‘What’ll we do next? Marek, tell me a story. A funny one. And make Lispeth the main character.’
Villiam was well aware that he was punishing the poor girl because she carried Jacob’s ghost. Any reminder of the dead boy brought such displeasure to his mind that it would go dark and blank, as though it had walked into a wall. Of course, Jacob’s spirit was everywhere. In his old clothes, which Marek wore—they were all too big and had to be tailored. Nothing had been removed from Jacob’s room after his death. He remained there, in his stuffed animals, the weird rocks and bones on his desk, his papers, his maps, his childhood drawings still pinned inside the walls of his armoire, drawings of horses mostly. Marek hadn’t felt anything eerie or vengeful in Jacob’s objects, but he did sometimes imagine he felt a presence in the room when he visited. Of course, it was actually Lispeth and her memories of Jacob. She projected him back into the room so she could watch him sit and write or talk at the window, or turn over in bed. She was his ghost, in fact.
‘Begin now,’ Villiam said, repositioning himself on his pillows and sucking on a fig. ‘More wine, Lispeth,’ he muttered. ‘Marek, get up and stand before me so I don’t have to turn my head to look at you while you tell the story.’
‘What sort of story would you like, Father?’
‘I don’t care. Something strange. Something scary. Should we close the curtains? Lispeth!’ he cried as the girl was bending with the decanter to refill his glass. ‘Turn off the sun. I think Marek’s story will be better in the dark.’
Lispeth went to the windows and unhooked the heavy curtains from their catches so that they swung in a puff of dust across the glass. The room was nearly pitch black. Marek stood across from the settle and felt himself dissolve into the darkness, floating. He cleared his throat and heard Lispeth take her seat in the corner. The chair creaked like a bell donging to signal the beginning of an incantation.
‘Once upon a time,’ Marek began.
* * *
*
Jude didn’t want to spend any more time at the lake than it took to dip his body into the cool water, gulp as much as he could, and find a hidden place to scoop enough soft mud into his mouth to fill his stomach. Other people made him nervous. The mud drowned his hunger but did not alleviate the pain in his belly or the ache in his bones. He knew that he was dying. He had no need for life anyway, he thought. Ought he pronounce his demise to the villagers and say goodbye? They were scattered along the shore, some naked and covered in mud, which was supposed to have healing qualities, some squatting in the water, and others under little tents they had fashioned from tablecloths and sticks. If Jude had been more keenly aware, he would have noticed the silence of the scene. No babies cried. No one spoke. In the blur of his fatigue, Jude couldn’t recognize anybody but Klim, a blind man, who gripped the leash of his dog as he stepped cautiously toward the water. Klim looked very thin, thinner than Jude. His knees were like fists, his feet like huge scraps of tree bark. He moved stiffly and uncertainly, pulled by the canine, whose skin sagged from its sharp ribs. Jude could see the dog strain against the rope, desperate to drink.
Jude stepped back in the water and let his body rest from the heat for a while. Klim was edging closer and closer to the shore. The dog pulled. ‘God help them,’ Jude said to himself, remembering Marek’s piety and how it had annoyed him. He splashed water on himself to forget the thought, and as he wiped his eyes, he saw Klim trip and fall on the bank of the lake. His dog broke loose and galloped into the water. Klim cried out to it—the first time Jude had heard his voice—a searing caw like a bird being torn apart by wolves. Klim turned onto his back, his blanket fell beside his emaciated body, his blind eyes opened to the sun, and then he died. The dog gulped water, unaware, then returned to its master, sniffing and licking him with growing panic. Then it sat by his side and began to howl, drawing the attention of the villagers. Jude could not stand by and watch them do what he feared they would do: slaughter the dog and eat it. He could see it in the way the people turned their heads, bloodthirsty. And what about Klim? Would they eat him, too? Before Jude could think, he barreled through the water, determined to get to the blind man before the villagers did. Others were running from their tents and the shadows of the trees on the other side of the lake, hearing the howling dog. Jude arrived first. The dog started barking and nipped at Jude’s wet leather shoes. He picked up the dead man and hoisted him over his shoulder—half the weight of Jacob, he thought—and plodded away as fast as he could back through the woods. He heard a yelp as the villagers got hold of the dog.