Was it he who had her mother? Or knew where she was? Was this even her quest, or was she merely picking up that of her mothers?
Ivy didn’t know the answers to these question, and it did not deter her from ascending the staircase in pursuit of him, or in pursuit of her mother. All thoughts of the terrible things she had seen before she began her ascent were gone from her mind. In their place was only her mother and her sister. Her sister Violet, who could play the piano with virtuoso skill before she could walk, who knew the names of each plant in the garden and of those beyond. Her sister Violet who -
Adam paused, taking a drink, emptying the glass and refilling it, pouring another Amber globule of honey and stirring with his brush once more. He looked to his painting, the one he didn’t even realise that he had begun. It showed another view of the staircase, the girl a mere scratch of paint at the bottom, near the centre of the gyre of iron. He frowned, not recalling painting it at all.
Something else buzzed in his brain, in unison with the fat lazy buzzing of whatever it was that still buzzed in the kitchen. Something that he couldn’t quite place but seemed out of sync with what events he could recall. Looking around himself he took in the contents of his apartment, and wondered what point things had changed. He knew the ivy had worked it’s way in, some interminable amount of time ago. The wall adjoining his apartment with next door was uneven and bulged alarmingly inwards in some places. The few prints he had hung on there when he had moved in - some abstract pieces and even, vainly, a few of his own work - were all shattered and tired on the clotted carpet, festooned with greenery. The wall looked like a plague. Buboes continuing dark cracks from which seeped darker liquid. A thin coating of a slick reflective surface over most of the partition. He wondered when he would next near that familiar whump again. Wondered when he had last heard it and couldn’t remember. He thought what that horrid and and woman were going to say, or rather, had said to Denys and Yana.
Nothing to do with me though, he shrugged, taking another gulp and going back to his painting. He had jammed the brush atop his ear, like he used to do in the good old days, and prepared to paint more when the thing that had been buzzing in his head suddenly announced itself.
Was it a coincidence? This manuscript was new, she had written it at some point since their first meeting. He wondered why she had not been in touch herself to pass it to him. Or the agency could have relayed it to him. Would it not need to go via them anyway? He had no idea why the two Tim Burton film rejects had to have been the ones to deliver.
That’s not even it though.
And it wasn’t.
Violet. His daughter.
His daughter. She was in the book. As a sister of the protagonist. She was in the previous section. The one he had been given and, presumably, that he had read a million times. Yet he hadn’t thought about it until now.
She needs me.
How the fuck could he forget about her? She had phoned him
in my nightmares
hadn’t she? Why the hell had Amber not been in touch?
Another swig of Vodka.
Both phones in front of him now. His one. The black slab with the touch screen that had cost him a good chunk of his commission when he had bought it, and the other one. The
spineless sneaky bastard
cheap one that he didn’t realise he still had.
He picked his up and unlocked it. Tried to unlock it.
It wouldn’t’ recognise his print.
“Fucking thing,” he cursed. He tried all the fingers on his right hand including his thumb, then all the digits on his left. It would. Have to be the passcode. Easy. That was Violet’s date of birth. Which was…
He had drawn a blank. He couldn’t remember it.
Slow down addy boy, he said to himself, you’re flustered. That’s why.
He sat there, staring at the lock screen. Six digit password. Six fucking digits. His daughter’s birthday. His daughters birthday.
He tried something. Certain that was it.
No.
Something else.
No.
Again. Another date. Another.
LOCKOUT - PLEASE TRY AGAIN IN FIFTEEN MINUTES - TOO MANY INCORRECT ATTEMPTS.
“Fuck you!” He launched the phone from his hand for the final time. It connected with the doorframe into his bedroom with a loud and very definitive crack.
Oh god no, he thought, pushing himself away from the table and forcing his table over the earthy and sodden floor. Something squelched and squeezed under him but he didn’t care. He reached the phone and picked it up. The screen wouldn’t even come on this time, a white cobweb of thin cracks. Something jangled inside it. He had finally broken it. His only means of contacting his daughter.
Unless he had stored a number on that other piece of shit phone of course.
Back at the table, contacts list, nothing. Just her. Just D.
He dialled the number, for a need of something to do apart from anything else.
It rang twice before a connection was made.
“Hello?”
“It’s Adam,” he replied.
“Did you get it?”
“What, the story? I’m not calling about that but yes I got it.”
“Good.”
She sounded flat. Distant. Off. Cold. Like she had been in the gallery. Like she hadn’t known him. In fairness, he hadn’t known her. Not then.
That was earlier, of course you knew her. He frowned. Perhaps another one of him had known her. This version of him hadn’t Had, in fact, met her for the first time.
So what version was this?
“I need to find a phone number but without the internet I don’t think I can.”
Silence on the line.
He wasn’t sure what he expected from her. If anything. He still didn’t know her.
“Finish it.”
“Are you not going to help?” His temper rose. His entitlement with it. “I need you to -”
“You don’t need anything, other than to finish it. She will have to wait. She’s waited long enough.”
He hadn’t said who he needed to call.
“Who, Violet? I need to reach her, she’s my -”
“I know who she is. I’m the one who wrote her.”
The hell are you talking about?
“You know ‘the hell’. Now, finish it. I’m only the writer. You’re the artist. We need to see it. Finish it and come and meet me. You know where.”
Click.
“Hello?”
Static. The conversation was over.
The phone soon joined the other one, only this one didn’t even survive intact. It fragmented into small shards of grey plastic. So went his only means of communication, but as he hadn’t been particularly good at it recently, he didn’t think that would matter. What did matter was that he needs to contact his ex-wife and make sure his daughter was alright. He would phone the police. Denys and Yana would have a phone. He would ask to borrow it for a moment. That would one okay, surely? Denys seemed to like him and Yana
was consuming her children
did as well.
He smiled. That was good positive and affirmative action. That’s what he needed. This was all going rather well now. He was painting. He had a direction, and he was going to check on his daughter like any normal doting father would.
He pushed himself towards the hall but the chair became snagged in some of the deep vegetation that had grown there. It was worse towards the door and very soon he realised that he was actually stuck in position. Held fast by the twisting tendrils and some black tar like substance that had taken over most of the floor there. His hands were soon covered in it as he tried to push himself through but that only made it worse.
There was no way forward, and no way that he was going to get moving in any direction.
The other chair was no good. It still lay folded against the sofa but as it was even more slight than this one then it wouldn’t stand a chance.
No choice.
Pushing up and back, he let his body fall to the floor, landing in amongst the sticky sweet smelling blackness. No choice but to crawl to his bedroom, where the prosthetics were. It was either that or crawl down the hall towards his neighbours and he liked to think that he still had some fucking dignity left.
She reached the second floor landing and the open door there beckoned her in. The staircase was impassible here beyond, with long majestic tendrils of foliage knitting together to form a doorway that she didn’t dare attempt to open. It formed a crest that she knew only too well. House Maringian was not to be trusted, and, she reasoned, if even the plants were under it’s instruction, they would don’t let her continue.
The doorway.
She caught a glimpse of what was beyond it and she tentatively approached, pushing it open with one trembling hand. Light flooded out to meet her and she stepped in, her face alight with the stars the gracefully fell from the endless black voice above and caressed her skin.
The room was circular and stone. High narrow windows with shards of sunlight. In the centre was a pedestal containing a jar of amber. The shards of light from the windows converged on the jar and radiated outwards. The small stars on her skin tickled and itched, and she brushed them off as she went closer. Closer with her arm outstretched, no longer shaking. No longer nervous. It was for her. It was there for her.
His arms outstretched, he took hold of the prosthetics, too afraid to commit himself fully into the bedroom. There was something large and dark lying on the bed. A cloud of fat blowflies a mist above it. Something in him didn’t wish to see what it was, and so brought his artificial limbs to him. They were heavy and cold, the ivy fully entwined in them, so much that he had to wrench them free. More still clung on but he didn’t scare. This was the way he was going to leave his apartment. He had to leave his apartment because he had to phone his daughter.
He strapped them to his legs where he lay in the doorway. Nudging himself back to the frame and sitting up, resting his back to the warped wood. They should have just clicked in place to the artificial sockets below his knees but the metal was warped and rusted. It took him time to try and bend it back into position and even then they wouldn’t’ connect properly.
Fuck it, he thought, I’ll crawl there.
The shape on the bed sat up and turned it’s head to look at him. Those eyes were still like old coins, glittering in the dark.
“You can walk. It’s what I’ve been trying to tell you.” It’s voice was fuzzy, mushy. It turned so it’s legs hung out. “You can take these. They’ll help.”
It leaned forward. She leaned forward and pulled both limbs off below the knee. A cloud of white wriggling bodies fell from each one and more large flies drifted up to join the main hazy dark mass.
“N-no,” Adam stammered, pushing himself further back. “I’ll manage.”
“Suit yourself,” Iris Fleet said, and turned back, resting back down on the bed. Something large wriggled out from her side and fell to the floor with a wet slurp.
Adam had seen enough and turned away, forcing the limbs on and into the sockets until they finally clicked. Pulling himself up on shaky legs with the aid of the doorway, he stumbled towards the living room, pulling the bedroom door firmly shut behind him. That could join the kitchen and be out of bounds for now.
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