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Grandmaster Harrat's eyebrows were still half raised in expectation of some
answer to his seemingly simple question. His dewy cheeks were almost
trembling.
Things at home . . .
What was I supposed to say that my mother was becoming a changeling? A
bubble of dark anguish began to form, growing as this previously unthought
idea threatened to engulf me. I fought it down. My eyes stayed dry. I kept his
gaze until he looked away.
`Everything's fine,' I said.
`I'm pleased to hear it, Robert. And, tell you what, you're a bright lad and I
truly admire your pluck for coming here. This of all days, as well. I'd like
us to meet again when I have more time. I only live on
Ulmester Street. It's really just around the corner.' He stood up and rummaged
in his pockets. `Here's my card ...'
I took the soft wedge. The ink didn't smudge. It was ornamented with the signs
of his guild.
`Perhaps next shifterm Halfshiftday afternoon. How does that
sound? You and I could get to know each other it could be our secret.'
For want of anything else to do or say, I nodded.
`And before you go, Robert.
Before you go ...' Grandmaster Harrat puffed out his cheeks. He stood up and
walked over to a tall, flower-
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entwined jar painted with Cathay dragons, lifted its lid and took something
round from its interior. `Have this. It's nothing! Just chocolate. And I'll
see you, yes? Just as we've said. Just as arranged ...
?'
The butler re-emerged and I was shown from the guildhouse with a heavy sphere
in one hand and Grandmaster Harrat's card in the other.
I'd peeled back the gold foil and began to eat the chocolate inside before
I realised that it had been marked with coastlines, rivers, mountains.
But, by then, I was too hungry to care. I'd eaten the whole world and felt
light-headed and sated by the time I reached Brickyard Row. Beside all the
other houses, ours looked dark and empty. I kicked my way down the alley and
went in though the back door, working it open with the usual push and pull.
The lamp was hooded and the loose tiles clattered beneath my feet. The only
light in the kitchen came from the glow of the stove. Father was half asleep
beside a long row of beer bottles.
`Where the bloody hell have you been all this time?' `Just out. Nowhere.'
`Talking like that! Don't you dare . . .' But he was too tired and drunk to be
bothered to leave the warmth of his chair. I dragged off my boots and went
upstairs. The night thickened as I passed my mother's room. I could hear her
breathing
Ahhh, ahh;
a rhythmic sound like a perpetual surprise and I could sense her listening
even though she hadn't called out my name. My stomach tensed as, instead of
shooting past on my way to bed as I usually did, I found myself pushing back
the wheezing door.
`Where have you been? I heard shouting ...'
`Just out wandering.'
`You smell of chocolate.'
The golden wrapper still crackled in my pocket. `Something I
found.'
I stood there, looking down the length of the bed. Despite the stillness of
the night, the fire was burning poorly in the grate as if the wind was against
it, filling the room with a sooty haze. Everything was too wide, too dark, and
the air stank of chamberpots, coalsmoke, rosewater. But she'd made an effort
to look her best, with clean sheets folded around her and the pillows stacked
behind.
`I'm sorry about lunch, Robert. That I went on so ' `You shouldn't '
`I just wanted today to be special. I know things have been hard for us
lately. Disappointing.'
`Really. It's all right.'
`And you smell of warm rooms, too, Robert.' Her nostrils fluttered.
`And fine food, fruit, firelight, good company ... It's almost like summer.
Come here.'
I walked slowly around the bed, fighting a sense of panic.
`You don't look in on me as often as you used to ..
Her pale arms snaked out and I felt the claws of her fingers caressing the
back of my head. Their pressure was irresistible. I bowed down, and veils of
filthy smoke seemed to fall around me. `You're a stranger now, Robert.' Her
voice hollowed to something less than a whisper as she drew me in.
Don't let it end this way . . .
She stank of sweat-sour blankets, unwashed hair and she was hot, hot.
Letting go, beckoning me to sit down on the mattress, she asked me about what
she was starting to call life downstairs:
how Father was managing; if I thought Beth was coping as well as she claimed.
The conversation, as we attempted to reassure each other and I stared at the
pulse of the big vein which now protruded from her temple instead of meeting
her changed eyes, was plain and predictable. I could have filled
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in her words before she said them. Mother didn't need my replies.
I picked at the sheet's loose stitching. Once-good material, probably a
wedding gift, it was almost worn through from all the times she had washed it
in the zinc tub. And Mother's fingers, I saw now, looking helplessly down at
them, were smudged black. I glanced over at the fire, at the scuttle Beth had
filled with the cheap, gritty coal we made do with here on Coney Mound. A few
lumps had fallen across the hearth, whilst others lay flaked and scattered on
the rag mat beside the bed. I
heard a scratching movement in the walls, in the corner, and glanced over,
expecting a rat, or mice. But the thing which vanished into the crack beneath
the wainscot was many-legged. Fattened on the madness of aether beyond the
size of any ordinary insect, it had a long, glossy back: a dragonlouse.
`That day ...' I heard myself begin.
`What day?' My mother raised the back of her hand to rub some imagined smudge
from her face. `You mean that Midsummer? Remember when it was so hot and we
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