Vurt 2 - Pollen (35 page)

Belinda falling head first into the pool of darkness, her lips quenched by piss.

Golden showers…

Tuesday

Golden showers… rain dripping onto a plate of meat. Belinda was sitting at a large, square table laden with fruit and flesh. She was pushing a fork into a thick, barely cooked steak. The meat was alive with pink worms. In Belinda’s other hand a knife, with which she sliced off a portion. And as that meat touched her tongue I came alive to her insides from my fountain-fall, feeling the juices flowing, and the worms moving over her lips. It took all my Shadow-power to force my daughter’s hand away from her mouth. Don’t touch the meat, my sweet. Don’t eat.

It was raining inside.

I looked through my daughter’s eyes.

Where were we? This room…

Its walls faded into the distance, patterned with mist. A slight drizzle fell from the ceiling. Yellow droplets. Clouds were partly obscuring the chandelier. The light was buzzing with static, electric blue. The noise of flies, hungry for flesh. Lichen grew on the wet surface of the table. Maggots were scrambling through the blue cheese, and worms were in the meat. Pewter mugs of heavy wine were set beside each plate. I was resting my Shadow inside Belinda, who was sitting at one side of the table. She was dressed now in a velvet gown. Coyote was sitting at our left-hand side, digging in with slack jaws to a plate of raw pork. Jewel was perched on the table itself, lapping with a fat tongue at a bowl of sour-creamed rice. How sad it made me to see them eating, and how useless. To eat in the Underworld, didn’t that mean staying there, forever? Wasn’t that the story? Persephone the flower girl was sitting cross-legged on the table, leafing through a stolen A–Z map of Manchester. Its pages were sodden, rain-dappled. To my right, an empty chair. Opposite Belinda and myself, across the vast reaches of the table, sat a young man with shining midnight blue hair and skin the colour of soot.

“Good day to you, Madam Jones,” he pronounced in a velvet voice. “Welcome to the feast.”

“I can’t move. Why can’t I move?”

“I trust you had a pleasant journey? I took the liberty of covering your daughter’s nakedness. After all, it is your own nakedness now.”

I tried to get Belinda to her feet. Her body felt like lead.

“You are here at my bequest, and you will leave when I have finished with you. I cannot guarantee the state you will be in. Welcome to Juniper Suction, my travellers.”

Neither Coyote nor Belinda seemed to respond to his overtures, and I realised then that the man was speaking only to me; his voice of soot was drifting over the Shadow. “Quite right, Madam Jones,” he responded. “How astute. The others are helplessly in my control now. There remains only your good self. But I see that your given name is Sibyl. Yes. Splendid! I like that. A nice touch.”

“You’re John Barleycorn?” I asked. “I saw your face on that snake in the forest.”

“I must thank you for the safe return of my wife.” He smiled at the young girl on the table.

“We didn’t bring her.”

“My dear Persephone can be very resourceful. But, how rude of me. You were enquiring about my name. I think, in your country, they call me Fiery Jack? Is that correct? Or else Jack O’Lantern. Or else the devil himself, Satan, the serpent. Hades. Ah, the endless bounty of the human imagination; it finally comes to rest in a few chosen words. Sir John Barleycorn.” He savoured each syllable as though each was a piece of fine meat. “John Barleycorn. Yes, that is my favoured name. I am your very own god of fermentation, the spirit of death and rebirth in the soil. I am your wine. Really, the stories you people come up with. But does it matter? Names are for small humans. Does a flower know its name?”

Once again I tried to make Belinda stand up from the table, but some darker, stronger force was hindering me.

“Where the fuck do you think you’re going?” Barleycorn’s eyes burned into my daughter’s flesh.

“You have no right to keep me from…”

“Please. Don’t… try… to do… anything. You will only cause me to…”

His gaze was hurting me.

“I must apologize, madam…” A little light returned to his eyes. “… for my previous remark. It is most ungentlemanly to swear at the dinner table.”

“You have a powerful Shadow, Mr. Barleycorn…” I was trying to please him, to gain time.

“I thank you for the compliment. Unfortunately, you will never please me, Sibyl, and you will never gain time. Yes, I know every little thought, every pathetic, human emotion that travels through your skull. But really… I am whatever you want me to be. To Coyote I’m a dog-flower king. To Jewel I’m a good father. To Belinda, a good lover. For all their wilfulness, they make rather easy targets, I’m afraid. Look at them. Can you not see how easily controlled they are? Helpless within my grasp. Finally, after long years of struggle, I get some real living, breathing humans to converse with, and they turn out to be mere playthings. Perhaps you will prove yourself a worthier guest. My dear Sibyl, whatever shall I be for you? I was quite fascinated, you know, by your presence in the forest some days ago. I’ve always wanted to talk to a… erm… to a Dodo. This is the correct phrase, I believe? Or maybe you would prefer Unbeknownst?”

“I haven’t come here to talk.”

“You haven’t come here for anything. You are here because I deemed it so. Now please, stop struggling, and pay me some respect. After all, I’m one your greatest creations.”

“You have to stop the fever, Barleycorn. People are dying.”

“Sibyl, I do believe you’re lying to me. You no longer have any interest in the outside world, in reality. People!” He breathed the word as though it were a curse. “It is your son—this ugly, little swine who now dines at my expense—it is he that you want to save.”

“Yes…”

“Louder, please, and more pronounced.”

“Yes. Please don’t let my Jewel die.”

Barleycorn smiled. “It is quite remarkable, your journey. No, really. To save your daughter like that. To give yourself up to her. Such a long fall it must have been. Belinda was quite ready to meet her death.”

“What gives you the right to interfere with human life?”

“Did you not enjoy the entertainments, Sibyl? The fifty-headed dog? The boatman? The brass band? The knot garden? Of course you did. You had fun working your way through the puzzles. This is an unexpected pleasure for me, you must realise that. I ordered Coyote to bring my wife back, and he brings along some… ‘extra luggage’ I believe he calls it? Well, I’m glad. It gets very lonely sometimes. I just want to entertain you, Sibyl, as best I can, in the tradition to which you are accustomed. After all, isn’t that why you invented me? Now eat. Enjoy the repast.”

He scooped up a portion of meat with his bare hands and placed it against his tongue. I could feel the hunger in Belinda’s mind, but she was in my control now; my daughter would go hungry for a while yet. She was captured here, as were Jewel and Coyote. I was the only one still resisting Barleycorn’s charm. I could not even speak to my daughter any more. I took the opportunity to study John Barleycorn. He really was very beautiful…

Tight, dark skin revealing perfect bones. Eyes of night, filled with a silken weariness. A thin blade of a nose. Pinched nostrils. Thick, glistening hair which he now pushed a grease-stained hand through. A carefully trimmed goatee beard. A tailored jacket the colour of ink. Crisp white shirt. A bootlace tie knotted with a skull and crossbones amulet. Late twenties, early thirties. He had the look of a predator, but I knew this was only Belinda’s projection. Full, sullen lips, perfect for love, a bruised love.

“Shall we now praise that mysterious process,” Barleycorn announced, “whereby the fruit of the vine is changed into wine, which, in turn, transports the human mind to a more exciting realm. Let us drink.” He raised his glass and we all followed suit, even young Jewel and Persephone; I could feel the blood-red wine dripping down my daughter’s throat. Too late, too late… I was too late to stop her from swallowing. How strong was this wine? How could I escape its river of warmth and comfort?

Coyote slobbered into his plate. Jewel sneezed into his bowl, and then laughed, delighted. Belinda guzzled down the wine.

John Barleycorn had a hold on us. A spell had been cast.

“Yes, a spell has been cast,” he said, reaching deep into my Shadow for knowledge. “I’m so glad you could make it this far, my dear Sibyl. You cannot believe how lonely it gets, inside these feathers. These stories… they are like dungeons. And to have human company, if only of a tepid kind. Really… it is most delightful.”

Coyote and Jewel were fighting over a piece of steak, and Belinda was just in love with the party. I felt I was the last voice of reason. The rain was falling over Belinda’s mapped-out skull.

“I would like to be free, of course,” Barleycorn continued. “Free from the tale. This is why I sent Persephone and her fever to you. You think I enjoy this? You think I like being trapped here? You really believe I like being just a part of one of your petty tales?”

“Persephone is a murderer.”

“Is that the word? Murderer? Of course you mortals hold such store by it. Life, I mean. And the clinging on to it. Oh dear, how you love to cling. Really, it gets quite tiresome. Have you ever heard a plant complaining about death?”

Persephone slithered over the table towards Barleycorn’s lap. Once settled there, she ran her fingers through his hair. Shining blue like dark lanterns, his hair seemed to be moving. A thick glistening strand of it rose into the air, and then settled on the pink steak in front of him. It was feeding, his hair was feeding! Barleycorn’s hands were wandering over Persephone’s body, the left to the budding breasts, the right hand reaching down between her legs. Persephone was giggling.

I pushed Belinda’s plate aside: “I don’t know how you can eat this. It’s rotten.”

The man’s eyes were catching black fire: “Oh I am sorry. I like my meat well hung and raw. Sibyl, my dear, I assumed you would have the same tastes…”

I didn’t answer. No smile, no laughter.

“Coyote certainly seems to be enjoying his meal,” Barleycorn continued, looking over to where the dog was guzzling down another pink lump of pork. “Yes, your friend would make a fine guardian. I mean, old Cerberus, well he’s a little… a little creaky these days. You noticed? But I want to tell you about my penetration. I’ve got the wanderlust, you see, the need to infect. The need to be the teller, not the tale. There is a slight problem. If I should ever leave this Vurt-story of Juniper Suction, this tale shall fade into a sad ending. Miss Hobart herself wrote this into the feather’s workings. She wanted to make sure that every story had its centre. My great desire for your world will be eternally unrequited. I mean, who would invite the devil to dinner? So, I had this idea that I could send something into your world, and who better to travel than my own dear, sweet wife, Persephone? And from her seed would a thousand, million tales grow forth, and all of them my children.”

“You’re scared of me, aren’t you, Sir John?”

He paused in his breath for a moment. For the first time he actually seemed to be considering something that I had said. I wasn’t going to let this go. “You’re scared of me because I’m a Dodo,” I said to him. “You can’t infect me with your stories. You can’t harm me.”

“Your life’s story will end in your death.” He smiled then, before continuing: “Whereas, the more stories that you tell, the longer that we of the dream world shall live. And whilst your sorry flesh decays and dies, we of the dream shall never die. There will always be another mouth to feed. A story is like food, is it not? Food for the tongue. And a tongue should be well hung. What are you planning to do, Sibyl? What is your purpose in coming here?”

“I want to destroy you.”

“And how would you do that?”

“I want to destroy you for the pain you’ve brought to my world, my friends…”

“How would you kill a dream? It would be like killing your own head. There’s no way out, Sibyl. I am a tasty story that your ancestors once dreamt. The story of the world under the world. Of your fear of death. Out of that fear you made me. Oh, it was quite simple in the early days. Stories were told, and then they vanished. Into breath.” He took another drink of wine before continuing. “I do believe this blood-hued elixir to be the very first example of Vurt. Only through its transformations could your ancestors imagine another world beyond the everyday. From the gulp of wine flowed the books and the pictures, the cinema, the television—all the ways of capture. And with Miss Hobart, and the feathers, the Vurt, and the shared dream of it all, now we live on. The tale has turned. The stories keep growing, even when you’re not telling them. We no longer need to be told. And one day we will tell ourselves. The dream will live. This is why I brought the fever to your world. I want a grip on the world. I want to infect you with my love.”

Something very strange happened then, if I can use the word strange in such a context. Four bullets appeared out of nowhere at the far end of the dining room. They travelled slowly along the line of the table, missing each of us. They crept through the air above the fourth and empty chair, and then vanished into the mist. John Barleycorn watched their passage with disgust. “You know, it really angers me when people do that,” he said. “Firing bullets in the Vurt. Don’t people realise that those bullets are just going to travel through every tale until they find a worthwhile target? Nothing is lost in a story, only exchanged. That was Columbus’s seat. He was invited to the feast. What can I do? Such rudeness.”

The slow drift of the bullets brought me back to task. “Please… you have seduced my children and my city with your love… but can you not save my son?”

Barleycorn sighed. “Here we are, inside my golden palace. Which lies inside the garden. Which lies within the dream, the story. The story inside the Heaven Feathers. Inside the Vurt world, which is contained by reality. We are nestled within story within story, and all you can squeal about is the life and death of your firstborn. Really, Sibyl, I expected more from you.”