Black Static Horror Magazine #1 Page 3

  Jaromir. After the encounter with Charousek's son, I found my thoughts returning to him often. But I couldn't decide if my feelings were simply that of pity or of something else that I had no real knowledge nor experience of.

  Prokop's office, no more than three or four streets away from Charousek's home, was part of a small, crooked building that also housed a funeral director and an accountant. His narrow windows were always condensated, his tiny rooms locked with heat from the piles of paper and books and files that tottered like columns around his desk.

  Prokop looked up from his creaky chair and set down his pen when I knocked on his door and sat myself down opposite him. There were beads of sweat rolling down his round bald head, yet his stiff collar and coat were buttoned all the way to his chin.

  "Ah, what have you for me, my sweet?” he smiled, steepling his fingers beneath his chin. “The master, Charousek, has unveiled his new endeavour in these past few hours, so I'm reliably informed."

  "Bury the Carnival,” I said, retrieving the poster and unfolding it onto the table for Prokop to read. “I would assume he is referring to the suppression of his work by the Puritans."

  "And he confirmed as much, I assume?"

  I faltered. “He did not mention the production when we met. In fact he gave no indication that he had even begun work.” When Prokop looked up, surprise and disappointment creasing his features, I added, “I'd hoped I might visit him, perhaps at the Kishuf Theatre, and interview him further about it, before we publish..."

  "Indeed?” Prokop began, reclining into his chair. “I expected you would have all we needed by now."

  "He spoke of his incarceration by the Precisemen, and of a son, whom I also interviewed. I feel that now they are familiar with me I might gain some further insight, if you were to give me a little longer."

  "A son, you say? Charousek has a son?” Prokop leaned forward again, his curiosity piqued.

  For some reason, I was reluctant to reveal the nature of Charousek's son at this point, and merely nodded. “Just a little longer..."

  Prokop drummed his ink-stained fingernails upon the table and looked beyond me at the misted windows. “Very well,” he said finally. “Talk to both again, but have something for me by the time this production begins. I want to be able to have someone selling this story like hot cakes outside that very theatre. Don't disappoint me, my dear."

  I nodded and quickly got to my feet before Prokop could change his mind.

  * * * *

  Before I could go to the theatre I found myself walking back to Jaromir's loft. His face wouldn't leave my mind. Before I spoke again to Charousek, I had to know the truth of things. Was Jaromir unique? Or was he the prototype for others like him, the flawed first born?

  I returned to the now familiar narrow, filthy street, cluttered with the detritus of the junk dealer's wares. I climbed the steps back to the grubby building where his loft was, and knocked on the door. When he answered this time, Jaromir seemed pleased to see me. It was only then that I realised how my heart had been beating so in anticipation of seeing him again. There was sweat on my brow, and I was suddenly aware of how I had forgotten to change my clothes since the last time we spoken.

  "Jaromir,” I began, and then faltered. I felt my face flush, uncharacteristically. I tried to remember why I had come here. “There are some questions that I failed to ask you when we spoke before. I wondered if we might talk again."

  "After you left, I dreamed,” Jaromir said, his glassy eyes suddenly exhibiting a strange shine to them. “I have never dreamed before. In fact I don't think I've ever slept before. I only know of these things by their descriptions in texts, and from others."

  I thought of my dream too, of the sad little wooden boy waiting for the clothes his ‘mother’ was sewing for him. “What did you dream of, Jaromir?” I asked. “Was it a pleasant dream?"

  He nodded, and then I knew what he was going to say by the subtle animation that had crept into his face in the short hours since we'd had parted. “I dreamed of you,” he said.

  My heart quickened again, and without warning I closed my hand around his, as I had earlier. But this time, I fancied I could feel a warmth there in his palm. “I am glad, Jaromir. I dreamed of you too. Perhaps we were meant to meet this way."

  We returned to the table we had sat at before, our hands still wrapped together. I studied his face, ran my palm over it. “Something has changed in you, Jaromir. Do you feel it?” There were tiny beads of perspiration on his forehead, and his eyes began to follow my fingers. I touched the wetness of his lips and lingered there, aware of the fluttering in my belly as I did so.

  "I am changing,” he said, a note of tremulous excitement in his voice. “I am becoming more, like the others my father made. I am becoming human..."

  ...like the others my father made. I remembered my earlier reasons for talking to Jaromir again, and withdrew my hand. “Jaromir,” I said. “The others that you speak of...” I felt reluctant to use the word but felt I must be blunt to get to the truth “...the other marionettes that Charousek made, carved with his tools out of wood, and jointed together, how many of them are there? Are they more or less than you, Jaromir?"

  Jaromir stared at my eyes for a moment, and I thought him lost in some private reverie, but then he said, “Come. Come with me and I will show you."

  I followed him out into the street, my hand grasped tightly within his. I noticed him shivering involuntarily at the unfamiliar sensation of cold. He glanced at me as we walked, and I said, “We shall have to buy you a coat, Jaromir. Or else you'll freeze. Take my scarf, at least.” I unrolled my bright red scarf and wrapped it around his throat, while he smiled down at me affectionately.

  He smiled so broadly that I heard his face splinter at the suddenness of it.

  At the end of the street, we heard a carriage in the distance, making its way along the cobble stones, and the clatter of horses’ hooves. We trudged away from the sound, while the street lamps blinked above us. There was not a soul to be seen, and for a moment, I wished that we could walk for miles and remain perfectly alone. But that was not to be. When we passed a statue of the virgin Mary beside a church I had never seen before, Jaromir pointed to two identical old women with grey scarves on their heads, muttering a rosary of the virgin by candlelight. “They are Charousek's creations. Both made together as twins, inseparable, and sent out into the world."

  I stared for as long as I was able, and then we went on towards a part of the old town where market stalls had been erected, the canvases flapping about their metal frames in the cold, whipping wind. By the harsh light of smoky torches, we walked amongst the thin crowds, while Jaromir pointed out the human and the less than human that made up their number. A street poet on a box, reciting his work for no one; a child with two others, his face no less mud-spattered or real; a fishmonger, who sang his prices out above the other market-traders ... When I looked with new eyes for them, I realised the truth of things. Charousek's creations were everywhere: gutting animals in the abattoirs, shining the shoes of gentlemen, skipping in the play yard, praying in the temples...

  I gripped Jaromir's hand that was gently perspiring into mine, and I stopped. When he turned to face me, I saw his eyelashes flutter in excitement. Once, I realised, he had been an outcast, a stranger not only to humans but to the rest of Charousek's creations. He'd seen them come, seen them grow into their lives, while he had remained the same. But now finally, he was part of the world.

  "You have made me this way,” he said, simply.

  I drew close to his face and closed my mouth over his. “Yes,” I said.

  * * * *

  A thick mist had returned to the streets as I made my way to the Kishuf Theatre. I'd not told Jaromir of my next destination, for fear he would want to accompany me, but promised him I would return to him afterward. Even now, when I thought of him, I felt the fluttering return to my belly. It felt like the sunlight had risen early in me.

  I struggled up a
steeply rising lane, then down several narrow twisting alleys with no lamp light to guide me. Here there was a huge weather-worn tavern, the air around it thick with the enticing aromas of ale and of pipe smoke. Then, as I turned a blind corner, the procession suddenly appeared from the mist. The sound of laughter and song and heavy boots dancing on the cobbles filled the air. They passed by me like a dream: a Pierrot with his mouth pursed into a frozen kiss glanced my way, his wooden hand slowly uncurled like a flower in my direction, and was gone. Then a woman in a cloak painted with tears and hearts pirouetted across the cobbles and her strings of coloured pearls twisted round and round her neck, like strange moons in the darkness. I felt her gloved hand caress my cheek, and then she twisted away to be replaced by a dwarf on stilts, a cigar gripped between his teeth, all of his concentration fixed upon the antiquated accordion he had gripped between his white-knuckled fists. I watched them as they twisted and danced and frolicked past me, and for a brief moment only wanted to join them in their ecstatic procession, be consumed and deemed anonymous in the darkness and mist until the light returned to our town. But then they were gone, turning one corner and then the next, and then there was only the whisper of their strange music left dissipating in the air, like my breath.

  And when I turned around, there was my destination: the Kishuf Theatre.

  Once it might have been something. But now the columns both outside and inside the vestibule were almost shattered to pieces, and the façade was stricken with age. The boards that had covered its windows and doors years in the past had been prised away and piled up in an adjoining alleyway. I could hear bursts of music and chatter from inside as I crept into the foyer. There was a thick film of dust on the red velvet curtains, the beautiful balustrades on the grand staircase that led up to the stalls, the faded illustrations of performers from the past in shabby frames on the walls. I hesitated, unsure that Charousek would welcome me quite as readily now he was in the midst of preparing for the production. And, knowing what I did about his son, Jaromir, would surely lend some weight to my questions. How had he created him? A puppet with thoughts and feelings, but still—until he had met me—cold and hard to the touch, like any other marionette in Charousek's workshop. What magic was that? Where had Charousek learnt such abilities? From the library of texts that Jaromir had spoke of, that he had kept under lock and key? And if so, where had he obtained such books?

  I stole through the lobby and quietly pressed through the heavy curtains that led into the theatre, and then peered transfixed at the sights that greeted me.

  There were lamps and candles lit everywhere, lending everything a magical glow: in the galleries, in the boxes, in the orchestra pit, up on the stage ... I glanced around at the people at work in the theatre, trying to spy Charousek, and finally located him on the stage, on a stool, carving a piece of wood with a chisel. Even from a distance I could see the sharp blade shearing away spirals of wood until the features of a face became apparent in his hands. All around him, there were flurries of activity: another old man with a thick braided beard worked his fingers over an ancient pipe organ, discovering a melody that made Charousek's foot tap in time to it; beside him, an albino, naked save for his baggy trousers and some braces that were sliding off his sharply-boned shoulders, was playing an accordion and clanging some cymbals that were tied between his knees; and other musicians nearby—a flautist, a fiddler, an old woman with a singing saw bent into an S on her thigh ... I could have happily listened to their music all day, but I was here to unearth the truth of things, not fall under Charousek's spell.

  I hurried down the dirty steps that led between the theatre seats, glancing at what I first took to be other onlookers, but then realised were more of Charousek's marionettes. As before, they were assembled in various poses that gave them an unnerving semblance of being more than they were. Perhaps soon they would be.

  Some of the stage's occupants had noticed my approach by this time, and the music became discordant as, one by one, the instruments fell away and I reached the orchestra pit. Charousek looked up finally, and if he was surprised by my presence, his face implied nothing of the sort. But something was different about his demeanour. I noticed that when he dropped the head that he had been carving onto the stage, his hands were trembling.

  This close to the stage, the odour that wafted beneath my nostrils was thick, almost floral, but tainted somehow. The smell of bodies, of heated flesh and incense. I wondered if that was indeed the smell of Charousek's magic. I wrinkled my nose, and said, “I'm sorry to interrupt you, Mr Charousek, but I wondered if I may talk to you again."

  The faces of the musicians flickered with shadows from the multitude of candles as they regarded me. The organ player and the albino shook their heads and lit up pipes, puffed on them, smiling cruelly. Charousek himself unearthed some tobacco from his pocket, emptied some into a brown paper, then crumbled something else into it before sealing the paper together. The action seemed to calm the tremor in his hands. “Be brief, my dear."

  He got slowly to his feet and extended his hand to me. I walked to the side of the stage and climbed the steps. When I reached him, he took my hand and kissed it. His mouth felt rough on my skin. “And I may warn you,” he continued, “that all of your questions will likely be answered by this production. I'm sure you'll attend..."

  "So Bury the Carnival is an autobiographical piece?” I asked, conscious of the other performers around me. They had grown silent, but I felt their eyes and those of the marionettes in the audience on the periphery of my vision.

  "Oh, absolutely, my dear. Fact is, as they say, stranger than fiction."

  "In the production, do you speak of the arcane arts that you practiced, which led to your incarceration?” My fear had adversely made me bolder than I imagined I could be. “And of your son, who is less than human?"

  Charousek tried to appear unperturbed. He smiled. “You, my dear, have been speaking with my first born."

  "Was he born? I think he was made, Mr Charousek. Possibly the first of all your marionettes. What magic did you use to make him live like a real boy?"

  He tried to remain impassive. But I appeared to have the attention of everyone on the stage, and I could see that was making Charousek uncomfortable. Finally he said, through a plume of rich smoke, “Everything shall be revealed in the production, my dear. All of the answers to all of the mysteries of life...” His voice rose theatrically, and he turned to walk across the stage. “Come one, come all, be you flesh and blood or oak and cedar! Meet the dog-faced boy! The world's smallest giant! The human skeleton! Freaks and oddities! Step a little closer, ladies and gentlemen! See the pious souls who guide our moral compass, lurking in the shadows of the stage. Stare into the very soul of a man whose wife was taken away from him; and watch him laugh!” His voice had risen to a roar by now, spittle flying from his lips. He spun round and bounded towards me. I flinched and cowered at his proximity. I could smell the hashish on his clothes, his breath, his fingers. He whispered then, his mouth at my ear. “When we're faced with questions to which we have no readily available answers, then perhaps we have to dig at our own roots and go in search of ourselves."

  I was paralysed, my joints locked. He'd said it to me before, and when I turned to look into his face, Charousek added, even more quietly, “Run now but wait in the foyer. And hide yourself from view.” Then he withdrew, his face unreadable, as if he'd said nothing of consequence to me. The silence in the theatre seemed to swell, become almost unbearable.

  I turned and ran back the way I came.

  * * * *

  I couldn't ignore what Charousek had said. I flung the heavy red curtains aside and stood frozen when I reached the foyer. Initially when I saw the shadows beyond the theatre door, I imagined that perhaps Charousek had an audience already, queueing outside for the best seat in the house. But the shape of the shadows, and their size, made me step back into the concealment afforded by the ticket booth, my breath trapped in my chest. I stayed there, as Cha
rousek had commanded, waiting for the owners of the shadows to reveal themselves, knowing somehow what I would see.

  And then they were there in the foyer: the Precisemen. Three huge shapes in dark, unadorned robes, hoods drawn forward over their masked faces. Although I cowered, I felt compelled to at least catch a glimpse of them while I could. But my head felt swollen since they had arrived; there were voices in my head, mellifluous. There were too many to focus on, and I put my hand to my temples, ground the heel of my palm into my eyes. Still they refused to be silenced. And then above it all, one of them spoke, and the sound was like nothing I'd ever heard. It sounded rich and musical, almost like birdsong, and then so low, I could feel the sound of it make my entire body vibrate.

  "Charousek ... ” they said. “...Charousek, it is time..."

  The old man had emerged from between the red curtains, and stood in the shadow of the Precisemen, who towered above him, their beaked masks lowered towards his face. Still his face offered no clue to his emotions, nor to my being privy to their exchange. “In no more than three hours the curtain shall indeed rise, and they will all return home to their maker,” he said. “But I cannot be rushed. There are delicate and arcane magics at work here."

  The voices flowed together again in my head. I screwed my eyes shut as if that might dull the pain of it, but it wouldn't be silenced.

  "...delicate and recondite magics that pervert the natural order of things, Charousek ... you have been warned ... these will be your last magics ... only enough to bring them back from the world and to return them to their original state ... after that, the primal texts that you stole from us will be burned forever..."

  "And you will return my wife. You will return Loisa to me, as you promised?” At the mention of his wife's name, I heard Charousek's voice crack audibly, and for a brief moment I almost empathised with him.