by Jeff Noon
Blood flowed. Creeping Jenny screamed.
Professor Bryars passed out.
Half an hour later he had cleansed the wound with hot water, bound the arm with a bandage and tended to her as best he could, putting her to bed. The severed tendril writhed around on the kitchen table. He picked it up with a pair of tongs and held it over the gas flame until it shriveled away into a blackened shred. The smoke stank to high heaven and made him want to gag, but he kept on until every last particle had burned away.
She will not have me, nor anyone alongside me.
He set off from the house. It was difficult making progress, for as the day progressed, his body and mind were being controlled more and more. He felt that Hetta was angry with him, because of his denial. It took all of his will power to keep the task in mind.
The door to the community center was open and he went inside, expecting to see a welcoming party. But the hallway was empty. He went to the door in the side of the stage and made his way through the storage area below, into the Hoxley Museum and Art Gallery. Along the corridors, past the display cases, the exhibits, all in darkness, no lights working, his hands reaching out on each side to seek guidance. In this way he reached the room of masks, and beyond that the door with its painted sign. Exhibit 149. Here he had met Madelyn Arkwright. Another woman waited for him now. Sylvia of the Woods stepped close and she tested his expression for weakness, saw a little, enough to allow her to grin and to lean forward, her voice kept low: “Mr Half Written in Blood. You’re still alive. Good.” She was close enough for the words to form and be heard clearly. He could smell her breath, the stench of forest and wood smoke, and glue and crayon wax. He was sickened by it, but he had to press on.
“Sylvia…” And suddenly he didn’t know what to say. His thoughts were broken, his words also. His tongue moved aimlessly. Saint Hetta held him bound, but he tried again with a great effort. “I am looking for my… father. I believe you know where…”
“He’s nearby. Very close.”
“Show me…”
“First, you must partake. Are you willing?”
Sylvia held in her hand a twig of the myre tree. She plucked a white berry from it, and then a second. “One, two. Just enough. Enough to slow you down, not to kill. Eat! And you will see your father, I promise you.”
Trying not to think about the act itself, Nyquist quickly took the berries from her and placed them in his mouth. He saw them as tickets to another land, one way only. His teeth broke the skin of the fruit and the juice burst on his tongue. It had a bitter taste.
He fell forward into darkness, a darkness filled with sleep and dreams and the hours passing, and even his dreams were stunted, incomplete, and the strange visions that passed before his eyes were never quite visions, for he was never quite asleep, never awake, never settled, always moving, stopping, edging along, pulled up short, dragged back by Saint Hetta, and yet he was being pushed forward and manhandled, shoved through a doorway, or led softly through the doorway, he could not tell one from the other, violence from tenderness, he could not distinguish movement from stasis. And yet despite having no hope of moving forward, he did move forward, until the darkness completed itself.
The moonsilver flowed along his veins.
AGENTS OF BODILY HARM
In the endless hours, in the depths of his long sleep, in the cold black pool of his capture, in the fold upon fold upon fold of the void, he lay there and told the story to himself, a story set in a nightmare world of his own creation, himself and the swan with two necks and the tangled embrace of Creeping Jenny and his father’s ghost taking over the body of a living man. And then even these dream-formed images were taken from him as the drug worked on his system, slowing him down almost to a standstill until only his voice remained, repeating a few words over and over.
Written in blood is written in blood is written in blood…
And the time moved on without him.
And Saint Hetta sat upon his chest and waited.
And the people gathered in the room around him, waiting, one, two, and three.
And the moonsilver sang its silver song of sleep.
And the village went on with its business outside this room, this building.
And the day went on into dusk into night into quiet into silence.
And the voices called to him, whispering, asking him to wake.
And he listened, he listened from afar.
And he slept, not wanting to respond.
And they called to him.
And he slept, he slept on.
And they called to him endlessly, a chant of loving care, as though they loved him, and cared for him, until he could do nothing more than crawl his way back from the dark pool he had settled in, dragging his body from the depths and reaching up towards the noise, the sound his tormentors made, the whisperers, and so he came crawling forth, dragging himself across concrete to get there, to reach the moment, this moment, this very moment, when he could pull himself at last from the black pull of the drug’s embrace.
Moonsilver, Lady Moonsilver, deliver me.
And this time his prayer was answered.
Nyquist woke up.
His eyes were still closed, but he could hear voices, three voices, a conversation. They each spoke one word at a time, at the beck and call of the day’s saint, and yet working together they created a new meaning.
He’s…
Awake…
See…
He’s…
Moving…
Slowly…
Don’t…
Not yet…
It’s not…
Time…
Not yet…
Wait until…
Midnight…
A few more…
Minutes…
To go…
Until…
Nyquist tried to concentrate, to get himself fixed.
Where was he?
On the floor, curled up.
Yes. Like this, here I am. Arms wrapped around my body, legs tucked in.
He unwound himself from the folded shape, only now daring to open his eyes.
A further darkness.
Concrete floor, dust, a spider moving close to his face, a shard of glass.
A room, dimly lit, a candle or two flickering.
Shadows dancing on the wall.
He twisted around to see the room as a whole, but his movement was halted as a pair of strong hands grabbed him from behind and held him still. Pain shot through him. He was forced into one position only, and from there he could see two women talking, but their faces could not be made out, it was too dark and his eyes were still caught halfway in sleep, in the moonsilver’s black dream from which he had barely yet arisen.
Now one of the women came towards him.
It was the doctor.
She bent down and stroked at Nyquist’s face gently and he reacted to her touch in fear but he couldn’t move away. His limbs and neck were heavy, carrying great weights. He could not lift himself into the world anymore.
Now his captors were standing in a huddle, talking with their heads bowed close so as to make one creature of their bodies. He could not hear what they were saying, only the hiss of sibilants. But his eyes adjusted and he saw them all as they parted: Doctor Higgs, Nigel Coombes and Sylvia Keepsake.
The doctor was working at a table. Nyquist could not see what she was doing. It scared him. He tried to stand up, to reach forward, but it was hopeless, his arms and legs flailed helplessly, and he heard glass breaking, and a hollow knocking sound. He was surrounded by objects. He saw them now: small bottles, hundreds of them on the floor of the cellar. They clattered against each other, giving off a hollow sound. He recognized them.
The Penny Bloods from the museum.
The doctor came forward once more and this time she was holding something in her hand, a syringe. Seeing this, Nyquist tried to cry out. But his lips were slack, his tongue too slow to move.
Coombes held him
firmly from behind.
The doctor bent down and whispered, “In order to attract Guinevere from her slumber we have to entice her. And it seems that you, John, you are the thing she desires, your crazy messed up life. We did not expect such an outcome, not at all. But how sweet it must be. How sweet. To be capable of such enchantment.”
Her breath warmed his face, her mouth pressed against his ear. It was sickening, such a close wet contact, but only by this method could she speak.
“I have extracted samples from all three-hundred and sixty saints, from blood and dust and sludge, whatever might be found in the bottles, no matter how old or how rotten, and all for your pleasure, John. Yours alone.” Higgs’s voice was a soft hush. “Surely, surely now Guinevere will call upon us, tempted by such a thing – a body in which all the saints are contained. All of their stories, all at once.”
And with that, she pressed the point of the needle against the soft skin of his neck and pressed forward.
He felt no immediate effect, only a slight twinge. It was quickly numbed.
“My father… where is he?”
“Soon.” The doctor held him for a while longer, as the drug took hold. “Guinevere is close, very close, living in the creature we have made for her, from two beings, one alive, one dead, one of flesh and one of spirit.”
And then Higgs stood up and moved away, to join the others at the wall. They were all watching him. Watching as Nyquist got to his feet and held his balance, unsteadily, his arms reaching out on both sides, hoping for support. There was none. His eyes were half closed, his body was trembling all over, his brow and palms were covered in sweat. He swayed from side to side. For the first time he saw the circle they had drawn on the floor all around him, and the four objects placed at the cardinal points: the gun, the cup, the coin, the book: from each a green tendril rose and reached over towards him. He wondered which he should step towards first, for all of them were equally tempting. And he wondered about Maude Bryars, and what they would have done with her, if he hadn’t cut the tendril from her flesh. It was the last good clear thought he had. His mind started to wander, and the room to blur in his sight. He circled around on the spot, seeking a way out, any direction but onwards, but everything was bound to him, all particles, all dust, the people, the walls of crumbling plaster, the rough floor, the man who sat slumped in the corner of the room. Nyquist stopped moving, he tried to focus. How many people were present? He had to concentrate, to count them off, one by one. Higgs, Coombes, yes, who else? Sylvia Keepsake, yes. Three people in the room… no, no that was wrong, there was himself, he didn’t count himself, himself, John Nyquist. Four people in the room, yes. That was right. No, no. Wrong. One more. One more person was here, he was sure of it! He tried to stay still, to hold his sight on a single part of the room, over in the corner where the fifth person waited, sitting against the wall, a face covered by a hood, hands tied before him, a man, an older man, who was it? Nyquist stumbled forward. He dropped to his knees and he read the label that hung around the man’s neck on a piece of thread: Exhibit 149. He removed the man’s hood and he saw the face clearly and recognition passed between them: yes, he knew this man, he knew this person, this face was his father’s face, yes, he saw it now, quite clearly and he reached out for him, for his father, and they almost touched, his fingers almost on the skin, the face, the cheeks and brow, almost, and he almost spoke, but something pulled him back, Saint Hetta perhaps, or the moonsilver or the effect of the saints, he could feel them now, growing within him, taking him over all at once, and he was confused, so very confused by what was happening, so many different feelings all at once, pulling this way and that, and he couldn’t stop any of them, not one saint, and from every part of his body and soul he felt them calling to him, giving their orders, yes, he could feel them, as one saint made him silent and another made him long for the outdoors, and one froze him in place for seven seconds exactly before another made him shudder and jerk about like a madman, and another saint made him shriek in terror as the veil of daylight was torn aside and another made him calm and then one more made him long for yesterday, to live in peace within his mother’s care, but another saint closed his eyes and would not let him open them and he now moved about the cellar, blind, blind for a moment of panic before another saint made his fret come back to life, at last, yes, of course, the fret of life and knowledge, the perfect map of mist, the sparkle map of the village showing exactly where he was beneath the museum and he reached out for the fret in gratitude and saw his hand wreathed by the mist and then torn from the mist as another saint took over to make him fall to his knees and eat the bugs on the floor, the spiders, the lice, he chewed on them and another saint made him whisper, whisper, and then he had to shout out loud and then he had to dance and then to bow his head in supplication, and then to say his own name over and over and then to fall asleep where he stood, on his feet, to sleep for a second only and then to wake just before he fell to the floor and then he did fall to the floor in pain and his hands reached for his own face to tear the saints from his body, the penny bloods, he scratched madly at his skin and at his neck, his bare arms, hoping to reach a vein where he could suck the poison out, to free himself, but there was no freedom, not now, not with the saint of moving backwards taking charge of him, and next he had to sing, to sing out, to sing out until his throat ran dry, singing of love to a goddess long dead, long buried, but still he had to sing, to sing in silence, in darkness, under moonlight, moving sideways, trying to fly, trying to lose himself, haloed by moths, by ghosts, by words, alongside wrens and sparrows that landed on his arms and helped him to sing, to cry, to dance alone in the middle of a field, a field he couldn’t reach and it pained him so, to not be able to follow the saint’s instruction until he was freed from that need by yet another saint and now all he had to do was crawl on his hands and knees and act like a dog snuffling at the dirt, and then he was living inside another person’s head and she spoke to him, this person, saying My name is Madelyn Arkwright, how do you do? and he spoke back to her and found a moment’s respite as she lived for him, and took his pain for him but then he was cast out from there, from Madelyn’s head and he was in the cellar once more, alone in his circle, circling, trying to find his father, that huddled shape in the corner, that face, but Saint Hetta still ruled him, he could not get there, and the three hundred and sixty saints ruled him, and the moonsilver ruled him, and he could not reach the thing he hoped for, longed for, the touch of the hand, and he could only yearn to wear a mask and call himself Edmund Grey and to walk along beside his sister Alice and then to tear the imagined mask away and know himself to have no name at all but to be without meaning, to be empty, a void, hollowed out, helpless, and then he had to tell himself jokes, one after the other, oh there was no end to it, he laughed with delight until his sides ached and now the saints were repeating themselves, often operating two or three at a time and so he was silently shouting dancing frozen howling purring flapping his arms birdlike and then reversing shivering masking weeping falling crawling mewling mauling caterwauling over and over all at once and then slowing right down to a barest minimum of human life and then Madelyn spoke to him once more saying, stay, stay here, stay with me here inside, here, stay here, John, stay with me, stay here don’t go, don’t leave me, and he did stay, he found himself alone inside the room inside the head of Madelyn Arkwright, and she said to him, all you have to do is wait for midnight, that’s all, listen, listen, Hetta will let you go then, can you hear the church clock chiming for you? and he did hear it, the first chime of midnight, and then the second, and he was pulled back into the cellar, into the circle where one tendril after another reached out for him, four of them altogether, each burrowing its way into his flesh, and the cup, the gun, the book and the coin all drifted around him in a vision, with the pages of the book flapping their wings in the air, and his father was there beside him, waiting for him as the fourth and the fifth chimes sounded, and he reached out and saw that his father’
s face was changing, the skin shifting, his eyes bulging, and Nyquist wanted to scream and he did scream because that moment’s saint allowed him to scream, made him scream, urged him to scream, as the bells chimed on, counting, counting, and his father was transformed into another being, a creature made entirely of green tendrils, hundreds of them, thousands of them all tangled together, as the ninth and the tenth chimed out, each tendril reaching out to engulf him, to pull him forward, to drag him down into the soil the deep the seeds the root the trunk, the branches the leaves the buds and the flowers, and the twelfth chime rang out as the dirt and the bark and petals closed over him and for a moment all he saw was darkness.
He could smell the earth.
He could hear a slithering sound.
He didn’t know which way to turn, but when he reached out his hands touched at one wall, then another, close to, and a third, each made of closely packed earth with roots and plant fibers. It was suffocating. But the fourth way was open. He squeezed through a narrow passageway and came to a door. There was just enough light here for a sign to be read: Please knock. He did so and a voice from within bade him enter. The door opened on a small room with a table and two chairs at the center, below a shaded lamp. The walls were made from the tendrils of green, all writhing about, tightly packed, knotted in coils, and the floor and the ceiling the same. Their movements could only just be seen in the dim light, and their sound was monstrous, a constant slithering and hissing noise.
Sitting at the table was a man. His face was not yet visible, not until Nyquist stepped forward and sat down himself. Now the lamplight fell on the other man’s face.
“My son. You got here.”
Those few words.
Nyquist started to sob. He couldn’t catch his breath. It was entirely unbidden, a simple reaction of the body and the heart. His father handed him a handkerchief and he used this to wipe his face, and in this process, the wiping of tears, he found a voice at last, a weak broken voice.