вавилонский голландец Pt. 1
Part one: Lost At Sea
Some rooms seem to welcome you with open arms whilst others push you away;
"Private!" they yell. "No trespassing!"
Then there are the rooms that seem so cold and neutral that they look like a mask, daring you to peer behind the impersonal even as your belly tightens with cold anticipation at what you might find and you fight the urge to back away.
Such rooms do not resent your blundering into a space belonging to someone else - they don't care about personal retreats or anything like that. These rooms will never be used in such a way. They know it - and they don't care. Such rooms just hate because they can.
Her vision still blurred, the girl had flung out an arm to support herself on one of the plush royal blue wall cushions, but her fingers crooked in and her hand froze - I don't want to touch anything here, she realised. The wall cushions, so neat and dark and clean didn't want her to either, nor did the gleaming chrome rails that ran the length of those curving walls. Looking down she could see the thick carpet only reluctantly bearing the traces of her booted feet.
She hadn't even asked herself yet where she was.
She hadn't even asked herself how she got there.
A wide space was cupped by the walls into an oval. Carpeted, yes - and empty.
There were tables and chairs heavy and dark, they gleamed.
Even at a distance her figure could be seen as a pale smudge of reflection, upside down.
For a moment her breath was taken by the sheer luxury of what her befuddled eyes were seeing.
And so the questions formed: Where? Who? Why?
“I…” But ‘I’ was elsewhere and gone.
And there was someone else.
She stumbled gasping as she heard it.
“Yes? Hello?”
There was a reciprocal sound of surprise, and the clash of a falling object.
A curse, “Dammit woman you shouldn’t creep up on a chap like that.”
So then, a voice, smooth and irritated, a figure now beside her - formed out of nowhere and nothing at all. She could swear it was darkness, solid perhaps and as polished as the tables and chairs, her eye seemed to glance off the shape, to slip. She could swear the flash of teeth was the same pearly blur as her reflection.
“I say - you look a little, uh, lost. Been wandering have you - you better take a moment. Prop yourself against the bar here, that’s right. It’s what I’ve been doing.”
“I - I didn’t see you.”
“Well I didn’t see you either, so that makes two of us,” a strange laugh - almost no sound - like air escaping through a slow puncture.
“I was getting this, d’you see?” a shadowy arm lifting a bottle into the light, then placing it on the bar. She could see the other bottles all neatly placed in cabinets.
But she hadn’t any of this before - couldn’t recall stepping up to the hardness of the bar and placing a trembling hand upon it. Then again, she didn’t even recognise those hands. She glanced quickly down - and saw the sheer outfit her body was now wrapped in - as opulent and unexpected as everything else.
It didn’t feel right.
“Who am I?” She could hear her voice - but the words, was it simply the wrong question?
The form beside her seemed to consider, “Well you must be on the lists. Hold on.”
A paper was produced - from where? There was no crinkling, no rustle of paper or fabric.
“Ah,” it said. “You are Lorna DeVoy - or perhaps you are Suri Vexler.”
“What are those…”
“Names, you know - names.”
“I don’t think - those are names, of people?”
“Apparently, although I admit they do sound rather like cocktails…“ Changing the subject now the man said, “Talking of which, care for a drink?”
He proffered the tumbler once again, waggling it in an attempt at bonhomie, and as the amber liquid caught the light he said, “For now we see as through a glass darkly.”
“That sounds familiar,” she blurted.
“Does it? I was hoping to sound mysterious and intelligent. Well,” and again the soundless laugh, again the shrug, “never mind.”
But it was right - ‘darkly’, it hurt to be so close to a memory, like words on the tip of a tongue, something familiar about the compressed darkness of the thing beside her, the image… there were images like that somewhere in her mind.
She shook her head and taking another deep breath looked up again and around. That was a bad mistake because for an instant, profound and shocking, the tables, the bar, even the panicked hand she brought up with a jerk, seemed to fade and blur - everything solid seemed suddenly not so - but instead made simply of fog, of cloud, of air, as if a piece of storm had formed itself into a likeness - and was now coming apart.
She tuned to the stranger, for what? Comfort - reassurance? There was none - he was less real and more ominous than ever, a shadow lit by the glow of eyes and teeth.
It was grinning now. “I say, you really could use a drink. You look like you’re in shock! Well, I shouldn’t be surprised, natural enough.”
“Why?” It was the first time she’d said the word and it felt good to get out into the air at last.
“Why? Because you are a woman - a girl rather.”
“Am I? I don’t remember what that means.”
“It means,” the voice had turned patronising - as if deciding she was an idiot, “like I said, you need a drink.” A shake of the head, another lightning grin; “That was rude, I apologise” he said. “It means,” he began again, “that while we don’t normally tolerate stowaways, let alone offer than them drinks, in your case I believe an exception can be made.”
“Where am I?” Something in her had resisted such an obvious question - but then none of what she said sounded right anyway, somehow it didn’t fit, the words, the tones, the accent, as new and as artificial as the glamorous clothing she wore. It wasn’t her.
“Where? Onboard - obviously. What a silly question.”
“No, no - I mean - you said ‘they’…”
“Ah, right, I suppose I meant the crew, the ship, the fleet.”
“Fleet?” That sounded stupid to her ears.
Still the answers came back as smooth as ever. “Yes, there are seven of us, well six, no no I should say seven really.”
“I don’t understand.” That much was obvious.
“Well,” the shadow seemed to consider, “number seven is a little, ah, wayward. Old y’see, sets itself apart - thinks its better than the rest.”
“Old?” Yes, she was beginning to hate the repetition in her questions, so hurried herself now. “Then it should be number one.”
“Ha, ha that’s a good one. Well I suppose, strictly speaking that ONE doesn’t have a number at all anymore. Not to worry, we’ve nearly caught the damn thing, soon have it back in the fold.”
She was dizzy. There was no sense to any of this and she was beginning to feel her senses reel again.
“I - I need some air, perhaps if I went outside?”
“Good grief I wouldn’t do that - the weather’s simply ghastly!”
The room they were in was absolutely silent, save for them.
“I can’t hear anything,” she said.
“We’re very well insulated in here,” was the quick response, “Glad of it. Yes indeed. I’m quite happy to stay here and drink the time away till it’s done.”
So saying, a hand reached across and refilled the glasses, both of them though she had not touched hers at all.
“I leave all that sort of thing to the crew.”
Looking at him more sharply now, she said. “There is a crew then.”
“What, of course there’s a crew!” The glass rose and fell. No sound of drinking. “I’d keep away from though - certainly while there’s a blow on. They won’t take kindly to interruption, especially not from a girl, even one so pleasantly distracting as you.” The electric smile had returned, and as she looked at the glasses the thought crossed her mind that they had come full circle.
“I have to go outside.” This time she was firm.
“Madness,” the shadow said.
“You can’t stop me.” Determined now.
“Really there’s no need - I…”
And she turned away, knew he was still speaking, talking on in that droning way to the spot she had just occupied. ‘If I look behind - I will still be there’, she thought to herself, felt it to be true. She had had enough - something, some instinct was calling her out, telling her to go. She walked away.
As she did so she felt a blaze of anger coming from all around, it would be there in the figure yes, but it was in the floor, in the walls, running through the ship like a current, like a wave, like a wind. Hate.
They can’t do anything here, but they WILL try to stop me somehow.
“It’s out there isn’t it?” Even her voice was beginning to sound different, to sound real finally. “I’m right, yeah?” And her hands were on the cold silver handles of the doors. “The other ship, it’s out there now.”
“Not for long.” She heard the words distinctly. But ignoring them, keep her gaze forward, she threw wide the doors and threw herself into the screaming darkness of the deck.
It beat about her like wings, wild and flapping, screeching in her ears and pecking wildly at her hair her cheeks - forcing her eyes to slits as she staggered forward. And beyond - a vague groan, the disturbed vices of the crew, shadows and phantoms, invisible in the howling dark of the storm.
And still it came at her with wind and rain, and she threw up her hands, waving it off her and with a crash she hit the deck rail and her eyes went wide.
It was there!
Billowed and distorted by the impossible tempest - but it was there, sailing on waters magically calm under its hull. The ship without number - the old ship, the thing they hated, the place she new for certain now that she was meant to be. This was an accident, a mistake, a nightmare. It was time to wake up. It was time to go.
As if sensing her, the ship began to signal, a welcoming light misted by the rain but blinking ‘hello! Yes! Hello!’ and constant. With a creaking sound the wide white welcoming sails bent and buckled and unfurled in different ways. It was steering now, towards her, towards her!
“It knows!” she cried.
The wind redoubled its fury, she could feel her head being bitten by the force of - what? “What ARE you?” she screamed whipping her arms up again instinctively at the air, its wings.
Yes, it had wings, had become a gull, lashing at her, raging as she beat it off beat it back.
“You cannot go!” it seemed to say, with a crazed movement of beak and eye.
“You don’t want me here!”
“You cannot leave - too late, too late!”
She stumbled suddenly, there was a lurch from the hull beneath her, the ships had struck one another and recoiled, like animals.
The gull cried again. “You cannot - cannot - cannot” it crowed. “Not there, Not there.”
But there would be no going back. Scrambling to her feet, booted feet - it was good to feel them once again - clasping the near invisible rail, she turned and stepped up onto her tiptoes. She could see the deck of the old ship invitingly flat and silent - but oh, so far now as the vessel she was on sought to keep a distance. The others were coming, she realised, they’ll be here soon, to cut me off, to cut that ship off. With an effort almost beyond her she hoisted herself up, up onto the rail, clutching frantically at the slippery rail as her feet came up free of whatever surface they had been touching before. She began to count in her mind. 1 - 2-
Through the buffeting wind, the lashing sound of the tarpaulin, the metallic groan of the hull - through all this the screeching gull could be heard as its beak opened and closed and its wings were bucked and twisted. The sound of its voice was clear.
“You’ll never make it my dear.”
Her white cold hands were clamped on the rail as if in agreement with the unnatural voice, but she cried, “How do you know?”
The gale hit her hard like a fist.
“How do I know anything,” the gull shrieked, “How did I know your name?”
“You didn’t!” She replied angrily - an instinctual anger - anger equals strength, strength equals -
“You made it up!” It was a yell of freedom, her mind moving faster than her tongue, she felt possessed. “You don’t know me - I am Katy Nemo - the jumping girl!”
The gull laughed. “That’s the most ridiculous name yet! Now who’s making it up?”
That was the wrong thing to say. The girl’s eyes flashed livid. “If I am nobody,” she spat, “then I can be anyone!” And she turned her face away.
The gull screamed a retort - but for the first time she could not catch the words.
“You - are - just - a gull!” She was yelling now into the spray, into the dark and out towards the wooden ship. “And I AM Katy - I am she - who -“
And she jumped.
End of part one.
Coming up: Part two - The Library.
i hope this was worth the read.
Who - where -what -how - why?
Answers will come as the story develops.