We got back into the Land Rover. “Who lives here?” I asked Adrian as he pressed the ignition button.
“People who can’t afford to move. And a lot of people who can—every other farm’s a second home now. There was a tinning industry here for thousands of years, one of the oldest industrial sites in Europe. But the last mine closed in the 1990s. The fishery’s pretty much been destroyed. You have gastropubs and holiday camps—caravans, surfers at St. Ives. But the farmers barely get by.”
We rounded a blind curve. Ahead of us, the moor sheared off into cliffs, hundreds of feet high. Beyond was the sea—deep indigo churned white along the rocky shore. I saw no sign of human habitation. It didn’t look like land’s end but world’s end.
Without warning, the Land Rover halted beside a block of granite painted with faded white letters. KETHELWITE FARM. Beyond, a dirt track arrowed into the moor. Knee-high ruts were gouged into the soil, where the snow was already starting to melt. Adrian pulled out his e-cigarette and drew at it, exhaling blue vapor into the chilly air. Finally he gunned the motor and pulled the Rover onto the dirt track.
The road to the farm was almost a mile long, across rock-strewn fields that had long since reverted to moor. Gorse, desiccated heather and bracken, lethal-looking coils of blackthorn. The ocean might have been a thousand miles away. Adrian drove one-handed, deftly steering past a few contorted trees and countless piles of stones, easing the Rover up vertiginously steep, teeth-jarring tracks, up one hillside then down the other.
We reached a fast-moving stream, with a ramshackle bridge of buckled boards balanced on stone piers. I clutched the door handle as the Rover jounced across, but Adrian seemed utterly at ease. His urban skin had peeled away; the lines in his face smoothed out as Poppy’s had when she first showed me the thaumatrope.
“I remember making that one.” He pointed to a heap of gray rocks. “Poppy would bring us down here and watch while we stacked cairns. That’s what we did for fun. And you can see just how much fun we had.”
There must have been hundreds of cairns, some only three or four stones laid neatly atop each other, others four or five feet tall. I pointed to a massive stone fortress that loomed atop a distant promontory. “Did you make that?”
“That’s Carn Scrija—Castle Scream. Natural outcropping.”
I squinted at the huge structure. “I can see a window.”
“Natural phenomenon. When the wind comes howling through that hole, you’d swear it was a person screaming. Hang on—”
The Land Rover crept down one last hill, slowing to a halt when we reached the bottom. Adrian let the shifter slip from his hand. The engine died.
“Home again, home again, jiggety jig,” he said.
Before us stretched a compound of stone buildings separated by bare earth churned into icy muck. A grim, two-story granite farmhouse, with a few deep-set windows and a low-pitched roof; long low barns of the same charcoal-gray stone; a number of makeshift sheds. It all looked untidy but not neglected.
Some outbuildings were of the same vintage as the house and barn—1700s, I guessed. Others were constructed of rusting corrugated metal and plywood, two-by-fours and cannibalized car bodies. A hut made of flat gray stones stood alongside a child’s plastic sandbox shaped like a turtle, filled with rocks not sand. A doll clung to the metal chain of a sagging swing set. I saw an Alfa Romeo convertible, its cloth roof in shreds, and an antique tractor buried up to its axles in mud. Farm implements that belonged in an agricultural museum: scythes, wooden ox yokes, rusted axes.
Behind a metal fence near the stone barn, a shaggy brown cow bent over a pile of hay. It raised its head to regard us, its horns twin crescents above long-lashed black eyes. A timeworn sign perched above the barn’s open door, and I recognized the logo for Thanatrope, with its rusted pylon and ghostly eye.
“What the fuck?”
Behind us, Krishna sat bolt upright and stared out the window. “Where the fuck are we? What are you doing?”
She tried to open the back passenger door, kicking at it frantically, but I knew her fury barely masked raw fear.
“Hey, chill,” I said.
“Krish, please—” Adrian began.
“Don’t you fucking chill me!” She punched my arm, hard, then Adrian’s. He flinched as she screamed, “Where’s Tolly? Where’s Tolly?”
I jumped from the car and yanked the back door open, grabbing her by one leg. Krishna fell out, Bruno’s overcoat flopping around her like a blanket. “Shut the fuck up, okay? We’re in—someplace.”
I looked accusingly at Adrian, who was trying to help Krishna up.
“Penwith,” he gasped. West Pen—ow! Goddamn it, Krish—”
“You’re a fucking pervo!” She stumbled to her feet, shoved him away, and stared at me venomously. “And you! You drugged me up!”
“You did that all by yourself,” I snapped. “Do you even remember who I am? I’m Cass—we met at the Banshee in Camden Town.”
“Camden?” She blinked, pushed her matted hair from her face, and looked around. “What is this place?”
I looked at Adrian. “I’m gonna let you field that one.”
“Krishna, I need you to listen to me.” Adrian’s deep voice seemed to drop another octave. “Something bad happened. Very bad.”
Krishna paled. “What?”
He gave her a quick account of Morven’s and Mallo’s deaths, but with no mention of Poppy. Krishna began to cry.
“No, no, no…”
“I know, it’s horrible.” Adrian laid a tentative hand on her shoulder. “I’m sorry I had to tell you.”
“Did you go the police?” Krishna’s voice faltered.
“No. I thought it was more prudent to leave.”
“With her?” Krishna whipped around to fix me again with that Medusa glare. “Me, now Adrian—are you having it off wth him too?”
Adrian said, “Don’t be stupid, Krish.”
“Stupid? You did everyone else, right? You and…”
She began to cry again, smacking her palms against the car. Adrian ran a hand through his hair. He turned to get his backpack from the Rover and hoisted it over his shoulder.
“Stay here,” he said. “In the car. Keep your heads down. The keys are in there. Krish, if you see anyone coming, text me.”
“Where are you going?” I demanded.
“I need to talk to Tamsin.”
He walked off, his Doc Martens ringing against the frozen ground. Krishna clutched the too-big coat around her spindly frame. Her eyes widened.
“Tamsin’s,” she repeated, her teeth chattering. “That’s where we are?”
“I think so.”
“Fuck me.”
“Do you know her?”
“Morven’s told me about her. She—”
She turned to scan the outbuildings and muddy drive, frowning. “I been here, I think. When I was a kid. With the caravan. My mum and dad knew someone here.”
“Tamsin?” I asked. Krishna shrugged. “What about a girl named Poppy Teasel? A singer.”
“I’ve heard that song,” she said softly. “‘The wind, the wind…’ My mum used to play that in the caravan. You know her? Poppy?”
“I’ve met her. Amazing voice.”
Krishna’s face twisted. Her eyes narrowed: She looked at me as though I’d struck her. She drew a long hissing breath, and began to sing.
“The wind, the wind, the wind blows high
All the children say they’ll die
For want of the Golden City…”
I felt as though I might jump out of my skin. As uncannily as she’d channeled Ronnie Spector singing “Be My Maby” at the Banshee, she now channeled Poppy Teasel, head thrown back as she gazed into the sky. Moisture glistened beneath her eyes as she repeated the last line, her voice rising to a shout that became a hoarse scream.
“For want of the Golden City
For want of the Golden City
For want of the Golden City…”
She fell silent and began to tremble uncontrollably inside the heavy overcoat, hugging her arms to her chest. My flesh crawled: The song’s final notes rang in my head like the impact of a blow. After a long moment, I forced myself to speak.
“Back there in London, when we found you—heroin?”
“Not your fucking business,” she said dully. “I drank too much, is all. And it wasn’t heroin, it was K.”
“What’s going on with Adrian? Are you and he involved?”
Krishna gave me a look that combined repulsion and disbelief. “You having me on? Not if he were the last man in London.”
She stared at the house, then broke into a run, her feet sliding across the icy ground. When she reached the door, she flung it open and stormed inside. Seconds later I heard her excoriating someone in an enraged shriek.
“… never fucking told me!”
I dug my hands into the pockets of my leather jacket, shivering. I waited to see if anyone would emerge from the house, but the argument continued unabated, Adrian’s deep voice vying with Krishna’s.
The frigid wind whipped at me so relentlessly, I might not have been wearing a jacket at all. I pulled up my collar. Across the muddy yard, the Highland cow looked up to regard me with eyes dark and liquid as Krishna’s. It stepped to the barbed-wire fence, shook its head, and snorted, nostrils flaring, before turning to race across its paddock, hooves churning the frozen mud.
I got my bag from the Land Rover, found the bottle of Vyvanse, and took four. I opened one of the screwtop wine bottles from the service area and drank until I felt the familiar burn in my chest.
I capped the bottle and stuck it back in my bag. A few yards away, the stone barn loomed dark against the early morning sky. I trudged over and stopped in front of the open doorway.
Above me, the sign painted with the Thanatrope logo knocked rhythmically against the wall in the wind. The eye made sense, now that I knew its origin in the bone amulet around my neck.
But the pylon remained inexplicable, though not out of place within this barren landscape of stone and ancient ruins. I shut my eyes and saw molten whorls of crimson where the sun struck my eyelid, the skeletal outline of the pylon.
A bird flapped noisily overhead. I blinked and looked up to see a large crow or raven settle onto the top of the sign. It clacked its long red beak and tipped its head to regard me with one inky eye. The feathers on its throat fanned out, making it appear as large as a good-sized cat.
I expected it to fly away. But the bird remained where it was, opening and closing its beak. The sound made me think of someone whetting a blade. I shoved my hands into my pockets and stepped into the barn.
Slats of light slanted down from the ceiling where broken roof tiles had dropped to the floor. The place was filled with junk. Old wooden trunks, translucent plastic storage bins stuffed with newspapers and magazines, wooden crates of tools. It smelled musty, though not unpleasant—of dried grass, linseed oil, moldering paper, and some sweet herb I didn’t recognize. An enormous hay rake was suspended between the rafters, its tines laced with cobwebs and dust.
I picked my way to the back wall, where a dozen painted canvas flats leaned. Childlike renderings of green mountains and blue skies, a sun with rays like spider’s legs. Peace signs and astrological sigils; figures from a tarot deck. The sets from Thanatrope. I ran a finger across the picture of the High Priestess, her imperious face pleached with mildew. The paint flaked away like blue and yellow snow.
I walked to the far end of the barn, where a ramshackle structure rose above a canyon of cardboard boxes. Nowhere as tall as it appeared on film, its rusted struts buckled with age: the pylon. Behind it was a door.
I pushed it open and stepped into a dark storeroom filled with film equipment. Cameras, rigs, microphones—all state of the art, circa 1973. Stacks of film canisters. A vintage editing table with a swivel chair—a Steenbeck flatbed deck, with its distinctive blue and brushed nickel hardware. I recognized this bit of archaic technology from my brief stint at NYU, when I’d occasionally hang out with a friend who was in the film studies program.
I sank onto the swivel chair and ran my hand across the Steenbeck’s surface. It was free of dust. A reel of thirty-five-millimeter film sat on one of the aluminum plates. The acetate threaded between myriad spindles, then through the picture gate where the projection lamp would shine on it, frame by frame, and onto the take-up spindles and take-up plate. Beside the guillotine splicer was a white chargraph grease pencil, wth a single frame of thirty-five millimeter beside it. Someone had drawn a vertical white line through the frame, indicating it needed to be cut.
I picked up the piece of film. It was too dark to see inside the storeroom, so I stepped into the doorway and held the frame to the light.
Squinting, I could just make out a figure lying in a patch of grass. A corona of sunlight bloomed in the upper corner of the frame, burnishing the figure’s blond hair, limbs, and naked torso. Magic hour. Lens flare had ruined the effect, presumably why the frame had been cut. The tiny figure was turned so I could only see bright hair, an arm cocked at an unnatural angle beside its head. It was impossible to tell if it was a doll or a child.
“Dad?”
I turned to see a boy standing in the barn. Twelve or thirteen years old, rope thin and big boned, dressed in filthy jeans, muck boots, and a black hoodie so big it came to his knees. His eyes widened when he saw my face. “The fuck are you?”
“A friend of Adrian’s. Who are you?”
“Samsung.” He took a step away from me.
“Samsung?”
He blushed. “Sam. I’m not the cunt what named me.”
“That’s good.” I cocked a thumb at the contents of the room. “What’s all this?”
“What do you think it is? Crap.”
The boy dug in a pocket of his hoodie and produced a crumpled, hand-rolled cigarette and a lighter. He had a sharp pale face, good-looking in a ferrety way. Tangled black hair to his shoulders; Adrian’s deep-set black eyes; thin lips, chapped and bitten. He only came to my shoulders but looked like he’d get much taller: he had big bones and large, long-fingered hands, their nails blackened and knuckles seamed with dirt. He lit the cigarette—tobacco—took a few quick drags, and walked away.
“You live here?” I called, following him.
The boy looked back at me disdainfully. His eyes narrowed. He quickened his steps then broke into a run, heading for the farmhouse.
The door opened before he got there. Adrian stepped aside as the boy ran up to him.
“I thought he was you,” Sam said, gesturing.
“She,” said Adrian. He waved me toward him. “I see you’ve met the family.”
Inside it was dim. Flagstone floors, whitewashed stone walls, wooden beams overhead. The cramped hallway led into a pantry filled with baskets of apples and large burlap sacks. This opened onto a large kitchen outfitted with scuffed furniture, gas range, and noisily humming 1950s refrigerator, and another dim room with an enamel-topped dining table and mismatched chairs.
All the windows were small and deeply recessed, with lead-muntined panes. Where panes were missing or broken, rags and cardboard had been stuffed into the gaps. Like the barn, every inch of available space was crammed with stuff—empty food tins, flattened boxes, soiled clothing, fishy-smelling cans of cat food fuzzed with mold. A few chairs and inexpertly handmade tables. Writing covered the walls: grocery lists, lists of names, bad poetry, a rant against the Sunshine Free School.
Here and there something hinted at an earlier, more affluent life for both the house and its inhabitants. Peeling ribbons of vintage Art Nouveau wallpaper; an umbrella stand made of an elephant’s foot; a crystal chandelier, gray with dust and draped with tarnished Christmas tinsel. In the kitchen, an antique oaken daybed was shoved against a wall, its rumpled bedclothes trailing onto the floor. Sam kicked at these and darted off. I followed Adrian into a living room.
“Have a seat,” he said.
“Where’s Krishna?”
“She took off,” he said dully. “I’ll make some tea, if I can find any.”
He left, and I surveyed the room. Sisal carpeting had disintegrated to a web of filthy straw. A brown, deflated soccer ball sat abandoned in the corner opposite a fireplace. The only furniture was a pair of threadbare red velvet armchairs.
I collapsed into one of these. The room had a pervasive fetid odor that I could taste as much as smell—sweat and smoke and mold, rotting vegetables, beer and urine. The reek of rural poverty. People had lived here for centuries. I burrowed into the chair, hugging my bag to my chest, and closed my eyes.
“Hey—”
I sat up blearily. The black-haired boy, Sam, squatted in front of me. “My dad said to give you this.”
He held out a steaming mug and I took it. “Thanks.”
It was strong black tea, bitter and very hot. I cradled the mug and let the steam warm my face. The boy remained where he was, barely a foot away, staring at me. He reminded me disconcertingly of the raven I’d seen by the barn.
After a minute I said, “You mind giving me some space?”
The boy frowned but scooted back an inch. “Who’re you?”
“Like I said: friend of your dad’s. Adrian. He’s your dad, right?”
“You’d know that if he was your friend.”
“Good point.”
I drank my tea and ignored him, in hopes that he’d go away. That usually works with dogs, except when it backfires and they attack you.
But the boy didn’t seem overtly hostile—not toward me, anyway. His forehead was creased, and there was a pronounced V at the bridge of his nose, suggesting a glare was his customary way of observing the world. After a few minutes he asked, “You got a fag?”
“I don’t smoke.”
“You drink. I can smell it on you. You stink.”
“Nice manners.” I glanced around the room. “You live here?” The boy shrugged, then nodded. “Know where Adrian went?”
“To find Tamsin. I told him, she’s not here, she—”
“Never mind. Where’s the bathroom?”
He pointed at a door but didn’t move. I had to step over him to leave.
The bathroom held a cracked porcelain toilet with a corroded metal tank above it, the chain reduced to a single link and frayed twine. No medicine cabinet, no towels. A string of red LED lights dangled from the ceiling, reflected in an old mirror with most of its silver rubbed off. I looked at the mirror and ran a hand through my hair.
I bet I stank. I looked like shit. The black hair dye made my face look cadaverously pale, save for the livid star-shaped scar beside my eye. The cut on my cheek appeared inflamed. I wondered if it had gotten infected.
I splashed my face with cold water and then returned to the living room, tossing my jacket on the chair. Sam was gone. Adrian stood by the window, smoking a real cigarette.
“You scared Sam,” he said. “She thought you were me, and then she thought you were a ghost. I can see why.”
“She?”
“Yes,” Adrian said curtly. “I’m going to have a lie-down—I’m knackered. You should do the same. Come on.”
I got my bag and we climbed a flight of narrow steps beneath a ceiling so low we had to duck. On the second floor were three bedrooms, each one smaller than the last, like a grim variant of the Three Bears’ house.
“That’s Sam’s room,” said Adrian, pointing.
I glanced inside and saw a narrow bed with a brightly checked afghan thrown across it, some books on a small student’s desk by the door. The Serpent and the Rainbow, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, J. G. Ballard’s High Rise. “She has catholic reading taste,” I said.
“Does she? I haven’t kept up. This is Tamsin’s room, and this was mine—Krish can have that one when she gets back. I’ll doss in the kitchen, and you can have the garret.”
“Is Tamsin here?”
“Sam says she went to Penzance on Tuesday and texted that she’d gotten stranded there by the storm. Road closure, she’s supposedly staying with friends. I tried calling and texting her, but she’s not picking up.”
“Do you think she’s still in London?”
“I don’t know.” His deep voice rasped with fatigue. “I hope so. I hope she’s in hell.”
“What if she comes back here?”
“That’s why I’m staying downstairs.”
At the end of the hall was a wooden ladder. We climbed to a whitewashed attic beneath the eaves, with blackened wooden beams, bare stone walls, two windows. It was cold enough that I could see my breath. A tattered rag rug covered the floor. On the windowsill, cigarette butts overflowed from a McCann’s Oatmeal tin. There was a little door at the far end of the room and the pervasive, vinegary scent of apples.
Adrian opened a window, propping it up with a stick. He knelt and opened the little door, rooted around inside, and pulled out an armful of quilts.
“Here.” He tossed the quilts at me. “I’ll see you later.”
The quilts were slightly damp. I made a lumpy pallet of them, then zipped up my leather jacket and removed the Konica and bottle of wine from my bag. I put the camera on the floor beside me and stretched out, using my bag as a pillow. Immediately I passed out.