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There was an intense warmth coming from the furnace.  Flames licked around the inside of the hollow dome, emitting a comforting warmth – intimidating though it was – and it at least provided light with which to work.  With her heavy shadows dancing against the walls of the dungeon, Mæthea poured the ashes from their clay jars one by one, checking the labels, and arranging the small mounds of remains into a strict, soldier-like line on the smooth surface of the marble slab.

She leaned, her long hair escaping from its band and splaying itself out like a curtain being drawn, as she wet her hands in a specially-prepared lacquer and began to shape the ashes.  Scooping them up into a concave hollow she made sure each tiny grey particle was coated in the sticky varnish, and once she had done that she removed her clothes, laid inside it and slowly, laboriously, began to cover herself up completely.  She coated her legs first, up to the thighs, then ran some of it through her sable hair, over each strand.  She then did her arms, rubbing it in as if it were moisturiser, and next over her stomach and breasts.  When, finally, her entire body was covered, Mæthea placed over her face an onyx mask, completely closed with no holes for eyes or mouth, and laid down flat on the marble slab.

A small box attached to a cable was lying next to her, and with a grey finger she pushed once on a large button.  The marble slab shuddered, then slowly moved by means of expensive hydraulic mechanisms into the furnace.  The same mechanism closed the heavy iron door after her, and turned the lock.

*

In the beginning, there was nothing.  All around was an omnipresent gloom, infinite blackness pressing in, and a voice said: ‘Darkness.’
Something else came, and it caused pain for a second; there was something other than black. ‘Light,’ said the voice. ‘Colours.’

A face came into view; smooth, pale, long hair hanging straight and dark over each side; there was a pair of greyish eyes that seemed to scrutinise, to judge, and then –  finally – to approve.  There was something about those eyes that caused feeling somewhere, deep down, an unpleasant churning.  There was a full pair of lips, held tightly together and pale.

‘Mæthea,’ said the face, naming itself.

Mæthea put something down on a table; it was black, and looked like a face, and there was another on the table beside it.  They were masks.  She then put her hands somewhere, touching; then turning, the place shifting and altering until the light was bright and fearful.  Something fierce and alive crackled and spluttered, full of colour.

Mæthea said, ‘Fire.  Heat, light.  Birth.’

*

Shaun Clayton found his way to the castle easily; the ruins had once been a tourist site, before the whole place and its surrounding grounds had been bought and closed off, so there were still sign-posts on the road, just in case he did somehow forget the way.  In the grey obscurity of the late-afternoon weather he had trouble seeing the roads, let alone the signs beside them, and when he used the lights they seemed to simply reflect themselves off the fog rather than cut through it, and then back into his tired eyes.

When he got to the castle the fog seemed to have drifted away, but in its place was a numbing wind carrying dried leaves and tiny chips of hail that cut his face, and by the time he got to the door, framed in metal scaffolding, he was shivering and anaesthetized.  He made a fist and hammered on the door.  No answer.

‘Mæthea!’ he yelled, arms tight around himself. He stepped back from the door and looked up at the round stained-glass window directly above it, which usually glowed iridescent from the inside with candlelight, but was now dark and colourless.

He walked around the side of the building, finding a spot that was still under renovation and seeing if there was a way in.  The crumbled wall, collapsed since some time during the middle ages, had around it more scaffolding, and mounds of loose wooden planks and bricks; covering the hole was a huge sail-like mass of plastic sheets, whipping ferociously in the wind as if trying to escape.  He climbed behind them and into the room, cold due to its exposure to the weather, and completely bare.  The wooden floorboards were rotted and twisted, and in places they had been removed, revealing underneath a criss-cross stone design.

The buffeting plastic sheeting was making a terrific noise that echoed around the room, and it frightened Shaun into moving quickly on, stepping into the cold stone corridor and closing the heavy oaken door behind him.  He could still hear the snapping and beating, but it was quieter now, subdued, and he could work at blotting it out completely by thinking of where in this massive building he would search.

He first went to the grand dining hall, because it was closest, and found it empty.  It was fully decorated as it would have been back when the castle was built, featuring impressive draperies, a rather intimidating thirty-foot table, plush carpet and plenty of curious wall ornaments, mainly stags’ heads and expensive portraits.

He stopped and looked up at one, of Mæthea standing with one bare elbow on a windowsill and the other up holding a cigarette.  She looked beautiful at first, in her layered blue dress and picot neck scarf; she wasn’t particularly thin, but that had never mattered and the dress only made her look more handsome.  Her dark hair was curled and over her exposed shoulders, and Shaun could made out the gentle sweep of her clavicles, the nook of her neck’s nape and the delicate musculature above it; his eyes examined the set of her round jaw, the tiny dimple on the end of her nose, the subtle arch of her neat eyebrows … All striking, yet there was something in her eyes that turned the attraction to compassion, because they looked sad and cheerless, and it was this poignant accuracy on the painter’s part that made the portrait come alive for Shaun, because whenever he’d met the young woman after their break-up, she’d had that look, and it broke him inside.

He left the portrait and searched elsewhere.  He went through the kitchen, too modern to fit with the rest of the place yet too essential to do without; and then the bedroom upstairs, with the four-poster bed and the walk-in wardrobe; the library beside it, with its walls and walls of bookshelves, full of texts on science and experimental research, and then beside them in a kind of antithetical conflict were books on religion, and mythology, and sorcery.

Even more concerned now than when he set out, Shaun could think of nothing else to do except leave and look elsewhere.  He got back into his car just as the hail stopped, and brushed away the snowy crystals nestling in his woollen sweater.  He was troubled by Mæthea’s absence because when they had finally broken up she had been manic, raging and breaking things.  Soon after, he visited to check that she was okay, and found her dishevelled and gaunt through lack of food.  He’d fed her then, and kissed her on her forehead, cupped her soft cheeks in his hands, and then arranged for a nurse to check up on her every now and again.  Later the nurse called him to say that Mæthea was clinically depressed, and was on medication.

He was just starting the engine when he saw the figure standing behind the dilapidated ramparts of the castle, looking out over the hills.  He got out of the car.

‘Mæthea,’ he called. ‘My God …’
He rushed across the wind-exposed battlements, dizzy at the great height and freezing even through his thick jumper.  He took off his leather jacket and put it over her bare shoulders.  He held her and tried to button it up at the same time, but it didn’t work.  All the time he was saying, over and over, ‘Jesus, Jesus …’

*

‘What’s the matter with you?’ he said, taking her to the fireplace in the library and rubbing her arms, her legs, her feet, trying to warm them up. ‘Christ, standing out there like that … Catch your death of cold.’

‘Who are you?’ she said, gazing at him with those eyes he knew so well, the colour of which was indeterminate; it was time-wasting to try and figure it out.  Nearly always they were grey, and some days they looked like they had little flecks of blue in them, but then other days they had a hint of green, or strokes of hazel-brown.  Fruitlessly he had tried to give up guessing, but he never could then, and he still thought about it sometimes.

‘Mæthea, you’re freezing.  Why were you out there like that?  What if someone’d seen you?’

He had taken off his jumper and hurriedly put it on her, concealing the worst of her nakedness; but her hair was still damp from outside, and he was drying it fervently with a towel.

‘I think you think I’m someone else,’ said the girl. ‘My name is Dora.’

‘Dora?’ he echoed. ‘What, you’re Mæthea’s twin sister or something? 

You expect me to believe that?’  He pushed into her hands a hot drink. ‘I don’t know what you’re playing at …’

‘Have you seen the book?’ she asked sharply.

‘What book?’

She nodded towards the table, on which sat a leather-bound diary. ‘Please don’t speak to me again until you’ve read it.’

Shaun picked up the brown-covered notebook, eyeing the woman sitting so perfectly still nearby, and then sat and read, and didn’t look up until he’d absorbed the entire thing.

*

‘This is unbelievable,’ he said, shaking his head once he had finished.  He threw the book into the fire. ‘That’s what I think of that, Mæthea.’

‘You don’t believe me?  If you could look into my heart, you’d know.  If you could feel like I do, if …’

She broke off, not confused or hurt or even faintly embarrassed.
‘According to that, you don’t have a heart.  You’re made of ashes, and magical oils.  You’re a golem, it says, a mystical clone,’ he cooed, waggling his fingers. ‘Mæthea, if you think for one second I’m going to believe any of that rubbish you’ve got another thing coming.’

‘She named me Dora,’ said the girl, standing up and looking into the fire.  If she had harboured any desire to rescue the burning book from the searing flames, it was too late now; the diary was ashes. ‘Just like me,’ she murmured.

‘Stop talking rubbish.’

‘Look here,’ she said, walking up to him and lifting up the sweater; he closed his eyes to her exposed chest and shook his head. ‘No, here.  See that, over my heart?  That grey mark?  That’s a burn she left on me, with a machine.  She’s got the same mark.  You can’t read up on it now, you’ve given your only proof to Hell, but it’s true.  I came out of that furnace with her lying beside me, and she took off my mask, the one she made for me from onyx stone, and showed me what light was.’

Dora had showed her fire, and then water, and food, but kept Dora locked away.  She regularly had them both wired up to equipment shaped like tendrils and ribcages, electrodes piercing both their hearts, and she had said, over and over, No longer will I hurt, no longer will I suffer, no longer will I cry, my darkness I give to you …

And, as soon as Mæthea switched on the machines, she gave to me all her negative emotions; her hate, her rage, her misery, her grief, her remorse.  They were all that Dora felt.  She was made of them, of churning tangible sentiment; Mæthea had filled Dora up like a bottle with water, then sealed the lid forever.  Whenever she was in pain, here – Dora touched her heart – Dora would fell that pain in its entirety, freeing Mæthea of her torment.  And, though with the same machine Mæthea had blessed Dora with sentience and language and will, Dora would never forgive her, because whenever Dora tried to imagine happiness or rapture or joy Mæthea took them from her, through the ether to wherever she was, and steal them entirely.

*

‘Stop,’ Shaun said, frowning, his hands on her shoulders, ‘alright, okay, just stop, please … Dora.  I’ll say I believe you.  But where is Mæthea?’

‘I don’t know,’ she said simply, looking up mournfully. ‘I have no idea.’

‘She left you?’

‘She was disgusted with me.  After she had done what she did with the machines, I think our minds grazed each other.  I felt everything from her, her love for a man, and the hate and pain that came with it.  But she knew what was in me, too, and there was nothing, because I wasn’t a person yet, not really.  And she was horrified, I think, but it was too late.

‘She left me alone, and only came down once in a while to feed me.  Whenever she did, I got the feeling that she was pleased with herself, that she thought whatever she wanted to do was happening, that I was becoming useful.  But I never felt pleased at that, and I never felt wanted, or loved.’

Shaun looked at her and he felt himself believing.  She was looking at the floor, wrapped in both the towel and his damp sweater. ‘You’re getting melted hail on the carpet,’ he said quietly, not as a reprimand but just as a signal to say, I’m going to take you upstairs and get you dry, but when she looked up he saw that it wasn’t melted hail, but tears from her eyes.

‘I’m in so much pain,’ she whispered, all strength gone from her voice, and then burst into silent tears, her shoulders trembling, her hands over her face.  He sat next to her, and realised he believed her completely, that he had done since reading the diary, really, because in it had been a photograph of two identical women, naked for empirical evidence; they had been standing in front of a large mirror, and one of them had taken a photograph of the reflection.

‘Don’t worry,’ he said. ‘My name’s Shaun.  I think I’m that man Mæthea talked about; we used to be engaged, but now we’re not, and I think because of that she got upset.’

‘Not upset,’ Dora said, her face buried in his chest, ‘not just upset.  She was destroyed inside.  I can still feel it.  She was completely destroyed.’

*

He took her to his home, and gave her some of Mæthea’s clothes that she had never had the courage to come and pick up.  She instantly picked out what Shaun knew had been Mæthea’s favourite indoors outfit; a pair of faded jeans, a white blouse with winged lapels and cuffs intended for links, but she’d always just folded them back and left them open.  He gave to Dora all of Mæthea’s abandoned possessions – hair straighteners, cosmetics, the rest of the clothes – and let her stay in the spare room.

That night, he called the castle six times, half an hour apart, and got no reply.

They found they had little to say to each other, but Shaun discovered that whereas Dora had the capacity for speech, she didn’t possess any memories or knowledge other than that which she had earned since her creation.  He showed her his drawing room, with its book-lined walls, and pulled out the most useful, things like encyclopaedias and dictionaries and his own favourite works of fiction: things he had always wanted to share with Mæthea but which she’d found uninteresting.

After Dora had finished with those, only a few days later, she told him that she’d remembered almost all of it, not photographically, but as if the pathways had already been there in her brain, and she’d just needed to walk down them again to make them stick.

The second night she asked if she could prepare him some food, and made him a simple meal of chicken breast, boiled potatoes and other vegetables; it was well done, and Shaun enjoyed it, but didn’t tell her that it was the only meal he himself could cook with any talent, and that Mæthea had been so sick of it during their relationship that she had cooked all the meals after the first few weeks since they moved in together.

When she’d finished reading the classics – interspersed with favourites from his DVD collection – she began reading fiction which she was most interested in; things focussing on religion and myth.

She became absorbed, and Shaun noticed in her manners of speech and behaviourisms that he had grown so used to with Mæthea.  Quite often when speaking to Dora he called her by the other name, and most of the time she simply looked blankly at him, as if she felt she should be angry but couldn’t.

But she was miserable.  He found her crying almost every other night, and he tried to comfort her but knew he would never succeed, because a woman who could feel no joy could also feel no consolation; and her pain would never heal, because it wasn’t hers to get over, but another woman’s, who was elsewhere, unreachable – though Shaun certainly tried, after spending hours with Dora holding her, kissing her tenderly on the forehead or cheek, and he was enraged that Mæthea would do such a thing, and confused at how it could even happen, and yet curious at how it had been done.

For a fortnight they lived together, and tried to become friends, but it was impossible.  He played with her all the games he had done with Mæthea, but neither of them had the same enjoyment out of them, and thought they never would.

They drank wine, and got drunk together, and he had leaned with inebriated expectations into her whenever she felt particularly upset, but got no response; even when sober he found himself wanting her – because if she was anything, she was beautiful – and knew he was falling for her, this new yet familiar woman, and he tried to make advances, not to push her, not to take advantage, but just because he couldn’t help himself.

She kissed him once, on the lips, and he held her by the face like he used to with Mæthea, stroked her neck in that way he knew Mæthea liked, and their mouths worked as if with passion, and he felt the flicker of a tongue on his once or twice, but afterwards she said she was feeling nothing, and he didn’t tell her so, but he felt like he had been kissing a robot, one programmed with technique yet unable to understand the reason for doing it; and when he looked at her, into her eyes, she looked like a robot too, pokerfaced except for the uneasy knotted brow, the cause for which he knew came from somewhere else.

*

Mæthea came after three weeks.  She still had the key to Shaun’s house, still remembered his address and how to get there, even though they’d lived together for less than a month.  He had found her compulsiveness towards her work – in the field of experimental sciences – distressing, and her almost obsessive interest in strange folklore and the magic equally so, and that was why she’d moved out, and they broke up, and when she’d bought the castle with her grandparents’ inheritance money and insanely large research grants.

Shaun wasn’t in that day, at work because he had to; he’d taken all his sick days in the two weeks since he had found Dora, and now he couldn’t risk losing his job, because he was paying for two now, and he didn’t have the inexhaustive bank balance that Mæthea did.

Dora had been in the drawing room when her doppelgänger appeared in the doorway, looking at her with hurtful recognition. ‘I knew you’d be here,’ she said.

Dora stood. ‘So you realised I was missing?’

‘I’m sorry to have left you, Dora, I really am; you were mine, I named you so you were mine, and I abandoned you, but you know why.  Can you feel my remorse?  Because I cannot.’

‘I know your disgust for me, your abhorrence,’ Dora replied mechanically. ‘I can feel that.’

‘And Dora, I can feel your love.  That’s how I knew you were here, because of that love you were feeling for Shaun, that which I was taking from you.’

She was filled with a kind of anger, but cold and rational; she said, ‘Dora, I’ve made a mistake.  I knew it as soon as I flicked the switch, because though you can take the pain of the loss of love from me, I cannot feel happiness.  Lack of dark emotions does not guarantee lighter ones … I’m empty, Dora, I’m a shell, and I know you are too.  I’m sorry, I’m sorry …’

And then she revealed the object she had been carrying, a knife, and when she tried to hate Dora, to want to murder her, that passion passed magically to the clone instead, and she felt it all when the archetype was cold; it filled her like fire, and her heart turned to ashes again.

They wrestled with each other, but Mæthea had no fuel to fight with, and Dora had unlimited access; so easily she took from her the blade, and pierced her heart with it.  Mæthea gasped, mouthed something inaudible; she fell and landed by the fire, her arms neatly by her sides, her face slightly turned and her eyelids closed; she looked as though she was asleep, Dora thought, or a doll.

‘Dora,’ Shaun said suddenly: he was in the doorway, in his suit, his briefcase in his hand.  His voice sounded appalled and repulsed.
He dropped the briefcase and stepped around the body, looking at it silently, pale-faced.  He looked as if he was about to move to Dora, but then realised half-way he wouldn’t make it, and lowered himself slowly, shakily, into a chair.

‘I did it,’ Dora said impassively, sitting as well, in the seat opposite, ‘but now I’m at a loss.  I can’t love by myself, and I can’t hate because Mæthea is gone and she supplied me with it, so I am hollow, and it’s painful in itself; there’s a void in me, and that can be endured for only so long.  Shaun … Shaun, that’s what she said, with her last breath …’
‘That’s my name …’ he said quietly.  On the table between them Dora had placed the bloody knife, and his unfocused eyes took in the blurred outline of it, and its crimson edge.

She was speaking. ‘Shaun, I want you to end it; I can’t generate my own passion so that I can do it myself.  Will you end it for me?  Will you give me this?  Shaun, if I could love, I’d love you, but I can’t, and without that, I can’t do anything.’

He looked up, at those eyes, and they weren’t just of a colour indecipherable, but without hue altogether; blank, grey like ashes.

‘Shaun,’ she said.

His lips moved, trying to speak.  His eyes fell once more to the knife on the table.

 

*

 

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