Copenhagen, 20th May 1830
Mathias felt like he was wrapped in layers of cloth, sounds reaching him dimly and only the occasional glint of light coming through his stupor. He tried to shift his heavy limbs but they were numb and failed to respond. He didn't dream exactly, but occasionally a strange vision or snatch of music would echo in the emptiness. This in-between state, however, was far from unpleasant. For the first time in a while, he felt truly untroubled. He was content to lie in this private darkness for as long as it pleased whatever higher power to keep him there. And then…
'Mathias! Mathias, can you hear me?' Slowly, painfully slowly, he became aware of things. He could feel the cheap fabric of his bedsheets – no sense in spending money on things that guests would never see – and the limp, greasy brush of his untended hair against his cheeks. With great effort, he opened his eyes. Gilbert was sitting beside him, his paleness statuesque in the light from the window, grey circles of sleeplessness marking the whiteness beneath his eyes. Mathias's wrecked brain tried to make sense of the situation. What on earth had happened?
'Gilbert?' he managed to ask, voice weak and cracked. Gilbert's face lit up with relief.
'Oh, thank God!' he cried out, seizing his friend's hand for a brief moment. 'It's been three days. We all thought we were going to lose you.' Mathias sat up slowly, his head stuffy and sore. He was so thirsty.
'What happened?' he enquired, half-wondering if he really wanted to hear the answer. The last thing he remembered was the stars, too large and bright and beautiful for this world, and how they shone eternal and undiminished and heedless of his anguish. Gilbert sighed and pushed his chalky hair out of his face.
'I couldn't be seen to leave the theatre while my amazing play was still showing – it's almost a shame you missed it actually – so I waited until the interval and went outside. I had a feeling you'd done something stupid. And indeed, there you were on the ground with an empty laudanum bottle beside you. I knew straightaway what had happened. I thought you were dead until I noticed you were breathing, ever so faintly. The doctor said you might never wake up.'
'Doctor? That'll have to be paid for.' Mathias said grimly. His headache hadn't even started to recede. Gilbert's look of concern changed to one of irritation.
'Is that all you can think about? You almost died, Mathias. For God's sake, did you want to kill yourself?'
'I don't know,' Mathias admitted. Gilbert made a noise of frustration.
'You've been the name on everyone's lips these last few days – and not for your writing. The romance of a writer with demons, I suppose. But really, you're just a hack, aren't you? As long as you have enough money to sweeten your wine every night, you don't particularly care how you get it. Incidentally, your publisher dropped you.' he added casually.
'Thank God,' Mathias said with bitter jubilation. Gilbert shook his head in disbelief.
'Look, I know we used to be wild young things out on the town, but times have changed. I'm a married man and you… Well, I'm not sure what you are. But you need to do something to rescue your reputation.' The events of that awful night were coming back to him now and with them the memory of what he had sworn to the dispassionate stars. All at once, he knew what he had to do save his sanity.
'I need to go away from all this madness. I've heard about those islands off Norway, the ones where no one lives. If I could spend a few months or a year there, maybe I could get to understand myself better. I could find my muse again, if indeed I ever had one.'
Later, once Gilbert had left, Mathias thought over his plan once more. It was a good one, if a little drastic. But total separation was exactly what he needed. He was only twenty-five years old and yet he had already sold off his soul piece by piece to the cynical allure of high society, of wit and wine and artifice. And he needed to be away from Gilbert, who still provoked such strong and illicit feelings in him. It was so hard to resist temptation when he was near him. Surely a spell without seeing him would cause his attraction to be forgotten, or at least made less all-consuming. But all these thoughts were crowding his mind. Unsteadily, he rose from his bed, unlocked the bottom drawer of his dresser and reached in, feeling the satisfying coolness of glass bottles and hearing their musical clinking in the darkness. He wouldn't finish off a whole bottle like last time, no. That had been foolish, he knew that. He didn't know why he had done it. A gesture of frustration, perhaps, or anger, or loneliness, or some hopeless form of social protest. But he knew his limits now. And a little drop, just a tiny taste, surely couldn't hurt. At any rate, it would certainly cure his headache.
…
Copenhagen, 13th January 2013
Click… Click… Mathias scrolled aimlessly down the Google results page for 'fairytale illustrators'. He knew and accepted that, in the eyes of children, his words would only ever supplement the pictures, and so he was desperate to get it right. But nothing quite seemed to fit the bill. So far this morning he had seen washed-out pastel coloured princesses, nauseating amounts of glitter purporting to be 'fairy dust' and some rather glaring anatomical flaws in some of the more amateur drawings. He was on the verge of giving up, and it was with a sigh that he clicked on the next website on the list. If this wasn't it, he promised himself, he'd call it a day.
This was it. Mathias felt a flutter of excitement as he studied the pictures, almost photographic in their incredibly high quality. And such detail. His eyes alighted on one of Cinderella scrubbing the kitchen floor, her once-fine dress faded and dirtied by physical labour, glistening drops of water falling to the tiles as she wrung out her cloth, her features tired and prematurely careworn. He had never seen such realism. There was an 'about the illustrator' button at the top of the page and he clicked it eagerly, already imagining what the book would look like. Perhaps some of Cinderella's misery would have to be toned down for the children, but it was an extremely promising start. The page loaded and displayed a calculatedly minimal description: Lukas, 25, art graduate. Commissions taken here. Below that was an artistic black-and-white photo of a serious-looking young man with untidy hair that Mathias guessed was blond in real life and dark eyes that had a bleak look to them. His lips were full and unsmiling and he glared at the camera with severity. Typical artist, Mathias thought. He clicked the link to the commissions page and began to type in his request.
Dear Lukas,
I've just been looking at your website and I must say, I'm very impressed by your talent. I'm a children's author about to start writing a collection of fairytales and I think you'd be perfect for the job. Please tell me if you're interested.
Thank you in advance,
Mathias Køhler
Now we wait, he thought as he shut down the computer. The day had been too long and very frustrating, hours spent doodling in the margins of his notepad as he waited for inspiration. He hated days like these, days that might never have happened for all he'd managed to achieve in them. At least he'd always have his library, his sanctuary. And now would be a good time to look through one of his favourite books. One of those strange little tricks of fate was that there had, in the nineteenth century, been a writer with the exact same name as him. Mathias had discovered him while googling himself one day and had quickly become fascinated by the man's story. On the surface of it, there was very little to distinguish him from the other writers of mediocre social satires, and yet that wasn't what was interesting about him. Mathias saw himself in this man who had briefly grasped fame, died young and descended into obscurity and, in his darker moments, feared he might mirror his decline. And then there was the mystery of this first Mathias's death. His life dates were 1805-31 and no one was quite sure what had happened to him to carry him off at the age of twenty-six. And, once his fleeting popularity had flamed and died, no one cared any longer. Probably the laudanum, they said. It was well-established that he had been an addict of the first order, consuming the stuff like water.
Going into the library, Mathias picked one of his predecessor's volumes off the shelf. He'd had the devil's own job finding this one, a typing-up of the unfinished manuscript of the last novel. It was sad really. When the literary scholars talked about the first Mathias, a rare event, they often compared his soulless works with this, this novel that could have been a masterpiece. No one could account for this disparity in quality. Maybe it was a forgery, or a copy of another writer's work. Maybe some unknown, unnamed muse had inspired it. No one would ever know now. He opened it up to the title page and looked at the small engraving of the author. There was quite an astonishing physical resemblance between them, Mathias thought. And the similarities went deeper than that. The portrait made him look helpless, like one trapped by the self he had created. Mathias could sympathise with that, with always having to appear a certain way no matter how he felt.
….
Stavanger Harbour, Norway, 27th May 1830
The mist hung heavy over the harbour, banners of cloud turning the sky into a single unblemished sheet of dove-grey. Mathias and Gilbert stood together on the jetty, watching as all Mathias's possessions were loaded onto a small sailing boat, ready for their journey to the remote, distant archipelago. They were silent, a small calmness in the bustle of the waterfront as people went back and forth, shouting to each other in Norwegian with Mathias straining his ears to understand. The two languages weren't too different. It was the accents that caused trouble. Gilbert broke the silence.
'It's not too late to reconsider, you know,' he said casually. 'A year's an awfully long time to be away from all the joys of city life. And what if you run out of food?' Mathias shook his head, more serious than his usual self.
'I'm certain about this, Gilbert,' he said with conviction. 'I need the time away and besides, this is generating more money for me than I've had in a while – what was it you said, 'the romance of a writer with demons'? People will be intrigued by me – they'll all want to know me when I come back. And I won't run out of food. I've brought so much.' The boat was all packed and the two-man crew were making no effort to disguise their impatience to leave. Gilbert pulled him into a manly hug.
'Look after yourself, then. And who knows, you may even find yourself a beautiful mermaid for a wife.' Mathias smiled thinly.
'Perhaps,' he replied, and stepped into the boat. The ropes were cast off and, with a sickening jolt, the vessel began its unsteady journey into the mist, to an island where no man had set foot in over fifty years and where the only mark of human life was a small, austere, stone-built house that would be his home for the next year.
The journey was far from comfortable. Mathias had never been a seafarer – even the short trip from Copenhagen had left him shell-shocked – but mercifully he managed not to be sick. Something about the sailors' surly demeanour told him that that sort of thing would be most definitely unwelcome. He hunched in the bow, bundled in with his suitcases, and watched the patchwork of colourful houses recede and vanish in the thickening fog. He drew his jacket more tightly round himself and shivered in the piercing air. Late spring indeed. Scanning the horizon, he sought out his new home. Almost reflexively, he found his hand going to his pocket and closing round his precious cargo. Yes, he had gone away to reclaim his soul and recover from his infatuation with Gilbert but there was one thing that no amount of travel could ever cure him of. Nestled deep in the fabric lay a single, glistening bottle. It, and the knowledge that there were others in his luggage, calmed him.
…
Copenhagen, 14th January 2013
Dear Mathias,
In answer to your email, I would be interested in taking on your commission, if you will provide me with some idea of what you want. You say you write for children. If so, my drawings may not be exactly what you are looking for.
Lukas Bondevik
Mathias read over the email again, confused. It was glacially formal, standing in sharp contrast with his own writing, and this Lukas person hadn't even thanked him for the compliment. More troubling still, what was this about the writing for children? Perhaps the emotion in some of the pictures was very… strong, but he couldn't see the issue in making it a bit less intense without losing any of the technical brilliance. Taking a sip of his coffee to fortify himself, he began to write a reply.
Dear Lukas,
Thank you for replying so quickly – it's very helpful! I don't think that we can really get to know each other over email, so if you can make it, might I suggest meeting up at some point? I live in Copenhagen but I'm willing to travel – from the name, I'm guessing you're from Norway. Anyway, thank you very much for getting back to me, and I hope that our creative partnership will be a harmonious one!
Mathias Køhler
He clicked 'send' and watched the message disappear into the ether. This done, he decided to answer a few of the emails from his adoring fans, as he liked to call them.
Dear Mr Writer,
I really like your books and I think your story about ferrets was very funny. I want to write books when I am big and I have written one already I hope you like it.
Love, Alfred F. Jones (the F. stands for funny because my stories are very funny)
PS: My friend Arthur met you and he said you were very cool because you could see his magic rabbit thingy.
Mathias scrolled back up to the top of the email and sure enough, there was an attachment containing this so-called 'book'. With a smile, he opened it up. No matter how much the publishers annoyed him, the children for whom he wrote were always a source of great joy, particularly when they took the time and initiative to contact him. He looked over the story and saw that it was only half a page long and seemed to have the author as the main character.
Once upon a time there was a boy called Alfred and he lived in a really huge castle with turrets and everything. And he was a prince but not a boring prince a really cool one with armour and a horse. One night a dragon attacked the castle while everyone was asleep so Prince Alfred put his armour on and got on his horse and shot the dragon with his machine gun and it died and then everyone was happy because the dragon was dead and they all said 'wow Alfred, you are a HERO.' The end.
Well. Not a great deal he could say to that, and he would hardly describe the story as 'funny'. At any rate, he was distracted by another message from Lukas pinging through. Surprised by its promptness, he clicked on it.
Dear Mathias,
Although I come from Norway, I also live in Copenhagen, so a meeting should not be too inconvenient. I don't particularly care where we meet, so you can decide. I only ask that it not be somewhere too crowded or noisy – I have frequent headaches and busy places grate on me. I am free every day, so I will leave the choice of date to you.
Lukas Bondevik
Progress. And how convenient that they lived in the same place. Smiling, Mathias began to reply, suggesting that they meet on Saturday morning in his favourite coffee shop. He had a real sense that something exciting was about to begin.
….
Havmann Island, off the west coast of Norway, 27th May 1830
Mathias looked out over the sea at the little boat that had brought him to his new home as it disappeared, white sail flashing against the bluish slate waves. Once it was completely gone from his sight, a realisation began to settle over him. For a full year, he was going to be totally alone, without a single moment of human company. Too late now to question his decision, he thought, turning so that he could see the undulating slopes of barren land, rocks covered by the thinnest layer of coarse grass. Not a single edible crop would grow in such a place, so he would be left with the preserved and unappetising things he had carried with him. People thought he was mad, but it was the good sort of madness, the literary sort. It was 1830, after all, the time of High Romanticism. And what could be more romantic than a troubled man finding salvation? Just as long as he did it all a good distance from polite society. He half-thought that someone should paint his portrait, the proud and deluded ruler of an islet in the cold and unforgiving sea.
'I am monarch of all I survey!' he quoted. 'And sovereign and subject equally,' he reflected, making up the last bit himself. High above, a long, rolling thunderclap tore through the sky, followed a few seconds later by violently heavy raindrops. Sighing, he retreated indoors. His first storm on the island. He had a feeling that he would have waited out an awful lot of these by the time the time came to leave again.
…..
Author's Note: Hey guys, hope you're all enjoying the story! Thank you to everyone who followed, favourited and reviewed the last chapter and I hope this one lives up to your expectations. I promise that Lukas (or one of the Lukases, at any rate) will be introduced in the next chapter!
