Meridian Days (7 page)

"Did you bring the frost?" she asked in a small voice.

I answered her with a question of my own. "Why do you need it, Fire?"

She frowned at me. Her blonde fringe made her look very young. "Like I told you yesterday — I want to escape."

"You've had a hell of a past. What do you want to remember?"

She looked hurt. "Oh, there were some good times, too," she reassured me. "It wasn't all bad." She regarded me, her smile fixed with apprehension lest I deny her the drug I had promised.

"Look," I said, avoiding her eyes, "I know about Jade."

She flashed me a look. "How did you find out? Who told you?"

"Doug Foulds happened to mention it earlier today."

She turned away, shrugged her shoulders. "So... What about it?"

"So, it was the most traumatic event in your past. It'd be dangerous to relive a time when Jade was alive. You might easily find yourself reliving the tragedy by mistake—"

She just looked at me, with an earnestness I found disconcerting. "But that's exactly what I want to do, Mr Benedict! I want to live through the accident again."

I stared at her, hardly able to believe that someone so innocent might harbour such macabre desires. "The trauma would be more than you could take. Do you realise that it's not just like a vivid memory? You'd actually
be
there, experiencing the reality of the accident." I stared at her, shook my head. "Why on earth would you want to put yourself through that all over again?"

She remained silent for a while, staring at her fingers. She looked up. "I know it might seem strange to you, Mr Benedict. But, you see, I have no memory of the accident." She glanced at me, a look of pleading in her eyes. "The incident is one big blank, a gap. I don't think you understand what it's like. I loved Jade; she was the only person ever to show me any affection. And then she was gone. I want to know the truth of what happened. However terrible her death was, it can't be as bad as the nightmares I've had about it."

"If you relive the accident through frost, you might not be able to stand the shock. Why do you think you blanked it out in the first place?"

She pushed both hands through her hair in a desperate gesture and left them there. "I don't know! Maybe I couldn't handle it then. But it isn't safe to keep things repressed. I'm stronger now. I need to know."

She drew her knees to her chest and hugged her legs, her eyes closed. I wanted to make some gesture of sympathy or affection, but found myself unable to do so.

"Have you ever spoken about the accident to anyone?" I asked.

She shook her head. She had opened her eyes and was staring out to sea. "How could I? I can't remember anything."

"Perhaps it might be safer if you talked about Jade with me — that might unlock memories." I hesitated. "Have you any idea where the accident happened?"

She remained silent for a long time, staring stubbornly straight ahead. "I don't know. That is, I'm not sure. I
think
I know, but I've never been told. It's just a feeling I have."

"Perhaps if we went there...?" I suggested.

She looked at me. "Do you think it might help?"

"It might. If you feel up to it, that is."

"I don't know. I haven't been there in years. It frightens me."

"The actual memory will be far more frightening, Fire."

She shook her head, looking puzzled. "You'd think so, wouldn't you? But the memory is somewhere in here, part of me, waiting to be unlocked and remembered. Where it happened, or where I think it happened — that's somehow more real, threatening..."

"It might be the first step towards remembering," I said.

I stood, and after a moment's hesitation Fire joined me. We continued along the pathway which followed the outline of the island, the sea below to our right and a plantation of trees and shrubs to our left. Our way was illuminated by a series of small lights strung out on a cable along the length of the path. We came to a clearing, a sloping greensward stretching up to the hilltop. Fire halted and quickly grasped my hand like a child in need of reassurance.

"This is it, Mr Benedict."

We stepped from the path and strolled up the hillside. The night phase was well upon us now, but the greensward was lighted by the stars over Darkside and the glow of the lights beside the path. The clearing was filled with the fragrance from the blooms in the surrounding shrubbery. I found it hard to imagine that this pleasant glade could have been the venue for so tragic an event as the death of Fire's sister.

Then her hand tightened on mine and I could feel her shaking. "I hate this place! Don't you feel it? The evil?"

"You can't recall anything?"

She shook her head. "Nothing, not a thing. That's what's so frightening. Perhaps if I could remember something, then I wouldn't be so afraid. Does that make any sense?"

I walked her up the incline like an invalid. "I know what you mean," I said, not at all sure that I did.

"It's the absence of memory that makes this place so forbidding. Everywhere else on the island holds memories for me, except here. That's what makes me think this
must
be the place." She glanced about her in silent desperation, her green eyes wide.

"Something else — Tamara never mentions this place. Sometimes she makes me accompany her on walks, but we never stop here. When we pass it on the path, she always hurries on."

We had come to a halt in the centre of the glade.

From holding her hand, I thought it the natural thing to do to put a protective arm around her shoulders. "Tell me about Jade," I said.

I felt the slight movement of a shrug beneath my arm, as much to say that she did not want to talk.

"It can only help," I prompted.

"Oh..." Something caught in her throat. "I wouldn't know where to begin."

"How old was she when the accident happened?"

Another shrug. "About my age now, nineteen, twenty. I was fifteen. We were very much alike. We had our mother's looks, before she was altered, and our father's calm temperament. When I think back, I seem to recall that we were always together."

"What kind of things did you two get up to?"

Fire smiled. "With Tamara and Max busy so much of the time, we were left to ourselves. We'd explore the forest — the 'jungle' we called it — take a small boat around the coves. The usual stuff kids get up to. I remember one time..."

She went on, recounting the games and adventures of her childhood. It seemed that, when talking of her sister, she recalled true happiness. She had said earlier that her sister was the only person ever to show her any real affection, and I was pained when I thought of what a loss her sister's death must have been.

For a time while she spoke, it seemed that she was quite unaware of where she was and who she was talking to. She paused, smiled at me. "Do you know something, Mr Benedict? I feel closer to my sister than I have in years."

At my urging, we continued up the slope.

"Did Tamara allow Jade off the island?" I asked.

She pushed a strand of sun-bleached hair from her face, reflectively. "No... No, she didn't. You see, she had the same complaint as I have now. She needed constant treatment."

I hesitated. "What is your condition?" I asked.

"Oh," she sounded casual, a little out of breath from the hike. "I don't know it's proper medical term — but I have a tumour in my cerebellum. It's actually inoperable, but my mother's surgeon can keep it in check with drugs." She spoke casually, with an off-handedness which I thought might disguise her true despair.

"Is it painful?"

She frowned. "No, not as such. I get the occasional headache. And sometimes I feel pretty washed out." She smiled at me. "But I can live with it."

"Haven't you ever thought of seeking a second opinion?" I asked. "If you could hire your own doctor you might be able to get away a bit."

She looked away from me. "Like I told you yesterday, the treatment's expensive, more creds than I could ever earn."

I shrugged. "Tamara could let you have your freedom, though, and still pay for your treatment."

"I couldn't do that, Mr Benedict. Tamara needs me here." She took my hand and hauled me the last few metres to the top of the hill.

We were standing before a large hexagonal plinth, similar to those that Trevellion used around the island to mount various works of art. This plinth was empty.

Fire was staring at the obsidian hexagon. "Tamara and Jade were working on a piece when Jade died. Tamara completed it — I've heard that some experts think it her finest work."

"What happened to it?"

"She sold it. It's housed on Main Island, in the Museum of Modern Art. I've never seen it." She shivered. "I've never really wanted to because it was the last thing Jade ever did — even if Tamara would let me. I don't know, perhaps I should go some day..."

Her sudden introspection made me uneasy. The glade had had the effect of subduing her. I began to wonder about the advisability of bringing her here. I held out my hand. "Shall we move on?"

She remained standing beside the plinth, regarding me. "Have you brought the frost, Mr Benedict?" she asked.

"Fire..." I began in exasperation.

She just stared at me, defiant. "You said you would, Mr Benedict!"

I turned and started off down the hillside. Halfway towards the cliff-top path, I heard Fire running after me, her steps thumping breath from her lungs. She caught up with me and planted herself in my path, facing me and panting hard.

"Mr Benedict, I need to know how she died!"

"You wouldn't be able to take it, Fire. The knowledge all at once like that would be too much."

"How do you know it would? You don't even know what happened!" Now she was walking backwards down the hill, almost shouting at me, pleading.

I stopped and held her by the shoulders. "Listen, Fire — I could find out. When I know what happened, then I can decide whether it's safe for you to take the drug."

"How can you find out?" she cried, and then in panic, "Don't ask Tamara! If she found out that I wanted to know... She doesn't like me mentioning it."

"I'm a friend of Doug Foulds. I can get him to find out what exactly happened."

"And then you'll give me the frost?"

"Then I'll
tell
you what happened, see if that provokes any memories. You might be able to unlock the accident without resorting to the drug."

"And if that doesn't work?"

"I don't know... Then we'd have to see where we stood." I lowered my hands from her shoulders. "Maybe then you can have the drug."

She nodded, her expression tight as if she knew she had scored a minor victory. "That seems fair enough." She smiled and held out her hand. "I'm sorry for shouting, Mr Benedict. A truce?"

With mock formality I took her hand and shook it.

Fire shivered. "Come on, it's getting late. I told Tamara I'd be out for only an hour."

We hurried along the cliff-top path to the beach where we had met and stood awkwardly in the sand preparatory to parting.

"Are you doing anything tomorrow, Bob?" she asked casually. It was the first time she had used my first name.

"Nothing much," I said.

"You will contact Inspector Foulds?"

I nodded. "I'll do that in the morning."

She avoided my eyes. "Then perhaps we could meet here tomorrow afternoon, around three—?"

She stopped suddenly. She was staring at something behind me, in the sea.

I turned and followed the direction of her transfixed gaze.

I made out the shape of a fin break the surface of the ocean, followed by the dark length of the creature's back. It was heading directly for the beach.

Fire gripped my arm in sudden fright.

"Hey," I laughed, "haven't you ever seen a big fish before?"

Only then did it come to me that the water this close to the shore would be too shallow for a fish of this size and, hard on this realisation, the creature rose to its full height and emerged with a certain arrogant elegance from the swirling foam.

Fire quickly let go of my arm, as if scalded.

Tamara Trevellion strode from the ocean, her steps retarded by the drag of the undertow. Silver droplets cascaded from her streamlined limbs. Her scales winked iridescent in the starlight and a host of jet black parasites teemed about her body.

She halted before us.

Her face, at best emotionless, now seemed set in an expression of lugubrious disapproval, emphasized by her underhung jaw. She regarded us with large, wet eyes rinsed by the ocean of the slightest charity.

Beside me, I was aware that Fire was frozen to the spot.

"Fire," Trevellion said, "I see that you have taken it upon yourself to invite strangers to my island. I hope for your sake that you have a suitable excuse."

"I—"

Trevellion opened her gills and shunted air in what might have been a snort of anger. It had the immediate effect of silencing the girl.

Trevellion turned gelid eyes upon me. "Ah... Benedict, isn't it? The ex-starship pilot." Something in the way she pronounced my old profession suggested derision. I recalled that she had told Fire about my accident. I wondered how much she knew.

"Fire," Trevellion addressed her daughter. "To your room, immediately."

Fire hurried off without so much as a murmur of protest.

"Benedict," Trevellion said when we were alone. "I must warn you that this island is off limits to all but a select few individuals whom
I
invite. There are many priceless works of art exhibited here."

"I might be an unwitting trespasser—" I said the first thing that came into my head "-but I am not a thief. Fire invited me. I saw no reason not to accept. She is an adult—"

"For your information, Benedict, Fire is little more than a child. Her sickness has precluded her from experiencing the ways of the outside world. She has a rare neurological condition that requires constant and vigilant attention. That is why I apply the strictest conditions to my daughter's daily routine. Her health is my utmost priority."

"Our talking did no harm."

"One of the provisos of Fire's continued health is that she does not become excited." She hesitated, regarding me with large, flat eyes. "I noticed you earlier in the glade. What did Fire want there?"