Stoneheart (15 page)
I
t was a long anonymous box of a tunnel, like any underpass in any city. The walls were lined with vertically ribbed panels, and the floor was a checkerboard strip of yellow and black paving stones. It was a space that just goes from here to there, the kind of nothing space you don’t notice because it isn’t designed to be noticed. You forget dozens of spaces like this every day, the moment you pass through them. When you picture yourself in your mind’s eye, you’re always
somewhere,
never in a limbo space like this at all. And if there’s any point of human contact in this kind of space, it’s usually no more than the downcast gaze of a busker, or the smell of an opportunistic pee someone’s had against the wall when they were desperate and no one was looking, or maybe just the thought that the footsteps behind you might be a mugger. Because, of course, a rarely traveled and largely unnoticed space, out of sight, beneath the skin of the city, is just the place for a mugging.
George wasn’t thinking of mugging when he looked back. He was just checking that Edie was still following. And because he was looking back, he didn’t see the hand that grabbed him, though he heard the crunching, cracking noise that preceded it by an instant.
As the hand clamped tight on his arm, he knew it was a mugger. In his subconscious, like all of us, George had known that one day he’d be alone in a place like this and the mugger would appear. Though, as he turned he was wondering where the mugger had been hiding, because the tunnel had been perfectly empty a moment before.
The hand twisting and coiling around his upper arm came from no mugger.
It came from the wall.
Or it came from a split that it had punched in the wall, with a crunch and a crack. And with the crack came a blast of warmth that ramped up the heat in the passage, as if someone had just opened an oven door.
He had one moment of calm clarity before the panic hit him, and in that frozen extended instant he saw the hand and the arm with almost scientific detachment and detail.
It wasn’t a human arm, because the hand had too many fingers and no discernible joints in any of them. They twined around his arm like a team of small competing snakes, pulsing and constricting and growing longer and thicker in front of his eyes.
It wasn’t a human arm, because it wasn’t covered in skin. It wasn’t covered in anything, and what wasn’t covered was not flesh or bone, but the very soil of the city, the living earth and mud that is always only a few inches beneath the surface layer of stone and tarmac. As he stared in shocked fascination, fragments of gravel and larger pebbles popped out of the clay and writhed and rippled along the surface of the forearm, forming themselves into stony trails that flexed and twisted together like tendons.
And finally, it wasn’t a human arm, because it was already four feet long.
Panic finally arrived, and George dropped the sea-glass and jerked and tugged, trying to get free. The heat intensified and seemed to thicken the air around him, making it as hard to breathe as soup.
“EDIE!” he screamed, trying to look backward and kick at the arm at the same time.
A rhythmic growing
chunka-chunka
noise turned his head back to the front, and froze him for a second time. Something was speeding toward him at floor level, like a shark attacking from beneath the pavement, rippling the yellow and black paving stones into a menacing bow wave as it came for him.
Though he was still firmly pinioned by his arm, he managed to lurch away and run his legs up the side of the passage, desperate to get his feet up out of harm’s way. Sweat was pouring from him, and he could see his wet clothes beginning to steam in the heat of the air that closed around him.
“EDIE!”
He was stuck, jammed horizontally across the passageway, his feet scrabbling for purchase on the wall.
The under-floor attacker just switched tack. The rippling paving stones headed to the edge of the floor and then up the side, and the wall itself bulged in its own bow wave and the thing broke surface with a ripping noise. A single clay finger jagged out and developed into a roiling knot of tendrils, like a giant clay model of a sea urchin on the end of another arm, heading right for George’s ankles. In a final surge of panicked energy, he found himself contorting in horror, trying to run even farther up the wall and onto the ceiling, before the tendrils slapped into his right leg and whipped around it in a grip that was, if anything, tighter and more painful than the one on his arm.
Edie ran into the end of the tunnel and bounced off the side wall before she got a fix on what was happening in front of her. Or rather, she didn’t get a fix, so much as an impression. There were two Georges it seemed: one standing in the middle of the passage, unmoving, and then another George being held in the air, at right angles to the standing George—or a maybe-George because it was a wispy image, see-through and almost invisible, like a skein of smoke with a faint moving picture projected on it. She couldn’t see exactly what was holding the nearly-George, but she could see from the way he was struggling that he was fighting it, and fighting it hard.
And then she saw the ceiling ripple, as if a ghost-ceiling was flexing, and then the ghost-ceiling split and she thought, very, very far away she could hear someone quietly whispering her name—
“Edie!”
George saw the solid brown mass rip out of the ceiling in front of him, and he shouted louder than he could ever remember doing before in his short life—a life that looked like it was not going to get any longer than the next second or so.
A column of clay dropped out of the gash in the roof and hung in front of him. As he watched in horror, it started to whirl slowly, as if being kneaded and shaped by an army of invisible hands. The bottom of the column spread out, while the top thinned into a sinewy cable as thick as a telegraph pole. When the column had mor-phed itself into a rough cone shape, the cable flexed and bent, and tilted the base of the cone toward George.
George stopped shouting. He stopped doing anything. The only movement he made was a reflexive blink as his brain dealt with the stinging sweat pouring into his eyes. He just stared.
The base of the cone was a mouth, and in the mouth were teeth: teeth that moved and ground and clashed and shattered against each other: teeth that weren’t really teeth, but sharp flints and jags of broken glass, torn and rusted soda cans and shards of broken china. And they were constantly churning and rotating in the earthy maw of the cone, chipping and skreeing against each other.
George was looking into the heart of a slow whirlwind of mud. And what he saw was a meat grinder.
The hand and the tentacles holding his arm and leg pulled apart and twisted, and the pain screwed through him as he was stretched, wrung out like a dishcloth, and he realized that he was being held for the mouth like a cob of corn about to be bitten into. The grip on his ankle was especially tight, and as it twisted he felt his leg being pulled out of its socket, and he realized the pain was about to become beyond excruciating, and that he was going to pass out. And simultaneously he realized that passing out would mean that he was dead meat in the grinder, and he found a treacly blackness within himself that pushed the pain down to a place where he could find it later, and he used every ounce of strength left in him to chop his hand at the arm attached to the tendrils holding his leg.
And again thinking two things at once, he knew it was a futile gesture, and he knew sometimes all you have is the lost hope. And his hand hit the arm and felt thick wet earth and sharp pebbles and long dead roots and then air again, and his feet were suddenly free, and gravity did its thing and his body dropped from the horizontal to the vertical.
He felt the air move as the mouth lunged for where he had just been, and he heard the teeth gnash. And then he felt the pain in his arm double as it took all his weight, still clenched in the other earth hand. His feet were dancing six inches in the air, looking blindly for pavement to relieve the pressure, and as the cone of teeth pulled back, like a snake preparing to strike again, he lashed out at it.
Again he felt earth and stone and debris and then air, and this time he saw what his hand could do: the cone simply stopped being a cone in front of his eyes and just dropped to the ground in a spatter of soil and pebbles, as haphazard as a thrown shovelful of dirt splayed across the checkerboard at his feet.
He grabbed at the many fingers boa-constrictoring around his arm, and found that they too dissolved into a formless scrabble of soil as he touched it with his hand, as if it were just as simple and easy as brushing dirt from his sleeve.
He dropped to the floor and stumbled a little.
Edie saw the floating almost-George lash and fight and then drop into a stumble, and then the two Georges were one, like something coming into focus. And then there was one boy and no ghost images, and Edie ran for him.
“George. Out of here, now!”
She had no idea what she’d just seen, but she knew it wasn’t good, and she knew it was to do with being underground, and she needed to get them both into the open air as soon as possible. She grabbed his wet arm and pulled. He took a step forward, then stopped.
“H-hang on.”
He dipped and snatched something from the floor, and then they were both running up the steps and out into the night—and as they hit the air, George gulped it like a man drinking cool water after a day’s work in a blast furnace.
And of course the cold air and the shock made him shake all over again, and his teeth rattled together until he looked at Edie.
“What?” she said.
He handed over the thing he’d dropped in the underground passage. She took it and looked into it. If there was any light in it, it was very pale—so pale it might just be her imagination, she decided.
“I’m sorry I took it. I did it so that you’d run after me. I didn’t know how else to make you move… .”
She slid the sea-glass into her pocket and zipped it up with an air of finality.
“Well, don’t take it again. Ever.” “I won’t.”
She shivered and rubbed at her soaking arms. Her teeth began to chatter again.
“And if you do nick it, at least look at the stupid thing. It’s what it’s for, you mung. You ran right into whatever just happened.”
He felt the ache in his arm and ankle, and thought of the earth rippling with gravel tendons and the mouthful of sharp forgotten debris, and decided he’d think about it later. He wanted to move on.
“Yup.”
“Could have saved yourself a lot of trouble.”
He nodded, just glad to be out of the tunnel, above-ground and breathing normally. He cleared his throat. Maybe he could talk about it if she’d seen it, and of course she
had
to have seen it. Maybe she could make sense of it.
“Do you know what that was?” he asked.
“Apart from horrible and frightening?”
“Yeah.”
She shook her head.
“Not a Scooby. Just more nightmare.”
“But you saw it?”
It was important to George, suddenly, that she had also witnessed it.
“I saw
something.
Like layers or—I dunno. Bits of a thing. You were there and just standing, and then there was like another wispy you floating about and fighting away, and then—it’s complicated.”
He nodded.
“Maybe the Black Friar can explain.”
She shook her head.
“Just ask him about the London Stone, like the Gunner said. Keep it simple.”
“Why?”
She shrugged and walked across the pavement, heading away from the river, rubbing herself as she went, trying to stop her teeth chattering.
“Don’t know. Every time we talk to one of these spits they’re confusing enough without giving them more reason to get all ambiguous on us. London Stone’s the key, so let’s not give him the excuse not to give us a simple answer.”
G
eorge followed Edie toward a narrow triangular four-story pub that jutted its sharpest angle toward the river, like the prow of an earthbound boat. On the first floor, above a green and gold mosaic number 174, a black statue of a large monk was positioned like a figurehead, his hands folded contentedly on the upper slopes of an expansive stomach kept in check by a long tasseled belt. The children stopped beneath it. The pub was closed. Looking up at the Friar, all they could really see of his face were double chins and fat cheeks and a jutting nose. He appeared to be beaming merrily, but it was just an impression, since they couldn’t see his eyes. Above his head there was a halolike yellow clock face. George looked at it in disbelief.
“It can’t be five to seven! It’s got to be later than that.”
“It’s always five to seven here, young man. Always such a convivial, promising time, five to seven; the day’s 5:21 PM 4/22/2010work done, the evening spread before you like a banquet to pick and choose what diversion you will; a time for warmth and conviviality and conversation.”
The voice boomed down at them, a rich, honeyed voice in which you could hear barely controlled laughter and good cheer ringing through like a peal of bells.
“Conversation is what we’ve come for,” said Edie, stepping back for a better look.
The Black Friar jerked his head down to look at her, his pouchy face wobbling in surprise.
“You heard me?”
“Mind you, the warmth sounds pretty good, too,” added George, jogging on the spot and rubbing at himself to try and get some heat going.
“You
both
heard me?” said the Friar, looking from one to another.
“We’re both cold,” said Edie.
“And wet,” added George. “Cold and wet.”
“Well I’ll be jiggered,” said the Friar. “Watch out below.”
He stepped off the front of the building and dropped to the ground, his cassock billowing around him like a dark parachute. He hit the pavement with a crash that did justice to his considerable girth, straightened his legs, smoothed his robes, and looked at them both appraisingly. Close to him, they could see his eyes were indeed set in deep laugh lines, making him look a very friendly and cheery sort of monk—which was a relief, because his size was just looming enough to have been threatening in other circumstances.
“Conversation, you say? And what of? And why? And whence? And wherefore too, no doubt?”
George and Edie exchanged a look that translated as “Huh?” in any language you chose.
“Sorry?”
“Apology accepted. Think no more about it. It’s forgotten,” said the Friar, beaming down at them.
George began to wonder if the monk was a bit mad. Edie just thought he was annoying.
“The Gunner said you could help us. And we could do with the help.”
“The Gunner, you say?”
“Please,” said George.
“I know of several Gunners.”
“We just know the one. He’s a spit, like you.”
There was a long pause as the Friar examined them. Then he chuckled and pointed to the door of the pub.
“Please. Any friend of the Gunner, whatever Gunner, is a friend of mine and so forth! You find us at a disadvantage; the hostelry doors closed due to a refurbishment of the lavatories beneath the bar, which were, I’ll admit, a little noxious with age and overuse. But enter, please do. Hospitality is ever our watchword, no matter what the time.”
George tried the door. It wouldn’t budge. Edie stepped in and rattled it to no more effect. She turned an accusing eye on the friar.
“It’s locked.”
“Ah, well, love laughs at locksmiths.” He chuckled.
“What?”
He pushed in front of them.
“To the pure of heart no door is ever locked.” He fumbled for a moment, then the door swung open. “As you see.
“You used a key,” Edie observed quietly.
He gave a theatrical sigh, shoulders slumping good-humoredly, like a disappointed conjuror.
“Bless your sharp little eyes, we shall have to watch you, and that’s a fact.”
He stood to one side and the two of them walked into the pub. It was a narrow, awkwardly angled space. In the dark there were odd shapes and reflections that seemed to loom and then lurch away as the lights of passing cars swept past the windows. The bottles behind the bar and the brassware on it glittered with the fragmented reflections of the streetlights outside.
There were stepladders and other evidence of builders spread across the floor, and a dust sheet hung protectively over the bar surface, like a discarded shroud.
The door snapped shut behind them. The Black Friar swept past with unexpected nimble-footedness for such a large and bulky man.
“Come, come, mind the tradesmen’s mess; into the chamber here, the alcove, and we will have heat and light and see what we can do for you, for it’s clear that unless we do something, you will likely come down with the sniffles.”
He bustled them through the left-hand of three low arches and pressed them onto a bench at the end of a dim vaulted space, and left them, suddenly ducking down a flight of steps beside the bar. Edie stared at George.
“Sniffles!”
“I know.” He shrugged.
He was freezing again. His clothes stuck to him like soaked bandages.
“We’re meant to trust something that says ‘sniffles’?”
He could hear her teeth chattering in the dark. Before he could say anything more, there was a clattering and the Friar reappeared, dragging something heavy that clanged on each step as he came up the stairs.
He blocked out the streetlight as he lurched through the arch, and then bent to lower a gas canister and a stubby torpedo-shaped heater onto the floor in front of them.
“The tradesmen have been trying to dry out the cellar. I’m sure they would think it unchristian to deprive you of this warmth in your hour of need.”
He lifted his arm, and a bundle of clothing fell to the floor.
“Dry clothes. Towels of a sort. People leave things,” he explained. “Peril of overindulgence in a hostelry such as this, waking up at home having gained a headache and lost a topcoat, d’you see?”
He chortled at his own good humor.
“Everyday tragedy of the convivial man, no doubt! Help yourself, do. I shall give you privacy while you change. Perhaps food would be—”
“Yes,” said Edie, so fast that George suddenly realized she couldn’t have eaten in a long while.
She knelt over the clothes and lifted a handful of towels.
“These are beer towels. They’re tiny.”
“Good job there’s a bunch of them,” George said. He knelt by the heater and looked at it. He turned the knob on the top of the gas bottle. He heard a rustle of clothing from behind him and started to look back.
“Er, I’m changing,” said Edie, the shiver still in her voice.
“It’s all right. I’m not looking,” he said, trying to make out the controls in the meager streetlight. “I’m trying to get us some warmth.”
“You know how that works?”
He found an electric plug on the end of a wire. There was a socket by his knee, so he plugged it in. A fan started blowing inside the stubby torpedo.
“My dad had one like it in his studio. Used it in winter. Hang on.”
The Dark Shaveling He turned a taplike switch. Nothing happened. Edie snorted in derision.
“I thought you said you knew how to work it.” He carried on, counting to ten, then pressed a button. There was a click and a tiny spark noise, then a big
Whoomf
and the space heater roared into life. A circle of flame inside the metal casing was blown forward by the fan onto a grid that started to glow red. As George held his hand in front of the big opening, the heat began building fast. The flames went from blue to red to almost white, and then the heat was too strong for him to leave his hand in the way.
“Nice one,” said Edie, almost impressed. “Oh, wow.” The flames from the heater were also lighting up the alcove they were in. It was a barrel-vaulted space, about two meters wide by five long, and every inch of it was decorated with smoky-brown marble shot through with black streaks. There were columns and pilasters and mirrors and ornate alabaster light fittings and pieces of statuary everywhere. Above their heads, the curve of a barrel-vault reflected back the light from thousands of gold mosaic chips, outlined in thin lines of black-and-white checkerboarding. In the center of the ceiling was a star-shaped compass, and all around the cornicing below ran ornate lettering, each one a quotation, none of which made any connection with the others around it. George was facing one that read: HASTE IS SLOW. He turned to read another that suggested: FINERY IS FOOLERY.
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Edie pulling on a long man’s sweatshirt. “Hey,” she said.
“Sorry,” he said, looking away quickly. “This place. It’s pretty weird, no?”
“Weird is right.”
“It’s like being inside a church or something.”
She pushed past him and spread her skirt and tights on a chair in front of the heat blasting out of the heater.
“You want to get dry and change?”
He stepped back. She stood in front of the heat, looking up at the decoration around them, rubbing her hair with a beer towel. He noticed she clutched the sea-glass in her hand.
He stripped off his coat and shirt, and rubbed his chest with the bar towels. It felt great, and the ache in his arm and hand and ankle all seemed bearable now. He rummaged in the pile of clothes, found a woolen cardigan and put it straight on, next to his skin. He was so happy to be dry that he didn’t mind the scratchiness. It felt comforting and real. He unbuckled his belt.
‘"Don’t advertise it—tell a gossip,'” Edie read from the far cornice. “Don’t know what that means. Doesn’t make sense. Tell you what, though, this heat is brilliant.”
