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You can breathe; you just need to calm down.
Close your eyes. Listen to the forest. Collect yourself.
the thump of rabbit feet passing near enough to touch.
I’m wearing a dinner jacket, the shirt splattered with mud and red wine. I must have been at a party. My pockets are empty and I don’t have a coat, so I can’t have strayed too far. That’s reassuring.
but I can’t see anything except trees.
How lost do you have to be to let the devil lead you home?
Georgian manor house, its redbrick facade entombed in ivy.
The long gravel driveway leading to the front door is covered in weeds,
Why else would a murderer gift me this compass, if not to lead me into the jaws of some greater evil?
He looks barely human, a remnant of some prior species lost in the folds of our evolution.
Framed mirrors line the walls, a wide staircase with an ornate railing sweeping up toward a gallery, a narrow red carpet flowing down the steps like the blood of some slaughtered animal.
but my Samaritan silences me with a conspiratorial shake of the head.
Wingback chairs have been arranged to hide the cracks in the walls, while paintings and porcelain vases attempt to lure the eye from crumbling cornices.
Dense forest surrounds us, its green canopy unbroken by either a village or road.
What does this devil want from me that he couldn’t take in the forest?
Anger’s solid; it has weight. You can beat your fists against it. Pity’s a fog to become lost within.
Tilting my head forward, he examines my skull with a butcher’s tenderness, chuckling as I wince.
but now I perceive this isn’t the case. I can sense my memories just out of reach. They have weight and shape, like shrouded furniture in a darkened room. I’ve simply misplaced the light to see them by.
I dress quickly, but my nerves are so ragged, it takes a deep breath and a stern word to coax my body toward the door.
finding me from the corner of their eyes.
Daniel approaches, a ghost in the glass.
One can only imagine the missives written in such an oppressive atmosphere.
It’s like being caught in an affectionate vice.
He searches my face expectantly, his green eyes narrowing at my lack of recognition. “It’s true, then, you can’t remember a thing,” he says, tossing a quick glance at Daniel. “You lucky devil! Let’s get to the bar so I can introduce you to a hangover.”
For the first time since I woke up this morning, I feel a yearning for my old life. I miss knowing these men. I miss the intimacy of this friendship.
My sorrow is mirrored on the faces of my companions, an awkward silence digging a trench between us.
It’s an architectural drawing, rain spotted and yellowing at the edges, but quite beautiful in its depiction of the house and grounds.
As the view from the upper windows suggests, we’re quite alone among the trees.
“Lonely sort of place, isn’t it?” he murmurs, tapping a cigarette loose from a silver case. It dangles from his lower lip as he searches his pockets for a lighter.
Even from here, I can hear the stinging, swirling swarm of insults touching on everything from the rundown state of the house to Lord Hardcastle’s drunkenness and Evelyn Hardcastle’s icy demeanor.
Poor Michael. I can’t imagine how it must feel to have one’s family so openly ridiculed, in their own home no less.
Gratitude swells in my chest. “Thank you, Michael.”
disgorged
Get yourself as far away from this mess as you can.”
No one’s home, which is curious as a fire’s burning in the hearth, porridge and toast laid out on the table.
You need to find the servant who brought the note.
The mood in the room is one of restless agitation rather than celebration.
The game’s over in four moves.
Evelyn’s still tugging hers on as we step out of Blackheath into the blustery, cold afternoon.
You can say, ‘I’ll have that man’s honesty, that woman’s optimism, as if you’re shopping for a suit on Savile Row.”
“Well, what else would you call a second chance?” she asks.
As I said, I envy you. The rest of us are stuck with our mistakes.”
“Have you thought about what you’ll do if your memories don’t return?” she says, softening the question with the gentleness of her tone.
Thus far, in the excavation of Sebastian
Bell,
I’ve unearthed two friends, an annotated Bible, an...
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a great swell of pity mingled with a sense of injustice at life’s sudden cruelties.
Like a child, I close my eyes in the hope that when I open them again, the natural order will be overturned, the impossible made plausible by desire alone.
He knocks again. It’s insistent. A polite battering ram.
I wrap myself in a long scarf and slip my hands into a thick pair of gloves, pocketing the letter opener and chess piece on the way out. I’m rewarded by a crisp, cold night. As my eyes adjust to the gloom, I breathe in the fresh air, still damp with the storm, and follow the gravel path around the house toward the graveyard. My shoulders are tense, my stomach unsettled.
