The Eyre Affair_ A Novel - Jasper Fforde [408]
Another wave burst behind me, and with beating heart I pulled on the locking lever of the steel front door and was soon inside, safe from the gale. The door securely fastened, I looked around. There was a central spiral staircase but nothing else—not a stick of furniture, a book, a packing case, nothing.
I shivered again and pulled out my gun.
“A lighthouse,” I murmured, “a lighthouse in the middle of nowhere.”
I walked slowly up the concrete steps keeping a careful watch as they curved away out of sight. The first floor was empty and I moved on up, each circular room I reached devoid of any signs of habitation. In this way I slowly climbed the tower, gun arm outstretched and trembling with a dread of impending loss that I could not control or understand. On the top floor the spiral staircase ended; a steel ladder was the only means by which to climb any higher. I could hear the electric motors that drove the rotating lamp whine above me, the bright white light shining through the open roof hatch as the beam swept slowly about. But this room was not empty. Sitting in an armchair was a young woman powdering her nose with the help of a small handmirror.
“Who are you?” I asked, pointing my gun at her.
She lowered the mirror, smiled and looked at the pistol.
“Dear me!” she exclaimed. “Always the woman of action, aren’t you?”
“What am I doing here?”
“You really don’t know, do you?”
“No.” I lowered the gun. I couldn’t remember any facts but I could feel love and loss and frustration and fear. The woman was linked to one of these but I didn’t know which.
“My name is—” The young woman stopped and smiled again. “No, I think even that is too much.”
She rose and walked towards me. “All you need to know is that you killed my brother.”
“I’m a murderer?” I whispered, searching in my heart for guilt of such a crime and finding none. “I . . . I don’t believe you.”
“Oh, it’s true, and I will have my revenge. Let me show you something.”
She took me to the window and pointed. There was another flash of lightning and the view was illuminated outside. We were on the edge of a massive waterfall that curved away from us into the darkness. The ocean was emptying over the edge; millions of gallons every second, falling into the abyss. But that wasn’t all. In another flash of lightning I could see that the waterfall was rapidly eroding the small island on which the lighthouse was built—as I watched, the first piece of the rocky outcrop fell away noiselessly and disappeared into space.
“What’s happening?” I demanded.
“You are forgetting everything,” she said simply, sweeping her hands in the direction of the room. “These are a just a few of your memories I have cobbled together—a last stand, if you like. The storm, the lighthouse, the waterfall, the night, the wind—none of them are real.” She walked closer to me until I could smell her perfume. “All this is merely a representation of your mind. The lighthouse is you; your consciousness. The sea around us your experience, your memories—everything that makes you the person you are. They are all draining away like water from a bath. Soon the lighthouse will topple into the void and then . . .”
“And then?”
“And then I will have won. You will remember nothing—not even this. You will relearn, of course—in ten years you might be able to tie your own shoelaces. But for the first few years the only decision you will have to make is which side of your mouth to drool out of.”
I turned to leave but she called out, “You can’t run. Where will you go? For you, there’s nowhere