The Sphere (33 page)

When we get closer we discover a very narrow passage between the two walls.

“Let’s go,” orders Sherlock.

Beatrice comes out of the chapel just in time to catch up with us. The passage between the two walls is so narrow that the sunlight doesn’t even reach the ground. A damp chill creeps under our clothing, and I can feel my bones trembling. The passage opens up into a garden, a large, well-maintained space with some trees, and flowers of all different colors. There are poppies bigger than my hand, and tiny yellow butterflies fluttering around. It seems impossible that anything bad could ever happen here. Under one of the large trees sits an inviting bench.

“This is private,” says Beatrice. “We can’t be here.”

Sherlock gestures in silence for us to split up and explore different parts of the garden. In less than a minute Morgan shouts:

“Come here!”

Behind a thicket she’s found a staircase of mildewed stone. At the entrance is a battered gate that someone has just opened—it’s still creaking slowly on its hinges.

“Careful,” warns Sherlock. “The stones may be quite slippery.”

The stairs lead to a dark, dank passageway. We move cautiously; the ground is covered not only with mildew, but also a thick layer of mud. Right before we reach the end we hear the metallic crash of the gate slamming shut. Morgan, Beatrice, and I clutch at each other.

“We’re trapped,” whimpers Beatrice in horror.

“Stay calm,” says Sherlock’s voice, still neutral. “There must be another exit on this side.”

I want to trust him, to believe blindly that this time—like all the others—he’s right. But the truth is there’s no light coming from the direction we’re going. The tunnel just gets darker and darker.

“There’s no way out,” says Beatrice in a trembling voice.

“There must be,” says Morgan, “I’m sure it was right around here where I saw Heathcliff appear.”

“We have to go back. There’s no way out,” says Sherlock.

Some kind of power takes hold of me. I will
not
stay trapped in here. Maybe this is the kind of situation I have to face up to if I ever want to get out of the Sphere and back to my world. I run my hands over the wall that stands in our way. A thousand insects scurry over my fingers. I can feel their tiny, tickling legs, but my hands keep on searching. I am going to find the way out.

“It can’t be!” I shout, enraged, and give the wall a good kick.

The door we were searching for opens. Finally a little bit of air comes in, along with the noise of a heated argument. We go out into the part of the orphanage garden where Morgan saw Heathcliff appear.

“I knew it!” she exclaims in triumph.

We walk over and find ourselves right in the middle of the fight.

“You’re an animal!” shrieks a little girl wearing a patched dress. “Go away, I never want to see you again!”

Another little girl is crying inconsolably next to the door of the orphanage. Tears have left tracks down her dusty cheeks.

“Go away!” the first girl yells again.

Heathcliff is standing in front of them, watching with a cruel smile. It’s clear that he enjoys seeing them like this. The little girl who was yelling picks up a handful of rocks and starts throwing them at him. Some miss; some don’t.

“Enough!” Beatrice runs to get in between Heathcliff and the girl. “Enough, Jane, you’re going to hurt him.” The girl looks around but there are no more stones to be found. Her small fists scrape up some grit and she hurls it at him with all her strength.

“Enough, Jane Eyre!”

Heathcliff shoves Beatrice away with a grunt. Jane’s eyes are shining and her cheeks are burning with anger. Her reddened hands tremble, still clasping the grit.

“That’s where little girls like you go,” says Heathcliff, pointing at some small gravestones to his left. “That’s where I bury them so I can eat up their tiny bones later, bit by bit.”

Heathcliff gnashes his teeth, pretending to savor shreds of meat left on a bone. The crying girl runs to hide behind Jane.

“Don’t pay him any mind, Helen,” says Jane Eyre. “Everything he says is lies. There’s nothing under those stones.”

“No? So then why are they there? Just for decoration?” Heathcliff moves closer to the girls and they clasp each other more tightly. He winds his rough fingers into the hair of the little girl who won’t stop crying. “You can read, right?”

“Unlike you, yes, we can both read,” Jane Eyre says through clenched teeth.

Heathcliff spits on the ground without letting go of the girl.

“Tell me, what does it say on that headstone?”

“Daisy,” says the girl between sobs.

“How many years did Daisy live?”

“Six.”

“And the next, how many years did she live?”

“Ten...”

“What was her name?”

The girl can’t speak; her sobs are battering her body, coming in waves.

“Perhaps I will put Helen there very soon,” mutters Heathcliff, letting her go with a rough shove.

“You’re a liar,” shouts Jane. “There’s nobody there, and there never will be!”

“Well, of course there isn’t,” says Beatrice, coming over to the two girls to embrace them gently. “They’re the graves of the orphanage’s pets, that’s why the stones are so small. They are empty, like all the graves of the Sphere. There is nothing to worry about. The Creator...”

“Don’t stick your nose in, you useless prig! You’ve got no business here.”

“Heathcliff...” Beatrice can’t believe what that dark man just said to her, his eyes burning like coals, can’t believe the way he has his hand raised to threaten her. “Will you really be able to strike me again?”

“Begone!” bawls Heathcliff. “You, and all of you, too. Leave before I give you a thrashing.”

Heathcliff rips a bare branch from a nearby tree and moves toward us, brandishing it. Little Jane Eyre scoops up the stones she threw before and resumes her attack, but he doesn’t seem to feel the blows. One of the stones hits Beatrice in the forehead and she staggers backward, trying to keep her balance.

“Bice, are you all right?” I say, holding onto her. Heathcliff doubles over with raucous laughter.

“Evil beast!” shouts Morgan. “I ought to turn you into a donkey right now. I ought to reduce you to a—a...”

“All of you, go, once and for all!”

Letting out a bellow from somewhere deep inside, Heathcliff charges at Sherlock, who has been watching the whole time. Just as he’s about to hit him with the branch the two little girls throw themselves at Heathcliff, biting his legs, but he shakes them off like they were insects.

“Put down that stick this instant!” A deafening shout saves Sherlock from a real beating. “Go home right now.”

“It’s Nelly, Cathy’s nurse and confidant. The only one with the strength of character to stand up to Heathcliff with any success,” Morgan explains to me quietly.

“As if they were to blame for Cathy abandoning you!”

“Cathy has gone?” asks Sherlock, finally startled out of his stillness.

“That’s right. And if she’s smart, I hope she never comes back,” says the woman.

“But she’s gone to marry Edgar Linton, right?” says Beatrice. “You oughtn’t worry, Heathcliff. She’ll come back soon, like always.”

“No, she hasn’t gone for that,” answers Nelly. “It’s none of your concern, but Edgar is at home crying, too. This time she left
as soon as
she married him. She left without saying a word to anyone—she just disappeared.”

“Poor Heathcliff!” exclaims Beatrice. “Heathcliff, wait!”

He goes off grumbling to himself, his footsteps heavy as an elephant’s. Nelly stays for a few more seconds in the garden to make sure the girls are all right.

“How long ago did Cathy leave?” asks Sherlock.

“Several days ago now. You might think I’m being foolish, but something tells me she won’t be coming back this time.”

“I always knew she was a wicked woman, abandoning poor Heathcliff like that, with that good soul’s need for affection...” says Beatrice through tears.

“For once in her life my girl has done the right thing,” says Nelly.

“It’s hard for me to believe that she’s abandoned Heathcliff,” Sherlock says, more to himself than the rest of us.

“Well, yes,” answers Nelly, “it is hard to believe, just as it’s hard to believe that Heathcliff spends his nights crying over her. He should have loved her properly when she was here instead of pitying himself now.”

The nurse shakes her head in disapproval.

“Heathcliff—crying?” I’m so surprised I accidentally say it out loud.

Nelly looks me up and down. “Yes, he cries. He doesn’t know how to live without her... If you were from around here, you’d know.”

She turns on her heel without saying goodbye and walks off with determined steps, toward the hill where the house called Wuthering Heights stands.

“It must be the winds up in those hills that makes them all so harsh,” says Morgan. “No one in that house has the least manners. Cathy’s nurse’s kindness is wasted on the rest of them up there. By the way, Holmes—what are we doing with these graves?”

Holmes is inspecting the little headstones with his magnifying glass.

“I didn’t know they were here,” he says, “but I imagine they’ll be empty, too.”

“I suppose so,” agrees Morgan. “And besides, they’re too small. Not much could fit in them.”

Jane and her friend Helen run about the garden.

“I think we should inspect them, at any rate.”

“You’re right, Dissie. We shouldn’t leave them out.”

Sherlock tells Morgan to open them.

“Why do I have to use my magic? It’s just a question of digging up the dirt; you all can do it, can’t you?”

These tombs, unlike the ones at the cemetery, are buried. Only the little stones with the names on them are showing. Sherlock gives Morgan a dirty look and goes over to the graves to start inspecting them. I look around to make sure that neither the little girls nor anyone related to the orphanage can see what we’re about to do. That’s when I see Beatrice sitting on the grass, her dress lost among the tall grasses and daisies. She hasn’t stopped crying since Heathcliff threatened her.

“Don’t cry,” I say, coming over to embrace her. I can feel her slender body trembling like a leaf in my arms. “I’m sorry Heathcliff tried to hit you again.”

“I’m not crying for me, but for him. I can’t stand other people’s pain.”

“Other people’s pain, or Heathcliff’s pain?” asks Morgan, but she realizes immediately that the question wasn’t very appropriate. “I’m sorry, Beatrice. I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings.”

“The Creator wanted for me to feel the pain of every Spherean as if it were my own.”

I look at Morgan, who nods. What Beatrice says is true.

“Let’s go,” says Sherlock.

It took him hardly any time at all to uncover the small coffins, their wood rotting from the damp earth. He takes out a handkerchief from his pocket to clean his hands, puts it away again, and puts his pipe in his mouth. Our eyes meet for a few moments and I immediately know three things: first, there was nothing in the coffins. Second, he had assumed that would be the case. And third, he deeply admires my meticulousness, the fact that even though it was likely they would be empty, I still didn’t want to leave anything unexamined. A warm feeling spreads through my chest. My time in the Sphere, and all the thinking I’ve done about Axel and my other loved ones has helped me finally put a name to it. It’s familiarity, that pleasant feeling of knowing someone, knowing that they know you, that you can relax, let down your guard—like being at home. I surprise myself by wondering if Sherlock could be my home someday. The idea doesn’t seem totally preposterous. But it would mean staying in the Sphere, and the thought of that turns my heart to ice.

We leave by the main door of Abbey Walk; there’s no need to go back through the unpleasant underground passage. We walk for a long time in silence, making our way along the winding route that takes us past the theater and to the gardens outside Beatrice’s house.

“We have one more missing person.” Sherlock can’t hide his concern. Beatrice stops short and claps a hand over her mouth in terror. “Come on, keep walking. We mustn’t attract attention.”

“But—but—are we sure Cathy has disappeared?” stammers Beatrice. “There’s no proof!”

“The proof is Cathy herself,” says Morgan. “Her and her role. She would never have abandoned Heathcliff of her own free will. They hated each other and loved each other beyond all reason, you know that. If she isn’t at Wuthering Heights, someone has taken her.”

“And Heathcliff—why didn’t he stop it?” I ask, trying to understand.

“We’re facing something very powerful,” says Sherlock. “You’ve already seen what happened to the Count. He couldn’t keep them from carrying Mina off, either.”

“Ambrosio...?” The monk has seemed suspicious to me all along.

“No,” Sherlock answers emphatically, “not even with the help of his evil arts. At least, it couldn’t be him alone.”

It’s true. I’ve seen him. He’s a small man, and Heathcliff would have taken him out with one punch.

“Cathy has always enjoyed being cruel to Heathcliff. She might have hidden just to make him suffer. She hasn’t necessarily disappeared,” says Beatrice.

“It’s no use denying the obvious,” Morgan replies.

I look at Beatrice, who seems more upset than usual. It isn’t just fear that I can see in her face, but also worry, and even guilt—yes, most of all guilt. I look at Sherlock. Why did he just stand there like an idiot when Heathcliff was about to attack him? Why didn’t he defend Beatrice? I admire the Sphereans deeply, but there are still a lot of things I can’t understand. Despite the respect I have for my fellow investigators, there are some things I should do by myself. After all, we have some common interests, but their home is not mine. I refuse to believe I should stay here forever.

When we go into the St Mary’s gardens I break away from the group and sit down on a bench. No one objects. I thought they’d at least ask why I stopped, but ever since Sherlock started showing so much respect for my hunches, they’ve given me free rein to move around the Sphere. As soon as they’re out of sight I get up and turn toward the back part of the garden. I have a very clear idea of where I want to go.