I have crossed paths with many monsters in my life. They are all terrifying, but some far more
than others. When you walk among the
occulted you must be cognizant, above all things, of the war. The war rages mostly unseen to those dayworld
souls who aren’t forced to hide in the fiction.
But to the occulted, to those who don’t have the luxury of supposed
plain speaking, the battles in this war are something we must learn to live
with. In this war of imagination you
learn to choose your battles wisely, or else find yourself desecrated upon dark
altars of which the dayworld souls know nothing. Stories, spirits, dreams and wraiths walk
among you always. They interact in a
staggering variety of ways, intimate with all of us. Imagine what it must be like, friend, to kill
with true impunity. To do whatever you
like to whomever you like, and to suffer no consequences. The notion is chilling for a number of
reasons. Yes, there are individuals
among the elites of this world, occulted or otherwise, who have such
power. But I’m suggesting something far
darker than that. Recovering the lost
takes its toll on even the hardiest souls, but being privy to the process by
which something or someone becomes lost is an endlessly nightmarish world in
which to dwell. It is the real world,
you see. A realm that the day-lit souls
would call supernatural. But there are
no true boundaries between this world and any other, and those of us among the
occulted have the scars to prove it. One
might imagine that things are only lost through lack of information, through gaps
in knowledge, and this is often the case for a sun-lit psyche. But sometimes things can become lost right in
front of you. It can drive you close to
madness, or further, bearing witness to such things. It is frightening to watch something literal
become something ephemeral.
It never stops
being frightening.
Once, in my late twenties, I was out
nightwalking. The night is my time and
as a youth I grasped that I would have to extensively explore London in
darkness, for survival if nothing else. I knew of the horrors hiding in the night, but
also I knew of its beauty. I wanted to
know everything I could of its language, its moods and secrets. Because I still believe that I’m not just one
of the occulted. I’m not simply a soldier
in a hidden war. I’m also an artist, or I
try to be. I had to find something more
than just the war. I had to seek beauty
on the battlefield. I suspect I would
have been slain long ago without such a temperament. But on this particular night, unlike most
nights, I wasn’t alone. My aunt and I
were taking a leisurely walk down Brixton Hill, on our way to The Ritzy
opposite the town hall. They were
screening a selection of low-budget independent films. We were undecided on which film to see and
were planning to rock-paper-scissors our way to a final decision. I always enjoyed talking literature and
cinema with her. Despite hiding everything I am from everyone I loved I sought
to forge emotional bonds with them, as genuine as I could make them under the
circumstances. My mother’s youngest
sister was a true friend to me in those days, and I valued that friendship
greatly. As she expounded on the book
we’d read most recently I was trying to simultaneously soak up the wealth of
sounds and scents and images around us, like always. The rhythmic chaos of car tires on asphalt,
the screech of buses passing like red ships on a black river. The white eyes of
approaching headlights, the red eyes receding. The smell of exhaust fumes, the scent of
kebabs and frying fish from the takeaways. Other pedestrians, people afraid to make eye
contact.
It was on the corner of Brixton Water Lane
opposite Corpus Christi that we heard his awful wailing suddenly pierce the
night, halfway between sobs and screams. A naked white guy, perhaps in his mid-thirties,
literally covered in blood. I froze on
the curb, my stomach lurching at the sight. And my first thought was murder. He had killed
someone, or found someone killed.
“Oh God, Jesus! Oh fuck…oh Jesus God!”
I have seen so
many things in my life, but I'd never seen terror like in that naked man's
eyes. Like he'd witnessed hell itself,
like he would never be sane again. He
was half running, half staggering, towards one of the phone boxes on the corner.
The blood was everywhere; his neck, his torso, his arms and legs. It wasn’t his blood. My first instinct was to hurry to him, to
help him somehow, but my aunt grabbed my arm.
"Are you fucking crazy?" she admonished with terror
in her voice, tugging at my arm in an effort to get me moving again. We crossed Brixton Water Lane and kept
walking. But both of us couldn't help
peering over our shoulders as the blood-drenched naked man wailed and stammered
into the public phone inside that glass box.
"...she’s dead...my…my girlfriend! Oh fuck…oh Jesus Christ..."
I felt truly awful for walking away because
I knew it was no chance occurrence that we were witnessing this, and yet I let
my aunt's firm grip on my arm dissuade me from my better instincts. I told myself that if I’d been alone I
would’ve gone to him. I still believe
that. No police cars raced past us on
our way to the cinema, despite both of us half expecting them at any moment.
For the rest of
the night everything felt stilted and wrong. We watched the movie and went for dinner
afterwards, but the conversation was minimal. We spoke in hushed tones,
glancing at one another like we were guilty of inaction; trying to convince
ourselves it was such a rare and frightening sight that anyone would have
reacted the way we did. I couldn't speak
for her, but in my heart I knew I’d contravened my own moral code. I
touched the little silver cross at my throat; for comfort, in shame.
Sometimes things
appear in my life that seem to warp the very fabric around me with a kind of dark
gravity. This was such a time. That night I couldn't sleep. Every time I closed my eyes I saw him, I heard
him. Staggering and stumbling and
completely covered in what I knew was human blood. Wailing into the phone about his dead girlfriend.
A million questions were spinning in my
head as I lay there. Had he killed her,
or found her killed? There must be a
crime scene now, I imagined. Brixton
Water Lane must be cordoned with tape and lit with the blue neon of police
sirens as I lay in my bed. I knew I’d
witnessed the blood-drenched man for a reason, but I walked away like a
coward. His terror had been all too real.
Despite
myself I tried to forget about him. I went
to work, I went to lectures. I smoked
joints with my girlfriend and drank with our friends. But the mental image of that man – the gravity
of that image – seemed to hang like something unfurling dark wings above me. It wasn't until nearly a week later that I realized
couldn't take it anymore and was compelled to return to where my aunt and I had
seen him.
In the afternoon daylight the crossroads on Brixton Hill
seemed perfectly ordinary. Not at all
like the disturbing atmosphere of that night. The road wasn’t cordoned with police tape. Not an officer in sight. There was no trace of blood anywhere on the
pavement. Despite the time that had
passed I knew that something was profoundly, terrifyingly wrong. I tried to attune myself to the energies
around me but could discern nothing. I
went into the phone box on the corner and picked up the receiver just as he had
done. Still, I could intuit very little.
All I could detect now was a kind of
fading hum like an orchestra in the echo of the closing notes. But the hum
didn't seem to fade. It hung in the air,
perpetual somehow. I wasn't sure at all
what I was sensing, if anything. Softly
I muttered a few of the words I’d heard him speak, as I held the receiver to my
ear.
"She’s dead...my
girlfriend...oh God."
Still nothing besides the hum. It was frustrating. I knew I was usually better than this. I told myself that it was some kind of psychic
reaction to shock. There was no trace of
blood anywhere in the booth either. I
left the phone box and stood on the corner, glancing around at the dayworld
souls and their dayworld concerns. Across the street Corpus Christi sat
brooding on the corner of Trent Road, but the church didn’t seem as oddly
menacing as it does at night. Being very
fond of churches I'd been inside Corpus Christi a few times in my youth, but I always
found it unsettling in a way I couldn’t really define. It never comforted me in the way other churches
did. I came to suspect that the place
held unpleasant secrets hidden from even the occulted. But then, so many churches do. I sighed and turned, peering down
Brixton Water Lane. I realized I could
head that way to eventually reach my aunt's place. I had recently painted the entire flat for her
and still had a set of keys. Normally we
spoke on the phone all the time, but several days had passed and neither of us
had called the other since that night.
I lit a
cigarette and began heading down Brixton Water Lane. About halfway down the road my blood ran cold.
A white guy, mid-thirties, sitting on
the steps of a Victorian semi-detached house. Dressed in jeans and a dark red t-shirt, a
book in his hand, smoking like I was. The
guy from the other night. I was absolutely
certain of it. The image of his face,
his terrified eyes – it was scorched onto my brain. I could've picked him out of a crowd. It's not something you forget. But it was more than that. The air around me felt pregnant with
something. Not the odd hum I'd felt
minutes earlier. Something else. His expression was content, almost serene as
he sat on the steps, smoking and reading, occasionally glancing up and closing
his eyes to feel the breeze on his face. No trauma or loss in his expression. Just a normal guy sitting with a book and a
cigarette.
"Oh God…" I murmured to myself. Suddenly I felt crazy, completely insane. This couldn't be the guy, my human reason
tried to assure me. But I knew in my
bones it was him. I could feel it. Desecration,
I thought, and I was afraid because I knew what that could mean. I didn't think twice about it. I immediately dropped my own cigarette and
crushed it beneath my shoe. I removed a
fresh one from the pack in my pocket as I approached the house. The tips of my fingers were cold now. The familiar tingle was creeping along the
nape of my neck, down my shoulder blades.
"Excuse me, mate? You got a
light?"
He glanced up and smiled amicably. "Sure, mate. Sure."
He gestured for me to come over. I reached the steps and he leaned forward to
hand me the lighter.
"Cheers,
man."
"No
worries."
I stole a
glance at the book he was reading. An Accidental Man, by Iris Murdoch. I sparked the cigarette, handed him back the
lighter and began glancing around like I was confused. Inside I was close to panic but I didn't let
it show.
"I used to
live round here when I was a kid but I'm a bit lost to be honest."
He chuckled. "Brixton boy like me, eh? Where you trying to get to?”
“Tulse Hill
Estate. Supposed to be meeting my girlfriend, for a talk. Not looking forward to
it, to be honest.”
He grinned and
nodded like he could relate. “Just follow the road to the end. Turn right and keep going. You’ll find it. Hope it works out.”
“Nice one…?” I
extended a hand and he shook it with a smile.
“Sam. And you?”
“Alex,” I lied. “Nice one, Sam. Take it easy.
Wish me luck. I think I’m gonna
need it.” I began walking away, glancing
over my shoulder at him.
He grinned again. “Single life, Alex. Worse comes to worst, it isn’t too bad. Get to be your own boss and everything!”
I forced a smile
and raised a hand to him, but inside I was close to losing it completely. I didn’t go to my aunt’s place. I headed straight back home.
In a mild state
of panic I attempted to busy myself with dayworld chores and concerns until I
guessed my aunt would be home. When I
finally called her I was very careful in my approach as I led her to recount
that night. She remembered nothing. For her we had a casual stroll, a movie, then
dinner and drinks interspersed with fun conversation. My heart was racing but we continued to chat
like nothing was wrong. And then, without
suggestion from me, she spoke of a bad dream she had a few nights earlier. She could remember very little except
darkness and shards of broken mirrors on the ground. She recalled feeling afraid but couldn’t
remember why. I would often press my
family and friends about their dreams but in this case I didn’t have to. I mentioned nothing about what we had both
witnessed that night.
When dusk began
to gather beyond my windows I knew I had to make preparations for Amma. I could see no other way to quickly gather
the insight I needed. It began as always
with simple meditation, breath work and visualisation. I didn’t often attempt to contact Amma in
this way unless absolutely necessary. We
had a special place we would meet, if the occasion called for it.
St Agnes in
Kennington had once lain derelict since the forties; a strange and haunted
place. I know this because the bombed ruins
frightened and fascinated me as a child.
We lived nearby and the derelict church was a regular feature of my life
back then. Until one day, in my teens,
the ruins of St Agnes inexplicably vanished and a different building with the
same name was standing undamaged in its stead.
I remember how afraid and alone I felt.
Both my mother and my sister never recalled anything being
different. Nobody did. Now history will tell you the bombed church
was demolished in the late forties and another erected in its place in
1958. The original church was never allowed
to fall into disrepair well into the nineties; a rotting, forgotten shell
fenced off on the edge of the park. But
I for one remembered the ruins of St Agnes.
I eventually found a few others who did too, who spoke to me in hushed
voices about it. It was a place the local
squatters often explored at night, and a few of them still remembered. But you will find no history of it being left
derelict until the nineties, only rumours among the occulted now. But the old ruined church still exists in the
dreaming, if you can find it.
I wait for Amma there, among the ruins, peering up through
the partially collapsed roof at stars in the night that don’t look like stars
at all. Instead they appear as frozen
fireworks, swirling patterns of multi-coloured lights like birthing galaxies
above me. Wind moves and whistles
through the shattered places of St Agnes.
I feel it on my skin as vividly as I would in the physical. I sit on a step near the altar, staring at a
broken statue of a crucified Christ on the wall that has been sheared at the
pelvis. Only his legs and the lower
portion of the cross remain affixed to the crumbling church wall. His upper half is broken in several pieces on
the ground among rubble and shadows.
Unsettled, I touch the silver cross at my throat for comfort. I wait for the witch to arrive. I try to be patient, with shadows and columns
and broken statuary all around me.
Finally she
comes, walking slowly down the aisle.
Only a shadow among shadows at first, until the shape resolves itself
into a human form. Amma is barefoot,
clad in ankle and wrist bracelets and skirts of dark cloth. But her slender brown torso is naked. Her shoulders, breasts and stomach are inked
with intricate tattoos. Pattern, symbol
and script. I still don’t know how old
she is, or was. At times she appears to
be in her fifties or sixties and sometimes she seems no older than thirty.
Tonight she appears to be in her mid-forties. A silver nose-ring, a mess of black hair braided
in places and flecked with grey. Already
I can feel her hesitation, her fear. Amma
is rarely afraid. This makes me nervous.
“Hello,
Paul. It’s good to see you.”
Amma once told me
that when we speak together we often do so in a mixture of Arabic, Hindi and Sanskrit,
and occasionally bits of Hebrew, but she never told me why, or how this was
even possible. To my ears she speaks
English perfectly but with a faintly muddled accent suggestive of many travels.
“It’s good to
see you too,” I tell her. I mean it,
despite the uneasiness I feel between us.
I’m too anxious to continue with pleasantries. “Was this Bracken? Out there on Brixton Water Lane that night? Was that his work?”
She kneels before
me as I sit there on the step, placing a hand on my shoulder. “Listen to me, poet. As your friend I strongly advise that you
walk away from this.”
I narrow my gaze
at her. “What?”
There is a pleading
kind of sadness in her eyes. “Haven’t I
proved myself to you as a real friend, Paul?
Haven’t I earned it?”
“Yes,” I admit
through gritted teeth.
“Then hear me
now. These lesser dark ones are no match
for you. I know how brave and strong you
are. But this is something else. Something beyond my complete understanding. I fear if you press too hard with this you
will be eaten by it. I’m not saying this
to frighten you, Paul. I’m saying it
because it frightens me.”
Annoyed, I shrug
her hand from my shoulder. “What kind of
answer is that? I called out for your
help. I only do that when
necessary. Just tell me if this is
Bracken. I’ll decide what’s pressing too
hard.”
She peers sadly
at the floor. “It’s not this
near-immortal you speak of. I don’t
think it’s a man responsible for what you saw. The shape of a man, perhaps. But only the shape.”
“Then what? Not a wraith.
A lesser king? Tell me. Please don’t lie to me, Amma. Not you.
Not after everything.”
“Paul, this is exceptionally dangerous…”
I scowl at her
and rise to my feet, walking away a little and then turning suddenly to face
her. She is still kneeling by the steps,
frowning up at me.
“I don’t
understand you,” I practically growl. “I
don’t understand any of you among the dead.
Haven’t I been sufficiently respectful? You came to me, remember? You inserted
yourself into my life. Do I interrogate you about your past, your
pain? I’m not a fool, Amma. You can play wise and exotic and transcendent
all you want. But I know you’re still
running from things, like all of us. Guilt,
shame. Do I try to open those
wounds? No. I accept you.
You still know far more about me than I do about you. That isn’t fair, but I accept that too. So, what aren’t you telling me? And why?”
She rises to her
feet and I see her eyes flash with something ancient and frightening. But it isn’t intentional. I know she doesn’t mean to scare me.
“Please don’t be
angry with me, poet. I hate it when
you’re angry with me.”
“Then treat me
like the friend that you claim I am.”
She nods,
glancing away. “It occludes itself. It hides, in the light. In the fiction. But not like we do. It takes a lot of power to hide from me, or those
like me. So yes, I’m afraid. For you. Flesh comes apart so easily, Paul. You don’t have the luxuries afforded to my
kind. You know that.”
I sigh and gaze
up through the half-collapsed roof of St Agnes at stars like multi-coloured
galaxies in the night. “This isn’t the
first time,” I tell her. “I’ve heard
stories like this before from other spirits.
I never thought I’d see it with my own eyes. It’s killing with impunity, isn’t it? Slaughtering whomever it wants, and then
folding space somehow…stealing memories from those that survive. Right?”
“I believe so,
yes. Or something much like that.”
“And the bright
ones do nothing? They let it happen, these guardians?” I cannot mask the bitterness in my voice.
“Paul, you know
nothing is that simple. I feel your
horror, truly I do. That’s why I came
here to warn you. Step away from this,
brave one. This isn’t a battle either of
us can win.”
I return my gaze
to her and chuckle cynically. “Aren’t
you supposed to be a fucking witch?”
“I am a fucking
witch,” she retorts at my childishness, her expression a mixture of annoyance
and sympathy. “But I’m a spirit. You are flesh. And it is flesh this thing craves. Ruined
flesh. Blood, and fear. Why else would I warn you, or tell you to
walk away?”
I laugh darkly
again. “So the dead don’t want to see me
die? How sweet.”
“Don’t be like
this, poet. I don’t want to see you suffer. I don’t want to see you tortured and gutted
upon the altar of something that I don’t fully understand. We aren’t talking
about these lesser monsters. These
wraiths and demons. We’re talking about
something darker and older than all of them.
If it can hide so well from me and others like me, then I think my
concern for you is more than warranted. Can
you honestly not see that?”
“And what about
the others?” I ask her, my voice stern.
“What about the girlfriend of this man I saw, and all the others like
her? Do they not matter? Just more collateral damage in a spiritual war? Fuck that.”
She shakes her
head, disappointed. “You sound like a
child, Paul. This righteous blindness of
yours, this hero-complex, it will get you killed eventually. And you are far
too valuable to fall at such a young age.”
“I don’t want to
hear this I’m too valuable bullshit
again, Amma. Seriously. You weren’t
there. You didn’t see the horror in that
guy’s eyes. You didn’t feel the gravity
of it. The sheer wrongness. And he remembers nothing. Literally nothing.”
She closes the
gap between us and takes my hands.
“Isn’t that better, in its way? He
doesn’t suffer the memory of his slaughtered beloved.”
I pull my hands
away; angry, almost tearful. “No, it’s
not better. How can you even suggest that? It’s sick. She was stolen from him, like she never
existed. This whole fucking world is
just so incredibly sick…”
“Paul, sweetheart…”
Tears are welling
in my eyes now. “Sometimes I wish I was
dead, you know.”
“I know,” she
replies quietly. “But the dead continue
to exist. We suffer too, just
differently.”
“I’m going to
hunt this thing, Amma.”
“Please don’t,
Paul. I beg you.”
“I am.”
“And supposing
you find it? What then? You told Althea you’re not an executioner, remember?”
“Maybe I fucking lied.”
I can feel her
fear for me. Her eyes shine with
pleading desperation. “Poet, I beg of
you. Listen
to me. You have no knowledge of how
to slay this thing, or even if it can be slain.
Don’t imagine yourself as greater or stronger than you are. You’re not long out of boyhood, and I fear
this thing is older than the Earth itself. You are a not a god, Paulie. No matter how righteous your rage. You’re flesh. And flesh can suffer terribly. Believe me, I
know.”
I don’t look away
from the genuine concern in her eyes. I
hold her gaze, to show her I won’t be swayed.
“You keep saying that we’re friends, that we’ve always been
friends. So prove it. Have my back. Watch over me.”
She gives me a sad,
bemused smile. “I will most certainly
try, Paul. I always do.”
“Thank you.”
I leave the
derelict church, and the dreaming, returning to the haunted world in which I
dwell. The real world, full of monsters
and secrets and abhorrent brutality.
Time passed, my dayworld life resumed. But I didn’t stop searching. I didn’t stop hunting. Months passed, then more, then more still. I called my occasional brethren to
gather. I consulted adepts among the
local dead, then further afield. I
followed every connection and resonance.
Eventually I learned of Elsie Bryant, and the perceptual fracture that seemed
to surround her. As some told it, ten
year old Elsie had been hit by a train several years earlier. Others said she had drowned when she was only
six years old. But there were some, far fewer
in number, who claimed that Elsie had been stolen by an angel the year before;
an angel that walked as men walk. The
angel had slaughtered the child’s parents, they said. But very few could remember the truth. I can still recall their fear as they spoke
of it, and my chill upon hearing it. I
knew Corpus Christi was a part of this somehow; the church on the crossroads, directly
opposite Brixton Water Lane where my aunt and I had seen Sam covered in blood that
night. But despite my furious research the
exact connection to Corpus Christi continued to elude me. Occasionally I imagined I could feel Amma at
my shoulder, willing me to walk away from all this. But she knew me better than that.
It wasn’t until I
saw an elderly woman on the tube one evening, reading a copy of An Accidental Man by Iris Murdoch, that
I knew I was close. It had been almost
nine months since that night. Sam had
been reading the same novel when I met him on the steps of the house, wearing a
t-shirt that was the same colour as the spilled blood of the girlfriend he
could no longer remember. I asked the
elderly woman on the tube what she thought of the book. Of course, I’d read it carefully since. I’d searched its pages. The woman told me she was enjoying it, then
mentioned her daughter and what a lovely time at Wanstead Flats they’d had the
day before. I was all too familiar with Wanstead
Flats. My girlfriend at the time lived
close to the area, so the connection felt personal. My intuition was screaming at me now, and I
was afraid. But I was not going to drag
my girlfriend into any of this. Already
she knew too much about me. I was not
about to risk her life, or pull her too closely to my world.
The next
afternoon I went to Wanstead Flats alone, on little more than a whim. A willingness to chase even the most seemingly
tenuous of connections. I knew that
meeting the elderly woman on the tube had been highly significant. If something was trying to talk to me I was
willing to listen. I wandered by the
edge of the lake and thought about the name Iris, and the fact that it was also
my maternal great-grandmother’s name. Eyes,
sight, perception. I smoked too many
cigarettes. I skimmed stones across the
water. I thought about little Elsie. I tried to imagine what she and her parents might’ve
been like as a family. I said a prayer
for them, and all the others who had been slaughtered or stolen by this thing
the spirits called an angel. It
frightened me, just the thought of it. I
prayed that somehow these lost ones would find their way home. I lifted the silver cross from my throat and
kissed it. I spent several hours on the
flats, most of it by the lake. As twilight
finally started to descend I decided to begin the journey home. But as I headed across the flats I noticed a
man with his dog on a lead. The dog was
pissing against the foot a tree as the man held an open book in his hand, squinting
to read as the sky darkened. And somehow
I knew he would be reading Iris Murdoch.
Not the same novel Sam and the woman from the tube had been reading, but
something else by the same author. As I
passed by the man I felt the familiar chill on the nape of my neck, when
suddenly he closed the book and I was able to catch its title. The Time
of the Angels, by Iris Murdoch.
“Fucking hell…” I
murmured. I kept walking but circled
back to the tree once the man and his dog had gone. The sky was even darker now, luminous bands
of twilight deepening into night.
There was a little
hollow in the tree, I realized, at about chest height. A dark cavity in the bark. My mouth was dry. The air around me felt pregnant with something
more oppressive than I was prepared for.
But I reached into that little hollow in the tree and my fingers curled
around something hard and flat wrapped in paper. I removed the square of glossy folded paper,
slightly damp at the edges. Not quite
believing what was happening I unfolded the piece of paper and realised it was
a page torn from a book. There was a silver
key nestled within. I swallowed,
trembling. The key was heavy but
slightly smaller than a house key, as though it might open a locker or a sturdy
toolbox of some kind. There was an image
on the unfolded page. A reproduction of
an iconic photograph that I was familiar with.
A black & white photograph of a young girl lying in the grass, hand
under her chin, as what appeared to be fairies danced in front of her. The Cottingley Fairies hoax from 1917. Frances Griffiths and Elsie Wright.
Elsie, like Elsie
Bryant.
Fairies, angels.
My stomach was
tight now with an awful kind of dread, as I realized that someone or something
had led me here intentionally. This
thing, this angel, was aware of me somehow.
Panic began to flood my system as I peered down at the image on the page
and the silver key that had been concealed within it.
“Oh Fuck…” I murmured, glancing around
suddenly like I was being watched. This was not chance, not meaningless
coincidence. I knew that. Suddenly I felt tiny, foolish and utterly
inconsequential.
I felt like
prey.
I refolded the
page with key inside and stuffed them into my pocket, turned and began striding
as fast as I could across the flats in the direction of Leytonstone Station.
For several weeks I existed in a state of consuming
paranoia. I thought countless times
about getting rid of the key and the Cottingley photograph. But I didn’t.
Was I really as stubborn and suicidal as Amma feared me to be? Still, I couldn’t let it go. Thoughts of
blood-drenched men stumbling horrified though the dark filled my days. Thoughts of Elsie Bryant and her family, Sam’s
girlfriend and all the others I would never be able to name. At times I could almost feel Amma begging me
to get rid of the key. The witch was
nothing if not persistent. But I went
back to Leytonstone many times, often to see my girlfriend and pretend some
semblance of a normal life, and sometimes to wander the streets alone at night,
searching for sign and sigil concealed in plain sight. The paranoia felt like dark wings unfurling
somewhere in the skies above me. Almost
six weeks after finding the key I found myself staring in fear one night at a
graffiti on a wall not far from Elim Pentecostal Church. The word was faded but still red and
visible.
IRIS.
Like a madman I
didn’t turn around immediately and go home.
Instead I kept walking, the air shimmering strangely around me. I thought then of what Magda Edith told me
several years before. You don’t come for knowledge of the Jeru, or
Blake’s madness. You come because you’re
a nihilist.
Eventually I
found myself at the top of a strip of road without pavements that seemed to
curve down a little hill, row after row of garages on either side. I could see the tops of houses beyond them in
the darkness stretching all the way down to the foot of the little hill. There were only a few streetlights on this
odd little path, spaced far enough apart to dissuade cautious nightwalkers from
using it as a shortcut. I wasn’t so
cautious. I found myself walking down
that dark and slightly curving path, staring at the many garages as I passed
them. Some were modern with glossy metal
doors that slid or rolled upwards when you opened them. Others were older with two wooden doors, a
dark little window in each. A few of
them looked filthy, like they hadn’t been used or opened in years. It wasn’t panic that filled me now, but a
strange ebbing and rising compulsion. I
felt as though I were almost moving underwater.
When I found it,
I knew. A wide door with flaking black
paint and a smaller door within the larger one.
No windows. It seemed like one of
the oldest garages but I saw that the lock was newer than the door itself. I felt almost certain the key would fit but I
just stood there for a while, peering at the garage in front of me on this dark
little road. My stomach was tight at the
thought of even pulling the key from my pocket.
I still didn’t know who or what had led me here. I was afraid and could feel the strangeness
all around me.
A presence, watchful
and alien. Dark wings.
Eventually I took
the key from my pocket and slipped it into the lock for the smaller door. Despite myself I gasped when the key turned. If I ran now I would never forgive
myself. I didn’t want to falter at the
threshold. I was afraid but my heart
wasn’t pounding. I felt icy and foreign
to myself, like I could feel my own madness almost objectively. I pushed open the door, stepped inside and
closed it behind me.
Complete
darkness.
Nothing lunges at
me, but I know I’m down deeper than ever before. No torch, not even a lighter on me
tonight. I silently pray that Amma is
with me right now, but I cannot feel her.
I’m not certain this darkness around me is what dayworld souls would
call ordinary space. The floor feels
soft. I fumble around blindly for a
wall, for a light switch. I feel what I
think is one and click it. The interior
of the space is softly illuminated in the pale greenish light from a single
bulb on the wall. I inhale sharply. Mirrors.
There are mirrors everywhere. The
entire garage is soundproofed with black foam.
Mirrors of various sizes affixed to the walls and floor and
ceiling. Some of the smaller ones at the
corners are framed, but the largest ones act as centrepieces and have been
inlaid, frameless, into the foam itself.
“Holy Mother of God…” I murmur, as the
reality of what I’m actually seeing begins to sink in. This is not a dream. I’m really standing here. There is nothing in this space besides black
foam and polished mirrors. I feel all
too human now, and the fear all too visceral.
Run, my fear tells me. Fucking
run, now.
I can feel the
sweat on my brow, my chest and back. But
I don’t run. I fight it. I think of Sam, naked and covered in his
girlfriend’s blood, on the corner of Brixton Water Lane. The horror and terror in his eyes. I think of lost Elsie Bryant and her
slaughtered parents, spoken of in hushed tones by the fearful dead. I think of all the nameless others.
“Fuck you,” I hiss
through clenched teeth, like an impetuous adolescent. I cautiously step onto the largest mirror
inlaid in the foam floor. “You hear me,
whatever the hell you are? Fuck you. I’ll let you in on a little secret, you
fucking coward. I’ve been murdered before. More than once. I’m not a god, not like you. But I’m not exactly a man either…”
Silence in this
darkened space tinged with greenish light.
Nothing answers me, but I know I’m being watched somehow. Not by human eyes, or hidden cameras, but by
something that doesn’t need eyes to see.
My hands become
fists. “If you want to come for me, then
come for me. If you want to kill me,
then kill me. But I’m not afraid of
you. I’m afraid of the uncertainty, yes. The not knowing, but not you.” Quietly I add, “You’re
a sick fuck. The world is full of
them. Nothing special, really. I wanted to tell you that.”
I glance down and
notice a spider crawling along the frame of one of the smaller mirrors on the
floor. The spider is about half the size
of my hand. It moves slowly and
purposefully along the golden frame. I
don’t move a muscle, my body rigid with fear and rage and determination. I watch as the spider crawls from the frame
and onto the polished surface of the mirror.
But it doesn’t touch the surface.
It appears to crawl through the mirror itself, onto the reflection of
the frame. I inhale slowly,
shakily. I continue to watch until the
spider in the reflection crawls out of sight.
I am not sure if I have just seen an angel or an insect, but I know I
must leave this place now.
“I’ll be waiting
for your knife,” I say quietly. “Or your complete absence, but nothing in between.”
I turn, switch
off the light and leave the space. I
lock the door, toss the key into the bushes and stalk away past the other
garages and back up the dark curving path to the top of the little hill.
I never tried to
find that road again. I cleansed myself,
in ritual. I tried to let go of it as
best I could. Some weeks later Amma came
to me in dream, in the ruins of St Agnes.
Her smile was full of relief and affection. She told me I was crazy and foolish and very
brave. But I have never felt brave. I’ve only ever felt determined at best. I told her that I will die before I let the
desecration and ugliness of this world define me or my choices. She took my hands, kissed them, wrapped her
knuckles playfully against my skull and told me again how sweet I was, how
valuable. I’ve never felt particularly valuable
either, far from it in fact.
But I care, I
know that.
Sometimes I still
wonder if it will come for me one day. I
wonder if it still watches me, and rages.
For a while I kept the torn page that I’d found concealed in the hollow
of that tree. I kept it for a number of
months, until it felt right to get rid of it.
The black & white photograph of a girl in 1917 watching fairies
dancing in the grass. It reminded me to
pray for Elsie Bryant and her parents, for Sam’s girlfriend and the others I
would never know about. I prayed to
Agnes, to Christ and God, to any loving spirit that could hear me. I hope Elsie and the others found their way
back to their loved ones somehow. If
not, I hope the mystery of this staggering dreamtime is grand enough and kind
enough to grant them that eventually. I
pray this ugliness and desecration shall not define any of us, or extinguish
our light. Friends, true angels, I
humbly ask that you pray for it with me.
