More Clearly at the Last

Standalone excerpt from Reversed Black Maria.

More Clearly at the Last

White. The ceiling was shockingly white. Boris Ivanovich Von Ekaterinberg had slept beneath this ceiling for every one of his one hundred and seventy years, but he’d never realized how stark it was before today, and this day was his last. Better late than never, he thought, and chuckled.

“What is it?” asked Anastasia, his widow-in-waiting.

“Oh, nothing,” Boris replied, with what little breath remained to him. “I was just marveling how we overlook things that are right in front of us, that’s all.”

“It’s no marvel to me. I’ve been watching you do it for over a century,” she said bitterly, clutching the folds of her black skirt in her youthful, unwrinkled hands. She still looked as she had the day they met, slim, blonde, and beautiful. Methuselah had not yet rejected her. It might not reject Boris, if he chose to submit to it.

“Patience, Lapooshka. You only need to put up with me a little while longer,” he replied, without anger. She had her reasons for despising him. Some of them were even good. It was entirely too late to do anything about it.

She sighed. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have said that. We must put on a proper face for our guests, assuming there is anyone left who hasn’t already paid a visit.”

The house had been aswarm with well-wishers for days. Family, friends, and business associated by the hundreds had come tromping through his airy bedroom, saying uncomfortable goodbyes and scattering crumbs. There was a table set with refreshments in the sitting room outside. Boris’ lubberly son Jaroslav had spilled more than his share, and said little. His daughter Alexi breezed through on the arm of a strange boy, to whom she paid more attention than her dying father. He didn’t resent it. The poor girl never had a chance. She’d learned her ways from her mother. But there was a face that he longed to see, one last time.

“Have you heard from Raina?” he whispered.

Anastasia winced. Her hatred of their adopted daughter was palpable. “I have not. It is finals week at university. Perhaps she is not coming?”

“She will come,” Boris murmured.

Suddenly he was alone in the room, and the ceiling was aflame with ruddy light. It was evening. Sunshine was pouring in through the west windows. He must have dozed off. The only surprise was that he was still alive.

There were signs that death leered nearby. Shadows played in the sunbeams. Flickers of movement, dim streamers, and faint shapes of darkness slunk around the corners of his eyes, and hid in the shade around the draperies. Here and there was a human form, a hand, a face. One was familiar. A pall of smoke bearing the visage of Boris’ long-dead father floated in the shadows between his wardrobe and the wall.

Boris grinned at it. “Don’t worry, Papka. I’ll be along soon,” he exhaled.

All at once the shadows scattered, like small fry when a great shark swims near. There were hushed voices in the hallway outside. He recognized Anastasia.

“…he has been asleep since noon. Please allow him to go to his rest.”

A man spoke, coldly. Boris knew the voice. It was the old devil himself, Jørgen Pangloss. “Fear not, I will not keep him from it.”

His wife matched ice with ice. “Do you promise?”

“Aye. But I allow it very much against my will, and hers.”

“Is she coming?”

“In a moment. She lost her composure on the flight and must freshen up. Unlike others I might name, she is deeply affected. Now be quiet! Here she is.”

There were muffled, unintelligible words followed by the sound of the door opening. Jørgen came first, dressed in his accustomed black suit. But he was no longer aged. His face was chiseled and firm, and his body was the very eidolon of masculine youth. Upon its left side there was chased a startling, glowing tattoo of stunning intricacy.

Despite his numinous change, Jørgen was utterly overshadowed by Raina. The anguish on her handsome face could not hide her transfiguration. Her hair was a living taper of black fire that jumped and flicked in an unseen wind, and her right side was ensigiled in a design of living flame. Both she and Jørgen had luminous names written on their foreheads in unknown letters, and tiaras of lambent fire hovered above the crowns of their heads.

Boris was not too far gone to gape.

Jørgen smiled knowingly. “The eyes always see more clearly at the last, old friend.”

“You are right,” Boris answered.

Raina rushed to hug him. After a heartbeat of fearful indecision, he embraced her as boldly as his dying body would allow. Her mane of twisting shadows smelled of lightning. Blazing hot tears sparkled on his cheek. A single, molten droplet touched his lips.

Immediately, embers of warmth sputtered to life in his icy limbs.

“Come, Inna. Give your father room to breathe,” Jørgen said, pulling her gently away. The cold flowed into Boris’ flesh like a tide.

Reluctantly retreating but a single step, Raina knelt close by his bedside, her gleaming eyes imploring him. “Why, Papka? Why did you reject Methuselah?” she sobbed.

Boris could not answer honestly. He loved Raina, but she had consumed him. Anastasia had never forgiven him for accepting her, as if he’d had a choice! She’d come from Jørgen, and Jørgen’s word was law. Through no fault of her own, she’d torn Boris’ family apart. The butcher’s bill was breathtaking; Anastasia’s scorn, the screaming matches, the fistfights, the disaster at the baptism–Boris had only avoided excommunication by purchasing a century’s worth of masses for the priest who’d gone mad–and his son’s scarred face, to name but a part. Boris forgave all, and defended her as if she were his own flesh and blood. But after that dream–the dream where he’d seen her gory lips and dragging belly and known what she had devoured, and what she would devour next, and the utter inevitability of it–there was no more good in life for him.

“Papka? Daddy? Can you hear me?” Raina whimpered.

Boris snapped back into the moment. “I’m sorry, Zaichicka. My mind wanders. I am tired, my dearest daughter. Tired as death, and my eyes have seen too much. I must go, and leave these cares behind. It isn’t fair to you, I know, and I am dreadfully sorry. Can you forgive an old man for being selfish and weak?”

“Of course I forgive you,” she said, “but I don’t want to lose you. I don’t have anyone else. No one cares for me.”

“Nonsense. You have your friends, and your uncle here. He will take good care of you.”

Raina sniffled. “I know he will. I’m sorry. It’s so unnecessary, and I’m scared.”

“I know. I am, too.”

“Fear not. Death is part of the natural order,” Jørgen said. “It was made for life, and all wholesome flesh must pass through it. Cherish it, if you can, and be thankful when it finds you. There are worse things. I should know.”

Raina rounded on him. Her flying tears speckled the sheets. “Dyadya! How can you say something so terrible?!”

Boris laughed, a ghastly sound. “Zaichicka, he is exactly right. Please accept my decision, and my blessing. I see now that you are made for greater things than family or career. What they might be, I cannot say, but I would not wonder if someday you held all flesh in the palm of your hand. All that remains to be seen is that in the doing of them, you remain yourself. My darling Zaichicka, will you make me a promise?”

“Anything, Papka! What do you want?”

“To remain you, the girl I love, no matter what. There is a foresight on me. You will face grave temptations. Unlike the holy Pavel, I cannot promise you that they are common to all men. Quite the contrary. One less than you would be overborne, and bring down many with her in ruin. But you are strong in mind and body, beyond the measure of any man. Rely on your strength, and remain yourself, always. Do you promise me?”

Raina nodded meekly beneath her eerie gloriole. “Yes, Papka.”

Jørgen locked eyes with Boris. Displeasure was gravened on his face, but his tone was mild, obviously for Raina’s benefit. “My friend, you remain as perceptive as ever. But perhaps we are tiring you? We could wait outside.”

“No, Dyadya!” cried Raina. “I won’t leave him.” Her tear-stained face tugged at Boris’ heart, and his will began to waver. But then he looked from her to Jørgen, and something clicked.

Their uncanny glowing tattoos were two halves of a single design.

It was right in front of me the whole time. Boris realized that the nightmare was true, the future was immutable, and he’d made the right decision.

He laid a feeble hand on Raina’s searing forearm. “Please listen to your uncle, Zaichicka,” he whispered, “I must rest soon. But I will love you always. Always and forever.”

“And I will always love you,” she said, and kissed him. With her embrace came a great heat, and quick forgetfulness.

When Boris next opened his eyes, it was nighttime. The dim room was alive with bodiless, watching eyes that did not blink. Anastasia sat at the foot of his bed, a spark of living light that drove back the peopled darkness. She looked up. “Oh. You’re awake.”

“Not for long,” he said, so softly that he barely heard it himself. There wasn’t much time left. “Are they gone?”

“Yes, thank God. I thought that pigheaded girl would never leave. Had Jørgen not insisted she go, she would still be here. Such a willful brat! A perfect daughter of his, she is.”

Anastasia’s light was fading from sight, and the shadow-men thronged close around him, but Boris found the strength to reply. “No. Not his daughter.”

“Really? What is she, then?” demanded Anastasia.

But Boris did not answer, because he was dead.