Read Online The Evil Seed by Joanne Harris - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Joanne Harris
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but the blue painted inside of the spinning-top, no sun but
her eyes, no moon but the round pink imprints of her thumbs against the glass.
And I knew that sometime or other, she would remember the handle, the red
wooden handle which turns the world … and where would I be then? Spinning,
spinning, there in the dark for ever, at her pleasure, beneath her watchful
eyes? My blessed Damozel.
Suddenly, I was jolted
from my thoughts by a sound: a slow, deep, groaning and creaking sound,
impossibly huge, from the very engines of the earth, as if some ancient
underground forge had been opened anew. A scraping music accompanied it, like
the world’s oldest and most decrepit roundabout. The music’s pace quickened,
became a fairground tune, loud and brash, laboriously out of key. The light had
changed; shadows lay over most of the land, hiding the trees and bushes from
sight, except in a few cases, where a sudden spray of light (green, pink,
electric blue) outlined a stump here, a protruding branch there, into lurid,
swaying relief. Branches? Why had I thought of branches? As the top began to
spin faster, the music to play more rhythmically, I held on to the first solid
object I could grasp. In the semi-darkness, I could feel a hard, rippled
surface, a jingle of bells, the harshness of a horsehair mane … What could be
more natural, on a fairground roundabout, than a roundabout horse? I closed my
eyes (the roundabout was spinning very quickly now, the horse leaping up and
down), but there was no way I could let go of the only solid object in my
world, and I held on with my eyes closed until I began to feel a little better,
a little more steady, and I dared to open them a crack.
It was light again, not
the brightness and clarity of daylight, but a garish kind of fairground light,
vulgar, and spectral at the same time. And in the brightness, I could see that
I was not the only rider on Rosemary’s carousel. There were other horses, red
and white and black and blue, bells at their saddles, long manes flying in the
wind, glass eyes wild and red nostrils flaring.
Robert was there too,
knuckles white against the reins, coat flapping behind him like wings. 1 called
his name, hoping that he would hear me against the deafening music … and he
turned his face towards me.
He was dead, poor
Robert. His face was pale, clown-coloured, and his lips were faintly blue. His
eyes were turned upwards to the whites. As I cried out in horror and pity, the
roundabout lurched, and his head lolled away from me on its broken neck. Then,
I saw that all the horses had a rider; a dead rider. Men, women, some I
recognized, some total strangers. Some grinned at me as we rode alongside each
other; a masked woman blew me a kiss which smelt of carrion. Others slumped
over slit throats and broken backs; one rode backwards, head bent completely
round, like a doll’s. Then a thought overtook me with cold terror as I rode. I
had seen all my roundabout companions save one. One.
A coldness at my back,
like a sudden draught. A sudden, gassy reek, like putrid vegetables. A kind of
touch, horribly intimate, at my shoulder. Turning was an unbearable effort,
like walking underwater. Another touch, at my face.
Cold.
I began to struggle,
vainly trying to avert the predestined. I believe I thrashed my legs, as if in
a pointless attempt to outride my pursuer. I tried to turn again. And this
time, I succeeded.
My scream was lost in a
redoubled burst of the music; my terror ripe as fermented plums. She was
masked, only the mouth and the tip of her nose visible from beneath the velvet,
but I knew who it was. Ophelia, ten days after her drowning, the stench of the
river still on her, mixed with another stench, darker. The slime of the Cam in
her hair, her limbs hunched and misshapen, bloated beneath her white dress. I
had once owned a Japanese print, showing the six stages of decomposition of the
corpse of a young girl left out on a mountainside; I had found it gruesome,
her eyes, no moon but the round pink imprints of her thumbs against the glass.
And I knew that sometime or other, she would remember the handle, the red
wooden handle which turns the world … and where would I be then? Spinning,
spinning, there in the dark for ever, at her pleasure, beneath her watchful
eyes? My blessed Damozel.
Suddenly, I was jolted
from my thoughts by a sound: a slow, deep, groaning and creaking sound,
impossibly huge, from the very engines of the earth, as if some ancient
underground forge had been opened anew. A scraping music accompanied it, like
the world’s oldest and most decrepit roundabout. The music’s pace quickened,
became a fairground tune, loud and brash, laboriously out of key. The light had
changed; shadows lay over most of the land, hiding the trees and bushes from
sight, except in a few cases, where a sudden spray of light (green, pink,
electric blue) outlined a stump here, a protruding branch there, into lurid,
swaying relief. Branches? Why had I thought of branches? As the top began to
spin faster, the music to play more rhythmically, I held on to the first solid
object I could grasp. In the semi-darkness, I could feel a hard, rippled
surface, a jingle of bells, the harshness of a horsehair mane … What could be
more natural, on a fairground roundabout, than a roundabout horse? I closed my
eyes (the roundabout was spinning very quickly now, the horse leaping up and
down), but there was no way I could let go of the only solid object in my
world, and I held on with my eyes closed until I began to feel a little better,
a little more steady, and I dared to open them a crack.
It was light again, not
the brightness and clarity of daylight, but a garish kind of fairground light,
vulgar, and spectral at the same time. And in the brightness, I could see that
I was not the only rider on Rosemary’s carousel. There were other horses, red
and white and black and blue, bells at their saddles, long manes flying in the
wind, glass eyes wild and red nostrils flaring.
Robert was there too,
knuckles white against the reins, coat flapping behind him like wings. 1 called
his name, hoping that he would hear me against the deafening music … and he
turned his face towards me.
He was dead, poor
Robert. His face was pale, clown-coloured, and his lips were faintly blue. His
eyes were turned upwards to the whites. As I cried out in horror and pity, the
roundabout lurched, and his head lolled away from me on its broken neck. Then,
I saw that all the horses had a rider; a dead rider. Men, women, some I
recognized, some total strangers. Some grinned at me as we rode alongside each
other; a masked woman blew me a kiss which smelt of carrion. Others slumped
over slit throats and broken backs; one rode backwards, head bent completely
round, like a doll’s. Then a thought overtook me with cold terror as I rode. I
had seen all my roundabout companions save one. One.
A coldness at my back,
like a sudden draught. A sudden, gassy reek, like putrid vegetables. A kind of
touch, horribly intimate, at my shoulder. Turning was an unbearable effort,
like walking underwater. Another touch, at my face.
Cold.
I began to struggle,
vainly trying to avert the predestined. I believe I thrashed my legs, as if in
a pointless attempt to outride my pursuer. I tried to turn again. And this
time, I succeeded.
My scream was lost in a
redoubled burst of the music; my terror ripe as fermented plums. She was
masked, only the mouth and the tip of her nose visible from beneath the velvet,
but I knew who it was. Ophelia, ten days after her drowning, the stench of the
river still on her, mixed with another stench, darker. The slime of the Cam in
her hair, her limbs hunched and misshapen, bloated beneath her white dress. I
had once owned a Japanese print, showing the six stages of decomposition of the
corpse of a young girl left out on a mountainside; I had found it gruesome,
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