A Fragmentary Record — Assembled by Maren Voth
population: 7 | elevation: unknown | founded: ████████
Editor's Preface — Maren Voth, Compiler
I have assigned each of you a color. You did not ask for this. You would not have wanted it. The assignment was made in the interest of clarity, and clarity is the only weapon I have left that does not hurt me when I hold it.
What follows is not a novel. It is not a diary, a transcript, or a confession — though it is all of these things in the way that a wound is all of the knife, the hand, and the silence after. I have organized the voices as best I can. Where I have failed, I have noted my failure. Where I have refused to continue, I have noted my refusal.
Some of what Silas said I have written down correctly. Some of what Dora said I have written down and then crossed out and then written down again. Eli's sections I have arranged spatially, as he would have wanted, though he is no longer here to confirm it. Yuna spoke mostly at night. Theo mostly at the wall. Petra — Petra I will get to.
The name I do not print in my color. The name belongs to no one and to the page.
1 Maren Voth, b. ████, Voss Hollow. Occupation: librarian (former). The Voss Hollow Public Library closed in the year the well dried. The two events were not connected. Maren has said this many times.
2 The color assignments are as follows: Maren = parchment. Eli = the sky before it learns what is in it. Dora = the last working lamp. Silas = the place where the nail goes in. Yuna = the moss on the north side of a stone you should not lift. Theo = a lit match. Petra = the bruise that arrives before the blow.
2a Maren later clarified: the colors are not symbolic. She was adamant. She was also crying. These things can both be true.
2a-i This footnote was added by a second hand. The handwriting does not match Maren's. No second person was present when the document was typed. We have no explanation to offer.
3 Voss Hollow, pop. 7. Confirmed as of the writing of this sentence. We do not confirm beyond this sentence.
Chapter I — The Town in the Usual Way
We lived in Voss Hollow the way people live in most small towns: badly, mostly, and with a great deal of loyalty to the badness. The grocer was Theo Marsh. The grocer's wife had been Petra Marsh until she wasn't anymore, and after that she was just Petra, which felt both smaller and larger than it had before. Eli Crane lived in the house with the blue shutters that he had meant to repaint for eleven years. Dora Fenn lived at the end of Culvert Road and kept roosters she never explained. Silas Hark lived next to the library. Yuna Seo lived across from Silas, in the house with the garden that nothing would grow in.
I lived in the middle. I always live in the middle. The middle is where you go when you can no longer choose a side and the sides have stopped asking.
What Dora said on the first Tuesday in September, before anyone else had said anything:
"The well smells different. I don't know why I'm telling you that. Actually, yes I do. I'm telling you because you're the one who writes things down and someone should write this down. The well smells like iron and also like — I don't know. Like a word you can't say because you were never taught it."
[She paused.]
"It smelled like that last year too. I didn't say anything last year."4
What Yuna said that same night, in the garden, not knowing anyone could hear her:
"Nothing grows here because it knows something I don't. Or it knows what I know and takes it more seriously. Either way it's smarter than me. I'm not angry about that. I am very angry about that."
[She knelt. She did not kneel to pray. She knelt to look at the dirt more closely. This is not the same thing, though it is not entirely different.]
"The dirt isn't right. It's the wrong temperature. In September it should be — it should feel like fall. This feels like something else."5
4 Dora did not say anything last year. She did not say anything the year before. At some point she will have been not-saying-anything for long enough that the silence becomes its own kind of speech. Maren believes we are approaching that point.
5 The dirt in Yuna's garden tested 11°F warmer than surrounding soil. The test was performed with a candy thermometer from Theo's store. This is not a rigorous methodology. The results were rigorous anyway.
Chapter II — Eli's Spatial Arrangement (as requested)
Note: Eli spoke in fragments, often simultaneously. I have arranged them as he arranged himself in space: close to the center where the meaning is most obvious, drifting outward where it becomes less so. Read inward or outward. He would say it doesn't matter. He would be lying.
6 Eli went back. He went back on the following Thursday. The measurements had changed again. The warm room had moved. He sat in the hallway for forty minutes before leaving. He did not tell anyone for three weeks. He is telling us now, in the way he tells things, which is mostly with his hands and the space between words.
Chapter III — Silas Speaks About the Name
"You want to talk about it by name. All of you do. Dora won't say it but she thinks it constantly — I can tell because she stops mid-sentence and her eyes go to the middle distance and I know what she's looking at, which is the shape the word makes before it gets said. Yuna has said it. Twice. Both times she went quiet for the rest of the day. Eli wrote it down and then measured the paper and the paper was the wrong size."
"I'm not being metaphorical about the paper. Eli measured an eight-and-a-half-by-eleven sheet of paper and got nine-by-twelve. He measured it again. Nine-by-twelve. He measured a different sheet. Eight-and-a-half-by-eleven. He measured the first sheet again. He hasn't measured anything since."
"What do you think that means?"
"I think it means that saying the name — writing the name — changes the space around the name. I think words are containers and some containers are bigger on the inside than on the outside and I think some things live in that extra space and I think we have been drawing attention to one of those things for a very long time now without understanding what we were doing."
"I think the word is —"
[ 4.7 seconds of silence on the recording ]
"— and I think we already knew that."
7 The name, in full, is ASTERDAN. The typographer who set this page has been notified. The typographer has declined to comment. The typographer has not returned calls. The typographer's office, when visited, appeared to have one more room than its floor plan indicated. We did not enter the additional room. We have still not entered the additional room.
7a Silas was the first to say the name aloud in this document. He has been the color red since the beginning. He was already the color red before Maren made her assignments. She has never explained this coincidence. We do not believe it is a coincidence. We do not believe Maren believes it is a coincidence.
Chapter IV — Theo at the Wall
Theo stood at the east-facing wall of his store for six days in October and spoke to it. I recorded what I could. What follows is the east wall's side of the conversation. The east wall did not speak. The east wall did not need to.
"I put my ear to it and I hear something. Not pipes. Not settling. Something that has the rhythm of breathing but isn't breathing because no lung is that large."
"The rhythm changes at 3 AM. Faster. The way your breathing changes when you know someone is in the room."
"I have been leaving food by the wall. I don't know why I'm doing this. I've been doing it for eleven days. None of the food disappears. But it feels wrong when I put it there. It feels like leaving food for something that doesn't eat in any way I understand."
"The wall is warm. The heat moves. It moves like something moves inside a blanket when what's inside the blanket turns over in its sleep."
"Yesterday I knocked and something paused. Something on the other side paused. The rhythm stopped for eight full seconds and then continued at a different pitch. I don't know what I asked. I don't know what it answered."
"I will not knock again. I will not knock again. I will not knock again. I will not knock again. I will not knock again. I will not knock again. I will not knock again."
8 Theo knocked again on the twenty-second. The sound that replied was not a pause this time. Maren was two blocks away. She heard it. Dora, across town, heard something she described as a "large door closing, except the door was a concept rather than a thing." These accounts are presented without editorial comment, because Maren has run out of editorial comments and is now conserving them.
Document Insert — Found in Yuna Seo's Garden, November
Tuesday — maybe — I have lost several Tuesdays
I went into the garden at 2 AM because the dirt was glowing. Not brightly. Not like a light source. Like something recalling what it once was, the way a coal remembers fire. I sat with it for a long time.
I think ASTERDAN is not a creature. I think it is a condition. The way grief is not a creature but grief lives in you. The way a word can mean multiple things and both meanings are true and they cannot coexist and yet there they are, coexisting, because language is not as rigid as we pretend.
The dirt stopped glowing when I spoke to it. I don't know if that means it heard me. I don't know if it means it stopped trying.
The things that do not grow here: tomatoes, basil, lavender, marigolds, hope, the specific kind of certainty that makes you able to get out of bed in the morning.
The things that do grow here:
—
—
—
— Y.S.
Chapter V — What ASTERDAN Is
There is no chapter five. There was a chapter five. The following is what remains of it after I tried to write it three times:
ASTERDAN
IT IS OLDER THAN THE WORD FOR OLD
IT IS LARGER THAN THE MEASUREMENT FOR LARGE
IT WAS HERE BEFORE VOSS HOLLOW
VOSS HOLLOW WAS BUILT ON TOP OF IT
OR INSIDE IT
OR
VOSS HOLLOW
IS
IT
·
·
·
9 This chapter was originally 47 pages. What you have read is pages 1 and 47. The intervening 45 pages described, in detail, the geometry of ASTERDAN's presence beneath Voss Hollow. Maren removed them. She describes this as "the kindest thing I have ever done for a reader." She does not seem to mean it as a compliment to the reader.
9a Silas read all 47 pages. He did not speak for nine days afterward. When he spoke again, his first words were: "The angles are wrong. In everything. In every built thing. I can see it now and I cannot stop seeing it." He has not elaborated. We have not asked him to elaborate.
9a-i Dora read pages 1-12 before stopping. She said: "I got to the part about the space between two consecutive prime numbers and I thought — that's not a metaphor. She means it as a location. I put the pages down and I made tea and the tea tasted like iron and also like a word I can't say because I was never taught it."
9a-i-α This note added by a third hand, or possibly the same hand as 2a-i. The handwriting is similar but not identical. We have stopped asking about the handwriting. We no longer want to know about the handwriting.
Chapter VI — Petra
I said I would get to Petra. I have been getting to Petra for six months. This is me getting to Petra.
"You want to know what I know about ASTERDAN and I'll tell you what I know, which is that it listens. I know this because I have spoken to it. I know this because when you speak to the kind of silence that ASTERDAN makes — the gravity-silence, the silence that has weight and temperature — something orients. Not toward you. You're too small to orient toward. It orients the way a large ship orients: slowly, massively, in a way that makes the water change around it long before the ship itself has moved."
"Petra. When did you first speak to it?"
"I've always spoken to things. Theo thought it was charming when we were married. Then he stopped thinking it was charming and we stopped being married and I kept doing it anyway because it was never about being charming. I spoke to the house. I spoke to the well. I spoke to the dark at the bottom of the well. Something spoke back. Not in words. In a change of temperature. In the way the dark got — attentive."
"Did it answer you?"
"It's always answering. Everything it does is an answer. We're just asking the wrong questions — or, not the wrong questions. We're asking questions in language and it doesn't use language. Language is a human accommodation for the fact that we can't share minds. ASTERDAN doesn't need accommodations. It doesn't care about the words. It cares about the shape of you. The thermal signature of your fear. The way your body changes when you know something enormous is nearby and paying attention to you specifically."
"It knows me now. I think it's known me for years."
"I don't think that's bad. I've thought a lot about whether that's bad."10
10 Petra has thought about whether it is bad for an average of four hours per day for the past two years. This is documented. She keeps a log. The log currently reads, on every page: "Unclear. Continuing to assess." The most recent entry reads: "Unclear. Continuing to ass" and then nothing. The entry was made on a Tuesday. We have confirmed the date. We have lost several Tuesdays. We have not confirmed that this is a coincidence.
Chapter VII — Winter. The Seven Together.
We gathered in December. This is not recorded as a pleasant occasion. This is recorded as the occasion during which ASTERDAN made itself most apparent, which is a different thing.
Eli said: "The rooms are multiplying."
Dora said: "The well smells like arrival."
Silas said: "The angles have always been wrong."
Yuna said: "Something grew in the garden last night."
Theo said: "The wall is warmer tonight."
Petra said: "It knows we're all here."
And then the lights went out. All the lights in Voss Hollow. Simultaneously. Not a power failure — the power was confirmed operational; the grid had not failed; the bulbs had not blown. The lights went out because something very large chose, in that moment, to have darkness, and we were inside that choice the way you are inside a building — present, contained, entirely dependent on its structural mercy.
We sat in the dark for fourteen minutes.11
When the lights came back on, the room was the same. We were the same. Voss Hollow was the same. The wall was the same temperature. The well smelled of iron. The dirt in Yuna's garden was warm. Nothing had moved. Nothing had changed.
That was the worst part. That was the thing I have been trying to find language for ever since. ASTERDAN had been in the room with us for fourteen minutes and nothing had changed. Nothing needed to change. We understood everything that needed to be understood and it had not cost the thing beneath us a single effort.
11 Fourteen minutes as measured by Eli's watch. Eli's watch had, until this point, kept perfect time for seven years. After the fourteen minutes, it ran four seconds slow per day. Eli has not corrected it. He says: "I want to stay behind." We have not asked him to explain further. We are afraid that we already understand.
11a During the fourteen minutes, Dora reports hearing, very clearly, the sound of a word being said. Not by anyone in the room. Not by anyone in any adjacent room. From below. From deep below. A word said slowly and deliberately in a register lower than hearing, which she nonetheless heard, which she says she will not repeat, which she says has no human equivalent, which she says she is grateful has no human equivalent, because if it did she would be saying it right now and she does not want to be saying it right now. She does not want to ever be saying it.
Coda — Maren Voth — Undated
I am writing this after. I do not know how long after. I have been writing this for what feels like a long time and also for no time at all, which is consistent with everything else about living in Voss Hollow, which is consistent with everything else about living in a place where ASTERDAN has been beneath you for longer than there has been a you to be beneath.
We are still seven. We are all still here. This should be reassuring. I have been trying to find it reassuring for several months and I want to report that I am making progress on this front, which is true in the way that a ship that has been moving toward the bottom of the ocean for twenty years is making progress.
What we fear is not death. What we fear is not even ASTERDAN, exactly, though ASTERDAN is the name on it. What we fear is the thing that the fourteen dark minutes taught us, which is:
Eli is measuring the rooms. He will not stop measuring the rooms.
Dora is at the well. She has not come inside for a week.
Silas is sitting with the angles. He says they are more wrong every day. He says this with something approaching tenderness.
Yuna's garden has finally grown something. She will not tell us what it is. She sits with it at night. She seems, and I say this carefully, at peace with it.
Theo is at the wall. He has started leaving different things. Not food anymore. Notes. The notes are folded. He has not told us what they say.
Petra is at the well with Dora. They are not talking. They are doing something else that does not have a name yet but that I have decided to call, provisionally, listening.
And I am here. Writing. Assigning colors. Watching the edges of things for signs of expansion. Cataloguing. Preserving. Doing what librarians do, which is believe, against all available evidence, that things are worth keeping.
Voss Hollow is quiet tonight.
ASTERDAN is quiet tonight.
This is not a relief.
A thing that is quiet is a thing that is listening.
A thing that is listening is a thing that has heard something worth listening to.
We have not figured out, yet, what we said.
* This document was found in the Voss Hollow Public Library, in a section of the stacks that does not appear on any catalog. The section contains no other books. The section is lit by a single lamp that does not appear to have a power source. The lamp has been on, without interruption, for as long as anyone can remember. We have measured the room the section occupies. The measurements are:
███████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████
███████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████
████████████████ — which is to say, larger than the building. — ████████████████████████████
** Maren Voth's current whereabouts: ████████████. She is confirmed well. She is confirmed present. She has asked us not to say where. We are honoring this request in the way that all requests are honored in Voss Hollow, which is: completely, and with the quiet awareness that something older than the request is also listening to our compliance.
Partial Index
angles, wrongness of · 22, 31, 53, passim
Asterdan · see also: below, the; depth, unreasonable; listening, quality of; rooms, excess; silence, weighted; space, additional
below · 1–53
color assignments · i, ii
Crane, Eli (measurements) · 2, 5, 19, 22
dark, fourteen minutes of · 53
dirt, temperature of · 1, 11, 53
door, large conceptual · 53 fn.8
Fenn, Dora (roosters, unexplained) · 1
garden, Seo's · 1, 11, 40, 53
Hark, Silas (angles) · 3, 22, 31, 53
handwriting, unattributed · i fn.2a-i, ████
iron, smell of · 1, 11
knocking · 4, 4 fn.8
lamp, sourceless · * fn.
Marsh, Petra (listening) · 6, 52, 53
Marsh, Theo (wall) · 4, 53
measurements, incorrect · 2, 3, 19, * fn.
paper, wrong size · 3
rooms, additional · 2, 5, * fn.
Seo, Yuna (garden) · 1, 11, 40, 53
silence, weighted · 3, 5, 6, 53
smell · see: iron; arrival; a word you cannot say
Tuesdays, lost · garden insert, * fn.
Voss Hollow (population) · cover, 53, passim
wall, east-facing · 4, 53
well · 1, 6, 53
word, unsayable · 1, 4 fn., 51 fn.11a
Voth, Maren (current location) · ████████