More Nightmares

Dear reader, please don't be too harsh on this trio of attemptedly scary tales. Remember I was writing a hundred of them. I wanted to write as many different types of horror story as I could. I concede that calling some of them horror stories is a stretch in itself. I found it especially difficult coming up with non-supernatural tales, but I wanted a good smattering of those, too. These three are not amongst the best, but they might at least rouse your interest.

Going Back

It had been a long, long time since Gregory had taken a bus.

It was a strange feeling, but then again, everything this weekend had seemed strange. It had all started with meeting Debbie. Once upon a time, he had intended to marry her. But when they ran into each other in the carpet shop, it had taken him a minute or two to remember her name.

He had spent the rest of the day trying to remember their time together. They had been together for more than two years, before she went to university in England. He had gone to study engineering, and met Yvonne. He’d imagined himself in love with Debbie, because young men need somebody to imagine themselves in love with. But his love for Yvonne was as real and solid as a suspension bridge that doesn’t even buckle when a train hurtles over it.

Memories had come back, but slowly. And so much was missing. He couldn’t remember their first meeting. He couldn’t remember them saying goodbye before she went to England. He knew that they had spent hours together every day, for months. But nothing was left to him besides a few images, a few snatches of conversation.

He remembered them sitting on her bed, laughing over an nineteen-fifties girl’s comic that Debbie had found in a sale of work. The advice column had been almost Victorian in its quaintness. He remembered them eating chips on the way home from a terrible zombie movie. He remembered her laughing at his impression of Ronald Reagan, as they walked home from school. Those were pretty much his only memories of their time together, and they were like snapshots.

As soon as he’d come from his meeting with Debbie, he’d gone upstairs to the spare bedroom, where he’d kept the satchel full of adolescent memories. He hadn’t opened it in over ten years. But somebody else must have, because all that was left was his school reports and his college projects. All the film reviews he had written for the college magazine, all the narcissistic diaries from his teenage years, and the absurdist comics he had sketched out during free classes, were gone.

When he asked Lauren and Kate about it, they gave him baffled looks. “Why would I go looking through your old stuff?”, Lauren had asked, looking up from the text message she was writing. There had been genuine bemusement in her eyes.

That Lithunian cleaning lady must have stolen them, he thought. He had caught her once, looking through a pile of CV’s that he’d taken home to read. God knows why she’d steal them, but a woman that muttered to herself incessantly wasn’t ruled by logic.

The bus was getting more crowded now, as they moved closer to town. God, Greg hated the city. Moving to the village had been his best decision. Aside from ditching his job and going into business for himself, that was. The city was full of drifters. Some of them wore grubby anoraks, and some of them wore smart suits, but none of them had a clue where they were going. They were pushed around like litter in the wind, he thought, looking out at the drifts of rubbish that jerked along the paths in the October breeze.

He got off at Moore’s estate agents. At least that didn’t seem strange. He’d got off the bus here all through school and until the third year of college, when he’d moved out of his parents house and got an apartment with Yvonne.

People said the pace of change in villages and small towns was slow. It was much slower in cities, Greg thought. Shops closed and opened in cities, and commuters didn’t even notice. Dublin was ten times sleepier than Shanlee. Sleepy? It was in a perpetual stupor.

He might have phoned up his old friends, but he’d drifted out of touch with them in the last few years. He wasn’t even sure if the numbers he had for them were current. It had been hard to talk to them, ever since Centaur Solutions had started making money. Their horizons were so limited. They lived vicariously through soccer and movies, and resented him for not having time for either.

He walked down the row of smog-blackened bungalows, past the special needs school, past the the tennis-courts and the church that looked like a spaceship, past the credit union. He knew exactly what he was looking for.

Him and his friends had written their names in wet concrete, on the path outside the off-licence, on the day of a World Cup Final. He had scrawled his name all over walls in this area, but doubtless they had been painted over now. He felt pretty confident that day’s work would have endured, though.

It did. But he gave a start when he saw what it read:

SALTY MOORE
JOHN O DRISCOLL OH YEAH!
JOHN PAUL CRONIN BURGER BOY
SHAZZIE
DAVID DOYLE THE ANIMAL

And, at the very end, where his own name had been:

GREGORY STEPHEN LAWLESS, MANAGER, CENTAUR SOLUTIONS


The Terror Machine

“Are you sure you want to do this?”

Chester laughed nervously, looking at the leather-upholstered chair, the white plastic bowl lying on top of it, and the mass of machinery to either side. More than anything else, it reminded him of an electric chair.

“Are you really sure you want to give me second thoughts?”, he asked.

Dr. Henry didn’t laugh. He rarely did.

“I’m not going to let you go through with this until you tell me that you’re absolutely, one hundred per cent committed to this—experiment—with no reservations whatsoever.”

“I don’t even step into a bath without reservations”, said Chester Lewis.

“This is very serious”, said Dr. Henry, leaning towards Chester, his eyebrows shooting up. He was a tall man with bushy black hair, and he seemed charged with perpetual intensity. “I’m seriously considering aborting.”

“Oh, come on, Martin”, said Chester, clapping the neuroscientist on the shoulder. “Don’t take my banter for nerves. I’m always like this.”

“This is a very dangerous procedure, Chester”, said Dr. Henry, stubbornly.

“You’ve told me all that”, said Chester, lifting the bowl from the chair and sitting down. “So this is the thing that goes on your head?”, he said, holding the plastic bowl in his hands and examining it.

“That’s it”, said Dr. Henry, still with a disapproving frown.

“It just looks like a chunk of plastic”, said Chester. “Where are the nodes, the wires, the little prodding spikes?”

“All beneath the surface”, said Dr. Henry. “The receptors stimulate the brain centres by the gentlest of currents. That’s all it takes.”

“And that finds out what spooks me?”, asked Chester, glancing around the banks of machinery to his right and left. These were less streamined than the headpiece. In fact, they looked as though they were being built. They seemed like little more than two masses of wires, insulating tape and circuit boards.

“Exactly”, said Dr. Henry.

“And after that…”

“After that, we know nothing”, said Dr. Henry, sternly. “My aim is that the machine will have a cathartic effect, exposing the patient to his utmost fears, allowing him to overcome them. But that is far from guaranteed.”

“It’s worth it”, said Chester. Suddenly, he seemed serious, even solemn. He was a young man, not at all handsome, but with a face made pleasant by enthusiasm and good humour. He was the youngest ever vice-president of Barton Electronics. When a reporter asked him how he had reached such heights without ever being accused of ruthlessness or unfair dealing, he said: My greatest hope is to prove that success—business success, economic success, social success—comes from people working together, not cutthroat competition. My greatest hope is to prove that all men are essentially allies.

“I can’t believe you have any fears, Chester”, said Dr. Henry, his tone softer.

“You bet I do”, said Chester, fitting the plastic cap over his head. Dr. Henry frowned but didn’t protest. “I’m scared stiff of women, as you know.”

Dr. Henry gave a stiff smile, but he made no move.

“Come on”, said Chester, impatiently now. “You have my video waiver. Now go ahead and flick that switch.”

“Before I flick any switches”, said the neuroscientist, taking a transparent plastic box from a shelf on the wall, “I have to put you to sleep.”

“Maybe the big sleep, eh?”, said Chester, unbuttoning the cuff of his shirt and drawing the sleeve back.

“I’m going to administer the sedative, now”, said Dr. Henry, in a worn-out voice. “Good luck, Chester.”

“Thank you, Martin”, said Chester, as Barton Electronics’s Director of Research and Development pressed the syringe against his skin and pressed the plunger.

* * * *
“Chester? Chester? For God’s sake, Chester, wake up!”

Chester Lewis, his skin shining with sweat, opened his eyes. He was still screaming. It took him a few moments to focus on the man in front of him, but as soon as he did, he lunged forward and grasped him by the throat.

“Ches…Ches….no”

Chester squeezed and squeezed, watching Dr. Henry’s face turn a bright purple. He only stopped screaming when the neuroscientist’s fine features hardened in death. He was safe—for now. But there were millions of others out there, just as hellbent on murdering him as Dr. Henry had been. Life was a battle to the death. In his heart, Chester had always known it.


No Justice

A cold winter dawn was filling the sky when the ball finally ended. Figures in tuxedos and silky gowns streamed down the stone steps of the old Medical College. Generations of young people, dressed not very differently, had poured down those steps for more than a century and a half.

They lined up at the railings, scooped up one by one by the waiting taxis. One group of four were amongst the last left standing.

“Are you venturing over the river once again, Vinnny?, asked Ally, drunkenly.

“You know you can come back to our place?”, asked Celia, wrapping her willowy arm around the dark young man’s shoulders. They were all emotional.

Ally cackled. He punched Vinny in the shoulder. “How can you refuse an offer like that, bro? They’re both tanked to the gills. This will be your lucky night.”

“At least it will be somebody’s lucky night, then”, said Kathy. “Poor Ally, you didn’t get much change out of Mary Regan, did you?”

Ally let out of a gust of laughter at that, and locked Kathy in a bear-hug. At that moment a taxi pulled up.

“Well, if you’re going to retreat to the outer limits, you take this one”, said Celia, pulling open the back door, and ushering Vinny into the back seat. She spoke a few words to the driver, pushed the door shut, and the three friends waved as Vinny was driven away.

* * * * *
“Good night?”, asked the taxi driver, as they moved through empty roads, into the suburbs.

“The best”, said Vinny, feeling voluble. He had never felt so good in his whole life. “The very best.”

“I pick them up every year”, said the taxi driver. He was a man in his forties, lean, dark, lightly-bearded. “The Scullion’s Ball. My sister always fantasised about being asked to it. But she never was.”

“Maybe she will be, still”, said Vinny, feeling light-hearted and generous.

“She’s dead”, said the taxi-drive, curtly. “She died of breast cancer when she was twenty-eight”.

“I’m sorry”, said Vinny, taken aback.

“No, you’re not”, said the taxi-driver. The taxi began to pick up speed. Soon it was moving faster than any car Vinny had ever been in.

“Hey, what are you doing?”, asked Vinny.

“I’m sick of it”, said the taxi-driver, his voice suddenly agitated. “I’m sick of getting the crumbs of life. I’m going to end it, and I’m going to take one of you bastards with me.”

“You bastards?”, asked Vinny, expecting the car to slide off the road at any moment. “What do you mean? You think I’m rich?”

“If you’re not, you will be”, said the taxi driver. “Look at you. You’ve sailed through life. You got all the brains and all the looks and all the breaks. Look at those girls who were hanging out of you. I could never dream of anyone like that.”

“Hey, hey”, said Vinny, frightened to move in case it drove this lunatic over the edge. “What do you mean? The first thing I thought when I saw you was He’s cute.”

“Oh, you’re one of those, are you?”, asked the taxi driver.

“Are you religious?”, asked Vinny, hopefully.

“No, I just think it’s disgusting”, said the taxi driver. “Look, I hope you enjoyed your spoiled-little-brat big night out. Kiss goodybe to your glittering future. Kiss goodybe to your brilliant career. Forget the golf club and the executive box and the dinner parties.”

“I hate golf!”, cried Vinny, almost squealing with desperation.

“Shut up! Shut up! Shut up!”, shouted the taxi driver. He veered to the left, and they crashed into the rails of the small suburban bridge.

* * * * * *
“And they found him the next morning”, said Celia, shuddering.

“But really? The Tolka?”, asked Kathy. “It’s not very deep, is it? I’m surprised you could drown in it.”

“Well, apparently, you can”, said Ally. “Remember how cold it was, too? It must have been horrible.”

“Well, I don’t feel sorry for him”, said Celia, grimacing. “He deserved what he got.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t say that.”

They looked up. Vinny had returned to their table, brandishing a whiskey.

“I mean, he had a tough life”, he said, sipping it and lowering himself into his seat. “Bad luck right to the very end. I heard that, if he’d strapped himself in, he wouldn’t have flown through the windscreen like that.”

My Compliments to the Chef

Edward Fitzgerald, in his glorious Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, famously wrote:

Ah, Love! could Thou and I with Faith conspire
To grasp this sorry Scheme of Things entire,
Would not we shatter it to bits — and then
Re-mould it nearer to the Heart's Desire!

Everyone has felt like that sometimes. But I think that there's a lot more to be happy about than to be unhappy about it in the way the world is ordered. Yes, there's disease and oppression and violence and loneliness and a myriad other ills. And yes, these are real evils that are not to be overlooked through some kind of Pollyanna-like cheap optimism. They are why our world needed, and needs, a Redeemer.

But I think it takes a determined obtuseness to fail to see Providence at work in the structure of our world. It's quite the masterpiece in so many ways.

For a start, there's the division of the human race into two sexes. This fact is a source of endless delight. I can easily imagine a world which was asexual, which would be unspeakably boring-- but which is apparently the ideal of many progressive thinkers. (It reminds me of John Lennon and Yoko Ono's philosophy of Bagism.) A world which was divided into a myriad of sexes, as per the visions of many science-fiction writers, would also be less satisfying-- diversity is good, but it seems appropriate that something so central to all human life should be a dyad rather than a myriad.

It delights me that the man/woman difference is one that runs through every nation, every era, every family, every workplace, and almost every organization. It's a theme repeated in endless variations. Although ideas of masculinity and femininity have changed through the ages and across cultures, they're always very recognizable to us. The man/woman relation is endlessly fertile in more than the biological sense. It generates so much-- jokes, stories, poems, dance, folklore, clothes, games, and so on into infinity. It creates endless mystery, because no man will ever know what it is like to be a woman, transexual attempts nothwithstanding. And vice versa.

Ultimately our common humanity goes deeper than our sexual differences, of course. But I think it's glorious that our sexual differences go as deep as they do, and I don't understand how anyone would wish it otherwise. I take enormous, never-ending pleasure in simply contemplating this. Why would anyone want to bend genders? I don't understand that at all-- but the irony is that every attempt to subvert gender only ends up affirming it-- because you cannot create anything human outside those poles of masculinity and femininity, any more than you can create a new primary colour. All you are left with is Bagism as an alternative. And Bagism won't satisfy for very long.

Another source of endless delight to me, another dyad I contemplate with great relish, is the division between outdoors and indoors. Can you imagine if the climate of Earth was so hospitable that we needed no clothes and no shelter? How dull would that be? How much fascination and drama does it bring into the world that space is divided into all these little spaces, made by walls and partitions?

Have you ever noticed how differently people behave outdoors than they do indoors? Study a photograph of somebody, say, who is walking through a street. There is something expectant, alert about their facial expression that you don't see indoors. Their heads are usually raised a little, scanning the horizon. They look a little lost, a little disorientated, but in an endearing way. Their very individuality seems fragile, precious, accentuated. They seem somehow smaller, but more themselves as well, as if by contrast with their environment. This is always what we notice when we run into a friend or a family member who is out and about, when we weren't expecting to see them. It's like really seeing them for the first time.

As for the indoors-- do I really need to laud the indoors? Anyone who's lain in bed reading while the wind whistles outside knows the joys of the indoors.

Whereas I despise gender-bending, I have always been fascinated by places that are neither indoors or outdoors, or that are both at once. Even something so simple as an indoor shopping centre possesses this fascination. If you walk out of one of its shop into the main mall, you are walking out, but you're still in. I savour the Russian doll aspect of that. I can't explain the fascination any further.

Personally, I've always been more of an indoors man than an outdoors man, though I like the outdoors in its own way. I especially love places that are windowless, like cinemas and oratories and bathrooms.

Another aspect of the world that I relish, every single day, is its division into nations and peoples. Once again, I fail to comprehend how anyone could regret this. It's easy to imagine a single language, culture and social system prevailing over the entire Earth. But why would anyone want that? I've never really understood why provincialism is a bad thing, or why it's an insult to consider something or someone exotic. (Nor do I understand what's exciting in the concept of a 'global village'. I prefer a world full of villages myself.) It gives me considerable pleasure to think that China and India and Mongolia are like alien civilizations, so far out of my ken that I barely know the first thing about them. The world is always bigger, far bigger, than any one person can grasp. It makes me especially happy that even educated, informed people can simply not have heard of some countries-- or at least, know next to nothing about them. (What do you know about Kyrgyzstan?)

I'm not as hostile to multiculturalism as I used to be. I've come to think that national character and national difference are compatible with a high degree of multiculturalism. Just look at America, which might be the most vibrant culture on Earth but also the most multicultural. On second thoughts, it's not so much that I've become less hostile to multiculturalism, as that I've simply stopped believing that multiculturalism is really possible. Whatever new synthesis comes about when cultures mix, it's not multiculturalism.

But, of course, the jubilant diversity of mankind isn't exhausted by diversity at the national level. The existence of regional accents is yet another of those joyous aspects of reality that we seem to overlook all too easily. It makes me especially happy that these don't appear to be eroded by television, radio and other forms of mass communication.

Then there's childhood. I've often heard it claimed that human beings have the longest childhood (so to speak) of any animal on Earth. I don't know if that's the case of not. But there certainly seems to be something essentially human about childhood. If human beings could spring into adulthood fully-formed, we would feel they were less than human. Even the most hard-headed materialist, I think, would concede that childhood is something spiritual as much as something physical or developmental or biological. If we could find some kind of drug to speed up childhood, I imagine very few parents would have recourse to it (unless from motives of dire economic necessity).

I can imagine the reader smiling at the obviousness of this reflection. But that's the whole point. It is obvious. It's too obvious. Nobody ever seems to remark upon the desirability of childhood, of the nature of the human life cycle. Why do we take it for granted? Why do we miss the artistry, or at least the apparent artistry?

And let me not forget the division of time into days and nights. I can imagine our lives being one continuous, uninterrupted flow of time, without the punctuation of sleep or night. The very thought seems hideous. Days possess a unity of their own. Each one has its own mood, its own theme, its own uniqueness. They are divided by each other by little streams of dream and oblivion. We wake up and the world is newly-minted again.

Of course, I am well aware that a tough-minded scientific materialist would read this and smile knowingly and say: "But you approve of all this because you're predisposed to approve of it. Haven't you heard Douglas Adams's parable of the puddle?". Yes, I have, and I find it unconvincing. Human beings complain about the limits and pain of human nature, and the flaws of the world we find ourselves in, very often. These are often made the basis of scepticism about a Divine Providence. Surely, if criticism is permitted, praise has to be permitted.

Oh, and that reminds me-- there's also the miraculous fact that human intelligence is self-reflective, and that we can imagine things as being other than they are. I suppose the puddle would congratulate itself upon that, too. If puddles could think. Which they can't.

The Poetry of 2008

What were you doing in 2008? I was writing these poems, not believing in anything supernatural and getting rather unreasonably depressed about the soullessness of modern society.

Carpe Diem

(I wouldn't write such a facetious line about Heaven today. But I was an atheist/agnostic when I wrote this.)

They say we should live each day like our last
He thought, sorting his stuff,
The seven cardboard boxes that contained his past.
It might be tough
To hold a Doomsday frenzy all year long
Like striking the finale of a song
With every breath.

Which day would he have chosen, from all these,
To be his only one?
The snag with Heaven is, no angel sees
Much besides endless sun.
Repent those endless hours spent playing chess;
Those trashy novels read three times; confess;
Remember Death.

But days are fiction of the calendar.
We live from joy to joy
From hope to hope. A life has time to spare
Or is no life at all. The clock is slow.
Days die asleep, and wisdom sees them go
Without regret.


War Songs on the Bus

('Captain Moonlight' was a term used for violent agitation in Irish history. All the details in this poem are based on an actual childhood experience of mine, apart from the destination of the school trip. Even the lines sung are exactly what I heard my classmates singing.)

When I die in a combat zone, they sang
On the bus for the fourth class trip
To see the hut where the Captain Moonlight gang
Would come to swear eternal membership.

Lay my arms across my chest, they piped
In voices that were months away from breaking.
The smartest girl just smirked. How stereotyped!
But the smartest boy was shaking.

He'd read about the trenches and he knew
That the comics had it wrong. But he read them all.
And he closed his eyes and was back in World War Two
With these idiots answering their country's call.

Tell my momma I did my best, they trilled
As fervently as if they drove to Hell.
Something was fair about young men getting killled--
Somehow the comics had it right as well.

The bearded teacher in folded jeans just smiled.
He taught them about the ozone layer and the whales
But history lessons turned him into a child
Playing with soldiers and telling heroic tales.

The wheels on the bus go round and round, they'd bawled
Five years ago, but the wheels had turned and turned
And reached the same old place where nature called
And boys remember all they'd never learned.


Alive Alive Oh!

(This was my lament for the supposed decay of oral folklore. I was extremely depressed about things like that, at this stage in my life. Now I'm not so sure that oral folklore per se has decayed-- though street-calls and riddles and children's chants certainly have, and this is certainly something to mourn. I presume all my international readers are familiar with Molly Malone and her wheel barrow. "Molly Malone has turned to stone" is a reference to the statue that was built to her honour. The 'gleaming hypodermic' is a reference to the Spire of Dublin-- a huge steel pin erected in Dublin's O'Connell Street, which I here take-- and not unfairly, I think-- to be representative of post-national, post-Catholic, post-anything Ireland, anti-septically ahistorical and culturally neutral. It's awful. Maaaa is what Dublin kids scream when they are calling their mothers.)

The only songs that pass from mouth to mouth
Today are terrace chants. Now 'characters'
Are given therapy. Young girls still shout
Maaaa to be heard for miles. But in the yard
The children talk about last night's TV.
Molly Malone has turned to stone
And is locked up in a postcard.

People don't die any more when they get infected
And hunger and cold are minority fears.
That gleaming hypodermic they erected
Fends off the dirt of centuries forever.
Were children in bare feet really so happy?
Oh, Molly Malone has turned to stone
And quite escaped the fever.


The Seagulls

I said to the sea, You have your tide
That comes and goes while we live and die.
You have the seagulls' eternal cry
But already I feel myself withering.

But the morning gloried, the sun defied
The thoughts that held back the surge of sleep.
It said, The Sea is so deep, so deep
And does not care for your perishing.

And the seagulls' ravenous, ceaseless calls
Invited me in to the endless urge.
They said, Do you see how the waves still surge
After thousands of years of their clamouring?

And there, for the briefest of intervals,
Eternity showed itself to me
And I understood the song of the sea
And the truth of the seagull's carolling.


Dice

(Poets have written a lot about the poignant contrast between Art and Life, but lamentably little about the poignant contrast between board games and life. Ludo is the simplest board game, where you simply roll and move. I've just read on Wikipedia that it's sometimes sold as Parcheesi in America. The reason Clue is called Cluedo in Europe is to pun on the word 'Ludo'.)

It doesn't hurt when it's done like this,
When laughing about it isn't false.
On Winter nights, between four walls
With plastic pieces standing for us.
I look like a hippopotamus
And Tommy's a crock, and Anne and Chris

Dropped out between twenty and twenty-five
But the dice roll here without causing pain.
A cardboard world without loss or gain--
If only you really could clear the board
And start a new game. It's plain absurd
That you get one shot at being alive

That snake's eyes follow you all your years.
Life is more like Ludo than chess.
Your parents rolled for you, more or less--
Forget about it, and take your go
And a biscuit, and hark how the cold winds blow,
And hide in a small world strange to tears.

Chapter Twenty-Eight to Thirty-One of The Bard's Apprentice

For narrative reasons, I thought it would make more sense to post four chapters rather than the usual three chapters today. Fox, as you may remember, has just been magically whisked from the Ezwayna settlement to the Anarchy.

Chapter Twenty Eight

It was even colder here. People were stepping carefully on the paving-stones to avoid slipping on the frost. Little clouds of breath rose from them.

The first emotion Fox felt was panic. He had heard so many stories of the Anarchy. He expected to be attacked within seconds. But, looking about, he did not see any nervousness upon peoples’ faces. They did not look afraid. Many were smiling and joking. It was a crowd much like the crowds he had seen in the Empire, when Grandy brought him to fairs and markets.

All the same, he found himself turning around every few moments, fearful of an attack from behind. He was ready to flee if anybody so much as spoke to him. But few people even looked in his direction. When they did, their eyes lingered on his greatcoat for a moment or two, but even then they did not seem greatly interested.

Looking about, he could see why they would find his coat remarkable. The people of Arganth were dressed much more colourfully than the Ezwayna had been, or even the people of the Empire. Red, yellows and oranges were especially popular, although black featured heavily as well. Flags and streamers were everywhere, though it did not seem to be a festival day.

Steam rose from stalls selling hot drinks and cakes, and knots of people gathered around them, chatting and laughing. There was a small congregation gathered around three young men who were keeping a small ball in the air, using only their shoulders and elbows, while a young woman played a whistle of some sort.

There were perhaps four hundred people in the square. There had been as many people in the assemblies of the Ezwayna, but these were strangers. People who hardly even noticed each other. Suddenly, it was an odd and frightening idea.

The buildings at the edges the square were all three or four stories high. Most of them were built with bricks of several colours and shades. Diamond-shaped windows predominated. Many had huge, richyly-dyed curtains covering the entire front, with openings for the doors and windows.

He kept turning around, both from a desire to take it all in and a fear of being attacked.

It took him a few moments to wonder what he was going to do. He felt a wave of panic gathering power, and fought it down. An idea struck him. He’d got here by wishing. Maybe he could get back the same way. He concentrated on the Ezwayna settlement, just rousing itself from sleep now. He closed his eyes, and wished for it with all the desire he could muster.

But even before he opened his eyes, he could hear the bustle of the square around him. He tried again a few times, visualising a different part of the village each time—the tamzan he shared with some young men, the Great Hall, the Spiral House—but nothing happened. Those thousands of miles remained between him and the village. Up until this moment the distance had felt unreal, simply an idea. All of a sudden it was as true as steel or stone.

Now he was beginning to panic. Every other time the purple flash had taken him to a different place, there had been friendly faces on the other side, the faces of people he knew. Now they had all melted from his life. He was alone.

Somebody spoke behind him. He twisted around, frightened. It was a woman with greying hair and a kind face. She ran her hand along the fabric of his greatcoat, admiring it. She spoke again, looking up at him for a response. Of course, he could not understand the language she spoke. He backed away, instinctively, but smiled. She looked offended for a moment, and then confused. She smiled herself, somewhat uneasily, and hurried away.

Feeling vulnerable in the great open space, he moved towards the buildings that surrounded the square. Now there was only one course left to him. He had to find Swan.

If he’s still alive. The thought came immediately. Many of the Ezwanya had died on their journey from the Anarchy. Armala thought that many would die on their return to it. They had told stories of disease, ferocious creatures, even insects with poisonous bites. And then another anxiety struck him. What if Swan had not perished, but was still journeying through the wilderness? He felt sick to think of it. And eaten up with remorse for the wish he had made. But how was I supposed to know it would do this?, he asked himself.

The crowd thinned towards the edges of the square. There were little banks of grass, complete with trees and shrubs, planted here, along with small statues of various animals. He looked towards the buildings. Most of them had huge front doors, taller than several men. Burly doormen in uniforms were standing guard. Nonetheless, people were freely walking in and out of the open doors.

Most of the buildings had writing above the entrances, but of course, they meant nothing to him. One had symbols, however. There were four in a row; a cross with the left arm longer than the others, a leaf, a spider, and a yellow circle. Suddenly Fox recognised them. He had seen symbols like that, drawn in dirt, and on dust, and on fragments of wood. The young Ezwayna who had become fascinated with the Star had used them. This building must be dedicated, in some way, to those whose signs were west, spring, spider and yellow.

But all that really mattered was finding Swan. Luckily, Fox had a keen sense of direction, and a gift for remembering what he’d seen. He had spent a long time gazing at the street-map in the book Swan had left him, and even without understanding the street-names, he felt confident he could find the house he was seeking. Monuments had been marked on the map, and the three-handed god was one of them. Swan’s house was on the other side of the city, and it was one of the bigger cities in the Anarchy. But how big could any city be, anyway?

So he moved through the streets, trying to look as if he knew exactly where he was going while scanning the streets for landmarks. It had seemed so straightforward on the map. Buildings that were marked out there blended into their streets in reality. Statues that he had imagined as colossal were, in fact, little more than life size. Some streets seemed to have disappeared. He got lost again and again.

He was cold, and tired, and hungry, and it took most of his energy to dam the flood of despair that threatened to overwhelm his mind.

He was in a narrow street with tall buildings and no traders when he saw a little girl begging for help from passers-by. Few people even looked at her, and those who looked did not slow down.

She was well-dressed, in a long purple coat and thick boots. Her sleeves and collar were heavily frilled, and her curly black hair looked as if it had been arranged that very morning. The curls were perfectly styled and glistened with lotion. Her boots gleamed with polish, and her eyes gleamed with anxiety.

But people were just walking past her. When she grabbed their clothes, they brushed her off.

Fox walked up to her, and she took his arm in her feeble grip as soon as she saw he was moving towards her. She was perhaps seven or eight years old. She began to chatter, with a rapid and pleading torrent of words. He could not understand her, of course, but he suspected that it would be hard to make her out even if he knew the language.

She began to pull his sleeve, as if wanting to drag him. Presumably, she wanted to take him to the place where she had become separated from the fools who had lost her. He looked around, hoping to see somebody in uniform, somebody with authority. He had seen none so far, apart from the doormen. Here, there weren’t even any doormen. Nobody went in and out of the buildings, which did not have signs above the doors.

He let the girl guide him. If they found her parents, they might be grateful and help him. They seemed to be wealthy. Perhaps if he drew a picture of a swan…

She led him all the way down the end of that street—nobody even looked at them—and into another, which was even shabbier. The buildings here were in bad condition, with weathered paint and crumbling masonry. There were fewer people about here, too.

Fox realised that he was in shock, and surprised at his own shock. He knew that the Anarchy was a heartless place, didn’t he? But somehow, nothing had prepared him for the sight of a little girl wandering alone on a bone-chilling day, appealing in vain to dozens of people. It seemed like a crime against nature. The young Ezwayna who dreamed of the Seven Nations would be just as shocked, he was sure. They thought the Elders must be exaggerating when they spoke about the Anarchy. Or just plain lying. They had no experience of evil, except for the attack of the Red Dogs, who most of them hadn’t even seen, and who seemed as inhuman as wolves or disease.

The little girl tugged at his arm again. She was leading him towards a narrower lane, edged with nothing but the walls of buildings whose entrances were in other streets. Rubbish was strewn all along the ground. It was deserted, apart from a gang of girls who were playing some hopping game.

He let her draw him down it, wondering whether she even knew where they were going. Perhaps he would see Swan’s house. The explorer had described it to him. It had Swan’s own symbol above the door: a white swan against a background of purple flames. It had a green slate roof, and the tops of the garden rails were shaped to look like waves.

He was still thinking of Swan’s house, trying to remember everything Swan had told him about it, when the girls jumped at him.

Two of them grabbed him from behind. They were gripping his arms, and kicking at the back of knees to force him down. He was amazed at their strength. He tried to break free, but it was impossible. Someone else had her arm around his neck. He thought she was going to choke him, but she only held him tight.

A few more girls appeared at his front. They were perhaps fourteen or fifteen years of age. They were dirty and ragged, but their clothes seemed to be of a good quality. There was no malice in their faces. They looked at him in the same way he had seen Spiral players looking at the board, or Ezwanya farmers looking at the sky. The little girl joined them, and one of them took her hand absent-mindedly. She stared at him, her eyes bright with curiosity, but she did not seem alarmed.

The older girls spoke amongst each other for a few moments. The tallest one shook her head. They seemed confused. Then one of them, a very thin girl with a white face, started to unbutton the front of his coat.

Fear burst over him. It was so cold. He might die without his coat. He started shouting, knowing they wouldn’t understand a word, but the arm around his throat tightened. They pulled the coat from his back, letting go of his arms only long enough to release him from it. The freezing air bit his flesh immediately.

They started going through the pockets. He knew there was nothing there except for a strange, rainbow-coloured shell he had found by one of the lakes, the day before. When they found this, they marvelled over it a few moments, and he felt the grip of the girls holding him loosen for a moment. He tried to break free, but they just clutched him tighter than ever as soon as they felt him pulling away.

Now he felt arms wind around his legs, a pair of arms for each leg. The tallest girl knelt before him, and started to unlace his boots. He tried kicking her, but it was no use. He started crying, and one of the girls gave him a disgusted look.

Soon they had pulled off his boots, and gone through the pockets of his trousers. It was difficult to think straight now; he was too cold to think.

Then the tallest girl stepped forward again, wearing a solemn expression. She gazed into his face for a moment, as if she was looking for a spot there. Suddenly her fist flashed towards him, and smacked against his nose. Pain filled him, and he fell to the ground as the girls let him go.

He must have passed out for a moment or two, because when he looked up again, his attackers were running around the far corner of the lane. The well-dressed little girl, being dragged along by the hand, waved her other hand at him before she disappeared around the corner. She looked sad.

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Fox had never felt cold like this. No matter how cold he had been before, there had always been the prospect of a return home, of sitting by the hearth and feeling the warmth of the fire lapping him. Simply having nowhere to go was the most incredible, the most brutal fact in the world. All around him were buildings and fires, but he could do nothing but shrink from the icy air.

He was too cold even to feel angry himself for being so gullible. He ran his hand along his face, and looked at his fingers. They were thick with blood. He looked down, and saw that his undercoat was spattered with blood. The cold air stung his bleeding nose.

He got to his feet, and began to run back to where he had been. He ran to warm himself, instinctively. His body was tired, but his mind had never been more awake.

People looked at him for a moment, and then looked away, knowing that he was in trouble. Trouble was better ignored; it could quickly become your own.

He no longer took in the strange sights around him. He had stopped trying to remember the map. Now he was just rushing through the streets, praying to see a white swan on a purple background. Once he almost ran in front of a horse-drawn carriage, and the driver hurled angry words at him. A mocking face looked out from it, an old man with sharp features and a long beard.

He couldn’t run anymore. He was jogging now, but he moved as quickly as he could, racing away from the chill. One or twice, he felt a faintness stealing over him, and his heart beat with a hope that the purple flash was about to take him back to the land of the Ezwayna. But it was nothing more than exhaustion.

Once he tried to run into a tavern, with no aim other than to escape from the cold. The doorman grabbed him from behind, when he had made it past him into the blessed warmth. His grasp was both firm and gentle, and the words he spoke were not angry. But he pushed Fox back out onto the street, back out to the grim and waiting cold. He stood before the door, arms folded, watching the boy without hostility or sympathy. Fox moved on, amazed by the indifference of the city.

He moved through street after street, square after square. He began to cry again when he saw the same dwarf-like fishmonger he had passed an hour before, shouting something that sounded like: “Riz-a-BEEL! Riz-a-BEEL! Riz-a-BEEL!”. He was going around in circles.

And then, when he had almost stopped thinking and was moving through the streets like a beetle along the ground, he saw it. The white swan on a purple background. For a moment he felt no surprise at all. He did not even feel joy, just a dull spark of recognition. Then the cold and the pain and the tiredness melted from his body, and the relief was sweeter than anything he had tasted or felt or seen before.

It stood there, a dream made real, almost exactly as he had imagined: the black railing whose tops rose and fell like the swell of waves, the green slate roof glowing in the afternoon sun, the embled above the door richly-coloured but faded with years. Even the arch of the swan’s neck seemed to say, Welcome. Welcome home, Fox. And behind it, the painted purple flames promised warmth.

He opened the gate, and strode towards the front door. It was painted green, too, with two long windows running its length. The iron knocker was moulded in the form of flames. Fox took the ring in his hand—it was so cold to his frozen hands—hesitated for a moment, and then knocked. He remembered standing at the door of the Great Hall, on the day of Casting Off, and beating on the door with a stone. It felt like no time at all had passed between that moment and this one; as if there was really nothing in life except banging at one door or another, begging for admittance. He was so cold and tired…

The door opened, and a woman stood there.

She glared at him. She was hollow-cheeked and a little older than Jasma. She wore a snow-white apron, and a leather strap hung around her neck. It showed a cross, an apple, a bat and a painted circle of green. A shawl of dark grey was around her shoulders.

As soon as she saw him, she slammed the door.

His hope died, but it was not replaced by despair. It was replaced by a cool, hard determination. He was going to get into this house, one way or another. He was simply not going to go away.

He knocked again, louder this time. He kept knocking, once every few seconds, louder every time. He heard the maid’s footsteps coming down the hall, quick furious footsteps.

As soon as she opened the door, he lunged inside. She tried to grab him, but he pushed past her with the strength of desperation.

He was standing in a splendid hall, but he had no time to look around. He saw a staircase of broad, marbled steps and rushed towards it, leaping up it two steps at a time. The maid was chasing after him, shouting. He kept on running. He turned a corner and ran up another flight, and another, and another.

He was aware of faces looking at him from behind bannisters. He could feel the house coming to life around him. He kept running, putting all his soul into the faith that salvation lay at the top of this staircase.

Then a man was coming down it; a tall, broad man, wearing a shirt and trousers the same grey colour of the maid’s shawl. He was not running. He did not seem angry, though Fox had no time to look at his face. He looked as if stopping people was what he was made to do, the very purpose of his existence, and he found it neither difficult nor a pleasure. He was already beginning to stoop, to grab Fox in his thick arms.

Fox ducked and ran between his legs. He had passed him before he realised he had done it. He raced up the stairs even quicker, hearing female laughter coming from above. It was dangerous to make fools of strong people.

But then he was at the top of the stairs, and four or five maids in dark grey were looking at him, startled that he had made it past the guard. Fox could hear the man bounding up the stairs. He looked around, and he saw a thick red door at the end of one passage, with a worn patch in the carpet before it, where many feet had stepped. There was a table outside it, with a green bottle and a set of long glasses on top of it.

He made a dash for it, and put his shoulder to the door. It was not even shut, and gave way easily. He hurtled through it, but his fall was impeded by something soft and clinging.

He got to his feet. It was a green curtain, made of some smooth, heavy cloth. It was only a few feet past the door, and it ran the entire length of the room room. He got to his knees, and lifted it, crawling past. It was surprisingly heavy. As soon as he was through, he felt his head brush against another curtain just like it. He could hear the manservant rushing towards the door.

He did the last thing he could think of. He screamed. He screamed, “Swan! Swan! Swan!”, feeling a moment’s surprise that the sounds were coming from his mouth, remembering all the nightmares where he tried to scream but could not.

He heard the rustle of the first curtain being lifted, and even desperation died within him. But at that very moment, there was a whirring sound, and the curtains began to rise.

“Fox?”, came the voice of Cambrice Swan, sounding far-off and muffled. The curtains continued to rise. Fox felt the hand of the manservant on his shoulder, squeezing it painfully. But he didn’t care now. He’d made it. He was home.


Chapter Thirty

The curtains rose slowly. The grip of the servant on his shoulder softened.

Green light filtered through the room. Fox looked to his side and could make out the bottom of a window, exposed by the rising curtains. A green curtain hung in front of it, and the light that shone through it was lettuce-coloured.

Now the curtains had risen to the height of Fox’s head, and he could see that the room was a very large one indeed. It was more like a hall than a room. It was almost as big as the Great Hall of the Ezwayna. A person standing at one end would have to shout to be heard at the other.

And, half-way down the length of the long room, he could see Swan, dressed in gleaming white. He could not see his face yet, but he had no doubt who it was.

The servant muttered something to him. It sounded both angry and nervous. He must have begun to guess that Fox was a friend of Swan. Fox felt no anger towards anyone. He was still shivering from the cold. All he wanted was warmth, and food, and drink. Nothing seemed to matter apart from that.

Now the curtains had risen above Fox’s head, above the servant’s head. He could make out Swan’s face now. He looked startled, his strange face seeming more comical than ever. He was standing by a lectern with a thick book open upon it, but after a few moment’s hesitation, he began to pace towards Fox. His steps rang out on the hard polished floor.

The servant, seeing the recognition in his master’s expression, took his hand from Fox’s shoulder, muttered something else—apologetic, now, rather than hostile—and stepped backwards. Fox had not once turned around to look at him.

Now, as light seeped into the room, he saw that there were strange figures and symbols on the tiles of the floor, coloured-glass mosaics upon the walls, and strange spiral-shaped pillars running from floor to ceiling. At least, he presumed they stretched all the way—the curtains were still rising, though they had risen far above his head now. The house had not seemed so huge from the outside. There was a fireplace in the middle of each wall, and a fire was burning in each one.

“Fox!”, said Swan, close enough now to be heard without shouting. “What in the nameless name happened to you?”

Fox remembered his bloodied nose, his shoeless feet. “I was attacked by some girls”, he said, wiping his nose with the back of his hand, and realising that it was still bleeding. His voice came out as a croak.

“An Arganth welcome”, said Swan, as if he was embarrassed for his city.

He gave some direction to the servant, who started talking over him, a stream of apologetic and anxious words. Swan waved his hand, and made some reassuring remark. Fox heard the servant hurrying away. His foosteps managed to sound both humble and relieved.

“I’m so cold”, said Fox.

“Thunder, have you been wandering around the city like that?” Swan glanced around the room, which was still only dimly lit. He stalked off to Fox’s left, and pulled a table-cloth off an empty table that was standing behind one of the spiral pillars. “Take this”, he said, hurrying back to Fox, and wrapping it around the boy’s shoulders.

The table-cloth was thin silk, but there was lots of it, and they managed to wrap it several times around Fox’s shivering form. Fox pressed it to his body, as if he was trying to stick it into his skin. He started to cry. Suddenly, all the fear that he had held back washed over him, even though he was out of danger.

“I’m sorry”, said Swan, putting an arm around Fox’s neck and shoulders. It made Fox remember the girls’ neck around his shoulders, and he sobbed even louder. “I’m should have been watching out for you. But I just reached here a month ago myself. I never expected….how did it you get here?”

Fox didn’t say anything. He kept crying. He wouldn’t even know what words to use, to explain what had whisked him here.

“Never mind about that now”, said Swan. “And I think I know the answer, anyway. I think you need cleaning up first. I told Tadd to get a bath ready for you. Better not leap into it too soon, though.” Fox winced at the very idea. His skin was still tight and tender with the cold. “Let’s get some proper clothes onyou first, and some food and drink inside you. I’m sure there’s a gaggle of maids outside this door.”

Swan was right. They stepped back when Fox and Swan emerged, and tried to look busy for a moment, before realising it was impossible. Then one of them—the woman who he had lunged past at the front door—asked an official-sounding question, with an attempt at a pleasant smile. But she looked furious.

Swan spoke to them for a few moments. They nodded and retreated, walking backwards for a few moments and then turning and half-running away. The woman who had been at the door shot Fox a look that did not even pretend to be pleasant.

“I’m sorry you had to meet Dandelion at the door”, said Swan, his arm still around Fox’s shoulder. “It’s a painful truth that the least pleasant characters make the most reliable servants. They worship their betters, and think their inferiors should be whipped every quarter-hour.”

Fox was too busy trying to stop his sobs to answer.

“As for Tadd”, said Swan, pretending not to notice the boy’s tears, “I think he begrudges me free movement around the house. He lies awake worrying that a spider might crawl from room to room. It’s a terrible thing when a man is ruled by a single idea.”

“Where’s Jasma?”, asked Fox, wishing he could see somebody from his recent life. Swan smiled.

“She’s on the other side of the city, living with Greatcastle, who quit as my servant as soon as we got home. He’d been saving his wages for a long time, and he became part-owner of an inn. Turns out Greatcastle had a keener mind than I gave him credit for.” Swan was leading Fox down the corridor now, back towards the staircase. “I’d been wondering why he was taking notes in that Spiral House of yours. He’s brought the game to the Seven Nations, Fox. I hear it’s already quite a success.”

“Spiral?”, asked Fox. He remembered the spiral-shaped pillars in the Swan’s hall of curtains, and felt he was sliding down an enormous spiral himself. That he had been sliding down that spiral for a long time now.

“Well, that’s what he calls it”, said Swan. “I don’t know whether your grandfather would consider it proper Spiral.”

Fox shivered and sobbed again as he thought of Grandy, who surely must have died in the winter air. Right now, that seemed the worst fate imaginable.

“Here we are now”, said Swan, as he guided Fox through a door at the end of another flight of stairs. Another door, directly opposite, was standing open. Maids were coming in and out, carrying plates and trays. They were lit by the keen yellow of firelight, glowing from the room within.

The room was rather small. It had a thick brown carpet, and a cabinet of model ships in one corner. Busts and portraits hung around the walls, all showing men men with proud, intelligent faces. Over the fireplace hung a portrait of a woman. The painter had done his best to make her look beautiful, but he hadn’t succeeded. There was something apologetic about her smile.

“Is that your wife?”, asked Fox, pleased that his voice hardly shook at all.

“Yes”, said Swan, softly. “That’s her. Sit down and eat, Fox. I’m sorry we had no time to make you something hot. But I don’t think you’ll mind too much.”

There was a table laden with food in front of the fire. It held enough food for ten men, pies and cakes and sandwiches and many foods that Fox did not recognise. There were two wide, bulging mugs and a jug from which steam was rising. The smell was almost too delicious.

“Thank you so much”, said Fox, as they took their seats. The maids had already slipped a thick robe around his shoulders, and put soft slippers on his feet. Now they melted from the room, all except one who stood behind Fox. He guessed it was the woman who had opened the door to him. “Thank you for all your—“

“Don’t talk”, said Swan, taking an apple and beginning to crunch into it. “Eat”, he said, through a mouthful of fruit.

Fox was glad to follow his instructions. He filled his mug first. It was some sort of spiced wine. The Ezwayna hadn’t drunk alcohol, and he hadn’t drunk much of it in the Empire. He had never liked it back then—it was nasty stuff, like medicine—but this was much nicer, he decided, when he had taken a cautious sip. It was sweet, and warm, and it made him glow after the cold of the day.

He drank a long draft, and another, and another. “Fill her up again”, said Swan, with a little smile, and Fox was quick to do so. He drank so quickly that he choked for a moment, but he didn’t care. The wine felt like liquid salvation.

He turned to the food. For a moment he hesitated, not knowing where to begin, but a small, glazed cake caught his eye. It was dark brown with a fringe of custard along the middle. He grabbed it and chomped down on it, and it was glorious.

They sat there like two boys hidden inside a pantry, feasting and gulping, paying no attention to table manners. From behind him, Fox heard the maid sigh with disapproval every few moments. The fire crackled, and Fox found himself staring into it more than once. It reminded him of the fire in Armala’s tamzan. He drowsily imagined that all fires were the same fire, that he could walk through those flames and Armala would be on the other side.

Eventually, they were full up, and Swan smiled at Fox.

“Do you feel better?”, he asked, with an impish glint in his eyes.

“Yes”, said Fox, who couldn’t resist smiling back, as if the entire morning had been nothing but an adventure.

“Good”, said Swan. “And now there’s a bath waiting for you, and a bed after that. I think you could do with both.”

Fox hesitated. “How long can I stay here?”

“How long do you want to stay here?”, asked Swan, smiling again. “Exactly that long. You might have noticed I’m not hard up.”

“No”, said Fox, feeling almost giddy with relief. If only Grandy could be here with me…

Another maid knocked on the door, and opened it when Swan said, “Enter”. She looked around and smiled at Fox. She was an older lady, and much pleasanter than the one who had opened the door. She spoke a few words, and Swan interpreted: “Time for your bath, Fox. Don’t worry. Nobody is going to watch you take your clothes off.”

Fox flushed, and laughed when Swan laughed. The maid walked into the room, extending her hand for him to take. He only felt a little bit self-conscious when he took it. It was even rather pleasant to be led by the hand; it had been a long time since anybody had held it.

Now the cold had disappeared from his body. He was warm, and safe, and full, and right now he could not imagine anything better than that. The old lady’s hand was smooth and rough, at once. She did not look back at him, but he felt her friendliness like warmth from a fire. The corridors of Swan’s house were bright and cheerful, so different from the shadowy halls of Grandy’s house in the Empire. He had loved that house, and he dreamed of it still, but he always felt like an intruder in some of its darker corners. Swan’s house welcomed him.

Two maids who looked like twins were standing before one door, watching them approach. A few words were exchanged between the three women, and one of the twins opened the white and green door. Steam wafted from it. She motioned him in, with a brisk gesture.

Fox went into the bathroom. It was a whole world away from any bathroom he had been in before. The Ezwayna had four bathing tamzans; one each for the boys and girls, and the same for the men and women. The boys’ bathroom was austere, an ancient-looking tub Fox had to squat to fit into. Lingering was not encouraged; one of the older boys stood in attendance, heating pots of water over a fire and making sure nobody stayed in the water too long. Except for the coldest times of year, the streams were much more attractive options.

In Grandy’s old house, there had been a bigger tub, but Jasma had been there to make every bath a trial, cursing every splash of water that hit the floor.

This bath seemed more like a miniature, indoor pool, sunken into the floor. It was made of green marble, and surrounded by small statues of the same material. Fox recognised them as water-sprites; he had seen water sprites in the illustrations to The Memoirs of Josper Stronghouse, the part where Josper joined the navy. Huge brass candle-holders stood all around the circular room, holding the biggest candles Fox had ever seen. They made the coloured-glass diamonds set into the walls sparkle.

A strange sound came from above him. It was like a musical sighing. He looked up and saw a series of differently-sized metal tubes hanging from the wall. Once again, the ripple of silvery noise passed through them. It took Fox a few moments to realise what they were; chimes that made music when they were touched by steam. He decided this was the most wonderful room he had ever seen.

He pulled his clothes off and stepped into the welcoming water. He was excited. Swan’s eyes were soft, but mysteries flickered there, deeper mysteries than Armala or Grandy or the Eldest would ever know. He was about to step into life.

The steam-chimes sighed with joy.


Chapter Thirty-One

They led him to a bedroom that had been made ready, and left him alone. There was one round window in the room, behind heavy blue curtains. He pulled them apart and gazed down at Arganth. It looked so different when you weren’t wandering through its streets, cold and lost and frantic. It was smaller than Silvershore, and looked somehow more compact. Once, back in the Empire, he had seen a model city in the window of an expensive toy shop. Arganth didn’t look too different from that. So pretty, and yet gangs of thieving girls roamed the street. And things far worse than thieving girls, too, he guessed.

Tiredness fell on him like a sudden shower, and he climbed into bed. He had never lain under such smooth blankets, or rested his head on such a plump pillow. He was sleep within moments, and he slept for fourteen hours.

The white-haired maid woke him with breakfast on a tray. It was fried mushrooms and eggs, with some kind of hard bread. There was a cup of something that looked like water, but tasted more like lemonade. It washed away the last of his sleepiness. He hated fried eggs, but ate them for the sake of politeness.

She came back when he was up and dressed—her timing was spooky—and led him down to a heavy mahogany door on the floor below. She rapped on it, smiled reassuringly at Fox, and headed back the way they had come. The younger maids had moved like ghosts. This woman moved less gracefully, but with more dignity. Her heavy footsteps seemed to say, I’m too old and sensible to pretend I’m not flesh and bone. Fox liked her.

“Come in, Fox”, came Swan’s voice from within, muffled by the heavy door. He turned the brass handle, and stepped inside.

It was a library. Thousands of books lined the shelves. Fox had never seen so many books. There were bookshops in Silvershore, but Grandy never took him into them. Some of the volumes were bigger than he had ever guessed books could be.

But there were more than books. Between the rows of shelves, there were tall wooden cases with glass fronts, divided into several compartments. He glanced at the nearest one. It was full of strange objects; the skull of a beast he couldn’t identify, a collection of coins, a folded banner that looked ragged and worn. There were statuettes, and knives, and a very old-looking bowl. Swan had risen from his desk at the far end of the room, underneath a heavy-curtained window, and was walking towards him.

“My antiques”, he said, following Fox’s gaze. “Not many people take an interest in the past anymore. Especially since the Legislatrix has declared it an unhealthy interest. To study wickedness breeds wickedness, that’s what she says. And there’s certainly a lot of wickedness in the past.”

“Grandy used to say something like that”, said Fox, gazing into at the nearest display-case. His face was reflected in the glass, over a monstrous-looking ceremonial mask. It was a slightly disturbing sight. “Although he used to talk about his own past all the time.”

Swan chuckled. He was wearing a light crimson robe, with baggy sleeves. “I wish the old devil had come with you”, he said.

Fox kept his face still, and said—with hardly a tremble in his voice—“I don’t even think he’s alive. He went into the wilderness, when he couldn’t play Spiral any more.”

“Oh Fox”, said Swan, turning from the display-case to look the boy full in the face. Fox didn’t want to meet his gaze. “That’s the worst thing I’ve heard in a long time. Grandy was a great man.” He said it like he meant it.

Fox only nodded. He didn’t turn around. He didn’t want to talk about Grandy. “What’s that?”, he asked, pointing at a silver medallion lying on a small black cushion. It had a green stone set in its centre. He pointed to it at random.

“That belonged to the great Queen Blackletter”, said Swan. “I don’t know if you’ve heard of her.”

“I’ve heard of her”, said Fox, remembering Truevow’s history lesson in the tent, while the rain was pounding down outside. He wondered if Truevow was still making his way towards the Anarchy. He wondered if Truevow was still alive. But he didn’t like thinking of Truevow. It made him remember the cruel words he had used to him, that had stuck in Truevow’s mind.

“Where did you get all this?”, he asked, for want of anything better to say.

“I bought it, of course”, said Swan. “There’s not much you can’t get for money. Not that it cost very much. Fifty years ago it might have, but there aren’t many collectors today.”

“I like them”, said Fox, trying to imagine the great queen who had worn this medallion, who had once been as alive as he was.

“Me, too”, said Swan. Then he sighed. “But sometimes they taunt me, these old things. All the money in the world can’t buy me a passage into the past. I can never meet Queen Blackletter, or see the Congress of Five Hundred, or go to one of Prince Bridgewarder’s parties. I can never hear Ravenwit’s conversation. So much, gone forever, only to be found in books.” His words were heavy as stone, and his eyes were glassy.

“But you have this home”, said Fox. “It’s like a palace.”

“Home”, said Swan, glancing around the room with a little grimace. “Home is my least favourite word. Home is the opposite of all adventure, all discovery. Roots are for trees, not men.” Then he smiled his wide, comical smile again. His eyes twinkled. “But as homes go, it’s not a bad one, I suppose. Let me show you around, Fox. Make a lot of noise so the servants can hear us coming and pretend to work.”

They went through room after room, most of which looked like they were rarely visited. There was a smoking-room, which Grandy would have liked. Some of the pipes on the shelves were so big, they looked like they might be hard to hold up. There were four leather armchairs facing into each other, in the corner of the room. Fox sat in one and had a little trouble getting back out, it was so soft and deep. There were paintings of inns and taverns on the wall. It smelled of old men, a rich, comfortable smell.

There was a room full of model ships, which Swan had built during his maried years. He ran a flag up the post of the largest one, for Fox’s benefit. He seemed rather proud of his handiwork.

They saw the kitchen, the laundry room, the balcony, the dining room. Each one was full of curiosities and pictures that Swan had picked up over the years. They didn’t go into the servant’s quarters, though. “Even the most powerful king doesn’t dare enter into some parts of his kingdom”, said Swan, gazing down the corridor which led to his servants’ rooms. “And I am far from being a powerful king”. He laughed, and led Fox back to the stairs.

The last door they came to was the red door that Fox had pushed in, the one that led to the hall full of curtains. “This is where I spend most of my time, when I’m here”, said Swan. “I call it my Hall of Veils. Let’s have a look.”

He opened the door. The green curtains had disappeared. The hall was bare, aside from a few pieces of furniture, scattered in apparently random places; there was a table, a bookcase, a washstand. There were no curtains on the windows, and morning light poured in, shining on the spiral pillars and the many-coloured tiles. The lectern still stood in the middle of the floor, with the same heavy book on it. Fox noticed now that a thick rope ran from the high ceiling to the floor beside the lectern.

“What were you reading?”, asked Fox.

“I’ll show you”, said Swan, and he moved towards the lectern, beckoning Fox to follow.

Closer up, Fox could see that it wasn’t just one rope that hung from the ceiling. It was several ropes, bunched close together. They had coloured rings around them at various points; green, and purple, and yellow, and more.

But the book was more interesting. Its pages were edged with gold, or something like gold. The paper looked old and stiff. There was a picture in bright dyes on one of the pages lying open, a picture that showed five linked circles with a baby in the middle. Fox couldn’t read the words, of course, but they were beautifully penned.

“What is it?”, he asked.

“It’s The Twelve Moons”, said Swan, and though he smiled, his voice was solemn. “The most famous magical book in the world.”

“You can do magic with it?”, asked Fox, feeling his heart beat faster.

“No”, said Swan, laughing. “No book can teach magic, Fox. When my wife was sick, and I was searching for a cure amongst the common people, I came upon dozens and hundreds of magical remedies and spells, from spells to cure hiccups to spells for contacting the dead. The one to cure hiccups seems to work, sometimes. The one that turns water to beer, never.”

“Magic is all lies?”, asked Fox, feeling foolish.

“Oh, no”, said Swan. “There’s magic all right. I’ve seen and heard too much to doubt that. But no man has even begun to understand it. Even a book like this has little more than a few good guesses, a whisper of the truth.”

Swan sighed at that, and looked sad, so Fox asked: “What happened to the curtains?”

The sadness disappeared from Swan’s eyes, and he looked at Fox with a self-satisfied smile. “Look at this”, he said, and he reached for the tangle of ropes. “I’ve always had a fascination with wires, and pulleys, and all that kind of thing”, he said, and he tugged on one of the ropes.

There was a whirring from above. Fox looked up. The ceiling was a grid of wooden beams and cords and bunched-up fabrics, like the rigging of a ship. Now, green curtains were beginning to fall from it. The light began to dim, and Fox saw that green curtains were coming down over the windows, too. Swan looked as absorbed and proud as a little boy.

“It may be a silly toy”, he said, pulling another rope. The green curtains paused for a moment and began to rise again. “But it amuses me. And it has, um, a special meaning for me.” He pulled on another rope, and after a few moments red curtains began to descend.

“What do you mean?”, asked Fox.

“Well”, said Swan, his eyes still on the curtains, “I get so tired of being in one place. Even when I’m reading, seeing the same place around me gets so…boring. I feel that I’m turning to stone. But all I need to do is pull a string, and—hey, ho!—the world changes around me!”

Now the red curtains had reached all the way down, and Fox could see that they were of different lengths. The curtains closest to them hung barely half-way down, while the ones furthest away reached to the floor.

“It reminds me that life is all about change”, said Swan. His face glowed red from the coloured light coming through the curtains. “That no place is ever really the same place, no person is ever really the same person, from moment to moment. The stars move around us, and inside us, the soul is always changing, too.”

Fox didn’t say anything. This was too much like Armala’s talk.

Swan saw the irritation on his face, and he laughed, his seriousness gone as soon as it had come upon him. “Never mind”, he said. “Let’s go and have something to eat.”

They ate an enormous dinner again, and Fox found himself wondering how Swan could be so thin. He certainly didn’t go easy at the table. He didn’t talk when he was eating, but launched into the food, and knocked back glass after glass of wine.

But after dinner, this time, they talked. Fox was taken aback when Swan asked him, as if it was the most natural question in the world, whether he had tried to appear in Arganth.

“No”, said Fox, after a few moment’s hesitation. “I was just thinking of one of the pictures in your book…the one of the statue with the three hands…and it just happened”. He remembered the shock of that moment, and almost felt its morning cold around him again.

“I thought so”, said Swan, with a brisk nod. “Why would you whisk yourself off there, and not here? Besides, even in the fairy stories, people rarely control such a power. It just happens.”

Fox looked at the maid attending on them, uneasily. He had always hated discussing his strange powers. The maid—not the one who had tried to keep him out, thankfully—was watching them. But of course she had no idea what they were saying. She looked bored, rather than curious.

He settled back in his chair. He felt the fire warm on his face, and the spiced wine warm inside him. Suddenly, he felt an enormous sense of relief. There had been interest in Swan’s voice, but none of the wolfish curiosity with which the Ezwayna children had hounded him, or the stern tone of Grandy’s questions about his vanishing act. He didn’t feel like a freak, talking about these things with Swan. He didn’t even feel unusual. In the sparkle of Swan’s eyes, everything seemed possible. And something in the way the man laughed, or poured wine into his glass, made Fox think that he knew much more than he pretended. That he knew more than Armala did; more, even, than the Eldest did. That some great secret was waiting here for Fox, that Swan was just waiting his time to reveal it to him.

“Tell me about the Empire”, Swan said now. “And the Shaddak, and Silvershore. Tell me everything you remember about them.”

Swan wasn’t just being polite. He really did want to know everything. He kept Fox talking for hours. About the Empire; about Spiral; about the Proximator; about Piper, and Truevow, and the frolic bears. Fox didn’t mention the coldfire stones, but he told him everything else. He told him about Armala’s lessons, and the sad gap that had opened between the Elders and the young people, and Goodfellow’s embarrassed efforts to talk to him.

He talked and talked, and Swan listened and listened, and asked him endless questions. The maids brought supper, and when they had wolfed that down, they talked some more. Fox felt good; he felt purged. He felt relieved of all that had plagued him in the last months, by the simple and magical act of telling it to somebody who wanted to hear.

When Swan had at last stopped asking questions, and was sitting gazing into the fire, Fox—surprised at his own boldness—asked, “What does it all mean, Mr. Swan? Why do I have these powers? Why did I come to you?”

Swan looked up questioningly at these last words, and Fox said, suddenly more timid: “I just thought…from the first time I saw you…that you were important. Important to me. That we were…meant…to meet, somehow.”

Swan smiled his broad smile again, and shook his head. “No more tonight, Fox”, he said. “Soon, but not tonight. Sleep now. You’ve probably talked more tonight than you have in a year.”

Fox tried not to look disappointed, and rose from the table. How could he sleep with this mystery gnawing at him? It was maddening. But he could see there was no use pressing his host.

He lay awake for an hour or more, but when sleep came, it was deep. Deep, and full of dreams. All sorts of dreams; his night of talk must have stirred memories. He dreamed of Grandy playing Spiral with No-Sooner, back in their house in Silvershore. I must say, said Grandy, taking his pipe from his mouth, you’re a good player, for a dead man. No-Sooner laughed, and his eyes shone like they used to, and he said: I’m too old for death.

Then he was listening to Jasma tell tales in the old kitchen, with the smell of frying in the air, and steam rising from the clothes Jasma hung by the fire to dry. Then he was sitting by Armala in the storyteller’s tamzan, and she was saying: You can come back whenever you want, Fox. Nothing is ever gone forever..

But then his dreams became troubled. He dreamed of the gang of girls who had stolen his coat and boots, but this time they did more. They held him down, and they had knives in their hands. One of them raised a knife above him—

And then his dream changed, and he was moving through the wilderness with Truevow a little ahead of him. He was so happy to see his old friend—he knew it was him, though he could only see his back—that he hurried up to him, grabbing him by the shoulder.

Truevow turned around, and horror shot through Fox. Truevow was dead. He was standing up, and he was looking at Fox, but there was no life in his face. And instead of eyes he had coldfire stones, gleaming under the winter sun.

Truevow’s hands shot around Fox’s throat, and his dead lips moved, and he said—in a horrible imitation of his living voice—“What dark star brought you to our home, Fox?”.

Fox tried to scream, but he couldn’t. One of Truevow’s hands had clamped over his mouth.

He opened his eyes, and he tried to scream, but still he could not. Something was in his mouth, something soft was filling his mouth. He tried to reach for it, but his hands were pinned to his sides. His legs wouldn’t move, either. He could feel them bound tight at his ankles.

It was dark, but above him something glinted. It took a few more moments for his eyes to focus. For those few moments, he thought he was about to go insane.

The glint became a bar of steel, a blade. It was hanging feet above his head. There was a wooden beam above it, with ropes running from it, running down past the edges of his bed.

He heard breathing, and looked to his right. He could just about make out Swan’s face in the moonlight. Swan was looking very sad.

“I’m sorry, Fox”, he said, and his voice was as gentle as ever. “This is really the only way.”

More Nightmares

Once again I open my treasure-cabinet of dark delights and invite you into my penumbrous lair. Wipe your shoes on the mat before you come in.

From the Deeps

Nathan stared into the glistening bubbles of his bath for a few moments before he stepped in. It was his unfailing routine. He loved these few moments, though they spooked him a little. He loved the faint crackling sound of the bubble bath, the tiny prisms of the bubbles.

He sighed, and stepped in.

Water isn’t your enemy, Nathan, his father had told him, those mornings on Ballycooney Strand, as they waded further and further into the tide. What happened…happened.

After a few days, it had gone beyond therapy and become a precious shared ceremony, the union of a mysterious trinity. Nathan, and his father, and Shay, who they refused to stop talking about.

Shay is with us in the water, said Nathan’s father. Don’t try to put him out of your mind, Nathan.

Water. Such powerful and conflicting memories had been superimposed over it now, that even seeing a drop fall from a dripping tap filled Nathan with emotion. He had never grown used to it, though he worked in sight of the stuff every single day.

He did feel his brother’s presence, he thought, closing his eyes and luxuriating in the warmth. Not as a metaphor, or a memory. In a very literal, actual sense, his brother was with him now. He could not see him, or hear him, or even feel a tingling on his skin. He just knew.

There were oceans of comfort in that feeling. He never felt more at home, safer, than he felt while he was sitting in the bath. The moaning and tapping of the pipes was the most reassuring sound he could imagine.

It was only when he was out of the water that the memories plagued him. He always had solid ground under his feet when that image came back to him, the sight that had burrowed to the core of his consciousness; his brother’s hand, reaching upwards through the water, vainly begging to be saved.

Except Nathan hadn’t been able to save him. He had saved lives since then-— he had made it his business—- but, on that summer’s day, he had been eleven years old and barely able to swim.

The snapping sound of the post coming through his letterbox gave him a start. He had been dozing off. He rose from the waters, reluctantly, and reached for a towel.

As soon as he was dry, he went out to the front door, to see what had arrived. Mostly junk mail, but there was a postcard from his friend Julie. Get your ass out here as soon as possible, it said. Talk about hedonism! No orgies, but everybody is hellbent on fun all day long. And the sun never lets you down. Next time, you’re coming with me, and no excuses, mister.

Nathan turned the postcard back to the picture side. It showed a coastal resort in Tunisia. He stared at the condensed, brilliant blue of the sparkling sea. That would be nice...but how could he ever enjoy a holiday? Every day he spent away from the swimming pool was spent fretting. He was always sure that would be the day some child drowned, drowned because Nathan was not on duty. Of course there were other lifeguards, but what difference did that make? That wouldn’t ease his conscience any. He would spend the rest of his life brooding about another soul that had been lost because of him.

Another hand reaching up through the waters, reaching forlornly for help.

* * * *
“Hey, you”, growled Nathan, leaping from his chair and putting the loudspeaker to his lips. “Yes, you. This is a swimming pool. It’s not a playground. Stop messing about or you’re out”.

He put the loudspeaker down, and prowled back to his chair. The boy had looked bewildered, and why shouldn’t he? He hadn’t really been messing. But it was a good idea to bark at somebody once in a while. Kept them awake.

He settled back in his chair, and breathed the chlorine-heavy air. He loved the smell of chlorine. Give him that smell over ozone any day…of course, what people called “ozone” was rotting seaweed, wasn’t it? But then, people always sentimentalized the sea. White horses and Neptune’s kingdom and all that.

Neptune could keep his kingdom. This was Nathan’s kingdom, from the shimmering sheen of lights on the water to the muffled echoes in the air.

He thought of Shay’s “swimming lessons”. Though he was younger, he’d been precocious. He’d been teaching Nathan how to swim that day. He hadn’t a clue, but that was Shay all over. He thought he knew it all…

Somebody was shouting. Nathan snapped back to alertness with a jolt. Goddammit, he had been dozing off again! At work!

Now more than one person was shouting. Shouts filled the air. He ran to the edge of the water, and cried out in shock at what he saw.

People were sinking into the depths. And they were depths. The lanes had disappeared, as had the tiles at the bottom of the pool. Now….now no bottom was in sight. Just a deep, opaque blue.

He could see thin, white arms reaching up through the depths, clutching the ankles of the swimmers, pulling them below the surface. And, beneath the shouting and the splashes, he could hear something familiar.. Thin, airy voices calling Nathan...Nathan...Nathan. He recognised them at once. They were the voices of the drowned, and he knew them from his dreams.


The Cemetery Man

It was insane, but Katie couldn’t help herself.

It was her first time back home since the funeral. For the last five months, she’d deliberately avoided the house in which she’d grown up. Then, suddenly, she had to come back, as though a switch had been flipped inside her brain.

The second urge took her that night. She slipped out of the house. Her parents were heavy sleepers and didn’t even notice.

The cemetery was twenty minutes walk away. She had bundled up, but the October air still chilled her. Katie had always loved the phrase the dead of the night—it was exciting, and romantic—but it kept pasing through her mind now, and it didn’t seem romantic at all.

Her dead sister called to her, too impatient to wait for morning. Lucy used to call Katie when she was lonely. All the time. She always turned to her when she needed help, just as she had when they were children. And Lucy was lonely now.

As she walked through the streets of the sleeping town, she remembered all the stories she had heard about Portarda Cemetery. Gangs hung out there sometimes. Gangs of idle youths, rather than gangs of hardened criminals, but that didn’t make them any less scary now. She told herself that they would all be in bed at this time, that even the jobless and the night-owls were slumbering by this hour. It was the dead of night.

But then there was him. Only now did she remember him.

She’d seen him on the day of the funeral. Only Katie had seemed to notice him. He was standing about forty yards away, past an avenue of trees.

Katie noticed him because he was going from grave to grave, pausing over each. He seemed to be mumbling over them. He would have looked like a necromancer if he hadn’t been dressed so shabbily. Somehow, the shapeless slacks and the crumpled polo-neck jumper didn’t go with devil-worship. His hair was shoulder-length and ruffled, and even from a distance, she could see that it was clumped and matted.

As the priest droned on, she watched the man. Perhaps she needed something to distract her from the thing they were putting into the ground. The man seemed utterly intent on his weird activity. But perhaps it’s true that we can feel another person’s eyes upon us. Eventually, he looked up, and Katie shuddered. The way his mouth hung open, the intensity of his stare, the very angle at which he held his head; everything about him was wrong, troubling.

She looked away, but as they were filtering out of the cemetery, she couldn’t help a final glance. He was stilll there, still moving from tombstone to tombstone. It made her flesh crawl to think he might come to Lucy’s tombstone, eventually.

Now the thought of him did more than make her flesh crawl. It made her frantic with fear, but she kept going. She climbed over the cemetery railings without much difficulty—though the touch of metal on her hands was icy, in the cold night air—and dropped into the darkness below, half-expecting to break her leg on a tombstone. But her heels landed on grass.

She moved forward slowly. The darkness was almost complete. It was a cloudy night, and the moonlight barely filtered through. But she could still read the inscriptions, and she was confident she could find Lucy’s grave.

She was close to it when a hand clamped over her mouth. She tried to scream, in spite of it. Another arm wrapped itself tightly around her waist.

“Well, well”. It was a man’s voice, rough, low. “What are you doing out here at this time? Don’t you know it’s dangerous?”

He laughed. It was a cruel, exultant laugh.

Then something strange happened. He screamed, and let her go. Katie fell to the ground. She rolled onto her back, raising her arms in defence as she did so. She was not at all prepared for what she saw.

There were three men. They were fighting. It was the most savage fight she had ever seen, though she could make out little of it. There were headbutts, and knees to the groin, and hands wrapped around the throat.

It went on for two or three minutes. Then, all of a sudden, two of the fighters retreated and ran, stumbling and wheezing, disappearing into the night.

The remaining figure crouched beside her. Katie screamed when she saw that it was him. She tried to back away, but he grabbed her by the arm.

“Why did you come here? It’s dangerous, for you, at this time.”

It was not the voice of her attacker. This man’s voice was soft, almost childish. Katie couldn’t reply. She could only stare at him, her heart pounding.

He was peering into her face, too. He seemed even stranger, close up, even more grotesque. “I know you”, he said. “Lucy Marlowe. You were hear when Lucy Marlowe was buried. Lucy Marlowe, twenty-third January 1969 to twenty-first March 2009. Remembered by father Philip and wife--”

“Who are you?”, gasped Katie, still terrified. “What do you do here?”

The man smiled at her. It was a sad and proud smile. “I remember”, he said. “I remember the dead people. All of them. Who else is there to remember them all, except for me?”


To Share a Womb

“Are you OK?”, asked the lady with the golden curls, reaching out and laying her hand on the younger woman’s shoulder.

The younger woman looked up. Her eyes were red from weeping, and her make-up was smudged from tears. Her face looked ill-suited to weeping; she had a strong, determined chin and hawkish features. Her black hair was cut short.

“My sister”, she said. “She’s…she’s…”

The woman with the golden curls said nothing. She knew there was nothing to be said.

“She’s my twin”, said the younger woman, and sniffed.

The comment might have seemed irrelevant, but to the woman with the golden curls, it was entirely to the point. “I’m a twin, too”, she said. “I know. My name is Charlotte.”

“Monica”, said the younger woman. “Thank you, Charlotte.”

“It’s different, isn’t it?”, said Charlotte, taking her hand from Monica’s shoulder and joining her on the hard bench. “No matter what they say, it’s different. Being a twin.”

“Yes”, said Monica. “It is”.

“They can do all the debunking studies that they want”, said Charlotte, “and dismiss it as old wives’ tales all they want, too. But we know. I’ve always known when Yvonne was in pain, or in danger. She almost drowned in a swimming pool in Spain, two years ago, and I…I felt I was drowning, too.”

For a few moments, there was silence in the foyer, empty but for them. Even the traffic outside had slowed almost to nothing. It was the depths of the small hours.

“Claire was knocked down by a van”, said Monica. “I…I didn’t just feel it. I saw it. I asked them if it was a red tiler’s van, and it was. I knew it had happened in Carpenter Street, just outside the sports centre.”

“Goodness”, said Charlotte. “I’ve never heard of a bond that strong. Claire…is she…?”

“No”, said Monica, in a feeble voice. “She’s still hanging on. But...but I don’t think….” Her voice sank to silence, and the two women sat listening to a drunk singing streets away.

“I’m going to get a coffee from the machine”, said Charlotte, rising. “Do you want one?”

“No”, said Monica. “No, wait…yes. Yes, please, I would.”

Charlotte went to the machine, fumbled for coins, and drew two cups of coffee in paper cups. She was obviously familiar with it, not pausing to look at the instructions that flashed on the display, doubling up the paper cups for insulation. She carried the coffee back to the bench. By now, Monica was attempting a brave smile.

“I’m sorry, Charlotte”, she said, her voice stronger now. “I never asked you...who are you here to…?”

“Oh”, said Charlotte, wrinkling her nose dismissively. “My mother-in-law. A wonderful woman, but she’s been a long time hovering between life and death now.”

“Do you know what frightens me the most?”, asked Monica, almost interrupting the older woman.

“What’s that?”, asked Charlotte, gently.

“That I can’t feel her”, said Monica. She looked as though she was going to break into tears, but suppressed it with a fierce frown. “I could always feel her before. But now I feel nothing. It’s…it’s so lonely.”

Charlotte made no reply. She merely sipped her coffee—if it could be called coffee—and smiled sympathetically. The drunk was singing again, and she thought how strange it was that a person’s life might end to such a graceless accompaniment.

* * * *
“Monica?”, said the voice at the end of the line. “Monica, it’s Charlotte”.

For a moment, Monica made no reply. The name meant nothing to her. Then she remembered. She leaned her head against the bed, and said: “Oh…Charlotte…”

“I didn’t talk to you at the funeral”, said Charlotte. She sounded so ridiculous; a tinny voice against Monica’s ear, coming from the other end of the universe. “You looked…looked as though you didn’t want to talk to anybody. Monica, if there’s anything I can do…”

The voice chattered on, benign, irrelevant. What could Monica say that Charlotte would understand? That anyone could understand? How could she tell them about the great weight that she felt closing down on her at all hours, the overpowering scent of dank soil that never left her nostrils? How could she explain the darkness? How could they know what it was like to feel tiny, unseen creatures burrowing into your flesh?

Should Catholics Vote for Sinn Féin?

This search led somebody to my blog today.

The answer: absolutely NOT.

Because of this.

And this.

And, oh, let's not forget this.

No Catholic should ever vote for Sinn Féin. No patriotic Irish person should ever vote for Sinn Féin. In fact, nobody should ever vote for Sinn Féin.