Tower of Silence

by Sarah Rayne

  Alongside the two photographs was a small oblong frame with a cutting from an old newspaper. One day, when Emily had been asked to ‘just run up to my room and fetch my cardigan’, she had rather guiltily read the cutting.

  It said, The deaths, in tragic circumstances, were announced in Alwar, India, of John Mallory March, and his wife, Elspeth March, on 12 September 1948…A Memorial Service was held at the Anglican Church in Alwar…

  Next to it, protected by two small pieces of glass, was an article from an old, yellowing newspaper. It was quite hard to read the newsprint, but Emily made out the heading, which said, Partition in India stirs up unrest again. Nehru and Mountbatten in talks…The date was August 1948, and the journalist’s name at the bottom was John Mallory March. Selina’s father? Yes, of course.

  On the lower shelf of the little table were several old books, carefully arranged. They had battered covers and the brown age-spots that were called foxing. The titles were printed in large, easy-to-read letters. Children’s books. Emily picked them up, wary in case they fell apart. They did not fall apart but they were very brittle, and touching them made Emily feel all over again that she was brushing against the past–not a very long-ago past, but certainly a past that had existed before she had been born.

  Two of the books were by Enid Blyton, and three were by somebody called Frances Hodgson Burnett. Another was a book about a girl called Heidi, written by a Johanna Spyri. Emily had heard of Enid Blyton, but she had never heard of the other two. The Heidi book had an inscription in the front: ‘To Selina who loves mountains. On her seventh birthday, with love from daddy’. There was a date–June 1948. And three months later he had been dead, this unknown man who had chosen this book for his small daughter who liked mountains, and had written a message that Selina had kept ever since. The book looked a bit advanced for a seven-year-old, but Emily could see the man with crinkly hair and the woman who had worn the black lace stole reading the book to Selina when she was in bed, a page or two a night. Afterwards Selina would probably not have had anyone to read books to her, because those fearsome great-aunts and dried-up old Great-uncle Matthew would not have done so, that was for sure!

  It was doubtless reading the blurred newsprint about that far-away time, and the deaths of Selina’s parents in tragic circumstances, that made Emily shiver. She had a sudden vision of Selina sitting up here on her own, poring over the sad little mementoes of her dead parents, although as well as being touching it was a bit macabre. It was one thing to mourn for your parents and want to remember them and have photos and stuff, but to do it for fifty years?

  Still, it would be dreadful to lose both parents when you were so tiny: you would probably never get completely over it. Emily was still not getting over mum’s dying last year. She wondered if that long-ago Selina had attended the memorial service for her parents, and if she had been tearful, or if she would have been told by somebody that she must be brave, and not cry. Emily had not cried at mum’s funeral, but that was because of knowing that if she cried, dad would cry as well, which was not to be be borne, not in front of everybody. They had held one another’s hands all through the service, as if they were clinging on to the last bit of life left in the world. Later, Emily had found dad crying bitterly over a batch of biscuits mum had baked a week ago, which were still in the airtight biscuit tin. She had not known, until then, that grief got at you through silly, everyday things. Somehow you coped, though, and life went on. But she could not begin to imagine how Selina, at six or seven, had coped.

  The photographs and the death notice were sad and somehow rather lonely, and Emily had gone quickly back downstairs with the cardigan. She thought Selina had not realised that she had seen the things or read the newspaper cuttings.

  The other thing that Emily hated about Teind was the old brick tower just beyond the orchard. It was supposed to have been some kind of look-out for a gang of monks in the year dot, and it was about forty feet high and just about the most sinister thing Emily had ever seen. It made Great-uncle Matthew and his clock seem harmless by comparison.

  Miss March did not like the Round Tower much, either. She only said it was a rather nasty place, and that Emily must be careful not to go near it because it was dangerous, but her voice sounded different when she said it. False. Like a bad actor in a film.

  Of course, said Miss March, still in the same unconvincing voice, the authorities ought really to have pulled the tower down long ago. Great-uncle Matthew had written to various people about it any number of times and various promises had been made, but nothing had ever been done. He had even tried to buy the piece of land surrounding it, so that people did not make use of the little roadway, but the authorities had not been permitted to sell because it was some kind of ancient right of way that had to be kept open. Nobody used the road much, these days, though, just as nobody ever went into the tower. Birds went in there sometimes, said Miss March, and Emily, who had been stirring a pan of rice intended as a base for kedgeree, looked up in surprise.

  ‘Birds?’

  ‘From the sanctuary at Stornforth,’ said Selina. ‘They fly up there and perch on the top. I see them quite often. They always look as if they’re waiting. But what are they waiting for, I wonder? That’s the thing, you see.’

  After a moment Emily said that the tower probably made a good stopping-off place for the birds.

  ‘They stand on the rim and keep watch,’ said Selina, and this sounded so peculiar that Emily turned round to look properly at Miss March. She had been chopping hard-boiled eggs to add to the kedgeree, but she seemed to have forgotten what she was doing; Emily thought she almost looked as if she had forgotten where she was as well. She was holding the knife out in front of her, and she was staring at nothing. Emily began to feel uncomfortable.

  And then Selina said, in a rather horrid, whispery voice, ‘They’re so very patient, you see. Large birds are very patient. But they’re cunning. They wait and wait, and then just as you think it’s going to be all right they come swooping down.’

  There was an awkward silence, because this time Emily had no idea what to say at all. Miss March was still staring straight in front of her, and Emily felt a shiver trickle down her spine.

  And then the moment passed, and Miss March said, in a brisk voice, ‘But of course, I believe they do not allow flesh-eating birds at the Stornforth sanctuary,’ and went back to chopping the eggs. In her ordinary, familiar voice, she said, ‘I’m not awfully fond of birds, Emily.’

  ‘Oh, I see,’ said Emily, not seeing at all, wondering if they could have fallen into an old Hitchcock film without her noticing it. She went on with her cooking, but she was left with the strong feeling that for a few moments another person had looked out of Miss March’s eyes–a person who was quite different from the Miss March that Emily and everyone else knew.

  But this was so shivery an idea that she pushed it well down in her mind, and asked whether she should add any more salt to the kedgeree.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  It was curious and rather unexpected of the crimson-haired child, Emily Frost, to have asked about the Round Tower. As far as Selina could remember people in Inchcape hardly ever talked about it. But Emily, being new to Inchcape, had probably found it interesting.

  Great-uncle Matthew had not thought the Round Tower interesting. He had thought it an eyesore, and a danger to inquisitive people. It would be an honourable thing to get it demolished, he said, and after he had failed to buy the piece of land with the disused road he had begun writing letters to local newspapers and church commissions and parish councils, most of which were not answered.

  Honour was an odd thing. It meant different things to different people. To Great-uncle Matthew, honour meant doing good, and talking loudly about it, so that people knew how much good you were doing. To the aunts it meant being polite and obedient. ‘Honour thy father and thy mother,’ Great-aunt Rosa often said.

  In India, honour had been all mixed up with dead people, and with the r
espect you had to give to them. The ayah who had looked after Selina had said that if you did not honour the dead properly, they would not be able to rest, and that was very bad indeed. When Selina’s parents died she said Selina would have to honour their memories always, especially since the poor master and his lady had not been able to pronounce the patet, the repentance-prayer, at the end of their lives. That meant they might still be tanu-peretha–sinful–said the ayah, her dark-liquid eyes inward-looking and solemn. To honour their memories might help them to rest; it might help them take the first of the three steps of Humata, Hukhta, and Hvarshta, and then cross the old and holy Bridge that would lead them into paradise. Selina must promise to always remember and revere her father and mother, and honour their memories, or their ghosts would not be able to rest or reach paradise, said the ayah.

  Selina had promised because by that time she was frightened to do anything that might make people angry with her. When she was sent to live with Great-uncle Matthew and the aunts she had been afraid to go to sleep in the strange bedroom because that was where her parents came to her. She had not dared to tell the aunts, because they might think it was all her fault. ‘There was nothing like that here before you came to live in the house,’ Aunt Rosa would say. Aunt Flora would be at a loss to understand about Selina’s parents’ needing to be helped across to paradise, because once you died you went straight to heaven. Both of them would say that of course people did not come back after they died, the very idea.

  But Selina’s parents came back; they came back almost every night, right into her bedroom in Teind House. They hid in the corners–usually they crouched down in the lumpy shadows at the side of the washstand, drawing their knees up to their chests and hugging their legs so that they could not easily be seen, so that you might start to believe they were not there after all. But Selina always knew they were there. She watched them for hours and hours, forcing herself to stay awake. And gradually she saw that what looked like bars of moonlight were their hands, and what looked like the rubbed silvery bits of the looking glass reflecting the light were their faces…

  They always waited until the house was dark and quiet, and then they moved out of hiding: they unfolded their hunched-over bodies until they were standing upright, and then they came creeping and fumbling across the floor, their hands outstretched. They no longer looked as they had looked when they were alive: they were no longer happy and smiling–mother wearing pretty clothes and with her hair shiny; father smart and neat. They looked as they had done when they died.

  So the ayah had been right, and a way would have to be found to honour them and send them on their way across the old and holy Bridge. Selina had no idea how this could be done until the day Great-uncle Matthew started to talk about the tower, using the word honourable. That had been when she had suddenly seen how she could stop her parents coming into her bedroom every night, their flesh hanging in red tatters from their bodies, their hands reaching out beseechingly to her…

  ‘Help us, Selina…Help us…’

  They needed her to help them because they could not see any longer, because their eyes were hanging out on their cheeks.

  Even on a bright late-October day, the Round Tower was frightening. Selina walked determinedly through the orchard and scrambled through the gap in the bramble hedge, being careful not to tear her frock so as not to annoy the aunts.

  The little old road that wound along to the tower was not a road you would want to drive a car over because it was horridly rutted and bouncy and you had to be careful not to turn your ankle in the ruts. Great-uncle Matthew said it was scandalous neglect and a good cartload of gravel ought to be put down. But hardly anyone ever used the road, so the authorities who owned it had never bothered.

  Selina thought it was the kind of road you read about in story books: a road that might take you into strange lands. The grass all around was overgrown and there was rosebay willowherb everywhere and puffy-headed thistles–the sort you blew on and watched the seeds float away. Father had told her that really the seed-heads were fairies in hiding, and blowing on them made the fairies scurry off in a hurry, back to their own world. Selina liked this story–she liked remembering how father had looked when he told her about it–but the aunts and Great-uncle Matthew had not seemed to believe in fairies in disguise, and Great-aunt Rosa had said that thistles were nothing but nasty weeds, fit only for pulling up by the roots.

  The scents of apples and damsons from Teind House’s orchard lay heavily on the air. Aunt Flora would be making jam quite soon. She liked to serve jam with her home-made scones when the vicar came to tea or the doctor called. Aunt Rosa said Flora made a show of herself with the vicar and it was not dignified, but Aunt Flora still made the jam and the scones.

  Selina concentrated on Great-aunt Flora and the jam because it was a homely, ordinary thing, and it took away some of the horror of the looming tower. The trouble was that the nearer you got to it, the taller it looked, and the more it seemed to be leaning forward, as if it might be about to topple over.

  Like the tower at Alwar…? said a sneaky little voice inside Selina’s mind.

  Yes. That was the thing. The Round Tower of Inchcape looked exactly like the tower at Alwar.

  Walking cautiously through the raggedy grass, sending frequent glances back at Teind House in case anyone saw her, Selina was remembering how, on that first night here, the orchard and the gardens had seemed to get thinner in places, so that you could nearly look through and see other worlds. People said that magic did not exist and only babies believed in it, and Selina was nearly eight, practically grown-up, and so she knew that there was no magic.

  But there might once have been magic. You read about it. People in stories had magic boxes or they fell down enchanted rabbit-holes. So Selina thought it was just possible that there might still be little bits of magic left lying around the world, and that if you stood very still and said the right words–if you knew the right words–you might set the magic working for you. And then you might even find that there were holes in the world, where you could look back into the past.

  As she drew nearer to the black tower, she saw several large birds settle on the far-away top, and fold their wings around their bodies, like a man folding a cloak around his shoulders.

  The tower at Alwar was where the children had been taken as sunset approached. They had tried not to watch the slow fiery dying of the sun through the horrid mean little windows of the hut, because they were trying not to think about the men shooting them at sunset.

  Christabel said it did not matter whether they thought about it or not, because it would not happen. It was absolutely impossible that their parents would let them be shot. They would arrange for those men to be let out of gaol, she said fiercely. Her father would arrange it because he loved her very very much, and he would find a way to do what the kidnappers wanted. She was not quite crying when she said this, but she nearly was.

  Douglas said that probably his father was already talking to ambassadors and people about the kidnappers’ friends being let out of prison. He did not think the kidnappers would shoot any of the children, either. People did not shoot children.

  It was not sunset when the men came to take them out of the hut, but it was not far off. It was dreadfully frightening to be herded into the cart again, but Christy said that probably they were being taken home. Probably it was all over by now.

  But the cart had only jolted a few miles along the road when Douglas said suddenly, ‘This isn’t the way back to Alwar.’

  ‘Are you sure?’ asked someone, and one of the boys said, a bit uncertainly, that they were still on the mountain road.

  ‘Well, not absolutely,’ said Douglas. ‘But we’re going north, aren’t we? And Alwar’s south.’

  ‘Is it?’ But no one was quite sure how you told north from south.

  And then Christy said, ‘What’s that?’ and they all looked to where she was pointing.

  And there it was, straight ahead of
them. A great rearing tower, at least fifty feet high, jutting up into the blood-splashed, dying-sun sky like a huge decaying tooth or a monstrous chimney. It was round and windowless and it looked as if it might be doorless as well, and it was old, it was so old that it might have been here for a thousand years, and as Selina stared up at it she felt cold and sick inside, and she thought: now I’m frightened. I was frightened quite a lot before, but now I’m really frightened. Looking at the tower gave you the same sickening pain you got if you wrenched your ankle while running fast, or the wincing feeling you got in your teeth if someone drew a nail across a slaty surface.

  After what felt like a long time, Christy said in a whisper, ‘It’s like something out of a nightmare,’ and Selina instantly thought–yes, of course! That’s why it’s so familiar! It’s the giant’s tower from the nightmares and the fairy tales. It’s the place where the ogre lives–where he eats children for breakfast. It’s the castle where the floors are strewn with the bones of dead men, and with their hearts and livers as well, because the ogre likes human hearts, he eats them with pepper and vinegar for tea…

  And if the ogre sees us or hears us approach, thought Selina in panic, he’ll come stomping down the thousand stairs inside the tower, and he’ll catch us and eat us up.

  One of the boys said fearfully, ‘What is it?’

  ‘I think it’s a Tower of Silence,’ said Douglas, still staring up at the black tower. ‘It’s a place where the people of India bring their dead.’

  ‘To bury them?’

  ‘No. They put them on the ledge near the top,’ said Douglas. ‘The–um–the dead bodies, I mean.’ In the livid glare from the dying sky, his face was pinched and scared and he looked much younger than he had done before. This upset Selina quite a lot, because Douglas had been very brave until now.

  ‘I can see the ledge,’ said Christy, after a moment, shading her eyes and staring upwards.