Writ in Water Page 5

  He left.

  M. is right: we shouldn’t feel guilty. Man is designed to experiment. And if the experiment is a glorious failure, well—rather a glorious failure than a life which ends up being nothing but a dismal accident.

  I feel strong again. And if not happy, at least happier. Yes, I miss R. I miss the man who held me by the hand as we watched oceans melt. Rocks burn. But there are bright poppies with glowing eyes growing in my heart again. Even though he did not find what he was looking for, I believe R. may be travelling still, his feet still searching for the path that does not wander.

  I must meditate upon my name.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  ‘Watch out!’

  Gabriel slammed on the brakes. A pedestrian—an overweight man carrying a package clutched to his stomach—had stepped out right in front of the car. Gabriel leaned on the horn. Opening the window, he shouted at the man, deriving some satisfaction from the pale startled face and O-shaped mouth.

  ‘Idiot.’ He closed the window and put his foot down. The car jerked in a way that was very bad for his temper. The next moment it stalled.

  ‘Shit.’ He felt like punching something. From the corner of his eye he could see Isidore watching him.

  ‘What’s up, bro?’

  Gabriel shrugged. But he knew his irritability threshold these past few days had been low, and there was no way Isidore would not have noticed. Especially as he had been the target of Gabriel’s ire more than once.

  ‘I know what it is.’ Isidore nodded wisely. ‘You’re still thinking about the lady.’

  Gabriel grimaced. A week before he had told Isidore about Frankie’s visit during a sudden and unexpected urge to share. Brought on, it had to be said, by three excellent bottles of Rupert and Rothschild Baroness Nadine. It had all come pouring out. Frankie. Eyestorm. The missing heir. He had become quite maudlin, if he remembered correctly—although the haze of alcohol that hung over the events of that evening made his recollections of their conversation not as sharp as they could have been. At the time the emotional purging had felt cathartic, but now he was sorry for it. He could feel Isidore’s curiosity plucking at him but he didn’t want to talk or think about that part of his life again. He didn’t need old memories turning his mind soft. And he hadn’t told Isidore about the Cartwright case. Not even a dozen bottles of wine could make him talk about that.

  Melissa Cartwright. For years he had practised not thinking about her. But she had never gone away, had she? She was always around: an ethereal presence walking through his subliminal self.

  Isidore’s voice was casual. ‘I think your problem is that part of you really wants to do it.’

  ‘Do what, for God’s sake?’ Gabriel turned the key in the ignition. The engine turned over lazily, finally caught.

  ‘Help her. Help her and her old man find the son.’

  ‘You’re wrong. I don’t have the faintest inclination to get involved. Besides which, I told you. I don’t slam the ride any more. Remote viewing is something I no longer do.’

  ‘If that’s what the man say.’ The tone of Isidore’s voice made Gabriel glance over at him. Isidore was pursing his lips together in a very irritating fashion.

  ‘What the hell do you mean by that?’

  Isidore abandoned the street slang. ‘Oh, come on, Gabriel. Be honest. Do you really want to make me believe that your hacking skills aren’t sometimes just a wee bit amplified by this second-sight thing of yours? In fact, it now explains a lot I’ve always wondered about.’

  ‘You’re way off track.’ Gabriel jerked the steering wheel savagely to the side and the Jag cleared a demented motorcyclist with an Evel Knievel complex by a few inches. ‘And let’s switch topics, shall we?’

  But Isidore continued, unperturbed. ‘I surfed the Internet the other night after our talk. Did you know that a group of remote viewers in the United States foresaw 9/11 four years before it happened? They even posted their scribbles of an aeroplane crashing into one of a pair of skyscrapers on the net and wrote an open letter to the FBI warning them that something like that was going to happen. No one paid any attention. This is hot shit, man.’

  Gabriel didn’t answer. As a matter of fact, he did know about the incident and he was aware that many RV companies in the US were now vying with each other to try to pinpoint Al-Qaeda operatives. There was even talk that the CIA was consulting with some of these companies on a regular basis. But he had doubts about the effectiveness of many of this new breed of commercial RVs. Too often they were making the kind of far-fetched claims he had been taught to dismiss at Eyestorm. True, Eyestorm had also been a company for hire, but it had stuck religiously to the protocols developed by the American military during the 1970s and 1980s. And those protocols were exceptionally strict.

  Isidore was talking again. ‘One thing I don’t understand, though. This Robert Whittington. Let’s say the dude really is dead. How can you zoom in on him or track him or whatever the term is? I mean, he’s dead, right?’

  ‘His thoughts at the time of his death may still resonate in the psi space.’

  ‘Resonate in the psi space. Wicked. I don’t know what that means. But it sure sounds cool.’

  ‘I’m pleased you’re thrilled.’

  ‘So how does it work? Will you be able to see through the guy’s eyes? You know, right at that moment when someone cut his throat or clubbed him to death or whatever?’

  ‘Bloody hell, Isidore. I never took you for a ghoul.’

  ‘OK, sorry. But you know what I mean. Will you be able to read his very last thoughts before he died?’

  ‘If I happen to access those thoughts, yes.’

  ‘So you’ll be able to see who the perpetrator was.’

  ‘Oh, for goodness’ sake. The kid may not even be dead. He’s probably hanging out in Goa smoking hashish and learning how to be a swami.’

  ‘That’s not what you said the other night. You said if Frankie wasn’t able to sense him any more then the poor kid had probably copped it. Isn’t that what you said?’

  Gabriel didn’t answer. He brought the Jag to an abrupt standstill. ‘There’s the Tube. I’m dropping you off here. Get working on that antenna for Pittypats and we’ll talk again tomorrow, OK?’

  ‘OK,’ Isidore said, unabashed by Gabriel’s frown or the curtness of his tone. Opening the door on his side, he hopped out and gave a cheery wave. In his rear-view mirror Gabriel watched the lanky figure move away from the car and disappear down the steps to the Underground.

  With a sigh, he let out the clutch. Isidore was probably the only person he truly considered a friend. Not that it precluded him from sometimes wanting to strangle him.

  It took Gabriel another fifteen minutes to get home. After parking the Jag in the underground garage, he took the lift up to the penthouse. Usually he would take the stairs but today he simply could not summon the energy. Actually, everything these past few days seemed to exact an inordinate amount of effort. As if to confirm his fears, he sneezed wetly and at the back of his throat he felt a suspicious itch. Oh, hell. This was just what he needed. A cold.

  He opened the front door and threw the keys into the hand-carved Ghanaian fruit bowl he had bought at a Sotheby’s auction only a month before. An impulse buy, that. And he had probably paid too much for it. Moodily he picked up the stack of unopened letters waiting for him on the table. He hadn’t looked at his mail for over a week.

  He came upon it as he was checking through the envelopes—the photograph of Robert Whittington. He couldn’t remember placing it with the post, but here it was, pushed in between a bill from his dental hygienist and a reminder that his subscription for Gourmet magazine was due.

  Slowly he sat down in the armchair facing the window, the photograph still in his hand. The kid really did have the most defenceless face; as though he was open to whatever came his way. And the expression in his eyes: no hint of self-importance or pretension. He remembered the cool self-assurance of the father, the slightly ironic detac
hment with which Whittington senior seemed to survey the world. Oh yes, he could well imagine that friction existed between these two.

  He yawned and let his hand fall to his lap, the snapshot held loosely between his fingers. He was suddenly sleepy. The sun pouring through the window was warm. He wondered what colour Robert Whittington’s eyes were; on the photograph it was difficult to tell. Either a dark grey or maybe blue…

  The linen curtains flanking the window lifted and billowed. A breeze had sprung up. He was aware of it only vaguely. He was not awake, but not yet asleep.

  His mind shifted. The gate to his inner eye opened.

  On one level his conscious mind knew he had stepped into a ride, that only his mind was travelling and not his body, but as always when he slammed into a ride with this much precision, he was rapidly losing contact with the man who at this moment was sitting in an armchair, his legs stretched out to catch the sun. One instant he was still aware of being in the chair, head tipped back slightly, limbs completely relaxed, staring at the ceiling with unseeing eyes. The next moment he found himself standing in a small room facing a closed door.

  As he placed his hand against the massive frame of the door, he noticed that the hand was narrow and the fingers long and pointed. It was a male hand but it was not his own. He was looking through someone else’s eyes.

  He had stepped into someone else’s mind.

  At that moment the last tenuous connection between his own mind and the host mind severed and he crossed over—completely submerging himself in the host mind’s thoughts.

  • • •

  The door in front of him was made of heavy timber. The wood was dark with age.

  Mounted on the door was a coat of arms. A circle on top of a cross. The design was strangely modern: it almost looked like the sign for female sexuality. Cross and circle were embraced within the petals of an open rose.

  The sign was familiar to him. He remembered it well. He had studied this symbol in detail. The Monas. He could feel the excitement rising within him.

  No doorknob was visible but as he leaned against the door, it swung open on silent hinges. He stepped over the raised threshold into a narrow room. The ceiling seemed dizzyingly high. The walls were covered with shelves stacked to the rafters with books. The smell inside that confined space was of old mildewed paper and leather bindings rotting at the spine.

  And somehow he knew the exact dimensions of this room. Thirty-eight of his footsteps by sixteen. Strange, how he knew that.

  A slight sound made him tilt his head. High above him, perched delicately on top of the immensely tall bookcases, was a crow. The bird was big and its feathers shimmered with green-black phosphorescence. For a moment they stared at each other. The crow shifted on its perch, lifting one wing. Behind it, on the wall, its shadow-self moved like a restless ghost.

  He looked away from the bird and started walking again. He had no time to waste here. Two doors faced him. He knew without even having to think about it that he should exit the room through the door on the right. As he walked towards it, he was aware of the crow following him, staying at his shoulder.

  A corridor. And even more doors. An entire row of them. He needed to make a choice but which one was it again? Seven doors down or six?

  Think. This was important. Remember. Oh, yes. Seven doors down and on the right. His foot fitted perfectly in the hollow of the single stone step leading to the door. The door clicked open.

  He was standing inside a ballroom and it was filled with butterflies. Millions and millions of monarch butterflies, their trembling wings dazzling his eyes.

  But he was not allowed to stay for long in this place of beauty. He had to continue. He had hundreds of doors to open still. Thousands.

  Millions.

  Remember the order of places, the order of things. And there was the next door that would allow him to continue his journey. And without looking he knew the crow was above and behind him, gliding silently in his wake.

  He moved forward cautiously, picking his way carefully through the cloud of amber wings. Without hesitation he opened the middle door facing him.

  As he continued to move from room to room, the excitement tightened inside his chest. He was on target. His memory today was flawless, allowing him to pick the correct door every single time. The order of places, the order of things. He knew the formula by heart and his journey was faultless. He looked over his shoulder, searching for the crow, his companion, and there it was staring at him with jet-black eyes.

  With trembling fingers he opened door after door, travelling from one fantastical space to the next, feeling more and more empowered as each door he picked turned out to be the correct one. This time he would succeed, he had no doubt of it. He was infallible, invincible. An immense feeling of exhilaration gripped him, an excitement so intense that his blood seemed to fizz.

  Of course, not every door opened onto a room filled with beautiful butterflies. Some of the rooms held objects and figures which, even after all this time, he still found disturbing. There were tiny rooms with lashless eyes growing from the ceiling. Big echoing spaces filled with giant glass marbles, the sound deafening as the glass spheres rolled from corner to corner. A room filled with hundreds of clocks ticking at random, each producing its own agitated, irregular beat. Behind one door an eyeless monk incessantly polished his empty eye sockets with a piece of bloodied sandpaper. The sight made him queasy and he hurried past, face averted. One room housed a flock of softly cawing fantail doves. In the dim light they looked like spun sugar but he waited tensely, anticipating the sound of the shot that was to come. And there it was—a sharp crack—and the next instant the sugar birds dripped scarlet.

  And still his journey continued. He found himself walking down labyrinthine corridors and up staircases delicate as spiders’ webs. The corridors stretched into the remotest distance and the staircases seemed endless. A journey without end: a journey filled with millions upon millions of doors waiting for him to access them in exactly the right order…

  For a moment he closed his eyes and his mind suddenly shrank from the magnificence of it all. How was it possible for him to even be here? He wasn’t worthy of this place. This vast edifice with its chambers and galleries, its winding, enigmatic passageways and endless steps, was sacred space. Hidden in its divine depths were the answers to all the problems of the universe, the answers to all the questions of the past and of the future. It held prophecies and spells. The content of every book ever written. The content of every book still waiting to be written. The value of every unimaginable number. The notes of music yet to be composed. Even the story of his own birth and the minute details of the life he could have lived but hadn’t…

  Something brushed against his arm and he opened his eyes, startled. It was the crow, swooping past him, winging its way to the other side of the room. His eyes followed the bird’s passage. The light was dim and the shadows dark in this room and at times the crow seemed to disappear in the gloom. But then it stopped flying. It settled itself delicately on the shoulder of a woman who was watching him from one of the many sheltering doorways.

  His breath caught. What was she doing here? This was supposed to be his own journey. He was meant to fly solo today.

  As always, she was wearing a cape and her eyes were masked. The cape was deep green in colour, the velvet folds richly draped and the hood covering her hair completely. Her fingers were long and white. They were calling him.

  Come.

  He hesitated. That was not the correct door. He knew he should be exiting through the third door on his immediate left. The order of places, the order of things dictated that.

  Again she lifted her hand. The finger beckoning: Follow me…

  Hesitantly he walked towards her and she nodded her head in satisfaction. He opened his mouth to speak but she brought her finger to her lips: an imperative for silence. Turning her back on him, she edged the door behind her open and slipped into the blackness beyond.


  He followed quickly even though his heart was beating nervously. This was not right. This was breaking every rule. He should still be on his journey, opening the familiar doors, encountering the familiar places. He had no idea where he was now. He had never been this way before.

  But then he chided himself. What was he so concerned about? As long as he stayed with her, he would be safe. Who better to guide him on his journey? But apprehension stirred like swaying seaweed underneath the surface of his calm.

  She moved quickly, always staying a few steps ahead of him. He could smell her perfume, a tenuous thread of fragrance. Her cloak swirled around her ankles as she hastened down long winding corridors opening up this way and that. A labyrinth, but one she was traversing unerringly.

  On and on they sped, past darkened rooms with un curtained windows, past closed doors, past signposts cracked and peeling, the lettering illegible, the arms pointing the way to who knows where. Alien. Unfamiliar. He had lost all reference points, he had lost the order of places, the order of things. He could feel the terror rising inside him. To be lost, to be lost forever…

  He tried to clamp down on the panic and kept his eyes desperately on the slim figure hurrying ahead of him. She seemed wraith-like, scarcely more substantial than the flitting shadow following in her footsteps.

  Suddenly she stopped and placed her palm against an uneven stone set into a smooth wall. When she pulled her hand back, he saw that the stone she had touched was carved into the symbol of the Monas.

  For a moment nothing happened but then—ponderously—the wall started to move, revealing a dimly lit space on the other side. The ground beneath his feet was vibrating and there was a hum in the air.

  He found himself in a massive circular room with a high dome-like ceiling. It was empty. The dome was filled with blinding light but the room itself was only faintly illuminated. Still, the gauzy light was strong enough for him to see that the walls of the room were not solid. They were constructed of wheels: concentric stone wheels densely covered with symbols. Moons, crosses, candles, pentagrams—symbols as familiar as everyday objects. But there were also other symbols, esoteric and mysterious.