The Bone Clocks

The hens peck, cluck, and goggle around their coop, and the brittle, muddy garden swishes in the evening wind. “Magno,”declares Rafiq. “Lol, that massive ship sailed here from Iceland just for you!”

“But what about my family?” I hear Lorelei saying.

“Permission to immigrate is for Miss Цrvarsdottir,” Aronsson addresses me, “ only. That is not negotiable. Quotas are strict.”

“How can I leave my family behind?” Lorelei’s saying.

“It is difficult,” Lieutenant Eriksdottir tells her. “But please consider it, Lorelei. The Lease Lands have been safe, but those days are over, as you learned today. There is a broken nuclear reactor not far enough away, if the wind blows wrongly. Iceland is safe. This is why the immigration quota is so strict. We have geothermal electricity and your uncle Halgrid’s family will care for you.”

I remember Цrvar’s older brother from my summer in Reykjavik. “Halgrid’s still alive?”

“Of course. Our isolation saves us from the worst”—Commander Aronsson searches for the word—“hardships of the Endarkenment.”

“There must be a lot of Icelandic nationals around the globe,” says Mo, “praying for a deus ex machina to sail up to the bottom of the garden. Why Lorelei? And why such a timely arrival?”

“Ten days ago we learned that the Pearl Occident Company was planning to withdraw from Ireland,” says the commander. “At that point, one of the president’s advisers,” Aronsson looks sideways at Harry Veracruz with something like a scowl, “persuaded our president that your granddaughter’s repatriation is a matter of national importance.”

So we look at Harry Veracruz, who must be more influential than he appears. He’s leaning on the gate like a neighbor who’s dropped by for a chat, making a what-can-I-say face. He tells me in his young voice: “Normally I’d try to prepare the ground better, Holly, but this time I lacked the opportunity. To cut a long story short, I’m Marinus.”

I’m sort of floating up, as if lifted by waves; my hands grasp the nearest things, which are the door frame and Lorelei’s elbow. I hear a sound, like the pages of a very thick book being flicked, but it’s only the wind in the shrubberies. The doctor in Gravesend; the psychiatrist in Manhattan; the voice in my head in the labyrinth that couldn’t exist, but did; and this young man watching me, from ten paces away.

Wait. How do I know? Sure Harry Veracruz looks honest, but so do all successful liars. Then I hear his voice in my head: Jacko’s labyrinth, the domed chamber, the bird shadows, the golden apple. His gaze is level and knowing. I look at the others. Nobody else heard. It’s me, Holly. Truly. Sorry for this extra shock. I know you’re having a hell of day here.

“Gran?” Lorelei sounds panicky. “You want to sit down?”

A mistlethrush is singing on my spade in the kale patch.

With effort, I shake my head. “No, I …” Then I ask him, in a croak, “Where have you been? I thought you were dead.”

Marinus—I remember the verb—“subspeaks.” Long story. The golden apple was a one-soul escape pod, so I had to find another route and another host. It proved to be circuitous. Eight years passed here before I was resurrected in an eight-year-old in an orphanage in Cuba, neatly coinciding with the 2031 quarantine. It was 2035 before I could get off the island, when this self was ten. When finally I reached Manhattan the place was half feralized, 119A was deserted, and it took three more years to connect with the remnants of Horology. Then the Net crashes happened and tracing you became nigh-on impossible.

“What about the War?” I ask. “Did you—did we—win?”

The young man’s smile is ambivalent. Yes. One could say we won. The Anchorites no longer exist. Hugo Lamb helped me escape the Dusk, in fact, though what fate befell him I do not know. His psychodecanting days are over and his body will be middle-aged, if indeed he has survived this long.

“Holly?” Mo’s got an is-she-losing-her-marbles face. “What war?”

“This is an old friend,” I reply, “from … my, uh, author days.”