Creeping Jenny Read online

  PRAISE FOR JEFF NOON

  “A heady psychedelic mix, packed with literary allusions, which brilliantly explores notions of self-identity, personal awareness and how we fit into our own stories.”

  The Guardian

  “This is a beguiling introduction to a strange new world, and a trip worth taking… Rich, inventive and recommended.”

  Sci-Fi Now

  “Style has always been Noon’s strongest suit, and in creating the varied cityscapes of A Man of Shadows, his talent for hallucinatory imagery has found a perfect match. This book is absolutely drenched in arresting visuals.”

  Barnes & Noble Sci-Fi & Fantasy Blog

  “By writing a novel set in literature itself the author has created a new psychedelic meta-genre as well as a fantastic story that sticks in the mind long after the novel itself is read.”

  British Fantasy Society

  “The Body Library is a brilliant piece of writing that does a satisfying job of merging noir, magical realism, and a love of all things literary.”

  SF Revu

  “Wonderful and uniquely absorbing.”

  Starburst

  “A disturbing and bizarre journey by one of the great masters of weird fiction.”

  Adrian Tchaikovsky, Arthur C Clarke Award-winning author of Children of Time

  “Noon is the Lewis Carroll of Manchester’s housing estates: eccentric, surreal, and ready to take everything to its most absurd conclusion. In Noon’s stories the cocktail of alienation, narcotics and gadgetry fizzes with energy.”

  The Times

  “Noon is a fiercely urban writer. [He] reflects the energy of the rave generation: the hammer and twist of the music, the language of the computer games addict and the buzz of technology.”

  New Statesman

  “Noon’s blend of quirky ideas, striking prose and imaginative characterisations establishes him as one of the most original voices in imaginative fiction.”

  Booklist

  “Let’s call him the first of the psychedelic fantasists.”

  Time Out

  “A virtual wonderland.”

  Vanity Fair

  “Humorous, horrific and wildly original… an imaginative masterpiece.”

  Library Journal

  “Noon has written a kaleidoscopic noir novel of dizzying dream logic.”

  Publishers Weekly

  “Noon’s prose takes you to weird and scary places other novelists don’t go, a reminder why he’s so revered.”

  SFX magazine

  “It’s a stylish and distinctive vision of a world that remains morally grey and foggy, even when under Dayzone’s bright artificial lights. Weirdly compelling.”

  The Spectator

  “While Vurt was undeniably the in-your-face work of a brash wunderkind, A Man of Shadows is arguably even better: the product of a more mature, surer writer with less desire to awe the reader for the sheer sake of showing off his chops, and more intent on producing emotional resonances, more vivid storylines, and imparting whatever hard-earned wisdom the writer has garnered.”

  Locus

  “Clocks and watches form a recurrent motif in this artful, eerie novel that infuses the mystery genre with symbolism and soul.”

  Financial Times

  “An imaginative and linguistic tour de force… an exquisitely grimy fable.”

  The Independent

  “Observes most of the conventions of cyberpunk fiction yet its imagery is insistently organic, and owes more to the underground pharmacology of the rave scene than to the world of hard wired chips and user interface.”

  New Yorker

  “Intriguingly textured, reliably witty and inventive, Noon’s whirling purposeful fantasy packs a full whallop.”

  Kirkus Reviews

  BY THE SAME AUTHOR

  THE NYQUIST MYSTERIES

  A Man of Shadows

  The Body Library

  Slow Motion Ghosts

  Mappalujo (with Steve Beard)

  Channel SK1N

  Falling Out of Cars

  Cobralingus

  Needle in the Groove

  Pixel Juice

  Nymphomation

  Automated Alice

  Pollen

  Vurt

  ANGRY ROBOT

  An imprint of Watkins Media Ltd

  Unit 11, Shepperton House

  89 Shepperton Road

  London N1 3DF

  UK

  angryrobotbooks.com

  twitter.com/angryrobotbooks

  All Saints Day

  An Angry Robot paperback original, 2020

  Copyright © Jeff Noon 2020

  Edited by Paul Simpson and Claire Rushbrook

  Cover by Kieryn Tyler

  Set in Meridien

  All rights reserved. Jeff Noon asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

  This novel is entirely a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Sales of this book without a front cover may be unauthorized. If this book is coverless, it may have been reported to the publisher as “unsold and destroyed” and neither the author nor the publisher may have received payment for it.

  Angry Robot and the Angry Robot icon are registered trademarks of Watkins Media Ltd.

  ISBN 978 0 85766 840 0

  Ebook ISBN 978 0 85766 851 6

  Printed and bound in the United Kingdom by TJ International.

  9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  For Bridget, Paul and Harriet

  A guinea for her Ladyship

  Two bob for Creeping Jenny.

  Mr Brown likes half a crown,

  But the devil takes a penny.

  18th CENTURY RHYME

  (MEANING UNKNOWN)

  CONTENTS

  Part One: A Bird in a Cage

  Fool’s Charm

  The Battle of the Teacup

  The Maypole Dance

  A Sewing Lesson

  Village Mute

  Old Oak

  Peeper

  The Go-Between

  Exchange of Goods

  The Faraway Man

  Part 2: Connective Tissue

  Alice and Edmund Welcome You

  A Spell for The Wicked

  Family Histories

  Invisible Raven

  Stranded in Life

  Tendrils

  Part 3: Widdershins

  The Calling Bell

  The Flood

  Jolly Good Show

  The Well-Known Stranger

  Conversations with Fireflies

  Many Times Around

  Part 4: The Penny Bloods

  A Sevenfold Knot

  Portrait of Woman with Twigs

  A Song in The Night Skull

  Object no. 5

  The Naming Tree

  Agents of Bodily Harm

  Flight of Jackdaw and Lark

  The Poem of The Woods

  Epilogue: The Somnambulist

  Acknowledgements

  PART ONE

  A BIRD IN A CAGE

  FOOL’S CHARM

  Nyquist wiped his mouth and pulled his coat and scarf tighter around him and tilted his trilby further down over his brow, giving himself a shadow to hide within. It wasn’t enough, and so he closed his eyes, adding darkness. It still wasn’t enough. He couldn’t shut down all his senses. Birdsong, the constant play of the wind. The great outdoors. He felt sick. And Christ, what was that smell, some kind of animal dung? Or rotting plants, or dead flesh? He tried looking round again and felt just as fai
nt. He needed something to focus on, one thing, and all he could choose was the hedge lining one side of the road. He stared at the twigs and the thorns and the remains of a spider’s web, and he kept them all in view for as long as possible, until his heart settled.

  He turned at the sound of a voice. Two other passengers had alighted from the bus and they were looking at him now. He gave them a nod and his best attempt at a smile, but they continued to gaze at him, their expressions unreadable, and then without a word they moved to the door of a roadside cottage.

  Nyquist took in his surroundings. There was a signpost that pointed in three directions: up and down the country road to Lockhampton and Bligh, and across a field towards Hoxley. And everywhere he looked, on all sides, the moors stretched away. His mind reeled. There was too much open space, too much sky. Perhaps his business would be finished quickly and he’d soon be standing here again, waiting for the bus to take him back to the train station.

  Perhaps the whole thing had been a mistake. Or a joke. A terrible joke.

  Battered suitcase in hand, he set off across the field, following a pathway. The clouds were mottled gray and black, threatening rain. He kept his head down and walked on, hoping the village wouldn’t be too far, and at last he reached a stretch of woodland. He breathed a little easier here, in the shadowed interior. Fallen leaves had turned to mulch underfoot. Branches creaked, twigs rustled against each other. A lone bird chattered. It sounded like a tiny engine winding up and winding back down. The pathway merged into the undergrowth and he was soon entirely surrounded by trees. He really didn’t know where he was going.

  He stepped into a clearing, and he stood where he was, unmoving.

  The sky was visible above the circle of trees, even cloudier now, heavier.

  A moment of silence took him over. No, not quite silence. He could hear a fluttering sound. He listened closely and then peered into the knotted branches, where he spied a small white object. It was a card, a plain white card, dangling at the end of a length of thread. The thread was tied at the other end around a twig. He peered into the tangle of the trees and saw that two words were written on the card, on one side only. The words were visible and then not, as the card turned and turned in the breeze.

  Broken Bone…

  Broken Bone…

  Broken Bone…

  And now that he’d seen one card others became apparent to him, hanging from other branches of this tree, and from the branches and twigs of all the trees around. Nyquist could only imagine they had been placed here by children from the village, a game or spell of some kind. Each card held a word or phrase of its own: Scatter Seed, Witch’s Knot, Waving Hands, Aerial, Silver Shiver, Pretty Pattern, Long to Depart, Spider’s Home. Hundreds of the cards were visible. Wormwood, Motionless, Shape of Wings…

  He moved on at random, hoping to locate the path once more, but had taken only a few steps when he heard another sound, a human sound. A single cry of anguish. He spun round, in time to see something moving, low down among the branches. Nyquist approached and a figure darted aside in a snap and clatter of twigs.

  “Who’s there?”

  There was no answer, only the sound of the wood settling back into a slow trembling state. And then the figure announced, “I’m alone here.”

  Nyquist replied quickly. “So am I.”

  A moment passed and then the voice announced, “We can’t both be alone, otherwise we wouldn’t be alone.”

  Nyquist considered in turn: “We were alone, but now we’re not.”

  It was enough of an answer, for now the figure stood upright and stepped forward. It was a woman of singular aspect, entirely at home in the evening shade. She had wild and ragged hair and her hands were tipped with fingernails which were long, sharp, and dirty with shreds of bark. It was impossible to tell how old she was. The woods stirred, stirred again, and there she was, standing in front of him, using the branches around her as a set of levers by which she propelled herself forward. Nyquist was fascinated. She might easily be mistaken for a creature of myth, until she came close enough to show her eyes, which were a quite startling blue, and entirely human.

  “Good evening, sir. My name is Sylvia.”

  She was dressed in black rags and her hair was woven with twigs and stems and leaves and husks and burrs, either caught there in her travels or threaded on purpose.

  “I’m guessing you’re lost,” she said.

  “That might be the case.”

  The woman shuffled forward, causing the branches to groan and rasp. “You’re my first guest this evening. But that’s usually the case, on this particular day. I used to be a midwife, you know?”

  “Is that a fact?”

  Nyquist found it difficult to follow her logic.

  “It is a fact.” Sylvia danced from foot to foot. “But then I lost one brother to sickness, and another to the war. Only my sister remains to me.”

  “And this stopped you from being a midwife, because…?”

  “Careful now. Please don’t disturb the names.”

  It took him a moment to understand her warning – one of the name tags had snagged on his scarf and was being pulled away from the branch, the thread almost breaking. He stepped forward, relieving the pressure. Sylvia came to him to unhook the card from his clothing.

  “It takes me a long time to make them up.”

  She carried a small bag slung across her shoulder. She dipped into this and pulled out another card and a wax crayon. She chose a nearby branch seemingly at random, thought for a moment and then prepared to write on the card. “Forked Tongue? No, Oberon’s Favorite? No. Let me think… The One who Talks With the Sky? Argh, no. Too much, far too much, who do you think you are, Wordsworth?! No. Come on, Sylvia. Think, woman!”

  “What are you doing?”

  She looked at Nyquist sideways on. “Deciding on a name, what else?”

  “You’re naming the tree?”

  “No, a name for the branch, of course, the branch! Every branch has a different name.”

  “Why?”

  “Because every branch is different, why else? A unique object in the universe.” Her arms spread out wide. “The tree has a name, a central name, and the trunk has a name, each visible root has a name. And each and every branch will have a name, once I’ve finished. And I’ve already made a start on the twigs, one by one. Hopefully I’ll be done by springtime, and then I’ll start on the leaves and the buds, one by one by one, naming each in turn. Oh, I am so looking forward to the spring!”

  Nyquist started to ask for the way to the village, but Sylvia held up a hand, urging him to silence.

  “Ah, I have it.” Now she wrote, pressing hard with the crayon to darken the mark as much as possible. “There it is. Perfect. What do you think?” She held the card out for him to look at: Tangled Hair.

  He nodded. “It’s a good name.”

  “Oh, but wait, what about Sun Pointer? Isn’t that better?”

  “Maybe…”

  Sylvia frowned. “Well, I’ve made the card out now, so I’ll stick with it.” She tied the thread around the branch, allowing the card to dangle down. It spun and spun and then settled. “Actually, now it’s in place, I like it. Tangled Hair. Yes, I am pleased with that one.”

  They both looked on as the naming card moved in the breeze.

  “Now then.” She turned to Nyquist. “Where are you heading? Perhaps I can help.”

  “Hoxley-on-the-Hale.”

  “Good choice.” She smiled. “Take the middle path.”

  Nyquist stared into the trees of the clearing.

  “Can’t you see it?”

  “Not quite.”

  Sylvia danced again. “Come, I’ll show you. Step lightly. And don’t disturb my cards!”

  He followed her through a gap between the trees and soon a clear path could be made out. He thanked Sylvia and was about to tell her his name when she stopped him with a finger to his lips

  “Hush! Now just hush. I don’t need to know you
r name.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “I have already given you a name. A new name. A proper name. Here, let me write it down for you.” She wrote with her crayon on a fresh card and presented it to him, face-down. “Don’t look at it now. Later, later, give it one hour to act upon itself, and upon your person. And then gaze at it for fully ten minutes. Go on, hide it away, put it in your pocket. Here, let me.” She slipped the card into an inside pocket of his overcoat.

  Nyquist went on his way. The branches waved their tags at him: Perfect Perch, Twig For Sale, Lady Anna’s Fan, Not Quite an Oak, Billy Splinters, Birds Come Hither. Nyquist recited each name to himself, whispering: the poem of the woods.

  Soon he came to a stile in a fence, with open land beyond. Night was slowly falling. He climbed over. A field sloped down into a valley and for a good few moments he stood where he was, staring into the dim air. A carrier pigeon was sitting on a fence post nearby, a tiny metal tube attached to its leg.

  The distant crack of a shotgun sent the bird flapping away.

  The gun sounded another two times. Far off, muffled. In the city the noise would make him duck for cover, but here it was probably hunters taking advantage of the last of the light, some poor hare or rabbit or grouse their target. Country life. Blood and guts and tooth and claw. Nyquist swore to himself. This wasn’t his kind of place, not at all. He was a child of the city, of narrow streets and neon signs and people who came alive at night, or in the fierce heat of day, stalkers, hawkers, crooks and hookers, crazy-eyed teenagers scrawling their names on the walls, the fierce hustle and bustle of life pressed up close. And specimens like himself – investigators, seekers after clues, grubbing around in the dark in hope of a sparkle. Still, there was no choice in the matter. He had to see this through.

  Below, cradled in the vale, lay the village of Hoxley.

  The first drops of rain fell as he picked up his case and set off down the slope.

  THE BATTLE OF THE TEACUP

  It was a tiny place. A high street, a dozen or so houses on each side, a pub and a corner shop, a few other streets and lanes leading off the first but all in one direction only, and that was about it. A church at one end, a school at the other. Two street lamps. Nyquist stood at the head of the road, under one of the lamps, and he took an envelope from his suitcase. He drew out a set of photographs, and found one depicting the street. The edges of the image were faded and details were lost here and there, blurred over, but yes, it was the same location. In fact, the photograph had been taken from somewhere near this exact spot. And he was sure then, for the first time, that he had come to the right place: Hoxley-on-the-Hale.