Behind his heels, the toilet rinses more than flushes. Under the floorboards, a knocking protest ensues as if all the energy of the flush is uselessly contained between the floors and not inside the bowl where it needs to be. He’d forgotten his own rule of not flushing at night. Sometimes Gracey wakes crying in terror at the sound.
Tom shuts the door on the shaking mess but the eruption in the pipes pursues him across the landing, banging behind his heels like the fists of angry neighbours. He wearily wonders if they will soon be reduced to using a bucket filled with water to sluice the pan clean.
Wearing only his socks and underpants, he wanders inside his daughter’s empty pink room. New paint gleams in low light above new flooring, its chill passing through his socks.
On the landing, his tools and decorating materials are stacked against one wall, a dust sheet folded over his workhorse bench, parked at the side of the passage.
Tom pushes the door of the master bedroom to create a narrow gap. Peers inside and sees Fiona asleep, facing the window, arms encircling Gracey. Half of that small form protrudes from the duvet, skinny legs akimbo, arms clutching another new Waddles. They look exhausted.
Tom stoops and picks up the bedding that Fiona has left outside the room for him. A sleeping bag, a pillow. As he raises the bed linen, a faint residual tremor of the chainsaw’s grind shudders inside his shoulders. He turns away from his family and makes for the top of the stairs.
* * *
Propped up on their old couch before the uncurtained windows of the living room, Tom faces the garden. Dim light leaks from a lamp, angled down, at the foot of the sofa. Up to his shoulders his body is cocooned inside the sleeping bag.
He can’t remember the exact details of each episode but he estimates there have been no more than three clashes, in their past, when Fiona was this angry with him. Too angry to speak. But the silence will thaw and she will unpick the stitches of his actions tonight, across the coming days, and he will feel punctured and he will sag with remorse.
Around him, an unfinished room glimmers, softening to dusk in the corners. A scent of dereliction lingers. The cold of outdoors mingling with interior damp. The mealy smell that infuses the kitchen rises in here too. He’s not noticed it before. Mouse piss.
The wretchedness he feels is evident in the pallid reflection of his morose face, screened upon a dusty pane of glass in the old French windows. Is that how I really look now? How often do I have that face? He looks past his reflection and watches the moon instead; three quarters full, illumined as if from within. The sky around its pitted face is pitch.
Sipping rum, he considers next door. On the other side of that wall, beyond a thin skin of bricks, the Moots are probably awake and in counsel. Maybe she is sobbing at the kitchen table while Magi comforts her with another steaming mug of herbal tea. Both will be wrapped in dressing gowns, their old feet concealed by slippers.
Madman. Lunatic. Thug. Vandal. Bastard. He imagines the tirade levelled against him.
At least, the police remain a no-show. The nearest station is forty kilometres distant. He assumes the police have been called and that a report has been made but a neighbour lopping their trees may not warrant an emergency. But he will Google the bylaws about foliage overhanging a border before the law arrives in daylight.
Clumsily, Tom returns the empty glass to the floor beside his makeshift bed. Extinguishes the lamp. Settles down. Only sleep can save him now and put him out of this misery. For a while.
In darkness, he watches the distant moon through lidded eyes.
* * *
Water.
Water so dark he sees nothing below the surface lapping his ankle bones. Only a dim and broken reflection of his pale nakedness is reflected.
But his entire form is instantly thrilled by the cool balm of the water swishing about his feet. The cushioning sand beneath his soles and the cool black shallows kindle him with new and invigorating life. His senses immediately sharpen. So keen are they that even in such darkness he detects the motion of the others, who walk silently here but withdraw to let him pass.
A powerful, clean smell of moist rock and pure water inflates his chest. So potent is the air he inhales so deeply that the tight grip of his fear becomes feeble, loosens, is blown away along with all the pressing concerns that shape and direct his thoughts, and engage him in frantic races that have no finishing-lines. Dry leaves scattering behind his heels.
Had he not been seduced by the flame ahead, his standing in water would shock him more. But before his eyes, a sinewy column of deep orange fire pours upwards into darkness, without a flicker. He thinks it wonderful.
Silence in profound stillness around the flickering light. The hypnotic tug of the fire. A gravity like a current pulls him deeper into the flame’s orbit.
So energised in every limb, so roused in spirit, he wants to roar from sheer joy. An overwhelming revelation of his true vitality is near. The closer he moves towards the nourishing, wondrous flame, the more intense the potency he draws from the water.
A fire without much heat, the height of a door, that embraces his tingling, open skin. Stepping through the fire is akin to passing through a warm waterfall.
To appear inside the cave of which the flame marks a boundary he has crossed.
A revelation, a full and complete understanding of himself and his place in the world, of the world itself and all that is below, beyond and above it, awaits inside this cavern. If this is the passage to death then he will take it without so much as a glance over his shoulder.
Naked, swallowed by this wondrous, gentle void, he submerges into nothingness. The sense of inhabiting a body falls away with the trifles of an oppressive past. Here, all of that is rendered meaningless.
The void takes new shape beyond the flame and glistens with diaphanous crystals. They speckle the walls of a cavern, the rock arcing then narrowing into an entrance. Low light issues from an oval aperture, leading to a large tunnel at the far end of the cave. From within the new passage rushes the fast-flowing music of a new body of water.
He enters the passage as if he is approaching the banks of a mighty, dark river beyond. A river that created its own bed at the dawn of time.
As he emerges from the passage and into a second cavern, he might have stepped into a vast shadow, as high as a mountain.
Such age he senses here, in this crude cathedral of stone, its true volume and distant extents remaining unclear. But the merest suggestion of the origins and purpose of this space belittles him to an insignificance that is exquisitely terrifying. If awareness dared to quest and grow here, oblivion would put a welcome end to comprehension.
Towards a new light at the far end of the cavern he continues, water soundlessly rippling his ankles, the muscular tumult of the unseen river growing, funnelling at his ears. Unto the dim smudge of light he strives, close to tears in his haste to greet the power of the promise that awaits.
A thin hush of a breeze moves through him, inspiring a deep thirst for a wonder he left in childhood and has forgotten. Its revival brings tears to his eyes. They run freely as he glides through the dark, enclosed by indistinct walls of ancient rock. The sound of the unseen underground river grows deafening.
Ahead, a second flame, identical to the one he passed through, will guide him through the next stretch of this odyssey. He knows this instinctively and onwards and deeper he ventures until an array of sigils bring him to a halt.
They gleam from rock-faces vaulting to a roof as vast as a great sky. His mind swoops and his feet stumble; he careens sideways. He will not look up for fear of falling vertically.
The signs soon entrance him, hold his stare fast. He rights himself and understands that he has encountered these markings before. Symbols that appear to him like faded and concealed memories, just beyond his reach.
Far above, he imagines flying buttresses, ribbed vaulting, a clerestory riddled with more symbols; the cavern a space hollowed and hallowed by meanings and presences he’ll never understand.
He implores the sigils for their meanings. Old, weathered markings, decorating damp stone walls that dome the great flame in the vast, awesome stone nave.
Beneath his feet and beyond the walls the unseen torrent rages, tempting him closer to find its edge and the assurance of a searing, blinding ecstasy. A submersion that no soul could withstand. Yet every soul would willingly leap into the unseen onyx current, to drown in a momentary bliss bordering torment.
But the power of the single flame is even greater. Unto it he pads as if to the heart of this underworld region.
Here stands a stone plinth, from which the great smokeless flame leaps silently. A crude, weathered block. No fuel for the fire is evident but upon the rim of the dolmen, and about its foundations, red flowers with petals vivid as blood garland the stone.
Beyond the flame, firelight touches the vague outline of another solid object. A second blockish form.
A large, crude throne seemingly carved not by hand but by erosion across a span of time he cannot guess. So engulfing would be the terror of knowing how long this seat has occupied the apse before the flaming altar that to save his mind his thoughts rout.
Suffocating dread is mere preparation for what sits upon the stone. More than a glimpse might destroy his eyes and mind, smash them flat like birds’ eggs pressed underfoot. Inhaling sharply, he covers his face in its presence. Naked, reduced, his wits ransacked by panic, he sinks to his knees, abject, begging not to see, or be seen.
By the figure. That wills him to look upon it. A figure mostly indistinct, save for a length of horn. Or are they vast ears, extruding from a cowled head with the features hidden? The black blades rise into darkness, their thick and bestial roots crowned with a tiara of the same red flowers that litter the altar. And are those arms at rest upon the hoary rock, or forelegs as narrow as bones peeled of flesh? The torso appears collapsed, vague within the murk of the cavern. The hem of a robe cascades to cover shrivelled legs, impressed against the garment like roots beneath topsoil.
A statue, he hopes more than he has hoped for anything. Let this only be an idol, he prays. But to what does he plead for mercy? What other god could be more powerful and fearful than this ?
Water roars.
* * *
Tom wakes beside the sofa, on his knees. Hard floorboards burn his skin. His hands cover his face as they did at the end of the dream. Protecting him from what sat…
A dream … underground. Where it was marvellous. And so frightening. Black water. Signs upon walls. Flames. A figure. That thing upon a stone throne…
Tom peers about the room. Tentatively touches a floorboard to make certain the room is there.
What would make him see all of that? He’s never had a dream like it; not even the vivid torments of the highest fever compare. This wasn’t disjointed or nonsensical but a clear narrative.
He rises unsteadily and his joints crack. He stumbles to the patio doors where a bright moon glazes the long panes of glass; a lunar luminance misting vague lumps that re-form the garden after sundown. At the rim of the woods the thin light settles like vapour.
Stepping between the rickety doors, he gulps chilled night air. Eyes closed, bending over, hands upon knees, he wants the sensation of the cold patio slabs beneath his unshod feet to startle a true awareness awake.
A murmur of raised voices crosses the border from next door, the words indiscernible.
Tom straightens and stares at the newly cropped trees, the haggard silhouette of the shipwrecked fence. A boundary fought over mere hours before.
He feels his way along the wasteland of a former flower bed. As if he is walking on lumpy biscuits, clumps of soil crumple beneath his bare soles. Weeds catch between his toes. Scrub prickles and crunches in protest at his trespass, forcing him to where the foliage is thinner. A panel split from a wormy post offers a slit. He peers into the inky void.
There’s light over there, towards the end of the neighbours’ garden. They’re up there, at the boundary of the woods. They must be, the Moots. A torch’s sabre scythes, then is doused behind obstructions, plants, the pond ornament and small trees. A second beam is trained upon the ground, in an open space, dispersing the illumination outwards, to the wood.
Tom stares about his feet, seeking clear passage to his ruined lawn. He can see nothing but steps into darkness anyway. As he tiptoes onto the bumpy earth of the dead lawn, a sharp object stabs his arch and he swallows a shriek.
Wearing a shirt and underpants and creeping up the garden at a crouch, he feels ridiculous. The cold catches at his breath now, numbs his hands, his feet, and bruises his nose and inner ears to an ache. But he must see what they are doing. He hasn’t a watch, though guesses it’s about three in the morning. Any later and the sky would lighten.
The upper third of his garden, where the fence is missing, opens onto the neighbours’ arboretum. He’s more exposed when so close to the gap the neighbours smashed into his garden, so he drops to all fours to slip forward.
Beyond the groynes of the last standing fence posts, an array of the Moots’ neat shrubbery offers him fresh, unlit cover. Unless they were to walk to the very border and direct light into his garden, they won’t see him there.
A childish glee compels him over the last ten metres, to the top right corner that is entirely lost to darkness. Dew splashes his inner thighs and forearms as he scampers. And where the wood surges over their fence, he is able to stand upright and concealed.
From here, he peers into the garden next door and is offered a murky view all the way to the neighbours’ back door. And yet, no sooner does he strain his eyes at where the torchlight plays than he wishes that he’d stayed indoors with the French windows closed. And locked.
The landscaped miniature lawn at the top of the Moots’ garden, which would look more at home on an exclusive golf course, is entirely coated white.
A few moments are necessary for him to discern, aided by the glow of the Moots’ torches, the texture of the pale surface. Fabric, or cotton, because he is staring at an arrangement of white sheets. And the bushy lumps laid in a row upon the linen sheets are the tops of the trees that he lopped earlier. The severed trunks now lie in state, like the heads of royals or saints.
The toppled crowns conjure a memory of the lament that he heard earlier. Tonight, he clearly sawed through heartwood and the Moots have since gathered their dead. The trees were truly beloved and with reverence his neighbours have lined the fallen boughs upon burial shrouds.
Whoever is speaking next door is not speaking in English as they increase their murmuring to an indignant rant. As if he’s been confronted by the deranged, speaking in tongues, this guttural intonation of so many crude and mangled words swamps him with revulsion. And curiosity. He rises to his toes, his vision tracking to the origin of the horrid voice.
His inquisitiveness swiftly transforms into gaping disbelief.
A lone, pale figure emerges from behind a miniature island of night-blackened flowers.
A torch is positioned on the ground like a footlight, to illumine the horrid passage of the white figure onto this strange, bright stage. The bearer of the second torch remains hidden from sight, clothed by murk and the leafy barriers of the middle garden, but the second torch adds additional illumination, a peripheral glow.
Gracey’s Whiteys .
As it silently passes through the light, there is an insubstantial, tenuous quality to the silhouette’s movement. Through the incorporeality of the atmosphere, the emerging chalky form seems to glide across the white sheets, the tread silent. When the figure turns about, as if to confront the stone imp in the pond, Tom flinches. And though the light only mists the form with a thin luminance, it reveals enough to make Tom wish the apparition had remained unlit.
Upon a seemingly bloodless body, a dark head tops bony shoulders: an absurdly oversized and grotesque headpiece, transforming the entire head of the wearer into lumpy contours. But horrible details are visible. Chiefly, a pair of bristly ears and cruel tusks that curl about an open maw. Beneath the snout, a row of doglike teeth are stained the colour of grimy sea shells. The mask either depicts, or actually is, the black and bristling head of a wild boar.
Below the misshapen head, the lithe human body is ashen from head to foot. It has been daubed or smeared with a white substance that has dried like baked mud. Myriad black cracks attribute a horrible age to the flesh.
Beast-headed but the thing is human and female, is slender-hipped with small breasts upturned to sharp nipples.
The figure raises a bare foot from the grass until the masked woman is balancing her weight upon the other stringy leg, which she keeps straight like a ballerina at the bar. She is closely mimicking the posture of the imp-statue. Flesh and stone face each other. An arm delicately unfolds from the woman’s bony side and stretches outwards. A hand uncurls. Upon the end of that extremity, a single finger is stained darker than the limb. The discoloured digit solemnly points across the border, over the devastated lawn, to pick out Tom’s house.
From the permanently open jaws of the animal mask, more gibberish chatters. The unrecognisable tongue is now grunted more than spoken and suggests the phlegmy croak of a toad. The tone was already coarse but this foul outburst is defined by a peculiar vitriol, a hatefulness.
Any courage and purpose carrying Tom this far evaporates. If he hears much more of this voice, he suspects his mind will unravel. He clamps his hands over his ears. But that hardly stays the horror.
With the two torches now functioning as house lights, a second form emerges from the wings to tread the stage. And upon the white sheets, a series of delicate, mincing steps soundlessly carry the new player to where the pig stands upon one leg.
Conjuring the image of a ghastly ballet dancer, prancing from the grave to court a swinish devil, the second chalky phantom possesses the sparseness of an old man’s limbs and frame. But the skin is boyishly smooth and also coated white.
The second head has been transformed by a grisly headdress too, one patchily furred and elongating to a muzzle. Eye sockets as big as hen’s eggs sit atop the skull. Ragged ears sprout vertically as if stricken into alertness. It’s a large hare, the body skinned to smooth fat; something that could only hop through a nightmare, or through some gruesome avante-garde pantomime.
The terrible face of the hare also confronts the stone imp within the pond, an ornament that increasingly resembles a shrine. And though upright, this second character’s elbows rest against a hairless chest so that the reedy forearms dangle like those of an animal resting upon its hindquarters. And so lifelike is the posture, the hands might even be bony paws.
Then, as if to better demonstrate the bestial qualities of its guise, the hare-thing sinks to a crouch before creeping across the white sheets to the boar. Who retains her position upon one leg and continues to point at Tom’s house. When the ghastly hare reaches the pig, it lowers its long face in deference.
Before Tom can look away, the hare issues a horrible squeal of excitement. Like a lamb below its mother’s belly, the hare’s bumpy nose proceeds to worry at the inner thigh of the boar, before beginning an eager suckling of the teat that it finds there. Lapping and gulping sounds soon ensue until the sound of its feeding grows too noisome.
Tom sits down and presses his hands even harder against his ears. What remains of his concentration he employs to keep down the hot, sour contents of his stomach. Only when he hears the metallic chink of the neighbours’ gate being unlatched does he look up and peer at the Moots’ empty garden.