Under the Pendulum Sun

by Jeannette Ng

  Vaguely remembering there to be writing implements at the bottom of the case, I opened it and felt around its base. There was, indeed, a bottle of ink and an archaic glass-nibbed pen. Noting there was more at the end of my fingers, I pulled from the case a small corner of paper, folded over in upon itself.

  A loud, long wail came from the door to empty air.

  I turned, startled.

  It was just wind. I knew it to be just wind, wind strong enough to rattle the heavy door in its hinges. I heard it howl against the other towers of the castle and I heard a distant shutter clatter against its window.

  Having dropped the folded page, I fumbled for it on the floor. The candle cast long shadows and my hands were chilled from groping about on the cold stone floor when I found it.

  Unfolding it, I found a printed page. The scrawl down the side identified it as being from Meric Casaubon’s A True and Faithful Relation of What Passed for Many Years Between Dr John Dee and Some Spirits. Though the gothic print was awkward to read, I began to understand in part the veiled history of Enochian.

  I did not sleep much that night.

  Chapter 6

  The Mysteries of the Night

  Just as the mind of man is moved by an ordered speech, and is easily persuaded in things that are true, so are the Creatures of God similarly stirred when they hear the words with which they were brought forth into the world. For nothing moves, that is not persuaded; neither can anything be persuaded that is unknown.

  The Creatures of God understand you not; you are not of their Cities. You are become enemies, because you are separated from him that Governeth the City by ignorance.

  Mankind in His Creation, being made an Innocent, was not made partaker of the Power and Spirit of God.

  Not only did he know all things under His Creation and spoke of them properly, naming them as they were, he also partook of our presence and society, yea a speaker of the mysteries of God; yea, with God himself. Though he spoke in innocence, he had communed with the Almighty, and us, His good Angels. Thus was Adam exalted.

  The Speech which I will teach you, it is not to be spoken of in any other thing, neither to be talked of with Man’s imagination. For as this Work and Gift is of God, which is all power, so does He open it in a tongue of power, to the intent that the proportions may agree in themselves: for it is written: Wisdom sitteth upon a Hill, and beholdeth the four Winds, and girdeth herself together as the brightness of the morning, which is visited with a few, and dwelleth alone as though she were a Widow.

  Thus you see the Necessity of this Tongue.

  Meric Casaubon, A True and Faithful Relation of What Passed

  for Many Years Between Dr John Dee and Some Spirits, 1659

  Mysteries had a way of keeping me awake, gnawing at the edges of my mind until they crept into my dreams as a jumble of nonsense. Sense eluded me as I tossed and turned. I chased shadowed secrets down the serpentine corridors of Gethsemane.

  When dawn filled my room with light, I awoke to ink-stained hands and blotted pages. I had fallen asleep atop the pile of spread papers.

  Dried ink stung my eyes as I scrubbed sleep from them. I stumbled to my feet.

  Reflexively, my eyes darted to the door to empty air. I moved to secure the door before my eyes even focused. It was, however, as I had thought, and I firmly pulled the bolt in place. It was probably loose. Even as I told myself that it was just the wind shifting it in the night, a cold chill danced up my spine.

  I scrubbed my hands and face at the basin until my skin was red instead of ink-black, my mind still entangled in what I had learnt of Enochian, the divine tongue, named for Enoch, the last man to know it. The pages made grand claims, that this language of frail and angular marks was used by the Almighty to create the world and then given to Adam so that he might name all creatures and all things within the gardens. The pages promised that within this language of angels lay all sorts of secrets, that there was a power in the knowing of the first and truest names of all things.

  My heart was thundering. I told myself it was just the shock of the cold water on my face.

  I wondered at the intentions of the person – Reverend Roche? – trying to translate the Bible into Enochian. Perhaps they had thought it an act of restoration, that the Word of God needed to be in the language of God. Or perhaps there is more to it.

  My eyes ached. I closed them and pressed my too-warm fingers against my lids.

  At the edge of my mind, I wondered if this was an evangelical tool and if so, was it the true language of the fae? Was there truth in the old theory that the fae had been angels? Or was it simply that they remember it from the time of Adam?

  I changed, fingers fumbling over the tiny cloth-bound buttons of my clothes. Questions tumbled through my mind, twisting into one another in endless, writhing circles. I had made lists of unique symbols and began comparison of the words. None of it made sense, but it was progress of a sort. A foothold upon the cliff of unknowing.

  More than ever, I missed Laon. I wanted to tell him about this, to press my forehead against his and whisper to him what I knew like old secrets shared in the dark under blankets and sheepskins.

  I wondered what he would make of such revelations, if he would be dismissive of paper scraps found in a random room of his castle or if the questions would haunt his mind the way they haunted me. I wondered if he already knew of the contents of these pages and that was what was keeping him silent.

  I had cried the day Laon began his lessons in Latin and I was left alone; he offered afterwards to teach it all to me and share his books. He promised then that we were the same and he would treat me as such even if others refused to see that.

  Secrets have a way of making me feel lonely.

  I tried to imagine his voice. I remembered the curve of his ears against my lips and the warmth of his hands in mine. We had not laced together our fingers for a very long time. He didn’t even shake my hand before he left.

  But this felt too big for susurrus words and cupped hands; I felt too big.

  Had it really been so long ago that we were chasing each other on the moors and hiding among the ruined farmhouses?

  I remembered how close Laon and I used to be and, all at once I realised that it may never be that way again. Had it been simply the physical distance of when I was sent to school? Yet I wrote to him every day, each moment catalogued for his eyes, and he wrote back just as faithfully. Was it after? Yet we exchanged letters even then, though work dictated that neither of us could be as diligent in our correspondence. And then, being without a position, I returned to him and found him–

  It didn’t matter. He was still my brother. Nothing could change that.

  There was a knock on my door and I heard the voice of an enquiring Miss Davenport.

  My panicked eyes darted over the documents still spread about the room.

  “A moment, if you please!” I said, trying to keep my voice even as I gathered up the papers and hid them among my own. I pushed over the neat stack of books I had brought with me. They spilt across the writing desk and onto the floor with a heavy thud.

  A low creak signalled Miss Davenport’s intrusion. I tried to steady my hands and slow my rapid breathing.

  “You weren’t at breakfast,” she said cheerfully, keeping the door open with her hip as she manoeuvred a large heavily laden tray into the room. The scent of sweet bacon and buttery toast wafted over. “So I thought I should bring it to you. I didn’t think I should trust the Salamander to take care of you. Even if she is the housekeeper.”

  There was a soft clink as she put down the tray and danced over to my elbow.

  “Whatever have you there?” asked Miss Davenport.

  “P-primers,” I said, slamming shut the writing case and latching it closed with too much finality. “I was organising them.”

  “Primers?” She stooped to pick up one of the books.

  “I was given them by the Society.”

  Leafing open the volume, Miss
Davenport haltingly read out its frontispiece. “The… Child’s Spelling… Primer, or… First Book for… Children…”

  “The Society wanted to put me to good use, I suppose.”

  She laughed, the mocking note unmistakable this time. It was as sharp as an untuned violin.

  “I do have passing experience as a schoolmistress,” I said, prickling.

  “Had they assumed there would be surfeit of pagan children eager to learn?” she said, a wide grin stretching tightly over her teeth. “Grubby-kneed brownies and adorable little pixies all gathering around Miss Helstone asking to be taught the most noble English language?”

  “I don’t think I had any particular expectations.”

  “Oh, but surely you had wished to teach them whilst you all sat on mushrooms together and sipped nettle tea from buttercups.” Laughing, she hooked her fingers around an imaginary teacup and mimed dainty drinking. “We would curtsy to you in our precious little daisy petal dresses and tip at you our caps made of rue. We would be ever so grateful for your bequeathing language to us…”

  “I had expected to make the acquaintance of more than two fairies and roam further than my brother’s home.” I crossed my arms. “I had expected some answers.”

  At that, Miss Davenport stopped laughing quite abruptly. “You needn’t–”

  “I’m sorry–” I said reflexively, seeing her discomfort. It was too easy to see her as my gaoler.

  “We should eat,” announced Miss Davenport, cheer returning to her voice. “I am rather famished.”

  I nodded, eager to make peace between us. I helped her rearrange the furnishings of my round room to accommodate two to dine. She shook out a tablecloth over my trunk and unloaded the full extent of the breakfast tray onto it.

  She gave a satisfied sigh as she pried open a row of boiled eggs. Glancing over at me, she pushed it under my nose and gave me the salt.

  “Sprinkle for me,” she said.

  “Pardon?”

  “Human hands and human lands,” she said, referring to the folk rhyme. “Meat loves salt and salt loves meat, I pray the Lord my soul to keep.” She added a sarcastic edge to the pronunciation of soul.

  “Oh, of course,” I said, sprinkling salt upon the opened eggs. She had been demanding that I do so during our meals together but I had not quite managed to ask her why. Enquiring about her changeling state always seemed a little intrusive for an acquaintance, especially given how she was shunning services. “What do you do when I’m not here?”

  “Not eat.”

  “Oh,” I said, softening. I wondered how long she must have starved when my brother was away. “Don’t you–”

  “Can you do me another?” she interrupted. “I am very hungry.”

  I nodded, complying with her request and adding salt to the fruit tarts, pound cake, butter and the pot of chocolate coffee. The strawberries gleamed green atop their lemon-yellow crust, but turned pink at the touch of salt. The pound cake seemed to heave a sigh and drooped in its plate with dense, moist weight.

  “Have you news of my brother?” I asked, knowing the answer before I spoke. It was a question I asked her almost every day.

  Miss Davenport shook her head. “I’m afraid not, he’s still at… I’m not sure where. Inland. Where the court is.”

  “Court?” It was more than she had said before. I sipped the spiced chocolate before stirring in another spoonful of sugar. I was still not used to the tinge of salt in everything I consumed.

  She squirmed under the directness of my gaze. “I don’t really know. Faeland politics isn’t simple.”

  “But you at least acknowledge that there is politics. Thus entities who are politic.” I put down the chocolate and studied her expression closely, trusting that she’d flinch if I neared the truth. “A court implies a judge or monarch? Something or someone presiding. Thus all I’m really missing is a title…”

  “Don’t bait me for answers, I beg you.”

  “If you won’t answer me that,” I said, reasoning that fae were keen on bargains. “You could at least tell me how Roche did his work.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Proselytise,” I said. “I know you can’t tell me how he… how he earned his crown of martyrdom. But surely you can tell me how he did his work here. How he spoke the word.”

  She stopped in the spreading of butter into pound cake. She put down the knife.

  “It’s so isolated here. I can’t imagine who he would be talking to.” I hated the pleading note that crept into my voice. “Can’t you tell me?”

  Miss Davenport remained silent.

  “All I really know about him is that he disappeared and that he had converted Mr Benjamin. I don’t even know if his body made it back. Who else was even here? You make these jokes about my childish imagination and yet you would not–” I stopped myself. I took a deep breath. “I’m sorry.”

  I forced myself to turn my attention to the breakfast laid out before me. I took a slice of bread and despite being cool to the touch, the butter melted as it touched its dark surface. The pound cake was rich and very sweet, more pudding than cake. Grainy with sugar crystals, it melted in my mouth.

  “He had visitors who called on him,” Miss Davenport said, very slowly and very carefully. There was a tremble to the way she held herself. “He didn’t have many places he could go.”

  “Thank you…”

  “And Mr Benjamin… he wasn’t always gardener and groundskeeper. It’s easy to give hope to those who have lost. Who are lost. They were searching. He found.”

  “What does that–”

  “We should take a turn in the garden,” she said, with a bright smile, all traces of earlier tension vanishing as she tucked away the last of the pound cake. She drained her cup of chocolate coffee and glanced over at mine. I shook my head at her silent request to finish my drink.

  “You have taken me around the courtyards before, Miss Davenport.”

  “The courtyards, of course, but not the gardens. I’m sure you will agree afterwards that it rivals even that at Kew.”

  “I daren’t say I’ve been to the Royal Botanic Gardens.”

  “Well, neither have I,” said Miss Davenport with a calculated wink and sharp giggle. “But it wouldn’t do to be too humble about these things. Even though I hear their stove boy has a green thumb.”

  “Stove boy?”

  “The John Smith who curates the place. He has a certain way with plants.” Tight grin splitting her face from cheek to cheek, Miss Davenport tapped her nose knowingly. “I say too much sometimes, far too much.”

  Chapter 7

  The Tower in the Garden

  Balaenoptera wickeris, often termed a “sea whale” due to idiosyncratic fae humour, is believed to be more vast than any other beast, being twice again the size of the largest sea-dwelling whale. They are said to swim through soil and not water. They are distinct from the beasts known as the “see whale”, an invisible piscine that lurks in the seas around Arcadian ports, and “C whale”, the uncommon name for the Balaena sinistris.

  According to Sibbald, the inhabitants of Arcadia believe the sea whale to be constructed of wicker. He had described to him these strange shipyards at Fishforth which built them. They say entire ecosystems of fishes can live within the whale once it has consumed sufficient “sea.” Whale “bones” of wood can often be found on sale at the Goblin Market.

  This is all, of course, preposterous. Whilst the sea whale is a true creature, its presence on land is but a form of the Fata Morgana, a superior mirage, a result of the reflecting and refracting of the whale’s image from its native sea inland, especially into the more misty parts of Arcadia. The mist is key to understanding this natural optical illusion as the water droplets provide purchase for the projection. Just as a Fata Morgana can cause a ship to seem as though it is inside the waves, the Fata Morgana causes the whale to appear inside the earth.

  Robert Walton, The Natural History of the Whale: To Which


  is Added a Sketch of a South Sea Whaling Voyage

  I did not expect a castle to have much of a garden, encircled as it was by the vast walls and moat. My walks with Miss Davenport had made me familiar with the courtyards and their prosaic vegetation.

  As Miss Davenport wound a path past the chapel, I thought of her remark on the stove boy with the green thumb.

  “Did you mean to say he’s a changeling?” I asked.

  “I didn’t exactly say that now, did I?” Her voice turned singsong and she pulled back a veil of ivy on the far wall of the courtyard. So thick were the leaves and vines that it seemed a heavy green curtain. I thought of Mr Benjamin’s warning.

  Miss Davenport detached a key from a bracelet, winking at me as she did so. “Don’t tell the Salamander I have this.”

  “I won’t because I can’t,” I said. “I’ve not met the Salamander.”

  “It’s for the best.” She smiled to herself as though she had just committed an act of wit and unlocked the ironbound door behind the ivy.

  Behind the high, embattled wall was a half-wild garden, artfully overgrown.

  Bordered by ruined roman arches and colonnades, it seemed as though a long-forgotten lord had sealed away a ruined villa on a whim and turned it into a pleasure garden. A trellis guided roses to form an elegant canopy by the tall, sheltering cedars. The trees scented the garden like a church. Four paths quartered the grass, leading the eye to a central grove of olive trees.

  I had stepped into a medieval manuscript, an illumination of the hortus conclusus.

  “Pretty, isn’t it?” said Miss Davenport, studying my face with interest. “I told you it would be.”

  “You did…” I muttered.

  Behind the spiralling trunks of the olive trees, in the middle of that grove, was a stone fountain overgrown with water lilies. The water was completely still and the spout was sealed.