others joined it. I could get no response from you; nothing I said or did could move your eyes from their fixed spot upon the ceiling. Every hour or so your pulse would quicken, and your arteries would fill once again, and you would spasm and scream, and I would try to placate you, and eventually you would fall back again.
I kept you as dry and clean as possible, changing your sheets when you soiled them, and wiping you of urine, vomit and faeces. The nights were the worst, and your screams seemed louder in the darkness. I thought about lifting you, and carrying you around upon my shoulder as I had done all those years ago, but I was terrified of what might happen. Whatever battle was playing out inside your body, I did not want to disrupt it.
I tried to feed you by posting milk through your cracked lips, but it only spilled out. I had no stomach for it either, so the bowls stacked up by Jorne’s sink.
On the fifth night the storm disappeared, taking the heat with it, and in this new silence you lay wheezing, pulse faster than it had ever been, fists so tight your palms bled. I sensed another scream approach and readied myself. Sure enough, your body spasmed and you released that terrible cry, but this time no amount of placation would settle you. You writhed like a headless eel. The veins in your neck stood out, and froth appeared at the corners of your mouth. Left and right you thrashed, and there was nothing I could do to make the pain stop.
Although—this was not strictly true, was it?
I held my mouth at the thought, unable to move. Then one terrible ear-splitting screech drove me on, and I pulled the pillow from beneath your head. It was merely a matter of pressure and time, just a slow downward push and the pain would stop. You would stop. I trembled above you. You were silent now, contorted, eyes rolling. Mine were streaming, but slowly I pushed the pillow down.
As it engulfed your face, you made a sound. I paused. There was another, and another; three utterances squeezed from your constricted throat. I pulled the pillow away.
‘Reed? Did you say something?’
Your eyes continued to roll as I strained to hear, pillow still hovering inches from your face. There it was again, three sounds, this time joined by a fourth, and I realised what they were—not words, but notes. I gasped and dropped the pillow.
‘You’re singing. You’re singing, you’re singing, you’re singing, you’re—wait, let me try—’
I tried to sing them. The notes stuck in my throat, but on my second attempt they emerged in a clear descent. I waited, lungs full, hands raised, as you rolled and bucked. As the moments wore on my chest deflated and my hands fell, but then you sang again—four straight notes, pitch perfect and unmistakeable.
‘Reed!’
Somewhere in that mess upon the bed, you were struggling to get out, and I could think of only one thing that might help. I dashed for the Room of Things, grabbed the gramophone and records and brought them back before your bedside.
The first in the pile was the brutal one I did not like, with all those sparse thumps and stabs like sticks being hit, and words about war. Too harsh. The next was the one with the lady singing about unusual things, like mountains and dinosaurs and words in a strange language. I watched you as she whispered and quivered through her fictions, but your straining continued. Next was the old thick record with just a man and his guitar singing about brooms and hell hounds. I saw some glimmer of change in you at this, but it wasn’t enough, so I left it on until it had finished. Then I proceeded to go through the entire collection, playing every song until I found that you had ceased your thrashing and lay still in a film of sweat, breathing hard, with your eyes wide and crusted. Eventually I found my own eyelids drooping, and as my head fell upon the bed I reached your hand, and fell into a deep sleep, dreaming of tide pools, troubled seas, and light streaming through battling clouds.
— SIXTY —
I WOKE TO a silent room lit by a clear sky outside. The gramophone needle had long since found the end of the last record’s groove, and my head was still slumped upon the blanket. The bed was terribly