The Bone Clocks

We shook hands. Naturally, my last question was, “When do I post the box to ‘Marinus’ in Manhattan?” Esther Little took a small porcelain statue of Sibelius from a box, put it on a high bookshelf, and said this: On the day Sibelius was smashed into many pieces, that day I must post the box. I thought I had not understood her English, so I examined her request carefully. If the statue broke next week, I must post the box next week. If it broke in year 2000, I must post the box in year 2000. If I die before the statue breaks, then I never post the box. Yes, that was the deal, said Esther Little. “Like I said, I am eccentric,” she said. We said goodbye and, to be honest, when she was gone I wondered if I dreamed her. But next day, the lawyer telephoned from Oslo for our bank account number, and every krone Esther Little promised was transferred. Шvre Fjellberg was safed. Three or four years later, the government ideas changed greatly and big investment was made for our school, but there is no doubt, Mrs. Esther Little rescued us at our worst time. In 2004, I became principal, and I retired a few years ago but I am still a governor, and even today, I use my former office as a study. All those years, Jean Sibelius watched my office, like a man who knows the secret.

You can guess the ending, I think. Yesterday was the first mild day of spring. Like most people in Norway, I opened the window for make air fresh in my office. Students was playing on tennis courts below my window. I left my study to make my morning coffee. I heard a noise. When I returned, Jean Sibelius was on the floor. His chest and head was in many little pieces. There was a tennis ball near. The chance was 10,000 of 1, but the time came. So I am sending the box, as I promised, with this strange story. I hope the message on the cassette is clear after forty years, but I never listened it. If Mrs. Little is still walking this world (if so, surely she is over 100 years old), give her thanks and regards from an honest man in a quiet corner of the world who has lived a long time indeed.

Sincerely,

Еge Nжss-Шdegеrd

My heart is sprinting with no sign of a finishing line. A hoax? I get my slate and shirabu “Шvre Fjellberg Skole for Dшve”: There it is. A fake website? Possibly, but the Sibelius statue and the Norwegian backwater both smack strongly of Esther Little. If she was planting this marker in June of 1984, she was reacting to glimpses of the Script. If the First Mission was Scripted, then maybe, maybe, it was not the crippling defeat that we’ve believed it was for the last forty-one years. Yet how could the deaths of Xi Lo, Holokai, and Esther Little be part of a bigger scheme? Luckily I have some AA batteries in my desk drawer—they are also nearly extinct—and slot them into the Walkman. Will they still have any juice in them? I plug in the earphones, hesitate, and press play. The spindles rotate. There are a few seconds of silent “header,” then magnetic hiss, then a clunk where the recording begins. I hear a distant motorbike, and a familiar voice whose timbre and croak make my breath catch and my heart ache for my long-lost friend.

“Marinus, it’s Esther on … June 7, 1984. Before we all assemble in Gravesend, I’ve taken a little trip to Trondheim. Nice town. Not a lot going on. Very white—a taxi driver just asked what part of Africa I’m from.” I hear her cackle slightly as she lights a cigarette. “But listen, I got glimpses of the Script, Marinus, about the First Mission. Sketchy and vague, to be sure, but I see fire … flight … and death. Death in the Dusk, and death in a sunny room. If the Script is accurate, I’ll survive, in a manner of speaking, but I’ll need a bolt-hole. I’ll need asylum. It has to be hidden and locked, so when the Anchorites come looking for me, as Constantin will, they’ll miss it. This means I’ll need you to get me out again. I’ll have to get the key to you.” I hear a vitreous rumbling noise, and guess that Esther moved an ashtray across a table. “The Script showed me tombs among the trees, and this name: ‘Blithewood.’ Find it and go there, as soon as you can. You’ll meet someone you know. That person gave me asylum. There are many locks, but already I sent you a sign to tell you which lock the key’ll fit. Find that lock, Marinus. Open it. Bring me back from the dead.” I hear the muffled chimes of an ice-cream van in that Norwegian summer. “Your hearing this cassette is a trigger. An enemy will make a proposal, very soon. Hide this sign. Hide this box. He’s very close to you already. The Script doesn’t say if you can trust him or not. His proposal’ll be the seed of the Second Mission. Things’ll move quickly now. In seven days the War will be over, one way or the other. If all goes well, we’ll meet before then. Until then, then.” Clunk.