A Handful of Darkness

  “Wait for me,” Rick complained, as he cautiously threaded his way after her, along the half familiar path. Silvia danced on without stopping. “Slow down!” he shouted angrily.

  “Can’t—we’re late.” Without warning, Silvia appeared in front of him, blocking the; path. “Empty your pockets,” she gasped, her grey eyes sparkling. “Throw away all metal. You know they can’t stand metal.”

  Rick searched his pockets. In his overcoat were two dimes and a fifty-cent piece. “Do these count?”

  “Yes!” Silvia snatched the coins and threw them into the dark heaps of calla lilies. The bits of metal hissed into the moist depths and were gone. “Anything else?” She caught hold of his arm anxiously. “They’re already on their way. Anything else, Rick?”

  “Just my watch.” Rick pulled his wrist away as Silvia’s wild fingers snatched for the watch. “That’s not going in the bushes.”

  “Then lay it on the sundial—or the wall. Or in a hollow tree.” Silvia raced off again. Her excited, rapturous voice danced back to him. “Throwaway your cigarette case. And your keys, your belt buckle—everything metal. You know how they hate metal. Hurry, we’re late!”

  Rick followed sullenly after her. “All right, witch.”

  Silvia snapped at him furiously from the darkness. “Don’t say that! It isn’t true. You’ve been listening to my sisters and my mother and—”

  Her words were drowned out by the sound. Distant flapping, a long way off, like vast leaves rustling in a winter storm. The night sky was alive with the frantic poundings; they were coming very quickly this time. They were too greedy, too desperately eager to wait. Flickers of fear touched the man and he ran to catch up with Silvia.

  Silvia was a tiny column of green skirt and blouse in the centre of the thrashing mass. She was pushing them away with one arm and trying to manage the faucet with the other. The churning activity of wings and bodies twisted her like a reed. For a time she was lost from sight.

  “Rick!” she called faintly. “Come here and help!” She pushed them away and struggled up. “They’re suffocating me!”

  Rick fought his way through the wall of flashing white to the edge of the trough. They were drinking greedily at the blood that spilled from the wooden faucet. He pulled Silvia close against him; she was terrified and trembling. He held her tight until some of the violence and fury around them had died down.

  “They’re hungry,” Silvia gasped feebly.

  “You’re a little cretin for coming ahead. They can sear you to ash!”

  “I know. They can do anything.” She shuddered, excited and frightened. “Look at them,” she whispered. her voice husky with awe. “Look at the size of them—their wing-spread. And they’re white, Rick. Spotless—perfect. There’s nothing in our world as spotless as that. Great and clean and wonderful.”

  “They certainly wanted the lamb’s blood.”

  Silvia’s soft hair blew against his face as the wings fluttered on all sides. They were leaving now, roaring up into the sky. Not up, really—away. Back to their own world, whence they had scented the blood. But it was not only the blood—they had come because of Silvia. She had attracted them.

  The girl’s grey eyes were wide. She reached up towards the rising white creatures. One of them swooped close. Grass and flowers sizzled as blinding white flames roared in a brief fountain. Rick scrambled away. The flaming figure hovered momentarily over Silvia and then there was a hollow pop. The last of the white-winged giants was gone. The air, the ground, gradually cooled into darkness and silence.

  “I’m sorry,” Silvia whispered.

  “Don’t do it again,” Rick managed. He was numb with shock. “It isn’t safe.”

  “Sometimes I forget. I’m sorry, Rick. I didn’t mean to draw them so close.” She tried to smile. “I haven’t been that careless in months. Not since that other time when I first brought you out here.” The avid, wild look slid across her face. “Did you see him? Power and flames! And he didn’t even touch us. He just looked at us. That was all. And everything’s burned up, all around.”

  Rick grabbed hold of her. “Listen; he grated. “You mustn’t call them again. It’s wrong. This isn’t their world.”

  “It’s not wrong—its beautiful.”

  “It’s not safe!” His fingers dug into her flesh until she gasped. “Stop tempting them down here!”

  Silvia laughed hysterically. She pulled away from him, out into the blasted circle that the horde of angels had seared behind them as they rose into the sky. “I can’t help it,” she cried. “I belong with them. They’re my family, my people. Generations of them, back into the past.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “They’re my ancestors. And some day I’ll join them.”

  “You’re a little witch!” Rick shouted furiously.

  “No,” Silvia answered. “Not a witch, Rick. Don’t you see? I’m a saint.”

  The kitchen was warm and bright. Silvia plugged in the Silex and got a big red can of coffee down from the cupboards over the sink. “You mustn’t listen to them,” she said, as she set out plates and cups and got cream from the refrigerator. “you know they don’t understand. Look at them in there.”

  Silvia’s mother and her sisters, Betty Lou and Jean, stood huddled together in the living-room, fearful and alert, watching the young couple in the kitchen. Walter Everett was standing by the fire-place, his face blank, remote.

  “Listen to me,” Rick said. “You have this power to attract them. You mean you’re not—isn’t Walter your real father?”

  “Oh, yes—of course he is. I’m completely human. Don’t I look human?”

  “But you’re the only one who has the power.”

  “I’m not physically different,” Silvia said thoughtfully. “I have the ability to see, that’s all. Others have had it before me—saints, martyrs. When I was a child, my mother read to me about St. Bernadette. Remember where her cave was? Near a hospital. They were hovering there and she saw one of them.”

  “But the blood! It’s grotesque. There never was anything like that.”

  “Oh, yes. The blood draws them, lamb’s blood especially. They hover over battlefields. Valkyries—carrying off the dead to Valhalla. That’s why saints and martyrs cut and mutilate themselves. You know where I got the idea?”

  Silvia fastened a little apron around her waist and filled the Silex with coffee. “When I was nine years old, I read of it in Homer, in the Odyssey. Ulysses dug a trench in the ground and filled it with blood to attract the spirits. The shades from the nether world.”

  “That’s right,” Rick admitted reluctantly. “I remember.”

  “The ghosts of people who died. They had lived once. Everybody lives here, then dies and goes there.” Her face glowed. “We’re all going to have wings! We’re all going to fly. We’ll all be filled with fire and power. We won’t be worms any more.”

  “Worms! That’s what you always call me.”

  “Of course you’re a worm. We’re all worms—grubby worms creeping over the crust of the Earth, through dust and dirt.”

  “Why should blood bring them?”

  “Because it’s life and they’re attracted by life. Blood is uisge beatha—the water of life.”

  “Blood means death! A trough of spilled blood…”

  “It’s not death. When you see a caterpillar crawl into its cocoon, do you think it’s dying?”

  Walter Everett was standing in the doorway. He stood listening to his daughter, his face dark. “One day,” he said hoarsely. “they’re going to grab her and carry her off. She wants to go with them. She’s waiting for that day.”

  “You see?” Silvia said to Rick. “He doesn’t understand either.” She shut off the Silex and poured coffee. “Coffee for you?” she asked her father.

  “No,” Everett said.

  “Silvia,” Rick said, as if speaking to a child, if you went away with them, you know you couldn’t come back to us.”

  “We all have
to cross sooner or later. It’s all part of our life.”

  “But you’re only nineteen,” Rick pleaded. “You’re young and healthy and beautiful. And our marriage—what about our marriage?” He half rose from the table. “Silvia, you’ve got to stop this!”

  “I can’t stop it. I was seven when I saw them first.” Silvia stood by the sink, gripping the Silex, a faraway look in her eyes. “Remember, Daddy? We were living back in Chicago. It was winter. I fell, walking home from school.” She held up a slim arm. “See the scar? I fell and cut myself on the gravel and slush. I came home crying—it was sleeting and the wind was howling around me. My arm was bleeding and my mitten was soaked with blood. And then I looked up and saw them.”

  There was silence.

  “They want you,” Everett said wretchedly. “They’re flies—bluebottles, hovering around, waiting for you. Calling you to come along with them.”

  “Why not?” Silvia’s grey eyes were shining and her cheeks radiated joy and anticipation. “You’ve seen them, Daddy. You know what it means. Transfiguration—from clay into gods!”

  Rick left the kitchen. In the living-room. the two sisters stood together, curious and uneasy. Mrs. Everett stood by herself, her face granite-hard, eyes bleak behind her steel-rimmed glasses. She turned away as Rick passed them.

  “What happened out there?” Betty Lou asked him in a taut whisper. She was fifteen, skinny and plain, hollow cheeked, with mousy, sand-coloured hair. “Silvia never lets us come out with her.”

  “Nothing happened,” Rick answered.

  Anger stirred the girl’s barren face. “That’s not true. You were both out in the garden, in the dark, and—”

  “Don’t talk to him!” her mother snapped. She yanked the two girls away and shot Rick a glare of hatred and misery. Then she turned quickly from him.

  Rick opened the door to the basement and switched on the light. He descended slowly into the cold, damp room of concrete and dirt, with its unwinking yellow light hanging from dust-covered wires overhead.

  In one corner loomed the big floor furnace with its mammoth hot air pipes. Beside it stood the water heater and discarded bundles, boxes of books, newspapers and old furniture, thick with dust, encrusted with strings of spider webs.

  At the far end were the washing machine and spin dryer. And Silvia’s pump and refrigeration system.

  From the work bench Rick selected a hammer and two heavy pipe wrenches. He was moving towards the elaborate tanks and pipes when Silvia appeared abruptly at the top of the stairs, her coffee cup in one hand.

  She hurried quickly down to him. “What are you doing down here?” she asked, studying him intently. “Why that hammer and those two wrenches?”

  Rick dropped the tools back on to the bench. “I thought maybe this could be solved on the spot.”

  Silvia moved between him and the tanks. “I thought you understood. They’ve always been a part of my life. When I brought you with me the first time, you seemed to see what—”

  “I don’t want to lose you,” Rick said harshly, “to anybody or anything—in this world or any other. I’m not going to give you up.”

  “It’s not giving me up!” Her eyes narrowed. “You came down here to destroy and break everything. The moment I’m not looking you’ll smash all this, won’t you?”

  “That’s right.”

  Fear replaced anger on the girl’s face. “Do you want me to be chained here?” I have to go on—I’m through with this part of the Journey. I’ve stayed here long enough.”

  “Can’t you wait?” Rick demanded furiously. He couldn’t keep the ragged edge of despair out of his voice. “Doesn’t it come soon enough anyhow?”

  Silvia shrugged and turned away, her arms folded, her red lips tight together. “You want to be a worm always. A fuzzy, little creeping caterpillar.”

  “I want you.”

  “You can’t have me!” She whirled angrily. “I don’t have any time to waste with this.”

  “You have higher things in mind,” Rick said savagely.

  “Of course.” She softened a little. “I’m sorry, Rick. Remember Icarus? You want to fly, too. I know it.”

  “In my time.”

  “Why not now? Why wait? You’re afraid.” She slid lightly away from him, cunning twisting her red lips. “Rick, I want to show you something. Promise me first—you won’t tell anybody.”

  “What is it?”

  “Promise?” She put her hand to his mouth. “I have to be careful. It cost a lot of money. Nobody knows about it. It’s what they do in China—everything goes towards it.”

  “I’m curious,” Rick said. Uneasiness flicked at him. “Show it to me.”

  Trembling with excitement, Silvia disappeared behind the huge lumbering refrigerator, back into the darkness behind the web of frost-hard freezing coils. He could hear her tugging and pulling at something. Scraping sounds, sounds of something large being dragged out.

  “See?” Silvia gasped. “Give me a hand, Rick. It’s heavy. Hardwood and brass—and metal lined. It’s hand-stained and polished. And that carving—see the carving! Isn’t it beautiful?”

  “What is it?” Rick demanded huskily.

  “It’s my cocoon,” Silvia said simply. She settled down in a contented heap on the floor, and rested her head happily against the polished oak coffin.

  Rick grabbed her by the arm and dragged her to her feet. “You can’t sit with that coffin, down here in the basement with—” He broke off. “What’s the matter?”

  Silvia’s face was twisting with pain. She backed away from him and put her finger quickly to her mouth. “I cut myself—when you pulled me up—on a nail or something.” A thin trickle of blood oozed down her fingers. She groped in her pocket for a handkerchief.

  “Let me see it.” He moved towards her, but she avoided him. “Is it bad?” he demanded.

  “Stay away from me,” Silvia whispered.

  “What’s wrong? Let me see it!”

  “Rick,” Silvia said in a low intense voice, “get some water and adhesive tape. As quickly as possible.” She was trying to keep down her rising terror. “I have to stop the bleeding.”

  “Upstairs?” He moved awkwardly away. “It doesn’t look too bad. Why don’t you…”

  “Hurry.” The girl’s voice was suddenly bleak with fear. “Rick, hurry!”

  Confused, he ran a few steps.

  Silvia’s terror poured after him. “No, it’s too late,” she called thinly. “Don’t come back—keep away from me. It’s my own fault. I trained them to come. Keep away! I’m sorry, Rick. Oh—” Her voice was lost to him, as the wall of the basement burst and shattered. A cloud of luminous white forced its way through and blazed out into the basement.

  It was Silvia they were after. She ran a few hesitant steps towards Rick, halted uncertainly, then the white mass of bodies and wings settled around her. She shrieked once. Then a violent explosion blasted the basement into a shimmering dance of furnace heat.

  He was thrown to the floor. The cement was hot and dry the whole basement crackled with heat. Windows shattered as pulsing white shapes pushed out again. Smoke and flames licked up the walls. The ceiling sagged and rained plaster down.

  Rick struggled to his feet. The furious activity was dying away. The basement was a littered chaos. All surfaces were scorched black, seared and crusted with smoking ash. Splintered wood, torn cloth and broken concrete were strewn everywhere. The furnace and washing machine were in ruins. The elaborate pumping and refrigeration system—now a glittering mass of slag. One whole wall had been twisted aside. Plaster was rubbled over everything.

  Silvia was a twisted heap, arms and legs doubled grotesquely. Shrivelled, carbonized remains of fire-scorched ash, settling in a vague mound. What had been left behind were charred fragments, a brittle burned-out husk.

  It was a dark night, cold and intense. A few stars glittered like ice from above his head. A faint, dank wind stirred through the dripping calla lilies and whipped gra
vel up in a frigid mist along the path between the black roses.

  He crouched for a long time, listening and watching. Behind the cedars, the big house loomed against the sky. At the bottom of the slope a few cars slithered along the highway. Otherwise, there was no sound. Ahead of him jutted the squat outline of the porcelain trough and the pipe that had carried blood from the refrigerator in the basement. The trough was empty and dry, except for a few leaves that had fallen in it.

  Rick took a deep breath of thin night air and held it. Then he got stiffly to his feet. He scanned the sky, but saw no movement. They were there, though, watching and waiting—dim shadows, echoing into the legendary past, a line of god-figures.

  He picked up the heavy gallon drums, dragged them to the trough and poured blood from a New Jersey abattoir, cheap-grade steer refuse, thick and clotted. It splashed against clothes and he backed away nervously. But nothing stirred in the air above. The garden was silent, drenched with night fog and darkness.

  He stood beside the trough, waiting and wondering if they were coming. They had come for Silvia, not merely for the blood. Without her there was no attraction but the raw food. He carried the empty metal cans over to the bushes and kicked them down the slope. He searched his pockets carefully, to make sure there was no metal on him.

  Over the years, Silvia had nourished their habit of coming. Now she was on the other side. Did that mean they wouldn’t come? Somewhere in the damp bushes something rustled. An animal or a bird?

  In the trough the blood glistened, heavy and dull, like old lead. It was their time to come, but nothing stirred the great trees above. He picked out the rows of nodding black roses, the gravel path down which he and Silvia had run—violently he shut out the recent memory of her flashing eyes and deep red lips. The highway beyond the slope—the empty, deserted garden—the silent house in which her family huddled and waited. After a time, there was a dull, swishing sound. He tensed, but it was only a diesel truck lumbering along the highway, headlights blazing.

  He stood grimly, his feet apart, his heels dug into the soft black ground. He wasn’t leaving. He was staying there until they came. He wanted her back—at any cost.