The Sphere (34 page)

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I
pull on the cord in front of the Count’s mansion and my heart speeds up as I wait for the sound of the bell. The tendrils of the huge gate are starting to seem strangely familiar to me. The lions on their high columns gaze at me, their eye sockets green with mold, and their stone claws point gently in my direction.

The butler’s face peers through a slit in the large main door. When he sees that it’s me he comes out slowly. His hurried steps from the previous visits are a thing of the past.

“Come in,” he says, showing a thousand yellowing teeth.

“
In principio erat verbum,”
says Dracula, looking up from an ancient tome in his lap. We’re in his library again. I look at him, a bit disconcerted. I don’t know what to say. “Were you not thinking of the similarity between the gate at the entrance to my home and the one that leads to the gardens where Beatrice lives?”

“I was, actually.”

Now that I think about it, I have read that Latin inscription many times on my way into the St Mary’s gardens. At first I wondered what it meant, but the truth is I don’t really think about it anymore. I don’t know how the Count found something like that inside my mind.

“
In the beginning was the word
,” says the Count, “a simple phrase, but with great meaning. It speaks of how our world was created. Have you discovered yet what your task here with us is?”

“Unfortunately not.” I realize that my choice of words wasn’t ideal. “I mean, not yet. It’s not unfortunate to be here with all of you.”

“I am glad. But remember that your time is not infinite. There is a set time during which you can leave the Sphere.”

“I know,” I say quietly.

At the thought of leaving this place I feel suddenly wistful. There’s something majestic about the Sphere, the way these beings come to life. What are they made of?

“Of words. I told you already, Miss Eurydice.”

The Count answers my thoughts, as usual.

“Words, sure, but not just that,” I say.

“Pour out all your worries. I know that’s why you’ve come to visit this old man.”

“I can’t quite get my head around the nature of the Sphereans. You are...”

“Fascinating?”

“Difficult to understand.” I drop my head and feel my cheeks redden a little. I don’t want the Count to know that when I talk about not understanding the nature of Sphereans, I really mean Sherlock. “In fact, you should be terrifying. You are, actually. But you’re so kind to me. People think of you as heartless but your pain for Mina is, if you don’t mind me saying...”

“Immense. Yes. I can see I surprise you. Did you not expect to find feelings in us?”

“No, it’s not that. I don’t know. It’s just, sometimes...”

“You have not observed enough. If you wish to understand us, you must immerse yourself in our world, let yourself settle into the rhythm of our actions and our roles. I guarantee you that we have feelings. We are not flat, Miss Eurydice.”

The Count’s expression as he says those last words is intriguing. His eyes meet mine and it’s like he’s taken control of my will. Without any hesitation I say exactly what I’m thinking:

“Sherlock, for example. Sometimes he’s brilliant, but other times it seems like his mind has gone blank. I’ve seen him show amazing courage, and then other times, well... It’s exasperating. I don’t know what his feelings are.”
Especially toward me
, I think. The Count looks at me tenderly. I know he heard my thoughts, but he says nothing, to keep from embarrassing me.

“Like I said—we aren’t flat.”

“It’s not just Sherlock who I find unsettling. Heathcliff...”

“An interesting Spherean,” remarks the Count.

“Yes. I wouldn’t have put it that way, but I guess he is interesting.” For a moment I weigh what I know about him. “His personality is so brutish, and yet... Today they told me he’s been crying inconsolably because Cathy left.”

Dracula’s serenity is completely transformed.

“Cathy has disappeared?” I nod, and the Count goes pale. “You must help us, Miss Eurydice. Do everything you can. It may be the only way you can get back to your world. Perhaps you must leave a part of yourself here with us in exchange for your freedom. I will do anything I can to help you understand our nature, and the way our world works. Do you want to know why Heathcliff is suffering Cathy’s loss so deeply? He does not know how to live without her.”

“That’s what the nurse said.”

“I fear you do not understand the weight of my words. Heathcliff
cannot
live without Cathy. Their roles are interdependent. Some people simply cannot
be
without the other. This is case with Heathcliff and Cathy.”

“Is it like the doubles?”

“Something like that. With the difference that the double Sphereans carry their two halves within themselves.”

“I understand,” I say thoughtfully. “But if Heathcliff and Cathy have roles that are—what did you say, interconnected? Why do they get along so badly?”

“It is an interconnection of opposites. They are attracted so strongly because of their differences. There is no chance of reaching harmony, but despite their differences, their love is predestined. It simply must happen. There is nothing that can stop it.”

I think about Axel and me. Are we predestined? My own thoughts come as a shock. Deep down, I’d always wanted destiny to work out in my favor. Now I wonder if all my efforts to push Axel away were just my way of trying to resist destiny... And I thought the Sphereans were hard to understand! I did want a happy ending, something that would work out in spite of me, but at the same time I was terrified of coming face to face with that kind of happiness. What I wouldn’t give now to have an invisible thread that connected me to Axel, something I could follow to find my way back. I look at the Count, hoping that he’s read my thoughts. I don’t feel capable of saying them out loud.

“There is such an invisible thread, dear Eurydice. Allow me.”

Dracula pulls two chairs to face each other.

“Have a seat, please.”

I do, and the Count sits down across from me and takes my hands in his. I feel sleepy at once. My eyelids are so heavy that I can’t keep them open. Inseparable opposites—that’s what’s going on with Axel and me. I can see the answer clearly now. Being away from him isn’t just difficult, it’s physically painful. We are total opposites. I was never deluded about that; I knew it from the very start. But what else do I know about him? It’s like Axel was afraid to show himself to me—but why? On the one hand everything was easy with him, crystal clear, but on the other... I can feel the Count’s fingers on my wrist, as if he were taking my pulse. I can identify the exact moment when Axel began to hide himself from me. It was that afternoon at the bookstore. But why? What is it he didn’t want me to find out?

I start to see images, though I know my eyes are closed. I can see that afternoon when Axel and I walked through downtown Edinburgh, just a few weeks after we’d met. I can see myself, but I only see Axel’s shoes. I’m seeing things from Axel’s eyes, hearing his voice in my head... It’s like I’m him.

We went into one of the bookstores on Princes Street—it seemed like a nice thing to do with her. Bookstores have always been magical places for me. I walked slowly up and down the aisles of shelves. Eurydice followed me silently, but I didn’t give it much thought. She wasn’t a girl who talked a lot.

“Should we ask a salesperson about the book you’re looking for?” she said.

That was when I realized she was bored out of her mind. I don’t know why I did it, why I insisted on staying at the bookstore. I guess it was destiny giving me a hand, helping me discover the one essential requirement for Eurydice to be with me, for her to come to love me some day.

“I’m not looking for any book in particular,” I said, “I just want to look. I like looking at books.”

Eurydice answered with a sigh of resignation. I took her hand and stroked her fingers. Then something caught my attention.

“Look! I said, picking up a book from a table in the children’s section. “The Tale of the Heir . I love it! They read it to me a million times when I was little.” I couldn’t hide my excitement.

“Uh-huh,” she answered, her face darkening.

That was the sign. A short burst, a fraction of a second was enough for me to look into Eurydice’s eyes and see deep inside her. Those changing eyes that I liked so much went from blue, the almost navy blue they’d been when we went in the bookstore, to clear gray. Two orbs that revealed a whole life of pain. I think that was when I began to love her—I mean truly love her. I was determined to figure out that pain, to get to the bottom of it, to cure it, if it could be done. I knew that what I saw in her that day was just the tip of the iceberg. Eurydice was varied, rich. There were a thousand girls behind those color-changing eyes. One of those girls was searching for me, another one was running away from me, one was feeling pain stronger than she herself was... And I was starting to fall in love with all of them. I put the book back on the shelf. Eurydice had let go of my hand a while ago.

“I guess I got carried away, I’m sorry. It was my mother who used to read that story to me.” I thought maybe talking about myself would encourage her to open up. “When she died, my father sank into such a determined depression that I had to learn to read aloud, imitating the voices she used to do, so I could hear the story again. I still read it sometimes now.”

“I’m sorry...” said Eurydice. Her voice sounded as if someone had just struck her in the heart.

“Don’t worry about it.”

“No, really. I’m sorry about your mother. But why would you pick a story that brings back sad memories?”

There she was—the Eurydice who was interested in me, who was affectionate, who could make me feel like I wasn’t alone in the world.

“It’s just the opposite,” I said. “Reading it or hearing it is like being with my mother again. It doesn’t make me sad at all. I always look for it when I go into a bookstore. I love finding new editions. It’s silly, I know, but I feel like my mother is still living somehow. If the story doesn’t die, neither does she.”

The tears spilled out of Eurydice’s eyes in an unstoppable flood. I hugged her, but it was like hugging a rock. She stepped away from me and her face was neutral again. I’d made a mistake: telling her about that part of my life hadn’t brought her closer. It had only reinforced the wall she put up between us sometimes.

“I’m sorry I told you about my mother. I didn’t mean to make you sad.”

“Nothing’s wrong. I’m fine.”

“Was it the story?” I asked later on, once we’d left the bookstore and were back outside with the noisy buses and the bustling crowd.

“What story?”

“The Tale of the Heir...”

She shrugged.

“Is that what put you in a bad mood?” I asked.

“I’m not in a bad mood.”

Eurydice’s words were so full of anger that I could hardly believe they were coming from someone who had been worried about me just a few minutes before. No, neither the anger nor the pain was really about me or my story. There was a huge gray cloud over Eurydice, dimming the brightness I had seen in her the moment I met her in the pub. Was it books in general, or that particular story, that had upset her so much?

“You don’t like to read, do you?”

She gave me a look like the blade of a knife. That kind of hate didn’t make any sense—no one could hate literature that much. No one could hate anything that much. But it wasn’t the right time to get into it; all that mattered was that destiny had given me a hand, and now I knew what I had to do. It was going to be painful. If I wanted to be with her, I had to hide one of the most important parts of my life. I could never tell her that literature is my life, and that my greatest dream is to be a writer.

“Come on, smile a little,” I said, giving her a playful shove. “Let me see your smile.”

Eurydice smiled broadly. A genuine smile, the kind that lit up my life.

“You’re like a porcupine,” I said, giving her a kiss on the end of her nose.

She shoved her hands deep into her coat pockets and stared at me, pressing her lips tight to keep from speaking. Just her presence was enough to make my heart spill over.

“What’d you call me?” she asked after a while.

“Porcupine. I called you a porcupine. Pretty, but with dangerous spines. But inside porcupines are really tender, you know?”

“Really? How do you know?”

“I don’t know, but I have a feeling... Or else I’m making it up.”

Eurydice. A thousand and one Eurydices, all standing right before me.

The images disappear. I blink a few times. I know I’m in Count Dracula’s mansion, but I feel dizzy and strange from what I just saw. I wonder if I really visited Axel’s memory, or if it was just an effect—some kind of trick from the king of the creatures of the night.

Dracula has gone. I’m alone in the enormous library. The sunlight, dimmed by the fog in the garden, shines through the window and falls gently on the furniture. I can hear the quiet creaking of the bookshelves. I don’t want to get up. What I saw left my body weak and aching. The butler’s tiny steps patter up and down the  hall as he rushes back and forth. I miss thousands of things, millions of moments. If I could, I would erase most of my own actions and take back most of my words—nearly all of them. I would go back and back and back until I couldn’t go any farther. If I could be granted one wish, if I could change one thing from the past, I know exactly what it would be: the fight on the porch at that damn party. I’m not asking to go back—just to erase what Axel felt.

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W
hen I reach St Mary’s gardens Morgan and Sherlock are going inside Beatrice’s house. I follow after them, still a little lost in the images of Axel I just saw. I heard his words. I was inside his thoughts.

“Beatrice,” says Morgan’s voice, “I’m afraid we’re bringing bad news.”

“It’s about Heathcliff,” says Sherlock.

“Holmes, please! A little tact!”

I enter the living room just as Morgan demands more tact from a Sherlock I can hardly recognize. They’re both unrecognizable. Morgan asking for tact?