Текст книги "Nameless"

Автор книги: Sam Starbuck

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"The book you helped me find," he began hesitantly, "It has information in it. Things people have forgotten or don't believe in anymore. It...definitely speaks to me."

"Oh, like myths and stuff?" I said. "I'm glad you're enjoying it."

"More than that. I believe in it. I think there aren't just myths. They aren't just myths. They're...processes. Ways of changing things. Like in the Metamorphoses you gave me."

"Well, I have to admit I thought you'd be a little too sensible for that kind of thing, but it's no business if mine if you believe in them," I said.

"More than believe. I've tried some. They work."

"Oh, Lucas, come on now."

"I have. When my circuits flipped and I blew out the pilot light and my phone died, remember? That was because I was trying something – it went wrong, but it still happened, Christopher. I know, because there's that burn mark in the ceiling. And – other things. I'm going to try again when I can. That's why I need to tell you, because if it – " he swallowed, hesitating.

"The telephones go out all the time around these parts," I said. "And I'm sure the wiring in that cottage wasn't really very professionally done. The kinds of things you're talking about don't really work, you know that."

"I think they do."

"Lucas, they're as good a way to be religious as any, but you can't expect me to think magic spells actually produce results. Not the kind of thing you can hold in your hand."

He looked resolutely forward. "But they do. I know they do. I told you – these are things we've forgotten, that's why we don't believe."

"Now you're worrying me."

"I'm sorry, Christopher. I don't mean to do that, I really don't. It's just that it's true, and I want to tell you. I'm working now on something really big – the biggest thing. I think I can do it," he added.

"You're alone too much out here," I said.

"I haven't been – the boy's always around for tutoring and the Friendly were here, they came to see me every day. They believe," he added. "I said I was learning things that hadn't existed in a long time, and they believed me."

"They're country folk – they come from a different way of seeing the world."

"You mean they're primitive, and don't know any better," he replied.

"That's not what I said, Lucas."

"No," he answered bitterly, the single time I've ever seen him truly bitter. "It certainly was not what you said."

"Listen, really, it's not healthy for you. Come stay in the village for a little while. You can sleep at my place or I'll pay for a few days at the hotel – if you're out among normal people for a week or two you'll see what kind of madness you're talking."

"I'm not crazy," he said. "I grew up in Chicago too, I can be just as cynical and sensible as you can. But this is real, Christopher, it exists and I've got to try it."

"What are you talking about, anyway?" I demanded. "What's real? What do you think you're going to do?"

"I think...if it works...there are ways of changing. Being something new – an animal, maybe, like a totem or something. Anyway, I'm sure it works, it's just a question of making it work."

I stopped, standing still against the wind, my shoes covered in mud and snow. The world felt more real, in an odd way, standing there listening to what I thought – knew – to be ridiculous superstition.

"You're absolutely insane," I said. "People don't turn into animals, Lucas!"

"Plenty have," he said. "Look at all the stories – werewolves, Greek gods, all those Egyptian paintings of men with animal heads – just because nobody's done it recently...and maybe they have, for all I know. I think you're proving just why nobody would talk about it if they had."

"I'm not going to argue about myths and people turning into animals with you," I retorted. "For God's sake, Lucas, you're talking about werewolves! "

"Well, just because they've been in horror movies doesn't mean they're any less mythical than Zeus turning into a swan," Lucas replied. There was a defensive tone in his voice that should have been a warning to me, but I plowed on ahead.

"And you don't think that isn't ridiculous too? You're not a god, Lucas. You're just afraid of everyone and so you lock yourself up in some shack in the middle of nowhere. It's not good for you to be alone like that."

He was standing very still by then, his breath hardly even misting the air in front of him.

"I suppose I should be like all the normal people," he said, and to this day I'm uncertain whether there was more rage or more sadness in his tone. "Live in a crowded city with everyone else close enough to bump elbows and spend all my time in the middle of it, even if I'm alone in my head all the time anyway. At least then people wouldn't be able to fling my solitude at me as a reason to dismiss what I say."

"If you had any distance on this, Lucas, you'd welcome company more," I said. "Be alone, then, if that's what you want. When you've come to your senses, come by sometime."

His eyes widened fearfully. "Christopher – "

"Go home, Lucas," I said. "This is as far as I go."

I turned and began the walk back to the village before he could stop me, and either out of shock or shyness he didn't try. I shouldn't have said some of the things I did, and I don't think that ordinarily I would have, but he was so calm about it all. Like nothing he was saying was out of the ordinary. Like he just expected me to believe him – and maybe on some level I did, which didn't help my anger any.

The wind picked up as I walked, whipping across the flat ground and threatening to knock me off my feet, but I struggled through it and stomped my way back to the village without once turning around.

***

The wind that fought me as I walked home turned out to be an early herald of a blizzard, which blew up out of nowhere and into the startled village later that evening. I swore a lot about this.

It wasn't just a constant snowfall, which we'd already had a few times that winter, but a full-blown storm, the kind that sends down power lines and breaks windows if the wind blows the wrong way. It caught us all by surprise. The schools closed and business came to a standstill. When I looked out the upstairs window, in the rare moments the snow didn't block out everything, the street below looked like a ghost town.

The first day of the storm, I kept a fire going downstairs and the lights on, though I knew it would be insane for anyone to try and push through the weather just to get to the bookshop. On the other hand, if someone did try to go out in this and got stuck, they might conceivably see the light and find safe haven. All of Low Ferry left its doors unlocked in a storm like that, just in case. I kept myself busy, cleaning and taking inventory, for a while.

The second day, I started to worry.

Most of the people in the village had weathered storms as bad as this one, or worse, in the past few years. My very first winter in the village it had been so cold that my doors had frozen shut and Paula had been forced to come rescue me, skidding her way over the thick sheets of ice on the street with a blowtorch in one hand and an ice pick in the other. Jacob lost half his chickens that year when they froze solid in the hen-house.

But Lucas hadn't. If he'd been raised in Chicago he'd know a little bit about harsh winters, but not the kind Low Ferry dished out and not the kind you could face outside of town in a shoddily-built cottage on a windswept hillside.

Perhaps I overdramatized it a little.

Still, I worried about him. Knowing that I couldn't do anything even after the storm blew itself out, until the plow came through (if the plow could get through) didn't help at all. At least I knew that even Lucas, with his incomplete grasp of how to cope with rough weather, would know not to go out in this, and stay home until help came to him. We'd lost people before when they'd gotten turned around in a blizzard while trying to go the ten feet from their front door to their mailbox.

On the other hand...well, it was a relief that we couldn't speak. The awkwardness bound to follow the fight – or I suppose it was more of a lecture, given how little he fought back – had been postponed by the storm. I wouldn't have to think about what I'd said too much, or be ashamed of it. I couldn't help but think Lucas would see the blizzard as a welcome intervention as well.

On the second day of the storm I had no power, but I did have customers. There was a momentary lull in the afternoon, with another huge cloud already ballooning on the horizon, and people scrambled to get out of the house – to the grocery store and the hardware store, to the cafe for a hot meal and to my place to see if I had any news to share. Some had found themselves caught by the storm and spent the night at the hotel or on cots in the cafe, their cars immobilized on the main street. They came and went, hanging gloves and hats by the fire to dry, asking me if I'd seen this person or if I'd pass on a message to that one of they came by. The last customer left ten minutes before the wind picked up again.

I was quite content to remain in the shop, sleeping near the hearth that night so that I could feed the fire and not be bothered with restarting it. I had long since hung my Dottore mask above the fireplace, and it gazed down on me with foolish benevolence as I slept. Lucas used to say that seeing a mask on a wall could frighten people, but to me it wasn't exactly a mask. It was a sculpture an artist had given to me, and it had something of him in it – in a strictly non-literal sense it was halfway to being a photograph. It held the same general function, anyway.

On the morning of the third day of the storm, with the snow still pelting down, Charles came into the shop and stomped the snow off his boots into the puddle of melting ice on my welcome mat.

"Hi," he said. "Got any batteries?"

I lifted my eyebrows. "Get lost on the way to the hardware store, did you?"

"No," he scowled. "They're at ground level. It's all snowed over. Looked outside lately?"

"Paula must be stuck at home, or she'd have the blowtorch out," I said, rummaging in my desk.

"She does love her blowtorch," he agreed.

"What kind of batteries do you need?"

"For the thing," he said, and I paused.

"The thing," I repeated.

"You know, the little thing that tells you where to go."

"A street sign?" I hazarded.

"No, the little hand thing," he said, and took a GPS locator out of his pocket.

"Ah, of course, the little hand thing," I said, accepting it and prying the back off. "Double-As, got it. What are you doing out in this mess, anyway?"

"I was out northwest, checking on folk. Making sure everyone had firewood, food, that kind of thing. Wife gave me that for an early Christmas. Pretty handy, in all this."

"I can imagine it would be," I said, prying out the dead batteries and replacing them from a package in my desk drawer. "Anyone in trouble yet? You need anything?"

He glanced around at the bookshelves.

"Okay, well, I take your point, but don't sass the man who gave you batteries," I said.

"Nobody's in trouble as far as I know – what do you hear?" he asked.

"Not trouble, just delay." I hesitated. "I don't suppose you've seen Lucas around."

"Lucas? No – he'd never go out in this weather, would he? I'd have seen him if he were trapped in town."

"Well, I'm fairly sure he's out at The Pines. I just wondered, living alone..."

"He's probably all right – besides, if he isn't, nobody's going to be able to help him in this weather. I'm surprised you stayed here. What if you have another attack?"

"I won't," I answered. "Anyway, Kirchner looked after me last time."

He gave me a skeptical look.

"Listen, I managed three years here without one," I said, beginning to be a little annoyed by the village's unending fascination with my cardiac health. "Let's have another three before everyone becomes my doctor, all right?"

"All right, Christopher," he said soothingly, fiddling with the device to re-set it. "Things are settling down now, anyway. I don't think there'll be any injury to anyone unless someone gets stupid and panics. And," he added, rubbing his reddening cheeks, "I should be going. Are you really concerned about Lucas?"

"Not enough that you should go check on him, that's a trip I wouldn't wish on an enemy," I said. "I just think he's alone more often than he should be."

"I'll go up to see him when the weather clears, if you want." He straightened his clothing and wrapped his scarf around his face, preparing for the struggle outside.

"Do – ask him down to the village for a few days. Offer him a job. Something at the church, maybe. He needs it," I said.

"You think so too, eh?" he asked. "He seems to enjoy his solitude, though."

"He needs to be around people more."

"Well, we'll see. I'll keep you abreast of things and tell him you'd like to see him."

"Thanks, Charles."

He was the only visitor I had for the rest of the day, and around seven I finally gave up expecting anyone else. I spent the evening in a wing-chair with a book, eventually nodding off and allowing the book to drop to the floor.

When I woke again the fire was in embers, and someone was standing next to it: Lucas, barefoot on the hearth, holding Dottore in his hands. He looked as if he were waiting for something, and also very tired.

"Did you come all the way in this storm?" I asked. He shrugged.

"I wanted to talk to you," he said.

"About what?"

"What we discussed."

"Through the storm? How did you even get here?"

"Christopher, that's not important," he said, exasperated. "The point is I wanted to say – "

He stopped and swallowed, looking as if he were about to apologize. I thought it somewhat gracious of him, until he spoke again.

"I want you to understand what I'm doing. Not just dismiss it. I want you to be curious about it. I want you to know."

"The only thing I'm curious about is how this happened in the first place," I said. "I don't think you're sick, I don't really think you're insane – "

"Oh! That's good!" he said.

" – but I do think there's a problem," I finished. His face fell. "Lucas, it's nothing you've done. You're just not thinking clearly about things. You're spending too much time alone with books."

He looked at me, and then he started to laugh.

"It's serious, Lucas – "

"No – it's funny because it's you saying it – you live in a bookstore!" he said.

"In the middle of a town!" I replied.

"Where you talk to everyone about everyone, but not ever about anything," he drawled.

I was about to retort angrily but he raised his hand to his face, pressing his palm to his forehead. I watched in horror as he slid his hand down over his face. The skin above his hand changed color, subtly, and then the shape of his brow, the width of his nose and cheeks, his lips and chin –

The thing about masks and mirrors, so I learned from Lucas at some point or other, is that when we look in a mirror we do not, in fact, see ourselves. We see a reverse image which we imprint as ourselves because we see it so often. Photographs are sometimes unsettling for this reason: that is the true us, not the mirror-image, and no face is perfectly symmetrical. Symmetrical faces are strange and terrifying if carried too far.

Masks can reflect that perfect symmetry, or they can reflect the minute irregularities of our own faces. A model of one's face, made by another person, looks peculiar and amateurish because we are looking on our face as a real object instead of the usual flat, backwards reflection in the mirror.

I looked on my own face, worn like a mask over Lucas's, and my stomach turned.

This was, of course, the point at which I woke up.

The fire had all but gone out. I was freezing, and so the dream was forced to take second place to rekindling. When the flame was crackling again, or at least doing its best, I sat back on the bedroll in front of it and pressed the heels of my hands to my forehead. The slight, sharp ache of palm-on-skin told me that this, at least, was no dream.

It took a good ten minutes for me to notice that it was silent in the room and silent outside it, and that light was filtering slowly through my windows. The storm had stopped, and morning was dawning. When I peered out through the gaps in the shutters, I was met with a world of white.

The snow was piled high enough that my shop no longer looked like it stood at all above the street. A flat blanket of snow spread like a highway up to my door and even a little above the threshold, just barely covering the floor of the porch. Other less-elevated shops were buried up to their doorknobs or higher, but at least the blizzard was over – the sky outside looked clear and sunny.

I ran upstairs to dress, washing in a basin of cold water, and made myself a cup of tea, boiling a pan of water over the fire. The cook at the cafe was already shoveling the doorway free, cursing with each deep sharp crack as the shovel sliced through the snow, exhaling as the contents of it spattered like gravel to one side. It was past time I should be doing the same, but I stood on the porch with my tea and watched, the snow crackling occasionally under my boots.

It wasn't long before the plow came through, cutting a single narrow lane down the two-lane street and pushing the snow up high on either side, so that the remaining parked cars stood behind huge walls of white. Richard, sitting next to the driver, leaned out the window and waved at me, and I raised my mug in salutation.

Once it was gone, I ducked back inside for my hat and gloves, then stepped out onto the porch and began kicking away the snow that buried the shovel, which I'd left leaning against the porch railing.

I considered clearing off my entire porch, but only briefly. The weight of the snow was bad for the elderly wood but frankly it would be harder on my shoulders to shovel it all. The walkway to the street would take long enough and I wouldn't have many customers anyway, I suspected. People would want to get out and about, but they'd rather go to the cafe or stock up on groceries.

I had shoveled my way across the porch, down the steps, and halfway to the street before I was interrupted. As I turned to toss the snow to one side, a snowball hit me square in the ear. I scooped up a handful of snow without thinking, turned, and saw Lucas standing there with a look of horror on his face.

"The boy..." he said, pointing at a black blur disappearing in the distance. "It wasn't me!"

"No doubt," I said drily, as ice began to slide down my neck and underneath my collar. I dropped the snowball. "Good to see you in town," I added, turning back to keep shoveling.

"Some storm," he agreed, hesitantly. "Did your power go out?"

"Still is."

"Oh. Mine's back on. I thought maybe in town it wouldn't go out so easily."

The sensation I had was familiar, and I finally put my finger on why. It felt as though it was the end of summer again, when Lucas had only just arrived. He stood outside the low garden wall, a pair of snowshoes strapped on his back and his hands shoved deep in his pockets, shoulders slumped, eyes cast downwards. He was fumbling for words, too, trying to make small talk without any clue how. I stopped and stuck the shovel upright in the snow next to the walkway, sitting down on the porch step. We regarded each other across the yard.

"How do the cars get out?" he asked, pointing to where the snowbound cars sat behind the plow's wall.

"They dig 'em out," I said. "Or drive them out, one at a time, starting at the south end of the street."

"They plowed out early this morning, as far as the asphalt goes. I thought that was good of them. Charles came to see me."

"Oh yes?" I asked. "Bring you all the news?"

"He offered me a job at the church, shoveling out the yard and trimming the trees. I said no."

"Lucas – "

"Please, Christopher," he stammered, interrupting. "I know you're ashamed of shouting at me – "

This stung. "I am not!"

He winced. "Sorry," he muttered. When I didn't reply, he spoke again. "I just – I want to say stop and forget it all, all what I said, but I'm not taking the church job and – and it's not a lie."

"I never said it was a lie, Lucas..."

"You think it isn't true, which is the same thing. But I know I can do it – I can prove it to you," he said, taking a step forward. There was a short expanse of snow between the sidewalk and where I'd stopped shoveling, which blocked him from coming any closer unless he wanted to wade through thigh-high snow.

"Prove it to me?" I asked. "How? Are you going to turn into a cat right here, right now?"

"No!" he shouted, frustrated. "Will you please just listen to me!"

I had only once before experienced anger from Lucas, and rarely ever heard him raise his voice. I had not seen, or maybe had not wanted to see, that he was furious with me – that his face was dark and his whole body tense.

"All right, Lucas," I said quietly. "You might as well come through, if you can."

It was something of a challenge, and I half-hoped he'd leave, seeing the snow he'd have to push through to get to me. Instead, he pressed his gloved hands into the snow until he found the wide stone garden-wall, then stepped up onto it and stood, ankle-deep, studying it. I thought that he would probably simply leap as far as he could and slog the rest of the way to the shoveled path, but instead he took a step forward and eased his foot down into the snow. It packed down firm before he sank more than half an inch, and he put his weight on it hesitantly.

"I've learned things," he said, standing on the snow and putting his other foot forward, again easing it down carefully. The snow didn't even come up over the toes of his shoes.

He was half a man's height off the ground on a snowbank that was soft loose powder, but he wasn't sinking in. Eight slow steps brought him to the shoveled walkway, and he let himself gracefully down into it using the handle of the shovel, still stuck in the snow, for balance. I watched, confused and a little unwilling to believe what I was seeing.

"It's all right if you think it's impossible, I wouldn't blame you," he said. "I don't mind. But I don't want you calling me a liar and I don't want you thinking that I'm unbalanced."

"What else do you want me to think, Lucas?" I asked.

"Think that I'm playing pretend, like children do, or maybe think that I'm open-minded enough to try an experiment. Just...I don't want you to ignore me, I wouldn't know what to do. I don't want you to treat me like a stranger, Christopher. I don't ask much of people, I don't even ask this much of most others. Please."

No one likes to admit they're wrong, particularly after shouting about it, and no one likes their irrational anger to be met with such quiet steadfastness. But by the same token, I was pleased that Lucas did want me to think well of him, me specifically. That he was fond of me.

"Why?" I asked.

"Why what? Why try it?"

"Why do you care so much that I believe you?"

"Dunno about believing," he said, kicking at the snow. "It's important that someone know. So if something goes wrong, you at least have an idea of why."

"Goes wrong?" I asked, suddenly alarmed. "Lucas, what do you mean, goes wrong?"

"Well..." he laughed, a sharp and not entirely cheerful crack of noise between us. "If you don't believe it works, there's nothing to worry about. It's not like I'm going to try and shed my mortal shell or something. It's not that dramatic."

"Lucas, really, please stay here for a few days," I said. "It's a long hike out, and you can't think you'll be able to carry many groceries back with you."

"I don't need many groceries," he said softly. "But if it would make you happier, Christopher, I can stay for a few days. There's probably rooms down at the hotel now that the storm's over, right?"

"Probably," I said carefully.

"That's fine, then." He gnawed his lip and looked around. "When will the shop be open?"

"Did you want something?" I asked.

"I was just wondering."

"Well, it's open now if you need it, you know that," I said.

"I don't," he insisted, rather more forcefully than really necessary. "I just wanted to know. I thought I'd come by and have a look around later."

"All right," I said. "Well, I'll have the rest shoveled in a little while, then I'll open up. Where are you going in the meantime?"

"Down to the department store for some clothes. I'll be back later, I guess."

I nodded and watched as he climbed carefully back onto the snow, using the same slightly-sunken impressions as before. I stayed where I was until he had disappeared behind the snow-plow's wall.

After he was gone I walked carefully down to the edge of the unshoveled snow. One of the footsteps he'd made was near enough to touch and shone oddly in the overcast light. I leaned over and examined it, brushing a few flakes of snow away.

Disbelieving, I slid my fingers around a smooth, solid, rounded edge. With a slight tug, the whole thing came free and I held a clear chunk of ice in my hands. It was wide enough to disperse a man's weight and an inch thick, flawless as glass. The pattern of a boot-print was delicately etched in the top. Even as I stared, it slipped out of my hands and fell to the pavement, shattering into fragments.

It was the only footprint close enough to be in the way of my shoveling. I cleared the walkway, stolidly ignoring the rest of the ice as it began to melt and crack.

We didn't talk about it when he came back to the shop later, to browse. Not what I'd said, not what he'd said, not the ice footprints that had melted since that morning. We didn't talk about much, but he seemed less tense – not talking was something we were good at. He showed me the shirts he'd bought at the store, and that was about it.

Maybe we should have talked, but for once I had no idea what I would have said.

Chapter Nine

"Have you ever thought about how amazing hands are?"

I looked up at Lucas through the steam rising from my coffee cup. It was reassuringly hot, a nice contrast to the frost-patterned window of the cafe and the snow that still clung to my boots and trouser-cuffs. I'd caught him just ordering dinner as I came in for a little warmth and society on Christmas eve, and he'd actually invited me to come sit with him – though he'd interrupted Carmen taking his order as he called out to me. He'd been cringing about his faux pas for several minutes.

Things between us had settled back to normal again, or at least we were pretending they had. Lucas had stayed in town well past the "few days" I'd asked for. Snow had continued to fall gently most evenings, which made walking back to The Pines especially difficult. But, judging by the bags of clothing and groceries under the table and the snowshoes leaning against the wall, he was planning on going back tonight. Probably just as well. He seemed to be itching to make sure nothing dire had happened to his cottage and his masks.

"Hands," he prompted, and I realized I'd been studying him without really listening.

"Hands? Are you drunk?" I asked, raising an eyebrow.

"It's only six o'clock!"

"Some people drink early," I shrugged.

"No, I'm not drunk," he said. "I was just thinking about it. I was watching this dog, the one that lives in the department store? There's this itchy bit right here...well, here on a dog," he said, indicating a spot just below his ribcage on his right side. "There was just no way for him to reach it – front paws don't bend that way and his back legs weren't quite long enough. It just made me think, you know..." He held up his hand. "These spindly little breakable things on the ends of our arms can reach, grasp – scratch any place on our bodies, really – hold tools..."

"So can monkey's hands."

"Don't you think it's a little bit great? I just..." he shrugged. "I think about bodies, what they mean, what they do."

I looked down at his hands.

"Marvels of engineering," he said quietly. "A single part of the body which can reach nearly any other part. Pencils, doorknobs, pianos...mugs with handles – mugs without handles, for that matter," he said. He picked up his cup of coffee, left hand gripping the handle, right wrapped around the cup itself. "We invented them all because of hands. If cats were the dominant species on the planet, what do you suppose they'd invent?"

"Machines you can operate with your tail, I suppose," I said. "A little limiting, Lucas."

"No doubt," he answered, then changed the subject. "New Year's is coming soon. I suppose the village does something? Some kind of..."

"Pot-luck dinner," I said.

"Another one?"

"You knew you moved to a small town, Lucas," I said with a grin. "It's not fireworks and a rock concert, but it's nice. They hold it here, at the cafe. There'll be dancing. Tons of food. More than Thanksgiving, even."

"Idyllic," he said. "The whole village is a little like a postcard, you know. Sometimes I wonder if it's going to turn out to be some kind of horror novel after all, but I can't quite see it."

I smiled. "We have our problems, but I don't think there's anything that macabre. Unless you count the Straw Bear."

"Maybe the Straw Bear didn't used to be symbolic."

"Maybe not. Then again, most places have something in their past that's best left there," I said. It never occurred to me that it wasn't the false violence of the straw bear he meant, but rather the transformation. "It's all an eternal puzzle, Lucas. But you will come to New Year's?"

"Oh, I think so. It sounds like fun," he said. "Do I have to bring something?"

"Well, no one has to. I don't think anyone would care if you didn't. We all know how far away you live. Are you going back today?"

"Yes – just screwing up my courage," he said. "I'll see you on New Year's if I'm not back sooner."

"Quite a walk back to your place," I said. "Can't someone drive you down to the end of the asphalt?"

"It's out of the way for nearly everyone. I don't mind."

"You will, halfway there with nowhere to put your bags down. Let me close the shop and I'll come with you," I said.

Lucas glanced at me, then nodded nervously, setting out some money for the meal. "You don't have to come help, you know."