Tell the Story to Its End

by Simon P. Clark

  Em jumped in her seat like a startled rabbit. ‘What, what’s wrong?’

  The door opened and Takeru came back in. ‘What you doing, what’s up?’

  ‘The TV, what channel was that?’ I asked. My voice was too loud. I could hear the blood pumping in my ears, thumping like a drum in the night.

  ‘What?’ asked Em again, her hand frozen on the remote.

  ‘The TV, what channel were you—? Oh, come on.’ I yanked the remote from her, slamming the channel button again, scrolling back, my eyes burning into the set.

  ‘What are you looking for?’ asked Takeru behind me.

  There was no mistake. I’d seen him, right there on the TV. But all I could find now was static, with two fierce dots of light staring out at me. A soft chuckle trickled in the air.

  ‘Don’t laugh,’ I said, angry.

  ‘No one’s laughing,’ said Em in a quiet voice. The channels kept coming, but I was slowing down. Football, comedy, houses, fashion. I’d missed him.

  Em was still curled up, leaning forward on the sofa, her legs hooked under her. Takeru stood between us, looking nervous.

  ‘I thought – I thought I knew someone.’

  ‘On the TV?’

  ‘I—’

  ‘It’s OK,’ said Em, unwrapping herself and standing up. ‘Mistake, eh? Unless you know Big Bird!’

  ‘’S boring, anyway,’ said Takeru, turning the TV off. ‘Load of rubbish.’

  ‘Sorry,’ I said.

  Cars outside sounded like laughter. The shining reflections of light in the screen still looked like eyes. But that wasn’t what I’d seen. That wasn’t what had made me panic.

  It was Dad.

  SEVEN

  ‘Here, you see, is something I can work with,’ he says. He licks his lips and then reaches over and strokes my cheek, almost kindly. I shudder. ‘Shh, now, tidbit,’ he says.

  ‘Yarns and tales and the telling, they’re all about unravelling the truths that life hides, you ken? It’s about finding out, if a princess is locked in a tower, how would you get her down? It’s about you, and the story, and where the two things meet.’

  I don’t know what to say. It doesn’t matter. He doesn’t want me to talk. Something’s coming. In the space between us, motes of dust spark and the air quivers.

  ‘Listen to my own little ditty,’ says Eren. ‘Let the music take away your thoughts. Once,’ he says, huddling closer, ‘there was a man, and he lived in a place that was dark, and cold, and fierce winters would bite at his heels. Can you feel the cold nip you? Try and close the door against it, but there’s a wind that breaks through the cracks. He would build a fire to save himself every night, but it was never so strong that it could fight the dark, slow hours, and he would end up huddled near it, embers all aglow and spitting and cracking while snow drifted down the chimney. Oh, pity the man, and his burdens! The days were bright and cold, and he’d gather wood from the forests to burn that night, but never enough to see him through to the morning. The snow was soft and it crunched like a lamb’s skull as he walked, and the ice was black, black and dead as the space between moon and star. Feel the darkness there, just beneath your skin, where it prickles! And so it was. Bright day always fled, tricky temptress that it is, and night howled in with wolf and frost and moon to catch you in her hands. Oh, don’t trust the moon, ’cause she’s a bigger tease than any, and to see her full face is to fall into the dead lake where it’s reflectin’. No, don’t love the moon. What was he to do, though? The embers are dying. Feel them splutter as you grasp the blanket! What was he to do? And so it was.

  ‘The winds, you know, are brothers. The north, the south, the east, the west. All of them sons of the moon, no doubt. They never meet. Well, never, except for one time, one time every hundred years – or is it a thousand years, for this tale? – and then, beneath the heavens lit by pure starlight, they will. Starlight is so delicate, and so rare, you see. Normally the moon will not let stars be seen, properly, from down here. On this one evening, though, the moon leaves the sky, to meet the winds, and the stars sing and dance and burn. This one night, when the man would not be chased by roaming frosts, and would be free to act on his hatreds. And so it was.’

  Eren is watching me as he talks, and I feel every word like a prick on my skin. I feel cold.

  ‘The tale is over,’ he says.

  ‘What? How can it be? It can’t be!’

  ‘Ha!’ he laughs, high and cackling and ancient. ‘Ha, you see? You know it isn’t. What story was that? You want to know more. It would drive you mad not to know. Not to know a story in this place’ – he spreads one wing around me – ‘would drive you mad.’

  ‘How does this one end?’ I ask. I don’t have any strength to fight these games.

  ‘I shall tell you, of course,’ he says, like a kind magician finishing a trick, a king granting one last wish.

  ‘The night came,’ he says, and I feel my bones chill, hear the wind rock the forests as the moon falls from the sky, ‘and the moon dropped down, buttery, milky, chalky, pasty. The winds from the four corners all came to talk, and the world, in the dark hours, was still, and cold, and silent. Can you see the stars? They dance and shine! The yellow-white moon-bulb is away, and the stars, real light, are popping and twirling and fizzing and sparkling like stars really should. Imagine the velvet sky, blue and heavy with midnight, dotted with water drops. Imagine that. Beautiful. Little did they all know, though, that man was hiding nearby.’

  I see the stars. I feel the moon breathing nearby. I see the man crouched and hiding and waiting.

  ‘What was his plan, this man, this man who was hunted and haunted by those others? It was so simple. He only wanted warmth. He only wanted fire that burned into the morning. He only wanted what was right. And so it was. The moon and the winds, they were talking, and the man, he walked up to them, begging to tell them a truth! He shouted, it was urgent, they had to know what had happened. Well, you don’t spend all your life looking down on everything, roaming everywhere, if you’re not a curious thing. “What do you mean, what has happened?” they asked. The man bowed his head, so weak, so humble. “The South Star, I have heard, is to be made queen over the sky, and there will be no more need for a moon!”

  ‘“What! What! Murder! Treason!” they shouted, and oh, can you see it, can you imagine the anger and horror in that white, terrible moon-face? The winds howled, roared they did, bellowed and would have torn the world apart if she hadn’t spoken for quiet. The man lay down and begged his apologies. “Oh, you are a good friend, to warn us of such danger!” said them all.

  ‘“I simply know my place,” said the man, “I know my place, and I know yours as well.” And so it was. The moon left early, for the first time ever from that meeting of a thousand years – or was it a hundred? – and raged to the stars, called them terrible things, and the South Star she threw to the ground, swearing the star could never return. The night air was yellow and thick with the light of a full, golden moon. The man approached the South Star as she lay, in shock, in the snow. “I have heard,” he said, “what has happened, and those winds had no right to do so!”

  ‘“The winds?” asked the star. “What have the winds done? It was the moon that threw me down like a dog!”

  ‘Do you feel her pain? She was the light of the south, a princess of the sky! Poor duckling, poor innocent, poor victim! The man spoke on. “The winds, you may know, met this very night – I heard them as I slept in my bed, frozen though I am, humble, a poor man, sleeping through this most terrible of nights … yet I heard them and their plotting to have you thrown down here, that they could call you their own.”

  ‘“What! What!” cried the South Star, and she burned in terrible anger. Her flames danced and licked at the ground and singed the air like lightning. “I am wronged!”

  ‘“We both are, my lady, we both are,” said the man, and he rubbed his hands in the warmth. And so it was…’

  I can feel the warmth. Eren smiles and licks a
t his nose. He rocks back on his legs and wheezes and mutters. The air smells like fire and snow.

  ‘“Come in from the cold,” said the man. “Come, rest; I have no more beds, I fear, but the chimney is free, and you will be safe there from any rain.”

  ‘“Such kindness, from a stranger!” sang the star. “I am so grateful!”

  ‘The man led the star to his house, and placed her in the fireplace, and they slept, exhausted, and dreamed. That night the wind howled strong and crept to the poor man’s house. It lapped at the cracks like waves of a tide, and soon the house was chilled by the gusts. The man shivered, and woke. “The wind, back to get you!” he cried to the star. The South Star rose from her bed.

  Now, I take it you’ve never seen a star go to war? They have them, you know, wars and battles. It is a terrible sight to see, and one you would never forget. The winds are the sons of the moon, but the stars are her companions, and shine in their own right. A star may have power over a wind. The South Star burned and screamed, charged and lunged and beat the wind from the man’s door, marking a line that she scratched in the earth that no wind may ever cross. The man was so pleased he wept, just a little, for joy.’ He stopped again, and sighed. ‘Near enough the ending for you?’

  ‘Isn’t that it? Is that it?’

  ‘Boy, don’t you learn? I will drive it into your soul. Stories don’t end because they can never die. They’re truer than truer than true. The South Star, what happens to her? Won’t the man get found out? There’s no end.’

  ‘It never ends?’

  He looks at me coldly and in his eyes something flickers, something dark and dangerous. ‘Stories are different, sometimes. Do they end and die, you ask?’ He pauses. ‘Mine don’t.’

  I WALKED HOME alone, ignoring the looks I’d got from Em and Takeru, the glances that had shot between them. I knew I’d acted crazy, but I was sure. I was sure it had been my dad. The world around me was quiet, almost empty. My footsteps on the pavement clumped and died without even an echo. I thought about the loft. I thought about what I hadn’t seen, and what I had. I thought about the name Eren, and mumbled it under my breath, tasting it in my mouth like a new food. My stomach rumbled even though I wasn’t hungry.

  The house. Herbs growing in the neat orange pots outside, honeysuckle winding its way over the walls, the tiny sound of wind chimes pricking the air. I looked up, not sure what I thought I would see, and tried to clear my head.

  ‘Hey, Oli!’ came Uncle Rob’s voice from the kitchen window. ‘So you found your way to old George’s, huh?’

  ‘Oh, yeah,’ I said. ‘Yeah, I met his daughter. She’s … she’s OK. Kind of cool. She took me to meet another friend.’

  He raised his eyebrows to show he was listening and called me inside with a flick of his head. The house smelled like coffee and lemons. ‘Listen,’ he said as we sat at the kitchen table, ‘I know you weren’t sure how long you’d be here. The summer holidays are only just beginning, I know, and there’re probably lots more interesting things you could be doing, but…’

  He let the last word hang in the air. I stared and he cleared his throat nervously. ‘Well, I think it’s fair that you know, you’ll probably stay here right up until school starts again. Your mum’s not so keen to spend the summer in London, you know.’

  ‘I saw Dad on TV,’ I said, suddenly.

  Uncle Rob looked at me strangely. ‘Really? Are you sure? I haven’t seen anything.’

  He looked towards the television, then back at me, and sucked in his breath. ‘I mean, why would your dad be on TV?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ I said. I looked at him. He was lying. I knew they all were. I didn’t know why, though. Something was wrong. ‘I guess it wasn’t him,’ I said. ‘It was, like, a millisecond anyway.’

  ‘Oh, sure,’ he said. ‘Oh, I’m sure it wasn’t, then. Why’d he be on there? Like you said!’ He cleared his throat and put his hand on my shoulder, letting it lie there, heavy, for a moment. ‘Nothing to fret about. Why don’t you go and help your mum with something?’

  I stayed where I was. ‘How come you’ve never visited us in London?’ I asked. ‘It’s huge. You could see so much more than here.’

  He smiled gently, not looking at me. ‘I’ve been to London before, Oli, don’t you worry about that. I’m not some impoverished farmer who’s never seen a car. I’ve seen London, I’ve travelled around. I just don’t go as often as I used to.’

  ‘Mum’d like it if you visited.’

  He was watching me out of the corner of his eye, fiddling with the papers on the table. ‘She … said that?’

  I shrugged. ‘You’re family.’

  ‘Maybe, then,’ he said, ‘I’ll visit more.’

  He turned away and I started to leave. ‘What’s in the loft?’ I asked.

  ‘Up there? Just stuff. Old boxes. Feel free to look, neph.’

  I looked up, imagining myself floating through the ceiling, all the way up to the darkness.

  * * *

  Mum was sorting through clothes again, emptying another bag, straightening a skirt.

  ‘I met a couple of kids who live on this street,’ I said.

  ‘Ah, good! We’ll have to invite them round.’

  ‘Nah, they know Uncle Rob already. His best man’s daughter, that’s who I met.’

  ‘Oh, of course – is it Gordon?’

  ‘George.’

  ‘Oh, yes. I remember him. A strange man. He used to … cause problems, sometimes. Well, it’s good you’re making friends. Helps us settle in a bit.’

  I sighed and knocked my shoes against the door.

  ‘Try and keep that loft hatch closed, please, Oli,’ said Mum without looking up. ‘I told you the draught shoots through.’

  ‘I closed it,’ I said, shoving my hands in my pockets.

  ‘I’ll get Rob to double-check.’

  ‘I closed it, Mum,’ I said, frowning.

  ‘Yes, love. Thanks.’

  I kicked at the carpet and walked out.

  * * *

  I tried to sleep that night. I knew I wouldn’t. The growing moon threw mountains of light up the wall, splashes of yellow that melted away in the wind. I heard the door rattled by the breeze, felt the ticks of the clocks downstairs. A car alarm screamed far away. A dog barked. I looked out of the window, pulling back the curtains to watch the night. The windowpane was cold; the painted wood shone with dust. I looked at the stars, pushed higher and higher in the silence. They really did flutter, like millions of insects far away. I thought about the massiveness of space and shivered. The quiet and the stillness of the night made the trees look hard and sharp, every flick of their leaves strange, distorted, new. My breath frosting the glass, I hummed for a moment, waiting.

  If I was going to go to the loft, I had to be totally silent.

  I pulled down the hatch with the weird hooked pole and got the ladder down slowly, inch by inch, tiny squeak by tiny squeak. I rested its feet on the carpet and stared at the black hole in the ceiling. Dust was falling, swirling and twisting, and then nothing. I climbed. The ladder’s rungs were cold through my socks. Every rung creaked. At the top I stopped again, forcing my hands up, taking a deep, empty breath before I looked in.

  In front of the window, a black silhouette in the stars, something was waiting for me.

  EIGHT

  ‘I’ll tell you another story, for all it’s worth,’ he says, ‘though, truth be no stranger, it’s not really what I’m about. Telling them is kind of working against my nature. No matter, though. If you know how to tell ’em better after this, it’s all the same to me, eh?’

  He touches my chin again with a sharp claw and grins. I smile without feeling anything. No, actually, I feel tired. His voice changes and he hunches over, acting now.

  ‘Have you heard of the selkies, boy? Bless the saints if you haven’t, curse the fates if you have. I’ll tell you the story of my own fall to froth, and then we shall see how you fare. My name is lost in the waves now, erode
d in the sands, crushed beneath the deep places of the world, but once, so long ago, it was spoken by my people. I was a king, you know. Before the Romans tried their pomp, before the Vikings ran bloody and hungry across the fields, I was King of the North Islands and Prince of the Green Lands. I was a fool. Damn stupid. I’d heard a tale, from a traveller here or there, from the fishing tribes who lived back against the beach, of a woman, a woman so beautiful, so heavenly, that to see her was to fall in love. I was proud. I thought that I, as king, should have such a woman. Doesn’t that sound right? I was king of all I could see, from the mountains that led up into the ice lands, to the flat plains that led off south, to Rome. I was right. The tales were sparse but all of them held truths, of where she had been seen, of which village, of what time. The fish-sellers in the markets were paid well for their fish and even better for their tongues if they could share with me secrets of the woman. We searched, and every day, every inn, every dirty drink I shared with murderers and traitors in dens and hives in my own lands led me closer, fed by whispers, following an ancient, lost, eternal trail. I was mad, I’m sure you’d say, and you’d laugh at my name if it wasn’t lost to shells and foam, but hang your mockery now, because I found it – the town, the beach, the time, the place, the chance. Curse them all. A selkie is not a prize you win without payment. The moon rose low that night, the tide fell out, the water calm and salty, good for fish, good for catching things that slip away. I crouched, in rocks and weed, and waited for the woman, waited for the signs that I had heard, to carry out the secrets I had learned. She came, from the sea, black eyes, water hanging like diamonds on her back, smooth and calm and like a child. A selkie! A seal-wife, a seal-woman, come to land to shed her skin, and stand on two legs for just one evening. Her fur, suddenly so lifeless, was on a rock, folded away. I took it! She had no choice from then on, for I was a king, which mattered nothing to her, but I had her pelt, which was all her life. She bowed to me, and was mine. My own. My destruction, in the end. Would you tame the sea with a trick, son? Would you calm a howling, freezing wave, high as ten trees, solid as a wall, with theft? She brought with her the anger of ancient tides, the misery and loneliness of the deep. Crops failed. My people were sick. Raiders on the coast were blessed with wind and tide, while my own ships were lost in every weather. Each day she sat, my prize, beautiful, empty as a gem-studded cup, and watched my world slip under the water. I sank. I begged her, no more, said that she was to go, that I was wrong, and sorry – I threw the pelt back at her, hidden for so long where only I knew, but I threw it for her! And she took it, and slipped away, a minnow, gone through the net. A selkie. I’ve got no moral for you, boy. I was destroyed, and I’m long dead now. I’ve only got wisdom. Don’t think to tame a selkie. Water is older than a man of earth could ever really know.’