Errantry: Strange Stories

Near Zennor

He found the letters inside a round metal candy tin, at the bottom of a plastic storage box in the garage, alongside strings of outdoor Christmas lights and various oddments his wife had saved for the yard sale she’d never managed to organise in almost thirty years of marriage. She’d died suddenly, shockingly, of a brain aneurysm, while planting daffodil bulbs the previous September.

Now everything was going to Goodwill. The house in New Canaan had been listed with a Realtor; despite the terrible market, she’d reassured Jeffrey that it should sell relatively quickly, and for something close to his asking price.

“It’s a beautiful house, Jeffrey,” she said, “not that I’m surprised.” Jeffrey was a noted architect: she glanced at him as she stepped carefully along a flagstone path in her Louboutin heels. “And these gardens are incredible.”

“That was all Anthea.” He paused beside a stone wall, surveying an emerald swathe of new grass, small exposed hillocks of black earth, piles of neatly raked leaves left by the crew he’d hired to do the work that Anthea had always done on her own. In the distance, birch trees glowed spectral white against a leaden February sky that gave a twilit cast to midday. “She always said that if I’d had to pay her for all this, I wouldn’t have been able to afford her. She was right.”

He signed off on the final sheaf of contracts and returned them to the Realtor. “You’re in Brooklyn now?” she asked, turning back toward the house.

“Yes. Green Park. A colleague of mine is in Singapore for a few months, he’s letting me stay there till I get my bearings.”

“Well, good luck. I’ll be in touch soon.” She opened the door of her Prius and hesitated. “I know how hard this is for you. I lost my father two years ago. Nothing helps, really.”

Jeffrey nodded. “Thanks. I know.”

He’d spent the last five months cycling through wordless, imageless night terrors from which he awoke gasping; dreams in which Anthea lay beside him, breathing softly then smiling as he touched her face; nightmares in which the neuroelectrical storm that had killed her raged inside his own head, a flaring nova that engulfed the world around him and left him floating in an endless black space, the stars expiring one by one as he drifted past them.

He knew that grief had no target demographic, that all around him versions of this cosmic reshuffling took place every day. He and Anthea had their own shared experience years before, when they had lost their first and only daughter to sudden infant death syndrome. They were both in their late thirties at the time. They never tried to have another child, on their own or through adoption. It was as though some psychic house fire had consumed them both: it was a year before Jeffrey could enter the room that had been Julia’s, and for months after her death neither he nor Anthea could bear to sit at the dining table and finish a meal together, or sleep in the same bed. The thought of being that close to another human being, of having one’s hand or foot graze another’s and wake however fleetingly to the realisation that this too could be lost—it left both of them with a terror that they had never been able to articulate, even to each other.

Now as then, he kept busy with work at his office in the city, and dutifully accepted invitations for lunch and dinner there and in New Canaan. Nights were a prolonged torment: he was haunted by the realisation that Anthea been extinguished, a spent match pinched between one’s fingers. He thought of Houdini, arch-rationalist of another century, who desired proof of a spirit world he desperately wanted to believe in. Jeffrey believed in nothing, yet if there had been a drug to twist his neurons into some synaptic impersonation of faith, he would have taken it.

For the past month he’d devoted most of his time to packing up the house, donating Anthea’s clothes to various charity shops, deciding what to store and what to sell, what to divvy up among nieces and nephews, Anthea’s sister, a few close friends. Throughout he experienced grief as a sort of low-grade flu, a persistent, inescapable ache that suffused not just his thoughts but his bones and tendons: a throbbing in his temples, black sparks that distorted his vision; an acrid chemical taste in the back of his throat, as though he’d bitten into one of the pills his doctor had given him to help him sleep.

He watched as the Realtor drove off soundlessly, returned to the garage and transferred the plastic bin of Christmas lights into his own car, to drop off at a neighbour’s the following weekend. He put the tin box with the letters on the seat beside him. As he pulled out of the driveway, it began to snow.

That night, he sat at the dining table in the Brooklyn loft and opened the candy tin. Inside were five letters, each bearing the same stamp: RETURN TO SENDER. At the bottom of the tin was a locket on a chain, cheap gold-coloured metal and chipped red enamel circled by tiny fake pearls. He opened it: it was empty. He examined it for an engraved inscription, initials, a name, but there was nothing. He set it aside and turned to the letters.

All were postmarked 1971—February, March, April, July, end of August—all addressed to the same person at the same address, carefully spelled out in Anthea’s swooping, schoolgirl’s hand.

Love letters? He didn’t recognise the name Robert Bennington. Anthea would have been thirteen in February; her birthday was in May. He moved the envelopes across the table, as though performing a card trick. His heart pounded, which was ridiculous. He and Anthea had told each other about everything—three-ways at university, coke-fuelled orgies during the 1980s, affairs and flirtations throughout their marriage.

None of that mattered now; little of it had mattered then. Still, his hands shook as he opened the first envelope. A single sheet of onionskin was inside. He unfolded it gingerly and smoothed it on the table.

His wife’s handwriting hadn’t changed much in forty years. The same cramped cursive, each i so heavily dotted in black ink that the pen had almost poked through the thin paper. Anthea had been English, born and raised in North London. They’d met at the University of London, where they were both studying, and moved to New Canaan after they’d married. It was an area that Anthea had often said reminded her of the English countryside, though Jeffrey had never ventured outside London, other than a few excursions to Kent and Brighton. Where was Padwithiel?

And would a thirteen-year-old girl address her boyfriend as ‘Mr.,’ even forty years ago?

Jeffrey set aside the letter and gazed at the remaining four envelopes. What a prick, he thought. He never even wrote her back. He turned to his laptop and googled Robert Bennington.

Jeffrey’s neck prickled. The court case didn’t ring a bell, but the books did. Anthea had thrust one upon him shortly after they first met.

“These were my favourites.” She rolled over in bed and pulled a yellowed paperback from a shelf crowded with textbooks and Penguin editions of the mystery novels she loved. “I must have read this twenty times.”

“Twenty?” Jeffrey raised an eyebrow.

“Well, maybe seven. A lot. Did you ever read them?”

“I never even heard of them.”

“You have to read it. Right now.” She nudged him with her bare foot. “You can’t leave here till you do.”

“Who says I want to leave?” He tried to kiss her but she pushed him away.

“Uh-uh. Not till you read it. I’m serious!”

So he’d read it, staying up till 3:00 a.m., intermittently dozing off before waking with a start to pick up the book again.

“It gave me bad dreams,” he said as grey morning light leaked through the narrow window of Anthea’s flat. “I don’t like it.”

“I know.” Anthea laughed. “That’s what I liked about them—they always made me feel sort of sick.”

Jeffrey shook his head adamantly. “I don’t like it,” he repeated.

Anthea frowned, finally shrugged, picked up the book and dropped it onto the floor. “Well, nobody’s perfect,” she said, and rolled on top of him.

A year or so later he did read Still the Seasons, when a virus kept him in bed for several days and Anthea was caught up with research at the British Library. The book unsettled him deeply. There were no monsters per se, no dragons or Nazgûl or witches. Just two sets of cousins, two boys and two girls, trapped in a portal between one of those grim post-war English cities, Manchester or Birmingham, and a magical land that wasn’t really magical at all but even bleaker and more threatening than the council flats where the children lived.

Jeffrey remembered unseen hands tapping at a window, and one of the boys fighting off something invisible that crawled under the bedcovers and attacked in a flapping wave of sheets and blankets. Worst of all was the last chapter, which he read late one night and could never recall clearly, save for the vague, enveloping dread it engendered, something he had never encountered before or since.

Anthea had been right—the book had a weirdly visceral power, more like the effect of a low-budget, black-and-white horror movie than a children’s fantasy novel. How many of those grown-up kids now knew their hero had been a paedophile?

Jeffrey spent a half-hour scanning articles on Bennington’s trial, none of them very informative. It had happened over a decade ago; since then there’d been a few dozen blog posts, pretty equally divided between Whatever happened to…? and excoriations by women who themselves had been sexually abused, though not by Bennington.

He couldn’t imagine that had happened to Anthea. She’d certainly never mentioned it, and she’d always been dismissive, even slightly callous, about friends who underwent counselling or psychotherapy for childhood traumas. As for the books themselves, he didn’t recall seeing them when he’d sorted through their shelves to pack everything up. Probably they’d been donated to a library book sale years ago, if they’d even made the crossing from London.

He picked up the second envelope. It was postmarked ‘March 18, 1971’. He opened it and withdrew a sheet of lined paper torn from a school notebook.

Jeffrey felt a flash of cold through his chest. Dear Rob, I still can’t believe it all happened. He quickly opened the remaining envelopes, read first one then the next and finally the last.

Where a signature should have been, the page was ripped and blotched with blue ink—Anthea had scribbled something so many times the pen tore through the lined paper. Unlike the other four, this sheet was badly crumpled, as though she’d thrown it away then retrieved it. Jeffrey glanced at the envelope. The postmark read ‘August 28’. She’d gone back to school for the fall term, and presumably that had been the end of it.

Except, perhaps, for Moira, whoever she was. Evelyn would be Evelyn Thurlow, Anthea’s closest friend from her school days in Islington. Jeffrey had met her several times while at university, and Evelyn had stayed with them for a weekend in the early 1990s, when she was attending a conference in Manhattan. She was a flight-test engineer for a British defence contractor, living outside Cheltenham; she and Anthea would have hour-long conversations on their birthdays, planning a dream vacation together to someplace warm—Greece or Turkey or the Caribbean.

Jeffrey had emailed her about Anthea’s death, and they had spoken on the phone—Evelyn wanted to fly over for the funeral but was on deadline for a major government contract and couldn’t take the time off.

“I so wish I could be there,” she’d said, her voice breaking. “Everything’s just so crazed at the moment. I hope you understand…”

“It’s okay. She knew how much you loved her. She was always so happy to hear from you.”

“I know.” Evelyn choked. “I just wish—I just wish I’d been able to see her again.”

Now he sat and stared at the five letters. The sight made him feel light-headed and slightly queasy: as though he’d opened his closet door and found himself at the edge of a precipice, gazing down some impossible distance to a world made tiny and unreal. Why had she never mentioned any of this? Had she hidden the letters for all these years, or simply forgotten she had them? He knew it wasn’t rational; knew his response derived from his compulsive sense of order, what Anthea had always called his architect’s left brain.

“Jeffrey would never even try to put a square peg into a round hole,” she’d said once at a dinner party. “He’d just design a new hole to fit it.”

He could think of no place he could fit the five letters written to Robert Bennington. After a few minutes, he replaced each in its proper envelope and stacked them atop each other. Then he turned back to his laptop, and wrote an email to Evelyn.

He arrived in Cheltenham two weeks later. Evelyn picked him up at the train station early Monday afternoon. He’d told her he was in London on business, spent the preceding weekend at a hotel in Bloomsbury and wandered the city, walking past the building where he and Anthea had lived right after university, before they moved to the U.S.

It was a relief to board the train and stare out the window at an unfamiliar landscape, suburbs giving way to farms and the gently rolling outskirts of the Cotswolds.

Evelyn’s husband, Chris, worked for one of the high-tech corporations in Cheltenham; their house was a rambling, expensively renovated cottage twenty minutes from the congested city centre.

“Anthea would have loved these gardens,” Jeffrey said, surveying swathes of narcissus already in bloom, alongside yellow primroses and a carpet of bluebells beneath an ancient beech. “Everything at home is still brown. We had snow a few weeks ago.”

“It must be very hard, giving up the house.” Evelyn poured him a glass of Medoc and sat across from him in the slate-floored sunroom.

“Not as hard as staying would have been.” Jeffrey raised his glass. “To old friends and old times.”

“To Anthea,” said Evelyn.

They talked into the evening, polishing off the Medoc and starting on a second bottle long before Chris arrived home from work. Evelyn was florid and heavy-set, her unruly raven hair long as ever and braided into a single plait, thick and grey-streaked. She’d met her contract deadline just days ago, and her dark eyes still looked hollowed from lack of sleep. Chris prepared dinner, lamb with fresh mint and new peas; their children were both off at university, so Jeffrey and Chris and Evelyn lingered over the table until almost midnight.

“Leave the dishes,” Chris said, rising. “I’ll get them in the morning.” He bent to kiss the top of his wife’s head, then nodded at Jeffrey. “Good to see you, Jeffrey.”

“Come on.” Evelyn grabbed a bottle of Armagnac and headed for the sunroom. “Get those glasses, Jeffrey. I’m not going in till noon. Project’s done, and the mice will play.”

Jeffrey followed her, settling onto the worn sofa and placing two glasses on the side table. Evelyn filled both, flopped into an armchair and smiled. “It is good to see you.”

“And you.”

He sipped his Armagnac. For several minutes they sat in silence, staring out the window at the garden, narcissus and primroses faint gleams in the darkness. Jeffrey finished his glass, poured another, and asked, “Do you remember someone named Robert Bennington?”

Evelyn cradled her glass against her chest. She gazed at Jeffrey for a long moment before answering. “The writer? Yes. I read his books when I was a girl. Both of us did—me and Anthea.”

“But—you knew him. You met him, when you were thirteen. On vacation or something.”

Evelyn turned, her profile silhouetted against the window. “We did,” she said at last, and turned back to him. “Why are you asking?”

“I found some letters that Anthea wrote to him. Back in 1971, after you and her and a girl named Moira saw him in Cornwall. Did you know he was a paedophile? He was arrested about fifteen years ago.”

“Yes, I read about that. It was a big scandal.” Evelyn finished her Armagnac and set her glass on the table. “Well, a medium-sized scandal. I don’t think many people even remembered who he was by then. He was a cult writer, really. The books were rather dark for children’s books.”

She hesitated. “Anthea wasn’t molested by him, if that’s what you’re asking about. None of us were. He invited us to tea—we invited ourselves, actually, he was very nice and let us come in and gave us Nutella sandwiches and tangerines.”

“Three little teenyboppers show up at his door, I bet he was very nice,” said Jeffrey. “What about Moira? What happened to her?”

“I don’t know.” Evelyn sighed. “No one ever knew. She ran away from home that summer. We never heard from her again.”

“Did they question him? Was he even taken into custody?”

“Of course they did!” Evelyn said, exasperated. “I mean, I don’t know for sure, but I’m certain they did. Moira had a difficult home life, her parents were Irish and the father drank. And a lot of kids ran away back then, you know that—all us little hippies. What did the letters say, Jeffrey?”

He removed then from his pocket and handed them to her. “You can read them. He never did—they all came back to Anthea. Where’s Padwithiel?”

“Near Zennor. My aunt and uncle lived there, we went and stayed with them during our school holidays one spring.” She sorted through the envelopes, pulled out one and opened it, unfolding the letter with care. “February twenty-first. This was right before we knew we’d be going there for the holidays. It was my idea. I remember when she wrote this—she got the address somehow, and that’s how we realised he lived near my uncle’s farm. Padwithiel.”

She leaned into the lamp and read the first letter, set it down and continued to read each of the others. When she was finished, she placed the last one on the table, sank back into her chair and gazed at Jeffrey.

“She never told you about what happened.”

“You just said that nothing happened.”

“I don’t mean with Robert. She called me every year on the anniversary. March 12.” She looked away. “Next week, that is. I never told Chris. It wasn’t a secret, we just—well, I’ll just tell you.

“We went to school together, the three of us, and after Anthea sent that letter to Robert Bennington, she and I cooked up the idea of going to see him. Moira never read his books—she wasn’t much of a reader. But she heard us talking about his books all the time, and we’d all play these games where we’d be the ones who fought the Sun Battles. She just did whatever we told her to, though for some reason she always wanted prisoners to be boiled in oil. She must’ve seen it in a movie.

“Even though we were older now, we still wanted to believe that magic could happen like in those books—probably we wanted to believe it even more. And all that New Agey, hippie stuff, Tarot cards and Biba and ‘Ride a White Swan’—it all just seemed like it could be real. My aunt and uncle had a farm near Zennor, my mother asked if we three could stay there for the holidays and Aunt Becca said that would be fine. My cousins are older, and they were already off at university. So we took the train and Aunt Becca got us in Penzance.

“They were turning one of the outbuildings into a pottery studio for her, and that’s where we stayed. There was no electricity yet, but we had a kerosene heater and we could stay up as late as we wanted. I think we got maybe five hours sleep the whole time we were there.” She laughed. “We’d be up all night, but then Uncle Ray would start in with the tractors at dawn. We’d end up going into the house and napping in one of my cousin’s beds for half the afternoon whenever we could. We were very grumpy houseguests.

“It rained the first few days we were there, just pissing down. Finally one morning we got up and the sun was shining. It was cold, but we didn’t care—we were just so happy we could get outside for a while. At first we just walked along the road, but it was so muddy from all the rain that we ended up heading across the moor. Technically it’s not really open moorland—there are old stone walls criss-crossing everything, ancient field systems. Some of them are thousands of years old, and farmers still keep them up and use them. These had not been kept up. The land was completely overgrown, though you could still see the walls and climb them. Which is what we did.

“We weren’t that far from the house—we could still see it, and I’m pretty sure we were still on my uncle’s land. We found a place where the walls were higher than elsewhere, more like proper hedgerows. There was no break in the wall like there usually is, no gate or old entryway. So we found a spot that was relatively untangled and we all climbed up and then jumped to the other side. The walls were completely overgrown with blackthorn and all these viney things. It was like Sleeping Beauty’s castle—the thorns hurt like shit. I remember I was wearing new boots and they got ruined, just scratched everywhere. And Moira tore her jacket and we knew she’d catch grief for that. But we thought there must be something wonderful on the other side—that was the game we were playing, that we’d find some amazing place. Do you know The Secret Garden? We thought it might be like that. At least I did.”

“And was it?”

Evelyn shook her head. “It wasn’t a garden. It was just this big overgrown field. Dead grass and stones. But it was rather beautiful in a bleak way. Ant laughed and started yelling ‘Heathcliff, Heathcliff!’ And it was warmer—the walls were high enough to keep out the wind, and there were some trees that had grown up on top of the walls as well. They weren’t in leaf yet, but they formed a bit of a windbreak.

“We ended up staying there all day. Completely lost track of the time. I thought only an hour had gone by, but Ant had a watch, at one point she said it was past three and I was shocked—I mean, really shocked. It was like we’d gone to sleep and woken up, only we weren’t asleep at all.”

“What were you doing?”

Evelyn shrugged. “Playing. The sort of let’s-pretend game we always did when we were younger and hadn’t done for a while. Moira had a boyfriend, Ant and I really wanted boyfriends—mostly that’s what we talked about whenever we got together. But for some reason, that day Ant said ‘Let’s do Sun Battles,’ and we all agreed. So that’s what we did. Now of course I can see why—I’ve seen it with my own kids when they were that age, you’re on the cusp of everything, and you just want to hold on to being young for as long as you can.

“I don’t remember much of what we did that day, except how strange it all felt. As though something was about to happen. I felt like that a lot, it was all tied in with being a teenager; but this was different. It was like being high, or tripping, only none of us had ever done any drugs at that stage. And we were stone-cold sober. Really all we did was wander around the moor and clamber up and down the walls and hedgerows and among the trees, pretending we were in Gearnzath. That was the world in The Sun Battles—like Narnia, only much scarier. We were mostly just wandering around and making things up, until Ant told us it was after three o’clock.

“I think it was her idea that we should do some kind of ritual. I know it wouldn’t have been Moira’s, and I don’t think it was mine. But I knew there was going to be a full moon that night—I’d heard my uncle mention it—and so we decided that we would each sacrifice a sacred thing, and then retrieved them all before moonrise. We turned our pockets inside-out looking for what we could use. I had a comb, so that was mine—just a red plastic thing, I think it cost ten pence. Ant had a locket on a chain from Woolworths, cheap but the locket part opened.

“And Moira had a pencil. It said RAVENWOOD on the side, so we called the field Ravenwood. We climbed up on the wall and stood facing the sun, and made up some sort of chant. I don’t remember what we said. Then we tossed our things onto the moor. None of us threw them far, and Ant barely tossed hers—she didn’t want to lose the locket. I didn’t care about the comb, but it was so light it just fell a few yards from where we stood. Same with the pencil. We all marked where they fell—I remember mine very clearly, it came down right on top of this big flat stone.

“Then we left. It was getting late, and cold, and we were all starving—we’d had nothing to eat since breakfast. We went back to the house and hung out in the barn for a while, and then we had dinner. We didn’t talk much. Moira hid her jacket so they couldn’t see she’d torn it, and I took my boots off so no one would see how I’d got them all mauled by the thorns. I remember my aunt wondering if we were up to something, and my uncle saying what the hell could we possibly be up to in Zennor? After dinner we sat in the living room and waited for the sun to go down, and when we saw the moon start to rise above the hills, we went back outside.

“It was bright enough that we could find our way without a torch—a flashlight. I think that must have been one of the rules, that we had to retrieve our things by moonlight. It was cold out, and none of us had dressed very warmly, so we ran. It didn’t take long. We climbed back over the wall and then down onto the field, at the exact spot where we’d thrown our things.

“They weren’t there. I knew exactly where the rock was where my comb had landed—the rock was there, but not the comb. Ant’s locket had landed only a few feet past it, and it wasn’t there either. And Moira’s pencil was gone, too.”

“The wind could have moved them,” said Jeffrey. “Or an animal.”

“Maybe the wind,” said Evelyn. “Though the whole reason we’d stayed there all day was that there was no wind—it was protected, and warm.”

“Maybe a bird took it? Don’t some birds like shiny things?”

“What would a bird do with a pencil? Or a plastic comb?”

Jeffrey made a face. “Probably you just didn’t see where they fell. You thought you did, in daylight, but everything looks different at night. Especially in moonlight.”

“I knew where they were.” Evelyn shook her head and reached for the bottle of Armagnac. “Especially my comb. I have that engineer’s eye, I can look at things and keep a very precise picture in my mind. The comb wasn’t where it should have been. And there was no reason for it to be gone, unless…”

“Unless some other kids had seen you and found everything after you left,” said Jeffrey.

“No.” Evelyn sipped her drink. “We started looking. The moon was coming up—it rose above the hill, and it was very bright. Because it was so cold there was hoarfrost on the grass, and ice in places where the rain had frozen. So all that reflected the moonlight. Everything glittered. It was beautiful, but it was no longer fun—it was scary. None of us was even talking; we just split up and crisscrossed the field, looking for our things.

“And then Moira said, ‘There’s someone there,’ and pointed. I thought it was someone on the track that led back to the farmhouse—it’s not a proper road, just a rutted path that runs alongside one edge of that old field system. I looked up and yes, there were three people there—three torches, anyway. Flashlights. You couldn’t see who was carrying them, but they were walking slowly along the path. I thought maybe it was my uncle and two of the men who worked with him, coming to tell us it was time to go home. They were walking from the wrong direction, across the moor, but I thought maybe they’d gone out to work on something. So I ran to the left edge of the field and climbed up on the wall.”

She stopped, glancing out the window at the black garden, and finally turned back. “I could see the three lights from there,” she said. “But the angle was all wrong. They weren’t on the road at all—they were in the next field, up above Ravenwood. And they weren’t flashlights. They were high up in the air, like this—”

She set down her glass and got to her feet, a bit unsteadily, extended both her arms and mimed holding something in her hands. “Like someone was carrying a pole eight or ten feet high, and there was a light on top of it. Not a flame. Like a ball of light…”

She cupped her hands around an invisible globe the size of a soccer ball. “Like that. White light, sort of foggy. The lights bobbed as they were walking.”

“Did you see who it was?”

“No. We couldn’t see anything. And, this is the part that I can’t explain—it just felt bad. Like, horrible. Terrifying.”

“You thought you’d summoned up whatever it was you’d been playing at.” Jeffrey nodded sympathetically and finished his drink. “It was just marsh gas, Ev. You know that. Will-o’-the-wisp, or whatever you call it here. They must get it all the time out there in the country. Or fog. Or someone just out walking in the moonlight.”

Evelyn settled back into her armchair. “It wasn’t,” she said. “I’ve seen marsh gas. There was no fog. The moon was so bright you could see every single rock in that field. Whatever it was, we all saw it. And you couldn’t hear anything—there were no voices, no footsteps, nothing. They were just there, moving closer to us—slowly,” she repeated, and moved her hand up and down, as though calming a cranky child. “That was the creepiest thing, how slowly they just kept coming.”

“Why didn’t you just run?”

“Because we couldn’t. You know how kids will all know about something horrible, but they’ll never tell a grown-up? It was like that. We knew we had to find our things before we could go.

“I found my comb first. It was way over—maybe twenty feet from where I’d seen it fall. I grabbed it and began to run across the turf, looking for the locket and Moira’s pencil. The whole time the moon was rising, and that was horrible too—it was a beautiful clear night, no clouds at all. And the moon was so beautiful, but it just terrified me. I can’t explain it.”

Jeffrey smiled wryly. “Yeah? How about this: three thirteen-year-old girls in the dark under a full moon, with a very active imagination?”

“Hush. A few minutes later Moira yelled: she’d found her pencil. She turned and started running back toward the wall, I screamed after her that she had to help us find the locket. She wouldn’t come back. She didn’t go over the wall without us, but she wouldn’t help. I ran over to Ant but she yelled at me to keep searching where I was. I did, I even started heading for the far end of the field, toward the other wall—where the lights were.

“They were very close now, close to the far wall, I mean. You could see how high up they were, taller than a person. I could hear Moira crying, I looked back and suddenly I saw Ant dive to the ground. She screamed ‘I found it!’ and I could see the chain shining in her hand.

“And we just turned and hightailed it. I’ve never run so fast in my life. I grabbed Ant’s arm, by the time we got to the wall Moira was already on top and jumping down the other side. I fell and Ant had to help me up, Moira grabbed her and we ran all the way back to the farm and locked the door when we got inside.

“We looked out the window and the lights were still there. They were there for hours. My uncle had a border collie, we cracked the door to see if she’d hear something and bark but she didn’t. She wouldn’t go outside—we tried to get her to look and she wouldn’t budge.”

“Did you tell your aunt and uncle?”

Evelyn shook her head. “No. We stayed in the house that night, in my cousin’s room. It overlooked the moor, so we could watch the lights. After about two hours they began to move back the way they’d come—slowly, it was about another hour before they were gone completely. We went out next morning to see if there was anything there—we took the dog to protect us.”

“And?”

“There was nothing. The grass was all beat down, as though someone had been walking over it, but probably that was just us.”

She fell silent. “Well,” Jeffrey said after a long moment. “It’s certainly a good story.”

“It’s a true story. Here, wait.”

She stood and went into the other room, and Jeffrey heard her go upstairs. He crossed to the window and stared out into the night, the dark garden occluded by shadow and runnels of mist, blueish in the dim light cast from the solarium.

“Look. I still have it.”

He turned to see Evelyn holding a small round tin. She withdrew a small object and stared at it, placed it back inside and handed him the tin. “My comb. There’s some pictures here too.”

“That tin.” He stared at the lid, blue enamel with the words ST. AUSTELL SWEETS: FUDGE FROM REAL CORNISH CREAM stamped in gold above the silhouette of what looked like a lighthouse beacon. “It’s just like the one I found, with Anthea’s letters in it.”

Evelyn nodded. “That’s right. Becca gave one to each of us the day we arrived. The fudge was supposed to last the entire two weeks, and I think we ate it all that first night.”

He opened the tin and gazed at a bright-red plastic comb sitting atop several snapshots; dug into his pocket and pulled out Anthea’s locket.

“There it is,” said Evelyn wonderingly. She took the locket and dangled it in front of her, clicked it open and shut then returned it to Jeffrey. “She never had anything in it that I knew. Here, look at these.”

She took back the tin. He sat, waiting as she sorted through the snapshots then passed him six small black-and-white photos, each time-stamped OCTOBER 1971.

“That was my camera. A Brownie.” Evelyn sank back into the armchair. “I didn’t finish shooting the roll till we went back to school.”

There were two girls in most of the photos. One was Anthea, apple-cheeked, her face still rounded with puppy fat and her brown hair longer than he’d ever seen it; eyebrows unplucked, wearing baggy bell-bottom jeans and a white peasant shirt. The other girl was taller, sturdy but long-limbed, with long straight blonde hair and a broad smooth forehead, elongated eyes and a wide mouth bared in a grin.

“That’s Moira,” said Evelyn.

“She’s beautiful.”

“She was. We were the ugly ducklings, Ant and me. Fortunately I was taking most of the photos, so you don’t see me except in the ones Aunt Becca took.”

“You were adorable.” Jeffrey flipped to a photo of all three girls laughing and feeding each other something with their hands, Evelyn still in braces, her hair cut in a severe black bob. “You were all adorable. She’s just—”

He scrutinised a photo of Moira by herself, slightly out of focus so all you saw was a blurred wave of blonde hair and her smile, a flash of narrowed eyes. “She’s beautiful. Photogenic.”

Evelyn laughed. “Is that what you call it? No, Moira was very pretty, all the boys liked her. But she was a tomboy like us. Ant was the one who was boy-crazy. Me and Moira, not so much.”

“What about when you saw Robert Bennington? When was that?”

“The next day. Nothing happened—I mean, he was very nice, but there was nothing strange like that night. Nothing untoward,” she added, lips pursed. “My aunt knew who he was—she didn’t know him except to say hello to at the post office, and she’d never read his books. But she knew he was the children’s writer, and she knew which house was supposed to be his. We told her we were going to see him, she told us to be polite and not be a nuisance and not stay long.

“So we were polite and not nuisances, and we stayed for two hours. Maybe three. We trekked over to his house, and that took almost an hour. A big old stone house. There was a standing stone and an old barrow nearby, it looked like a hayrick. A fogou. He was very proud that there was a fogou on his land—like a cave, but man-made. He said it was three thousand years old. He took us out to see it, and then we walked back to his house and he made us Nutella sandwiches and tangerines and Orange Squash. We just walked up to his door and knocked—I knocked, Ant was too nervous and Moira was just embarrassed. Ant and I had our copies of The Second Sun, and he was very sweet and invited us in and said he’d sign them before we left.”

“Oh, sure—’Come up and see my fogou, girls’.”

“No—he wanted us to see it because it gave him an idea for his book. It was like a portal, he said. He wasn’t a dirty old man, Jeffrey! He wasn’t even that old—maybe forty? He had long hair, longish, anyway—to his shoulders—and he had cool clothes, an embroidered shirt and corduroy flares. And pointy-toed boots—blue boot, bright sky-blue, very pointy toes. That was the only thing about him I thought was odd. I wondered how his toes fit into them—if he had long pointy toes to go along with the shoes.” She laughed. “Really, he was very charming, talked to us about the books but wouldn’t reveal any secrets—he said there would be another in the series but it never appeared. He signed our books—well, he signed mine, Moira didn’t have one and for some reason he forgot Ant’s. And eventually we left.”

“Did you tell him about the lights?”

“We did. He said he’d heard of things like that happening before. That part of Cornwall is ancient, there are all kinds of stone circles and menhirs, cromlechs, things like that.”

“What’s a cromlech?”

“You know—a dolmen.” At Jeffrey’s frown she picked up several of the snapshots and arranged them on the side table, a simple house of cards: three photos supporting a fourth laid atop them. “Like that. It’s a kind of prehistoric grave, made of big flat stones. Stonehenge, only small. The fogou was a bit like that. They’re all over West Penwith—that’s where Zennor is. Alaister Crowley lived there, and D.H. Lawrence and his wife. That was years before Robert’s time, but he said there were always stories about odd things happening. I don’t know what kind of things—it was always pretty boring when I visited as a girl, except for that one time.”

Jeffrey made a face. “He was out there with a flashlight, Ev, leading you girls on.”

“He didn’t even know we were there!” protested Evelyn, so vehemently that the makeshift house of photos collapsed. “He looked genuinely startled when we knocked on his door—I was afraid he’d yell at us to leave. Or, I don’t know, have us arrested. He said that field had a name. It was a funny word, Cornish. It meant something, though of course I don’t remember what.”

She stopped and leaned toward Jeffrey. “Why do you care about this, Jeffrey? Did Anthea say something?”

“No. I just found those letters, and…”

He lay his hands atop his knees, turned to stare past Evelyn into the darkness, so that she wouldn’t see his eyes welling. “I just wanted to know. And I can’t ask her.”

Evelyn sighed. “Well, there’s nothing to know, except what I told you. We went back once more—we took torches this time, and walking sticks and the dog. We stayed out till 3:00 a.m. Nothing happened except we caught hell from my aunt and uncle because they heard the dog barking and looked in the barn and we were gone.

“And that was the end of it. I still have the book he signed for me. Ant must have kept her copy—she was always mad he didn’t sign it.”

“I don’t know. Maybe. I couldn’t find it. Your friend Moira, you’re not in touch with her?”

Evelyn shook her head. “I told you, she disappeared—she ran away that summer. There were problems at home, the father was a drunk and maybe the mother, too. We never went over there—it wasn’t a welcoming place. She had an older sister but I never knew her. Look, if you’re thinking Robert Bennington killed her, that’s ridiculous. I’m sure her name came up during the trial, if anything had happened we would have heard about it. An investigation.”

“Did you tell them about Moira?”

“Of course not. Look, Jeffrey—I think you should forget about all that. It’s nothing to do with you, and it was all a long time ago. Ant never cared about it—I told her about the trial, I’d read about it in The Guardian, but she was even less curious about it than I was. I don’t even know if Robert Bennington is still alive. He’d be an old man now.”

She leaned over to take his hand. “I can see you’re tired, Jeffrey. This has all been so awful for you, you must be totally exhausted. Do you want to just stay here for a few days? Or come back after your meeting in London?”

“No—I mean, probably not. Probably I need to get back to Brooklyn. I have some projects I backburnered, I need to get to them in the next few weeks. I’m sorry, Ev.”

He rubbed his eyes and stood. “I didn’t mean to hammer you about this stuff. You’re right—I’m just beat. All this—” He sorted the snapshots into a small stack, and asked, “Could I have one of these? It doesn’t matter which one.”

“Of course. Whichever, take your pick.”

He chose a photo of the three girls, Moira and Evelyn doubled over laughing as Anthea stared at them, smiling and slightly puzzled.

“Thank you, Ev,” he said. He replaced each of Anthea’s letters into its envelope, slid the photo into the last one, then stared at the sheaf in his hand, as though wondering how it got there. “It’s just, I dunno. Meaningless, I guess; but I want it to mean something. I want something to mean something.”

“Anthea meant something.” Evelyn stood and put her arms around him. “Your life together meant something. And your life now means something.”

“I know.” He kissed the top of her head. “I keep telling myself that.”

Evelyn dropped him off at the station next morning. He felt guilty, lying that he had meetings back in London, but he sensed both her relief and regret that he was leaving.

“I’m sorry about last night,” he said as Evelyn turned into the parking lot. “I feel like the Bad Fairy at the christening, bringing up all that stuff.”

“No, it was interesting.” Evelyn squinted into the sun. “I hadn’t thought about any of that for awhile. Not since Ant called me last March.”

Jeffrey hesitated, then asked, “What do you think happened? I mean, you’re the one with the advanced degree in structural engineering.”

Evelyn laughed. “Yeah. And see where it’s got me. I have no idea, Jeffrey. If you ask me, logically, what do I think? Well, I think it’s just one of those things that we’ll never know what happened. Maybe two different dimensions overlapped—in superstring theory, something like that is theoretically possible, a sort of duality.”

She shook her head. “I know it’s crazy. Probably it’s just one of those things that don’t make any sense and never will. Like how did Bush stay in office for so long?”

“That I could explain.” Jeffrey smiled. “But it’s depressing and would take too long. Thanks again, Ev.”

They hopped out of the car and hugged on the curb. “You should come back soon,” said Ev, wiping her eyes. “This is stupid, that it took so long for us all to get together again.”

“I know. I will—soon, I promise. And you and Chris, come to New York. Once I have a place, it would be great.”

He watched her drive off, waving as she turned back onto the main road; went into the station and walked to a ticket window.

“Can I get to Penzance from here?”

“What time?”

“Now.”

The station agent looked at her computer. “There’s a train in about half-an-hour. Change trains in Plymouth, arrive at Penzance a little before four.”

He bought a first-class, one-way ticket to Penzance, found a seat in the waiting area, took out his phone and looked online for a place to stay near Zennor. There wasn’t much—a few farmhouses designed for summer rentals, all still closed for the winter. An inn that had in recent years been turned into a popular gastropub was open; but even now, the first week of March, they were fully booked. Finally he came upon a B&B called Cliff Cottage. There were only two rooms, and the official opening date was not until the following weekend, but he called anyway.

“A room?” The woman who answered sounded tired but friendly. “We’re not really ready yet, we’ve been doing some renovations and—”

“All I need is a bed,” Jeffrey broke in. He took a deep breath. “The truth is, my wife died recently. I just need some time to be away from the rest of the world and…”

His voice trailed off. He felt a pang of self-loathing, playing the pity card; listened to a long silence on the line before the woman said, “Oh, dear, I’m so sorry. Well, yes, if you don’t mind that we’re really not up and running. The grout’s not even dry yet in the new bath. Do you have a good head for heights?”

“Heights?”

“Yes. Vertigo? Some people have a very hard time with the driveway. There’s a two night minimum for a stay.”

Jeffrey assured her he’d never had any issues with vertigo. He gave her his credit card info, rang off and called to reserve a car in Penzance.

He slept most of the way to Plymouth, exhausted and faintly hungover. The train from Plymouth to Penzance was nearly empty. He bought a beer and a sandwich in the buffet car, and went to his seat. He’d bought a novel in London at Waterstones, but instead of reading gazed out at a landscape that was a dream of books he’d read as a child—granite farmhouses, woolly-coated ponies in stone paddocks; fields improbably green against lowering grey sky, graphite clouds broken by blades of golden sun, a rainbow that pierced a thunderhead then faded as though erased by some unseen hand. Ringnecked pheasants, a running fox. More fields planted with something that shone a startling goldfinch-yellow. A silvery coastline hemmed by arches of russet stone. Children wrestling in the middle of an empty road. A woman walking with head bowed against the wind, hands extended before her like a diviner.

Abandoned mineshafts and slagheaps; ruins glimpsed in an eyeflash before the train dove into a tunnel; black birds wheeling above a dun-coloured tor surrounded by scorched heath.

And, again and again, groves of gnarled oaks that underscored the absence of great forests in a landscape that had been scoured of trees thousands of years ago. It was beautiful yet also slightly disturbing, like watching an underpopulated, narratively fractured silent movie that played across the train window.

The trees were what most unsettled Jeffrey: the thought that men had so thoroughly occupied this countryside for so long that they had flensed it of everything—rocks, trees, shrubs all put to some human use so that only the abraded land remained. He felt relieved when the train at last reached Penzance, with the beachfront promenade to one side, glassy waves breaking on the sand and the dark towers of St. Michael’s Mount suspended between aquamarine water and pearly sky.

He grabbed his bag and walked through the station, outside to where people waited on the curb with luggage or headed to the parking lot. The clouds had lifted: a chill steady wind blew from off the water, bringing the smell of salt and sea wrack. He shivered and pulled on his wool overcoat, looking around for the vehicle from the rental car company that was supposed to meet him.

He finally spotted it, a small white sedan parked along the sidewalk. A man in a dark blazer leaned against the car, smoking and talking to a teenage boy with dreadlocks and rainbow-knit cap and a woman with matted dark-blonde hair.

“You my ride?” Jeffrey said, smiling.

The man took a drag from his cigarette and passed it to the woman. She was older than Jeffrey had first thought, in her early thirties, face seamed and sun-weathered and her eyes bloodshot. She wore tight flared jeans and a fuzzy sky-blue sweater beneath a stained Arsenal windbreaker.

“Spare anything?” she said as he stopped alongside the car. She reeked of sweat and marijuana smoke.

“Go on now, Erthy,” the man said, scowling. He turned to Jeffrey. “Mr. Kearin?”

“That’s me,” said Jeffrey.

“Gotta ‘nother rollie, Evan?” the woman prodded.

“Come on, Erthy,” said the rainbow-hatted boy. He spun and began walking toward the station. “Peace, Evan.”

“I apologise for that,” Evan said as he opened the passenger door for Jeffrey. “I know the boy, his family’s neighbours of my sister’s.”

“Bit old for him, isn’t she?” Jeffrey glanced to where the two huddled against the station wall, smoke welling from their cupped hands.

“Yeah, Erthy’s a tough nut. She used to sleep rough by the St. Erth train station. Only this last winter she’s taken up in Penzance. Every summer we get the smackhead hippies here, there’s always some poor souls who stay and take up on the street. Not that you want to hear about that,” he added, laughing as he swung into the driver’s seat. “On vacation?”

Jeffrey nodded. “Just a few days.”

“Staying here in Penzance?”

“Cardu. Near Zennor.”

“Might see some sun, but probably not till the weekend.”

He ended up with the same small white sedan. “Only one we have, this last minute,” Evan said, tapping at the computer in the rental office. “But it’s better really for driving out there in the countryside. Roads are extremely narrow. Have you driven around here before? No? I would strongly recommend the extra damages policy…”

It had been decades since Jeffrey had been behind the wheel of a car in the U.K. He began to sweat as soon as he left the rental car lot, eyes darting between the map Evan had given him and the GPS on his iPhone. In minutes the busy roundabout was behind him; the car crept up a narrow, winding hillside, with high stone walls to either side that swiftly gave way to hedgerows bordering open farmland. A brilliant yellow field proved to be planted with daffodils, their constricted yellow throats not yet in bloom. After several more minutes, he came to a crossroads.

Almost immediately he got lost. The distances between villages and roads were deceptive: what appeared on the map to be a mile or more instead contracted into a few hundred yards, or else expanded into a series of zigzags and switchbacks that appeared to point him back toward Penzance. The GPS directions made no sense, advising him to turn directly into stone walls or gated driveways or fields where cows grazed on young spring grass. The roads were only wide enough for one car to pass, with tiny turnouts every fifty feet or so where one could pull over, but the high hedgerows and labyrinthine turns made it difficult to spot oncoming vehicles.

His destination, a village called Cardu, was roughly seven miles from Penzance; after half an hour, the odometer registered that he’d gone fifteen miles, and he had no idea where he was. There was no cell phone reception. The sun dangled a hand’s span above the western horizon, staining ragged stone outcroppings and a bleak expanse of moor an ominous reddish-bronze, and throwing the black fretwork of stone walls into stark relief. He finally parked in one of the narrow turnouts, sat for a few minutes staring into the sullen blood-red eye of the sun, and at last got out.

The hedgerows offered little protection from the harsh wind that raked across the moor. Jeffrey pulled at the collar of his wool coat, turning his back to the wind, and noticed a small sign that read PUBLIC FOOTPATH. He walked over and saw a narrow gap in the hedgerow, three steps formed of wide flat stones. He took the three in one long stride and found himself at the edge of an overgrown field, similar to what Evelyn had described in her account of the lights near Zennor. An ancient-looking stone wall bounded the far edge of the field, with a wider gap that opened to the next field and what looked like another sign. He squinted, but couldn’t make out what it read, and began to pick his way across the turf.

It was treacherous going—the countless hummocks hid deep holes, and more than once he barely kept himself from wrenching his ankle. The air smelled strongly of raw earth and cow manure. As the sun dipped lower, a wedge of shadow was driven between him and the swiftly darkening sky, making it still more difficult to see his way. But after a few minutes he reached the far wall, and bent to read the sign beside the gap into the next field.

He glanced back, saw a glint of white where the rental car was parked, straightened and walked on.

There was a footpath here. Hardly a path, really; just a trail where turf and bracken had been flattened by the passage of not-many feet. He followed it, stopping when he came to a large upright stone that came up his waist. He looked to one side then the other and saw more stones, forming a group more ovoid than circular, perhaps thirty feet in diameter. He ran his hand across the first stone—rough granite, ridged with lichen and friable bits of moss that crumbled at his touch.

The reek of manure was fainter here: he could smell something fresh and sweet, like rain, and when he looked down saw a silvery gleam at the base of the rock. He crouched and dipped his fingers into a tiny pool, no bigger than his shoe. The water was icy cold, and even after he withdrew his hand, the surface trembled.

A spring. He dipped his cupped palm into it and sniffed warily, expecting a foetid whiff of cow muck.

But the water smelled clean, of rock and rain. Without thinking he drew his hand to his mouth and sipped, immediately flicked his fingers to send glinting droplets into the night.

That was stupid, he thought, hastily wiping his hand on his trousers. Now I’ll get dysentery. Or whatever one gets from cows.

He stood there for another minute, then turned and retraced his steps to the rental car. He saw a pair of headlights approaching and flagged down a white delivery van.

“I’m lost,” he said, and showed the driver the map that Evan had given him.

“Not too lost.” The driver perused the map, then gave him directions. “Once you see the inn you’re almost there.”

Jeffrey thanked him, got back into the car and started to drive. In ten minutes he reached the inn, a rambling stucco structure with a half-dozen cars out front. There was no sign identifying Cardu, and no indication that there was anything more to the village than the inn and a deeply rutted road flanked by a handful of granite cottages in varying states of disrepair. He eased the rental car by the mottled grey buildings, to where what passed for a road ended; bore right and headed down a cobblestoned, hairpin drive that zigzagged along the cliff edge.

He could hear but could not see the ocean, waves crashing against rocks hundreds of feet below. Now and then he got a skin-crawling glimpse of immense cliffs like congealed flames—ruddy stone, apricot-yellow gorse, lurid flares of orange lichen all burned to ash as afterglow faded from the western sky.

He wrenched his gaze back to the narrow strip of road immediately in front of him. Gorse and brambles tore at the doors; once he bottomed out, then nosed the car across a water-filled gulley that widened into a stream that cascaded down the cliff to the sea below.

“Holy fucking Christ,” he said, and kept the car in first gear. In another five minutes he was safely parked beside the cottage, alongside a small sedan.

“We thought maybe you weren’t coming,” someone called as Jeffrey stepped shakily out onto a cobblestone drive. Straggly rosebushes grew between a row of granite slabs that resembled headstones. These were presumably to keep cars from veering down an incline that led to a ruined outbuilding, a few faint stars already framed in its gaping windows. “Some people, they start down here and just give up and turn back.”

Jeffrey looked around, finally spotted a slight man in his early sixties standing in the doorway of a grey stone cottage tucked into the lee of the cliff. “Oh, hi. No, I made it.”

Jeffrey ducked back into the car, grabbed his bag and headed for the cottage.

“Harry,” the man said, and held the door for him.

“Jeffrey. I spoke to your wife this afternoon.”

The man’s brow furrowed. “Wife?” He was a head shorter than Jeffrey, clean-shaven, with a sun-weathered face and sleek grey-flecked dark brown hair to his shoulders. A ropey old cable knit sweater hung from his lank frame.

“Well, someone. A woman.”

“Oh. That was Thomsa. My sister.” The man nodded, as though this confusion had never occurred before. “We’re still trying to get unpacked. We don’t really open till this weekend, but…”

He held the door so Jeffrey could pass inside. “Thomsa told me of your loss. My condolences.”

Inside was a small room with slate floors and plastered walls, sparely furnished with a plain deal table and four chairs intricately carved with Celtic knots; a sideboard holding books and maps and artfully mismatched crockery; large gas cooking stove and a side table covered with notepads and pens, unopened bills, and a laptop. A modern cast-iron woodstove had been fitted into a wide, old-fashioned hearth. The stove radiated warmth and an acrid, not unpleasant scent, redolent of coal smoke and burning sage. Peat, Jeffrey realised with surprise. There was a closed door on the other side of the room, and from behind this came the sound of a television. Harry looked at Jeffrey, cocking an eyebrow.

“It’s beautiful,” said Jeffrey.

Harry nodded. “I’ll take you to your room,” he said.

Jeffrey followed him up a narrow stair beneath the eaves, into a short hallway flanked by two doors. “Your room’s here. Bath’s down there, you’ll have it all to yourself. What time would you like breakfast?”

“Seven, maybe?”

“How about seven-thirty?”

Jeffrey smiled wanly. “Sure.”

The room was small, white plaster walls and a window seat overlooking the sea, a big bed heaped with a white duvet and myriad pillows, corner wardrobe carved with the same Celtic knots as the chairs below. No TV or radio or telephone, not even a clock. Jeffrey unpacked his bag and checked his phone for service: none.

He closed the wardrobe, looked in his backpack and swore. He’d left his book on the train. He ran a hand through his hair, stepped to the window-seat and stared out.

It was too dark now to see much, though light from windows on the floor below illuminated a small, winding patch of garden, bound at the cliffside by a stone wall. Beyond that there was only rock and, far below, the sea. Waves thundered against the unseen shore, a muted roar like a jet turbine. He could feel the house around him shake.

And not just the house, he thought; it felt as though the ground and everything around him trembled without ceasing. He paced to the other window, overlooking the drive, and stared at his rental car and the sedan beside it through a freize of branches, a tree so contorted by wind and salt that its limbs only grew in one direction. He turned off the room’s single light, waited for his eyes to adjust; stared back out through one window, and then the other.

For as far as he could see, there was only night. Ghostly light seeped from a room downstairs onto the sliver of lawn. Starlight touched on the endless sweep of moor, like another sea unrolling from the line of cliffs brooding above black waves and distant headlands. There was no sign of human habitation: no distant lights, no street-lamps, no cars, no ships or lighthouse beacons: nothing.

He sank onto the window seat, dread knotting his chest. He had never seen anything like this—even hiking in the Mojave Desert with Anthea ten years earlier, there had been a scattering of lights sifted across the horizon and satellites moving slowly through the constellations. He grabbed his phone, fighting a cold black solitary horror. There was still no reception.

He put the phone aside and stared at a framed sepia-tinted photograph on the wall: a three-masted schooner wrecked on the rocks beneath a cliff he suspected was the same one where the cottage stood. Why was he even here? He felt as he had once in college, waking in a strange room after a night of heavy drinking, surrounded by people he didn’t know in a squalid flat used as a shooting gallery. The same sense that he’d been engaged in some kind of psychic somnambulism, walking perilously close to a precipice.

Here, of course he actually was perched on the edge of a precipice. He stood and went into the hall, switching on the light; walked into the bathroom and turned on all the lights there as well.

It was almost as large as his bedroom, cheerfully appointed with yellow and blue towels piled atop a wooden chair, a massive porcelain tub, hand-woven yellow rugs and a fistful of daffodils in a cobalt glass vase on a wide windowsill. He moved the towels and sat on the chair for a few minutes, then crossed to pick up the vase and drew it to his face.

The daffodils smelled sweetly, of overturned earth warming in the sunlight. Anthea had loved daffodils, planting a hundred new bulbs every autumn; daffodils and jonquil and narcissus and crocuses, all the harbingers of spring. He inhaled again, deeply, and replaced the flowers on the sill. He left a light on beside the sink, returned to his room and went to bed.

He woke before seven. Thin sunlight filtered through the white curtains he’d drawn the night before, and for several minutes he lay in bed, listening to the rhythmic boom of surf on the rocks. He finally got up, pulled aside the curtain and looked out.

A line of clouds hung above the western horizon, but over the headland the sky was pale blue, shot with gold where the sun rose above the moor. Hundreds of feet below Jeffrey’s bedroom, aquamarine swells crashed against the base of the cliffs and swirled around ragged granite pinnacles that rose from the sea, surrounded by clouds of white seabirds. There was a crescent of white sand, and a black cavern-mouth gouged into one of the cliffs where a vortex rose and subsided with the waves.

The memory of last night’s horror faded: sunlight and wheeling birds, the vast expanse of air and sea and all but treeless moor made him feel exhilarated. For the first time since Anthea’s death, he had a premonition not of dread but of the sort of exultation he felt as a teenager, waking in his boyhood room in early spring.

He dressed and shaved—there was no shower, only that dinghy-sized tub, so he’d forgo bathing till later. He waited until he was certain he heard movement in the kitchen, and went downstairs.

“Good morning.” A woman who might have been Harry’s twin leaned against the slate sink. Slender, small-boned, with straight dark hair held back with two combs from a narrow face, brown-eyed and weathered as her brother’s. “I’m Thomsa.”

He shook her hand, glanced around for signs of coffee then peered out the window. “This is an amazing place.”

“Yes, it is,” Thomsa said evenly. She spooned coffee into a glass cafetière, picked up a steaming kettle and poured hot water over the grounds. “Coffee, right? I have tea if you prefer. Would you like eggs? Some people have all sorts of food allergies. Vegans, how do you feed them?” She stared at him in consternation, turned back to the sink, glancing at a bowl of eggs. “How many?”

The cottage was silent, save for the drone of a television behind the closed door and the thunder of waves beating against the cliffs. Jeffrey sat at a table set for one, poured himself coffee and stared out to where the moor rose behind them. “Does the sound of the ocean ever bother you?” he asked.

Thomsa laughed. “No. We’ve been here thirty-five years, we’re used to that. But we’re building a house in Greece, in Hydra, that’s where we just returned from. There’s a church in the village and every afternoon the bells ring, I don’t know why. At first I thought, isn’t that lovely, church bells! Now I’m sick of them and just wish they’d just shut up.”

She set a plate of fried eggs and thick-cut bacon in front of him, along with slabs of toasted brown bread and glass bowls of preserves, picked up a mug and settled at the table. “So are you here on holiday?”

“Mmm, yes.” Jeffrey nodded, his mouth full. “My wife died last fall. I just needed to get away for a bit.”

“Yes, of course. I’m very sorry.”

“She visited here once when she was a girl—not here, but at a farm nearby, in Zennor. I don’t know the last name of the family, but the woman was named Becca.”

“Becca? Mmm, no, I don’t think so. Maybe Harry will know.”

“This would have been 1971.”

“Ah—no, we didn’t move here till ‘75. Summer, us and all the other hippie types from back then.” She sipped her tea. “No tourists around this time of year. Usually we don’t open till the second week in March. But we don’t have anyone scheduled yet, so.” She shrugged, pushing back a wisp of dark hair. “It’s quiet this time of year. No German tour buses. Do you paint?”

“Paint?” Jeffrey blinked. “No. I’m an architect, so I draw, but mostly just for work. I sketch sometimes.”

“We get a lot of artists. There’s the Tate in St. Ives, if you like modern architecture. And of course there are all the prehistoric ruins—standing stones, and Zennor Quoit. There are all sorts of legends about them, fairy tales. People disappearing. They’re very interesting if you don’t mind the walk.

“Are there places to eat?”

“The inn here, though you might want to stop in and make a booking. There’s the pub in Zennor, and St. Ives of course, though it can be hard to park. And Penzance.”

Jeffrey winced. “Not sure I want to get back on the road again immediately.”

“Yes, the drive here’s a bit tricky, isn’t it? But Zennor’s only two miles, if you don’t mind walking—lots of people do, we get hikers from all over on the coastal footpath. And Harry might be going out later, he could drop you off in Zennor if you like.”

“Thanks. Not sure what I’ll do yet. But thank you.”

He ate his breakfast, making small talk with Thomsa and nodding at Harry when he emerged and darted through the kitchen, raising a hand as he slipped outside. Minutes later, Jeffrey glimpsed him pushing a wheelbarrow full of gardening equipment.

“I think the rain’s supposed to hold off,” Thomsa said, staring out the window. “I hope so. We want to finish that wall. Would you like me to make more coffee?”

“If you don’t mind.”

Jeffrey dabbed a crust into the blackcurrant preserves. He wanted to ask if Thomsa or her brother knew Robert Bennington, but was afraid he might be stirring up memories of some local scandal, or that he’d be taken for a journalist or some other busybody. He finished the toast, thanked Thomsa when she poured him more coffee, then reached for one of the brochures on the sideboard.

“So does this show where those ruins are?”

“Yes. You’ll want the ordnance map. Here—”

She cleared the dishes, gathered a map and unfolded it. She tapped the outline of a tiny cove between two spurs of land. “We’re here.”

She traced one of the spurs, lifted her head to stare out the window to a grey-green spine of rock stretching directly to the south. “That’s Gurnard’s Head. And there’s Zennor Head—”

She turned and pointed in the opposite direction, to a looming promontory a few miles distant, and looked back down at the map. “You can see where everything’s marked.”

Jeffrey squinted to make out words printed in a tiny, Gothic font. TUMULI, STANDING STONE, HUT CIRCLE, CAIRN. “Is there a fogou around here?”

“A fogou?” She frowned slightly. “Yes, there is—out toward Zennor, across the moor. It’s a bit of a walk.”

“Could you give me directions? Just sort of point the way? I might try and find it—give me something to do.”

Thomsa stepped to the window. “The coastal path is there—see? If you follow it up to the ridge, you’ll see a trail veer off. There’s an old road there, the farmers use it sometimes. All those old fields run alongside it. The fogou’s on the Golovenna Farm, I don’t know how many fields back that is. It would be faster if you drove toward Zennor then hiked over the moor, but you could probably do it from here. You’ll have to find an opening in the stone walls or climb over—do you have hiking shoes?” She looked dubiously at his sneakers. “Well, they’ll probably be all right.”

“I’ll give it a shot. Can I take that map?”

“Yes, of course. It’s not the best map—the Ordnance Survey has a more detailed one, I think.”

He thanked her and downed the rest of his coffee, went upstairs and pulled a heavy woollen sweater over his flannel shirt, grabbed his cell phone and returned downstairs. He retrieved the map and stuck it in his coat pocket, said goodbye to Thomsa rinsing dishes in the sink, and walked outside.

The air was warmer, almost balmy despite a stiff wind that had torn the line of clouds into grey shreds. Harry knelt beside a stone wall, poking at the ground with a small spade. Jeffrey paused to watch him, then turned to survey clusters of daffodils and jonquils, scores of them scattered across the terraced slopes among rocks and apple trees. The flowers were not yet in bloom, but he could glimpse sunlit yellow and orange and saffron petals swelling within the green buds atop each slender stalk.

“Going out?” Harry called.

“Yes.” Jeffrey stooped to brush his fingers across one of the flowers. “My wife loved daffodils. She must have planted thousands of them.”

Harry nodded. “Should open in the next few days. If we get some sun.”

Jeffrey waved farewell and turned to walk up the drive.

In a few minutes, the cottage was lost to sight. The cobblestones briefly gave way to cracked concrete, then a deep rut that marked a makeshift path that led uphill, toward the half-dozen buildings that made up the village. He stayed on the driveway, and after another hundred feet reached a spot where a narrow footpath meandered off to the left, marked by a sign. This would be the path that Thomsa had pointed out.

He shaded his eyes and looked back. He could just make out Cliff Cottage, its windows a flare of gold in the sun. He stepped onto the trail, walking with care across loose stones and channels where water raced downhill, fed by the early spring rains. To one side, the land sheared away to cliffs and crashing waves; he could see where the coastal path wound along the headland, fading into the emerald crown of Zennor Head. Above him, the ground rose steeply, overgrown with coiled ferns, newly sprung grass, thickets of gorse in brilliant sun-yellow bloom where bees and tiny orange butterflies fed. At the top of the incline, he could see the dark rim of a line of stone walls. He stayed on the footpath until it began to bear toward the cliffs, then looked for a place where he could break away and make for the ancient fields. He saw what looked like a path left by some kind of animal and scrambled up, dodging gorse, his sneakers sliding on loose scree, until he reached the top of the headland.

The wind here was so strong he nearly lost his balance as he hopped down into a grassy lane. The lane ran parallel to a long ridge of stone walls perhaps four feet high, braided with strands of rusted barbed wire. On the other side, endless intersections of yet more walls divided the moor into a dizzyingly ragged patchwork: jade-green, beryl, creamy yellow; ochre and golden amber. Here and there, twisted trees grew within sheltered corners, or rose from atop the walls themselves, gnarled branches scraping at the sky. High overhead, a bird arrowed toward the sea, and its plaintive cry rose above the roar of wind in his ears.

He pulled out the map, struggling to open it in the wind, finally gave up and shoved it back into his pocket. He tried to count back four fields, but it was hopeless—he couldn’t make out where one field ended and another began.

And he had no idea what field to start with. He walked alongside the lane, away from the cottage and the village of Cardu, hoping he might find a gate or opening. He finally settled on a spot where the barbed wire had become engulfed by a protective thatch of dead vegetation. He clambered over the rocks, clutching desperately at dried leaves as the wall gave way beneath his feet and nearly falling onto a lethal-looking knot of barbed wire. Gasping, he reached the top of the wall, flailed as wind buffeted him then crouched until he could catch his breath.

The top of the wall was covered with vines, grey and leafless, as thick as his fingers and unpleasantly reminiscent of veins and arteries. This serpentine mass seemed to hold the stones together, though when he tried to step down the other side, the rocks once again gave way and he fell into a patch of whip-like vines studded with thorns the length of his thumbnail. Cursing, he extricated himself, his chinos torn and hands gouged and bloody, and staggered into the field.

Here at least there was some protection from the wind. The field sloped slightly uphill, to the next wall. There was so sign of a gate or breach. He shoved his hands into his pockets and strode through knee-high grass, pale green and starred with minute yellow flowers. He reached the wall and walked alongside it. In one corner several large rocks had fallen. He hoisted himself up until he could see into the next field. It was no different from the one he’d just traversed, save for a single massive evergreen in its centre.

Other than the tree, the field seemed devoid of any vegetation larger than a tussock. He tried to peer into the field beyond, and the ones after that, but the countryside dissolved into a glitter of green and topaz beneath the morning sun, with a few stone pinnacles stark against the horizon where moor gave way to sky.

He turned and walked back, head down against the wind; climbed into the first field and crossed it, searching until he spied what looked like a safe place to gain access to the lane once more. Another tangle of blackthorn snagged him as he jumped down and landed hard, grimacing as a thorn tore at his neck. He glared at the wall, then headed back to the cottage, picking thorns from his overcoat and jeans.

He was starving by the time he arrived at the cottage, also filthy. It had grown too warm for his coat; he slung it over his shoulder, wiping sweat from his cheeks. Thomsa was outside, removing a shovel from the trunk of the sedan.

“Oh, hello! You’re back quickly!”

He stopped, grateful for the wind on his overheated face. “Quickly?”

“I thought you’d be off till lunchtime. A few hours, anyway?”

“I thought it was lunchtime.” He looked at his watch and frowned. “That can’t be right. It’s not even ten.”

Thomsa nodded, setting the shovel beside the car. “I thought maybe you forgot something.” She glanced at him, startled. “Oh my. You’re bleeding—did you fall?”

He shook his head. “No, well, yes,” he said sheepishly. “I tried to find that fogou. Didn’t get very far. Are you sure it’s just ten? I thought I was out there for hours—I figured it must be noon, at least. What time did I leave?”

“Half-past nine, I think.”

He started to argue, instead shrugged. “I might try again. You said there’s a better map from the Ordnance Survey? Something with more details?”

“Yes. You could probably get it in Penzance—call the bookstore there if you like, phone book’s on the table.”

He found the phone book in the kitchen and rang the bookshop. They had a copy of the Ordnance map and would hold it for him. He rummaged on the table for a brochure with a map of Penzance, went upstairs to spend a few minutes washing up from his trek, and hurried outside. Thomsa and Harry were lugging stones across the grass to repair the wall. Jeffrey waved, ducked into the rental car and crept back up the drive toward Cardu.

In broad daylight it still took almost ten minutes. He glanced out to where the coastal footpath wound across the top of the cliffs, could barely discern a darker trail leading to the old field systems, and, beyond that, the erratic cross-stitch of stone walls fading into the eastern sky. Even if he’d only gone as far as the second field, it seemed impossible that he could have hiked all the way there and back to the cottage in half-an-hour.

The drive to Penzance took less time than that; barely long enough for Jeffrey to reflect how unusual it was for him to act like this, impulsively, without a plan. Everything an architect did was according to plan. Out on the moor and gorse-grown cliffs, the strangeness of the immense, dour landscape had temporarily banished the near-constant presence of his dead wife. Now, in the confines of the cramped rental car, images of other vehicles and other trips returned, all with Anthea beside him. He pushed them away, tried to focus on the fact that here at last was a place where he’d managed to escape her; and remembered that was not true at all.

Anthea had been here, too. Not the Anthea he had loved but her mayfly self, the girl he’d never known; the Anthea who’d contained an entire secret world he’d never known existed. It seemed absurd, but he desperately wished she had confided in him about her visit to Bennington’s house, and the strange night that had preceded it. Evelyn’s talk of superstring theory was silly—he found himself sympathising with Moira, content to let someone else read the creepy books and tell her what to do. He believed in none of it, of course. Yet it didn’t matter what he believed, but whether Anthea had, and why.

Penzance was surprisingly crowded for a weekday morning in early March. He circled the town’s winding streets twice before he found a parking space, several blocks from the bookstore. He walked past shops and restaurants featuring variations on themes involving pirates, fish, pixies, sailing ships. As he passed a tattoo parlour, he glanced into the adjoining alley and saw the same rainbow-hatted boy from the train station, holding a skateboard and standing with several other teenagers who were passing around a joint. The boy looked up, saw Jeffrey and smiled. Jeffrey lifted his hand and smiled back. The boy called out to him, his words garbled by the wind, put down his skateboard and did a headstand alongside it. Jeffrey laughed and kept going.

There was only one other customer in the shop when he arrived, a man in a business suit talking to two women behind the register.

“Can I help you?” The older of the two women smiled. She had close-cropped red hair and fashionable eyeglasses, and set aside an iPad as Jeffrey approached.

“I called about an Ordnance map?”

“Yes. It’s right here.”

She handed it to him, and he unfolded it enough to see that it showed the same area of West Penwith as the other map, enlarged and far more detailed.

The woman with the glasses cocked her head. “Shall I ring that up?”

Jeffrey closed the map and set it onto the counter. “Sure, in a minute. I’m going to look around a bit first.”

She returned to chatting. Jeffrey wandered the shop. It was small but crowded with neatly stacked shelves and tables, racks of maps and postcards, with an extensive section of books about Cornwall—guidebooks, tributes to Daphne du Maurier and Barbara Hepworth, DVDs of The Pirates of Penzance and Rebecca, histories of the mines and glossy photo volumes about surfing Newquay. He spent a few minutes flipping through one of these, and continued to the back of the store. There was an entire wall of children’s books, picture books near the floor, chapter books for older children arranged alphabetically above them. He scanned the Bs, and looked aside as the younger woman approached, carrying an armful of calendars.

“Are you looking for something in particular?”

He glanced back at the shelves. “Do you have anything by Robert Bennington?”

The young woman set the calendars down, ran a hand along the shelf housing the Bs; frowned and looked back to the counter. “Rose, do we have anything by Robert Bennington? It rings a bell but I don’t see anything here. Children’s writer, is he?” she added, turning to Jeffrey.

“Yes. The Sun Battles, I think that’s one of them.”

The other customer nodded goodbye as Rose joined the others in the back.

“Robert Bennington?” She halted, straightening a stack of coffee-table books, tapped her lower lip then quickly nodded. “Oh yes! The fantasy writer. We did have his books—he’s fallen out of favour.” She cast a knowing look at the younger clerk. “He was the child molester.”

“Oh, right.” The younger woman made a face. “I don’t think his books are even in print now, are they?”

“I don’t think so,” said Rose. “I’ll check. We could order something for you, if they are.”

“That’s okay—I’m only here for a few days.”

Jeffrey followed her to the counter and waited as she searched online.

“No, nothing’s available.” Rose shook her head. “Sad bit of business, wasn’t it? I heard something recently, he had a stroke I think. He might even have died, I can’t recall now who told me. He must be quite elderly, if he’s still alive.”

“He lived around here, didn’t he?” said Jeffrey.

“Out near Zennor, I think. He bought the old Golovenna Farm, years ago. We used to sell quite a lot of his books—he was very popular. Like the Harry Potter books now. Well, not that popular.” She smiled. “But he did very well. He came in here once or twice, it must be twenty years at least. A very handsome man. Theatrical. He wore a long scarf, like Doctor Who. I’m sure you could find used copies online, or there’s a second-hand bookstore just round the corner—they might well have something.”

“That’s all right. But thank you for checking.”

He paid for the map and went back out onto the sidewalk. It was getting on to noon. He wandered the streets for several minutes looking for a place to eat, settled on a small, airy Italian restaurant where he had grilled sardines and spaghetti and a glass of wine. Not very Cornish, perhaps, but he promised himself to check on the pub in Zennor later.

The Ordnance map was too large and unwieldy to open at his little table, so he stared out the window, watching tourists and women with small children in tow as they popped in and out of the shops across the street. The rainbow-hatted boy and his cronies loped by, skateboards in hand. Dropouts or burnouts, Jeffrey thought; the local constabulary must spend half its time chasing them from place to place. He finished his wine and ordered a cup of coffee, gulped it down, paid the check, and left.

A few high white clouds scudded high overhead, borne on a steady wind that sent up flurries of grit and petals blown from ornamental cherry trees. Here in the heart of Penzance, the midday sun was almost hot: Jeffrey hooked his coat over his shoulder and ambled back to his car. He paused to glance at postcards and souvenirs in a shop window, but could think of no one to send a card to. Evelyn? She’d rather have something from Zennor, another reason to visit the pub.

He turned the corner, had almost reached the tattoo parlour when a plaintive cry rang out.

“Have you seen him?”

Jeffrey halted. In the same alley where he’d glimpsed the boys earlier, a forlorn figure sat on the broken asphalt, twitchy fingers toying with an unlit cigarette. Erthy, the thirtyish woman who’d been at the station the day before. As Jeffrey hesitated she lifted her head, swiped a fringe of dirty hair from her eyes and stumbled to her feet. His heart sank as she hurried toward him, but before he could flee she was already in his face, her breath warm and beery. “Gotta light?”

“No, sorry,” he said, and began to step away.

“Wait—you’re London, right?”

“No, I’m just visiting.”

“No—I saw you.”

He paused, thrown off-balance by a ridiculous jolt of unease. Her eyes were bloodshot, the irises a peculiar marbled blue like flawed bottle-glass, and there was a vivid crimson splotch in one eye, as though a capillary had burst. It made it seem as though she looked at him sideways, even though she was staring at him straight on.

“You’re on the London train!” She nodded in excitement. “I need to get back.”

“I’m sorry.” He spun and walked off as quickly as he could without breaking into a run. Behind him he heard footsteps, and again the same wrenching cry.

“Have you seen him?”

He did run then, as the woman screamed expletives and a shower of gravel pelted his back.

He reached his rental car, his heart pounding. He looked over his shoulder, jumped inside and locked the doors before pulling out into the street. As he drove off, he caught a flash in the rear-view mirror of the woman sidling in the other direction, unlit cigarette still twitching between her fingers.

When he arrived back at the cottage, he found Thomsa and Harry sitting at the kitchen table, surrounded by the remains of lunch, sandwich crusts and apple cores.

“Oh, hello.” Thomsa looked up, smiling, and patted the chair beside her. “Did you go to The Tinners for lunch?”

“Penzance.” Jeffrey sat and dropped his map onto the table. “I think I’ll head out again, then maybe have dinner at the pub.”

“He wants to see the fogou,” said Thomsa. “He went earlier but couldn’t find it. There is a fogou, isn’t there, Harry? Out by Zennor Hill?”

Jeffrey hesitated, then said, “A friend of mine told me about it—she and my wife saw it when they were girls.”

“Yes,” said Harry after a moment. “Where the children’s writer lived. Some sort of ruins there, anyway.”

Jeffrey kept his tone casual. “A writer?”

“I believe so,” said Thomsa. “We didn’t know him. Someone who stayed here once went looking for him, but he wasn’t home—this was years ago. The old Golovenna Farm.”

Jeffrey pointed to the seemingly random network of lines that covered the map, like crazing on a piece of old pottery. “What’s all this mean?”

Harry pulled his chair closer and traced the boundaries of Cardu with a dirt-stained finger. “Those are the field systems—the stone walls.”

“You’re kidding.” Jeffrey laughed. “That must’ve driven someone nuts, getting all that down.”

“Oh, it’s all GPS and satellite photos now,” said Thomsa. “I’m sorry I didn’t have this map earlier, before you went for your walk.”

“It’ll be on this survey.” Harry angled the map so the sunlight illuminated the area surrounding Cardu. “This is our cove, here…”

They pored over the ordnance survey. Jeffrey pointed at markers for hut circles and cairns, standing stones and tumuli, all within a hand’s-span of Cardu, as Harry continued to shake his head.

“It’s this one, I think,” Harry said at last, and glanced at his sister. He scored a square half-inch of the page with a blackened fingernail, minute Gothic letters trapped within the web of field systems.

CHAMBERED CAIRN

“That looks right,” said Thomsa. “But it’s a ways off the road. I’m not certain where the house is—the woman who went looking for it said she roamed the moor for hours before she came on it.”

Jeffrey ran his finger along the line marking the main road. “It looks like I can drive to here. If there’s a place to park, I can just hike in. It doesn’t look that far. As long as I don’t get towed.”

“You shouldn’t get towed,” said Thomsa. “All that land’s part of Golovenna, and no one’s there. He never farmed it, just let it all go back to the moor. You’d only be a mile or so from Zennor if you left your car. They have musicians on Thursday nights, some of the locals come in and play after dinner.”

Jeffrey refolded the map. When he looked up, Harry was gone. Thomsa handed him an apple.

“Watch for the bogs,” she said. “Marsh grass, it looks sturdy but when you put your foot down it gives way and you can sink under. Like quicksand. They found a girl’s body ten years back. Horses and sheep, too.” Jeffrey grimaced and she laughed. “You’ll be all right—just stay on the footpaths.”

He thanked her, went upstairs to exchange his overcoat for a windbreaker, and returned to his car. The clouds were gone: the sun shone high in a sky the summer blue of gentians. He felt the same surge of exultation he’d experienced that morning, the sea-fresh wind tangling the stems of daffodils and iris, white gulls crying overhead. He kept the window down as he drove up the twisting way to Cardu, and the honeyed scent of gorse filled the car.

The road to Zennor coiled between hedgerows misted green with new growth and emerald fields where brown-and-white cattle grazed. In the distance a single tractor moved so slowly across a black furrow that Jeffrey could track its progress only by the skein of crows that followed it, the birds dipping then rising like a black thread drawn through blue cloth.

Twice he pulled over to consult the map. His phone didn’t work here—he couldn’t even get the time, let alone directions. The car’s clock read 14:21. He saw no other roads, only deeply rutted tracks protected by stiles, some metal, most of weathered wood. He tried counting stone walls to determine which marked the fields Harry had said belonged to Golovenna Farm, and stopped a third time before deciding the map was all but useless. He drove another hundred feet, until he found a swathe of gravel between two tumbledown stone walls, a rusted gate sagging between them. Beyond it stretched an overgrown field bisected by a stone-strewn path.

He was less than a mile from Zennor. He folded the map and jammed it into his windbreaker pocket along with the apple, and stepped out of the car.

The dark height before him would be Zennor Hill. Golovenna Farm was somewhere between there and where he stood. He turned slowly, scanning everything around him to fix it in his memory: the winding road, intermittently visible between walls and hedgerows; the ridge of cliffs falling down to the sea, book-ended by the dark bulk of Gurnards Head in the southwest and Zennor Head to the northeast. On the horizon were scattered outcroppings that might have been tors or ruins or even buildings. He locked the car, checked that he had his phone, climbed over the metal gate and began to walk.

The afternoon sun beat down fiercely. He wished he’d brought a hat, or sunglasses. He crossed the first field in a few minutes, and was relieved to find a break in the next wall, an opening formed by a pair of tall, broad stones. The path narrowed here, but was still clearly discernible where it bore straight in front of him, an arrow of new green grass flashing through ankle-high turf overgrown with daisies and fronds of young bracken.

The ground felt springy beneath his feet. He remembered Thomsa’s warning about the bogs, and glanced around for something he might use as a walking stick. There were no trees in sight, only wicked-looking thickets of blackthorn clustered along the perimeter of the field.

He found another gap in the next wall, guarded like the first by two broad stones nearly as tall as he was. He clambered onto the wall, fighting to open his map in the brisk wind, and examined the survey, trying to find some affinity between the fields around him and the crazed pattern on the page. At last he shoved the map back into his pocket, set his back to the wind and shaded his eyes with his hand.

It was hard to see—he was staring due west, into the sun—but he thought he glimpsed a black bulge some three or four fields off, a dark blister within the haze of green and yellow. It might be a ruin, or just as likely a farm or outbuildings. He clambered down into the next field, crushing dead bracken and shoots of heather; picked his way through a breach where stones had fallen and hurried until he reached yet another wall.

There were the remnants of a gate here, a rusted latch and iron pins protruding from the granite. Jeffrey crouched beside the wall to catch his breath. After a few minutes he scrambled to his feet and walked through the gap, letting one hand rest for an instant upon the stone. Despite the hot afternoon sun it felt cold beneath his palm, more like metal than granite. He glanced aside to make sure he hadn’t touched a bit of rusted hardware, but saw only a boulder seamed with moss.

The fields he’d already passed through had seemed rank and overgrown, as though claimed by the wilderness decades ago. Yet there was no mistaking what stretched before him as anything but open moor. Clumps of gorse sprang everywhere, starbursts of yellow blossom shadowing pale-green ferns and tufts of dogtooth violets. He walked cautiously—he couldn’t see the earth underfoot for all the new growth—but the ground felt solid beneath mats of dead bracken that gave off a spicy October scent. He was so intent on watching his step that he nearly walked into a standing stone.

He sucked his breath in sharply and stumbled backward. For a fraction of a second he’d perceived a figure there, but it was only a stone, twice his height and leaning at a forty-five degree angle, so that it pointed toward the sea. He circled it, then ran his hand across its granite flank, sun-warmed and furred with lichen and dried moss. He kicked at the thatch of ferns and ivy that surrounded its base, stooped and dug his hand through the vegetation, until his fingers dug into raw earth.

He withdrew his hand and backed away, staring at the ancient monument, at once minatory and banal. He could recall no indication of a standing stone between Cardu and Zennor, and when he checked the map he saw nothing there.

But something else loomed up from the moor a short distance away—a house. He headed toward it, slowing his steps in case someone saw him, so that they might have time to come outside.

No one appeared. After five minutes he stood in a rutted drive beside a long, one-storey building of grey stone similar to those he’d passed on the main road; slate-roofed, with deep small windows and a wizened tree beside the door, its branches rattling in the wind. A worn hand-lettered sign hung beneath the low eaves: GOLOVENNA FARM.

Jeffrey looked around. He saw no car, only a large plastic trash bin that had blown over. He rapped at the door, waited then knocked again, calling out a greeting. When no one answered he tried the knob, but the door was locked.

He stepped away to peer in through the window. There were no curtains. Inside looked dark and empty, no furniture or signs that someone lived here, or indeed if anyone had for years. He walked round the house, stopping to look inside each window and half-heartedly trying to open them, without success. When he’d completed this circuit, he wandered over to the trash bin and looked inside. It too was empty.

He righted it, then stood and surveyed the land around him. The rutted path joined a narrow, rock-strewn drive that led off into the moor to the west. He saw what looked like another structure not far from where the two tracks joined, a collapsed building of some sort.

He headed towards it. A flock of little birds flittered from a gorse bush, making a sweet high-pitched song as they soared past him, close enough that he could see their rosy breasts and hear their wings beat against the wind. They settled on the ruined building, twittering companionably as he approached, then took flight once more.

It wasn’t a building but a mound. Roughly rectangular but with rounded corners, maybe twenty feet long and half again as wide; as tall as he was, and so overgrown with ferns and blackthorn that he might have mistaken it for a hillock. He kicked through brambles and clinging thorns until he reached one end, where the mound’s curve had been sheared off.

Erosion, he thought at first; then realised that he was gazing into an entryway. He glanced behind him before drawing closer, until he stood knee-deep in dried bracken and whip-like blackthorn.

In front of him was a simple doorway of upright stones, man-high, with a larger stone laid across the tops to form a lintel. Three more stones were set into the ground as steps, descending to a passage choked with young ferns and ivy mottled black and green as malachite.

Jeffrey ducked his head beneath the lintel and peered down into the tunnel. He could see nothing but vague outlines of more stones and straggling vines. He reached to thump the ceiling to see if anything moved.

Nothing did. He checked his phone—still no signal—turned to stare up into the sky. He’d left the car around 2:30, and he couldn’t have been walking for more than an hour. Say it was four o’clock, to be safe. He still had a good hour and a half to get back to the road before dark.

He took out the apple Thomsa had given him and ate it, dropped the core beside the top step; zipped his windbreaker and descended into the passage.

He couldn’t see how long it was, but he counted thirty paces, pausing every few steps to look back at the entrance, before the light faded enough that he needed to use his cell phone for illumination. The walls glittered faintly where broken crystals were embedded in the granite, and there was a moist, earthy smell, like a damp cellar. He could stand upright with his arms outstretched, his fingertips grazing the walls to either side. The vegetation disappeared after the first ten paces, except for moss, and after a few more steps there was nothing beneath his feet but bare earth. The walls were of stone, dirt packed between them and hardened by the centuries so that it was almost indistinguishable from the granite.

He kept going, glancing back as the entryway diminished to a bright mouth, then a glowing eye, and finally a hole no larger than that left by a finger thrust through a piece of black cloth.

A few steps more and even that was gone. He stopped, his breath coming faster, then walked another five paces, the glow from his cell phone a blue moth flickering in his hand. Once again he stopped to look back.

He could see nothing behind him. He shut off the cell phone’s light, experimentally moved his hand swiftly up and down before his face; closed his eyes then opened them. There was no difference.

His mouth went dry. He turned his phone on, took a few more steps deeper into the passage before halting again. The phone’s periwinkle glow was insubstantial as a breath of vapour: he could see neither the ground beneath him nor the walls to either side. He raised his arms and extended them, expecting to feel cold stone beneath his fingertips.

The walls were gone. He stepped backward, counting five paces, and again extended his arms. Still nothing. He dropped his hands and began to walk forward, counting each step—five, six, seven, ten, thirteen—stopped and slowly turned in a circle, holding the phone at arm’s-length as he strove to discern some feature in the encroaching darkness. The pallid blue gleam flared then went out.

He swore furiously, fighting panic. He turned the phone on and off, to no avail; finally shoved it into his pocket and stood, trying to calm himself.

It was impossible that he could be lost. The mound above him wasn’t that large, and even if the fogou’s passage continued for some distance underground, he would eventually reach the end, at which point he could turn around and painstakingly wend his way back out again. He tried to recall something he’d read once, about navigating the maze at Hampton Court—always keep your hand on the left-hand side of the hedge. All he had to do was locate a wall, and walk back into daylight.

He was fairly certain that he was still facing the same way as when he had first entered. He turned, so that he was now facing where the doorway should be, and walked, counting aloud as he did. When he reached one hundred he stopped.

There was no way he had walked more than a hundred paces into the tunnel. Somehow, he had gotten turned around. He wiped his face, slick and chill with sweat, and breathed deeply, trying to slow his racing heart. He heard nothing, saw nothing save that impenetrable darkness. Everything he had ever read about getting lost advised staying put and waiting for help; but that involved being lost above ground, where someone would eventually find you. At some point Thomsa and Harry would notice he hadn’t returned, but that might not be till morning.

And who knew how long it might be before they located him? The thought of spending another twelve hours or more here, motionless, unable to see or hear, or touch anything save the ground beneath his feet, filled Jeffrey with such overwhelming horror that he felt dizzy.

And that was worst of all: if he fell, would he even touch the ground? He crouched, felt an absurd wash of relief as he pressed his palms against the floor. He straightened, took another deep breath and began to walk.

He tried counting his steps, as a means to keep track of time, but before long a preternatural stillness came over him, a sense that he was no longer awake but dreaming. He pinched the back of his hand, hard enough that he gasped. Yet still the feeling remained, that he’d somehow fallen into a recurring dream, the horror deadened somewhat by a strange familiarity. As though he’d stepped into an icy pool, he stopped, shivering, and realised the source of his apprehension.

It had been in the last chapter of Robert Bennington’s book, Still the Seasons; the chapter that he’d never been able to recall clearly. Even now it was like remembering something that had happened to him, not something he’d read: the last of the novel’s four children passing through a portal between one world and another, surrounded by utter darkness and the growing realisation that with each step the world around her was disintegrating and that she herself was disintegrating as well, until the book ended with her isolated consciousness fragmented into incalculable motes within an endless, starless void.

The terror of that memory jarred him. He jammed his hands into his pockets and felt his cell phone and the map, his car keys, some change. He walked more quickly, gazing straight ahead, focused on finding the spark within the passage that would resolve into the entrance.

After some time his heart jumped—it was there, so small he might have imagined it, a wink of light faint as a clouded star.

But when he ran a few paces he realised it was his mind playing tricks on him. A phantom light floated in the air, like the luminous blobs behind one’s knuckled eyelids. He blinked and rubbed his eyes: the light remained.

“Hello?” he called, hesitating. There was no reply.

He started to walk, but slowly, calling out several times into the silence. The light gradually grew brighter. A few more minutes and a second light appeared, and then a third. They cast no glow upon the tunnel, nor shadows: he could see neither walls nor ceiling, nor any sign of those who carried the lights. All three seemed suspended in the air, perhaps ten feet above the floor, and all bobbed slowly up and down, as though each was borne upon a pole.

Jeffrey froze. The lights were closer now, perhaps thirty feet from where he stood.

“Who is it?” he whispered.

He heard the slightest of sounds, a susurrus as of escaping air. With a cry he turned and fled, his footsteps echoing through the passage. He heard no sounds of pursuit, but when he looked back, the lights were still there, moving slowly toward him. With a gasp he ran harder, his chest aching, until one foot skidded on something and he fell. As he scrambled back up, his hand touched a flat smooth object; he grabbed it and without thinking jammed it into his pocket, and raced on down the tunnel.

And now, impossibly, in the vast darkness before him he saw a jot of light that might have been reflected from a spider’s eye. He kept going. Whenever he glanced back, he saw the trio of lights behind him.

They seemed to be more distant now. And there was no doubt that the light in front of him spilled from the fogou’s entrance—he could see the outlines of the doorway, and the dim glister of quartz and mica in the walls to either side. With a gasp he reached the steps, stumbled up them and back out into the blinding light of afternoon. He stopped, coughing and covering his eyes until he could see, then staggered back across first one field and then the next, hoisting himself over rocks heedless of blackthorns tearing his palms and clothing, until at last he reached the final overgrown tract of heather and bracken, and saw the white roof of his rental car shining in the sun.

He ran up to it, jammed the key into the lock and with a gasp fell into the driver’s seat. He locked the doors, flinching as another car drove past, and finally looked out the window.

To one side was the gate he’d scaled, with field after field beyond; to the other side the silhouettes of Gurnard’s Head and its sister promontory. Beyond the fields, the sun hung well above the lowering mass of Zennor Hill. The car’s clock read 15:23.

He shook his head in disbelief: it was impossible he’d been gone for scarcely an hour. He reached for his cell phone and felt something in the pocket beside it—the object he’d skidded on inside the fogou.

He pulled it out. A blue metal disc, slightly flattened where he’d stepped on it, with gold-stamped words above a beacon.

ST. AUSTELL SWEETS: FUDGE FROM REAL CORNISH CREAM

He turned it over in his hands and ran a finger across the raised lettering.

Becca gave one to each of us the day we arrived. The fudge was supposed to last the entire two weeks, and I think we ate it all that first night.

The same kind of candy tin where Evelyn had kept her comb and Anthea her locket and chain. He stared at it, the tin bright and enamel glossy-blue as though it had been painted yesterday. Anyone could have a candy tin, especially one from a local company that catered to tourists.

After a minute he set it down, took out his wallet and removed the photo Evelyn had given him: Evelyn and Moira doubled-up with laughter as Anthea stared at them, slightly puzzled, a half-smile on her face as though trying to determine if they were laughing at her.

He gazed at the photo for a long time, returned it to his wallet, then slid the candy lid back into his pocket. He still had no service on his phone.

He drove very slowly back to Cardu, nauseated from sunstroke and his terror at being underground. He knew he’d never been seriously lost—a backwards glance as he fled the mound reassured him that it hadn’t been large enough for that.

Yet he was profoundly unnerved by his reaction to the darkness, the way his sight had betrayed him and his imagination reflexively dredged up the images from Evelyn’s story. He was purged of any desire to remain another night at the cottage, or even in England, and considered checking to see if there was an evening train back to London.

But by the time he edged the car down the long drive to the cottage, his disquiet had ebbed somewhat. Thomsa and Harry’s car was gone. A stretch of wall had been newly repaired, and many more daffodils and narcissus had opened, their sweet fragrance following him as he trudged to the front door.

Inside he found a plate with a loaf of freshly baked bread and some local blue cheese, beside it several pamphlets with a yellow Sticky note.

He glanced at the pamphlets—another map, a flyer about a music night at the pub in Zennor, a small paperback with a green cover—crossed to the refrigerator and foraged until he found two bottles of ale. Probably not proper B&B etiquette, but he’d apologise in the morning.

He grabbed the plate and book and went upstairs to his room. He kicked off his shoes, groaning with exhaustion, removed his torn windbreaker and regarded himself in the mirror, his face scratched and flecked with bits of greenery.

“What a mess,” he murmured, and collapsed onto the bed.

He downed one of the bottles of ale and most of the bread and cheese. Outside, light leaked from a sky deepening to ultramarine. He heard the boom and sigh of waves, and for a long while he reclined in the window seat and stared out at the cliffs, watching as shadows slipped down them like black paint. At last he stood and got some clean clothes from his bag. He hooked a finger around the remaining bottle of ale, picked up the book Thomsa had left for him, and retired to the bathroom.

The immense tub took ages to fill, but there seemed to be unlimited hot water. He put all the lights on and undressed, sank into the tub and gave himself over to the mindless luxury of hot water and steam and the scent of daffodils on the windowsill.

Finally he turned the water off. He reached for the bottle he’d set on the floor and opened it, dried his hands and picked up the book. A worn paperback, its creased cover showing a sweep of green hills topped by a massive tor, with a glimpse of sea in the distance.

Jeffrey whistled softly, took a long swallow of ale and opened the book. It was not a novel but a collection of stories, published in 1970—Cornish folktales, according to a brief preface, ‘told anew for today’s generation’. He scanned the table of contents—’Pisky-Led’, ‘Tregeagle and the Devil’, ‘Jack the Giant Killer’—then sat up quickly in the tub, spilling water as he gazed at a title underlined with red ink: ‘Cherry of Zennor’. He flipped through the pages until he found it.

There were no echoes here of The Sun Battles, no vertiginous terrors of darkness and the abyss; just a folk tale that reminded Jeffrey a bit of ‘Rip Van Winkle’, with Cherry caring for the young son and, as the weeks passed, falling in love with the mysterious man.

Each day she put ointment on the boy’s eyes, warned by his father never to let a drop fall upon her own. Until of course one day she couldn’t resist doing so, and saw an entire host of gorgeously dressed men and women moving through the house around her, including her mysterious employer and a beautiful woman who was obviously his wife. Betrayed and terrified, Cherry fled; her lover caught up with her on the moor and pressed some coins into her hand.

Jeffrey closed the book and dropped it on the floor beside the tub. When he at last headed back down the corridor, he heard voices from the kitchen, and Thomsa’s voice raised in laughter. He didn’t go downstairs; only returned to his room and locked the door behind him.

He left early the next morning, after sharing breakfast with Thomsa at the kitchen table.

“Harry’s had to go to St. Ives to pick up some tools he had repaired.” She poured Jeffrey more coffee and pushed the cream across the table toward him. “Did you have a nice ramble yesterday and go to the Tinners?”

Jeffrey smiled but said nothing. He was halfway up the winding driveway back to Cardu before he realised he’d forgotten to mention the two bottles of ale.

He returned the rental car then got a ride to the station from Evan, the same man who’d picked him up two days earlier.

“Have a good time in Zennor?”

“Very nice,” said Jeffrey.

“Quiet this time of year.” Evan pulled the car to the curb. “Looks like your train’s here already.”

Jeffrey got out, slung his bag over his shoulder and started for the station entrance. His heart sank when he saw two figures arguing on the sidewalk a few yards away, one a policeman.

“Come on now, Erthy,” he said, glancing as Jeffrey drew closer. “You know better than this.”

“Fuck you!” she shouted, and kicked at him. “Not my fucking name!”

“That’s it.”

The policeman grabbed her wrist and bent his head to speak into a walkie-talkie. Jeffrey began to hurry past. The woman screamed after him, shaking her clenched fist. Her eye with its bloody starburst glowed crimson in the morning sun.

“London!” Her voice rose desperately as she fought to pull away from the cop. “London, please, take me—”

Jeffrey shook his head. As he did, the woman raised her fist and flung something at him. He gasped as it stung his cheek, clapping a hand to his face as the policeman shouted and began to drag the woman away from the station.

“London! London!”

As her shrieks echoed across the plaza, Jeffrey stared at a speck of blood on his finger. Then he stooped to pick up what she’d thrown at him: a yellow pencil worn with toothmarks, its graphite tip blunted but the tiny, embossed black letters still clearly readable above the ferrule.