by Jeff Noon
And then the black tower came into view. Professor Bryars paused the mechanism, leaving the image on screen.
“This is somewhere near?” Nyquist asked.
“It is. Not too far from the village, but hidden by Morden Wood.”
He stood up, taking his own photograph from his pocket, the one showing the tower, and he compared the two.
“It’s the same place. But everyone I’ve asked in the village… nobody seems to know where it is, or if it even exists.”
“It does exist, and it’s easy to find. Just walk through the woods and take the left-hand path at Sylvia’s Glade. And then keep on walking.”
Nyquist turned to his host: “So why does nobody want to talk about it?”
Bryars didn’t reply at first.
“Professor?”
“Oh please, call me Maude. On a day such as this, don’t you think we’ve earned our real names?”
He nodded. Bryars switched on the overhead light. In its sudden glare her unmasked face looked pallid, almost colorless, with a pasty look to it. To offset this, her wispy hair had a tinge of blue from a dye. Broken veins were visible on her nose, further evidence of a liking for drink. He reckoned she was in her fifties only, but life had taken an early toll.
Her eyes flickered away from Nyquist’s stare.
They were standing in an upstairs room which served as both viewing room and storage area. The shelves lining two of the walls were filled with books and alphabetized binders. The place was spotless; it was easy to imagine it being cleaned and dusted every single day.
Bryars said, “First you have to tell me what you saw, what you experienced?”
“When?”
“As the Edmund mask was being removed.”
This time Nyquist didn’t answer. The professor pushed him a little: “I know you saw something that disturbed you. Your body was reacting quite badly. Your shoulders were heaving and your hands were trembling on the table, each side of the bowl.”
“I was thinking back on my past, on my youth, that’s all. And I fell into a reverie.”
“I think you’re lying.”
“Perhaps. But why are you so interested?”
“I’m a historian. The people of Hoxley see me as their chronicler, and you, sir, are a figure of much curiosity. I’d like to know your story.” Her eyes gleamed. “I’d like to place you in the archive, in the most appropriate category.”
“Under what? M for Mysterious Stranger?”
She sighed. “You do know that this is my only pleasure, collecting facts? So please won’t you tell me what you saw, as the mask came loose? It would give me such joy.”
Nyquist kept up his gentle lie. “As I said, childhood memories.”
In truth, he didn’t want to talk about the nightmarish vision he’d had; he could still feel the prickles and thorns of the Tolly mask pressing into the skin of his face.
The professor nodded her head a few times. And then she clicked off the magic lantern and moved over to one of the shelves.
“The tower is known as Clud Tower.”
She opened a file and pulled out a number of engraved prints, each one showing the building in question. She placed them on the table for Nyquist to look at. “Back in the mid-eighteenth century, when the tower was built, the Cluds were a well-known, indeed infamous family. Most if not all the good people of Hoxley loathed and feared them.”
“Why? What did they do?”
Bryars spoke enthusiastically. “The stories begin with one Wilhelmina Clud. She ruled the roost at the start of the seventeenth century, and was known for her dabbling in the occult arts. Her eldest daughter, Hildegard, was condemned as a witch, but failed to die on the gallows. They tried three times. She was banished from the village and took to living in the fields, eating weeds and fruit and sleeping among the sheep in their pen for warmth. She died alone out on the moor.” Bryars drew breath. “Wilhelmina’s fourth son, Peter Clud, was married to a barren wife, and in recompense took to stealing children from the neighboring villages. He killed himself by the eating of moonsilver, the berries of the myre tree, as poor Mr Bainbridge did.” The professor turned the pages of a book as she spoke, her fingers tracing arcane symbols. “I could go on, but you get the picture, I’m sure. They were a family to be avoided. And their tower, Clud Tower, was notorious as a site of evil practice. Oh, the stories abound! Animal sacrifices, the murder of innocents, words scrawled on the walls, offensive words. You know, for parts of the human body…”
“So, this is why nobody wants to talk about the place?”
“Exactly. To even speak the tower’s name is thought to bring ruin on a person, and that person’s family.”
Nyquist looked at the professor. “And yet you speak the name out loud, and you show pictures of it in your lecture.”
She nodded. “I believe that many traditions are good, and worthy of preservation, for they bind the tribe together in a necessary way. But others are more problematic. Such as the wearing of identical masks on Saint Edmund’s and Saint Alice’s Day. It has stopped being a useful belief, and become a habit, and an excuse for bad behavior.”
“Do the Cluds still live in the village?”
“Oh yes. A few. But they changed their name first to Clough. And many, many years back they added Fair on the front of that, and now the Faircloughs are as fair as fair can be.” Her face took on a pinched look. “And by these methods, such and such, they hope the past will fade away.” Bryars’s eyes sparkled. “You’ll have met Rebecca and Edward, I presume?”
It took Nyquist a moment to work out the names. “You mean Becca and Teddy? The young folk. Yes, I’ve spoken with them.”
“Aye, well, they’re Faircloughs. Oh, Becca’s a sweet enough kid. She’s like a pot that’s had too much glaze put on it. But him, Teddy…” A shake of the head in dismay. “He’s a troubled soul. I feel sorry for him.”
“How do you mean?”
In answer, or in a kind of answer, Bryars placed her hand on a lump of twisted metal on a nearby shelf. It was in use as a bookend.
“Teddy gave me this. It’s from a crashed airplane. You saw the slide, of the plane flying low over Morden Wood?”
“I did.”
“It crashed, out on the edge of the moors, a few years back now. Engine failure, we think. Teddy Fairclough found the crash site. He witnessed the pilot’s final moments.” She sighed heavily. “The poor kid was ten years old at the time.”
“That’s not an easy thing to see.”
Bryars nodded in agreement. “Teddy and I have always shared a disdain for tradition. We are, the both of us, looking for a way to escape this village… without actually leaving. Myself through history, and Teddy through, well, through his dreams. Dreams of flight.”
“It sounds like you’re persuading yourself to stay here, forever.”
“The thing is, Teddy’s got the Clud gene, I’m certain of it. You know, their mum’s a drunkard, most of the day and night. And their father’s rotten to the core. Dishonorable discharge from the Army. He’s in prison right now. Embezzlement. Threatening behavior. Disturbance of the peace. Intoxicated in charge of a–”
“You know all the village secrets?”
She took this as a compliment. “That I do. Past, present, and with a little extrapolation of the known facts… the future. All is revealed.”
And counted up, and noted, thought Nyquist. Entered in a ledger, cross-referenced.
“The thing is,” she added, “some people find it difficult to escape their families, and their family’s influence. It’s a gravitational pull far greater than the moon’s on the sea.”
Nyquist thought of his own father, and his arrival in this village.
“What I need to know,” he said, “is why someone would send me this picture, of this particular tower?”
“Perhaps your family is related in some way, to the Cluds?”
“I don’t know, maybe.”
Bryars nodded at this. At first,
she looked doubtful, and then a little smile took over her lips. “Your surname is worthy of note,” she said. “Nyquist.”
“I’ve never looked into it.”
“It comes from a Viking forebear, an invader of this land. A pillager, and then a settler. He must’ve taken an Anglo Saxon woman for his bride.”
“You’ve got one hell of mind on you, professor.”
“How do you mean?”
“The tales you’re weaving.”
“Parables grown from isolation, nothing more.”
“Still, that’s quite the story. Viking warriors, Saxon brides.”
Bryars preened herself, pleased with the conjuring. “In Swedish, Nyquist means new branch, or new twig. The new branch of a family perhaps, most probably a bastard line. The old bend sinister.”
“That would explain a lot.”
“Many people have similar lineages. It’s all written in our blood, every last word, every story. You’ll have heard of Watson and Crick, I take it.”
“They’re a double act?”
“Why yes, I suppose they are.”
“Comedians?”
“Scientists, actually. Molecular biologists. They’ve uncovered a double spiral structure to the genetic code. It really is a most beautiful object. So elegant, and simple in its power.” Her voice took on a softness, a dreamlike timbre. “And we are in there, in the twists and turns, ourselves, our very meaning, passed on from parent to child. But fragmented, broken, stitched back together, and each tiny mistake adding to our own unique personality.”
Nyquist didn’t want to think about this too much. Mothers, fathers, and what was given, and what was taken away.
“Look at this.” Bryars took a small green bottle down from a shelf. “It’s a penny blood.”
“Yeah, I saw one in the shop window.”
“Oh, but that was a fake, a toy for the children. This one is real. Dated 1807, do you see?”
He read the label out loud: “Genuine blood of Saint Cristobel. Really?”
“Drawn from a martyr’s wound.”
Nyquist watched the professor as she expressed her passion.
“They were very popular at one time, the penny bloods. All three hundred and sixty of our saints are represented. They were carried on the person to repel evil. Many of the bloods exist as unique specimens. Others, like this one of Cristobel, have multiple copies. How can I put it…? She lost a lot of blood in her martyrdom.”
Nyquist held the flask up to the light. Whatever liquid was in there was now dark and sluggish. “But they can’t all contain real blood, can they?”
“Who knows? But as a symbol, they have a profound meaning, don’t you think? Genuine or fake, in the end it matters little, as long as people believe. In this way, the book of flesh is seen to be written, page by page by page.”
She took the flask from him and replaced it on the shelf.
Nyquist asked, “What about the Tolly Man? What does he stand for?”
In answer she said, “Let me show you something. It might be of interest.”
Bryars drew down an old ledger from a shelf, its cover marred with damp and mildew. The pages were yellowed and torn here and there. She said, “This is a list of all the people who have played the Tolly Man, over the centuries. You see here…” She had turned to the first page. “Adam Clud, 1666. Yes, to the village’s eternal chagrin, the Clud name is the first to be registered. And of course, great store is set by the date containing the number 666, as detailed in the Book of Revelation.”
“The Number of the Beast? Yes, I can see how that might upset the villagers.”
“Adam was the grandson of Wilhelmina Clud. It is my personal belief that Adam Clud himself invented the mask of twigs, but no one will ever admit that, these days. And then the second wearer, you see, here…” Her finger moved to the next entry in the list of names. “Jack Tollyman, 1667. Now, for reasons long lost, Mr Tollyman gave his name to all who followed him down the centuries. Not Clud. Tollyman.”
“Is he always played by men?”
“Be careful, please! The pages are fragile.” She gently pushed his hands away from the book, before continuing with her explanation. “It was an exclusively male role until the early part of this century. In 1902, Molly Metcalfe became the first ever Tolly Woman. Oh, I wish I had some photographs of her. Alas, she has vanished into dust. Only her name remains. But after that it became quite common for women to take the role. Young and old, rich or poor: all are welcome to take their chance. Although, why anyone would want to, I really can’t say! It must be dreadfully painful inside that mask. And their faces and necks look horrible at day’s end. Tiny cuts, the rash, welts already forming. Doctor Higgs is always on hand, with her calamine lotion and her sticking plasters.”
Nyquist raised a hand to rub at his cheeks, feeling for blood and scars. But he suddenly realised what he was doing, and stopped.
“You know, if you’re really keen on the history of our village, we have a little museum of curios.” The professor touched a hand to her heart. “I am the curator.”
“I haven’t seen that yet.”
“No, well, it’s closed up at the moment, due to lack of funds.” She frowned. “I really think the village council need to get their priorities right. But anyway, neither here nor there, neither here nor there…” She worried at a set of beads around her neck. “If you like, I can take you on a tour? There are some very interesting exhibits.”
“I’m not on holiday,” he answered.
“No, no, I understand that. You’re seeking the whereabouts of your father. Of course you are.”
“So you know why I’m here?”
“Gossipmongering is rife.” She smiled. “And after all, you have been asking a lot of questions, of a lot of people.”
“True.” Nyquist pushed on. “So it still happens, the Tolly Man?”
“Oh yes, every year on Saint Algreave’s Day. Names are put forward, and the wearer of the mask is decided by the elders. Afterwards, the mask is usually burned.”
“Why?”
“John, I’m sure you know the answer to that, already.”
“To replace setting fire to people, you mean? In sacrifice?”
“Exactly. Civilization, I think, is all about replacing reality with symbols.”
“Nice theory. People still get killed, though.”
“Yes, they do. Because they become symbols, themselves. In someone else’s eyes.”
Nyquist thought for a moment. “Has Saint Algreave’s Day taken place this year?”
“It has. In the spring. Early in the cycle. I thought Mr Dunne acquitted himself well in the role. Of course, I never saw the final moments.”
“This is Thomas Dunne, the photographer?”
“It is. Do you know him?”
“No. I went to his studio, but it looked empty, abandoned almost.”
“Yes, that makes sense. Thomas was seen around Lower Hoxley for a few weeks after Saint Algreave’s Day, but then the Dunnes became reclusive. They hardly ventured out of their home. And then…” Professor Bryars shook her head with concern. “It’s believed they left the village one night. Nobody knows why.”
Nyquist thought about his place in all this. “There’s something going on here, isn’t there? In this village? Something strange. Even beyond the madness of the saints.”
Bryars shrugged. “I’ve certainly had my suspicions, over the years.”
“I was drawn here on purpose, I know it. But for what end?”
“I can’t answer that for you. But this I know: there is a faction in Hoxley who would gladly allow the old Clud spirit to be conjured back to life.” Her eyes narrowed. “I don’t necessarily mean those bearing that name or its derivations… but those few who worship the dark. And the creatures who live in darkness.”
Her fingers idly turned the pages of her book of records.
Nyquist was halfway to asking a question when Bryars’s face suddenly lit up, and she announced, “Now
then, this is what I wanted to show you. More of the Tolly Men players.” She pointed to a group of names in the middle of a page. “Do you see?”
Edwin of Lumbe – 1855
Robert Keepsake – 1856
Unknown – 1857
Mr Charles Holroyd – 1858
William Nyquist – 1859
The last name in the list blurred slightly. The room darkened all around as the shadows moved into living shapes, and every stray noise became a voice in the air, barely heard, muffled, the whispers of the children as they danced around the green. The mask of thorns was pressing once again at his face, obscuring his vision and cutting into his skin, as Maude Bryars told him to read on, one more page…
Jud Wykes – 1899
Young Simon Dale – 1901
Molly Metcalfe – 1902
Mr Alfred Beck – 1903
Owen Nyquist – 1904
INVISIBLE RAVEN
Nyquist walked back down Fallow Lane, his mind filled with the things he had learned from the professor’s lecture. The family name was uppermost in his thoughts, and its place on the Tolly Man list: coincidence, or a connection to his father reaching back through the centuries? He’d always thought of his father’s line as belonging exclusively to the city of his birth, Dayzone, but now he wondered: did the Nyquists move there at some point, from the north of the country? A deep emotion took him over, the like of which he had never felt before – through the times and the streams of the river and the passing of the years and the clouds that drift away and the blood that flows endlessly on from adult to child, he found himself part of a history untold until this moment.