Arcadia

by James Treadwell

  A sudden mutter runs through the procession. Ellie draws the horse to a halt. Rory looks up and sees that everyone’s stopped again, this time because a man’s come out of a dingy shack beside the road.

  “Well, well,” Ellie says.

  Apparently it’s OK to talk now because Rog, still riding next to them, leans over and says, “Good sign?”

  “I wouldn’t go that far,” she says.

  Up ahead Sal’s talking to the man. He has wispy brown hair and spectacles. He’s wearing extraordinarily tattered black robes, not a makeshift patchwork robe like the old man at the crossroads had but actual robes, though full of tears and holes. He has a walking stick in one hand, one of those fancy lightweight extendable ones. He looks terribly thin, almost starved, that sunken-cheeked, stringy-necked look Rory remembers from last winter on Home. Nevertheless he’s presumably a real person because Sal gives him something from her saddlebag; food, judging by the way he sniffs it before bowing his thanks to her. A few of the others have dismounted now, joining the conversation. Ellie unstraps the safety belt, letting Rory squiggle around in the saddle to ease the soreness.

  “See him?” Rog says. “That’s the priest. That’s what everyone calls him, anyway. Don’t know if he was ever a real priest.”

  “He was,” Ellie says.

  “If you say so. Maybe that’s how he survives up here. Someone upstairs looking after him.”

  “I doubt that.”

  “Used to live in the Valley,” Rog goes on. “Before, I mean. That’s what they say.”

  “He was the parish priest at Manaccan,” Ellie says.

  “Oh, you’re the expert now, are you?”

  “The Brownes knew him. They’re churchy.”

  “Well,” Rog says, “whatever. Got to be some reason why it doesn’t bother him so close to the Valley. No one else lasts long up here. Way I heard it is, he keeps trying to go in but it won’t let him. They say the man-eaters won’t touch him either. Story is, something bad happened to him that first winter and he went to the sea to be drowned, they wouldn’t take him. Typical bloody fish. The one poor sod who actually wants to die and they won’t kill him. Hello. Don’t like the look of that.” The group of people in conversation with the man ahead have obviously been told something they didn’t want to hear. A number of them look agitated. A nervous mutter works its way back through the group.

  “The Pack,” the woman in front says.

  Rog swings off his horse at once and jogs to the front.

  “We should turn back,” the same woman says. A man next to her, the older-looking man with the tattoos who was being so noisy when they started out from Dolphin, snorts. The woman rounds on him angrily. “Oh, and you’re so brave, is it? If you ever ran across the Black Pack you’d hardly have time to piss yourself before you’d be off fast as those four legs can take you.”

  The man scowls but doesn’t answer. He rides off towards the front as well.

  “They have no idea,” the woman says to Ellie. “Idiots.”

  “What’s going on?” Rory says, but by now everyone’s heard whatever the news is and they’re all beginning to argue, until someone shouts “Shut the fuck up, the lot of you!”

  It’s Soph. Everyone shuts up, maybe because she’s unexpectedly loud or because she looks quite impressive sitting tall in her scaly tunic. She’s shown no signs of bossiness before but everyone’s listening to her now. “This is a stupid place for a fucking powwow,” she says. “Sal and I are going to carry on. If there’s any trouble we can outride it. Anyone who wants to go back, go back. That’s it. Keep quiet and get moving.” She bends down to say something to the priest and then kicks her horse into a walk.

  “Not me,” says the woman who’s been talking to Ellie. “I’m heading back to Dolphin.”

  A few people have already started off in Soph’s wake. Those who haven’t are hanging back, looking slightly ashamed of themselves. Rog trots back to Ellie and remounts, giving her an inquiring look as he steers his horse around.

  Rory twists around to look at Ellie too.

  “I should take you back,” she says, clearly displeased by the thought.

  “I don’t mind,” he says, mostly because he doesn’t want to annoy her anymore.

  “He’s OK, El,” Rog says. He catches Rory’s eye. “Look, all you have to do if anything happens is hang on. Ellie rides like a champion.”

  “It’s probably nothing anyway,” Ellie says. “Where did he say he’d seen them? Penryn? They wouldn’t pass this close to the Valley.”

  “Someone needs to let them know at Dolphin,” the anxious woman says.

  “I’ve had the odd run-in with the Pack before,” Ellie goes on. “Even if we do bump into them they’re just men, they can’t catch up with a horse.”

  “And dogs,” Rog says.

  “I’m not bothered about the dogs.”

  “Who are they?” says Rory.

  Ellie sighs. “Wastes of space. People too lazy to work out how to live like we do, so they dress themselves up to look tough and go around stealing.”

  “Don’t they worship their dogs or something? Got that leader wears a dog mask.”

  “They’re a pain in the arse is all they are.”

  Sal’s riding back to them, the staff poking out of a bag behind her leg. “Ellie?” she says.

  “Rory says he’s all right with going on.”

  Sal frowns. “I’d rather you took him back.”

  “He’s safer with her than anyone,” Rog says. “Safest place in the whole of Cornwall is in the front of that saddle.”

  “At the first sign of anything funny I’ll ride straight for the sea,” Ellie says. “It’s just a few miles in either direction.”

  Sal looks at Rory. She’s not convinced, but there’s no king or queen here, everyone does what they want. “Up to you,” she says, and wheels around.

  “Are you sure about this?” Ellie says to Rory.

  He is. Far more people are going on than turning back, anyway, and he feels instinctively that the bigger group is better.

  The so-called priest is standing at the edge of the road watching them all go past. As Ellie’s horse approaches him he stares at Rory frowning.

  “Excuse me,” he says. His voice isn’t at all what Rory would have expected. It’s thoughtful and sad. “Who’s this?”

  “Does it matter?” Ellie says.

  The priest appears unoffended, though Rory’s surprised she answered so rudely. “Probably not,” he says. “Hello, young man.”

  “Hi,” Rory says. The horse is walking past.

  “May I ask you a question?”

  “I’ve got to keep up with the others,” Ellie says, not at all apologetically.

  “I’ve never seen you before, I think,” the priest says, talking now to Rory’s shoulder. “Can you tell me if you’ve ever come across a girl called Marina? She’d be a little older than you.”

  “Uh,” Rory says. He has to twist uncomfortably to face the priest. “What?”

  The priest blinks behind his round spectacles. “Never mind.”

  “Good luck to you,” Rog says to him, trying to be polite.

  “And you.”

  “Shh,” says Ellie.

  “Blimey,” Rog mutters, as they leave the man standing alone. They go on in silence, listening only to the dull pulse of hooves on the green road. There are faces in the windows of the last couple of houses, but this time it really is better not to look at them.

  20

  Thunder trembles to the east. The sky’s peculiarly thick that way, or maybe not thick but shiny, as if it’s made of something denser than air and clouds. It’s hard to see properly. Distances look funny. The remaining Riders are completely out of the town now and traveling on a very wide mostly tarmac road along the edge of an open heath. Between road and heath are the remains of a tall wire fence. Beyond, on the heath, the barren expanse is dotted with burned-out buildings and machines, big ones. Some look like they were onc
e helicopters, if Rory’s remembering helicopters correctly. The expedition has turned southwards. The wind smells of ocean and has started blowing spits of rain into their faces. On the horizon ahead are strange huge shapes like giant concrete eggs, four or five of them tilting this way and that.

  “What you got against the priest, then?” Rog says. It’s the first thing anyone’s said since they left the town. Five people turned back, all women. The rest of them are spread out in a long line along the road. The atmosphere’s gloomy. The thunder doesn’t sound right. It’s almost like there’s a voice in it.

  “Nothing,” Ellie says.

  “Could have fooled me.”

  “It wasn’t a good place to stop for a chat.”

  “You could have been civil to him. More to him than meets the eye, isn’t there.”

  “I can’t stand people like that.” Rory looks around in surprise. “Obsessed with their own grief. Like we haven’t all had our problems?”

  “Well,” Rog says, after a moment. “That’s him sorted.”

  “Who’s that he asked me about?” says Rory.

  “No idea. It’s not a good idea to spend too much time thinking about things that happen in Helston.”

  “Living that close to the Valley’s got to have its effects,” Rog says.

  “Exactly.”

  He eyes the uncanny sky to the east. “Makes you wonder what it’s really like in there.”

  “Not me, it doesn’t,” Ellie says.

  “Is that the Valley?” Rory asks.

  “Yep,” Rog says. “Just the other side of the old airfield. Feel it, can’t you? They say somewhere in the middle there’s a crystal tree with silver fruit. Live forever if you eat it.”

  “They can say whatever nonsense they like,” Ellie says, “since no one’s ever going to confirm it one way or the other.”

  “What’s got into you?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Time of the month, is it?”

  Ellie kicks the horse into a brief canter. Rory grabs the pommel, the saddle suddenly bucking and swaying. It only takes a few seconds for them to be riding apart from everyone else; she slows again, leaving him gasping. The rider in front, who’s the big tattooed man, gives them a curious look before turning back to the road. Ellie zips Rory’s coat and pulls his hood up. The rain’s spitting harder.

  “I hate that place,” she says.

  “The Valley?” Rory says, cautiously, not sure if she really wants to talk about it.

  “Helston. Everywhere around here. There’s just too much of . . .”

  “Of what?”

  “Whatever it is. Whatever they are. They’re not like us. People pray to them and make them offerings but they don’t care. They’re nothing to do with us at all.”

  Rory remembers the old man at the crossroads. “Do you mean gods?”

  “If only they’d just go back where they came from,” Ellie says. “Let everything go back to how it was.”

  He’s heard this complaint, or versions of it, too many times to count. He’s always associated it with the older ones. It’s funny hearing it come from a young woman.

  “What do you miss most?” she says, a bit later.

  “From The Old Days?”

  “Yes.”

  Kate always told them not to talk like this. No good looking back, she said, it just makes you miserable. But they always did anyway, when she wasn’t listening. Rory knows what you’re supposed to say because he’s heard the answers so many times. The children. The news. Orange juice. Clean toilets, oh please God.

  “Nothing, really,” he says.

  There’s a long pause, just the horse clip-clopping along, and then Ellie says “Really?” in her dry disbelieving voice: he can almost hear her eyebrows going up.

  “Yeah.”

  “It’s better than school, I suppose.”

  This too is something they always said. Ol and Laurel used to say it all the time. Never have to go to math lessons again. Rory remembers math lessons in a patchy, greyed-out way.

  “It’s not that,” he says.

  “Isn’t it?”

  He’s overheard this conversation a zillion times and never once said what he really thinks, because it’s so different from what everyone else says that he can’t even imagine mentioning it, it would be like breaking a Rule. He’s thought about it, though.

  “I wouldn’t like it if I looked at the sea and it was just water,” he says.

  Clop clop clop clop.

  “What’s wrong with water?” Ellie says.

  He’s blushing. He doesn’t know how to say it properly, and also he’s thinking now about Her.

  “I quite liked it,” Ellie goes on. “I quite liked it when it came out of a tap whenever you wanted it to. I quite liked going for swims. Then drying off with a big clean towel and lying on the beach with my headphones on. Then driving back to the cottage and opening a bottle of wine.”

  He can’t answer her, any more than he could answer the old women or Laurel and Ol. He wonders if there’s something wrong with him, some problem or difference which means he doesn’t have those memories everyone else does, as if everything was happy and comfortable before What Happened.

  “Ah, well,” Ellie says. “It’s all what you grow up with, isn’t it.”

  The Riders at the front have come to a junction where a road turns off to the left, eastwards, dipping down into wooded country. There’s a big road sign at the junction. It’s been painted over, a dirty drippy white background and then a huge black image of a bird.

  “Supposed to be the angel,” Ellie says as they approach. The first Riders have already passed it, keeping to the straight road which rises gently towards a brown waste of heathland. “This is where it first appeared. Over the Valley. I wouldn’t look left as we go past if I were you. This is as close as we come to it. Ten steps down that road and you might not be able to get back.”

  In among all the scratchy greyed-out memories the angel’s as solid as night. Everyone remembers the pictures, the photo, and the videos. Jake said he knew how they did it, it was all just computers. That was in those first few weeks, when it still seemed like the whole thing might be some kind of joke.

  “The Professor’s supposed to have spoken to it,” Ellie says.

  “Really?”

  “That’s what I hear. She was there the day it appeared. When the snow started. She was caught out in the snow. That’s why she has the problem with her legs. She was about to die when she saw it. Just down there somewhere. Careful, don’t look.”

  The left turn is almost entirely overgrown. It looks as though it’s been a very long time since anyone went that way. As the tattooed man in front rides past the junction he stops and stares.

  “Hey,” he says.

  “So much for not looking,” Ellie mutters.

  “Come and see this,” the man says, turning back. He’s grinning a gap-toothed grin.

  “Is that a good idea?”

  “Look,” he says, pointing as Ellie and Rory ride up. Ellie’s unwilling to follow the gesture but Rory can’t see what’s wrong with looking down a road, even if it is forbiddingly overgrown.

  A small face is peeking out of the tangle, staring back at them.

  “Cheeky little sod,” the man says.

  The face looks like a cross between a dog and a person. It’s sharp-nosed and bright-eyed, furry, the muted earthy color of the most wintry leaves.

  “Wolf,” Ellie warns, still without looking. Rory’s confused for a moment, since the animal doesn’t look big or scary enough to be a wolf. Then he realizes it’s the man’s name.

  “It’s just a fox,” Wolf says. “Looks like a baby one. Look at him. Sitting there watching. Hey. What are you looking at?”

  Ellie steers her horse around him and starts riding past.

  “Don’t you stare at me like that,” Wolf says, amused. He reaches into his saddlebag and brings out a stone. “Cheeky bastard.”

  Ellie doesn’t see
what he’s doing until he’s let go of the stone.

  “Don’t be a—”

  There’s a thump and a yelp.

  “Ha! Got it!” Wolf sounds delighted with himself.

  “For fuck’s sake, Wolf!” This is Rog, riding up behind. “Leave it alone.”

  “Quality shot,” Wolf says, “if you ask me.”

  Ellie makes an infuriated noise and eases the horse into a trot, leaving Rory unable to think of anything beyond his largely hopeless effort to protect his bum from punishment.

  * * *

  Beyond the junction the road crumbles. It looks like there’s been an earthquake, though Ellie says it was floods. The heath soaked up so much water it turned into a giant sponge, she says, and with nothing solid under it the tarmac broke up under its own weight. They ride onto a track instead, a bare brown line scratched through the heather. It’s a lot like the north end of Home, except everything’s on a bigger scale. The heather’s taller and bushier and the horizons are much farther away. There are flowers dusting the heather even though it’s late in the year, scrubby pinky-red pods clustering tight to their stems like they’re in hiding.

  The massive concrete egg things reappear on the horizon. They’re monstrously huge, completely alien to this place, though it’s obvious now that the Riders are heading towards them. Their enormous scalloped profiles suddenly fall into place as Rory stares—it’s like getting the answer to a puzzle—and he remembers what they are, or at least the name, though it’s like remembering a word in a foreign language. They’re satellite dishes. They’re vast blind concrete eyes pointed at the heavens to send invisible messages at the speed of light. Rory’s reminded of the rusting tankers tipped around the bay by Saint Michael’s Mount: huge things turned useless. Beached whales. The dishes are stranded at the very highest point of the wide heath. The Riders plod slowly up towards them, single file, ducking against salvos of steely rain.

  Underneath the satellite array there’s a handful of low windswept buildings. While the Riders are still a fair way off someone appears on the roof of one of these, looking their way. Ellie notices the silhouette as well.