I stand up and make for my clothes. They"re piled up on the floor by the door. But I don"t manage it. Something in my back shifts and I fall to the floor. Suddenly I can"t move my legs any more.
Erin starts talking. That voice. The voice. I don"t even think it is completely hers. "This one"s called "Bearpit"."
"What?" I say, from the floor. "What?"
"The sun beat down relentlessly, bleaching the gra.s.s and the stone and turning the whole fellside yellowish-brown. The house wavered in the heat. It was this house. Fell House. Where the barn stands now, there was nothing but a hole.
"The boy had been a shepherd. His long black hair was greasy and kept falling into his eyes. Tiredly, he swept it back. And again. And again. He wore black trousers held up with string, and nothing else. The sun had turned his skin the colour of iron ore. His wrists and ankles bore the raw marks of recent captivity and his legs were weak. He stumbled. The mountains were steep. But he was less likely to get caught up there. greasy and kept falling into his eyes. Tiredly, he swept it back. And again. And again. He wore black trousers held up with string, and nothing else. The sun had turned his skin the colour of iron ore. His wrists and ankles bore the raw marks of recent captivity and his legs were weak. He stumbled. The mountains were steep. But he was less likely to get caught up there.
"Fell House lay somewhere behind him, and he knew that it would not be long before somehow it tried to find him. Despite the heat, despite his burning back, despite his bleeding wrists and ankles, despite the pain in his head and the heaviness of his feet and of his eyelids, he continued to lift one foot up and put it down again in front of the other. And again. And again. And again.
"He woke up and found gra.s.s in his mouth. The day had cooled, although the sun was still up. He could see that he was lying in shadow.
""They know that you"ve escaped," somebody advised him. "They"re sending out the dogs as we speak. You don"t have long. You should not have slept."
"The boy got to his feet and shaded his eyes in order to look up at the man in front of him. The man sat atop a huge black horse with beautiful big eyes and wore a black cloak. Beneath the cloak, the boy could make out a strangely shaped black leather boot. It didn"t seem to have much room for the foot it was almost a ball. A flat-bottomed ball. In the distance, the sun was approaching the ocean. "Who are you?" asked the boy.
"The man dismounted, but even without the horse he stood a good two feet higher than the boy. The boy saw that both boots were the same unusual shape. His face was lean and lined, and his mouth was thin and flat, and his eyes were black and his hair was short and white. "I am the Lord of hereabouts," said the man. "And I know what happens at Fell House. And I want to help you because I know what they have in store for you." His eyes searched those of the boy for a moment, finding confirmation. "They will find you, boy. And they will take you back."
"The boy shook his head a little and, despite the shame of it, started to cry. "They want me to fight," he said. "Although really they just want to see me die." There was a silence. And then, "Have you any water, Lord?"
""Water? Here." The man unhooked a black leather water carrier from the black tack of the horse and handed it to the boy. The boy drank deeply, and wiped his lips, and handed the carrier back.
""Thank you," he said. The man smiled broadly, and the boy saw that his teeth were small and pointed. His ears too. The man put his head back and drank also. The boy heard a hissing sound as the water disappeared into the man"s mouth, as if it had been poured on to hot metal.
""So then," the man said. "Let me help you."
""What can you do? Will you take me away? Take me to the town? Will you arrest them that live there? That man and his wife? The things they do, Lord. Them"s not people, Lord, not real people like you an" me. Help me. Please."
""I won"t do any of those things." The man took the boy"s throat in his black leather glove. "That man and his wife, boy, are indeed people. They are as human as anybody can be. And as for me well, no, I"m not. And as for you that"s your choice."
"The man looked at the ground. They heard the rough, wet barking of savage dogs. The boy looked at the man and didn"t really understand. The man looked back up. "I could take you away. I could destroy that house, and the people inside it. But I won"t, because I built that house, and it is my house, and it will always be my house. And besides, it would be of far greater value to give you everything you need in order for you to do it yourself. Not just this time. But any time. Boy. I can give you power and strength beyond your imagining. All you need to do is pledge your allegiance to me. To me and my name. To me and my standard. When the time comes, your body and your soul are mine to command. Do you understand me?"
"The boy nodded, his throat still held in the iron grip of the Lord.
""Good. In return, then. If ever you feel the need, or the desire, you can change yourself into something far greater. Something older and purer. Simpler. Stronger. Something like the wolves that haunt the forests and the moors. I have put much of the wolf into you now. And your soul is mine. Do you still understand me?"
"The boy nodded. The man took his hand from the boy"s throat and blood sprang from the marks that it left and ran down the boy"s neck. The man smiled again, teeth glinting in the fading light, and mounted his horse. A black fiddle was slung across his back, like a sword." glinting in the fading light, and mounted his horse. A black fiddle was slung across his back, like a sword."
"He let the men from the farm beat him and whip him and tie him up. He let them carry him back to Fell House. He thought about the bodies of the dogs; he thought about the earthy, fatty taste of the dogs" blood. He let the men untie him in the yard of Fell House, and he let them kick him, and he let them beat him some more. He let them throw him into the pit in front of the three-deep crowd that stood around the edge of it, whooping and jeering. He stood up in the bottom of the pit, illuminated by the the flaming torches, and looked up at the faces of the spectators. He let them spit on him, p.i.s.s on him, worse. He looked at the wooden barricade the trunks of three trees lashed together that covered the hole in the floor of the pit that led to deeper holes, and he wondered who or what would be hidden down there tonight. He somehow knew the kind of games that had been played there before. The people that stood up above roared and laughed and placed bets. People. The boy smiled.
"A voice rang out. A depraved, cracked, creaky wheeze of a voice that reeked of decades of cruelty. "Bets in! Wiv git ready "n"s all set t"gor. On"t three!"
"The boy tensed. He closed his eyes and willed the change upon himself.
""One!" the crowd bellowed, a broken chorus. The ropes tied to the wooden barricade tensed. The boy fell over and his body jerked about like it was on strings being pulled viciously, randomly. The crowd laughed. "Two!" they shouted, and the boy found himself on all fours, coughing up blood and hair. He felt something rising up from his stomach and up his throat. The pain was so great he could hear it tearing through his muscles and nerves. He could not shake the feeling that he was dying. Everything inside him was rushing towards his face. The tree-trunks shifted slightly, maybe because of the people pulling the ropes, maybe because something underneath was trying to get out. his body jerked about like it was on strings being pulled viciously, randomly. The crowd laughed. "Two!" they shouted, and the boy found himself on all fours, coughing up blood and hair. He felt something rising up from his stomach and up his throat. The pain was so great he could hear it tearing through his muscles and nerves. He could not shake the feeling that he was dying. Everything inside him was rushing towards his face. The tree-trunks shifted slightly, maybe because of the people pulling the ropes, maybe because something underneath was trying to get out.
""Three!"
"The word rose up from their hopeless, misguided mouths, insignificant in itself, but significant in that it was the signal for the raising of the wooden barrier. Significant in that it immediately preceded the transformation from boy into something else, not man, not animal, but something else entirely, something completely other, and outside their understanding. They watched, and their eyes eyes that had seen the vilest things watered as they conveyed visions to their brains that would induce such horror that, had these people survived, they would never have been able to escape the memory of it.
"Above the pit, the house and the fells, the stars hung in their empty s.p.a.ces.
"The boy died and was reborn as something evil, monstrous. The boy"s blood coloured the walls and the floor of the pit. The crowd stood stock-still, rooted partly through their own morbid fascination and partly through some other magic.
"Slowly, carefully, a huge animal emerged from behind the barrier: dark brown, bulky, hungry-looking and n.o.ble, in a sense. The bear revealed itself. It could smell the blood, and despite being able to sense the deeply unnatural nature of its companion in the pit, it had to eat. It approached the thing that had been a boy slowly at first, and then with a suddenness that shocked the onlookers, launched itself at the wolf-thing.
"The fight not that it was much of a fight was over before it had begun. The bear died painfully and messily. Its opponent leapt from the pit and killed every last man and woman that had been there; those that tried to run, it hunted and found and savaged. It ate some of them. It found that it preferred the taste of women.
"The day dawned on a young-looking boy with ancient eyes licking bear blood off his skin by the side of a pit half full of broken bodies. The boy who would henceforth be named Bearpit looked over the yard, the house, the fellside, the lake reflecting the glory of the newly risen sun, and he could not deny the joy inside him."
Erin finishes the story. I watch a small grey sc.r.a.p of spirit detach itself from the wall and zoom around the room a couple of times. It flutters to and from the dead man like a moth with a candle. Then it floats up to the ceiling, where it dissipates into a thousand smaller pieces. They fall like a kind of rain. But every single drop fades away before landing on my pale skin. Erin seems unaware.
"Francis?" she says.
"Yeah?" I try moving my legs. I find that I can. They are part of me once more. Part of my body. I stand. I lower myself back on to the bed.
"Francis? Have I been asleep?"
"No," I say. "You"ve been telling me a story. About the house. About a boy called Bearpit."
"I don"t know anything about the house."
"You don"t even remember telling me the story," I say. "I don"t think you need to know anything about the house to tell the stories."
"Francis, I"m tired. And I"m starting to freak out a bit. I can hear things outside."
"It"s the wind," I say.
"It"s not the wind," she says. "You know it"s not the wind."
"It"s the gate."
"It"s not."
"It"s the cats."
"No, Francis, it"s not, you know it"s not. Francis, I don"t understand why you"re not dead."
"Thank you," I say, after a pause.
"Francis, it"s not funny funny!" Her voice is trembling.
"I"m sorry," I say. Although I"m not sure what I said that she thought was supposed to be funny.
"You know it"s all f.u.c.ked up," she says. "Francis, what"s that noise noise?"
I look over and she"s crying. I can hear distant music from out on the mountain. I can hear a fiddle. I can hear laughter, of a sort. Warped and throaty. I can hear shouting and howling and yelping and a rough shrieking. The sounds are distant. They touch something inside me. I know that wherever the sound is coming from is where I"ll find Jennifer. It"s where I"ll go. sounds are distant. They touch something inside me. I know that wherever the sound is coming from is where I"ll find Jennifer. It"s where I"ll go.
"The noise," I say. "What can you hear?"
"Just that shrieking." She wipes her face. "It"s freaking me out."
I don"t say anything. Because I"m suddenly aware of somebody else in the room. Somebody is sitting on the end of the bed. It"s Balthazar the snowman. I feel the ice-cold water soaking into the bedclothes and numbing my feet. He turns to look at me. His back is crooked and blue. His head is overly large, and misshapen. His eye-sockets are big enough to have been gouged out by hands. His nose is long, bulbous and dripping. He doesn"t really have a mouth. It"s like the bottom half of his head has fallen away. He has brittle-looking arms and his body is thin. Thinner than we built it. He looks unhealthy.
"Turn," he says. His voice is old, low. You can hear melt water in it. Snow falling from trees. Glaciers splintering. Falling into the sea. I look at Erin. She is looking at me.
"What is it, Francis?" she asks. "What"s wrong?"
I look back at Balthazar. "Turn now," he says. "Before it"s too late. You need to turn now if you want to find her. Francis. Turn."
I think about that something that I sensed rushing up towards the surface as I woke. The shadow on my brain. Jennifer. I think about Jennifer.
"You won"t regret it," Balthazar says. "It"s what you"ve always wanted. Your fantasies, this idea you have of Jennifer. You can find her with this gift. This gift is just waiting for you to take it. Waiting for you to discover it, take it, make it yours. And with it, you can change the world. This world that makes you sick. This world that makes you angry. The news that leaks into you. You can take this gift out into your world and spread it like freedom and never have to think about cancer or money again. Look at me. Change." Jennifer. You can find her with this gift. This gift is just waiting for you to take it. Waiting for you to discover it, take it, make it yours. And with it, you can change the world. This world that makes you sick. This world that makes you angry. The news that leaks into you. You can take this gift out into your world and spread it like freedom and never have to think about cancer or money again. Look at me. Change."
My eyes absorb his image. His cold wraps around me. I realise his strangeness. It sinks into me. Strength floods my limbs. His head slips forward. A tiny movement like a nod of approval.
I close my eyes. I know it now. Beyond the shadow of a doubt. There is something deeply wrong with me. Hallucinating Balthazar. I focus inwards and I can feel something in there. Something hard and dark at the centre of me. Something growing. Ever-hungry. Swallowing up all of my healthy body for sustenance.
As I think about it, it wakes up. I feel it growing inside my head. Some sort of cl.u.s.ter of mutant cells expanding. Spreading. Corrupting the cells around them. I can feel them breaking off and flowing around the body. Lodging in joints and ligaments and building up in extremities. They"re acc.u.mulating. Clinging to the insides and inside sides of me. Growing, growing, growing. Growing.
Taking over.
JACK.
The sky was clearing when we got back outside, the inky black spattered with a thick spill of stars, the clouds rushing away over the sea like crows from a sudden, barking dog, and the cold air rushed into our mouths and throats and lungs. There was some sort of feeling in the air; Francis was not dead, we could see again, and the sky was beautiful.
The barn was behind us.
Graham was deathly silent, and against the settled snow I could see his silhouette tremble. It was that bright, beneath the stars, that we all stood out sharply against the ground, like cut-outs.
"Can you hear that?" Taylor asked.
"Yeah," I said. "The fiddle."
"Yeah."
"But there was a fiddle player at the party," I said. "Maybe it"s not that bad. Maybe everybody got away from, um, whatever happened. Whatever it was."
"No," Graham said. "They didn"t."
"Graham," I said. "What was in the barn?"
He just shook his head and stumbled on, not even turning round to look at me. Taylor and I made eye contact, Taylor raising his eyebrows ludicrously high, as high as only Taylor could raise them.
"Graham," Taylor said. "Come on. We need to know what"s happening."
Graham stopped walking and slumped his shoulders. The head of the axe slumped to the ground. After a long moment"s silence, he turned to face us. "They"re all in there," he said. "The guests."
Everyone we know was in the barn, he said, but that didn"t mean everyone, that is, the people we didn"t know, the people we hadn"t known, the fiddler and his wild dancers, the aloof, preoccupied gatecrashers they might have escaped.
Or maybe the gatecrashers had been the perpetrators, because they had been gatecrashers, hadn"t they? After all, that girl, that dancing girl, she had been one of those headed for the gathering at the end of Wast.w.a.ter. Maybe the fiddler was one of them too.
The sound of the fiddle sawed across my brain. It was coming from a distance, echoing around the mountains easily now that the mist had lifted. From down the slope of the fellside.
From the lake.
"Everyone we know?" I asked.
Graham nodded. "There were none of those people that we didn"t know. But everyone we know. Is in that barn. They"re all dead, Jack."
At least we were still there. At least Francis and Erin were still alive. But Graham"s words sank into me like stones into the lake.
And Jennifer. Jennifer had had to be still out there somewhere, but if all those people had been killed, then Jennifer, too, was surely dead? to be still out there somewhere, but if all those people had been killed, then Jennifer, too, was surely dead?
I started walking, just struck out, and Graham and Taylor followed.
I noticed that there were no electric lights on in the valley.
"There are no lights on in the valley," I said.
Taylor and Graham looked down, looked all around, from the overbearing fells at the head of the valley, down across the lake and the woodland that surrounded it, over the foothills at the mouth of the valley, along all of the roads that stretched out towards the sea, towards the places where the coastal villages normally twinkled with hundreds of orange lights, and everything was dark. Everything.
There were no ships out on the sea.
There were no cars on the roads.
There were no lights on in any of the houses that I knew dotted the fellside.
I looked up.
There were no satellites blinking their lonely paths through s.p.a.ce.
The fiddler played.
There are stories of lost or missing fiddlers from all over the country. The fiddler would become obsessed by some hole or tunnel entrance that led n.o.body knew where, and, despite the urgings of his family and friends and lover, would embark on an underground journey of discovery. the country. The fiddler would become obsessed by some hole or tunnel entrance that led n.o.body knew where, and, despite the urgings of his family and friends and lover, would embark on an underground journey of discovery.
"I will find out where it goes," he would say, or "I will find out what is down there," or "I will find out what is beneath our town."
"But how will we know where you are?" his lover, or friends, or family would ask. "How will we know that you are not dead?"
"I will play my fiddle," he would say. "And by the sound of it you will be able to discern my presence, my location. My very existence."
There would be nothing that the friends, family, lover, could do, and the fiddler would set off, and the sound of the fiddle would fade, but then remain constant. In some stories, those above ground trace its movement. In others, they don"t. In some stories, the music of the fiddle suddenly stops, indicating that some tragedy has befallen the fiddler; in other stories, the music of the fiddle gradually fades away, indicating that the fiddler is descending yet further.
In no version is the fiddler ever seen again.