Nocturnes

And I thought, at one point, that I saw a figure writhing in the flames, a man in a dark suit slowly burning in the night air, until at last he was dispersed by the wind.

Now it is I who have the nightmares, and I who lie awake listening in the dead of night. I hate the silence, but more than that I fear what may disturb it. In my dreams I see a thing in a ragged suit luring children into dark places, and I hear the sound of nocturnes playing. I call to the children. I try to stop them. Sometimes Frank Harris is with me, for we share these dreams together, and we try to warn the little ones. Mostly they listen to us, but sometimes the music plays, and a little boy invites them to play a game.

And they follow him into the darkness.

The Wakeford Abyss

The two men stared down into the void below. Behind them, the sun was slowly rising, a counterpoint to the journey that they were about to undertake. Larks called, but the sound of them seemed to come from far away. Here, among these desolate hills, no birds flew. The only sign of life that they had encountered upon their ascent was a single goat that had somehow found itself alone on the side of Bledstone Hill and was now making a concerted effort to rejoin its fellows in more hospitable surroundings. They could still see it moving gingerly among the rocks and scree when they turned toward the sun. Sure-footed as it was, it seemed to evince a distrust of the ground beneath its feet, and with good cause: both of the men had taken nasty tumbles on their approach, and Molton, the older and stouter of the two, had lost his compass during one particularly painful fall.

It was Molton who now removed his cap and, holding it firmly by the brim, began to fan himself gently.

“Feels like it’s going be a hot one,” he said.

From where they stood, they could see green fields and stone walls slowly emerging from the night’s gloom as the light rose. The distant spire of Wakeford’s only church was revealed to them, surrounded by the small redbrick houses of its worshippers. Soon there would be people moving, and the noise of carts upon its narrow streets, but for now the village was still. Molton, who was born and raised in London and considered himself very much the city gent, wondered how anyone could live in such a place. It was too quiet for him, too provincial, and without any of the distractions on which he depended for his amusement.

A bleating noise came to him, and he shielded his eyes as he attempted to assess the goat’s progress. He saw it poised on a small rock, testing the ground ahead with its hoof. Each time it tried to place its weight down, shingle slid away, raising dust as it went.

“Poor beggar,” said Molton. “He’ll be hungry soon.”

He tugged at his mustaches and, finding them colonized by small pieces of grit, began to clean them with a small comb.

The other man did not take his eyes from the maw at their feet. He was smaller than Molton by about six inches, and his face was clean shaven but, like his companion, his bearing betrayed his military origins. His name was Clements, and it was largely at his instigation that the two men had made their way to Wakeford. Both had some experience of climbing, mainly in the Alps, but it was Clements who had suggested that those skills might serve them just as well below ground as above.

“Who’s a poor beggar?” asked Clements.

“The goat,” said Molton. “Looks as if he’s stuck up here.”

“He’ll find his way down. They always do.”

Molton looked doubtful. He had always been the more cautious of the two men, and sedentary by nature, at least when compared with Clements’s more robust approach to life. Nevertheless, the two men had found a common bond in their fascination with ascents and descents, a bond strengthened by their shared belief in the value of a good, strong rope.

The skills required by mountaineers, and the equipment they used, had advanced little in three hundred years of climbing. A stout alpenstock was essential, while the continentals also favored crampons. Britons, Clements and Molton among them, eschewed crampons in favor of two rows of triple-headed tacks in the soles of their boots, but most parties agreed that ropes simply weren’t the sort of thing that a gentleman ought to be using. They were considered vaguely unmanly, as well as potentially dangerous.

Clements and Molton had become believers in the merits of rope following an encounter with the legendary Irish scientist and climber John Tyndall in London some years earlier. In 1858, Tyndall had successfully completed his first solo ascent of Monte Rosa without the aid of guides, porters, or provisions, and with only a ham sandwich and a bottle of tea to sustain him. Only the most foolhardy of critics would dare to impugn the bravery of such a man. In 1860, he had aroused considerable controversy when he ascribed the blame for the deaths of two Englishmen and a guide on the Alpine slope of Col du Geant to inadequate use of ropes. Clements and Molton had read Tyndall’s letter to The Times concerning the accident, and the correspondence that quickly followed. When, in the spring of 1861, Tyndall invited the Alpine climber and guide, Auguste Balmat, to speak at the British Museum, the two men were in attendance, and later enjoyed a supper with Tyndall. By the time he was finished with them, it was all that they could do not to seek out the nearest rope maker and set him to work on miles of stout line.

Thus it was that Clements and Molton were clad in what was, for the time, considered more than suitable attire for a descent beneath the earth: stout boots, strong tweeds, and stiff leather gloves. Lengths of rope lay coiled at their feet, alongside two packs filled with water, some roast chicken, two loaves of freshly baked bread, and a flask of burgundy. They had brought four lanterns with them, and enough fuel to give them light for about twelve hours, although they expected to be belowground for no more than half of that time.

Molton’s gaze drifted across the rocky landscape, then alighted like a crow on a vertical wooden stave that stood off to his right.

“I say, what do you think that is?” he said, pointing with his right hand.

Clements squinted, then walked toward the pole. It was about three feet in height, and was set deeply into the ground. A metal ring hung from the top, adorned with strands of old rope.

“It looks like a tethering post,” said Clements.

“Odd place to tether an animal,” Molton replied.

Clements shrugged.

“They’re odd people.”

He rubbed his hands together and headed back to the opening in the rock.

“Right, then,” he said. “Let’s get started.”

While Clements anchored the rope, Molton checked the kit and tested the lamps.

“How deep did you say this was?” he asked.

“Don’t know,” Clements replied. “Couple of hundred feet, maybe.”

“Huh. A few hundred feet doesn’t sound like much of an abyss.”

“It’s merely an estimate,” said Clements. “It could be more. Nobody knows. It’s virgin territory.”

The Wakeford Abyss, as it was known locally, extended for about fifty feet along the south face of Bledstone Hill, like a scar in the earth that had never quite healed. At its widest point it opened to about twenty feet, narrowing at either extreme to mere inches before losing itself among the bare rocks. By standing on its very edge, one could see only the first fifteen feet of the interior before the curvature of the rock blocked out the sunlight.

It was not entirely clear what had caused this geological anomaly and, in truth, few in the region cared much to discover more about it. Clements and Molton had dined at Wakeford’s sole i