Dreams of Origami (16 page)

So now, no wiser than when they came over, he is sitting at the kitchen table, toying with a sheet of printer paper he’d picked up from the desk in the office at the back of the house. His hands are working independently, sculpting a design of their own choosing. Part of Gideon’s mind is aware of Triss, now in the back room, looking for a paper trail that will lead to her husband. Most of his thoughts are seeking a different kind of path; one that will lead back to when Matthew disappeared, then even further back to understand why. That smell again. What is it?

He closes his eyes and concentrates on the pattern of the coloured lights that move against the darkness of his eyelids. He is an impartial observer viewing a screen, applying mental discipline to remain detached, careful not to force the patterns to take the shape of his own projected images. Patches of green and red move across to dissolve at the edges of his vision. Beams of purple light and clouds of golden dust, like galaxies swirling through vast, empty caverns of space. He moves forward, melding with the light, speeding with it through blackness. Light that has travelled since before he was born, before Rome fell and dinosaurs stalked the earth. Light born on the other side of the universe, forever in motion through the emptiness from which it takes its being. A cohesion of time and space; the fabric of existence. In the centre of the vision, he senses a darkness, a hollowness, that pulls and tears at itself. A weakness where the warp and weft of universe and history chafe against each other until the straining strands are pulled to breaking point. Space and time, and that which binds it together—aether itself—is beginning to disintegrate.

That’s it! The shock of realization throws Gideon back to full consciousness. This is more than a disturbance in the Earth’s energy field: something is damaging the aether itself. The matrix…No, this can’t be happening. What the hell?

Think,
he tells himself.
Breathe slowly, be calm, and think!

Inexplicable accidents, objects moving, aberrant behaviour—misdirected forces resulting in chaotic activity. Similar to poltergeist phenomena, yes, in that both result from a discharge of surplus psychic energy. But there is no way this could emanate from a human source. It’s too big, too widely spread and powerful. Disintegration, that’s what he saw, the release of energy from a localized degeneration of…of…

Gideon feels as if his brain is spinning. What he’s thinking is impossible, and yet a part of him believes it must be so. And if it is so, then he is so far out of his depth he may never touch reality again. ‘Cassandra,’ he speaks her name out loud, ‘why can I never reach you when I need you?’

He stands up, moves away from the table and looks across at the
row of cottages and what is now his own front door. ‘What the hell am I doing here?’

‘Gideon!’ It’s Triss’s voice, from the other end of the house. ‘Come quickly!’ He responds automatically, and is in the back room before he has time to think what might be happening. ‘Over here, quick!’ She is by the window, pointing to the farmland beyond the garden. Gideon is beside her, and knows that what he is seeing is impossible. But he is seeing it. The field of grain that earlier quivered softly in the summer wind is now heaving and thrashing in every direction.

‘Upstairs!’ Gideon grabs Triss’s hand and drags her from the room, through the kitchen and up to the bedroom. From here, they can see the whole field laid out below. The day has not changed: the sky is still blue, the sun still bright, trees and bushes barely moving. But the field is a swirling sea of chaotic motion.

‘What is it? What’s doing that?’

‘I don’t know,’ Gideon gasps, ‘but I’m holding on to you. I think we’re safe up here.’ He doesn’t believe that for one moment, but both his hands are tight around hers. The only energy he can feel from her is fear, enough to make a heart pound and adrenalin flow, but not enough to shake a whole field. Not that he believes for one moment that anyone could create what is happening out there. And still it continues to move; waves and whirlpools that run together to form new currents which surge away in every direction. They watch together, Triss panting with fear and Gideon holding her fast. Suddenly the whole area seems to heave and settle, like a huge animal shaking itself before lying down to sleep.

Then it stops.

There is no movement now, not the field nor the trees; nothing stirs. Moments pass. Like an earthquake, the turmoil lasted only a minute, two at the most, but it felt as if it had gone on and on. Gideon is aware of the silence all around them. Even the birds have ceased their singing and moved out of sight. And that smell. It’s even stronger now. Ozone, that’s what it is. But why ozone?

‘Are you all right?’ He releases Triss and, cautiously, she leans towards the window.

‘Christ, look at that. Gideon, what was it? Tell me.’

‘I honestly don’t know. Maybe some kind of crop circle, but like nothing I’ve ever seen before.’

‘Aren’t they supposed to make patterns?’ They both stare out at the field. Earlier, it had looked like a sheet of pale green-gold. The colour of the grain hasn’t changed, only now it looks as if an angry child has taken a giant green crayon and scribbled all over it.

The science of physics has revealed a fundamental paradox, in that matter exists as a particle and also as a wave. What is more, it exists in these two contradictory states simultaneously.

When we observe an atomic particle, what we are observing is a dynamic pattern continually switching from one state into the other. At subatomic levels, matter is both destructible and indestructible, both continuous and also discontinuous. Now you see it—now you don’t.

Describing the probability of a particle to exist in a certain place, Robert Oppenheimer, founder of the American School of Theoretical Physics, says:

If we ask whether the position of the electron remains the same, we must say ‘no’; if we ask whether the electron’s position changes with time, we must say ‘no’. If we ask whether the electron is at rest, we must say ‘no’; if we ask whether it is in motion, we must say ‘no’.

The
Upanishads,
a sacred book of Hinduism that describes the Absolute, says:

It moves, It moves not

It is far, and It is near.

It is within all this,

And It is outside of all this.

Extract from
The Cosmos of Illusions
by Gideon Wakefield

T
HERE’S NO SIGN OF LACEY’S CAR;
she and Audrey must still be in Cambridge.
At least it’s not as cold as it was,
thinks Drew as he pulls up outside his front door. Would’ve been nice at Cromer—what a waste of a good day. Poor old Matthew, though. Or maybe good old Matthew. He could be living it up in the South of France, for all we know. Still, Lacey’ll get over this ghost-hunting lark eventually. Meantime, he’ll get something ready for lunch, then when she gets here they can eat together and still go out for the afternoon. Might take a boat out on the river, that’d be nice.

‘Hi there.’ It’s Tom, sitting on the step outside his own door. ‘How you doing?’

‘Oh, hello. Didn’t see you there. How’s the painting going?’

‘Think it’s almost finished.’ Tom looks awful. His face is yellow and hollow, with purple smudges around his eyes and several days’ beard stubble, which, with his fair colouring, just looks messy. His hair is matted and clumped with different colours, as if he’s run paint-sticky fingers through it. His clothes, such as they are, have also been used to wipe his hands. He looks like a brightly coloured vagrant sitting there on the step, waiting for a handout. ‘You want to come and take a look?’

‘Yeah, sure.’ Drew watches Tom struggle to his feet. He staggers, his movements unco-ordinated and jerky, like a badly strung puppet.
What’s he on?
thinks Drew.
He’s definitely had a joint, I can smell it.
But that wouldn’t make his eyes go like that—dry and tight and the pupils contracted, like black peppercorns.

‘There. What do you think?’ Tom staggers into the centre of the room, turning around on the spot to admire his own work.

‘Holy shit!’ Drew stares, open-mouthed.

‘Yeah, I know. The most amazing thing I’ve ever done.’ Tom’s face is twisted into a smile, like that of a child or a clown. ‘Stars and angels all around us.’ He throws his arms open wide and nearly topples over.

After his initial exclamation, Drew is struck speechless. He stares at the strange world of colour and light. It might work, he thinks, in an open space, a gallery wall, somewhere it could find its own dimension. But here, in this tiny cottage, the viewer is overwhelmed to the point of oppression. He turns around, trying to take it all in. Every inch of plaster in the room is obliterated, and it appears to spread into the kitchen beyond, and up the stairs.

‘Is the whole house like this?’

‘Absolutely. That’s the concept, you understand. We are totally surrounded by space, the source from which life itself emerges.’

The landscape extends only a couple of feet above the skirting board. Trees with broad, blue-tinged leaves, distant hills and terraced fields of dark, ochre-stained earth. But it is the sky that dominates the room. Stars and planets zoom across the walls and ceiling, meteors and comets with blazing trails, the heavens alive with swirling movement. And people—giants—emerging from the blackness of space, striding among the suns from which they are born.

Eventually, Drew thinks he ought to say something else. ‘And those are the angels, are they? No wings or halos?’

‘No, that’s too primitive an image. They probably don’t need bodies, either. That’s just so we can comprehend their presence.’

‘Yes, well…’ Drew steps over a paint tin. The floor is littered with them, and multi-coloured rags, paint splattered everywhere. ‘I wonder what your aunt will think about it? Does she know you’ve redecorated her house?’ The carpet is beyond salvation.

‘Ah, she’s cool.’

Drew feels as if he can’t breathe.
For Christ’s sake,
he thinks,
this is enough to send anyone around the twist. I’ve got to get out of here before I join him.
‘Well, I think I’d better get back: I’m expecting a friend for lunch.’ He’s now edging towards the door.

‘Oh, sure,’ says Tom, too absorbed with his own creation to really notice.

Drew emerges into the sunlit street and breathes deeply. He’s more than used to the smell of paint, but that concentration of fumes in such a confined space was too much. However, it’s not only the smell that has left him feeling lightheaded and slightly sick.

He’s relieved to see Lacey’s blue Citroën heading towards him.

Across the road, in the schoolhouse, Gideon watches Lacey step out of her car and speak with Drew. She looks animated as they approach Drew’s door. There they find the note that Triss left earlier. Now they’re both heading this way, Lacey breaking into a run as she reaches the gate. Gideon has the door open, ready for her to burst into the room.

‘Is everything OK? Where’s Triss? I’ve got something incredible to tell you. Oh, there you are! Are you all right?’

‘I am, but you’ve got to come and see. Something amazing has happened.’

‘Where’s Audrey? Didn’t you both go to see that solicitor?’ asks Gideon.

‘Yes, and it’s just as well we did. But then he suggested she make some further enquiries in Ely. I dropped her off there, as she felt it would be better if she went alone. She’s had dealings with these people before, and thinks they’d be less reticent without a reporter hanging on. I took the hint—besides, this was too important to wait. She’ll get the train back this afternoon. Anyway, I have to tell you—’

‘Can it keep for a few more minutes? First, come and see this.’ Gideon almost pushes her towards the stairs. ‘We don’t know how long it might last. It could disappear as fast as it came.’ Triss runs up after them with Drew trailing at the rear, watching his afternoon on the river evaporating like the weekend before it.

‘Oh my God!’ Lacey leans out of the window. ‘When did this happen? Last night?’

‘No. It was about an hour ago. I watched it appear.’ Triss describes what happened, searching for words to explain something totally beyond her experience.

‘I don’t suppose some sort of localized tornado might have caused it?’ Drew looks completely baffled for once.

‘No. I’ve seen tornadoes and the weather conditions that accompany
them. This was nothing meteorological. As you can see, it’s strictly within the confines of the four corners of the planted area. Even the grass around the edges isn’t touched.’

‘And there was no one out there? No farm machines or anything?’ Drew’s shield of scepticism may be starting to crack at last.

‘Not a soul. Not a thing.’ Gideon shakes his head. ‘It came out of nowhere and it was virtually instantaneous.’ He explains that, apart from its erratic form, it complies with all the indicators of a genuine crop circle. ‘We’ve already been out there, but I’m sure you’ll want to take a closer look.’

‘Yes, of course,’ says Lacey. ‘It won’t take long, will it? Because I really do need to tell you about what Audrey and I have found. Oh, and I think I’ve still got those printouts of crop circles in the car. They might be useful to make a comparison—shall I get them?’

‘Yes, good idea, if you wouldn’t mind.’

They line up along the ploughed strip that runs around the edge of the field. From here the crop looks trampled and smashed, but the erratic pattern made by the destruction is obvious only when viewed from above. What they can see is a clear parting running through the rows of stems, the lower part still tinged with green, whereas the heads of grain have turned golden over the last few days of sun. That explains the appearance of a green line running in manic swirls and loops all over the field.

Gideon bends down, reaching his hands out, palms held downward, as if feeling for something unseen rising out of the earth. Drew watches him, his expression somewhere between curiosity and disparagement.

‘What are you doing?’ Lacey searches through her papers.

‘It took someone or something a great deal of energy to achieve this effect. There may be some remnants of it here. Investigators have detected disturbances in the magnetic field several hours after crop circles appear.’

‘Yes, it says here that people’s watches have stopped and that compasses go haywire.’

‘Mine’s still working.’ Drew shakes his wrist and holds his watch to his ear.

‘Look, here are some photographs of stems.’ Lacey bends down beside Gideon to show him the pictures. He carefully plucks one of the bent stalks and holds it next to the paper.

‘Yes, well it certainly didn’t get like this by being trampled on. More like a short burst of intense heat, which would comply with infrasound theory.’

‘What’s that?’

‘The possibility of creating this effect with low-frequency sound waves.’

‘Does sound produce heat, then?’ asks Lacey.

‘Oh, yes. Infrasound is capable of boiling the water inside the stems. It leaves tiny blowholes in the plant’s nodes which cause the stem to bend like this. It all happens very quickly. But it’s these bent stems that are the real test of a non-hoaxed circle. That, and the fact that they are not precisely circular but slightly elliptical. That can’t be faked with a string and an old door.’

‘But this is hardly what you’d call a circle, is it? Someone really misfired on this one.’ Arms folded, Drew looks over the mangled mess of what was, a few hours ago, a valuable crop. ‘Does Bill Henderson know about it?’

‘Yes,’ says Triss, ‘and he’s furious. More local vandals, he reckons. But we both saw it happen.’

‘What about before it happened?’ asks Lacey. ‘Was there anything unusual going on?’

‘I don’t think so…’ Triss sounds unsure. She looks to Gideon.

‘We were inside,’ he explains. ‘The room had been feeling unusually cold and damp, even though it was warm and sunny outside. And there was this curious smell of ozone.’

‘High-voltage electricity.’ Drew throws in a casual remark.

‘What was that?’

‘High voltage, low current—that can often produce ozone. You can
smell it under power lines sometimes.’

‘Yes, of course, that makes sense.’ Gideon stands up, brushing soil from his clothes. ‘I think we’d better keep very quiet about this, although I’d love to call in a team of investigators. But it’s far too risky.’

‘You’re right there,’ says Drew. ‘Bill’d probably slaughter them.’