A Trick of the Shadow by R. Ostermeier

Author:R. Ostermeier [Ostermeier, R.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Broodcomb Press
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

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The next day, a Saturday morning, Eck went to Mosk House, ready to tackle Mr Finnick about the obscene baby-noise whenever he called. He’d practised saying disgusting until the word snapped in the middle. The aftercare is dsGUSTing. When he’d first come to the sessions with Justyna, he’d been told to come to the old kitchen servants’ entrance. Being Saturday, this was locked. He went round to the front. The top left showed the room where he was headed, and for the first time he noticed how peculiar the house looked viewed straight on. Mosk House was large, built in a recognisable style (he could not name it) but there was a hunched quality about the place. He’d never before seen a house so aware of itself, of the space it took up in the world.

Eck pushed the gate open and went through the garden and courtyard. With hand splayed, he pushed one of the big front doors, which opened heavily. In the gloom, the interior of Mosk House was full of shadows and quiet. As he walked up the stairs and along the corridor filled with pale absent portraits, he felt his heart worry itself into a panic. He’d approached the front door like a cat; he opened the therapy room like a shrew.

“Hello?”

There was no one there. The room was as empty as if it had been cleared for decorating or a rehearsal.

A sound from behind him drew his attention. Eck turned to see a door open on the opposite side of the corridor, a door that had never previously been open. A woman was in the corner, pushing together a mound of vomit. The mound, mostly liquid, kept reverting into a spreading puddle.

“Are you all right?” Eck asked.

The woman looked up. Eck thought he recognised her, then realised he didn’t. It was simply that she looked like him. She’d lost considerable amounts of weight. That she was sensitive about it was clear from the wrap around her throat, her loose T-shirt and dungarees that once fitted a much larger person.

Eck asked again if she was all right. Something traumatic seemed to have happened. An assault, or somebody had said something inhumanly cruel. She looked as if she might cry, with the brave scraped face of one desperately trying to keep themselves emotionally together and failing.

“I’ve been sick,” she said.

“Leave it there,” Eck replied. “I’ll let someone know to clear it up.”

He expected thanks, but while he’d been speaking the woman had been looking at him. She’d looked at him and taken him in as nearly as he had taken her in. Her reply was cold—

“No. I don’t want any connection between us.”

She shook her hands out to get the viscous bile off. It wouldn’t go. Eck got fast out of her way as she barged through the doorway, her hands claws in front of her dripping bile like molten bone.

Eck turned to watch her leave, a little hurt but more bemused. “Have you seen anyone today?” he called.

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