The Ephemera (14 page)

Then I saw the reason for Grieve's anguish, and I shared it. There were books half submerged in the water, pages floating loose. He handed them up to me. They were ugly books, thickly bound and heavy with moisture. Among the titles were those Grieve had mentioned earlier. I had never expected, nor indeed wanted, to come across volumes of this rarity. In my trade, there are certain kinds of books it is best not to pursue. These would have been worth as much as the rest of the collection to the right buyers, but seeing how warped they were, I knew without trying to prise apart the pages that Randall's occult library was ruined. I stacked the books on a rough shelf that had been screwed inexpertly to the wall. It was landscaped with laval sculptures of melted red wax.

 "What went on in here?" I said, astonished by the room. "And where is the water coming from?"

Grieve stood, in his hands one last book, slimmer than the rest, and a box of lacquered black wood. As he stepped aside I saw the window properly for the first time. It was a plain sash window. Four panes of dirty glass, each with a dark fringe of mildew. Outside the skies had cleared some and the rain had abated. Which made it all the more difficult to explain the water pooling on the sill, streaming down the wall feeding the drain in the floor beneath the window. Mentally I connected it with the drainpipe outside.

"It must be leaking down from the roof. Perhaps the guttering is blocked," I said, not really believing what I was saying, but unable to come up with a credible alternative. I pushed down on the sash to try and close it but the frame was obviously too warped for it to budge.

Grieve had been examining the slim book. "No," he said quietly and handed it to me. It was a simple note book: no identifying marks on the stained cover, no names or dates on the inside, only a mess of gluey pages smeared with washed out ink. Peeling them apart, however, I discovered that not all of the writing—and I was certain it was Randall's—had been rendered unreadable. A few pages were just about legible, although I soon realised that legibility did not guarantee comprehension.

"
Making the wards has exhausted me
," I read aloud. "
I could sleep for a hundred days but at last I am ready. I won't be delayed. I know I should not do this, but I cannot
not
do it. God help me
." Grieve met my incredulity with a flat expression, indicating that I should continue. On the next page, "
Oh, dear God, it worked. But we had so little time. So little time.
"

The next clump of pages was so sodden that they ripped pulpily when I tried to separate them. Then I came across this: "
It is over. I lost control and almost lost everything, least of which my life. I panicked. So much water. How will I explain the lake?
" After this, underlined, "
It is over.
"

There was not much more, only one passage, near the end. "
The wards are almost gone. I don't think I have the strength to make more. I will see her just once more, and then, God willing...
"

After that the pages were blank.

There was no doubt now that Grieve was right.

"What are 'wards'?" I asked.

"Objects that allow the user to control power," Grieve said. "In this case I imagine they allowed Randall to open a portal—to somewhere pretty wet by the looks of it."

"A portal?" I breathed, shocked at myself that I could lend the idea any credence. "A portal to where?"

He indicated the steady stream from the window. "Looks like he wasn't able to close it properly the last time. Perhaps for some reason he had to leave before he was finished. That might even have been what killed him." His face lit up as the logic of it unfolded, filling in the blanks in his understanding of events. "Yes! He became ill. That's why the trap door wasn't locked and why the books weren't returned to the library." Grieve's eyes were bright with the adventure. He was having the time of his life. "But what did Randall mean by 'God willing'? And he must have known the spells he needed to make the wards by heart, so why did he tote his whole library up here? Charlie, I think he was trying something new. I wonder what he was up to."

"To
where
, Grieve?" I had begun to shiver again, and not just from the cold.

Before he could answer, the window rattled violently in its frame, raising an inch, and the water began to pour into the room. It gushed over the sill, became a curtain falling to the floor and sent waves the length of the room. Crying out, I managed to keep my feet as it sloshed around my ankles, soaking my trousers with icy wash, but Grieve reeled back a couple of steps, falling on his knees. The wave broke weakly against the far wall sending ripples down the gutters.

Then a figure rose from the water. Not from underneath the surface, but out of it. By its shape a woman, water coursing down from her brow, around the line of her chin, pouring across her narrow shoulders, the subtle curves of her breasts and hips, feeding the cascade that was her legs before merging with the surface water in a swirl of currents.

A woman made of water. None of her features was defined, only hinted at—a pair of swirling eddies billowed loose sand where the eyes would be, a clot of weed tumbling in the place that marked the mouth. Impossible as it was, I knew her—except where in my dream she had been made of rain, now she was composed of darker, murkier water. I could not escape the impression from her stance and the inclination of her head that she recognised me also.

Then she spoke and her voice was the brittle cry of gulls, the creaking of sea ice in the cold, dead water far from land. "Douglas?" she said. She was asking me. I think Grieve sensed this and, although it must have killed him to be excluded, was unwilling to do anything that might break the spell. Regaining his feet, he said nothing but his eyes widened, signalling that I should answer.

I knew who she was—could only be. Jayne, Douglas Randall's wife. Blocking the train of impossibilities that assumption engendered, I said, "I'm sorry, your husband is dead."

Possibly she had guessed this already. Her head bowed. A spear of sullen light broke through the clouds outside, falling diagonally across her torso, illuminating the dark water of her core. The only sound in the room was the constant streaming of water.

An impact behind us broke the moment. The window creaked alarmingly and the sash shot up a clear foot as water surged into the room. Through the open gap I was amazed to see an expanse of grey sea. Ugly waves rolled high, crashed down in unrelenting rhythm. I could not reconcile the otherwise normal view of cloudy weather seen through the top half of the window with this angry seascape through the bottom. As if to convince me that this was not some kind of illusion, a gust of freezing sea air assaulted us.

Then in the troughs I saw heads appear. First one, then another, then as if some rumour was spreading beneath the waves, they became a crowd. The heads rode the swells, disappeared in the troughs, reappeared. They were of the same manner of being as the woman that stood beside us—and they were coming closer to the window. Beneath the crashing of the deep water their voices rose in furious anguish.

In answer, the apparition that had been Jayne Randall let out a god-awful shriek. It spurred us both into reaction.

"Oh, Jesus," Grieve shouted, sloshing towards me. We reached for the window together and threw all our weight into forcing it down. It was stuck fast.

"The ward."

It was Randall's wife. In an outstretched hand she held the box. Grieve had dropped it when he fell. As he stepped towards her to take it the next wave hit him squarely in the back and he pitched forward, through the water woman and disappeared momentarily under the surface. That wave was followed immediately by another surge. I gripped the side of the window, resisting the flow, but Grieve was swept to the end of the room, colliding with the ladder.

In those two gulping surges the water had risen above my waist. The people in the sea were approaching disturbingly fast, their voices carrying on the bitter wind that froze my fingers, turned my trousers into an icy second skin. They were now close enough to make out faces, etched with expressions of loss and recrimination. Then they disappeared beneath the waves, reappeared once more. Closer.

I thought Mrs Randall had vanished as well. Then she rose in front of me. Box in hand.

I took it. It was a simple little thing, decorated with some oriental pattern, black layered on black. A twist of the saline encrusted lug released the lid. Inside was a parcel of folded velvet, and nestling within the sodden material, I found a ring of cloudy metal. Surprisingly it was warm to touch and when I held it up to the light I saw that it was not metal, but glass. A torus of glass etched with an inscription too faint to read, and inside the glass what looked like captive smoke, coiling sinuously. It was beautiful.

"Put it on," the woman implored.

I almost dropped it as the next wave caught me by surprise, sending me down. Numb cold enveloped my head, as the current swept me away from the window. When I resurfaced the water level had risen still further. I struggled back towards the window.

Instinct made me slip the ring on to my wedding finger. Smoky glass and plain simple gold gleamed in the turbulent light from the absurdly disconnected Lake District sky through the top half of the window. The ward's warmth against my skin was comforting.

I heaved down on the sash. Nothing. It was as stuck as before. The window vibrated as something jostled it from the other side.

"Break it," the woman pleaded. "Don't let them into my house."

I didn't understand.

"Charlie," Grieve said, leaning unsteadily on the ladder, "it's a closing rite. You'll have to destroy the ward to close the portal." He coughed, belching water. "But don't do it."

I stared at him in disbelief. I was terrified of what even now was closing on this room. I wanted nothing more than to have that window safely shut.

"There's nothing to be scared of," he said. "They're no more dangerous than she is."

"How can you know that?" I gasped.

Grieve grinned sourly. "I think I got a stomachful of her when I took that last tumble." I couldn't tell if he was being serious. "Charlie, she's manipulating us—you. When Randall didn't return to complete what he started that last time, she led you here to do it. To close the portal and bring her home from the loneliness of the sea. But what about the others? Don't they deserve the same chance?"

The water woman hissed like steam, then erupted in a jet of spray that hit him square in the chest, sending him under once more.

Behind me the window rattled against the onslaught of the sea. Through the open window I saw the passengers and crew of the
Galatea
, clustered on the other side of the sill. Their faces bore such pain, such fury, such hope that I froze. For a moment Grieve's argument stayed my desperation to shut them out. The ward buzzed warmly around my finger. I clenched it in a protective fist. With this power, why should I not try to save what remained of these souls? Then the water became a turbulent cloud as the mass of them rushed for the gap. In panic I brought my fist down on the sill and, despite the drag of the water, managed to summon sufficient force to smash the ring. The water boiled around my hand and scalding pain seared through my finger. At the same time, energy drained out of me, down my arm and through my blistering hand. The window crashed shut.

~

The drainpipe overflow had created a direct channel to the lake. It was still flowing. We passed it on the way up to the chapel. Grieve said he wanted to pay his last respects, but I knew he wanted the last piece of evidence, the proof that he'd figured everything out correctly. This was a couple of hours after I'd let him haul me out of the room and treat my hand while both we and our clothes dried off in the kitchen. He didn't mention that amid the blisters he had seen the ring of raw letters branded into my flesh.

As soon as I was bandaged up he announced his intention to leave. I thought his haste a little off, but couldn't really blame him. He had what he came for after all. The books from Randall's secret room, ruined as they were, sat in the boot of his car. I didn't begrudge him them, and to be truthful I was happier not having to include them in the catalogue and explain the state they were in.

Inside the chapel Grieve said, "Well? Shall we have a look?" He approached the coffin and lifted Randall's hand. Gently he tugged off the glove.

The fingers looked whittled. Crossed and crossed again with old scars. The pain of making the portal was written all over them in tiny scratchy letters.

Fifty years. I imagined the lonely evenings when he would weaken and summon her out of the sea. I imagined them in that room. Each occasion special but inadequate, sharing words because they could share nothing else. The agony as he sent her away.

"Do you think she went back," I said as we retraced our steps. "When we closed the window."

"No," Grieve answered. "I think Randall realised he was too old to go on making the wards, so he went for broke and tried to bring her through permanently, or at least for an extended duration. But it cost him too much. He couldn't close the portal afterwards, probably died trying to reach his pills. It almost worked, though. Now Jayne was rooted here and with Randall gone she had to find a way to close the portal. She chose you."

"You think she knew he was dead?"

Grieve nodded. "I think so. If not for certain, then she had a pretty firm suspicion when he left things undone."

"Then why did she want to be here so badly? What difference did it make?"

Grieve looked at me strangely. "Love? Remembrance? I don't know. I'd have thought you'd know more about those things than me. I don't suppose it's surprising that she'd choose to be here to remember him alone. Beats the crowded North Atlantic anyway. Selfish bitch."

While I felt a welling of guilt about consigning the people of the
Galatea
to the bitter monotony of the place where they had died, I thought Grieve's cynicism a little damning. I wondered if he had seen the chapel floor. A pool of salt water like fifty years worth of tears.