Memorymakers, p.16
Memorymakers, page 16
“That’s okay. I don’t hold you responsible.”
“Part of it has to do with the ancient weakness of our people, the weakness Inferiors are least able to control.” His voice dropped to a whisper. “Gweenmeat. You know what I mean only too well, and the tendency touches us all. It contributed to your problem, and the defective embidium only made matters worse. You were unlucky. But rest assured, I believe you are cured.”
“Entirely?”
“I sense that you are. As a result of the newest implant, of the journey we took in the blinding light of death and life. But only you can answer that question with certainty. In time the answer will be known.”
“If I am cured, what a joy! I had so hoped, oh, how I had hoped! But My Lord, what might I become Director of? The Nebulons are gone, and all is . . . I don’t mean to be pessimistic. I’m just trying to be realistic. Won’t our race die now, since we can no longer make the embidium extractions needed for Ch’Var mental health? What is left, My Lord?”
“There is always something left,” Jabu’s gaze became penetrating, and he added, “Are you afraid you might be the last Director?”
“No, it isn’t that.”
Jabu told Squick of the researches of the Inventing Corps into artificial Nebulons and embidiums, of having to force Tung away from that process, and of her comments that her creative focus might be irretrievable.
Tung returned with her men while Jabu was talking about her, and after a moment’s pause she reported that the children were nowhere on the premises.
Jabu led the group through the disabled stealth-lock, and they became seven flying embers.
Chapter 19
A death clock ticks in the human body and in every race of man. One day our race will end, and a new one shall rise.
—Words of Mother Ch’Var
As soon as Emily had gone to her room, Victoria walked swiftly toward Mrs. Belfer’s back porch room. Angrily, Victoria slammed the door open against an inside wall, and flecks of plaster scattered on the carpet.
The room was messier than usual, with newspapers, food wrappers, magazines and romance novels strewn about. The odors of alcohol and cheap perfume mixed in the air. Victoria wrinkled her nose.
Mrs. Belfer sat up on her bed of lace pillows and demanded in a drunken slur, “What you doin’? How about knockin’, the finisher school way?” She raised one pudgy fist, and with a slightly bent wrist made three delicate little taps against the air before slumping back on one elbow. She stared insolently at her visitor.
Victoria glanced around, saw a pile of empty wine and brandy bottles in the sink, with dirty dishes piled around. “I don’t have to knock in my own house. I do as I damn well please here. Get out of that bed.”
“Make me.”
With hardly a missed beat, Victoria clenched her teeth and dove into combat, pulling away Mrs. Belfer’s red wig. Victoria’s other hand seized a handful of the thin, dark hair that sprouted in uneven patches from the housekeeper’s pink scalp. She pulled Mrs. Belfer to a standing position, in terrified attention.
“Aw right, aw right,” Mrs. Belfer slurred. “You don’t hafta get nasty.”
“Everything’s falling apart and it’s your fault!” Victoria roared. “If you’d watched the children as you were supposed to, none of this would have happened. They wouldn’t have run away and caused me all this.” She shook Mrs. Belfer and then released her.
“We’ve been through this,” the slovenly woman answered in a sullen tone. She stepped backward, retrieved a bottle of white wine from the floor by her bed and edged toward the open door.
But Victoria grabbed her arm and shrilled: “Don’t leave until I’m finished with you! Patrick says I’m never to say anything against his brat Emily ever again.”
“That doesn’t sound like the doc, callin’ his kid a brat.”
“You stupid old woman, of course he didn’t call her that. Don’t play with me! Mon Dieu, when I think of all the oddball statements that girl’s made, and he keeps on defending her.”
Mrs. Belfer tipped up the wine bottle and took a generous swig. Well, I don’t see any reason to get so upset. Man’s got a right to say what he wants where his own kids are concerned.”
“Who cares what you think? You’re nothing, a broken-down loser. Patrick says he’s going to divorce me if I don’t straighten out. That sonofabitch is threatening to divorce me because of you!”
Mrs. Belfer took another drink of wine.
“Did you hear what I said, the way he talked to me? What are you going to do to fix the mess you’ve caused? Talk to Emily for me, get her to admit her lies.” Victoria felt her lips compress into a tight, smug smile. “Yes, that would solve it. The girl listens to you. I’ll even slip some extra cash into the deal for you and the girl.”
Mrs. Belfer shook her head. “Oh, I could never do that. She’s a good girl, won’t turn out like you.”
“Aren’t you forgetting your place in this little arrangement, that your position depends upon me?”
Another swig of wine. “I don’t care ‘bout none o’ that.”
“You’ll be unemployed, out on the street.”
“So what?”
Victoria pushed her face close to Mrs. Belfer’s, despite the odor. “We’ll work something out,” Victoria purred, “so you can continue to buy your bottles of booze. Quid pro quo: you help me, I help you.”
“You think I’m just a lush you can push around, don’t you? Well, maybe I got a surprise for you.” Mrs. Belfer licked her lips.
Victoria wrinkled her nose and thrust the housekeeper away from her. “You smell like a skid row bum.”
Mrs. Belfer lifted her wig from the floor and set it backward upon her head. The wig slid askew and gave her a clownish appearance, but she pulled herself erect and glared at Victoria.
“I like those kids,” Mrs. Belfer said, “and I like the doc. You’re no good for them, and I’ll tell about the girl you let drown at your college party. I’ll show the videotape I have, and I got lotsa copies made of it, spread ‘round town in safe places. Society page headlines, I can see ‘em real clear.”
Victoria felt her face flush. With shaking hands she removed her long scarf and stretched it tautly between her hands.
Mrs. Belfer’s eyelids narrowed, and she hefted the bottle to one side, like a weapon.
A black rage consumed Victoria, and she moved toward the housekeeper, rolling the scarf into a tight rope as she approached.
In her bedroom upstairs, Emily slipped into a clean sweater and skirt and combed her damp hair. In the mirror of her dressing table, she saw herself, slight-figured with straight brown hair . . . and beside that, on the mirrorless stucco wall another version of herself appeared—as an adult with fuller features.
When she moved, the girl and woman reflections moved with her in synchronization, and when she smiled the same teeth showed in both reflected smiles, without perceptible change from teen to adult.
She leaned close to the adult reflection, saw a long scar behind one eyebrow that she didn’t have now, a scar that didn’t appear on the teen reflection, and this gave her pause for thought.
I’m going to be injured.
Nonetheless she wanted to grow into that woman in her future, into that kindly countenance that gazed back upon her with the expression of mother to child. Emily didn’t want to be a teenager any longer, not in this house with Victoria.
Nonna had told her that the teens were difficult years anyway, from physical and chemical changes in the body. But Nonna put an upbeat tone to it, adding that breezes still blew and birds sang and flowers grew and girls turned into young women despite the pain.
Emily had a sudden desire to call her grandparents and tell them she and Thomas were back. They must have worried terribly at their disappearance, as much as Emily’s father. She wanted to go straight to their house and sit close by Nonna and talk to her about the Chalk Man and Squick and the power she had and the terrible occurrences in Squick’s building. Nonna would listen to her, wouldn’t say she was crazy.
The wall and mirror images faded before her, and unbidden Ch’Var memories spilled forth, a dark cloud of indecipherable alien information that drifted over her, touching her and receding, touching and receding.
Each touch was heavier than the one previous, and she cried out words in an alien tongue that were not quite clear to her in meaning.
Then a voice asked, “What’s the matter?” and she saw Thomas in the doorway, face flushed from his bath, his bare feet poking out beneath his robe.
“Nothing.”
He sat on the cedar chest at the end of her bed, crossed his arms and frowned thoughtfully. “It’s about all the stuff that happened to us, isn’t it? Like you activating the Chalk Man and that deranged, strange guy, Peenchay, that you killed.”
“That I killed?”
“Sure. You created the blackboard monster. Look, Sis, don’t get riled at me. I don’t wanna mess with you.”
She scowled, but when she saw the bemused expression on his face and the twinkle in his eyes she couldn’t suppress a smile and a little laugh. “It all happened, didn’t it?” she said. “We didn’t imagine it. Thomas, I’m frightened of the power. I don’t know how to control it. What if I hurt someone accidentally, like you or Dad?”
Thomas considered this for a moment, his head tilted back in a thoughtful pose. Presently he replied, “You wouldn’t. You couldn’t. I see it this way. We were in the middle of a war, and Peenchay would have killed us if we didn’t get him first.”
“I didn’t want to kill anyone,” she said, her voice faltering, “not even that monster. I’m different from other kids, Thomas. I’d only suspected it before, but the extent is becoming clearer. I’ve got things rolling around in my head I don’t understand, frightening things about Ch’Vars and Gweens and Nebulons, and . . . I just saw a flash . . . billions of faces, zillions of them at once. Squick did something to my mind with his filthy Nebulons, I’m not sure what.”
“I don’t think we’ll find any of this in Dad’s medical books. I don’t think it’s hormones or . . .”He paused, and his eyes opened wide. “What about poltergeists, those noisy ghosts that make furniture fly and stuff? Could you be tied in with them?”
Emily laughed. “It’s a better explanation than any I have, but the Chalk Man wasn’t that noisy—except when he was chewing . . . eeuuu! It doesn’t seem real. Do you know I can’t even call you Tom-Tom anymore because of Squick calling you that? That evil man has taken something away from us, something that was precious and we’ll never have again.”
“I’ll get rid of the t-shirt.”
Emily nodded. “We’re growing up in a hurry, I guess. Hey, you’d better finish dressing before Victoria starts yelling about something. She hasn’t changed.”
“I wish she had,” Thomas said. He traipsed across the hall to his room.
A few minutes later, satisfied she’d done the best she could with her appearance, Emily started down the stairs. A scream from below hurried her on her way. She wasn’t sure, but the voice sounded something like Mrs. Belfer’s, a loud, frightened cry that subsided quickly.
Emily raced through the house, past the kitchen to the housekeeper’s quarters. Inside the back porch room, Victoria stood with outstretched arms, dancing a peculiar ballet with Mrs. Belfer. The housekeeper’s red wig dangled from one side of her head, and she looked limp, a drunken rag doll. Mrs. Belfer’s feet were dragging on the ground, and Emily noticed a scarf around her neck, with one of Victoria’s long arms around the woman’s neck, long fingers tight on the scarf.
“My God, you’re killing her!” Emily shouted, and she pummeled her stepmother with her fists. “Let go of her, you witch, let her go!”
The scarf loosened to a large loop and Mrs. Belfer’s head slid through. She slumped to the floor. Scarf still held in her outstretched hands, Victoria turned her attention to Emily. The fabric made crisp sounds as the woman stretched and released it—snap, snap, snap.
Emily hesitated. Should she call forth the Chalk Man? It would be so easy to eliminate Victoria from her life forever. Concentrating, Emily saw her protector’s dim outline begin to sketch itself beside Victoria.
But Emily’s father loved this woman, and the girl wasn’t sure she could destroy someone he loved. Besides, Emily knew that she wanted this woman dead and out of her life forever, and the feelings were deep, a loathing so intense that it made the act terribly wrong. The Chalk Man’s image began to fade.
“Dance with me,” whispered Victoria, and she looped the scarf around Emily’s neck.
Emily struggled in her grasp, felt the scarf bite into her neck, twisting against her skin until it threatened to cut off air. Victoria’s eyes blazed with feral lavender light.
“Don’t do this,” Emily said. But she slid toward unconsciousness with the eyes of the woman luminous above her, a pair of unrelenting lavender suns. Emily couldn’t believe her stepmother would kill her, not this debutante trained in the most exclusive finishing schools, this social butterfly who spoke civilized French and had the finest table manners.
They didn’t strangle people in finishing school.
Emily slipped farther into unconsciousness, and she felt too weak to call for her Chalk Man. She sensed another presence nearby—in Victoria’s blazing eyes?
Something in the eyes shocked Emily to awareness. They were red now, not lavender, and light bounced in the air in front of her eyes, like embers from a fire. The pressure on Emily’s neck ceased, and the light expanded until it covered Victoria’s face, concealing it. As quickly as it had expanded it contracted and became a dot of color, a single ember, burning brightly on the end of Victoria’s nose.
Then the ember vanished, leaving only Victoria’s startled face. She stared at Emily with eyes no longer filled by alien light, eyes that were lavender but without vitality. The scarf slipped from her hands and her arms dropped limply at her sides.
Slowly, Emily backed away, and her stepmother stood in one place as though stunned. Her perfect mouth opened and a babble of sound came forth in French and English, senseless ravings, without emotion.
Emily retrieved the scarf from the floor and tied Victoria’s hands tightly behind her back. Victoria did not resist, hardly twitched a muscle.
Mrs. Belfer stirred and groaned, and Emily crouched beside her.
“What the hell . . . ” Mrs. Belfer said in a raspy voice. She rubbed a red mark that ringed her neck. “She tried to kill me.”
With Emily’s assistance the housekeeper sat up and stared angrily at Victoria. “What happened to her? She was all over me, I went under, and now she looks like a zombie.”
“I don’t know,” Emily answered. “She acted like all her energy drained away, and I tied her up.”
Mrs. Belfer forged all of her drunken facial wrinkles into a smile, and she gazed at Victoria. “How nice. Victoria, oh Victoria, did this little kid whip you? Tsk, tsk, look at you now.”
“Don’t provoke her,” Emily said. “She went into some kind of trance, and if she comes out of it she could get free.”
“Why does she keep standing there like that?”
Emily shrugged. “I don’t know.”
“I’m gonna call your dad and get him home right away.”
“I called and left a message,” Emily said. “He’s in surgery. I’m sure he’ll be home as soon as he can.”
“Well, when he shows up I got lots to tell him. This lady ain’t what she’s been puttin’ on to be. Your dad had better watch out for you kids, and for himself. I don’t blame you for runnin’ away, but you gotta know there’s terrible things happenin’ out there in the world. Right now there’s kids droppin’ like flies with some god-awful disease that puts them into comas. You don’t want that to happen.” She straightened her shoulders and lifted her chin.
For a brief moment Emily saw the woman that Mrs. Belfer probably had been many years earlier, and felt a deep pity for her.
“I’m gonna call the cops,” Mrs. Belfer said, and she punched one of the blue programmed buttons on the telephone.
Two policewomen escorted Victoria from the house. She went without protest to their blue and white patrol van while Emily and Mrs. Belfer watched.
“Acts like she’s on something,” one policewoman said as they eased Victoria onto a padded platform at the side of the van. “Custom drugs, maybe. The expensive stuff.”
“None o’ that!” Mrs. Belfer exclaimed. “She’s just nuts! And I got a lot more to tell you about her!” And Mrs. Belfer winked at Emily.
Emily watched the platform slide into the back of the van, and she didn’t feel the least bit smug or happy about Victoria’s arrest. It would hurt Emily’s father when he found out, and the girl wasn’t sure what to tell him. What did Mrs. Belfer mean about more to tell?
Just before the van’s side door slid shut, Emily saw a stream of tiny red lights fly out, and she was able to count them—seven—before they ascended out of sight. One—the first ember to appear—had been brighter than the others.
“Did you see that?” Emily asked, glancing sidelong at Mrs. Belfer.
But the housekeeper seemed preoccupied with rubbing the wounds on her neck, and Emily didn’t ask again.
Chapter 20
The end circles the beginning, and the sleeping Lordmother sleeps no more.
—From a popular song
Guilt gnawed at Emily as she lay on her bed, staring at the circle of light made by her lamp on the ceiling. She’d spoken with her father too briefly that evening on the telephone. She’d told him she loved him, and he’d said the same of her and Thomas. He said he’d have to see to Victoria’s situation before coming home.
“We’ll wait up for you, Daddy,” Emily had promised.
And she wondered what details she should give him. The sight of Victoria dull-eyed and unmoving had been shocking. Those funny specks of light that preceded Victoria’s cessation of violence, had Emily brought those forth unknowingly? The thought that she might have done this muddled her sense of relief, sickened her.
