The Fetch

by Robert Holdstock

  Get into the centre. Get closer!

  He concentrated, as Françoise had told him to, on slowing the spot down. He willed it to get into the cross-hairs. He held it steady in his mind, holding it, slowing it, making it reluctant to move, chaining it like an animal so that it could only struggle, not escape.

  After five minutes of exhilaration, the ‘alien’ came into the cross-hairs.

  He fired, screaming as his thumb pressed the trigger.

  The spot exploded in a sequence of concentric circles and the word AAARGH appeared flashing on the screen.

  Carol was clapping her hands with delight.

  ‘I did it,’ Michael exalted. ‘I did it!’ He removed the helmet and passed it to Françoise, who was watching him and smiling.

  ‘Well done,’ she said. ‘That’s one spot that will never live to fight another day.’

  ‘But what did I do?’ the boy asked. He knew this was a test of his power. Françoise showed him round to the back of the game unit, where strips and ribbons of black material told him that cable connections were in profusion.

  ‘The idea of the test is to see if you can manipulate the electron stream that creates the white spot on the screen. By concentrating very hard and letting the natural power – which we call telekinesis – take over, some people can bring the spot into the cross-hairs very fast. They can override the programme that governs the movement of the stream. Do you see?’

  ‘And I did that? I did that?’

  Françoise’s hand on his shoulder was reassuring. He saw her glance away at a technician, and almost at once intuited that perhaps he had been a bit slow in manipulating the stream. But at least he had done it!

  Carol had a go next – at her own insistence – and he watched her struggle with the attack game. She was hopeless, although eight minutes later she too suddenly and unexpectedly shot the target. He was glad she had been slower than him!

  ‘I suppose that means we’ve both got this teleskin … telekis …’

  ‘Telekinesis,’ Françoise corrected carefully. ‘Well, whether you have or haven’t doesn’t really matter. You have a much stronger power, Michael. And I’d like to hear you talk about it. Where’s Carol gone now?’

  Carol was peering into a dark chamber where gerbils, in a re-creation of the night desert, were scampering around, burrowing and feeding. She had adored this particular experiment when shown it earlier, but not for any reason to do with the attempts to demonstrate inter-rodent ESP (a project that had been running for years, Françoise had said tiredly), but simply because of the gorgeous little creatures themselves. Later she would be given a gift, a mating pair of gerbils, and Susan would groan at the thought of what that meant in terms of feeding, cleaning, and looking after them. With the exception of her painting, Carol was a girl of brief enthusiasms. The story of her guinea pig was still too painful to recall.

  For the moment, though, Françoise arranged for Carol to be shown more of the animal experiments … those at least that dealt with fauna intacta.

  She took Michael back to her office and sat him down in the reclining chair, letting him play with the controls for a while as she busied herself with some paperwork.

  There was something very comforting in this room, Michael felt. Its walls were nothing but shelves, and on those shelves were statues, weapons, bits of glass and metal, stone heads and wooden masks … many books too. It was a feeling with which he was quite familiar from his father’s studio, and his mother’s workroom, where the books and dolls were constantly breathing their history and their mystery.

  He had asked a thousand questions about the objects in Françoise Jeury’s collection. He had pressed her for facts and hints about the Holy Grail. What did she think it looked like? She reminded him that he’d asked her about this before.

  Was it still to be a surprise for his father when he found it? Yes. And how desperately he wanted to find it!

  ‘Sometimes, when I’m searching for it, I think it’s made of glass,’ he said.

  Françoise seemed surprised. ‘Glass? The Grail made of glass?’

  ‘Beautiful glass, with the face of Our Lord and a swimming fish painted on its outside. That’s the Fisher King. I can see it faintly, sometimes, but I never manage to reach it. To fetch it. I always get something wrong. It’s …’ he thought hard to remember the word he had read. ‘It’s elusive.’

  ‘Tell me how that feels. Fetching. When you get it wrong?’

  Michael was confused. It was something he hadn’t thought about sufficiently to articulate.

  ‘It’s like reaching into water for a pebble, but you see your hand going to a different pebble. Wherever you try to go, you go somewhere else, and you can’t control it.’

  Françoise laughed. ‘There used to be a game in my seaside town in France. There was a crane in a case and you had to try to pick up chocolate bars. But if you tried to make the crane go to the right, it would go to the left. Everything was in reverse. It took a very skilful child to get it to work properly.’

  ‘I’ve seen them,’ Michael said politely. ‘In Brighton. Places like that.’

  ‘It’s a strange sensation.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And you feel something physical like that when you try and fetch? You are almost on target, but sometimes are forced away?’

  ‘Yes. Like pushing through a blanket. And the object changes sometimes, so that it isn’t the object at all. I’ve reached to somewhere else, somewhere that wasn’t in the dream. It’s like a speeded-up film of clouds and seasons. Like in the Time Machine.’

  ‘The Time Machine?’

  ‘It’s a film. Daddy loves it. We’ve got it on video. Years pass over this man’s head as he sits in a time machine in his laboratory, looking outside.’

  Michael realized that he was sounding excited and grinned and lowered the pitch of his voice. He noticed that Françoise was watching him intently. ‘It happens to me sometimes. I reach towards something, but I get shifted into other places and the seasons change. Sometimes it’s very hot, but mostly it’s cold and wet.’

  ‘But you always fetch something?’

  ‘Not always,’ Michael said uneasily.

  ‘Why do you think you miss the target? What makes you miss?’

  Michael shrugged. It seemed obvious to him. ‘Chalk Boy, I suppose. I can’t see anything at all without Chalk Boy.’

  ‘Why would Chalk Boy make you miss the target?’

  Michael seemed to have no answer. Eventually an idea occurred to him. ‘Perhaps he’s like the Time Traveller, moving so fast through time that he can’t focus on any one thing. Not all the time. Sometimes he does. Did you see the wolf-girl? That was the first thing I fetched. It was like flying.’

  ‘Was Chalk Boy there?’

  ‘He was hiding. He always hides. But he was watching. I could hear him laughing.’

  ‘Can you remember how it was to fly? Can you remember in detail?’

  Michael couldn’t. It was like a dream now, fragmented, colourful, but partial. He remembered the faces vaguely. He remembered reaching for the wolf-girl. He remembered the smells of the place, such a cold place, a stone place, the odd light …

  Françoise was saying, ‘Can I talk to you in a special way, Michael? Would you mind? I shouldn’t do this, of course.’ She leaned forward, meeting his gaze steadily. ‘I have to tell you very truthfully: without speaking to your mother or father, I shouldn’t do this. But I don’t think they’d say yes. So if you want to say no …’

  ‘What special way?’

  ‘I want to relax you. When you’re relaxed I’ll talk to a part of you that’s hidden.’

  ‘You mean hypnotize me?’

  ‘Not exactly. Something very new. A new technique. Something far more interesting. A way of talking to you that can hear voices in your head that even you didn’t know were there. There is no harm. We’ve developed the technique for talking in this way over the last three years. And I’ll make a record for you.’

/>   ‘What sort of record?’

  ‘A record of your inner voices. You’ll hear the voices you speak in your dreams. You can take it home and play it, if you want. As soon as I’ve confessed to your parents. It will sound just like you, but it’s you when you were dreaming, not when you were awake. Can I talk to you? Will you let me?’

  Michael felt frightened. He liked this woman. She exuded nice, comforting smells, and much security. But Chalk Boy was shifting and restless. Chalk Boy liked to hide. Chalk Boy didn’t like to be seen, or heard. And anyway, if Françoise went into his dreams, then she might see that Michael was just a shadow, just a not-quite-boy. And he had felt so full talking to her. He felt real. He didn’t want her to see the hollow inside his head, the Limbo land, the sea and its monsters, the shadow that was all that was left of his soul.

  He shook his head, instantly aware that the woman looked disappointed, failing to hide the emotion before she smiled and shrugged.

  ‘I just wanted to ask you what you saw when you fetched the wolf-girl.’

  Hesitantly, Michael said, ‘That would be all right. But you mustn’t ask to speak to Chalk Boy.’

  ‘Oh, I wouldn’t. I won’t. I promise. What else mustn’t I do?’

  ‘Don’t go down to the beach. Don’t go near the sea. It’s dangerous.’

  ‘Then I promise I won’t go down to the sea. I just want you to tell me what you saw when the wolf-girl was “fetched”. Just that. Nothing more.’

  ‘All right.’

  With obvious relief, she said, ‘Thank you, Michael. Now then: lean back and half close your eyes, and watch my mouth. The first thing I’m going to do is sing to you.’

  ‘Sing to me! Why?’

  ‘I’m afraid I’m not up to Tina Turner standard—’

  ‘I don’t like Tina Turner.’

  ‘You don’t? I think she’s wonderful. But my little song is a key to your mind. It’s a programme. And you’ll like it, I’m sure …’

  Susan came to the research centre in time for a late lunch. She was on edge, perhaps disturbed by whatever had happened at her own meeting that morning. Françoise therefore excused herself after just a few minutes, leaving the Whitlocks to eat on their own. Later, she would take them round the British Museum, if that was still of interest, but for the moment she returned to her room and sat quietly, listening to the whispered voice of Michael’s journeying shadow, and its disappointingly fragmentary report.

  It had been hard to gain access – even though she rejected the comparisons between mind and computer, she still found herself thinking in crude and basic computer jargon – to Michael’s dream mind, the harmonic memory plane where he would be storing the dream structures of the actual psychic event associated with each apportation. Unlike ordinary memory storage, these packages were mainly impulse-noise and transient-RNA, cyclical and shifting little whirlpools that were very hard to phase into.

  She had sung the cadences that she believed would trigger the cortic-aural access, but he had simply smiled and shifted, obviously comfortable with the sound, but not responding. As she sang she watched the vocal signal of his own song, recorded on tape at the time of her visit to his house. She could see the points of access, the stress points where her own vocalization would need to establish a monotonal contrast, but she couldn’t manoeuvre her own voice into quite the right position.

  She felt like a child, targeting a pin-point of light to shoot it. The comparison made her smile.

  Her song flexed. She struggled to combine the signals, the living signal of her voice, and the static signal of Michael’s voice-profile. All the time the feedback from the chair showed red.

  Then – strike! – the feedback lines flushed green and Michael went strangely stiff.

  And she managed to enter him. With questions, of course, not with her mind.

  She listened to the voice, to the memory of a journey:

  The beach is a scary place. The Fish Lizards hide in the waves and strike suddenly on to the shore. Their jaws have a formidable array of fang-like teeth. The Sea Dragons are as long as their contemporaries, but rather broader. The beach is very dangerous, but I can run across it and call from the quarry.

  Where is this beach? Tell me more about the beach.

  It’s where the Wealden disappeared. Very quietly and gradually the forest and plains, the tall trees and hideous reptiles of the Wealden passed away—

  Who has told you this? These aren’t your own words.

  —The slow sinking of the whole area caused deeper and deeper water to appear in the creeks and river channels. The lakes that ended the Chalk Age had an immense duration in time and space – they were vast meres, bordered by extensive marshes – they are Limbo, and the Fish Lizards prey upon the Limbo souls—

  If the beach is so dangerous, why do you go there before you ‘fetch’?

  Have to go through it to hold on to Michael—

  Who is talking to me now?

  Michael’s shadow.

  Chalk Boy?

  No. Chalk Boy is hiding. I’m Michael’s shadow. I come into Michael to make him visible. Then he can breathe real air. But when he’s breathed properly I guide him through Limbo to other times.

  Tell me how you guided him to the golden wolf-girl …

  (But Michael twisted uncomfortably in his chair, head shaking, flecks of spittle at the corners of his mouth. His tongue licked out and his eyes half opened, like those of a corpse. Before Françoise could interrupt proceedings, however, he had calmed.)

  My shadow is sinking into ice. I am moving at great speed. Now I can breathe again and everything is still. It’s so cold. Deep snow has piled against the lodge. I am by the huge pile of Mammoth bones, touching their icy surfaces. The old man has been here with his two drums and selected five of the long-bones to repair the Moon Lodge where the women go, which blew down in the storm. I move over the snow like a shadow. Only the dogs can see me, and they snap and miss. I flow into the Drum Lodge and reach for what the old man is working on. He is unaware of me. The lodge smells badly of fresh skins, blood and fat. The fire in the centre is dull, but there is drifting ash in the air and a haze covers the bright animals and grinning faces drawn on the skins. Two women watch me, they can see me now, but they cover their faces with crossed pieces of bone and I can’t see them. The old man holds out his pipe to me. The paint is fresh on the white bone. His eyes are narrow and he is smiling. He follows me with his eyes as my shadow passes round the smoky room, always holding out the pipe. His words are like hisses, but I can hear that he is asking a question. I don’t want the bright bone pipe. I want brighter things for Daddy, but they are not here. I have come to the wrong place. I move slowly, like wading in deep water. When I reach for the pipe my hand misses and touches the spikes of hair on his head, making them bend. They are sticky with fat. The rest of his hair is hanging in bunches and decorated with painted shells and stones. His head rattles as he turns to follow me. The women are visible again and they are crawling through the low tunnel, between the door frame of white bones, and making funny sounds. So I fetch the pipe and the lodge collapses, the fire is scattered, and the old man screams and curls into a ball, holding his arm. The pipe is broken, but I run with part of it through the snow and the shadow leaves me on the beach and I am back in my castle … But Chalk Boy is laughing … he is mocking me, mocking me …

  Michael! Sing to me. Sing to me, Michael.

  (Michael started to cry.)

  Mocking Boy … Mocking Boy …

  Michael! Sing. Sing ‘Ghostbusters’!

  (The boy’s lips moved and, in the faintest of voices, he emitted the hesitant words of the song … If there’s something strange … in the neighbourhood … Who do you call? … Ghost busters …

  (And came back from his journey.)

  NINETEEN

  The work in Scotland finished midway through the second week and Richard found himself unexpectedly released from the project. He was delighted. He gathered his belongings, ra
n through the driving rain to the main hut and said his goodbyes. Everyone was thoroughly miserable and morale was so low that the Project Director was calling a halt until the spring. The site would be covered. Photographs were now not needed.

  Rain lashed the car as far south as Barnard’s Castle in County Durham, but then clearer weather made the drive easier and faster. By four in the afternoon Richard was at the service station at Watford Gap, calling home.

  Susan sounded thrilled, and not just because her husband was coming home a week early. There was something waiting for him at home … she wouldn’t say what … no, it was a surprise … but just assume that Santa has visited early this year.

  Michael’s fetched something new? From the pit?

  Wait and see.

  How is Michael?

  Excited, happy … longing for the story of the lake village you’ve been digging up.

  There is no story about the lake village. It’s just a crannog, there’s no legend associated with it.

  Susan laughed. Lover, she said, you’ve got about four hours’ driving to come up with one. And make sure it involves the Grail. And preferably two of Arthur’s Knights. Any two will do. Michael is longing to hear it. He says … he says he’s already dreamed about the lake village.

  He’s dreamed about it? What has he dreamed?

  He says there’s something bright there, something to be found, something buried beneath the house with the wooden ‘watching-man’. Does that mean anything to you?

  Wooden watching-man? No. At least, not yet. I’m on my way.

  There were presents for everybody. Michael had wrapped them in Christmas paper – long since on sale in the shops – and placed them, labelled, on the dining table. There was an orange-crate of other things on the floor, at the side of the room, but these were all broken or ugly, and he knew that his father would probably want to sell them to his friend in London.

  He thought he had seen the Grail, but he had been wrong. Nevertheless, the crushed metal vessel – like a miniature witch’s cauldron – that had crashed through the pit a week ago, as he had fetched it, had been full of glittering things, some of them very pretty.