The Black North

by Nigel McDowell

  Enough, thought Oona, and she returned the Stone to her satchel, holding tighter to the Wolf and telling, ‘Keep going now! Please don’t stop for nothing!’

  As they sped, Oona’s thoughts settled on Merrigutt –

  She’ll find us, decided Oona. She said she would so she must.

  But any decision was quickly contradicted, and Oona didn’t know whether it was her own mind saying words, or something else –

  ‘But what if she was captured? And if not captured, then maybe lost? How will she ever discover anything in so much nothing, so much changed and so Black?’

  Maybe seeing would bring some sense: Oona opened her eyes, and had to wipe them clear of unwanted weeping. And once more dominating the world: Muddgloggs. Wandering, staggering, falling. Forging fresh valleys, beginning new hills, their limbs stacked high for fresh mountains – fallen length forming the ripple of blank horizons. Oona knew their heads would open and chests would part and throats split and all run wet with the altered course of old rivers. They would reshape the world on the whims of a King. And on the shoulders of the Muddgloggs, did she see a glimmering? The lights of houses, whole towns being carried? She imagined the townsfolk having gone to their beds, mothers tucking children in tight, families closing their eyes for prayer and then welcoming in dreams. And then tomorrow, imagine their surprise – waking to discover themselves somewhere new, home no longer home, all familiar things changed.

  ‘What if nothing’s the same at all?’ Oona asked herself – perhaps the Wolf too – in a voice so small she could scarcely hear the sound. ‘If they’ve changed so much we won’t be able to find the right way to the Burren.’

  But the Whereabouts didn’t answer.

  More weight, more worry on Oona then: would the Wolf beneath her know these new ways? Could it truly lead her to anywhere with so much of their map in motion? Oona began to drift, but just before sleep enfolded, she let her fingers find once more the Stone, and she half-dreamed half-hoped a voice, one that complained and soothed in unequal measure: ‘Didn’t I tell you I’d find you, my girl? Didn’t I say? Well, that’ll show you something: that I’ll never leave your side, I am coming for you – wherever you are in the dark, I will find you.’

  60

  Oona awoke, and her first knowledge: she was no longer being moved. She shifted and all muscles itched and all joints creaked. She had an effort to make to open her eyes, a battle to lift her head and see – she’d bidden the Whereabouts Wolf to take them to the middle of nowhere, and that’s where Oona found herself. Stranded in marshland, a landscape drowned, more light below than above, ground gifted with pools of cold luminescence. Oona couldn’t see far – mist, familiar foe, had reappeared to obscure things. She blinked back moisture. Already her hair and cheeks and eyelids and lips were cold and dripping.

  Oona cleared her throat and said to the Whereabouts, ‘On North. Take me now to that place they call the Burren.’

  But the Wolf moved slowly, paws sinking with each step, damp coat constantly bristling, each fibre of hair shivering and nose a ceaseless twitch – extraordinary senses all straining to discern a right way ahead. But it didn’t seem to know which way the Burren was. And Oona thought, Well, how can it know? Mist-clogged or clear, who knows where is where in this Black? Oona tried anyway for a sharper tone like it might help, saying, ‘Look: I said to you just keep heading on North and to the Burren, to the Cause. Now go!’

  But the creature didn’t run, wouldn’t bolt like it had done to take them free of Loftborough. And Oona realised late that they were lost.

  Then sound: a single loud, hollow note.

  And suddenly Oona felt horribly surrounded by things –tall darknesses cut sharp, angled like ships that had strayed too far inland and become marooned in the marsh. It took minutes for Oona to understand, then she thought: Worshipping Houses. Then remembered what Merrigutt had said: ‘Invaders have been doing the same up North – dragging all into the marsh and dumping them there, leaving them to sink.’

  So many! Oona tried to count … but only countless, some Worshipping Houses sunk to their steeple but others struggling more, only the tip of their spire still visible. Any move they made was sluggish, like they had some notion of trying to shift themselves from the marsh but couldn’t. And it was the bells in their small towers that struck another hopeless note – some summons no Worshipper was going to answer.

  Instinct made Oona look to the space above her shoulder, expecting to see a jackdaw perched there and to feel the clutch of claws and simple words she could follow, or disagree with. She felt a sob rise in her chest but told herself, Come on now! You’re a Kavanagh, are you not? And Kavanaghs don’t just sit and cry. I’ve been lost ever since I’ve left home – since I left Drumbroken I’ve not known any right way ahead. And that hasn’t stopped me yet.

  So once more Oona whispered to the Wolf, trying for that softness she wasn’t used to: ‘We have to keep on going. I dunno how we’re gonna get to where we want but we’ll not get anywhere if we don’t keep moving and moving fast! Please now.’

  A moment of worry as the Whereabouts paused in its walking, then stopped completely. It tilted its head upwards. And then, appearing to take some notice of Oona’s tone and resolve, the Wolf began: a quick trot first and then running proper, not as fast as before but better than plodding. And Oona felt herself sitting taller, pleased she’d managed to spur the creature on. She felt that same way – pleased, almost proud – until she realised there were other reasons for the Wolf’s running. She realised this: they weren’t alone.

  On either side, Oona noticed things moving fast, hurtling – pale things leaping the Worshipping Houses or landing brief on roofs and walls and spires and then on. Then something else new, a fresh sound: her Whereabouts Wolf began to whimper, and Oona knew what things were bypassing them –

  Another Wolf passed close by, seen suddenly and then gone. And then another, and more besides: Whereabouts Wolves countless as Worshipping Houses and everywhere, all on their way somewhere.

  Oona leaned close to her own Wolf and whispered fierce, ‘Follow them!’

  61

  Middle of nothing and nowhere and then freed – mist released them, graveyard of Worshipping Houses behind. Oona’s Wolf suddenly stopped. Ahead was a broad plain of Black. Oona judged: maybe a half dozen miles? And beyond, the same Blackness reared: a row of mountains sliced the horizon, barring darkly the way ahead, each pinnacle relieved only by a pale and fraying collar: receding frills of old snow. The sight of the mountains made Oona colder, somehow sadder.

  ‘Melancholy Mountains,’ she said to herself.

  Oona watched, dreamed: imagined that like so much in the North the mountains would soon stir, would be up and abandoning foundations however ancient, however deep, in favour of wandering. She waited. But this darkness stayed stubborn.

  Across the expanse between her and the mountains were rushing the other Whereabouts Wolves – so many separate packs emerging from the dark to join, hundreds fast-flowing towards the space between peaks to disappear into deep shadow.

  The Whereabouts Wolf beneath her trembled, whimpering louder and with such longing to be on its way and join its fellows. But it wouldn’t move until Oona said.

  Then from behind, in the mist – did Oona hear the pound of horses, call of Invaders? Oona said to her Wolf: ‘Follow them into the mountains!’

  And the Whereabouts raced.

  No more than a minute and Oona was enclosed by mountain: sheer dark on either side and in front as they followed the other Wolves into a narrow pass. Then up – a slope of unstable-seeming stone that the Whereabouts attacked, finding the narrowest ledge to climb as up and up and up … up until Oona was afraid to look down, every fall of a paw sending a cascade of stone down into the dark. She held tighter, till her knuckles twinged. Clung closer to her Wolf till she was stiff with exhaustion.

  Oona saw a chasm ahead and she almost screamed out for caution –

  But they were a
cross before she could start – a swift light leaping and they were on the other side and on, continuing. And hardly a sound – nothing beyond Oona’s own shallow breathing and the faintest pant of Wolves and the whisper of cold over their coats.

  Then the ledge they followed opened out, the pass widening: on a small platform, the Whereabouts Wolves paused to peer down. They began to whimper, near howl. The full moon had set itself sentry low in the sky, showing Oona a valley narrower than Drumbroken. It looked like a battle had been lost within it: a scatter of massive hunks of rock, most broken, some so tall they looked stacked. She saw the clear run of a river coming down from the mountains, slithering through.

  ‘What happened here?’ asked Oona.

  A breeze stirred her hair, and brought her something – a snapping and billowing sound she couldn’t attribute to anything. But as the Wolves resumed their descent – so fast they looked as though they were burrowing, a torrent of meltwater cleaving – Oona soon saw the source of sound: a crowd of tents being crack-snapped taut by the wind, and flags too being stirred. Did she imagine the flags were crimson? Closer still she saw the grey-white blemish of cinder where fires had been lit and let fail. And (almost there) Oona saw things she didn’t know she was expecting till she saw them: dark figures, men standing as though awaiting her arrival. All unmoving, silent. And on their backs were strapped other men – fallen company that had been carried who-knew how many miles across the Black.

  62

  As soon as the Wolves arrived among strewn stone at the bottom of the valley, they dropped. Limbs folding neat, heads bowing and nuzzling close to one another for comfort, their muddied sides heaving with fatigue. Oona slipped from her own Wolf’s back. Quick pat of her palm on its snout, and the animal collapsed. Their whimpering didn’t falter though, and Oona thought that if the Whereabouts pack could grieve – could feel alone and isolated and lost – then this was their lament for a land so altered. The sound plucked at something in Oona, some similar strain of sadness, and she longed to lie down among them and rest. But then she saw the figures standing, others strapped to their backs – surely the Cause – and the old Kavanagh resolve returned.

  ‘My name’s Oona Kavanagh!’ she called. ‘From a good and decent family in the valley of Drumbroken! Me and my brother were both in the Cause back in the South, both fighting but when the Invaders came he –’

  She stopped only feet from the nearest man – he hadn’t moved.

  ‘Hello?’ she asked. Her voice sounded suddenly too loud, too weak – too desperate. And still no answer. For encouragement she sought the Stone: it was already lukewarm, but the shred of light at its centre was shrunken, reduced to almost nothing. And it had a new feeling in her hand: it had things it was desperate to impart, if she’d let it.

  Oona cleared her throat and shouted, ‘Who’s standing there? Tell!’

  The echo of her words went on and on, but still nothing from the unmoving Cause. The tents continued to snap, straining at pegs as though they wanted to flee. Oona noticed: the men all had rifles in hand and mouths opened wide as though roaring, triumph or celebration making them wild but making no sound.

  Oona had to know. She reached out, and instantly the figure she’d only brushed began to dissolve – scalp collapsing into skull into neck into chest into torso into legs … and then he was only dust toiling in the air. Oona looked to the others, and then remembered: the boy on the Black Road at the end of the Perpetual Parade, what he had become. Oona spoke aloud to herself: ‘The Echoes.’

  The Whereabouts Wolves sounded a louder howl, gently tearing open the silence – they’d come back to these men who were going to take them North to the Burren, to battle, but now no further. The creatures didn’t know where to go, what to be, who in the Black to serve.

  Oona addressed the dark: ‘What’s happened? What are these Echoes?’ The Stone warmed Oona’s hand. It said –

  ‘I will show you and I shall tell. You must sleep now, Oona Kavanagh. Sleep, and you shall see.’

  Helpless with longing, Oona lowered herself and was soon lying among the warmth and press and low howl of the Wolves. Arms hugging her satchel tight and Loam Stone scorching her palms, Oona shut her eyes for sleep. She welcomed the dark, awaiting whatever answers.

  63

  ‘Follow me, Oona! Follow me now, sister dearest, and you shall see!’

  Oona was hurrying, knowing that she was near to the heart of the blackened forest – she sensed secrets ready to be discovered. And it was Morris leading her. Almost just out of sight always, his heel seen and then vanishing, his fingers were lingering to curl with beckoning: ‘Follow me, Oona! Follow quick!’

  Those watching eyes were ripening in branches. Widening, dark crimson. Oona ran on.

  And finally she was somewhere, the place she’d been moving towards ever since she’d first held the Loam Stone in hand and heard the King’s voice, his promise: she saw home, Kavanagh cottage, Morris standing by the window on tiptoe to look in, his back to her. Oona heard him whisper, ‘Come see, sister! Come see!’

  Like they were younger, like a game.

  Oona ran soft and reached the cottage and on tiptoe beside strained to see in. But the pane was misted, couldn’t be seen through or wiped clear by any hand.

  ‘Wait,’ whispered the voice of her brother. But his voice was less like himself, closer to that of Oona’s nightmares – the King of the North speaking. And still he kept his face hidden as he said, ‘Just listen now and watch – things will become clearer.’

  And then a shout from inside the cottage that Oona knew instantly as their da’s voice. He was demanding –

  ‘What the hell is happening to me, Mammy?’

  Oona remembered only then how fond the man had been of raising his voice. She heard some soft reply but then her father shouted louder –

  ‘Shut up you! Don’t know what you’re talking about! One of you hurry up and do something to fix it! It’s creeping up the arm more by the minute! What are all your potions and bits for if you can’t fix things like this?’

  Another voice that she recognised in the first syllable as her Granny Kavanagh said, ‘I don’t know what this is, son. Never seen the like of it. Some North magic and I don’t know how to –’

  ‘Get away from me!’ cried Oona’s father. ‘Bloody useless. And she’s not much good either, is she? Sitting there, doing her pictures!’

  Again: same soft reply.

  ‘What was that? Speak up, woman!’

  Oona heard Granny Kavanagh say, ‘Leave her be, son. She’ll be no use – she’s a dreamer, that one. I told you that when you married her.’

  ‘Do you hear that? Me own mother didn’t want me to take you!’

  Oona wanted so badly to see but still the window wouldn’t clear. Then the voice of the King through the mouth of Morris told her, ‘Accept what you are hearing, and then you will see.’

  Oona thought, Accept what? Mother and father arguing? Granny goading, not helping?

  But as she thought it – dreamed it, same way she’d dreamed fire on the rooftop in Loftborough – the window began to allow her: like frost shrinking to show what was beneath, slow thaw, and Oona saw into the Kavanagh cottage. Saw this scene, twilit –

  Mother seated at the family table, a sheet between her elbows, head lowered and hair fallen, paintbrush poised. Oona angled her head to see more. The painting was almost complete: picture of that unlikely land that rolled, emerald-coloured, scattered with thin trees of silver and small stone cottages. Oona’s father stood close to her mother, leaning in but not in a way that meant love. He was breathless, all of him damp with sweat and shivering, one hand held delicately against his chest as though injured. And then he roared –

  ‘Speak, woman!’

  And father struck mother with his injured hand.

  ‘No,’ said Oona. She recoiled, almost toppled. The window began to cloud and she murmured, ‘No. This is made up – nightmare, not real.’

  ‘The Ston
e tells no lies,’ said the voice of the King. ‘Some might call it the Nightmare Stone, or the Darkness and the Seeing, but it tells only truth.’

  ‘Liar,’ said Oona. She swallowed, pressing both palms to her face and roaring as loud as her father, ‘You’re lying!’

  ‘Some view the truth as nightmare,’ said the voice of the King, ‘because they cannot bear to know it. But you must look. You must know – there is more to be seen.’

  Oona looked – the window remained opaque. No, she thought. I want to see. Need to.

  And things began to clear, slowly. And Oona heard – Father: ‘Look at me now! What the hell’s happening?’

  Granny: ‘I said I don’t know, son, but calm down! Doing no good getting upset.’

  Oona saw her father weeping frustrated tears.

  ‘Some filthy magic them Invaders have put on me!’ he shouted. ‘Pray for me! Pray for it to stop!’

  Then he held his hand to the shrine for the Sorrowful Lady: the hand was grey, like he’d rubbed it with cinder. Not just the hand but all the way to the elbow and crumbling, one finger already missing.

  ‘Like it’s rotting away,’ Oona heard her father say. ‘Turning to dust! Sorrowful Lady help me!’

  Oona thought, The Echoes.

  ‘And you!’ her father shouted, returning suddenly to Oona’s mother. ‘What have you got to say?’

  Oona’s mother remained: same position, unmoving, as though nothing was happening.

  ‘You think I’m stupid and don’t realise?’ her father said, teeth gritted, spittle flying. ‘But I know things, woman. I’m not so slow! It was you that brought this North magic into this place, isn’t it? It’s you that’s doing this because you want rid of me, isn’t it? So you can go back to that filthy North? Back to that woman you were so friendly with? That’s the answer. See – I’m not so slow!’

  ‘Son,’ said Oona’s grandmother. ‘Leave her be – she’s no use to man or beast, that one.’