Tall Tales From Pitch End

by Nigel McDowell

  Finally, Bruno reached the turn and – teeth clenched, every breath and every blink desperately reduced – he ventured one last, sliding step and saw:

  Temperate Thomas and his Elders were gathered in a circular chamber, a low ceiling demanding a stoop from them all. There was a stone table with many squat, greasy, shrinking candles, dribbling, shedding small light on objects Bruno couldn’t discern. Ten stone chairs surrounded a larger, heavier, wooden chair with the appearance of a throne that was placed at the centre of the chamber. It was blessed with bulging velvet cushions and armrests sculpted to resemble raven talons. And on the cushion, like a long-lost now restored king: The Book of Black & White.

  Bruno thought to snatch it but knew he couldn’t have: the Temperate stood before this central chair, a wooden casket in his arms with its lid open, a smile on his face for each Elder as they offered a small, drawstring bag (‘Elder Writtle! Well this is a rightly-generous haul ye’ve managed to get out of them this week, I tell ye!’), shaking out the contents – whether meagre or ‘rightly-generous’ – and letting them cascade into the casket.

  ‘Very good,’ said Temperate Thomas. ‘A very profitable week indeed.’

  The lid of the casket was shut, locked by a key that hung with many others from a chain around the Temperate’s neck, and left on the stone table.

  Monies surrendered, all Elders but their Temperate sank into stone chairs around the edge of the chamber, each knowing their place. The candlelight shivered under the assault of so many long sighs. Some of the men began to loll within moments, as though weighted with such a longing for sleep they couldn’t resist.

  ‘Well now!’ said Temperate Thomas loudly, a few Elders starting, clutching heart or knee or hip with wince and groan. ‘How rightly-glad I am to be seeing ye all tonight, my brave, brave Elders. I often think of the great burden on ye all. The great worry we all carry for the welfare of our town. We may not be young men, but we are young and pure in our hearts!’

  The Elders mostly nodded.

  Temperate Thomas smiled.

  Bruno was bewildered (and perhaps a small amount awed) at how the Temperate was addressing the Elders. At how much he had them in his command, and with words so close to the words he’d thrown to the Pitch Enders in the Discussion Chamber; the very same way too of sliding, without a stumble, from flattery and gratitude to firm resolve.

  ‘And we are allowed one moment of pure contentedness, I’m thinking,’ said Temperate Thomas. He turned, stooping, letting his fingers slide over the surface of The Book of Black & White. He lifted the vast book – a ‘volume of wickedness’ thought Bruno, remembering the Temperate’s earlier description – and brought it as close to his chest as an infant needing soothing. ‘Indeed, we can be content, for it has returned to us at last. Returned, as I always said it would, did I not, Elders?’

  Again there was nodding, a few grumbles of agreement, and then one solitary shout – ‘We’ve a bit of it anyway!’

  Bruno tried to source the voice, but saw no face likely to have just spoken.

  But Temperate Thomas seized on it.

  ‘Right ye are, Elder Shoemark!’

  He moved fast then, bowing low to a man with one eye open and the other shut, and a nose the colour of burnt bacon. ‘We do indeed have one wee bit, but we’ve only been able to do the littlest of what is possible, isn’t that right?’

  Elder Shoemark’s mouth replied in a long glistening thread of saliva.

  ‘One page is all we’ve had these ten turns,’ said Temperate Thomas, moving away from Elder Shoemark. ‘One ripped, half-ruined but rightly-useful page from this book. We’ve become desperate in our ageing. But no more. Soon we’ll have more than just a respite from the ravages of ageing. Remember what Jack Pitch tells us in The Wrath: Power can be now and forever, but be knowing that the body and the mind are rightly-not.’

  Bruno’s legs began to ache with so much standing and not moving, mind vibrating with concentration. And questions, always more questions, answers just as out of reach as The Book of Black & White…

  ‘We’ll not be about forever!’ cried another Elder without warning. Temperate Thomas rushed to console him, coming so close and so quickly to where Bruno stood, unseeable, that he recoiled.

  ‘Aye, Elder Pester,’ said the Temperate, covering the Elder’s hand with one of his own. Bruno noted the difference: Elder Pester’s hand was riven with burst blood vessels, tangles of swollen vein, fingers purpled where the Temperate’s hand was merely smooth. Not utterly untouched by age – mottled with mauve spots, like the first warnings of damp on a wall – but not as distressed.

  ‘Ye’re right enough,’ Temperate Thomas went on. ‘We won’t be about forever. And we’ve to do something quick if we’re to stop the rot of mind and body. For what would they do without us, these people in this town? What would become of Pitch End without our rightly-decent guidance? Sure, they wouldn’t even know what to do with themselves at all! Would probably not even get out of bed, so afeared they’d be, if we weren’t around. Did ye see how they feared the book, just because I was telling them to? Not even a question about it!

  ‘The Elders have been here longest of all – since before the Single Season War, before the Renaming of the Streets and the burning of the gypsies in Old Town … before and before that, and we shall stay on. We must be without time. Our continuing on, our staying where we are, always in their minds and daily ways – that’s what we must ensure. That’s what this book will give us. And not just the book has been returned to us. Our friend the Witherman has gifted something else too.’

  From beneath his robes the Temperate took a pocket watch – cracked, without hands, clockwork twisted and mangled – and Bruno knew it as the clock that had been fixed in Gumbly. The state of the clockwork led his imagination to places he didn’t like, images of what it had taken to remove the thing from Gumbly’s chest.

  ‘Ye see, Elders,’ said Temperate Thomas, ‘didn’t I say if we merely planned, waited, then these Withermen would see to themselves. No need to go hunting them down or be taking these things out by force. Just advise, for example, that a Witherman needs to attend a rightly-secret meeting in a rightly-insecure building in Old Town, and then what should happen? The building collapses. Unfortunate. Then advise another that they should be for always checking their daily meat for maggots, can’t ever be too careful! Shame they didn’t listen. Found dead in their bed, foaming at the mouth.’ The Temperate smiled. ‘Now, we’ll be adding this one to the others we’ve collected.’

  The Temperate turned and Bruno leaned forwards, noticing again the small objects on the stone table, then knowing what they were by their similarity to what Temperate Thomas placed amongst them – two other mangled pocket watches, joined by Gumbly’s. The clocks belonged to the two other dead Withermen.

  ‘But,’ said the Temperate, his voice low, like thoughts being wondered aloud. ‘I’m thinking we may have to reconsider such rightly-patient action, given the return of the book. Time is truly in short supply. We will have to deploy all our considerable power now to locate the other pocket watches. Starting first, of course, with the one in the heart of the last Witherman. Once all are collected, and with The Book of Black & White—’

  Then the most unexpected thing of all. An impatient knocking behind Bruno, behind a patch of wall free of Cat-Sentries.

  ‘And sure it couldn’t have been better timed!’ said Temperate Thomas. Bruno had the space of a heartbeat to move as the Head Elder rushed by him. Bruno held a breath as the Temperate again dragged the chain from the collar of his tunic, the end weighted with keys.

  ‘Best behaviour now!’ he called to the Elders. They groaned like ancient elms.

  Temperate Thomas found somewhere to insert the key; the wall became a door, sweeping forwards, and out stepped a child, a girl – Sabitha McCormack. Bruno had to struggle to keep that breath in as the Temperate offered Sabitha his hand, saying, ‘Ye’re most welcome, my child. Were ye finding yer way he
re alright?’

  ‘Course I did,’ said Sabitha. ‘Like ye told me, I went to that shop in Old Town where the Withermen used to keep the dead, opened the trapdoor, climbed down and then went left, then right, then kept going till I got here. Easy.’

  ‘And yer father?’ said the Temperate. ‘Told him nothing, did ye? Kept this our secret, as I Elder-Ordered it?’

  ‘Course,’ said Sabitha, and Bruno saw her roll her eyes.

  Bruno felt as though he was witnessing something only imagined. Dreamed up by someone else. The feelings, his fear, his shock, took him. He had to fight to bring his emotion under control, to focus on remaining unseeable.

  ‘I don’t need my daddy with me to go places,’ Sabitha was saying. ‘I’m rightly-good at finding my own way. Miss Hope says I’ll go far and—’

  ‘Sshhh now,’ said Temperate Thomas, and he lowered his voice. ‘Ye’re entering a rightly-special place, young one, so we must be especially respecting of it. Ye’re very lucky, ye know. Very lucky to be invited here.’

  ‘What kinda place?’ asked Sabitha, and though she tried to roll her eyes again, give all appearance of not being bothered, Bruno knew she was flattered; nothing she liked more than feeling she was seeing something special, being allowed in someplace that others weren’t. Her curiosity overtook anything else.

  Maybe, Bruno thought, I’m not that different from her.

  ‘What kinda place?’ asked Sabitha again, but she got no reply.

  She moved into the chamber where the Elders sat and Bruno shut his eyes, not trusting himself to remain unseen, feeling his Talent might falter under such stress. He held his eyes shut until he felt them pass; opening them again he watched Temperate Thomas lead Sabitha to the wooden throne in the centre of the chamber.

  ‘Sit,’ said the Temperate.

  ‘It’s that book!’ said Sabitha, still standing and now pointing at The Book of Black & White held in the Temperate’s arms. ‘The one ye were making all the big fuss about. Can I have a look at it?’ And she made to snatch it from him but was stopped – her hands outstretched, fingers spread, weight tipped forwards onto tiptoe, the Temperate with his Talent holding her back.

  ‘Now,’ said Temperate Thomas, ‘I said to ye that this is a rightly-decent place and ye need to have respect for it. Ye need to be doing as I say exactly when I say it, and no contrariness or being awkward. If there’s one thing I don’t like it’s a child that doesn’t know right-well what’s best for them. Understand?’

  Sabitha didn’t move; couldn’t, even in agreement.

  ‘I think ye do,’ said the Temperate. ‘I see in yer eyes that ye’re a good girl. And ye will go far indeed, if ye learn to do as ye’re told.’

  Sabitha was released, easing back, arms slowly falling to her sides. Bruno looked closer – a tear was sliding down her cheek.

  ‘No need for tears,’ said Temperate Thomas, and he lifted it from her with one long finger. ‘Ye couldn’t be in a safer place, truth-told, with those Rebels back. Sit yerself down, child.’

  Sabitha turned and eyed the chair. But there could be no debate. She sat.

  ‘Good girl,’ said the Temperate.

  As much of an urge as he had to snatch The Book of Black & White, Bruno felt an urge rising just as strong to snatch away Sabitha. He couldn’t know what was about to happen, but the fear he saw seep into her, a girl transformed from the Sabitha he knew – with hands tucked under her legs, head lowered – this was enough to make him wish he could take her from the Elders.

  The Temperate had returned to the stone table.

  ‘Sabitha,’ he said, ‘do ye know what Jack Pitch says in The Wrath about a child’s obedience to a person’s Elders?’

  ‘I’m not a child!’ flashed Sabitha, and Bruno saw her reclaim some of her old self. ‘I’m Coming-of-Age soon!’

  Temperate Thomas half-turned. She demurred.

  ‘It says,’ he went on, turning back to the table, ‘that a child’s greatest duty is obedience. That their greatest interest should be in pleasing, satisfying and furthering the well-being, livelihood and love of their Elders.’

  ‘I thought Jack Pitch was meaning parents and stuff,’ said Sabitha. ‘When he was saying “elders” he meant older people, not Elders like you.’

  To his own surprise, Bruno felt a rush of pride for her.

  The Temperate turned. In his hands he held a long, flat, narrow box.

  ‘I am going to show ye something,’ said Temperate Thomas, moving towards Sabitha. Bruno noticed that The Book of Black & White had been left on the stone table. ‘Something no one else knows,’ the Temperate went on. ‘A piece of paper no one else in Pitch End has seen, except us Elders. Would ye like that?’

  Sabitha turned in the chair, said nothing, but had fire in her eyes like Bruno had seen in class when she’d been praised by Miss Hope for reciting some dull, nonsensical fact of Pitch End Definitive History.

  The Temperate smiled. He opened the narrow box, and Bruno saw something pale, curled. Temperate Thomas eased it free – a slow, reverent delicacy working his fingers – and Bruno remembered what had been mentioned only minutes before about a ‘ripped, half-ruined but rightly-useful page’.

  The container set aside, the Temperate approached Sabitha, unfurling the page. Bruno saw how ruined it was – black, no discernible words, scarred and pitted.

  ‘What is it?’ said Sabitha, and Bruno could see her interest dwindling, expression saying that nothing (in her opinion) like a charred page could ever be interesting.

  ‘This,’ said the Temperate, ‘is what keeps myself and the other Elders as we are.’

  ‘I don’t like it,’ said Sabitha, deciding.

  ‘Now, now,’ said Temperate Thomas. ‘Ye know what happens to bad little girls and boys who disobey their Elders, don’t ye?’

  ‘They get taken away by the Rebels,’ said Sabitha. ‘But I wouldn’t let that happen – I’d bite and scratch and fight, my father taught me how. And if I couldn’t get away he’d come to save me!’

  ‘But yer father wouldn’t know,’ said the Temperate. ‘Because the Rebels, those clever divils, would put a Changeling in yer bed and it would look like yerself and talk like yerself and kiss and cuddle Mammy and Daddy. They’d be none the wiser, and in the meantime ye’d be with the Rebels. And all because ye were rightly-disobedient to yer Elders.’

  And then, with a passion Bruno knew too well, Sabitha screamed: ‘That isn’t true!’

  Temperate Thomas’s response knocked Bruno off balance. He fell against the wall as the Temperate lifted a stiff hand, a rush of Talent consuming Sabitha, holding her fast, forcing her to sit bolt upright in the chair.

  He laid two fingers on her forehead.

  ‘Be still now,’ he said. ‘Just remember what Jack Pitch said: A child’s greatest duty is obedience.’

  He withdrew his fingers. Sabitha’s eyeballs twitched. None of the other Elders reacted.

  Bruno’s fear splintered him, tore his attention, and he thought his Talent must’ve faded for a moment as Sabitha’s eyes turned, widened, seemingly spying him there. He forced his thoughts back to his Talent, screwed and stuck them…

  ‘If ye’re so keen to know about The Book of Black & White,’ said Temperate Thomas, ‘then I’ll tell ye. I’m all for learning, for the right-real truth of things. Ye see, Arthur Pitch was fascinated by Talent. He went further into exploring it than anyone else ever in Pitch End’s noble history. He was obsessed too, as I shared earlier in the town hall, with immortality. In living forever. Or, eventually, staying young forever. So he got all his thoughts down in this book. He believed that if ye could only get control of all that feeling, all that fire that makes Talent come through when ye Come-Of-Age – if ye could keep it, make it powerful, then ye would never grow a day older. Ye could stay on the verge of Coming-Of-Age, always. The key to it all is in the pages of The Book of Black & White. Secrets, if ye know how to be reading it.’

  Temperate Thomas laid one finger on the dark
, ruined page, and dragged. He let one digit descend in straight lines, top to bottom as though he could discern words there that Bruno couldn’t. The movement drew a scratching, like a needle working against stone, which in turn drew more sound from the chamber: from Sabitha, a low moan as though fending off nightmares; from the Elders, groaning too and shifting in their stone chairs, an uncomfortable, indecent excitement agitating their bones. It made Bruno want to look away, be away. But he couldn’t. He had to know.

  The place on Sabitha’s forehead where Temperate Thomas had touched began to sag, squirm, wrinkles appearing and deepening, multiplying like streams threading across land, carving small, dark paths. And at the same time the opposite was happening in Temperate Thomas – his few wrinkles softened, bright relief blushing his cheeks, the dark spots of age that peppered his hands fading.

  Bruno had wanted to know, and now he wanted to forget; wished, for the first time in all the enforced Forgetting of Pitch End, to unknow something. But he knew he would never forget this.

  ‘Ye see!’ said the Temperate, holding his hands up like a triumphant criminal, one happily caught in the act. ‘Ye see, my Elders! This is with only our one ruined page, just as we’ve been doing for ten turns. But with The Book of Black & White it can be not just one child at a time, but many. And not just one Elder but all of us together! We must find all the remaining pocket watches, use them to restart the Clocktower and, as it says in Arthur Pitch’s own words, use it to—’

  From somewhere then, Sabitha found strength; one of her hands fixed around the pointed ball of Temperate Thomas’s throat, the torn page from The Book of Black & White falling from his hand. He spluttered, hoping for help but the other Elders were too old, too unable to move.