what is required – pain, plus a kind of letting go that, paradoxically, is also an act of will. Babes cannot control their will, and I did not remember crossing over until I was six years old.
But this child was not six, nor anywhere near it, and it was awake. Awake and in infant pain from hunger or its bowels or fear. And the abilities of hisafs had grown with the growing breach between the land of the living and the country of the Dead.
What was this babe’s mother seeing, as she cared for it? Did she know what her child was? Could she accept it? I could imagine the terrible pull between love of one’s child and fear of witchcraft. But, no – this baby’s father must have been a hisaf , too. The mother, like mine, must have known what her son would be.
I reached out my good hand towards the child, who screamed louder and then vanished. It did not reappear. His mother must have risen from her sleep, stumbled to the cradle I could not see, and tended to her son. On this side there were few Dead in sight; the parents of the little hisaf lived isolated from other people, perhaps the better to protect their child. So must my mother have once protected me.
Longing to see her again – alive as I remembered her at six years old, not as she was now – hit me so hard that my eyes watered. Then the longing for my mother, unseemly in one my age, became renewed longing for Maggie. Soon .
Another mile or two and the Dead became more numerous. There must be a village here, on the other side. Then, beside a swift downhill stream, I came tosomething I had seen before and hoped never to see again.
A large circle of the Dead, thirty or thirty-five, all facing inward towards the centre of the ring. The Dead wore clothing from many different eras and seasons: coloured wool, linen shifts, heavy crude furs, old-fashioned farthingales, bronze armour, tattered night shirts. Old men, little girls, young women, half-grown boys, soldiers – each of their heads was densely shrouded in dark fog, obscuring their faces. In the middle of the circle spun a vortex of even darker fog. Faster and faster it spun, now starting to hum, now the hum rising to such a loud pitch that I clapped my hands over my ears even as I started to run forward.
‘No! Don’t!’ I screamed the words, but of course there was no one to hear. And the words were stupid anyway – as if I could stop the horror about to happen! The vortex spun faster, there was a huge clap of sound, like lightning striking the ground, and all the Dead disappeared, along with the vortex.
Gone. Just gone.
I sagged to the ground. The light, pervasive fog over the landscape had also disappeared. I could see for miles, along the mountains and valleys of the Country of the Dead. But there was nothing to see where these Dead had sat awaiting eternity. The grass was not even charred. It was as if nothing, and no one, had been here at all. The men and women of Soulvine Moor, present in the vortex in ways I did not understand, had sucked the power of the Dead unto themselves. They had annihilated bodies and souls both, so that these Dead existed no longer anywhere, their chance for eternity lost for ever.
Just as I had hurled my mad half-sister into such a vortex, depriving her of her own eternity. But that had been different. My sister had been used by Soulvine Moorto kill innocent people, and would have been so used again. She had been stalking my unborn son. The people who had just vanished into the vortex had, in contrast, been blameless, tranquil and mindless Dead who threatened no one.
I don’t know how long I sat on the ground, gazing as sightlessly as the Dead themselves, but eventually I pulled myself together and stood. Behind me someone moaned.
I spun around so fast that I nearly lost balance. ‘Who’s there?’
Another moan, from close by. I followed it to a man lying behind a bush. I could not tell if he was asleep or very ill, but one thing was certain: he was not dead. I
But this child was not six, nor anywhere near it, and it was awake. Awake and in infant pain from hunger or its bowels or fear. And the abilities of hisafs had grown with the growing breach between the land of the living and the country of the Dead.
What was this babe’s mother seeing, as she cared for it? Did she know what her child was? Could she accept it? I could imagine the terrible pull between love of one’s child and fear of witchcraft. But, no – this baby’s father must have been a hisaf , too. The mother, like mine, must have known what her son would be.
I reached out my good hand towards the child, who screamed louder and then vanished. It did not reappear. His mother must have risen from her sleep, stumbled to the cradle I could not see, and tended to her son. On this side there were few Dead in sight; the parents of the little hisaf lived isolated from other people, perhaps the better to protect their child. So must my mother have once protected me.
Longing to see her again – alive as I remembered her at six years old, not as she was now – hit me so hard that my eyes watered. Then the longing for my mother, unseemly in one my age, became renewed longing for Maggie. Soon .
Another mile or two and the Dead became more numerous. There must be a village here, on the other side. Then, beside a swift downhill stream, I came tosomething I had seen before and hoped never to see again.
A large circle of the Dead, thirty or thirty-five, all facing inward towards the centre of the ring. The Dead wore clothing from many different eras and seasons: coloured wool, linen shifts, heavy crude furs, old-fashioned farthingales, bronze armour, tattered night shirts. Old men, little girls, young women, half-grown boys, soldiers – each of their heads was densely shrouded in dark fog, obscuring their faces. In the middle of the circle spun a vortex of even darker fog. Faster and faster it spun, now starting to hum, now the hum rising to such a loud pitch that I clapped my hands over my ears even as I started to run forward.
‘No! Don’t!’ I screamed the words, but of course there was no one to hear. And the words were stupid anyway – as if I could stop the horror about to happen! The vortex spun faster, there was a huge clap of sound, like lightning striking the ground, and all the Dead disappeared, along with the vortex.
Gone. Just gone.
I sagged to the ground. The light, pervasive fog over the landscape had also disappeared. I could see for miles, along the mountains and valleys of the Country of the Dead. But there was nothing to see where these Dead had sat awaiting eternity. The grass was not even charred. It was as if nothing, and no one, had been here at all. The men and women of Soulvine Moor, present in the vortex in ways I did not understand, had sucked the power of the Dead unto themselves. They had annihilated bodies and souls both, so that these Dead existed no longer anywhere, their chance for eternity lost for ever.
Just as I had hurled my mad half-sister into such a vortex, depriving her of her own eternity. But that had been different. My sister had been used by Soulvine Moorto kill innocent people, and would have been so used again. She had been stalking my unborn son. The people who had just vanished into the vortex had, in contrast, been blameless, tranquil and mindless Dead who threatened no one.
I don’t know how long I sat on the ground, gazing as sightlessly as the Dead themselves, but eventually I pulled myself together and stood. Behind me someone moaned.
I spun around so fast that I nearly lost balance. ‘Who’s there?’
Another moan, from close by. I followed it to a man lying behind a bush. I could not tell if he was asleep or very ill, but one thing was certain: he was not dead. I
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