Sea of Silver Light

  "They cannot see us here!" she said. "Our friend is protecting us!"

  He only half-noticed that her phantom friend had somehow become his as well. "Even so, Ava—I told you this was a terrible idea! That it simply cannot be!"

  "Oh, Paul, Paul." Disconcertingly, she bent her head and kissed his hand where it clutched her arm. Despite his monstrous uneasiness, the lunacy of it all, something in him responded with a throb in his groin, a twitch of the serpent sleeping in his spine.

  "Ava, stop. You must stop."

  "But, Paul!" She turned her huge, tragic, damp eyes up to him. "I have just found out the most terrible thing. I think my father . . . I think he is going to have you murdered!"

  "What?" It was too much. For a moment he hated her, too—despised her helplessness and her derangement. How had he got himself into such a terrible, ridiculous situation? Something like this would never happen to Niles Peneddyn. "Why should he do that?"

  "Come outside," she said. "Come into the wood. We can talk there."

  "I thought you said we could talk here. That your . . . your ghost or whatever was protecting us."

  "He is! But I cannot stand being in this house a moment longer. Caged like an animal. Time . . . time is so long here!" She threw herself at him again, and although he kept his face turned from hers, refusing her kisses, the straining, panicky need in her tensed body performed a strange inversion and he wrapped his arms around her, soothing her as though she were a terrified child.

  Which she is, he thought, his fear and confusion mixed with genuine sorrow. They've done something terrible to her. Whatever they've done, it's criminal.

  Her chest heaved against his. At last a little quiet came. "Come outside," she said. "Oh, please, Paul."

  He allowed himself to be led to the door of the study, pulling away at the last moment so that they made a more decorous picture as they emerged from the supposed zone of safety.

  She's even got me believing this, he realized. This ghost, this secret friend of hers. Either someone really has hacked the system or else Finney and Mudd just aren't paying attention. I can't believe they'd find this kind of behavior acceptable.

  The house was quiet, the maids withdrawn to wherever they went—off-duty? Gossiping about their employer's crazy daughter in some modern break room down on lower floors? Or were they hanging in a closet like marionettes, waiting for the unseen puppeteer to use them again?

  They have to be real people, he told himself. The Gothic atmosphere was beginning to make even the most freakish notions half-believable. I've bumped into one of them. You can't bump into a hologram and they don't make robots that realistic. He hoped he survived all this to make it back to England, if only so he could tell Niles and his other friends about it someday, preferably with a drink in his hand. This would be one story that he felt sure none of them could top.

  Ava's breakfast sat untouched on the table in the sun porch. Paul looked at it wistfully, wishing he'd had more than a cup of coffee himself. Once out in the garden, his pupil broke into a trot. For a moment he felt drawn to hurry after her, then remembered the eyes that were almost surely watching; he walked down the path as sedately as he could manage.

  She was waiting for him in the fairy ring, her eyes bright, but not with tears. "Oh, Paul," she said as he stepped into the circle, "if only we could always be together like this. Able to say what we wished without fear!"

  "I don't understand what's going on, Ava." He sat down beside her, keeping a careful distance. She looked at him reproachfully but he chose to ignore it. "The last time we were here you told me . . . you told me you had a baby. Now you say your father is going to kill me. Not to mention your friend from the spirit world. How can I believe any of this?"

  "But I did have a baby." She was indignant. "I wouldn't lie about such a thing."

  "Who . . . who was the father?"

  "I don't know. Not a man, if that's what you mean." She paused. "Perhaps it was God." There was no hint of mockery.

  Paul was finally convinced beyond any residual doubts that she was mad. Her father's controlling obsessiveness, her prisoned life in this bizarre place—a zoo, really, with only one animal—had completely disordered her mind. He knew he should get up and walk back into the house, take the elevator down to Finney's office and resign, because no good could come from such a situation. He knew he should, but for some reason, perhaps the pain hiding behind her gentle face, he did not.

  "And where is this child?" he asked.

  "I don't know. They took him from me—they didn't even let me see him."

  "Him? You know it was a boy? And who took him?"

  "The doctors. Yes, I know it was a boy. I knew it even before I knew I was carrying him. I had dreams. It was very strange."

  Paul shook his head. "I'm afraid I'm not understanding this very well. You . . . you had a baby. But you never saw it. The doctors took it away."

  "Him. Took him away."

  "Him. When did this happen?"

  "Just after you came to be my tutor, six months ago. Do you remember? I was ill and I missed several days' lessons."

  "Just after I came? But . . . but you didn't look like you were carrying a child."

  "It was very early."

  Paul could make no sense of it. "And you never. . . ." He hesitated, caught in the strange trap of speaking to her as though she truly were a girl from nearly two centuries in the past. "And you had never . . . been with a man?"

  Her laugh was unexpectedly loud. She was very amused. "Who would it be, dear, dear Paul? Poor old Doctor Landreux, who must be a hundred years old? Or one of that horrid pair who work for my father?" She shuddered and inched nearer to him. "I have been with no one. There is no other man for me but you, my beloved Paul. No one."

  He was losing the strength to object to her endearments. "But someone took the child away?"

  "I didn't know at the time. I had been feeling ill for weeks. I was particularly sick in the mornings. I went to the doctors and they examined me—at least that's what I thought they did. I only found out later that they'd taken away my baby before it could grow. But somehow I knew anyway, Paul—I knew! But I only understood for certain when Miss Kenley told me."

  "Miss Kenley. . . ?" He felt like he had walked into a play at the interval, and now was hopelessly trying to figure out what had happened in the first half. "Who. . . ?"

  "She was one of the nurses who used to come in with Doctor Landreux. But Finney saw her whispering to me, and now she doesn't come in anymore. Miss Kenley was very sweet—she was a Quaker, did you know? She didn't like working here. She wasn't supposed to tell me anything, but she thought it was terrible, what they did, so she told the doctor she was going to see if I was improving, but instead she took me for a walk in the garden and told me that they'd taken out my little baby." A tear trickled down her cheek. "Before he could even grow!"

  "So you only know you were going to have a baby because this nurse told you so."

  "I knew, Paul. I knew in my dreams that there was a baby inside me. But when she told me the terrible thing they had done, then I understood everything."

  "That's a lot more than I can say." The twitter of bird-song in the trees overhead was continuous and loud. Paul found himself wondering how sound could enter into the circle so freely, but their own conversation could somehow be kept secret.

  But there has to be something going on, he thought. They wouldn't just let us sit here and talk about things like this, would they? Unless of course they already knew the girl was crazy and were curious how Paul would react. Was it all some kind of loyalty test? If it is, I don't want the job that badly. In fact, I don't want this bloody job at all.

  Still, there was something in Ava's story that wasn't so easy to dismiss. That didn't mean it was true—the whole thing might be some hysterical fantasy of this Miss Kenley's, foisted on the unfortunately sheltered, gullible Ava—but it might mean the girl wasn't entirely deranged either. And whatever else she might be, she was cert
ainly a victim.

  "Let's talk about something else for a moment," he said, noting that she had moved a little closer still, so that her thigh, beneath dress and ruffled petticoat, was pushed against his. "Why do you think your father wants to kill me?"

  "Oh!" Her eyes widened, as though she had entirely forgotten the danger that half an hour earlier had driven her to terrified weeping. "Oh, Paul, I couldn't bear to lose you, but I'm so frightened!"

  "Just tell me why you think I'm in danger."

  "My friend told me. You know, my friend."

  Paul grimaced. "Yes, I know. Your ghost. What exactly did he tell you?"

  "Well, he didn't really tell me—he showed me. In the same manner he showed me you, sitting in your room." She frowned—prettily, he thought, just like in the old books. Was it an automatic product of being raised in an old-books sort of way? "Paul, what is a grail?"

  "Grail?" It was not the sort of thing he was expecting to be asked. "A grail . . . right, it's . . . it's a mythical object." Despite his university lit. courses and a dozen lectures on the pre-Raphaelites, his recall was embarrassingly vague. "The Holy Grail. I think it's supposed to be the cup that Jesus drank from at the Last Supper. Something like that. It features in a lot of medieval legends—all that King Arthur stuff." He sounded, he thought, like the kind of nonreading, philistine American he and his friends had always mocked. "I think there are other meanings, too—some cauldron from Irish folktales—but I can't quite remember. Why?"

  "My father was talking about it with those cruel men who work for him, Finney and Mudd."

  Paul shook his head. "You've lost me again, Ava."

  "My friend—he showed me them talking in the mirror. Or rather, he showed me Finney and Mudd in the mirror, and they were talking to my father, who was in a mirror big as a wall. He was in the mirror tor them just like he is for me."

  Finney and Mudd talking to their boss on a wallscreen, Paul thought. So Ava's phantom could not only trick those spying on her and Paul, he could also spy on the spies in turn. "And?"

  "My father told them that the Grail was again within reach. And so perhaps it was time for you—he called you 'that Jonas character'—to disappear."

  Paul was desperately trying to find threads of sense in this great, ragged tapestry of incomprehensibilities and folly. "People use the term 'grail' sometimes to mean something important, Ava—a project, a goal. I don't know what it would have to do with firing me, though, or even why your father should concern himself with such a small detail." He smiled to show his resignation to his own comparative insignificance, but she was not amused or reassured.

  "He wasn't just talking about sacking you, Paul." She was stern, as though he had become the larky pupil and she the teacher. "Nickelplate—Finney—said they were ready whenever my father gave the word, and Mudd said, 'It won't matter much to anyone, anyway. All he's got is an old mother who won't last much longer. She's in no shape to raise a fuss.' I'm quite sure that's how he put it."

  Something as cold and startling as a wet hand clutched his innards; for a moment, Paul felt dizzy with sudden panic. Nobody talked that way about terminating someone's employment, did they? It sounded like a crime drama. Surely there had to be some innocent explanation. Surely.

  Aloud, he said, "She's gone now. My mum. She just died,"

  "I'm sorry, Paul. It must very painful for you." Ava's eyes turned downward, showing a great expanse of dark lash. "I never knew my mother. She died when I was born."

  He looked at her carefully. The flush of excitement had pinked her pale skin above the high collar of her dress. "You wouldn't . . . you didn't make this up, did you? Please tell me, Ava. I won't be angry, but I have to know."

  Her hurt was as raw and obvious as a child's. "Make it up. . . ? But, Paul, I would never lie to you. I . . . love you."

  "Ava, you can't. I've told you."

  "Can't?" Her laugh was shrill, painful to hear. " 'For stony limits cannot hold love out'—your William Shakespeare said that, didn't he? I remember it from Romeo and Juliet."

  Which is exactly why I wouldn't have taught that play to a lonely, impressionable young girl, he thought. Her other tutors have a lot to answer for. "I have to think, Ava. This is . . . this is quite a bit of information." The inadequacy of the phrase was laughable. "I need a little time to sort things out in my mind."

  "Do you not care for me, Paul? Not in the slightest?"

  "Of course I care for you, Ava. But you're talking about something much larger and a hell of a lot more complicated." As she colored and brought a hand to her mouth, Paul felt shamed. By her standards, he had used very strong language indeed. "Look, Ava, I just don't know what to think about all the things you've told me."

  She put her hand on top of his, cool, dry fingers startling against his skin. "You think . . . you think I might be mistaken, don't you? Worse, you think I might be . . . what is the word? Hysterical? Mad?"

  "I think you are a good and honest person." There was nothing else he could say. He squeezed her hand and gently removed it before standing up, then had a sudden thought. "Could . . . your friend . . . could he talk to me? Would he?"

  "I don't know." Her composure was a thin facade covering something like devastation. Paul Jonas was glad he could not see the whole of it. "I will ask him."

  The flickering light woke him up.

  After a long, agonizing night, he had at last fallen asleep, helped or hindered by more wine than usual. His first disjointed thought was that the window blinds had somehow gone on the fritz and were jigging up and down, semaphoring him with the harsh and unwanted light of morning. It was only after he had dragged himself upright that he realized the arrhythmic flash came not from the window but the wallscreen.

  A call. . . ? he thought dazedly. Why didn't it ring? A charge of fear went through him. A disaster. Emergency warning system. The tower's on fire.

  He scrambled out of bed and dragged open the blinds. It was still deep night, the miniature city below still dark, the orange lights of the oil derricks the stars' only rivals. No flames were sweeping up the shiny black side of the tower toward him, nor were there any other signs of something amiss. It must be only a malfunction.

  "Paul Jonas."

  He spun around, but the room was empty.

  "Paul Jonas." The voice came from nowhere in particular, as quietly intrusive as a buzzing fly trapped in a windowsill.

  "Who . . . who is that?" But he knew even as he asked. The last traces of his cloth-headed grogginess vanished. "Are you . . . Ava's friend?"

  "Avialle," the voice breathed. "Angel. . . ." The wall-screen flickered again, then bloomed with color. Ava filled it—not the Ava of this moment, but an Ava in full if ersatz sunlight, crouched beneath a tree spreading crumbs for the birds that surrounded her like a crowd of admiring Lilliputians.

  "Who are you?" Paul asked. "Why do you talk to Ava—to Avialle? What do you want from her?"

  "Want . . . want . . . safe. Avialle safe." It spoke with a strange, aphasic slur. Pity would have pulled at him, except something about the shambling, inhuman voice also scared him to death.

  "And who are you?"

  "Lost." It moaned, a strange staticky roar. "Lost boy."

  "Lost . . . where? Where are you?"

  For a long moment there was only silence as the image of Ava rippled away, replaced by unevenly shimmering bars of light. "Well," it replied at last. "Down in the black, in the black black black." The moan came again, a stutter of harsh sound. "Down in the black well."

  All the hairs on Paul's body stood upright. He knew he was awake—every quivering nerve told him so—but the conversation had the terrible downhill feel of a nightmare.

  He searched desperately for something to build on. "You want to keep Ava . . . keep Avialle safe, is that right? Safe from what?"

  "Jongleur."

  "But he's her father! What would he do to her. . . ?"

  "Not father!" the thing groaned. "Not father!"

  "What are
you talking about?" The family resemblance was plain, although what was hawklike and cruel in the pictures Paul had seen of Felix Jongleur was softened and sweetened in the daughter. "I don't understand. . . ."

  "Eating the children," the voice moaned. "Jongleur. Grail. Help them. Too much pain. And. . . ." The bars of light began to flicker more rapidly, until they nearly became a solid burst of radiance. Paul found himself staring helplessly. "All the children. . . ."

  The light strobed even faster, a white rush so bright that as he stared even the walls of his room fell away. Then somehow he was toppling forward into the light, into a brilliance that had no ending, and the haunted voice was all around him, powerful and lost.

  "The Grail. Eating the children. So many. . . ! Hurting them!"

  His senses were afire with sensation, but he was helpless. He could do nothing as the light streamed over him, through him, scorched into his eyes and turned his brain to a knob of clear crystal. Faces began to appear, children's faces, but it was no simple stream of images: he knew these children, felt their lives and stories even as they flew past him like a flock of sparrows caught up in a hurricane wind. Hundreds of tiny spirits flowed through him, then thousands, each one a node of painful darkness in the sea of shining light, each one precious, each one doomed. Then, out of the whirling darkness, a new shape began to form—a great silvery cylinder floating in a vault of black emptiness.

  "The Grail," the voice said again, imploring, mourning. "For Jongleur. Eating them. Ad Aeternum. Forever."

  Paul found his voice, though he had no lungs to drive the air, no throat in which to form the scream.

  "Stop! I don't want to see any more!"

  But it did not stop. He was lost in a storm of suffering.

  He woke up on the carpet with the true light of morning streaming through the window. His head felt like something rotten that had been imperfectly balanced on top of his neck. Even an extra-strong cup of coffee and a small handful of painblockers did nothing to make him feel more human. He was miserable.