The Faceless

by Simon Bestwick

  She went in through the cafÉ door, calling Mary’s name. No answer, of course; what had she expected? Fake snow sprayed on the windows. A plastic Santa on the wall. The place was empty, but for a dozen or so shapes stretched out, silent, on the tables or benches serving as beds. That one was too big. That was too fat. And that one... was Mary.

  She took the last few steps towards Mary’s b– No, she wouldn’t think it, even to herself; that way it might not come true. But she pulled back the sheet and Mary’s eyes were open and sightless, staring upwards, a dull glaze already on them. She felt for a pulse. Please, please, please. This couldn’t be real. “Mary. Mary.” Her voice was rising. Holding the thin shoulders, shaking her. Wake up. Wake. “Mary–”

  Mist outside the cafÉ window. The smell of chlorine. Didn’t matter. Nothing did now.

  She gathered Mary up. Still warm. Like an ember. You could nurse an ember back into a fire. Couldn’t she do the same with Mary? Couldn’t she?

  The mist thickened. Things moved in it, came close to the glass. A face whose mouth was a gaping, toothless hole stared in at her.

  “Bastards!” The face recoiled into the mist. She loved the rage for the second it lived in her; anything other than this dull, smothering pain. But then it died. Didn’t matter, though. Nothing did.

  But her traitor hands fumbled in her bag; inside was the survival suit she’d stripped from the dead soldier. Her traitor lungs held her breath until she’d pulled it on. The mist poured into the cafÉ, but it didn’t kill her. And so she sat, Mary cradled in her arms, stroking the child’s hair.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  SHADOWS MOVED ABOUT her. She didn’t look up; they didn’t come near.

  The shadows left her, and she was alone.

  Time was trickling away, like a fistful of sand. The dead wouldn’t harm her, but they wouldn’t stop either, and when they reached the harbour there’d be no more boats, no exit; she’d be trapped forever in the mist, on a cold island peopled by the dead. Death would be better than that. She could take off the mask and inhale, but death by chlorine was neither quick nor peaceful. Perhaps she could find a gun.

  But even that wouldn’t be the end. No heaven, only a bleak and lonely desolation. Was that where Mary was now? And Martyn, Eva, Renwick, Stakowski, Allen, Nan, Dad? The promise of oblivion would be a blessing.

  The mark on her breast burned cold. She looked down at Mary; the blue eyes stared up at her; the mouth hung slackly open, rimmed with bloody drying froth. This wasn’t the bright and laughing child she’d loved. For better or worse, for whatever foreign field departed, that child was gone.

  There was one last thing she could do; Vera had tried, but failed. She closed Mary’s eyelids with her thumbs. This time they stayed shut.

  She laid Mary down on the table, wiped her mouth clean and closed it, tucked the blankets tight around her. She looked peaceful, quiet; she looked at rest. Anna drew the blanket up over Mary’s face.

  And then she thought: The White Song.

  She could never have made that sacrifice herself. Abraham and Isaac? If a voice from the skies bade her sacrifice Mary, she’d have told it to fuck off. But Sir Charles Dace hadn’t made a sacrifice; he’d made use of one.

  Yes, and look how that had ended.

  But it had worked.

  The idea felt foul.

  Outside, bodies lay in the street. Men and women. She couldn’t see any children, but they’d be there, of course.

  And there was the rage again; it flared weakly through the fog of her grief like a distant lighthouse. But stronger now, brighter. Alright, then, you bastards.

  She would not, could not call it a blessing in disguise. Her reason for living was gone. But she’d have no more deaths on her conscience. She’d say, at least she’d tried.

  She fumbled in her bag. Quickly, now. Even her great-grandfather’s mark mightn’t save her if they realised what she was doing.

  She opened Sir Charles’ book, found the right page. ‘I reproduce the text of the White Song phonetically overleaf.’ The words were barely pronounceable, but she forced her mouth to shape them. Her other hand gripped Mary’s thin wrist through the blankets. Sweetheart, I’m so sorry. Forgive me. Please.

  How would it work, if it worked at all? Would it stop here or roll back? If so, how far? Would it be as if none of this had happened? Martyn, Eva, Renwick, Stakowski, Nan – would they be alive again? Or would nothing happen at all?

  At last she came to the end of it. She stopped. Silence. Slowly she looked up. In the mist outside, shapes pressed their faces to the windows, but they didn’t move. Nor did the shape under the blanket. There was only stillness and silence, stretching on and on. Then one by one the figures stepped away from the window and shuffled off through the mist.

  So; she’d done what she could, whether or not it had achieved anything. Now the big question; when you’d lost the one thing you’d die for, walk through fire for –without it, could you walk at all? Could you even stand?

  For the briefest second she saw Nan, tutting and rolling her eyes at such self-indulgence. A world war, a husband dead, and she’d had to keep going; this was no different. Was it really Nan, or just the memory of her? It didn’t matter; what mattered was that somehow she was able to stand, then walk, and then run. She put her hand in her pocket, grasped Nan’s crucifix. It wasn’t about faith, or the god she still denied. It was about Nan. Anna had believed in her.

  THE SIREN STILL wailed. Shots rang out in the distance as she ran. Had this part of the town changed greatly, since the Great War? Here was a row of terraces that looked as if they pre-dated the conflict, although the Spar store at the end didn’t. A lone figure stood outside it, head cocked. At first she thought it was studying its reflection in the window, but as she came closer – unafraid, as none of this felt real – it reached out, fingers brushing the glass. Its hand grasped empty air and twisted to the right, as if trying to turn a handle.

  Anna ran on, feet sliding on the cold, wet pavements. A cat lay twitching in the gutter; a dog lay dead in the middle of the road. Movement inside one of the terraces – a figure that had cast its mask aside to show the wreckage of its face stood inside. It rocked back and forth as if laughing, wagging a finger at an empty chair. Then it reached out, encircled an imaginary waist, drew an imaginary partner close to kiss them with what remained of its mouth.

  And then she understood, and then she was running again, laughing and crying, crying and laughing, towards the dying winter light that burned through the mist. She stumbled, nearly fell. A body, at her feet. A woman in police uniform, her skull crushed. Her face; Anna knew the face. It was the desk sergeant from the station in Kempforth. Sergeant Graham.

  She looked back.The mist swirled and shifted; the thin black dead moved like predatory fish under its surface, waiting for it to rise. Anna ran on.

  The mist thinned, dispersed; another street, no different from the one she’d left–

  A shout, something flew past her eye with an angry wasp’s buzz. A moment later, she heard the crack of the shot.

  “Don’t move!”

  Soldiers, rifles aimed at her; she fell to her knees, arms raised. One of them grabbed her arm, dragged her away from the encroaching mist, wrenched the gasmask off. “The hell are you? Where did you get that suit? It’s military issue–”

  She couldn’t speak. What could she say?

  “Leave her, Dan,” another soldier called. “You can see she’s a bloody wreck. Love? Harbour’s this way. Come on. Everyone’s getting out.”

  THE HARBOUR.

  A gaggle of boats and ships; black smoke fouled the air. Some boats headed out to sea, others hove in towards the quayside, where the waiting crowds piled on. Dunkirk, but in reverse.

  Soldiers patrolled the outskirts, but inside the cordon it was chaos. Anna was jostled, pushed, shoved. There were shouts, screams.

  “Anna!”

  Someone grabbed her arm: Vera, face white and streaked with tears.
She pulled Anna close; after a moment, Anna hugged her back. Nothing else to cling to, either of them.

  Screams: Anna looked round. The mist was billowing down the streets that opened out above the harbour. In minutes it’d be upon them.

  A rifle fired, up into the air. “Alright!” a soldier bellowed. “Move it! Move!”

  THE TRAWLER PULLED clear of the quay, wallowing low in the water from the weight of its passengers. Another boat hove in to collect the last dozen soldiers on the quayside, their rifles aimed into the encroaching mist; no more heroic sacrifices today.

  The mist swirled in over fallen suitcases scattered on the quay; excess baggage there hadn’t been space for. Anna’s day-pack, at least, had made it. A discarded police tunic lay on the ground.

  Anna looked across the crowded decks; a familiar face caught her eye. Thin, gaunt. Another of the coppers from Kempforth. Brock, that was it. No tie, no tunic. He was shivering in his shirtsleeves. His eyes met hers. Did he recognise her? Was there a plea in his eyes?

  She looked away. So his nerve had broken. So, he’d only wanted to live. There’d been enough soldiers like that on the Western Front. She could tell someone. But what’d be the point? Let him live. And if he felt guilt, that was the price he paid for survival; there was always a price. You did what you had to, and lived with it.

  Someone was sobbing hysterically as they pulled out to sea. Someone else sang; a thin, wavering lost voice, seeking meaning and consolation in vain: “God rest ye merry, gentlemen, let nothing you dismay...”

  Vera sagged against Anna; Anna stroked her hair. The last of England, she thought; the last of England.

  “For Jesus Christ our Saviour was born on Christmas Day...”

  She had to be strong. And she would be. She only wavered when she remembered: everything Sir Charles had done had involved harnessing the souls of the dead. Why should the White Song be any different?

  What might she have done with Mary’s soul?

  “To save us all from Satan’s power when we were gone astray...”

  No. She wouldn’t think that. She wouldn’t. She wouldn’t think of Mary, full stop; she mustn’t if she was to survive.

  “Oh, tidings of comfort and joy, comfort and joy; oh, tidings of comfort and joy...”

  And so she stood by the rail, and watched the last of England vanish into the gathering dusk beyond.

  CODA: THE LAND OF MIST

  And still he felt no pain. Only a terrible sadness that a ritual could use so much power and achieve so little.

  – Joel Lane, ‘Playing Dead’

  WARBECK

  Old paper files and log books wait on desks for hands to brush the dust off and write in them again. A wheelchair rusts forgotten in the corner of the canteen; in the kitchen the great ovens crouch like cyclopean dogs of stainless steel, still and silent now, but waiting for the fires to start again. Like idols of Moloch; so easy to imagine ranks of human figures carried in unending succession into the fires’ heart.

  The Spindly Men have gone; a few still prowl the woods around Ash Fell out of habit and familiarity, but most, their duty done, have left for other pastures; this now is the land of the dead, and they can walk in it freely.

  Here at last is Ash Fell’s heart, slowing, stopping, a dead, empty shell at last. Or is it? On cold days yellow veils of mist hang in the corridors; at night they turn the colour of milk, white amidst the black. In them and in the offices, kitchens, store-rooms, staff-rooms, dormitories, day rooms, library, the voices and footsteps still echo and whisper. Those sounds, and those who made them, died long ago. But some things leave a mark that can never wholly pass away.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

  From Ghosts Of War: Ash Fell and the Legacy of World War One by Anna Mason:

  THE INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION began in the late 18th century. Over two hundred years later, we’re just waking up to the pollution and climate change it’s caused. The era of modern industrialised warfare began in September 1914; a century later, its consequences manifested themselves catastrophically at Ash Fell Hospital, in Kempforth, Lancashire.

  Since World War One, countless other conflicts have sowed the same grim harvest; the Spanish Civil War, World War Two, Korea, Vietnam, Cambodia, the myriad undeclared killing grounds of the Cold War and the ‘War on Terror’. Will these toxic legacies come back to haunt us too? It’s a question only time will answer.

  “THE RUSSIAN GOVERNMENT has refused to rule out the use of its experimental thaumaturgic weapons system if the crisis in...”

  “Thaumaturgic?” Vera asked. How different she’d become: cropped hair; a vest top, pumped-up biceps, a tattoo on her arm. More mannish, but more at peace. But less Anna’s type.

  “Fancy word for magic,” Anna said.

  “Why not just say that, then?”

  “‘Magic’ would sound silly.”

  “And ‘thaumaturgic’ doesn’t?”

  “More scientific.”

  “Hm. Anna?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Katja’s here.”

  “Oh. OK then.”

  “My stuff’s all packed, so...”

  “OK.”

  “I’m no good with this crap,” said Vera. “Goodbyes and stuff. And, no point moping about the past, right?” Anna didn’t answer. “Well. Never gonna agree on that are we? Oh well. Onwards and upwards.”

  “I’ll see you off.”

  “You don’t have to... you OK?”

  Anna rubbed her belly. “Little one’s kicking, that’s all.”

  “I’ll see you around then, yeah?”

  “Yeah, right.” Silence. “Take care, Vera.”

  “Yeah.”

  “I mean it.”

  “You too.”

  Outside, Anna watched her carry boxes out to Katja’s pickup.

  Katja nodded to her. She was younger than Anna; late twenties. A slight accent – Polish, Czech? “Hi.”

  “Hi.” Silence. “Take care of her, yeah?”

  “I will. I knew her, before.”

  “I know. It’s alright. You were with the escort agency she used to use.”

  “Back in–”

  “Back in England.”

  “Yes.”

  “Yes. It was before she and I met. Surprised really. She doesn’t like being reminded of the past.”

  Katja shrugged. “We’ll see how long this lasts. Will you be alright?”

  “Fine,” Anna said. “Just make her happy. She deserves that.”

  “Katja? I’m ready.”

  “Alright. Best go. Nice to meet you, Anna.”

  “You too.”

  Vera looked back once, then away. Find peace, Anna thought. One day, stop running. When the pickup was out of sight, Anna shut the door and went upstairs. The house seemed larger now, and emptier. She tried not to look at the gaps on shelves and wardrobes; too many of them seemed poised to shift into something else. The Sight had been quiescent since she’d left Britain, but now and again there were moments like this, a threat or promise to return. The room blurred with the first tears; shivered when the first sob wracked her. Was that someone standing in the corner of her room? No. Just the tears.

  When she’d finished crying she washed her face, lay down and closed her eyes. Blackness. A pool of light. Nan stood in it, mouthing urgently, reaching out. Beyond her, another circle of light in which Mary knelt in a white dress, her back to Anna. Anna reached for her shoulder, but the moment seemed to slow. There was an irrational fear of what Mary’s face would look like when she turned round. But still, she reached out.

  She woke, sat up in bed, went downstairs. Life went on; work had to be done. She made herself a sandwich- she was always hungry now – and ate it staring at the computer, trying to decide what came next; when the doorbell rang, it was almost a relief.

  “Miss Mason?” The man was in his fifties, bald on top, long grey hair gathered in a last defiant ponytail; the woman was a pretty, pre-Raphaelite redhead half his age.

  �
�Ms.”

  “Sorry. I’m Arnold Renwick. Joan Renwick’s dad.”

  THE TESTAMENT OF GIDEON DACE so here we are we three sole or should i say soul ha ha tenants now of ash fell the unholy trinity father the son and the wholly goat ha ha well the dead kept their promise i will say that much the years of torment inflicted on me are at an end but still they got the last laugh ha ha i am confined to the grounds unable to venture outside

  THE TESTAMENT OF SIR CHARLES DACE oh shut up gideon you vile little bastard bastard oh how i wish you were little has been so hard or unwelcome in my life or death as acknowledging you are indeed my child you perverted this place from its original intent exploiting those who sacrificed for us

  THE TESTAMENT OF GIDEON DACE CONTINUED as did you pater dearest in building ash fell or had you forgotten if indeed you ever considered it at all

  THE TESTAMENT OF SIR CHARLES DACE CONTINUED mine was for a valid purpose a good cause not for my own aggrandisement gratification or profit something you never would or could understand

  THE BACK GARDEN was warm with the summer sun; the air was sweet with pine resin. A wooden picnic table; they sipped Orangina, ate baguettes with Brie and grapes.

  “I was a university lecturer,” Renwick’s father said. “Social Sciences. Lorraine – her mother – was a social worker, often dealing with a lot of abuse cases. As far as Joan was concerned, we were the classic woolly-minded liberals. I remember her shouting at me once that I never judged anyone. Always saw both sides, never took a stand or did anything. She saw the damage we had to patch up, her mother especially. When she joined the police, she said she wanted to stop the kind of people we spent our lives clearing up after. At first I treated it as a sort of youthful rebellion.” He half-smiled. “Which just made her angrier, of course.”