They go up, hand in hand. Hester drags Drew’s corpse behind her and his head hits each step with a crack.
* * *
John opens his front door. His mother sits at the table. Moonlight plays in her hair, which is dark again, piled high and bound by a silver coronet. The scent of the garden fills the kitchen, oleander and wisteria are heavy on the air. A pond ripples at her feet. Water lilies open slowly at his glance. A golden fish kisses the sleek surface of the water then sinks back into the deep. A firefly wanders past his nose. John can see it, now – where his mum has been, all this time.
His mother turns to John and smiles. “Isn’t it lovely?” she asks.
“Yes,” he says. “Lovely, Mum.” He squeezes her hand.
The first thing Hester did was take his mother’s mind. That happened before he even met Daisy and Drew. There’s an order to it. She removes the parents first. He thinks about all the other mothers and fathers sitting alone in their night-gardens, arrested in time and place. Ever since there have been people, there has been Hester. He wonders what the real Daisy was like. He is sure that some of her still lingers in her body, just as there is some John left in this body. No Drew, though. Drew is dead. John does not want to die.
John collects the letters and bills that have piled high on the table in the hall. He will take them to Hester, and they will all be answered and paid, and no one will disturb his mother as she sits in her night-garden. He looks about him and bids the house farewell. He won’t be coming back here for some time.
He takes a moment to smooth his shining blond hair in the hall mirror. Even in the moonlight he can see the deep and perfect blue of his eyes. Time to go. He has a big day ahead. He starts his new school tomorrow. John closes the front door behind him, softly.
LISTEN
JEN WILLIAMS
They always knew when she was about to arrive. Erren didn’t understand how that worked, but then, she didn’t understand much about her life these days.
Gods help them, they were even excited. As Erren reached the outskirts of this newest settlement, she saw a handful of children sitting on a long, meandering fence, their faces bright with interest. When she drew closer, the dust from the long road kicking up little orange clouds around her feet, they began to shout shrill questions at her. Where had she come from? What would she play? Could she play a song that they wanted, if they asked?
Erren nodded at them politely and said very little. They would hear her song soon enough, unfortunately.
She followed the children, who took her to a large mound of a building, built from stone and mud and pitted with small, square windows that were little more than holes. The very top of it was covered in bright green grass and flowers, and a thin stream of grey smoke rose steadily from a hole she couldn’t see. Erren was fairly sure she’d never seen anything like it, but once she was taken inside she realised it was just another tavern, at heart like every other drinking hole she’d ever been inside: the strong smell of beer, the smoky twinkle of a fire.
“So you’re the player,” said the tavern keeper warmly. “Have you come far?”
Erren chose to ignore this question. They could never understand the answer.
“I’m the player,” she agreed. “You’ll listen to me?”
Every time she asked, a tiny bit of her hoped they would say no, but no one had yet. Of course they hadn’t. The tavern keeper beamed all the wider, crossing her arms under her sizeable chest.
“We’ll be glad to,” she said. “We don’t get much by way of entertainment around here. You’ll have most of the village watching I expect, darlin’. Should I make you a space by the fire? How much room do you need?”
“Not much, I only have one set of pipes. But if I could beg some food, first…?”
She had learned to make sure she got fed before she played. It was hard to fight the urge to play; the need was like a hot, dry feeling on the back of her neck, a weight in her fingers, but if she concentrated very hard she could avoid it for around an hour or so. The tavern keeper brought her hot onion soup, good fresh bread and, to Erren’s delight, a glass of berry-flavoured rum that reminded her sharply of her own impossibly distant home. But soon enough her fingers began to tingle, and the heat on her neck grew suffocating, like slim hands closing around her throat. She put the bowl and the glass to one side and reached into her pack for the pipes.
While she had been eating, the tavern had gradually filled with patrons until every seat was taken and more were standing, all eyes trained on her. They did not seem surprised by the pipes themselves, but then people rarely were. Erren often wondered if they assumed they were made of an especially pale wood, or a fine clay of some sort. Or perhaps they knew what they were, and didn’t care.
Not looking at the men and women gathered – and children, gods help her, children too – she lowered her mouth to the ends of the pipes and gathered her breath.
* * *
When she left, under the grey-pink skies of almost-dawn, all life and warmth seemed to have bled away from the place. Erren hurried towards the gate, her head down, trying to hear only her footsteps on the dusty ground, but somewhere nearby a man was sobbing, a pitiless, despairing sound, and then just as she passed out of the gate, she heard an angry shout, and an answering wail.
But it didn’t matter. Her feet were already calling her to her next destination, and she couldn’t have stopped, even if she had wanted to.
* * *
The next place was larger, a village clustered on the banks of a river. At some point in her long walk, Erren had passed over a border – there had been wooden signs, painted with sigils that looked half-familiar – and this place was more prosperous. There was a good brick wall made of red clay, and at the edge of the wide river there were lots of small boats tethered; a lively trade was happening there, even at dusk. Erren saw crates of fish being carried away to market, thick rolls of wool being pressed into sacks. She couldn’t see a tavern, although she was sure there must be one, so she headed to the little market square, following the ripe smell of river fish. It had been a long walk with no people in sight, and the urge to play now was overwhelming. There would be no food for her tonight, and no rest.
The setting sun had turned the sky a bruised orange by the time she found the little performance area. It was a wide square of flattened dirt, bordered on all sides by colourful bunting on poles, and within it a small, wiry man was standing on a stool while he juggled a set of wooden skittles. A couple of grubby children were watching him, identical expressions of boredom on their faces.
“Can I borrow your stool, friend?” asked Erren. The little man looked affronted, but he plucked his skittles from the air and stepped down onto the dirt.
“It’s not my stool,” he said, and then, “you won’t get anyone listening tonight, girl. It’s the wrong season for it, see. Everyone is down at the docks, getting the trade in.”
Erren nodded, and sat down anyway. A few moments later the two grubby children were joined by another family and a trio of men dressed like guards. A few more minutes passed, and the crowd grew larger; women with dusty aprons, young girls with their hair tucked up under red caps, old men with thick knuckles. Erren watched them, unsurprised. It was all a part of it. There would always be an audience for her, wherever she went.