Page 23 of The Society of Unknowable Objects
“Where are we?” she asked, as he drew closer, because it was something to say, something to distract her from the flood of memories that threatened to drown her.
The man didn’t answer. He reached forward and poked her on the shoulder, snatching his hand back as if she were hot. She looked down at this contact and the man repeated it, poking her farther down on her arm.
“You’re alive,” he said, his voice an awed whisper. Both hands went to his head, brushing through his greasy, unkempt hair, and he stepped back to study her. “You’re real.”
“Where are we?” she asked again.
“We’re in the woods,” he said. “This is a lake.” He pointed at the body of water. “I like it here. Nobody comes here. We are very far away from anyone.”
Imelda considered that answer, wondering if it should worry her.
“How did I get here? Why am I naked?”
The man removed a chain from around his neck.
“I had to tie it,” he said, showing Imelda a crude knot in the gold chain. “Because it broke.”
Imelda regarded the knot without comment. Then he moved the chain and let something dangle from his fist: a small gold crucifix. He held it out to her, displaying it for her attention.
Imelda looked back at the crucifix hanging below his hand and disconnected thoughts crashed together in her mind.
The crucifix!
The realisation was a bolt of lightning, shocking the blood in her veins. She had found the crucifix in a dusty antique shop in Rome... an artefact... a magical item of immense power. She knew what the crucifix did...
“Oh no,” she murmured.
She shook her head, denying the truth even as it careered towards her like an out-of-control car. She looked down at her naked body, the loose skin and the liver spots, the blue veins visible in her legs.
Of course you are naked.Clothes don’t die and they can’t be resurrected.
“I brought you back,” the man said.
Imelda could smell him, the sour smell of someone who hadn’t washed often enough or recently, and that smell pulled a memory from the deep recesses of her mind. She saw a sunset and a trail, and this man grabbing for the crucifix with thick, clumsy fingers, and she took a shocked step backwards, a hand to her mouth.
“You killed me and you brought me back,” she said, her voice wavering.
Thewrongnessin her core made sense now. She shouldn’t be here; she shouldn’t exist anymore. She was a song played out of tune, a film out of synch with its soundtrack. She wanted to be alive but knew that she should not be. Tears swelled in her eyes and her chest heaved and hiccupped with suppressed cries.
The man was shaking his head furiously. “It was an accident!” he protested, his voice thin and harsh. “You fell! I didn’t do anything to you.” He slipped the crucifix back over his head and then showedImelda the bag,herbag, lifting it from his hip. “Look!” he said. “I kept it for you!”
He dropped down to sit cross-legged on the shore in front of her and began to remove items from the bag to lay them on the pebbles: the gold coin, glinting dully; the blue carnation, its petals so vibrant; andThe Atlas of Lost Things,a corner of the paper trembling very slightly in the breeze. Finally, he pulled out Imelda’s journal, holding it between his hands.
“It’s all there,” he said, looking at up her. “I didn’t steal anything.”
He seemed so pathetic, so desperate to please, and yet Imelda hated him for reasons she couldn’t quite identify.
“That’s my journal,” she said, through her tears, and the man looked at the book held between his hands.
“I didn’t read it,” he said, but this time his voice was quieter, and he glanced off to the side, avoiding her gaze, and Imelda was sure that hehadread it, that he had read everything she had written.
“I know what they do,” he said then, moving on quickly as he slipped the journal back into the bag and out of sight.
Imelda shook her head. “I can’t think,” she mumbled. She looked out to the still, glassy water of the lake. The wind whispered and the trees shook. It seemed like everything was waiting on her to do something or say something. She turned slowly on the spot, feeling the breeze on her bare skin. “Where are we?” Imelda asked again. “You haven’t answered me. Is there a road near here?”
“The flower, the blue flower,” the man said, ignoring her and picking up the carnation. “I know what it does. I worked it out. It was the first one I worked out.” He sprung to his feet and held the flower in front of him, closing his eyes. Almost immediately Imelda became aware of a change, of colour seeping into this grey world. At the edge of the shore, beneath the trees, flowers bloomed, multicoloured blossoms pushing up through the brown earth. The colours bled onto the shore, flowers of red and blue appearing between the bone-coloured pebbles. Imelda’s hand went to her mouth in disbelief as these colours spread away from her in both directions along the shore of the lake, like someone unrolling a carpet.
“It’s beautiful,” she murmured, even as fat tears rolled down her cheeks. The flowers swayed in waves, brushed by the breeze.
