‘How are you feeling, Preston?’
Preston opened his eyes, wiped them and saw Jonathan standing by the door to the room.
‘Thank you.’ Was all he could say.
Jonathan smiled, and the face dripped away like wax from a candle. The blank, parchment emptiness that remained wrinkled with a sound like paper in a breeze.
‘Don’t thank me, Preston. Thank them.’
He opened the door, and they all came rushing in, feeding on the newly acquired knowledge of names and faces.
PILGRIMAGE TO OBLIVION
It was only when the last finger of his left hand shrivelled, blackened, and dropped off that Reid admitted the spell might have been cast.
The quest to end his life of pastel passion began the same night that he met Bryony. In his infrequent moments of spontaneity during the days that followed he would try to suggest to his inner self that his quest began the very moment he laid eyes on her, but that was, he had to admit, even to himself, a slight exaggeration.
The party had been casually talked about for about a fortnight; bandied about in their e-mails until it was naturally assumed they would all attend. They were a disparate group who had schooled together in the West Country and who talked, through the Internet at least, every few days. He considered them his friends, even though the group consisted of quite a few whom, at school, he had never really liked. That they might not have liked him he merely took for granted.
He casually suggested, in a way that made it seem as if he didn’t actually care if they took him up on it or not, that they might all travel down together. Because he was so casual about it, a shield for his insecurity, a barrier to being rejected, no one took him up on his offer.
The drive down was undertaken alone, with only the music from his radio for company. He sang, shyly stopping whenever another vehicle came near. He drove fast, but was ever mindful of police presence, never seeing any but sure they would spot him the moment he exceeded the limit. The weather was fine, remarkably so for late March, and he kept the top of his sports car down for the entire journey.
In the car park of a service station he used his mobile to call Philip; at school they were sporadic best friends. Reid’s natural uncertainty, diagnosed by many as aloofness, kept anything other than a state of mild acquaintanceship from entering his relationships. With fellow males, at school, University and later at work, he was the one whose entrance into a room provoked the silencing of conversation. The crowd, though not deliberately performing a collegiate act, somehow conspired to exclude him even while he was among them. As for his relationships with what he would term the opposite sex, they were virtually non-existent.
Women at work joked that even his mother felt slightly ill at ease around him; a jest that was as cruel as it was accurate. He didn’t stare at their breasts like a lot of the men did; he didn’t pass remarks that were intended to embarrass. Instead he was polite and respectful, to the extent that the area manager often spoke him to about his need to ‘fit in’, to ‘bond with his fellow workers’. He made the women feel uncomfortable. What sex life he possessed was conducted through websites, and occasionally as a financial transaction.
When he rang Philip he was able to get the address of the party, a quiet town on the Devon coast. Reid had a small case packed with clothes, and a book of hotels in the area. As he neared the end of the M5 he telephoned a couple of hotels near Totnes and secured a reservation at one actually in the town itself; that would give him a base for the few days he intended to stay.
He remembered holidays in the South Hams with his parents. That would be before his father found religion and left one day, later to set up home in Darlington with a cub mistress. Reid’s mother never recovered her equilibrium after that, and her behaviour became increasingly erratic. The holidays, beach filled memories, sun specked evenings, laughter and life, were stains of happiness that as the years progressed were becoming ever harder to recognise as experiences that had happened to him. Somehow they were a montage from a programme he might have seen on television, or perhaps read about in a book, a travel guide possibly.
The town of Totnes was much as he remembered it from his opaque memories. The hill was as steep, the buildings as attractive, and the square as open. He felt at home, in a manner that made him sit in the car long after he had parked it at the rear of the hotel. Eventually he retrieved his bag and registered.
A convention of German tourists was also staying at the hotel, and they seemed to find his London accent rebounding from the clotted cream environs of the foyer as startling as he found theirs impenetrable. The act of securing his key and making an escape to his second floor room was one of strain for him.
Small, but comfortable, the room was sufficiently impersonal to quell his sudden attack of uncharacteristic reminiscences of his past. He had barely a few hours before the party was scheduled to begin, and he knew he would be amongst the first, if not the very first to arrive. He was the one who turned up before the food was fully laid out, and invariably he was the one who helped set out the furniture, or who popped out to the local store for some overlooked necessity. He knew it was an unattractive trait but was incapable of stemming the need not to be late.
British Summer Time was officially starting that weekend but no one had had the sense to tell the seasons. It was damp that evening, a mist drawn from the sea obscuring the lines and contours of the countryside, as though a mother’s protective arm shielding her child from an unwelcome horror.
The address of the party was in a village just outside the town, so he parked in a pub a few hundred yards from the cottage, and feeling unusually skittish, went for a drink in the pub garden. He had eaten an inadequate meal at the hotel, aware of Teutonic eyes marking his solitude with sympathy and some relief for their group identity.
He heard familiar alien accents from the interior of the pub and, boldly taking his pint inside, found some of his friends sitting around the log fire.
‘It is, I tell you. March 21st, when the witches and demons leave their normal haunts and dwell amongst us mortals.’
‘The summer solstice?’ One of the girls asked.
Reid was horrified to find he was speaking aloud, almost before the others had noticed he was there. ‘No, it’s the Equinox.’
A familiar unease crept over the group as they made room for him to drag over a chair and join them.
Philip was the first to speak. ‘Don’t tell us you know about these things magical and mysterious, Reid.’
He drank a long swallow of beer, uncomfortable that they were all waiting for him to speak. He didn’t know anything about pagan festivals, or their significance, but he found words spilling into his head, or at least from his mouth.
‘Ostara is the Spring Equinox, when night and day are of equal length. It falls nine months before the Winter Solstice, a time for looking ahead. Next year’s Sun is already implanted in the womb of the Goddess.’
‘What Goddess?’ someone tried to laugh, but Reid was staring stonily ahead, as his voice became a monotone of explanation.
‘The equinoxes have always been a time of great change; the seeds of the next summer are being sown. It’s the time of resurrection, because after this day the Sun will continually grow in strength until it reaches its peak at the Summer Solstice. Christians changed the Pagan festival to the resurrection of Christ, and it became known as Easter. Naturally, the egg is considered a magickal signal of fertility. The Spring Equinox is a time for new beginnings; but conversely, it is also the time to say good-bye to the old. The Vernal Equinox is also the time to give your seeds, your hopes for the future, their final blessings before they are planted.’
Two of the group, Nicola, and Andy, were kissing. ‘Looks like someone’s ready to plant their seed already.’
The crude remark broke the spell that had cast over them while Reid was delivering his lecture. He was as shocked as they were at the message he had conveyed. He had no memory of reading such things, and he
had no interest in pagan or what he termed, ‘vaguely hippy’ pursuits.
As best they could the group began to regain their mood of drunken hilarity that was better suited as a prelude to a party evening. More drinks were safely gathered in.
Reid, as expected, was banished to the bar with a couple of the others to fetch the drinks. He found himself standing next to a girl he vaguely recalled was a friend of Andy’s. She was speaking to Reid but he realised he hadn’t been listening.
‘Where do the witches come in?’
‘Through the front door same as us.’ One of the humorists at the bar called over, and his friend laughed.
Reid shrugged. ‘I have no idea. I don’t know where any of that came from.’
What frightened him was that a voice was whispering in his ear about the eight sabbats, and the conception of the Sun God. It was insisting he tell this girl about the special rituals witches performed at the right time of night on this right day. It was telling him about Imbolc, around February the 1st, the true birth of spring.
The cottage was picture postcard with hollyhocks and roses, a cat asleep on the windowsill; a white cat Reid was amused to notice. They were all but drunk when they arrived and Reid was pleased to be caught up in their swell of lateness and relaxed belonging. The host and hostess of the party, it seemed to be a housewarming, were eager to invite them in, and the group dispersed into the downstairs rooms, to grab more drink, a little food, and to hide in the dimmed lighting and the excessive rhythms of the music.
Reid, more than most, was soothed by the impersonality of the surroundings, unfamiliar and dark as they were. They seemed to welcome and mask him in a way that he found womb comforting.
Bryony was suddenly there, though he wouldn’t learn her name immediately. He became aware of a presence near him and feigning casual indifference was startled to find the person staring at him was a dark haired beauty, with an enigmatic smile and an empty glass.
‘Would you be a dear and top me up,’ she said, and her voice was a spiders web of whisper and treacherous allure.
Without thinking, Reid reached for her glass and tried to take it from her. She held it, surprisingly easily, and, with one finger of her hand, she softly stroked his fingers. Before he could react, return the gesture or make an inappropriate remark, she had released the glass and he was delving in the kitchen for an opened bottle of white wine.
A couple of his London friends were opening some bottles of beer.
‘Who’s that girl with the black hair?’ He asked them. He turned to look for her but couldn’t find her in the throng.
‘No, idea, mate. Watch your step though, if she’s a local girl she’s probably one of those Vernal girls you were telling us about.’
Reid knew they were poking fun at him but for the moment he was so excited to have made normal contact with an attractive woman that he was impervious to ridicule.
She was waiting for him in a dark corner near the French doors into the garden. Night was heavily drawn in and only by the light of an alert moon could they see the shrubs and trees laid out in manufactured effect in the garden.
‘It’s a wonderful time of year isn’t it?’ She asked, but wasn’t expecting a reply.
Reid was a logical person and if asked a question he would always endeavour to respond. ‘The Equinox.’ He began timidly, wondering if a repeat of his pub lecture would impress her.
She touched his hand. ‘The time when the seeds are sown for the growth of summer.’
The sounds of the party were dissipating as they talked, and for the first time in his life Reid found himself truly relaxing. It was as if the ghostly repression that always haunted him was cast aside.
‘What’s your name?’
‘I know yours, Reid.’
‘How…’
‘I heard someone call you earlier.’
They had drifted into the garden where the sweet smell of earth after a light rain pervaded their nostrils. It was cool, and she brushed her body against his in a natural motion, much as a cat will rub its scent.
She leaned to smell a damp flower head, brought her hand over the petals, closed them in her fist, and crushed the beauty in her palm. ‘Bryony,’ she said.
Reid took her hand and smelled the destroyed flower upon it.
‘Already the seeds are growing, beginning to swell with new life. Will you kiss me, Reid?’
There was no party now, no house-warmed cottage, with spilling drinks and rising volumes of increasingly excited voices. The night wrapped around them and the moon lit their movement.
Reid was less experienced than she, and she led him into what for him was an initiation. She sensed his lack of confidence and reassured and prompted him. Their lips formed a bud that burst into bloom, as her hands floated and danced like pollen over his body. He felt this was a moment in his personal history that he should treasure, but the emotions overwhelmed and consumed him so quickly that the memory was fading before it had awoken.
The grass was damp beneath him as they lay together. There seemed to be clouds of moths circling their heads, as they moved and entranced one another. Reid was a man in the throes of unusual passion as spells and incantations exploded inside his head. The voice that had beckoned to him in the pub re-entered his thoughts, urging him to touch there, to linger a moment longer than he might have done.
‘Bloody hell, come and look at this everyone.’
Reid woke as if from a deep sleep, and was immediately conscious of a gauze mist of faces staring down at him, as he lay supine on the wet grass. His whole body was tingling, aching and scratched. He was naked, and he was alone.
‘Here cover yourself with this.’ It was the hostess of the party, evidently un-amused at the carnal display.
Reid ineffectually held the knitted blanket across his body, thrilled at the daring mood of devilry that was in him.
Gradually the people dispersed, back into the house, leaving Reid with just Philip
‘I can’t say I approve of the location,’ Philip said. ‘But good on you. Who was she?’
‘Bryony.’
The hostess re-appeared, with her husband. Neither looked friendly. ‘There’s no one named Bryony here.’
Reid struggled to his feet, holding the ridiculously small blanket in place.
‘It’s a child’s blanket.’ The husband said, seemingly to himself.
‘She has black hair; she was wearing a green dress.’
‘I told you. I know all the people here…well, those we invited in any case. There isn’t anyone like that here.’
Sensing the atmosphere was getting heated, Philip suggested to Reid that they head back to Totnes. ‘But you’ll have to drive. I’m drunk.’
Reid felt the first pain in his fingers as a dull ache as he fumbled in his pockets for the car keys. He was still so enraptured by events that he thought nothing of it. The drive back didn’t take long, and as they parked the car at the hotel, Philip noticed something wrong with Reid’s fingers.
‘What did you do? Shut them in a door?’
Reid looked down and saw that all the fingers on his right hand appeared bruised. They were slightly puckered, like skin gets when submerged in water for a period of time, and they were turning black.
He shook the hand in the air. ‘It’s throbbing.’
As they climbed the stairs to Reid’s room, Philip said. ‘Who was she? You must have known her.’
Seated in the room, Reid on the bed, nursing his aching hand, and Philip on the solitary chair, Reid said, ‘I’d never met her before in my life.’ And will I ever see her again? He thought sadly.
‘I have to admit I didn’t have you pegged as the type.’
‘What type?’
‘You’ve just met a girl at a party, and within half an hour you’re making love with her in the garden, within full view of everyone. That’s not something you’ve done everyday.’
‘She’s the first girl I’ve ever made love with that I didn’t have to pa
y afterwards.’
Philip looked embarrassed but wasn’t surprised. ‘Will you see her again?’
By morning the first two fingers had dropped off after blackening in the night. The thumb was hanging on by wisps of skin and sinew. The remaining two fingers were curled, shrivelled and useless. The pain in the hand was constant.
He bought bandages in the chemists halfway up the hill, and then drove to the cottage to apologise. That was what he told himself, although he knew he wanted to find out where Bryony lived.
The cottage was barely awake, with guests sprawled out over furniture and floors. The hostess was still asleep, but the husband was tidying round. He took Reid into the garden, gripping his arm rather too tightly for comfort.
‘Good on you, for last night. I don’t know you at all but I haven’t taken offence. Sue was a bit put out, but she’ll be okay.’
Reid tried to find out about Bryony but the man was genuinely baffled about her. She hadn’t arrived with anyone, in fact no one remembered seeing her at all.
‘What have you done to your hand?’
Back at the hotel, when he removed the bandage, all the fingers had gone, leaving blackened, bleeding stumps at the end of his hand.
While he should have been scared he was in fact ecstatic. Emotion that had lain dormant within him for years, hibernating to a point of stupor, was spilling over so that he felt he might burst. The repressed personality that had gilded him was cowering before this new confidence that seemed to imbue him with life and vigour.
The left hand began to ache as he pondered how he might find Bryony, whose presence everyone seemed to be denying.
She had given few clues to where she lived as they talked at the party. He guessed she lived near to the cottage in Staverton, but if the party host wasn’t aware of her perhaps she didn’t. There was a pub in the village, The Sea Trout Inn, and for no other reason than he had nowhere else to look, he went there.
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