Chapter 5

At the edge of the forest a knotted assembly of the Gorgonian trees Bel had seen that first day thrust up out of the earth to interlock knotted limbs and overspread the ground in a laden louring hood. Contorted tendrils like arthritic witches’ fingers hung in screens between muscular branches and the darkened earth. Gnarled, entangled, covert-rooted, the coven of trees bore a bitter fruit of menace.

“Do you know what those are?” Bel asked Izzie.

“Banyans. Impressive, eh?”

“They are dreadful.”

“Look,” Halcrow said.

A human silhouette was emerging from the trees. A mantle of shadow fell back as it entered the sun, and the shape filled out into a tall elegant woman with sleek black hair flowing below the shoulders of a cayenne-coloured gown. The three stopped as if spellbound. Then Halcrow’s brow butted out of it and they advanced. Proximity revealed a face of severe beauty.

She gave a careful smile as they halted before her and greeted them with cool formality in obscurely accented English. Her words melted as they reached Izzie’s ears like snowflakes on warm flesh so that she heard the words without their leaving an impression. What did gain lodgement was a sense of an observant detachedness behind the words. Izzie felt that whatever this woman said or did was a mask.

“You live here?” Halcrow said.

“Yes. My name is Ursula.”

They introduced themselves.

Halcrow studied her. “Are you human?”

Bel thought the question foolish until he realised that if Ursula ever appeared in 1863 she would invite scrutiny. As she turned to each person her face had a mutable quality that confounded certainty as it absorbed or deflected the light. Facing Bel, she appeared beautiful and young, but then a turn of her head mutated symmetry to discord and stripped off grace like an image off a turning mirror to unveil something almost anthropoid. Then ugliness masked her until another turn of the head transfigured her aspect like sun obliterating shadow in treacherous weather.

“What else?” she answered Halcrow. She smiled at them. “Follow me.” She turned away to precede them into the wood with a lithe long stride.

Bel didn’t like her evasiveness and presumption of obedience. But Halcrow and Izzie departed in her train and reluctantly he trailed after. Skirting the banyans, they entered the forest. It was sun-splattered and resonant with elevated birdsong and volleys of screeches . . .

“Chimpanzees,” Halcrow said.

“Where?” Izzie’s head darted.

. . . but to Bel it felt dark. He smelt something decaying under deadfall, the stench wreathing them as they passed and clinging as they departed. While the others took a straight line he weaved to keep an interval between himself and bushes large enough to hide attackers.

“Is she an android?” Izzie murmured to Halcrow.

“She’s stunning,” Halcrow said.

Bel thought of a wicked witch in a wood.

A building came into view, humped in a glade lit by grey light and walled by shadows. Single-storeyed with a pitched roof clad in leaves, the building appeared made of wood but showed no sign of planks or panelling. The roof proved on approach to be a taut entanglement of leafy branches constricted to the pitch like a layer of gnarled foliated tiles. The building exuded something that crept coldly over Bel’s flesh. He thought of trolls.

“Is this made of wood?” Izzie asked.

“It’s a tree.” Ursula turned to face them at the open door. “The genome was manipulated so it grew to form the outer walls and roof of a building.” She gestured. “Please — enter.”

Squaring her shoulders, Izzie passed within. Halcrow followed, forehead thrusting. Bel paused. Ursula waited by the door with an air of impatience. She didn’t initiate eye contact with him as she had with Izzie and Halcrow, and Bel knew that she didn’t want him. This emboldened him and he shot her a direct look, harrying and pinning down her gaze to a contact of eyes. Her irises were black and deep as bores. Her gaze funnelled into him and gouged out a grave in his heart. He broke the link and walked past, exposing his back to her with reluctance. The entrance didn’t admit the musket held across his body, so he aimed it ahead as he strode into a large room.

He staggered, struck by vertigo. The floor to his left ended a few paces away at the edge of a precipice. Far below lay grassland and forest stretching to the horizon. He saw birds flying beneath him. Impossible. His mind flailed to interpret what his senses reported. No descending slope was evident so it must be a clifftop — but what a cliff: thousands of feet high.

He noticed he was alone. Ursula was ushering Halcrow and Izzie through a doorway across the room. Gingerly Bel approached the edge. He inhaled the coolness of altitude and smelt rain. Suddenly he recognised the landscape: they had crossed it on the way here. If he stepped off the edge he would plummet a mile onto ground he had walked on an hour earlier. A green-scented breeze brushed his face. Was this technology?

Bel swung away to find himself in a large drawing room. Couches, armchairs and tables stood in sociable groups attended by sideboards and bookcases. The gentlemen’s club ambience was disconcerting, but the solidness of the timber floor and furniture steadied him, as did the rugs and upholstery embroidered in geometric patterns that recalled Iroquois art. A rank of metal-framed paintings depicted the semblances of people and landscapes but the images were dislocated and misshapen, a shatter-pattern of slashed jagged edges.

For the first time noticing a hubbub, he crossed to the interior doorway and saw what looked like a social function in a community hall. People stood in conversation around rows of chairs facing a stage. His view across the room was filtered in places by objects seemingly made of coloured light that hung unsupported head high. They weren’t spectral like the arch but neither did they resemble lamplight, being hard-edged and three-dimensional. Spheres of winking colours hovered next to pictures thrust out of air. Passing through them, people’s bodies turned kaleidoscopic and were filtered of their constituent colours once beyond. Halcrow stood amid an array of these festive mysteries, shuffling them with his hands.

Izzie stood between Bel and the gathering, conversing with several of its members.

People had approached Izzie to say hello as soon as she entered. In introducing themselves several referred to the Dissolution. Seeking acceptance, she didn’t highlight her antiquity by asking about it. They were friendly but their eyes made no impact when they looked at her, as if their thoughts were elsewhere or a filter prevented exchanges of substance. All seemed to be from the twenty-first century, and while most were dressed in fashions unfamiliar to her none wore uniforms or military gear.

A heavyset woman strode up and thrust out her hand.

“Hi. I’m Andrea.” Her accent was American.

Izzie surrendered her hand to a possessive grip and underwent a rigorous shake, her palm twisted up.

Discarding Izzie’s hand, Andrea stood before her like a shut door. “I’m so glad you’ve joined us. But why aren’t you wearing your pask?”

“She’s not from our time,” a man said. “Early century.”

“Nevertheless you must have a pask.”

Izzie was protective of her personal space. Blinking as Andrea’s humid exhalations flustered her eyelashes, her discomfort flicked to rebellion. “Why?”

Andrea looked taken aback. “Well — it’s the rules.”

“What rules?”

“To ensure our safety, of course. And bring us together.”

“I feel safe without one. And people are close enough as it is.”

Ignoring the hint, Andrea remained in halitosis range. “You obviously know nothing about pasks.”

Izzie, who was taller, pointedly looked beyond Andrea over her shoulder.

“What’s the matter with you?” Andrea yanked her face away. “Hello Klaus!” she called to a newcomer and marched off toward him.

A young man introduced himself as Chris. He spoke in a reassuring Australian accent and wore designer gear Izzie recognised from 2024’s upvoted selfies, clubs and cafés. With relief she entered a getting-acquainted tête-à-tête that in tone passed for ordinary, though its content proved outré.

Chris’s last memory from home was of collapsing while playing tennis in 2022. “No idea why, eh. My health was great and I was fit as. But the next thing I know I’m stuck here wearing a hospital gown. Not a cool look.”

“You’re well branded now,” Izzie pointed out.

“Too right. I came across this place only after days of wandering in that bloody gown. So when Ursula showed me a catalogue of clothing images I picked the best. She produced the gear a half-hour later. I’d like to know how that works, but while Ursula’s obliging enough she’s kind of cagey.”

“I’m struck by how everyone here is modern and speaks English. Have you seen some of the people out there?”

“You mean the guys with muskets and shit? Yeah. But people from way back just walk past this place like they don’t see it. As for everyone speaking English; those who don’t when they arrive learn it overnight. She wants us to mingle and connect. That’s what this meeting is about. We get together once a day.”

“So Ursula is running the show?”

“Well, there’s this guy called Dion she refers to a lot. I gather he’s around someplace but I’ve never seen him.”

“Have the meetings explained what brought us here and how we get home?”

For the first time his cockiness slipped. “Not exactly. No. I mean — well, that’s what everyone’s keen on, obviously, but . . .” A vagueness came over him. Izzie thought that he’d lost interest in her but then his eyebrows drew together in concentration. “Like — you know, it needs a group endeavour.” He vented a stiff laugh. “Ursula hasn’t said why.” Then his brow cleared and he said with enthusiasm, “She’s teaching us meditation.”

“Meditation?” Izzie was surprised. Chris didn’t look the type.

“Tell me about it. But she makes it easy. We just get in tune and zone out. There’s no chanting or shit. You wake up feeling awesome. I gather it’s a kind of technology, like learning English in your sleep.” He offered a rather helpless shrug.

Izzie folded her arms. Definitely something gone in this guy. Still, he was tanned, athletic and good looking, and made her shy by his frank appreciation. Maybe it was just her: she wasn’t getting it. Clutching an old insecurity, Izzie turned away to scan the room. A global mix of ethnicities was evident among the forty or so present, and all ages from mid-teens to middle-aged. The proportion of men was lower here than outside, perhaps sixty percent; enough to make her popular but not enough to dominate. People smiled and said hi. Maybe life wouldn’t be so bad here.

“You do need a pask, though,” Chris said, “or you can’t attend the meditations.”

Izzie felt an unflattering scowl stalk across her face. The injustice of exclusion flared up, and a simmer of resentment and self-conscious defiance drove her away from Chris as he greeted someone.

People were taking their places in the rows of seats. These faced a stage occupied by an armchair and low table set between vases of flowers as if a guru were due to hold forth. She saw none of the usual preliminaries of latecomers looking for places and those already seated shifting to make room. It was so coordinated that everyone might have had a designated chair. Chris had taken his place and was chatting with people. Halcrow had vanished in the crowd. Izzie caught glances cast at her over shoulders. She alone was still standing.

Turning away, she saw Bel in the doorway. He looked lost, and incongruous with his musket. She took a step towards him and felt a tug in her chest. An outcast feeling developed as she forged on toward the exit and she realised that she didn’t want to leave these people. They came from home. Bel was . . . she flicked hair off her brow and pressed on. There was a stir of anticipation behind her and her pace faltered as curiosity dragged at her attention.

But Bel needed her. She narrowed her focus to snap the tether.

On first looking into the room Bel had felt a societal warmth that brought comforting memories of the Adelphia Athletic Club at home. But his club had welcomed visitors, even the most unathletic; here he knew himself to be excluded. There was a uniformity about these people that maybe even they weren’t aware of as they looked at each other’s variant features and garb. Their interactions were reminiscent of a country dance that by imposed patterns of movement secured the dancers in exclusiveness. Like a slave observing civilisation he felt a pain in his heart of injustice and betrayal.

The room began to revolve. A balloon seemed to inflate in Bel’s lungs so that they felt distended and empty yet couldn’t take in air. His flesh prickled and crawled with electricity. He felt dizzy and nauseous.

“Bel, are you all right?” Izzie stood before him.

“I must go.”

“Why? What’s wrong?”

“The machines irritate my nerves. And I’m not welcome here.”

“But . . .” The protest died as she studied his eyes. “Where will you go?”

“Back to the arch of light.”

“This place is full of light.” She looked excited and dazed.

“The arch doesn’t attack my senses.”

Bel realised Izzie felt a conflict of loyalties: to himself and to familiar conviviality. He managed a smile. “You should decipher these mysteries; there may be such contrivances here as we can use.”

Abruptly she came close and gave him a hug made awkward by his knapsack and rifle. As he one-handedly returned the embrace he grew aware of a presence and realised Ursula had joined them. Izzie broke away.

The woman studied Bel. He recalled once walking in on a friend engaged in mathematical abstractions who’d looked at him for an instant in just this way: not hostile but unhumanly remote. A notion took him to bridge the gap — not to gain her acknowledgement, but to lodge something in her.

“Do you live here alone?” he asked.

“I have a partner, Dion.”

“Was it he who built the interior joinery?”

“He did the local work, yes. The furnishings were delivered. This is Dion.”

She made a gesture and a picture appeared out of the air of a well-formed handsome man. Bel admired his manliness but his unease turned to anxiety.

“Where is Dion?” he asked.

“He isn’t here.”

More evasiveness. Bel searched her eyes for the source of his disquiet, but felt a spasm of revulsion and looked away before she saw it in his face. Izzie’s gaze flicked anxiously back and forth between them.

To satisfy Ursula he wasn’t an enemy in case dislike of him grew to an enmity that encompassed Izzie, Bel said to Izzie, “There is much to beguile me here but I have a notion to hold vigil by the arch.”

Izzie nodded, looking bereft. “Okay, Bel.”

“I’ll see you later,” he said.

“Please take care.”

Izzie’s words touched Bel less than the tone of her voice, which conveyed a plea to stay, and he was wrung by a feeling of deserting her. But he suspected she would be safer without him. He directed a nod at Ursula, but she had already turned away to take hold of Izzie’s arm. After a last clasp of eyes with Bel Izzie let herself be led away.

Passing through the drawing room and averting his gaze from the gulf off the edge, Bel went outside. A warm misty rain billowed against him. He hastened through the forest and broke out onto the veldt. The afternoon air was flushed by the scent of dry grass turned damp. He set off marching.

Twice during his return to the arch he saw people. Once a man and woman appeared in the distance. They were small and dark-featured and wore brightly coloured pantaloons and jackets. He didn’t attract their attention.

Later he topped a low ridge to see three people walking away down a swale below him. One was a Confederate officer. Another was a soldier who wore a bowl-shaped metal helmet and green uniform and was burdened by equipment, including a rifle with an attachment before the trigger guard that reminded Bel of the cartridge chamber in a Spencer repeating rifle. The soldiers accompanied a woman wearing a short dress that exposed her ankles, her face hidden by a hat with a low floppy brim. Bel had talked with Rebel prisoners and found them congenial. This one was chatting amiably with his companions and Bel would have liked to join them. But they were walking away from the arch and his best chance of seeing Izzie again. He carried on.

By the time he reached the arch the rain had grown heavy and he made camp under nearby trees. After a meal he took out his Bible. He hadn’t opened it since meeting Izzie, and felt guilty. But then he hadn’t believed he was dead since meeting her either. He read at random and felt relief as a lingering anxiety eased. He suspected he had been relieved more by the domestic associations of holding the book than the content he couldn’t take in.

The rain petered out as evening deepened. He put the Bible away and went over to the arch. Now that he had the knack he could observe it at length. He saw no sign of the activity around it that Izzie spoke of, but had a sense of . . . presences, enclosing it that was reminiscent of playing blind man’s bluff and feeling the nearness of obstructions before striking them. Standing before the arch, he felt a soft brushing as of air displaced by bodies passing nearby, but the touches were inside him not on his skin. A sharp downward pressure began on his crown.

The arch conveyed the sense of mystical occupancy that he felt sometimes in church during service, or more often, when in church alone. He remembered discussing it with Emmeline and was tugged by nostalgia.

Suddenly a scene condensed in his mind so vivid it seemed more than reminiscence. He was in the parlour at home. Ma was reading Emerson’s Essays in the rocking chair by the front window. The sash was raised and the embroidered silk curtains billowed in around the Meissen vase Opa had brought from Germany. Pa was chopping wood out back and thunks sounded as he stacked the pile. A clatter and shriek erupted in the kitchen as Emmeline’s quick reflexes averted a culinary disaster caused by absented thought. Outside a dog barked, there was a clip-clop of hooves, and the “Knives, razors, scissors; blunt, sharpened, sharpest!” of old Seth Adam on his round.

Maybe his eyes had closed at some point, he wasn’t sure, but suddenly he was looking at a field, a line of trees, and it was home. Not his house, but nearby. He knew the field; the Baldwins owned it and he and his pals had played baseball here. A breeze touched his face, scented by a New York spring . . .

Bel found himself on an alien world facing a ghostly arch.

Had he been dreaming? No, the field had been there. He was certain. Had he but taken a step he would have walked onto it. Only his disbelieving astonishment had yanked him away.

But as the moments passed and the spell cast by the vision evaporated, the memory of it faded until it seemed to recall only a dream. It was impossible. A madness of longing had captured his senses.

Bel returned in turmoil to his camp. Billows of hope struck an embankment of reason; were rebuffed only to regather and surge once more. A wave spilled over the embankment and swelled his heart. Maybe the arch would take him home.

It took him hours to fall asleep that night.