by Jeff Noon
There was only the silence, and the emptiness.
He could only imagine everyone had gathered in the same place, in the woods or in the fields for some obscure ritual of their own invention. And he cursed aloud the good doctor or Coombes the landlord for not telling him where to go.
And then…
And then a noise disturbed him.
He stopped and listened. It was very quiet, barely existent.
It came and went, like a bell swinging back and forth. A small bell held in the hand and rattled to make a sound. Or else it was a whistle of some kind, high pitched, clear and bright. It was impossible to know the precise nature of the sound. It was a young child’s dream of a bird, calling, calling on the edge of hearing. It sounded like the bell at the Bainbridge house, the one the budgie liked to tap. What was he called now? Yes, Bertie. That was it. Little Bertie Bainbridge. Ting-a-ling.
Only quieter.
ting-a-ling-a-ling
Slowly Nyquist turned in a circle, trying to locate the sound, to pinpoint it to a house or an alleyway or a shadow.
But the silence had returned.
Silence. Emptiness.
He made his way back to the high street and carried on, taking the bridge over the river. The waters ran softly. He entered the church and stood in the nave, gazing down the aisle towards the altar: silent empty pews, voiceless hymns, the nonexistent incantation. Even today. Even on the Lord’s day! He made his way along one side of the church, checking the niches set at different heights in the walls. There were many of them, hundreds, and each held an icon of a different saint. None of the saints were named, so he could only identify the few he had seen up to now, in his room at the pub, and around the village. A small number of the alcoves were empty and this puzzled him greatly until he remembered the doctor’s mention of the five No Saint’s Days. How blissful that would be! He moved to the opposite wall of the church, where more icons were displayed. Most held the wax deposits of burnt-out candles in front of them; a lesser number had fresh candles standing in their holders. Nyquist worked it out: this was a marking system, to show which saint had been used this year, and which were still in waiting. His theory was proved correct when he found that only one icon, the tree-grown shape of Saint Leander, had a lighted candle in front of it. Today’s figure of worship. The flame danced as though someone had blown on it.
He walked back outside. For the first time he noticed that a single myre tree was growing in the churchyard, its branches hung with clusters of the dreadful moonsilver berry, the roots nourished by the rich soil. Deliberately he took the left-hand path around the building, willing the devil to appear. Even that would be company. But no one disturbed him. He pulled back knots of vines and dry weeds from the gravestones. Here were the old names, the names of the dead and of their families still living: Keepsake, Clud, Clough, Tattersthwaite, Bryars, Wykes, Holroyd, Dunne, Fitten, Higgs, Prudholme, Fairclough, Coombes, Bainbridge, Metcalfe. One name – Elizabeth Margaret Featherstonehaugh – had to be split onto a second line. And well hidden behind a thicket he found a grave with his own family name inscribed: William Nyquist, 1835-1859. Twenty-four years old at his death. Gathered here with his beloved wife, Edwina, and their son, Henry. Every letter of each name and date was cracked and chipped and filled with dirt and the fibrous roots of plants and bird excrement, and he had to prize the details free with his bare hands.
1859. The date of William Nyquist’s death. One hundred years ago.
It seemed important, and he brought to mind the list of Tolly Men that Professor Bryars had shown him. That was it, he remembered now: 1859 was the year when William had taken on the role: he had died sometime after wearing the mask of thorns. Was there a connection? Had the Tolly Man in some way led to his ancestor’s death?
He imagined the family’s leave-taking of Hoxley-on-the-Hale, perhaps under their own free will, or cast out, and the journey south. Was it one Nyquist alone, or a young couple, maybe with a child in tow? Perhaps they escaped by night, fleeing persecution, or poverty. Yes, he was already romanticizing his family history. And many, many years later, in exile, a child is born, a son: John Henry Nyquist. Himself. A child, now a man. And he felt that his entire body was sinking into the earth, taking up root here, by this river, in these moorlands. He thought back on the name Sylvia Keepsake had given him: perhaps Written in Blood was really about lineage, the family, what is passed on down the generations, and what is lost, or cast aside in disgust. Nyquist had been drawn back here, to the village, the wellspring – but to what end? Or what beginning?
He left the churchyard and took the path along the river, down towards Lower Hoxley. He was glad to see the swans swimming on the pool by the weir; evidence of biological life other than his own. But nobody passed him on the route, and the only sound came from the quiet burbling of the water and the occasional call of a bird from the banks of gorse.
The sun was well past its highest point, and the air grew colder. December brought out the best in the land, making it sparkle with icy brilliance. Nyquist pulled his overcoat around himself and walked on along the pathway.
Lower Hoxley greeted him with silence.
Empty streets, empty houses, each door wide open.
No cats, no dogs. Not even a stir of a shadow of a footstep of a breath of a leaf falling.
I am alone. I am alone here.
He passed the photographer’s studio and walked on, up the hill to the outskirts of the village, where Len Sadler lived. The decorator’s van was parked by the side of his house, all of its doors open. Nyquist went around the back of the house and saw the empty cages, the vacated perches. The doors were open on each enclosure, and he imagined the pigeons flying away, en masse, each with a message attached, a blank piece of paper, which decoded might read: There’s nothing here today. Do not come to Hoxley, there’s little point, you will find nothing of use. Walk on.
And he did, back down the slope of the road. Halfway down he heard again the jingle of the bell, calling to him from one doorway or another, he could not tell which. But this time he walked on, ignoring the chimes. He knew enough by now that only shadows waited for him. He popped in the corner shop – virtually a twin of the one in Upper Hoxley. It was called Cholmondeley’s General Store. He picked up twenty Woodbine, a ham and cheese sandwich and a bottle of dandelion and burdock, leaving a tidy stack of shillings and pennies on the counter: more than enough. As he turned back to the door, he saw a stand filled with novelty items, little toys and practical jokes and balloons and the like. One item was the Hair of Creeping Jenny that he’d seen in the other shop’s window. He bought a packet.
Five minutes later he was sitting on a bench in the village square, eating the sandwich as he stared at the names of the dead on the war memorial. He smoked a cigarette, and felt himself relax. Saint Leander had taken charge of his life. He was at her mercy. I am alone. Yes. And for the first time he didn’t mind it, not at all. He had spent his entire life on busy streets and narrow alleyways, inside crumbling apartment blocks and one-room offices, in seedy bars and gambling dens, under neon signs and illuminated hoardings, in crowded markets and busy train stations. He had felt the crush and press of other people’s flesh against his body, over and over, day in, day out. But did he need that now? Couldn’t he stay here for the rest of his days, in Hoxley-on-the-Hale, following the decrees of each saint as they came along, changing his behavior accordingly?
It was an unruly thought, and yet a comforting one.
His meal was finished, Nyquist opened the packet of Creeping Jenny’s Hair and pulled out the five strands. They were colored a bright green, each about two feet long when unrolled fully. But unlike the ones that clung to his own objects, these were made of some kind of elastic, with a little plastic hook attached to each end. He read the back of the packet:
Use these strands of Creeping Jenny’s hair to attach one object to another. They will then be connected in a story. You too can act like Creeping Jenny, joining the stra
ngest things together! Hours of fun guaranteed!
He reached into his coat pocket for the envelope of photographs. He studied each scene not as a stranger might, but as a long-term resident: the church, the high street, the shop, Clud Tower, the Bainbridges outside their house. His father’s face. But it was the seventh image that he concentrated on, staring deep into the blank landscape, and deeper still, and deeper… and then the answer came to him. Of course! It seemed incredibly simple, now that the thought had taken hold. One strand connecting to another.
Nyquist made his way to the photographer’s studio. The front door was open. The place was exactly as he’d left it: the bird prints in the dust of the kitchen table, the portraits of Agnes Dunne on the walls, and the stink of old chemicals. He walked into the darkroom and placed the seventh photograph in the developing tray. The remains of the dead moth were still floating on the surface. He recognized the clear blue liquid with its scattering of silver particles: it was the same fluid that filled the hill pool of Birdbeck tarn. Thomas Dunne had collected liquid from there, and was using it in the photographic process. With a shudder, Nyquist recalled his plunge into the pool and the things he’d seen among the rocks and pebbles, submerged, and the feelings that had taken him over.
Magic. Transformation. One thing becoming another.
He gave the tray a gentle shake and he looked inside. Last time this process had formed an image for him – that of Len Sadler’s house; now it did the same, but of a very different subject.
The bell chimed in the room behind him, dancing in the air: the dream of the village at play. But he didn’t turn around. For he knew that no one would be present, not even a ghost. Instead his entire focus was on the tray and the photograph in the liquid, on the picture that was slowly emerging, a shadow darkening on the white ground, creating a building… no, a room, or some kind of interior space. Nyquist kept his eyes in focus as the image faded into view, one detail at a time – shelves, a glass cabinet of some kind, not yet seen clearly. And a person who stood to one side of the cabinet, now taking on form, color, shape and features, her face now clear, a woman. She was holding aloft a small silver bell, the kind used in handbell ringing.
He stood where he was for a good long while, not knowing how to move, with only his eyes alert and functioning as he took in the image and its various details, all he could gather: foreground and back, her body and stance, her face, her hair. But this was a stranger. Not a villager he had seen before, nor someone from his life, his past.
Someone unknown.
He made his way back to the street and from there to the river, following its winding course towards Hoxley-on-the-Hale. No one welcomed him: all the doors were wide open but no one invited him inside. And by three in the afternoon the sense of loneliness being a good thing had disappeared entirely, leaving only a man walking along, one empty street after another, so many empty houses, empty rooms, his eyes filled with equal emptiness. In one household he sat on the toilet for fifteen minutes, reading a story in a woman’s magazine. Oh Margaret, you should never have gone back to him! He pulled up his trousers and carried on with his wanderings. Every so often he would glance down at the seventh photograph, and then up again, seeking a connection between image and reality, a certain location: where the cabinet stood, where the woman stood. He made sure that every street was visited, one after another, marking each one in his atlas. And then onwards. He dined alone on fancy food at the house of Doctor Higgs: ox tongue, stilton cheese, and a thick slice of Sutton’s fruitcake for dessert. He felt gently bloated, as he sat in the doctor’s armchair and read her copy of The Bligh, Lockhampton & Hoxley Reporter, cover to cover, the small ads, the local news, the flower show, the long-felt after-effects of last month’s Saint Juniper’s Day. He was looking for clues more than anything, clues to the village and its true nature, and to the woman who had appeared in the photograph.
Nothing was learned.
He continued on his quest, this time heading for the village green where the fortune teller’s tent was still in place. He unknotted the ties and pulled aside the flap and stepped inside. It was dark within. He fully expected Madame Fontaine to be absent, but a figure was sitting at a table, her face hidden in shadow.
Nyquist held himself still, against his reason.
His fingers twitched nervously.
To be in the presence of another being after such a day, such wanderings, it was too much to take! And yet the woman at the table also kept her silence. She did not move, not even when he managed to call out to her.
There were two large candles on the table. He struck a match and lit both of them, and by their light he saw the face of the Gypsy woman, her features entirely still, dead to any reaction. She was carved from wood. It was expertly done, the lines and planes of her nose and cheekbones and brow all lovingly made and textured. Her lips were painted red. She wore a gown of outlandish colors that covered her body from head to foot. Her two hands lay on the tabletop, emerging from the long sleeves of the gown. They too were carved from wood, and jointed with metal at each knuckle and at the wrist. But it was her face that captivated, for he had seen it before somewhere. Recognition hovered in his mind, and then slipped away. A mechanical raven was sitting on a perch nearby. A white diamond shape was painted on its brow.
Nyquist found a tanner in his pocket and dropped it into the slot on the table. Madame Fontaine came to life. Slowly at first, her arms creaking, her head bobbing slightly on her neck. The raven raised its wings and made a screeching noise; it sounded like two rough metal plates rubbing against each other. The fortune teller’s right hand rose from the tabletop and moved over to a box containing a pack of playing cards. The fingers reached down and grabbed a card, seemingly at random. This was carried over to the center of the table where it was placed clumsily on the surface. It was a card from the Tarot. Nyquist knew very little of such things, but he watched in fascination as the operation was repeated twice more, giving three cards in total. The Ten of Wands, The World (Reversed), The High Priestess. The raven screeched again. Madame Fontaine chose another card, this time from a different box. This one spelled out his fortune. Nyquist picked it up and read the text.
Follow a pathway through the woods. Ask your question of the fire.
All coherent thought left his mind, only a puzzle remained, endless puzzles, fragments of meaning. Nyquist reached out to inspect some of the other fortune cards that might have been picked: You will receive good news. Or, A relative from abroad will send you a gift. Or even, You will meet a tall handsome stranger. It was absurd, and he had to laugh; there was no other proper response. It was a laugh in the face of all the collected saints, and whoever it was who spun out stories and meaning in this village built on craziness. Creeping Jenny herself.
He took one last look at Madame Fontaine, and this time he recognised her likeness. It looked very much like Agnes Dunne. He’d seen her image at the photographer’s studio. This surprised him, until he explored the mechanical Gypsy and the table she was sitting at, and he found the maker’s name on a brass plaque. Leonard Sadler. So then, Sadler had made the figure as a tribute to the woman he loved.
Nyquist left the tent and moved on across the green, hoping to find a street he hadn’t seen before, a hidden entranceway or alley. Every nook and cranny was explored, every room of every house.
Meeting no one.
Seeing no one, not even in the distance, not even the shadow of a person.
Hearing no one.
Even the calling bell was silent now.
Soon enough dusk would fall. He was getting tired, from so much walking. In the dimming light the village seemed abandoned, rather than deserted. And he feared that even when this day ended and a new one began, still the streets would be empty. He would live here forever, unable to leave, only following the ever-dwindling traces of ghosts. But he knew that he had to find the woman depicted in the photograph on this very day, Saint Leander’s Day, and no other: that even tomorrow would be to
o late.
Nyquist continued on his journey, moving at random now, turning corners as he came to them, the road atlas forgotten. The vacated houses depressed him. Missing people: unheard chatter, children’s rhymes hushed to the point of nothingness, all domestic arguments too quiet to be heard.
And then he saw something that brought him to a standstill, that genuinely shocked him, that scared him almost.
A closed door.
One single door that was closed.
It was the first such thing he’d seen since leaving the pub that morning. He approached the house warily. It was a larger property than most others in the village, mock Tudor style, with an adjoining garage. The garage door was open, showing the bonnet of a Bentley parked within, but the house itself was locked up. A sign in the front garden told him the house was called White Flower Lodge. Nyquist pressed at the doorbell. It rang and rang inside, echoing along empty corridors without answer. He peered through the windows into a living room. There was no one at home. But Saint Leander was growing from her pot on a table… so why was the door locked, it didn’t make sense. What set this house apart from all the others? He walked around into the back garden and tried the kitchen door; it too was locked. He felt like banging his head repeatedly against the door until blood seeped from his brow, and the bone started to splinter. He was sorely tempted. Such pain, such release. But instead he gathered his resolve and walked on, back down the hill towards the center of the village.
And then he stopped. He could go no further.
He cried.
He cried out. He screamed. A wordless noise.
Hoping for an answer, a response from the village, from a single person.
