Morning was night to Ben’s eyes. Darker even without the stars.
Two years had passed since he sat behind the wheel of a car, and more than once his numb fingers fumbled with the gearstick. Not that he was overly keen to shift above second. The frost glittering in the headlights was cause enough to take it slow. There were few others on the road at that hour. Owl-eyed delivery drivers and factory workers on the wrong side of a twelve-hour shift. Ben offered due sympathy and respect to both.
Cold mornings were the worst. They chilled more than the bones. They iced over the soul and all its unspoken optimism. He was already doubting if it was all worth it. This was the big break he had been waiting for and the morning was trying to sour it for him. It didn’t matter. There was no turning back now. Contracts had been signed. The equipment was bought. And he had already told his parents. They deserved more than the usual disappointment.
Chloe was where she said she would be, bundled up in her parka jacket, waiting at the bus stop outside her estate. The streetlights were losing their colour like rotting oranges. She waved as he pulled the car up beside her. There wasn’t another person that Ben could see beneath the wakening sky, just rows of lightless homes, their curtains closed, and the dead sound of a town before the dawn. So quiet, even the birds were still rehearsing uncertain verses.
Ben couldn’t afford to botch this job. But he tried not to think about it. Whatever worries travelled with them that day, they could keep their opinions to themselves. And if they didn’t, he’d turn on the radio full blast and drown them out. This was what he wanted. This was the kind of assignment he was actually good at. But even still, looking forward, the horizon was fogged with a cold uncertainty.
‘It’ll be fine,’ he whispered, clicking off his seatbelt, trying to convince himself that not every scene in his life played out like a Shakespearean fucking tragedy.
Ice cracked and fell like flaky paint when he opened the door to help Chloe with her rucksack. Everything was sharp and brittle, and sticky to the touch. The bag was almost as big as she was. It just about fit inside the boot beside his own after all their straps were tucked in place like limp arms.
Good mornings were exchanged – the ironic, deadpan sort that suggested the contrary.
Ben’s phone was slotted into its crooked stand above the radio. He tapped it once to check the time. Daybreak wasn’t far away. But given how quiet the roads were, they might even make it to the motorway before then.
‘Who’s the kid?’ Chloe asked, holding her hands over the fan heater.
She’d seen his phone screen and the photograph that Jess had sent him the week before. Ben had shifted the icons around so that her smile beamed in its centre. Both eyes were scrunched up tight, giving his heart a little jump.
‘Aoife,’ he replied, smiling until it switched to black. ‘She’s mine.’
‘Cute,’ was all Chloe said.
She wasn’t chatty like the day before and of that Ben was glad. Even the flowers knew to keep their petals closed until dawn. Besides, there would be time to talk later. The journey was long and the drive was the easiest part of it.
Ben had been queuing at a coffee shop, two days earlier, when his phone pinged with an email. The building was no bigger than his bathroom, its air moist from the milk steamer. A mirror on the left wall was eternally fogged up. Reflections were shapeless shadows led like blind mice to the churn of the freshly ground. A bronze bag of coffee beans and a fake plant had shared a shelf to Ben’s right. There had once been a Live, Laugh, Love sign between them but someone had the common sense to remove it. This wasn’t the time or place. Maybe there were those out there, somewhere, who had a love life and liked to laugh about it. But wherever they were, looking back through the queue, they weren’t buying coffee that morning.
It was another routine Monday whose dreary skies fitted the mood. Streets were stained black with rain and blocked on both sides with delivery vans, all indicators flashing. The working-class machine had groaned to life, spluttering out bodies. Shopfronts were half-lit but not yet open, glowing like vending machines in the gloom. A few cold, managerial fingers blundered with their keys while their minions watched on, already wishing away the next eight hours of their lives. Others were walking at a pace somewhere between a walk and a jog, like soldiers assembling for a war they didn’t really believe in.
Ben had three minutes to spare before he would be late for work again. But his manager wouldn’t call him on it. She never did, and he respected that about her if nothing else. Hers was a more nuanced approach to chastisement: a long look at the clock or some arbitrary reminder about his upcoming performance review. Sometimes she would just smile sadly at his coffee.
Ben took out his phone, copying the line of yawners leading back to the door; those powered-down bodies on a factory line waiting to have their batteries reinstalled. It was far too early to attempt anything as bold as eye contact, never mind conversation. Theirs was a silent, sombre solidarity. The man ahead of him – built like a fridge, with dandruff sprinkled on his shoulders like icing sugar on a cake – ordered three cappuccinos. Of course, it had to be cappuccinos. Any hope of making it to the shoe shop on time disappeared in another blast of steam.
Ben opened the email for the sake of deleting it. He had time to kill and a weary manager to disappoint. That was after all what his email account had become since finishing up in college – an unentertaining deletion app. And he played it every morning, Monday to Friday, usually around the time that he was expected to clock in to work.
‘Doctor Alec Sparling,’ he read. ‘Never heard of you, buddy.’
The subject line stated simply: Project Proposal for Mr French. This wasn’t like the usual junk mail. It was a letter, one addressed only to him – to the titular Mr French. And so, he read on.
I am currently funding a private project. You come highly recommended by Professor Joseph Cunningham.
It is my wish to meet you in person to discuss taking this collaboration further. The details regarding both the time and venue are attached below. Please notify me before the close of day if it is your wish to attend.
The details were scant at best – some of the broadest strokes that Ben had ever read – but projects paid money. He was probably one of fifty candidates for the role. There was always a never-ending stream of graduates and not enough jobs – like passengers on a sinking ship with too few lifeboats. But given his current situation he would happily go all in on fifty-to-one.
Ben had already served a year’s sentence in full-time retail and the whole dour cycle was starting to repeat itself. He could suffer through part-time; at least he had had his studies to prod his mind occasionally. But this was different. The majority who worked in the shop were kids, fresh out of school or first years in university, undeveloped in mind and manners. They all dressed the same and shared some mongrel dialect that Ben blamed the internet for – words that infected local colloquialisms like a parasite. These bastards were the carriers.
The job was hardly engaging enough to occupy thirty-five hours of Ben’s week. Even he zoned out whenever he described the benefits of their patented memory foam insoles, reciting his lines like an ageing stage actor locked in a role for too many seasons.
Sparling’s email requested that Ben attend a lecture hall on his old campus at twelve o’clock the following afternoon. What was another day missed from work? He had called in sick the week before, having woken up with eyes still stinging from two bottles of cheap wine, the flavoursome equivalent of balsamic vinegar. If the stars aligned, they might even fire him this time. Jettisoning his half-hearted contribution could only have been good for business. He replied there and then.
‘See you tomorrow, Sparling,’ he muttered. ‘Maybe you can save me from this shit.’
His thesis had been surprisingly well received. Not that Ben doubted his own ability. He had never failed an exam in his life and couldn’t quite understand the adults in third-level education who had sat through year after year of schooling and still couldn’t get their shit together; those who had to focus when writing their name. The interviews just gleaned more interest than he had expected. Truth was that it hadn’t been especially difficult. Instead of trawling through scholarly articles and chasing up sources like a bona fide historian, Ben just had to press record and ask a few questions.
With the master’s under his belt, some commissions paid well. Lecturing alone could bag him sixty euros an hour. But jobs of that pay grade were usually fastened to the cobwebs of some decrepit academic who had become one with the university’s furniture.
Ben, on the other hand, survived week to week. There was never enough money and never the means to make any more. He walked somewhere between poorness and abject poverty, in a gutter that seemed to deepen as time rolled on. Even when he sent Jess all he could afford – having subsisted on a diet of thin sandwiches for a week – still she had scoffed at it. He literally only had the loose change in his pocket left. But that was nothing new. If Ben’s bank account was a bird feeder, he ate the nutty shards on the ground.
Embarrassment kept him from telling her the truth. The bills weren’t being met. His rent had been overdue for two months. Losing his home was inevitable unless his luck had a quick change of heart. There were only so many times he could ignore his landlord’s calls until he came knocking at the door. And it was highly likely that the lad had a key to let himself in.
Maybe this was the break Ben needed. He could finally answer with his head held high when asked, ‘Where are you working these days?’ He hated that question and he always hated his answer. Not even thirty yet and the world was starting to grind him down. But Ben knew the reason why. He had become a mindless, money-making cog. And even the money wasn’t enough to make ends meet.
*
Two hours had passed since he and Chloe abandoned the car. The afternoon sun wept through clouds pulled apart like cotton wool in the breeze. The trek was proving worse than Ben expected. Much worse. Hidden beneath the grasses was a knobbly causeway of soil and stone. Sometimes he sank and sometimes he tripped, and every time his rucksack pounced on his shoulders like a bear.
‘How much farther is it?’ he called out, using his scarf to dab his brow like an out-of-shape boxer who’d just gone twelve rounds.
‘A little bit more, Benny Boy,’ Chloe called back to him, shading her phone from the sun. ‘We’re past the halfway mark, I think.’
‘Benny Boy?’ he groaned, trudging towards her. ‘Please don’t make that a thing.’
The press of his boots on the earth was like an insect crawling on skin. The forces of nature sought any means to swipe him away. Maybe it meant to crush him outright like a flea, leaving just a red smear in the mud. The camping gear on his back was doing that anyway – scratching the discs of his spine like flint for a fire. It had occurred to him to simply collapse in whatever godforsaken field he stood in, to accept defeat on his own terms. The grasses could mummify his bones in coils of green and Chloe could even sprinkle some wildflowers over him to mark the occasion.
Her cheeks weren’t even flushed. Every hair on her pixie head was picture-perfect. Ben had to run a hand over his sandpapered scalp to keep the sweat from seeping down his forehead. He felt like fresh fruit squeezed into oblivion.
‘Do you want to take a break?’ she asked, chuckling away to herself as though this wasn’t the single most torturous experience of their lives.
Ben wouldn’t have classed himself as low-shelf material. But in that moment, with his body coiled up like a rusty spring and gurning through a fresh sheen of sweat, Chloe stood leagues ahead, watching him with a smile that was hard to look away from.
‘Just give me a moment,’ he gasped. ‘I’ll be fine.’
Ben had what his mother called a kind face. But then, mothers have an even kinder way with words. He never quite understood what she meant by it. His eyebrows were forever a tad bushy. But the eyes made up for that. Each one was a polished conker like his father’s; an heirloom gladly inherited. When his retreating hairline became too obvious, he had shaved it back. That family trait hadn’t been so eagerly received. His smile was the key to his interviews, or so he used to gloat after a few pints, when his woes and misfortunes were, for a while, forgotten. Lock eyes and always smile.
‘Here,’ Chloe said, handing him a torpedo-shaped flask, ‘drink some water before you pass out on me.’
‘Cheers,’ he wheezed, his lungs working hard to keep him up, like two paper bags pressing against his chest, primed to pop at any second.
‘You’re a wreck,’ she said, lifting her red-framed sunglasses to look him up and down. ‘Ye city lads don’t know easy money when you have it.’
‘Easy?’ He laughed. ‘We should have asked for more off the bastard.’
Doctor Alec Sparling was a man of some wealth. Not that Ben would have guessed that when he first saw him. When he’d pushed in the door, the doctor had been stood at the lectern, alone under the hall’s mellow spotlight. The room’s emptiness made it seem larger than it was. Every surface was flat and polished – plastic impersonating wood. No litter. No smell that he could place. He imagined a hundred ghosts all turning in their seats to look at him.
‘Mr French,’ Sparling said, gesturing towards the front row. ‘Please, take a seat and we’ll begin once Ms Coogan arrives.’
Ben did as he was told. The heavy hand of uncertainty was brushed away before it could hold him back.
Sparling was possibly in his sixties, with a grey complexion more commonly identified with illness. If ever the man had seen the sun, he had watched it from the shade. The bags under his eyes carried a lifetime of restless nights. His small lips were perpetually pursed as if from a tartness on the tongue, and his eyes were a dull blue. Thin, black reading glasses perched on his nose; functional, unfashionable. The man’s salt and pepper hair was combed back and had receded slightly. There was no ring on any finger. He was perhaps a man too enamoured by knowledge to seek companionship elsewhere. His attire was predictably academic. Black slacks and grey shirt, both meticulously ironed.
Ben prided himself on his first impressions, but even he wasn’t quite sure what to make of the man. Each individual part of Sparling was colourless and forgettable. And yet, there was something remarkable there. He resembled less a man, and more the shadow of one.
He kept glancing nervously to the door as he typed at his laptop. The projector had thrown a blue rectangle onto the wall like an unconvincing sky. The colour had probably been chosen for that reason. It wasn’t natural. It never could be.
Ben had worn his denim jacket over a white Oxford, noticeably grubby around the collar but the cleanest shirt he could find at such notice. He had, at least, shaved his head and tidied his light beard the night before, so he was mildly presentable. He considered doing up the shirt’s top button. But that would only advertise his unease. It was no better than putting on a tie mid-interview. He pictured the blazer hanging in his wardrobe and couldn’t recall the last time he had worn it, like a suit of armour gathering dust since his surrender to full-time retail.
‘She should be here by now,’ Sparling said impatiently, pulling back his cuff to check the time. His watch’s face and strap were also black. The man clearly had an aversion to colour.
Ms Coogan might have been some hotshot history lecturer. Perhaps this drab Sparling character was a kind of lackey? The Igor to her Frankenstein; hired more for his aesthetic than any actual aptitude for the job.
Ben’s thesis was on the lectern. It looked thinner than he remembered, like an old lover that had fallen on hard times. The crimson binding had seemed so plush when he first held it. He recalled its softness and the weight of its words, and those months of work once so consequential, now seemingly so pointless. The graduation scroll was still tucked in its envelope – Benjamin French, Master of History. It was about as useful as an expired coupon. For now, all he had to show for five years of work was that book in front of him.
A conclusive tap came from Sparling’s keyboard. The man looked to Ben and smiled his little lips like worms. It was a mechanical action, so devoid of any thought or feeling that it made the skin on Ben’s neck crawl.
The projection now displayed the man’s laptop screen. Its desktop was chaotic. The cursor flittered like a fly above its many documents, never landing long enough to open one. There were moments when it seemed to shiver. Ben couldn’t tell if it was excitement or nerves, and the doctor’s stolid expression didn’t offer any hints. It reminded him of a rubber Halloween mask. The eyes alone could move.
‘Do you know Ms Coogan?’ he asked. ‘I thought that maybe you two had crossed paths. History and archaeology are bedfellows after all, aren’t they?’
‘No,’ Ben replied, clearing his throat, ‘I don’t believe that I have, Doctor Sparling.’
‘Please, call me Alec. No need for all this Doctor Sparling carry-on.’
Rich words coming from the man yet to refer to Ms Coogan by her given name. But Captain Pedantic had let slip that archaeology was her field. This didn’t bode well for Ben’s notions of being headhunted by human resources. On the plus side, his odds had shortened to two-to-one. He just wished he knew what shiny prize awaited him at the finish line.
*
Chloe’s pace had eased, if only for Ben’s sake. Up ahead, great lumps of stone rose through the weeds like distant dolphins. Trees were few, cold and naked; miserable husks so skinny it was as though the cruel earth had denied them even a bead of moisture. They stood around awkwardly in every direction, like party guests that didn’t belong, offering some sense of the miles journeyed and of those yet to come.
‘So,’ Chloe said, glancing over to him, ‘do you think you’ll find anything interesting? Stories, I mean. Our boy, Sparling, seemed a little too excited by it all.’
‘I hope so,’ he replied, breathing easier now. ‘We’ll have to see when we get there. People like to put their own spin on things and if this place is as backward as he thinks, then there’s no knowing what they still believe in or what superstitions survive.’
‘When did he say the church was deconsecrated?’ she asked, stomping on some deadwood with her oxblood Doc Martens.
‘Around the end of the nineteenth century, I think.’
‘Well,’ Chloe said with a smirk, ‘whatever they believe in, they sure as shit don’t believe in God.’
The best storytellers worked the shadows when they spoke. And the night was never so dark than when they let that silence linger, inviting all ears to lean in that bit closer. Theirs was a craft honed through generations and Ben took it as a privilege to have experienced it first-hand. Some spoke only by the light of a single candle or by a carefully chosen window where the trees outside rustled like a nervous audience.
The older ones genuinely believed what they were telling him. He respected their lives, their memories, the vivid colours they retained. But in a way, he felt sorry for them. Myths and folk tales were make-believe; stories to be told but not taken to heart. And yet for these people they were real. They had spent their lives believing in fairies and monsters. Such beliefs didn’t bring happiness. They were passed like a flaming torch with too short a handle, scalding impressionable fingers, imprinting old scars on youthful minds.
The younger generations didn’t get it. That’s why Ben insisted on interviewing the oldest: the grandparents, the great-grandparents, even some distant uncles who didn’t quite fit in at the family table. They trusted him to keep their stories safe. That had been the whole point of his thesis – to preserve what would otherwise have been lost.
The bulk of these stories were never written down and could fade out of existence in a few short decades. Details would be forgotten or changed. Interest in them would dwindle until the kids were throwing their eyes to the heavens whenever grandad mentioned the olden days. And then that was that. The superstition would die and so too would its monsters.
There was one interviewee, not old per se, he was probably in his sixties. Mickeen was his name. He was constantly cracking jokes and slapping Ben on the back as if to make sure their punchlines physically landed. He had a thick navy jumper, hair like an Eighties’ perm, and one of those Irish beards that captured every shade of autumn. He’d leant forward in his chair, inviting Ben a little closer with a twitch of his finger. His wife had been interviewed before him. She had spoken mostly of the banshee. Nothing Ben hadn’t heard before.
‘Do you think it’s all true?’ Mickeen asked, smirking as if awaiting some hilarious response.
‘It doesn’t matter if I do or not,’ Ben replied. ‘I’m just here to collect the stories.’
‘You don’t.’ Mickeen laughed, slapping his thigh. ‘I knew you didn’t. Sure, why would you? It’s all just a bit of fun, isn’t it?’
‘You should have heard your wife talk earlier. She certainly seems to believe in it.’
The banshee tradition was common as rain across the island. Though the stories were often rewrought between counties, she was always an omen of death, her eerie cries foretelling a death in the community. For the most part she was a woman dressed all in black, with long white hair that she could often be seen combing, or so the stories went. Details varied depending on who was telling them. There were examples where some hapless sod had found a comb on his walk home only to have the banshee follow him, hammering on his door with horrifying force, practically shaking the thatch from the roof. It was usually returned by means of iron tongs, which oddly enough were either broken or melted from the banshee’s touch. The Irish were certainly inventive; Ben couldn’t deny his people that.
‘Aye.’ Mickeen grinned. ‘My wife has seen and heard enough. The grandkids, too, whenever they’re visiting.’
‘And you?’ Ben asked. ‘You haven’t seen or heard anything?’
‘I’ll tell you a secret,’ Mickeen offered, winking down at the recorder, ‘between you and me.’
Ben agreed. The reels were stopped.
‘It was all me. My wife hasn’t seen anything. But I told her that I had and she believed every word. Her family is like that. There were a few nights that I crept out and howled my head off, just so she could hear. The young ones were staying over and now they think it’s all real.’ His whole body jittered with excitement. ‘I even left an old comb out on the road for them to find. And sure they brought it into my wife and she almost had a conniption.’
‘Why would you do that?’ Ben asked him.
‘It’s only a bit of fun,’ Mickeen replied, sniggering to himself. ‘There’s no harm in it.’
No harm? Because of this eejit’s antics, his grandchildren were going to grow up terrified. No wonder these traditions had lasted so long. The world was full of pranksters of Mickeen’s ilk. There will always be those out there who just want to fuck with people.
*
‘What about your side of things?’ Ben asked Chloe. ‘If Sparling’s right, you’re the first archaeologist to ever set foot in this place?’
‘I’ll believe it when I see it,’ she replied. ‘I’m more than happy to take our dear doctor’s money, but we’re not going to find anything out of the ordinary. Trust me, I’ve had my arse in the air, digging around in the dirt for a few years now. There are no more mysteries on this island. And there’s no chance that we’re the first ones to ever come this way.’
Sparling’s projection had presented Ben with a map scanned in at a slightly crooked angle. His closeted OCD screamed internally. The font betrayed its antiquity but it wasn’t dated. Though probably white once upon a time, the paper had yellowed, especially in its centre. Ben examined it with his head atilt, feigning some appreciation. He hadn’t a clue what he was supposed to be looking at.
It was a rural section with few dwellings. None of them looked any larger than a garden shed. The land was divvied out by mismatched boundaries. Big fields, small fields. Who cares? Ben perceived the symbols for a cemetery and a church, or possibly some other ecclesiastical building. Even a child could identify them. Other than that, it could have been an aerial view of anywhere in the country. Cartography was an archaeologist’s tool. Ben didn’t care for ruins and relics. The height of a hill and the length of a lake were somebody else’s business.
‘Am I in the right place?’ a voice asked from the back of the room.
A young woman was standing at the top of the stairs, holding the door open with her foot, ready to retreat at any second. Her hair was bleached white and chopped short. Spikes of pearly floss jutted out from every angle as though she had just fallen out of bed. Her face was petite, its eyes bright and soulful. And she was about as tall as Ben had been back in secondary school before the customary growth spurt. She might have been in her early twenties – a few years younger than Ben – and she wore a black string top and pale skinny jeans. Her olive parka hung open and had a collar like a lion’s mane.
‘I suppose that depends,’ Sparling said, his pasty cheeks pinched into the smallest smile, ‘are you Ms Coogan?’
‘Yes, sir,’ she replied, returning his smile with one ten times its size. ‘At your service.’
‘Please, come and sit by Mr French,’ he said, again pointing to the front row, ‘and I’ll explain why I’ve invited you both here today.’
‘Mr French?’ she repeated, obviously amused by the stiffness of it all.
‘Ben,’ he said, introducing himself, unable to contain his smile as she skipped down the steps. ‘I don’t think anyone except Doctor Sparling, I mean Alec, has ever called me Mr French before.’
‘Chloe,’ she said, sidling towards him between the desks and fold-down seats, ‘or Ms Coogan, if you prefer? I’m not too particular about it. Is it just the three of us or are we expecting more company?’ she asked, looking to Sparling.
‘No, this is everyone,’ he replied, standing tall, striking that familiar lecturer’s stance. ‘I need only the two of you.’
Chloe slid into the seat beside Ben and slipped the jacket from her shoulders. The October sun had awoken the freckles on her cheeks like a light sprinkling of brown sugar. The woman’s eyes were satin grey, moonlight over mist. Her nose was delicate, with a tiny point. Ben stole a lingering glance at her profile and the shape of her lips. They seemed to rest in a half-smile, like a subtle first defence against the world – the refusal to take it too seriously. She laid her bare arms on the desk. Beads adorned both wrists, and her right ring finger wore a small emerald stone.
‘Now then,’ Sparling began, removing his glasses, ‘the university has kindly given me this room so that we may meet today. You see, I am backing a project that interests me a great deal. And you, Mr French and Ms Coogan,’ he said, nodding at them individually, ‘I believe are the perfect candidates. And I have done my research,’ he added with that odd smile of his.
Ben and Chloe turned their heads in unison, each respecting the other’s confusion. She seemed particularly entertained by it all, giggling as though Sparling just landed some top-notch stand-up. Since his graduation, Ben hadn’t been the perfect candidate for any job. His history master’s had yet to open any doors that didn’t lead to a retail shop floor. And those doors could be soldered shut for all he cared.
‘Ms Coogan,’ the doctor continued, ‘I’ve heard wonderful reports of your work. There is even talk of expanding your research into a PhD next year. Your study on the archaeology of indigenous communities in the nineteenth century is coming along quite nicely, yes?’
‘Yeah,’ she casually replied, sitting back, ‘it’s coming together.’
‘And Mr French,’ he said, placing a palm flat on his thesis, ‘you’ve done sterling work here. Interviewing is no easy feat. You obviously have a knack for it. Very promising,’ he said, almost to himself, ‘very promising indeed. And now, before we go any further, I’ll need you to sign these.’ Here he produced two pages, presenting one in each hand.
‘And what are they?’ Chloe asked bluntly, cocking an eyebrow.
‘Non-disclosure agreements,’ Sparling replied as if it should have come as no surprise. ‘It is my wish that your findings be kept between us for the time being, until I’ve had opportunity to study them.’
Ben needed a job. He needed money. This sounded like an internship – experience that would bolster his supposed employability but leave the lint in his pocket undisturbed. Judging by the pout of Chloe’s lips, her reservations had also been raised.
‘Are we getting paid for this?’ Ben asked, frowning at the man.
‘Yes, of course, Mr French. How much would you like?’
Ben’s throat felt dry. How much would you like? No words came to mind and certainly no fee. He heard Chloe tittering to herself beside him. Did she think the man was joking? Sparling didn’t strike Ben as the type to indulge in a sense of humour. Not with a smile like that.
‘Tell you what, Mr French,’ he said after a moment of no response. ‘Sign this, and after I explain the project’s various ins and outs we can discuss payment. How does that appeal to you? Time is precious and I’d rather not waste any.’
He dispensed the pages without waiting for an answer, taking care not to meet either of them in the eye. The pronounced crease in Sparling’s pants was more striking than the man’s social skills. Ben took his contract with clammy fingers. Its typeface was small. Its words were many. The paper was as fat as card. Ben’s name was printed throughout the text in bold. It looked amiss, as if Benjamin French had no right in having his name inked on such a document. There was always a first time for everything. A pen was placed between them; the expensive Parker kind that always smeared under his left hand.
How much would you like? Ben couldn’t believe his luck.
‘I’ll give you a moment to read through the details,’ Sparling said, returning behind his lectern. ‘May I just say as you seem especially apprehensive, Mr French, that this project will be of great interest to you both, regarding your chosen specialisations, that is. Regardless of any financial reward that you will stand to receive, the furthering of knowledge is our ultimate goal here. You should, perhaps, see this as a springboard to new and better opportunities.’
Chloe signed without hesitation. She slid the page forward and slouched back in her seat, having not read a word of it. Ben looked to her in quiet disbelief as she handed him the pen, still sleek from her touch.
‘Come on, Mr French,’ she said with a wink. ‘What have you got to lose?’
*
Those words echoed through Ben’s head as his foot plunged into yet another pit. True of any foe underestimated, the journey had the upper hand, skilfully stabbing him whenever and wherever it pleased, entertaining the many insects keen to set up shop in his ears. Both thumbs were tucked under the rucksack’s straps to ease some of its weight off his shoulders. But it just caused the pain to travel elsewhere. His lower back seemed the most popular destination.
Chloe’s legs were a welcome distraction for now, and that’s where Ben’s eyes fell. She was forever a few steps ahead like a carrot dangling on a string. Her jeans looked as if they had been spray-painted on. He could see her calf muscles tightening.
‘What age is your kid?’ she called back, stopping for a moment to look at him.
‘Aoife’s three,’ he replied, lifting his head hastily to meet her eyes.
‘Do you see much of her?’
‘Not enough. Her mum, Jess, moved back to Donegal, so I only get to see her maybe once a month.’
‘How long were you guys together for?’ she asked.
‘One whole night.’
Chloe blocked his way like a bouncer in a nightclub, hand extended but not quite touching.
‘It was a long night.’ Ben grinned.
Her eyes narrowed on him and he regretted his glibness immediately.
‘Did you get her pregnant and then run off?’ she asked, and Ben knew they weren’t moving until she had his answer.
‘No, of course not. Why would you think that? I see Aoife every chance I get. It was just…’ choose your words ‘…a surprise. That’s all.’
‘A fucking surprise,’ Chloe snapped before walking away. ‘Honestly, you men are the worst.’
Ben had phoned his parents the night before. One day, he promised himself, he would justify their faith in him. This project of Sparling’s was a step in the right direction and his dad – always with his glass half full – believed it was the beginning of something wonderful; chapter one in a new book of Ben’s life after the old one lost its plot entirely. They had covered his tuition fees and supported him all the way. He wished that he could have told them more. But his mum would have been in touch with the whole family, the neighbours, and then denied having ever done so. Every shitty thing he did was celebrated like a medical breakthrough. Hopefully, when he saw them again, he would have some good news to trade for all they had done for him. Ben knew that was all they wanted.
‘Wonderful,’ Sparling had said when they’d both handed back their agreements, fixing his glasses to his nose as he checked for their signatures. ‘Now we can get down to business.’
‘This better be good,’ Chloe whispered, leaning into Ben’s ear, the warmth of her breath caressing his neck like silk.
Sparling examined the non-disclosure agreements one last time before setting them down. He glanced cautiously around the hall, his eyes resting for a second on both doors at the back, and only then did he speak.
‘This ordnance survey map is from the 1830s,’ he said, drawing their attention to the projection behind him. ‘It’s the first of its kind to record a village by the name of Tír Mallacht. Trust me, you haven’t heard of it. You can see here a cluster of cottages. Each one small, in most cases no more than a single room. Their layout and proximity are nothing unusual. To the east you can mark the location of a church and graveyard – the only features worthy of note from the cartographer’s point of view at least. Mapmakers back then had few tools at their disposal, so we shall forgive the possibility of any shortcomings on their part. As you both know, such cloistered communities were commonplace in the nineteenth century. There is nothing in this map bordering on oddity or anomaly.’
With a jab of his keyboard the map was replaced by an aerial view of the same area. It was a modern photograph. The parched yellow paper had been bland as desert sand, but now all details were defined in full colour. Its angle and range from the earth had been altered to mimic the original map, so the photograph was still skewed to Ben’s eyes.
‘Now then,’ Sparling continued, ‘here again we see the same village. This image was captured only a few months ago. Almost two hundred years have passed and practically nothing has changed. Two hundred years,’ he repeated. ‘A number of new homes have been built. But that is, of course, to be expected. Free from disease and hardship, families inevitably grow. All original buildings are still intact, Ms Coogan. Even the outhouses and stables are as they were.’
Ben noticed Chloe shifting in her seat. It would have seemed that Sparling had caught Ms Coogan’s attention. Some people were more easily excited by outhouses than others.
‘This aerial photograph and the original map have another common trait,’ the doctor added. ‘There is one key element missing from both. Can either of you identify what that might be?’
Ben sat forward to scan the details. Was this a test? Sparling had recruited him because of his knack for charming stories out of the elderly. He had a map of Ireland in his thesis but that was no more than filler – a means to fatten up the page count; tricks of the trade for any budding academic. His was a layman’s eye when it came to cartography. Still, he frowned at the map as though suddenly enlightened by a hundred fantastic theories as to what Sparling wanted from him.
‘There’s no road,’ Chloe said simply.
‘Precisely, Ms Coogan,’ Sparling replied. ‘Tír Mallacht was a curiously insular community, even by Irish standards, and still is to this day. Accessible only by foot, it is in essence a time capsule. One unaffected by the world around it.’
‘You mean to tell me,’ Chloe said, ‘that the same families have lived in that little village for nearly two hundred years?’
The door atop the stairs was heard to slightly open, like an airlock, and close back into its frame. Ben turned in his seat at the sound of it but there was no one there. It could have been a draught. Or some caretaker who hadn’t realised the hall was occupied until they heard Chloe’s voice. Either way, Sparling’s body stiffened. He stared at the door, waiting longer than seemed necessary.
‘That is correct, Ms Coogan,’ he eventually replied.
‘So, their gene pool is…’
‘Most limited.’
‘But why have they never left?’ she asked.
‘A fine question, Ms Coogan, and one that I would very much like answered.’
There was no hint of doubt in the doctor’s voice. Ben knew honesty when he heard it. Sparling could have said two plus two is four and looked less convinced. But his case didn’t check out. Ben knew that there were sources on everything. Even the shortest, simplest life left some trace behind it, and this was a full village. Ireland was too small an island for what the man was proposing.
‘There must be some mention of the village out there,’ Ben said. ‘What about the church and census records?’
‘The church was abandoned in the late nineteenth century,’ Sparling replied. ‘If there were any records, they are lost. And as for the census, those employed to visit each household were shunned and left empty-handed. No records, no names. The people of Tír Mallacht wanted nothing to do with them. Eventually, it would seem, the village was simply omitted.’
‘Sure, they’re all one big family,’ Chloe giggled. ‘They could have just taken a head count and called them the Tír Mallachts.’
‘Yes, indeed, Ms Coogan,’ Sparling said, dead-faced.
‘What about its history?’ Ben asked. ‘Do we know anything about the place bar the fact that it’s been forgotten for two centuries?’
Sparling gazed back at the projection with strange adoration. One would swear that he had discovered Atlantis.
‘No, Mr French,’ he replied. ‘No historical or archaeological record of Tír Mallacht survives, if ever any did exist.’
‘And I take it that we’re going to fix that,’ Chloe said.
‘Precisely, Ms Coogan.’
‘And when do you want us to go there?’ Ben asked.
‘There’s no time like the present, Mr French. I would like you both to travel to Tír Mallacht tomorrow. Your expenses shall, of course, be taken care of.’ Here Sparling held up a fat envelope for them both to see. ‘Given its secluded location, you will only be able to drive so far. I’ve already prepared a route that will take you as close as possible. You’ll have to walk it the rest of the way. I suggest you rent a car if neither of you already have access to one, and I suspect that you will need a tent or other camping equipment to stay overnight or however long it may take to conduct your respective surveys.’
‘I can drive us,’ Ben said, turning excitedly to Chloe who couldn’t have appeared more relaxed.
‘Neither of you have any children, do you?’ Sparling asked.
Chloe laughed it off, but the question had caught Ben off-guard.
How much would you like? There was no knowing how much they stood to make. And he desperately needed a cash injection, if only for his daughter’s sake.
‘No,’ Ben replied. ‘I don’t have any kids.’
He felt sick just saying it.
The doctor looked to Ben and then to Chloe, almost nervously. And though his lips imitated a smile, the eyes remained glazed and mirthless. ‘If you would kindly return your attention to the wall, you will see another map. I have highlighted the network of paths and laneways that run through the village.’
These were defined by red lines, trickling like blood between a dozen or so cottages coloured in yellow blocks. They broke into longer veins that touched the surrounding fields. There was no order to any of it. The lay of the land and its seasonal yielding were the roots of its design. Ben gleaned some comfort from Sparling’s diligence. But he wondered if the doctor ever stopped to appreciate who had made the path they were to follow. So focused was he on their course, his agenda seemed to bypass what awaited them at their destination.
‘You will enter here,’ he continued, ‘from the north. This small woodland should lead you directly into the village.’
‘How would you like us to approach them?’ Ben asked. ‘We don’t know how they’re going to react to us.’
‘You’re the one who’s going to make best friends with them,’ Chloe put in with a smile.
‘With an open mind, Mr French,’ the doctor replied, as though he hadn’t heard her. ‘Be patient and attentive, and sensitive to their circumstances. This is the reason why I chose you. I’m told you have a way with people.’
*
Ben and Chloe worked their way through Sparling’s small woodland – kicking through the sticky stems that grew from all sides – trying to follow what once might have been a pathway, so tight that a slender fox would strain to break it. It was the only way through that Ben could see. Not that he could see a whole lot. Nervous birds rustled the sparse leaves above, most likely terrified of the chaotic giants breaking through their hometown, flattening anything that stood in their way.
Sparling’s map had shown them the sun-kissed treetops and their stubby shadows, but it had kept the murky seabed of vine and thorn beneath the surface.
Chloe was frowning at her phone. Whatever she was trying to do, it wasn’t working, and the swipes soon turned to stabs.
‘There’s no coverage,’ she sighed. ‘I suppose the Tír Mallachts aren’t exactly renowned for their social media presence. There’ll be no tagging on this trip.’
‘But the GPS still works, doesn’t it?’
‘Yeah, don’t you worry. We’re not completely lost. I inputted all the information from Sparling’s gazillion maps. We’re nearly there. Less than a…’
Clang!
A bell tolled in the tallest tree, scattering all wings to the sky, deafeningly loud amidst the lifeless, veined leaves of autumn. The shock of it came like a volley of gunfire, nearly knocking Ben off his feet.
‘What the holy shit!’ Chloe shrieked, holding her hands to her ears.
He moved up behind her to see what had happened.
The tripwire was a length of fishing line tied across the forest’s only path, right at its treeline, where the promise of fresh air invited clumsy feet to run. It was set high and tensed against Chloe’s waist; unavoidable unless you knew to expect it.
It was an alarm. And they had blundered right into it.
‘Sparling never said anything about traps!’ she shouted over the ringing.
‘I think there’s a lot that the doctor hasn’t told us,’ Ben replied, a few steps behind her, his eyes directing her to look up.
There were more. Bells hung across the woodland’s edge, amongst the brittle nests on the uppermost branches, as far as the eye could see. The trap was set too high to alert for animals. Ben guessed this but kept his mouth shut.
‘Well, that’s probably the creepiest thing I’ve ever seen,’ Chloe said, carefully lifting the line, but still the bells jangled like wind chimes in a gale.
‘Bells aren’t so bad, you know!’ he called from behind her. ‘Herdsmen used to tie them around the necks of their flock. The belief was that the sound of them could chase away evil spirits.’
‘Could they chase them away a little quieter?’ she yelled back.
‘I hear you,’ Ben said, crouching low, crimping his aching knees as he ducked his rucksack under the wire. ‘It’s safe to say that they’re expecting us.’
Ben saw Chloe flutter her shoulders as if chilled water had just trickled down her neck. The sudden noise had startled her, scared her even. And that was perfectly understandable. Ben was shaken, too. Only she hadn’t seen him jolt back like he had just jammed his fingers into an electrical socket.
‘They haven’t left their village in two hundred years.’ Chloe smiled, almost convincingly. ‘There’s no chance in hell that they’re expecting us. We’re practically from the future.’
*
Sparling closed the lid of the laptop and took his papers in hand. He tapped them on the lectern, and then slid the stack into his satchel.
‘One last point, Mr French,’ he said. ‘When you’re conducting your interviews, there’s one particular superstition that you might mention, for curiosity’s sake, to see if it still exists.’
‘And what superstition is that?’ Ben asked confidently.
‘The creeper,’ Sparling replied. ‘I do believe it’s known as the creeper.’
‘I’ve never heard of it.’
‘No,’ the doctor said, taking his satchel in hand. ‘I don’t suppose that many people have.’