by Lisa Tuttle
“Although he did not live to publish his report, and his final conclusions will never be known, Charles did keep a notebook, and I know he would have wished his work, even unfinished, to reach a wider audience. Therefore, I have invited Mr. Jasper Jesperson, who was one of the last people to see Charles Manning alive, to prepare a paper based upon the notes he left behind.
“Gentleman, ladies, please will you give a warm welcome to tonight’s speaker, all the way from London, Mr. Jasper Jesperson.”
As he spoke his last sentence, the audience broke out in polite applause as a door in the wall behind him opened, and Mr. Jesperson emerged, wearing his black evening clothes, and an unusually solemn expression on his long, pale face. As he stepped up to the podium, the light from the gas jets gave an uncanny glow to his red curls, so that for a brief moment he seemed to wear a nimbus of light, a radiant halo around his head.
Stirred by the rising inflection of Mr. Ott’s voice as much as by the guest speaker’s appearance, the audience clapped more enthusiastically. When the applause eventually died down, Mr. Jesperson began to speak in a relaxed, authoritative way, without notes.
Having often been the recipient of one of Mr. Jesperson’s extempore lectures, I knew what a powerfully retentive memory he possessed, and that his mind was well stocked with facts and figures relating to any number of unlikely subjects.
“Most of you are local residents, and therefore need no lengthy introduction to the feature known collectively as shrieking pits,” he said. “They are found in an area stretching along the coast from Cromer to Cley, with those at Aylmerton, Weybourne, and Beeston being the best known. In the last century there were many more than we see today.
“When were they made? And what for? There are two main theories, the most popular being that they are the remains of ancient dwellings where our prehistoric ancestors made their homes.
“None of the Aylmerton pits now extant had ever been the subject of specific study—prior to the arrival of Mr. Albert Cooke, whose work was then carried on by our Mr. Manning—but some forty years ago the Weybourne pits were extensively excavated by Mr. Harrod, who found no evidence of human habitation in them and concluded that they were Roman in origin and had been used for metalworking. However, some twenty years after that, Mr. Spurrell, the well-known antiquarian, argued that while some were undoubtedly associated with ironworkings, most were far older than the Roman occupation, and they were better described as hut-circles or pit-dwellings.”
He paused and, leaning forward over the podium, smiled a mischievous smile. “So much for the scientific evidence. What else is there? Memory. Of course, there is no one alive today who remembers a time so long ago, but what about folk memory? The memory of the race is reflected in our language; in stories, songs, even place-names. Consider the name: shrieking pits.
“Why are they called that? Well, there is a story that explains…I see many of you smiling and nodding—yes, you all know the story. It is represented on the poster made to advertise my lecture. A woman—some say she is old, with long white hair; others that she is young and dressed in white; some that she is veiled; but all agree that she is the source of the shrieking as she runs about, peering down into the pits and wringing her hands. Why is she distressed?”
Mr. Jesperson paused and looked out at the audience as if expecting an answer, and a young man obliged, shouting out, “She lost her baby!”
“In the pits? That seems a very odd place to leave a baby.” His delivery of this line won him a burst of laughter.
The same young man obliged again: “Somebody else done it. Her man. He threw it down the pit.”
“Is that the story known to you all?” Mr. Jesperson cocked his head and listened to the babble of response from other members of the audience. A few agreed; the greater number did not.
“Tell me what other explanations you have heard for such behavior, please,” he said. “If you would be so kind as to raise your hands…You, sir? Yes?”
A thin, middle-aged man rose to his feet and said, “There is no explanation required. She is a specter, and behaves in standard fashion of her kind, repeating a few simple actions over and over again in the same place, in her case shrieking and wringing her hands. I have never seen her myself, but I have heard the shrieks.”
More hands were up, waving for Mr. Jesperson’s attention. He called upon a man who said he had heard that the woman had been driven mad by an unspecified crime and ever afterward her spirit haunted the pits. Another man said she was looking for something she had lost, and could never rest unless she could recover it, but no one could say what she had lost. The next one said it was certainly a baby, but he had never heard why she should be searching for it in the pits.
“After all, it’s only a ghost story; you can’t expect it to make sense,” declared one gentleman with a long nose and bushy eyebrows.
“Ah, but I do expect them to make sense—their own kind of sense,” replied Mr. Jesperson, leaning forward intently. “Mr. Manning was hardly the first investigator to believe that folklore and local legends, including ghost stories, may contain a core of truth. The difficulty is in sifting out the later accretions, the helpful ‘explanations’ from the original matter. It is like panning for gold.
“There is no evidence that the legend of the shrieking woman reflects an actual, historic crime—infanticide, abduction, or a woman driven to madness—and there is no written reference to this shrieking woman prior to about 1830, but of course that tells us nothing about the antiquity of the oral tradition. Perhaps it reflects a prehistoric crime, the primal horror of which continues to haunt the human mind through the ages? Or perhaps the legend was a deliberate creation—the fear of meeting such a disturbing apparition could serve better than any physical barrier to inhibit exploration of the pits, at least among the credulous.
“Let us return for a moment to that question of what the pits were for. Were they, as the majority opinion has it, truly the homes of our ancestors?
“I find the idea strange. We have heard of the cavemen, but to take up residence in an existing cave is surely different from deliberately excavating a hole in order to live underground when they might have felled trees or piled up stones to create a warm, dry, airier, and altogether more comfortable residence. A perusal of Mr. Manning’s notes shows he thought the same. If these pits were homes, as the antiquarians insist, might they have been inhabited by another race? Not our lineal ancestors, but an earlier form of human being—which may have coexisted with our own earliest forebears. We have evidence of Neanderthal Man. And if there were two distinct forms of human being living at one time—why not more?
“Manning is not the first and will not be the last scholar to suggest that stories about elves, goblins, and fairies are a distant folk memory of a time when early humans shared their world with other intelligent species. There are pygmies still in Africa, and so there may have been long ago in Britain. Whether they were naturally subterranean dwellers, or forced to go underground for some reason, this could explain the shrieking pits.
“Both Cooke and Manning were interested in the possibility that this pygmy race continued to survive into recent centuries, spending their entire lives in hiding, having become ever more fearful of the dominant human race. On the rare occasions when they were seen, they were taken for ghosts or fairies—and as such, in some places, they are even seen today.”
Beside me, Bella sniffed. I did not have to see her expression to sense her scornful disbelief. I wondered where Mr. Jesperson was going with this—and why.
“In Ireland and Scotland and in all the Celtic fringes, mounds, earthworks, chambered tombs, as well as hills and caves are said to be the entrance to the otherworld, where the fairy-folk live. Norfolk is peculiarly bereft of fairy-lore—we might also consider the lack of hills, and the fact that more than tumuli, Norfolk has…pits.”
There was a titter from somewhere in the hall in response to the dramatic pause before he emphasized the final
word, and for a moment I was afraid Mr. Jesperson had misjudged his audience. They might begin by laughing, and quickly turn to jeers.
Mr. Jesperson smiled. His shoulders dropped and he tilted his head slightly, looking very much at his ease. “Do you know, before I came to Norfolk I was led to believe it was very flat. And then I came here, and was agreeably surprised by how varied and interesting the landscape is, with so many good viewpoints, and actual hills—not as high as in Scotland, to be sure, but distinctive enough to be given names. And so, having learned that the general knowledge relating to Norfolk’s flatness is not to be swallowed whole, I am cautious also about the supposed dearth of fairy-lore. It may be that the stories are, like the hills, hiding in plain sight. There is evidence, if you know how to look, of their existence in plenty of stories, most of them seeming to have nothing at all to do with this subterranean, pygmy race. For there is another tradition about them, which is well known, and that concerns their secrecy. They do not wish to be spoken of. Even to acknowledge them when they have helped you can have a bad result—as in the stories of the farm wife who knits warm garments and leaves them out for the brownies who had been cleaning her kitchen at night.
“So they are spoken of indirectly, in a roundabout way, under different names. Not fairies or brownies or pixies or elves but—‘them,’ ‘the others,’ and ‘the good neighbors.’ ”
I almost jumped out of my seat at that. In my mind I heard that same phrase repeated, not in Mr. Jesperson’s clear, penetrating tones, but in Maria’s hurried whisper. “The good neighbors.” That was the whole phrase; and now, belatedly, it occurred to me that she did not blame her human neighbors, and had been thinking not of witches and human sacrifices, but of something else entirely.
“There are no stories I can find in Norfolk about babies who are stolen and a stock left in their place, although in Ireland and Cornwall the fertility problems of this other race are well known, providing an explanation for why they should wish to take our children.”
I became convinced that Mr. Jesperson was trying to send me a message. Had he not found a scrap of Maria’s missing shawl in the shrieking pit across the road from the Vicarage? But what he meant me to understand from all this nonsense about fairies, I could not imagine.
“Yet consider the shrieking woman, searching for her child,” he went on. “Perhaps this story, with its mysterious lack of detail, reflects an actual event from a more distant day, something prehistoric and long lost to present knowledge, yet surviving, like a vestigial tailbone, a reminder of a species now extinct.”
He paused. “Or, perhaps, the survival of the story serves a purpose, with the particulars stripped away—its purpose is to frighten; to make people avoid the pits. Many of them are gone now, filled in by farmers. But there is one shrieking pit at least that still survives. It is protected by its location, unmarked on any map, and by surroundings that do not appeal to picnickers. Rumors of adders in the woods, the boggy ground and sinkholes, references to bad air, and those toadstools, spotted red and white, growing in a formation known locally as the Poison Ring—all these things, so insignificant in themselves, work by cumulative effect to provide safety from spying eyes and accidental discovery.”
An arm went up in the audience and was vigorously waved until Mr. Jesperson could no longer pretend not to see. “Yes, sir? You have a question?”
“I certainly do.” A wiry, white-haired man of pugnacious aspect sprang to his feet. “You imply one moment that this pygmy race is extinct; the next that it continues to coexist with us, and relies on superstitious fears to keep from being discovered.”
Mr. Jesperson inclined his head and with a slight smile asked, “And your question?”
“Well, which is it?”
“Which…?”
“Are these creatures still living or not?”
Mr. Jesperson raised his eyebrows. “I really could not say. However, I think it is fair to assume that Albert Cooke met his death trying to answer that very question.”
There were some gasps in the hall, and an undercurrent of muttering that grew louder, until a young man called out, “You say the fairies killed him?” And there was a general outbreak of laughter.
Mr. Jesperson waited for it to die down before he went on. “No, I do not say that. I tend to agree with the police, that Cooke met his death by accident, striking his head. If he slipped on the grass, perhaps as the result of a sudden fright…The only problem with that theory is that the nearest and most likely place where he could have acquired a fatal injury is at the bottom of the pit. And if he met his death at the bottom of the pit, why was his body not found there, instead of lying in the middle of the Poison Ring?”
His first questioner, the white-haired gentleman, was still on his feet, and now spoke up again: “But what do you think?”
“I am not here to give my opinion,” he replied gently. “My opinion does not matter. Before this week I had never heard of the shrieking pits, nor given any thought to the idea of an aboriginal race of British pygmies. All of this was new territory when I first encountered Charles Manning’s notes. My intention this evening is not to pass judgment on his ideas and discoveries, but only to give them a public airing, so that his work may outlive him, if it is found worthy.”
The old gentleman would not give up. “Well, then, what did Manning think? Did he think there was something still living in the pits?”
“That was a question still under investigation when he died.”
“So there’s no answer?”
“This may be something for future investigation by Mr. Ott’s School,” said Mr. Jesperson. “Thank you for your kind attention.” He bowed.
Recognizing that Mr. Jesperson had concluded his presentation, Felix Ott came forward to invite questions from the floor. A sea of hands appeared, but as he called upon various individuals, it was soon apparent that although many people wished to be heard, very few had anything that could be described as a question. Some wished to express agreement, disagreement, or disapproval, but most had a story to tell: inexplicable experiences, strange encounters, disappearances, noises in the night—I found it all quite interesting and should have been glad to hear more, but Bella claimed my attention.
“I cannot believe it,” she murmured, frowning. “Charles never said anything of this to us.”
“You mean about the…” I hesitated over what word to use. “About the pygmy race?”
“Not anything. He never even expressed any particular interest in the shrieking pits.”
“I thought it was for the shrieking pits that he came to Aylmerton?”
“He never said so. I understood that the shrieking pits were an interest of his friend, Mr. Cooke.
“Perhaps Charles took it up as a subject to investigate, to honor his friend,” she mused. “But it never struck me that the question of the shrieking pits—how they came to be—was the sort of mystery that Felix’s followers go in for. I cannot pronounce on Mr. Cooke’s interest, for he never shared any particulars of his researches with me; I only know that when he used my library, the books he consulted were on the subject of mushrooms.”
Chapter 19
After the Meeting
When the last opinion had been expressed and the meeting had been brought to a formal close by Mr. Ott, I asked Bella if I might introduce her to Mr. Jesperson.
“Thank you, I should like that very much. I hope you will not mind if I question him rather ferociously on this matter of a pygmy race dwelling beneath the ground in these parts. I had never heard such a thing, in all my years here, and I should like to know where Charles came across such an idea.”
Although the general movement in the hall was toward the exit, there were others who had the same aim as us, and Mr. Ott and Mr. Jesperson were encircled before we could reach them.
“This may take a little while,” I said apologetically, but Bella smilingly indicated that she did not mind waiting.
“There you are.” I looked aro
und to see Alys bearing down on us, her sister in tow. “Come along, what are you waiting for?”
“Di is going to introduce us. Would you not like to meet her friend, too?”
Ann looked compliant, if somewhat sleepy, but Alys frowned. “No, thank you. I had quite enough of his fairy tales—what nonsense! I am sure Mr. Manning never said anything of the kind. I think that Mr. Jesperson simply made it all up. Perhaps he thinks we are such unsophisticated yokels in these parts as to swallow any whopper. I beg your pardon, Artemis; I know he is a friend of yours, but—troglodytic pygmies in Norfolk! Quite absurd. Now come along, my darling Arabella.”
Bella laughed. “I quite agree, it sounds absurd, but we must let the man speak in his own defense before we convict him of being either a liar or a fantasist.”
“No, why should we? I do not care to hear another word from him. And look at poor little Ann, how pale and tired she is, nearly dropping. And you know I hate to complain, darling, but I must confess I am feeling a bit unwell myself. This hall is not warm. If I have to stay in it much longer, I am sure I shall catch a cold—if I have not already.”
Bella sighed. “Fine, then, go home. Go, take Ann with you. We shall stay.”
But the firmness of Bella’s tone seemed only to increase her sister’s resistance. “Leave you? And how will you get home?”
“I told you—do not worry. Miss Lane and I will manage perfectly well.”
Alys spoke flatly: “You mean me to drive.”
“Yes, why ever not? You love to drive—you always—”
“Not at night—not when I’m feeling like this. Do you want me to die of cold?”
“Don’t be silly.”
“I am not being silly. I have told you how unwell I feel. The best thing for me is to go straight to bed. It is always best to nip these things in the bud—prevention is better than cure; you say that yourself. If I am worse tomorrow, it will be your fault. And if you do not care about me, think of our little Annie!” She grabbed her younger sister’s arm, to pull her forward, and I strongly suspect she gave her a hard pinch, as well, for Ann sucked in her breath and tears welled in her eyes.