Traitor Comet

By Personne

Before punk, before the Beats, before existentialism, and beyond surrealism, there were two visionaries, two rebels, two friends…and two tragic heroes, Antonin Artaud and Robert Desnos. Only one could save the other's life.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Outskirts Press
• Release date: Jul 7, 2023
• ISBN: 9781977203243

Personne

The author of this novel series has been working on a way to tell the story of the lives of Antonin Artaud and Robert Desnos for 30 years. Other publications include horror, science fiction, and weird short stories as well as independent journalism. “Personne” has also been an actor, dancer, scholar, librarian, archivist and voice-over artist. 

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Traitor Comet

All Rights Reserved.

Copyright © 2023 Personne

v4.0

This is a work of fiction. The events and characters described herein are imaginary and are not intended to refer to specific places or living persons. The opinions expressed in this manuscript are solely the opinions of the author and do not represent the opinions or thoughts of the publisher. The author has represented and warranted full ownership and/or legal right to publish all the materials in this book.

This book may not be reproduced, transmitted, or stored in whole or in part by any means, including graphic, electronic, or mechanical without the express written consent of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

Outskirts Press, Inc.

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Illustrations by Victor Guiza © 2023 Personne

Outskirts Press and the OP logo are trademarks belonging to Outskirts Press, Inc.

PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

To the freethinkers

TABLE OF CONTENTS

PART ONE

CHAPTER 1

CHAPTER 2

CHAPTER 3

CHAPTER 4

CHAPTER 5

CHAPTER 6

CHAPTER 7

PART TWO

CHAPTER 8

CHAPTER 9

CHAPTER 10

CHAPTER 11

CHAPTER 12

CHAPTER 13

CHAPTER 14

CHAPTER 15

CHAPTER 16

This novel series is a work of fiction, based on real events. Characters have been created and events conflated to highlight certain conflicts, but Artaud’s and Desnos’s lives are followed as accurately as possible.

PART ONE

CHAPTER 1

In my unconsciousness it is always other people that I hear.

—Antonin Artaud

May 1926

I STARED DOWN at my body.

Standing naked and barefoot on that cold wooden floor, I gripped the curtain that hung around my bedstead and looked at it, the body. The clock on the wall clicked its weighted chains and chimed, making me start. Stupidly I blinked, but the grotesque body on the bed remained undeniably real.

I heard a sound behind me at the door, and I whirled in terror—as if caught in a crime—and at the back of my churning mind I hoped a neighbor had come, Helmut. I opened my mouth but could not call out to him, my nearest neighbor, Helmut Heumer, my friend. A sudden force of wind nudged the door inward with a creak. A beam of light through that crack fell upon the eye of the thing on the bed. It stared into eternity, and I stared at it. Then, steeling myself, I bent down to examine the face that had hardened.

For the first time in my life what I saw was not the rippling distortion in pond water or the image in a glass, and nor was this the normal, faceless experience of self, with the peripheral locks of hair and eyelashes and nose tip extending from one’s unseen center. What I saw was me, what had to be me. It—I—was sprawled, as if having fallen back. The black hair was matted and filthy, the blue eyes clouded and staring. My stomach felt filled with both ice and hot acid, sickened as I was by the sight of the decay, this greying flesh, the body giving up its liquids, its smells. My heart which should have been inside that chest was beating furiously within mine.

Finally I turned from it. I staggered and found myself gripping my small writing table. Now I looked down at my familiar scrawl across pages written just last night. My emphatic, exultant arguments were nonsense, the result of a long illness, vanity, and a loneliness as deep as disease. The stub candle had burnt itself out, its wick a small dead twig in a puddle of white wax like the twig of a man over there, lying in his dank sheets.

I was dead. I was dead! Numbly I turned around, glaring at my possessions as if to catch them in a lie, accusing this small, single-roomed cottage that had never before betrayed me as people had. Everything looked the same: the table, my manuscript and the ink bottle, the stool pushed back and overturned last night in my haste to vomit, the dishes encrusted and abandoned near the fireplace. The door was the only source of light, and I crossed the floor to nudge it open wider.

The sun rose, dispersing the clouds. A bird landed on a nearby branch, sat swaying on it for a moment, then flew off. I was not disembodied—I could feel my hands, the cold floor beneath my feet, my dry mouth. The surge of my heart in my ears was as clear as footfalls. I had woken up naked on the bare wooden floor like the drunkard I used to be. But why would I be naked when the body on the bed was still clothed in my shirt and overalls unless my soul had shed him like a proper coat? I was dead.

I waited, looking around at my tiny house which seemed to be waiting for me to awaken, to rise from the bed, to light a fire in the fireplace and fill the air with steam and stamp my feet across the floor as usual. I let out a small breath, almost a moan. What now? Would this worldly apparition fall from view as one drew aside a curtain, to reveal…death itself? God Himself?

I stood and trembled, and I imagined each tick of the clock as a figure passing by me in a strange, silent procession of faceless men. Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow… Naked and alert I waited, not daring to move for fear that would be the moment God would descend, but impatience gnawed at me. Beyond my door the sun pierced the branches. Insects buzzed around the body on the bed and the breeze blew warmer, stirring the dust at my feet and the hair on my neck.

Again I looked back at myself. My hands were my hands, having their familiar lines but they were soft and uncalloused, the skin as satin as a newborn’s. Now I traced my fingers along the rosy, perfect envelope of my skin. Moles, freckles, they were there, but no sunburn and no war scars in my thigh. No scars.

I pulled the door open and walked outside to stand on the rough path. The ground was dewy and as rocky as I remembered it. Was this the New Earth—Armageddon, Christ’s Return, hallelujah and amen? Uncertainty knotted my stomach as I tried to feel enthusiastic. I would have thought the world would have ended during the Great War, not overnight almost a decade after the Armistice.

If Christ has indeed returned, I said aloud, mostly to hear my own voice, then nothing can harm me—’And the lion shall lie down with the Lamb.’ The words suddenly sounded ridiculous, like the patriotic slogans my platoon had recited as we charged into battle. My voice was my voice, but thin from nervousness. Realizing I was afraid frightened me all the more.

You blasphemous fool! I fell to my knees and Dammit, was my prayer as I wobbled to my feet again, holding my knee. It bled; I’d knelt on a sharp stone. I wiped at the cut and slapped at the insects that were already attacking. Reluctantly I went back inside for clothes. My skin chafed against the stiff, heavy garments.

Once dressed I felt better, so I set about tidying the place. I turned the stool upright and set the dirty dishes in a pan of cold water. I swept the pine boards with that leaking broom which dropped a trail of straws to the door. Then, standing again at the bed, I took a moment to steel myself.

I grasped the thing beneath its shoulders and strained to drag it. The body had to be buried, and quickly. Many times I had seen a corpse, but only once had I lingered near someone long dead, and I was not prepared for this bloated, rigid husk. It was incredibly heavy, and nothing could have prepared me for the full onslaught of stinking flesh, the urine, the bile. From the sheen on the skin and the stiffness it had probably been dead around ten hours but that was only a guess.

I pulled it with the sheet and managed at last to drag the body outside and far from the house, past my plowed field. Then I went to the barn for a shovel. My farm was a clearing surrounded by forest, and among those trees anyone could be watching, so I passed my sleeve across my forehead and quickly stepped onto the shovel’s blade, driving it into the dirt. Furiously I dug. Soon enough I hit rock, as I had my first planting season and every season after that. The grave would have to be a shallow one, as my furrows in this rocky land were shallow and still largely unproductive.

As I was tipping the body into the hole I noticed marks below the left ear, and I caught the thing by its shoulder to stop it as it fell. Kneeling in the dirt, I pulled back the grimy hair to see the marks up close. They formed a circle of six small welts, standing out scarlet against the chalky skin beneath the ear.

I sat up abruptly, my eyes automatically scanning my small farm although no one else was in sight. The welts! Until recently I had not believed the tales. My hand flew to my neck. I felt carefully under each ear, but my skin was smooth. Welts were rising instead on my palms, blistering so quickly in this skin, not the skin of the man who had worked this land and lived on this farm, but the skin of an infant.

Oh, Heavenly Savior, I moaned, who am I? What am I…?

Shaking, I looked up. The sky in its cloudless blue seemed empty to me, abandoned. I looked up into that sky and felt as if I fell upward into a void. My body could be injured, and time still passed. Here I was on an ordinary weeding day planting this… this thing between my crops and the forest. I saw my old wounds on this body, the scars marked on that thing in the grave, the work-roughened hands, the scars on the arms and on its right thigh that I should have had, scars that until this morning I did have. Here I was and I was still me, but there in the grave was me, Geoffrey Wilhelm Weidmann.

God! I shouted and leaped away from the hole. I ran in crazy circles, gasping, my fingers tearing at my arms until I forced them to stop. I staggered toward the forest and braced myself against a tree. I folded my arms tightly against my chest as the pain pounded in them. My fragile skin chafed in my clothes and my hands already throbbed from the work, yet within me I felt a strength, an exuberance I had never known. Were it not for my sensitive feet I was sure I could run for hours without rest.

Yes, I’ll run, I decided aloud. Soon the villagers would come for me too, my so-called neighbors in Spital who were being driven to near-hysteria by these rumors of the circle of welts. They would descend on me, waving sticks and tools and throwing stones just as they had done to that unfortunate man, that hapless, wizened vagrant who had awakened one morning to find a scarred and dead double lying at his side in the grass.

My flesh crawled and something made me look down. I leaned a fist against the tree’s trunk and stared at that blackened space before me in the long grass. Yes, the stories were true. First the crater, and then the welts; I had seen that for myself, but one of those parasites had attached itself to me last night while I lay helpless, and the dead double was the proof. Let him rot. I would leave now, saddle my horse Gelb and ride.

Yet a severe voice rose above the cacophony of my dread. Calm yourself, it said, and think. If I buried this body, soon enough weeds would cover the grave as they covered my field each year despite my best efforts. I rarely had visitors. If I let the sun touch my skin my healthy, bronzed appearance would return, and then I’d make a trip into town and speak pleasantly to everyone as before. Who would ever know? sang that voice of purpose.

Calmer now, I ignored the pain in my feet and started back to the grave to pick up the shovel. The patter of hooves made me stop. Beyond my house in the trees I saw movement, following the path—a horse and rider. Damn!

I crossed my plowed field again and ducked into my barn. I opened Gelb’s stall and grabbed her bridle off its hook, but the horse shied from me. Sssh, Gelb, I hissed, startled at my sudden, inexplicable fear of the animal. She pawed the straw on the floor with her foot, her eyes wide, her nostrils flaring. With a whinny she bucked in her stall.

Easy. Easy, Gelb, I said. The words sounded tense, not reassuring. I started for her again, and gentle Gelb laid back her ears and snapped her teeth at me.

The hooves on the path pounded louder and stopped nearby. Searching for excuses, I went back outside to see a lone horse tethered next to my house. My fist clenched automatically, and I walked quickly to stand in the doorway. He was just settling his huge girth on my rough-hewn stool. Beside him sat a large bag—another bribe, a sack of food, I was sure. As I watched, his incredulous gaze swept the room that, despite its dishevelment, was nearly bare except for the table and the bed and a few shelves.

I sent you provisions, he scolded me. What did you do with them? Sell them, like last time? To buy the seed you fail to grow?

Get out.

Don’t you even have a ‘hello’ for your father?

I swallowed a dry lump in my throat. Don’t misunderstand me. It’s not safe for you here. A swarm of parasites threatens the area. There is a pestilence.

My father threw back his head and laughed. "So you are concerned for me?"

I made what must have seemed a desperate gesture, for he sobered then. The village is indeed full of wild stories, Geoff, he said. Creatures falling from the sky, a plague of welts, sudden doubling of cattle and of people… Insane talk. I could hardly make sense of it—when people speak at all. Most of your neighbors are as tight-lipped as ever. Nothing changes around here. He waved a hand at me. It was a meteor shower and Spital’s so-called plague is ignorance.

I brushed past him and quickly surveyed the room. I felt my father’s blue eyes pierce me as I looked up the fireplace flue. Nothing. His question was lost to me as I stood in confusion, turning around and around to survey the barren room.

Ignore the stories if you will—I did at first, I told him, but I have seen one of these creatures. I thought it harmless. Suddenly I imagined two of him, two fathers doing battle with each other, instead of him always battling with me.

Nonsense! he snorted. "Meteorites don’t live. When my father’s gaze fell to the broken crockery on the floor and traveled toward the bed with its missing sheet, I knelt and hurriedly picked up the pieces. You just don’t want me here, Geoffrey."

No, I don’t. Isn’t that plain enough? I dropped the pieces in the far corner and stood up.

My father grimaced and leaned an elbow on the table, regarding me. My God, he’d gained weight since I last saw him—and that was two years ago—but he had not lost his hair. Though now white, it was still as thick as mine. And no matter how old my father became he remained agile and strong enough for me to remember to choose my words carefully. I’d never been as powerful as he was and even now he could best me, especially in my weakened state.

You didn’t answer my question, he said. Will you marry again? I blinked at him, bewildered. He pressed, A girl here—if you can find one in Spital? Would I even know it if you did?

I muttered, Marry again—are you serious? Suddenly I felt tired. I turned to the bed. Help me flip this straw-tick.

Or perhaps you’ll take off, just disappear, my father continued to goad me, leaning forward. God knows how I’d ever find you then.

On second thought I did not want his help and I pulled out the lumpy mattress alone. I glared at him over my shoulder. He watched me struggle to flip the straw-tick. After it fell back into place on the rough bed frame, I found a clean sheet, shook it out and threw it down, and sat on the mattress to remove my boots. With another glare at him I stuck my feet under the blanket to hide their blisters and leaned back against the wall, suppressing a shudder. My father pushed his thick white hair back with his hand. I saw he still wore his wedding band from his marriage to my mother. Still.

I couldn’t look at him then, but he pressed on. Perhaps you’re planning to leave, perhaps with Helmut Heumer or another neighbor. How would I know? You don’t write me, so I had to come here. I’ll do anything to prevent you completely disappearing from my life.

I murmured, When you came in, did you disturb anything? Did you happen to notice a sort of starfish—?

Answer my question, dammit! he roared, pushing himself off the stool to tower over me. He reached me in two long strides and flung a finger beneath my nose. If you cannot live with me or answer my letters, then speak. I gave you this land and allow you to use it. Show me the respect I am due for raising you in my house.

You’re in my house now, I retorted mildly, surprised at my composure. Any other time we would have been already nose to nose and screaming. "Show me some respect."

Your house, he sneered. Who do you think you are?

In place of his face I saw the face of the dead man in this bed. No matter what, I would never forget the sight of that face. It didn’t look how I imagined myself to look. My gaze drifted out the door. The grave was not visible from here, yet I saw that face, that stiff, unfamiliar and familiar face in death with those strange welts on his neck.

Suddenly, I started to laugh. Dry, hissing laughter convulsed me, laughter that seemed to shake a knot of tension from my chest as if I were vomiting. I burst out, Why can’t you leave things alone? You can’t fight me if I don’t fight you. No matter what, you’re ashamed of me—the fanatic, the failure. Yes, I sold those provisions you sent and now I wish I hadn’t.

My laughter ended in a stricken, hollow voice, unfamiliar to both of us. He sighed, and I think he nodded. His hand traveled the width of his forehead, wiping away beaded sweat. It was going to be a hot day. You’ll never tell me, will you? he muttered.

I furrowed my brow. Tell you what?

About Marianne.

At this name I flinched.

Yes, Geoff. Your wife. You’ll never tell me what really happened to her.

You think I killed her, I retorted, so what is there to tell?

Ahh— he grunted and sat down again. We leaned forward like two boulders about to crack each other. I wiped my face and sat looking obstinately away from him, conscious of my sweat, of my grimy, smarting feet, and of my stomach which was growling so loud I wondered if he heard it. Out in the meadow beyond my field lay a dead body and I trembled, wanting my father to safely leave, wanting to find the parasite and kill it as the villages instructed each other to do, wanting to eat and to sleep. Sleep.

I leaned my cheek on my drawn-up knees like a child and stared listlessly until my father spoke again. I didn’t come here to fight with you again, Geoff. I jerked into awareness to find him standing again before me, one hand extended as if to touch my shoulder. Under my glare his arm quivered, then fell back to his side. He turned and fumbled in his large bag on the floor. Look, I’ve brought you something— and he held it out to me.

Our eyes met briefly. I took the cracked leather case from him. My father smiled a little then. I kept it for you, he said, in case you wanted it again. I opened the lid to see the familiar gleam of my old violin, sleek and smart, with new strings. The wood shone like glass. He asked, Do you think you can still play?

I sighed, touching the bow longingly. It’s been so long…

Play, begged my father softly. He settled back on the stool.

Under his eager gaze I was awkward in fitting the violin under my chin. Clumsily, I found my old grip. I tuned the instrument and hesitated, not wanting after five years to hear myself make the strings screech, but after taking a deep breath I touched the bow to them and pulled out a long, clear note. My father brightened as that note dipped into Non più andrai from The Marriage of Figaro, but the strings bit into my fingers and I had to stop.

It’s been too long, I said.

Of course. Of course. He watched me set the violin back in its case. I shouldn’t have expected you to be able, not right away. But the disappointment was obvious in his face, and I quailed inwardly with shame. My failure to play hung in the air like an unspoken insult—like so many of the spoken insults I had given him.

Since you’ve brought it, I can practice again and play as I used to, I offered.

My father rubbed his chin, and then he went to the door and stood looking out with his back to me. You will have to practice elsewhere, Geoff. Your little retreat is over. I’m selling this land.

In the answering silence he drew himself up. He turned around. You may as well know now: I’m going to live in Paris with Franz. I am selling off our properties, and your brother has invited me to stay with him and his wife in Paris. Franz extends his invitation to you, too. I intend to live with Franz—and with you—off our remaining assets, and whatever is left after I’m gone will go to my two boys, naturally.

Again he waited for me to speak. My lips parted without a sound. He raised his voice. I know better than to think silence from you means acquiescence, Geoff. But this time there will be no arguments. I won’t—

He stopped. His face paled and he staggered forward. In that instant it occurred to me how he had aged. The lines in his face were deep folds and his skin looked almost grey. I was suddenly terrified that he should crumple, lifeless, to the bed. I pictured him lying on the bed where the body in the field had lain and I leaped up to catch him, but he shoved me aside and seized the blanket, exposing the stains on the mattress.

I cut myself, I stammered.

What the hell? Cut yourself? He yanked the blanket up to see it in the dim light. It smells like urine. I shifted uneasily. He turned to look at me. Where are you cut?

I turned and ran outside, barefoot past the barn despite the protest in my feet. I crossed my plowed field to the open grave. I seized the shovel and began throwing dirt on the corpse before he could follow. My strength astounded me again, for within minutes the body was covered, and I was barely breathing hard. My palms stung though from the broken blisters and now they did bleed. I threw the shovel into the barn and walked to the well to drink and empty the bucket over my head.

My father came out of the house with a towel as I was stripping off my shirt. Your crops look yellowed, he said uncertainly.

Far from feeling refreshed, my skin shriveled into gooseflesh at the touch of the cold water. I reached for the towel, shaking my head against a brief dizziness. I’m not yet self-sufficient, but the potatoes did last through the winter. My voice was measured and calm, but I wrapped the towel around me and shuddered beneath it.

Come to your brother’s house with me, Geoff, please, Father pleaded. Again I didn’t answer. At another time I would have shouted a proud, defiant refusal but now I just sat and listened. We miss you! he said. I—miss you. I’ll do anything to have you with us again. Before your mother died, you and I were always side by side. He turned away to look back at the house. It will be different this time—

I can imagine, I snapped. Instead of a seventeen-year-old living with you, taking your money and following your rules, it will be a twenty-seven-year-old. Maybe I don’t want to give up my independence. Suddenly hot, I wiped my face with the towel and threw it aside. "Besides, what is home? We’re Austrians—or at least I am. Instantly I regretted saying that for I saw the lines deepen in his forehead, but I couldn’t help myself. I don’t blame Franz for finding work where he could but for God’s sake, we aren’t Frenchmen. We’ll stick out like Moors."

At that, my father grinned a little.

Paris isn’t home, I said.

It could be, my father replied quietly. I have an ancestral tie to France, and you know that. And your brother Franz regards it as home now.

I scoffed. A tie to France! I got up and stalked back into my house, feeling light-headed and slightly sick. Find it—I had to find it. I had to kill the starfish thing before he tricked me into leaving. I wasn’t going until I was damned good and ready, and I was fine, perfectly healthy—wasn’t I as pink as a newborn? Hadn’t I just dug a grave in minutes?

The creature was not under the bed. The room whirled around me as I searched. Not under the table, on the shelves, in the washbasin. The room began to tilt very slowly onto its side, and I staggered, my arms outstretched. Where is it?

Geoffrey!

It’s nothing, it’s nothing, I babbled while my father’s strong arms steered me to the stool. Vertigo twisted before my eyes in checkerboard shapes. It’s the sun, and I haven’t eaten—

He examined me as I sat. You’re pale, very pale. I should think you’d get some sun, working the land. I nudged him away so I could stand. Sit down! he commanded. His hands on my shoulders were iron weights.

I’ve got to find it, I heard myself saying. I squinted against the spots dancing before my eyes. I won’t leave here with you until I find it. My eyelids were so heavy. The room was drifting away from me, and my father was going away with it, like a tiny bright boat floating over the horizon in a bottomless black sea. My hands, clasped in his, felt cold.

Find what? Geoff? Geoff!

My father’s voice receded into darkness. But no, a small and distant circle of light was widening, brightening, and it carried my father’s voice. I was sitting at the dinner table with him, at home. Home? Vienna wasn’t home anymore—and since when had it ever been to me? But I was sitting in my father’s dining room. Fine food, linen, wine, brass and china and crystal, the whispering cotton of servants, my father and my older brother Franz, and my mother’s empty chair.

Another argument, full of cutting words. I watched in despair as my father’s fist slammed on the table. Not good enough for you! he roared. Nothing’s good enough for you. Well, as long as you’re under my roof, Geoffrey, you will not criticize how we live!

I felt myself slowly stand up and Franz grabbed me as I lurched toward my father, and it was then that I felt myself leap away from myself. I was standing at the doorway, watching myself from the outside. Who was that angry young man, black hair disheveled, eyes blazing, wrenching at the hands that held him? His wrath, his silly ideals…now I could only pity him.

Damn your Pope! he shouted, and the huddled servants gasped. If Christ were to walk the earth again you would deny Him because of your allegiance to that pagan tyrant—because He might criticize you beneath your own roof. My father merely sat with narrowed eyes, passive beneath the verbal onslaught from that young man.

That young man.

That young boy. Small and quiet as he pressed his face against my mother’s skirt. I hovered somewhere near his right elbow as she dropped tears into his black curls. I was close enough to see the lamplight gleaming in her knotted black braids, to touch her again just one more time and smell the feminine scent of roses that clung to her as tightly as a terrified boy.

Everything dies, Geoff. Her voice was soft and warm, like her fingers. That young Geoffrey grabbed fistfuls of that skirt as if to keep her on earth, as if a merciless hand was poised to pluck her as a net in a stream might capture a sleek silver minnow.

You must be strong, Geoffrey, and look after your father, she said. I am going to be very sick beforehand and it will not be easy for any of us. Trust in God, Geoff; believe we will see each other again.

That boy and I seemed to move into each other. Geoffrey and I tried to bury our faces deeper into her skirt, but she was not there. There was instead a strange smell in the parlour as we raised our head from the chaise cushion—a smell of candles and chrysanthemums and rot. From another room came the sound of muffled sobs and the voice of the housekeeper whispering the Ave Maria. Geoffrey raised our head higher and we saw the figure, the body in the open coffin on the long table, her hair carefully plaited and arranged as always, raven hair like our brother’s, like our father’s, and like our own. And it was there, it was from her that the smell came.

Geoffrey opened his mouth, but it was I who screamed.

Mother, I whispered. The sound of my voice was so small and lonely, like a child’s sob in the dark, like the first word ever spoken beneath the cold, primeval sky. And all she did, my mother, my mother who had died and left me, was glare at me now. Her arms were wrapped around the body of that dead Other Geoffrey and its stiffened face was pressed against hers so I could see that ringlet of welts beneath his ear. Her beautiful face, when she lifted it again, was a mask of hatred. I reached for her, trying to rise up from what felt like the press of a thousand blankets and sheets.

Then she spoke. Leave us alone.

But Mother, it’s Geoffrey, your son. My face felt hot as if from a lie. I’m finally dead and I’ve come to be with you.

She shied from the hand I extended. My son is here. And she clasped that damned dead double even more tightly. What are you? You’re an animal. You’re inhuman!

Mother— I sobbed.

It seemed to me that my father had called my name, minutes ago, hours ago, years… I felt a large hand against my cheek. Obediently I opened my mouth for the broth. With each swallow I ascended a step. All at once I was aware of my bed and the blanket and my father sitting beside me. My mother was nowhere to be seen; my mother had been dead for years.

For years! I insisted to my father. The lines in his face deepened.

Geoff. Geoff, listen carefully, said Father as I lay looking up at him, and his voice was very gentle. You’ve been unconscious for a time—

For years…

But your fever has broken. When I came, I left the wagon on the road and rode here without it so you wouldn’t—so I wouldn’t make you angry. But I am going to take you out of here.

You had it all planned, didn’t you? I smiled up at him, but he pressed his hand on mine and gripped it, and the pain in his eyes was terrible.

Now, listen to me, Geoff. I need to bring that wagon here. I’m going to leave you for a little while, just for a while, and you will stay in bed. I will be right back. Do you understand?

With my other hand I reached out and clutched his arm, and he leaned forward. Father. We’re both in danger. You have to find it—first find it.

He sank back, looking at me in despair while I clung to him. What is this you’re raving about? Over and over, ‘starfish, star creature…’ I don’t know what you mean!

Look for me, just look, please—

I have looked! The whole time you were delirious, begging me, I searched this place and there is no…star creature anywhere.

I fell back against the pillow and turned my face away. It’s gone, then. It must have gone. My father had stuffed his coat beneath my small, flat pillow to elevate me and I smelled his familiar tobacco.

It’s mere superstition. He drew up the blanket. Hysteria in the village. Sleep now.

Or it died, too, I whispered. Everything is death.

Father stood up and I heard him swear under his breath. I am going to take you away from this filthy, smelly old hovel and these ignorant peasants, and you are not to stir from that bed until I return! His voice shook and when I turned back to him, I saw tears in his eyes. He unfolded a quilt and laid that on me too, and his hand rested on my chest. I felt the weight of it, its warmth, and its warning. I’m taking Gelb with me, he added, so don’t get any ideas. She can help pull the wagon. He walked to the door, paused in the doorway to look back, and met my eyes again. I won’t be long.

He watched as I fought to lift myself from the bed. The room swung crazily, and I fell back to the pillow. Please… I whispered, but he had already turned. I listened to his footsteps as he went to the barn and wondered if he would notice the strange mound beyond the field. The retreating slap of horses’ hooves told me he had not.

CHAPTER 2

I didn’t say that.

I didn’t say anything.

What did I say?

—Robert Desnos

OUT OF MISERABLE dreams I felt myself float up into