The Prince of Mist

  The beach was deserted and the high tide had carried Roland’s rowing boat out to sea. Soon the currents would drag the small vessel even further away and it would be forever lost in the immensity of the ocean. Max walked down to the shore and dampened his face and shoulders with cool water. Then he went over to a small cove and sat on the rocks, dipping his feet in the water, hoping to recover the calm sleep had not provided him.

  Max knew there had to be some hidden logic behind the events of the last few days. He could sense everything was part of a complex mechanism that was slowly but surely coming together, and at its centre was the tragedy of Jacob Fleischmann. It was all connected – everything, from the mysterious visits to the walled garden he’d seen in the old films to the indescribable creature that had almost taken their lives that very afternoon.

  Bearing in mind what had happened that day, Max realised they couldn’t allow themselves the luxury of waiting for the next meeting with Dr Cain; they had to anticipate his movements and try to foresee what his next step would be. For Max there was only one way of finding out, and that was to follow the trail Jacob Fleischmann had left years ago in his films.

  Without bothering to wake Alicia and Roland, Max got on his bike and rode off towards the beach house. In the distance, above the line of the horizon, a dark point appeared from nowhere and began to expand like a cloud of lethal gas.

  *

  Back at home, Max threaded a film onto the reel of the projector. The temperature had plummeted while he was cycling over, and now it was getting even colder. The first echoes of the storm could be heard between occasional gusts of wind that banged against the shutters. Before watching the film, Max hurried upstairs and threw on some warm clothes. The old wooden structure of the house creaked beneath his feet, assailed by the wind. As he was changing his clothes, Max looked out of his bedroom window and saw the approaching storm covering the sky with a cloak of darkness, bringing the onslaught of night a couple of hours early. He secured the window lock and went downstairs to turn on the projector.

  Once more, the images projected on the wall stirred into life. This time the camera showed a familiar scene: the corridors of the house by the beach. Max recognised the inside of the very room he was sitting in. The decor and the furniture were different and the house looked quite opulent as the camera panned out, displaying the walls and windows. It was as if a trapdoor had been opened into the past, allowing Max to visit the house more than ten years before.

  After a couple of minutes on the ground floor, the camera led the spectator upstairs. On reaching the landing, the camera travelled along the hallway until it came to the door at the end – the door to the bedroom occupied by Irina until her accident. The door opened and the camera entered, scanning the dark, empty room before stopping in front of the wardrobe.

  A few seconds went by and nothing happened: the camera didn’t register any movement in the room. Suddenly the door of the wardrobe sprung open and hit the wall, swinging on its hinges. Max tried to make out what was inside. A hand in a white glove appeared from the shadows holding a shining object that hung from a chain. Max guessed what was coming next: Dr Cain emerged from the wardrobe and smiled at the camera.

  Max felt cold dread grip his stomach as he recognised the round object the Prince of Mist was holding in his hand. It was the pocket watch his father had given him, which he’d lost inside Jacob Fleischmann’s tomb. Now it was in the hands of the magician, who had somehow taken his most prized possession back into the ghostly dimension of these black and white images.

  The camera closed in on the watch and Max could clearly see that the hands were turning backwards at an incredible speed, going faster and faster until he could no longer focus on them. After a while, the watch began to give off smoke and sparks until finally it caught fire. Max watched the scene, spellbound, unable to take his eyes off the burning watch. A moment later, the camera jumped to the bedroom wall, zooming in on an old dressing table with a mirror. The camera drew closer to the mirror and then stopped, revealing the identity of the person who was holding it.

  Max gulped; he was finally face to face with the person who had made these films years ago, in that same house. He recognised the childish grin of the boy who was filming himself. He was a few years younger, but the features and the eyes were the same as the ones he had got to know in the course of the last few days. It was Roland.

  The film got stuck inside the projector and the still caught in front of the lens slowly began to melt on the screen. Max turned off the machine and clenched his fists to stop them shaking. Jacob Fleischmann and Roland were one and the same person.

  A flash of lightning invaded the darkened room and Max suddenly noticed a figure on the other side of the window, rapping on the glass. Max turned on the light in the living room and recognised the pale face of Victor Kray. From his terrified expression, it looked as though he’d just witnessed an apparition. Max went over to the door and let the old man in. They had a lot to talk about.

  15

  MAX HANDED THE OLD LIGHTHOUSE KEEPER A cup of hot tea and waited for him to warm up.

  Victor Kray was shaking and Max didn’t know whether this was because of the cold wind raised by the storm or the fear the old man clearly could not hide.

  ‘What were you doing out there, Mr Kray?’ asked Max.

  ‘I’ve been to the walled garden,’ the old man answered, trying to compose himself. Victor Kray sipped some tea, then placed his cup on the table. ‘Where’s Roland, Max?’ he asked nervously.

  ‘Why do you want to know?’ In view of his latest discovery, Max didn’t even bother to conceal his suspicion.

  The lighthouse keeper seemed to sense Max’s distrust and gestured with his hands as if he wanted to explain but couldn’t find the words.

  ‘Max, something terrible is going to happen tonight if we don’t stop it,’ Victor Kray said at last, aware that his words sounded far from convincing. ‘I need to know where Roland is. His life is in great danger.’

  Max examined the old man’s face carefully. He felt he couldn’t believe a word the lighthouse keeper said.

  ‘Which life is that, Mr Kray, Roland’s or Jacob Fleischmann’s?’

  The old man gave a weary sigh. ‘I don’t think I understand you, Max,’ he murmured.

  ‘I think you do. I know you lied to me, Mr Kray,’ Max said accusingly. ‘And I know who Roland really is. You’ve been lying to us all along. What I want to know is why?’

  Victor Kray stood up and walked over to one of the windows, glancing outside as if he were expecting a visit. A rumble of thunder shook the house. The storm was drawing closer by the minute and Max could hear the sound of huge breakers crashing against the beach.

  ‘Tell me where Roland is, Max,’ the old man insisted, his eyes still glued to the window. ‘There’s no time to lose.’

  ‘I’m not sure I can trust you. If you want me to help you, you’ll have to tell me the truth,’ Max demanded. He wasn’t going to let Victor Kray keep him in the dark again.

  The old man turned and looked at him severely, but Max held his gaze to show that he was not intimidated. The lighthouse keeper seemed to understand the situation and collapsed into an armchair, defeated.

  ‘All right, Max. I’ll tell you the truth, if that’s what you want.’

  Max sat in front of him and nodded, ready to listen.

  ‘Almost everything I told you the other day in the lighthouse is true,’ the old man began. ‘My friend Fleischmann had promised Dr Cain that he would give him his firstborn son in exchange for Eva Gray’s love. A year after the wedding, when I’d already lost touch with both of them, Fleischmann began to receive visits from Dr Cain, who reminded him of their pact. Fleischmann tried everything to avoid having a child, to the point of destroying his own marriage. After the wreck of the Orpheus, I felt it was my duty to write to them and tell them they were free of the sentence that had made them unhappy for so many years. I thought that the threat posed by Dr Ca
in had been buried forever beneath the sea. Or I was stupid enough to convince myself of that. Fleischmann felt guilty that he was indebted to me, and he wanted all three of us – Eva, himself and me – to be together again, as we had been during our years at university. That was absurd, of course. Too much had happened. Even so, Fleischmann went ahead with his plans to build the house by the beach, and soon afterwards their son Jacob was born. The little boy was a blessing from heaven and made them happy to be alive once more. Or at least that’s how it seemed, but from the night of his birth I knew that something wasn’t right because that night, in the early hours before dawn, I dreamed once more about Dr Cain.

  ‘As the boy grew, Fleischmann and Eva were so blinded by their happiness they couldn’t perceive the threat that still hung over them. They were both completely devoted to the boy and they gave in to him too easily. Never was a child so indulged as Jacob Fleischmann. But, little by little, the signs of Cain’s presence became more evident. One day, when Jacob was five years old, he got lost while playing behind the house. Fleischmann and Eva desperately looked for him for hours, but there was no sign of the boy. When night fell, Fleischmann took a torch and went into the forest, fearing that the child might have got lost among the undergrowth or had an accident. Then he remembered that when they were building the house, six years earlier, there had been a small empty enclosure near the entrance to the forest. Apparently, it had once been a kind of pound, a place where animals were kept before they were put down, until it was demolished at the turn of the century. That night a gut feeling told Fleischmann that perhaps the boy had ventured inside the enclosure and become trapped. He was partly correct, but his son wasn’t the only thing he discovered.

  ‘The walled enclosure, which had been deserted, was now peopled with statues. Jacob was playing among the figures when his father found him and led him away. A couple of days later Fleischmann paid me a visit at the lighthouse and told me what had happened. He made me swear that, if anything should happen to him, I would take care of his child. That was just the beginning. Fleischmann didn’t tell his wife about the mysterious incidents that were occurring around his son, but in his heart he knew there would be no escape and that sooner or later Cain would return to claim what belonged to him.’

  ‘What happened the night Jacob drowned?’ Max interrupted, guessing the reply, but hoping that the old man’s words might prove him wrong.

  Victor Kray lowered his head before replying.

  ‘On a day like today, 23 June, the same date the Orpheus was shipwrecked, there was a violent storm out at sea. The fishermen hurried to secure their boats and the townspeople closed all their doors and windows, just as they’d done the night of the shipwreck a few years before. The place became a ghost town. I was in the lighthouse and a terrible fear took hold of me, an intuition: the boy was in danger. I crossed the deserted streets and hurried here as fast as I could. Jacob had stepped out of the house and was walking along the beach, heading for the water’s edge, where the waves were breaking with ferocious power. It was raining hard and visibility was poor, but I was able to make out a shining form that had emerged from the water and was stretching out two long arms, like tentacles, towards the child. Jacob seemed to be hypnotised by the water creature and was drawing nearer to it. It was Cain, I was quite sure of that, but for once it seemed as if all his identities had fused into a single shape that was constantly changing … I can’t really describe what I saw—’

  ‘I’ve seen it myself,’ Max interrupted, saving the old man a description of the creature he had set eyes on only a few hours before. ‘Go on.’

  ‘I wondered why Fleischmann and his wife weren’t there, trying to save the boy, so I looked over at the house. A troupe of circus figures whose bodies seemed to be made of stone was holding them back on the porch.’

  ‘The statues from the walled garden,’ agreed Max.

  The old man nodded.

  ‘All I could think of was that I had to save the child. The creature had taken him in its arms and was dragging him into the sea. I hurled myself at its tentacles and fell straight through them. The enormous watery shape faded back into the darkness. Jacob had gone under. I dived a few times until I found him and was able to rescue him and take him back to the surface. I hauled him onto the sand, far from the water’s edge, and tried to revive him. The statues had disappeared along with Cain. Fleischmann and Eva ran towards me to help the boy, but by the time they arrived we couldn’t feel his pulse. We took him into the house and tried everything, but it was no use: the boy was dead. Fleischmann was beside himself with grief and he ran outside, shouting at the storm and offering his own life to Cain in exchange for the life of his son. Minutes later, inexplicably, Jacob opened his eyes. He was in shock. He didn’t recognise us and couldn’t even remember his own name. Eva wrapped the boy in a blanket and took him upstairs, where she put him to bed. When, after a while, she came down again, she walked over to me and calmly told me that if the boy continued to live with them, his life would be in danger. She asked me to take care of him and bring him up as if he were my own son, the son who, if fate had taken a different course, might have been ours. Fleischmann didn’t dare enter the house. I accepted what Eva Gray was asking of me and saw in her eyes that she was renouncing the one thing that had given her life any meaning. The following day, I took the boy home with me. I never saw the Fleischmanns again.’

  There was a long pause. The old man was probably trying to hold back his tears, but his face was hidden behind his pale, wrinkled hands.

  ‘A year later I found out that Fleischmann had passed away from a deadly infection he had caught after being bitten by a wild dog. Even now, I don’t know whether Eva Gray is still alive … We let the townspeople think Jacob had drowned …’

  Max searched the old man’s face. He looked so distraught that Max realised he’d misjudged him.

  ‘You invented a story about Roland’s parents; you even gave him a new name …’ Kray nodded, admitting the greatest secret of his life to a thirteen-year-old boy he’d met only a couple of times.

  ‘So, Roland doesn’t know who he really is?’ asked Max.

  The old man shook his head repeatedly and Max noticed there were tears of anger in his eyes – eyes that had been damaged by all those years of vigil from the top of the lighthouse.

  ‘Then who is buried in Jacob Fleischmann’s plot in the cemetery?’ Max asked.

  ‘Nobody,’ replied the old man. ‘Officially, no one ever built that tomb and there was no funeral. The mausoleum you saw the other day simply appeared in the local cemetery the week after the storm. The people in the town thought that Fleischmann had it built for his son.’

  ‘I don’t understand,’ Max replied. ‘If it wasn’t Fleischmann, then who put it there, and why?’

  Victor Kray smiled bitterly.

  ‘Cain,’ he replied at last. ‘Cain put it there. He’s been reserving it for Jacob.’

  ‘My God,’ whispered Max, realising that perhaps he’d wasted precious time, forcing the old man to confess the entire story. ‘We must get Roland away from the beach hut immediately …’

  *

  Alicia woke up to the sound of waves crashing on the beach. Night had fallen and the rain was pounding on the roof of the hut as if the storm was trying to destroy it. She sat up in a daze and saw that Roland was still lying on the bed, whispering incoherently in his sleep. Max wasn’t there. She walked over to the door, opened it and took a quick look at the beach.

  A ghostly mist was creeping up from the sea towards the hut, and Alicia could hear dozens of voices whispering from its midst. She slammed the door and leaned against it, determined not to let panic take over. Startled by the banging of the door, Roland opened his eyes and pulled himself up, not quite understanding how he’d got there.

  ‘What’s happening?’

  Alicia opened her mouth to speak, but something stopped her. Roland watched in amazement as the thick mist filtered through every join in the h
ut and entwined itself around her. The girl screamed and the door on which she’d been leaning flew outside, torn off its hinges by an invisible force. Roland jumped out of bed and ran to help Alicia, who was being pulled away towards the sea, wrapped in a tentacle of eerie mist. A figure stood in his way. Roland recognised the watery spectre that had pulled him down to the ocean depths. The clown’s wolfish face lit up.

  ‘Hello, Jacob,’ the voice whispered behind gelatinous lips. ‘Now we’re going to have some fun.’

  Roland punched the liquid form and it disintegrated in the air, water cascading down onto the floor. As he rushed outside, Roland was struck by the force of the storm. A swirling dome of dense purple clouds had formed above the bay, from which a blinding flash of lightning shot out towards one of the peaks of the cliff, exploding tons of rock, which rained down in a shower of fragments onto the beach.

  Alicia screamed, struggling to free herself from the lethal embrace that imprisoned her, and Roland ran across the stones towards her. He tried to reach out and grab her hand but a large wave knocked him over. When he got up, the whole bay was shaking beneath his feet and Roland heard an enormous roar that seemed to be rising from the depths of the sea. The boy took a few steps back, struggling to keep his balance, and saw a gigantic luminous form emerging from the waters, sending waves several metres high in all directions. In the centre of the bay, the shape of a mast was beginning to appear. Slowly, before his incredulous eyes, the Orpheus was floating to the surface, enveloped in a supernatural aura.

  Standing on the bridge, wrapped in his cloak, Cain pointed a silver wand to the heavens and another bolt of lightning flashed above him, illuminating the Orpheus. The magician’s cruel laughter echoed through the bay as the spectral tentacle dropped Alicia at his feet.