Beneath a Bethel Page 6

  When my eyes widened with surprise, he nodded, offering me a sad smile in confirmation.

  “One day, we may talk further about it, but for you, I know it will be too raw, too fresh a wound, but know that I was robbed of my greatest gift, also,” he continued solemnly. “I was taken in by the previous master and given a life I had thought impossible. So you see, Angora, I became a master the way that you might one day.”

  I was bursting with questions, to know if he too had seen the underground room of dried blood and dead flowers. If he had been tempted by a lover, or snatched from the streets. All these details I yearned to know burned inside my chest, but he was right; the thought of voicing my experience, of examining it closely brought tears to my eyes and bile to my throat. Would that day he spoke of ever come? Would I one day be able to refer to my violation so simply? As if it was a meddle I had gotten myself into, something to make light of? I could not see such a day, but he was older than me and had the gift of time. Whatever else happened, I knew that I too would be granted that at least.

  “I think I should retire,” I breathed, though I made no move to stand, my coffee cooling in my hands.

  As if sensing how distraught I was, he agreed, taking my cup from me and placing it beside his on the table.

  “Yes, I think it would be best if we both did; an early start is needed tomorrow. Know this, Angora; whatever you are feeling, whatever may be said, I am happy you are here,” he spoke softly, taking my hands in his once more and squeezing them. I expected him to do more, accustomed to my sister’s hurried cuddles and my parents’ jostling affections, comfort given in great hugs and long speeches. But all he did was pull me to my feet, smiling with his bright green teeth.

  Once again, I left him to secure the house, numbly treading the steps up to the floor above and the bed waiting for me. As I stepped into the hallway, a flicker of movement caught my eye, making me turn and continue up the stairs towards the loft. It had appeared as a light, floating upwards. The door had been left open and through the darkened room, I could see that what I had mistaken for a light was in fact a form, floating as if caught in the current of the river Eldwen, moving between the furniture. My hand rested on the handle, gripping it as I tried to track the form’s movements while it flickered in and out of view. To my horror, it seemed to be moving through the tables, smoky tendrils like long fingers brushing against the rows of drying teeth. I took a step into the room to follow it but stopped, the heavy feeling of dread preventing me.

  Suddenly, it became solid and I was now unable to see the room through it as it glided closer. No longer was it simply an apparition either, but the clear shape of a person; their body was nude, their tail limp and unmoving while their clawed feet hung just above the floor. They began to slowly turn their head, their long hair hanging like knotted ropes. All I saw in the moments before I slammed the door shut, before I ran from the workshop, even my scream stolen from me by fear, was a gaping bloodied mouth, completely devoid of teeth.

  6

  I began to think the spectre I had seen had been nothing but my emotions running wild, my horrific memories rising to the surface like lost mementoes tossed in the Eldwen. In the days following the sighting, I mentioned nothing to Barnaby, instead pushing it from my mind, and soon I had forgotten it altogether. Only at night, as I lay curled under my dense duvet while watching the fire through the white curtains, did my mind stray back to that agonised face, so similar to how my own must have looked as I stumbled home through the snow, leaving a path of my flowing blood.

  Despite these nightly nightmares, I forged ahead in the following weeks, applying myself to the lessons Barnaby was keen to impart, our days spent in the workshop and our evenings full of discussions in front of the fireplace. We fell into an easy routine, Barnaby soon letting me assist in running the house, from making dinner to tidying, all chores I was well introduced to from living with my family. At first, I had been surprised to find that he didn’t employ a maid or butler, preferring to see to such details himself on top of his consuming work, but I soon grew to realise that he preferred to keep to his own company. Only clients visited the house and he never talked of other Floris Masters or went out in the evenings to socialise.

  I soon finished painting my next plate, copying the view from the window down to every chimney and dancing cloud within the sky. To begin with, I had felt tense using the paints, but in no time at all, I was revelling in them, the depths and shades of colour I could achieve, layering tones to create rich images. I poured over the books he had collected, melding beasts together to create my own creatures that pranced across the damaged porcelain. I envisaged climates so different from our own, swamps and deserts with cities that struggled to carve a living amongst them, and the weary citizens that populated them, twins of our own. Between painting, we would create the moulds, my clumsy hands copying his expert ones carefully as we smoothed and buffed freshly baked teeth. He taught me the timing for each firing and how to stack the teeth within the kiln. He demonstrated how to cover them in enamel until I was efficient enough in everything that I could be left with a collection of teeth, dipping them into the liquid and monitoring the kiln while he saw clients downstairs in the withdrawing rooms.

  Barnaby found endless amusement in asking me questions about my paintings, pushing me to create stories and meanings for each image. He explained that great masters, the ones whose teeth are coveted beyond others, do more than just paint. They create miniature worlds held behind lips, metaphors and customs hinted at with each smile. To illustrate, he allowed me to watch him, how he weaved stories across the teeth, lost children finding homes made of ice or grand hunts culminating in a feast. Even the more understated teeth, like those that he wore himself, hid secrets. His green teeth of leaves revealed spots of colours that, when I was permitted to look closer, I saw were bugs.

  With this goal in mind, he began to read to me each night, allowing me to devour stories that my limited reading abilities would otherwise prevent me from. He sat in an armchair, one leg crossed over the other as his soft voice filled the room. I would doze during those evenings, my stomach pleasantly full from dinner and my hands aching from work. Nestled in my own armchair, I could almost feel as if I inhabited those stories, so vivid were the images he conjured from words.

  In this way, our days became a tangle of what was real and what was on the page, our conversations changing from techniques for measuring clients’ jaws, to debating the merits of hunting for mythical creatures in the snow-capped mountains.

  Some sense of unease still lingered within the house however, unexplained noises and the hints of visions intruding upon our days. A wispy movement out of the corner of my eye, or the echo of something being dragged sounding in the hall. Barnaby seemed immune to such things and I tried to convince myself that it was merely nothing, an old house grumbling or a trick of the light. Just like the vision of the spectre or the memories of my attack, in the busy day, it was easy to push aside. It was during the night that I struggled, everything bearing down on me with relish as if in punishment for my avoidance.

  One evening, as I was locking up the workroom for the night, I saw something that could not be explained away, no matter how my mind refused to see it. At first it was merely a flicker, shadows condensing against the wall of photographs, their gold frames catching the dim light. I paused on my descent down the stairs, aware of the sounds of Barnaby making dinner in the kitchen, his humming comforting.

  Only it began to dawn on me that it wasn’t him humming.

  The sound was too loud, too close. If I strained my hearing, I could just make out his humming, nearly hidden by the clatter of pans. It was deep and cheerful, whereas the hum that was steadily filling the hallway was young and light. Even so, it managed to have a sinister edge to it, my eyes darting around the hall in an attempt to discover the source but only the flicker caught my eye.

  As if sensing my attention was upon it, it began to grow, expanding, its limbs h
anging as its form took shape. I was transfixed, my back against the wall, the frames digging into my skin as my tail wrapped itself around my leg. Every inch of my body was stilled; even my eyes fixed directly upon it as if to move them would make it lunge and attack. Once it had finished materialising, it stood opposite me, the body of a young child, no less horrific because of its small stature. It was pale, a wisp like the spectre I had glimpsed in the workroom, its tattered clothing floating around it and its tail trailing through the air. I could see the details of this one however, that one of its horns had been snapped, the edge ugly and rough, and that its fingers had been broken, some bent at odd angles over the bundle it held in its palms. Its eyes bored into me, so wide with terror that veins had burst upon their surface. Its hum had grown steadily louder as it had formed, deafening all other sounds, but now it stopped, silence pressing in on me.

  “Are…Are…” I tried to speak, the words slow to come and even harder to utter in the face of its unwavering gaze, as it stared at me with its feet hovering above the cold wooden floor. I felt as if it had a message to impart on me, the fear and anger radiating off it not meant for me but for some unseen foe. I just couldn’t understand it.

  It suddenly opened its palms, letting the scrap of cloth fall from its twisted fingers, the fabric fluttering to the floor.

  Teeth cascaded down, freed from the fabric binding them, pattering and cracking on the hard floor. They skittered towards my feet, whole and bloody with the roots dangling. I tried to back up but was prevented by the wall as my breathing grew shallow and panicked.

  The form was trying to speak, its mouth moving but no sound audible to my ears, even as it pointed down to the lost teeth beneath its feet. When words were not enough, it opened its mouth wide, showing me what I had already known, that behind those lips it had no teeth.

  “Angora!” Barnaby’s voice cut through the nightmare, even as the spectre advanced forward, toes trailing over its own teeth.

  I crawled along the wall, knocking frames from their perches with my back as I scrambled towards the stairs. I could hear Barnaby approaching them, his steps thundering through my horror as I fell towards the banister, desperate to avoid the reaching fingers of the spectre. I threw myself down them, a shuddering breath leaving my lungs as I contacted with Barnaby, his arms wrapping around me, steadying both our collided bodies on the stairs. I tried to push him down, knowing it was just behind me but he wouldn’t move.

  “Angora! Stop, what’s the matter?” he exclaimed, his confusion making me pause.

  Slowly, I raised my head from his chest, turning to stare behind me at the completely empty hall. The only things out of place were the photo frames that had been knocked to the floor. Not a tooth in sight.

  “I saw a figure, it…It…” I began, my words turning into sobs as now the danger was gone, I couldn’t keep my emotions at bay. “Oh Barnaby! A ghost!”

  Gently, he led me downstairs, his arm tightly around me as I cried into his shirt, gripping him as if he might suddenly vanish if I only loosened my grasp. With our dinner forgotten, he took me into the sitting room and steered me towards an armchair, only I wouldn't release my grip on him, so he was forced to sit down heavily with me. After a moment, his arms wrapped around me once again, softly this time, his voice whispering soothing words of nothingness into my scalp.

  When I had recovered enough to speak, I told him of what I had seen, his fingers stroking through my short hair and ruff all the while, calming my hiccups and tears. Afterwards, he was thoughtful and silent, not disputing my claim but not corroborating it either. As he stared into the fire, his fingers moving absent-mindedly through the thick fur at the base of my neck, I realised I longed for him to confess similar events to me. To tell me that he too had seen the spectres, heard their whispers and movements through the house. That he had been living alongside them, ignoring them, and that if he had done so all this time then I could too. The longer we sat there though, the more I knew that my desires would be unfulfilled, that he had no memories to confirm what I had seen.

  “Could it be, Angora, that you are seeing these visions because of trauma you have been through?” he whispered finally, turning his head from the fire to me, his bright eyes kind. He was wearing teeth of the night sky today, purples and blues bleeding together as bright stars burst upon their surfaces, each one glittering in the fire light. I had never asked him what his teeth meant, what wishes he could will into being with them. Now though, as he smiled kindly and flashed me a glimpse of them, I had the overwhelming desire to. Not only that, but the desire to know how they would fit in my own mouth, to feel teeth once more, not just empty gums that whenever my tongue brushed, I was reminded of what I had seen, what I had survived.

  “Is this the first time you have seen something of the like?” he asked, unperturbed by my silence. I shook my head, unwilling for a few moments to explain.

  “I saw one in the workroom, the first day I worked with you,” I mumbled, relenting under his encouraging gaze. I slipped from his embrace, sitting in the opposite armchair.

  “Was that one also missing teeth?” he questioned, waiting patiently until I nodded. “Well, perhaps I am correct. Don't you think it is interesting that both of the ghosts that you saw have suffered as you have? It is a horrifying thing to go through, a nightmare, and though your gums have healed, your mind will certainly not for some time. It is still very early in your recovery and perhaps I have given you too much to do, not given you time to reconcile yourself with what has happened…”

  “No! No, Barnaby, the painting is all I have; it keeps me alive where I might otherwise waste away. Please don't take it from me,” I begged.

  “If you wish,” he smiled fondly, patting my arm gently. “The fact remains that I have never seen anything like you describe, nor any hint that I am coexisting with these beings. We cannot fly to such conclusions,” he reasoned with me, the beginnings of doubt creeping into my brain.

  Could it be my mind? My trauma of that night becoming waking nightmares, following me through the house when I tried to give myself peace? Was I not embracing the memories? I thought I had on the street, reliving them again and again. Not only that night but my whole relationship with Gillis, trying to pinpoint when I had become prey instead of a lover, or if I had ever even been the latter.

  “Did you see any visions shortly after your attack?” I asked, sighing deeply and looking into his face. If I had not, I would not have seen the slight furrow of his brow, the flash of confusion across his eyes. A second, nothing more and then his smile returned, his eyes full of sympathy.

  “No. No I did not, but I fought my demons in other ways.”

  7

  I could feel Barnaby beginning to trust me as the days slipped by, as if that trust was a visible thing, filling up the corners of the rooms, following behind me while I did the tasks he set for me. When he had first begun teaching me, a glint of humour had always been within his eye. Perhaps because despite his words, he doubted my talent, or maybe he expected to wake up one day to find that I had fled? Whatever had caused it, that glint was gone now and he found amusement in me and my craft no longer. In direct contrast, he set more and more tasks for me, depending on me to rise early and prepare the workroom for the day, paint often already drying on a new set of teeth when he entered.

  A part of me suspected that he might be doing so to stop my mind from recounting the visions of the spectres, but if that was his intent, he had failed; my nights were still plagued by them no matter how tired I was when I slipped beneath my duvet. I still heard movement through the house too, though all sound seemed to be centred upon the ground floor, the tap of fingers on glass, the scatter of teeth and a low hum. I tried my best though, focusing on my role as apprentice.

  My slow, lazy days of eating breakfast with him and painting plates seemed a world away as I now ate with the rising sun, dashing about the workroom and checking on the kiln. These new responsibilities only fanned the creative energ
y within me, the simple pleasure of having a job and doing it well. More than well, as it turned out, as one morning, Barnaby ascended the stairs to the workroom and requested my presence in the withdrawing rooms on the ground floor. I was to dress smartly and freshen up before our visitors arrived and to meet him down there.

  I was so startled and thrilled by his request that I nearly tripped over my feet when I hurried to my room, bursting through the door so hard that it slammed loudly on the wall, but then I realised I would be going towards the source of the noises. Until now, I had no need to tread down there and though I knew I wouldn't be alone, the thought of seeing another spectre made me shiver with fright.

  He had laid fresh clothing out for me, nothing that could have been in the wardrobe as I had already gone through it all. These must have been the new clothes he had promised me. Slower now, I approached, gazing down at the smart shirt and deep blue jacket, the buttons gleaming with the light from the fire. Beneath them were matching breeches with deep pockets, and on the floor waited a pair of shining, new boots, dark red in colour, like spilled blood. I could do this, as Barnaby had said, it was just my mind and I could control that. I couldn't waste this chance to impress him, to show him how much I valued what he had given me.

  I had never owned such simple finery and these clothes, more than the grandeur of the house, more than the satisfied weight of a full stomach, filled me with joy. To have garments made just for me, not passed from person to person to whoever had the greatest need at the time. For Barnaby to choose these colours for me, he had no doubt witnessed how I was drawn to blue paints in the studio. The thoughtfulness touched me, my heart aching with love for him.

  The realisation shocked me, that I could have come to care for him in our short time together, that he had replaced my parents as a source of guidance and wisdom. More than replaced them, he had surpassed them, for he neither teased nor made light of my plans. He listened, even to my most outlandish dreams, and when I had spent my breath, he offered advice, advice that I could either take or disregard. He had wanted an apprentice; he knew that that was what he had sought, but I had been blind to my need for a mentor.