{ DRIVEN BY CLOCKWORK }

certain that she sees the stillness. the flat surface of the water, interrupted for a pause: something there and not there, disturbing her sense of time. the waves unaltered, long enough to be defined by their outline. it is easy enough for her to recognize that everything has stopped. after duchess has moved away from the window, a shadow strolls beneath the surface of the sea.

duchess will wait until tomorrow.

darling pushes open the door, going over the room, line by line. the furniture is as it always has been, faithful. the arrangement is not very likable, but it will do. the entire room is open to the influence of the window, where duchess stands all day long, gazing with an intensity that cannot be ignored. in the middle of the room sits the davenport with the coffee table before it. the fireplace in the middle of the room is burning, as ever - and the entire space smells of smoke and roses. is this my room? darling says. the space is common. she turns to the window, where the sea waits. will watching it make me a bad girl? darling says.

in her own room there is turbulence, discarded belongings; yesterday’s dress thrown over the lampshade, crumpled stockings kicked under the bed. the springs creaking like a ship, lost at sea. darling has been lonely here, pretending she is stronger. nothing can persuade her to turn out the light: she leaves it burning, pushing away the noises that won’t quite… that want some attention. darling bites inside of her mouth, drawing blood.

i think there is someone in the house, darling says.

{ FOR HOURS AND DAYS ON END }

it is hard to prove duchess has never left. she rarely has the feeling she is not watched; the air crowds around her, pulsing against her own body. a cold slip, a surge of bad weather. duchess knows there is wisdom in staying where she is. there are reasons why she doesn’t go outside.

darling often makes wild guesses.

the lawn is completely filled with worms.
the sea is very interesting to watch, but the feeling of the waves rushing is too much to take.
something will go wrong.
watching is almost the same as being there.
it is an advantage of depth, exquisite stillness.

these are the risks of a mammal. the thrill of the walls moving in. duchess makes a fuss at the window, as a signal. the water seems to rise, to engulf more space. there is less sky than there was, and a tiny boat, drifting on the horizon. is that something to kill, over there? duchess says. darling will have to climb the tree herself, holding the knife in her teeth. later, she will toss her soiled dress into the bathtub, run the water over the scratches on her knees. vanilla and milk and at last, a whistle. a warming within the walls; veil of steam, darling holding in her breath.

duchess makes the rules, and she will not waiver.

{ TO CLING UNTIL IT HAS EATEN OUT HER HEART }

the wind with sudden heaving: a response of surface to weight. the house stands solid, last shadows creeping over the front door. clouds thud and shatter against the turrets, silvery wisps sparking, a collection caught in cotton. the keys, the keys and darling’s open mouth, salvaging the bad lie, the betrayal. singing split end and then loud mouthed hooves along the unsteady hallways.

i thought i saw something move, darlings says, a rush of air disrupting the troublesome business of the light. contamination meeting with a wall and one laugh - a signal without answer. darling can’t keep waiting; she strikes against the wall, anywhere, looking for a way in. within the structure an echo: wads of tinsel, shredded. she has an impulse to stop, to revise her last movement: her hand moving through a flock of bubbles, shattering blood. carnage dripping down her dress and a gasp, released, from her throat. nothing eerie about faded light, this dull dappling of the carpet. her enjoyment over, darling fastens a handkerchief to her neck, to cover the marks a mouth left behind.

ashamed and ready to return, darling pauses at the double doors, eavesdropping on the sounds enclosed within. insects sucked through a wet tube, tongued. the suture of a threshing edge, unsettled snow dark with roars. let go and quick: bounding back, snapping radiance against the atmosphere. darling wonders why duchess ever wanted her at all, was it it divination, or a decision? the heroics of kitchen gossip and a girl hanging: everything must be a result. from her lips a wail not yet ready, embarrassing admissions poised, unwelcome. the beast withdrawing, layering it’s unwholesome self against the rug, a vibration expanding to fill the house: rubber and the belly. without pause, a piston. get me out of here, darling says.

{ OUT OF DOORS ACROSS A GARDEN }

the trees too cautious, branches withdrawn, holding in a spectacle of light and dark: a dappled bed of grass. the sky curiously low, the wind shuddering to a start, her hair skipping forward into her mouth. darling will have to stop, to stand as if eagerly awaiting the middle of the night. the blood in her body, shuddering. she follows the trail cut in the grass, barely recognizing the bushes that crowd around her: beyond them a thin whiteness shoulders out the dark of the sound stage. she walks and she wants to stop but she is urged forward, irreversibly.

i have seen her look surprised, a sequence of emotion altering her face. it is not unusual. she is often moved to desire, inspired to show a trick she knows. her fistful of knives, her handful of pearls: how she tells the weight of water, the buoyancy of land. she doesn’t mind walking alone.

her discomfort constant; darling knows she is too fast, too early. there is a stone in her chest and something crushing the hem of her dress. she is never ready for what comes next. she calls and there is an answer from the night, from the sleepless stars.

she is given the warning; she is in danger.

the grass ripples under her heels, a carpet of artificial green. it isn’t safe for her to wait here, a girl surrendering to necessity.

cut to the next thing; the forest frustrated by loss - an absence of birds, no message wielding a saber in the sky.

{ HOW SHE PLACES OBJECTS IN A ROOM }

the sea, full of distance, a condition evoking a yearning to cross, to conquer fathoms deep. if the roaring swells should overtake me, i would be satisfied. to be infused by salt. and if i thought of what has passed, i would smile sweetly. it is already too late late for me to be scared away.

i remember that i heard nothing myself. when i first knew something was wrong, when i saw that the house was more than it should be. the house empty, but for darling and duchess, who were little more than wretched. how easy it was to show them the way, to keep the door closed.

to see darling detached from her shadow, the polka dots running down her dress, the blush in her cheeks a red stain slipping down her neck - a tongue. worse than drowning, to slowly melt, a puddle of tinsel and borax at her feet. darling pacing round her bed, oblivious to any alteration: she sees the path before her as it was yesterday, not as it has become.

down on the beach, a handful of seashells scattered this way and that: is there a pattern, a purpose? darling will have to bolt the door, braid her hair from left to right. otherwise, what might happen? the house holds in the cold, a kind of slickness to the walls, a gleam she can’t escape. it is more than an accident. it is small clouds of breath held dearly, with such pity.

i amuse myself by placing obstacles in her path. her confusion brings me flowers, a reason to keep trying. the room beyond the door, of no importance. dust and heirlooms, a canticle of spiders.

looking for a key, aren’t you? duchess says, pulling closed her quilted satin robe. vile thing, a key. she turns to the window, to the howl of an unreleased wave.

if only darling knew where to look.

duchess closes the curtains at last. her silhouette flocked by velvet, a halo cast by a single unshaded light bulb dangling from the ceiling. and then what? i am always able to walk away from this.

oh bright window, bring me home.

{ REMEDIES FOR THE SPLIT END }

darling forces herself to walk. she has the feeling that if she starts she will never stop, but she continues nevertheless. she moves along the length of the witless corridor, her movement stifled, overdone. there are not many steps she can skip: she uses the pattern on the carpet as a marker, to measure her progress. she stands, her reflection inverted in the crystal doorknob, wondering whether she ought to turn it, or turn away.

before duchess, the window shows a swatch of darkening sky. the cat sits beside her, suddenly familiar, his back bowed in pleasure, a small fat fur rubbing against her leg. it can’t be! says duchess. there is a weight in her hand, a wolf in her hand: it is a stone she pockets, cleverly.

the cat looks at her.

his eyes are very green. his eyes are always the same.

darling steps to the door and puts her hand on the glass knob. it is cold. it has never been let in the sun. the shadow follows like it belongs to her; it stands beside her, tamed by her hand. she ought to be in bed, she thinks. she ought to dream, again, that things are actually starting to happen. what can you do for me? darling says to the shadow. there’s got to be an end, darling says.

the cat snarls, concerned about a change in the air: a vibration that raises the hair on his back, thunder disrupting the walls like rocks shaken in a tin can.

on the other side of the door, something scratches, somehow soft and relentless.

{ THE HOUSE AT THE EXTREME END }

i look at the sea - the surface, shell thin, and i don’t know why darling has returned, severed from her shadow. it creeps after her, murmuring dicken, smaller, less silent and less fluid than it was before.

she has broken her wandering, returned to the scene. she stands at the entrance, under these conditions: a bell rings and continues to ring, forever repeating the same thing, as if its clapper were walking in a circle. she must have done something right.

darling takes her shadow’s hand, saying you don’t lie and cheat the way duchess does. they walk together into the foyer, their footsteps tolling the parquet floor. her careless hand turns on the light. murder, dicken. murder me anyone! darling says.

i can’t see the ships clearly at this distance. they hover on the summit of each wave, then disappear.

it is not just water in the sea.

dicken pulls away, fastens a strand of hair to the wall with spit. darlings fumbles for a stone in her pocket, leaning the ax against the credenza. she knows what it is good for. the telephone, unable to contain itself, sounds the alarm.

darling decides to leave the phone right where it is.

i see the white spaces, trembling light where nothing is possible. the separation between the house and the land is suddenly much clearer. a flash that is hard to follow, difficult to master. there is no need for dicken to be in the house; he ought to have something to do - the house insists too much on routine, on long moments of passivity. if i could summon him, i would send him back into the forest. i know where that cave is.

the tokens of the sea litter the floor. seaweed, fishbone, anchor.

this door has always been closed. darling is entirely sure: if she were to open it, she would ruin everything. it took her this long to uncover this one rule: opening the door is an impulse she can control.

dicken and darling stand back to back. their beauty is difficult to decipher. dicken is fair as darling is not. darling faces the sea and dicken undoes the latch.

when the softening follows, the replication of rooms will be multiple. this door a centre to which every other door is attracted, the closed off sections of the house gathering to reminisce.

darling can’t continue past this point. she can stomp her feet on the floorboards, even scream, if she feels like it. her task forgotten, she can cease to search. yet there are tricks that dicken knows - he stands there with his eyes open. he never blinks. i can’t do that, darling says, and he puts his weight against the door.

darling has never come this far. she listens for the scurry of the boom mike flitting over her head, she looks at the wall where the relic of a tree wavers, flourishing its birds, the camera quickly slipping away. she stares at the fireplace: it is agony, ripping into her. how will she sort through all of this? once she left the city she was lost, no longer who she was before.

this new thing.

duchess watches the sea; nothing changes, much. she wonders if she is drowning. there is water within the room; all she is, water. she can hear the fish inhaling, whales passing in the night. this is what she has.

{ EVERYWHERE WITH OPEN CLAWS }

this vicinity, too close. all these trees, standing tall, without number. darling unable to warm her hands, chilled by the wind traveling through the wood, lash of salt in the air, her shoulders dappled with stars, with sand. she looks into the dark and finds it far from pleasant. soon she will know everything, she will return to the house with her pockets full of stones.

the moon has opened its eye, threatened to uncover her.

a tree strikes out the path. she sees that an ax is buried in the stump and so she is afraid, thinking of her unfathomed dream. feeling for the stone in her pocket, its weight sordid and necessary. she’s always liked the woods, even when they fail to relieve her.

all this hassle over furnishings and knickknacks, broken machinery and pale speckled china. among them she has found herself besieged, her entire body harassed by the endless everything accumulating dust. darling thinks of the mess, the mistake of too much at once. there is duchess, presiding over each encumbered space, caressing the arms of the bergère, her dainty shoes propped on the bout-de-pied, lapping tea from her saucer. an increasing emptiness striding from redundant days, distraction and ruin carousing the corridors. it is the same whether she corrects the flaws or allows them to swarm by millions. she thinks sadly of her body, sunk in the deep of the wood, her body wrapped in a cloak of feathers, swarthy black.

she stands there a long time, and then, suddenly daring, darling gasps the handle of the ax, lifting her arms above her head so that the alliance between the ax and herself becomes a wing stretched out behind her. then, she tells herself that she has seen it, her own shadow altered: it steps out and tells her it is true. her shadow knows so much about these things. dazzled, darling grasps the edges of her shadow and brings it to her lips.

oh! the shadow says.

darling returns to the house, dragging the ax behind her as she dragged her suitcase that first day she arrived, wondering at the great and terrible expanse of the house upon the hill, her figure trivial besides its scowling facade. she has not deceived herself: she has experienced it; the house a living ember, always pulsing and radiant, reminding her of the horror of the surface, the beloved dead air of the void.

{NECESSARY AGAINST A WOLF}

duchess is where she ought to be. the house is all there is. the windows squat below the eaves, the whole of what she requires: rooms lit up between dark and dark. she is urged to face the water; her visions are of ships, gulls, clamshells tossed by waves. the sound of stones and shells tumbling in the tide temporarily make her forget her suffering. there is duchess and there is darling - there is no one else.

there is the air between them.

the moon tethered over the wood, the girl swaying between the trees, her figure struggling to shine. darling makes a fuss about everything she has to do, shakes her hair out wildly, spits onto the ground, refuses to mark the path. nothing but rocks and mud. the only thing for her to do is to find the key. she needs the day more than ever, these fading hours engulfed in light. searching the forest is a problem; she has to start over and over again. she has her body to refer to as well as the trees, closing around her. in the dark she hears the wailing, the trumpeting of widows over water. darling raises her head and stands there, staring, careful not to move.

there is a knife, a stone, a key, an ax. there is a cup and a noise that comes to rest in it.

i want the devil for a friend, darling says. from the dark there is no answer. from the sea no company. darling observes too much of nothing, trees yawning, a whispering of limbs, the damp that enters with the tide.