Skellig

Chapter 31

WE HAD NO FLASHLIGHT. THE LIGHT that came through the chinks in the boards was pale and weak. We blundered through the dark. We held hands and stretched our free hands out in front of us. We walked into the wall. We caught our toes on loose floorboards. We stumbled as we climbed the stairs. We shuffled across the first landing. We felt for the handle of the door to the room where we thought we’d left Skellig. We inched the door open. We whispered, “Skellig! Skellig!” No answer. We moved forward carefully, arms outstretched, feeling forward with our feet before we took each step. Our breath was fast, shallow, trembly. My heart was thundering. I opened my eyes wide, glared into the dark, seeking the shape of his body on the floor. Nothing there, just the blankets, the pillow, the plastic dish, the beer bottle rolling away from my stumbling feet.

“Where is he?” whispered Mina.

“Skellig,” we whispered. “Skellig! Skellig!”

We turned back to the landing again, we stumbled up the next flight of stairs, we opened many doors, we stared past them into pitch-black rooms, we whispered his name, we heard nothing but our own breath, our own uncertain feet, his name echoing back to us from bare floorboards and bare walls, we turned back to the landing again, we stumbled up the next flight of stairs.

We halted. We gripped each other’s hand. We felt each other shuddering. Our heads were filled with the darkness of the house. Beside me was nothing but Mina’s face, its silvery bloom.

“We must be more calm,” she whispered. “We must listen, like we listened to the squeaking of the blackbird chicks.”

“Yes,” I said.

“Stand still. Do nothing. Listen to the deepest deepest places of the dark.”

We held hands and listened to the night. We heard the endless din of the city all around us, the creaking and cracking of the house, our own breath. As I listened deeper, I heard the breathing of the baby deep inside myself. I heard the far-off beating of her heart. I sighed, knowing that she was safe.

“You hear?” said Mina.

I listened, and it was like she guided me to hear what she heard. It was like hearing the blackbird chicks cheeping in the nest. It came from above us, a far-off squeaking, whistling sound. Skellig’s breathing.

“I hear it,” I whispered.

We climbed the final flight of stairs toward the final doorway. Gently, fearfully, we turned the handle and slowly pushed open the door.

Moonlight came through the arched window. Skellig sat before its frame, bowed forward. We saw the black silhouette of his pale face, of his bowed shoulders, of his wings folded upon his shoulders. At the base of his wings was the silhouette of his shredded shirt. He must have heard us as we stepped through the door, as we crouched together against the wall, but he didn’t turn. We didn’t speak. We didn’t dare approach him. As we watched, an owl appeared, dropping on silent wings from the moonlit sky to the moonlit window. It perched on the frame. It bowed forward, opened its beak, laid something on the windowsill, and flew out again. Skellig bent his head to where the bird had been. He pressed his lips to the windowsill. Then the owl, or the other owl, came again to the window, perched, opened its beak, flew off again. Skellig bent forward again. He chewed.

“They’re feeding him,” whispered Mina.

And it was true. Each time the owls left, Skellig lifted what they had left him, he chewed and swallowed.

At last he turned to us. We saw nothing of his eyes, his pale cheeks; just his black silhouette against the glistening night. Mina and I held hands. Still we didn’t dare go to him.

“Come to me,” he whispered.

We didn’t move.

“Come to me.”

Mina tugged me, led me to him.

We met him in the middle of the room. He stood erect. He seemed stronger than he’d ever been. He took my hand and Mina’s hand, and we stood there, the three of us, linked in the moonlight on the old bare floorboards. He squeezed my hand as if to reassure me. When he smiled at me I caught the stench of his breath, the stench of the things the owls had given him to eat. I gagged. His breath was the breath of an animal that lives on the meat of other living things: a dog, a fox, a blackbird, an owl. He squeezed me again and smiled again. He stepped sideways and we turned together, kept slowly turning, like we were carefully, nervously beginning to dance. The moonlight shined on our faces in turn. Each face spun from shadow to light, from shadow to light, from shadow to light, and each time the faces of Mina and Skellig came into the light they were more silvery, more expressionless. Their eyes were darker, more empty, more penetrating. For a moment I wanted to pull away from them, to break the circle, but Skellig’s hand tightened on mine.

“Don’t stop, Michael,” he whispered.

His eyes and Mina’s eyes stared far into me.

“No, Michael,” said Mina. “Don’t stop.”

I didn’t stop. I found that I was smiling, that Skellig and Mina were smiling too. My heart raced and thundered and then it settled to a steady rolling rhythm. I felt Skellig’s and Mina’s hearts beating along with my own. I felt their breath in rhythm with mine. It was like we had moved into each other, like we had become one thing. Our heads were dark, then were as huge and moonlit as the night. I couldn’t feel the bare floorboards against my feet. All I knew were the hands in mine, the faces turning through the light and the dark, and for a moment I saw ghostly wings at Mina’s back, I felt the feathers and delicate bones rising from my own shoulders, and I was lifted from the floor with Skellig and Mina. We turned circles together through the empty air of that empty room high in an old house in Crow Road.

Then it was over. I found myself crumpled on the floorboards alongside Mina. Skellig crouched beside us. He touched our heads.

“Go home now,” he squeaked.

“But how are you like this now?” I asked.

He pressed his finger to his lips.

“The owls and the angels,” he whispered.

He raised his finger when we began to speak again.

“Remember this night,” he whispered.

We tottered from the room. We descended the stairs. We went out through the DANGER door into the night. We hesitated for a moment.

“Did it happen to you as well?” I whispered.

“Yes. It happened to all of us.”

We laughed. I closed my eyes. I tried to feel again the feathers and bones of wings on my shoulders. I opened my eyes, tried to recall the ghostly wings rising at Mina’s back.

“It will happen again,” said Mina. “Won’t it?”

“Yes.”

We hurried homeward. At the entrance to the back lane, we paused again to catch our breath. It was then that we heard Dad’s voice, calling.

“Michael! Michael!”

As we stood there, we saw him come out from the backyard into the lane. His voice was filled with fear.

“Michael! Oh, Michael!”

Then he saw us standing there, hand in hand.

“Michael! Oh, Michael!”

He ran and grabbed me in his arms.

“We were sleepwalking,” said Mina.

“Yes,” I said, as he held me tight to keep me safe. “I didn’t know what I was doing. I was dreaming. I was sleepwalking.”