Take a look at an excerpt from Marcus Segdwick’s Midwinterblood, out now from Roaring Book Press. In an article in The New York Times today, author Eoin Colfer calls it “the literary equivalent of a roller-coaster ride with multiple peaks”:
Seven stories of passion and love separated by centuries but mysteriously intertwined—this is a tale of horror and beauty, tenderness and sacrifice.
An archaeologist who unearths a mysterious artifact, an airman who finds himself far from home, a painter, a ghost, a vampire, and a Viking: the seven stories in this compelling novel all take place on the remote Scandinavian island of Blessed where a curiously powerful plant that resembles a dragon grows. What binds these stories together? What secrets lurk beneath the surface of this idyllic countryside? And what might be powerful enough to break the cycle of midwinterblood? From award-winning author Marcus Sedgwick comes a book about passion and preservation and ultimately an exploration of the bounds of love.
One
The sun does not go down.
This is the first thing that Eric Seven notices about Blessed Island. There will be many other strange things that he will notice, before the forgetting takes hold of him, but that will come later.
For now, he checks his watch as he stands at the top of the island’s solitary hill, gazing to where the sun should set. It is midnight, but the sun still shines, barely dipping its heavy rim into the sea on the far horizon.
The island is so far north.
He shakes his head.
He’s thinking about Merle. How something seems to wait in her eyes. How he felt calm, just standing next to her.
“Well, so it is,” he says, smiling with wonder.
He’s tired. His journey has been a long one.
The strangeness began on the plane.
The flight to Skarpness was not full, maybe half the seats were empty, but there were nevertheless a good number of people. Mining company folk mostly, heading to the northern interior, Eric guessed.
He took his seat by the window and did what everyone does before the instruction to switch off communications; he selected OneDegree on his device, and bumped.
And then . . . nothing.
He rebooted the app, and bumped again.
Nothing.
He shook his head, unable to understand it.
The OneDegree app is based on the principle of six degrees of separation. Eric knows all about it. As a journalist, it is his job to know about communication in its many forms. Since its invention, when some clever soul realized that it often takes not six, but merely one step to connect you to most other people in the world, the app, or its current version, sits in the palm of everyone’s hand. When going on a journey, or arriving in a new place, the easiest way to make friends quickly is to bump the air around you with OneDegree. Maybe no one you know is on the same plane, but someone who knows someone you know is likely to be. Or someone who went to school with a friend of yours. Or who works where you worked ten years ago. And so on and so on. Then you have someone to pass the journey with, at the least, and maybe a new friend for life. And although that’s never happened to Eric, in all his years of using OneDegree on so many solitary journeys around the world, he has never failed to find some kind of link among a group of a hundred or more who would otherwise have remained total strangers.
So that is why he stared a moment longer at his device, wondering if the new version had a bug.
As if something sinister had happened, he leaned out of his seat and a little furtively studied his fellow passengers.
They were a tough lot.
Miners, he thought. Tough.
Work and worry were drawn on their faces, in skin aged by the cold. They were silent, merely nodding at the smiling attendants who floated down the aisle, proffering drinks.
“You’ll have to switch that off now, Mr. Seven,” said a voice, and he turned to see one of them looking down at him. She checked her device, making sure she’d gotten his name right.
He scratched the back of his head, pushed a badly behaved strand of dark brown hair out of his eyes.
“Yes. Sorry, right. Only . . .”
He looked at his device.
“Yes, Mr. Seven?”
He shook his head. How could he have managed not to bump anyone on the flight? Not even at the weakest level of connection.
“Nothing.”
The attendant smiled.
“Very good. Have a nice flight, Mr. Seven.”
He did have a nice flight.
The plane arrowed due north, clinging to the coast almost the whole way. It was spectacularly beautiful.
The coastline was a broken fractal, the sea was deep blue, the rocks of the shore gentle mottled grays and browns. Inland, the ground climbed steadily into forests, which eventually gave way to treeless mountaintops.
About noon the plane landed at Skarpness, and as Eric predicted, most of the passengers picked up transport heading for the big mine.
For the hundredth time, he pulled out the instructions the desk editor’s assistant had given him, and then made his way on foot to the ferry terminal, where he boarded the steamboat for the short trip to Blessed Island.
He knows little about the place.
Just the rumors. But then, that’s all anyone knows, and that, after all, is the whole point of his trip, to find out something about the island.
There is nothing much about it on the Net. Nothing beyond the times of the steamboat, the hours of sun-fall and moon-up, a brief history of the old fishing trade, now gone.
As for the rumors . . .
No firsthand accounts, no original source material. The pages that do mention them are simply rehashes of each other, leaving very few original hits to glean anything from.
So little to be read on the Net; that’s another strange thing about the place.
All he’s heard are the rumors, stories, the speculation, and the swiftly lost words of whispered secrets, about the island where people have started to live forever.
Two
Eric Seven does not believe in love at first sight.
He corrects himself.
Even in that moment, the moment that it happens, he feels his journalist’s brain make a correction, rubbing out a long-held belief, writing a new one in its place.
He did not believe in love at first sight. He thinks he might do so now.
“I’m Merle,” she says. Her light hair falls across one eye as she shakes his hand; she flicks it aside. And smiles.
“Of course you are,” he says. Inside, he makes a note to punish himself later for such a lame reply, and yet, he had not said it with arrogance, or even an attempt at being funny. He said it as if someone else was saying it for him.
He was standing on the quayside, his single large backpack by his feet. Behind him, the steamboat pulled away, heading back to the mainland. The few other passengers have already disappeared, vanishing into the narrow lanes of the island.
Everything is quiet.
The young woman called Merle half turns and gestures, and now Eric notices a small group of people with her.
They smile at him, too.
One of them, an old man, steps forward.
“I’m Tor,” he says, and holds out his hand.
Eric shakes it, feeling a little uneasy again.
“How did you know I was coming?” he asks.
“Well, we didn’t,” Tor says. “But we don’t get many visitors. Word of your arrival reached us, and we have come to meet you, Mr. . . . Seven?”
“Yes. Yes, that’s right. Eric Seven.”
Tor raises a whiskery eyebrow. His face is long and so weather-beaten it is hard to guess how old he is, and Eric notices that there is something wrong with one of his eyes. It’s milky, and doesn’t seem to focus. Maybe he’s even blind in that eye. Eric tries not to stare.
“Well, so it is,” he says under his breath.
“Seven?” asks Tor. “One of the True Modern Church?”
Eric shakes his head.
“My parents were. They were first generation converts, back in the twenty-twenties.
“I . . .” He stops, wonders what to say. “I disappointed them. It means nothing to me.”
“So why keep the name?” Tor smiles. “If I may ask.”
Eric pauses.
“Many reasons, I suppose. Respect, perhaps. And even though I’m not religious, I do like the idea that the renaming represents.”
Merle, who’s been watching this exchange, tilts her head just a fraction more. Her hair falls across her eyes again. Eric notices it, and feels himself fall even faster for her. He feels ridiculous. He’s wondering what to say, what to do, but she’s asking him something.
“What’s that?” she asks. “The idea behind it?”
“The founders of the True Modern Church had many strongly held principles and beliefs, but much of their teaching is more practical, to do with how people relate to one another, to society, and so on. They believed that names were shackles, and badges, and that they were full of meaning, and history, and were therefore weapons of prejudice and of snobbery. Anyone who joins the Church is invited to select a new name, one without meaning, without history, without prejudice. Numbers are common in the Church; they seemed neutral. Devoid of meaning.”
Merle tilts her head some more. Eric wants to shout with joy, and pictures himself throwing his arms around her. He does neither, but wonders what it would feel like to touch her.
“But Mr. Seven,” Tor says, “all words have meaning. Especially names. Even new ones. And as for numbers . . .”
Eric shrugs again.
“What was your parents’ name before they joined the Church?”
Eric is thrown, as he realizes that he doesn’t want to talk about his parents. He changes the subject. He looks at Tor and Merle, and the two women and another man who are with them. They are all smiling at him.
“So, are you always this friendly to visitors?”
“We don’t get many visitors,” Tor repeats.
Eric notices that his question has not been answered directly, but lets it drop.
“And why have you come to Blessed Island?” Tor continues.
He smiles, and just as Eric is about to tell him, something makes him stop short. But it’s best not to lie, and in these circumstances he usually falls back on the simple method of giving just enough of the truth.
“I’m a journalist,” he explains. “My editor wants a feature about your island. She’s heard it’s a beautiful place. A special place.”
Eric can already see that this much is true.
Behind the welcoming party, a little lane splits into two, one path running off around the shoreline, the other up over a gentle rise. He can see modest, beautifully designed wooden houses, most painted in rich colors: deep reds, light blues, earthy yellows. They have small rose bushes and tall birches. Bees hum in the air.
Behind him the blue sea slaps at the stones of the quay and gulls cry overhead.
“And will you be staying long?” asks Tor, looking at Eric’s single bag.
“I don’t know yet,” Eric says.
He looks at Merle. She smiles.
Three
Eric Seven sat in the Cross House with Tor and the others who had met him at the ferry. Except Merle.
“Where were you thinking of staying, Mr. Seven?” Tor had asked, as they walked down the island, south from the quay.
“Please. Call me Eric.”
“Where were you thinking of staying, Eric?”
“I don’t know.”
Tor smiled.
“We don’t have a hotel. As I said, we—”
“—don’t get many visitors,” Eric finished for him. “But there must be some kind of guest house, perhaps?”
“No,” Tor had said. “There is nothing of that sort. But don’t worry. We will make some arrangements for you. In the meantime, you are welcome at my house. We can take tea while the arrangements are made.”
They’d walked along the narrow lane, called Homeway, gently curving from time to time, but always heading south down the island, with pretty gardens and sweet houses on either side, some right on the track, some set back on little rocky cliffs among the trees. Now and again, side roads head off; even smaller, twistier paths. The paths have tiny white-on-blue signs: The Bend, The Backbend, The Green, The Crook.
All very, very beautiful.
As they’d walked, Eric saw people sitting out at tables in their gardens, enjoying the evening sunshine, taking a glass of wine, or even supper. Everyone had waved and called to Tor, who’d nodded back, smiling.
After ten minutes they’d arrived at a crossroads, where Homeway crossed another track of the same size, called Crossway.
“My home,” Tor had said, indicating the largest house on the island that Eric had so far seen. Set back on a low hill of its own, Eric saw a big black wooden house dominating the crossroads. It was a slightly different style from the others, less pretty, more . . . Eric searched for the word. More serious.
“This is the center of the island, Eric. Welcome.”
Eric sat in Tor’s house, his hands around a pottery mug of black tea.
The two women were introduced as Maya and Jane.
Younger than Tor, older than Merle. Both were quiet, but seemed friendly enough as they’d made the tea in Tor’s large kitchen. The other man is called Henrik, again younger than Tor, though it’s hard to be sure. Eric guessed they get a lot of weather living on an island like Blessed.
Maybe the rumors are true, he thought. Maybe these people are living forever, maybe Tor is a hundred and twenty, the others spring chickens of ninety-eight.
“If there’s any way we can help you with your article, anything you require,” said Henrik, “you only need ask. We are the Wards of Blessed, and . . .”
Tor coughed, so quietly it was hard to believe that it was a signal, but Henrik stopped and corrected himself.
“Tor is the Ward of Blessed. We”—he nodded at Maya and Jane, and pointed to himself—“are the other wards of the island. So you only need to speak to one of us and it will be arranged.”
“Thank you,” Eric said. “You are all very kind.”
He wondered where Merle had gone.
It’s not even as if she is beautiful, not in the way people usually mean. She’s more than pretty, that’s what he can say, but it’s not that that has caught him. It is simply her face, her eyes. The moment he saw them something clicked. He suddenly realized what it was. He recognized her face. As if seeing an old friend, long forgotten, and that triggered something else inside him. A thought that bothered him.
His head swam.
“I’m tired,” he said. “Excuse me. I’m tired, but I think I could do with some air before bed. Could I . . . ?”
“But of course,” Tor replied. “Why don’t you explore the lanes and we’ll come and get you when your house is ready. Don’t go far.”
Eric stands at the top of a small but steep hill known as the Outlook, looking to the west, watching the sun fail to set, thinking about Merle. The path he has taken is an odd one—it is well made, as well made as any he has seen so far, but it stops at the top of the hill by a thicket of bushes, and goes no farther. He has taken a few steps off the path on to a rocky outcrop, from where he can see over the treetops of the woods, to the west.
Tor’s questions about his parents come back to him, and he realizes that it’s been many years since he thought about them. Almost as if they were dead. And though they’re not dead, they may as well be. He hasn’t seen them or spoken to them in years. Not really since he was old enough to leave home, and go out into the world by himself.
Tor. What is it about the man? His eye is a little unsettling, maybe, but Eric knows there’s something else. The man has been nothing but helpful, so what is it that makes Eric feel wary of him?
He brings back to mind the thought that bothered him at Tor’s house. He recognized Merle’s face.
Recognized. But that’s not possible, because he has never seen her before.
As if to check, he pulls out his device, and is about to tap on OneDegree again, when he notices another oddity; he has no reception.
Of course, he’s heard of places that have no signal, but he’s never been to one.
A quiver runs through him as he realizes that the device that runs his whole life has just turned into an expensive little box of plastic, silicon, and glass.
He thinks about OneDegree, how it finds other lives, across the ether, and wonders if that can be done without a machine.
He looks out at the horizon again.
He has never been here, yet he feels he has met Merle before, and then, there is that other feeling, that somehow disturbs him even more.
Why, he thinks, do I have the feeling that I have come home?
“I don’t think you’ll find that works.”
He jumps, and spins around to see Merle approaching from the path.
He puts it away, feeling stupid. He takes the chance to look at her as she approaches, wishing he had more than these few moments to work out what it is about her. He fails.
“I think you’re right,” he says as she comes up to him. “But how do you get by? Without devices?”
“We get by just fine,” says Merle, laughing. “We simply do things differently here.”
“Like having no cars?”
“I believe we are not the only place that has no need for cars,” she says.
“I don’t know about need,” Eric says, “but yes, since gas became so scarce, there are many places that use alternatives.”
He wonders why he can’t find anything better to talk to her about than gas. Cars. Devices. They are alone now, for the first time. He can almost feel her body heat, she’s standing so close.
“You came here by our steamboat, of course.”
Eric nods.
And before that, he thinks, I flew in a good old-fashioned plane, chewing thousands of gallons of aviation fuel. And a ticket with a price that proved it.
Still, if he gets this story, his expenses will be well worth it.
“This is a small island, and a small community. There is no need to rush. We walk. If matters are really pressing, one can usually borrow a bicycle.”
Eric tries to suppress a laugh. He doesn’t mean to be rude, but the serious look on Merle’s face amuses him.
She doesn’t seem annoyed, or if she is, she doesn’t show it.
“Look,” she says, pointing into the sky. Not down near the sun, but up, the moon is visible, a pale pink disc against the dark blue heavens. “It’s the flower moon.”
“The what?”
“It’s the old name for this month’s moon,” Merle explains.
“The flower moon. Do you see how pink it is?”
“That’s quite a sight,” Eric agrees.
They say nothing for a while, just staring at the moon, ancient, as old as time, and unknowable. Mysterious. Powerful.
Merle whispers, some lines from an old song. “And none of you stand so tall, a pink moon gonna get you all.”
She stirs herself.
“Your house is ready,” she says. “It’s late. I’m sure you’re tired.”
Eric is very tired.
“Thank you,” he says. He means it. “It’s generous of you to offer a whole house for me to live in.”
He thinks about his expenses again.
“A room is all I need really,” he continues, “and of course, I can pay you for your troubles.”
“That won’t be necessary. The wards have offered you a house, by the meadow. It’s comfortable, but you must let us know if there’s anything else we can do.”
They walk through the lanes, and Eric keeps trying to remind himself it’s nighttime, which is hard because it’s almost as bright as day.
“Doesn’t it mess with your sleep?” he asks. “The constant day?”
“You have no idea! But we have ways around it. Thick curtains, black-out blinds. That helps. And tea, that tea you had will help you sleep. Here.”
She stops, and points to Eric’s new home.
It is small but stylish, a blue wooden house, with its own garden, neatly cut grass, heavily blooming rose bushes.
Honeysuckle climbs the wall and over a window on the second floor. Other flowers whose names he does not know.
The name of the house is painted at the gate. The Claw.
“Strange name,” Eric muses, half aloud.
“It’s from the old dialect. It refers to a type of fishing boat, I believe.”
Suddenly Merle wrinkles her nose, and sneezes.
“Grass pollen,” she says, and sneezes again.
“Bless you.”
Merle looks at Eric.
“Don’t say that.”
“Why not?”
“We don’t say that here, on the island. We think it’s . . . bad luck.”
“That’s strange.”
“Just another one of our little differences,” Merle says.
She smiles, and turns to leave. Eric fights the urge to say something to Merle. Something meaningful. But he cannot think what.
“Good night, Eric Seven,” she calls as she goes. “The house is unlocked.”
She stands for a moment more by the gate, and then is gone.
Eric imagines that he sees her lips move. He imagines that she says one word to him.
You.
He wonders what he would have felt if she really had said it.
Eric opens the door to his house, and finds his way to the bedroom. By the time he gets there, he is feeling lousy, his head swimming, from tiredness and being somewhere new, and the scent of those flowers, and he can taste the tea in his mouth.
He passes out on the bed, his thoughts tumbling down a deep, deep chasm that has opened beneath the place where his mind sits.
One final thought comes to him as he goes, and then is lost in the tumbling storm of his mind-stream.
He has been on Blessed for several hours. He has met a few people, and seen many more. But he has not seen a single child.
Four
Eric sleeps well.
When he wakes, he feels much better. Wonderful in fact.
He opens his eyes and is surprised to find the room in total darkness. First he thinks that night has finally come, then remembers that there will be no such thing as night here for a month or two at least. Not really.
He stumbles to the window, and pulls the curtains back.
It is still dark; his hands reach and touch the black-outs Merle spoke of, and finding a cord to one side, he pulls them up.
Bright, strong sunshine floods into the room, and he shuts his eyes and waits till they adjust.
When they do, he is overwhelmed by the beauty of the island.
His bedroom window looks to the south and to the east. Below him is another small slice of heaven. Pretty colored houses, little lanes, tall birches swaying in a gentle wind, and everywhere flowers.
Flowers.
People are walking in the lanes, they call to each other, and pause to chat at the tiny toy-town intersections. From somewhere he cannot see he can hear music. And singing. It sounds like a dozen voices, a haunting, conflicting yet beautiful melody, to a simple accompaniment of a guitar and accordion. He strains to catch the words, but they are blown away.
The sky overhead is blue, and everywhere there are flowers.
Eric feels wonderful. All grogginess from the night before has vanished. All thoughts of the night before are forgotten.
But he feels hungry, amazingly hungry. He wonders if they will have been thoughtful enough to have left some food for him, and he goes downstairs, where he finds not just food, but a whole breakfast laid out on the kitchen table. A pot of coffee is warming on the stove.
“Hello?” he calls, turning about him. “Hello? Is anyone there?”
There is no one, so he sits down and eats as if he has never eaten before. He has bread, and honey, and cheeses, and there is some tasty dried meat, and apple juice, and then there’s the coffee. And in the middle of the table is a vase of small pretty yellow flowers, freshly picked from the meadow.
Flowers.
Flowers, he thinks. Flowers.
He was supposed to do something about flowers.
But he cannot remember what it is.
He happily finishes his breakfast.
Five
Eric checks his watch, and is surprised to see it is noon.
He has slept for a long time. He walks out into the day and decides to go for a stroll. He passes people, tending their gardens, just walking, or doing nothing. They smile, and he nods back at them, a little shyly.
He finds himself climbing a lane through the trees that cluster to one side of his house, and then descending on the other side, the woodland gives way and there is the sea before him and another rocky stretch of coastline.
He is suddenly taken with a massive urge to swim. It’s a hot day, and the sea looks inviting. He explores for a while and before long finds a tiny hidden cove among the rocks. He looks around. He has neither towel nor trunks with him, but the place is deserted. He’s sure he can’t be seen from the path he came down by.
He undresses quickly and eases into the water from a warm rock. It feels good, stinging cold at first, but the freshness of the cold salty water is delicious.
He comes out, and this time, finds a higher rock to dive from.
He plunges in, through the safe water near the surface to a colder, darker, more dangerous world beneath. Darkness beneath the beauty.
As he surfaces, water runs down his face, across his eyes, trickles from his ears, and as it washes the clouds from his mind, he remembers.
“What the hell am I doing?” he actually says aloud, and clambering up the rocks, makes toward his clothes.
He stops, staring at them. He knows he dropped them in a pile where he undressed. Now, they’re laid out neatly, spread flat, to warm on the sunny rocks. He looks around, but can see no one. Nothing.
Shaking his head, he pulls his clothes on, though he is still dripping wet.
He tries to clear his head as he walks back to his house, remembering now why he came here, and that he’s supposed to be working.
He ignores friendly greetings as he heads back to The Claw, and makes his way to his room, where he grabs his device and a notepad, a pen, sitting down at the bedside table. He thinks he hears a noise. The gate clicks, and he lifts his head waiting to hear approaching footsteps. None come, and then, determined not to be distracted, he concentrates again.
“What was I thinking?” he says again, staring out of the window. He starts to work.
He goes through what he knows.
Blessed Island, an obscure self-governed community in the farthest north. Population unknown, but small. Economic production? The island was once home to a fishing fleet, now vanished. However they make their money now, Eric has already seen that it isn’t tourism. There’s nowhere for anyone to stay for a start, and when they do have someone to stay, they don’t charge.
So how do they make their money?
What do they do here? Without warning, his mind feels foggy again, and his memory is struggling, though he knows there is something else he was sent to investigate.
He gets up and walks around the room, trying to clear his head.
It comes to him that he had some notes that he had prepared before he came, and he thumbs the power on his device.
It boots, and he goes straight to Notes.
He reads.
Flowers.
Blessed Island is believed to be home to the only surviving population of a very rare orchid: the Blessed Dragon Orchid, Latin name Orchidae dracula beati. Also known as the Dracula Orchid.
Eric had smiled when he’d first read its creepy name, then realized that dracula had nothing to do with vampires, but merely means “little dragon.” But beati. He’d had to look that up, and found it was the Latin for “blessed.”
Little blessed dragon.
He’d found pictures of it, and despite the apparently innocent meaning of its name, it did look a bit weird, scary even. More like an animal than a flower, a spiky dragon-headed thing, with purple petals and a bloodred throat at its heart.
The rumors hold that the islanders have recently, or otherwise, discovered that the orchid has health-giving properties, that it promotes well-being and energy. That it regenerates damaged cell tissue. That it could even extend life. That the islanders have extracted an elixir of life from the flower, and are selling it untrialed, and therefore illegally, for exorbitant sums, to the super-rich of the western world.
That is why he has come here.
He’d spoken to someone on a visit to London who claimed he knew someone who was using the drug, but that was just the problem. It was all someone, who knew someone, who knew someone. Hearsay.
Now he’s at the source of the story, but he’s already learned from OneDegree that this place might be less connected to the outside world than most.
He flicks through the notes on his device, looking for a map he knows he stored. He finds it, and just as it flashes onto the screen, the battery gives out.
He shakes his head. He goes to his bag, and rummages around for his charger, but can’t find it.
Silly, he thinks.
He hunts through the bag again, in all its side pockets, and the little compartment at the front.
He still can’t find it. He knows he packed it because he used it on the plane.
He takes everything from his bag, slowly, trying to keep calm, telling himself it will tumble out of a sock any moment.
But it doesn’t.
He looks at everything he has brought with him, spread on the bed, and he comes to the conclusion that someone has taken his charger away in the night.
Something cold slices into his mind.
He is afraid.
Midwinterblood © Marcus Sedgwick 2013
