Penult (12 page)

The man tilted his head and peered
over his bifocals.

“
Frankly, if the Liminality
comes to claim you, there is nothing to be done. Such are the
vicissitudes of life. Stay below ground. Let the Reapers claim you
… or not … as fate would have it. But the surface is no place for
an unfinished soul. It is not your place. The surface belongs to
Penult. Understood?”

Karla and I just stared back at him
blankly.

“
Well then. That is all I
have to say for now. Have a good day … and a good life … if I don’t
see you again.” He slid his chair back, rose and strode briskly
away through the crowd, without as much as a second glance at
us.

“
From now on we pay cash
for everything,” said Karla.

“
We don’t have much
left.”

“
We just need to stay at
cheaper hotels.”

“
Karla. Even then … there’s
not enough. Not if we want to eat, too.”

She set her chin. Her eyes flitted
back and forth.

“
Just this once. Go ahead.
Use that ATM. But this is the last time. This man already knows we
are here. But after this, we become invisible. Understand? Cash
only.”

Chapter 10:
Brynmawr

Problem was, the daily withdrawal
limit on my new ivory card was only five hundred pounds. That was
more than the average credit card allowed, but it was still a
leash. Even if we booked ordinary hotels and ate on the cheap, we
would have to withdraw some cash every few days, more often if we
traveled. These Penult folks knew how to keep tabs on us, even
without avatars.

“
Destroy it now,” said
Karla.

“
What if we need it … like
in an emergency or something?”

“
What if it is watching us,
listening, just like the other one?”

“
He said it
wasn’t.”

“
And you believe
him?”

“
How about we hang onto it
… just a little longer?”

Karla was not pleased. “Then put it
away. Keep it zipped. Understood? After the funeral, once we decide
where we go next, you burn it. Understood? Any fool can figure out
we are going to Brynmawr this weekend.”

“
Yeah. Sure.”

What can I say? I was the addicted to
the cash flow. Understandable, I guess, once you’ve been homeless
for a while like I was after mom died. I just wasn’t quite ready to
start worrying about money again. I suppose I could always get a
job like normal people.

“
Do you think they’ll let
us stay with them on the farm? Maybe we should call
ahead?”

“
Are you kidding?” Karla’s
eyebrows collided in the center of her brow. “Renfrew thinks of you
like you are his own son. Of course, he will be happy to have
us.”

I had thought a lot about those guys
while I was in prison, more nights than not. Thoughts of my life on
their farm often provided the calm, soothing kernel of the daydream
I used to help me fall asleep. It worked like a charm, driving
worries and fears like so many harried foxes into the corners of my
brain where they could do no harm.

We took a train five hours south to
Ebbw Vale Parkway. It was still overcast as we headed out of the
station into the car park, which was fine with me. I liked clouds
when they weren’t spitting rain.

“
Why don’t we take a cab?”
I said.

“
No taxi. We walk.
Remember? From now on, we must save money.”

I didn’t argue, though, in retrospect
maybe I should have. It didn’t look that far on the map. Down one
valley, into Brynmawr town, and then up another to the farm. But it
took us a good hour to walk to town and another half hour or so to
reach the lower gate of Cwm Gyrdd farm.

Across the main road, a bunch of goats
with Cwm Gyrdd ear tags stood munching alfalfa in someone else’s
pasture.

“
Damned fences must be
broken again,” I said.

“
Look,” said Karla,
pointing at the entrance to the farm. The bottom gate was torn off
its hinges, as if a large truck had plowed through in
haste.

Her eyes sought an explanation, but I
could only shrug. Without a word, we took off running up the
driveway. As we rounded the mound of slag that stood between us and
the first outbuildings, we stopped in our tracks all flushed and
gasping.

There were no outbuildings any longer,
just heaps of ash and charred timbers. Apart from one small storage
shed that Renfrew had used to keep odd bits of hardware and lumber,
every structure on the farm had burned to the ground. Karla
squeezed my arm and buried her face in my chest.

The fire was recent. The embers no
longer smoldered, but the ashes were still warm. Two guys with
rakes combed through the debris while a supervisor watched from the
cab of a lorry bearing the logo of the South Wales Fire and Rescue
Service.

“
What the hell happened?” I
asked.

“
Friends of Mr. Boyle, are
you?” said the man in the lorry, cocking an eyebrow.

“
Is he … is everybody
okay?”

“
Nobody’s died … yet. But
Mr. Boyle and one of the ladies hospitalized for smoke
inhalation.”

“
Who? Miss
Helen?”

“
No. It was the younger
gal. Jessica, I believe. They’re still in the hospital, if you care
like to visit.”

“
Jesus Christ. How did it
happen?”

“
That’s what we’re here to
find out. You two wouldn’t know of anyone who might have bear a
grudge against Mr. Boyle?”

“
Heck no,” I said. “I mean.
He can be a crotchety old dude. But he makes friends with
everybody. People seem to like him.”

The detective lowered his voice. “To
be frank, we’re a little bit stumped right now about all this. This
doesn’t look like arson. We’ve found no trace of accelerants.
Everything’s in order with the electrical. It’s not a kitchen
accident. And it can’t be lightning. We’ve had no thunder, just a
gentle rain. So what else is left? Spontaneous
combustion?”

We stood there, Karla in my arms and
stared at him, while he eyed us like we were a pair of prime
suspects returning to the scene of the crime.

“
So how long have you two
been in town?” said the man, who I assumed was an arson
investigator.

“
We just arrived this
afternoon by train … from Inverness. We came down for the
funeral.”

“
Ah, of course. My
condolences. Mates of Sturgie are you … were you?”

“
Yeah. Well, Karla
especially. I just … I used to work on the farm.”

“
Work? Wait a minute. You
wouldn’t happen to be that American lad who was deported, are
you?”

A stab of dread lanced through my
heart.

“
Me. Nah. I’m … I’m … uh …
Canadian.”

“
What’s your
name?”

“
David,” I said, but I
couldn’t remember what my new last name was supposed to
be.

I turned and walked away briskly
before he could ask me any more questions. Karla caught up with me
and we made our in silence way down the dirt track and through the
ruined gate. A goat ran up to us and bleated, as if it were
pleading for some human to turn things back the way they
were.

***

At the hospital we learned that
Jessica had already been released and was staying with friends in
town. We found Helen sitting up with Renfrew. The old man had tubes
stuck up his nostrils and taped to his beard.

“
Can you believe these
people? They wanted to shave off all my whiskers.” Ren’s voice was
hoarse and weak.

“
Good thing we talked them
out of it,” said Helen. “They would have ruined a good pair of
scissors.”

“
Oh, come Helen. It’s not
that bad.”

“
You guys are gonna rebuild
the farm, right?” I said.

“
With what?” said Helen.
She glowered at Ren. “I tried to warn him at the time, but Ren
bought junk insurance. The bare minimum. Maybe we could rebuild an
outbuilding or two. But the main house, the cottage and the cheese
house. They’re all gone for good.”

My stomach sank at the thought of the
farm being gone forever. I wondered how much money I could extract
from that new ivory card if I withdrew the max every
day.

“
Ach, it was time I bloody
retired anyhow,” said Ren. “It’s not like Sturgie was ever going to
take over the place.” Ren’s eyes lost their focus. “Even if … even
if he had lived. The boy didn’t want nothing to do with the
place.”

“
That’s not entirely true,
Ren,” said Helen. “He was warming up to the idea of late. He even
switched his major … to business.”

“
Doesn’t matter now. He’s
gone. What’s done is done and that’s that.”

“
With a little help from
us, Jess could easily run the farm,” said Helen. “Maybe she’s not
family, but—”

“
There is … no farm!” said
Ren, his words punctuated by fits of coughing. “My business is
gone. I no longer have a nephew. And that’s that. We all just have
to move on. That is all there is to say about the matter.” Helen
handed him a glass of water and he sipped from a straw until his
eruptions calmed.

“
It’s a damned shame,” said
Ren, his voice as raspy as a rip saw. “The boy should have never
left for the north. He should have—”

“…
never made friends with
me,” said Karla. “I am to blame. I am the one who involved him in
this wickedness.”

“
No, Karla,” said Helen.
“Don’t be silly. This has nothing to do with you. How could it?
These things happen. It was an accident.”

“
Was it really?” said
Karla.

“
What are you saying?” I
whispered.

Her eyes bored in on me. “Come out in
the hall. We need to talk.”

She took my arm and led me out into
the ward. Renfrew tried to say something as we left but all he
could manage was a wheeze. We wandered down the hall to a quiet
place near the elevators.

“
First Sturgie. Now this,”
said Karla. “The two must be connected, no?”

“
But how?”

“
Wendell … and
Zhang.”

“
You mean he’s trying to
extort me? I didn’t hear him make any threats, did you?”

“
It must be so. They are
trying to encourage you to cross.”

“
Encourage me? By killing
my friends? Burning their homes?”

“
They want you to try. I …
want you to try.”

“
I’ve tried. You know I
have.”

“
Do I?”

“
It’s no use. I’ve lost the
knack.”

“
Because of me?”

“
Because I’m happy. Is that
a crime? I mean, I feel terrible about Sturgie and the farm. But
it’s not like it makes me want to kill myself. Not even close. They
think this is a way to get me to cross? That’s just
stupid.”

“
Then how? What if they
threaten to hurt someone else?”

“
Doesn’t matter. I’m done
with that place. The sooner they get that into their thick skulls
the better. I can’t encourage them by reacting to this crap. I
still don’t understand why they want me there so badly.”

Karla’s eyes took on a faraway gaze.
“I think it’s time we found out.” Her face went flaccid and blank.
She turned away from me.

“
Hey. What’s wrong? You
okay?”

“
Nothing is wrong. I am
fine. I am simply preparing myself.”

“
For what?”

“
I’ve had enough of this.
Tonight, I will cross. This is something I need to do … for the
both of us.”

Chapter 11:
Spades

Helen and Jessica were staying in town
with their friends Fiona and Britt, the gay couple who had harbored
Isobel for a time after she left the farm right before she had
taken off for Cardiff. Karla knew them well, having stayed with
them herself while I was in prison on one of her several futile
hunts for her missing sister.

When Fiona and Britt found out that we
were in town, we were immediately offered a place to stay. They set
up a futon for us in the attic they used as a studio. It was a bit
stuffy up there, but they brought us a fan. We propped open the
windows and it aired out nicely.

Dinner was pork loin simmered in tea
with asparagus and polenta. Tea pork, they called it. They served
it cold and it was really tasty. Afterwards we had almond macaroons
and Prosecco. Our conversation kept drifting to Izzie.

“
I can’t help feeling she
left because of us,” said Fiona. “That she just wasn’t comfortable
here.”

“
I find that hard to
believe,” said Jessica. “She raved about you gals.”

“
She told us the Cardiff
thing was to be temporary,” said Britt. “She went to help out a
band she had met at the Green Man festival. A punk band I suppose.
They called themselves ‘Ebola’ of all things. When they went on
tour up north, she apparently told them she was moving back to
Brynmawr. But she never showed.”