Voices in the Dark

by Catherine Banner

  EVENING

  THE TENTH OF JANUARY

  We came to Holy Springs late on the night of the tenth of January, and across the water glittered Holy Island. It looked very close; I could make out its cliffs and a mountain and even the lights of the city. A strange coldness came over me and made my heart ache, and I wanted to go with Mr Hardy across the water and find my family again. They might even be with Leo now. Things might still be all right. But I had already decided, in the cold nights of the journey. I was going on alone.

  The last ships left at midnight. The woman and the boy, Esther and Matthew, gripped our hands politely, then turned and walked away. I watched them, our companions on the road, already becoming strangers, until they were lost to us altogether.

  Then Mr Hardy turned to me. ‘Are you sure you will not come with me?’ he said. ‘It may be your last chance for some time. They say the army are closing every state boundary.’

  I hesitated. I had studied the notices with the listings of the ships, and still I did not know where else I would go. And then it had appeared clearly to me, out of the dark. A new sign, in green, pasted up over the rest. ‘Workers required for factory,’ it read. ‘Board and lodging paid. Arkavitz, Northern Passes.’

  The first ship the next morning left at six for Arkavitz, according to the notice. And it was enough of a sign, so I decided. ‘No,’ I said. ‘No, go on without me. I will come as soon as I can, but I have other things to do first.’

  ‘Finding your father’s grave?’ he said. ‘And finding Michael?’

  I shrugged. ‘I suppose so.’

  ‘Can I take them some message?’ he said. ‘Can I bring them news at least? Perhaps it will make them gladder to see me, if I have news of you.’ He gave a dry laugh that became a cough. He had been twisting his hands together nervously all the way along this last stretch of the coast road, his eyes never leaving Holy Island. I wondered how it must be for him, to think of seeing Leo again after so many years without hope.

  ‘Tell them I’m sorry,’ I said. ‘And that I promise I’ll come back. And will you please write to me when you know their address?’

  ‘Where will you be?’

  ‘That factory on that board.’

  ‘Anselm, I don’t know if the post is still running.’

  He lowered his voice as he said it. There were guards about the harbour, but we did not know which side they belonged to. The place seemed ominously subdued, and no one stood about for long if they could help it. ‘If it is,’ I said, ‘send me a letter.’

  ‘All right. Very well.’

  ‘I will come back soon,’ I said. ‘Tell them that. And give Leo these.’

  ‘Of course.’ He took the papers and gripped my hand very tightly. I kept the story I had been writing for my brother, but the parcel for the baby went with him. ‘Are you certain …’ said Mr Hardy.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Let me tell you something,’ he said. ‘It is one of the only things of worth I feel I wrote: “We see condemnation everywhere when condemnation is in our own hearts.”’

  ‘How do you mean?’ I said.

  He was growing weary now, with the long journey or with something more serious. He coughed for a long time before he answered. ‘I betrayed my family, a long time ago,’ he said. ‘No, don’t look at me like that – it’s true. I betrayed them. I left my two young sons and vanished, and they didn’t know where I had gone. Let me tell you, from that day forward, every street had only young boys in it. Every marketplace, every crowded theatre, was full of fathers and their sons. When I opened the Bible, it was Saul and Jonathan, David and Solomon, St Joseph and Jesus. Do you understand what I am saying?’

  I nodded, because he wanted me to.

  ‘I don’t think you are a bad person, Anselm,’ he said. ‘I’ve heard your story, and I don’t think you have done half as much wrong as you think you have. Why condemn yourself to exile out of this misplaced sense of guilt?’

  ‘I’ve decided,’ I told him. ‘I want to go north.’

  He gave up protesting then. The ship to Holy Island was not leaving for another hour, and we went to an inn and sat watching the lights of the harbour. ‘But that isn’t all,’ he said. ‘You never told me the last part. You never told me how you ended up on this journey.’

  There was really nothing left to tell. By the time I got to the coachyard, that morning I left the shop behind for ever, it was too late to travel west. The Alcyrians had started to surround the city with roadblocks. The driver shook his head and talked about going south and along the coast and the bad state the roads would be in. We set out anyway. There were four of us – an old man, a woman, a boy, and me. On the first stretch of the journey, I took out the pencil and paper and began trying to write, and Mr Hardy asked me about my troubles. ‘That’s all,’ I said. ‘And now we’re here.’

  Mr Hardy thought for a long time. ‘Yes,’ he said at last, stirring and taking out the papers I had given him. ‘And I might as well know how this story finishes too.’

  He handed them to me, and I read to him. It was a familiar ritual with us now, and it made a kind of farewell.

  Once, Richard and Juliette had crossed the Channel to Europe. Richard had imagined it would be something like his homeland. One night he dreamed about that journey again. But this time Aldebaran was with him, not Juliette. It was a rough ferry crossing, and when the stars came out and the wind finally died, they stood at the rail and watched the horizon rise and fall, the lights of the ship reflected in the smooth water beneath the waves. The deep driving roar of the engine held them captive. As far around as Richard could see, there was nothing else but the ferry and the dark. The stars looked strangely bright, as bright as the stars had been once in his homeland.

  ‘Before I go away,’ said Aldebaran, ‘I am going to record my life’s work. All that I know about magic. Or at least, all that is important.’

  He sighed. Richard thought that it was a strange and terrible sound, like a prayer for help.

  ‘I am going to write a final prophecy,’ said Aldebaran. ‘To pass my work on to others. And it is only fair to give them some instruction.’

  ‘How do you mean, instruction?’

  ‘I want to set out my theory about what magic really is.’

  ‘That does not sound like you,’ said Richard. ‘Explaining things that do not have to be explained.’

  ‘I will not exactly explain. Only leave a few ideas, in case my successors find themselves without inspiration.’

  ‘Tell me,’ said Richard, ‘how bad is the situation going to become?’

  ‘It might be salvageable,’ said Aldebaran. ‘But there are so many things wrong. Even magic is dying.’

  ‘How can magic die out? It is a force of nature.’

  ‘Not exactly,’ said Aldebaran. ‘It is nothing mysterious at all. The generation that came after yours was so persecuted under the old regime that they nearly all refused to develop their powers. I have a nephew, a very talented boy, who let his skill fade and die away, because he did not have the heart for it. Surely you know what I am talking about.’

  Richard realized faintly, from outside the dream, that this was a conversation he and Aldebaran had had years ago. His mind had reordered it somehow and put it onto the ship and dredged it up again in every detail. ‘I was the only one from my school who went on to be initiated as a great one,’ said Richard, just as he had said back then. ‘The others, the younger ones, all burned their books and left before their final year. Even I had doubts. Look.’ He rolled up his sleeve and showed Aldebaran the rusted metal band that had been there since his days in a secure unit for children with powers. ‘But I always assumed,’ said Richard, ‘that people had the talent but not the will to act.’

  ‘The will to act,’ said Aldebaran, ‘is the talent. Lose one and the other vanishes.’

  Richard hardly understood this, so he fell silent and stared into the black ocean pitching under them. He had not understood it at the time, and he di
dn’t now. But when he woke, it was with a strange thought. That account Aldebaran had written, the record of his life’s work, must be out there somewhere.

  On the day agreed, at six in the morning, Juliette began packing. She did not have a suitcase – she had never travelled with Richard on his journeys – but she filled up several plastic bags and her leather school satchel with all the belongings she had taken with her to the hotel. Sleet was driving down the window. Juliette put on several jumpers and her school coat, a drab grey duffel coat that clashed with the rest of the uniform. As she shut the rickety wardrobe, her green hat fell from the top of it and landed on the floor. She set it back with care. It already looked like the relic of some former existence. She saw her life in this country like another person’s, the life of some younger sister who she would always look on tenderly. ‘Farewell,’ she said to the room.

  She was at the hotel’s front door when Richard called out to her from above. He was at his window upstairs, still half asleep. ‘Where are you going?’ he said.

  ‘Just for a walk.’

  ‘With all those bags?’

  ‘I’m visiting a friend.’

  ‘Come back inside,’ he said.

  ‘I won’t be long.’

  Richard hesitated. In that second, Juliette ran down the steps, put her hand out for a taxi, and in a wash of grey sleet, was gone. She cried bitterly all the way to the station. But she did not go back.

  On the first train, she and Ashley could think of nothing to say. He had a battered holdall and no overcoat. She could tell they were both wishing they could turn back. But if there was any chance of it, they would have decided to already. ‘I wonder,’ began Juliette, and stopped. She had been thinking that perhaps her father would come after them.

  When they changed trains, the hills were so strange to them that talking came more easily. The sun shone very cold and clear, and there was snow on the mountains. ‘I remember that place!’ Ashley kept saying, until she laughed at him. The wind cut bitterly when they got off the train.

  ‘It’s getting dark,’ said Juliette. ‘Let’s find somewhere to stay.’

  They ended up at a bed-and-breakfast on the outskirts of the town. At the end of the garden, chilled sheep huddled against the fence. Their bleating made Juliette’s heart cold, but at the same time, something in her chest was loosening its grip. She realized she had grown too used to the greyness and the smoke of the city. The sheep knew and cared nothing about Belgravia.

  Juliette went to Ashley’s room and sat on the bed and said, ‘Talk to me.’ Ashley was studying maps and did not want to be distracted, but eventually he closed them and came and sat beside her.

  ‘My aunt used to run a hotel like this,’ he said. ‘But bigger. It was the best place in the whole valley. My mam worked there, and I went to the school in Lowcastle. I think I was happy then. I think that was the time when my life made the most sense. And one time I saw my father.’

  ‘How?’ she said.

  ‘I don’t know. He was just there one night, on the hill with the stone circle. You can see it from here.’ He guided her to the window and drew the curtain aside. Through the darkness, she could make out the outline of the stones against the sky. ‘I’d forgotten,’ he said. ‘Afterwards, I couldn’t remember it properly. But it happened. Like the story you told me, about the boat and the river when you were five years old.’

  ‘Do you think it’s because it’s too unbelievable?’ said Juliette. ‘So you just forget?’

  ‘Maybe.’ He sat back down and turned over the maps. ‘Tell me about your own life.’

  ‘Mine?’ said Juliette. ‘I can’t remember much before I came here. I remember the castle on the rock. It was red – the stone was red. And our house had railings and red and green windows.’

  ‘Red and green windows?’ said Ashley. ‘Why?’

  ‘I don’t know. I think it was an idea of my mother’s.’

  They talked for a long time, until Juliette’s head began to nod with exhaustion and she fell asleep. He covered her with the quilt and slept in the armchair. His last thought as he drifted away was that this girl’s father would probably come after them and kill him. Then he thought of nothing else except the lake and the mountains. And the sheep bleating, the one sound he had forgotten, ran like a familiar song through all his dreams.

  When Richard came running down the stairs, there was some kind of commotion going on at the reception desk. He registered it only dimly. He pulled up his coat collar and went out into the sleet. Juliette had already gone; the taxi was rounding the corner. He shouted her name anyway, then ran back up the steps. In the shelter of the doorway, he tried to think. But he could not concentrate with all the noise behind him.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ one of the hotel employees was saying, brushing sleet out of her hair. ‘I would have been here on time, but my son—’

  ‘It’s not good enough,’ the manager was saying. ‘You’ve been unreliable from the beginning.’

  Richard turned to go back up the stairs. He didn’t want to be here when this woman was fired. He would ask James to fetch the car and he would go out and look for Juliette.

  The woman was close to tears as he edged past. ‘It’s my son,’ she said. ‘He said he was going to meet a friend and left without telling me where he was going, and he had half his belongings with him. I have to go after him.’

  ‘You can do that later.’

  ‘No,’ said the woman. ‘No, I have to go now. I promise I’ll be back by the afternoon.’

  The hotel manager shook his head. He went on shaking it, and the woman said, ‘All right,’ and took off her badge and laid it down on the counter. ‘Then I’ll have to resign,’ she said, and left.

  Richard turned and ran back down the steps. At the bottom he almost collided with the woman. She was sitting there in the sleet, swiping angrily at the tears on her face. ‘Excuse me,’ said Richard. ‘I could not help overhearing.’

  The woman looked up at him. ‘Yes?’ she said.

  ‘Your son,’ he said. ‘Is he Ashley Devere? Are you Anna?’

  Richard knew it was too late even as he and the boy’s mother were driving north, not speaking to each other. They stopped in cold white service stations, like the one where he had bought chips that first night, and five-year-old Juliette had fallen asleep in his arms. Sometimes in the silences, he felt that weight still, like a terrible burden. He could still feel the way his arms closed around his only child. Anna Devere drank tea with several sugars; Richard, the black English coffee that he had never acquired a taste for. They drove all day and half the night, because the minor roads were treacherous with black ice, and they had to go slowly. It was one o’clock when they came to Lakebank and parked the old Rolls-Royce close up to the gates.

  They crossed the grounds in silence. The inhabitants of the house, whoever they were, were all asleep. Richard and Anna went carefully across the gravel and up into the woods behind the house. The path was already trampled, but the chapel was empty.

  Anna said, ‘He’s gone,’ and sat down on the broken wall, resting her head on her hand. Snow was falling now, and it seemed like a sign, this rare English snow obscuring the night and covering her shoulders.

  Richard’s mind was clearer the colder it grew. ‘Take the car,’ he said eventually. ‘Here are the keys. Drive home and wait, and I will send you word. I promise. I’ll go after them. I am Aldebaran’s disciple; I’m a relative of his. I won’t let either of them come to any harm.’

  ‘No,’ said Anna. ‘No, I’m staying here. I’m a relative of his too.’

  ‘Trust me. I promise I will send you word. I promise.’

  It took a good deal more arguing before she would be persuaded. Then she turned and shrugged her jacket over her shoulders and went away from him. He saw the car’s lights come on below the trees. She sat there for a long time without moving. Then she pulled out slowly and drove off along the lake road, and the snow obscured her tracks. Richard was shivering n
ow. He wrapped his overcoat around him and sat down in the shelter of the wall of the old chapel. He thought that this was how he would find his way home. As he grew steadily colder, he wondered if this had been Aldebaran’s plan all along. His daughter was the last in one branch of the family, and Anna’s son was the last in another, and he, Richard, was willing to die to protect them. It was like one of those English plays. To keep himself warm, Richard repeated lines to himself in the darkness. ‘When sorrows come, they come not single spies, but in battalions!’ ‘Oh, now be gone! More light and light it grows. More light and light – more dark and dark our woes.’

  He knew there were cheerful lines, but they never spoke to him. His was a bleak and melancholy land, and his heart wished to be back there now.

  Out of the dark, Aldebaran’s voice came to him, telling him that old story of the magician and his daughter, just as he had when Richard was his pupil. He had read the play since, and he knew it. The part that struck him was the ending, where the magician stood at the front of the stage and lifted up his hands and asked the audience to forgive his mistakes. And asked them to let him go.

  Richard decided that he was dying of cold, but he did not have the will to get up and move. And then, out of the dark, a gas lamp emerged. It shone very brightly, and others came out, the silent lights of a city already prepared for war. The last lines of the play came to him, very clear and certain. ‘As you from crimes would pardoned be, let your indulgence set me free.’

  In a minute, he would get up and start out into his old city. In a minute, but not yet. Into the darkness, with a faint surprise, Richard felt his powers drifting away from him. He thought, Is this the effect of my own country? Or is it something else? Then he made himself get up slowly and go into the church. He was no longer the great one, the lord Rigel. He would go on foot and unaided by magic, and he would find them both and find Aldebaran’s last descendant. He would go as the boy who dreamed of magic once, as Richard Delmar.

  * * *

  Anna threw her keys on the table without turning on the lights. She stood and looked out at the sleet-washed darkness. It was almost Christmas. A few lights flashed gaudily at the window of the house opposite, a plastic silhouette of Father Christmas and his sleigh taking off into the stars.