Authors: Chris Adrian
The Great Night (24 page)
A
s she ran, Molly heard her mother telling her it was too soon after eating to exercise so vigorously. When she heard the noise of the iron doors falling down, she had sprinted out of the feasting chamber through the nearest door and hadn't slowed down since, running at top speed down a featureless gray corridor that opened every few minutes into another marvelous room, but she knew it would be stupid, or even deadly, to stop to see the sights. The more she ate, the hungrier she had felt, and even though she had gravy on her lips and pudding in her hair, she felt very light on her feet and was sure she could run a mile, or swim two, if she needed to. She went along with a bottle in her hand, sure she could feel the threat behind her as an actual pressure and heat against her back and her bottom. When she finally paused for breath, she took a long sip of the wine.
s she ran, Molly heard her mother telling her it was too soon after eating to exercise so vigorously. When she heard the noise of the iron doors falling down, she had sprinted out of the feasting chamber through the nearest door and hadn't slowed down since, running at top speed down a featureless gray corridor that opened every few minutes into another marvelous room, but she knew it would be stupid, or even deadly, to stop to see the sights. The more she ate, the hungrier she had felt, and even though she had gravy on her lips and pudding in her hair, she felt very light on her feet and was sure she could run a mile, or swim two, if she needed to. She went along with a bottle in her hand, sure she could feel the threat behind her as an actual pressure and heat against her back and her bottom. When she finally paused for breath, she took a long sip of the wine.
The more she drank, the more clearheaded she felt and the more coordinated she became. As she ran, everything was feeling for the first time like it was making sense: she was lost in a cathartic dream of instruction, peopled by incarnations of her
neuroses, and the deadly threat behind her was nothing less than the roiling mass of her feelings for her dead, abandoning boyfriend. She neither knew nor needed to know why those feelings should take Peabo's form in the same way that she didn't need to worry anymore about whether or not what was happening was real. It was real enough to demand that she deal with it, and sometime very soon she was going to need to stop running and turn around, but not quite yet. The lesson of the meal she had just left was that there is always room to enjoy yourself, and always something to appreciate, even when you've lost your mind and lost all hope and have clawed your way down not just into the slough of despond but beyond it into the subsequent sloughs of despair and please-kill-me-now. She hadn't meant or wanted to enjoy that unexpected feast, but she had, and it made her feel big in her soul, how she could delight in the texture of a crispy bit of chicken skin at the same time that she mourned her lost boyfriend and her lost mind, and she didn't have to choose between delight and despair: she could experience them both to their fullest simultaneously. She didn't know whether that was progress or just a detour on her road to suicide-survivor recovery, or if this double capacity for feeling might dissipate when she turned around to be rent by monster-Peabo. But she was going to enjoy it for a while. If she was drunk, this was the best drunk of her life, and she wanted it to go on and on. She sped up, sure she could be sprinting down a balance beam as easily as a sidewalk, and gave it a try, fleetly placing one foot in front of the other, and then leaping imaginary candles perched along the imaginary balance beam, and then stepping through tires set at intervals between the imaginary candles on the imaginary balance beam, and wondering, just before she tripped and fell, if she could see the tires and the candles so clearly, why they didn't
just appear, here at the approaching bottom and climax of her allegorical recovery dream adventure?
neuroses, and the deadly threat behind her was nothing less than the roiling mass of her feelings for her dead, abandoning boyfriend. She neither knew nor needed to know why those feelings should take Peabo's form in the same way that she didn't need to worry anymore about whether or not what was happening was real. It was real enough to demand that she deal with it, and sometime very soon she was going to need to stop running and turn around, but not quite yet. The lesson of the meal she had just left was that there is always room to enjoy yourself, and always something to appreciate, even when you've lost your mind and lost all hope and have clawed your way down not just into the slough of despond but beyond it into the subsequent sloughs of despair and please-kill-me-now. She hadn't meant or wanted to enjoy that unexpected feast, but she had, and it made her feel big in her soul, how she could delight in the texture of a crispy bit of chicken skin at the same time that she mourned her lost boyfriend and her lost mind, and she didn't have to choose between delight and despair: she could experience them both to their fullest simultaneously. She didn't know whether that was progress or just a detour on her road to suicide-survivor recovery, or if this double capacity for feeling might dissipate when she turned around to be rent by monster-Peabo. But she was going to enjoy it for a while. If she was drunk, this was the best drunk of her life, and she wanted it to go on and on. She sped up, sure she could be sprinting down a balance beam as easily as a sidewalk, and gave it a try, fleetly placing one foot in front of the other, and then leaping imaginary candles perched along the imaginary balance beam, and then stepping through tires set at intervals between the imaginary candles on the imaginary balance beam, and wondering, just before she tripped and fell, if she could see the tires and the candles so clearly, why they didn't
just appear, here at the approaching bottom and climax of her allegorical recovery dream adventure?
She felt like she'd been running as fast as a car, and she tumbled along, rolling and spinning, as far and as fast as if she'd fallen out of one, finally coming to rest seated with her legs splayed out on either side of her and listing so far to one side that her hair swept the ground before she righted herself. She kept her eyes closed and patted herself on the head and arms and legs, feeling for fractures and bruises, but her bones and her muscles felt pleasantly numb all over, as if she were touching someone else entirely. She straightened her hair and cleared her throat and opened her eyes, half expecting to be back at the feasting table or face-to-face with Peabo, but she was in another giant room, this one not quite empty but filled with portraits.
The corridor that had brought her here was nowhere to be seen: it might have ended here, except that she remembered having seen it shortly before she tripped, stretching featureless and gray into the distance. Now the darkness all around was broken only by puddles of light thrown upon the wall at regularly spaced intervals, lighting up pictures of boys. They stretched to her left as far as she could see, until the puddles of light shrank to specks. To her right they ran to a wall in the far distance, where a brighter light fell down upon some kind of sculpture. She didn't like museums; they made her feel sleepy and overwhelmed, and though she considered that in her dream of transformative drunkenness she might have an opportunity to change that, she didn't care to feel any differently, and she just wanted to get out of there. She walked toward the sculpture, hoping to find a way out, glancing at the portraits as she went.
Somebody really likes little boys
, she thought as she walked
along, because none of them was older than eleven or twelve, and some were only fat little toddlers. The pictures were executed in every different style, and some of the boys were clothed in beads or feathers or scraps of cloth or little swarms of bees, but they were all very pretty, and they all shared an expression, a vacancy to their smile that made them look mildly dissatisfied and a little drugged. She felt sure, in her state of heightened drunken genius, that she knew the point of them and the point of the gallery: they were an installation of lost boys who were iterations of her own lost boys. It would not have been a surprise for her to see Peabo there with a 3D Jesus poking out of the painting. “Now you are getting obvious!” she said aloud to her subconscious, when she came to the portrait of the tan boy with the crew cut. It was Ryan, of course. It took her a moment to recognize him; she wasn't sure she would have known him if she hadn't been expecting to see him. What she couldn't understand was why his picture was just one of many, not the last in the row and not elevated to a position of honor, and why the picture next to hisâa brown-haired boy with enormous earsâhad a black X painted over his face. She pulled at Ryan's picture because it felt like the right thing to do, to move it forward in line. It came easily off the wall and was much less heavy than the thick wooden frame made it appear. It was another twenty or so portraitsâblond boys and buck-toothed boys and freckled Tom Sawyer types and a minority of minorities, a black boy and an Indian boy and a mestizo boy with a heavy Frida Kahlo unibrow and one weeping toddlerâto the front of the room, to the sculpture, which she now saw depicted a dead boy on a funeral bier. There was indeed a door there, on the far side of the sculpture, but she didn't go through it yet. First she tried to hang Ryan's picture on the wall, but there were no nails, and though it stuck briefly by itself, it wouldn't stay. She decided to put it on
the sculpture, since that was a sort of pride of place, too, that would be different from the hundreds and hundreds of other pictures. She didn't know what the significance might be, or how moving pictures around in a dream might make her real life and the real world bearable, but it felt necessary and right, and she half expected, as she set the picture down, balancing it against the very lifelike sculpture of the reclining boy, that she would wake up.
, she thought as she walked
along, because none of them was older than eleven or twelve, and some were only fat little toddlers. The pictures were executed in every different style, and some of the boys were clothed in beads or feathers or scraps of cloth or little swarms of bees, but they were all very pretty, and they all shared an expression, a vacancy to their smile that made them look mildly dissatisfied and a little drugged. She felt sure, in her state of heightened drunken genius, that she knew the point of them and the point of the gallery: they were an installation of lost boys who were iterations of her own lost boys. It would not have been a surprise for her to see Peabo there with a 3D Jesus poking out of the painting. “Now you are getting obvious!” she said aloud to her subconscious, when she came to the portrait of the tan boy with the crew cut. It was Ryan, of course. It took her a moment to recognize him; she wasn't sure she would have known him if she hadn't been expecting to see him. What she couldn't understand was why his picture was just one of many, not the last in the row and not elevated to a position of honor, and why the picture next to hisâa brown-haired boy with enormous earsâhad a black X painted over his face. She pulled at Ryan's picture because it felt like the right thing to do, to move it forward in line. It came easily off the wall and was much less heavy than the thick wooden frame made it appear. It was another twenty or so portraitsâblond boys and buck-toothed boys and freckled Tom Sawyer types and a minority of minorities, a black boy and an Indian boy and a mestizo boy with a heavy Frida Kahlo unibrow and one weeping toddlerâto the front of the room, to the sculpture, which she now saw depicted a dead boy on a funeral bier. There was indeed a door there, on the far side of the sculpture, but she didn't go through it yet. First she tried to hang Ryan's picture on the wall, but there were no nails, and though it stuck briefly by itself, it wouldn't stay. She decided to put it on
the sculpture, since that was a sort of pride of place, too, that would be different from the hundreds and hundreds of other pictures. She didn't know what the significance might be, or how moving pictures around in a dream might make her real life and the real world bearable, but it felt necessary and right, and she half expected, as she set the picture down, balancing it against the very lifelike sculpture of the reclining boy, that she would wake up.
Instead she heard a voice. “What are you doing?” There was someone in the small space underneath the bier.
“Nothing,” she said.
“Are you the Beast, come in a fair form to lure me out? I command you to answer truthfully.”
“I'm not,” Molly said. “Who are you? Are you stuck?” She didn't particularly care if he was.
“
Poodle! Poodle!
There's still some power in that word, and I command you with it! Are you he? Are you my enemy, come to eat me? Answer!”
Poodle! Poodle!
There's still some power in that word, and I command you with it! Are you he? Are you my enemy, come to eat me? Answer!”
“I'm just a girl,” Molly said, “and I don't know what you're talking about.” Though she did. It made a certain sense that everyone in her breakdown dream would be afraid of the same thing. Dreams and lunatic minds were spendthrift in their creativity, and yet their economies dictated only one villain per drama. “Okay,” she said. “I know who you're talking about. The black boy.”
A foot emerged from under the bier, stepping out of the darkness, followed, somewhat hesitantly, by a second foot, and then a little limboing body, shoulders and head dragging on the ground. When he stood up the little man only came halfway up her shin. “Black boy? I suppose, if that's how you see him. He's anything and everything, as long as it terrifies you. Myself, I generally see him as a large brown boot, except when he's trying to trick me.” He reached under the bier and removed
a wooden knife. It was long as he was tall, but he hefted it easily onto his shoulder.
a wooden knife. It was long as he was tall, but he hefted it easily onto his shoulder.
“Don't give yourself a splinter,” Molly said, wondering who he was supposed to be or what he was supposed to represent, what message she had packed away for herself in the form of this little man with a big knife. As if to answer her, he jumped up and touched his tongue to the skin of her knee.
“Just making sure,” he said, licking his lips. “Just a girl! What are you doing here, Just a Girl?”
“I got lost in my dream,” Molly said, because that seemed like the best way to describe the whole adventure. “What are you going to do with that knife?”
“It's for my Lady,” he said, “so she can bind the Beast in blood once again. She didn't think I would find it, but it was obvious where it would be. She hides everything important here. Lost in a dream?”
“Exactly,” she said. “I'm stuck in a dream, or something like that. Or I'm crazy. Locked up somewhere. Dreaming. Deluded. Drugged up. You're just a figment of my imagination, but you mean something.” It made perfect sense when she heard herself explaining it to him. “What do you mean? Is it cheating, if I just ask you to tell me?” She laughed and took another sip from the bottle. At the taste of the wine, she thought of her dinner companions again, Henry and Will. She missed them suddenly. Such companionable figments, she thought. Such handsome delusions. The tiny man was squinting at her.
“Lean close,” he said, “and I'll tell you, for I'll not shout a secret.” She bent at the waist, halfway to the floor, but he said, “Closer,” so she knelt, but he said, “Closer still,” so she lay down on her stomach and put her face close to his face. His ears were covered in soft golden fur, and his breath smelled like rosemary. “Now close your eyes, the better to listen,” he
said, so she did that; she almost felt like she ought to purse her lips. Finally, she thought, this dream is starting to cooperate! He didn't keep her waiting long, but with a thin little shriek cut her cheek with a swipe of the knife. She rose swiftly to her knees, raising one hand to her face and knocking him sprawling with the other.
said, so she did that; she almost felt like she ought to purse her lips. Finally, she thought, this dream is starting to cooperate! He didn't keep her waiting long, but with a thin little shriek cut her cheek with a swipe of the knife. She rose swiftly to her knees, raising one hand to her face and knocking him sprawling with the other.
“You could have put my eye out!” she shouted, the first thing to come into her head.
“The better you would see, then!” he shouted back. He was already on his feet again, making a wobbly threat with the big knife. “Mortals! Always it's a dream. Maybe
you're
the dream. Away! Away! I've got more important things to do than babbling with a fool!” He ran off down the long hall with the knife clasped against his chest. Molly thought of a few different things that she could have called after him:
You little shit!
or
I'll cut you too!
or
You're supposed to help me get out!
or
That's even more dangerous than running with scissors!
But she couldn't quite find her voice. She stood looking at the blood on her hand, touching her face again, then looking at the blood again. The blood made her feel unbalanced all of a sudden, as if she were about to slip and fall within herself. She clung tighter to the bottle for support and leaned against the stone bier and the sculpture of the boy.
you're
the dream. Away! Away! I've got more important things to do than babbling with a fool!” He ran off down the long hall with the knife clasped against his chest. Molly thought of a few different things that she could have called after him:
You little shit!
or
I'll cut you too!
or
You're supposed to help me get out!
or
That's even more dangerous than running with scissors!
But she couldn't quite find her voice. She stood looking at the blood on her hand, touching her face again, then looking at the blood again. The blood made her feel unbalanced all of a sudden, as if she were about to slip and fall within herself. She clung tighter to the bottle for support and leaned against the stone bier and the sculpture of the boy.
“And who are
you
?” she asked him, meaning
What do you represent
and
What is your name
and
What are you doing here
, but it was so hard, looking at him, to think he represented anything but a dead child.
It's so lifelike
, she thought, though that seemed like the wrong word for a piece of art that perfectly represented the state of human death. She looked a little closerâthe lights in the room seemed to brighten as she didâand understood why he was deathlike, that he was not a triumph of some sculptor's art, but some undertaker's. A voice in her head shouted,
Don't touch him!
Of course it was the very
same sort of voice that used to say such terrible things about her familyâshe heard it in the very same wayâbut now it sounded solicitous and panicked instead of snarky and sarcastic and she wondered if it had always meant to look out for her.
I won't
, she told it, but she did, and then she ran away too, bouncing against the walls in her unsteady haste. There was a door beyond the bier, after all.
you
?” she asked him, meaning
What do you represent
and
What is your name
and
What are you doing here
, but it was so hard, looking at him, to think he represented anything but a dead child.
It's so lifelike
, she thought, though that seemed like the wrong word for a piece of art that perfectly represented the state of human death. She looked a little closerâthe lights in the room seemed to brighten as she didâand understood why he was deathlike, that he was not a triumph of some sculptor's art, but some undertaker's. A voice in her head shouted,
Don't touch him!
Of course it was the very
same sort of voice that used to say such terrible things about her familyâshe heard it in the very same wayâbut now it sounded solicitous and panicked instead of snarky and sarcastic and she wondered if it had always meant to look out for her.
I won't
, she told it, but she did, and then she ran away too, bouncing against the walls in her unsteady haste. There was a door beyond the bier, after all.
She slammed the door behind her, and stood pressing her back to it to keep it closed, as if the dead boy was going to chase her in here. She looked around.
Someone has destroyed Cher's bedroom
, she thought to herself, because the room was in luxurious tatters, and it really looked like the sort of place Cher might sleep, if it weren't all cut up and smashed. There were jeweled tapestries on the walls, and the furniture was made of lustrous exotic wood, and thick, intricately woven rugs lay three deep on the floor, but the place looked like the lady had erupted in a rage, and wreaked havoc on her luxurious nest with hammer and scissors and ax: the tapestries were in shreds and the furniture was in splinters. Molly walked to the bed, carefully appreciating how white were the sheets and how fluffy were the pillows where they weren't torn asunderâshe had abundant attention to spare for everything but the thing she was trying so hard not to think about. She sat down crooked on the bedâit stood on a single leg, the upper rightâand ran her hands along the sheets, marveling at how soft they were, and wondering why they ended abruptly in the middle of the bed. “Oh, no,” she said softly, feeling a shift underneath her, and the remaining leg gave out. The bed crashed to the ground. She kicked her legs out, and bounced once on the mattress. It felt like something shifted and fell inside her at the same time, and she could not ignore any longer how real it felt when her face was cut, and how the little boy's body had felt hard and dead in a way that nothing, not even her grieving
trickster mind, could fake. She cried because that boy was dead, and because children died of neglect and accident and disease and because Ryan had died and because she really had become lost trying to make any sort of enduring sense of why he was dead, and become lost in pursuit of any sort of enduring peace over him, but now she could guess, if the dead boy was real, and the ugly little man was real, and faeries were real and magic was real, and threatening monsters in the size and shape of little boys were real, what Ryan's picture was doing in that gallery.
Someone has destroyed Cher's bedroom
, she thought to herself, because the room was in luxurious tatters, and it really looked like the sort of place Cher might sleep, if it weren't all cut up and smashed. There were jeweled tapestries on the walls, and the furniture was made of lustrous exotic wood, and thick, intricately woven rugs lay three deep on the floor, but the place looked like the lady had erupted in a rage, and wreaked havoc on her luxurious nest with hammer and scissors and ax: the tapestries were in shreds and the furniture was in splinters. Molly walked to the bed, carefully appreciating how white were the sheets and how fluffy were the pillows where they weren't torn asunderâshe had abundant attention to spare for everything but the thing she was trying so hard not to think about. She sat down crooked on the bedâit stood on a single leg, the upper rightâand ran her hands along the sheets, marveling at how soft they were, and wondering why they ended abruptly in the middle of the bed. “Oh, no,” she said softly, feeling a shift underneath her, and the remaining leg gave out. The bed crashed to the ground. She kicked her legs out, and bounced once on the mattress. It felt like something shifted and fell inside her at the same time, and she could not ignore any longer how real it felt when her face was cut, and how the little boy's body had felt hard and dead in a way that nothing, not even her grieving
trickster mind, could fake. She cried because that boy was dead, and because children died of neglect and accident and disease and because Ryan had died and because she really had become lost trying to make any sort of enduring sense of why he was dead, and become lost in pursuit of any sort of enduring peace over him, but now she could guess, if the dead boy was real, and the ugly little man was real, and faeries were real and magic was real, and threatening monsters in the size and shape of little boys were real, what Ryan's picture was doing in that gallery.
Other books
Where the Heart Lies by Ellie Dean
Devin's Mercy [Shifters of Mystery 4] by Lynn Hagen
My Billionaire Boss (Book 2)(Erotic Romance) by Black, Lexi
Divided by Eloise Dyson
The Admissions by Meg Mitchell Moore
Rules of Honour by Matt Hilton
Last of the Amazons by Steven Pressfield
Today. Tomorrow. Always by Raven St. Pierre
The Gloomy Ghost by David Lubar