Loop (10 page)

THE CRY OF GULLS

Things have a terrible permanence when people die.

Joyce Kilmer

Cressida's story

Corio Bay,
17 January 1854

Birds. They cry like children and fly up from the saltbush along the edge of the bay. Plovers and seagulls mainly; dark spots, moving in circles across a cloudless blue sky. I envy them their flight.

Across the bay, a single, thin column of smoke spirals lazily upwards from the chimney of one of the lime-burners' huts. There is no wind to speak of. Not even enough to disturb the smoke's vertical rise.

And not enough to worry the surface of the water that fills the intervening space. It ripples slightly with the endless movement of the tide, but its surface is calm, and touched with the soft blue of the sky.

Sometimes I try to use my imagination to look beneath the peaceful surface of the bay. To search out the secret history it hides – the ghosts that lurk among the weeds and rocks that line its bed, doomed forever to remember.

The pain of opening themselves to death, and the agony of bursting lungs. And the sharper torment of knowing what was lost in the moment of losing everything.

The ghosts of sailors and fishermen taken by the sea, vessels wrecked in the storms which turn this gentle creature of water and salt into a waking nightmare. Does a summer's day and a cloudless sky offer them any rest? I wonder.

The surface is a mask that hides the truth beneath …

Isobelle sits where she always sits, leaning with her back against the tree at the east end of the portico, staring out across the bay. She gives no indication that she sees me as I move back towards the house, and the fact of it still hurts, though why it should after all these months is beyond my understanding.

Sometimes I think her face is like the surface of the bay. Blank and peaceful but hiding beneath its surface a story – or a pain – too powerful to bear. Since that night, she has neither laughed nor cried, nor spoken to a living soul, though sometimes, in that endless moment between midnight and dawn, when things are silent and the house is still, I fancy I hear her voice as it used to be, singing clear and unaccompanied.

Always, it is one of the songs that Mother taught us. I know it, and I sing it silently in my mind, warmed by the memory it conjures of nights around the piano, with the lamps flickering and Mother charming music from the keys while we sang.

While Isobelle sang …

Sometimes when I hear her voice drifting through the silence of the house, I try to get to her, to see her as she sings, to let her know that I am here. To wake her from the trance which I can never break in daylight. But it is useless.

Every time, the moment that my bare feet touch the floor the singing stops, and silence rules again.

How could she know?

Or
does
she know? Perhaps there is no song except inside my head. Perhaps it is my way of pushing back the horror of that night. My way of struggling to capture the echoes of what can never be again, like the ghosts of those drowned sailors, refusing to let go the pain.

Like Isobelle, staring out across the bay, but seeing what?

I touch her golden hair as I pass. She stares ahead and does not look at me.

Isobelle's story

It is cold. Since nightfall the wind has come up, blowing in from the south, ice-sharp and promising rain. But I sit here still, my back against the familiar rough comfort of the tree.

The lights are there again, thousands of them, clear and unflickering, orange and pure white, and far too bright for lamps or lanterns. They line the shore and illuminate the huge and towering structures and the strange round shapes on the far shore.

I like to think of it as a fairy city, something out of the poems that Mother used to read to us. But I know better.

At night, such fairies and magic might seem reasonable. At night, when the lights shine unblinking across the water, anything appears possible.

But I have watched the scene by day. I have seen the chimneys belching black smoke into the blue sky, and the ugly shapes of the buildings, stark against the shoreline, and the strange, huge ships sliding in and out, and the years creeping endlessly by.

I have seen them and I know them for what they are. The future. The present. The past.

For what is Time to someone who is outside of Time?

Cressida refuses to see them. She stares across the bay and sees only what she remembers. How can I tell her what I see, when she pretends she cannot hear?

Sometimes at night I call to her, hoping that I might break through the wilful blindness she has adopted. At times I think she almost hears me, but then she begins to sing
–
one of the old songs, the ones that Mother taught us
–
and I know that she will not come.

I often wonder what the towers and chimneys are for, why the buildings were thrown up along the shoreline on the other side of the bay. And I wish that I could take the old boat and row across, but then I remember. The boat is gone.

If we had a carriage, perhaps we could ride around, and then …

Sometimes it is so easy to forget the truth
–
to convince yourself that what you feel is real and solid, that you have the power to act upon your wishes and your will. But the world moves on and Avalon stays where it is. Where it has always been.

Perhaps Cressida is right to deny what is there to be seen. Perhaps it is the way to peace. But I fear that it is her denial that binds her here.

Accept,
I say.
The truth shall set you free.
The words are from a passage that Father read once at morning service. He looked so tall and stern standing up there behind the lectern, so … proud. Nothing like the Father we knew at home, gentle and funny and kind.

At least before the fire burned his dreams.

Accept …

But she refuses to hear me. She touches my head absently and walks away, as if I have said nothing.

And so the world moves on and I sit here with my back against my tree and watch the changes roll, while Cressida plays her part and waits for Mother and Father to come home.

I sometimes think that I should go. Move on and leave her here alone. I tell myself that this is what she needs. The shock of loneliness to break the shield of dreams she has built around the truth. But I know I cannot.

She would watch me go and wave goodbye and wait for my return, just as she waits for theirs.

And so her dream and her denial bind me too.

The sea is growing rough. Tonight will bring storms.

I rise and make my way inside …

Ian

‘Seen enough?' The foreman sounds impatient. Babysitting the boss's son isn't his idea of a day's work and he doesn't mind who knows it. But Ian is immune to sarcasm.

Fourteen years living with his father would make anyone immune.

The wind gusts, a reminder of last night's storms, but the morning sky is clear and the puddles are shrinking to dark patches on the concrete. He turns his back on the huge structures of the refinery towering up all around him and raises his binoculars to his eyes, flicking the focus knob with his thumb and watching the old house on the far side of the bay jump sharply into view.

‘What's that?'

‘What?' He can feel the foreman move up close behind him. He points and hands over the glasses.

‘That old house.'

For a moment the foreman is silent. Then, ‘That's Avalon.'

‘Avalon
?'

‘Aye. “Austin's Folly” they used to call it. The Austins, they built it, oh, around 1850 or so. Wanted it to be a place of peace on the bay. But they was cursed, the Austins. First, the place burns down, not even a year after it was built. Then, not long after they builds it again, the two daughters … Isobelle and … Christina, no, strange name it were … began with a C … Anyway, they goes out in a boat one evening – without permission – and no one ever sees them again. The Austins, they packed up and went back to England. The old place is deserted.'

The boy takes the glasses back.

‘Not quite. It must be tourist season.'

For on the shore he sees a girl, standing, staring out across the bay. And as he moves the glasses slightly, he sees another, sitting lazily with her back against a tree, the sunlight catching her golden hair.

But then he blinks, and when he looks again the girls are gone.

‘Okay,' he says. ‘I've seen enough.'

And as they turn to go, he hears, above the noise of the refinery, the sound of birds crying. He pauses for a moment and watches them circling in the sky above the wetlands.

Funny how much they sound like children …

The wind carves ripples on the surface of the bay.

WHITE MAGIC

Aidan

7 July 1097 AD

The animal pauses in its drinking and raises its head, testing the air. Downstream, behind a screen of branches, Aidan watches the deer and measures the distance as he reaches behind him for one of the arrows that he has stuck into the soft earth of the forest floor.

The trees are still, hanging in the silence like a prayer, and the very stillness makes him pause.

Carefully he takes aim and draws back the bowstring, feeling the tension through the muscles of his forearm. The yew-wood creaks slightly as it bends, and he holds his breath in preparation for the release. But before he can loose the shaft, before the arrow can sing its death-note, the rustling noise of footsteps on the far-side of the stream sends the animal leaping off into the undergrowth, and it is lost from view.

He stifles a curse and keeps the bow primed, watching the stream bank, waiting for the intruder to appear.

It is a short wait.

There is a movement in the bushes where they grow right up to the bank, and a young girl's head appears. She looks both ways along the water's edge, before pushing through completely and bending down to drink from the stream.

Aidan holds his breath and recites a silent prayer of protection.

Surely she must be a witch-child.

Her hair is long and golden and it hangs in unnatural curls around her face.

And her clothing … Like m'Lady's soft wool, it creases and folds as she kneels beside the water, and it flutters slightly in the late-afternoon breeze. But it is not wool. Nor any material he has ever seen.

It shines silver like the armour of the knights who gather each year for the tournament Sir Guilliam holds to celebrate the victory of the Norman Conqueror.

Who but a witch could weave silver into clothing so soft? Who but a witch would dare wear it? Especially in the lord's forest.

And she makes no effort to be quiet. The deer sensed her a hundred paces distant, and if any of Sir Guilliam's men are nearby, they will arrive at any moment to investigate.

Yet she kneels calmly to drink.

His fingers tighten on the bow-string, but he prays that he will have no need to loose the arrow. For what use would a mere arrow be against witchcraft?

He releases the breath he has been holding and tries to ease the tension in his neck, but he can feel his heart racing, and he knows it is no use.

Then she is staring at him. Into him …

Aidan the Mouse is a skilled poacher. Since the Normans hanged his father, he has kept meat on the table and stocked his mother's secret pantry with animals from Sir Guilliam's woods. He can sneak up on a deer or even a rabbit without the creature sensing he is there. He has hidden at times within inches of the Lord's men and not been caught.

But this girl, this witch-child, knows exactly where he is hiding. She does not search the bushes with her eyes, or strain to make out his shape behind the curtain of green. She just stares straight at him, as if he is standing in the open.

Her eyes are blue, the deep blue of a summer's sky, so blue they almost glow.

She stands up, facing him, and smiles.

Hello. What's your name?

The words come, but her lips remain unmoving. And he realises he is not hearing the sound of the words. She speaks them straight into his mind.

For the first time he is truly afraid.

He lowers the bow and lets it drop from his nerveless hands. There is no mere weapon that can fight magic this strong.

‘I am Aidan. But they call me Mouse.'

The girl smiles.

Mouse. I like that. I am Rheika. And do not be afraid, I am not a witch. Why do they call you Mouse?

‘Because I move so quietly and I can hide anywhere. Except from you. How did you know where I was?'

It would be too difficult to explain. But believe me, it is not magic. I knew. The same way that I know there are men coming. Is there some place you can hide me?

For a moment Aidan stands confused. How could she know there are men coming? He has the sharpest ears in the village and he can hear nothing.

Then, faintly, he catches the sounds of movement deep in the forest behind her.

‘Quickly. This way. Cross the stream and come over here, but use the stones to get across. Don't wet your feet or you will leave a trail for them to follow. Sir Guilliam's men are hard to shake if they have your trail.'

I fear they have it already …

The girl's words form in his mind as she makes her way across.

Then she is standing next to him. She is smaller than he is, and perhaps a couple of years younger. About thirteen, he guesses. But she doesn't act younger. She stands calmly, waiting for him to speak.

‘This way.' He whispers the words as he picks up his bow and makes his way silently back through the bushes. ‘And try not to make any noise. They have sharp ears too.'

Rheika nods and does as she is told.

Rheika's story

Okay, I know I'm not supposed to make contact with the natives, but this situation was just a little out of the ordinary. It was a one-in-a-million accident, but it happened and I was trapped. I needed help and he seemed the most likely person to ask.

I told Hanee to have the stabilisers on the capsule checked after the Krakatoa trip, but he was probably off somewhere with that air-head Ariel and forgot. Apart from the obvious physical inducements, I don't know what he sees in that girl, I really don't.

Anyway, one of the stabiliser legs must have collapsed, because just as I entered the Time-frame, the capsule leaned over to one side and rolled down into this sort of gully. I was just lucky that the escape hatch ended up on the top when it stopped rolling. Otherwise I might still be in there.

Nothing was badly damaged, but you know the dangers of operating the capsule unless it's standing upright, and the thing was too heavy for me to lift on my own, let alone drag up the side of the hole it was lying in. Like I said, I figured I needed some help.

And ‘Mouse' was it.

He didn't know what to make of me.

When you think about it, he had every right to be confused. After all, in … what year was it? 1097 AD? I guess I would have looked more than a little weird. But he handled it pretty well.

First, he got me away from the lord's men. I could see why they called him ‘Mouse'. He moved so quickly and hardly made a sound, and he could squeeze through the smallest spaces. It was lucky I'm so small myself, or I might have had trouble following him. We hid in a small cave a few minutes from where I'd hidden the capsule.

I hadn't hidden it as well as I would have liked. I just threw some branches over it, activated the remote force-shield and hoped for the best. I was fortunate that where it was lying it was pretty much out of sight already.

I could tell he was scared of me without even dipping into his thoughts. Back in those times, anything you couldn't understand was either magic or witchcraft, and I guess nothing about me would have been easy for him to understand.

Let's face it, even in the twenty-first century mind-speech would have been pretty frightening, so back in the Dark Ages it must have been a lot worse.

I saw him looking at my thermo-suit, so I pulled off one of the gloves and handed it to him. He looked at it, smelled it, then slipped it on.

‘It's not metal at all,' I told him. ‘It's made of a type of plastic.'

That really helped, of course. It would be almost a thousand years before plastic was even invented.

‘It makes my hand feel warm.' I could see him working things out in his mind. He looked at my suit. ‘Do you not feel hot wearing that …' He didn't have the words to describe my clothes.

I took the glove and put it back on.

‘Where I come from it is much hotter than here. I would feel cold if I did not wear the suit.'

I could see he was still confused. ‘But it is summer,' he said. ‘It does not get any hotter than this.'

How do you explain the Greenhouse effect and centuries of global warming to someone who doesn't even know that the world is round?

I didn't try.

‘I really need your help. Without it, I will not be able to get back home.'

Home he understood.

‘Where is your home?'

‘Far away, Aidan,' I replied. ‘I'm afraid I'm very far from home.' I didn't bother to give details. What could I say? Sixteen hundred years in the future? The answer would have been meaningless.

Anyway, ‘Far away' seemed acceptable, because he just nodded.

‘How can I help?'

The million-dollar question.

‘How strong are you?' I asked.

Aidan

Slowly they remove the branches that cover the capsule. When it is revealed, Aidan stands back in wonder. The machine is roughly egg-shaped, but the clear plastic dome which forms its top half shows the complex controls and information screens inside.

One of the tripod stabilisers has snapped above the central elbow, while another has been badly bent in the tumble down the side of the small gully. But he knows nothing of this.

Rheika examines the damage again and shakes her head. It is hopeless. Worse than hopeless. There is no way that the iridium alloy stabilisers can be repaired in such a primitive place.

She looks at Aidan and tries to smile, but her frustration and her tears overflow and she begins to cry.

If I can't fix it, I won't be able to get home …

Aidan looks down at her. Suddenly she seems less powerful.

A Faerie with damaged wings. She looks just like his sister, Regan, except for the way her hair curls. And the incredible colour of those eyes.

He reaches out and wipes away a tear.

‘We will need help,' he says.

But …

‘We cannot lift it alone. Come, try.'

Together they strain, but the capsule barely moves. Aidan sits down on a rock.

‘If we cannot even turn it, how can we carry it to the top of the bank?' He looks across at the machine. ‘What is it?'

There is no way to explain. Rheika is silent, then slowly she draws a breath.

I suppose you could call it magic. White magic. Where I come from we know many things and we travel to many places and … times, to learn about people and where we come from. But we are always careful never to be seen. Until now. You saw me, but no one must know. We cannot ask for help.

Aidan stands up, a light in his eyes. ‘Brendan the Smith. He was my father's friend. He will help and ask no questions.'

How can you be sure? As soon as he sees —

‘That is the point! He cannot see. He went blind three years ago. He can no longer shoe a horse or fire a forge, but he is still the strongest man I know. And he will help me. For my father's sake, if not for mine. Stay here with the egg and I will go for him.'

And without waiting for a reply, he is gone.

Rheika's story

What could I do? I didn't have a hope of moving the capsule and I couldn't leave it there, so I had to trust him. And I'd seen his mind. I was pretty sure he'd do what he'd promised.

What amazed me about Aidan was the way he just accepted things. He asked a few questions, but he didn't seem to mind not understanding the answers – or at least not getting a complete explanation.

I suppose in those days there was so much about the world that no one understood that they had to accept a lot more without too many questions. Things just were. You accepted it and you got on with your life.

It was after dark when they came back. Aidan was leading the biggest man I've ever seen. He was well over two metres tall and looked as strong as an ox.

I told Aidan that I'd been thinking. We didn't need to get the ‘egg' up to the top of the bank. As long as we could stand it upright, I could make it work and I could get home.

I looked at Brendan's eyes. There was a white cataract film over them, and I knew there was no hope that he would ever see again. Back home, with photon surgery, they could have fixed him up in half an hour, but here …

I shook my head and helped Aidan and the big man as they strained to lift the capsule.

For a moment it seemed as if even Brendan's strength would not be enough. Then I felt the capsule move. The soft earth sucked a little as the weight pulled free, but then it was standing upright with Brendan holding it there until we wedged it with rocks and pieces of wood so that it wouldn't fall.

I checked the instruments. I was ready to go.

I looked at the two of them standing there. I owed them so much, but there was nothing I could give them.

Then it struck me. I'd broken so many rules already that one or two more couldn't make it any worse. I took the locket from around my neck and handed it to Aidan. He looked at it in wonder before closing his hand on it.

Then I spoke to Brendan. Not in mind-speech but in words.

‘You have helped me. If you will trust me now, perhaps I can repay the debt and help you.'

As I spoke, I looked at Aidan. He placed a hand on the big man's shoulder and squeezed. Brendan nodded without saying a word.

‘Wait here,' I said to Aidan. Then I led Brendan into the capsule and strapped him into the passenger seat. It was a tight squeeze.

Aidan

The moon is full and its light shines onto the egg-like capsule as Rheika closes the hatch. Inside, he can see the two figures: his father's friend and the strange girl.