The Twelve Strange Days of Christmas Read online

  ‘It is possible, of course,’ Septimus continued, ‘that the imposing surroundings had altered my state of consciousness. Elevated it. And that perhaps the darkness, the sensory deprivation, had caused other senses to overcompensate. For sure, I cannot say. But soon I was roused from my deep contemplation by Hekla who bade me enter the shelter.

  ‘Inside, it seemed more cave than tepee. Full of smoke and odours of herbs. There was another fire burning in a stone hearth at its centre. Sitting around it, several natives were chanting and singing in low, softened voices, some old song. I was obliged to disrobe and don something that resembled more of a leather cloak. It was fur-lined and warm, which was a relief, as although I had not removed my trousers and vest, Hekla had insisted on taking my coat, jacket and shirt. Outside it was not warm.

  ‘I was moved to a vacant space in the circle and instructed to sit down, then, as the chanting increased, a peace-pipe was passed around. I did not smoke at the time, but felt that to refuse such an offering would constitute bad manners, and for sure I was not only a stranger in their midst, but also an uninvited British invader. I accepted the pipe with respect and, much to the amusement of the natives gathered there, managed to take down a few spluttering lungfuls before it was passed on.

  ‘By and by, I noted a change in my perceptions. The colours in the tent grew more intense. I became impressed by a sense of drama, as if we were all gathered to await a special guest. I had the notion that I was not in the company of human beings but visiting guardians of some ancient earth secret, who had, in a moment of extreme benevolence, allowed me access. I could not see Hekla but I was filled with a sense of gratitude for her note, for bringing me to witness, to experience, this most sacred of rites.

  ‘Then suddenly the chanting stopped. Everyone got to their feet. I was pulled up then led out of the tent and round into the circle of fires.

  ‘There, in the middle, was another fire I had not seen before and which had only just been lit. Behind it, cross-legged, sat an old, old man, who had not been in the tent. He was dressed in shaman’s robes, feathers had been plaited into his hair and his face was decorated with paint. I think he was not native but may have come from Finland. Perhaps one of the Sami. A travelling shaman. Displaced from his land. Many were.’ Septimus looked into his brandy as the fire danced through it. ‘I was taken to him and presented. As I bowed, an understanding seemed to pass over his eyes and he invited me to take a place opposite him, the other side of his fire.

  ‘Of course, I accepted and sat down watching the tiny flames lick at the wood and coal. Above them the air warped and through the sparks and smoke that rose, I was drawn to the shaman’s dark eyes. They appeared to me, in that state, full of infinite wisdom. The wise man’s leathery skin, was tight and fast and tanned over eons by exposure to and intercourse with the natural world. And again, I had the impression of vast arcane knowledge and, paradoxically you might think, an idea of great sophistication. It was humbling. I felt gauche within myself. I think the shaman realised these feelings of mine for he directed one of the women to bring me a drum.

  ‘When I took it into my arms, I felt a pang of excitement and an exquisite tremble of belonging.

  ‘There were ten in the outer circle now, positioned between the bonfires. My eyes had adjusted: I could see that they came from different places. A couple were blonde, classically Nordic, others were graced with olive skin, more yet were pale-eyed and red-haired. At a signal given by the shaman, they all instantly began to move as one and together in a unity of motion started to beat their drums. Slow at first. Bang, bang, bang.’ Septimus held the palm of his hand rigid and struck his lap. ‘Like so. A tight, short sound. Powerful.

  ‘The shaman spoke to me, some words in a language I did not understand, but I had the idea he was instructing me to copy his rhythm, which was slightly faster than the rest. So I moved my hands to the skin and began to beat it. By increments the rhythm sped up. Now, along with the shaman, there were twelve of us there in that circle drumming. All of us joined in a synchronous beating out of a most hallowed rhythm.’

  ‘What was the drum like?’ Sam asked, unable to stopper his mouth. He was curious as to the ritual that his friend was describing and craved more detail.

  ‘Yes,’ said Septimus. ‘You’ve got it. It was a Noaidi rune drum. A replica of which we have downstairs in the international section. Very good. Well spotted, Samuel. Commander Fleet had the likeness made when I recounted the incident. He later gave me the copy, after he had acquired an original himself. The drum I beat was fashioned from wood and, I think, calf skin. A number of symbols had been painted across the membrane – a sun, a man with antlers, lines representing people, animals, landscapes, spirits and gods. They were not unlike some of the hieroglyphs to be found on Doctor John Dee’s disc, although those represented Dee’s language of the angels and the symbology of the rune drum signifies meaning of another kind.’

  Sam nodded, curiosity sated, and Septimus returned to his tale. ‘The shaman beat the drum. As I said, the rhythm was old, captivating, like the sound of heartbeats, the pulse of life. I could see the shaman’s eyes closing, that he was going into a trance and at the same time I too could feel myself following. I continued to drum, my body seeming to operate by itself, almost on autopilot. The fire began to crackle and roar as the shaman recited words, intoning them like a Latin verse. I felt my spirit grow sharp, and just then as I breathed in it seemed that time slowed.

  ‘The moment lengthened.

  ‘Everything stilled.

  ‘The universe swirled and eased its constant motion.

  ‘I was conscious of sitting under the umbrella of night and felt the gaze of the moon on my cheeks, the firmness of the earth beneath me, the vibration of its low heartbeat thrumming through me. My ears detected a soft murmur, as if the unseen world was stirring and becoming visible. I became aware of everything living around me. Life, you see, life.’

  Septimus cleared his throat, an unconscious action which betrayed the physical changes in his body that the remembrance had brought about. ‘And these sensations,’ he went on, his voice trembling, ‘they clashed and joined together, a confluence. As one, even stronger than they had been before. A united force. And I felt this force reach into the very fabric of my living being and twist and pluck out a thread of a feeling, an impulse so often buried in modern man. But a sensitivity that is there, that still exists, that continues despite the onslaught of technological progress, despite the clamour of the modern world, despite the de-sensitisation, the layering of logic and social mores and expectation. And this sensitivity, this untwisted response, my dear friend, came to the fore. It made me acknowledge my place, my identity in the vastness of the cosmos, and understand the great force, the immensity and wonder of existence.’

  Sam watched the old man’s features shine, as if animated by a burning sun within.

  ‘It is a thing to feel it,’ he said, shaking his head. Though he was not sad: on his lips played a smile. ‘And if one feels it and does not suppress it, then one cannot prevent oneself from opening further. And if one is thus open, then a two-way exchange may begin. So brief, so wondrous, so rare. “Wordless, notion-less communication with the universe” is what I later scribbled in my notes.’

  He sat back and tapped his glass. Sam wondered if he was going to give up his narration and instead take his mind back to that moment and enclose himself within its richness once more.

  He wouldn’t have blamed him. The mere description, he was aware, had unleashed a response inside his own self. And, as he sat by the fire in Septimus’s lounge, he became aware of a feeling at the back of his head, an itch or a notion or perhaps an ‘understanding’, that some of the exhibits beneath him in the Witch Museum might be moving, vibrating, responding to the energy being created here like a séance, singing to him in a silent, collective voice, a hymn.

  ‘I gave into the feeling,’ Septimus said at length. ‘I closed my eyes and yet continued to be sentien
t of everything around me – the movement of the stars above, at particle level – turning, spinning, the swirl of a mote of dust in the horsehead nebula, dancing, pulsing. And I could feel everything too. As I breathed in I detected the temperature of the air that pushed into my lungs and sank through the membranes into my blood, oxygenating it.

  ‘And as I was caught in that long deliberate moment, I heard the shaman call out. The words were indistinct, blurred. Something like “Aka” or “Akka” or “Barka”.

  ‘The sound prompted me to open my eyes. As I did, the drumming stopped. Time slowed to a point, then froze. Everyone in the circle, cross-legged and sweating, paused in their banging of the drums, hands held high, as still as statues. The stars ceased their blinking. The earth stopped its spinning.

  ‘I became aware of a spray of red liquid emerging slowly from the crevice beside us. I could not move my head to it for I too was frozen in the moment. But the liquid, I saw out of the corner of my eye, dazzling gold, bubbling red, billowed in mid-air, and swirled into a foamy form. It was not party to the laws of time or gravity or anything else as shallow and base. Though I could not see it with clarity I knew, if I were to look, the most ferocious set of features would stare back at me. And so I tried not to meet its gaze, but to lower my eyes in supplication to this fiery dragon-like creature, fashioned from larva and flame.

  ‘I fastened my eyes on the shaman, whom I could see moving fractionally, his hair, trapped in the lengthening of time, quivered languidly as it responded to the fluctuation of his hands on the drum.

  ‘And then I saw behind him another man standing. Another shaman, identical in every way to the one sitting across the fire from me, though incandescent, transparent. He took a step forward and passed through the solid form of the shaman on the ground, and I knew suddenly that I was seeing the wise man’s spirit body.

  ‘As clear as I see you now,’ said Septimus. ‘And it – he – turned and gestured to the unfurling matter that was tossing and rearing from the crack in the ground.

  ‘In the next minute, I heard his voice in my head. “The spirit of the fire has words for you,” he said. “A warning.”

  ‘There was little else I could do but wait for what was to come.

  ‘There was more movement by the crack, then I heard the words, “He, who you see, is not what he be. The mark of your foe is upon him.” And immediately I was caught by an image of the man I had inspected the night before. My mind had summoned it so clearly that I had the sense that I was not there, right then, within the mountainside crater, but had been drawn away through the air, to float about the form of the clairvoyant on stage at the theatre. And I experienced the very strange feeling that I was levitating around him unseen, listening to the squeak of his skin as pinpricks of sweat transcended through his pores. I peered into his eyes and saw the black fibres of his irises dilate and expand with fear. I felt the motion of the air as his hand disturbed it, flying to cover his mouth as his tongue spasmed and crinked to adopt a lisp and cover the Germanic consonants creeping into his speech. And, of course, it came to me right then that indeed he was a spy. And as soon as that recognition flared, the image disappeared. The air tensed and flexed. Time popped and burst. The fire between myself and the shaman blazed up, the drummers recommenced their noisy banging, the shaman’s hair moved again.

  ‘I blinked hard, and when I next opened my eyes, the shaman was shaking me. The fire was long since gone. Only ashes and cinders. Around us was darkness and silence. We were alone but for Hekla.

  ‘I was disoriented and began to collect myself. The shaman was saying something insistent. He had thrown rune stones on the earth and was pointing to one. I tried to focus but my vision was still rather odd, certainly blurred.

  ‘He repeated his words. This time I could not understand his meaning. It was Hekla who translated: “There are more warnings.” She pointed to a stone which I now began to see was carved with a particular forking runic symbol. “You must take care of your women. They will die in violence,” Hekla told me.’

  In his chair Sam gasped and shivered. For once, he didn’t know what to say.

  ‘“But,” she pointed to a rune, “there will be one, who will come.” The shaman spoke to her in a low voice. “Synthesis,” she translated. “One will come who will show. She will come. She will go.”’

  Septimus checked Sam. ‘I wasn’t sure what he meant then of course. But I knew it frightened me. All of it. And in fact, I believe the shock of what he said, combined with the lack of heat contrived to bring about something of a fainting fit. For I remember struggling to my feet and then nothing more.’

  ‘Nothing at all?’ asked Sam.

  ‘When I came round, I was wrapped in blankets in the back of Hekla’s car. I had a headache and a dry mouth and felt like I had gone two rounds in the ring with Raging Bull. When we reached my lodgings, Hekla conversed with my landlady and I was put straight to bed and nursed over the next two days with lots of meat broth.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Sam. ‘And that was that?’

  ‘Well, not quite. When I had fully recovered, I organised a secure line with the commander. At my request the alleged medium was taken into custody and interrogated. He did not have enough stamina to resist for long and, sure enough, as my vision revealed, he later confessed to being a German plant.’

  ‘Interesting,’ said Sam and ruminated over the implications. ‘And what say you of that? Your vision?’

  ‘There are two or three possibilities, but I prefer the idea that the amplification of my senses resulted in my concentration fastening on a point and inspecting it more closely than I had done before. The medium was, after all, the reason I had been sent there in the first place.’

  Sam looked down as he asked, ‘And what of the, er, prophecies?’

  ‘Dear boy, my daughter, it is true, died in a tragic and awful manner, but no one knows what became of my wife. I wondered . . .’ but he did not complete his sentence.

  Though eager to hear what the old man wondered, Sam was not going to press him now. He watched Septimus’s forehead writhe with creases as he wrestled with dark emotions. Losing a daughter in an accident was awful, the worst. A wife disappearing into thin air, well, it was not worth thinking about. Sam couldn’t imagine the anguish his friend had experienced and was suddenly possessed by the urge to wrest him from the contemplation of his life’s appalling tragedies. ‘I see,’ he said to move Septimus on. ‘But what of the demons – the fire spirit that you saw?’

  His colleague’s face came up. ‘Now of that I’m not sure. There is a common understanding amongst those who dabble in such things that if one is able to discover the true name of a demon or elemental or such, then one is empowered to call it up and draw upon its energy.’

  ‘So you think there is something in it?’ Sam pressed on, considering whether Septimus might offer up a crystal of truth, a reason that he could hold up to his own internal light and marvel at. ‘Do you actually think there was?’

  ‘It is an experience that has stayed with me, over the years, for sure.’

  ‘Then we should write it up. Display your story beside the Noaidi drum.’

  In his chair, Septimus chuckled. ‘I don’t think so, dear boy.’

  ‘No? Why not? Ah, military secrets.’

  Septimus straightened his back and leaned towards his friend. ‘Secrets indeed!’ And much to Sam’s surprise, he gave a little laugh. ‘I’ll say to you what Commander Fleet advised me.’

  ‘Yes? What’s that?’ Sam leaned in, all ears, waiting for pearls of wisdom to fall.

  ‘I’d keep quiet on this one, Strange, if I were you. Don’t want the world knowing you were stoned. I’d hazard it was the drugs.’

  ‘The drugs?’ said Sam, hugely disappointed.

  ‘That’s right,’ Septimus nodded but there was a glimmer in his eyes.

  ‘And do you think that?’ Sam persisted. ‘That it was the drugs?’

  But Septimus just smiled and finished his dr
ink. ‘My dear, that would be telling. There are some things you have to find out for yourself. Or else what’s the point of the journey?’

  SNOWY

  This was the third white Christmas that Norah had spent alone in Adder’s Fork. Well, not alone. Just without the company of fellow homo sapiens. Not that she minded. Her home was warm, and she was well-loved and well cared for by her family of doting felines.

  Her own clan of humans had died off years since.

  Sort of.

  She had a nephew, Colin, somewhere in Florida, who wrote to her twice a year – once on her birthday and once at Christmas. But they were boastful letters packed with photos of broad, rosy children, who got fatter by the year and infinitely less interesting. She was convinced Colin paid her his dues to ensure his stake in any bequest she might leave when she finally waltzed off this mortal coil. Although she had no plans to just yet.

  Norah was quite comfortable in the two parts of the house that she tended to frequent these days: the kitchen and sitting room, with infrequent visits to the cloakroom across the hall. She had given up bathing and the cats didn’t mind, so she only used the bathroom for essential ablutions when absolutely required. A chamber pot under the bed was a useful aid in this regard.

  Putting aside the remains of the microwaved Christmas pud, she shuffled to her favourite seat: the high-back armchair, next to the Calor gas heater. It had a view out of the French windows onto the long lawn, the summerhouse and, beyond that, the orchard with the pear tree, plums and cobnuts. It was a splendid view that she had enjoyed for decades. At first with her husband, David, then, after him, with a succession of feline friends and acquaintances.

  Her first was Sooty. A rather unoriginal name it was true, but she had never anticipated having a pet. Not least a cat. She had thought them rather cruel beasts, aloof and haughty and cold. Too independent by far and fickle with their affections. Much, she thought, like herself. Perhaps that is why she had let Sooty into her heart so quickly – so much of the cat’s nature seemed to mirror her own. In the end she had been, it was true to say, utterly overwhelmed by the cat’s persistence, his gifts of a partridge, several mice and a vole. Finally, she found that she was flattered by the fact the creature had chosen her.