Tower of Silence (12 page)

But when Christy said, ‘I expect my parents will come pretty soon. I don’t expect we’ll have to wait very long, do you?’ Selina at once said, ‘No, I don’t expect so.’

But they had to wait for a very long time. Selina thought that hours and hours went by, although Christy said it could not be hours and hours because the sky through the open top of the tower showed it was still night.

They did not want to move away from the door and so they sat on the floor, leaning back against it. ‘Mind the sick,’ said Christy. ‘It’d be horrid to sit in it.’

Selina was actually past caring, but she said, ‘Yes, it’d be horrid.’

They sat close together because it was less frightening that way, but it was still very frightening indeed. As the night wore on, the tower seemed less silent. It seemed to fill up with tiny stirrings–Selina had to try very hard indeed not to think about all the poor half-eaten bodies in here.

After a while a horrid little night wind got up and hissed around them, and small dry rustlings sounded within the darkest part of the tower. Bones being rubbed together, thought Selina, shuddering. They had stopped noticing the stench by this time, but the wind seemed to stir it up and she was sick again. Christy lent her a handkerchief, and when Selina had mopped her face she sat down again and said, ‘Christy, dead people don’t really come back, do they?’

It seemed a long time before Christy answered this, but at last she said, ‘No.’

‘But even if they did come back, they wouldn’t hurt anyone, would they?’

‘No,’ said Christy again. ‘If they loved you when they were alive, they love you even more when they’re dead. They want to help you.’

‘My father—’ Selina stopped and had to gulp down a sob. ‘My father would want to help me. And my mother.’

‘And Douglas and the others.’

‘Oh yes. We’ll keep thinking about that, shall we, because—’ Selina stopped speaking. Something was moving on the other side of the door.

Selina had not realised that she had stumbled to her feet until she felt Christy’s hand pulling her back from the door.

‘Someone’s coming in,’ whispered Christy, and Selina nodded, her eyes on the faint rim of light that indicated where the door was. ‘We’d better keep back until we see who it is. I didn’t hear a car, did you?’

‘No, but I was being sick. You can’t be sick and listen for cars at the same time.’

The light around the door became stronger. It was the same red, smeary light that the burning torches had made earlier, and Selina hated it. But as the door slowly opened she saw with despair that it was not Christy’s parents; it was not anybody’s parents. It was the plotters.

There were six of them–one was the man the children had all thought of as the leader–and between them they were carrying two objects that Selina could not instantly identify. Two sacks, was it? Whatever they
were, they were wrapped in pale cloths, like sheets. The door was pushed wider, and the sulky torchlight trickled in, showing up the iron staircase, and something else–something that Selina had not seen until now.

A wide yawning blackness in the centre of the floor. A deep, deep well, going down and down into the earth. Its sides were lined with black brick, and Selina realised that it was from there that the bad-meat smell came. It looked about a thousand years old, that black, evil well, and it was where the poor bodies went when the ogre-birds had finished with them. All the spat-out bones and bits of flesh and eyes that they couldn’t chomp up or didn’t want, she thought. For hundreds and hundreds of years. She could see bits of bone and dried-out skin around the edges of the pit, and it was absolutely the horridest thing she had ever seen in her life.

As the men came right inside, propping the door open, she pressed back into the deep shadows, terrified of being seen and dragged out. But they did not seem to be here to search the tower, or to be concerned that two of their prisoners had escaped. They were intent on the sack-like things they carried.

As they began to cautiously mount the iron stair, one of the pale wrappings fell back a little, and Selina, crouching in the darkness, had to bite back a sob. The things were not sacks after all. Under the wrapping had been her father’s face.

The sack-like things were the bodies of her parents, wrapped in clean white linen, and they were being carried to the top of the tower for the ogre-birds.

If Selina could have run out of the tower, she would have done so then. The door was still propped wide open, and it would have been easy. And having Christy with her had made her feel much braver and much stronger, and she thought that together they could have dodged out when the men were near the staircase’s top.

But through the door she could see the other plotters: they were moving to and fro and the pieces of wood were burning up strongly again, so that red shadows danced everywhere, making it look as if there were at least a dozen men. Selina thought it was only the flickering shadows that made it seem like that; she thought there were only about three or four of them. But they still had their guns, she could see that clearly.

She did not dare whisper to Christy in case the men heard, but Christy would have seen the men; she would
know that it was important to stay in hiding. That was one of the really good things about Christy: she understood things without them having to be explained.

The men were almost at the top of the stair. It was a long climb–probably as many as a hundred steps–and they had had to go carefully and slowly because of carrying the two bodies. The leader had gone up first, carrying the flaring torch, and four of the men carried the bodies after him, two to each one. The other man followed, with another burning torch. There was a little platform at the top, and when the men reached it they stood for a moment, propping the bodies against the tower’s sides, straightening up as if to catch their breath.

Selina had tilted her head right back, into the position people called craning your neck, in order to see what the men were doing. As they began to lift the bodies onto the wide ledge there was a movement deep inside the night sky that made her shiver all over. It was exactly as if something that had been crouching in the dark had stirred and was creeping forward. The ogre-birds, stretching their claws, spreading out their wing-cloaks, getting ready to pounce on their prey? Selina had not known that word ‘prey’ until Douglas had used it. It was a bit worrying that the word sounded the same as when you talked to God in church every Sunday. Selina had been asking God to let them escape ever since the men had snatched them all up in the garden, and she had thought that was praying. But then Douglas had said about the tower and the vultures and the prey, and Selina had had a sudden doubt. Supposing she had been talking not to
God, but to the ogre-birds all along? It was difficult when one sound had two quite different meanings; it meant you could not tell if things got mixed up. Selina could not be sure, now, if she had been praying to God, or if she had been telling the ogre-birds that there was prey waiting for them in the tower.

Whichever it was, the birds were up there. Two of them were already on the ledge, their round-shouldered outlines grimly black against the night sky. Three more were hovering: in the crimson torchlight their wings looked wet and ragged at the edges. It looked as if they had been dabbled in blood.

Even down here, Selina could hear the sound of the beating wings on the air. There was a rhythm about it. Dreadful. Like somebody tapping on a drum. Like a rude man banging impatiently on a table for food…

She was shivering violently, and she was so cold she thought she might die from it. She was huddled into a tiny dark space as far from the iron stair as possible, her knees drawn up to her chest, both arms wrapped around them.

She thought Christy was a little way along the wall–she could not see her, but she could feel that she was quite near. I’d probably be able to reach her hand if I dared move, thought Selina. But she dared not move.

The plotters were lifting the two wrapped shapes onto the ledge: the birds moved again then, swooping up into the air and hovering over the tower, almost as if they might be saying, We must give these humans room to arrange our food. It did not take very long; the plotters
did it quickly, looking up at the birds as they laid the two bodies out. Selina supposed she ought to be thinking that that was her father and mother up there, but she could not. The pale bundles were simply sacks; they were nothing. There was a word–anonymous. It meant no name and no face. Even when the men twitched aside the wrappings, they were only arms and legs and hair, vaguely embarrassing because they had no clothes on.

The iron staircase shuddered as the men came back down: they descended very fast indeed, glancing uneasily upwards all the while, and for the first time Selina wondered if the ogre-birds could actually come inside the tower. But no, they were perched on the ledge–there were at least eight of them by now, and they were hunching over the two bodies. The plotters had reached the ground and they were about to go out of the tower. They’ll slam the door, thought Selina, in panic. And then we’ll be trapped all over again, with those things eating my father and mother up there, and I don’t think I can bear it—

It was then that two things happened, not absolutely together, but so close that Selina was afterwards to almost believe that one had set off the other.

The first thing was the sound of several vehicles, being driven very fast, coming towards the tower. The glare of headlights swept across the dark interior, and there was the sound of car doors being opened and slammed, and of people shouting. The gun-men began to scatter, dropping their weapons as they did so. It’s the rescue! thought Selina. They’ve found us! I can see Christy’s father, and
Douglas’s! And lots of other people in uniforms! But she stayed where she was, until she was sure that there were enough people out there to grab the plotters and their guns, and then she stood up, brushed down her frock which was filthy, and walked a bit unsteadily out into the glaring headlights and the people.

It was then that the second thing happened. As Douglas’s father lifted her in his arms, and said, ‘My poor child, you’re safe now,’ Selina heard–they all heard–the most terrible scream coming from the very top of the tower.

For a while everything was blurred. The night seemed to suddenly fill up with terror, and people began to run into the tower. The iron stairs clanged as they raced up them, shouting as they went.

Selina was carried to one of the jeeps, and wrapped in a blanket and given something hot to drink. Everyone was saying, ‘You’re quite safe, Selina; it’s all over,’ but there was horror in their voices when they said it, and Selina knew it was not over: there was something in the darkness that was screaming, over and over, dreadful terrified screams, so that you wanted to clap both hands over your ears and shut out the screaming and the panic and the red-streaked night.

Two shots rang out, and something screeched in anger. One of the ogre-birds? And then somebody said, ‘Sod it, I missed the bloody thing! It’s too dark and it’s too far up–I can’t even see the damned creatures!’ and somebody else–Selina thought it was Douglas’s father–said, ‘For Christ’s sake, try for it again–she’s still alive up there—’

‘Up there’ meant the tower, of course. Selina tried to sit up to see what was happening, and she tried to see where Christy was as well, but people kept coming in between her and her view of the tower, and voices were saying something about ‘Keep the child away’ and, ‘Get her back to Alwar–there’s a British hospital there’. Somebody else told her to stay where she was; everything was all right.

One of the men had managed to tilt the other jeep so that its headlights shone onto the terrible ledge, and Selina could see the tower’s top pretty well. She could see that something was moving up there, on the ledge. It was something that had pale arms and legs and body, and hair that streamed untidily in the wind. It was crouching over, its arms coming up to cover its head, but the ogre-birds were all round it–they were flying at it over and over again, their great wings beating on the air, their hunched-over bodies leaning down.

The screaming went on and on, but by the time the men reached the top of the iron staircase it had stopped.

Great-uncle Matthew did not approve of fires in children’s bedrooms. He said it was a ridiculous waste of money: children were notoriously hardy creatures and they were better for not being pampered and cosseted. He demanded to know whether Flora thought money for coal and coke grew in the garden, because he was not a millionaire, said Great-uncle Matthew testily, dear goodness he was not, and there was already enough wanton extravagance to contend with as it was, what
with Rosa’s funeral to arrange, and very likely half of Inchcape coming to Teind after the service, expecting to be fed.

But Aunt Flora, who was puffy-faced from crying, had insisted that Selina had a fire in her bedroom on the night Rosa’s body was found. She said fires were comforting, and they must remember that it had been Selina who had found poor Rosa’s body, and the poor child was bound to be suffering from shock. They were all of them suffering from shock, said Aunt Flora, and oh dear,
what
were they going to do without Rosa? She sat down on one of the over-stuffed chairs in the dining room and gave way to another noisy bout of weeping, and had to be given a teaspoonful of brandy in a small glass as a restorative by Great-uncle Matthew, who did not approve of females drinking spirits but did not like it when Aunt Flora cried, because it upset his digestion.

Selina went to the funeral, of course. In church she sat in between Aunt Flora who smelt of the mothballs she used to preserve her good black coat, and Great-uncle Matthew, who smelt of pipe tobacco and unwashed feet because in all the upset nobody had remembered to light the boiler for hot water. Aunt Flora had said that she would heat up some water for washing, but Great-uncle Matthew said he would not dream of allowing Flora to struggle up two flights of stairs with heavy kettles of boiling water.

Selina had washed in cold water, and she wore her school uniform which Aunt Flora thought would be the most suitable thing. Everybody was very solemn and a
few people shed tears at the graveside, but Selina did not, partly because Great-uncle Matthew had said she must not make a scene.

It was nothing like a funeral in India would have been. Selina had not been allowed to go to the funeral they had held for Douglas and Christy and the others, because it had been thought too upsetting for her. But she knew about funerals in India, because her ayah had told her about them.

In India, the dying person had to chant the
patet
along with all the family, or, if that could not be managed, the
ashem vohu
. ‘Very good, the prayer for
ashem vohu
,’ Selina’s ayah had said. ‘It make for a happier time beyond death.’

And then, after the death, wherever possible there was the visit of the
sagdid
to the body–the four-eyed dog. ‘Not truly four eyes,’ the ayah had said. ‘But a dog with two spots over its eyes.’ The
sagdid
had to be brought into the house to see the dead person, ‘For the forces of evil retreat at the sight of a dog,’ said the ayah. ‘And there must also be fire, because the burning of fragrant sandalwood and frankincense destroys all ills. And after all is over, the family must eat only vegetable and fish for three days as a sign of mourning.’

Selina thought this all sounded very reasonable. You would want to drive away all the bad things when somebody died–the forces of evil, the ayah had called them–whether you did it by introducing a spot-eyed dog or burning nice-smelling things. Sandalwood was very nice indeed: mother had had a bottle of perfume
called
Sandalwood
. And if you were upset at the death of somebody you loved, you would not feel like eating anyway.

The children in Alwar had not been able to chant the repentance-prayer, but Selina thought it might not matter so much for children. They had not had the
sagdid
either, but Selina thought that they would have crossed the old and holy Bridge all right, because they would have been together. Sometimes she could see them all, holding hands together, walking across the Bridge, Douglas and Christy helping the younger ones, all of them fearful but a bit excited, because to die was an awfully big adventure. Douglas had said that, right at the end. At times Selina wished very hard that she had gone with them to share the adventure.

There was no spotty-eyed
sagdid
dog at Great-aunt Rosa’s funeral, of course–Great-uncle Matthew could not abide dogs or cats and would not have one in the house–and there was no frankincense or sandalwood, either. Selina had rather timidly asked about this, and both Great-uncle Matthew and Aunt Flora had been shocked. ‘Popish practices,’ said Great-uncle Matthew, and then, to Aunt Flora, ‘If you ask me, it’s as well that child was got out of India when she was. Frankincense, of all things! I could hardly believe my ears.’

There was no vegetables-and-fish mourning, either; in fact it almost seemed to Selina as if Aunt Flora was preparing for a party after the service. A ham had to be ordered from Stornforth’s best butcher, because Mr McGibb in Inchcape could certainly not provide what
was wanted, and two large pork pies were delivered as well. Jeannie from the village who came in to do the laundry and what was called ‘the rough’ was summoned, and the morning of the funeral was spent in cutting ham sandwiches and arranging wedges of pork pie on large plates.

‘Cake?’ Selina asked, hopefully. Aunt Flora baked the most delicious cakes, especially when the vicar was coming. But it seemed that refreshments after a funeral must be decent and restrained, and that to be seen eating cake would be disrespectful. Great Uncle Matthew said afterwards that he did not know about restraint; four bottles of his best sherry had been drunk, and a good three-quarters of the whisky. He shut himself in his study to calculate how much everything had cost, and told Aunt Flora to be sure to have the ham bone boiled up for soup. A good ham soup made a filling and nourishing dish.

Once Aunt Rosa was safely dead the shrine could be put back in place because nobody else was likely to go out to the Round Tower. Selina waited until after the funeral, and then scurried out to the stone room. The photographs, the books that father used to read to her–including her very favourite
Heidi
–and the silk stole mother had liked to wear in the evenings. It still smelt faintly of
Sandalwood
.