"You do," I hummed.
"Please."
He held out the knife; I took the proffered handle and unsheathed it from his fist. He gripped the blade tightly and moaned in pleasure as it sliced his palm, hips jerking forwards.
"Abel, I-"
He laid a sticky finger on my lips.
"Beloved," he gasped. "I heal quickly."
His wounded arm showed the truth of it, for the sinews were already weaving their thick mat, and as swiftly as the limb healed, his lower branch began to wilt.
"I do not wish to heal," he stuttered. "Not yet. Help me, Eve."
"I promised, and I shall."
He circled my wrist with his fingers, and his fear swam into my veins: fear that I would fail, as everyone else had failed him when faced with his strangeness. He throbbed with emptiness, with yearning for completion. I was chastened: set against his, my own fear was as thin as water. I lifted the knife and slid into the gash, opening it wide again; he threw back his head and his entire frame stiffened, including that part I pa.s.sionately wished brought back to life.
He laughed. "Ah, yes!"
I dug a little deeper.
"Yes!"
I dragged the blade the length of his arm until he lay open, pulsing from elbow to wrist. When the wound was deep enough, I wrapped my fingers around his c.o.c.k, pulled him towards me with the slightest of tugs. We fell on to the bed, grinning, the knife held tight in my hand.
Our days pa.s.sed into weeks, into months, the rhythm of our lives bounded with the new pleasures we discovered in ourselves. One such night we lay in each other"s arms after taking delight in each other. He was kissing the top of my head, and I was running my forefinger in damp circles around the cup of his palm. Something tickled up my arm, cold as an icicle.
"Are you sad, Abel? Even at this moment?"
"Oh."
He pulled his hand away.
"Abel, there is something you are hiding from me."
"I am not."
"You are. And you are still a poor liar."
"Very well," he grunted. "It is true."
"What is it, Abel? I promised I would not force you, and I shall keep my word. But let us have no secrets."
"I am ashamed of my feelings."
"Which feelings?" My voice grew small. "The ones you have for me?"
"No! I am selfish."
"About what?"
"When you are gone, what will I do?" he moaned.
"My love, I shall not leave you."
"You will. Eve, I shall live. One day you will die, and I will be alone. I will lose myself again. All that you have returned to me will be lost and forgotten. All this sweetness. It has happened so many times, whatever I do. I shall prove it to you. Do you remember that paper of mine? The one I kept in my shirt?"
"Yes. It was burned," I said. "By George."
"You see? It is gone."
"What?"
"Everything. It has happened over and over. I have recorded myself on paper, wood, clay, stone then lost myself as many times. Burned in innumerable fires, robbed by legions of thieves, stripped by nations of slavers. Or I have just been careless, losing my written lives to mice or drunkenness. And after you are dead, I will have to start again. I will fail. Again."
"Abel-"
"I will sink back into my fog of unknowing, forever wondering what and who I am, in flight from my memories as they batter me with their hail. I cannot go back to that; not now I have this peace you have granted me."
He set his teeth, and pouted his lips like a child.
"Abel, do you still wish to die?"
"Yes. I am a coward. I know it."
"You must not do this. Promise me."
"No. I have a plan, and you cannot stop me. This is a new world: it has furnaces to boil me into molten steel and trains to grind me into pieces. I shall find steam engines to devour me and spit me out in infinitesimal pieces, so that not even I can put myself back together again. And when you have gone, you cannot prevent it."
"I can," I said quietly.
He stared. "How?"
"I am taken."
I placed his hand low on my belly and we felt the tiny bud stir in its warm silt.
"But ...? Oh."
"I was not sure at first. But I have missed three of my monthly courses. I know."
"Oh, Eve. I am sorry. I did not think that I could-"
"Sorry? Abel, I am happy," I said. "I could not be more delighted. We shall have a daughter: I feel her dancing, already. She will be as hairy as me, and as healthy as you. Indeed, perhaps she will inherit both our particular qualities. If I were still in the Freak Show, I would be frightened, it is true. I think of how my husband would have displayed us, the Lioness and her Cub. I would never have been free of him, licking his lips the better to count the money showering him, calculating how many times he must get me with child to buy him a racehorse, a mansion, a baronet"s crown."
"Oh."
"Things are different now. Abel, we have found each other. I am becoming myself for the first time, and am filled with exhilaration. What a journey! I want you at my side to celebrate each step."
"I wish to be nowhere else. But for you it will be short-"
"I do not think so. See me, Abel. Standing at the prow of the ship of my life, the wind strong and salty. My hair billows like a sail and I cast myself free. What adventures await us."
He stared into his lap, not persuaded. I pressed on.
"Think of this wonderful age of discovery! All the marvels we shall witness! We shall share all our adventures, and when I am old, you will bury me. In a lively place, near to music and laughter. I shall be a long time dead, and shall wish for entertainment."
"It will grieve me too much."
"It will not. For then you will have to tend to my daughter, and watch over her, and find her a kind husband. You must tend to her daughter also; and in that way you will never lose me, for in each will be the quintessence of myself. I shall pa.s.s down your stories to them, and they will keep you steady."
"But I shall have lost you."
"No. One day my daughter will lift a cup to her mouth and you will see me in the gesture. One day my granddaughter will laugh and you will hear my voice; my great-granddaughter will grasp your hand and her fingers will read you: for I shall pa.s.s down more heirlooms than my fur. I will be eternal for you, my dear."
He rolled on to his back and put his arms behind his head. I watched his face as he took in my words, the frown lines gradually smoothing out. I could have taken his hand and read him, but a man needs his privacy and I would not abuse my talent by forever prodding into others" minds.
"Abel, I believe you are smiling."
"I was about to say I have been in this situation before, then I realised I have not. It is completely new."
He laughed.
"What is funny?" I asked.
"In the past, I remembered nothing and it filled me with fear, confusion, searching. I was forever wringing my hands and bemoaning my fate. I have just said the word "new". Perhaps I will forget this moment," he continued a little more quietly, "but I do not care. I am not afraid."
He laughed again, and I joined him.
"How wonderful," he said. "Not to care."
He said no more. I reached under the coverlet and took out the hand-mirror, the one thing I had kept when I ran from the fire. Its edges were ash-black and the scent of smoke was ground into the gla.s.s. I held it up and Donkey-Skin peered out.
It is never happy-ever-after, she said. But it will always be interesting.
I gazed at myself, content with what I saw. A face appeared at my shoulder, matching me strangeness for strangeness, and kissed my neck.
"Dearly beloved," he said.
I cupped his cheek, feeling the warmth of blood, of breath, of love.
ABEL.
I have been running for ever: on my way to meet someone. I look around hungrily for the woman who is waiting for me; the one who heals me, fills and empties me, whose hands take away my fear. I know her name, if only I could bring it to my tongue: but my mouth is filled with the sour air of my desperate flight. My memory paddles for the word that will make her real, but its fingers scrabble in emptiness. If only I could speak her name, the one I keep forgetting. She should be here.
Suddenly I am at the top of a tall building, one I know too well. It is the tower from which I threw myself, all those uncountable years ago. Once again, I scramble on to the ledge; my feet push away; my hands swim the air; and I fall. It takes longer, much longer to reach the ground, for I am no longer falling through air, but through something warm, pulsating- I wake in her arms; in Eve"s arms, the woman whose name binds me to a life I wish to lead.
"You were thrashing about, Abel, my love," she says, sending a ladder of kisses into the deep pit of my fears. "A bad dream?"
"A bad dream," I sigh. "Nothing more."
For the first time, I am speaking the truth.
I am becoming Abel: this name, of all the names I have borne. The more she gives my lives back to me, the easier it is to bear. Any time I begin to lose myself, I take her hand and the telling of my tales becomes its own comfort. She gives me my lifeblood, freely. I swear: if you cut me now, I would bleed.
As the shutters are thrown back on each of my existences, I am illuminated, page by page, and with each the terror lessens until I am curious to discover the next, a child who demands a fresh story every night to send it happily to sleep.
With each new memory granted into my safe-keeping I remember better. I do not come blinking into each morning; rather I wake and know the room, my name, the name of my dearest Eve, and now our delightful child Rose, for so we call her. If I have a beginning, then it is so far back even Eve has yet to touch the depths of me.
I am discovering what I am, and what I am is an old man made new, stepping out into tomorrow with no fear of what might happen. I do not need to leap into emptiness: I have found the closest thing to home.
Eve is my harbour, my sea-anchor. I have surfaced from my own oceanic depths and this time there is no drowning, no plunging back. I breathe. She holds me steady on a sea which once had no guiding stars, no coasts in view. Now I can see the coastline of beautiful lands; together we journey towards them without fear.
Such is my unending, unbeginning life. I was the first to fall: flesh and fire from Heaven"s morning, crushed to cinders by the force of my descent. I was dark matter from that moment, but she has restored me to brightness. I fall at last into understanding; and, if I am forever fallen, then I am content to be part of earth with her. The peace of her hands has found out the peace in me. I have stopped fighting. I have stopped forgetting.
There is none other like me. There is none other like her. We are unbelievable, impossible. I fly as high as the Heavens which cast me out. I have run out my comet"s course: she is the world I have sought out. Round her I have cast the loop of my orbit, and am held fast and safe; she is my Sea of Tranquillity, my Milky Way, bearded with Berenice"s Hair. I am a new constellation, pegged out in the sky. I am joy. Complete. For ever.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR.
Born in London to a runaway teenager, Rosie has always been a cuckoo in the nest. She is an eclectic writer and performer, ranging from singing in Goth band The March Violets through touring with the Subversive St.i.tch exhibition in the 90s, to her current incarnation as Rosie Lugosi the Vampire Queen, cabaret chanteuse, incomparable compere and electrifying poet. She has published five solo collections of poetry and her award-winning short stories, poems and essays have been widely anthologized. The Palace of Curiosities is her debut novel.
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