Tower of Silence

by Sarah Rayne

  Selina went there regularly. She would have liked to follow the ritual called the barashnom, but it required you to wash several times and also to live apart from the rest of the house for nine days and nights before entering the shrine, and this was impossible in Teind House where the range had to be stoked up for four hours before you got any hot water. So she compromised by washing very thoroughly in a basin of cold water in her bedroom, and by making the visits to the shrine on Sundays, when Teind House had been quiet all day, or on Fridays, when she had stayed at school by herself for her hour’s piano practice, and nobody saw if she had a strip-wash in one of the cloakrooms. Once inside the tower, she always chanted the kusti and the patet, which were repentance-prayers for the dead and in which you had to be careful to include the names of the people you were honouring. Sometimes, for good measure, Selina recited the creed, which was wholly Christian of course, but which might be well received on account of her parents’ being English. You had to be polite about these things.

  It was more than five years since her mother and father had died now, but there was no way to be sure that they had both crossed the old and holy Bridge. Several times Selina wondered if she had done enough honouring of their memories, and if she dared dismantle the shrine to see what happened, but she never quite had the courage.

  And then, one bronze-and-gold autumn Sunday afternoon, Aunt Flora mentioned opening up the Round Tower.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  She and Selina were washing up the lunch things, doing so straight after the meal as they always did, because Aunt Flora’s dear mother would have turned in her grave to see a sinkful of dirty dishes halfway through the afternoon, and it a Sunday.

  ‘I said to the vicar this morning that I would walk across and take a look at the Round Tower,’ Aunt Flora said, tipping washing soda briskly into the bowl. ‘To see if it mightn’t be suitable for a little exhibition, you know. The Ladies’ Guild could display their needlework, or the school might set up an exhibition of pupils’ work. Art, or pressed flowers. Hand me that plate, Selina, will you?’

  ‘The Round Tower?’ Selina stood stock still in the middle of the kitchen, clutching the newly dried plate and staring at her aunt in horror. ‘Oh, but I don’t think it would be very suitable for an exhibition, Aunt Flora. It’s horridly dirty, and…’ A little improvisation could surely be allowed here? ‘And Miss Mackenzie who takes us for history says it’s dangerous. We’re forbidden to go there,’ said Selina, rather desperately.

  ‘Yes, but we could just take a little walk towards it, couldn’t we? We won’t need to go very near to tell whether or not it’s suitable.’ Aunt Flora had finished putting away the plates, and had polished the glasses that had held her and Great-uncle Matthew’s tonic wine which they drank with Sunday lunch. She spread the tea cloths on the range where they would dry out in the warmth, and untied her apron, folding it away in the drawer. ‘We might even take a little walk out there now, Selina. A little exercise after a heavy lunch is a good idea, and it’s a beautiful afternoon, and your uncle is working in his study…’ They both knew that this was a polite way of saying that Great-uncle Matthew was taking his customary post-lunch nap. ‘We’ll be back in good time to cut the sandwiches for tea,’ said Aunt Flora.

  Sunday afternoon tea was a ritual in itself: there were usually meat paste or egg and cress sandwiches, a slice of Madeira cake or scones, and quite often tinned or bottled fruit. The fruit was usually apricots which Selina hated because they were like peaches with skin on, but Great-uncle Matthew liked apricots so that was what they mostly had. Supper was eaten at eight o’clock on Sundays, and was generally cold meat from the lunchtime joint with some of Aunt Flora’s home-made chutney.

  ‘We’ll walk across to the tower now, just to take a look, and then,’ said Aunt Flora happily, ‘if the vicar should happen to look in for a cup of tea later–he might very well do so, you know–I could tell him what we think.’

  It was possible to start hating Aunt Flora–nice plump dithery Aunt Flora–as abruptly and as thoroughly as once you had hated Aunt Rosa. It was possible to see, all at once, that although she had a stupid sheeplike face and a vapid, sheeplike mind, beneath it she was dangerous, threatening.

  She would find the shrine and she would know what it was at once. The trouble was that she would not understand its necessity, just as Aunt Rosa had not understood.

  But Selina gave Aunt Flora a chance. She waited until they were inside the Round Tower’s little room, and she watched Aunt Flora look about her, and draw in her breath with a little puffy sound of surprise, and then say, ‘My goodness me, Selina, have you done this?’

  Selina knew then that Aunt Flora, for all her nice wuffly plumpness and her happy dithering about whether the vicar would come to tea and if she should bake her special cherry cake just in case, was as disapproving as her sister had been.

  ‘Selina, it’s–it’s a shrine,’ said Aunt Flora, staring about her. ‘And those are Poor Elspeth’s things–I recognise that black stole. And that’s a photograph of That Man—A silver frame as well! My dear child,’ said Aunt Flora, scarlet-faced with indignation and disapproval, ‘my dear child, this won’t do at all! Think what your great-uncle would say!’ A pause. ‘Think what the vicar would say!’ expostulated Great-aunt Flora, a picture of outraged Presbyterian horror.

  ‘It’s only to honour their memories,’ said Selina hopefully, because if only Aunt Flora could try to understand that the shrine was absolutely and overwhelmingly necessary, it might still be all right. ‘It’s a way of remembering.’

  ‘We don’t honour memories like this,’ said Aunt Flora firmly. ‘We honour memories by flowers on graves—’ Too late she recalled that neither Poor Elspeth nor That Man who had taken her to the outlandish Indian place had graves, so she said, in her briskest voice, ‘Or by church services on birthdays and the anniversaries of deaths. By having photographs in your room.’

  Selina could not see that having a photograph of her parents in her room and chanting a few prayers on mother’s or father’s birthday was very different from arranging things out here. She said, pacifically, ‘It isn’t hurting anyone to have this shrine, Aunt Flora.’

  The use of the word shrine was unfortunate. Aunt Flora flushed all over again and her face seemed to swell like an outraged turkeycock’s. She said, ‘It’s unChristian, Selina! And it’s very very deceitful of you as well–sneaking out here to this–this pagan thing all these years. Well, one thing is for sure, this must stop and immediately, is that understood?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Selina in a colourless voice.

  ‘You must take these things away at once, is that understood? Yes, you may well hang your head like that.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ muttered Selina, staring at the floor, not meaning, I’m sorry for what I’ve done; meaning, I’m sorry you had to forbid the shrine. She said, ‘I’ll do it at once, I promise I will. I didn’t know about it being pagan and things. But, Aunt Flora, now that we’re here, should we take a look round anyway? For the vicar’s exhibition? It isn’t really dangerous, you know, this tower. I made that up because I thought you might be angry if you saw the—’ Better not to use the word again. ‘If you saw all these things,’ amended Selina.

  Aunt Flora softened visibly. To be sure the tower was horridly dusty and desolate, she said, looking about her, but it could be spruced up quite easily. A few licks of paint and plaster, some rush matting on the floor—Some kind of temporary power supply for lighting—She could even visualise some nice cloth-covered tables with the Ladies’ Guild needlework set out on them. And perhaps the History Society in Stornforth might be persuaded to write up a little background to the tower’s origins: they could have leaflets on sale, and serve coffee and cakes to people visiting the exhibition. She wandered happily off into culinary realms, wondering whether they might boil water on a camping stove, or whether Thermos flasks would serve, and Selina hated her all over again, with an angry bitter hatred, because she had dismisse
d the shrine so casually and so completely.

  She waited for a pause in the flow of Aunt Flora’s discourse, and said, ‘Shall we take a look at the upper sections while we’re here? Those are the stairs leading up–I don’t know how far they go, but they look pretty safe. I should think,’ added Selina cunningly, ‘that the vicar would want to know if the upstairs bits could be used as well as the ground floor, wouldn’t he? He’d be awfully pleased if you could give him a report. If he comes to tea later on, I mean.’

  The idea of the vicar’s being pleased at anything Aunt Flora had done or attempted found instant approval. Aunt Flora began to look less angry; she said perhaps they might take a little look, although they would have to go carefully, and–Selina was to mind this!–they would have to come out immediately if they saw any signs of stones crumbling or ceilings being unsafe.

  ‘Instantly, is that clear, Selina?’

  ‘Oh yes, of course,’ said Selina. ‘We mustn’t risk anything happening to either of us.’

  The stairway was dark and narrow, and it wound round and round, exactly as the iron stairway inside the terrible Tower of Silence had done.

  I must be careful, thought Selina, cautiously leading the way upwards. I must be calm and ordinary, and I mustn’t let her suspect anything.

  It was eerily difficult to remember that this was Inchcape, not Alwar. The higher Selina went up the stone stair, Aunt Flora puffing along behind her, the closer she felt to Alwar and the children–dear brave Christy, and Douglas who had tried so desperately to protect them all–and the more the gap of the years seemed to narrow.

  This was Alwar, very nearly; the darkness was surely the same darkness that had clung to the evil blood-tainted tower outside the town, and the stone walls were almost the same walls that the plotters had scraped against as they carried the two wrapped-up bodies to the top—Selina could hear the beating of huge wings on the air as well, and she was suddenly afraid that if she looked up she might be able to see the round-shouldered shapes, peering down, waiting for the meals of human flesh that were being carried up to them…

  No, this was absurd. This tower had long since been roofed over. Selina frowned and blinked several times to dislodge the images from behind her eyelids. But she could hear the soft beating of wings, and there might well be large birds up there, because they flew in from the sanctuary at Stornforth, she had often seen them. There were capercaillie and crossbills and larks and wood warblers and several exotically plumaged birds from other countries. Stornforth was rightly proud of its bird sanctuary. Lately there had been talk of eagles, which everyone thought would be exciting.

  But besides all that, the sanctuary had hawks and falcons. Had it the cloak-winged ogre-birds, as well? If so, might they be up there now, waiting, just as they had waited for father and mother that night…?

  After the pale bloodied thing that was mother had stopped screaming, panic had taken over outside the tower. People had run back and forth, calling frantically to one another, shouting for more lights, shouting for someone to go up inside the tower and bloody do something! But two people had gone up there already, and no one seemed to quite know what else could be done.

  Selina had stayed huddled into Douglas’s father’s jeep, and for a little space of time everybody seemed to forget about her. She saw Douglas’s father go across to the horrid jumble of bodies at the tower’s foot, and she saw him shine his torch and bend down. And then he recoiled, one hand going to his eyes, as if somebody had hit him hard across the face. Douglas, thought Selina miserably. He’s seen Douglas’s body. He didn’t know until now that Douglas was dead. But her mind was still confused with what had happened and with trying to understand what would happen next. It was as if the pieces that were the facts were all in her mind, ready to be understood, but as if they had to be arranged into the proper pattern first and Selina could not manage to do it.

  The men who had gone up the iron stair had reached the top of the tower; Selina could see them moving warily around–she could see that they had to keep dodging back as the angry birds flew at them. Somebody near to the jeep muttered that it was practically unknown for the birds to attack living humans, but Selina thought that it was fury at being cheated of their prey that had enraged the birds.

  She watched the tower’s top, her hands clenched tightly together in her lap, shivering violently even though the night air was so warm. The headlights from the cars were still tilted up to shine onto the Tower, and she could see everything very clearly. Her father lay where he had been put and the birds did not seem to have touched him, but mother was still in an awkward jumble on the stones. She would hate to be seen like that, her legs embarrassingly sprawled out, and her hair a tangled mess. She had liked to be always neat and shinily groomed, mother; she always made sure that her hemlines were well below her knees, and she smoothed her skirts down primly when she was offered a low chair, and sat with her knees tidily together. Father teased her about it, a bit.

  But father would not tease her any more, and there was no longer anything tidy about mother, and there was nothing prim about her, either. As Selina watched, miserably frightened, still struggling to sort the pieces of information out so that they would make sense, one of the birds came angrily swooping down again, and the two men dodged back, covering their heads with their hands. The blood-streaked thing that had been Elspeth March moved slightly and Selina caught her breath and shoved her clenched fist into her mouth in case she cried out and everyone remembered about her being here and took her away.

  With nightmarish slowness the helpless figure slid to the edge of the stone rim. It stayed there for an unmeasurable space of time, curled over, its hands covering its head. The hands had no fingers any longer, because the vultures had bitten them off when mother tried to protect her face.

  As Selina watched, the thing that had been mother straightened up, and half turned to the men who were attempting to rescue her. She made a last despairing gesture for help, flinging her arms out, and taking a step towards them. But she could not see them, because the vultures had scooped out her eyes with their beaks, leaving dark bloodied holes, and before anyone could reach her she fell blindly over the edge of the tower, and came plummeting down to the ground.

  It seemed to take a very long time for her to hit the ground, but when she eventually did so there was a dull wet squelching thud, and one of the men turned aside, covering his mouth. Somebody said, ‘Christ almighty, she’s fallen on the kids!’

  The vultures came hurtling straight down onto the tangled heap of bodies.

  Selina opened her eyes to firelight in a completely strange room. It was not the safe, warm kind of firelight that made friendly pictures on your bedroom wall when you were ill; this was a frightening firelight that cast images of ogres in raggedy cloaks who crouched on the top of black towers and waited for humans that they could eat up, and used their claws and their long curved beaks to rip into flesh and hair, and tear out eyes—

  Selina sat bolt upright and gasped, and at once a completely strange lady in a nurse’s uniform was there, patting the bed, telling her she was quite safe, everything was all right, and please drink this.

  ‘It’s something to help you sleep,’ said the nurse, as Selina stared with scared eyes at the mug of drink-this. ‘You’re in hospital, you know.’

  Selina frowned, because although her mind felt fuzzy it also felt as if there might be things she should be remembering. She said, ‘My parents—’ and then stopped. There was something wrong, something bad. She would remember what it was in a minute.

  ‘Doctor will come along to talk to you when you’ve had a nice sleep,’ said the nurse brightly. Selina hated her. She wore a white apron that rustled, and she smelt of carbolic soap and cocoa. ‘Drink this all up, first, and then off to the Land of Noddington for a while.’

  Selina wondered how old the nurse thought she was. She started to say, in her most grown-up voice, ‘I’m seven and a quarter, you know,’ and then quite suddenly
a piece of the blurry nightmare slid into her mind, and she said, ‘Christy. She was in the tower with me—Where is she? What happened to her? Did they bring her out? I didn’t see anyone bring her out—’

  ‘We’ll talk about that later.’

  ‘No,’ said Selina, glaring at the nurse, her fists beating angrily on the bedclothes. ‘No, you must tell me now. If you don’t, I’ll—’ Another sliver of memory skittered across her mind. Somebody who had screamed into the crimson-streaked night, on and on, until it hurt your mind to hear it. ‘I’ll scream,’ she said mutinously. ‘I won’t stop screaming until you tell me about Christy.’ She drew in a deep breath, and the nurse said hastily, ‘Let me find doctor for you.’

  The doctor came nearly at once. He was a nice jowly-faced man with shiny round spectacles and a fringe of hair round a bald head. He sat on Selina’s bed and held her hand, and said, well now, what was all this about?

  ‘It’s Christy,’ said Selina, clutching at his hands. ‘Christabel Maskelyne. She was inside the tower with me –I remember that part. We hid from–from something—But then we couldn’t get out because the door wouldn’t open from inside. They did bring Christy out, didn’t they? Because I didn’t see her–not right at the end–not when—’ She stopped, clenching her fists in frustration. ‘I can’t remember. Not properly. I can remember some but not much.’

  ‘You’ll remember a little bit at a time, Selina. Like being out in the fog, and you think you can’t see where you’re going, only then it clears in patches, and you can see quite clearly. That’s what your memory will do.’