Histories of the Void Garden, Book 1: Pyre of Dreams (12 page)

The sun had just
started to peek over the horizon as West was leaving the capital.
He took it steady, trying to relax into the road, taking in the
beauty of the silhouetted buildings, the warm morning glow rendered
a deep burgundy by the Boss’s tinted windows. He announced his
instructions to the entertainment system, “Audio please, Mozart,
Die Zauberflöte, full volume.” He held his breath as his mind
filled with a world of associations, each measure precious, the
entry of ever instrument impacting on his temperament.

It felt
appropriate to listen to an opera with such masonic overtones as he
left Washington. He had made many lasting and important
acquaintances through his involvement with the Freemasons over the
years. With a running time of two and a half hours, The Magic
Flute, and by extension, the memories of so many people who had
come and gone from his life, would accompany West for most of his
travel time. With the studious use of his radar scanner, his own
rather canny senses, and a top speed of two hundred and fifteen
miles per hour, he would reach the outskirts of Wilmington Delaware
just as the Queen of the Night sung her aria, “Der Hölle Rache
kocht in meinem Herzen” (“The Vengeance of Hell boils in my
heart”).

The Queen of
the Night … West thought about Charlene Osterman and what wonders
the night may have worked on her. Charlene had been beautiful when
he’d first met her, but young, much too young. She had known
nothing of the world, yet she was fascinated with everything, and
her thirst for knowledge and experience was intoxicating. The
decision to remove himself from her life had been an easy one. His
respect for life was absolute, and he had understood that his
continued presence in her life would have destroyed her.

If he’d learned
anything in his lifetime, it was that patience was its own reward.
He had checked in on her over the years of course, from a distance,
and he had been frequently disturbed to learn of the various
hardships that she had undergone, but he felt no desire to
intercede. Every acquaintance was for West, a test of patience.

That Charlene Osterman
had survived to the age of eighty-five was impressive, considering
the car crash, the financial ruination, the tornadoes and floods
she’d experienced in Louisiana and Florida. He thought about how
she’d looked the night before, her body a manuscript of
misadventure and hardship, but beyond all of that, experience, real
experience. Had he stayed in her life, she would have barely known
more than the tragic loss of her parents; everything else would
have been a hedonistic whirlwind … probably. Probably was enough
for West. Charlene Osterman was a woman who had survived life
without any unfair advantages and that was far more intoxicating to
West than the curiosity and excitement of a young girl growing up
in New York.

Charlene sat on
the edge of her bed, towel tucked in on itself around her chest,
thin gray hair hanging damp over her shoulders. She gazed at the
tall dresser. The mirror there almost full length, bore the image
of something awesome. What had she become? She stood, allowed the
towel to fall away, and tears came quickly. She couldn’t take it
in. She staggered forward, the wind taken out of her body by the
shock of what she saw. Her hand punched forward as she tried to
steady herself, the mirror cobwebbing out in fracture lines beneath
her knuckles. She gasped, wincing in anticipation, but there was no
blood, and only a mild twinge of pain. She felt the adrenaline
rush, felt it in her face, a rising heat, a stinging warmth, and
she moved, still unsteady, arms shaking. She stood up straight, and
faced the mirror. No, this was wrong, worse … what in damnation was
she seeing? Her face was shrinking back, sagging, cheeks puckering,
shriveling like a rotten fruit. “No!” She sobbed, hands grasping,
pinching the skin of her cheeks, “No, god damnit!” She screamed,
and sobbed, fists hammering the mirror, “Change!” She screamed in
exasperated fury, “Change!”

And it was that
simple. The heat, the prickling, the subtle pulling of muscles, the
sickening popping sound in her ears. The skin filled out,
tightened, returned to that beautiful, youthful form. She was
suddenly giddy, incredulous at how easy it was. What had West given
her? She laughed, smacking the shattered mirror, offering a high
five to the girl in the mirror. Girl. She laughed out loud at the
absurdity, shaking the glass shrapnel from her palm. The only thing
wrong with that girl was her hair, limp and gray. She could do
something about her hair though, and she knew she would have to.
Not possible yet … he’d told her she couldn’t leave, and although
she had boxes of hair dye somewhere about the apartment, she knew
that the tint would be oxidized and useless.

Behind the girl
in the mirror, there was a wardrobe full of clothes that had served
Charlene well over the years. She’d kept many of her dresses,
blouses and skirts from her younger days, some due to nostalgia and
others due to laziness. She stood up from the bed and walked over
to the wardrobe, where she quickly put her hand on a knee length
bright turquoise chiffon dress. She had last worn the dress when
she’d been in her forties and she was certain that she could pull
it off now. She closed the door, allowed the towel to fall and
pulled the dress on over her head. She ran her fingers thoughtfully
over the lace trimmed neckline and smiled at the young woman in the
mirror. The woman smiled back.

Underwear and
stockings turned out to be a little more problematic. Nostalgia and
laziness only went so far when it came to the preservation of
clothes. She opened her lingerie drawer and pulled out a large pair
of white satin panties, which were as close to flattering as she
could hope for. The drawer beneath the lingerie held her winter
accoutrements, hats, scarfs, shawls and gloves. She pulled out a
cream wool hat and walked back over to the wardrobe, pulling it on
and checking her reflection to make sure she had tucked her hair
under the thick crocheted rim. With her gray hair hidden, if she’d
been asked to guess the age of the woman who looked back at her now
from the mirror, she would have guessed thirty, thirty-five
tops

She sat on the
velvet cushioned chair in front of her dresser and placed her
makeup bag on the table beside her, ready for her ritual of makeup
application. She couldn’t help but laugh a little as she looked
through the bag, realizing that all she would need was a little
eyeliner and a touch of lipstick.

Blood had started to
gather and congeal at the cuffs of David’s shirt sleeves, both
hands bleeding sufficiently that David felt sure he would die
before he reached civilization. To be sure, Calvert Cliffs state
park was not entirely uncivilized, but what of it? David hadn’t
laid eyes on a forest trail, car park, or a power plant, and every
time he fell (which was happening a lot,) his knees, hands, shins,
elbows, or more often than not, all four would scrape agonizingly
into a sharp edge. He had cried for some time, breath rasping in
his throat, manly groans and grunts terrifying any nearby wildlife.
When his self-pity had subsided, it had quickly dawned on David
that mind numbing panic had been a more situationally appropriate
reaction, and on cue, punctuated by a full bodily fall, panic had
returned, and now seemed to hold a permanent sway over his mental
state. He was convinced that agents Carmichael and McMahon must be
giving chase now. West had made it clear that the van needed to
sink, and that the men needed to drown in salt water. Which was
another thing. David wasn’t convinced that the Chesapeake even had
salt water this far inland. No, if that’s what it took to kill
these men, David knew that he was unequivocally screwed.

His only solace
was that he was confident of his directional sense. No matter how
many times this confidence had proved to be entirely misplaced, be
it in malls, city centers, amusement parks, or his workplace, his
internal compass remained nevertheless, an unwavering bastion of
hope for David. He always knew where he was going, no matter how
wrong he was. He was clinging to that very thought, looking up and
trying to calculate the angles of trajectory of the shafts of light
which were now piercing through the trees, when he caught his ankle
in a knotted tree root, and fell sideways, pain screaming out from
his ankle before he’d even hit the floor. He screamed an expletive,
his voice so torn, chest so tight, that what came out was an
incomprehensible shriek of vowels and consonants, ending unusually
on a plosive as his lungs seized up and his lips closed fast. He
closed his eyes, and when he opened them again he was vaguely aware
of the notion that some time had passed.

He jolted into
action, teeth gritted in anticipation of pain as he clambered to
his feet. He pressed the ball of his left foot to the floor,
tentatively, felt the warmth of pain wrapped around his ankle,
those embers catching light as he applied more pressure. Behind
him, somewhere close by, he heard a twig snapping, and a rustle of
leaves. The sound of the second, larger limb cracking might just as
well have been a starter pistol. David was running now, every step
an agony, but eyes fixed on the forest floor, there was a
determined clarity to his movements. Branches or twigs would whip
at his skin, and he’d push forward, unflinching. His feet skimming
close to his backside, hands pulsing forward and back, pistons
forcing forward an unlikely, and shambling machine. He could hear
footsteps pounding the dirt, not his, but right on top of him,
thudding in his head, and every breath he took was a gasping plea
for mercy. He couldn’t look back, he knew that if he did, he’d fall
again. He had learned that much about himself this morning. He
imagined his epitaph after they scraped his mangled corpse from the
leaves and detritus of the forest floor, David Beach: Not a
gazelle.

He listened to
the thumping, never losing distance, never gaining on him. Why were
they toying with him? He was sure that if they wanted to, they
could pounce at any moment. He could do this. He could keep running
until they decided to kill him. Then a switch flipped in David’s
mind, and like an acquaintance who had been reaming off facts,
waiting for the recognition to dawn, the fear became suddenly
mundane in its familiarity. He’d felt it before, this panic … very
specifically this exact state of panic, when he was twelve. The
circumstances had been different only in the minutia of detail.
This was how he would die. On the playground, twelve years old,
exhausted after thirty solid minutes of being chased by a thug,
David would die beaten to a bloody, pissing, pulp. From the list of
anecdotal evidence, the running, the pounding sound, the fear, the
determination, it was the urination that had finally clicked
everything into place in David’s repressed memories.

In the
distance, there, a break in the tree line, and a clean horizontal
plank, no jagged edges, no limbs or twigs. A fence, which meant
humanity. Surely the FBI, even a demented homicidal agent of
darkness acting under the guise of the FBI wouldn’t kill him in
front of early bird campers? And now he was a gazelle, for sure,
graceful, limbs acting in synchronous beauty, chin forward, body
light as the air. Far from the fence, he leapt, safe in the
knowledge that he was this creature of the woods, this testament to
the human form, and speed. Over the fence to safety. In the
periphery of this steely beast like vision, there was a car, no, a
camper van. Yes, safety. Then his foot caught. Then the world spun,
and David died.

He was sure he’d
died.

Why did the footsteps
still thud in his ears?

He opened his eyes,
and there, looming above him, silhouetted against the morning sky,
David could make out curly hair, spilling out from the hem of a
beanie, then as his irises contracted, more detail emerged from the
darkness, the stubbly cheeks, full beard, the shoulder straps.

“Fuck dude, you
took a tumble. You lost?”

Still the
pounding, relentless footsteps filling his head, David looked
about, panicked, glancing back to the trees, trying to pick out the
men in the shadows there. Nothing. Then the thumping slowed.
Nothing? He shielded his eyes with his arm, squinting. Nothing.
Just his heartbeat.

The stranger had
helped David to his feet, asked him if he needed a ride, and was
clearly crestfallen when David insisted that he only drive him to
the nearest main street. He was desperate to help, the good
Samaritan in him, itching for a fix, but this was all he was going
to get. He wanted to be able to post before and after pictures,
showing the amazing transformation, from torn up tramp to
upstanding citizen, but David was going to deprive him that joy. A
little begrudgingly, the stranger pulled over, then he jumped out
eagerly, and ran around to the passenger side of the van to help
David with the door.

“It’s Phil, and
you’re more than welcome. I just wish there was more that I could
do for you.”

David thanked
Phil again. He had lost his phone somewhere on the run, but
miraculously, somehow, he’d managed not to lose his wallet. It had
only been a two-minute drive to the main road, but David couldn’t
quite express how thankful he was to the stranger, and he went to
offer him money.

“Please, put
that away, it’s nothing.” He reached into his jacket pocket and
handed David his phone.

David leaned up
against the side of the van, and glanced at the screen, which
currently displayed a photo of a golden lab puppy with a daisy
hanging from the corner of its mouth.

“Oh shit,
sorry, here,” Phil took the phone back off him, “Let me unlock
that.”

David smiled
gratefully, “You mind if I look up the number for a taxi?”