The Void (14 page)

Cyrus shivered. He tried to keep his gaze straight. To not look upon the men. But his eyes always wandered. Why was this part of his vision, he thought. What did this have to do with him? It was with great relief that he reached the end of the passage and left the Stygian abyss behind.

The corridor opened into an antechamber where another mountain of a man stood. His purpose, Cyrus suspected, was to keep the haggard ghosts of the cells behind from mixing with the club's more respectable clientele. Cyrus surmised that, for most guests, a bit of a confrontation could be expected here, while the man who guarded the gate to yon paradise determined whether you were one to be protected or one to be protected from.

Not so for Cyrus. The man knew him. As all did here. As all had here, since the beginning. And even if he had not recognized Cyrus, his suit and the attendant trappings of wealth would have sufficed to gain entrance. Men like Cyrus had their vices and their drugs. But they remained respectable.

“Mr. McDonnell,” the man thundered, if only because his voice filled his frame. “Good to see you again, sir.”

He rapped twice on the door. The sound was muffled by a thick layer of crimson velvet that clung tight to its surface. Apparently, it was loud enough, though, as in an instant, it opened and Cyrus was inside.

It was a club, a speakeasy. Classic and decadent all at once. At one end was a bandstand where men in white tuxedos lightly tuned their instruments. The sound created a sort of quiet cacophony: a rich, ebullient mix of music and chaos. Along the chamber walls were plush leather booths, filled with men like him.

They wore suits, while the women that accompanied them donned dresses that hung close to curves and rises and dips, tasseled ropes of fabric and frills clinging to the edges like some sort of fashionable window dressing. Their hair was cut short in the style of the times, thin wisps that gave them a boyish quality, a hint of innocence that their eyes betrayed.  

Cyrus had read of this era and loved it. He supposed that was why this was his gift, why this dream was his adventure. He had stepped back in time to an age of license and frivolity, of forbidden pleasures and underground palaces that would provide them. He breathed deep the sweet air, perfumed by cigars and cigarettes pressed tight against gently smiling lips.

“I'm back,” he mumbled to himself. Oh to never leave!

Along the entire rear wall was a bar, its most prominent feature a mirror that stretched the length of it. Cyrus stopped for a moment to admire his own image in that mirror before speaking to the skeleton-faced man in front of it.

Cyrus had never been wealthy in life. Not that he had been poor, but always scraping, barely making do. He acted happy. That was his part to play. But here, he was what he had always dreamed of being.

“Mr. McDonnell,” said the man behind the bar, pushing forward a martini that he had already mixed. “Your favorite, as always.”

Cyrus took the glass and raised it in salute. He then turned, making his way to an empty booth that sat only a few feet from the stage. He had never paid for this martini or any other drink he'd had here. Apparently, his money was no good in this establishment. Yet another aspect of the dream that pleased him.

Cyrus sat down and waited. He pulled another cigar from his inside jacket pocket. There was a gold-plated cutter there as well, a tiny pair of scissors that could serve only one purpose. He snipped off the end of the cigar and picked up a book of matches that sat on the table in front of him. Written in bold letters across the front were the words,

The Abyss
.

Cyrus removed a match and struck it hard. The end exploded in a flash and the smell of sulfur stung his nostrils as flame erupted to consume the flimsy piece of wood. Cyrus brought the flame to the end of the cigar, the fire flaring with every breath. It took two more matches to light the damned thing. Not that he cared. Cyrus was in a state of bliss. In that moment, there was nowhere he would rather have been.

The band had fallen silent, the tuning and re-tuning of instruments having finally stopped. Now they, and the other patrons, waited. Cyrus felt the tingle of anticipation kiss his skin, the electricity in the air that seemed to visibly spark. No matter how many times he had seen her he always felt the same. Excited, exhilarated, full of light. She brought that light. She carried it with her everywhere she went. In her eyes and in her voice.

In an instant, the house lights dropped. Cyrus and all the rest were plunged into darkness, save for the burning ends of lit tobacco and the flash of an occasional match. It only lasted a moment. There was the loud crash of a large switch being thrown, and a single spotlight burned down from the ceiling. It landed upon her.

When Cyrus was a boy, he had known a girl named Sidney Driskal. She grew up four houses down from him in Chesterfield, one of those quaint New England towns in Western Massachusetts that time and progress—and all the good and the bad that come with it—never quite reached. She'd been a tomboy and that is what drew him to her when he was young, before he appreciated girls for their ability to do things other than climb a tree.

She wore overalls in those days. The same pair every day, it seemed. Faded blue with fraying cuffs and holes in the knees. Her dark hair was cut short and he might have mistaken her for a boy, were it not for her general softness. She was too pretty, even then, for one to make such a mistake. Not that either one of them knew it at the time.

In the summer they would climb trees and explore the forbidden forests that lay behind their houses. During the winter, on days when the bitter cold wind did not blow so fiercely, they would build snowmen and snow forts, hurling packed balls of ice that stung when they hit and left bruises as proof of contact.

It was the fall they longed for the most, even if its coming did bring the start of school on its heels. Those fall days, when the sun was waning in the west but had not yet died and the leaves on the trees gave the illusion that they were aflame, were the days they loved.

For most children, Christmas was the occasion to be wished for, the night to anticipate. Not for Cyrus and Sidney. They awaited days of carved pumpkins, spiced cider, and harvest festivals. Tales of ghosts and witches and things that went bump in the night. The ancients called their celebration Samhain, held the final day of October, their new year. And so it was with Cyrus and Sidney, for when October passed, the year died with it.

But with every death comes new life. The wheel turned for them together. Always cycling to something new. Until the day came when they themselves were that new thing. Until Sidney's hair grew long, and her straight, rough edges began to curve. Cyrus began to see her not as a friend, but as a woman.

It might have divided them, that change. Sent them apart like so many childhood friends when childhood ends. Instead, in each other they explored mysteries that bewitched them both. Shared secrets never to be told. Experiences, whole lives it seemed sometimes, that they said they would never regret. Cyrus never did, and he believed, had she lived, that Sidney never would have either.

It was the blood Cyrus remembered most clearly. The blood and her eyes. Crystal blue eyes that in that final moment seemed to shatter. He didn't remember much else. Only that they were driving on the Forest Dale Road, between her house and their school. A trip so short it barely merited a thought.

He didn't even remember how it happened. He only recalled, when he woke, his shirt was wet with his own blood, his eyesight gone as if a shroud lay over his face. But when that mist cleared, he was staring into her face, Sidney's. Paler than it should have been, life having poured out from a hole in her throat that a shard of glass had made.

He had been the last thing she had seen. The last thing she had chosen to look upon. He knew that, for it was her eyes that met his when the veil was lifted. Her eyes that he peered into until he passed out again. Not to awake until he was lying in a hospital bed twenty miles away.

When the spotlight came on, everything else turned off. In the silence, Cyrus could hear his own heart beating and the gentle crinkle of slowly consumed tobacco as the fire burned the cigar he held in his hand. He barely noticed, even if those things were a roar compared to the perfect stillness of the room. His eyes, like all eyes, were on her.

She stood as still as death, her pale skin heightening that illusion. But there was burning inside her, fire that bespoke life and passion. Cyrus knew, in his rational mind, that it was the light that burned down from above that gave her illumination. But it did not seem so. No, she seemed to shine herself. As if whatever was inside of her burned so hot that it longed to escape.

Her ensemble completed the illusion. A dress that hung tight to her body, the fabric of which caught the light, reflecting it back as if she was covered in precious stones. The design evoked the Far East, for it was vaguely Asian in appearance. A light blue primarily, with a high collar that swept up her neck. Covering it to her chin. If the tightness on her throat bothered her in any way, her singing never showed it.

The men in the room sat in stasis, not daring to move, not wanting to be the one who broke the moment. In truth, the women felt the same. They all wanted her. Such was the power of the goddess in their midst. The whole world was frozen. Then she blinked once, and the edges of her mouth curved upward—almost imperceptibly—into the tiniest of smiles. They all breathed again; up to that point they hadn't realized they'd been holding their collective breath. Her eyes closed, her mouth opened, and she began to sing.

What did she sing? What were the words that she uttered? Were they words at all? Cyrus had thought on it but concluded long ago that it did not matter. Would one ask a nightingale the name of her song? Or the robin on a summer's day to explain its meaning?

No, hers was simply a voice as beautiful as any instrument, as heartrending as any violin, as uplifting as any trumpet, as dark as the lowest bass. She didn't need words. Yet somehow, deep within him, he knew this song was written for him.

How long did she sing? How long did she carry him from the heights of ecstasy to the depths of despair and all places in between? How long did she serenade him with such beauty that he thought his mind might break because of it? He lived a lifetime there, in that song, though it was only an instant. In that instant, he saw visions of what might have been. Images of a future long lost. Of a road not taken, but only because he had no choice in the matter. Yes, Cyrus loved the dreams. Because for him, that is what they truly were. Dreams. Dreams of more than one life lost.

It always went the same. He would come here and he would listen to her sing. When she finished, he would stand in the rain in front of the club and smoke cigarettes till the ship reached its destination, wherever that was. Every time went like that and he had every reason to think that it would always be so. But now, something changed. She looked right at him.

She had never done so before. She had sung her song and if she knew that he was there, she never showed it. Now their eyes were locked. In any other circumstance, he probably would have wilted under that gaze, even though it came from a beautiful woman.
Especially
because it did. But he never wanted to look away now. He had waited for so long to look in those eyes again. Those crystal blue eyes.

She sang the rest of her song staring through the darkness at him. With the light upon her and he in the shadows, she couldn't have seen him. But that was wrong and he knew it. She saw, just as clearly as he. In her eyes, a million words danced, a thousand messages. He didn't always know what she said but his answer was yes. It didn't matter what she asked.

When the song ended, the lights came up and applause exploded throughout the room. They thundered for her. They called for her. They screamed her name and begged her to give them the merest glance, the slightest nod, the simplest acknowledgement of their presence. As always, she gave them none. But she did not simply turn and go as she had in earlier dreams. Instead, she walked straight over to Cyrus.

She floated across the room, her long dress giving the illusion that her feet did not touch the ground. She came to him, bending down low so that her mouth was at his ear and whispered, “In an hour, meet me behind the stage. Second door to the right.” She cocked her head slightly in its direction. “I'll be waiting.” She backed away, turning and smiling to the crowd, allowing them the slightest bow in response to the roar they gave. 

Cyrus waited. He waited through interminable minutes that passed so slowly he wondered if the clock ran backward. He waited under the hate-filled gazes of those around him, their jealous eyes cursing the connection they all saw between Cyrus and the dark-haired beauty that haunted them. Cyrus wondered how he would escape them and meet her without the others knowing. What if they followed? But then he had his answer.

The lights dropped again, and a woman appeared on stage that he did not recognize. This was his chance. He inched himself quietly out of the booth, making sure to draw as little attention to himself as possible. He made his exit through the darkness, guiding himself by a mental map of the room burned into his mind by a hundred different visits. He felt his way along the wall, searching for the doorknob.

The woman's song wafted down to him from the stage. Her voice was not as beautiful, nor as intoxicating, but it snuck up on him. Seemed to bury itself in the back of his mind. In those words that were not words, he recognized a warning to turn back. That the silent siren call he followed would lead to his own destruction. His hand found the knob, and all was forgotten.

He stepped from one darkness into another, and silence came with it. He stood in the night, peering into the blackness, wondering what he should do. No candle or flame illuminated the shadow. No light guided his path. He stepped forward, sliding his foot along the ground, ensuring that always there was solid ground beneath it and that the floor did not drop away into some abyss that would swallow him, body and soul.