The Dead House - Kurtagich Dawn - Страница 8

Find God. Find hope. Company… I don’t even know what. I’m so alone. Oh God, I wish Carly was here.

They switched the outside lights on tonight, so all the white-barked trees stand starkly orange under the new moon like lepers bent and twisted. The light is only the imitation of warmth, but I’ll take what I can get.

When I was five, I asked Carly what the sun felt like, and she wrote, “Warm, Kaitie, so warm. Like a hot bath.”

Even the stone walls of the chapel are illuminated, and I feel less alone somehow. But warm? No. Cold as ice, like everything else.

There’s a profound stillness here, especially in the nooks where the walls cast the darkest shadows. They look like spilled ink, impenetrable. Void. Even the scratching of my pen as I write is raw and harsh in the silence, as loud to my ears as a scream. I flinch—I tear—with every stroke.

Can they hear me, the corpses beneath the little gravestones in what I call my Forgotten Garden? There are only about thirty, from a long, long time ago. Nothing but dust now, not even memories. Most of the headstones are illegible, sentiment that even stone wasn’t strong enough to hold. I told you. Forgotten Garden, full of skeletons, like depressing seeds that will never flower.

I’m reading “The Fall of the House of Usher” from my Poe collection. It’s so suitable.

It’s been exactly 101 days since I was last here. Carly once wrote, “Naida says she understands why you go to the chapel. It’s holy, she says.” If ever I thought Naida was right about this being a magical place, I do tonight. It feels holy… synthetically warm. The closest I’ve ever come to God. Is this what Carly feels every single day of her life, bathing in sunlight she takes for granted? Is the sun what the hand of God is? And if so, are these uplighters the crumbs he allows me?

Dee, I don’t feel warm. I feel cold and abandoned. I stand painfully alone, and, selfish as I am, I wish that some other soul stood trapped here beside me in the profound stillness.

There’s nothing so terrible as the utter silence of a soul like mine. Like those souls out there. Though if I’m honest, I don’t think they’ve lingered here. That Forgotten Garden is the absence of souls, which is even more pathetic. I’m alone, even among the dead. Can you begin to understand how that feels?

Except Carly is here with me… somewhere. That gives me comfort. Gives me hope. She’ll never know the strength she gives me, simply by my knowing she’s here.

The whole world feels like a vast, empty space, with me the only living thing in it.

Or am I dead too?

6:00 am

Dee, my hand is shaking as I write this, but I must get it all down before Carly comes. I can’t risk losing any of it in the crossover. The almanac says sunrise in fifty-two minutes, but I don’t trust it to be accurate. Yesternight I lost three minutes.

Onwards!

I was in the confessional, as usual. Talking to the night. Talking to silence. Talking to God knows what, to be honest. Safe in that little space. How long had I been talking?

I’m mortified by what I might have said—Oh, great. I’m having a panic attack right now.

Okay, slow and steady. Breathe.

What. Happened?

I walked into the confessional. Slid the door shut. Sighed, rested my head against the back of the booth.

“I don’t think there’s a God, but here’s hoping.” I remember I said that. “I miss Carly. I wish she were here. I wonder what she talked about with Naida today. I hate all that time they get together, especially when I’m so… Oh, God, I’m so lonely. Thank God I have you, Dee.”

I kept going on and on, and then I dropped my head onto the bar separating the two sides and just let myself fill up with this horrible self-pity that made me want to tear out my eyes.

“Who’s Carly?”

I gasped this breathless scream and fell out of the booth—like, literally toppled out of it and onto the floor—bashing my shoulder on the wood. The priest’s side slid open, and this figure stepped out towards me. I scrambled back on my hands, gasping like a fish out of water. Like a beached octopus or something.

He followed after me. “Hey, whoa, whoa—” And then he crouched, and the vomit-orange light fell onto his face and onto the bowler hat on his head. “You’re kind of skittish, aren’t you?”

“Who”—gasp—“the”—gasp—“hell—”

“Are you?” he finished.

“I’m—I’m—”

“Surprised, probably. I didn’t expect anyone else to be up here.” He helped me to my feet. “Not the most graceful fall on an arse I’ve ever seen, but I’ll give you points for breathlessness. Too many girls are all—” He broke off, gesturing vaguely. “Screamy.”

It took a minute for the deep-boned surprise of having another living-human-person-being-thing right there to wear off.

I brushed my hands on my jeans and noticed I’d cut my hand. Carly’s hand.

Damn.

“Do you always sit in confession booths and listen to private conversations?” I snapped.

“Sometimes. Do you?”

“And who the hell wears a bowler hat?”

“I do, and I have excellent taste. I’d be gay if I wasn’t so straight.”

I rolled my eyes. “Well, that was less than subtle. What, are you going to divulge your favorite sex position next?”

“Wheelbarrow,” he challenged.

“Bank number?” I called.

“I’d tell you, but then you’d fall for me.”

“Really.”

“Yeah, I’m dirt poor. Very sexy. Besides, I hear that freaky people shouldn’t fall for each other. Weird things happen if you break the freaky-normal, normal-normal rule.”

“Okay, I have no idea what’s going on here, but this is private property. My property, so get out.”

“The sign outside says OUT OF BOUNDS. I’m pretty sure the school owns it.” He folded his arms and cocked his head, and the stupid bowler hat stayed on his stupid head. “I don’t think you really want me to leave.”

I glowered at him.

“‘Oh, God. I’m so lonely’?”

“Get out of here! This is my space, you—goddamn—” I was infuriated, lost for the word. “Watson!”

After glancing down at my book, he had the cheek to say, “You should invest in a quality hardcover of Poe’s collected works. Buying cheap may be simpler and easier in the short term, but your future self is only laughing at you—or slapping you. Mentally, of course.”

My future self. Ha. What a concept.

Anyway, I just stared. He talked like some kind of awkward, socially inept idiot—or genius. I honestly have no idea which.

“Or you can borrow mine,” he added.

I sniggered at that. “You read Poe?”

“I read other, less trendy things too.”

“Let me guess,” I drawled, leaning back to consider him. “Arthur Conan Doyle?”

“Funny.” He smiled. “’Cause of the hat.”

It was growing early, and I could feel the change in the air as dawn began to shift and sigh, preparing for her inevitable rise.

“I have to go,” I told him, and he frowned.

“Why?”

“One of the mysteries of the universe,” I muttered, and left.

He said he was new. Just started. He must be the one Carly mentioned. It’s got to be embarrassing to be the new kid at school on top of arriving late. Do you think I could be normal around him, Dee? Could I pretend to be a regular girl who sleeps, who dreams, who has a life ahead of her instead of an existence in which she’s dragged around like an appendage by the one she loves most?

As soon as he talks to Carly, he’ll know something is up. If he hasn’t spoken to her already. Though, I think she mentioned that they share no classes. Maybe Naida will steal him away too. Best to let it go. Friendship is out of the question for someone like me. I know that for a fact.

Still… it would be nice to make believe for a while. And he certainly made me forget all about being lonely.

He said he just got his room in Pinewood Hall, one of the boys’ dorm wings, and I told him I’m in Magpie House with the girls. I gave him my email and IM.