Scrivener’s Tale. Fiona McIntosh

around him in such a way that he felt owned by her.

      It may have been a hollow reassurance but he was grateful to hear it all the same. Its effect was momentary, though, for he could feel a sinister and familiar sense returning, bringing with it all those old feelings of despair that he’d kept at bay for so long.

      ‘What’s wrong?’ she shook him.

      ‘It’s happening again. I’d escaped the accident, rebuilt my life, walked away from it all,’ he said, drawing back from her. He ran a hand through his hair again and stood in his apartment, naked and trembling — but not from the cold.

      ‘Gabe, I can make it all go away.’

      He flicked his gaze to her, filled with mistrust and a new sense of loathing as she offered herself to him. He wished Angelina had never come into his life, but even now, he felt desire stirring. She was impossible to resist … for him, anyway. ‘All I have to do is kill you, right?’ he said scathingly.

      ‘It is my way back.’

      ‘Your way out, more like,’ he sneered.

      ‘Your raven has returned,’ she taunted him, pointing out the window.

      True enough, the bird was there, black as night, staring at him as it perched on his tiny balcony’s railing. It fleetingly occurred to him to wonder precisely how she knew the family of Corvidae. Most people would have called it a crow.

      ‘What does it want?’

      ‘He’s your enemy. He’s keeping you under observation.’

      ‘My enemy,’ he said, with a cold smirk. ‘Now I must fear even the birds. Why is he my enemy, Angelina?’

      ‘He’s following you. It’s his role. He is the observer … the messenger.’

      ‘You’re amazing. Do you just make things up as you go along?’

      ‘You don’t believe me,’ she said, disappointed.

      ‘I know you believe it, and I know how powerful that can be. I’m sorry that I can’t see what you do. I live in Paris, you live in a world of your own making.’

      ‘Is that so?’

      He shrugged. ‘We should never have had sex. It’s my fault —’

      It was Angelina’s turn to laugh and it sounded bitter. ‘I’m not talking about sex, you fool.’ She crawled forward on the bed. ‘I’m talking about knowledge. Things that can’t be explained, like showing you your own dreams.’ Gabe began to shake his head and he could see it infuriated her. ‘All right, what if I told you that in three seconds the phone will start to ring, there will be a banging on the door and you’d —’

      She didn’t finish. His mobile began to vibrate loudly on the kitchen counter and a heartbeat later there was a loud rapping at the door.

      Gabe blinked. ‘How could …?’ he said, staring at the door and then back at her.

      ‘Both are Reynard,’ she said calmly. ‘He knows you’re in here. He will now tell you that he knows I’m here too.’

      ‘I know you have Angelina with you, Gabriel!’ Reynard obliged.

      Gabe stared open-mouthed, astonished.

      ‘He’ll bang again,’ she said. ‘Twice.’ Reynard did just that. ‘I shall have to call in the police,’ she mimicked in his manner.

      ‘I shall have to call in the police,’ Reynard repeated precisely and then simultaneously with Angelina mimicking the gesture, he rapped loudly on the door. ‘Open up!’ she said silently, but in perfect sinister synchronicity with Reynard. It was as though his deep voice had become hers. Angelina put her hand to her mouth and mimicked a cough in tandem with Reynard. She smiled mirthlessly at Gabe.

      ‘She is trying to escape! Don’t help her, Gabriel,’ Reynard urged, while Gabe watched her mouth forming each word also. It was chilling. How was she doing this?

      ‘How am I doing it?’ she asked, as though she could now hear his thoughts as well as Reynard’s. ‘I have skills that defy your understanding,’ Angelina said, moving toward him as though floating on air. ‘But not his,’ she sneered, pointing at the door. ‘Oh, definitely not. Reynard knows what I’m capable of. He was sent to keep me close, keep me from my mission.’

      Reynard’s banging and the constant vibration and beeping of the phone’s message system began to fade and only Angelina’s voice was clear.

      ‘I was sent to guide you to a place called Morgravia. The bird is your enemy. Reynard was sent to stop you making the journey — he is also our enemy. But you and I must look out for one another. I am your protector, Gabe. I can take you to the cathedral, where I know you feel safe. And because I’m not real in the way you accept, you can’t kill me. It will be like a dreamscape. My death will not be real.’

      She was playing with words. No longer making sense. Hitting all the right buttons to confuse him … his mind was becoming fuzzy. He could still hear Reynard, the phone, now the bird cawing at him. He could see it, flapping outside and leaping at the window. He could hear the thump of its body connecting with the panes of glass, the scratch and tap of beak and claws, as it desperately tried to keep his attention. He was being plunged back into the fear and the loathing, the old terror that haunted him after losing his family. And now here was Angelina handing him a knife. Where did that come from?

      He tried to speak, but it was as though his mouth was suddenly filled with sawdust. His voice had slowed down and sounded deep and robotic, as though a machine was filtering his words. ‘What are you doing?’

      ‘Making it easy, Gabe.’ Her voice tinkled like crystals moving against each other. ‘Come, travel with me. I will take you to the cathedral. To safety. To peace.’ She leapt at him like a cat, fast and lithe; he heard her groan, wrapping her legs around him. He stumbled and they fell awkwardly onto the bed.

      He could feel her flesh against his. It was cool and smooth, like marble, and then her lips were on his, her tongue searching, her body moving against him. Reynard, the phone and even the sounds of the raven disappeared. He was back in the Void, waiting for its movement — was he holding his breath? — then the swirling began, and what had been nothing but a grey mist a moment ago began to sharpen into the contours and colours of the scene he most craved.

      He was far more exquisitely aware of Angelina this time. He could feel her touch, her skin, her warmth, whereas before, when she’d allowed him to glimpse this place, he’d been aware of nothing. Now all of his senses were his again. It was as though the scene was deepening into reality, while at the same time he could feel Angelina becoming slack against him and a wetness against his belly. For a moment there, he thought his desire to see his cathedral had twisted into something erotic — and who could blame him, with a naked woman wrapped around him?

      Without warning, hard on the heels of the sensation of wetness, he felt himself toppling, falling, spinning without control. There was no pain, no flailing about; he didn’t know which way was up, but in his mind’s eye he was travelling closer to the cathedral. He heard Angelina’s voice in his mind.

      Let go, Gabe, she whispered. Let go of Paris … of the world.

      And he did, but as he did so his hand felt something familiar. The quill. It was all he had to anchor him and he wrapped his fingers around it, feeling its softness and its solidity. It helped him to focus on one final notion: that to let go fully would be dangerous. It was something in his subconscious, perhaps something from his training as a psychologist. Clutching the quill, in the midst of his confusion and dislocation, Gabe felt a part of him hold back as he began to fall into whatever new dreamscape Angelina was forming for him.

      It was the kernel of strength and self-possession and even self-awareness that had brought him through his darkest hours; it was the part of him that urged him to breathe, forced him to wake up and accept the day and to find a way through each new one until