Ghosteria Volume 2: The Novel: Zircons May Be Mistaken, Tanith Lee [classic fiction txt] 📗

bad repair, a splinter cuts into my palm. I rakeit out, and there’s a little speck of red, red blood. I am proud of the blood.All is as it should be.

I believe I shall manage the lackof two fingers on my left hand quite well, since for so long I’ve had no truetactile contact with anything, and am re-learning how to touch and balance and positionmyself in relation to all other things, which seems to be rather as a childfirst learns to do it, and so the disadvantage with the hand will simply betaken into account automatically.

I wonder if Coral is less afraid?I’m concerned about her. Or has she gained courage and found a suitable hostfor herself?

I notice I am much taller likethis than I was as Laurel. Daphne, even barefoot, is a good five feet eightinches in height.

I must find some proper clothing.It’s far too cold to go about like this. And there are old shampoos in one ofthe modern bathrooms. I shall take one to the rill and wash my hair properly.

On my right thigh there’s a soreplace. When I first noted it, I was disturbed, thinking it might be some sortof decay of the Zomboid flesh. But I saw not long ago that it’s healing. Thehealing is very fast.

But I must find Elizabeth. Hasshe been able to change yet? I thought she couldn’t bring herself to it – butshe’s so brave and wonderfully wilful, I think now she has. I’ll find her, andtogether then we will seek and find Coral. Will I though be able to seeany of them still? Now I’m flesh again, and if they so far are not? IfElizabeth – is not...

(Coral):My father.

I curl up here inside thecupboard, and I hear them stamping about the house. Bees. They have all becomethe Z-thing bees from the wilds outside. Even Elizabeth has done it. Even she.

I am all alone, and forever.

My father...

My mind is coiling and turningabout and around itself like a snake.

I can only think at last of thatnight, the night I was killed, there in my cold little bed. All this while,years, decades, I have known Miss Archer murdered me. But, of course, it wasnever Miss Archer. She was a lovely little clever brainless fool, my father’sdupe and concubine. But it was he who stole into my room and clamped the pillowtight and immoveable to my near-sleeping face. It was his strength, the strengthof a determined and pitiless man, that crushed out my life. And that stench ofdark and heated metal was, too, the reek of that same villainous vile man athis work. My dearest mother had left in trust for me some little inheritance orother, but he would gain it all if I should die. And so he took care mysignature was always current on the documents. And when the hour was at itsbest he snuffed me out like the fragile candle I was. No doubt, she, Miss Archer,was his accomplice, at least in telling everyone how sickly I had always been,had caught a chill despite her constant wise admonitions to take care, hadevidently succumbed to it, and my own pathetic frailty, in the night, when sheand he had been innocently at the piano, playing and singing virtuous songs ofhonourable, self-sacrificing love and pious valour. In fact they would havebeen at other games; his murderous paws, that had just dispensed with me,washed themselves clean in the romantic dews of her passion, as he – what doesElizabeth say? – fokked her senseless. Did she know or guess he had murderedme? She was, under her teacher-cleverness, a dolt, a ‘twit’ as Elizabeth mightsay. Or if she did deduce his perfidy, probably she was too greedy to revealit.

He should have swung on the fokkinggallows, my rat of a father. At least now he rots in some hole in the ground. WhileI have lived, admittedly in a limited and insubstantial, wispy way. But I havelived. Nor do I suffer in Hell for the unspeakable crime of filiacide, as isthe other possibility for him, should Hell at all exist.

Why I came to this revelationhere, in my cupboard, I do not know. But I feel perhaps it is good that I have.It has freed me of some shackling chain I never realised lay on me. It hasreleased me to become, perhaps, myself, whomsoever that may be.

I will not call her ‘Coral’ anymore. That is for sure. Coral is pink and brittle and may break. No, I shall beCora, which I know in Greek, or believe I know it, means Maiden. Which Iam. A maiden. Then, I am Cora.

Then, Cora, shall we after allrise up and pass through the cupboard door, and see what they have become, ourloving friends, now Z-bees? For after all, somehow I have survived, in spirit,the stinking claws of a murderer, and in spirit still I can survive all else.Rise up, then, Cora. Let us proceed.

Outside,I see him instantly. He climbs the stair and comes along the passage slowly, asif the effort makes him ache. And – how curious – though not at all now as hewas, I know this is our Knight, and too, now, I know his name is Gui, a name ofold France.

Seeing me, for see me he does, aslow smile rises through his much-different face. His eyes are blue, however,as before, and he looks out from their windows, and gradually, moment bymoment, he is becoming more and more himself.

“What a brave girl you are,” hesays to me, and I understand his words, as I never before did. “I’m so glad tosee you, and the others will be glad. But I have some news, though I’ll wait awhile to tell you. Let’s find Eliseth, and the rest of them, first. Come dear,come with me.”

His voice is like that of a truefather. If I could, I would put my hand in his.

(Gui):That ground was hard, in the aftermath of the battle. The battle with my ownlie, and with the real facts. And I was rotten, though not with self-blindness,but gangrene. Sheer mortal decay. When