Jasper Fforde - Early Riser

‘That would explain it,’ she said, pointing to her useless eye, ‘I don’t see things too well on my left.’

She showed me a sketch on her notepad. It was, predictably, of half a face – Foulnap’s.

‘The man who took the nightwalker. This him?’

I nodded, and she placed the pad in her breast pocket.

‘Logan paused,’ I said after a moment’s thought, ‘like he didn’t want to kill you. Why was that?’

‘I’ve no idea,’ said Aurora, ‘but it was to your clear advantage that he did, and his clear disadvantage that he didn’t. Remember what I said: avoid the Winter Consuls in Sector Twelve – especially Toccata.’

She bade me goodbye, and wandered off down the carriage, leaving me to my thoughts. After half an hour or so the train stopped at Torpantu high station.

There was no movement of passengers or freight while the RailTecs set the brakes for the descent, and we were soon on our way again, first through a mile-long tunnel that cut the summit off the mountain, then past a weathered sign welcoming us to Sector Twelve and from there down a long incline at a measured pace. It had stopped snowing on this side of the ridge, and in the twilight I could just make out the shape of the mountains rising all around, their peaks draped in a soft blanket of snow. On the tighter bends the red glow of the locomotive five carriages ahead was clearly visible, and occasionally the train shuddered as the snowplough scythed its way through a drift while sparks from the funnel drifted past the windows like fireflies.

I fed the dead woman half a dozen custard creams and she mercifully dropped off into Torpor, a welcome relief. I got up to stretch my legs and walked to the end of the carriage, where I found Moody. He was staring out of the window, deep in thought, and looked up when I stopped next to him.

‘I need to give you this,’ I said, handing him a piece of paper outlining the nature of the Debt I’d promised: who it was to, the date and my signature.

‘Tidy,’ he said, placing it in his top pocket. ‘Join me?’

I sat in a position from where I would be able to see if Mrs Tiffen went walkies or tried to chew the seats.

‘How did you get the Vacant back?’ asked Moody.

‘Just good old-fashioned grit, I guess.’

‘No, seriously,’ said Moody, who’d figured me out well, ‘how did you get her back?’

‘Aurora stepped in and saved the day.’

‘That figures,’ said Moody. ‘It also means you owe her. It’s not a good habit to get into during the Winter, owing people stuff.’

‘I owe you ,’ I said.

‘True,’ he said, ‘and even that’s not to your best advantage. You heading back home once you’ve dropped off your nightwalker?’

‘Once I’ve spoken to Toccata about viral dreams.’

Moody jumped visibly and looked around the carriage. He leaned closer and lowered his voice.

‘I can tell you something about viral dreams,’ he said, ‘but later, privately. I’ll be in the Wincarnis. Easy to find – on the main square. Watch out for HiberTech, too. All that “Saviour of Humankind” stuff is utter tosh – HiberTech are in it only for the cash. Don Hector was always generally true to his ideals, but the others soon took his dream and turned it into a nightmare. And Project Lazarus will just make the whole thing worse.’

‘What is Project Lazarus?’

‘I’ll tell what little I know at the Wincarnis later. But be careful in Sector Twelve: there’s something contrary about it.’

‘Contrary?’

‘Unusual. Spooky. Y’know all those weird Winter legends and fables you hear about when you’re a kid? The Wintervolk?’

I knew exactly what he meant, and I’d been fascinated by them for years, not just by their oddness, but by their variety: from the Thermalovaurs that fed off your heat, to the Winter Sirens who called you from your bed with the promise of song and dance and dreamy bundles but left you dead of exhaustion and spent of all moisture. Of the Tonttu or little people, who crept into your room at night to steal your teeth, and cash, and toes. Also the Chancer, who could walk though walls and fed off your fat as you slumbered, leaving you an empty bag of bones, and the Gizmo that crept into your ear and laid eggs that hatched into worms that fed off your dreams.

They were all great fun, but if there was one particular favourite of mine, it was the Gronk. Feeding off the shame of the unworthy while folding linen and humming Rodgers and Hammerstein hits had a certain inspiring randomness about it.

‘Yes,’ I said, ‘I’ve heard of the Wintervolk.’

He leaned forward, touched me on the knee and lowered his voice to a whisper.

‘ They come true in the Twelve. They’re here, they’re real. Mid-Wales is the cradle of fable – forged in the dreaming minds of the sleepers.’

‘O-kay,’ I said. His narcosis was clearly well beyond just blue Buicks, severed hands and being buried alive.

‘I’m serious,’ he said. ‘Porter Lloyd at the Siddons Dormitorium. Heard of him?’

‘No.’

‘He’s met the Gronk. Or at least, came close enough to touch.’

‘Go on.’

Moody cleared his throat.

‘There once was a Winterstockman named Ichabod Block who managed a farm outside Rhayder, near to where the ice-sheet turns from ice to meltwater, and there’s no habitation for miles around. It was said that Ichabod was a man of simple needs; that he was taciturn, and dissatisfied with his lot; that he had a wife named Maria and a daughter named Gretl. But they departed one afternoon to no one knows where a couple of years before and this made him moody, and introspective, and few would want to speak with him, or bear him in company.’

‘We had someone like that at the Pool,’ I said, thinking of Sister Contractia. [32] Sister Contractia lived in the shed where the motor-mower belonged, and kept herself to herself. The policy of Socialised Childcare does not automatically attract those who like children.

‘One Winter,’ continued Moody, ‘Ichabod contacted an acquaintance of his named Lloyd to whom he was owed a life-debt of several years’ standing, and told him that he was being “vexed most troublesome” by Wintervolk. Lloyd had been a porter for a decade, so of the Winter’s horrors, there was little to frighten him. He considered Wintervolk simply old washermen’s tales, the unchallenged pub-chat of the hard-of-thinking.

‘“How do you know it’s Wintervolk?” asked Lloyd when they met.

‘“Last week the hiburnal elks had their antlers trimmed and six of the eighty-nine cow-mammoths had their coats brushed. And inside the house,” continued Ichabod, “the raisins were all picked out of the muesli, Gretl’s The King and I album was stolen and I found all the books on my shelves reordered.”

‘“Alphabetically?” asked Lloyd.

‘“No – by merit.”

‘“Ah”.’

None but the Wintervolk would be so eccentrically daring.

The plan was simple: Porter Lloyd was to stand guard outside Ichabod’s barn from sunset to sunrise, seated upon a leather armchair.

‘Ichabod wanted to use him as Volkbait?’ I asked.

‘He did that,’ replied Moody, ‘for porters are by long tradition eunuchs, and the Wintervolk are known to favour those who are physically lesser. Ichabod, however, was hiding ten yards away and upwind, behind several bales of hay, Thumper at the ready, eager to despatch whatever made an appearance. Porter Lloyd was to stay awake, ready to raise the alarm.’

I noticed that several of the other passengers in the train had stopped talking and were leaning in, listening to the story.

‘But sleep was impossible,’ continued Moody. ‘Porter Lloyd sat there wide awake, ears straining in the inky blackness, the only light the faint glimmer from a sky bright with the stars of a Winter night. Not a sound punctuated the darkness. Not a rustle, nor even a broken twig, nor even the grunt of a spooked mammoth. Lloyd pulled his parka up around him, and thought of his life, his failings, his aspirations, and the fact that he couldn’t get the tune of “The Lonely Goatherd” [33] Track 1, Side 2, The Sound of Music film soundtrack LP. out of his head.’