*
An evening sun, the colour of tired deserts, turned the buildings of Mortehoe pastel-peach, and their windows to livid flame.
Semilion had left Baron in charge of Mortehoe, and told any other remaining council member to keep silent about the threat from the south. He had spread the word that the fishermen of Putsborough had requested Mortehoe’s help in constructing storage facilities and Semilion, in the name of neighbourly kindness, had answered.
No-one questioned their leaving, though once they had gone an air of unease hung over those remaining. They felt unguarded and empty, and feared natures abhorrence of vacuums would rush to fill their emptiness with something unwanted.
News of their leaving had bypassed the mill altogether, though Baron had told George to join him on the Smuggler’s roof and keep his eyes open for anything out of place.
Selina trudged home, noting the streets were increasingly quiet now that autumn was in full sway. She didn’t see Baron and George watching her as she passed by the eerily quiet Smuggler’s.
She heard a door slam behind her and saw a family hustle into the mist, bags of belongings beneath their arms. She watched them momentarily, wondering where they were going, then continued on her way home.
Her footfall seemed lonely on the road, muffled by the crisp leaves that formed a bank along the street. She already missed the sense of life that the village had radiated on their arrival. During the summer, with its untended wildflowers and untamed trees, Mortehoe seemed the very heart of nature - yet in the grip of autumn it had become a cold and desolate place, a place that drew mist from the sea and slumbered beneath it for days. The unkempt fashion that appeased in summer now created a sense of despondency that reminded her of a fairy tale. The leaning buildings, the narrow street, the bent trees, it made her long for the warmth and colour of spring.
‘Evening, Miss.’
Selina jumped and raised her hand to her chest. Bill Turner was reversing out of his front door, negotiating the tall doorstep cautiously.
‘Jesus, Bill, you frightened the life out of me.’
He exhaled a wheezing laugh before straightening and closing the door behind him. ‘Sorry about that, dear. Out at sea, were you?’
‘I was just thinking how I miss the summer.’
‘Hmm. Hard months ahead before that. Not a warm toe in the village between now and May.’ He looked at her curiously. ‘What are you doing out?’
‘Just heading home. The Smuggler’s is empty.’
‘Well, it’s no time to be sitting around chatting.’ He said, but he stopped himself before he said any more. ‘I’m heading up to the old barn.’ He motioned behind her, to the high wall that ran the length of the road. He meant the barn beyond the wall, and beyond the houses atop it. The barn that was never visited.
‘What’s up there?’ Selina asked.
He hesitated a moment, then considered it wasn’t a secret. ‘The mirror. It’s a telescope of a fashion.’
‘Ah,’ she nodded deeply, recalling George mentioning it some months previously. ‘George mentioned it not long after Priya and I arrived. He said he'd take me up there one day.’
‘Yes, I imagine he did.’ He smiled wickedly. ‘Well, I’m heading up there now.’
‘I thought it wasn’t used anymore?’
He hesitated again, knowing Semilion would be furious if he disclosed the reason for his operating the mirror. ‘It’s not used, but we tend to it from time to time. It was a marvel in its day and, as you know, we waste nothing here.’
‘Can I see it? George said he’d take me but...’
‘Aye... Come on then. There’s no reason why not.
He put his arm through hers and they ambled along the remainder of the road, remarking on the beautiful evening and passing their time with small-talk. One thing she had noticed since her coming to Mortehoe was that there appeared to be few, if any, people who were socially inept. They were carefree with their words and rarely tongue-tied or bashful. They spoke from their hearts and rambled about anything, personal or otherwise, without shame or apparent inhibition. Initially she had been shocked by this, memorably when Betty had spoken openly about a rash on her crotch, though she had grown accustomed to it - and even found herself speaking in a way she would have never dreamt before.
Priya loved it, the brazen side of her had unfurled its wings and soared. Selina felt as though the want to speak frankly had been the bane of Priya’s life in the old world. She felt sure that the child of foster care and shifting homes had grown a hard shell and an arsenal of verbal ammunition to defend it in a society with little tolerance of disrespect. Now she could say anything she liked, and no-one batted an eyelid.
They pushed through a bush and exited on to a open field the colour of dry blood. At the far end was an old building which slanted precariously, and they trudged toward it, Selina wishing she had worn shoes other than the thin moccasins she wore at the mill. They were perfect for ladders but were no match for the flint decorating the space between them and the barn.
‘I were a boy when pa first brought me up here,’ Bill said, ‘thought it was a wonder to be able to look up into the sky and see all what’s up there. Me and my brother spent more time up here than we did in school until Carrick put a stop to it.’
‘Why’d he do that?’
‘It wasn’t a practical way to spend our time, so he said. I suppose he was right in a way, we’d not seen anything since we’d started learning how to operate it with our pa; the only thing we clung to was the story he told us, about seeing a satellite when he was a young man. Heh, once!’
‘So what did you do after that?’
‘Well, I was sent down to the cattle mine and Gordie was put to the salt. He hated it.’
‘I don’t think I’ve met him.’ She said, worried he was going to say he was dead.
‘Ah, he keeps himself over the way,’ he waved his hand toward Woolacombe. ‘got himself married and...’
‘Sel?’
They turned, Bill’s voice dwindling until he saw Priya behind them.
‘Priya!’ He exclaimed like a teenager, releasing Selina’s arm as though he’d been caught in flagrante. His face broke into a smile, obviously enamoured, and took a few steps toward her, arms open to receive, allowing himself this one little pleasure before his world collapsed around him.
Selina smirked at the sudden change in him, and contained herself when the two embraced, Priya stared at her wide-eyed as Bill squeezed her extensively. She had been on her way to find Selina and tell her about the threat coming from the south and convince her that it was time to leave. No more arguments, no more conversations about how things would turn out for the best. It was time to move, and the swifter the better.
Priya coughed delicately and peeled herself away, smiling sweetly at him. ‘How are you, Bill?’ Her words hid her bitterness. He knew exactly what was happening, though was prepared to keep it from them. He had no idea she knew of the threat coming beyond the horizon, and although she too had kept her knowledge secret she wondered how long he would keep them in the dark. Would he say nothing? Even as soldiers came and dragged the villagers from their beds? If that was who was coming. Would he still claim ignorance, even then?
‘Good for seeing you, I was just showing Selina the mirror. Would you like to join us?’
‘I’d love to,’ she replied as he slipped his arm into hers.
‘I was calling after you,’ she said to Selina, ‘I guess you didn’t hear me. I was in the Smuggler’s and saw you coming back from the mill.’
‘Sorry, I thought it was empty.’ She walked beside the two of them until they reached the large building. It was evident now that most of the roof was missing, covered by a thick canvas.
‘Looks like it’s taken a beating,’ Priya said, indicating the large hole beneath the fabric.
Bill unhooked his arm and unlocked the wide door. ‘That hole’s there by design,’ he said, pulling on the door. It creaked lou
dly on rusting hinges, and he gestured them to enter before closing the door and lighting several solar lamps.
In the centre of the room was a thick wooden ring at waist height. It was large, the three of them could probably fit across its diameter, and it was protected by a dusty patchwork sheet. Priya and Selina stepped towards it while Bill smiled at their wonder and moved toward several ropes that hung from the rafters. He pulled gently on the first; pulleys squeaked and jangled in the darkness. Slowly the canvas which masked the hole was drawn back, revealing a purple sky.
Priya took hold of the sheet covering the mirror and pulled it away. Beneath it was a glass dome that gleamed brightly under the solar lamps.
‘This must have cost a pretty penny back in the day,’ Selina said as Bill tied up the last rope. The hole in the ceiling was completely unveiled, and he looked up at the wide sky, noting the first stars beginning to shine in the gloaming.
‘Indeed,’ he sighed. ‘All the money of our ancestors combined went into what the Dekeyrel’s do, the mill, and this. God knows how they did it, or who they paid to make it... Excuse me.’ He stepped beside Selina to a wooden lever, the channel in which it lay circling the mirror’s circumference. He pushed it, and the well-oiled mechanics beneath churned as though made of liquid. A shutter beneath the glass unfurled, and the dome changed colour, reflecting the clear Persian-blue evening.
He rounded the mirror and took hold of another lever, pushing more slowly, drawing the lens into focus.
‘Wow,’ Selina said, speechless, as she looked across the pool of night below her. Stars began to form as glowing mist, shrinking as Bill gently eased the lever. The mirror was awash with obscure shapes which shrank until the entire dome was entirely focused.
Priya leaned on the wooden rim, gazing at the spectacle below. ‘I don’t care how much I disagree with what goes on here. The biased justice system and lies, the blatant fact that this is a dictatorship under the guise of a utopia...' She said, lifting her eyes to Bill, ‘that is impressive.’
Before them, upon a mauve and lilac sea and decorated with fairy-light stars, were the remnants of a former age. Satellites drifted like motes of dust. Hundreds of thousands of them, tumbling slowly in silence, nudging one another and revolving slowly on their eternal amble across the globe. Long generations had passed since they had received any instruction from Earth. Now they floated on the edge of space, their batteries long dead, waiting to one day fall and burn in the atmosphere.
‘No wonder you spent your childhood up here,’ Selina said, transfixed. ‘This is really something.’
‘Why does no one use this anymore? Something pretty serious must be going on if you're up here now?’ Priya coaxed, and could see the coy look cross his eyes.
‘Waste of time, apparently,’ Selina offered.
‘It was built to see if we were being observed. Back before the plague these things,’ he thrust his chin at the satellites, ‘near controlled everything... Some were harmless enough, though most watched the world - and would have made a community like this impossible. Never was there a time in human history where the powers that be could watch the actions of all of their peoples... They were so ubiquitous that our ancestors didn’t consider that there would be too few people left to operate them, nor the funds to do so after The Pathogen. Now look at them,’ he gestured at the ambling satellites, ‘they’re mostly dead. Like I said before, the last one that looked as though it were being remotely operated was back when my pa operated the mirror.’ He pat the wooden rim affectionately. ‘That was near sixty years ago.’
‘What happened?’
‘When he saw it?’ He pointed to a car battery in the corner of the barn. It was covered in cobwebs and hid the wire attached to it. ‘He flipped a switch and the community shut down. No one moved for days. I could have only been about five but I remember it well. Caused as much of a fuss as the whole Lundy affair.’
‘Hannah was telling me about that,’ Selina said, looking up from the mirror, ‘Semilion’s grandfather killed a boy?’
‘Don’t know what came over him. He was a wrongun, that one. Had so much hatred in him for the Sawbones.’
‘Family feud?’ Priya offered.
‘Only between him and Red. Before that their fathers had got on as well as any other. They traded and visited one another as colleagues. They had known each other before the plague, I think. Their boys, however... Semilion’s grandpa, Carrick... He hated Red, in a way that always seemed illogical. There was no cause for it that anyone could tell, or at least that I ever knew of.’ He shrugged and pulled a face. ‘I don’t know... Ah, look.’
He pointed animatedly to a satellite which was reeling closer to its final fall. ‘This hardly ever happens, we’re lucky...’ he said quietly, and for several minutes they watched the small, aluminium device linger as though teetering on a precipice before it became enveloped in a hazy sheen of fire.
Bill eased two levers deftly and kept the satellite in focus as it began to crumble and break into scraps of cinder, embers glowing brightly on a mist of steam until there was nothing left to watch.
‘I’ve only seen that happen a few dozen times,’ he said, breaking the silence and returning the lens to its original position, overlooking the battlefield of gliding debris.
‘Well, there’s certainly nothing there that looks as though it’s watching us?’ He said, walking around the mirror slowly.
‘What are you looking for specifically?’ Selina asked.
‘A number of things, really, but mostly a change in trajectory or the lack of any movement. We’re looking for something just sitting still like a spider.’
They all watched the mirror for some time, until the lilac had bled to a rich black and their examination had returned nothing of interest. Eventually Bill manoeuvred the levers and shut the mirror down, closing the shutter and replacing the patchwork sheet.
‘Why the sudden interest?’ Priya asked again, wanting to coax the truth from him.
Bill looked up and considered for a moment that he wanted to tell her. She might hang off his every word if he told her about the council meeting. ‘No sudden interest, I just thought you might like to see it.’ He said, though his hesitation had been too long. Both Selina and Priya were staring at him intently.
'Bill,' she held him in her glare. 'I know exactly what's happening. It was me who decoded the message from Dr. Camberwell.'
He stared at her for a moment, his eyebrows twitching as though they might distract her.
‘What message?’ Selina asked, the name Camberwell igniting the memory of the letter she had stuffed in the back of the kitchen cupboard. ‘Priya?'
‘Do you want to tell her or shall I?’ Priya asked.
Chapter Thirty-Five.
Bridgewater.