Phoenix and the Bag Man

Chapter 17: Revelation

That's when Phoenix moved in full time. I mean from that time on there were still my voices and her voices but we all kind of sang off the same hymn sheet, as old Albert used to say. It was revelation.

I understood that the face in the news cutting and the face in the burnt house were the same face.

I heard that the voice singing:

"Round and round the rugged rock."

was the same voice that said:

"What goes around comes around."

I smelt that the acrid scent in the burnt house was the same bitter, choking smell of my dreams.

I felt the heat of bonfire, the heat of the burning farm, the heat in the room of carousels and horses and I heard the roar that was like a gale in the trees and knew an old enemy.

I saw the eyes of the man laughing with his daughter and the sharp cold blue eyes of my dream and knew they were the same.

Not dreams. Memories.

I knew fear. Heart stopping.

I knew love. Life affirming.

We knew hatred. Death dealing.

Not dreams. Memories.

And now we wanted to taste revenge. Such a hunger for sweetness I had never known. This was not our memory, it was our dream.

Realisation had been like a butterfly fluttering desperately against glass. It only takes a moment for glass to shatter.

The car's cabin light dimmed and was lost and with it the walls of reflections and I could see Katyia again.

We know we love her, and we wish we could have loved. We know we can trust her, we wish we could have trusted.

I stepped out of the car. I winced as my aching leg had stiffened up. I closed the door and leant against it, watching Katyia on the other side, her shoulders hunched, arms folded in front of her to ward off the cold, gazing toward the darkened horizon. All the panic and the confusion of my thoughts was gone and in its place order and quiet confidence. I felt older, wiser, more knowing. I let the cabin light fade and fail.

"I've learnt some things. Phoenix is a memory. She is not a dream, although she is in my dreams. She is very strong, like you are, so strong she seems real to me. Her memory is teaching me. She is not a ghost - I don't think. Depends what a ghost is. If a ghost is a kind of memory then I suppose she is a ghost of sorts. I know she was with me when I was small. How I know I don't know. It's something to do with that upstairs room in the burnt house. It's like it's dislodged something in my brain, there's a tiny gap that's growing and slowly I can see more and more of another me, another past I never knew I had."

Katyia turned around and leant against the other side of the car so we looked at each other across the roof.

"Go on."

"She cared for me, like we were family. She knows the Bag Man, she is, was afraid of him, but she wants ... to find him too. Punish him. He did something terrible. I think he killed someone."

"I can believe it," is all she said.

"I have this memory, maybe it's my imagination embroidering it but it grows brighter every day. There was smoke and a smell of burning and the night is lit by an orange light. I'm standing looking through wooden blue painted bars towards a doorway. There was something twisting in the flame light, a shape rising and falling, rising and falling, a shadow play upon the wall. I am frightened. I have a feeling of loss. There are shouts, screams really, and then these outstretched arms and I'm looking up into a face I know and love and I feel safe. I feel complete. I cannot picture the face properly, but I know it is Phoenix."