Right from the beginning I knew that it was never going to be an easy task, interviewing Hudson. Most of the time, so the orderlies tell me, he is in a near-catatonic state, just sitting there, knees drawn into his chest, pressed as tightly as he can manage, in the corner of his cell. He stares at seemingly nothing. He mumbles, he drools and he soils himself and any sense of dignity he might have once had has long since been stripped and disregarded. 

There is the other side to that coin, of course. When he switches gear he becomes dangerously manic. But there is a delicate balance and it’s during those periods that he becomes an urgent resource, to my mind removing his humanity one step further. I keep that view to myself, of course. My superiors would not approve of such compassion.

In fairness, it could be agreed that none of the Asylum’s inmates have any dignity and humanity seems to have fled most of them. Even as a visitor I feel the shame and degradation oozing from every wall. These walls hold terrible memories and could they but speak, they would no doubt have endless disturbing tales to tell. Distant screams bounce around the corridors, echoes of people undergoing the treatment of the day. Many of these inmates – I know I should call them patients, but I can’t – are little more than guinea pigs for whatever new methods are found whether it be drug-based, or something to do with electricity, or the very unlucky, surgery.

I am not fool enough to believe that all the so-called ‘treatments’ are anything more than torture, plain and simple. The practices, rumoured or otherwise, that take place in these institutions are nothing short of barbaric.

Well, so the cynics say, at least they keep the local undertakers in business. Harsh, maybe, but true. Most people, when they commit their loved ones to this gruelling regime, do not have the stomach to stay connected to them. They are informed gravely of their family member’s passing on and asked if they would like the Asylum to take care of matters. Invariably, the families agree readily. Every so often, one soul will be returned to his loved ones for private burial. 

Hudson is lucky in this regard; there is an entire body of men and women eager to divine his secrets and as we need him alive as long as possible, we have struck up an agreement with the Asylum whereby they will not experiment on him. They appear to be keeping to their word, but you never can tell.

Lucky is relative, of course. It’s hardly ‘lucky’ to be stuck in a prison of your own mind.

But when Hudson is connected enough with reality to communicate, when lucidity curls its arms around him in a warm embrace, dragging him back into the here and now, then and only then is the chance to chip away at the endless mine of useful information that he holds. That is when one of us is called to the Asylum to probe the vast repository of knowledge Hudson holds within his memories.

Of course, nobody knows when these moments are going to strike and so every opportunity must be treated with urgency. Today, it is my turn. Reluctantly, here I am. Not reluctant because of the potential to learn Hudson’s secrets, no. I would not dare to call myself a scholar if I were to refuse that chance. Reluctant because I do not like this place. It is too stifling. Too unreal. I have yet to fully adapt to the ability of shedding compassion like a dinner jacket and pity wells up within me still. I am reassured that this, too, shall pass.

It is raining today and with some sort of insight, with some gentle persuasion and a quite generous supplement of a handful of coins, one of the orderlies has grudgingly agreed to put us in an upstairs room with floor to ceiling length windows. To my secret delight, Hudson is thrilled by this, and despite the restrictions placed upon him by the strait-jacket in which he is bound (for my protection, I am reassured), he makes his way to the window, his nose pressing up against the dirty glass.

“It has been so long since I saw rain,” he says, his tone wistful and his head tracks a droplet as it runs from top to bottom. I let him take whatever time he needs to enjoy something as simple as precipitation. After a short while, he seems to become aware that I am present and he turns to look at me. As before, I am struck by the clarity in his green eyes. They are true green; not hazel, or blue, and the colour is captivating. When he loses connection with the present, they become filled with anguish and the unseen horrors that claw at him relentlessly.

In his prime, Captain Henry Hudson must have been a strikingly handsome man. He is now in his late fifties and there is the faintest hint of that still about him. When he stands straight, he is tall and lean – although he’s perhaps thinner than his frame would normally suit. What remains of his auburn hair, where it is growing back after he tore it out several weeks previously, is streaked through with pure white. 

He studies me in silence and seems to come to some sort of decision. He sits down on the chair opposite and leans forward on his elbows, the straps on the jacket creaking with the movement.

“Hello,” he says. “I know you, don’t I?”

“Yes, Captain Hudson. My name is William Steadman. We spoke last….” I check my notes. “Four months ago. I’m here from the…”

“The Priory, yes? Yes. I can tell. You have their look. Strong-willed. Arrogant.” The faintest of smiles, wry and without any trace of humour. “Persistent.”

It is our third meeting and today, I hope, I can press him on the word he offered up to me when last we spoke. 

“Antigonish.”

Do you remember the poem ‘Antigonish’? Of course you do. Even if you didn’t know what it was called, you’ll have heard of it. You know it. It’s easy to remember. They call it a nonsense rhyme. But all art has a basis in fact somewhere. My memory for it may not be perfect, but it goes something like this:

Yesterday upon the stair
I met a man who wasn’t there
He wasn’t there again today
Oh, how I wish he’d go away

It is also the name of a town in Nova Scotia, where the alleged meeting took place. Given what I know of Hudson’s decline, I rather think he has been alluding to the former.

“So which of my memories do you wish to probe today, Mr. Steadman?” His eyes search my face curiously as he attempts to place me in his memories. “What does the oh-so-important Priory demand of me this time?”

I skip over his not completely incorrect assessment of the Priory and press forward.

“Tell me about Antigonish.”

The reaction shocks me. The curiosity turns to abject terror and he squeezes his eyes shut. His mouth opens in a silent scream and he leans forward to smack his head off the table a couple of times. I half-stand, ready to fetch an orderly, but as suddenly as it began, it ends. He struggles back upright and opens his eyes again. They are once more calm and focused.

“Forgive me,” he says and there is regret in his tone. “Triggers are hard to overcome. But I have time these days to work on it.”

“Nothing to forgive, Captain Hudson.”

“I am not a captain any longer, Mr. Steadman.” He sighs. “Why do you persist in calling me by a defunct title?”

“You earned it, sir.” My voice is filled with respect. This man fought in the Great War. He may be quite mad, but to not at least respect his former station is to deny it. I have been brought up better than that. He gives me a sort of half-smile and inclines his head in acknowledgement.

“Very well, if it pleases you, then I’ll bear it.” He chews on his lower lip for a moment and then stares up at the ceiling. His eyes lose focus as though he is looking into a world only he can see. We are fairly sure back at the Priory that this is not far from the truth. What we don’t know is how he made contact with that world in the first place. ‘Antigonish’ was the first real clue he gave us. There are many theories. I am hoping that today, he will confirm them.

It is my lucky day – although ‘luck’ is not the right choice of word.

Hudson snaps back to me. “Have you ever walked into a room and caught a movement out the corner of your eyes? Have you ever turned to see who’s there, only to realise that it was nothing more than the flap of a curtain, or a shadow?” I nod, not wishing to interrupt his flow with needless words, but he doesn’t seem to notice and carries on. “Of course you have. It is a common thing. Imagine then, after a lifetime of false alarms, you turn and actually see something. Something that is so impossible that you know it simply cannot be real.”

Antigonish. I met a man who wasn’t there. It begins to make sense. While I scribble hastily in my journal, Hudson continues.

“It was my own fault. I should never have looked where I was told not to go. I should never have read that book and I should never have spoken the words printed therein.” The captain’s body is wracked with a shuddering sigh. “Meddle not in the affairs of the forbidden, Mr. Steadman.”

I do not meddle, I want to tell him, I study.

“Last time we spoke, you told me that you were going through your lieutenant’s personal belongings in the wake of his unfortunate demise.”

“Unfortunate.” He lets out a short, barking laugh. “The boy was blown to smithereens. We found parts of him for days. Shame. He had so much potential.”

I am not sure who it is who believed Lieutenant John Jefferies had so much potential. The feeling makes my blood run cold and goosebumps break out across my forearms. The look on Hudson’s face isn’t one of regret, but rather one of cold annoyance of having been robbed.

I rub at my arms absently and plough on regardless. “You were going through the lieutenant’s belongings and you found – and I quote ‘a book written in some sort of ridiculous gibberish. I should have thrown it there and then. I should have burned the damned thing. But the more I looked at it, the more the writing seemed to make sense to me.’” I look up from my notes. “You told me that you were driven by a compulsion to read some of the words aloud. Then you said that you saw it. And then our interview ends.”

It had ended with him screaming uncontrollably and scratching wildly at his face as though his skin burned. He’d been unavailable for interview since.

“Yes. I saw it.” Hollowness rings the man’s voice and a fleeting desperation not to be questioned further on the subject is apparent. I cannot let the opportunity slip, however, and so, with great gentleness and consideration, I ask him a simple question. 

“What was it that you saw, Captain Hudson?”

“Nothing.” He laughs and there is more than a touch of mania to it. “How can you see something that doesn’t exist? The dichotomy… it’s a ridiculous notion. The mind plays tricks on you. At first, I put it down to a waking nightmare. I’d had plenty of those since the Great War started, even more after I left the trenches.” He shudders involuntarily. “But that’s true of many of us who survived. You aren’t real, I said, aloud to the… to it. You aren’t real and therefore, I can’t possibly see you.”

“And then what happened?”

“I couldn’t see it any more. Because you can’t see what’s not there.”

“Could you describe what… you couldn’t see? What wasn’t there?”

“No.” He stares at me as though I am an idiot. “No. I can’t. Because it wouldn’t make sense.”

“Because you didn’t see it?”

“No. Because to describe what I didn’t see would be to give it shape and form.” He leans across the table and his eyes hold mine in their gimlet gaze. “And that’s what it hungers for, Mr. Steadman. Shape. Form. A way through. Because I spoke those words, it gained a foothold. I am the curtain behind which it waits. But I won’t let it through. I must defend my country at all costs. It hates me. Or at least, it would hate me if it was real. Which it isn’t.”

His voice grows small, childish. Agitation is apparent in the way his foot jiggles restlessly on the floor. He gives me a plaintive, pleading look, begging for some sort of release. Whether it is his release, however, is unclear.

“It’s not real,” he repeats, earnestly. ”At least, that’s what I have to believe. So I think of Antigonish.”

“What happened to the book, Captain?”

“I burned it. I don’t know why I did that. But it was too late. Too late.”

I am more unnerved by his words than I expected. The theory that he’d gotten his hands on one of the forbidden texts gains a certain amount of weight, of course, but this is a new angle. He is more than just a chapter in that book. He is that book. He is that chapter. He is that thing in the shadows. By reading the words aloud, he unwittingly summoned forth something. By sheer strength of will, he is keeping it from entering our domain.

I think I catch a movement out of the corner of my eye, but thanks in part to my Priory training, I do not turn to see what it might be. I will not fall into the trap that’s been laid for me.

“Tell me how I help you now, Captain Hudson.”

The laughter is inhuman and the clear green eyes seem to boil away in a face that is suddenly distorted and terrifying. The chair scrapes back and the thing leans across until its nose is bare inches from my own. I meet its stare, ignoring the desperate urge to run. Hudson flickers out a forked tongue and I do not so much as cringe as it touches my flesh. My insides have turned to lead and I couldn’t move if I wanted to.

The shadows around us twist and change. I can see them from the corner of my eye once again. Once again, I refuse to turn. The theories solidify. Hudson is definitely a vessel. That he has staved off his own demise for so long is nothing short of astonishing. My general respect for his position as a Captain is replaced by a deeper, more ancient reverence. He is astounding. 

The thing opposite drops back into its seat and the face rearranges itself into that of Henry Hudson. He gives me an apologetic look and the strait-jacket moves in a half shrug. “How do you help me? Ah, Mr. Steadman, if only it were a simple answer. I fear, however, that it’s too late for me. So if you do not mind, I will slip back into that place between worlds where I can keep it from entering yours.” He holds me in his gaze once again. “And before I go, a final word of advice.”

He speaks and I nod. Moments later, a faint haze comes over his eyes and he is lost once more to us. I wait for a few moments on the off-chance he may reconnect, but he does not. I gather my notes and I rise. Knocking on the door summons the orderly who has been waiting outside and he steers the unresponsive Hudson down the corridor. I watch as they leave and head to the staircase that leads down to the exit.

As I put my foot on the top step, I catch a man-sized shadow on the edge of my awareness and swallow hard as Hudson’s final words resound in my thoughts. 

“Never trust a man you meet who isn’t there.”

It takes every ounce of strength and power that I have been trained to control not to turn and face it, but somehow I manage it. I must return to the Priory. There is work to do.