I winked at the old man, although it is difficult to do anything but wink when you only have one eye. We were the only ones occupying the tavern he owned, as the early morning fog slowly settled outside. Through the window I could also see that standing on the ledge was the blackbird, staring at me, its yellow eyes full of knowledge.
‘So you can’t remember anything?’ The old man sounded concerned both for me and himself, as he was clearly unnerved by my disfigurement.
‘Not since the attack,’ I replied flatly.
‘So how can I help you?’
‘Do you know of anyone called Magnus Erikson?’ The blackbird had given me this name, telling me that he was the one who harmed me, who caused my disfigurement.
The old man seemed to wince, as though trying to remember was painful for him. He had no idea how painful it was for me. ‘Not specifically, though I do know a husband and wife whose surname is Erikson. They have a couple of children but I don’t know their names. Maybe one of them is Magnus.’ The blackbird craned its neck as he said this. ‘Why do you want to know?’
‘Magnus Erikson was the one who attacked me,’ I said plainly.
The tavern owner seemed to retreat back into himself a little. ‘Oh. I doubt it’s anyone from the Erikson family. Mr and Mrs Erikson are good people. I think one of their sons is in his twenties. I don’t know him, but I doubt he’d be too different from his folks.’
‘Do you know where they live?’ I asked, disregarding his judgement about the Eriksons.
‘Why?’
‘So I can speak to them.’
The old man hesitated. He looked to the ceiling as though searching for answers but found only cobwebs and rotting beams. ‘Their house is on the other side of town. It’s the two-story weatherboard one just past the docks.’
I thanked the man for his time, leaving him to contemplate over whether he was right to have given me this information.
Outside the cold was as bitter as my thoughts. It seemed strange that I could harbour so much resentment for a man without even being able to picture his face. The one spot on my face that the cold didn’t sting was where my left eye had once been. I raised a hand and felt the skin. The centre of the wound was incredibly soft, but surrounding it were wrinkles that felt as hard as leather, particularly along the top of my cheekbone. The doctors had told me it was a miracle I had survived the gunshot, yet the pain I had felt as they told me this only made me want to die.
The town was as deserted as the tavern had been. In a fishing village like this the only townsfolk up at this time would be the trawlers, and they would have already set off to sea. I began to head to the other side of town where the old man had told me the Eriksons lived, the icy grass crunching beneath my feet as I walked. By my side flew the blackbird, cutting through the fog as it soared gracefully against the breeze.
What do you plan to do to Magnus Erikson when you find him? The blackbird asked me without talking.
When I was young I had been taught to turn the other cheek. Yet, in this instance, to do that would be to deform the other side of my face. I decided that ‘an eye for an eye’ was a more suitable proverb. The blackbird seemed to hear my thoughts and flew away. I knew he would return.
I was then surprised to look up and see a woman walking through the fog towards me. I decided to walk past her and try to avoid the unpleasant awkwardness of making eye contact, yet she seemed to have different ideas.
‘Where you headed lad?’ Her voice was nasally and harsh.
I turned, expecting her to flinch at the sight of my wound, but she did no such thing. She had a stern face made sterner by some deep wrinkles that sat above her brow.
‘I’m looking for Magnus Erikson,’ I told her, wondering if she could perhaps verify what the tavern owner had told me.
Her brow furrowed even more upon hearing this. ‘And why would that be?’
I simply shrugged. I didn’t want to have to explain my circumstances to every stranger, and particularly not this stranger. Yet my response did not appease the woman, and she took a step closer to me, her eyes boring into mine.
After an uncomfortable pause, she turned her head and said, ‘Birds sing but they never speak, what they croon can often be misunderstood.’ She then briefly looked up to the sky. I followed her gaze, but the blackbird was nowhere to be seen.
‘I want to find Magnus,’ I said firmly. ‘I know what he did to me.’
‘But I wonder if you know why?’ The way she said this made me assume she knew that I didn’t. What did it matter though? I couldn’t imagine a reason that justified what Magnus had done.
When I didn’t give a reply, it was the woman’s turn to shrug. Without warning, she reached up towards my wound. I was too surprised to react. Her fingers seemed to pass through the smooth skin of my eye socket. It wasn’t painful, simply uncomfortable, but at this stage I dared not move. Slowly, she removed her hand from my scar, revealing a small copper key which she held out for me to take.
‘What is it for?’ I asked feebly, taking the key from her.
‘It is the key to Magnus’s bedroom.’
‘Why was it in my skull?’
‘Because the blackbird put it there,’ she answered matter-of-factly.
The woman then turned and walked off, the mist slowly engulfing her until she could no longer be seen.
#
The Eriksons’ household may have once been a nice building, but it was now weather worn and approaching dilapidation.
The property had an old pier that reached out onto the ocean. Through the fog I could see the silhouette of the blackbird, perched on the furthest post of the pier. Instinctively I went out to meet it.
The ocean was still, as though in slumber. The blackbird stood regally, almost statuesque, as it stared through the mist. The eyes of the blackbird looked like they had seen every tide, its feathers as though they had been kissed by every breeze.
Did you put the key in my wound? I asked the blackbird.
Yes.
Why?
I needed to put it somewhere you would see it, and people always look in the places where they have lost things.
I turned back to the house, now barely visible through the fog, wondering if I had lost something there.
Magnus will be in there, the blackbird told me before flying away.
I knew with certainty what I must do next.
Looking through its windows, it appeared the house was vacant. There was no furniture, nor any wallpaper or carpeting. But what I could see did not hold as much truth as what the blackbird knew.
I knocked firmly on the door. There was no response. I turned the handle, expecting to find the door locked, but was surprised when it obligingly opened. A fine layer of dust covered the floorboards, showing that the house had been empty for some time. As I explored the house I was aware that there were no locks on the doors on this floor, and that I therefore had to venture to the next.
The top floor was similarly bare and devoid of life. But the single difference was that one door remained shut. Unsurprisingly, the door had a keyhole that seemed as though it would fit the key the woman had given me. I slotted the key into the latch without even trying the door first. The latch clicked and I opened the door, but like all the other rooms, it was empty.
For some time I stood in the doorway, unsure what to do. I tried to reach the blackbird with my thoughts to ask what was going on, but the only sensation I had was of my wound itching. I rubbed it with the palm of my hand. Deflated, I walked to the far side of the room and sat down, resting my back against the wall. I suddenly felt incredibly tired. Letting out a sigh, I rested my cheek upon my left shoulder. As I did so my eye fell upon a dint in the timber wall just next to me. It was only a small dint, but its presence felt inexplicably large.
My wound began to itch again, though more aggressively this time. The sensation it gave was similar to staring without blinking. I rubbed the wound with my palm once more, but this failed to alleviate the sensation.
Blink.
I wasn’t sure if it was the blackbird that had given me this instruction, or if it was just instinct, but I decided to try. I focused on where my left eye had once been and imagined it was still there. Then I did it, not a wink but a blink.
In this moment, my perspective on the room incomprehensibly changed. As it had before, my right eye saw an empty room, but through the scarring where my left eye had been I could now see another image overlaying this one. In this image the room was furnished and there was wallpaper covering the timber. From this perspective there was a bedside table just to my left, and peculiarly no dint in the wall. Neither image seemed less real than the other: it was as though each perspective existed simultaneously.
Abruptly, through my phantom left eye, I saw a figure walk in through the doorway. After a brief moment’s confusion I realised the figure was me, although with one distinctive difference: he possessed both his eyes. The figure looked in my general direction, but didn’t seem to notice me, as though I was invisible. I didn’t dare move. His face was stricken with pain, though he had no apparent ailments to suggest the pain was physical. I could almost feel his suffering, as though part of me existed within him. His mind was wrought with terror. Something violent possessed him, something that had embedded itself deep within his brain, corrupting all the thoughts it could get its claws on.
I was then struck by the realisation that I was seeing myself in the past, before I was wounded, before the house was gutted, and before I lost everything but the name of my attacker.
The figure then looked in my direction. Time seemed to float frozen as he stood there looking towards me with both his eyes. I felt an intense discomfort, as though all my insides were screaming out to try and dispel the unrelenting silence. My past was staring at me and I wanted to do was flee, only I had nothing to flee to. So I remained still.
He began to move towards me, a strained look etched deeply into his unscarred face. As he got closer, however, I realised he was not approaching me, but the bedside table next to me. Perhaps that was what he had been staring at. He opened the top draw and from it pulled a small handgun.
Once more the urge to run boiled inside me, but it was outmatched by my need to see what happened next.
The figure stepped towards me, and sat down exactly where I was sitting. Though I felt nothing, it seemed like his body had sunk into my own. Where there were two there was now only one. I saw the hand holding the gun appear before my face. I did not know whether it was his hand or mine, or both. The hand then twisted to point the gun directly where my left eye had once been. I now understood he had decided there was only one way to destroy the poison that infected his mind: it simply involved destroying himself, and me, in the process.
The gun fired.
My whole body tensed in anticipation of an impact. I not only squeezed my right eye shut, but my phantom left eye too.
I stayed this way for a few seconds. Eventually I realised that no bullet had hit me. Not in this moment at least. I tried to open my eyes but found I could now only open the right one. The room was as it had been when I had first entered. I looked to the chip in the wall. I put the tip of my finger in it. It was not a bullet hole, the angle was wrong. It was probably a chip from a fragment of my skull. It was the only remaining sign of what had happened in here, of what had happened in my bedroom, in the Erikson household.
‘Magnus Erikson,’ I whispered. The name tasted like poison. The blackbird had been right, I would find Magnus in this house. I thought I had been prepared for that, but I hadn’t been prepared to find that the person who had ruined my life was within me.
I slowly got to my feet. The house that had before seemed so empty now seemed to be too full of pain for me to stay any longer. I made my way outside, the icy breeze once again returning to sting my face.
I didn’t know where to go. I looked to the skies for answers and saw the blackbird flying overhead. I was unsure what to feel towards it. The blackbird had led me where I wanted it to, but that was a place I would rather never have been.
Follow me, the blackbird said to me. Its thoughts seemed quieter now, but no less certain.
I hesitated for a moment but soon realised I had nowhere else to go. In finding the truth I had lost my purpose, and without a purpose to guide me I only had the blackbird.
#
The blackbird lead me away from town, away from the ocean, and into the woods. It glided in front of me without ever looking back. I followed numbly. The only thing I felt was a dull ache, a tiredness I had inflicted upon myself by chasing my own tail.
Though we ventured onwards for some time, the trees and the earth beneath them all seemed the same, until I saw something in the distance. As we approached it, I saw that the ‘something’ was a person standing next to a rock. As we got closer yet, I realised that the person was the woman I had met earlier, and that the rock was in fact a tombstone. The woman was holding a shovel, and in front of the tombstone it became clear what she had used it for, as next to a pile of dirt was a rectangular hole.
The blackbird perched upon the tombstone, which only had two words inscribed on it, ‘Magnus Erikson’. I walked over to the hole, the eyes of the woman and the blackbird both firmly fixed on me. I looked down into the hole to see an open coffin and a lid resting by its side. I hugged my shoulders and shivered. It was painfully cold, but the padded lining of the coffin seemed so warm.
I looked back at the woman and the blackbird, and from their eyes I could tell what they wanted me to do. I stepped into the hole and slowly lowered myself into the coffin. The woman then climbed down into the hole and, placing her feet either side of the coffin, grabbed the lid. I nodded to her, and she nodded solemnly back at me, before placing the lid atop the coffin.
Everything went dark for me. One eye open or two, I was now in pitch black regardless. I heard the first shovel load of dirt fall upon the coffin, and felt an immense weariness within me. I let out a sigh. Sometimes, rather than recalling memories, it is easier just to bury them.
—
Klaus Nannestad lives in Bendigo, Australia, where he is currently studying a Bachelor of Media and Communications through the University of New England. Klaus is a frequent contributor to online sports cite The Roar, and has previously had his fiction published in Defenestration Magazine.
An excellent psychological horror story. Great last line.