Histories of the Void Garden, Book 1: Pyre of Dreams by Damian Huntley Page B

as
she coughed up bile and evil every night. She had learned her way
around a car engine when lack of money or a good man had
necessitated it. Her hands bore no evidence, no mark of these small
battles now, no sign of the callused palms of a woman who had
lugged mail sacks in a depot for a year, listening to the coarse
and curse laden ramblings of the other postal workers.
    Where were the
white lines of fibrous tissue, the scars which had run the length
of her arms after her car crash in seventy-six? Those scars had run
a more disastrous path across her body, the zigzag line drawn in
flesh by the car door as it ripped and dragged across the skin of
her chest. Charlene hunched up now on her elbows and pulled back
the neckline of her long nightgown, and she sobbed deeply with an
insane mixture of joy and confusion as she examined the pure,
smooth skin.
    When hunger
finally drove her from the confines of her bed, Charlene walked to
the kitchenette and looked in dismay at her refrigerator which was
almost completely bereft of food. She had eaten a lot the day
before, she knew that, but she hadn’t realized quite how much. She
was desperately hungry now though, her stomach turning in knots.
She thought about what West had told her the day before, his
suggestion that she shouldn’t leave the apartment. How much harm
could it really do to nip out and get some food? She walked to the
bathroom to freshen up and at the first sight of her reflection in
the mirror, she was reminded of the story of Narcissus, the hunter
who was so enamored of his own reflection that he died gazing at
himself in a pool. She was sure that if she didn’t leave the
apartment to find food, she would certainly fall to a similar fate.
Even though she knew the answer, she still wondered how she could
have been so affected over the course of one afternoon and one
night of restless dreams.
    The bathroom
had been fitted some years ago with a walk in shower, her joints
too weak for getting in and out of the bathtub, but she had kept
the bath as well. Even though the bathroom was barely large enough
to accommodate both, she just couldn’t bear to part with the large
copper bath which had been part of the makeup of the apartment
since 1973. She eyed the bathtub now with an excited intake of
breath.
    “Double dare
you, you old ninny.” She spoke the words aloud, as an incantation
to give her courage and then she walked to the bathtub and turned
the stainless steel knob with the ivory crest embossed with a black
‘H’. She allowed her lace embroidered nightie to fall to the floor
of the bathroom, although it would take more than an incantation to
summon the courage to look at herself fully yet. She leaned over
the tub, picking up the chain attached to the plastic plug,
allowing the plug to dangle into position and fall into place in
its hole. As the hot water washed against her arm, she noticed a
small bulge beneath the skin and it appeared to move towards the
heat. Higher up her arm, a second bulge raised briefly under the
skin of her forearm and it too moved. She sat on the side of the
bath, holding herself steady with her left hand on the enameled
rim.
    Where the
muscles of her left arm tensed, her attention was drawn now to the
ripple of three more small bulging shapes moving beneath the skin
and she watched as the skin of her arm seemed to pucker in
slightly, being sucked subdermally by … What? Not that she would
undo this magic, but there had been one leech and West had assured
her that a glass of salt water would drive it out of her system.
Had he known? Had he left her to undergo this change, knowing how
complete it would be? These were questions she didn’t know the
answers to, but looking at what was happening to her body, she had
little doubt; that single leech had somehow reproduced.
    She felt the
warmth coming up from the bathtub behind her and she leaned over
and twisted the cold tap on full blast for a few seconds, then
standing and leaning over