10.5

 

She nodded. “They’re not leaving me alone. Every time I open my eyes, they’re there. Shifting. Moving. Like they recognise me as one of their own. Like they’re trying to tell me something.”

Paul glanced around himself, then crossed one foot over the other and sank to the floor in a cross-legged position, all without spilling another drop of coffee. He cradled his mug with both hands, as if warming them by contact with the heated stoneware. “Maybe they are.”

Roisin looked down at him sharply. “Don’t say that.”

“Why not?”

“Because it feels true.” She couldn’t stop her voice from trembling. “And I don’t want it to be.” She sat down suddenly, as if she was a marionette whose strings had been cut. Her descent was more like a sack of potatoes than Pauls graceful movement, and she finished up sitting on one hip, her legs splayed awkwardly beneath her and out to one side.

Paul nodded. He didn’t argue or offer reassurance or a snatch of logic harvested from comic books or films. He simply sat with her, letting the quiet settle again. He took a sip of his coffee and after a moment, he said, “How are you seeing them?”

Roisin looked down at her hands. “I don’t know. Everyone I see has one inside them, ready to break free of the flesh as blood. She sat suddenly, heedless of the splashing coffee escaping from the mug she held. “I saw one break free this morning. Outside the art gallery. She fell—” he faced creased as she pictured the moment. “She was pushed down the steps and cracked her head open. I knew she was dead as soon as I saw the angel break free.”

“That must have been awful.”

She nodded. “It was, but not as awful as the thoughts I had afterward.” She pursed her lips, shaking her head as if to deny her lips the release of the thought.

“Thoughts about what?” He leaned forward as if he was about to reach out and touch her but if that was the case, he thought better of it. “You don’t have to tell me,” Paul said. “Not if you don’t want to. Not tonight.”

She closed her eyes. The blanket felt suddenly too warm, the room too small. But Paul’s presence—steady, grounded—kept her from drifting too far into the waking fantasies. “I wanted to paint the blood. Paint with the blood. Paint the broken bones and the shards of skull and the almost-severed hand. I wanted to peel away the skin and glory in the exposed flesh and drape the detached muscles from the statue in Queen’s Square.”

She opened her eyes to see the look of horror that had spread across his face. He was leaning backward on his crossed legs, as if he was afraid of becoming infected with similar thoughts. She put her mug down on the floor and reached out to touch his knee with one hand. “I’m not going to, obviously. I’m not a psychopathic serial killer, although it does give me an insight into the mind of one.”

He shifted slightly, leaning back on one hand to take the weights off his hips. She could almost see the way his skeletal structure shifted with the motion, a whole series of levers and fulcrums in a balletic dance to achieve a simple reconfiguration. He shifted his legs to almost mirror her position and spoke, his voice softer now. “I didn’t think you were. Part of being an artist is to explore the human condition in a way that other people, normal people, wouldn’t dream of. I’m not suggesting you’re mentally ill at all. Quite the opposite. I think I’m jealous of your ability to see this stuff. For all I know you could the next step of human evolution.” He half-smiled. “I think you’re allowed to be frightened.”

She shook her head, incredulous of the conclusion he’d jumped to. “I’m not frightened.”

He tilted his head. “Then what are you?”

She hesitated. The word rose slowly, like something dredged from deep water. “Untethered.” She took a deep breath, the word fitting how she felt she was part of the world and yet was somehow detached from it. “I actually feel apprehensive rather than frightened, as if I’m about to explore some deep part of the ocean that no-one’s seen before, and I’m not entirely sure I can swim.”

Paul nodded. “That makes sense. That’s kind of how I feel when I’m carving a piece of stone. I know what I want to cave, but I’m open to a new direction if that what the stone would prefer. I can start off with the idea of carving an angel, but for all I know, the stone beneath my hands would rather be a demon.””

She let out a shaky breath. “That’s it, yes. That’s it exactly. I feel as if I’m seeing the inside of people become what they really want to be when they’re freed from their prisons of flesh and blood.”

Paul rose slowly, allowing the weight on his bones to shift into new pattens of familiarity. “I’m still quite attached to my body, if you don’t mind.”

The words landed gently, but they reverberated through her like a struck chord. She looked up at him, seeing the fractal patterns of the being that orchestrated his thoughts, his movements. “I can see that, don’t worry.”

The rain softened outside, turning to a faint mist against the glass.

Paul drained his mug and moved toward the door. “I need to find something to eat. Do you want anything?” He paused with his hand on the handle. “Roisin?”

She looked up.

“I think I’m ready to start carving again.” He slipped out, closing the door with the same quiet care he’d entered with.

Roisin sat in the dim room, the blanket wrapped around her, the rain whispering at the window. She felt the echo of his words settle into her chest—soft, steady, anchoring.

She wasn’t sure she believed him.

But she wanted to.