The Road to Bedlam cotf-2

by Mike Shevdon

Blackbird hesitated, caught between going to help and making it worse. Kareesh's high delicate voice cracked as she spat out the words.

  "All together, all apart. Two made one, made three, now two, make two, make one. One to shine, one to rise, one to live, one to die…"

  Blackbird could hear the stress rising, the words tumbling like stones in a stream. She was shouting now, punching words out so that Blackbird could hardly separate them.

  "…One is two, and two is one, then one is none, all is gone, so many gone and all is won and lost and gone for all that none can be alone…"

  Blackbird hurried down the stairs, away from the shouting. As she descended it slowed and quietened a little.

  "One and one and two by two. One is son and sundered son. Two is son and one shall rise. Sun shall rise and shine for all. Then all shall fall…"

  When she reached the bottom, Gramawl was waiting. He moved her gently to one side, gesturing for her to wait down the tunnel, then stooped into the stairway and quickly mounted the stairs. Using her hand against the wall to guide her, Blackbird slowly made her way back along the tunnel to the light.

  She was sitting on the stairway when Gramawl returned some time later.

  "Is she all right?" she whispered.

  The question hung in the air between them.

  Gramawl lowered himself down again and sat in the corridor. She stood and went to him.

  He made a stirring gesture, then patted his palm, then touched his forehead, his eyes and his lips. For once he looked tired and sad.

  "I know she's old, and it's not her fault. She sees what she sees. I know that."

  He repeated the gesture with his lips.

  "It doesn't matter whether she means it or not. It's not her saying it, really, is it? It spills out of her and there's nothing any of us can do."

  He reached out and touched her belly gently with a finger then rocked his head between his hands.

  "You think so? You may be right. Having two lives so close together, the new one with so many futures, it could send her crazy like that."

  They were silent for a moment.

  "She said, 'One to live, one to die,'" Blackbird said quietly.

  Gramawl touched his nose, his head and his ears in quick succession, then opened his hands.

  "No, I suppose you're right. It may mean something else entirely. There's no way of knowing."

  He rose to his feet and she stepped in, burying her hands up to her elbows in fur as she hugged herself close to him, breathing in the scent of new-turned earth, resting against the solidity of him.

  "I have to go."

  A giant hand stroked her hair, holding her for a little longer.

  She disentangled herself and drew her hair back from her face. She collected the horseshoe from below the step and stowed it carefully in her bag.

  "When she wakes?"

  Gramawl cocked his head.

  "Tell her… tell her I wanted to see her. Tell her I'll bring the baby, after it's born. Tell her I'll try."

  Gramawl bowed low, a low rumble filling the space and echoing down the tunnel.

  "You too. Take care."

  She mounted the stairs, climbing back to the world of men.

  FOURTEEN

  I'd thought they would have records in the library: archives of town newspapers and local history. I was disappointed. A fair-haired young man who looked as if he needed a good meal told me that the rest of the records were kept in the County Record Office in Northallerton. If I wanted more, I would have to go there. He glanced meaningfully at the rain running down the windows, suggesting that I might stay a while out of the rain.

  I settled for scanning through three or four books on the history of the area. They were better than I had expected. They followed the town from its beginnings as a Bronze Age settlement, showing monochrome photographs of Victorian men in bowler hats with shovels and picks posing as archaeologists over the trenchedout remains of an Iron Age long barrow. Having met one or two modern-day archaeologists, I knew exactly what they would think of this particular brand of institutionalised vandalism. These were fortune-hunters at best, and kept no record of the placing, distribution or arrangement of their finds, being only interested in their value as antiquarian treasure.

  The books followed the community through mediaeval times under the priory at Bridlington into the inevitable conflict of civil war and the Industrial Revolution. The coming of steam meant larger vessels with deeper draught, and the shallow harbour fell from use as a shipping port into fishing and light trade. Nowhere was there any mention of dark deeds or missing women. Rather, the community supported itself through the best and worst of times, rising to each new challenge and meeting each change with determination and vigour. If there had been women going missing on a regular basis, I would have thought some sort of mention would be made, even if only as a passing reference.

  Since it was still raining hard, I made use of the free internet access to Google a search for Ravensby. It threw up the usual discount offers and, with some perseverance, I found the reports of the five missing girls. If there was a long list of missing women from Ravensby, though, it wasn't on the internet. I also used the image search to look for the symbol I'd seen on the truck waiting near the hospital where Alex had been taken. The nearest I could find was a hazardous load symbol for a biohazard, but that symbol was subtly different. A further hour of browsing brought me no closer. I found companies that could provide transport for hazardous material and there were lots of theories as to how certain diseases had found their way into the population, but nothing that would lead me to Alex.

  Just out of interest, I googled 'Feyre'. The list of hits that emerged mainly led to Sainte-Feyre in central France, making me wonder whether the place had any fey significance. There were no references to creatures by that name.

  "Are you all right with that?"

  The young man appeared by my side, making me cancel the search quickly before he noticed what I'd been searching for.

  "I'm fine, thanks."

  He smiled thinly and moved away. He probably thought I was using it to look at pictures of naked women. Putting my wet coat back on, I thanked the librarian for his time and asked him where I might find further local history to fill out my picture of the town. He directed me to the local newspaper, saying that he thought they kept their own archive. I picked up my umbrella and left.

  The woman in the newspaper office was far less helpful. As soon as she realised that I didn't want to buy advertising space, she lost interest. Yes, they probably did have back copies of the newspapers in an archive but no, I couldn't look through them. Had I tried the public library? When I said I had, her expression didn't change. Two words were on the tip of her tongue and one of them was "off".

  That left me with one more avenue to try before a trip to the record office became necessary. The local museum was a small affair and survived from a combination of local authority support and donations from tourists who must have got lost to end up there. The sign outside proclaimed that the Maritime Museum was open, though the windows were dark and there was no obvious sign of life.

  When I pushed the door open, a small bell jangled, the sort that graced shop doorways and announced customers to men behind counters wearing brown overalls. It took a moment for my eyes to adjust. Inside was a small hallway, the wall festooned in trawl netting and blown-glass floats.

  "Put wood in t'hole."

  I hadn't noticed the gentleman sitting behind the desk in the room off to my left, not because I didn't see him, but because he looked like an exhibit.

  "Sorry?"

  "The door, lad. Shut it, before t'weather comes in."

  I closed the door behind me. The bell jangled again.

  "Is the museum open?"

  "Y're in aren't ya?"

  "I suppose so."

  "We're open then."

  I looked around. The museum appeared to be two terraced houses knocked into one, with an arch between them to access o
ne house from the other. Almost every surface was covered in items of differing size and in various states of disrepair or assembly. Museums I'd been in before had display cases with carefully controlled temperature and humidity. This one had shelves and tables, desks and chairs, all covered in what could only be described as… stuff.

  "It's three quid," said the man.

  A sign on the desk said that all donations were purely voluntary and gratefully accepted.

  I looked meaningfully at the sign.

  "You get naught for nowt round 'ere," he said. "I've got change."

  I delved in a pocket and came out with the money. He accepted the coins with a nod and carefully wrote me a receipt. It was unreadable.

  "You pay tax?" His look said that I probably didn't. "We can claim the tax back if you do."

  "No," I said. Since I'd lost my job, I didn't get paid a salary any more, so I didn't pay tax either. If I needed money, I was given some, though I had little enough to spend it on.

  "Thought so."

  "Is there a guidebook?" I asked.

  "It's another pound," he said.

  I handed over a further coin. He passed me a bundle of photocopied sheets that had obviously been read before.

  "These aren't new," I pointed out.

  "We'd like 'em back when you've finished. Recycling."

  I took the sheets and wandered on into the house, looking at all the objects strewn randomly around. The guide was interesting enough and talked about the history of the town and the people that lived there. It provided no clue as to the origins and purpose of most of the things in the museum. I figured you probably had to be born here to know that.

  Amid the collection there were farm implements, examples of lace, ancient comic annuals and discarded toys. Nothing was in any order or sequence. A rusty lobster pot provided a resting place for a child's doll with no indication that there was any relationship between the two.

  On the first floor I came into a room full of photographs and pictures. There were engravings showing ships ploughing through mountainous seas in great storms, and shadowy photographs of grim-faced men hauling a lifeboat on a trailer. Sepia-tinted portraits showed families tricked out in Sunday best, hats on and children scrubbed. In amongst these pictures were photographs of men and women, a mayor and a schoolteacher, a town clerk and a governess. None were smiling.

  "All dead now."

  The man from downstairs was standing in the doorway. I hadn't heard him approach, which was surprising given how the wooden floors in the houses creaked as you walked.

  "Some fine people," I commented, gesturing to the wall.

  "They worked hard, 'n' built this town from nowt. Better than it is now. It's a shadow of what it was."

  I scanned the pictures. "They don't look too happy about it."

  "Don't believe it. Sitting for a portrait in them days was just that. Took forever to take a photo. Imagine standing in a starched collar, buttoned up. You wouldn't be smiling, neither."

  "I expect you're right."

  He walked over to stand beside me. Surveying the pictures, he pointed to an oval portrait of a rather stoic, round-faced young woman dressed in black with white lace at her collar and cuffs.

  "Only time I ever saw her without a smile. She were a grand old lady."

  "You knew her?"

  "I should do. She were my great-grandmother."

  "She must have lived to a good age, if you knew her."

  "Aye. Right until after the war."

  "The First World War?"

  "No, second one. She died in nineteen forty-eight. Six children, and seventeen great-grandchildren. Related to half the town, one way and another."

  "Quite a woman."

  "You didn't mess, that was for sure. She never raised a hand, though. Didn't have to."

  "How old was she when she died?"

  "Into her nineties, I should think. Not the sort of question you could ask."

  "That's old for those times, especially after six children."

  "Aye. Never complained. Always smiling, except for that photo. Never liked a fuss made, Sea Queen or not."

  "Sea Queen?"

  "Aye. Used to be a big event. Parade round the harbour, a band, mayor's speech and that. Used to make a big thing of it. My sister had it one year. She were a bonny lass too."

  "Runs in the family."

  "Aye, well. None of 'em interested now. No call for herring or mackerel. No call for Sea Queens neither, though there's some that would like to start it up again."

  "Really?"

  "Always some mad bugger wants to go back to the old way."

  "Not you, though? No grandchildren, wanting to follow in great-great-grandmother's footsteps?"

  "They're all telly watchers now. Wouldn't know one end of a gutting knife from another. Last thing they want is to smell of fish. It's all changed."

  "I suppose it has. Still, she's a grand old lady."

  "She is that."

  "There's something I wanted to ask," I said.

  "Oh, aye?"

  "These young women that have gone missing; there are posters all over town."

  "I've seen 'em," he said, nodding.

  "Is that a new thing, or has that always gone on?"

  "What d'ya mean, gone on?"

  "I was wondering. Has it always been like that? It's a small community. You could understand if people needed to get away, find a new place for themselves. Would anyone care?"

  "You've never lived anywhere like this, have you?"

  "I grew up in the country. This is a bit like a village, isn't it? Everyone knows everyone else's business?"

  "It's a small community, I'll give you that, and people do know what each other are about, but it's not like a village. Come through here."

  He took me through an archway into the adjoining house. There was one room at the back that was different from all the other rooms in the museum. It had a small table with a book open upon it. On the walls were more pictures. Some were photographs, some paintings, some black and white and some colour. One or two looked quite recent.

  "Ravensby's not a village, it's a town. More important, it's a harbour town. If you've never lived in a place like this, then you wouldn't know."

  "These are all boats from the town?"

  "Some are, some are from other harbours. They're all still here, though, in a way."

  "Still here?"

  "Every one of these went down off this coast. These boats are out there somewhere, or were smashed to pieces against the rocks, or were driven up on to the beach. If they were lucky, the men will have been rescued. Often as not, they were never found."

  I looked around the room. There were boats of every size: trawlers, steamships, cargo ships, even lifeboats.

  "The ninth of February, 1871 was a nice day. Boats put out in a fair north-westerly. With the dawn on the tenth, though, the wind veered."

  The old man's eyes were open, but it wasn't the pictures he was seeing.

  "By seven o'clock next morning it had turned one hundred and eighty, south-easterly and building hurricane force. The waves came up and the sleet and snow were driven flat. Some boats tried to run before it, but the waves overpowered them, the wind stripped the rigging and they were driven on to the rocks, the bottoms ripped out. One tried to make port; it was crushed by the swell against the harbour wall, the men pulled from the sea on ropes thrown from the harbour by rescuers who lashed themselves to the mooring rings so as not to get swept away theirselves."

  His voice was soft, but somewhere in it was the force of the storm.

  "Others went for the beach. They grounded the boats on the shingle and the men jumped into the waves, only to be dragged back by the undertow. Men from the town were standing chest-deep in the waves, trying to haul them out, their hands numb with cold, their faces frozen with shock.

  "The lifeboat went out time after time, dragging men from the waves, but it was only one boat. There were ships swamped by the waves, men hanging from
the rigging, calling out for aid. It was piteous. No one could reach them. The lifeboat went out for a collier brig. It was foundering and the men were clinging to the stern. The lifeboat tried to reach them, but a wave picked it up and smashed it into the fully laden brig. The lifeboat crew and the men from the brig were all lost."

  "It sounds horrific."

  "It was. Forty-four men were lost that day from this town alone. Up and down this coast, Scarborough, Bridlington, Filey, many more, 'twere the same. Women stood on the harbour within sight of their menfolk and watched them drown."

  "That's awful."

  "Not quite like village life, is it?"

  "No."

  "That was a bad one. There were other bad ones too. Happens about every twenty-plus years. The weather forecasting's got better now, and there's more warning, but even a warning's no good if you're two or three days away from port. You just have to sit it out."

  "You still lose boats?"

  "Aye. Even with the new lifeboat down the coast. All the technology, navigation equipment, radios; it's all naught if the sea takes against you. There's no fighting nature."

  "It must be harsh."

  "It is. It is harsh, but it's a way of life. The women are strong. They know what can happen. Many of 'em have seen it. It's a small community and a close one. There's always help, always someone to catch you when you fall. We look after our own."

  I wasn't sure what to say to that.

  "Not these lasses, though. Gone to the big city, lure of the bright lights. I can't blame them. It's a hard life when you don't know whether your man's coming home or not. The day was, they didn't know owt else. It's what they were brought up to. Now, though, it's all internet and mobile phones. They've seen a different life. That's why they've gone. I can't blame them."

  "So it's not happened before?"

  "Oh, there's always been those that didn't stay. They married out, or moved inland. The ties are still there, though. They never went far. It's in the blood, see?"

  "So what changed?"

  "These girls are part of it, going off, God knows where. What are they thinking? Who'll keep things together, if they've left? Who'll keep the lights on, make it worth coming back to port?"