Priya had been troubled by the dots on the translation of the broadcast for some time. Semilion had presumed they were simply divides in the transmission, though the more she studied them the more obvious it became of their intent.
It was a countdown.
South-easterly wind. Fifteen knots.
South-easterly wind. Fourteen knots.
South-easterly wind. Thirteen knots…
She rifled through the pages of her transcript, trying to find the final mark, when the countdown would strike zero.
She found it and hurriedly marked the page with a brief calculation. She stared at it for a moment before standing and racing to the stairs.
She exited into the dark pub, the room’s ghostly quiet and draped with impenetrable shadows. She felt along the walls until she found the staircase leading to the upper floors before taking them two at a time. She asked herself how she had washed up from near-death and landed in this situation. In her past a nameless teacher had told her that calamity clings to some like a parasite, feeding off its host’s emotions.
‘Semilion!’ She hissed, not wanting to wake the entire household.
She called again, a little louder, and heard floorboards groaning above. He must be on the second floor. She came to a short hallway, pale moonlight illuminating the walls and guided her to another staircase leading to the second floor. She took the first step and it creaked loudly. She heard a door open.
‘Who’s there?’ It was Semilion’s wife, Sarah.
‘Sarah? It’s Priya. I need to speak with Semilion.’
Sarah came to the top of the staircase and began to descend it slowly. She still spoke in a whisper.
‘What do you want? I’ll not wake Semilion. He’s dead tired.’
‘This is important.’
‘As is his rest. Now, what do you want of him? I’ll try my best to help, and if I can’t then we’ll discuss waking him.’
‘Fine. I need a calendar.’
‘That’s not a problem, there’s one in the study upstairs. Follow me. Quietly… Walk on the edges of the stairs so they don’t creak.’
Priya swallowed her irritation and did as she was asked. Semilion wasn’t the only one who needed sleep. She had worked for weeks in the crèche and it was only in the last days she had been granted a reprieve.
She followed the sound of Sarah to the second hallway and then up a third flight of stairs to Semilion’s study.
As she neared the top she heard Sarah strike a match and was suddenly silhouetted by candlelight. She lay the candle-holder on a cabinet before walking across the room and retrieving a small brown diary from a shelf of books. She returned and handed it to Priya before closing the door.
‘What’s this about?’ She asked. She still spoke in a whisper though now it was in a louder, more authoritative tone. ‘It’s half-past four in the morning.’
‘What day was it when Semilion receive the last broadcast?’
‘I believe it was in August. The fifteenth, if I remember correctly. Maybe the sixteenth.’
Priya flipped through the book, Semilion’s small, spidery handwriting filling the pages. On the page labelled the fifteenth of August he had written: J. Corbin requested bolts and cement. 15 metres rope weatherproofed and stored in B. Tyler’s barn. L. Rayner's Mackerel supply corrupted. Received Shipping Forecast from J. Camberwell.
She took the transmission she had scrawled her calculation upon and muttered to herself.
‘What are you doing?’ Sarah insisted, though was cut short by Priya’s penetrating glance.
Since coming to Mortehoe the days had become obscure and monthless. She knew it was autumn and would soon be bordering on winter – that was all. What day it was had become confusing and then irrelevant long ago.
She turned a final page containing Semilion’s hand-writing, the following page blank, and assumed that it marked the current day.
‘October Twentieth.’ She stated. ‘Today’s Friday, October Twentieth.’
‘What of it?’ Sarah asked, bridling. She hadn’t been keen on Semilion allowing her to work in the cellar throughout the night, and liked even less that she was now in his study demanding a private audience with him.
‘You have to wake Semilion.’ Priya said, growing pale.
‘I won’t. It’s half four in the…’
‘I couldn’t give a shit what time it is, Sarah. Go and wake Semilion now or I’ll wake him myself, and half of Mortehoe with him.’ She thrust the piece of paper, upon which was pencilled her calculation, in Sarah’s face. ‘This is a countdown, Sarah. It started the day your husband received the last broadcast and has been running ever since without him knowing it. I’ve only just worked it out, and...’ she swallowed and thought of all the time that had been wasted, ‘and it ends in two days.’
‘What? You must be wrong.’
‘Whatever it is, or whoever they are, they’ve been readying themselves all this time and they’ll be here on Sunday.’
Sarah’s stern face dropped like a demolished building, and she stepped back towards the door, staring into Priya’s anxious eyes, before turning and bolting from the room whilst calling for Semilion to wake.