III. A Mother's Fear and Loathing
"Do you remember your parents?" Claire asked.
He sighed, gazing out over the dark water which filled part of the cavern he had decided to make his home. "I don't know… I remember my mother, I think. But I don't like to remember her."
There was a moment's silence, then Claire whispered, "I'm sorry."
"Why?" he asked, surprised. This was probably the first time somebody had said this to him. No, she had said it once before, just after she had brought him here. The second, then – a remarkable number.
"For asking. It's none of my business, really."
"No, I don't mind", he assured her. "Ask whatever you want."
"It'd be invading your privacy."
He laughed as if at a joke. "Feel free. I never had that."
Her slim hand found his, and she squeezed it gently. Was it possible that she truly liked him? "Does it hurt you to remember?"
"About my parents?" He shrugged. "Well, not about my father, because I don't recall ever having one. I did have one probably, or what do you think?" he added uncertainly. His knowledge in this area was rather limited.
"Of course. Everybody has a father."
"Yes. Right. And my mother… Yes, I think it hurts a bit. But not because I miss her. She never wanted me, and she was glad to be rid of me, I think. That was years ago now, I couldn't even say for certain how long. I wouldn't find my way back home, I think. And I don't care, because it's not really home, you see. I mean, I've been here for only a few days, but this is my home, I think. At least, it feels like it. More than any other place, anyway. That is, if I can stay here. If you don't mind." Falling silent, he assumed that this was one of the longest times anybody had ever listened to him.
"Of course I don't", Claire assured him, once again squeezing his hand. "You can stay here all you like, if you like it here. I'm glad if you do. Nobody ever comes down here, as I said, so if you are careful, nobody will find you."
"I will", he promised her. There was no need to tell him so; he was not too eager to meet anyone, anyway. "But if I'm really, really careful… do you think I can come up sometimes? Because…" Why was he reluctant to tell her? "Because of the music. I'd like to hear the music."
He looked at her expectantly, ready to take back everything he had said if it was not to her liking, but all she did was smile. "You like the music, do you?"
He hesitated. Somehow he felt that answering, revealing something so personal about himself, would make him vulnerable. But on the other hand, her fingers were still entwined with his, and he longed so much to finally trust someone. "Yes", he whispered. "Very much."
Very much… It was all he had, all that was left to him… if anything was left to him at all.
Rolling over, the Phantom bit back a whimper. His limbs hurt, but he did not know why. Thinking was difficult, as it seemed that a cloud of fog had lowered itself over his awareness, slowing down every process of his mind.
He was lying on the hard ground, and the air around him felt hot. Yet there was a tiny sensation of coolness on his temples, a very tiny… Beads of sweat. They were running down from under his hair. And the way his shirt stuck to his body led him to the assumption that he was more or less drenched in sweat already.
Water. Cold water. There was cold water out in the corridors. He needed to get there. To get out. Out of here.
His limbs felt like lead, too heavy to move.
Someone was there with him. Inside his consciousness. Someone was tearing down the walls of his mind, one by one, and drilling into his memory, making it spill out for everyone to see… for everyone to see…
The mists were boiling up, enshrouding him, and he was drawn down, down, into forgetfulness, down to a well without a bottom…
The mists were boiling… boiling…
The man's hand was tight around his upper arm, painfully tight. "Come with me, you little animal. You belong to me now." The rough stranger's voice was heavy with an ugly accent, and the smell about him was equally repulsive.
Had his mother really just sold him? Judging from the way she was always telling him how much he cost her, he guessed she really might. What had those strangers given her in return, he wondered, how much? How many loaves of bread would he buy her?
The man, a coarse fellow with untidy black hair, was dragging him along, and as he turned his head to get a last glimpse of the place where he had spent those past years, there were two more of those men, blocking his view. Night was falling swiftly, and the lengthening shadows and gathering gloom made them seem even taller somehow. They were laughing and jeering, but he did not quite understand the words they spoke. The world was spinning before his eyes, and his stomach clenched painfully. Sent to bed without dinner, he had cried himself to sleep as he did so often, but just after he had fallen asleep at last, curled up tightly under the thin rag serving him as a blanket in a corner of the room, he had been picked up again and shoved out of the door, into the hands of several dark-skinned, uncouth men, who spoke with a strange accent, and his mask, the piece of cloth he carefully kept in place not to be punished like always when he made his mother bear to look at him, was ripped off his face, and the men had examined him thoroughly, one of them holding his arms behind his back, and ignoring all his weeping and pleading, and his mother had struck him once again for not holding his tongue.
From then on, he had listened in silence how they had haggled about him. One of the men had called him a half-starved little scarecrow, insisting that he would never pay as much for him as his mother asked for, and his mother had protested that such an abomination of a child was rare, his ugliness unique, and that moreover he knew how to read and write, and that at an extremely early age, and that she was selling him below the price he might fetch in a zoo. Sobbing to himself soundlessly, he had wondered what a zoo was, but had been afraid to ask. The adults had quarrelled, towering so high above him, and then one of the men had bent and shoved a dirty scrap of paper and a chewed-on pencil at him, demanding that he showed his skills and wrote his name for them. Still sobbing, he had taken up both pencil and paper, but only stared at them. He had no name.
They had cursed and shouted at him and called his mother a liar before they had at last gotten him to scribble a few letters. His mother had protested to their accusation, and her voice still resounded in his ears now as he was dragged towards an unknown future. "He has no name. There was no name vile enough for him." Vile. What did it mean? It was something bad, something very bad. But what? He did not know, and he did not dare to ask.
He stumbled over his own feet, too exhausted to use them properly anymore, wishing to just be shown a corner somewhere where he could curl up and sleep, but still he was hauled along mercilessly. Who were those men? His mother had never told him who they were. His mother had not addressed him at all since they had arrived.
Once again he turned his head, but still there was nothing he could see of his former home.
Ahead, a carriage waited, and what waited before the carriage made him completely forget his home and his mother: a horse, a real horse! A tall brown horse with a black mane. A rare feeling of joy filled his stomach, easing its demands for food. What did he care about his mother or anything else; there was a real horse waiting for him! His tiredness discarded, he pulled at the man leading him, pulled towards the horse, and the men's raucous laughter filled his ears. "Be mindful it won't eat you for supper!" one called to him, yet he hardly heard him. His arm was released, but he hardly realized it. Only five paces between the horse and him, only four, only three, two, one –
Bending down its large head, the horse whickered at him softly, huge dark eyes regarding him with a gentleness he had never seen before when somebody was looking at him. So tall it was, so gigantic, but he was not afraid, not even as it nuzzled its soft, wet nose against him. He laughed with glee, burying his small hands in its mane –
Rough hands grabbed him, and he was thrown onto the wagon and kicked into a corner, where he remained lying, whimpering softly, very softly, so nobody would kick him again for making such a noise. He wished he were alone in the world, alone with the horse, which was the friendliest person he had ever met, forever alone, alone…
Alone…
A boot dug into his ribs, and he rolled onto his back with a groan, gazing up through a veil of grey into a face through which a clawed hand had been raked, leaving deep gauges in its wake. "How does it feel", a voice jeered from above the roiling clouds, "being crushed in the Master's hand?"
"Begone, Adhemar", another voice thundered, cold and strong as a glacier, tearing the clouds asunder only to reveal more veils of fog. Once again he found himself falling, falling and spinning, diving down into oceans of mist…
"You foul little brat! Curse you, where have you gotten to?"
He was cowering in a corner, pressed against the rough, cold wall, his head on his knees so tightly that it hurt. Maybe if he didn't see her, if he refused to see her, she would be gone, together with the mask she made him wear, that thing suffocating him, denying him all taste of fresh air.
Shivering, he wrapped his arms around himself tighter. Water was pearling down his naked skin, water from the bath.
He would be beaten for spilling the bath water.
"There you are!" A hand grabbed him and yanked him out of his corner, and when he struggled, a fist connected with the side of his head, making him howl with shock and pain. Once more the mask was pulled over his face forcefully. "You don't take that off, you monster, do you hear? Not even when bathing! You never take that off!"
This time, he could not bite back the whimper anymore.
