Page 73 of The Society of Unknowable Objects
“You brought Henry back?” Magda asked, not understanding.
“Imelda,” the man answered. “I brought her back. Because I read her words.”
What does he mean, he brought Imelda back?
Lukas nodded excitedly and pulled chains out from beneath his T-shirt. Magda saw two different things hanging there, one silver, the other perhaps gold, too small to make out in the darkness.
“The crucifix,” James murmured. Magda looked at him and she saw shock on his face, his eyes wide, eyebrows high on his forehead. “I read about it in the book,” he explained. “Oh no—it resurrects the dead.”
“The cross can bring them back!” Lukas confirmed, smiling again, a child with a new toy. “I brought Imelda back many times!”
Magda’s hand went to her mouth as she realised what he meant. She felt herself floating out of her own body, the whole world suddenly surreal and dreamlike.Manytimes?
“I can show you!” Lukas said.
Magda closed her eyes against this horror.
Please don’t. Please don’t show me. Please make it stop.
She felt herself leaning into James, against his firm, warm bulk. She wanted him to take her away from this madness before it got worse.
“Why isn’t Henry moving?” James asked, his breath warm on Magda’s cheek.
Magda opened her eyes and saw Lukas pointing over his shoulder with one hand, the other hand by his side in a fist. “I can show you in my garden. She’s there now.” He frowned then, his expression changing slowly as if thoughts took a long time to form in his mind. “Lots of her. I brought her back lots of times.”
Magda stared, hearing the words but not wanting to process them.
“The first time was at a lake, far away,” Lukas continued. “The first time I brought her back. But she wasn’t happy. So I thought she didn’t like the lake. So I tried again. Everywhere I stopped on my travels. Everywhere I rested for a while.”
He has a closed fist because he has the chess piece, doesn’t he? That’s what happened to Henry. She might be intangible, but he can still stop her moving.
The Impossible Box and the chess piece had both been with Owen. How had this man defeated a trained killer? This seemingly simple, naive man.
“She didn’t want to live,” Lukas explained, staring at Magda with wide, unblinking eyes, his voice dropping to a whisper as if he was talking about scandalous matters. “She got angry and fought me. She tried to kill herself.”
“Stop it!” James ordered, and Magda wondered if he could sense the maelstrom of emotions in her own mind.
“The last few times she was mad,” Lukas continued. “She didn’t make sense.” He frowned briefly at that memory. “I think it did something to her. Coming back to life so many times. I don’t think her brain was working. I think her brain stayed dead but her body came back.”
“Oh god,” Magda wailed, turning side-on to stare across the road, anything but looking at this man.
“Can you let our friend go?” James asked, his voice pleasant and friendly, like he was ordering a coffee.
“She was like an animal,” Lukas continued, as if he hadn’t heard James, and Magda turned her head to look at him, her vision blurring with tears, her throat burning.
“I had to bury her,” Lukas continued. “I used the coin and buried her deep in the ground. With the coin I can move the rocks and the earth. After that I didn’t want to bring her back anymore.” He kicked the ground absently.
“How many times?” Magda demanded, her voice wavering. “How many times did you bring her back?”
“Don’t torture yourself,” James urged, a hand on her shoulder.
“How many times!” Magda screamed at the man, hating him, hating the sight of him. He flinched back as if she had thrown punches instead of words, his smile falling from his face again, but Magda didn’t care. All she could think of was her mother, alone and dying as this dreadful man talked at her.
“I brought her back many times,” Lukas admitted. “Was that wrong?”
Magda threw her head back and screamed at the sky, venting all of the despair welling up within her. She felt James recoil from her and saw Lukas take a step backwards, and the buzzing of the insects seemed to grow louder around her, as if they too were screaming, as if they shared in her agonies.
Then Magda realised there was a different sound there, not just the buzzing of insects, but something bigger and louder.
