by Jeff Noon
A moment passed in the small, silent theatre.
Nyquist said, “But you can’t just give a child away like that. What did the authorities say?”
“I directed them to the house where Kinkaid lived, saying that the baby was staying with him for a while, because of the illness of my wife. I can only assume that he appeased the authorities in whatever way he could. Perhaps he was good for one thing. After all, he was the real father, and the mother was obviously in no fit state to bring up two children. Not now. And I did my own share of persuading.”
Nyquist nodded. “I can imagine the pressure you brought to bear.”
“I did everything in my power. I pulled every goddamn string in town, I brought home favours. I greased every palm. Yes, whatever it takes!”
He looked to both Nyquist and Eleanor for understanding. Met with silence, he cried out, “I was saving a child’s life!”
Eleanor moved away, towards the stage.
Nyquist thought about what he’d heard up to now. “So, what happened next? You started to work with Kinkaid?”
“That came later, much later. When news of the drug kia reached me. But it was Pearce who took charge of the project. She does get excited by such things.”
Nyquist put it together. “Pearce was in charge. While Kinkaid helped to ship the kia out of Dusk. So what was your role?”
“I wanted only knowledge. Of the future. The things unseen, just out of reach.” A glimpse of his old power was returning, and his ego. “Surely, that would give me dominion over time itself.”
“I don’t think kia works like that, Bale. It’s not that easy.”
“No. I guess not.”
Something in the chief executive’s face made Nyquist hesitate. A deep yearning in the eyes, the pained line of the mouth. He had seen that look before somewhere. And then he remembered: young Sadie, in the Noonday Underground club.
He said, “But you can’t see anything, is that right? Inside kia?”
Bale nodded. His eyes blinked rapidly and started to water.
“You’re blind to it, to the future?”
A quick jerk of the head. His mouth opened and closed, seeking a word, a phrase, a scream, anything that would alleviate the hurt. Nyquist, in all his years, had never seen such a wretched expression of loss in a person. In the end, Bale could only murmur to himself:
“Nothing. Nothing there. Nothing at all. Nothing…”
And upon seeing such a pitiful sight in the man who had brought her up as his own, a strange emotion welled up within Eleanor. Her voice caught on a word and a spasm of pain shot through her. “No,” she said. “No. This is wrong. Everything about you is wrong! You don’t–”
“Eleanor…”
“You love me by locking me up. You love my sister by giving her away. What kind of behaviour is that?”
Bale pleaded with her. “Please, Eleanor…”
“It’s wrong!”
“I had no choice in the matter.”
“You let my sister go.”
“I saved her.”
“How can you know that? How can you know what happened to her, out there!” Her hand swept towards the shadow curtain and the rear of the theatre, towards the direction of the fogline. “Eliza probably died, in the mist, in the cold grey air.”
“No. I saw her again.”
This stopped Eleanor. “When?”
Bale’s face lit up. “A short while ago, when Pearce first started to work with Kinkaid on the drug deal. I met with them both one night, and having a moment alone with Kinkaid I dared to ask about Eliza, expecting silence, or some vague news, possibly a lie. Instead, the next time we met he brought Eliza with him, to the fogline.” His eyes widened in delight. “Oh, she wouldn’t come near me. Instead, she stood some way off, shrouded in mist like a queen with her cape about her. Her body seemed to be lit from within like some strangely beautiful deep sea creature. She was her own lantern! And she looked at me.” The words trembled on the edge of his tongue. “She gazed at me from out of the dusk.”
Eleanor approached him warily. “What did she look like?”
“She looked like you, Eleanor. Like you.”
Nyquist watched as the girl brought a hand to her mouth, and held it there.
Bale stated his case: “I saved her. I did save her.” He believed utterly in his own act, his own deeds. He took a step towards Eleanor, holding out his hands for her to take.
But Eleanor trembled. “Stay away from me. Stay away…”
She backed off, stopping only when she bumped against the edge of the stage. The white curtain stirred behind her, a home for ghosts.
Bale, for his part, could not move any further than a single step.
Nyquist took over. “You said that you were protecting Eleanor from the person who wants to kill her. Who would that be?”
It was a vital subject, one that Nyquist needed desperately to understand, but Patrick Bale hardly even heard the question. Instead, he was staring at Eleanor, who had by now climbed up onto the stage.
Nyquist followed his gaze.
Eleanor was moving in a slow circle with an invisible partner. “I danced with her. I danced with my sister in the dream.” Her voice was melodious, lilting. “I saw it all, the two of us. Inside the kia. Music was playing, a slow waltz, and there she was, in my arms, Eliza, in the circle we had made together, a dance of mirrors…” She was talking purely to herself, or to her imagined reflection.
“Eleanor?”
She made no response to Bale’s call. Instead, her sister’s name became fixed on her lips, repeated over and over.
“Eliza, Eliza, Eliza.” Again, adding to it: “Eliza. Eliza Kinkaid.”
Bale shouted at her. “Stop that!”
Eleanor let the word grow. Louder, more insistent. “Eliza. Eliza. Elizabeth.” Her dance ceased at last, leaving only the word in play. She was emboldened by the name, the more she repeated it. “Eliza, Eliza, Eliza, Eliza!”
Bale put his hands to his ears, pressing tightly, but the name could still be heard.
Eliza. Eliza. Eliza. Eliza. Elizabeth. Eliza Kinkaid. Eliza. Eliza. Eliza. Eliza. Eliza. Elizabeth Kinkaid. Eliza. Eliza. Elizabeth. Eliza…
Behind her, the vast white curtain that stretched across the stage billowed; beyond that, the grey mists swirled at twilight’s edge.
Eliza. Eliza. Elizabeth. Eliza…
Nyquist clambered up onto the stage. He could see that the situation was worsening. He’d let it go too far. He grabbed at her, saying, “Leave it now, Eleanor.” But she wouldn’t stop. The chant continued.
Eliza. Eliza. Eliza. Elizabeth. Eliza Kinkaid. Eliza. Eliza. Eliza.
The houselights doubled her shadow on the screen.
Bale had followed Nyquist. He pleaded with her. “Eleanor. Please stop it.” He made to grab at her, to stop the words coming from her lips. She pulled away.
Eleanor cried out, “Leave me alone! You took her from me!”
Bale kept coming forward, Nyquist also.
In a blind panic, she backed into the curtain, trying to escape them both. The curtain bulged around her, enveloping her body in its folds.
“She’s close. I can feel her! She’s… she’s calling to me!”
Bale made one last effort. But Eleanor spun wildly about and now the curtain had her completely. She could no longer be seen, only the folds of white cloth that still retained her shape. And then Nyquist heard a tearing sound as the cloth pulled loose from its supports above and fluttered like a dying phantom towards the stage floor.
Bale cried out in wordless pain.
“I’ll get her,” said Nyquist. Yet they both looked to where the wall of mist could be plainly seen, occupying the rear of the stage. There was no sign of Eleanor.
Bale whispered, “Where is she?”
“I don’t know.”
And then Nyquist saw her. Eleanor’s body was draped in the fog as she stood right on the very edge of Dusk itself. Behind her two figures were glimpsed
, each with faces hidden by masks of smoke.
He stepped towards her. “Eleanor. Don’t be stupid. Come away.”
He could sense the long cold fingers of twilight pulling at his flesh, and he felt he was being embraced by half-known things. He could go no further.
The two masked figures had vanished.
Bale came up close to him. He called out, “Eleanor. Please. Don’t go. Let me explain. Come back to me. Come back!”
His final call was to no avail. The grey mist wrapped itself around Eleanor’s body, embracing her softly, as a lover’s shadow might. Nyquist took another step forward. The dusk worked its spell and the wall of fog moved forward and back like a slow tide.
The girl was taken by the mist.
Seeing this, Bale rushed forward, crying out, “Eleanor! Where are you? Eleanor?” Nyquist grabbed him by the shoulders, but the other man slipped forward, away, into the fog. Nyquist followed; he had no choice. It was all going wrong. He reached out again, keeping a good hold this time. “Bale! Don’t be stupid.”
The fog wrapped them together, the two men.
“It’s too late.”
“No!”
They struggled with each other briefly, but there was no fight left in Bale. Nyquist released him, letting him fall to the floor. The man’s body felt weightless. “She’ll die in there,” Bale said, his voice choking with torment and then breaking up entirely, the words no longer making any kind of sense, only crying, weeping.
Nyquist left him there. He felt the mist all around, in whispers. The stage glowed with a deep silvery light, conjuring a strange music. Splinters of noise, melodic phrases, lost voices. He moved forward, across the blurred threshold, further, deeper. His skin crawled with a sudden coldness, and then a warmth. Acceptance: he could think of no other word for the feeling. It was time. The mist accepted him. A few steps took him across the backstage area. He found an open doorway and walked through into a mist-strewn corridor, and from there to another doorway, which led outside onto a patch of ground behind the theatre.
Dead flowers, the stench of rotten leaves.
Cobwebs strung with dew.
Weeds. Brambles. A great mass of them like a net, clutching at his feet.
It was too late.
There was no sign or hope of human life, not here.
But Nyquist carried on moving forward slowly, feeling the mist curl and weave, taking on his shape, closing around him.
Enfolding, caressing.
Cold damp air against his face.
All around the light was a dense silver, or grey. He could see no further than the tip of his outstretched hand.
The sudden shriek of a bird.
Fear was pricking at him, and he turned, and turned again and again, trying to place himself. The theatre had already vanished from his sight.
Which direction should he go, which way?
One more step, another. One more…
He was lost.
Moonlight. The fog. His body.
One more step.
His body, the fog. Where did one end, the other begin?
Already lost.
Moon. Fog. Flesh. All one, all one substance.
Lost, lost…
Another step.
Part Three
Dusk
Guide Book
Forbidden Pathways
Precinct Zero is that mysterious tract of land existing between Dayzone and Nocturna.
It has no official name, and no exact limits on the map.
Most people call it Dusk.
The edges cannot be determined, or fixed.
The moon in her different guises is the lonely forgotten empress of this realm of fog and sorrow, alongside Hesperus, also known as Venus or the evening star.
Travellers should be aware that Dusk is considered to be strictly off limits. Only the city’s trains are allowed to cross the region.
It is a danger zone, another world, with different rules, different physical properties.
People get lost in there, never to return.
For there are many pathways leading in, only a few leading out, and those few well-hidden and ever changing.
At its worst, the region steals, and hurts, and destroys.
It is that moment of time and space where nothing is certain, where the senses and the heart are caught halfway between darkness and light. There are stories told of demons and bizarre creatures, shadowless men and faceless women. Of ghosts and lost memories.
Nobody knows the truth.
All is nebulous, uncertain, fragile. From one side of the city the daylight melts away, dissolving, becoming new and strange. From the other side, night’s tears are falling one by one into the mists of twilight.
In this way both day and night slowly begin to lose themselves.
Here, where the fog closes in…
Under a Violet Moon
All movements forward or back, to the left or the right, all led to the same place, to the mist, the endlessly slow-moving dreamlike play of the mist, which encased Nyquist in a new skin with every step taken. His eyes watered from irritation, and his throat ached. Yet he called out the girl’s name: “Eleanor? Eleanor? Are you there? Eleanor?” But there was no reply, only his own words trapped in the thick grey air.
He moved on until a woman’s voice was heard from close by, speaking softly, sighing almost. Nyquist could not tell what was being said, but he spun around and shouted again. “Eleanor? Is that you?” The voice quietened, and then came back into earshot, slightly louder than at first and from a different bearing. He listened intently, trying to pinpoint the exact location. But no, it was not possible, and now other voices – male and female, adult and child – joined in the hubbub, a choir of fragmented words and phrases, a few of which could just about be heard:
… Release me… which way… hungry… Matilda, please…he is crying… I can’t see you… too cold… I can feel you still… why won’t he stop crying?… the buildings are made of… help me… falling too far… Matilda?… I can’t remember… made of ice, they are melting… falling… please… let me go…
Recalling the stories he had learned over the years, Nyquist thought of these voices as all the hidden fears of the city, all the pleas of the mind to be released from the possibilities of pain and doubt and to be brought back to life. And now shapes were put to the sounds, dark writhing phantoms in the sombre landscape. Nyquist could take it no longer. He put his hands to his face and temples, trying to cover both his eyes and his ears at the same time. It did him little good. He could still hear, and still see. He cried out and his words of fear took flight from his mouth like a panicked bird of black and grey plumage. Still the eerie figures danced around him. He shouted out loud, “Stay away from me! Keep away!” It was no use. There was no substance to these visions, no flesh and blood capable of movement; only voices, only shadows; ideas, feelings, dreams, nightmares. They swirled and blurred around him.
Nyquist stumbled forward and then started to run.
The voices would not stop. Now pale red-eyed faces loomed at him, and white ghostly hands fluttered at his sides, clinging to his clothing and his hair.
Madly he ran on through the mist, across dry weed-licked ground, twisting this way and that, losing his footing and righting himself again, and on; he ran on until he was exhausted, until the noises and the shapes faded away into the slow breeze and the fog, and only then did he come to a standstill, his body heaving, his lungs desperate for clean air. His clothes clung to him in a cold sweat. And he stayed like that, just standing there for a good long moment until at last he gained some control, until his heart slowed and the flashes of red and yellow light faded from behind his eyelids.
The ground was paved beneath his feet.
By some weird chaotic navigation, he had managed to find a road. Nyquist followed this given direction for a while. He had already lost all sense of time passing; he might have been inside the dusk for a few minutes, or a few hours. Certainly, the ep
isode in the shadow theatre played like a memory from days and nights before.
Now he stopped. Another figure had appeared just ahead on the road, a darker shape in the foglight. It was not the girl. This person was taller, bulkier. The figure waited, unmoving, in silence. Nyquist approached cautiously. It was a man, or else some creature or spirit that had taken on a man’s appearance. He was dressed in a black greatcoat, which was entirely buttoned up, from the ground-skirting hem to the high collar and neck. His hair was white and cropped short and only one of his eyes, the left, was visible; the other was hidden behind a watchmaker’s loupe or eyeglass which the squeezed muscles of the cheek and brow held in place. The stranger regarded Nyquist for a moment, and then flicked open a large pocket watch. He asked, “Do you know what time it is?” Nyquist pressed at his own watch. The dial lit up brightly in green, but the atmosphere had seeped into the workings, so that the area between the glass and the dial was filled with the silvery mist. The numbers could not be seen, nor could the hands.
This was dusk time.
Nyquist shook his head. “No.”
The man smiled. “It’s nearly seven minutes past seven. Almost, not quite, coming up on, close to. Nearly. Does that make any kind of sense to you?”
“Yes. I understand that.”
“Go on your way then. This road will take you there.”
“I don’t know where I’m going.”
“Just follow the road.”
The mist enveloped the stranger as though some unseen realm had taken him away. Nyquist was alone once more. He felt strange, disturbed at the core: were these events and people real, or figments of his twilit mind? Had he wished the timekeeper into being for his own comfort? Was he going mad?
For a moment he felt that his skull was as fogbound as his wristwatch.
But he walked on, keeping to the road as directed.
His clothes caught on the thorns of a flowerless shrub, and a wave of tiredness crept up on him. He could hardly keep his eyes open, and his feet dragged across the tarmac. No, it was more than tiredness, more unnerving than that; he felt he was both asleep and awake, simultaneously.