Weaveworld

5

Autumn suits England; and that autumn, preceding as it would the worst winter since the late forties, came in glory. The winds were high, bringing passages of warm rain interspersed with stabs of liquid brightness. The city found a lost glamour. Clouds the colour of slate piled up behind its sunstruck houses; the wind brought the smell of the sea; brought gulls too, on its back, dipping and weaving over the roofs.

That month Cal felt his spirits rise again – seeing the Kingdom of the Cuckoo shine, while above it the skies seemed charged with secret signs. He began to see faces in the shreds of clouds; heard codes tapped out by rain-drops on the sill. Something was surely imminent.

He remembered Gluck too, that month. Anthony Virgil Gluck, collector of anomalous phenomena. He even thought of contacting the man again, and went so far as to dig Gluck’s card out from the pocket of his old trousers. He didn’t make the call however, perhaps because he knew he was ripe to believe any pretty superstition if it promised miracles, and that wouldn’t be wise.

Instead he kept his eye on the sky, day and night. He even bought himself a small telescope, and began to teach himself the whereabouts of the constellations. He found the process reassuring. It was good to look up during the day and know that the stars were still above his head, even though he couldn’t see them. It was doubtless the same for countless other mysteries. That they shone, but the world shone more brightly, and blinded him to them.

And then, in the middle of October (the eighteenth, in fact; or rather, the early morning of the nineteenth) he had the first of the nightmares.