just past actuality and third universe on the left.
There was nothing much: uniform drabness; greyout; nothing to focus on -- my vision skipped and skidded over the monotony.
Alternate reality was so far quite dull. Almost boring.
But then, that could be a good thing.
The grip on my legs was still there, but hadn't moved any further up. I stood, uncertain, wondering whether I should attempt to move my feet. Somehow, it seemed difficult to do so. Whatever it was that held them was tugging hard downwards.
Something was wrong with my body. Direction was awry. My hair was standing straight up, like it was alive with static electricity, every brown strand vertical, reaching aloft. For some reason I was holding my arms over my head, and when I tried to lower them they wanted to stay up, like I was pulling down against some unseen resistance.
Even my breasts felt strange. They were weighted wrongly, pushing up like my hair and arms. Looking down, I saw I actually had a cleavage: a good one, too, not my usual effort. My boobs were literally spilling upwards out of my bra.
There was a ringing in my ears. My head felt light, too, like all the blood inside me was following the upwards trend of everything else.
In fact the only things that weren't madly straining upwards were my feet, and they were being just as forcibly pulled down.
Perhaps gravity didn't apply here, or was reversed. Whatever, it was going in a bloody inconvenient direction. Or perhaps I was the centre of gravity, which would explain why both ends of me were trying to separate from each other in such an uncomfortable way.
Then it dawned. Eventually, most things do. I wasn't standing at all: I was upside-down. Hanging by my feet, like at the end of a bungee-jump.
Suddenly, popping between universes and exploring fantastic new shadowplanes didn't seem half as much fun as it sounds.
There was no immediate fear, just uncertainty. The grip on my foot seemed to be holding. I wasn't plunging downwards at 9.81m/sec2, which was a comforting thought, although the complete lack of anything to see below meant there was no way of knowing how far above a surface I might be suspended. I'm not afraid of heights normally, so it didn't feel too bad hanging there.
So far. Give me a minute to think about it.
Ok, it was scary.
If it was possible for me (unlike toothpaste) to return from whence I came, now appeared a good time to try. I felt for the rope around my waist, which of course I had tied there in case of just such an emergency.
Only there was no rope - or not much of it, anyway.
I looked up past my body. The rope was tied around my feet. Somehow, it had slipped from my waist to my ankles, had drawn tight around them. That's what had been hauling on them so tightly and - as I was fast becoming more acutely aware - so painfully.
The worrying thing was that there was only about a metre of rope above my feet. The end of it just vanished. I was suspended from nothing, over nothing.
The fear started then. I took a couple of deep breaths and closed my eyes for a moment, listening to the blood thunder in my ears.
Opening my eyes again, as surely one eventually must, I looked above the taut end of the rope: of course, there was nothing to be seen. No gateway, no portal, no computer-generated special effects like you see in the movies showing you where the inter-dimensional wormhole is. No glimpse of my living room. So much for naked singularities.
A non-event horizon.
I was just hanging upside-down, which wasn't too bad in itself, except that I was hanging upside-down in another universe, which added that little hint of uncertainty to it all.
Then I saw something.
Ahead of me, hovering in the air, or whatever it was I was breathing now: a Form. A square. But a square drawn by my old friend Escher, warped and twisted back on itself, all parts of it visible at once, with many more angles than four, but only four sides. It was like someone had sliced a square up and laid it out and I was viewing every aspect from all directions at the same time. Topology with an ego problem. There was no way to judge its size. It might have been just in front of my face, it might have been a light year away.
"I don't understand," I said aloud.
The square moved. It didn't move from one place to another, didn't bounce along on its points, but moved in upon itself.
It curled like a sausage.
It twisted, turned; something was added, something taken away; its form altered -- and now before me was the square again, but now it fitted perfectly into the circle that surrounded it, both with exactly the same area and occupying the same space.
"I still don't understand," I said, on the off-chance someone or something was there to hear me.
But apparently nothing was.
It was too hard to understand. Of course, I was not in a good position to think right then, held there on the end of a very short rope over absolutely nothing, with my whole weight bearing down on my ankles. My brain felt other priorities demanded its attention at that moment. I agreed with it.
My ankles hurt. I couldn't take much more of this. I moved my arms, struggling to push some blood back towards my legs. I slapped my thighs, and felt something in my pocket.
The Maestro's talisman. I took it out and looked at it.
He had told me to keep it with me. I couldn't understand why. There was nothing particularly special about it: a few grams of brass, scratched roughly with the designs hacked out by the Maestro's chisel.
It will protect you, he said.
But how? And from what?
And then it struck me: perhaps it protected me from everything, even from what I was seeing now.
Yet it seemed utterly ridiculous that such a little thing -- which for most of its existence had performed the necessary service of stopping water escaping from Joanna's bath - could now be acting as a kind of sensory blinker, blinding me to the mysteries of a different universe. But there you go.
Of course, the idea of hanging upside-down in a totally new cosmos also smacked a little of the ridiculous. Who was I to judge?
What if I let it go?
I let it slip from my fingers, watched it spin downwards, falling away forever beneath me until it vanished in the grey gloom.
As soon as it was gone, things started to make sense. Almost. Something nagged the back of my brain, or at least the area where trivial bits of information get stored, that mental lumber room where all sorts of apparently insignificant facts find a resting place until they
can leap out and go "ah-ha!" in a smug sort of way. I had a room like that in my mind, with:
I Told You So
Enter at your own risk
written above the door.
I opened the door and peeked inside, staring into the mental gloom. Suddenly a maths lesson from school was there, a geometry lesson with old Mr Robertson, a teacher of mediocre ability and a mumbling voice. He had been trying to teach us about the circle and how it was such a perfect concept, and about how good old pi - which he insisted on writing π-- was the single most amazing number in creation. We students had been as uninterested as it was possible to be, and yet here in my little lumber room the information jumped out to say hello. Somehow I had remembered it.
I looked at the square again, surrounded by the circle. That's what I was seeing now: the square root of π. So it wasn't a transcendental number after all. At least, it wasn't in this place. The mathematics I had learned at school didn't apply here. Π came to an end eventually, some where far out beyond the capacity of the human brain to comprehend.
David would have enjoyed seeing that. Or maybe not -- it would undermine too many basic mathematical concepts.
But I needed to know more, especially using something I could really understand. "Mathematics is no good," I said aloud to the nothingness around me. "I don't like Maths."
But nothing further happened.
Bereft of visual stimulus, I returned to my physical sensations. The pain in my feet had extended now to my legs. I had to become upright soon, or black out from the enormous quantity of blood finding its way into my head. But there was only one solution that offered itself to me and, looking at it critically, it wasn't a good one.
The talisman had fallen away into the nothingness above/below/around me. It was time I did the same.
Just what I needed: a leap of faith, when faith was something I had never had much faith in before. If one can say that.
I really wasn't thinking straight. Which probably made the idea of dropping into a grey void the most sensible thing I could come up with under the circumstances, as it at least had some logic to it. At least I would be going somewhere instead of nowhere.
The problem was how to do it. There was no way I could bend myself in half upwards and hold that position long enough to untie the knot around my feet with my whole weight hanging there.
"Please," I said to the square/circle, hopefully, "I want to get down now."
The pain in my feet stopped abruptly, which was the good news. The bad news -- or so it seemed at the time -- was the discovery that gravity did indeed exist here, and as usual it was in one direction only, and that was straight down.
Which means I fell. Fast, and downwards.
Until I met a surface.
I contacted the ground (?) without any inconvenient inertia or conservation of mass which in other circumstances would have turned me into a red smear on the first surface I encountered. For this, I was thankful.
The ground was simply greyer, only solid grey this time. At my feet was the talisman. I went to pick it up but decided to leave it. If nothing else, it might serve as a marker so I had at least one identifiable point on the otherwise featureless surface. Then I looked ahead, and there was the square/circle again.
More movement and shifting; it changed again. The square/circle became another Form. For a moment there was the Thing again, the Thing that had tried to pull me into the circle, the Thing that words could not describe, and then there was just a colour.
The human eye can determine ten million colours, even though there is some doubt about whether colour actually exists, or whether it's just a convenient terminology by which our brains make sense of things. What I was seeing now was a colour, an extraordinary beautiful colour. A sort of purple, I think, or in the range of purple somewhere, but with rose and gold and silver mixed in as well.
The colour spread, washed over the nothingness that surrounded it, and became a landscape. Escher had moved on. This was Turner: washes of the colour in a thousand tones, swirling mists, flashes of brightness in the corners. A million things contained in it, but nothing to focus the eye on.
It was similar to the light/dark pattern I had seen when I had first floated in the circle, with the patterns of colour and form, only much larger, much nearer, much deeper now.
So that was it. I had been catching glimpses of my destination all the time, trying to capture it, identify it. In my head, in the circle, this swirl of colour and light: I was in the presence of something.
The landscape was all around me, behind and above and beneath. I was not standing on the ground but on a whorl of image/form/shape that might have been the ground, a ground that was more complex, more profound, more defined than any I had seen before. There was grass there, but grass that held an infinity of definitions and colours that passed through my eyes into my brain and told me not only what it looked like but also what it was like. I was the grass, just as I had earlier been the tree. It was the same with all the things in that landscape: a line of hills off to my right, hills that were as tall as the sky but which would only take me a few moments to climb: hills out of a dream, that had an infinity of slopes and ridges and rills and folds, covered in the impossible grass. They were simplicity and infinite complexity at once, like the square and the circle, both the same and both irreconcilably different. Before me was a stream, the water lapping almost to my feet, a stream in which water flowed both ways at once: uphill and down, and both currents moved freely, without interference from the other. Two things occupying the same place at the same time, opposed yet unified in their space and purpose. And across the stream, in his eternal green plastic pot, was the stump of Mike. It was like he had always been sitting there quietly at the side of the stream, exuding his crazy perfume.
"Thought you must be here somewhere," I said.
Then a voice spoke slowly and with difficulty. It was not something in the landscape speaking to me: the voice was inside my head somewhere, coming from a depth of consciousness that lay far, far within. The words were stilted and slow. Speech, at least the form of communication that we call speech, was as alien to the speaker as its present form, which I took to be the landscape around me.
You are here, It said.
That was all. I stood on the edge of the stream and looked at Mike and wondered what would happen next.
"Yes," I said eventually.
Wow, brilliant. The first words of our species to what was patently an alien form of life, and that as the best I could come up with. Jeez.
You have arrived, and we are met.
"I guess."
Another long pause. I just stood there staring in fascination at the brilliant landscape all around me and waited for It to make the next move.
What do you want?
"Excuse me?"
Why are you here?
"Well, I was going to ask you the same question. Didn't you bring me?"
You are not me.
"You got that right. Who are you?"
I am me.
Not very helpful.
Can you understand my Form?
I guess It meant the landscape. "Well, it's better than the circle and square things. And much better than the weird thing that tried to haul me into the circle. That was you, I take it?"
That was an aspect of me.
Obviously form and substance were different here, and no doubt many more dimensions that we normally had to deal with on a daily basis.
"I get it," I said. "You're passing through our universe, and what I'm seeing is just one aspect of you, one slice as it were?"
I am an assembly of possible images transformed into the phenomena you call light and sound and other forms that may have meaning to you.
"Thanks, it does help."
I looked around. The whole landscape was It. If there was anything beyond it -- if, indeed, it was anywhere for there to be a beyond -- I had no way of knowing. This whole universe could be the Thing. It was all relative.
"But why are you here? Why are you passing through?"
There is another, and we are meeting.
"Another one of your kind?"
I have no kind.
"Whatever."
Semantics at time like this!
"Another -- aspect - of you?"
I have no aspect you could understand.
"Why did you take over my body? Why have all these things happened to me? Did you do that? Make me go into star-form, all those sausages? Was that you?"
That was you, but because you are linked to me. When you encountered me, you made me into things you could understand. This had certain effects in your universe. It changed you, and created effects around you.
"We sort of suspected that. So why am I linked?"
You were there.
A thought occurred to me. I pointed at Mike: a useless gesture, because whatever was speaking/thinking in my head could not see me.
"What about Mike? The plant. He came here first, before me. Is he part of you?"
That is the other aspect.
"So it was Mike you were after all the time? And I got involved just by accident?"
You were linked in another way to it. But I was looking for the Other.
"May I ask why?"
There may have been a microscopic pause, a hesitation, or I may have just fancied it.
We are breeding.
"What?"
We require a coming together of two to make others.
Ok. Good old-fashioned sex. The Thing and Its Other were out for a bit of fun, and I walked in on them. Typical me.
"I'm sorry. I didn't know."
It was necessary to find the Other and form the link, so that we might breed. And you were there.
"Sorry about that. And now you have -- er -- done it, you'll go away?"
No.
"Why not?"
You must see.
"See what?"
Then something happened off to my left. In the sparkling, infinite landscape, something was approaching. I looked and knew, all at once. It was the phoney pizza man, who had been pulled into this place like I had. He was running towards me over the grass. I turned, glad to see a human face, even his, but he kept coming for me, not slowing as he approached, and I knew I was in trouble.
He hit me square on, folded me up like a birthday card. We thumped on the ground together, rolled over a couple of times, and then his elbow -- accidentally I hope -- connected with the side of my head. Everything spun around. Lights that had nothing to do with the surrounding landscape danced little fairy rings around my skull. Pretty but painful.
By the time the lights stopped, the man was over the other side of the stream. He had a blank expression on his face, and I wasn't certain if he was quite the man he used to be. Mike, for his part, had done nothing.
I sat up. "What did you do that for," I asked, clutching my head.
It is necessary for you to know.
"Know what?"
Everything.
"Including pain, obviously. Sorry, but I'm already familiar with that."
I wanted to go home, to get away from this strange place. I didn't much care if the pizza man came with me or not. In fact, he could go to hell as far as I was concerned. He had hurt me.
And I must thank you.
"My pleasure. Thank you for the punch in the head."
There was a pause. Even in another universe, drama played a part. I was being handed a cue on a plate.
"All right, I'll bite. Why do you have to thank me?"
We could not have bred without you.
That did not make me feel better. It sounded just a little too kinky for my liking.
"Just don't name it after me, ok?"
This will be returned.
"What? The pizza guy? Why did you bring him here in the first place?"
The Other brought him. You had not come, and we were looking for another bonding.
"I don't think I want to know about it."
The pizza guy vanished. I never saw him again, but I'm sure he was returned safely to our universe. I hope.
Nothing happened for a few minutes/hours/years. I just stood there, in that weird landscape, my head throbbing.
It was necessary to cause you pain, to release the final barriers in your mind. So you can See.
And then the Thing showed me what it wanted me to See.
The World as It really Is.
The landscape changed, opened up, unzipped. The colour that was a thousand shades of many colours grew even deeper. Forms came and went, some blatantly geometric, others different, more defined, but still enigmatic. I saw the truth in all things, knew that everything here reflected something in our universe, but on a higher, a more sensitive, a more acute level. Here, Fact gave way to Reality; Shape became Form; Truth was a solid object.
And in all this, I suddenly understood. What we are and what we know are limited to our own experience, and our experience is obedient to physical laws. It was all unutterably simple. Our universe is finite but unbounded, yet infinite and bounded too. Within, beyond, above, across: all distances are a lie, because distance is relative, time is a vague theory not yet proved, and we are shadows, reflections, versions of higher forms that scoff at both the laws of science and the secrets of the philosophers.
The Maestro could not have been more wrong: I was not in the Shadowplane, but from it. What we call reality is merely the prelude to the way things really are.
I stood there for a long time, although time had no meaning, while the universe came and went around me, and eventually I was sent back.
That's all.
\*\*\*
I woke up in bed: Joanna's bed. She was there, looking concerned, staring down at me. She seemed older, lines of worry across her face, concern in her eyes. I wondered how long I had been away. Looking at her, it seemed like years.
"Hello," I said, as cheerily as possible.
The room was full of shadows, even though the windows were wide open and the bright sun was flooding in. The light of our world was different for me now. Darker, it seemed, if light could be dark: dimmer, maybe.
I could feel Joanna's hand in mine, and gave it a squeeze. Her skin felt coarse, lined, like old leather.
"Are you ok?" I asked. "You look a little peaky."
"Emily!" she said, a tear starting on her cheek. "You're awake!"
"Yes. Miss me? What happened?"
Nothing much, she explained. I had entered the circle and vanished. A second later, I reappeared, unconscious, on the floor. The circle, and the glow of its illumination, had gone. They didn't know it then, but over their heads, the Gap had gone also, winking out in a second as if it had never been. No more objects fell from the skies. I had been bundled up and brought back to Joanna's house. A day had since passed, while I slept deeply and they all prowled around, worried I was gone for good. David felt particularly bad, since entering the circle had been his idea. But it looked as if I was going to live after all.
Only, the light...sounds...appearances. They weren't the same to me. Something was missing, something that had never been there, but I never knew it should have been there until now...an essence, a texture...
Nothing was complete. Nothing contained any soul.
Nothing ever had, only now I was able to notice it. Everything was shadows, dim suggestions of more solid things.
Joanna looked closely at me, smiling.
"But you," she said. "What happened to you?"
"Well - " I began, and stopped. There was no way I could explain, not yet, not without a great deal of sorting and sifting and arranging of events in my mind. "I guess you sort of had to be there."
\*\*\*
To me, at any rate, it was clear now: this -- Thing -- from another universe had entered ours looking for another of its kind, in order to have sex. Nothing wrong there, except that the Other was a plant growing in our kitchen. Somehow, while I lay drunk on the cushions in the living room, the Thing wandered into my universe, touched my alcohol-expanded consciousness when I happened to have exchanged DNA or something with Mike, and formed a link to It through me. I then started seeing sausages, fake horoscopes and all sorts of other things as a result of being the gooseberry in the middle of these two lovers. Since I couldn't make sense of what I experienced, I converted it into things I could, like sausages and horoscopes. The Thing had removed the contents of my house presumably hoping to take Mike along with it, only the necessary link between the two -- me -- was not in contact with him. Everything that had happened, including the Gap itself, were just other aspects of the Thing. Once the Thing had fully entered our universe, or at least enough as was necessary for mating to take place (I cringed a little at the thought of that), the Other, Mike, had responded in its own way, and that was that. They had sex, or whatever.
Glad I could help bring a little romance to the fourth dimension.
\*\*\*
Life has pretty much returned to normal, now I'm back in the land of shadows. Heather managed to avoid too great a punishment for her assault on the sergeant: a good behaviour bond for twelve months, first offence and all that. Max was charged with the unlawful use of a motor vehicle to crush a policeman's toes, and lost his licence as a result, but he's still Director of the Planetarium. The Maestro was delighted with everything that happened, and had made some notes for his next book. He seemed to be looking forward to recanting everything he had previously stated and starting from scratch.
I visited him before he returned to Turkey to thank him for the talisman he had given me. It had proved utterly useless, but I'm not one to hold a grudge. At least he'd tried, in his own way.
"You will always be very powerful in your own right," he said. "Especially now that you have seen the real world. Gerçeği gördün." His handshake was very warm this time, and the blue of his eyes as intense as ever.
Unfortunately, Joanna and David didn't take things so well. It was partly my fault: I found it so difficult -- still do -- to explain what happened to me. But at least I could understand now what had been going on when I first encountered the Thing, while still in our world.
Joanna mentioned something about subjective interpretation of paranormal phenomena, and David muttered darkly about disobeying the Laws of Thermodynamics, and left it at that. They couldn't reconcile the fact that they had both been wrong, that in another universe there was a different science, and a different mysticism, and no way that either could be applied to explain what had happened to me.
I tried to reassure David that I had seen the unification of science and myth that he had been searching for, but that it wasn't what he had expected. He could never quite understand. Maybe he was just a little upset because he wasn't there to see for himself.
On a personal front, there have been no more sausages, no more star-states or symbiotic relationships with trees, no more splits in the bright azure sky. The Gap has gone, and so has Mike. I know why, now.
I'm not sure if there is such a thing as love in whatever universe it had come from. Certainly there is sex. The Thing never revealed to me the true nature of Its relationship with the Other. Maybe they were in love; maybe they were just both out for a good time. That was fine by me. Somewhere, I guess, they are happy now, and maybe there are some little Things that will grow and one day have offspring of their own.
As for the other things I saw after I lost the talisman, when the real world had been shown to me, that was probably the most significant thing of all. I saw the universe -- our universe -- as it really is, not the shadows we occupy on the mundane level. It's not that there are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamed of, it's just that they are different to what we imagine them to be. Our ignorance exists, as I have said before, on four levels. There is much we don't know and much we do. But don't believe what anyone tells you. Because on the real level, above and below and on all sides, just out of sight, around the corner, over the horizon, the world is deeper, stranger, wider and more beautiful than you can possibly imagine. You can see it without bonding with multi-dimensional Beings. It's there. All you have to do is look.
Trust me.
Days of Iron
by
Russell Proctor
In the future, genetic engineering has created three species of humans. Homo sapiens -- the Sapes -- are the masters. The Sirians are savage and insular. And the Helots are slaves, denied even the right to breed.Humanity in all its forms has spread out into the galaxy, ruled by the all-powerful Syndicate of Galactic Corporations. But the Syndicate refuses to share technology beyond the ruling Elite.For Maddy Hawthorn, a Sape colonist, the peaceful life she had planned at Barnard's Star is torn apart when she becomes involved in a terrorist plot to destroy the stranglehold of the Elite over the other races. Pursued by the military and the Syndicate's agents, Maddy and her companions mount a desperate attack on the centre of control in the galaxy, an obscure planet on the fringes of known space.Maddy must fight a ruthless regime to survive, but her own past demons might be the most dangerous threat of all.
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