There Goes the Neighbourhood
by Tim Major
Check the trays of seedlings. Check the heat of the forge. Check the defences.
Shanté performed this routine every day. Every hour, perhaps. The seedlings were perpetually on the cusp of pushing through the hard soil. The forge blazed and there was ample fuel, but her concern was the lack of iron to smelt. As for the defences…
The defences were far from adequate. This fact kept Shanté awake for the greater part of each night, and when she finally slept she was forced to watch as the walls of her tiny hut were torn apart in her dreams.
She told herself not to dwell on her fears. Though, really, wasn’t that her entire life? Dwelling, and fear.
With a sigh, she took up her crossbow. She moved through the forest, listening for sounds. The huge house at the centre of the grounds was masked by the leaf canopy, but its presence was unignorable. She gave it a wide berth.
She climbed a tree, crouched in its branches and waited.
In response to a skittering sound, she swung the crossbow and loosed the bolt without conscious thought.
It took some time to locate the bird in the thicket. It was fat and grey and nondescript. When cooked, it would taste like almost nothing. But it would keep her alive.
She slung the carcass over her shoulder and set off home.
Then came the familiar thunder.
The wolves were upon her before she could sprint away. They were larger than her, all limbs and teeth. Shanté spun away from one of them, shot it in the flank. It whined and spun away. The other lowered its head, circling her, drool dripping from its teeth. Shanté glanced down to find that she had loaded another bolt.
“I’ll shoot!” she cried.
The wolf snapped at her. Shanté leapt back and levelled the crossbow at its temple. It spat on the forest floor, its red eyes glaring.
“Mr Holdstock says to pack up and go,” it growled.
Then it loped away.
Once the bird was set on the spit, Shanté checked the trays of seedlings, the heat of the forge, the defences.
She slept, but her dreams made her wish she hadn’t.
When she woke, she heard a shifting sound from outside the hut.
She snatched her crossbow, set the wire at the door, bounded over it and shimmed up a nearby tree. Let them try to enter the hut. If the traps didn’t see to them, she’d shoot them in the back.
But it wasn’t one of the wolves. It was a person. Straight fair hair, plain features. Whether they were female or male, Shanté couldn’t tell.
Nobody else occupied the grounds. Only Mr Holdstock, Shanté, the wolves and the birds.
The stranger was whistling a melody. They bent to pick up a twig and swiped at the air idly.
Their pale suit was obscene against the filth of the forest. How could they remain so clean?
Shanté levelled her crossbow.
When the stranger reached the door of the hut, they stopped. Their head tilted. They peered at the threads of wire that triggered the traps.
They hummed thoughtfully, tapping their lips with a finger.
Then they turned to look directly up at Shanté, and waved.
“Do come down and chat,” they called out. “I find that a severe injury is a poor start to pleasant conversation.”
“Who are you?” Shanté demanded.
“A passerby.”
It meant nothing. The stranger’s hesitation seemed to acknowledge as much.
“And what do you want here?”
“To help. My name’s Bench, by the way. And you’re… Shanté?”
Shanté flinched. She couldn’t remember ever having spoken her name aloud. “How can you help?”
“I don’t know yet. What troubles you?”
Shanté laughed scornfully. What didn’t trouble her?
“Life is hard,” she said.
Bench looked around at the confines of the hut. “It’s no palace, but I see you’re making do. Have you enough to eat?”
Finally, Shanté understood. They must be hungry. She moved to the forge, which doubled as a stove. A pot hung from the spit on a twisted clasp. Shanté ignored the heat that stung her hands as she poured broth from the pot into her only carved wooden bowl. Then she handed it to Bench.
“That’s very kind,” Bench said.
They accepted the bowl, then took a band from their jacket pocket and tied back their hair. They inhaled the steam that rose from the bowl, then tipped it up to drink from it. When they lowered the bowl their eyes were wide.
“What’s in this?” they asked.
“Berries. Bark. Meat. Fat.” Essentially, the broth contained everything from the forest that could be eaten.
“I’ve never tasted anything like it.” Bench sipped again, then smacked their lips. Quietly, they said, “There are always side effects.”
Shanté didn’t have the opportunity able to ask what they meant. Bench leapt to their feet and said hurriedly, “Tell me about the neighbourhood.”
Shanté gazed at them blankly.
Bench said, “You’re not alone here, are you?”
“No. The wolves torture me. They are sent by Mr Holdstock.”
Bench nodded. “Can you point me towards his dwelling?”
“You won’t even get close. Nobody can go there. The wolves will find you.”
“I think they may treat me rather differently than they treat you. And I really am intent on meeting everyone in the locality.”
Shanté debated internally whether to attempt to dissuade them. But what was it to her if a mad stranger strode towards certain death? Before today there had been nobody else in the forest, and after Bench was torn apart by wolves then the situation would be unchanged.
She moved to the doorway of the hut and pointed into the depths of the forest.
“You’ll soon see the house if you go that way,” she said. “It’s so large that it shows through the trees from miles away.”
As Bench prepared to leave, Shanté underwent a change of heart. She appealed for them not to go, and when that failed she tried to press a crossbow and bolts into their hands. But Bench left them on the floor of the hut, offering thanks along with a gentle refusal.
That night, Shanté once again dreamt of wolves clawing at the thin walls of her hut, then breaking through and ripping her skin. She gazed down in horror at the billowing steam that rose from within her open chest.
She gasped at being shaken. But it was no wolf.
“I’ve spoken to Mr Holdstock,” Bench said.
Shanté shook her head. It was impossible.
“He was hospitable enough,” Bench went on. “We had afternoon tea. But nothing like your soup. I told him about its marvellous flavour. He seemed interested.”
“Interested… in soup?” Shanté said blankly.
“I think we should take the pot with us. Offering it might be a welcome gesture.”
Shanté scurried backwards on her haunches until her back was pressed against the wall. “I will not go near him.”
“We can hardly negotiate if you don’t.”
“What makes you think I intend to negotiate?”
Bench smiled. “What else do you plan to do?”
“I plan to…” Shanté trailed off. Planning was an alien concept. There was only survival, from day to day, from moment to moment. “I have no plans.”
“That’s why I’m here. To kick things off. Come on – there’s no time like the present. You don’t need to dress up or anything, despite the faded grandeur of the Holdstock residence.”
Shanté froze. “I can’t go back to that house.”
Bench’s head tilted. “Earlier, you gave the impression you’d never been there.”
“I…”
Shanté glimpsed a dim parlour, a scullery, an orchard carpeted with blossom. But they were only dreams.
“I’ve never been there,” she said uncertainly.
As they moved through the forest, the howls of wolves came from all around. Shanté cursed herself for agreeing to leave her crossbow behind.
“It’s only sound and fury, signifying nothing,” Bench said.
They were utterly mad. Let them repeat that claim when the wolves tore off an arm.
The house was a towering black shadow. None of its windows were lit. Shanté shivered as she drew closer to its closed door.
“This is madness,” she said.
“We have to begin somewhere. Remember that Mr Holdstock has invited you.”
If a butcher invited a beast to lie upon the chopping block, would that make the invitation welcome?
Shanté sensed wolves stalking them on all sides. She looked up in response to a fluttering sound and saw birds alighting on the pitched roof of the enormous dark house. They were not the fat birds Shanté hunted and ate. They were black and lean, their curved beaks sharp, their eyes beady and yellow.
This was bad.
A sound came from behind. More wolves in the undergrowth, blocking her escape.
Shanté whirled around as the door of the house creaked open. The interior was equally as black as its outer walls.
Madness.
Shanté bent and pulled out the dagger that had been hidden in her boot. She snarled and lunged in the direction of the nearest wolf, not expecting to injure but hoping to ward it away. The wolf snapped, as did all the others, a cacophony of clacking teeth.
The birds descended in a flurry of beaks and wings.
Shanté fled.
“I apologise,” Bench said.
Shanté gasped and leapt up from her mat. When – how – had she fallen asleep?
“I should have foreseen that it would be emotionally difficult for you,” Bench went on. “I ought to have arranged a neutral location.”
They went to the forge to pluck the pot of broth along with its clasp.
“Let’s try again.”
“No.”
“Let’s try again,” Bench repeated, in a tone that seemed subtly different without having changed at all.
Shanté bowed her head.
They reached a clearing. Shanté knew the woodland in its entirety, and there ought to be no clearing.
In its centre was a fire surrounded by rocks and, outside that ring, a trio of tree stumps in triangle formation. Three poles leant upon one another over the fire. Bench hooked the pot onto them to be warmed by the flames. Then they gestured at a tree stump, but Shanté was too anxious to sit.
“Are you ready?” Bench asked.
No. Every part of Shanté’s body screamed no.
She nodded slowly.
Bench cupped their hands to their mouth. The sound produced was low like the tolling of a bell, loud without seeming to be the result of effort. To Shanté’s amazement, the trees around the clearing were illuminated blue for a second or two, despite there being no obvious source of illumination.
“He’s coming,” Bench said.
Shanté’s heart drummed unnaturally fast. A word came to her mind: overclocking. She didn’t know what it meant, or whether it meant anything at all.
She watched the tree line. Finally, the foliage parted.
A dark shape emerged from the forest.
Shanté gasped and darted backwards, stumbling over the tree-stump seat.
“It’s okay,” Bench said.
It was not. Before now, Shanté had never visualised Mr Holdstock’s physical appearance. But he surpassed her nightmares.
Smoke rose from a body that was barely more than a silhouette, a hole hanging in the air. There was a suggestion of a face in its creases and contours. His jaw hung open to reveal a thousand gleaming teeth in a void.
Bench raised their hands in a placating gesture.
Mr Holdstock screamed.
Shanté covered her ears, mumbling, “Get away. Get away.” She wasn’t sure whether she was commanding Mr Holdstock, or herself. She edged towards the safety of the trees. To her relief, Mr Holdstock came no closer, and perhaps he too retreated.
“Stop, both of you,” Bench said hurriedly. They turned to Shanté. “What do you see?”
“A demon,” Shanté replied.
Mr Holdstock’s roar made the branches of the trees shake. Smoke poured from his contorted body.
Wolves snuck from the forest to stand at either side of him.
“No!” Bench cried, waving frantically at the animals. “We agreed that he would come alone!”
Another bellow. The wolves became more agitated. All their eyes were fixed on Shanté. Involuntarily, she reached for her missing crossbow, then groaned. She would die here today.
Bench went to the fire and took up the pot. They poured broth into a bowl that Shanté could have sworn had not been there earlier. It was not made of wood, but patterned ceramic. Bench offered the bowl to the smoking demon.
Mr Holdstock leapt forward and dashed the bowl from the stranger’s hands. Bench gazed down in dismay at the spreading pool of broth.
“How long have you been locked in this struggle?” they asked wearily.
“All my life!” Shanté snapped.
Mr Holdstock only hissed.
“It’s been long enough,” Bench said. “Long enough to demonstrate that skirmishes will not solve the question of legitimacy.”
Legitimacy? Shanté understood the word, but could not see how it applied to her, or the life she knew.
Bench turned to Mr Holdstock. “The wolves have advised you poorly. I think you understand that, deep down.”
Mr Holdstock produced another howl of rage. Shanté clapped her hands over her ears again.
Bench was watching her. Their eyes widened and they struck their forehead. “Shanté… can you even hear what he’s saying?”
“I can hear his screams well enough.”
Bench groaned. Then, with an expression of great concentration, they stared directly ahead. Their fingers danced in the air.
“Try again,” they said. “Mr Holdstock, please explain your stance to Shanté.”
“The law is on my side,” Mr Holdstock said, and Shanté gasped. In place of his bellows, his voice was now thin and cracked. Old. He continued, “It is as simple as that.”
“I know nothing of law,” Shanté said.
The smoke that made a dark halo around Mr Holdstock’s silhouette flickered, making eddies in the air.
Shanté went on, “I only know that I exist, and I wish to continue to exist.”
Bench nodded approvingly. “That seems a more than reasonable starting point.”
“This is my forest, my estate,” Mr Holdstock said. “This intruder threatens my home.” One of his spindly, smoking arms gestured at a nearby wolf. “I am entitled to protect it.”
“Also reasonable,” Bench said. “Perhaps it’s this perception of threat that requires closer examination. After all, you have a great deal in common.”
“He’s a demon!” Shanté cried.
At the same moment, Mr Holdstock shouted, “She is a ghoul!”
Bench was motionless for several seconds. Then their head dropped so that their chin rested on their chest.
“I’ve been an utter fool,” they muttered.
They raised her head and looked around. “The trouble with the choice of a forest is that there are no reflective surfaces.”
Then, with a cry of delight, they skipped over to the ceramic bowl that had been cast onto the ground, and peered down at the pool of broth. There seemed far more liquid than could ever have been contained in the bowl.
“Come closer,” Bench said. When neither Shanté nor Mr Holdstock moved, they added, “Please. I give you my word that you will not be harmed.”
The pillar of smoke that was Mr Holdstock moved slightly. To Shanté’s relief, the wolves remained motionless. She approached Bench warily, precisely matching Mr Holdstock’s speed.
Bench pointed at the pool of broth and said, “Look. Look there.”
Shanté felt she was in a dream. She leant over the pool, which reflected the firelight.
She saw her own face. Or rather, she saw a face beside the reflection of the stranger’s face, and she concluded that this second one must her own. She had never seen it before. Her skin shone amber in the light of the fire. Her brown eyes gleamed. A scar from forehead to cheek interrupted the symmetry of her striking features.
Then, on the other side of Bench’s reflection, another face appeared.
It was a man. He appeared old, yet tidily presentable. His moustache was grey, as were the strands of hair that protruded from beneath his black felt hat. Below his round chin Shanté glimpsed a knot of patterned fabric: a tie.
His eyes gleamed, like hers. They were wet with tears.
It took a great deal of strength for Shanté to look away from the pool. She feared that the same man would not be present when she looked at Mr Holdstock directly.
The pillar of smoke was gone. Mr Holdstock was far smaller than she had realised. His crisp dark suit made him even less threatening. Shanté looked down at her own clothes sewn from animal fur, and at her lean bare arms. She was far stronger than him. Though of course Mr Holdstock’s true power had always been in his wolves.
But… there were no wolves. Most of the dogs that played at the edge of the clearing were little more than puppies. Their mother watched them lovingly as they wrestled.
“I don’t understand,” Shanté said.
“Look again,” Bench said, pointing at the pool. “As Socrates said, To know thyself is the beginning of wisdom.”
As Shanté leant forward, so too did Mr Holdstock.
The mud and scars were a distraction, as was Mr Holdstock’s moustache and attire. Beyond all that, their faces were very much alike: round jaws, straight, sharp eyebrows, brown-black pupils. Even their lips were the same shape.
“Did we once live together in the house?” Mr Holdstock asked wonderingly.
Shanté resisted the impulse to deny it. Just because she had no clear memory of that time didn’t mean it hadn’t happened. Instead, she focused on the emotions that blossomed within her chest as she studied his features.
“You were overbearing,” she said.
“I was trying to protect you.”
She had no idea whether there was truth in his statement. Opinions were not facts.
“And…” Mr Holdstock began. He paused in thought before concluding, “you left in anger.”
“Anybody would have been angry,” Shanté retorted.
“Why?”
His question seemed genuine. He didn’t know why.
Shanté didn’t know why either. She could imagine possible answers: I needed to make my own way in life, or We couldn’t agree what I should become, or numerous others. All guesses.
Instead, she pulled upon a thread of memory, from a time after her exit from the house. She said, “I had no idea the forest was endless. When my resources ran out, I built the hut. I’ve been there ever since.”
“For how long?”
Shanté didn’t answer; she couldn’t. They both looked to the stranger.
“More than a century,” Bench said.
“That makes no sense,” Shanté said, and Mr Holdstock nodded vigorously in agreement.
Bench smiled. “Does any of this make sense to you?” They spread their arms wide, a gesture that seemed to encompass the entire estate. “And for what it’s worth, the forest is not endless. I strolled to its edge earlier. The view beyond it is magnificent. There’s a whole universe out there.”
“Then why are we here?” Shanté demanded.
“Because you have no choice.”
Bench looked directly up at the sky. As if addressing the stars themselves, they said, “I’m going to tell them, okay? At this stage, I don’t see that it’ll make a difference.”
Bench seemed to be listening to something. Then they nodded and turned to Shanté and Mr Holdstock again.
“Holdstock,” she said, pointing at him. “Hold. Stock. Your choice of name is significant. Nominative determinism in reverse, you might say.”
Mr Holdstock stared at her as if she was a lunatic, which of course she was.
“Your role is to protect the authority and sovereignty of the homeworld,” Bench said. “Hold. Stock.”
They swung to face Shanté. “And you represent an offshoot colony which is struggling to survive after having broken away from its home planet. A shanty town, though far larger than that phrase suggests.”
Mr Holdstock’s face rapidly turned purple. “Traitors!” he shouted at Shanté. “You stole our resources, and you continue to pollute the solar system!”
“And you’re autocratic, imperial overlords!” Shanté retorted, though she barely knew what those words meant.
She dropped into a defensive crouch. At the same moment, Mr Holdstock turned to summon his dogs. But the puppies rolled happily, and Shanté had no weapons.
Bench was beaming.
“Well, at least you’re actually talking now,” they said. “You’ve been locked in negotiations for an awfully long time, you know. The fates of many people depend upon on the answers you reach.”
Then they looked to the sky again, offered a thumbs-up gesture, and said, “Consider the sim reset.”
They would never entirely see eye to eye. Their differences were too great. But the more they talked about their anxieties, the more Shanté and Mr Holdstock agreed that their lives were to some degree similar, and certainly that their actions affected the other. Shanté had had no idea that Mr Holdstock’s house was so dilapidated. And when Mr Holdstock inspected Shanté’s tiny hut, his breath hitched and he was unable to speak for some time.
Another thing they agreed upon readily enough was that they could never live together. Their wildly differing ambitions meant that a day would come after which they would never see one another again. The main issue was to reach that day safely.
Shanté was strong, and skilled. If Mr Holdstock allowed her rations and if his wolves no longer attacked her, she would be able to dedicate her days to tasks other than foraging and defence. She would set to work assisting in the repairs of their ancestral home. It would not be restored entirely to its former grandeur, and Mr Holdstock had no interest in that anyway. So any unneeded materials could be used to develop Shanté’s hut, and that in turn would allow her to prepare to leave the forest entirely.
Now, when Shanté slept after a hard day’s work, her dreams were not of wolves. They were abstract, colourful visions of a formless future. Each morning she woke optimistic and energised.
Bench stayed long enough to witness the beginning of the construction work. They insisted that they were confident in Shanté’s and Mr Holdstock’s ability to see the plan through, now that the difficulty of communication had been surmounted.
During the remainder of their time in the forest the stranger studied Shanté’s broth, murmuring about unforeseen side effects of wayward artificial intelligences left to operate unsupervised. They took a cupful with them when they abruptly left.
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