What happens next becomes the subject of furious online controversy when the video is inevitably leaked. Some claim that it’s a hoax, nothing more than video and prosthetic effects, but many more are convinced of its truth.
AH stands up too quickly for the two police officers to stop her – she is preternaturally fast – whips the biro out of PK’s fingers and then, to the horror of both, slaps her own left hand palm down on the table, raises the biro in her right, and slams the point of it through the back of her hand so hard that it goes straight through and impales the table underneath. The table can be seen to actually move as she then tugs her left hand free. She appears to be in no pain and is quite calm, unlike the police officers who are yelling for assistance. AH holds her wounded hand up to the camera in extreme close-up so that the biro’s point can be seen protruding from her palm, and then pulls it back out. For a moment the hole is obvious – light can be seen through it – though it quickly fills up with blood, but then her right hand comes up to grasp her wrist and her thumb smears away the blood, and the hole is gone. She turns her hand over to show the back, and there is no entry wound either, no mark whatsoever except for a small dot of blue ink.
The video goes viral, of course, clocking up over two million views in the first twenty-four hours, while the hashtags #motherardwyn, #hewhoeatsthemoon, and #replenishtheworld trend for three days.
2
HOMECOMING
THERE WERE NO SIGNS FOR SWINLEY, AND NOT EVEN much of a road.
Matt had to abandon his car by the side of a narrow lane that was closely crowded by trees, parked as close as he could to their trunks but still afraid that it didn’t leave enough room for anything else to get by and that he was going to return and find the side doors gouged open like a tin can by some dick of a farmer. It was night, and there were no road markings.
The locals had been worse than useless in response to his requests for directions. They either claimed to have never heard of a place called Swinley or just walked away from him as soon as they heard the name. Moccus’ own instructions had turned out to be hopelessly vague, too, and he’d slept most of the way here, leaving Matt to work it out on his own. On the road between Church Stoke and Minsterley will be a gate hidden in the trees, he’d said. Well there were three roads between that shitsplat village and the other, and he’d driven them all and he’d seen no gates. It wasn’t made any easier by the darkness, night vision or no night vision. They’d stayed at the old pump house until the day had faded before sneaking back to where Matt had parked his car. The yellow Astra had been bought for cash, wasn’t taxed, insured, or registered in his name so he didn’t think it likely that the police would be looking for it. Dodbury was only sixty miles away as the crow flies, but he’d driven here along a maze of minor roads to avoid the ANPR cameras on the M54 and the A-roads, and that had added a good hour to the trip.
He’d been retracing his route along a steeply hollowed lane almost entirely enclosed by trees, trying to hold back the panic that was rising in his throat like vomit because the last thing he wanted to do was wake the figure in the passenger seat, when he’d felt a strange tugging at his guts. It was like the intake before a sneeze, or the pause before coming, and it rose to a peak and then just as suddenly tailed off. He stopped the car and reversed, and the tugging grew stronger again, and when he looked more closely into the dense undergrowth at the side of the road he saw the headlights gleaming on a metal gate that he’d missed the first time.
There was no putting it off any longer. He leaned across and gently shook Moccus. ‘Sir,’ he whispered. ‘I think we’re here.’
‘I know,’ he grunted, and Matt thought that maybe he hadn’t been asleep after all. ‘I can feel them. My Recklings. Take me to them.’
Matt helped him out of the car and to the gate. It was unlocked, and swung open on well-greased hinges more easily than its condition would have suggested, but opened only a very little way until it fetched up against a huge pile of logs and branches on the other side. It was far more substantial than to have all fallen by accident, but that made no sense because if this track was used regularly enough for the gate to be in working condition why barricade it off? Why not just lock it? The barricade was head-high and extended left and right into thick woods, with the sharp prongs of broken branches set very deliberately pointing forward so that it was like approaching a medieval fortification. Whoever built this was seriously uninterested in visitors.
And the second little pig built his house out of sticks, thought Matt. ‘Little pigs, little pigs,’ he muttered, ‘I’ve come to nick your video.’
‘I can’t climb that,’ said Moccus. ‘You’ll have to go and talk to them. Get them to dismantle this and let me in.’
Matt squeezed through the gap and picked a careful
