The Road to Bedlam

by Mike Shevdon

  "Sweetheart, what are you doing?" I called after Alex.

  "Do you mind if you have my bedroom and I have yours?" she called, walking into another room. "You won't be sleeping in there anyway, will you?"

  Tate touched my arm. "I'll see you later." He made a strategic withdrawal.

  "I'm not sure…" I said. "We're not staying here, Alex. This is only temporary until we can find somewhere else."

  She came back in carrying a set of bedding. When she had gone into the room her hair had been dark. Now it was blonde. She tossed the bedding on to the other bed and went back for more.

  "What's with the hair?" I asked Fionh.

  "Oh, that. I showed her glamour and she hasn't managed to be stable for more than two minutes since. Her mind's a butterfly. She can't concentrate on anything. One moment she's a redhead, then a blonde, five minutes ago she had long hair, now it's short."

  She appeared in the doorway. "You need to take me shopping," she said. Her hair was jet-black.

  "There'll be time for that later."

  "You always say that. I don't have any clothes. I haven't even got any bras." She looked down and her breasts visibly swelled inside her jumper. She looked up at me innocently.

  "How am I supposed to buy you new clothes if you keep changing size?" I asked.

  "Maybe I need different sizes for different days," she said. "Maybe I need a lot of new clothes."

  "Maybe you can have jeans and a T-shirt and you do the rest with glamour?" I suggested.

  "Oh, Dad! I have nothing to wear. Literally nothing!" Her clothes switched back to the hospital gown. I was sure it was more transparent than it had been originally.

  I was rescued by Garvin. He peeked around the door and raised his eyebrow at the jumble that our living space had become.

  "I have business," I told her. "Can you just put things back the way they were, please?"

  "If I can't have any proper clothes, I'll just wear this then, shall I?" She followed me to the door.

  I held up my hand. "We'll talk about this later."

  "Humph!" She screwed her hands into fists and stomped off into the other room. The water pipes in the bathroom gurgled in response until Fionh glanced sharply at the bathroom, whereupon the gurgling ceased.

  When I stepped outside, Garvin was leaning against the wall.

  "You wanted her back," he said.

  I sighed. "At least it's normal. I caught her this morning curled up in bed, sobbing. When I asked her what she was crying about she wouldn't tell me. She wouldn't even let me touch her."

  "It's going to take time, and it's going to leave scars," he said.

  "On all of us."

  "You can't stay here forever. You do know that?" He pushed off from the wall and we walked slowly down the hallway.

  "I know. Allowing her to rearrange the rooms does give her some sense of security, though. She needs the illusion of permanence."

  "Mullbrook is making arrangements for another house. He was suggesting somewhere well-built, relatively fireproof, near a lake, or perhaps the sea?"

  "Steward's humour? I think I've seen enough of the sea for a while."

  "I think he was serious. With water and fire under the same roof, you could have some interesting times ahead."

  "Tell me about it."

  "We need to think about the future. You can't continue as Niall and Alex Petersen. You'll need new identities for a new life."

  "I can't do that, Garvin. What about Katherine? I have to tell her something. What about my parents? They just lost their granddaughter. They can't lose their son as well. It would kill my mother. I have to think of something else."

  "Perhaps it would be best to let things take their course. Alex can't go back, you know, even if she wants to. They will be looking for her and for anyone else who escaped from Porton Down. She's going to need to keep a low profile."

  "Try telling her that."

  On cue her head appeared around the doorway. "Can I go out?"

  "Out where, sweetheart?"

  "Just out. Am I a prisoner here? Fionh says I'm not a prisoner but she won't let me go anywhere."

  "Where do you want to go?"

  "Just out. Somewhere with people, shops, music. I'm fed up of being in one room."

  "Technically it's three rooms."

  She sighed. "Can I go out?"

  "It's more complicated than that. What about your appearance? You need to be able to handle your power – so things don't get out of control."

  "I'm fed up with being controlled!" That caused a growl from the plumbing.

  "And that's exactly what I'm talking about," I reminded her.

  Amber ran up the stairway and stopped. "I think you'd better come." She paused, waiting for me. I watched her expression.

  "When can I go out?" asked Alex.

  "Not now, sweetheart."

  "You always say that. I'll be stuck in here forever. You got me out of one prison to put me in another. I'm supposed to be an adult. Why can't I do what I want?"

  "It's time," said Amber.

  "Alex, go back in your room and stay there until I get back. I have to go now."

  "How come you can go and I can't? It's not fair!"

  "No," I told her. "It's not fair. It isn't good and it isn't nice. Things are difficult, life is hard and the sooner you get used to it, the better. But right now I need to be with Blackbird, OK?"

  "Why? What makes her so special? I'm supposed to be your daughter."

  I hurried away, but then stopped and turned back to her.

  "You are my daughter. I love you and I want you to remember that, but you're about to become a sister. Now do as you're told."

  I watched her face change as she grasped the implications of what I'd just said.

  Then I ran.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  I am grateful that so many people will give up their time to read and comment, and point out where I have written something that doesn't make sense or backed myself into a corner. Indeed, so many people have contributed ideas or made suggestions that I'm sure I will miss someone in these acknowledgements, so if that is you, please accept my apologies and my thanks.

  I am particularly grateful to Peter for wading through the early drafts and providing a wealth of questions, challenges and ideas, and to Geri, for resisting the temptation to read Sixty-One Nails so that she could read this book first and check that it made sense for a new reader. Once again I am indebted to the Roses, especially Jo and Simon, and to Ameen, Lauri, Rachel, Bob and Tina, who took the time to read, review and provide feedback, and to Jules for such interesting research material and providing continuing support and encouragement. A special mention also for Jenny, who as well as providing comments, looked beyond the story and asked the questions that really needed to be answered.

  The Wellie Writers, Joy and Andrew, also have my gratitude, for their continued support and encouragement in developing my writing, for their honesty and integrity, and for their dedication to the mutual bloodsports which are our monthly critique sessions, long may they continue.

  My thanks also go to the professionals, to Jennifer Jackson, my agent, whose comments always go right to the heart of things and whose advice and guidance I value immensely, and to the Angry Robot team, Marc Gascoigne and Lee Harris, who have shaped the concepts, tuned the output and provided huge amounts of encouragement and professional help. You are a pleasure to work with.

  My gratitude also extends to the countless people who have fielded odd questions, bounced back ideas, and humoured the strange bloke with an uncommon curiosity as to how this or that came to be. Please continue to humour me, as it almost always leads somewhere interesting and you never know, the conversation may end up in a book.

  It is generally considered a bad idea for an author to comment on reviews of their work. However, I do want to thank all the people who read Sixty-One Nails and then took the time to marshall their thoughts and put together a review. I have been delighted with the response and
I hope this book lives up to your expectations. Also to the people who met me at conventions, stopped me in the street or sent their comments through email or via the website, thank you for your kindness. Your comments are much appreciated.

  I would like to thank my whole family for being so spectacularly supportive, not just of my writing, but of everything I do, and for continuing to put up with me. Your encouragement, kindness and love is what keeps me going.

  Finally, to my wife, Sue, and my son, Leo, who enduringly suffer the eccentricities of my writing, are my first and last critics, and can be relied upon to come up with the most obscure, bizarre and wonderful material. You always encourage me to be the best that I can be, you are always there for me when I stumble or fall, and without you I could not have done any of this. You make me proud and immensely grateful. Thank you.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Mike Shevdon's love of Fantasy & SF started in the 1970s with C S Lewis, Robert Heinlein and Isaac Asimov, and continued through Alan Garner, Ursula Le Guin and Barbara Hambly. More recent influences include Mike Carey, Phil Rickman, Neil Gaiman and Robert Crais, among many others.

  He has studied martial arts for many years, aikido and archery mainly. Friends have sometimes remarked that his pastimes always seem to involve something sharp or pointy. The pen should therefore be no surprise, though he's still trying to figure out how to get an edge on a laptop.

  Mike lives in Bedfordshire, England, with his wife and son, where he pursues the various masteries of weapons, technology, and cookery.

  www.shevdon.com

  Extras…

  THE WINDING WAY TO BEDLAM

  Those of you who have read Sixty-One Nails will know that I like to incorporate real places and events into my stories and in this, The Road to Bedlam is no exception. However, I will admit straight away that Ravensby does not exist.

  I knew from the beginning that the part of the story that fell within the fishing town would be set in North Yorkshire. I was born not far from there and I knew that the particular feel of that coast was what I needed for this book. When I came to select a town, though, I could not find all that I needed in one place. I will also confess that I did not want to lay the dark events that unfolded there on the warm-hearted people of one Yorkshire town.

  So that's how Ravensby came to be. It is a composite place which takes elements from Staithes, Whitby, Robin Hood's Bay and Ravenscar, following down the coast to Scarborough, Filey and Bridlington. The story is no reflection on the kind and welcoming Yorkshire folk, and I thoroughly recommend a visit to the area to sample its delights for yourself.

  The Sea Queens are also fictional, though further up the coast they crown a Herring Queen in Eyemouth in July each year. That tradition extends only back until the 1930s, though, and whether such traditions were more prevalent in earlier times when the herring stocks were more substantial, I do not know.

  While Ravensby is fictional, the storm of 10th February 1871 is not. It happened much as described in the book, with the weather turning overnight from the clear calm day on the 9th to hurricane-force snow and sleet the following morning. The lifeboats rowed out time and again to save men from ships that were either being overtaken by the waves or driven onto the rocks, until one of the lifeboats was also wrecked. By nightfall over thirty ships had been lost and seventy sailors had died, some drowned within sight of their loved ones. Reading the accounts left me in awe of the lifeboatmen, the sailors and those who risked their lives to rescue the drowning men, and full of respect for the men who, once the storm had calmed and the cost was counted, continued to go out to sea knowing full well the danger. Even with modern technology it continues to be a hazardous occupation.

  The stones that form the Way-points that Niall follows to reach North Yorkshire are also real. The Devil's Arrows are three millstone grit monoliths, over twenty feet tall which stand in a near-straight line crossing Roecliffe Lane at Boroughbridge in Yorkshire, near the A1 motorway. The Devil is supposed to have cast the arrows from a nearby hill at the village of Aldborough, but they fell short. There used to be four, but one of them is now believed to form part of a bridge over a nearby stream.

  The other Way-point is the Rudston Monolith and is the largest of its kind in the United Kingdom at over twenty-five feet high. It used to be taller, but the churchyard it stands in was levelled around it and it lost almost five feet in the process. Dating from approximately 1600 BC, it is far older than the Norman church which stands beside it and the site was probably sacred long before Christianity arrived in Britain.

  It is not known why the asylum at Charing Cross was originally called the Stone House, but it was rumoured to contain both the dangerously mad and political prisoners. In the 1370s, it was closed down by King Richard II because the cries of anguish from its inmates were upsetting his falcons in the nearby mews.

  The inmates were moved to a hospital founded by Simon FitzMary in 1247 dedicated to the Order of the Star of Bethlehem. Simon had a particular affinity for the star, for when he was in the crusades he became lost behind enemy lines and was afraid he would stumble into Saladin's lines, but then he saw a star over Bethlehem, just like the one that had guided the three wise men, and so he navigated back to his own lines and safety. The Star of Bethlehem is still the symbol of the hospital today, and of course, Bedlam is a corruption of Bethlem, which is what the people of Shoreditch called the hospital.

  The original hospital had room for about twenty people, and in 1674, it was recorded that the "hospital house was old, weak, ruinous and so small and strait for keeping the great number applying for admission that it ought to be removed and rebuilt elsewhere on some site grantable by the city". London was overflowing Bedlam and so it was decreed that it be moved to a "Palace Beautiful" at Moorfields which was built for the purpose.

  Then followed the period in which the mad were exhibited. In 1753, the newspaper The World reported that "It was in the Easter week, when, to my great surprise, I found a hundred people at least, who, having paid their two-pence apiece, were suffered, unattended, to run rioting up and down the wards, making sport and

  diversion of the miserable inhabitants."

  Sixty years later, the Palace Beautiful had been subsumed in the urban sprawl of London. The roof leaked, the cellars were unwholesome and the whole edifice was in danger of collapse due to subsidence.

  In 1815, the hospital was rebuilt once again, this time at St George's Fields, the building now used for The Imperial War Museum. There it housed the artists Louis Wain and Richard Dadd, among others. It saw action during the First World War as a respite for shellshocked soldiers – 80,000 recorded cases, of whom 30,000 ended up in institutions – and they were the lucky ones. Finally, in 1930 it was moved to Monks Orchard, where it is today. I am indebted to Catherine Arnold and her Excellent book, Bedlam – London and its Mad (Simon and Schuster 2008), for much of the background and history of Bedlam.

  I previously mentioned that Richard Dadd (1817-1886) was an inmate at Bedlam. In 1843, Dadd, convinced that his father was the Devil, killed him with a knife. He was imprisoned in the criminal wing at Bedlam for twenty years and then transferred in 1864 to Broadmoor. His painting, The Fairy Feller's Master-Stroke is in the Tate Gallery's collection, though it is not always on show. It was executed in minute and exquisite detail – prints and pictures of it cannot render the texture, which has an almost three-dimensional quality. It is well worth seeing if you get opportunity, as is Patricia Alldridge's book on Richard Dadd (Academy Editions, 1974).

  Porton Down is the 7,000 acre home to the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory and is one of the most secret facilities in the UK. Its primary role is defence against CBRN threats, which are Chemical. Biological, Radiological and Nuclear. It should be noted that it is not part of Porton Down's remit to develop weapons, but rather to develop defences against weapons that may be used against the UK or its armed forces.

  However, it has a chequered and controversial history. In the 1
950s Porton Down was involved with the development of the riot control agent, CS gas, and testing of the nerve agent, Sarin. There are alleged deaths associated with this testing. In 1961, a Land Rover vehicle was driven by scientists from Porton Down, from the village of Ilchester through Wedmore and into the outskirts of Bristol. They sprayed Zinc Calcium Sulphide into the air from the vehicle to simulate a germ warfare attack. The spread and concentration of the cloud was monitored at stations through Wiltshire and Somerset.

  Clearly, the defence against germ warfare, nerve agents and dirty bombs has to be carefully considered and appropriate preparations made if the threat from rogue states and terrorist agents is to be countered or mitigated. The facilities at Porton Down are an essential part of these preparations, but if there was government sponsored research into paranormal creatures, then it seemed to me that Porton Down is where it would take place.