Early Riser_ The new standalone - Jasper Fforde Page 0,1

medical condition or a dozen or so other complications – Dead in Sleep.

But not all neural collapses led to death. Some, like Mrs Tiffen who was on Morphenox – it was always the ones on Morphenox – awoke with just enough vestigial memory to walk and eat. And while most people saw nightwalkers as creepy brain-dead denizens of the Winter whose hobbies revolved around mumbling and cannibalism, we saw them as creatures who had returned from the dark abyss of hibernation with most of everything left behind. They were normally rounded up before everyone woke, usually to be redeployed and then parted out, but stragglers that slipped the net could sometimes be found. Billy DeFroid discovered one snagged on some barbed wire in the orchard behind St Granata’s three weeks after Springrise. He reported it to the authorities but not before taking its wristwatch, something he was still wearing when he died.

‘Seven down,’ said the actor, having to raise her voice to be heard above Mrs Tiffen’s bouzouki, ‘slow to pen a plumber’s handbook?’

‘I’m not good with crosswords,’ I shouted back, then added: ‘I hope the bouzouki playing isn’t troubling you unduly?’

The thespian smiled.

‘Not really,’ she said, ‘at least it keeps numbskulls out of the carriage.’

She was right. Today was Slumberdown Minus One, the last full day before the Winter officially began. The train was busy with Mothballers and overwinterers, trying to get to their relevant Dormitoria or work as status dictated. Several passengers had tried to join us in our compartment but after taking one look at Mrs Tiffen’s glassy nightwalker stare they hurried on past.

‘To be honest I rather like Tom Jones,’ she added. ‘Does she play “Delilah” or “She’s a Lady”?’

‘It would help,’ I said, ‘for variety’s sake. But no.’

The train followed the frozen river up north past Castell Coch, and through the billowy clouds of white vapour from the locomotive that drifted past the window I could see that Winter shutdown was very much in evidence – shutters were closed and barred, vehicles swaddled in layers of waxed hessian, flood sluices greased and set to auto. It was all quite exciting in a dangerously thrilling kind of way. My initial trepidation regarding overwintering had soon changed to adventurous curiosity. Enthusiasm might come, in time, but my sights were set on a loftier goal: survival. A third of first-time novices in the Winter Consul Services never saw the Spring.

‘So,’ said the actor, nodding towards what had once been Mrs Tiffen, ‘harboured?’2

‘By her husband for five years.’

Most people to whom I mentioned this displayed a sense of disgust; not the actor.

‘He must have loved her.’

‘Yes,’ I agreed, ‘he gave everything he had to protect her.’

While Mr Tiffen had regarded his wife as someone with profound neurological issues, we saw her as little more than another casualty of the Winter. The bouzouki playing was merely a quirk, a vestigial memory from a mind that once crackled with personality and creative energy. Almost all of her was gone; only the skill remained.

We pulled into Abercynon station with a hiss. The passengers moved about the platform with commendable silence, easily explained: those now heading for the grateful joy of slumber were too fatigued to celebrate, and those planning to overwinter had only the anxieties of a lonely sixteen weeks to dominate their thoughts. Little was said as the passengers embarked and disembarked, and even the signalman’s clicker seemed to have lost its usual sharpness.

‘The courts are usually lenient if there’s a family component,’ said the actor in a quiet voice. ‘Mind you, harbouring is harbouring.’

‘There’ll be no trial,’ I said. ‘Her husband’s dead – and with honour.’

‘The best sort in my view,’ said the woman thoughtfully. ‘I hope for the same myself. What about you? Many Winters under your belt?’

‘This is my first.’

She looked at me with such a sense of shocked surprise that I felt quite unnerved.

‘First Winter?’ she echoed incredulously. ‘And they’ve sent you on nightwalker delivery duty to Sector Twelve?’

‘I’m not exactly alone,’ I said, ‘there’s—’

‘—first Winters should always be spent indoors, taking notes and acclimatising,’ she said, ignoring me. ‘I’ve lost far too many newbies to be anything but sure of that. What did they do? Threaten to thump you?’

‘No.’

They didn’t need to. I’d volunteered, quite happily, eight weeks before, during Fat Thursday celebrations.

Fat Thursday

* * *

‘… The length of time humans have hibernated has shifted subtly, mostly due to climatic conditions and advances in agriculture. ‘Standard Winter’ was adopted in 1775 and fixed to eight weeks