Stories From a Lost Anthology

by Rhys Hughes

  And so it happened that she arranged her very last tour. There were six others with her, a sorry bunch of belated dreamers, who regarded the business as little more than a joke between the lotus pipe and wine cup of scheduled carnivals. They followed her politely enough, but the bells on their drooping caps jingled as they lurched down the slippery paths. She was sick of this incidental music by the time they reached the mound in the middle of the marsh.

  She held a finger to her lips as they blinked. The rows of houses on each side were now so close that she could make out the gables and balconies. They waited for many minutes and a slow rain fell from a cloud which shrouded the moon. Just when her customers were beginning to murmur about obtaining a refund, there was a glissando hiss and a gigantic will-o’-the-wisp burst into flame not more than ten yards away. It was alone, but extremely vibrant, taller and faster than any such phantom she had ever witnessed.

  At once she felt an irrational impulse to follow it out onto the pool. It would be a more dignified death than starvation in her empty room. A symbolic death. She had given her life to these shimmering columns. What better way of bidding farewell to her miserable fate? Abandoning her clients on the edge of the spitting lake, she stepped toward the apparition. It was directly in front of her and she aimed for its core. But to her astonishment, she did not sink into the mud. Her feet found another path just below the surface of the lagoon, a secret path.

  The tourists giggled nervously as she left them behind. The will-o’-the-wisp danced in front of her and Cassie felt that this solitary giant of the species was somehow sentient, filled with a mocking intelligence. She opened her arms to embrace it but it glided out of reach. It was dancing with her, leading her across the mire on a network of unknown paths. Soon she was disoriented, not knowing which direction she faced. And still it led her on.

  Now she was on the edge of the marsh, standing in front of a door. With a shock, she realised the house was hers. The will-o’-the-wisp had returned her safely home.

  That wasn’t right! They were supposed to lead mortals to their dooms. It spiralled away, back over the mire. She wiped her face with a sleeve. Then she opened the door and ran down the passage to her room. A lamp she did not own flickered on the windowsill. She gasped.

  The room was the same, but it was full of new possessions. There were pictures on the walls, flowers in vases and a large rosewood desk on which rested a clockwork gramophone. There were shelves filled with books and satin sheets on the comfortable bed. There was a wardrobe bursting with expensive clothes. Near the window stood a brass telescope on a tripod. She trembled with bewilderment and blew out the lamp, so that she would not have to look at her shaking hands.

  After a while, she threw open the window and angled the telescope at the marsh. She placed her eye to the lens and adjusted the focus. She found herself spying on the tourists on the mound. Five still stood with gaping mouths, but the sixth was dancing with the will-o’-the-wisp on one of the pools. It led him off as she watched, eventually finishing at the rear door of a different house. Then it returned for the others.

  She drew away from the telescope, trying to fathom the meaning of this peculiar ritual. Had the phantoms of the mire turned good? The idea was unacceptable. There had to be some trick under this new behaviour. When she finally resumed her observations, the last tourist was beginning his own dance. Soon the marsh was empty again and the will-o’-the-wisp winked out. She fell asleep on the problem. It helped a little, for her dreams also twisted and turned.

  She was woken by a polite knocking on her door. It was morning. She hurried to answer the call. A man stood on her threshold, a stranger, but neither Bailiff nor Landlord. He frowned when he saw her, then shook his head. “Are the listings ready? Why are you so late?”

  It was pointless trying to bluff her way out of a situation she did not comprehend. She replied: “I don’t know what you mean.”

  “This is most odd. You don’t look right. You have turned into a girl. And yet this is the correct address, so the mistake must be mine. Where are the latest listings? We should have gone to press before the sun came up. How will people know which carnivals to attend?”

  Suddenly she understood everything. It was marvellous and bizarre. She said: “I have them here. And I shall give them to you. But first I must ask you to remain outside for the sake of decency. I wish to change my clothes.”

  He did so without protest. She stepped to the desk, took up a pencil and scribbled on a piece of paper. For the sake of consistency, she also discarded her ragged dress for a pair of trousers and a shirt. Then she opened the door again and handed the man her note. He scanned it with a pout.

  “Only one carnival today? In the marsh, of all places!”

  “Yes, but it will be a special event,” she retorted. “The most magical gala of all. Why divide the populace into lots of little parades? Let’s have one big communal event! I have drawn a map showing all the safe paths.”

  He whistled through fat lips. “What an inspired idea! I see what you’re getting at. Every single citizen at one party in one location! I’ll convey this to the printer’s right away. But it will leave a lot of blank space in the newspaper.”

  “Don’t worry. It will be justified.”

  After he departed, she burst into laughter. There were tears too. There was a vast deception in progress, not of her invention, but she was an agent of its will. It would be a sombre revenge, for she bore the people of the city no malice. They were simply naive, callow revellers, stupid with the froth of compulsory joy. She felt in a pocket of her trousers and found a wallet. It bulged with notes. She was obviously a wealthy and successful journalist. A position of power.

  She went out and wandered down the street. It seemed identical to her own. The shops were the same stalls selling wine and beer. Even the gutters flowed with the same detritus. But it was also different. The Bailiff had never grasped the truth of his destiny. Cassie was too clever to follow his example. She knew. It had been intended that she know, and also that she act. And so she had, still without regrets.

  The four towns had been established at the same time, almost a century ago. Huffton, Knettle, Glib and Monkbreath had grown in identical fashion. They had housed people with exactly the same aspirations and habits. They had therefore followed identical building patterns. The same houses in the same streets. It was an incredible coincidence, but paradoxically also a reasonable one. Nobody had noticed when the towns merged into a single city, partly because the Council never bothered to make any street maps, but mostly because the citizens were always drunk.

  The main purpose of a will-o’-the-wisp’s existence was to mislead travellers. Generally this malign behaviour was purely instinctive, a result of their chemical and astral composition. But as this particular marsh closed up, its vaporous phantoms had been forced to congregate in an increasingly smaller area. Finally some had fused together, doubling their strength and intelligence. This process had continued until a single incandescent column was left. The strongest and cleverest of all. A gestalt sprite. The king of wisps.

  On such a small marsh, the chances of tricking travellers into becoming lost were also reduced. So the giant will-o’-the-wisp had changed tactics. As a compound spectre it was capable of demonstrating abstract thought. No longer would it interpret its desire to mislead mortals as merely enticing them into quicksands and slimepools. Now it could mislead them in more symbolic ways. The Bailiff had been the first victim of this new agenda, even before all the phantoms had fused. The idea might have come to them as they regarded their reflections in his glasses. An idea on the edge of their budding consciousness.

  The king of wisps had no such difficulties. It knew precisely what to do. Its predecessors had guided the Bailiff to a house on the far shore which was a flawless copy of his own. Because Huknibonk-on-Stench was a city where schedules and their attendant numbers, times and addresses, were given priority over names and appearances, an effect of the obsession with car
nivals and disguises, the Bailiff had never questioned the discrepancies in his new environment. It was not his house but a brothel. But the address was the same, thus the fault lay in his character.

  That is how the phantoms had misled him. By abstract rather than physical deception. It was a remarkable development. And Cassie guessed that the king-o’-wisps had done the same to her last six tourists, leading them into domestic trouble. But it had improved her condition. No need to ask why. It regarded her as an ally. It had given her the power to avenge herself on the city of her misery. It had offered her the identity of an influential journalist. And now she had played her part.

  As she continued to walk, vendors sold papers to pedestrians. There was a great deal of excitement in the air. News about the great marsh carnival was in every throat. She chuckled to herself, but also felt a little guilt. It was consoling to know that no deaths would be necessary. Simply the embarrassment of a population displaced into new homes and new identities. Perhaps the emotional traumas which were bound to follow from this monumental mix-up would finally knock a social conscience into these apolitical and decadent people.

  That would be enough for her. It was what she really wanted. A proper community, sober and responsible, without the lunatic pleasures or anticipatory punishments of a hungover council. And the king-o’-wisps had given her this opportunity because their desires had converged. It had empowered her, alone among the folk of the city. Phantom and girl were alike in this respect; weary of mandatory happiness. Soon the elation on the streets became unbearable to her and she turned back to her house.

  She idled the rest of the day away. When the sun went down and long shadows danced around the forsaken bonfires, she opened her window. No need to look through her telescope. The situation was on a grand scale, deriving its importance not from individuals but their mass movements. At the centre of the marsh, the king-o’-wisps ignited itself. And from the rear door of every house but hers, men and women streamed out. They shuffled along the safe paths in single file. It was as if the hidden maze of the marsh had suddenly revealed itself, a map of the labyrinth formed by moving lines of humans.

  As the first celebrant reached the mound at the centre, the phantom led him away on a dance across the secret paths, the ones just under the surface of the pools. It took him in a complex route back to the edge of the marsh, to a house he believed was his own but which had never known his presence. Then the king-o’-wisps returned to the centre for its second victim. The celebrants waited patiently for their turn. The queue shuffled forward one figure at a time. A new experience for them to defer a dance! As Cassie watched, the gala proceeded. The relocation of everybody.

  The carnival went on all night. Sometime in the early hours, she grew bored and retired to bed. Infrequently she rose and peered out. The king-o’-wisps betrayed no hint of exhaustion. It did not slow its gyrations. Cassie hoped to witness the final victim’s dance, the climax of her revenge, but she overslept. It was dawn and the marsh was empty. Still the city slowly closed together. She felt it beneath her feet. But there was another sound too. The slamming of a thousand doors and a greater number of mouths bawling in anger.

  The arguments grew more bitter as the recriminations mounted. Men and women, long married, found themselves in bed with unknown lovers. Secret lives which had come into spontaneous being were exposed. Little and big frauds were discovered. Domestic chaos reigned. As if in response to this emotional thunder, dark clouds gathered over the houses. At noon the sky went dark. Cassie took to the streets and found them full of fighting figures. Every window she passed was smashed or rattled in its frame by voices raised so high she feared for more substantial structural damage. Once more she returned to the security of her room.

  Something inconceivable had happened. The cloud hiding the sun was so thick it resembled a total eclipse. It was a false night, but it tricked the marsh. The king-o’-wisps flickered on near the central mound. It was confused only for a moment. Then people began to notice it as they argued on balconies and roofs. They realised at last who the real culprit was. They redirected their fury at the mire. Word spread like a wildfire which gives off cold instead of heat. And the mob mind, as tightly fused as the king-o’-wisps being, made a decision.

  They poured onto the marsh, stamping and running. They knew all the paths to the middle. Angry feet are heavier than happy ones, and the marsh sagged under the weight. The whole square of pools and bubbles began to sink. The king-o’-wisps seemed unperturbed. It waited for its assailants. And now the entire population was back on the marsh, a howling crowd of vigilantes, pounding the ground lower and lower. Cassie watched in horrified fascination, wondering if they would come for her once they had dealt with the phantom.

  But then she staggered. Since the council had set them up months before, the hydraulic jacks had strained to push the four towns over the muddy ground. It was hard work for the machines. But the marsh was sinking and there was no longer any resistance. They were pushing against air alone. The four sides of the square began to accelerate together. They were closing up at a frightening speed. Cassie regained her balance and watched as they slid over the people on the marsh. Then she knew that the king-o’-wisps had planned this all along. So much for her harmless revenge! She had misjudged the intentions of the gestalt phantom. It had misled her too!

  The first of the angry men had almost reached the king-o’-wisps. But the towns were closing faster than he could run. They came together with a deafening clang! The impact knocked Cassie off her feet, but not before she saw the final awful wonder. As the marsh contracted to its smallest speck, its ultimate bubble, and the cobbles of the colliding streets locked together, the towering phantom leapt directly up. It jumped higher than any will-o’-the-wisp had ever done. It jumped out of the marsh, its potential prison, and came down on the firmer ground of the sealed city.

  As it landed it broke into its constituent parts. Ten thousand ordinary wills-o’-the-wisp broke free and glided off at high speed down different streets. They shrieked as they dispersed, colonising the city. The four towns had vanished. Huknibonk-on-Stench was a true metropolis. And Cassie had been spared as its witness, its ethnic minority, its single human inhabitant. To the new occupants, a token. To herself, an unwitting traitor. She sobbed until her eyes went dry. Then she considered her future. It was no more lonely than before.

  The marsh is no longer surrounded by the city. It lies beneath. And the four towns have been forgotten. Cassie is a warden of nowhere. But she still makes a modest income by guiding small groups of wills-o’-the-wisp on short tours. They gather outside her house at night. She does not require a lantern, because they provide their own light. It is a faint ghostly glow, but adequate for where she leads them. Into the sewers, to observe and dance with those strange creatures called people.

  Story From A Lost Anthology

  The way the hills went up and down, it was plain daft. I prayed to the local gods to send a wind to blow me along, but they weren’t listening. You can’t get much out of these pagan dabs; idle as tusks they are, which is lazier than bones. With my harp and cat, I’d been tramping the peaks for a month. If slopes all went down, and the world with them, I wouldn’t mind, unless I forgot something and had to turn back. But these were fickle inclines, just wouldn’t settle.

  Where exactly I was, I couldn’t say. The last pint to pass my lips had long since faded from my memory, in a diminishing series of yeasty belches. I was north of Carmarthen, that much was sure. The drizzle was chill and soft as the thumbs of a toad. Pushkin was cwtched up safely under my jacket; my harp was slung over my shoulder. Night was leering over the horizon like a neighbour over a fence. I was tired of sleeping in ditches and hoped to chance on a tavern.

  I followed the road and my ears to a gushing river and the stubs of a bridge, the body of which reclined in the trees like a mad uncle. Some cataclysm had taken place; the route was impassable. I retraced my steps and found myself approaching a fellow traveller, who w
as harnessed to a small cart piled high with an assortment of bottles, wheels and levers, connected by wires and tubes. He greeted me with a dramatic bow, taking off his hat to reveal a shock of white hair.

  “Wandering bard, is it? A strapping boyo!”

  “The bridge is down,” I said. “Or rather, it is up.”

  Studying his load more carefully, I squirmed at the sight of a pair of tentacles dangling from one of the larger jars. The entire collection of oddities fitted together like a rural community, delicately balanced, grimy and sinister. I drew back a pace.

  In a timid voice, I added: “Must have been a dreadful force to cast the crossing in the air. Most unnatural.”

  He chuckled. “Welsh Nationalists. Tidy bombs they’ve got now. Is it all gone, every bit? An eyeful left, you say? There you are then, that’s enough for me. I’ll be on my way, bach.”

  “Don’t be absurd. You won’t get your wagon across!”

  Turning once to wink at me, he set off into the gloom. Shrugging, I let him go: you try to help folk but they insist on failing in their own manner. He rattled into the distance and was lost to sight, save for the faint gleam of his head. Then he turned a bend, or replaced his hat, for even this was gone, suddenly, like a firefly struck with a mallet. Would there ever be a better time for a song? I slung off my harp, pulled open my coat and retrieved Pushkin. Every occasion warrants a tune, but never without a cat to pluck at the strings.

  Just as his claws were unsheathed for the first chord, I noticed a change in the sound of the stream. It faded from a healthy roar to a sad whisper, by way of a spiteful hiss. Never one to reflect on things weird and deep, I replaced Pushkin and hurried away. Though I had but recently trudged it, the path was unfamiliar as new shoes. Another road branched off and looped round, sheltered by overhanging trees. Trusting to fresh directions, I took it and stumbled over potholes, my face slapped raw by damp leaves, right up to a second bridge.