1 - Discovery

1 - Discovery

The Street

The Street

The street was wide yet narrow; fixed, yet shimmering with movement; altogether there, and yet not there at all. It was at once shifting and still, like a major thoroughfare sharing space with a vast, motionless sea. Tall-fronted houses, shops with apartments above, red-brick units of industry, each building quite literally jostled for position, their structures moving subtly in and out of each other’s space. Within and without moved people, animals, beings of all shapes and sizes, walking and talking, howling and squawking. The resulting hubbub, punctuated by an occasional clear voice, or a bell’s peal, or a screech of brakes, served as a nondescript, dissonant soundtrack to the kaleidoscopic scene.

And yet, all was calm.

It would be enough to make you pause for thought, unless it was all you had ever known. Which might be true enough, reflected Wyk, as she stared abjectly at the constantly changing backdrop. Any points of reference, any memories seemed clouded and distant, like she had woken from a dream. She shut and opened her eyes, only to face the street once again. Nothing looked familiar to her: she could see no points of reference or, for that matter, anything of any help at all.

Just as she was feeling more hopeless than ever, something ahead caught Wyk’s gaze. She screwed her eyes shut and open again, doing her best to rally her dazed vision. Halfway up the morphing, bustling route, barely discernible but nonetheless present, was a frontage, altogether different to those around it. Whilst nestled between the other buildings, it was somehow calmer, more restrained.

Wyk focused as hard as she could, forcing herself to block out the multifarious distractions. Through the blur she made out a grey-stone façade, several storeys high, seemingly minding its own business; and, if she wasn’t mistaken, a dark brown sunshade extending at ground level. A café, perhaps. Not an unusual sight, now that she was looking at it, but that was the strange thing: it was, amid the chaos, perfectly still.

Wyk knew, more than anything, that she wanted to go to that café. Girding herself, stumbling but resolutely putting one foot in front of another, she moved forward, willing her exhausted limbs up the street and towards the still-stoic edifice. Shifting closer, she recognised the kind of eatery that might have appeared in a central New York suburb, or maybe a Parisian boulevard. For a fleeting moment, nearby buildings looked like they, too, were trying to appear French, before the concept dissipated in front of her eyes.

Still, the café pervaded, an oasis of tranquillity within the cacophony of sights and sounds. As Wyk trudged, she dared not stare too hard, for fear it might disappear, engulfed by its surroundings. But each, furtive, upward glance brought it more into focus. Drawing closer, she made out wrought iron tables and chairs, dark-checked tablecloths, and there, a woman in a bright red coat, staring into the distance.

It was too much for Wyk to imagine, that she might be nearing the end of her journey. Each faltering step, each cruel pause while waiting for some character to move from her path, each distraction sapped the little energy she had left. At one moment, the road seemed to buckle and crack, almost collapsing before reverting to its former state; then, without warning, a large yellow truck swerved out of a side street, forcing Wyk to jump out of the way. On its trailer was a jazz band in matching colours, improvising with seeming indifference to its jolting direction of travel.

Taking a deep breath, Wyk willed herself on. One more step; then a pause, to deal with some equally bizarre happening; then, another step; and so on. Almost without warning, Wyk found herself right in front of the café: she’d been concentrating so hard on getting there, the idea of actually being there was still alien. Holding her breath, she looked all the way up to the top of the building before tracing her eyes down, mapping out windows and ledges, pillars and balustrades. Drinking in the unmoving calm of its stonework, she prepared herself for a sigh, and…

“Hey,” came a voice, breaking Wyk out of her reverie. For a moment, she heard this as another noise to deflect, a distraction to add to the rest. But then, she reflected, the “hey” sounded friendly: she didn’t want to write it off immediately, however tired she was. And, if she was not mistaken, the voice had come from right in front of her. All in all, she concluded, she was perhaps thinking too much, and should possibly turn her attention to whoever had said, “Hey.”

There, seated at a small, circular table, was a young woman. Her black hair was swept back; her brow was furrowed, her lips were pulled together, and her piercing eyes were focused directly at Wyk’s nose. She didn’t look particularly happy, Wyk thought, somewhat anxious that her efforts to reach the café might have been for nothing. Next to the woman, over the back of a chair, was a red coat, carefully folded. On the table was an empty coffee cup, a notepad, and, on top of the latter, a pen.

The woman gave no impression that she might speak again, so Wyk decided she’d better reply. “What?” she said. Not the most profound response, in hindsight. Wyk knew she could do better than that, if she could only rest for a moment. Strangely, as this thought entered her mind, all others seemed to vanish. In unison, she noticed, the street tempered its motion just a little, became less vibrant, the hubbub less noisy. Wyk found this unusual, but welcomed the relative peace.

“I said, ‘Hey’.”

“Yes?” replied Wyk. Still not too articulate, truth be told.

“You don’t look too happy.” The woman spoke with an accent Wyk couldn’t quite place, despite knowing that she was good with accents. Wyk wasn’t sure how she knew that, but, she reflected, it didn’t really matter as long as it was true. Besides, she had more pressing things to think about.

“That’s funny, because, I, I mean you, …” Now she was just babbling.

“What are you doing here?” The woman was, by now, locking Wyk squarely in her gaze. Her tone was more curious than anything else.

As much as Wyk wanted to have an answer to this, perfectly ordinary question, she found nothing came. “I… I don’t know,” she said, slightly astonished. Now she came to think about it, she had no idea whatsoever.

“Well, you might as well sit down,” said the woman. “We can’t have people standing around, not knowing things. It makes the place untidy; and besides, nobody else has stopped to talk for ages.” She shrugged. “Some company would be nice.”

“Oh. Okay.” Wyk was too exhausted to say any more. She genuinely wanted to project a more, well, interesting image: what might Sahil say, or Lucy, or any of the people she knew? Once again Wyk tried to focus, to articulate something interesting, but any such ideas kept slipping like silverfish from her grasp. She felt overwhelmingly useless: her head was fuzzy, her eyes, oh, so heavy. Unable to say, or do, anything else, Wyk just shook her head.

The woman stared at Wyk pointedly, seemingly unperturbed by her lack of wherewithal. “It’s normal, you know,” she said, matter-of-factly.

“What’s… normal?”

“What you are feeling. But, you should be over it by now. That’s less normal. What’s your name?”

“Oh, ahm, Wyk,” said Wyk. For that was indeed her name, in a manner of speaking.

“Wyk?”

“Yes, Wyk.”

“Fair enough. Will you please sit?” Wyk hadn’t realised she wasn’t sitting down already. But now she came to think of it, she was, indeed, still standing up. Given how the woman appeared certain that sitting down was the correct thing to do, Wyk slid into a chair. She carefully avoided moving it as she did, in case she disturbed something she didn’t know about yet. “That’s better. Hello, Wyk, I’m Marie.”

“Umm, hello.” Wyk finally felt ready to say something, anything, of worth. “That’s a nice name,” she said. Not brilliant, but it would have to do.

Marie shrugged again. “It’s the one I was given. So, how new are you?”

“What do you mean?”

“You are quite clearly a fresh arrival. You are, correct?”

Wyk didn’t quite understand the question. “I, ahm, I haven’t been to this street before, I don’t think?”

Marie pondered this, picking up her pen and twirling it in her fingers. “That’s not quite what I meant. Tell me: do you feel like you’re not quite sure where you’ve come from, even though you know lots of things already, and you wouldn’t even know where to start, if you wanted to find out?”

“Actually, yes.” Even in her fuddled state, Wyk was impressed: that was exactly how she felt.

“Of course you do. This is very strange. Very strange indeed.”

Wyk wanted to agree, she really did. Her recent experience had, indeed, been very strange, but she wasn’t sure that was what Marie was talking about. Wyk watched as Marie continued twirling her pen for a while, before stopping abruptly. “Wait. I’m sorry. You will be thirsty, of course. Can I get you a glass of water?” As she spoke, a tall, moustachioed waiter emerged from the café, balancing a tray on the fingers of one hand. With a small, yet noticeable flourish he lifted a glass from the tray and placed it on the table, before tipping his head forward and vanishing back inside.

For a goodly moment, Wyk could do nothing but stare at the glass. Eventually she reached out, gingerly raising it to her lips. She was, as it turned out, fantastically thirsty: she took two quick sips, followed by an enormous gulp.

“Hmm, yes. That is also to be expected,” said Marie with a firm nod. She was still staring at Wyk, as if she was a laboratory specimen. “Well, well. Well, well, well.”

“What is it?” asked Wyk, who wasn’t quite sure what to make of so many wells.

“This is most odd. I haven’t spoken to a new arrival for a long time. Normally, they are quite up to speed by the time they reach here. But you,”—Marie looked at Wyk over the top of her glasses—“you haven’t a clue where you are, have you?”

It was true. Wyk found herself feeling a tiny bit upset at this, perhaps correct but rather blunt statement. Perhaps more than a tiny bit. Actually, quite a bit, but she didn’t have the energy to argue. “I… oh, dear,” she said, in a quiet voice. As she did, the surrounding buildings seemed to loom taller, the noises get louder until they were screaming around her head. She put her hands over her ears, but to no avail. The whole journey had been confusing; the street was horrible; and what she thought might be a peaceful oasis, was turning out to be nothing of the sort. Wyk scrunched her eyes tight shut, and held them closed as long as she could before daring to open them again.

“Oh dear, indeed. Oh dear, my dear, you’ve got lost. But that’s okay, we can find where you went wrong. Tell me, do you remember how you got here?” Marie was twirling her pen again. Wyk forced herself to focus on this motion, blocking out her surroundings as best she could.

“I walked. I think,” Wyk stuttered.

“From where?”

“I, well, I came up there,” said Wyk, pointing back down the way she had come. As she did so, the street jumped noisily back into life, almost expectant. Inadvertently, she let out a tiny yelp.

“Stay with me. Look at me. Calm, yes? You must be calm. Unless you are calm, we cannot continue.” Marie paused, staring at her rotating pen. “Right, let’s start again. You have nothing to worry about. O-kay?”

“O-kay.” Whilst Wyk wasn’t absolutely confident about this, it did help that Marie had said so. She nodded and turned back to the table (and even as she did, the street behind sagged back, disappointed). “It’s all so…”

“Confusing? Yes, I know. That’s fine. Don’t worry, we will work it all out. You need some food, perhaps? A sandwich?” The waiter appeared again with a tray, only to withdraw quickly when Wyk shook her head. “See? Calm,” said Marie, matter-of-factly. “Calm. All we care about, right now, is what you did before you got here. You came up the street”—the street briefly perked up again—“but what came before that?”

“Before the str… there was a hill. It was steep.”

“Yes, that’s right. A grassy hill?”

“Yes, I think.”

“Did you go up any steps?”

Wyk’s eyes widened. “Yes, stone steps! I remember them, there were hundreds, all the way up the hill.”

“And they are steep as well. You must have been quite out of breath.”

“I was! A couple of steps were missing, half way up.”

“Ha. It’s a very old set of steps. And at the bottom of the hill, what was there?”

“I came up a track, oh, from a big archway. I’ve not seen anything like it before.”

“Yes, that’s right. Might you say, medieval?”

“It looked like the gatehouse to a castle. Like in a story.”

“That’s funny.”

“Why?”

“Oh, nothing. Anyway, yes. You came through the stone archway, yes?”

“Yes.” Wyk sighed with confidence, remembering her steps more and more clearly.

“Up from the Square,” said Marie.

“What square?”

“You must pass through the Square. Everyone does.”

“I… I don’t remember it. I remember the hill, and the staircase, and the track, and the gatehouse. Before that… just more track.”

“No. That’s not right.”

“Oh.” Wyk’s brow furrowed.

“Drink, perhaps. It might clear your head.”

Wyk sipped, and thought, and thought, and sipped. But all she could see in her mind’s eye was the gatehouse, and the track beyond. Though, beyond that… “Wait,” she said, biting her lower lip. “I remember seeing mountains.”

“You saw mountains?”

“Yes,” nodded Wyk.

“Mountains. Are you sure?”

“I think so.”

“You think you are sure?”

“No. I mean yes. I mean, I saw mountains. I’m certain,” nodded Wyk, firmly now. “They were covered in mist.”

Marie looked up. “Mist?”

“I think so. Is it important?”

Marie furrowed her brow. “That can’t be,” she said, shaking her head slightly. “No, it’s fine,” she continued, nodding now. “It’s – fine. Do you remember anything before that?”

Wyk thought really, really hard. Really hard. “I can’t think of anything else. I’m sorry. I’m really tired.” She was, now she thought of it, very tired indeed. Retracing her steps had been interesting, to a point: but now, as her mind tried to extend beyond the gates, it seemed like her memory just stopped. And yet, her other memories—the people she knew, Tammy and Mo, and Sahil, and Adam and Lucy, and her little brother, and the places they all had been—those memories were as clear as day. Marie was right: none of this made any sense at all. Wyk was unable to help her lower lip from trembling. I honestly don’t remember anything else at all. Just… mist.” The only thing Wyk could remember was, well, the general mistiness of it all.

“And no Square?”

“I… I don’t think so.”

“And mist?”

“Yes.”

“That’s not right. None of it.”

“It isn’t?”

“No. You’re going to have to go back.”

“What do you mean?” Wyk’s head clouded.

“It’s okay. You just need to go back to the Square, then go see the Arthurs, and all will be well,” Marie said, in that cheery voice people use when they are not feeling very cheery.

“The Arthurs?” This was making less and less sense.

“Yes, of course. Then everything will be clearer.”

“It will?”

“Yes. Of course.”

“But, I’m not sure…” Even as Wyk began to speak, the street around her sprang back into action. She recoiled, involuntarily. “But, I can’t.”

“Well, you really can’t stay here, can you? You’ll have to… oh dear. It’s okay. There, there.”

From the onlooker’s perspective, nothing much happened after that. Wyk maintained a static position on one chair; Marie sat on another, looking uncertain.

Inside Wyk’s head was a void, meanwhile. Her consciousness was a spent vessel, devoid of anything resembling thought, occupied only by wisping, whistling currents of anxiety, which rushed around the empty space between her ears like a storm. Eventually, she felt what she assumed were Marie’s arms pressing on her shoulders. While it didn’t block out the noise, it eased it a bit. “I can’t. I can’t go back. Please don’t make me,” she said, in a small voice.

“Yes, you can. Because I am going to help you. Is that okay?”

“Help me?” Wyk looked up, her expression simultaneously infinitely hopeless and just the tiniest bit hopeful.

“Of course,” she said, leaning back, “here you are, and here I am, and we will work it all out. Yes, we will. Together.” As Marie spoke, she took the red coat from the back of her chair and placed it on her lap, smoothing the rumpled fabric with her long fingers.

“Will we?” Wyk didn’t know whether to be confused or relieved, so she felt both.

“Yes. We will! If that’s okay by you, of course.”

“Well, I suppose…” Wyk wasn’t sure, not completely.

“First, we shall go find the Square, and then…”—Marie’s gaze clouded briefly—“…then we shall see where we get to, okay?’

“Umm…. will I have to go…” Wyk looked down the street.

“No, no, no! We can miss all of that. Come on, I’ll explain on the way. Everything will make sense, trust me!” With surprising speed, Marie jumped up and grabbed Wyk’s hand, pulling her to her feet. “This way!” she announced.

There, next to the café, was a small passageway. It was clearly visible, though Wyk had no recollection of having seen it before. Marie was not waiting around: barely had she stood and brushed her sides before she headed off, straight down the passageway.

Not knowing what else to do, Wyk followed.

The Square

The Square

As things turned out, Wyk wasn’t too unhappy about how quickly Marie was moving. Even as she stood from her chair, the street sprang back into life, imploring her to return into its maelstrom-like embrace. As Wyk was not in the slightest bit entertaining such a thought, the narrow entrance to the passage could not approach fast enough. The street was not going to give her up that easily, she realised as she entered: while one side of the passage acted in an altogether wall-like manner, holding steady and firm (unsurprising as it was the outer wall of the cafe), the other bulged, creaked and loomed towards her. Wyk kept to the left of the passage, even as the maverick brickwork on her right threatened to engulf her. For a second, Wyk could see Marie’s red coat flashing in front of her, but then it vanished; amidst the noise of crushing masonry and her own, involuntary yelps, she decided she had no choice but to keep going. Moments later, Wyk discovered how Marie had disappeared: the slabbed floor of the passageway gave way to a series of stone steps, descending into a murky darkness below.

Even as she contemplated descending, a metal rail bent and contorted, looking like it might do a nasty accident to anybody who got in its way. Taking a deep breath, Wyk threw herself down the steps, letting out another cry as she did. To her relief, the steps behaved much more sensibly than the passageway above, despite being rather steep. As she descended, the noise started to dissipate, and she found that she could breathe more easily.

She slowed her pace to a walk, following the steps as they began to turn. Their curve tightened until they formed a spiral, leading ever downwards, becoming darker and darker until… just as Wyk thought she couldn’t see anything at all, the staircase started lightening again. Then, just as she started to think the steps would go on forever, she realised they had stopped.

“Oh!” said Wyk, jarring her leg against the flat of a path.

“Oh?” asked Marie, standing right in front of her, her red coat still over her arm. Directly in front of Marie was a (thankfully motionless) stone entranceway; and right in front that, was a grassy bank. Wyk wasn’t too sure what was in front of that, as the bank dropped away almost immediately: in the distance, stretching as far as the eye could see, was a mass of green. “You ok?”

“I think so.”

“Good.”

“What is that?”

“The wood?”

“Yes.”

“It’s… well, it’s a wood.”

“Oh.”

“Rather, it is The Wood,” said Marie.

“The wood?”

“The Wood.”

“I don’t understand.”

“I can see that,” said Marie. She spoke matter of factly, like she was observing an experiment. “This is not just any wood, but many woods. You could say this is all the ideas of forests that we have ever had.” Wyk’s face was blank; Marie was looking at her, eyes raised, lips pursed. “If I’m honest, I don’t know what I can say that will help you understand, or whether I will confuse you even more. Maybe I’d better just wait,” continued Marie, though Wyk no longer knew if she was talking to her, or just saying things out loud. “Never mind, never mind. We’ll go through there”—Marie waved towards the trees—“and that should, eventually, take us to the Square. And after that, we shall see.”

Wyk couldn’t help but sigh.

“There. You are more relaxed now, at least!” continued Marie.

“I guess.”

“Look. I don’t know the answer. But I do know the order of things. We’ll go back to where you should have been, and then go on to where you should have been next, okay?”

“Okay,” said Wyk, though she wasn’t sure if it was okay. Not at all.

“Okay,” repeated Marie, articulating the word like it was the first thing she had ever said. “Shall we?” Without waiting for an answer, she headed down the bank, her feet, legs and body disappearing from view as she descended over the hummock of grass.

Sighing again, Wyk followed. At least the grass is doing what grass is supposed to do, she thought, as she stumbled to keep up. The bank quickly gave way to a meadow, across which the path meandered like a stream. In very little time they had arrived at the line of trees, but Marie’s step didn’t falter — on she went, into the wood, or indeed The Wood, with Wyk following.

Trees closed around the pair, dappled sunlight giving way to an endless grey as they entered more deeply. Before long, it was as though the meadow, the steps, even the street had never existed at all. Branches latticed on either side of the path, warning against any thought of straying. Still Marie walked, and still Wyk followed, with only the occasional snap of a twig to break up the crunching of footsteps below, and swish of leaves above.

They walked, and walked, and walked. Wyk didn’t mind the pervading absence of anything of note: she was grateful for the peace. Step, step, step was all she needed, or could deal with, or both.

“You are relaxed now?” asked Marie, breaking the silence.

“I guess,” said Wyk.

Marie continued speaking, though it didn’t appear that she was talking to anyone in particular, least of all Wyk—even if she was the apparent topic of discussion. “Okay, let me think. So, you know who you are, but you don’t know where you are, or how you are, or or what you are, or why you are. Right. And you don’t know where this is, or what it is, or why it is. What should I say, hmm. Perhaps… no. Yes. Perhaps, right. Let’s start there at least.” She paused. “So. This is the saysay.”

An outsider, who might have happened to stumble upon the pair, would perhaps have noticed that Marie didn’t say anything after this; rather, she continued walking, eyes focused ahead. The outsider might also have spotted that Wyk, hurrying to keep up, did not immediately reply: if they were particularly observant, they might have surmised that there was little in the dialogue (or in the absence of dialogue, in Marie’s monologue) to indicate that a response was now expected. Perhaps the outsider might have tapped at a figurative watch, waited in anticipation for some deep and profound response. Or, just maybe, they would have decided they had something better to do, and gone on their way.

“What?” asked Wyk, abruptly.

“I said, this is the saysay. The see-see, you might say.”

“I… I don’t understand.” Wyk literally had no clue what Marie was talking about. For that matter, she didn’t much care: she was still content putting one foot in front of the other.

“The C.C. See? Letter C, letter C. The saysay. See-see.”

“The C.C.?” Step, step, step.

“That’s what I said.”

Stomp, stomp, stomp. “What is the C.C.?”

“Why, this is.”

“Wait,” said Wyk. “I get it!”

“You do?” Marie’s face lit up.

“Yes! Are you… are you French?” That was it, she thought—she knew she was good at accents!

“Ah. Not precisely.”

“Oh.”

“I was not born in France. But I do speak French,” said Marie. “It’s complicated.”

“Okay!”

“Why?”

“I just… I… it doesn’t matter. This is the saysay, I mean, the C.C.?”

“Yes.”

“Sorry, but, what is?”

“All of this.” Marie waved her hand.

“I thought this was The Wood.” Wyk articulated the word ‘Wood’ very precisely.

“This is The Wood. Which is in the saysay.”

“Ohhh… okay. So… what is it? I get that this is it, but what is it? I mean, exactly?”

“Ah, that, I am not so sure. I know this is it, and we are in it, and it is in us, but the rest, that, I do not know. All I know… all I know is that I have spoken to… to people who came before me, and they called this place the C.C., and this information, I am now able to pass to you.”

“It is in us?”

“Yes.”

“The C.C.,” said Wyk.

“That is correct.”

“You know that you are speaking in riddles?”

“I know that I am not as good at explaining things as I would like.” Marie sighed, somewhat exasperated. “Enough. We are here to help you understand, and I am not helping, I am sorry!” She smiled, in a way that was only slightly forced.

The pair walked in silence for a while. Wyk felt relieved, as even this short exchange was a lot to take in. The more she thought about anything, the harder it was to understand anything at all. Finally, she spoke. “Marie…”

“Yes.”

“I just wondered…”

“What?” While Marie might not have wanted to be abrupt, her tone suggested otherwise.

“Oh, Nothing.”

“Go on.”

“Well…”

“Oh, what! Please,” asked Marie.

“I mean, I can’t remember anything at all. Before seeing the mountains. But I can remember people and places before that, and what happened to them, and, well… I just don’t know, but… but am I… am I dead?”

Marie laughed, a surprisingly gentle, tinkling laugh. “Oh no, dear, you’re not dead. What do you know of death?”

“Death happens in my,…”—Wyk furrowed her brow again—“…People died, I can remember that. This feels like it might be death.”

“Perhaps it does, but let me assure you, this is not death. On the contrary, this is the very opposite.”

“I don’t know what you mean. Am I alive?”

“Not precisely, either.”

“Oh. Well, why isn’t there anyone else here?”

“There is.”

“But we haven’t seen anyone?”

“Ah. That’s because, through the woods, everyone has to find their own path.”

Wyk walked on a little in silence. “Should I be scared?”

“Only if you want to be,” said Marie.

“Oh.”

More silence, more nondescript steps along the nondescript path, that seemingly went from nowhere to nowhere, wending its way as woodland paths do. From above, occasional glints of sunlight pierced the gloom, alighting on a branch, or a frond of some, laurel-like shrub. There, a perfectly normal path extended off to the right, disappearing just as the path in front.

“Where does that go?” asked Wyk.

“What?”

“That path.”

“What pa… oh. That’s not supposed to be there.”

“Shall we see where it goes?”

“Absolutely not!” said Marie, in a tone Wyk hadn’t heard before. She sounded ever so slightly anxious.

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing. Nothing at all. We must get to The Square. It isn’t far now.”

“Is the square in the saysay? I mean, the C.C.?”

“Yes. Everything is. You are. I am. Everything.”

“How about that path?”

Marie did not reply, but walked on. Wyk really didn’t mind (still being quite content to put one foot in front of the other), but nonetheless, she supposed she might be quite interested to find out what the Square was, and indeed, why she might want to go there. Marie seemed quite sure it was the right thing to do; and, given that Marie had basically rescued her from the nightmare that was the Street, she was perfectly happy to learn what the Square might have to show for itself.

Trudge, trudge, trudge. At first, Wyk noticed the light starting to improve, lifting the wood around her from its nondescript grey-beige to more of a dappled range of greens. Then, the trees in front started to thin, both in number and in voluminousness, branches detangling and becoming more scrawny as they went.

And then, finally, they emerged, the constant shade giving way to dappled sunlight before opening to a clear blue sky. In front of the pair the land fell away, a vast bowl of meadow curving down to an almost prairie-like plain—which would have stretched as far as the eye could see, were it not for a small, dark hummock, landing right in the centre of Wyk’s vision. Or was it a hummock? Through a gentle haze, Wyk could just about make out walls, or should she say a single, low wall, circumnavigating the hummock-like thing. Lines seemed to stretch away from it in every direction, one of which she traced as it meandered towards them, eventually turning into the track upon which they now stood.

“What’s that?” asked Wyk.

“The Square!” said Marie, triumphantly.

Whilst Wyk vaguely knew this might be the case, she wasn’t absolutely sure why. For a start, as the pair moved down the hill, she couldn’t see there was much particularly square about it—the feature she could make out was more round than, well, square. If it was supposed to be some kind of town square, she thought it might at least be surrounded by a town. And indeed, that it might look, in that case, something like a town square. Not that she had vast experience of the matter, but from Wyk’s (albeit distant) vantage point, this looked rather more like a gigantic, hastily thrown together ice cream sundae. In place of a parasol, she could make out a tall post, stretching upwards like a ship’s mast. She immediately knew this to be a signpost, as attached to it were signs pointing in various directions, as signposts tend to have. At its top, coloured flags of different shapes and sizes flickered in the breeze. So, surmised Wyk, an ice cream sundae signpost flaggy thing perhaps, but a square, not so much.

“It is impressive, yes?”

“Uh-huh.”

“We will go there, and we will start to answer your questions!”

“Cool.”

“Cool?”

“Cool.” Wyk genuinely, really didn’t know what else to say.

Either the sundae signpost flaggy thing, sorry, The Square was closer than it looked, or the pair were walking very fast, but before long Wyk found herself taking in more and more details. What had looked like carelessly thrown blobs of ice cream started to shape themselves into statues, overlapping and merging, carefully carved out of an enormous, solid block of marble. Here Wyk could make out a centaur, and there, an army of soldiers, frozen in position as they fought to reach the top. Even as she took in the marvel of it all, she focused on a woman, some distance up and quite tiny. She appeared to be tied to the rock, and was moving over it with her hands. Around her waist she wore a thick leather belt, from which dangled a skirt of dark metal chisels, tinkling against each other and catching the sunlight as she moved.

“The Square continues to evolve. It never stops,” said Marie, to nobody in particular.

As they approached, the apparently low wall grew taller, resolving into a series of high arches. Around these moved an array of people, vehicles and creatures, all looking perfectly normal but for the occasional stranger thing moving among them. Within one arch Wyk saw what she thought to be three-legged robots; from another emerged a telephone booth, gliding along without a care. All were getting on with their days, altogether more calmly than Wyk had seen in the Street.

“Where are they all going?” asked Wyk.

“They are arriving, or they are growing, or they are finding themselves,” said Marie.

“What does that mean? And, wait. Who even are they?”

“You’ll understand soon enough. It won’t make sense if I tell you, you’ll have to work it out for yourself.” Marie smiled kindly, looking at Wyk’s confused face. “Come on, let’s go. All will reveal itself.”

As the pair finally arrived at The Square, Wyk determined it was, indeed, rather bigger than she had realised. Over the final couple of miles, their path became a stony track, then a grit road, and most recently cobbles, these worn to a shine by the many footsteps that had come before them. She followed Marie through one of the many arches, only now realising that each stone was covered in intricate carvings. I’m not in Kansas any more, she thought to herself, idly spotting a person within the crowd who looked awfully similar to Dorothy, even to the extent she had a small dog on a lead…

“So, tell me, you never came to this place before?” asked Marie, snapping Wyk out of her reverie.

“No. Well, I don’t think so. I think I would remember,” she said, casting her eyes across the alabaster sculptures stretching above her.

“But you should have gone up through the gateway, that’s the way every newcomer goes. Look, over there…” Marie paused, narrowing her eyes. “Where is the gateway?” she asked, to nobody in particular.

“It went,” came a voice.

There, leaning against the arch, was an old man. He had a long, tousled hair and an even longer beard, both black with streaks of grey and white, neither of which were particularly well maintained. The man wore old, canvas clothes, and by his side was a large leather bag. On his head was a large, leather hat, which looked in as broken a shape as he was.

“Is he a hobo?” whispered Wyk to Marie.

“A what?” Marie was in no mood for whispering.

“A tramp. A homeless person.”

“I doubt it, that isn’t really possible in the Saysay. Or maybe we are all homeless. Perhaps that is his tale,” said Marie, as much to herself as to Wyk. “Maybe, I don’t know: I’ve never spoken to him. He’s been here as long as I can remember. Why don’t you ask him?”

“Um, okay.” Wyk wasn’t sure what Marie had meant, but nonetheless turned her attention to the man. “Excuse me, are you a homeless person?”

The man stopped what he was doing (which wasn’t much but staring into space), and turned his face up towards Wyk. “Who are you?” he asked.

“I’m Wyk,” said Wyk.

“Ah,” he said, nodding to himself. He pondered for a moment, before raising his head again. “Yes, and no,” he said, looking Wyk straight in the eye as he did. He lowered his head once again, and went back to staring into space.

“Oh,” said Wyk.

“I suppose you have your answer,” said Marie, chuckling once again. “But we are no further forward. Everything else seems to be here, so why isn’t the gateway?”

“They took it,” said the old man.

“Who took it?”

“The Pulpies! They’re everywhere, the little blighters!” he continued, raising his voice and waving his arms around. “It’ll come to no good, I’ll tell you that for nothing!”

Wyk didn’t know who or what Pulpies were, but couldn’t see anyone or anything matching that description. And besides, wasn’t it normal for things to disappear? “Where we were, by the café, everything was shifting around,” she said.

“Yes, this is different,” said Marie. “That’s what The Street is supposed to be like, but not The Square. The Square… it’s like, the most important place in the Saysay. Things don’t change here, they can only evolve and grow. But in The Street, things are changing all the time.”

“I don’t understand,” said Wyk. “I honestly don’t think I understand anything!”

“Yes, I’m sorry,” said Marie. “I’m really sorry. Can I let you into a secret?”

“Yes. Please,” said Wyk, who liked secrets very much.

“Truth is, I don’t understand everything here, either.” Marie’s voice dropped to a whisper. “I actually don’t think anyone does.”

“Oh.” Wyk wasn’t sure she liked this particular secret.

“We now have a conundrum within a riddle. I understand what happened to you…”

“You do?”

“Yes, I do. But I don’t understand why it happened. And I also understand that you don’t understand anything. The question is, could it happen to anyone else? I need to find out, but I won’t be able to find out anything whilst you still know nothing.”

Wyk’s head was starting to hurt again. “Perhaps you’d better just leave me,” she started.

“Oh, no, I couldn’t do that. And besides, I don’t think I’m going to work this out by myself.” Marie thought for a moment. “Yes. I’d better take you to see the Arthurs.”

“The Arthurs?”

“The Arthurs. They will make everything clear.”

The Arthurs

The Arthurs

They were in the middle of a nothing.

The nothing, it is fair to say, had somewhat taken Wyk and Marie by surprise. One moment, the pair had been walking along a rutted track, flanked on one side by a wall and surrounded by other animate entities, moving in largely the same direction; the next, well, the wall wasn’t there. Nor was the path; and nor, for that matter, was anybody, or anything else.

Wyk felt strangely unperturbed by this turn of events. The nothing felt strangely familiar: it was more a vague, nondescript space in between places than a complete absence of anything. It felt familiar, and besides, thought Wyk, she’d already had quite enough to be perturbed about. After they had left The Square, she couldn’t stop herself bombarding Marie with a fusillade of questions; these had petered out, however, as she found the answers only added to her confusion. Given that nothing made any sense whatsoever, she could take additional, random happenings, beings and so on largely in her stride.

Speaking of her companion: interestingly enough, Marie was still right there, by Wyk’s side. She carried her red coat under her arm and, frankly, she did not look happy. If Wyk wasn’t mistaken, Marie was starting to look just a bit angry. Nonetheless, Wyk couldn’t resist asking one more question—at the very least, to register her curiosity about the whole nothing thing.

“Um, what’s going on?”

“I’m not absolutely sure,” said Marie, through gritted teeth.

“Where did everyone go?” In for a penny, thought Wyk.

“They, well… here they are,” said Marie, just as everything, and everyone, reappeared once more.

“But…”

“Let’s just keep walking.”

“But can’t I…”

“Listen,” said Marie, making no further attempt to hide her exasperation. “There’s simply too much going on, and I can’t explain anything at all, not this, not anything. Not before you have understood, well, all that you are going to understand really soon. I promise, trust me, the Arthurs will explain everything.”

“The Arthurs will?”

“Yes. Well. In a manner of speaking. Trust me.”

“But…”

“Non. Je n’en peut plus.”

That was that: Marie clearly wasn’t going to say anything else. As the two trudged on in silence, Wyk found herself biting her lip, to stop herself from asking the questions still bubbling up within her. She could hardly help but be intrigued: it really had been such an interesting nothing, she wondered if it might actually have been a something; and meanwhile, of course, the whole ‘The Arthurs will explain’ thing was pretty darned weird. She glanced at Marie, who was staring straight ahead of her, jaw fixed and stride resolute. Perhaps now wasn’t the moment to chat, Wyk decided, keeping in step as best she could. Perhaps she should just accept that the nothing was no longer there, replaced once more by the motley collection of characters also making their way along the rutted track, in turn flanked, as this was still, by the wall.

For some reason (perhaps linked to the all-too-recent emotional overload Wyk had experienced before meeting Marie), Wyk didn’t want her mind to dwell on the other characters lining the track. Even if a telephone booth had just sauntered past her, that set of questions could wait to be answered. She was, nonetheless, really curious about all the walking—they seemed to have done nothing but walk since Marie first jumped up from the table at the café—but she didn’t want to appear ungrateful for the help. Marie seemed to know where she was going, so perhaps she should let that sleeping dog lie as well…

To take her mind off, well, everything, Wyk found herself paying the wall a fair amount of attention. It was old, for sure: built from large, oblong blocks of roughly dressed limestone, each looking too heavy for a person to lift, and all arranged into place without any apparent use of mortar. Wyk was more familiar with modern walls, which were generally made of brick; this looked more like something out of a film Mo might have talked about. Plus, the wall was getting bigger: Wyk could distinctly remember it being no higher than her waist, but now it reached up to her shoulders. As they continued, it wasn’t long before it was above their heads.

“Nearly there,” said Marie, unable to disguise her relief. “Look, there’s the gateway.” Wyk could, indeed, make out an arch in the distance. The closer they became, the taller the wall loomed until it towered above them. And before long, they arrived in front of the arch, which did indeed have a metal gateway inside. In Wyk’s eyes, the whole thing looked considerably like a medieval fort. That is, if she had known what medieval forts looked like, which she didn’t, precisely: she only had what Mo had said to go on. But anyway.

“This way!” said Marie, sweeping under the arch and through the black-painted gateway. Following as best she could, Wyk found herself inside a vast courtyard. To her left, a row of trees provided dappled shade to horses tethered below their branches. On her right, alcoves within the wall were stacked with fighting equipment. Wyk could see swords of all shapes and sizes, from a slender rapier to a giant scimitar, and long poles topped with a variety of sharp, pointy things. Ahead of her were rows upon rows of tables and chairs, stretching away into the furthest corners of the courtyard. Most chairs were occupied, largely by bearded men: each was looking studiously at the table in front of them. Upon each table was a black and white checkered board, decked with carved figurines. Occasionally, Wyk noticed, one of the (largely) men would pick up one of these and move it a short distance across the board, before putting it down again.

“What’s that?” Asked Wyk.

“It’s a game, it’s called chess. You shift your pieces around the board, and try to capture your opponent’s pieces. Each can only move in certain directions. It’s quite entertaining,” said Marie.

“Okay,” said Wyk, quite mesmerised by the scene. “Who’s that?” she asked, pointing to one of the nearest (largely) men. He was older, with a grey beard. On his head was a small circlet of jewel-studded gold.

“Ah, that’s Arthur. King Arthur, to be precise. He comes here every day.”

“And how about that one?” Wyk shoved a finger towards a younger man, with a lush, black beard.

“That’s King Arthur, too.”

“Oh. That’s stra… who even is King Arthur?”

“Arthur was an ancient king of England. He was a lowly pauper, but then he pulled a sword from a stone, which proved he was the true king. Then he had many adventures, and fought a last battle before going away forever,” said Marie. “It’s said he will return one day, to fight the final battle, when the need is the greatest.”

“How do you know all this?”

“Because I asked one of them! That one, I think,” said Marie, pointing to a particularly good looking fellow. She smiled, and shrugged.

“Who’s he? Don’t tell me, it’s King Arthur.”

“How did you guess?” Marie cocked her head. “They’re all King Arthurs. Or at least, most of them. There’s a couple of tourists in there.”

“Those ones?” Wyk asked, pointing at a couple of women in the middle distance.

“Oh no, they’re Arthurs. Alternate histories,” said Marie.

Wyk wasn’t quite sure what that meant. “But, what are they all doing here, these Arthurs?”

“They’re playing chess!” laughed Marie.

“But why?” asked Wyk, persevering.

“I genuinely don’t know, but I do know that they keep coming back. They must enjoy chess, I suppose! Every now and then, another one appears: eventually, they all find their way here, I think. It keeps them happy.” Whatever their reasons, the Arthurs looked like they were taking their games very seriously. A crowd had gathered around one table, voices hushed. “They must be close to finishing. Let’s watch,” Marie continued. The pair moved to stand with the crowd, and all looked on as the two Arthurs stared at each other.

“It’s very slow,” whispered Wyk.

“Shhh! Look, he’s about to move.”

Wyk wasn’t sure how Marie knew this, but eventually one of the Arthurs did indeed lift his arm and move one of the pieces—a black one—towards the other player. The other sat for an interminable amount of time, before reaching out and flicking one of his pieces over.

“What just happened?” said Wyk, still whispering.

“He resigned,” said Marie in a normal voice. That’s why he knocked over his own piece.

“Oh,” said Wyk, feeling decidedly flummoxed about the whole thing. Questions were bubbling up inside her like a spring—about the game, about the Arthurs, about all of it. “I still don’t understand why there are so many of them,” she said.

“No, but you will,” said Marie. “Trust me, I said, right?”

“Sure. I guess.”

“Everybody does understand, eventually.”

“Oh. Right.”

“If they want to, of course.”

“Right.”

“It sometimes takes a few minutes.”

“Okay.”

“I’ll just stop saying anything now.”

“Okay.” Wyk paused. “Right.” Another, longer pause. “But…” On the tables all around Wyk and Marie, the Arthurs carried on playing their games of chess, or watching others, or simply idling around. “Wait.”

“What?” asked Marie.

“Um… nothing. It’s just…”

“Go on.”

“No, sorry, nothing.” Wyk bit her lower lip, as she knew she did when she was concentrating. Or at least, she thought she knew. “But…”

“Yes?”

“But, these Arthurs. Why are they all here?”

“Well, that’s for you to work out.”

“Why are there so many of them? It doesn’t make sense. Unless, I don’t know. Are they… it’s almost like… I mean… well, it’s like… Well. What is this place, anyway?”

“Which place?”

“This courtyard castle thing.”

“Ah, that’s for you to work out as well.”

“Oh come on, this isn’t fair!”

“It’s not supposed to be fair.”

“Please! Couldn’t I have a hint?”

“Okay. Understand this place, and you understand the Saysay.”

“Right.” Another pause. “It’s almost like… it’s almost like, I mean, I could imagine, that, well, it’s like these Arthurs, they’re all from the same story. Are they actors?”

“Not really, but sort of.”

“Why is it mostly men?” asked Wyk. “Where are the women? Weren’t there women in those stories as well?”

“Well, yes.”

“Oh, wait. Are all the women somewhere else?”

“No.”

“They’re not actors, then.”

“No, they’re not.”

“You’re being infuriating! So, what are they?”

“Just… look. Open your mind. Allow what you see to become its own explanation. Stop asking, and start paying attention.”

“But, what…”

“Shut up and just… look at them, properly!” hissed Marie.

“Bu…”

“Shhhh!”

Wyk shhhhed. She glanced at Marie, who was staring straight ahead again, hands clasped in front of her. With no other option, Wyk forced herself to stare at the Arthurs.

At first, nothing happened. Then, still nothing happened. And then… what was that? For a tiny moment, the Arthurs seemed to blur, their edges losing their detail. Simultaneously, Wyk’s mind started playing tricks on her. The more she tried to focus, the less the Arthurs seemed to matter. As she stared at one, bearded man, she started to wonder why he was there at all… And then, the Arthurs became rows of bearded men playing a game, once again.

“Did you see that?”

“See what?”

“You know, they all changed!”

“Ah. Did they now.” Marie looked strangely satisfied.

“Yes! You didn’t see?”

“No. But, that’s because I chose not to,” said Marie.

“What?”

“I chose not to. You have a choice as well, you know.”

Wyk looked back at the Arthurs. As she did, they seemed to blur once again, before snapping back to their normal selves.

“What are they?”

“That, my dear girl, is why we are here, for you to answer that very question.”

“Oh.” Wyk furrowed her brow. “Well. They’re not people, then?”

“No.”

“Are they even real?”

“What is real?”

“Well, I am!” Marie didn’t say anything to that, but Wyk continued regardless. “It’s almost like… it’s almost like they only exist because they’re characters in a story!”

“That’s what I thought at first, but it is more complicated than that.”

“But that’s impossible!” said Wyk, pressing on. “Characters don’t exist, not just like that! Do they?”

“They’re not quite characters, Wyk…”

Wyk thought really, really hard. “If they’re not characters, what are they? Wait. They’re all from stories about Arthur, right?”

Marie nodded.

“So, where are all the other characters? And how do they just appear?”

Marie shrugged. “That is what you are working out.”

“Can’t you give me a clue?”

“No, but understand these things, and you understand the Saysay.”

Wyk’s eyes narrowed. “Wait. Are there are as many Arthurs, as there are stories about Arthur?”

“Perhaps.” Marie shrugged again, adding the slightest of nods.

“I get it! They’re the essence of stories about Arthur, represented by the main character! That makes sense.” And just for a moment, to Wyk, it really did. “They’re men because, well, that’s what that particular story is about. Being a man, in a man’s world.”

“You’re right. It’s not pretty, but it’s true.”

“And this place, it’s not death, it’s where stories come to life!”

“You could put it that way, yes.”

“This is great,” said Wyk, smiling broadly. Finally, something about this place, whatever it was, made sense. She looked at the tables, at each of the (largely) men playing chess, at how they looked, in general, quite content with their lot. For a moment they shimmered again, before settling down once more but Wyk wasn’t phased this time. “Yeah, this is really great,” she said as she looked beyond the Arthurs and at the walls beyond, at the accoutrements of battle within the alcoves, and at all the people watching the gameplay, just like they were. “So, those people there, they’re stories too?”

“Everything that you see. Look, let me show you something.” Marie picked up a table and moved towards the entrance to the courtyard. As she approached the gateway, the table collapsed into dust. At precisely the same moment, the air shimmered where the table had been, and it reappeared as though it had never moved. “It’s just a concept, part of the story, of this place.” She waved her arms as she walked back.

“This place is a story?”

“You’ve got it. Everything is a story, or belongs to one.“

“Yeah, that makes sense. And—wow!—that’s why there’s been all those strange folks on the road!”

“Precisely.”

Wyk was smiling broadly. She carried on smiling, then… then it was like a smile remained, but behind it, her face was finding it hard to keep up the appearance of delight. “So… Marie,” she continued, her voice quavering ever so slightly.

“Yes, my dear.”

“What… what am I?”

Wyk already knew the answer. She knew it just as she knew how Tammy and Mo loved stories, they were forever reading books, and how Sahil never seemed that interested, and how Adam, and Lucy, and her little brother used to play games but these days just seemed to hang around in the park. She knew it, just as she knew all of these people so well that it hurt, and yet they didn’t know her. And nor could they, because they were just characters in her story. Her story… she played the concept over and over in her head. “Oh crap. Oh crappity crap. But I thought…”

“Of course you did. We choose what we want to think.”

Wyk’s face had well and truly dropped. “No, that’s not how it is! Yes, it is, isn’t it?” She held up her hands, and as she did, she saw them shimmer ever so slightly, before settling back down.

“Wyk,” said Marie, smiling gently.

“I think I need to sit down.” Wyk allowed her legs to shift beneath her until she was, indeed, sitting on the dusty stone of the courtyard. “A story. Is that all I am?”

“That is what you are. But, that’s not all you are. You are far more than that.”

“I am?”

“The Saysay, yes? We’re here because we exist, because our stories are being told. That means, somewhere, to somebody, you matter.”

“I do?”

“You do. I said you could trust me, yes?”

“Yes. I think.” It wasn’t that Wyk wasn’t sure, but more that, having completely lost track of what she thought was real, concepts like trust were somewhat out of her grasp. At least all those questions she had no longer felt urgent, she thought.

“Now you know why you are here. But you still do not understand how you are here.”

“I don’t? No, I don’t.”

“No, you don’t. And, to tell you the truth, nor do I. You should not have come to my café, not without coming here first. You should have gone to The Square, and then arrived at this place. It is all very strange.”

That was something Wyk could agree with. “It is,” she said.

“Things should happen in the right order,” said Marie. “If the order is changed, there must be a reason, non?”

“Like what?”

“That, I do not know.”

This was not helping Wyk’s anxiety. “Why didn’t you disappear?” she said, abruptly.

“What?”

“You know, when everything vanished. On the path.”

“Ah, that.”

“Yes, that. Everything disappeared, but I could still see you.”

Marie shrugged. “I’m not sure about that, either.”

“Oh.” Wyk looked crestfallen.

“But I do know that everything is connected, even if the relationships aren’t clear. Maybe my story and your story are linked in some way.”

“Am I like the table?”

Marie laughed at this. “Oh no, dear, you are not like the table. But… but, when you arrived, that was not normal. When everything disappeared, that was not normal. Everything is connected, I’m sure of that. We need to find the reason”—Marie emphasised this word—“and then all will become clear, I know it.”

“Oh. Good.”

“We will work it out!”

“We will?”

“Of course. You have a lot to find out, a lot to learn, and a lot more to understand. You just need to be patient!”

Wyk wasn’t feeling particularly patient. ”Can we leave now?”

“Yes, let’s. Now you know what you know, we can start.”

“Start?”

“Oh, my dear, this just the beginning.”

They exited, via the same entrance they had arrived. Marie looked determined, and Wyk felt more perturbed than ever.

The Pulpies

The Pulpies

“What about you?”

Wyk broke what had been a long silence. As soon as they had arrived back on the path, she had released a veritable torrent of questions about everything and anything she saw: “So, are they a story? What about that? Is that a story?” Marie responded in the affirmative each time, though she hadn’t seen fit to add any detail. Before long, Wyk had stopped asking out loud; though she was working through every person and object they passed, in her head. That small, doll-like creature with the head of a tortoise: a story. The house on the hill in the distance: a story. The tall figure that looked like it was made of dust particles: a story. The gorilla with a baseball hat: a story. And so on, and so on.

“How do you mean?” asked Marie.

“We’re all stories. So, what is yours?”

“Ah. It’s not that interesting,”

“Tell me anyway.”

Marie sighed. “Well, I suppose I can. My… well, I’m… it’s, well… it’s… so, I’m about a scientist. A real person. It’s a bit dull really, my story just follows her life.”

“That doesn’t sound dull at all. What was she called?”

“Marie, of course.”

“Was she famous?”

“Yes, I suppose she was. She… she discovered things about how the world works.”

“What sort of things?”

“She, I, we discovered radioactivity. And radium. And, sadly, the effects on the human body. I, we, she died of leukaemia. Very sad.”

“Oh. Oh dear. That is sad.”

“Yes, it was. It is. But that’s my story. Not all stories have a happy ending. In fact, real life stories rarely do.” Marie shrugged. “But as long as my story continues to be told, I will live forever, right?”

“How do you mean?”

“The Saysay, the Collective Consciousness, contains all the stories that are being told. If a story stops being told, well, p’offf…” Marie’s fingers gestured a small explosion, then a collapse into nothing.”

“P’offf.”

“Yes, p’offf…”

“Right.” Wyk ponded this. “So, as long as people think I exist, I exist, yes?”

“As long as people care.”

“Which means, so, people care about me right now, right?”

“Yes, I suppose they do.”

Wyk beamed. “Well, that’s just fine. Are we… are we nearly there yet?”

Marie rolled her eyes. “Yes, and no.”

“It seems like it’s taking forever.”

“Yes, it will. That’s because you are spending so much time on the journey.”

“How do you mean?”

“You think we’re walking along, right now? We’re not. We’re going from where we were, to where we want to be. And every time your mind goes in another direction, we will take longer.”

“But all I was doing was thinking about everything that is here.”

“Exactly. If you thought about it a little less, we would progress faster.”

“Oh. Sorry.”

“You have a lot to think about. Think of it as you catching up.”

“This place is strange.”

“It’s not really a place. It’s the Saysay.”

“Okay,” said Wyk. She still wasn’t sure what that meant, but she took on that her actions had consequences. “I will try to think a little less.”

Marie laughed that tinkly laugh again. “You can try, but I don’t suppose you will succeed. Your journey will take as long as it needs to take.”

Wyk set herself about not thinking quite so much. She succeeded, for a short while, before her mind went exploring once again.

“This makes more sense,” she said, breaking the silence.

“What?”

“All this… this strangeness. If everyone can choose how they are represented, then it’s all going to be a bit, you know, random, isn’t it?”

“Well, you, they don’t really choose.”

“But you get my point.”

“Of course.”

Wyk smiled again. Even though she wasn’t completely sure what was going on, she decided she would make the best of it. That was, after all, what her story was about. “There, look, the Square!”

“Yes, not long now.” Marie nodded.

“Who is that?” Wyk pointed towards the main entrance, or more accurately, towards the sudden gaggle of people emerging from it. They were all similarly well dressed, wearing greys and browns: nothing you might call characterful. Wyk found this surprising: given the random selection of animate types that generally filled her view, these appeared decidedly normal, which was strange in itself. Wyk wasn’t sure exactly how many there were, twenty or thirty she thought, but numbers were not her forté. Quickly they approached; they came past in a rush, chatting among themselves and not stopping to offer the time of day. Wyk and Marie stood back against the edge of the path, letting them pass — as if they had any choice in the matter.

“They all look very similar,” said Wyk, stating the obvious. “Who are they?”

“I don’t know. Just more stories,” said Marie, shrugging.

Wyk watched as they continued up the route the pair had came. “Wait.”

“What?”

“I don’t know. I swear, I was looking at one, and she just vanished.”

Marie followed Wyk’s gaze. “I didn’t see it.”

“No, maybe I was wrong. But it was weird.”

“This whole place is weird, right? Come on, one thing at a time. We need to get to the bottom of what happened to that arch. Come on.”

“Okay, I suppose.”

The pair continued down the path, pausing for the occasional traveller. As they arrived at The Square, from Wyk’s perspective, nothing much had changed: the structure was much as they had left it, with its vast signpost at the centre, and the roads stretching off in every direction.

“Right, the arch,” said Marie.

“How are you going to find out?”

“I’ll find someone to ask.”

“Why don’t you ask that man we saw before?” Wyk looked. There he was was still, sitting cross-legged against the fountain.

“He won’t know anything. He just raves.”

Wyk wasn’t sure about this. “How do you know?”

“You heard him before, didn’t you? He’s hardly going to be a source of wisdom.”

“In my, ahem, story, we learn that you don’t know until you try.”

“Please, feel free.”

“Okay, I will. Excuse me,” said Wyk in a loud voice, towards the man sitting next to the fountain. ‘Why are you sitting there?”

“Why not? It’s where I’ve always sat. For as long as I can remember,” answered the man.

“Haven’t you ever wanted to move?”

“Well, once I did, but after a while, I decided I quite liked it. I’ve seen things come, and I’ve seen things go, and do you know, these days, I just go with the flow!” he laughed at that, a long, guffawing laugh that brought tears of glee to his face but, eventually, turned into more of a wheeze. “Oh, I’m sorry, I’m sorry. Go with the flow,” he said, still chuckling.

“That’s funny,” said Wyk, who hadn’t been able to help laughing as well: she grinned up at Marie, who didn’t seem to be in quite such good humour.

“Is it?” asked the man, abruptly.

“Why, yes.”

“Nobody’s ever said that before. In fact, nobody has said much to me before. Not much at all.”

“That’s strange.”

“Yes, that’s what I thought as well, at least, until I stopped thinking about it. Which was quite a while ago, now I come to think about it again. And, now I come to think about things, I’m not sure I do like sitting here.”

“Make your mind up,” mumbled Marie, shaking her head.

“My dear young thing, there’s much you don’t understand about me. Don’t think I haven’t heard your talk.”

Wyk decided to press on. “Why do you wear such a big hat?” she asked, in hope of changing the subject.

“A big hat is always a good idea, when you are at sea.”

“But… but you’re not. At sea, I mean.”

“ I am always at sea. It is in my blood, in my heart, in my soul.”

“Was your story about the sea?”

“All of them.”

“All of them?”

“All of them,” he said, lifting his arms upward and tracing an arc in the air. “As long as anybody can remember, stories have been told about the sea. And as long as stories have been told, I have been in this place. Once, I was the sea. Then, I was in the sea, then on the sea, and then, I watched the sea from afar. And then,” he shrugged, “I just got a bit bored of being anything to do with the sea. So I came here, and sat down on this very spot. It’s quite nice, really. I can see the world go by. Just a shame nobody ever stops to ask my opinion on anything.”

“Can I ask your opinion on something?”

“No.”

“Oh.”

“That’s my joke! Ha!” He exploded in uproarious laughter, once again keeping going into he could only wheeze. “Can you ask my opinion? Oh, my sides. Oh dear, oh dear.”

Wyk ploughed on. “Back when we came through last time, you said that the Pulpies moved the arch.”

“Did I? Oh yes, I did!”

“Well, did they?”

“In a manner of speaking, yes.”

Marie couldn’t help speaking. “We’re getting absolutely nowhere here. Look old man, either tell us something useful or, …”

“Or?”

“Look, just get on with it, okay?”

The old man looked like ha hadn’t had so much fun in years. “I will take my time, after all, we have all the time in the world, don’t we? No, we don’t. And I will tell you why. You want to know what’s going on? I can tell you. I’ve been here longer than most.”

“Oh come on, let’s go,” said Marie. We don’t have time for this.

“Wait,” said Wyk. “I want to listen to him.”

“Leave, and you won’t learn,” said the man. “Do you know how long I’ve been here? Do you know?”

“Umm.. no I don’t.”

“Nor do I! It’s as long as I can remember! But it’s different now. Back then, we knew what story we were telling. Then it got complicated, but that was understandable. Then it was complicated again, and that, too, made sense. But this, now… Now, it’s different.”

“Really, I think we should go,” said Marie.

“Well, I don’t,” said Wyk. “I’ve always been taught that people should listen to each other. I’m staying.”

“Alright, stay then!”

“What are you going to do?”

“Well, I will stay too!, of course That way, if he tells you something stupid, I can tell you.”

Wyk didn’t think Marie was being quite fair, but thought she’d better let it pass.

The old seaman continued, determinedly oblivious to this interaction. “It wasn’t always like this, you know. We had a long period where nothing changed, and then came the changes. And now, it’s all a mess.”

Wyk listened carefully. “I’m very sorry, but I don’t understand what you mean,” she said. “I think you better start at the beginning.”

“We don’t have time for that!” he said.

“We have all the time in the world, old man,” said Marie, calmer. “You of all people must know that.”

He looked flustered by this, but then regained his composure. “How long have you been here?” he asked Wyk.

“She’s a Newbie,” said Marie. “Straight out of the mist.”

“I didn’t ask you!” he said. “Right. Well, well, well. Well, I have been here a very long time indeed, as long as anyone.”

“You must be a very old story,” said Wyk.

“Ah, you understand that much then?

“I explained it to her,” said Marie. “I…”

The sailor shot her a look and she abruptly stopped saying whatever she was about to say. “Where was I? Ah, yes, I am a very old story, one of the oldest. Few stories are older than tales of the sea. And for a long, long time, there were very few stories. We were told, we were repeated, and we pervaded across generations, passed from one to another.”

Wyk was rapt. “And what were you about?”

“Ah, that is a story in itself, of love, of the ocean, of what happens when one becomes the other. But now then, then things started to change. People started to write, to capture their thoughts as stories. Some, like myself, continued, just as we continued to be told. But some of the old stories started to be lost. We entered the second age, in which new stories started to appear, and older stories faded away, over time.”

“What happened to them?”

“Why, they went back to the mists. For a story that isn’t told loses its soul.”

“Wait,” said Marie. “Are you saying stories have souls?”

“Of course they do, dear, of course they do. For what is a story without a soul? So, anyway, this carried on for a while, a very long while. And then it started to change again. We know what happened, for it too was told as stories. The printing press came, then even more clever ways of producing books, and everything changed. Stories appeared faster and faster, and many did not last, vanishing into the mists not long after the were created. But still, many older stories continued, until now…”

The man stopped speaking, staring into the middle distance as Wyk and Marie looked on. At first he appeared uncertain, then his brow furrowed and he lowered his head. As he raised it again, his face was crossed with anger.

“…now, here they come again! I told you!”

The pair followed his gaze, and saw more of the funny little people arriving through the arch, into the square.

“Look, look! There they go you see! You know what they are, don’t you?”

“Er, no,” said Wyk. Marie just stood there.

“They’re the death of all of us! It’s the end, I’m telling you! Watch them!” The pair turned and watched the group as it moved away. As it did, Wyk noticed how the Square, normally so fixed and structured, blurred and wobbled ever so slightly behind them. Such was their momentum that the array of diverse, usually animated story characters, going to and fro on their business, seemed to pale as they stood back and let the gaggle pass. And even as they did, a a couple of the nondescript figures fizzled and vanished. “See that? By the time they reach the Street, there’ll be only a handful of them!”

“Wow, so, they’re just, I don’t know, disappearing?”

“Yes, that’s what they do, the Pulpies!”

“The Pulpies?” exclaimed Marie and Wyk, in unison.

“That’s what I said, the Pulpies! They exist for a while, then, they just seem to, I don’t know, run out of steam. And they seem to be appearing more and more often. But when I see another group, it’s the same as the last.”

Marie looked like she wanted to run away, but Wyk held on.

“Sorry, but I’m not understanding what you mean,“ said Wyk. “There’s too many things for me to understand here — the saysay, the places, my journey, the arch, and now these…”

“The Pulpies!”

“Yes, the Pulpies, if that’s what you want to call them. But”—and Wyk looked quite serious on this point—“I’m new, and I need to have things explained properly. You’re going to have to slow down, I’m afraid.”

He looked at her like she was mad. “What! I….I…. I’m so sorry. You’re right. I’m going too fast, aren’t I?” He paused. “That is what happened, in my… In my story. I need to…. slow down.”

Nothing happened for several moments: the old seaman was being true to his word. Eventually, he raised his head and stood up, sighing as he did so. Marie couldn’t help but look impressed. “Right,” he said, controlling his emotions as best he could. “So. You know what we are, don’t you?

“Kind of,” said Wyk.

“And you know what imagination is, don’t you?”

Wyk nodded. Lucy’s little brother had a wonderful imagination, his sister was always chiding him for having his head in the clouds but then he would come out with some great idea, and…

“Still with me? Well, this is the place where all the imaginations that have ever been come together. And its like. well, it’s like they’re dying.” He waved back toward where the Pulpies were still continuing other way. “Look, the edges of our consciousness are eroding. This whole place is dying.” As he spoke, the seaman’s beard bobbed up and down, his sage eyes like lumps of coal in the middle of his ruddy face. He leaned towards her. “They’ll destroy all of us, don’t you see? We only exist because people think we do!”

Wyk glanced at Marie, who had turned a deathly pale. “What’s up?” said Wyk, but Marie just shook her head.

“So, you see, they are the problem,” he continued. “The problem is not whether they are happening? The actual problem is, why are they happening and whether they can be stopped! Oh dear, oh calamity! If this goes on, they’ll replace us altogether! Ohhhh…” he said, as he sank back down to the ground, rambling gently.

“Come on,” said Marie, quietly.

“Shouldn’t we…”

“He will be in this state for some time. I have see him do this before. Come on.”

“What did he mean,” said Wyk as they started to walk away, “about the edges of consciousness eroding?”

“It was just the ramblings of a deranged fool,” said Marie. She didn’t sound very convinced, or convincing.

“I don’t believe you,” said Wyk. “This could be it. What if it’s the end of all of us? What do we do then?”

“If that is the case, then, p’offf…”

“P’offf?”

“Yes, p’offf, for all of us… look, it is my turn to need to think. There’s another place I want to take you. Let me. Perhaps, there, we might find some answers. Can we?”

“OK.”

The Glade

The Glade

“I thought you didn’t like the old man,” said Wyk, as they rounded the corner.

“I didn’t. But he was talking sense, in his own way.”

“He was?”

“In his own way.” Marie repeated. She appeared to be attempting to smile, before thinking better of it.

“But what did he mean? I seem to have more questions than ever!”

“Of course you do. None of this is happening as it should, not for you, not for me, not for this whole place.”

“The Ceecee?”

“Yes, the Saysay. Look, here we are already.”

Wyk could hear the gentle tinkling of water. Ahead, the path wound towards some larger trees, but Wyk could see a grassy hillside beyond. Her first thought was that it was another glade, but as the pair moved through the copse, she realised the grassy upland stretched as far as the eye could see, in every direction, every way she looked. She turned her head back the way she had come, to find the path was no longer to be seen.

“Oh, wow,” she said. “I couldn’t imagine a place more peaceful. What’s the…”

“Shhh…” Marie exhaled.

“Why do I have to be quiet? I…”

“I said shhh! Please. I just need time to think, OK?”

Wyk shhhed, and followed Marie as she mounted the first, grassy knoll. “It’s beautiful,” she whispered to herself. Butterflies fluttered in every direction, flashing red and gold, black and white as they danced across the longer grasses; above, songbirds shared their calls, swooping and circling, oblivious to anything but the sheer joy of flight. Water tinkled along a stream, tumbling delicately over iridescent stone. A rabbit took its languid time as it lolloped ahead of them.

“I could spend forever here. Maybe I should,” said Marie, breaking her own silence.

“What is this place?”

“It isn’t a place, it’s a feeling,” said Marie. “Do you know what poetry is?”

“Yes, of course. One of my characters loved poetry.”

“Well, this is where some poetry comes to exist. Not all of it, just the particularly wistful, the embarrassingly awkward. It’s every romantic young man’s idea of what poetry should be like… look, there.” On another knoll a wistful-faced fellow lay on a a chequered blanket, dressed in vintage wear. He gazed into the middle distance absently, before leaning over, grabbing a pen and jotting a few notes down on a pad. Marie smirked. “It’s a beautiful thing, isn’t it? Oh look, there’s another! It’s so…. sweet!” Higher on the sward, a young couple walked sedately, arm in arm. And in the distance, a boy skipped lazily across the brow of the hill. “Isn’t it beautiful?”

Wyk looked puzzled. “But… poetry isn’t always like this.”

“No, but that is the thing. This doesn’t reflect reality, it reflects an idea of reality. As do we.”

“Are you saying we are like this?”

“There’s more — I could take you to Chick Lit Island,” laughed Marie. “Anyway. Shall we settle down?”

Before Wyk could respond, a young man (who looked decidedly like the waiter in the café, Wyk thought) appeared, with a picnic basket in one hand and a blanket under his other arm. Having placed the basket next to them, he flicked open the blanket with a flourish and let it settle on the ground. Nodding in a satisfied manner, he walked on.

“Do sit, please.” said Marie. This time, Wyk needed no encouragement. She knelt then shuffled her legs round, leaning back on her elbows and letting out a deep, satisfied sigh.

“There, you see?”

“What?” Wyk asked, somewhat dreamily.

“This place. It gets to you.”

“I don’t know what you mean,” said Wyk, letting her elbows slide out from under her. For a moment, she stared upwards, picking out butterflies and birds as they darted across her vision. Her eyes felt heavy: it wasn’t long before they closed of their own volition.

“Now, why are you here?” asked Marie, sitting down next to her.

“Oh, I don’t know. I thought you wanted me to be qui…” Wyk may have thought she was speaking clearly, but an onlooker would have heard a mumbled yawn.

“How about we start with what you do know.” Marie pressed on.

“Oh, I know that,” said Wyk, opening her eyes and shifting herself back onto one elbow.

“Go on.”

“Well, I know that its important to be liked but not as important as being kind. And I know all about cities, and buses, and the smell of a subway. And I know people can be dangerous. And I know about Tammy, and Sahil, and Adam, and Mo, and Lucy, and her little brother.”

“Okay, you know lots of things. But what does it all mean?”

“Well, that ’s obvious! We had all kinds of adventures, but when all’s said and done, and whatever happens along the way, it means that it’s not about who you know!” said Wyk, proudly.

“What did you say?”

“I said, ‘It’s not about who you know’?”

“Ah, I get it,” said Marie, nodding her head. She laughed. “And, and I get why you don’t!”

“What do you mean?”

“Your name. Wyk. Who You Know.”

“I don’t get… oh!”

“You see, even your name is your story.”

“Oh.” Wyk looked crestfallen.

“What’s up?”

“It’s just… it’s just, I suppose, I don’t know. I know, everything you’ve told me, and I know, we saw the Arthurs, and I know, we’re in this place where everything is poetry, but I thought, and I know it sounds really silly to say this, but I thought I was… real?”

“But you are real, W-Y-K. You’re as real as I am. Anyway, what does ‘real’ even mean?”

“I don’t know. It’s all so confusing. I was confused already, and now even the confusion is confused.”

“Okay.” Marie took a deep breath. “Let’s stick with what you know, Who You Know. What happens in your story?”

“Well. There’s a problem with the money at the youth club. Tammy and Sahil have this idea that they can sort it out, they’ve heard of people who do that sort of thing. So they try to find them, but only get into more trouble when they do.” Wyk cheered up at the thought of it all. “It’s a modern tale, without too much moralising and a bit of a twist at the end. Quite fun.”

“That does sound fun. Tell me more about Tammy, and Sahil, and is it Adam? And…”

“And Mo, and Lucy, and her little brother.”

“That’s them.”

“Well. Tammy, she’s like the leader of the gang, but nobody says that. Sahil’s her best friend, they keep getting into trouble together. Adam and Mo, they live next door.”

“Where is next door?”

“Oh, it’s all in New York. In the Village. That’s Greenwich Village. It really is like a village, people know each other and get together when things get tough. Like the time Adam and Mo’s apartment got burgled, and Sahil came up with an idea about how to find what was missing, they took a brooch you see, which was really unique…”

“Something can’t be really unique.”

“What?”

“It can’t be really unique. Either it’s unique or it isn’t.”

“Oh. Anyway, they went round all the pawn shops they could find, and eventually they thought they were done, but they had missed one place, and that led them right to the thieves! It was Lucy, oh wait, I haven’t told you about Lucy yet, well, she’s possibly the most important person in the book because she’s actually telling the story, even though it’s not about her, it’s about everyone, anyway, Lucy spots the same people that they’d seen hanging round the park, she’d been with her little brother…”

“What’s he called?”

“That’s the funny thing, you never know his name, they always call him something like Sprout or Titch or something.”

“It all sounds very exciting.”

“Oh, it is!” Wyk paused. “I’m sure your story is exciting too.”

“I wish it was, but It really isn’t. I’m so dull!”

“What do you mean?”

“I could have been so much more, but they wanted to make it all about the science. It’s like I spent all day drooling over test tubes, my goodness, there’s more to life!”

“Ah.”

“Yes, ah! All my other characters, they had proper lives! I was just focused. So boring.” She smiled. “But that’s OK. And you see, it’s okay to be a story.”

“I suppose… ”

“And it’s okay to feel confused.”

“I guess.”

“Good.”

“But…”

“But what?”

“But there’s something else going on, isn’t there? Something funny. I am still working out why I’m here, but already, something feels wrong about it.”

“You mean, the confusion is confused, and that’s confusing the confusion?”

“Yes, it’s very…”

“Confusing?” Marie was doing her best not to laugh. “Oh dear, oh dear, my dear, I’m surprised you can think at all. If you don’t know why you’re here, how can anything feel wrong?”

“I don’t know, but I just know. Or at least, I think I do. It’s the sort of… the sort of thing that Tammy and Sahil and Adam and Mo and Lucy and her little brother might talk about.” Wyk looked around her before feeling her eyelids start to feel heavy once more. “At least here, everything feels a little better.” With that, she let her elbow slide from under her and turned, eyes closed, facing up towards the sky. Letting out a sigh, Marie did the same.

“You’re right, though,” said the scientist, after a while.

“What?”

“You’re right. Something very funny is going on in the Saysay. I wish I understood more, that’s why I wanted to come here. I always think best when I am here.”

A pause. “I was wrong,” said Marie, finally.

“Wrong?” Wyk still had her eyes closed, and decided to keep it that way.

“Yes. He wasn’t a deranged fool.”

“No, he wasn’t, was he?”

“No, he wasn’t.”

“Do you know what he meant? About the Pulpies? I’m not sure I like that term, it’s a bit, I don’t know, belittling.”

Marie chuckled. “You’re right, it is. But he is right, too. They’re all different, but they all seem to say the same thing. They don’t seem to have any… character to speak of, it’s like they’re all telling the same story.”

“And the edges…”

“…of consciousness eroding? I don’t know. But I’m sure it’s all linked: the moved arch, the old seaman, the Pulpies, even the fact you found me at the café. I don’t know what it all means, but I want to find out.” Marie spoke as determinedly as somebody could, lying in a meadow of gently wafting grass, with their eyes mostly shut. “Anyway, we can worry about it… very soon,” she said, equally determinedly, before falling fast asleep.

Wyk knew what sleep was, of course. All of her characters had slept from time to time, and, well, why was she even thinking about it? Of course she knew what it was. At that moment, however, she realised that she hadn’t slept for as long as she could remember, if ever. She was starting to ask herself what sleep even meant in the Seesee, when she found she couldn’t quite hold onto what it was she was asking about.

Five seconds later, Wyk, too, had descended into the deepest of sleeps. She didn’t know this, of course. What she did know, was that she was standing on the edge of a precipice, looking down over a vast plain. “Where is that?” she asked.

“That’s the past,” said a voice, behind her. It wasn’t a voice she recognised: young and cheery, boyish. She was keen to know to whom it belonged, but she didn’t dare turn around in case it went away.

“Why is it so flat?” asked Wyk.

“Because it has nowhere else to go. Only the future has contours, hills and valleys. In the past, everything is already done.”

To Wyk, this made perfect sense, which surprised her as it was the first thing that had made any sense at all. “But what about the present?” she asked.

“Ah, the present: that needs a map, doesn’t it!”

“Well, of course,” said Wyk, unconsciously turning towards the voice. As she did, she saw the only the briefest glimpse of its owner before they were whisked away, as was the mountain, and the plain, and everything else. Next thing she knew, she was plummeting into an empty nothing, an undefined, bottomless place. She screamed.

And woke. And sat bolt upright. Marie was still lying fast asleep, next to her. They were still in the glade. To their left, a couple of deer were grazing, and above, a buzzard drew circles in the sky.

“Marie,” hissed Wyk.

“Hmmmwh”

“Marie.”

“Wuhhhh…”

“Marie!”

“Wha… what is it?”

“I fell asleep.”

“Yes.” Marie still hadn’t opened her eyes.

“And I dreamt.”

“Yes?”

“I was scared.”

“Oh.”

“But I understood everything.”

“Oh? What happened?” By now, her eyes were open.

Wyk went to answer, and as she did, discovered an ancient truth about dreams. “I can’t remember,” she said, disappointed.

“Ah. Well.”

“What are we going to do?”

“How are you feeling? I mean, about everything?”

“Okay, I think.”

“Well, then. We’re going to solve this. Look, I think… you and me… you’re here for a reason, and I think I’m here for a reason, and I think we’re here, together, for a reason. I don’t know what it is, but I think it is tied up with everything else. And I want to find out about it, and about all that. What about you?”

“Okay. I think I do, too.”

“Thank you. It’s all a bit… complicated. For me as well. I have so many questions, not just about the Pulpies or the arch, but about you…”

“Me?”

“Yes, why are you here? Or indeed, why aren’t you somewhere else? You’re just a concept after all, are you sure you are in the right place?”

“But,…” Wyk started. She looked as confounded as a concept might be able to look.

“But what?”

“But, none of that matters.”

“Why not?” It was Marie’s turn to look flummoxed.

“Because, well, I’m not sure, I’m new here. But, I do know that I have a purpose. We can work this out. And we have to. I’m WYK, and I know what Tammy and Sahil, and Adam…”

“Yes, all of them…”

“Yes, they would want to sort this out. And so do I,” said Wyk, definitively.

“Okay then, let’s start with what we know, Who You Know! Before anything else, the one thing we can be sure of is: everything is here for a reason. Of course you are in the right place. If we’re confused, that’s because we haven’t worked out what the reason is, yet.” She paused, before starting to get up. “Right, I don’t think we have any choice. We’re going to have to start right at the beginning. You’re not supposed to go back, but, well,…” Marie sounded like she was talking to herself as much as to Wyk. “We don’t have time, but we have all the time in the world!”

“I’m not sure what that m…”

“It doesn’t matter, I’ll explain on the way. Are you coming?”

“Yes, I think s…”

But, and once again, before Wyk could complete what she was saying, Marie was already up and running down the hill, her skirts moving behind her. “Oh! Wait for me!” said Wyk, jumping up quickly and following in her wake. “Where are we going?”

“To the plain!”

“The plain?”

“Yes, the plain! You’ll see!”

The Plain

The Plain

Wyk was out of breath. She was still struggling with the idea that she could be out of breath, given that she was just an idea herself. How can a concept be out of breath, she pondered, even as she felt her lungs yearn to draw in as much air as possible. How could she even struggle with the hill they had been climbing relentlessly, given that the hill, too, was just a figment of someone else’s imagination… and what had Marie said? That the journey took as long as it did because of her? So, wait, a concept was struggling with a figment that was only there because they were thinking it? How could that possib…

“Did you just see something?” asked Marie, quite abruptly.

“Um, no.” Wyk had been so deeply in her thoughts, she hadn’t seen anything at all.

“Okay, I thought I saw… nothing.”

“You saw nothing?”

“No, I mean I didn’t say anything.”

Now Wyk really was confused. “But you just said,…”

“Nothing.”

“Yes, exactly. But…”

Wyk left this particular “But…” hanging, in the hope Marie might fill out the end of the sentence with something, even if it was about nothing. She didn’t, leaving only a vague, nondescript silence screaming into Wyk’s conceptually addled void of a conceptual consciousness.

After several minutes, it had become obvious that Marie was never going to respond. With nothing else to do, Wyk pressed on. “Can I ask a question?”

“You just did,” said Marie.

“Can I ask another one? The café,” said Wyk, not waiting for an answer. “Why do you go there?”

“Actually, that’s a very good question. I’m not sure. I found it, but I always wondered if it found me. Anyway, I just feel comfortable there.”

“Can I ask another question?”

“Of course.”

“You know when we were walking up to see the Arthurs?”

“Yes.”

“And everything vanished?”

“Yes?”

“How did that happen?”

“I don’t know.”

“Oh.”

A pause.

“Can I ask another question?”

“Sure.”

“Why am I a girl?”

“Ah, that’s simple. Your manifestation is your own.”

“How do you mean?”

“You are what you choose to be. Even if not consciously. For me, the choice was relatively straightforward, I just followed my story.” Marie paused. “Here’s a question back: how did you know you were called Wyk?”

“I don’t know,” Wyk shrugged. “That’s just my name. Maybe I was told it?”

“Something in you must have decided it. You’ll understand more when we arrive.”

“Okay. Can I ask another question?”

“You are going to anyway, I think?”

“Yes.”

“Well, please, ask.”

“Where are we going?”

“I don’t know.”

“You don’t know?

“No.”

“Oh.”

“But…”

“I do know where we are starting. So, we are going there first. It’s after that, that part I do not know, yet.”

“Where are we starting?”

“You will see. Look, I understand that you are confused. It is very confusing,” said Marie. “Let’s just say that we are starting at the beginning. It’s a very good place to start, yes?”

“I suppose.” It was Wyk’s turn to pause again, allowing the trudge, trudge, trudge of their steps to set a cadence for her thinking. Isn’t it maybe, isn’t it maybe, perhaps it’s something, perhaps it may be… “What does it look like, this place where we are going?”

“I can’t tell you yet. You need to see it for yourself.”

“Can’t you tell me now? I just… I just don’t like not knowing what’s going on.” Wyk shook her head, in an effort to clear it of all the vague, contradictory strands of thought that filled it, to no avail.

“Of course you don’t, but…”

“But what?”

“But, well, I’m not sure you’re ready.”

“Ready for what? And how long is this hill?” It seemed to be stretching on forever.

“It’s as long as you need it to be,” said Marie, shrugging. “Anyway, this place, I need to show it to you. It will help explain a few things, when we get there, I think.”

“Another place? Always these places.”

“That’s all we have. Characters and places. That’s what we are given.”

“That doesn’t make any sense!” Wyk said, but then again, it did. She didn’t ask any more questions after that, instead losing herself in her thoughts, letting them flow over her. As she did, they seemed to tap at the edges of her vision, until she wasn’t sure where her thoughts ended and the path ahead began. Which, again, made sense, in a that-doesn’t-make-sense kind of way.

As time passed (if time indeed existed), Marie slowly moved further ahead. In Wyk’s swirl of thoughts meanwhile, she realised something else had changed: all the characters had gone. Here there were no young fellows dressed in blazers, nor large pink fluffy blobs, nor bulging houses, nor anything else. That’s strange, I must ask, she thought before realising that Marie had become no more than a dot on the path above. “Hey, wait! Wait for me!” she shouted. The dot appeared to turn, if a dot is capable of such things.

It took a while for Wyk to catch up, or at least, for Marie to slow down enough for her to do so. The path continued up, past rocky outcrops and gaping gorges, with any trees becoming less and less frequent.

“Finally, phew, I’m with you!” said Wyk, once she had regained enough breath. “Marie, I was wondering, can I ask…”

“Quiet, look,” said Marie. “I was starting to think we would never get there.”

“Where? Me too. Oh my goodness,” said Wyk, her mouth falling open. Below them and stretching into the distance was a vast plain, filled with, and edged by shimmering, silver-grey mist. The overall effect was of an endless, cloud-filled platter. In the distance was… well, nothing, as every way she looked seemed to disappear into itself. At what might have been called its centre, the mist seemed to swirl, metallic shades forming and reforming, creating loci of darker space against the light. Wyk thought she could make out movements, as vague tendrils of more deeply shaded ether flicked back and forth. She only stared harder, mesmerised, her eyes drawn ever deeper into its nondescript, swirling patterns.

“That’s strange,” said Marie, interrupting Wyk’s flow of thought.

“What?”

“Oh, nothing. I thought it was bigger.”

“But it is so, very, very big!”

“Not as big as I remember.”

“When were you here?”

“A while ago. It all seems smaller than I remember.”

“Oh.”

“Anyway. Quiet. Looks like we have arrived just in time.”

“What do you mean? What’s happening? What are those…” Wyk asked, pointing at the vague shapes at the heart of the scene.

“Exactly. Just watch.”

The mist continued to swirl, folding over itself like slow-moving waves. It seemed to Wyk like she was watching nothing at all, but then she started to notice more definition, what appeared to be shapes shifting beneath the swirling sheets of condensation. At first she doubted herself but then, yes, something was definitely there, moving like a water creature beneath the surface of the ocean. “Look!” she said, excitedly, before noticing another, then another shape.

“There,” whispered Marie, nodding forward. Directly below them, a translucent, curved surface was jutting out of the grey-white. It appeared to be pushing upwards before suddenly an arm appeared, then another, then a head, as a semi-formed, misshapen, yet decidedly two-legged figure attempted to stand. Transfixed by this, Wyk hardly noticed other shapes starting to emerge at various places across the plain, but then she saw tens, maybe hundreds more, in the process of forming. The more she tried to focus, the more blurry they became. Shapes of people, of animals, of buildings formed: there a giant clock, and over there, a ball-shaped bear with fins. Some seemed to morph from one image to another, people to places to objects and back, playing like scenes from a film.

“Who… what are they all?” asked Wyk, though she probably knew the answer, she felt.

“They are us, and we are they,” said Marie. :Concepts, characters, stories being told, somewhere, by someone. Here they emerge, even as they leave the consciousness of one, and enter the consciousnesses of others.”

“The collective consciousness. We are the collective…” Wyk’s mouth hung open as she realised what she was saying.”

“Yes, we are. It is us, and we are it.”

“Ohhhhhh…”

“You see, you have to see it for yourself.”

After a while, Wyk noticed one of the shapes start to emerge from the mist, or rather, the mist fell away as it coalesced into a person, clothed in an array of motley and looking vaguely confused. Nonetheless it started moving towards the base of the summit on which she and Marie stood, looking like it built in confidence as it went. A wide path wound up the hill, Wyk now noticed, along which several entities already moved, heading towards them.

Moving beyond the general notion of curiosity, Wyk started to feel that something about this whole scene was very familiar indeed.

“I’ve been here,” she said.

“Of course you have. We all have,” said Marie.

“I remember now. I am… what am I? I know what I am,” said Wyk, as much to herself as to anyone.

“Yes, you are. Good.”

“But why? How?”

“I’m not quite sure but we all start here, somehow we emerge from… that stuff. Wait, look.” One of the shapes suddenly grew, then shimmered and dissipated back into the mist. “There’s a rejection, I know that.” said Marie.

Wyk felt hot and cold: it was all too much to take in. She folded her arms around her, as if to check that she existed at all. “Hey,” said Marie, putting her own arm around Wyk’s shoulders. “Whatever it is, it’s what we have, and it’s okay. You are, is all that matters.”

More shapes and expressions came out of the mist. Some were clearly defined, others translucent or blurry, still finding their form. Most were people, perhaps because that is what most stories are about, thought Wyk. A building with a hotel sign lumbered out of the mist and stopped before hauling its way up the path: somehow it seemed to achieve this without scraping the sides, even though it looked several sizes bigger.

“Why doesn’t anyone try to work it out, Marie?”

“Work what out?”

“All this—how it works, what it means, what it’s all about?”

“Nobody’s ever thought of it, I imagine! And perhaps they have, it’s just they never told anyone… and, I suppose, if their story stopped being told, we’d never know whether they had worked it out or not…”

The conversation tailed off after that, leaving the pair in silence, as they took in the scene unfolding below them. What had started as a handful of characters traipsing up the path (as this was the only way to go, Wyk noticed) had become a veritable flood, even if it wasn’t quite as busy and dynamic as The Street; pondering again, Wyk wasn’t quite sure how the path managed to accommodate them all, if indeed it was a path, which (she realised) it probably wasn’t. For a moment, comforted with Marie’s arm around her, she felt she almost understood what she was seeing, if indeed she was seeing, after all that was just a figment of an imagination, in an imagination created by someone else’s imagination…

A voice came from just behind them. “It’s changing, you know.”

“What? Who’s that? Where are you?” Marie had already jumped up, and was looking around her wildly.

“Here, there and everywhere I am, sure and certain,” replied the voice.

“Well, come out, wherever you are, and don’t creep up on people like that, it scared me!”

“Maybe it did an’ maybe it didn’t, that’s as then some, without a by your leave.”

In front of them was a boy. Well, it could be a boy, it was difficult to tell as he, if they were a he, weren’t clearly defined enough for Wyk to be sure. Every time Wyk tried to look at him, or her, or them, his, her or their edges seemed to blur.

“Who are you?”

“Ah, you can call me… Tennis. No, Raoni. No, Cardamon. No, Parcheter. Hmm, no, not that either. Names are tricky, aren’t they?” The boy-girl-person shrugged. “How about… Archibald?”

“Perhaps Archie?”

“Yes, Archie. That’ll do, and let’s be having you.”

“You speak funny,” said Wyk.

“Can’t be helped, a trick is as good as a mile!”

“Can’t be helped?”

“Nope, for sure and certain. I’m tuning, and that’s the measure of it.”

“Tuning?”

“Isn’t it and aren’t I, and how about it? So many words, so little time, and what’s the matter with that if I dare say so?”

“Well, it’s confusing. How about you use a few less words, and see if that works?”

“Less words, and then some?

“Just, less words.”

“Less words. Okay,” said Archie, still shimmering in front of them. “I can try that, and… and, nothing.”

“That’s it. I can’t quite see you,” said Wyk.

“I know. Cool, isn’t it?”

“Not really.”

“Don’t you like it?”

“No,” said Wyk and Marie in unison.

“Okay, how about this?” Archie changed into a very clearly defined tree.

“You’re a tree,” said Marie.

“What’s wrong with trees?”

“Nothing, it’s just…” Wyk trailed off as she realised she wasn’t quite sure how to express what wasn’t wrong with trees.

“How about this?”

“Now you’re a bucket,” said Marie.

“You’ve got problems with buckets as well?”

“Well, no, but you’re a bucket.”

“Oh, for heaven’s sake. Here, what about this?” Archie changed back to person they’d seen first, but this time, Wyk and Marie could see his edges.

“It’ll have to do,” said Marie.

“Now what’s wrong?” asked Archie.

“Oh, nothing. But you could have chosen someone a bit more worth looking at.”

Archie was oblivious, or bored, or just wanted to move on. “We’re wasting time. It’s changing. I’ve been watching it. See those clouds over there? They are a good couple of miles closer than they were a few months ago.”

“Ah! I said it all seems smaller!” said Marie.

“The plains aren’t smaller, but the mist is bigger. And there’s more,” replied Archie, scanning the landscape below them.

Wyk was confused by the whole exchange. She knew what a month was, but she wasn’t sure how to measure one, given that she hadn’t once seen a sunrise or sunset, and she’d only been to sleep once. Perhaps Archie had a clock, or perhaps he even was a clock — if he could be a bucket, then why not? Anyway, that no longer seemed relevant, so she let it pass. And besides, he was still talking and unlikely to stop, and she didn’t want to miss anything. “What do you mean, ‘There’s more’?” she asked.

“Look, over there,” Archie continued. “See those people, how they’re appearing, and yet not?”

Wyk looked. “Isn’t that what you were doing?”

“No, it’s different. I was doing that because I chose to. They haven’t got any choice.”

“Why not?”

“Just… keep watching.”

As Wyk looked, she saw some of the people try to hold their shape, so it appeared, before they just fizzled out to nothing. “Whoa. Are they coming back?”

“No. That was their lot.”

The others, the ones that managed to hold their shape, all seemed to emerge from the mist at once. “Wait, hang on. Aren’t they…”

“Pulpies,” hissed Marie.

“Yes, they are! Oh my goodness, so that’s how they happen.” Already they were moving up the path en masse, seemingly pushing others to one side as they did.

“So what?” Marie stood up, like she was trying to look as tall as possible, but not quite succeeding. “So what, about any of this?”

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing’s wrong. I… I think I’ll go back to the cafe now.”

Wyk was flummoxed. “I thought we were going to start here, work out what was going on? You brought me here.”

“I know, but, sorry, I can’t. We’re not going to change anything. It’s just happening, and here we are, and here you are”—Marie looked pointedly at Archie—“and nothing’s going to make any difference, is it?”

“You said you’d help me!”

“Ask him. Can we fix this, Ar-chie?”

“You can’t fix it,” he said. “The die is set. The world is turning.”

“The die?”

“Um, the shape is shaped. The, er, mould is moulded. Paths are being shortened, the old rules are ceasing to apply. ”

“Ha, see?” said Marie.

Wyk felt like crying. “This doesn’t make any sense. You’re saying this is it? This is the end?”

“I didn’t say that,” continued Archie. “You know how we exist, right? We’re only here because someone, somewhere, wants us in their consciousness. That’s why this place is the collective consciousness—it’s the sum of all the stories that have been told, across the years, across the centuries, across all of time! But something has been changing. We don’t know what it is, but we see signs of its impact everywhere.”

“The Pulpies?”

“Yes, the Pulpies, if you want to call them that.”

Marie chimed in. “And that’s why it’s all pointless. It’s changed, and that’s that, and that’s why I’m going back to the café.”

“I didn’t say it was pointless. They’re only one part of what’s going on. We can’t change the journey, but nobody knows the destination, not yet.”

“Sure, but what of it? Why should we listen to you, anyway?”

“Honestly, you don’t have to.” Archie pondered for a moment, before looking up, his eyes shining. “I would, however, ask that you allow me to say just one thing. And then you might listen a little more, perhaps.”

“One thing, and then you will leave us alone?”

“Deal.”

“Go on then.”

“Okay, I’m from… Biblio.”

Marie snorted. “Don’t be ridiculous!”

“I’m not. Why would I lie?”

“I don’t know what your reasons are. But Biblio doesn’t exist. Nothing exists beyond the Saysay.”

“The Seesee?”

“That’s what I said, the Saysay.”

“Of course it doesn’t, but Biblio exists nonetheless. Its relationship with the Seesee is… complicated.”

Wyk let out a little cough. “Excuse me…”

“What is it?” asked Marie, still with a tone of exasperation in her voice.

“It’s just, well, what is Biblio?”

“It’s nothing. It’s an imaginary place, where stories go if they…”

“If they?”

“If they reach a point in their existence where they become part of the, well, The Narrative. That’s the theory, anyway. In practice, all stories are here, in the Saysay…”

“Seesee,” said Archie quietly.

“The Saysay, and that’s that. Why would there be anywhere else?”

“I could tell you, but you probably wouldn’t believe that either. Whether you believe it or not, I came from Biblio to see with my own eyes what’s happening on The Plain. It’s not good at all, it threatens The Narrative itself.”

“What’s The Narrative?” Wyk asked, quietly enough to be ignored – which she was.

“So, if you are so smart, are you able to tell us what is going on?” asked Marie.

“No, but…”

“Ha!”

“But yes. Listen, and I will tell you what I know.”

“Oh, yes please!” said Wyk.

Marie said nothing, so Archie took this as his cue.

“All this change, it’s becoming very worrying to”—he looked pointedly at Marie—“to those in Biblio. Particularly those who are supposed to worry about these things.”

“We need to do something about it.” Wyk felt more and more confident, indeed, she might even…

Marie looked no more convinced than before. “It’s pointless. What it is, is. We have no control over what happens out there, in the world beyond the conceptual.”

“This can’t be it. I just got here! I don’t want this to be it!”

“Wyk, my dear girl, how can you change anything? You’re not even real, none of us are!”

“I don’t know, but we have to try. If ” said Wyk. Tammy and Mo, and Sahil, and Adam and Lucy, and her little brother wouldn’t just give up like that. Sahil would have a brilliant idea, and Tammy would organise it all, and Lucy’s little brother would stumble upon something that made it all work, and…

Archie interrupted Wyk’s thoughts. “You don’t believe me about Biblio? Well, how about I take you there, and then you can decide for yourself?”

“I don’t, well, hum. I suppose I have no choice,” said Marie, subdued.

“We all have choices. That’s kind of the point. Anyway, I’ll take that as a yes! Come on, it’s this way!” As Archie turned, Wyk noticed his edges start to blur again; and, she saw, so did the hill around him, and around them. “There’s so much I want to show you!” he said, but his voice had become disembodied, even as his shape merged with a decreasingly clear landscape. “Let’s go!”

Archie had all but disappeared: in front of them was what Wyk could only describe as another nothing: not dark, or white, or anything at all. Looking uncertain but resolute once again, Marie took Wyk’s hand, and they took their first steps into the unknown.