Whispers From The Abyss (11 page)

Q….

But what did he see?

Q….

Then show me. If you can't tell me,
show me!

Q….

Well yes, but doesn't the continuum hypothesis assert that the continuum had the cardinality of—I mean, isn't there a distinction to be made between point-set theory and abstract set theory. But doesn't infinity mean that…?

Q….

You're right, you're right. I was only supposed to ask the one question.

Q….

I can't feel anything below my neck. My hands have been bound behind my back for a long time now. My arms, my shoulders, numb. Numbness, slowly rising up to my…what, my brain? Haha, but aren't there an infinite number of points between there and here? Can't I stay? Here with you? Forever?

Q….

Oh God. Yes yes, I understand now. Right. Here I go. It's all perfectly reasonable. Thank you for everything. Goodbye.

Your absence chokes the words, ties a knot around my heart, drives me mad with longing. When will I see you? When can I join you?

I walk by the seashore and look at the waves, waiting for a sign of your arrival. The town is full of echoes and empty of you. The seagulls cry a sad lament.

Oh, my love.

I will go down to the beach and cut my palm with an ivory knife. I will then place this message in a bottle, hoping it reaches you.

*     *     *

It has been so long and not a sign of you. And now I know why!

I went to town today. The people looked at me in an odd, sideways way. Avoiding my gaze and whispering between them when I walked by. I felt a tension in the air and I quickened my pace, fear striking inside me; a sharp, disharmonious note. I tried to stop, to quiet the dread in my heart, yet it grew with every step.

Sweat began to bead my forehead, for it was a hot day. Too hot. Too hot to fish, the nets tangled and the fishermen waiting in the shade and the sea like glass; a still mirror, unbreakable.

I stopped and removed my hat, fanning myself, and that's when I heard two women talking. They did not realize I listened to them, and listen intently I did.

They spoke of the light keeper's daughter. She is young and beautiful and wears pretty, white linen dresses and her eyes are the shade of the sky after a storm. The light keeper's daughter, with her beautiful voice that rises when we sign holy hymns. And her smile, which never fades, placid and pleasant.

They said she is to be your bride. She will marry you. She will wear seashells in her hair and a necklace of the finest gold, and she shall walk barefoot on the beach, while a retinue of a dozen girls make songs and music.

I've been cast aside.

I cannot believe. I shall not believe it. Three years ago I was promised to you.

They are wrong.

I shall speak to the priest.

Please, send a sign of your love.

*     *     *

The priest is an unpleasant old man. He smells of rotten fish. His skin is a mottled grey. When I walked into church, he clasped my hand and the feel of his skin against mine was like sandpaper.

We spoke in his office, which is dark and stuffy and also has that annoying fish odor, though its coolness soothed me, for the long hot days extended one after the other. Each one warmer, each one more blistering. The nets and the boats lay abandoned, and even the seagulls seem to perch still, idle. Waiting.

The priest talked to me slowly and all the while I stared behind him, at the great mosaic that decorates the wall. It is a delightful picture of sea plants and fish and interwoven all around its edge is the symbol of the order.

The priest made small, slow motions with his hands until I boiled over, snapping, and asked him to get to the point of it.

The point is the women were right. The light keeper's daughter has caught your fancy.

You want her instead of me.

We cannot hope to understand the plans and designs of our Great Lord, the priest said, but I would listen no more and rushed out of the office with a hand pressed against my mouth.

When I returned home, I wept. I have been weeping for hours now, for I never desired anything more than to be your beloved and for you to be mine. I cannot understand.

What has happened? How has she enchanted you? I can only assume that she has wickedly tricked you. I can picture her on moonless nights, tossing precious chains and jeweled rings into the sea.

Witchery and deceit.

You must not listen to her! I love you dearly and will cherish you forever. She is a cruel liar who only wishes to curry favor from you and exalt her family. They are an ambitious lot, her people, and she always looks at us with her chin up high, her eyebrows arched, that tiny little smile staining her lips. As though she knows she is better than the rest of the townspeople and now she can prove it, for she is your bride-to-be.

Please, please do not betray your promise! Return to me!

I am slashing my palm thrice and tossing this letter into the sea, knowing it will reach you.

*     *     *

There was much unpleasantness last night but I refused to be cast as the guilty party, for I have done nothing wrong.

For the past few days there have been preparations for a great feast to announce the betrothal of the light keeper's daughter. I've seen people around town busy gathering wine and salted fish and sweet breads, and it is known far and wide that the light keeper has polished the silver candlesticks he inherited from his grandfather, and taken other precious trinkets out from the old trunks.

It will all be put on display for the town to see.

And so, as the sun sizzled and burnt, day after day, I burnt inside with anger, seeing them coo and prepare for the great event. Not a thought was spared for me. It was as though I had disappeared and did not exist. It was as though I had not been paraded in similar fashion three years ago, wearing a veil made from fishermen's nets, a veil decorated with starfish and urchins.

It was as though you and I had never been.

My father said there is no shame in it, for we have been fairly compensated for our trouble. A few coins! That's how much a daughter's dignity costs. That's how much the priest thought of us.

Not only did he dare to toss those miserly scraps at my father, he hinted it was my fault.

The weather has been so hot and the fishing season has been bad, and perhaps I had been a poor choice from the start.

But you loved me! But you loved me so!

So when he said these things it was like a scorching dagger was thrust into my heart and it lay there, burning, as the sun went down. When night fell I rose and walked steadily, guided by the merry voices of the townspeople.

The feast had started. They were playing the drums and the pipes. They were chattering while the bonfire burnt. Everyone was in their best attire, wearing the finest masks they owned. The young people danced in circles, swirling, following the beat of the drums.

A very long table had been set upon the beach, complete with a tablecloth spanning the whole length. Fine porcelain dishes etched with blue scalloped designs were set at each place and the precious candlesticks were on display.

All the great townspeople were seated. The mayor, the priest, the lighthouse keeper and, of course, the light house keeper's daughter sat at the head of the table.

She wore a fine blue dress and a golden mask. Though I could not see her face, I could tell she was smiling.

I walked up to her, but she was talking to someone and did not see me.

The piping and the drumming ceased.

And then she turned her head, as if finally sensing me, and raised her masked face towards me.

And then I spit at her. Spit at that beautiful, golden, serene surface.

The beach was silent as I walked away.

Later, the priest and some others came to talk to my father and father slapped me very hard.

Dishonor, he said.

Dishonor!

It is she who is
dishonorable, they who have done me wrong.

For I have only loved you, loved you most intensely, fully, without wanting nothing but you. You captivated my senses and filled my soul, and I cannot see dishonor in my pain, nor my love.

I slash my palm five times and bid this letter reaches you.

*     *     *

It has been a week since the feast.

It rained yesterday. A strong, steady, rain. In the morning, the beach was spotted with many pink starfish which had been washed ashore. When the tide goes out, they shall all dry and die.

The fishermen kicked the starfish aside, boarded their boats and picked their nets. They set out to sea and hauled in their bounty. So many fish, a pile of silver spilled from their nets. The women beheaded the fish and gutted them. They bled the fish, removing the gills and all blood vessels. They cut the fish, they split it or they left it whole if it was small. Then they began salting them.

I salted, too, though not fish. I dusted salt upon my body, from my hair to the soles of my feet. When I was done I walked to the beach.

I stand here now, with the waves tickling my toes.

I know you love me no longer. She is your love. She shall swim with you in the darkest depths, her pearly flesh resting against you, iridescent fish swimming in her hair. She shall lay upon a bed of anemones and bones.

I know this.

But despite it all, I wish to see you one last time. To behold your perfection. Perhaps, to be embraced, only for a moment, in your arms, the acid taste of your kiss upon my mouth.

I will slash my neck with this ivory knife.

I hope I reach you.

“Switch it on! Switch it on!” I flap at Phyllis through the kitchen window, my fingers filthy with potting compost.

She sighs with affectionate forbearance and turns on Radio Four, placing the radio on the window ledge so that I can hear it better, then returns to her baking.

“Good afternoon,” says the warm, comforting voice of Eric Robinson, “and welcome to Gardeners’ Question Time, coming to you this week from Harbury Hall in Worcestershire, with its splendidly refurbished Elizabethan gardens. In addition to our usual panel of experts we are privileged to have joining us today Doctor David Winter, professor of Xenolithic Topography at the University of Bristol, and chief consultant of the Harbury restoration project. Before we take our first question, Dr Winter, very briefly what drew you to this site?”

“Thank you Eric, and good afternoon. Yes, it’s fascinating being here. There are so many wonderfully dark tales about this place – rumours of Satanism, witchcraft, and worse things - but what drew me particularly was the story that the old Tudor hedge maze was laid out according to an ancient occult design, and so when the opportunity came to examine the original layout I could hardly resist.”

“And did you find anything?” Robinson’s voice is full of amused skepticism.

“Yes,” replies Professor Winter flatly.

“Ah. I see. Would you care to elaborate?”

“No, not really. Not without certain… precautions.”

“Precautions?”

“Indeed. Except to say this: the bones of this county’s landscape are incredibly ancient, and gardeners are closer to these bones than anybody else. The Staffordshire Hoard, for example, which is fourteen hundred years old, was found by a farmer only three feet below the surface of his field. Two million years ago we’d all be sitting at the bottom of a tropical lagoon with sea monsters swimming around our heads.”

This is met by polite, if somewhat baffled, laughter from the audience.

“What’s this chap blithering on about?” I complain to Phyllis. “I’ve got blackfly on my hollyhocks, thank you very much; I don’t need a bloody archaeology lesson.”

When I focus my attention back to the radio the conversation has moved on, and for the next twenty minutes I let it burble over me like the waters of a stream while I plant out my seedlings in the warm May sunshine. The reception is crackly but I don’t mind. Stephanie, my daughter, has been on at me to buy one of those new DAB thingies for a while now. I don’t see the point. She said that the government is going to switch off the airwaves, or something like that. I told her that they can switch off whatever they bloody well like – the air’s a lot older than they are.

Then Gardeners’ Question Time does something that they’ve never done before. They take a live phone call.

“Hello? Can anybody help me? My name is Colin Riley, and I have a question. There’s an odd sort of, ah, animal in my fish-pond and I was wondering if anybody on the panel could help me identify it?” He sounds distracted, as if talking while doing something else like looking over his shoulder or locking a door.

There is a polite murmuring of ‘after you, no, after you’ from the panelists regarding which of them might be best qualified to discuss pond life, before television celebrity gardener Morag Spencer chirps up brightly: “It’s most probably a newt. When people find strange animals in their pond, nine times out of ten it’s a newt. Your only real question is whether you’re looking at a Smooth, Palmate or Great Crested. Can you describe it for us?”

“Well, yes, it does have a sort of crest down its head and back. It also has a pale underbelly and quite protuberant eyes, like a frog’s. Hideous thing. Looks just like Andrew Lloyd Webber.”

“Definitely a Greater Crested,” says Ms Spencer, sounding just a little bit smug. “You’re very lucky, Mr Riley. They’re quite rare. Roughly how big is it, would you say?”

“Oh, about five foot,” he replies airily. “When it stands up on its hind legs, that is.”

This takes the panelists aback somewhat.

“I’m sorry - did you say five
feet
?”

“It’s not a very deep pond,” adds Riley apologetically. “I dug it myself and our soil is basically clay, which is great for the shrubs but a royal pain to dig, so I don’t know, it could be a bit shorter.”

The gardening experts seem to be having difficulty in keeping a hold on this conversation. As a matter of fact so am I. I’ve been so distracted that two of my seedlings have stung me on the left wrist above the cuff of my gardening glove. Little blighters. However, being the consummate BBC radio professionals that they are, aplomb is quickly restored.

“I think it’s safe to say that’s not a newt,” observes Professor Winter. “What exactly is it doing?”

“Being a bloody nuisance, that’s what it’s doing. So far it’s eaten all of my shubunkins, two blackbirds and next door’s cat. I tried luring it away to the canal behind our house with some fish fingers but it just kept spitting them back out again.”

“Has it made any kind of sound?”

“What, apart from the spitting?”

“Yes.”

“Only a sort of muffled meowing noise.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Sorry – just my little joke. Sound? I should bloody say so, croaking and groaning and carrying on like you wouldn’t believe. Now me, I can sleep through pretty much anything, but the poor missus was up all night. Exhausted, she is. No, I can’t be having that. Da-gon! Da-gon! Da-gon! You ever heard a newt make a sound like that?”

“No sir, I haven’t. Nor has any other human in living memory, I suspect. At least none that have survived sane.”

“I don’t follow you, Professor.”

“Mr Riley, what you have in your garden pond is commonly referred to as a ‘Deep One’.”

“Deep What? Isn’t he a midget? Did all those oompaloompahs in that Johnny Whatsername film; Charlie and the Chocolate Thing.”

“A Deep One, Mr Riley. An immortal denizen of the great undersea city of
Y’ha-nthlei; the unholy spawn of the Great Old Ones Mother Hydra and Father Dagon, whose worship you misheard as mere amphibian croaking. They are not mindless animals but creatures of dark, malevolent intelligence, pursuing their unspeakable plans to reclaim this world by breeding with humans and polluting our blood with their own.”

“Blimey. Does the
Daily Mail
know about this?”

“They have already infiltrated most of our cities through the nationwide system of rivers and waterways. My guess is that some unanticipated maintenance work on the canal which runs past your property has caused this one to take temporary refuge in your pond.”

“Well that’s just bloody marvelous. It’s not protected, is it?”

“By the darkest of ancient sorcery, Mr Riley. The darkest of ancient sorcery.”

“Never mind that, what about the Council? Can I poison the bugger? Or shoot it?”

“I doubt whether such mundane methods would be particularly effective. May I just ask, how is your wife today?”

“Susan? Truthfully, professor, I couldn’t tell you. She was that tired, she’s stayed in bed all morning. Why do you ask?”

“Oh, no reason. Now then, Mr Riley,” Dr Winter continues hurriedly, “if you want to repel this batrachian abomination from your water feature for good, listen carefully and follow my instructions precisely.”

I’m only half paying attention as the professor explains to this chap how to inscribe a sign of the Elder Gods on a stone to be thrown into the pond, but my ears prick up when a hysterical female voice brays from the radio.

“Don’t you dare, Colin Riley! Oh don’t you dare! You leave that poor defenseless creature alone, do you hear me?”

“Susan? What on earth are you on about? And why haven’t you got any clothes on?”

Mrs Riley has surfaced, so to speak, and sounds like she’s storming across the lawn. I have a clear mental image of her – curlers askew, nightie flapping, and grass all over her slippers – which is probably quite wrong but then that’s the beauty of radio, isn’t it? You have to use your imagination more. Which is just as well because then all hell breaks loose.

“You leave my dear darling alone!” she shrills.

The penny finally drops for her poor old husband.

“Susan, what are you saying? You mean you and… and
that
?!”

“It’s going to be wonderful, Colin,” she says, her anger replaced by a dreamy langour. “He’s shown me. The green deeps; the lightless paradise of the abyss. And our children – oh Colin, our children are going to be beautiful.”

“Dear Lord, I think I’m going to be sick,” he replies thickly. “Still, at least that explains the smell. I didn’t like to say anything. You know.”

At this point presumably he throws the rune-inscribed stone into the pond because there’s a hideous bubbling screech from the Deep One and a tremendous splashing as of something huge climbing out of a brim-full bath. The man screams “Its teeth! Oh my God, look at its teeth!”, but that’s the last coherent thing he ever utters as the rest of it is simply tortured shrieking, and then the woman joins in as she sees what the creature is doing to her husband. Consternation erupts in the radio studio as technicians race to pull the plug, but just before they can do so comes a third voice, all glutinous vowels intoning something in a blasphemous parody of speech: “Kthagn-yei! Gorog k’kt Dagon naar!” Even through the tinny radio speaker it shocks the birds in my garden into silence, and the very sun seems to darken. Then there’s nothing but blind, mindless static.

“Oh honestly,” sighs Phyllis, and switches the thing off. “It’s almost as bad as the Archers. There’ll be complaints about this, I shouldn’t wonder.”

I shake myself. The shadow passes. Birdsong and sunlight return to my safe, orderly garden.

“It’s definitely unseasonably warm,” I remark to her as I enter the kitchen, shaking my stung hand. The back of it has gone quite numb. “Those triffid seedlings are much more lively than usual. Darling, where have you put the Germolene?”