He led the group through the knee-deep snow to the centre of the open space, where the fallen remains of the great stone column were larger hummocks in the otherwise uniform blanket of white, and they set to clearing the snow with their shovels. This February’s Beast-from-the-East had been harsher than the last few, and though more bad weather was forecast for later in the day, for the moment the sky was an icy blue. Trees had encroached over the years, and there had been a discussion about using them to string up some kind of shelter like a tarp over the top, but he had said no – it was better that they were exposed to the elements. On the cleared ground they laid waterproof groundsheets and thick woollen blankets atop those.
‘With He Who Eats the Moon dead but not consecrated,’ he continued, ‘the first flesh died with him and was rejected by the bodies of those that had eaten it. Fairly uncomfortable, but in the end not much worse than a bad case of food poisoning. For Ardwyn Hughes though, the last survivor of the old Swinley church, it was a bit more serious.’
As the younger members removed their clothes, the older man took from his backpack the objects that he carried, placing them carefully on the stone block as if it were an altar. One of them was a large bronze bowl. The other was a black sickle-shaped knife, its blade broken but still gleaming.
‘When the prison guard went to check on her the next morning, she found a corpse that looked like it had been dead for weeks. I have no idea how old Ardwyn really was. The injuries that the first flesh had healed stayed healed, but time is a wound that can’t be fixed, I suppose.’
‘Though it does come back around,’ suggested one of the young women.
He thought about this. ‘Yes. Yes, I suppose it does.’ When melting polar ice had killed the Gulf Stream in ’31, the islands of Britain had reverted to a climate more in keeping with Iceland or Norway, which some romantic souls were calling a new Ice Age, though this conveniently ignored the fact that there were no more ice sheets or glaciers left and the land was instead being inundated with rising sea levels and catastrophic flooding. The ‘Neodiluvian’, was its proper term. Fifteen years on, people were still arguing whether it was settling down or speeding up.
‘There are wounds that can’t be healed, though, and maybe shouldn’t.’ The man removed his coat and jacket and rolled up the sleeve of his right arm, exposing an underside that was scored with ranks of old, parallel scars. He took up the ancient sickle in his left hand. ‘This may work, or it may not, but either way we will at least have tried,’ said Joshua Neary, and put the knife to his flesh.
‘Now, shall we begin?’
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
WHEN PEOPLE ASKED ME WHAT I WAS WORKING ON and I told them it was a story about improbable horribleness on an allotment, far more than I was expecting replied either with an enthusiastic, ‘Ooh! I’ve got an allotment!’ or a wistful, ‘You know, I’ve always wanted to get an allotment,’ or a furtive sidelong glance as if afraid of being overheard and a, ‘Let me tell you what really goes on down our allotments.’ If I’d wanted to, I could have written a book of handy hints, tips, and shaggy dog stories for allotment holders, and one day I might, but in the meantime the people I need to thank for letting me pick their brains, weed their plots, and put up their sheds are: Mike and Debs, Dan, Julian, Arwen, Ju, Sharon, Lindsey, Megan, and my Dad. May your strawbs be fruitful and your plots be ever slug-free.
I may have taken some liberties with historical details. While the lands of the Cornovii were around that part of the Midlands, there’s no evidence that they worshipped a boar-headed god. Moccus was a real god, however – or at least as real as gods go – worshipped by the Lingones people around Langres in France. However, boar worship was very real and very widespread, so it’s not inconceivable that such cults might have existed in ancient Britain. Any glaring holes in this or the details of the WWI chapters are entirely my fault, for which I hope the history nerds will forgive me. Find me at a con and put me right; I’ll buy you a beer. But no pork scratchings.
The cultivation of my own plot (see what I did there?) would not have been possible without the keen eyes of Cat Camacho and Jo Harwood at Titan, and the encouragement and support of my agent Ian Drury at Sheil Land.
But last and forever to Eden for her gay apples, Hopey for her priapic cacti, and T.C. for being Mother.
J.B., January 2020
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
JAMES BROGDEN IS A PART-TIME AUSTRALIAN WHO grew up in Tasmania and now lives with his wife and two daughters in Bromsgrove, Worcestershire, where he teaches English. He spends as much time in the mountains as he is able, and more time playing with Lego than he should. He is the author of The Plague Stones, The Hollow Tree, Hekla’s Children, The Narrows, Tourmaline, The Realt and Evocations, and his horror and fantasy stories have appeared in various periodicals and anthologies ranging from The Big Issue to the British Fantasy Society Award-winning Alchemy Press. Blogging occurs infrequently at jamesbrogden.blogspot.co.uk, and tweeting at @skippybe.
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