by Jeff Noon
“I’m sorry. I’m sorry it took me so long.”
His father nodded, and smiled. “That’s alright. We’re here now. I knew you’d make it. I knew you’d find me. Well, I was hoping so.”
“I don’t… I don’t know what to say.”
His father laughed gently “No. Neither do I. Not really.” But he reached across the table and took his son’s hand. Nyquist stared at this exact point of contact. He felt young again, a boy almost.
“Well then, lad, did you bring anything for me?”
“I’m not sure what you mean?”
“Anything? Anything at all?”
“Oh. Oh yes.”
He had a bag with him, an old-fashioned shopping bag, the kind his mother used to own. He hadn’t noticed until now. Nyquist reached into bag and drew out the objects it contained, one by one, naming them as he did so.
“There’s a teacup. A revolver… and a book of birds.”
His father was pleased. “Auberon’s Guide. I passed that on to you, and you brought it back to me. Guinevere follows the strangest pathways, wending her way.”
Nyquist took the last item from the bag. “A coin. A half crown.”
The four objects lay in a row on the table. Each of them was now clean, free of any tendrils. Unbound.
His father looked at each in turn and then said, “There should be a fifth item.”
“Not an item. A person.”
“Yes, that makes sense. A sacrifice might be needed.”
“That can’t happen. I severed the connection.”
His father looked at him with a curious expression. “Ah well, we will make do, no doubt. If not that person, some other…” He made an effort and managed to bring a smile to his face. Then he picked up the half crown. “Charles II. An interesting choice.”
“Why?”
“The king in exile.” He spun the coin on the tabletop and it continued to spin, gathering light from above. “We have until this coin winds down to a stop, one side or the other. And then a decision will be made. Do you understand?”
“No.”
His father nodded. “It doesn’t matter. Not until it stops spinning.”
“Why did you leave me? I was only a child.”
It was a sudden question, and it took a while for an answer to come. “I could not bear life. The looks on people’s faces, and most of all, on your face. I felt such guilt for your mother’s death. It overwhelmed me. And so, I thought I might bring her back. I had heard tales of the land of Dusk…”
“You have to tell me.”
His father looked at him with such pain, it was almost unbearable. “There is so little time, John.”
“I know. I understand.”
Despite saying this, he could feel his fingernails scraping at the tabletop. Nyquist had too many thoughts in his head, all of them playing against each other. Love. Hate. He dug up splinters. The table had many such marks, the signs of despair left by other travelers in other times.
And then his father said, “My son, I died in 1939.”
The words brought silence to the room. The two men looked at each other, one in his fifties, the other in his thirties. Between them on the table the half crown was spinning at the same rate, with no sign of slowing down. Some further energy had taken it over. And despite everything he should be feeling, the sight of the coin made Nyquist joyful, a rare and strange emotion: to have these few minutes together, surely that was a good thing!
Nyquist wanted to ask for the truth, but the words were difficult to find and he faltered. He looked on, waiting, and in the end had no need to speak. For his father picked up the book of birds and flipped through the pages idly, one after another, as he told his story.
“I moved through the fields of Dusk, seeking refuge in the mists. It is a desolate stretch of land, but there are some who make their lives on the edgelands, a few, people like myself, who wish to escape from the known world. I fell in with a tribe of fellow strugglers, who had made a camp beside a canal, in an old railway yard. We lived in sheds and old caravans, and hunted rabbits and birds, and the stranger creatures who prefer those parts. In that world of half seen things and mystery, I made my life. But the pain would not go away. Every day I ventured further from the camp, deeper into the Dusk, having heard stories all my life that the mists contain the spirits of the dead. I was seeking your mother’s ghost.”
He looked up from the book. His face was haggard in the lamplight.
“I will sound foolish to you, I know that. And no doubt cruel, but there it is. Those were my feelings.”
“But you failed?”
“Yes.”
The coin spun around and around on the tabletop. Was there a slight tremble to it? Nyquist’s father saw this and a look of worry came over him. He tore a page from the book. The sound it made was almost painful to the ears, like the book was crying.
He continued, “Not many live long in Dusk. I lasted four years. The perpetual fog got in my lungs and I fell ill. Others had suffered from the same affliction, and I was told that soon I would die, unless I left those parts, and returned to the city.” His eyes flickered. “I did try, my son. I made it to the borderline, where Dawn’s light fades into the roads of Day, where the fog merges with clean air. But I could not take another step. You would be twelve years old by now, and I had no way of knowing where you were, or how you were doing. And the thought of returning to our house, and finding it unoccupied – or worse still, taken over by another family – well, it filled me with dread.”
Nyquist told him, “I did alright, Dad. I made my way.”
“Yes, yes, I can see that. You were always strong, and resilient.”
“I lived with other families. One of which, the McGregors, were kind to me.”
His father nodded and smiled. He looked at the torn out page in his hand and started to read aloud from it: “Jackdaw. Black plumage with a gray nape… Their song is a squeaky chyak-chyak. A skilled flyer, able to tumble and glide through the air.” He raised his eyes from the book. “That is useful, yes. A good flyer. That will be needed.”
He rolled the page into a tiny ball of paper.
“Do you remember when I used to read to you? At night, before you went to sleep?” Nyquist said that he did. “Good, good. I’m glad you remember.”
The coin was drifting from side to side, around its central axis.
His father spoke with difficulty. “We need one more page, I think, for our purposes. But you can choose. Can you think of a bird that flies high, son?”
“I don’t know…”
“Think back! You read Auberon’s over and over, from cover to cover, when you were a child.”
The answer came freely. “The lark?”
“The skylark! Yes. A good choice, it flies at the very peak of the heavens. Beautiful. Here, you do it for me.”
Nyquist took hold of the book and sought out the correct page: Alauda arvensis. He tore it out and scrunched it up and rolled it into a ball.
His father continued with his tale.
“I spent a few hours on the border and then returned into Dusk. I had heard of a certain pool where those about to die might gather, and rest awhile. It was not far from our encampment, a few miles, but I was exhausted by the time I arrived there. I was alone. And I sat down at the side of the pool and I looked over into the water. I was very ill by that point, and could hardly take a breath without feeling a terrible pain. I longed to die. I longed for it. And when I saw my reflection, I knew the time was near, for I looked old, far older than I was, as old as I now look to you, my son. And then…”
He shivered, and held his hand to his mouth.
Nyquist waited, without saying a word.
The half crown spun around, slowing now, slowing down.
His father picked up the coronation teacup.
“And then, even as I looked upon myself, I saw myself fading away. Drifting away. My reflection moved on the black water and would soon be out of my grasp. And I p
anicked, thinking I had made a terrible mistake, for I needed to live, I wanted to live! My hand groped in the water trying to keep hold of what I once was, but the face slipped away through my fingers, as water must, as water always does.”
He turned the teacup in his hand, and he spoke as from a great distance.
“The pool was empty, moonless, no longer a mirror. And I felt my life flowing away. I collapsed at the side of pool and lay there, half in the water, half out.”
He brought the teacup down with a sudden force, smashing it against the tabletop.
Nyquist flinched back in his chair.
The bone-china shards lay scattered about, one containing the handle, another one half of Queen Elizabeth’s face. His father picked this one; it had a lethal looking point to it. He said, “It might still be there, my body, rotten to the bone, picked clean by ravens and crows. Or perhaps it has been moved on. Maybe my fellows in the camp buried me, with a few prayers for my deliverance. I know not.”
The half crown was no longer a blurred shape. It was waving at an angle back and forth, and both sides could now be seen, heads and tails.
“My spirit drifted home, held within my reflection. Back to the source, from which our family first arose. To this place, this village. I was called here by Guinevere Clud, who reigns over all who are trapped in limbo. Creeping Jenny, as she is known. Her body surrounds us.” He gestured to the walls, the ceiling. “All three of us, caught halfway between life and death.”
“Three of us?” Nyquist asked.
“Yes, of course. For I am double in nature. Mr Thomas Dunne resides within me. I have possessed him, in order to live again. And for this reason, I will take on the jackdaw’s wings. And those of the skylark– uh.”
The statement, simple as it was, brought on a vicious reaction in the man’s face. His eyes widened in fear and his mouth tightened in an open shape so that his teeth were on view, set hard against each other, top and bottom. His hands clenched into fists. He was struggling against some inner force, that’s all Nyquist could think. And his father’s expression changed again, and another man’s face was briefly seen, taking over the features. This other man screamed out in pain, which made George Nyquist scream in turn. Two mouths screaming, slightly out of sync. It looked like one man was trying to climb out of other, and it made Nyquist sick with fear.
“Father…”
The slightest gesture on Nyquist’s part, the merest touch, was enough to dispel the other from view, and his father’s face returned to normal. He stared ahead, seemingly at his son, but his eyes looked far deeper than that, and further away.
The half crown spun around its course, losing speed with every rotation.
The father looked down at the coin. He struggled to speak. “We don’t have long. So please, John… hold out your hand.”
Nyquist did so. His father used the sharpest point of the china shard to cut into his own palm, and then into his son’s. They rubbed their hands together.
“Our friend will need this blood. For the journey back.”
For the first time Nyquist understood what his father was saying, what he was planning. He wanted to speak out, to hold him back, to keep him at the table for a while longer, a minute or so, a few seconds even. But it was not to be. His father picked up the revolver. He checked the cylinder, noting the single cartridge in place. Then he placed the two rolled up balls of paper in the barrel of the Enfield. “One, two. Paper wings. Good. A flight back home.” He placed the gun back on the table. “And now we wait.”
They both looked at the coin as it spun down and finally settled in place.
“Heads. I’m so glad it came up that way, son. Which means I get to choose. By these wings, by this blood.”
Nyquist felt he was eight years old again, asking his father not to leave.
Not yet… don’t go… don’t leave me…
“Mr Thomas Dunne does not deserve this fate. As for myself, I have been here too long, in this place of shadows. And this borrowed flesh sickens me. It really does.”
He handed the revolver over to his son.
“I am sorry, my child.”
It was an admittance. And it broke the moment in two. Nyquist tried to reply, to make his own confession, but the words would not come.
Their time here was through.
They looked at each other across the table.
The bulb in the lamp was flickering, stuttering. Soon it would darken.
Nyquist took up the task. He held the gun on target. It was not so different from what he’d done with Maude Bryars, when he’d freed her from Creeping Jenny’s control. One slice of the knife. This was the same thing. He kept telling himself that. He kept saying, This is the same, one quick action, a single movement of my finger. That’s all. But his hand shook terribly, and his body was covered in sweat.
“Is there another way?” he asked.
Nobody answered. Not one person at that table answered.
Nyquist brought his left hand up, to steady his right. He reminded himself that this was a double action gun; he wouldn’t need to cock the hammer.
He was all set.
A simple idea came to him, a kind of prayer, a prayer made from tatters and scraps, from the blood itself, the things collected in daily battle, in war, in struggle.
I have found myself here, where I should be lost.
Take aim.
He pressed the muzzle against his father’s brow. That spot where thoughts collected before they traveled into the world, and where memories were stored momentarily, before being sent on, to be forgotten.
Just there.
Close your eyes.
FLIGHT OF JACKDAW AND LARK
Through the flesh, through the muscles and the veins, through the bone of the skull. Through the brain. Through the gray matter, the web of nerves.
Through the unknown map of the head.
Through the surface of the looking glass, leaving a hole, flowerlike.
Through the contaminated waters of Birdbeck Tarn. Through the ghosts that dwell in the dark. Through the village of Hoxley-on-the-Hale, along empty streets, lanes, alleyways and cul-de-sacs.
Through the everyday horrors, desires, temptations, moments of love and regret, and all the moments beyond recall.
Through the story as it folds and unfolds, and folds again, and unfolds.
The life left behind, and the life to come.
Through the tangles of the vines and weeds underfoot, and the branches of the oak tree, Blade of Moon. Through the labels in the woodland glade, with their letters and ciphers.
Through moonglow and sunlight.
Through a locked door marked Paradise. Across a borderline of mist. Into flesh once more. Into dust. Powder. Blood. Splinters. Across the village green and the pond where the witches were tried and tested. Through the clouded spirits, and the names on the gravestones in the cemetery. Through his father’s body: breath, whisper and shadow.
Through the weeping eyes of Creeping Jenny.
Through the words that bring us here to this point, and the words that take us away, these words…
THE POEM OF THE WOODS
There were murmurs and cries of pain in the darkness, but he couldn’t tell from where they came. He groped out with a hand and felt his fingers close over the broken remains of a teacup. The edges were sharp to the touch. He was lying on the floor of the cellar, that much he knew. A woman started crying. And then she screamed; it sounded like someone was hitting her. A man spat out words of anger: “You promised me! You promised me! Where is she? You promised me!” over and over. It was chaos. Nyquist got to his hands and knees and he pulled himself along. He was drained of all energy, and each movement took an age. But he made it, he made it out of the circle and he found Thomas Dunne in the corner. A bulb burned into light overhead: it sounded like a creature suddenly finding life. Dunne’s eyes held the night within them, and all that had happened. His mouth tried to form a word, a single word, but nothing good was said,
nothing could be said. Not yet. There would be time for that. Nyquist helped him to his feet, but in truth they helped each other, for both were weak from the ordeal. Nyquist could see Nigel Coombes and Sylvia close by. Her face was bloody. Coombes raised his hand in a fist to strike her again, but Doctor Higgs stepped between them. Nyquist pulled Dunne to the doorway and managed to get him into the corridor of masks. The six Tolly Men looked out on their progress, from one year to the next, down through the ages. The penny blood cabinets were empty. They moved on, finding their way to the storage room under the stage and from there to the hall. It was full dark outside. It must’ve been very early in the morning, but Nyquist had no sense of time at all. The two men made their way down Pyke Road. Every house was quiet, all the lights out, and not a person moved on the street but themselves, these wanderers. Nyquist needed to rest, his legs were failing him, but he had to keep on, to keep on until he reached the house of Maude Bryars. It was the only house with its windows lit up. He fell against the door, with Dunne alongside. It was opened immediately and Bryars welcomed them both inside. In the brightness of the hall Nyquist saw Thomas Dunne’s face clearly for the first time and saw that his father had left this body completely, and forever, and he felt his heart break at the thought of such a thing. But then Bryars led them into the living room, where Agnes Dunne was waiting. She rose from her seat and looked at her husband in utter surprise. For a moment she could not move. His face was stricken with hurt. She wept. And then at last she stepped forward and took up Nyquist’s burden for herself. Thomas fell into her arms willingly. And Nyquist collapsed.
The village slept with him.
The village dreamed and the village cried in its dreams, and laughed, and the villagers danced in their dreams around the maypole, and the old tree named Blade of Moon hung its branches over them all, in their dreams.
The next day there was no icon to be seen, not in the any window that he passed, nor in The Swan With Two Necks, when he went to pay his bill, and to pick up a few items he’d forgotten. Nigel Coombes refused to take payment. He and his daughter were sitting together in the snug, holding hands. Nyquist left them to it. He walked back to say his goodbyes to Professor Bryars. Agnes and Thomas were still there. Thomas was quiet, withdrawn, not yet fully back in the world. But Agnes and Maude fussed over him. Nyquist smiled at this. He thanked Maude for her hospitality, and the history lessons. She replied in a quiet voice, “Creeping Jenny has given me a little of her power, I think. I might weave stories together in a new way, from the past and the present.”
