Creeping Jenny Read online

  “How do I look?”

  Nyquist gave it some thought. “I don’t know, in all honesty. Your face…”

  “Yes?” She looked hopeful.

  “You have a striking face.” It was the best he could find.

  “Striking? Like a match, you mean? Like a matchstick catching fire.” Her eyes took on more light than the room could give them, far more. She was excited, and her fingers danced in the air. “Like a flicker. Like a flame?”

  “Yes, if you like.”

  “Oh, I do like that! Such a notion… I have a flickering, fiery face! It has never come to me before, not in all my long years.”

  And within an older face, Madelyn’s features grew young, then old once more, and then young. Nyquist watched as her gaze turned to the seventh cabinet with its broken glass and its missing exhibit. “Who do you think stole this mask?” she asked.

  “I don’t know.”

  “It’s a crying shame. Somebody must really hate the village, and all that it stands for. Someone from outside, I think.” And then she coughed politely and said, “You will have to excuse me, I’m afraid.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “I am not used to having such a conversation.”

  “You’re doing fine.”

  “I am learning, one sentence at a time.”

  “Look, I’m the same. I hardly know what to say to people…”

  “The thing is, you see, John… you don’t mind me using your first name?”

  He shrugged in reply. “So, you know who I am?”

  “Of course, of course.” She carried on freely: “The thing is, I don’t get many people to talk to. I had a nice chat some years ago, to a woman called Norma. Norma Spence. Oh that was a lovely conversation! We talked for one hour and thirteen minutes and twenty-two seconds. In fact, she was a visitor, like yourself. She came here from New Zealand. John, do you know of that country?”

  “Down under, next to Australia.”

  “Yes, that’s correct. Miss Spence was a robust individual, a woman of fierce pride and of excellent constitution. A pioneer. She was passing through the area on a holiday of the north of England and she happened to stay here for the night, in Hoxley, in the local pub, and it just so happened that the next day was Saint Leander’s Day, and so we got to meet each other. That was the last time I spoke freely with anyone, answering back and forth as you and I are doing now, back and forth, nattering away. Oh, repartee, repartee! It’s such a delight!” And then she hushed herself. “Oh dear, look at me, rambling on and on–”

  “What about the villagers who keep you prisoner? Don’t they talk to you?”

  “They speak to me, but I cannot speak back. For on all other days but this, my voice is silent, as I am bound, by the covenant of the village.”

  Nyquist worried about Madelyn’s state of mind. How much of what she was saying was true? And how much a delusion of some kind? His hope of uncovering secrets was fading away. The old anger nudged at him, a loyal friend, or enemy.

  He asked, “So how long ago was it, when you met with Miss Spence?”

  “Nine years ago.”

  “Nine?”

  “So you see, if I’m a little out of practice.”

  “You’re saying that you haven’t spoken to anyone for nine years?”

  “I have not. Correct. And in truth I think I scared Norma off, for she ran away as fast as her sturdy legs would carry her. You’re not going to do that, are you, John? Promise me?”

  The answer came quickly, without thought: “I promise.”

  “Norma found out my true nature. I scared her dreadfully.”

  “And what is your true nature?”

  She reveled in her answer, in the word itself: “Multitudinous.”

  Her face gathered all of its younger elements and displayed them at once. “What do you think of that, John? Here I stand before you, Madelyn the Multitudinous. The one and only, in all her lovely otherness. Madelyn the Multitudinous!”

  She had turned it into a song, a brief song for it faded out after one verse, and Nyquist was able to ask, “Will you tell me who took your photograph?”

  “I don’t know what you mean. I’ve never had my picture taken.”

  He took out the photograph and handed it to her. She stared at it for a good while, her face showing only the hints of a puzzle.

  “This is me?”

  “It is?”

  “I don’t often look in mirrors. I find it too confusing.”

  “I can assure you, Madelyn, it’s you. So you can’t remember it being taken?”

  “No, I swear.”

  “But it’s taken here, in the museum, right where you’re standing now. And you’re looking directly at the camera, do you see that?”

  She nodded.

  “It was taken last year, on Saint Leander’s Day.”

  Now Madelyn looked up from her own image. “It’s true that I did visit the Museum of Curios, last time. It’s part of my annual itinerary. Every place, every doorway. But I was alone, of that I’m certain.”

  “You don’t remember a flash going off?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “A flashbulb. To allow enough light to enter the lens.”

  A shake of the head. But then she glanced at the photograph and said, “I have the bell in my hand?”

  “You do.”

  “I would be calling for companions.”

  Madelyn raised the bell and rang it once more. It was louder now, high and clear in its tone, and it worked as a magic charm, sending out a wave of bright air that Nyquist felt on the skin of his face.

  She posed herself, replicating perfectly the image.

  The bell rang on, and then slowed, and stopped.

  Echoes dusted the air.

  Nyquist took the photograph from her. He said, “Madelyn, do you know of a man named George Nyquist?”

  Her eyes closed momentarily, the lids flickering as though in a dream.

  “You do know him?”

  She brought herself in focus and spoke slowly, “I have heard him spoken of, yes, and I have heard him speak, yes, inside, in here, in my head. I hear them all speak, I can hear them now, all of them at once.”

  “My father? What is he saying?”

  “Saying, not saying, all at once unsaying, everything being said all at once, forever.”

  “Madelyn?”

  It was no good, she was lost in another world.

  “Who’s speaking to you, the villagers?”

  “Yes, all of them, they are talking to me.”

  “They speak to you, but you can’t answer?”

  “That is correct, yes.”

  “And what are they saying?”

  “Oh, they’re angry, John. They are growing angry with me.” Her face aged instantly, as the fear took over. “They are coming back, they are coming close, I can hear them. So many of them. Voices, voices! Some of them are shouting, they’re shouting at me, John! It hurts. It is hurtful, the things they are saying! John, help me, help me.” By now she was crying out in panic. “Keep them away.” She backed against a cabinet and put her free hand up to her face for protection against some unseen force. Her bell rang out madly. “Stay away! Get away from me!” Now she screamed out loud.

  Only two people stood in the room.

  The six masks of the Tolly Man looked on in silence.

  Madelyn’s face slithered with expressions, one after the other, all different, all vying for dominance. Nyquist went to her, but this only caused her further distress and she twisted away before he could even reach her, and slipped under his arms. “Don’t touch me. Do not touch me!” And with that she was gone, running from the room.

  He followed her along the corridors, one after another, one turning and a second and a third, past the various cabinets and their contents, through unlit rooms, in darkness and shadow, through tiny patches of light, of dust. Madelyn still carried in her hand the bell, and as she ran along the bell sounded, and it was this that Nyqui
st followed, a spun-silver thread through the labyrinth. He took a flight of stairs to a door and rushed though into a yard at the rear of the hall. Here he stood to get his breath, and to listen. The bell sounded quietly, from many miles away. An alleyway stretched away in both directions, but there was no one in sight, no one at all.

  And the bell was silent.

  He chose a direction and walked along until he reached a narrow lane and from there made his way back to Pyke Road. It was a quarter to six. The air was dark, with night falling rapidly, and there was still no sign of any other villagers. He felt even lonelier than before. The thought of leaving Hoxley for good took him over, but only for a moment or two, because he suddenly realized where Madelyn might be.

  The doors were still closed up and locked on the large well-appointed Tudor house on Stickleback Avenue: White Flower Lodge. Nyquist worked the brass knocker, and waited. He stepped back along the garden path and looked up at the bedroom windows. One of the curtains moved and he knew he was being watched. He didn’t do anything, except to move back to the front door. It took a while, but eventually he heard someone on the other side of the paneling. The lock clicked and a woman spoke. It was Madelyn. The door remained closed.

  “I’ll leave it on the latch,” she said.

  “That’s fine.”

  “Don’t come in straightaway.”

  “I won’t. I’ll wait here.”

  He did so, counting three minutes on his watch, and then he pushed the door open and entered the hallway. He checked the downstairs rooms, all empty, and then made his way up to the first floor. He could smell turpentine and oil paint and he knew he was nearing an artist’s studio. It was located in a room at the back of the house, a converted bedroom. Two large windows looked out onto a gray-white sky and the tops of trees in a small copse. Various paintings, both oils and watercolors, were propped up against the walls or arranged on easels. But a vast tapestry dominated the room, taking up almost an entire wall. It showed an image of Noah’s Ark with a long line of paired animals queueing to come aboard and the storm clouds brewing in the distance over jagged cliff tops. The work was halfway complete, or a little more, and a stretch of empty cloth still awaited the needle and the colored threads.

  Madelyn was sitting on a tall stool, working on a section of the tapestry, her fingers moving swiftly and deftly, her entire concentration fixed on the small portion in her sight. He watched her for a while. Neither of them spoke, or acknowledged the other. And then without looking up she told him, “This is the house of Mr and Mrs Sutton. They’re quite well to do.”

  “I’ve met them briefly. The good Lady Sutton warned me off. Twice.”

  “She’s very protective of the village, it’s true. But their bread and pasties are adored up and down the county, and beyond. They own five separate bakeries.” She smiled with delight. “You’ll have noticed the pun, I’m thinking? In the house name?”

  He had to think about it for a moment. “I get it. So the Suttons let you stay here?”

  “They gave me this room and set it up as a studio for me.” She pointed over to a side table. “Mrs Sutton always bakes me a cake. It’s a Victoria sponge this year. Have a slice, please, John. It’s as light as a dandelion clock on a summer’s day.”

  Nyquist declined the offer. “Are you free to go wherever you choose?”

  “On this day, yes. Let loose to prowl where I may.” Her fingers worked at the needle, pulling on a thread, adding details to the fur of a leopard. “Everyone is very kind, they always leave their doors open for me.” She added another stitch and them looked at Nyquist for the first time, saying, “I’ve done less work this year, because of you. Because of your presence, John. Far fewer stitches.”

  “How long have you been working on this?”

  “Since 1902. But I only have one day a year to add to it, so I don’t think I’ve done so badly, not really.”

  “Madelyn, how old are you?”

  She looked at him with an inquisitive eye. “How do you want to measure that? By the single days of life, one per year, or by all the years combined, even when I’m trapped in the dark?”

  “The second.”

  “It was in 1724 when Saint Leander was first introduced to the calendar, so why don’t you work it out for yourself?”

  He did so, but didn’t say anything.

  “You’re looking at me in a funny way. I can’t imagine why. Oh, I suppose you think that’s very old? Yes, I am an ancient being. But in myself, I still feel young. I am not wearied by life, not at all. Come closer, please. Examine my work.”

  He stepped up to the tapestry and took in the fine detail, the claws of the beasts, the wings of the insects, the moss growing on a rock, each feather on each bird, all expertly rendered. Noah stood at the brow of his ship, with his family arranged behind him.

  “You see,” Madelyn said, “I have a fine pair of eyes, and my hands are steady. I will set my ark afloat before the darkness takes me completely, if it ever does.”

  Nyquist wanted to ask her again about his father, about his whereabouts, but knew that the wrong word could easily push her away, or trouble her too much.

  He said, “It’s a great work.”

  This pleased her. She put down her needle and thread and stood up. “Let me show you some of my other pieces.” She led him over to an easel where an oil painting rested, a portrait of Professor Bryars. Other portraits of villagers were hung on the walls. They were all very good likenesses, highly skilled, realistic. “I wonder sometimes,” she said, “whether I should dabble in a more modernistic style. I understand it’s all the rage in cosmopolitan areas?”

  “Sure. Why not? I can see Doctor Higgs with a Cubist face. One staring eye, her ear on backwards…”

  Madelyn stared at him, not a smile touching her lips. Instead, she explained her method: “I work from photographs.” She nodded to a shelf which held a collection of framed images of people from the village. “I use these as models for my portraits. I hope to paint everyone in the village, eventually, as they live and die and I carry on, year by year.”

  Nyquist thought about her answer: she was creating her own population.

  “What about this?”

  He touched at the edge of a white cloth draped over an object on a plinth. Madelyn removed the cloth for him, revealing the sculpture underneath. It was a Tolly Man mask, a work in progress, more than three-quarters complete.

  “I made this myself,” she said proudly. “Every knot, every twist and turn.”

  He believed her. The disembodied head was closely woven from twigs and dry leaves, with one or two black feathers among them, the whole thing wrapped in wire. The barbs of the wire and the thorns together gave the mask a sinister, painful aspect. Evidently, the mask had been a few years in the making, for the lower twigs and branches were drier than the uppermost, with far less color to them. The jagged outline made it an angry god or demon, whichever it was, and it was easy to imagine the intense feelings generated in the wearer, once their head and shoulders were encased. Nyquist noted a single a cluster of berries among the newer tangles at the brow.

  “I left the moonsilver attached,” she said. “Although I’m not supposed to, really.”

  “Artistic license?”

  “Yes. To represent the poison in the human soul.” It was said in a flat tone of voice, a simple stating of a fact. “This is why I like to go to the museum, to study the old examples. Oh, but they had such craftsmanship in those days!” Around the base of the effigy were a number of woodworking and gardening tools, among them a pair of shears and a pruning knife. Madelyn continued, “I would like my mask to be used one year, if the committee approves, and if Saint Algreave allows it. That would be an honor.”

  “I suppose you’ve never seen the Tolly Man, in real life?”

  “No never. I’m always locked away on that day.” She sounded wistful, a little lost within herself. “You know the mask is burned every year, after being used.”

  �
��I was told that, yes.”

  “Only those few exhibits in the museum have survived up to now.”

  “Why is that?”

  “When Saint Algreave’s Day falls on a full moon, the mask is sacrosanct. The full moon turns it into an object of great beauty and devotion, something to be revered, and not a mask of the devil, as is usually assumed.”

  Nyquist drew his gaze away from the Tolly Man.

  “Look at me. Madelyn. Turn this way.”

  At first her eyes wouldn’t meet his, but then they did, and she held herself in place by sheer power of the will. “You must promise not to touch me,” she said. “Not even in the slightest. Not a breath must fall on me. Even your shadow across mine would cause problems for us both. You would be drawn in.”

  “As you say.”

  “I do say. This is why poor Norma Spence took such a fright.”

  “You’re wearing a mask yourself, isn’t that true? Right now?”

  “Not a mask, John. No. But everyone all together contained within me.”

  “Everyone?”

  “Everyone in the village, yes.”

  “You believe that everyone in Hoxley village lives inside you, and they’re all talking to you, is that it?”

  She stared at him, her eyes quite dark for once. “It’s not a belief. It is a fact.”

  “So you can see everything, through their eyes?”

  “Whatever is seen through all eyes available to me, yes. All things that are pleasant to look upon, and all that are fearful, and wicked. I witness them all.”

  “So you know of my father’s whereabouts? You can see him?”

  “I don’t know. Oh John, it’s so frustrating! There are areas of shadow, where I cannot see. Here and there, in the many rooms of my head. Shadows. It is horrible–”

  This was too much to take. “Madelyn, you have to tell me!”

  “I would like to…”

  “Well then?”

  “Alas, I am not allowed. The shadows will not speak to me.”

  And with that, she walked away, across the room. Nyquist thought of pushing it further, but he knew it was hopeless.

  “How do you like this one, John?” she said.

  He went to her. She was standing in front of a portrait of Ian Bainbridge. It was a fine work, and the man’s despair had been perfectly captured, especially around the eyes. He told her that he liked it, very much so, and she replied, “He is dead now. I can no longer hear him speak. One less, one less.” Her voice sounded wistful.