by Jan Siegel
‘I have a father,’ Nathan responded. ‘He’s dead, but he’s still my father. I don’t need another one. Only … well … if you have a boyfriend that’s all right. As long as he’s a nice person, and he loves you. Is there – is there someone?’
‘When there is,’ Annie had said, ‘you’ll be the first to know.’
And now there was Michael Addison. Who was nice. And Lily Bagot said he was attractive. He had a wife, but she was an actress, and everyone knew actresses had affairs and got divorced a lot: it went with the territory. Still … maybe he loved his wife, and missed her when she was away, turning to Annie only for comfort. Nathan decided he didn’t like the situation whichever way you looked at it. If he starts to give me presents and take me for hamburgers, he thought, then I’ll know.
The years in Eade had turned Annie from a girl into a woman. Time had firmed her softness and tapered the planes of her face; her fluffy hair was cut short and fell over her forehead in light brown feather-curls. She still wore little makeup, but the country air gave her pale skin the glow of health. Once in a while some man would be extra friendly, but she would smile politely and distance herself, in manner if not words, asserting in thought that it was for her son and knowing – in her more self-analytical moods – that Nathan was an excuse. Perhaps Daniel still had all her heart; perhaps there was something else, lost in that fold of time, which kept her alone and separate, unresponsive to all men. When Michael Addison took to dropping in, to browse among the books and chat, she liked him without reserve, confident that liking was all it would ever be. She was not cold, merely absent, like a nun who, wedded to the idea of God, seeks no mortal husband. But Annie had always been doubtful about God – the Catholic God of her childhood, demanding, faintly patronizing, immersed in ritual. She preferred Bartlemy’s theory of the Ultimate Powers, maintaining some kind of equilibrium throughout all the worlds, but exacting neither blind worship nor interminable repentance. Since the moment of Daniel’s death she had known with the certainty of experience that there were things out there beyond the range of ordinary human knowledge, other dimensions – universes – beings, and maybe some of them had a foothold on her memory, and a handhold on her heart.
That Christmas Michael and Rianna went to stay with friends in Gloucestershire, and afterwards went skiing, Hazel’s father got drunk and hit Lily, causing her, for the first time, to consult a lawyer, and George was given a pair of binoculars, which were almost as good as a telescope. Annie and Nathan spent the day as they always did, with Bartlemy and Hoover, eating what was, had they but known it, the best Christmas dinner in the country. Bartlemy could do mysterious and wonderful things with food: children would fight to eat their greens when he had cooked them, his roast turkey was moist inside and crisp outside, oozing golden-brown juices, his potatoes crunched and melted, his plum pudding magically combined both airy lightness and dark fruitiness. Afterwards, Nathan always remembered that Christmas as especially perfect. It didn’t snow, in fact it rained, but they were indoors and the rain was out, and the fire filled the room with warmth and radiance, and his huge dinner disappeared into an elastic stomach and slender body, leaving no visible trace. Bartlemy had a television, which picked up channels no one else ever received, so they watched a fairytale in a foreign language, about an arrogant king who was forced to wander among his people in the guise of a beggar, and learned wisdom and humility, then they played chess, and Nathan almost won, and Annie watched them affectionately and thought: ‘How lucky I am. How lucky.’ And suddenly she was afraid, though she had never been afraid before, in case her luck would change.
And in the New Year Nathan found the sunken chapel, and saw the whispering cup, and then everything was different.
TWO
Dreams and Whispers
In February, Michael Addison got a new computer and asked Annie if she would come round to help him set it up. ‘I hear you’re the resident expert,’ he said.
‘In a place like Eade,’ she retorted, ‘that isn’t saying much.’
‘I’ll pay you …’
‘Don’t be ridiculous. I’d do it for the chance to look at your house. The whole village wants to know if it’s been transformed like on one of those TV makeover shows.’
‘The village,’ he grinned, ‘is going to be very disappointed.’
Annie closed the shop early – Bartlemy had always encouraged her to keep whatever business hours she liked, but since Nathan became a weekly boarder she had tried to stick to ten till five – walked along the High Street and turned into the lane to Riverside House. The route ran between hedgerows that were brown and shrunken in their winter barrenness, with meadows on either side; Annie knew one was a conservation area because of the presence of a rare butterfly or orchid. The house lay beyond: she could see the pixy-hat roofs some way off. From the outside, it presented an image of rustic desirability, but when Michael admitted her, leading her through the hallway into what was clearly the main drawing room, she thought it looked curiously unlived-in. The furniture was too perfectly arranged, the rugs untrodden upon, everything clean, immaculate, untouched. ‘I don’t use this room much,’ Michael said, as though reading her mind. ‘My domain is in one tower, Rianna’s in the other. We meet occasionally in the bedroom.’ Annie assumed he was joking, but she wasn’t sure. She followed him down some steps and into the round chamber which was evidently his study. Units had been designed especially to fit the curve of the wall, and a wooden desk supported the latest in computer technology. ‘Here we are,’ said Michael. ‘Tea first, or work first?’
‘Work,’ said Annie.
In the end, it took far longer than she had intended. ‘To me, this machine is just a glorified typewriter,’ Michael said, so she spent some time sorting out his files, teaching him to use search engines and surf the Internet. When they finished it was dark, and Michael declared it was too late for tea, offering her a drink instead, and a quick tour of the house, if she wanted. ‘So you can tell the village grapevine about all the redecorating we haven’t done.’ Even the master bedroom, Annie thought, looked unslept-in: Michael had a couch in the upper room of his ‘tower’. The bathroom boasted a circular bath almost the size of a swimming pool; there were several guest bedrooms though they never seemed to have guests; the kitchen had the latest kind of Aga but the microwave appeared to have seen more use. Except in Michael’s rooms there was luxury without personality, and a strange coldness, as if the whole house was an exhibit rather than a residence. Annie didn’t get to see inside Rianna’s tower: that was kept locked. ‘Rianna’s very intense about her privacy,’ Michael explained. ‘Even I don’t have a key.’
‘Bluebeard’s Chamber,’ Annie said before she could stop herself.
‘Stacked with the bodies of her ex-husbands?’ Michael laughed. ‘There’s only been one, he’s a producer, I’ve met him. He’s about sixty now and married to a blonde of twenty-three.’
‘Sorry,’ Annie said. ‘I didn’t mean to be rude, or … or nosy.’
‘You weren’t,’ said Michael. ‘I suppose it does sound a bit odd, to people who don’t know Rianna. She’s – I expect you would call her temperamental. Personal space is very important to her. We have a wonderful cleaner, a Yugoslav émigré who comes over from Crowford, but Rianna won’t let her in there; she prefers to do the cleaning herself. Now, what would you like to drink? There’s whisky, gin, beer … whisky, more whisky.’
‘I’ll have a whisky,’ Annie said with a smile.
They had their drinks in the sitting room above Michael’s study, containing the couch ‘for those short kips between periods of not working’, and a couple of worn leather armchairs. Its windows framed a view over the conservation area in one direction, and down to the river in the other. Since it was too dark to see very far, Michael took some pains to explain about the benefits of the view. When they dimmed the light Annie saw a shiny new moon in a sky full of crispy stars, and shadowy fields stretching away towards the village, and the twi
nkling of illuminated windows in the nearest houses. She turned back, and there was Michael’s crooked smile, soft in the dimness, and his glasses hiding the expression in his eyes. He turned up the light, and she found herself looking at a picture of Rianna on a sideboard, a very glamorous picture, black-and-white, with a cloud of dark hair framing her artistic cheekbones, and deepset eyes darkly made up under the flying line of her brows.
‘She’s very beautiful,’ Annie said politely.
‘I know,’ said Michael. It might have been her fancy that he sounded almost rueful.
When their glasses were empty, he said: ‘I’ll walk you home.’ And then: ‘Damn. It’s later than I thought. I’ve got a call coming in, from the States.’
‘I’ll be fine,’ Annie assured him.
I like him, she thought, but I don’t like the house. Apart from his bit. There’s something wrong about it, something …
Something to do with Rianna Sardou.
She set off down the lane, hugging her coat round her in the cold, lost in her own reflections. The awareness didn’t come upon her suddenly; rather, it was a gradual feeling, a creeping change in the night, a slow prickle down her spine. There was a moment when she stopped, and glanced back, seeing nothing, and felt that the wrongness which she had sensed in the house had come with her, following her, becoming a shadow at her heels, a listener on the edge of hearing. There was a horrible familiarity about it. And then a shiver seemed to run through the hedgerows, as if a darkness slipped between the leafless stems, and she caught the whisper of words that could not be discerned, a whisper quieter than quiet, so close to her ear she expected to feel the chill of its breath on her cheek.
Them.
She didn’t run: there was no point. She walked very quickly, trying not to look back again, counting her paces in heartbeats. The lane dipped as it ran through the meadows and for a few minutes she could see no lights ahead, and she was alone, or not alone, and behind her she knew the shadows were playing grandmother’s footsteps, and the whisper was so intimate she could imagine disembodied lips moving within an inch of her face. She fancied there was a cold touch on her nape, as if a groping hand reached out to seize her – and then she saw the lights of a house in front, and the fantasy withdrew, she began to run as though released from a spell. Past gardens and back gates, into the village street, down the road to the bookshop. She shut and locked the door, but she knew it would be no use: no door had ever kept them out save that of Thornyhill. She stumbled to the phone and pressed out a number with unsteady fingers.
Ten minutes later Bartlemy was sitting in her little back room, filling much of it, a quiet, reassuring presence.
‘After Nathan was born,’ Annie was saying, ‘I always thought I went a little crazy. They were part of the craziness – that was what I told myself. Until now. But you saw them, didn’t you? The night we came to Thornyhill. You saw them following me.’
‘Oh yes,’ he said calmly. ‘I saw them.’
‘What are they? Who are they? Why have they come back?’
‘If I knew the answers to those questions,’ said Bartlemy, ‘I would be a wiser, if not a happier man. I know only what I have observed or deduced. They seem to have no real substance, yet they exist. They are made of shadow and fear. There are always many, a swarm rather than individuals. They are like nothing I have ever seen before, and I have seen many strange things. I was able to keep them away from Thornyhill – my influence is strong there – and I hoped they were gone for good, but clearly that isn’t so. Yet why should they reappear now? Where have they been? In hibernation maybe, until some call or need drew them forth. You were visiting Riverside House?’
‘Yes. I wondered … if they were there waiting. There’s something not quite right in that place. Not creepy, just rather peculiar. A feeling as if – something was out of kilter. I think it has to do with Michael’s wife.’
‘Rianna Sardou … A theatrical name. A name for a witch. I believe she looks like one, too, at least on screen: all darkness and glamour. A storybook witch. But stories can lie.’
‘Do you think there’s a connection between Rianna and – them?’
‘I don’t know,’ he admitted. ‘I don’t know why they pursued you in the past, or why that pursuit resumed today. As I said, I don’t know any of the answers, but I can think of another question.’
‘What’s that?’ Annie could think of several.
‘Why don’t they ever catch up?’
Annie shivered. ‘Don’t! I thought – something touched me, back there in the lane …’
‘Nonetheless, they didn’t catch you. They followed you for months, all those years ago, and they didn’t catch you. Why not? They are far swifter than humans. They hunted you with darkness and terror, but you always eluded them. Are they chasing you, or simply watching you – spying on you? Or else –’
‘Can we not discuss it any more?’ Annie pleaded. ‘At least for now. I want to sleep tonight.’
‘You can stay at Thornyhill, if you wish.’
‘No, thank you,’ she said. ‘I’ll stay here. This is my place.’
In bed later, she lay awake a long time, but no movement stirred the curtain, and the night was empty and still.
Nathan dreamed. Not the now-familiar nightmare of the cop, with the hissing snake-voices and the taste of blood; this was a dreamscape he had known since early childhood, once vague and surreal, now increasingly vivid. A city. A city at the end of Time. Towers soared up a mile or more, multi-facetted, topped with glass minarets reflecting sky, and spires whose glitter caught the sun. Far below, the ground was unseen beneath bridges and archways studded with windows, flyovers, walkways, suspended gardens. Airborne vehicles cruised the spaces in between, leaving con-trails in their wake that shimmered for a little while and then vanished. And occasionally there were creatures like giant birds, with webbed pinions stretching to a vast span and bony beaks, their human-sized riders hidden behind masks and goggles. Nathan had always enjoyed these dreams because often he travelled in one of the vehicles, looping the towers and diving under the archways, until he went spinning through a hundred dimensions of the dreamworld and tumbled at last into his own bed, waking exhilarated from the thrill of the ride.
This time, it was different. There was a huge dull sun, just risen, glimpsed moving through the gaps between buildings, climbing ponderously towards the open sky. The topmost towers and minarets had already sprung into glittering life and floated like islands of light above shadowy canyons where the dawn had yet to penetrate. Nathan was gliding through the air, an awareness without substance or being, looking through oval windows into an interlocking maze of rooms, all empty, like a termite mound with no termites. The city was enormous but there appeared to be few people and those all far away, too far to see clearly, moving singly or in twos and threes, but never in a crowd.
Presently, he found he was drifting beside one of the birds, but from close up it looked more like a reptile, its beak a pointed muzzle and its wings taloned, its long tail tipped with a spike. Its skin looked hard and had a slight gloss to it, as if it were made up of very tiny tightly-packed scales, steel-blue in colour and sheened with the early sunlight. The rider, too, wore blue, clothed from head to foot in some kind of metallic mesh, his hood close-fitting, with a slit for the mouth, a nose-guard, and opaque goggles covering the eye-holes. His saddle was very high in the pommel, the reins attached not to a bit but to iron rings which pierced the flesh at the corners of the creature’s mouth. Nathan thought it must be very painful but he noticed the rider used only the lightest touches to steer, barely perceptible to the observer. The creature had an extreme fixity of expression even by animal standards; it took Nathan a little while to realize why. The eyes, set under bony ridges, had neither iris nor pupil: they were blood-red from edge to edge, lidless and locked in a perpetual stare.
The flight was very fast, faster than the skimmers, though the wings beat only at intervals; a whisk of the tail acted as a ru
dder. They came to land very suddenly on a rooftop platform where another hooded figure, this time in a plasticized suit and heavy gauntlets, took the reins while the rider dismounted. The gauntleted man – assuming it was a man – tethered the creature and fed it from a bucket of things that squirmed. Nathan followed the rider to a species of cylindrical kiosk and stepped through a sliding door into what was plainly a lift. They descended a short distance and emerged onto a long gallery with a high-coved ceiling and rows of pillars down either side, not straight but warped and twisted into irregular shapes like distorted trees. There were no windows but a pale glow, like an echo of daylight, came from the ceiling. At the far end they passed into a semicircular room whose curved wall, in contrast to the gallery, was all glass, though shielded in places with translucent screens. There was very little furniture, just a unit which might have been a desk and a couple of chairs. The automatic door closed behind them. Beyond the arc of the window, the sun’s rays were reaching down into the deep places of the city.
A figure stood with his back to them, gazing out. He was taller than the rider by a head, though Nathan had thought the rider exceptionally tall. His silhouette showed wide shoulders, booted feet a little apart, arms presumably folded. He had an aura of power and great stillness. Long after, Nathan would remember this moment, this dream, more vividly than any other moment in his life before, but at the time he did not know its significance, nor guess. The rider waited, saying nothing. Eventually, the man turned.
He wore a black hood, but his face was concealed by a mask of something that looked like Perspex: white as alabaster and moulded into a semblance of human features. The mouth-slit opened between sculpted lips, the nostril-holes pierced an aquiline nose, the enlarged eyes were leaf-shaped, protected by bubbles of black glass. Like the rider and the man on the roof, not an inch of skin was exposed, not even a hair. When he spoke, Nathan understood him; it was only afterwards he realized the language was not English.