Qinmeartha and the Girl Child  LoChi
a short novel
by John Grant
Introduction
Tarburton-on-the-Moor -- just another sleepy
Dartmoor village. Or so it seems to Joanna Gard when she comes to stay
there, until the fabric of the village begins to come apart. As archetypes
drawn from the human subconscious play out their incomprehensible rituals,
the familiar becomes unfamiliar and the mundane distorts into ever-increasing
strangeness, and she is forced to realize that a duel of wills between
eternal forces is being played out -- that nothing, herself included,
is what it seems to be.
In this uncomfortably disturbing tale of clashing
realities, published in October 2002 by Cosmos as one half of a "Cosmos
Double" (the other half being Colin Wilson's The Tomb of the Old
Ones), Hugo- and World Fantasy Award-winning author John Grant adds
a new and startling element to the fantasy cosmology developed in many
of his earlier works.
Qinmeartha and the Girl Child LoChi
by John Grant
see LoChi
girl child LoChi
her back bends not for the heaviest load
she is
starwatcher
she is
cloudrider
she is
she who seeks to the ends of roads
-- fragment found in West Street, afterwards
1 Qinmeartha
Looking out the window across Tarburton, Joanna caught sight
of the reflection of her own face in the glass. Behind her Aunt Jill,
sitting in the old yellow armchair that had come down through perhaps
too many generations of the family, was neatly framed by the reflected
image.
Joanna smiled. The juxtaposition seemed to be telling her that she
and Aunt Jill were the last of a kind.
The bells of St Leonard's began unmelodically to lurch into sound.
Ever since arriving in Tarburton -- full name Tarburton-by-the-Moor
-- three years back, Aunt Jill had been fighting a losing battle against
the bell-ringers, who practised every Tuesday night and Thursday night,
very loudly, and apparently to no beneficial effect. Today the peals
should have been in their Sunday best, but they sounded much as usual.
The reflected Aunt Jill was making little irritated movements, and
Joanna turned away from the window.
"Bloody bells," muttered Aunt Jill. "Bloody, bloody bells." It was
the strongest oath she ever used. She got to her feet and gestured at
the littered tray in front of her. "More tea?"
"I'll make it," said Joanna, glad for something to do. They'd run out
of things to talk about, but Joanna had said that she'd leave about
five, and couldn't now say she'd go at four. She was awash with cups
of tea drunk in a brittle silence interrupted by doomed attempts to
find new topics of conversation.
In the little kitchen, waiting for the kettle to boil, she wondered
what it was that had created this new distance between herself and her
aunt. Joanna had been only fifteen when her father had died in a light-aircraft
crash, eleven years ago, and two years after that her mother had died
also -- of grief, according to all the family friends, although Joanna
knew there had been quite a deal of alcohol mixed in with the grief.
Aunt Jill, her mother's spinster elder sister and Joanna's sole surviving
relative, had moved into the family home, just off Seymour Street, near
Marble Arch, and had taken over Joanna's life. She must have done a
good job: Joanna's GCSEs had been screwed up by her father's death,
but her A-level results were excellent. In a way, Joanna reflected now,
Aunt Jill had been more of a mother to her than her real mother had
been.
Except this weekend. Something was bothering Aunt Jill, and Joanna
couldn't find out what it was. She'd tried subtle hinting and got nowhere.
She'd tried unsubtle interrogation: likewise. The old woman -- not that
old, but a lot older than Joanna's twenty-six -- would volunteer the
information in her own time. Maybe.
Could Aunt Jill have got herself a boyfriend? That might be it. She
was the other side of sixty, but life didn't stop then -- at least,
according to all the over-sixty-year-olds Joanna knew. But surely Aunt
Jill would have told her? Maybe, Joanna thought as she poured
the steaming water into the pot, maybe it's somebody "terribly unsuitable".
She grinned. Aunt Jill always seemed to get a bit of a kick out of
Joanna's more unsuitable lovers, to be full of questions that often
tottered over from the personal into the distinctly tasteless. It'd
be funny if she came over all coy just because she'd fallen madly, passionately
in love with the local poacher or someone.
The grin faded. No -- it couldn't be that. However much they might
pretend to each other, no two people ever know each other completely,
but Joanna was certain she knew Aunt Jill well enough to be able to
read that much in her. It was something more serious than -- Joanna
found herself subvocalizing the words in a pompous tone -- an "embarrassing
liaison".
The tea was ready. There was no excuse for not going back into the
drawing-room.
Aunt Jill looked up as Joanna entered, a polite smile on her face,
as if everything between them were just fine. "It's been a good weekend,
hasn't it, Joanna?" she said brightly, for at least the tenth time in
the past hour.
"Yes. A lot of fun."
"I never thought these old legs would take me to the top of Hay Tor..."
Joanna smothered a sigh as she poured a thin stream of tea into the
too-small, too-fragile cups. She was already bored with the subject.
All weekend Aunt Jill had been busily prattling away about superficialities,
anxious to bar the conversation from heading into deeper waters. She
was running out of those superficialities now, repeating herself.
"I'll really have to get moving soon. The weather might get rough up
nearer London." The excuse was valid, but didn't sound any the better
for that.
Aunt Jill obviously recognized it as well, but seemed relieved. "Yes,"
she said, putting down her hardly touched cup abruptly, sloshing some
tea into her saucer. "There might be rain. Or mist."
It seemed odd to be talking of mist when the sunlight was washing in
through the window. Down here in Devon, October sometimes saw periods
of weather that were better even than the summer, as if the world had
arranged things so that the locals, swamped by grockles all through
June, July and August, should be rewarded for their tolerance by some
fine weeks to share among themselves. Joanna shivered at the prospect
of London, which always seemed grey to her at this time of year.
"You've packed," said Aunt Jill. "Sure you haven't forgotten anything
important."
Nothing except to talk properly with you, thought Joanna.
"I've got everything," she said. "Doesn't matter anyway, you old fusspot.
I'll be back down here soon."
Which was a lie, and they both knew it. Joanna always intended to come
to Tarburton every fortnight or three weeks to make sure Aunt Jill was
getting on all right, but somehow things got in the way -- commitments,
overloads of work, things like that -- and she was lucky if she made
it down here three times a year.
Aunt Jill collaborated in the lie. "Yes," she said, "of course you
will be. There's always that to look forward to."
The bells were still filling the sky with discord as the
two women stood by Joanna's Mini in front of the Crafts Centre, Tarburton's
main centre of social life apart from the pubs. It sold bad coffee,
expensive wholemeal food, and a place where you could sit and talk.
"Are you sure you've got everything?" said Aunt Jill yet again.
"Everything," Joanna said, patting the roof of the car as if it were
a parcel she'd just finished tying up. "Aunt Jill..."
She paused, not knowing if she had the courage to press further.
"Yes, dear?"
"Is there anything" -- Joanna found she was twisting her hands together,
like people did in books -- "anything you want to talk to me about?"
"What do you mean?" That dreadful artificial brightness again.
"Is there anything ... well, you know, wrong?"
"No, darling!" Aunt Jill was attempting to pass it off with a laugh.
"What could there be to be wrong? We've just had a lovely weekend, and
I'm happy because you're looking so well. Of course there's nothing
the matter."
Her aunt, smelling of some perfume that Joanna was certain was no longer
manufactured -- something with a lot of lavender in it -- leaned forward
in the sunlight and kissed her on the cheek. Was the hug she gave a
little too vigorous? Was Joanna's imagination simply running away with
her?
"All right," Joanna said, rummaging in her jacket pocket for a cigarette.
"Just so long as everything's OK. I do worry about you, Aunt Jill."
"I'm flattered."
"I love you very much, you know." Joanna found her cigarettes but her
matches were playing harder to get. "It matters to me that you're all
right. Do take care."
"Of course I shall," said Aunt Jill, looking up crossly towards the
spire of St Leonard's. "Those bloody, bloody bells. I'll be all right,
dear. You'll see. I'm a tough old boot, you know. I got through the
war. I'll be all right."
Joanna shrugged. The lady was maybe protesting too much, but it was
easier to believe her than to worry about it.
"OK," she said, climbing into the Mini, gripping her cigarette between
her teeth, feeling vaguely inadequate but not knowing what to do about
it. "So long as you're sure."
"Do call me when you get home, just to let me know you're safe."
Standing in the evening sunlight, Aunt Jill suddenly looked smaller
than Joanna had seen her before.
"I will," said Joanna through the open window. "I promise."
...continues
The complete text of this short novel is available
online at infinity plus:
Qinmeartha
and the Girl Child LoChi (230Kb)
Ordering details for the print
edition, which includes a short novel by Colin Wilson, are available
below.
© John Grant 2002.
The "Cosmos Double" featuring both
Qinmeartha and the Girl Child LoChi and Colin Wilson's The Tomb
of the Old Ones is published by Cosmos
Books (October 2002; ISBNs 1587155044/paperback and 1587155052/hardback).
Order online using these
links and infinity plus will benefit:
hardback: Amazon.com
/ Amazon.co.uk
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/ Amazon.co.uk
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