She remembered firelight on fair hair—although she never knew whether it was Faland’s or Pim’s or perhaps the two with their heads close together. And a voice coming out of darkness— But why darkness? Where had the firelight gone? “You know what I saw, don’t you?” someone was saying. “It’s not real. It’snot.I could never—”
“No?”
She remembered being thirsty. Thinking,Wasthat Pim speaking? A woman, certainly. But she also remembered the woman saying viciouslyBut I hate him, thatbastard.I wish he’d— Pim would never say that.
And the other voice, answering, “I know.”
“Pim?” she thought she’d tried to say. But no sound came, and when she tried to move, she could not.
And then memory dissolved into fever-dreams; for she remembered her mother stepping out of the shrouding darkness, embedded glass scraping when a hand trailed over Laura’s face. “Look,” she whispered. “Look look looklook!”
But try as she might, Laura could not answer.
And then her mother was gone, and Laura was alone. It was so dark. A reasonable voice was speaking in her ear: “If you stay, she won’t trouble you again.”
Her mouth was so dry. But she whispered, with a kind of exhausted defiance, “There’s no such thing as ghosts.”
The reasonable voice replied, “She’ll follow you until you go mad.”
Laura, dreaming, thought that might be true. She was so afraid.
“Tell me where she came from,” said the voice. “Why does she haunt you?”
That was a story she’d never told anyone, and never would. But something about the tender detachment in that voice pulled words from her anyway: “She’s my mother. I saw her die. A ship exploded. She was standing by a window.” She bit blood from her tongue rather than say anything more. “Where’s Pim?”
The voice didn’t answer. It said, “What are you fighting for? World’s already ended.”
Try as she might, Laura could never recall if she answered. She didn’t think she had. Perhaps she mutteredNot yet.But she remembered nothing more until she awoke to a crashing rumble to the east and jolted upright in fear. Regretted it. She was boiling with fever and it felt as if someone had thrown sand in her joints.
“Mary,” said Laura. “Pim?”
She was sitting on the bare floor. She was very sick. She could barely breathe around the fluid in her lungs. She’d a pounding headache. Somewhere in her memory was violin music like a requiem,almost mocking in its sobbing grandeur, and a voice speaking over the instrument:You’ll regret it.Dimmer still was a memory of Freddie’s face, seen as though in a dream.
Mary scrambled to her feet. Pim was sitting upright, her expression blank. “What happened?” She sounded as though her throat were full of dust. Gray daylight filtered in through shuttered windows. There was no one there but the three of them. Laura crawled to her feet, every bone and sinew chorusing protest. Pim got up too, flinching. “I remember a mirror,” said Pim. “And I saw—” She was staring blankly, as though she could see it again.
Laura turned to ask, just as Mary said, “What in God’s name?”
A draft of dank air eddied round them, a smell of sour wine, dust, and something rotten-sweet, like flowers past their best. They were still in Faland’s foyer. Laura had thought it magnificent. She had distinct memories of magnificence: fire on gold.
It wasn’t magnificent, though.
It was a ruin.
“I don’t understand,” said Pim.
The floor was covered in broken glass and splintered lumber, softening with rot. Upholstery was torn, chairs lay frayed, with the signs and smell of mice, nesting.
“I don’t understand,” Pim said again, voice rising. “What—what happened? Monsieur Faland?” She turned in a circle. “Is he hurt? Is he dead? It’s all ruined.” Her eye fell on the mirror hanging over the bar, now black with tarnish. She took one aborted step as though she wanted to look into it again. But she stayed where she was.
Laura stood silent, disbelieving.
“Shouldn’t we search?” asked Pim, urgently. “We need to search.”
“We need to get on,” said Mary, obviously capable of rationalizing away the impossible. “It’s not safe here. The walls could collapse. The ceiling. Look at thecracks.”
“Butwhat happened?” said Pim.
Laura tried again to organize her memory, from the shelling onthe Beveren road up to this dusty silence. But it wouldn’t come clear.
