The Sphere (41 page)

I feel strong and determined. I have to follow the river. I’ll find Charon no matter what Dracula says. With this sense of conviction I start walking, following the current. In the distance I see an impassable barrier—from here it looks like the river flows beneath a group of houses. I don’t want to change streets; I’m afraid if I change course now I won’t be able to find the stream again. The wind has picked up and the rain is falling horizontally, but my footsteps are as determined as ever. As I come closer to the houses, the outlines of the buildings start to blur, like when water spills on an ink drawing. The gray of the walls trickles across the landscape and disappears, like a thick canvas is absorbing it. When I reach the point where I should have run into the obstacle, I can walk right through.

The Sphere is a malleable world, made out of a special kind of clay. Suddenly I think of the way that creature I heard from the tomb was shouting curses, and how they echoed all around. I could hear it so clearly it was just as if I had been watching. The words went back into the mouth of whatever it was that had uttered them. This place is made of something magical—I hope I can get back home without having to give up the Sphere.

I don’t see too many obstacles ahead, and every time one appears, it dissolves and vanishes before my eyes. The rain pricks the cushion of water in the stream, which turns into a wider river up ahead, though it still doesn’t flow terribly quickly. I doubt that it gets deep enough anywhere to support the weight of a boat and its passengers.

Finally I see a white smudge in among the trees. Charon’s boat, as small as a nutshell. How could anyone travel in that? The boatman is a tiny, serene person. He might be a thousand years old—it’s impossible to guess his age. He has white hair that falls in waves and nearly covers his whole body. His hands, resting in his lap, are holding the stem of a large leaf to shield him from the rain.

“Who goes there?” he asks.

I say nothing, and try to control my breathing. I don’t want to be discovered.

“Who goes there?”

My plan is to sneak up so carefully that Charon doesn’t realize he has company until I’m already on the boat—then I’ll figure out what to do next. Maybe I can convince him with my story. There has to be a heart inside that scrawny little form. Charon’s eyes move beneath his closed eyelids. Dark rings surround the blind wells of his eyes. He has a melancholy air; he gives off such a sense of solitude that I can’t look at his face without feeling moved. I watch him, captivated, glad that his blindness lets me look at him without being seen. Even greater than the boatman’s melancholy is his aura of kindness. An overpowering feeling of fondness comes over me, and I stretch my hand out to stroke his wrinkled face. Charon jumps back, and I regret it right away. So much for my plan to take the boat by surprise.

“
What
are you?” Charon asks.

Why didn’t he say
who
?

“Answer—do you not know how to speak?”

“I’m Eurydice,” I say softly.

“What do you want, Eurydice?”

It’s probably going to be easier than I thought. What if I just make my request? He’s realized right away that I don’t belong to the Sphere. What if I open up my heart to this blind old man? Maybe he’ll understand, and take me back home.

“What are you doing here?”

I’m paralyzed; I don’t know where to start.

“Why did you touch me?”

“I don’t know.”

It’s true—it was instinctive.

“What do you seek here, Eurydice?”

“To go back home.”

“Why did you leave home?”

“It was an accident...”

“I am sorry for your accident, but there is nothing I can do,” Charon says. His tone of voice is flat, and I can’t guess at his thoughts. “Find some other way.”

“Please. I know you can.”

The rain keeps falling steadily, but I’m not moving until I’ve convinced the boatman.

“They have told you of the river, eh?”

“Yes,” I admit. “I know it’s the way in for all the new residents of the Sphere. And I know it’s you who brings them over.”

“That’s right. It’s the way
in.
You cannot get out here.”

“But I don’t belong to this world! I have to get out.”

The boatman is quiet for a while.

“I do not know if it is possible to get out. The membrane at the entrance to the Sphere is upriver, but as far as I know it only opens in this direction.”

“It opens the other way, too! Beatrice got out.”

Charon’s face lights up like a coal, but the rest of his body is still. I’m afraid that I’ve made him angry—now I’ve surely lost my only chance to get out, if there was any chance to begin with.

“How many know about Beatrice?”

“I think just me... She accidentally confessed.”

I’m relieved to realize that the boatman is blushing more from embarrassment than anger. I decide to try my luck—after all, I’ve got nothing to lose.

“Beatrice is the one who should be ashamed, you know? It was nasty of her to take advantage of your condition to trick you.”

At last the rain stops. The raindrops trickle slowly down from the leaves of the trees onto the grass. Charon falls back into a heavy silence. Everything about him is deliberate, even his silences. I have enough time to watch a spider hard at work between two branches, weaving its web with patience and meticulous care. I don’t know if it’s the hushed song of the river, if everything in this place lends a sense of calmness, or if it’s the influence of the boatman, but even with this anxiety weighing down my heart I feel like time has stopped, like there’s no hurry. I breathe deeply and enjoy the feeling. After a while the deep wrinkles in Charon’s face relax, and the expression of gentle, solitary wisdom that moved me to touch him before returns. His slender, wrinkled hands set the leaf he was using as an umbrella gently down in the boat. A slight movement from beneath the boatman’s fine eyelids tells me he has finished his deliberations.

“So, can I?” I ask, so quietly that the sound barely leaves my body.

Charon nods and slowly takes up his oar so I can get in. I take a step toward the boat, with no idea at all how I’m going to fit into something so tiny. I move my right foot carefully, with the finesse of a ballerina. It seems like my best bet, given what the boat is like. As soon as the tip of my foot reaches the white nutshell it grows larger. Soon both my feet are inside. Still, I haven’t even sat down on the rough wooden crosspiece when the boat sinks almost to the bottom of the river. It bumps against the pebbles and water rushes in, soaking us. Charon’s long, white hair, which had stayed dry so far, is dripping now, and the boat is flooded.

“I am sorry, but you have to get out,” says the boatman, up to his neck in water but still totally calm.

Then, without warning, my tears come. They splash against the surface of the river, stirring up new streams of water and huge rolling waves. I cry wildly but silently for a few seconds, and then explode in a wail of pain that contains everything I’ve held in for years. Everything that ever hurt me, from the littlest thing to the biggest, it all comes out of me in the form of salt water. My weeping is so great that the river starts to rise. Charon throws his head back to keep his nose and mouth out of the water. He’s on the verge of drowning when the water rushing out of me finally runs out. I wipe my eyes with my hands and take in the boatman’s sad situation. I come over and carry him back to the riverbank on my shoulders. Once the boat is empty, it turns back to the size of a nut, and begins to float again.

“Nothing like that has ever happened,” says Charon, sitting on the grass at the edge of the river.

“You mean my crying?”

“Your crying was remarkable, but I meant the sinking. No one who weighed so much has ever gotten into my boat. I’m sorry, but it won’t be possible to carry you to the start of the river.”

“I could swim,” I say.

“Impossible. The river would spit you right back out. It only allows the boat to pass, nothing else. Don’t think you’re the first to try going upriver under your own power. More than one person with an explorer role has thought they might reach the limits of the Sphere, and then they’ve had to be fetched back from the beach or from some hilltop... The river spits you out quite forcefully, believe me. I don’t recommend trying it. And now, if you would be so kind as to help me back to my boat, I would appreciate it. I feel out of my element when I’m not in it.”

“Of course!”

I help the boatman back to his fragile vessel. Once he’s inside again, he clasps his old, knobby hands in his lap. Charon’s serenity has an undeniable beauty.

“Don’t you get bored here by yourself?”

“How would I get bored? This is my role. Everything is good when everything is in order. Though to tell the truth, things have not had their usual perfection in some time.”

“What do you mean?”

“No one has arrived for some time. Normally I’m not here; I usually go upriver and wait there. I stay there with the boat and when I feel weight I know someone has gotten in, and then I carry them to this side. But there hasn’t been a new publication in so long that I no longer bother going up the river. If someone does show up, they’ll shout, or I’ll hear the waves.”

“All of the Sphereans weigh something?”

“That’s right. The weights vary a little from one to the next, though no one weighs as much as you. The boat floats with all of them.”

I know there’s not much else for me to do here. My time is running out; I’ve got to find another way out.

“Thank you, Charon.”

I take his hands in mine and squeeze them affectionately. The boatman smiles gently. I walk away, still carrying a little bit of Charon’s serenity with me.

––––––––

I
’ve racked my brain looking for ideas, but I can’t think of any way to get out of the Sphere. I guess there’s nothing for it but to listen to Dracula. Maybe if I can reestablish the order of this world, things will get back on track for me, too.

I hear the voices calling me constantly now. They come from the sky, out of the sea, from behind plants—they’re everywhere.

With all the time I’ve spent in this world, I’ve learned the ins and outs of all the roles. At this time of day my companions are in the permanent hospital. I go in through the hidden door at Gannochy House and head straight up to the office; I’m sure I’ll find them there.

“I think I know where the missing people might be,” I say once I open the door and see that they’re all there.

“Dissie!” Beatrice exclaims. Guilt is written all over her face.

“They might be in the little cemetery. Where you found me.”

“But... in the tombs?” Beatrice is horrified.

I sigh and sit down. I’m feeling too weak to stay on my feet.

“I ended up at that cemetery by accident, then when I was looking inside the tomb someone pushed me in. I heard a lot of things—fighting, threats. I think I heard the creature that’s behind all of this.”

“Who is it?” asks Morgan.

“I don’t know. It had a very strange voice, like it was coming out of a tube. I’m sure it wasn’t a Spherean, and it was the person in charge of the winged creatures. It kept calling them useless, and complaining that they didn’t know how to do anything right.”

“And rightly so,” says Sherlock. I look at him; he seems to be sane again. “They lack discretion,” he goes on, “and they are not precise. Think of the incident with Mr. Gray, for example. It makes no sense to have that portrait if they don’t also have Dorian.”

“Right,” I say. I try to think of the best way to say what I think has happened. “I’m afraid that some of the missing people could be... dead. I mean, dead like my original theory, you remember?”

“Permanent death?” asks Morgan.

I nod. Beatrice lifts her hands to her mouth.

“In the tomb where I was trapped there’s... something. You all should go look for it. I’m too weak.”

“But you have to come with us, you must guide us,” pleads Beatrice desperately. “You’re the only one who can bring back balance.”

“It’s true,” adds Morgan. “Your presence is needed.”

I think about Beatrice’s and Morgan’s words for a few moments, and then I agree. I don’t know how or where my way home will open up. I have to be there for anything that might be my chance to bring balance back to the Sphere.

I’m so weak that the walk to the little cemetery is an arduous trek. My friends take turns helping me as we walk.

“Look at the tomb where you found me,” I say, resting against another tomb.

“Allow me to take charge,” says Sherlock.

He reaches inside the open tomb. He pulls something out and drops it as soon as he sees it in the sunlight. The pieces fall to the grass. They look like heads.

“By the Blessed Creator! What is that?” cries Beatrice.

“Heads,” says Morgan, coming closer to look at them. “But... made of what?”

I double over and start to heave when I realize what was in the tomb with me. My stomach seizes and I’m wracked with pain, since there’s no food at all in my body.

“It’s not any of the missing people?” I ask.

“No,” answers Morgan.

“It must be some other Spherean, someone whose disappearance you didn’t know about.”

“They aren’t Sphereans,” Sherlock says with complete certainty.

“Then maybe they’re the winged creatures. The things that were here had come to bury some of their companions. There must be more remains in one of these tombs. I would guess, from how close everything sounded, it’s this one.” I point at one of the nearest tombs. “Or maybe this one.”

Sherlock pushes the stone off of the first and Morgan looks inside.

“There are more here,” she says, using two fingers to take out another head. “How bizarre. These heads are completely flat. What are they?”

“The winged creatures, I told you already.”

Oddly I notice that I’m getting some of my strength back. When I talk to my friends I feel reinvigorated. Sherlock gazes at me with obvious respect.

“They have some similarity to us,” he says. “Not a lot, but I wouldn’t go so far as to say that they’re a completely separate type of being. I would have sworn that the winged beings would be... I don’t know... different.”