Histories of the Void Garden, Book 1: Pyre of Dreams by Damian Huntley Page A

face, “Run away little girl!”
    Stephanie
jumped out of bed and ran out of the room as delicately as she
could. Muscle memory kicking in as she reached the hallway, she
skipped over several squeaky floorboards so as not to wake her dad,
then crept downstairs, using the banisters to take the weight out
of her steps. She ran through the kitchen into the den, and issued
the command, “TV on, volume mute.” It had taken her a while to get
used to the correct inflection to use with voice commands, despite
her dad’s insistence that it worked perfectly, there was definitely
a knack. She lay on the floor, waving her hand listlessly in the
air in front of her, conducting her own symphony of colors and
shapes until she found what she was looking for. She made a
beckoning motion with her fingers, the conductor asking for that
little bit more from the timpani drums, the volume raising on the
TV, as the rolling deeps of the ocean, and the tattered French flag
filled the screen. Stephanie leaned back on her elbows, ready to
sink into:
     
    “1815, Twenty
six years after the start of the French Revolution …”
     
    Before the
string section was able to strike up its first note, Stephanie’s
attention was torn from the screen by the sound of a car pulling up
outside. She heard a car door slam shut, and she ran over to the
couch so that she could stand on the cushions, leaning over the
back of the couch, watching the street through the large front
window. She pried open the blinds, trying to make out which of
their neighbors was returning from work at this early hour, but a
little way down the street, she caught sight of a man standing
under a tree. He was quite motionless, just staring at the back of
that same cleaning truck she’d seen outside of the house this past
couple of weeks. She watched as he shifted his weight, pushing off
from the tree, long slow steps through the shadows, the sound of
the waves and the symphony orchestra crashing about him, his
movements fell oddly into syncopation with the yells of the slaves.
Stephanie smiled at the coincidence, then suddenly, as Jean Valjean
sung the first notes of his song, the man turned to face her,
looking at her, even through the blinds, she was sure of it. From
behind her, Jean Valjean sang his warning to her, “Look down,” and
she did, breathing rapidly, shivers running down her spine as she
allowed herself to get carried away with the serendipity, listening
to the words of the song, ‘look down, you’re here until you die.”
She gasped, sucking her bottom lip. She was too young to die.
    “TV mute!” she
grabbed a couch cushion, and bravely peaked through the blinds
again, but now the man was gone. When the phone rang, she mashed
her face into the cushion and screamed a little.
     
    West placed his phone
back in his pocket and tapped the side of the van with an open
palm. When no response came from within, he leaned his back against
the van, and crouched, curling his fingers under the van’s sill. He
lifted the van slowly, cleanly, just far enough that he could hear
things tumble about inside, then he bent his knees, touching the
tires to the floor, so very gently. West had expected the FBI, and
it had cost him very little time, and only a couple of thousand
dollars, to ensure that he was the only person with a working cell
phone. It was almost disappointing that the agents didn’t call for
back up. The doors didn’t burst open in a flurry of motion. The
side paneling of the van didn’t erupt in a thousand smoking metal
flowers while agents with itchy trigger fingers fired blindly.
    Hearing had
become somewhat of a problem for West, but it had its uses, and
right now he could hear two heartbeats, calm and steady, and he
could hear another thing; subtler, more delicate … that unusual
flutter, the silent yearning of a thousand mouths, so desperate to
make their hosts perfect, the perfect machine, the perfect
vessel.
    He stepped away
from the van, calmly, backing