Tower of Silence (22 page)

Whatever you do, Patrick Irvine had said, don’t talk to her about animals in any form…

‘Is it the picture of the eagle that upset you?’ said Emily, trying to speak very gently. ‘It’s only a photograph, you know.’ She tried to pull her hand free, tensing her muscles for a quick dash across the room to the door or to the alarm bell but Pippa’s fingers were like steel clamps and stark blazing terror was pouring into the room, filling it up like thick, choking silt. At the back of her mind Emily knew the attendant was going to come back but she had no idea how soon that would be, and she was starting to feel very frightened indeed. Cracked minds, that’s what I’ll remember. I’ll remember she’s sick, poor thing. But the smothering feeling of madness was so strong that she found herself remembering that it was not so long ago that people like Pippa would have been regarded as possessed by devils or demons, and she remembered that clawed-out eye—

No reference to animals when you talk to Pippa, Emily…She’s potentially very dangerous indeed
…

And,
If we knew why she never speaks we might make sense of some of the things she’s done
…

Patrick’s warnings bounced back and forth across Emily’s mind, and then Pippa jerked Emily out of the chair and pulled her backwards, hooking one arm around her neck. Emily yelled with surprise and the sudden pain as her legs smashed against the edge of the table, and then struggled wildly. But Pippa’s free hand came round to imprison her wrists and the hold on her throat tightened. Emily fought to get free, but the vice-like grip
on her throat increased. There was a very bad moment when she felt a sickening, throbbing pressure against her eyeballs, and for a moment her vision darkened and a crimson-veined blackness swam before her eyes. Then the grip lessened slightly and Emily’s vision cleared, and she gasped, and said, ‘Let me go! Pippa, for heaven’s sake, let me go!’ And oh God, oh God, let someone come back and put an end to this!

And then two things happened almost exactly at the same instant.

Patrick Irvine, two attendants behind him, burst into the room.

And Pippa said, in a harsh, difficult voice, ‘Keep the birds away.’

The sound of her voice so close to Emily’s ear was a shock. It was a dreadful voice–thick and grating and slow, like old, old machinery that had rusted with disuse and was struggling to move again. Emily saw Patrick stop dead, and she saw him indicate impatiently to the attendants to keep back. His eyes went to Emily, as if to briefly assure himself she was all right, and then he looked at Pippa, and in his gentlest voice, he said, ‘Pippa, my dear child, what is all this about?’ and Emily thought that if she had not loved him before she would have loved him then because of the infinite compassion in his face and in his voice.

The terrible voice said, ‘You must–keep the birds–away. The children—’

Patrick came swiftly across the room. ‘What is it about the birds, Pippa?’ he said. ‘Tell me what it is about the
birds and the children, Pippa. Then I might be able to help you.’

Pippa was still holding Emily, but Emily thought she had forgotten why. She could feel that Pippa was trembling violently, but at Patrick’s words there was a feeling of mental withdrawal. She’s going back into the silence, thought Emily. She’s retreating, and the door’s closing. We’ve missed something, and she’s going to be lost again.

And then Patrick said, ‘You aren’t Pippa at all really, are you? Who are you?’ and Emily knew at once that this was the key, that if only they could know Pippa’s real name they might reach her.

Yes, but never forget that she’s potentially very, very dangerous, Emily…Keep remembering that, my dear
…

The words brushed against her mind like a breath of cool sweet air, like the scent of rain in autumn, and Emily’s eyes flew to Patrick’s face. He was not looking at her, he was concentrating on Pippa with the whole force of his mind. But Emily thought she had not imagined that moment–no more than the space of a heart-beat–when he had seemed to send out a silent message of reassurance.

‘Pippa, who are you really?’ said Patrick again, and for a moment Emily thought the door that had started to open in Pippa’s darkened mind had slammed shut again. He’ll fail, she thought, staring at Patrick in an agony of suspense. Don’t let him fail,
please
don’t let him fail. She’s dangerous and she’s certainly not sane–I can
feel
that she isn’t sane!–but she’s so dreadfully sad and pitiful—

‘Tell me your name, Pippa,’ said Patrick, and this time there was a sharper note in his voice. And it’s the third time he’s asked her, thought Emily wildly, and there’s an old magical belief that if you ask a question three times, you have to be given the answer—Oh God, now I’m becoming hysterical!

And then Pippa said, in a voice that made the hair prickle on the back of Emily’s neck, ‘I’m not Pippa. I’m Christy.’ A pause. Then, in the voice of a carefully schooled child giving its credentials to a stranger, she said, ‘My name is Christabel Philippa Maskelyne.’

For what felt like a long time there was absolute silence in the room.

Patrick was still kneeling down in front of Pippa, and although he had not moved light was streaming from his eyes as if they were lit from behind. He reached out and removed Pippa’s hands from round Emily’s neck, and as Emily half fell in a jumble into a chair he said, very softly, ‘I know who you are. You’re Mary’s elder sister, aren’t you? You heard her name when they rang the alarm, didn’t you? Mary Maskelyne. And hearing that made you remember. That’s right, isn’t it? Christabel?’

Pippa was shuddering violently, rocking backwards and forwards, her arms wrapped around herself. ‘Christabel,’ she said, nodding slowly. ‘Christy,’ and Emily heard with a cold thrill that she spoke as if she was referring to a separate person.

Patrick heard it as well. He said, with force, ‘No.
You’re
Christabel. You’ve tried to keep Christabel hidden away all these years–because you’re afraid of something, isn’t that right? Because Christabel was once very afraid of something. But it’s safe now. You can let Christabel come out now.’ He paused, and then, with a note of such absolute authority that Emily felt a shiver trace its way down her spine, he said, ‘Christabel–Christy–come out into the light.’

Tears were streaming down Christabel Maskelyne’s face–one-sided, thought Emily with helpless pity–and once she tried to brush them away, like an animal pawing at a wound. But Patrick’s voice held absolute and compelling authority. She won’t be able to resist him, thought Emily.

In a gentler voice, Patrick said, ‘It’s all right. Christy, it’s all right. But now you must tell me where you are. So that I can help you. Tell me, Christy.’

There was another of the long silences. But she’ll give in, thought Emily. I know she’ll give in. When Christy began to speak, she was not at all surprised.

‘Night,’ she said. ‘Dark everywhere.’ It was not quite the voice of a scared child, but it very nearly was. Emily had the impression that two completely different people were fusing, and one of the people was a poor bewildered woman in her mid fifties, and the other was a small determined child, trying to outwit a dreadful menace. She glanced at the attendants and saw that they were still standing just inside the doorway. Neither of them had moved, and both of them were watching the figure in the chair.

‘We were all so frightened…’

‘What were you frightened of? The dark?’

‘They were going to shoot us,’ said the not-quite-child’s voice. ‘All of us. The men were going to shoot us, one by one, because our parents hadn’t done what they asked. I never understood that properly.’

One of the attendants murmured the word ‘hostages’.

‘I hid,’ said Christy. ‘I didn’t want to get shot. It was dreadful. You can’t think how dreadful it was.’ She covered her face with her hands.

‘Tell me,’ said Patrick’s voice insistently. ‘Tell me how dreadful it was.’ He reached up to pull her hands away from her face, but she flinched and cowered back in the chair. ‘Christabel,’ said Patrick. ‘Listen now, you must tell me. Then we’ll understand why you stopped speaking all those years ago, and why you did all those other things—’ There was a brief, perceptible pause, and then he went on again. ‘Tell me everything you remember,’ he said, and Emily heard again the hard insistence beneath the gentleness. He isn’t quite hypnotising her, she thought in fascination. But he nearly is. That’s why he keeps calling her by her real name. Christabel Maskelyne, that’s her name. Christy. I don’t understand this yet, but it’s as if he’s calling her out of the years of the dark silence where she’s been hiding.

After a moment, from behind her hands, Christabel said, ‘I found a place to hide. No one knew I was there, and I stayed there while the birds ate everyone up. I couldn’t fight them off–the birds. There were so many of them. I thought they’d eat me as well.’ Again there
was the flailing of her hands as if to beat off some unseen assailant. ‘So I hid and I stayed very still and very quiet until they went away. It was a long time before they went away, but I stayed there all the time.’

‘Where?’ said Patrick. ‘Christy, tell me where it was that you hid.’

‘Inside the tower,’ she said, and Patrick sat back on his heels.

‘The Dakhma,’ he said very softly. ‘The Parsi funerary Tower of Silence. That’s what you mean, isn’t it?’

‘When the others were lined up to be shot I dodged back in the shadows all round the tower,’ said Christy. ‘They were thick shadows. They were black, like blood. Blood turns black in the moonlight, did you know that?’ She looked at Patrick from between her fingers, and Emily had to suppress a gasp because there had been something unutterably sinister about that look. Just for a moment it had been as if something evil and grinning had peeped, goblin-like, out of Christabel Maskelyne’s face.

‘I know about the blood turning black,’ said the voice. ‘I know how it feels, as well, when the blood spills over your hands. Like warm silk. It’s the best feeling in the world.’ The cruel secret look stayed there for a moment. As if she’s considering each of us in turn, thought Emily, suppressing a shiver. And then it vanished abruptly, and the frightened child was back. ‘I could hear their wings beating,’ said Christy. ‘They flew backwards and forwards, over and over the tower, waiting to come swooping down on me. But I fooled them. I went up the iron stairway inside the tower—’ Again there was
the involuntary gesture as if she was trying to push something away from her face. ‘It was horrid. It smelled so bad. Selina was sick on the floor–it went all over her shoes.’

‘Selina?’

‘She hid there as well. And then she tried to escape. But she went outside too soon, and I think they shot her. She thought it was safe to go outside, you see, but I knew it wasn’t. I think the bad men caught her and shot her, that’s what I think happened to Selina.’

‘Are you sure?’

‘They shot everyone,’ said Christabel. ‘Douglas and Selina and the others. I heard them be shot. I cried about it for a long time. I cried about Selina being shot. I loved Selina. I loved all my friends.’

Selina, thought Emily. Selina
March
? No, it’s just coincidence. Selina isn’t a very common name, but it isn’t all that uncommon. Yes, but Selina March was in India as a child–she told me she was. And the dates would be about right.

‘The tower’s where they put dead people in India,’ said Christy. ‘And they leave them for the vultures to eat.’ She looked at Patrick. ‘You knew that, didn’t you?’

‘Yes. It was very brave of you to hide in there, Christy.’

‘When you’re dead in India, you’re sacred. That’s like being holy in England. So when the men tried to find me–after Selina went outside–I stayed in the tower. They came to look for me, but I hid where they couldn’t find me.’

‘You hid with the dead,’ said Patrick, half questioning.

‘The dead people were all on shelves,’ said Christy. Her voice sounded very nearly normal now. ‘Right at the top of the Tower. They have a shelf for the men and one for the women, and another for the children.’ Her voice faltered, and then she said, ‘There were a lot of children. They get sick very easily in Alwar, and they die, and their mummies and daddies take them there. But I didn’t hide there because it was too near to the birds. I saw that the birds would get me, so I came down again.’ She stopped for a moment, and then said, ‘In the middle of the tower there was a hole. A pit. Like a well you have in the gardens of very old houses. That was where the bones went when the vultures finished eating up the bodies. The bones dropped down into the well. There were lots and lots of bones there, dozens and hundreds.’

‘You hid there,’ said Patrick. ‘In the bone-pit.’ His voice was devoid of all expression, but Emily heard one of the attendants smother a gasp of horror.

‘I had to tread on heads and bits of jaws and things. They crunched under my feet. But I went to the very centre of the bone-pit, and I pulled all the bones over my head so that the bad men wouldn’t see me. Some of the bones had bits of skin still on them, like bits of leather.’

Emily could not have taken her eyes from Christabel if her life had depended on it. She thought: that all happened to her when she was a little girl. Seven or eight.

Christy said, ‘We knew a lot of things about those birds. Things that grown-ups didn’t know. Selina called them ogre-birds. She said they were like the ogres in the fairy stories. Ogres eat children, did you know that? They
shout, Fee-fi-fo-fum, those ogres, and they run across the countryside and they can run faster than anyone because they have special boots. And they like to make bread from human bones, and they like to have their dinner from human children.’

‘Only in stories,’ said Patrick. ‘Not in real life.’

‘You don’t know that. You have to be careful,’ said Christabel, and again the flicker of something that was neither childlike nor scared showed in her face. ‘There’re ogres in the real world–lots of them. Only you can’t tell who they are because they wear human disguises, and they’re very, very good disguises. But I know about the disguises,’ she said, and, bizarrely, the child’s voice came through again. ‘I know because I’m clever as clever, my daddy always said I was clever as clever, like in the poem. “Now that I’m six, I’m clever as clever, and I think I’ll stay six for ever and ever.” My daddy used to say that to me. But he didn’t know about the ogre-birds who pretend to be people. Selina didn’t know either, although she knew a lot of things.’ She looked at Emily suddenly. ‘You know about them, don’t you? About the ogres who pretend to be people.’

‘Yes,’ said Emily, who had absolutely no idea if this was the right thing to say. A distant memory from her own childhood stirred for a moment, and a half-forgotten childish belief came back to her. She said, ‘They hide inside nightmares sometimes.’

‘Yes.
Yes
. How clever of you, Emily. Your name
is
Emily, isn’t it?’

‘Um, yes.’

‘They hide, those old ogres,’ said Christy, and again it was the child speaking: the long-ago child who had possessed the gift of most children for accepting the bizarre or the macabre and the fantastical without question.

Patrick said cautiously, ‘In houses?’

‘In
people
. It’s quite hard to know who they are sometimes; you have to look extra hard. They pretend to be your friend, and they say, Oh, what a pretty little girl. Come into my house and have tea, little girl. But after a bit, you can see what they really are. You can see the claws and the beaks, and when you see those,’ she said, ‘that’s when you know. That’s when you have to kill them.’

This time the silence went on for much longer. Then Patrick said, very gently, ‘As you did, Christabel.’

There was a long silence, and then the struggling-to-be-born voice said, with terrible obedience, ‘Yes. As I did.’