***
“Kate,” Edgar said firmly, shaking her by the shoulders. “Kate, it's me. You're having a nightmare!”
Opening her eyes, she stared at him for a moment, barely able to believe what she was seeing. Her heart was racing and she could still taste the blood in her mouth, but as she looked down at her body and saw that her clothes were undamaged, she began to realize that he was right: it had all been in her mind. Sitting up, she tried to get her breath back as she examined her arms. She still had faint scars, but whatever had been attacking her had clearly been a figment of her increasingly feverish mind.
“Are you starting to remember what happened?” Edgar asked, as he sat on the edge of her bed.
He waited for a reply.
“Memories and dreams can sometimes take one another's form,” he continued. “Still, this can be useful. Are you seeing images from the attack?”
“I... I don't know.”
“Tell me what you saw in your dream.”
“Something was trying to kill me,” she explained. “It was tearing at me, ripping my body apart. I don't know why, but it seemed to be filled with rage, like all it cared about was that it wanted to hurt me. The pain was... indescribable. I felt my bones being torn from the muscle, and there was blood pouring from my chest.”
“Did you see its face?”
She shook her head.
“Would it surprise you,” he continued, “if I told you that I know exactly what attacked you in that maintenance shed the other night?”
“A wolf?”
“No, not a wolf.” He paused. “There's something that follows me, Kate. Something dark and cruel and powerful. Wherever I go, wherever I run, it always catches up to me. It never comes for me directly, but it targets the people around me, those I care about.” Reaching out, he ran his fingers across one of the scars on her neck. “It's scared of me. Perhaps it knows that it's no match for me, or perhaps it understands that its purpose isn't to kill me. Either way, it lurks nearby, and every so often it lashes out. It never goes for Didi, because it knows that I don't really care about her, but... It's my curse.”
Kate stared at his fingertips as they traced the line of one of the scars on her arm. His touch felt tender, and he seemed to be interested in the run of the scar, in the way that sometimes it followed her body and sometimes it carved against it. For the first time, Kate began to wonder exactly how and why each scar looked the way it did.
“I have seen its face,” Edgar continued. “I have nightmares too, you know. I see the creature when I close my eyes. Sometimes I feel that I should go out there and face it. I'm quite certain that I could kill it, but every time in the past when I've attempted to bring it down, it has always eluded me. I knew that it would catch up to me on Thaxos eventually, but I'd hoped that it would take longer. Now I know that it's nearby, and consequently I must adjust my behavior accordingly.”
“What is it?” she asked.
“I cannot say,” he replied. “Show me the rest of your scars.”
Without even hesitating, she began to remove her shirt, followed by her jeans and then finally her underwear. Sitting completely naked, she made no effort to cover her body, and she found herself wondering why she had been so quick to strip off; at the same time, she felt that there was nothing she would deny Edgar, nothing she could deny him. It was as if he was inside her head, calming her every fear and bringing forth a kind of strength that had long lain dormant in her soul. At that moment, she knew that she would open up completely for him, if only he let her know what he truly wanted.
“Lean back,” he said softly. “You have nothing to be scared of.”
Settling flat on her back, she stared up at the ceiling as he leaned closer and examined her scars. His fingertips traced each ragged red line across the curves and contours of her naked body, as if he was trying to decode some secret message that had been left behind in the chaos of her flesh. Every few seconds his fingertips seemed to pause, and he focused his attention on one particular part of the scar tissue before continuing to examine her body. She felt a shiver pass along her spine as Edgar ran his hands along her waist, onto her belly and then up between her breasts until he reached her collarbone.
“I can trace the order of every cut,” he said after a moment, his voice soft and quiet.
“What do you mean?”
“This scar,” he continued, running a fingertip from her collarbone to her shoulder, “was created a second and a half before this one, and it respects the natural order of your body a little more.” He ran the fingertip down her side until he reached her hip. “By seeing the whole picture, I can tell where your attacker started and where the ordeal ended. I can tell which parts of your body incited the greatest ferocity, and which parts were merely collateral damage. There's a whole story here, Kate, written on your flesh, and I believe that the creature has left a message for me.”
“A message written in my scars?”
“A message... or a challenge. Carved into you, because the creature grows more confident and yet it knows no other way of telling me how it feels.” He ran his fingers down to her bare legs, stopping at the kneecaps. “Yes, I'm right. It's warning me that it considers itself to be stronger. It believes, rightly or wrongly, that it is in a better position to take me on, that maybe... There was a time, once before, when we had a direct confrontation, and I sent it shivering and bleeding back into the shadows. Naively, I hoped that I might have deterred it from ever trying again, but instead it has waited there all this time with its wings wrapped around its body, growing stronger and plotting its revenge.”
She didn't resist as he pushed her knees apart a little, and she waited as he ran his fingertips along her inner thighs and then, from there, onto her belly.
“It wants to face me again,” he continued, with a hint of shock in his voice. “It's challenging me to a duel. Can you believe that? After all this time, the fool wants to fight me again. It's almost as if it has learned nothing. Still, perhaps being back on Thaxos has given it a little more courage.”
“Are you going to accept?”
“Of course. Not yet, but soon. I never begin a fight if I don't know the nature of my enemy, so I will wait and try to learn some more. I might need to read these scars again, Kate. I hope you'll make your body available to me.”
She nodded.
“As the scars heal,” he continued, brushing his fingertips against her chest, “their meaning will change. The whole message will be altered as the healing process continues, and new truths will emerge. This is how the message has been written, and it is how it must be read as well. I'm truly sorry that the creature used you in this way, but you see, its intention was never to kill you. It tore at you in a very precise manner, so that it could leave this message in your flesh. If it makes you feel any better, I can assure you that you are in no more danger. The creature will now wait and see how I respond.” He paused. “You cannot leave Thaxos.”
“I promised to stay for your party.”
“Even after that, you cannot leave.”
“I can't stay.”
“Try to leave if you must,” he continued, running his fingertips onto her face and tracing the scar tissue that ran from the corner of her mouth to the side of her left eye, “but you will not make it off the island. You know this, don't you? Deep down in your soul, you know that I won't let you go.”
“Please...”
“You're mine now,” he added, leaning closer. “You're marked, and there's nothing you can do about it. Don't even try to deny me, because if you do, I will teach you a lesson that you will never forget.”
“Edgar -”
Before she could finish, he leaned closer and she felt something sharp slice through the side of her neck. She cried out for help, but as she sat up suddenly the light in the room changed and she found herself fully clothed, staring at the fluttering curtains at the far side of the room. Her pulse was racing, but as she reached up and touched the side of her
neck she realized that the whole encounter with Edgar just now must have been a dream. She looked down at her body and saw that she was wearing the same clothes she'd worn when she returned to her room to take an afternoon nap. As real as the past few moments had seemed, it had all been in her mind.
Resting her head back on the pillow, she stared up at the ceiling and tried to make sense of her conflicting thoughts. All she wanted was to leave the island and go back to London, where hopefully she'd be able to get her mind back in order. She had promised to stay for Edgar's party, however, and she felt that she had no choice but to keep her word.
After that, though, she was going to leave Thaxos. And she knew, deep down, that once she left she would never return.
VII
“What the hell are you doing?” Fernando shouted, grabbing the piece of paper before Doctor Burns had a chance to tape it to the wall.
Turning, the doctor was about to answer when he suddenly realized that he wasn't quite sure what to say. He looked down at the stack of papers in his hand, and for a moment he felt as if he'd never seen them before in his life:
Garden party
at the Le Compte mansion
Saturday from 10am
Food, drink, music, games,
open house and more
All welcome, by personal invitation
of Baron Edgar Le Compte. Transportation
to be provided.
He read the text through a couple more times, and finally he remembered picking the papers up from the counter in his surgery. Edgar Le Compte had dropped them off earlier... He had a vague memory of Edgar visiting him, and although he couldn't quite remember what they'd discussed, he was starting to recall that he'd agreed to help promote the party. The memory was vague and indistinct, floating in and out of focus like a half-remembered dream.
“I...”
He paused.
“What are you,” Fernando continued, making no effort to hide his disgust, “Le Compte's lap dog now? Jesus Christ, man, you've been putting these damn things up all over town! It's like he's hired you to spread the word!”
“No,” the doctor replied, “of course not. I just... I offered to help, that's all. He came to see me and he told me about his plans, and I happened to think that it would be a nice gesture on his part.” Again he paused, as he realized that these words almost seemed to be coming from some other place, as if they'd been carefully dropped into his mouth by someone else. He knew he should be worried, but at the same time there was another voice in his mind telling him to stay calm, that this was all perfectly normal.
“A garden party,” Fernando muttered. “What the hell is he playing at? Where does he think he is, anyway, nineteenth century England?”
“He just wants to put things right,” Doctor Burns replied. “He wants to get to know the people of Thaxos. Have you noticed, by the way? All the rats are gone.”
“I noticed, but I'm worried about where they've gone. You can't just make hundreds, maybe even thousands of rats disappear overnight.”
“Well, apparently you can,” the doctor told him, even though he was surprised by how defensive he sounded. He couldn't shake the feeling that, for some reason, he was sticking up for Edgar Le Compte a little more than might be considered normal. On top of that, his headache was returning.
“Is this why your surgery has been closed all day?” Fernando asked. “I've heard people complaining. They turned up for appointments and found the door locked. Please, don't tell me you blew everyone off so you could go running around putting up posters for Le Compte's garden party.”
“Of course not!” Doctor Burns replied. “How dare you make such an outrageous accusation! As a matter of fact, I have been...”
He paused, however, as he realized that he had spent the whole afternoon putting up posters. Looking down at the sheets of paper in his hand, he struggled to work out whatever had possessed him to do such a thing. His diary for the afternoon had been full, and yet it appeared that he had simply walked out, locked the surgery, and spent his time going around town with the posters. The idea was shocking, but he couldn't deny that it was true.
“I...” he started to say. “I mean, it was just...”
“This is pathetic,” Fernando muttered, screwing one of the posters up and dropping it into a nearby bin. “I don't know what the hell's wrong with you, but you really need to get your priorities in order. You're a doctor, not an over-excited teenage party-planner.”
“Absolutely,” Doctor Burns replied, shocked by his own behavior. “You're right. I'm sorry, I seem to have... I think I should -”
“Start with this,” Fernando said, grabbing the rest of the papers and throwing them into the bin. “Jesus Christ, man, whatever's wrong with you, I think you should just take a moment to work out what the hell you're supposed to be doing. Even if you don't want to actively try to stop Le Compte, you don't have to go in the other direction and start helping him. Whose side are you on?”
As Fernando walked away in disgust, the doctor stood for a moment, trying to work out what had come over him. He was stunned by his own behavior, and yet after a few seconds he glanced down at the bin and began to feel that he should probably get on with the job of spreading word about Le Compte's garden party. Reaching into the bin, he took the papers and resumed his task, and by the time he got to the last poster the sun was starting to set and his stomach was rumbling. Stepping back, he again felt a little disturbed by his own behavior, and he resolved to go home, rest, and try to get his head straight.
As he walked back to his house, however, he couldn't help notice that the center of town was covered in posters. He definitely didn't remember putting up so many, and yet somehow deep in his heart he knew that he must be responsible. It was this realization, more than anything else, that sent a shiver through his bones as he was finally forced to accept that he had spent the entire afternoon on auto-pilot, not even thinking about his actions. It he didn't know better, he'd have started to feel as if some other force had been directing his actions.