The Sunlight Pilgrims

by Jenni Fagan

  —So if dark matter doesn’t absorb light and it doesn’t reflect light, but we do, then we need to store that shit up, so when our souls get catapulted out into the universe, we have our own battery to keep us going, and you know how bad it is here if it gets too gray, and it’s because when matter separated from the sun, the atoms that were going to make us went with light in it, with energy to create life, and we know if we stick our toes out into Coatlicue’s river, then all around it there is total darkness and if we go into that, horrible things will happen—we’ll be taken as light slaves by the universe. Our cells crave light because that is what we started as, it’s what we are. All humans are sunlight pilgrims. Except me. Cos I’m a goth. I could totally live without light, Stella says.

  Constance grins.

  —She’s so your child, Dylan says.

  —Truth.

  —Mine too, Alistair adds.

  —Is that your father, in that picture? Dylan asks.

  —Aye, Olaf, and that’s his wife.

  —Big family?

  —Not really.

  —Did he have any sisters?

  —One. She ran away.

  —Where to?

  —Australia was what they told me.

  The snowstorm is howling down the mountain and he feels Constance place a hand on his leg and, just like that, he gets the feeling she knows. Constance looks at the picture of Olaf and back at Dylan.

  Then the lights go out.

  —Fuck’s sake, not again! Alistair snaps.

  —Is the generator charged?

  —Of course it is, Constance, I’m not some city idiot!

  —Stella, don’t move!

  —I’m not bloody moving, Mum!

  The two of them head outside the cottage, banging around.

  —If the snow never stops falling and we don’t ever get out of here, I will never have sex with Lewis Brown, Stella says.

  —If the snow doesn’t stop, your mother will build an igloo village singlehanded, he says.

  —I don’t think so. Archaeologists will dig us up in years to come: the frozen community of Clachan Fells, the year of the freak winter, Stella says.

  Alistair stamps back into the room and the generator kicks in, the lights flicker back on, but everything is a little dimmer than before. Dylan looks back at the photograph of Olaf.

  —Constance, you did mention you got drunk with Vivienne one night?

  —I didn’t say drunk.

  —What did you talk about, exactly?

  —Nothing, Dylan.

  —It’s all fine—nothing to panic about, just owerblaw, blin drift, skirlie. Honestly, I have got enough roadkill in the freezer to last until summer, I reckon; well, maybe four weeks, and me and your mother and Dylan here, we’ll be civil, won’t we, Dylan? We’ll play Monopoly and cook soup, we won’t run short of fresh water.

  —What about firewood? Dylan asks.

  —Enough for a month.

  —We won’t be here more than a day, Constance says.

  —I wouldn’t count on that, Alistair says.

  —Can you get a radio signal?

  —No.

  —Has anyone got a phone signal? Dylan asks.

  A small pitiful chorus of No.

  —They will find us in here, all frozen to death, next summer, Stella whispers.

  —Stop that right now! Constance says.

  —I’m scared! She grips her mother’s hand.

  —I don’t know why you’re scared, Alistair says.

  —Why’s that? Stella asks him.

  —Well, when we run out of tinned food, then roadkill, which will take a while, after that I reckon it’s me that will get eaten first. You know it’s like that joke about the kid bear that goes into the forest and it says I’m scared, and the guy bear says: I don’t know why; you’re not the one that has to walk back on your own.

  They all sit listening to the clock tick.

  —If you do eat me, though, could you do just one thing?

  —What’s that? Constance asks.

  —Well, I’m so glad you are not contradicting me—if you do, could you keep my bones, get them ground down, made into a nice bit of china?

  A barometer on the wall reads minus seventy, Dylan and Constance glance at each other and as he looks back it drops one more degree. Wind batters at the door, so loud he could put a face to it. There is a booming noise up the mountain as ice expands and cracks.

  They sit on the sofa in a row. Alistair, Constance, Dylan, Stella. The fire flickers and the windows glow yellow against a dark that is as complete as any of them will ever know. Constance takes Dylan’s hand. He cannot see if she is holding Alistair’s on the other side. Stella curls into him and he puts his arm around her too, pulls her in and holds her safe. They can do this. It’s fucking snow. It’s ice. No electricity, but wood. They can cook with the fire? He can’t think. He is wooly and tired. As soon as they get through this he will go to a city, just for a visit; he’ll go to a decent pub and he’ll get some new tattoos—a sunlight pilgrim, a wolf child, a moon polisher, an iceberg and a vintage projector that shines a light in the dark. It will have to be a full sleeve. They can go over some of the old tattoos. Olaf looks out at him from the picture on the wall. Vivienne must have told Constance when they were drinking gin one evening, and all this time she’s never said a thing, not to Stella either. Cos she liked him. Right from the start she didn’t want to do anything to stop it happening either. She has left it up to him. If they had to eat Alistair, there’s no way he’d pound those bones down for china. He’d throw them out of the door for the farmers’ dogs. Odd thoughts lacing together in his mind, wondering if this is the beginning of some kind of snow cabin fever.

  The only noise in the cottage is the crack of the fire.

  Outside the snowfall grows thicker and heavier.

  He’ll go outside when it stops falling. See how much of the village below is lit up. There’s probably electricity out in homes all across the region. People sitting in cold houses without heat. Knocking on their neighbors’ doors. Snow piling up higher each minute. The cottage windows look out onto sheer darkness. Stella is asleep, leaning on him now. Constance stroking her thumb along the palm of his hand. Firelight making shadows dance. If they can make it to spring they’ll be okay. Unlike Barnacle. Poor guy. Dylan can still picture each eyelash encrusted with frost and his eyes frozen wide-open, like a man cursed only to see the world straight on when he was laid out on the floor in the worst snowstorm in 200 years. Staring at the sky. Clouds drifting over his old, tired corneas, Constance curling into him as his eyes close too, just, so tired, all of them, their bodies going into hibernation mode, just to rest here, like this, just for a few hours.

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