The rightness guided her; such doubts and forgettings were discarded, unimportant. It led her home; the child and the time were growing. But when she reached the great forest, the time was heavy and could wait no longer. To be born here was unknown – the meaning and force of the Vorrh was beyond the understanding of all people. But this birthing was ordained; the trees were waiting, and something was waiting in them.
In the depth of the forest, on her way to the True People, her daughter was born. Wondrous omens heralded the event: snow fell through the tropical night; violet seas were seen to shimmer in the twilight of the far western shores; luminous insects clustered into balls and floated above the villages. Some said the Erstwhile awoke and brought the pair out of the Vorrh, into the human lands of the True People. Others said that the infant belonged to the Erstwhile and had been sired by one of them, as in the olden days.
The only known truth was that the dying Abungu and the sacred Irrinipeste were found on the edge of the village, by an old warrior on the night after the day of the feast, when the sun was eaten by the moon and reborn in crescent fragments under the black sea. The mother was recognised as one of the tribe by the scarification her parents had inscribed by dismal candlelight, in the slums that clung to the mud banks of the River Thames, far beyond London’s city walls. Before she died, she gave a crown of gold and mirrors, encrusted in mud, for the safekeeping of her daughter, along with a picture of a shield, which bore the same sun fragment as those beneath the waves. The dawn of the next day took her, and the child received the light that lingered in her dead eyes for hours.
His pink, scrubbed hands were in her bed. She felt them parting her legs. She turned slightly. One of his fingers was moving on her, caressing and opening her bliss. No: this could not be. His hand was inside her, groping upwards. She pushed out, the other hand holding her leg down. Her cry woke her into a panic, though the old house was empty. She was alone, but his hand was in her womb, grabbing at the foetus, trying to squeeze the life out of it and pull it from its safety. She felt his other hand enter her and almost fainted, ready to burst with fear. Her shouts echoed through the house, from the hollow well in the cellar to the attic, where it strummed against the long, taut wires and bounced in the white hollow of the obscura’s table. She felt the doctor’s ring dig into her bone as his fat, pink finger rotated. Her final scream pulled her from the layers of nightmare and into the dim, pre-dawn haze of her room.
She was wringing wet and brutally cold. The bedroom had not quite settled into reality and she feared that Hoffman still lingered nearby: maybe under the bed, or behind the weighty curtains. She breathed heavily, not daring to detach herself from the safety of the damp sheets, and waited for the morning to release her again from another night of blind, vengeful terror.
Cyrena and Ishmael had not stepped outside the house for almost a week. The world beyond the mansion’s walls had dissolved in its own continuum of noise and bustle. They never left each other, talking and touching and succumbing to their courtship through all the hours of the day and night. Even the division of light and dark held no meaning for them: the richness of their realm was more than all else.
The servants ferried food and drink and kept out of their way. So powerful was their love in the house that it evaporated all gossip and below-stairs speculation. The staff just grinned knowingly, shrugged their shoulders and grinned again.
The bow lay neglected in the hall; Ishmael no longer moved it with him from room to room. Occasionally it would fall in the night, clattering noisily against obscure items and leaving unpleasant odours and resistant stains. Eventually, he placed it as far from the heart of the house as the walls allowed, resting it in the small porch that joined the garden to the cellar. The servants were warned not to disturb it under any circumstances. It was a somewhat unnecessary order: the long, black bundle was loathsome to all.
Under a nearby bush, Tsungali’s ghost dozed peacefully. His grandfather had caught up with him a few days after he arrived. He had decided to wait with him for their business to be concluded, so they might travel together into the awaiting worlds. Tsungali slept to conserve the strength of what was left of him. His grandfather kept a wary eye on the bow while he dozed.
The arrival of the letter dislodged the peace of the house. Its sharp, white envelope was like a porcelain blade. It was from Ghertrude.
My dear friend,
Have you forsaken me? Please tell me what I have done to cause your silence? I felt such relief at your support in this strange, incomprehensible time; I cannot begin to express my despair at your absence.
I am so alone. Nobody comes. I only ever see Mutter, and I cannot speak to him – his smile unnerves me, it is more than I can tolerate at this moment.
The house has never been so empty. I am racked by nightmares, which I think might be omens; the evil spirit of the doctor comes to steal the life from within me and I wake in terror every night. Please, if I have not offended you in some unknown way, come to me soon. I need your strength and friendship to see me through these desperate times.
Yours always,
Ghertrude
Cyrena was mortified. She had not considered Ghertrude’s needs for days, even though she and Ishmael had talked about her frequently with warmth and care; she had to go to her friend at once. She called Ishmael and showed him the letter.
‘What is the significance of this doctor?’ he asked.
She shut her eyes to the answer that tangled in her throat. There was so much to explain, and so much more to forget.
‘He was one of the men we paid to find you. He was a vile man, corrupt and dangerous.’
‘Where is he now?’
‘He disappeared,’ she lied, ‘ran off somewhere with the other vermin who tricked us.’
Ishmael was content and asked no more questions, letting her rush about as she dressed for the first time in days.
‘I don’t know how long I will be,’ she said at the door.
‘I am coming with you.’ He had his shoes on and was buttoning his shirt. ‘I am coming to see Ghertrude.’
The car sped through the city and she gripped his hand tightly, moving back and forth in her seat as if it might help the lilac Phaeton gain speed. Ishmael tried to talk, but it was impossible to engage her, so he sat back, enjoying the speed and the vista of the city, without the disguise of a mask or a scarf. He was beginning to feel grand in his new face and the plush elegance of the car’s interior.
Minutes later, they arrived at 4 Kühler Brunnen and she rattled at the gate and the bell. Ishmael stepped into the street and was suddenly overwhelmed; he was transported to a very different place, with a tide of memories flooding back.
When a dishevelled Ghertrude eventually came to the gate, the sight of her friend unhooked her and she immediately began to weep. She yanked the barrier open, throwing herself, sobbing, into Cyrena’s arms. Cyrena held her tightly, patting her back in soft, soothing strokes, heavily aware of their unseen companion but overcome with a maternal sense of responsibility. ‘I am so, so sorry for deserting you. Please forgive me, it will never happen again.’
Ghertrude pulled back slightly from her friend’s damp shoulder. ‘I am sorry for crumbling so again, I have just been so lonely and scared.’