An astonishing literary crossover novel about the pressures of growing up and the nature of authorship.
Intrigued? Well read on to discover the synopsis and an excerpt from Aliya Whiteley’s Three Eight One, which is out now!
In January 2314, Rowena Savalas – a curator of the vast archive of the twenty-first century’s primitive internet – stumbles upon a story posted in the summer of 2024. She’s quickly drawn into the mystery of the Is it autobiography, fantasy or fraud? What’s the significance of the recurring number 381?
In the story, the protagonist Fairly walks the Horned Road – a quest undertaken by youngsters in her village when they come of age. She is followed by the ‘Breathing Man’, a looming presence, dogging her heels every step of the way. Everything she was taught about her world is overturned.
Following Fairly’s quest, Rowena comes to question her own choices, and a predictable life of curation becomes one of exploration, adventure and love. As both women’s stories draw to a close, she realises it doesn’t matter whether the story is true or as with the quest itself, it’s the journey that matters.
In the firelight, wearing all my clothes, with the shivers finally abating, I pull out my three cha. I hold them in the palm of my hand, turning them over.
My cha are scarlet-painted pebbles, light on my palm.[1] The colour is vivid; these are new cha. I put two back in my pocket and pick up the remaining one with thumb and forefinger to examine it in the firelight. It is a friendly delight, a depiction of a fabulous creature that reminds me of the fairy tales my mother used to tell me at night. It’s been years, but I think I need one – a story of the little cha that protected us, our village, when we first put down our roots.
Cha have been a constant friendly presence in my life. I have a stuffed doll of one on the end of my bed. I wish I had brought it with me. I hugged it before leaving, told it to keep my room safe. That was a strange thing to say, maybe. I don’t know who made my toy cha, but it was a red furry ball that I loved even in my earliest memories, just as I loved the tale of it. Some stories are protection in the darkest of nights.
I should have brought it along.[2] It hardly had any weight to it; it would not have burdened me much. I should have left something else out of the backpack. What, though? I need the food, the water, the cooking pot. I might have need of the emergency medical supplies and the change of clothes. The towel and the matches have already proven their use.
In the absence of the toy, I speak the story aloud, from memory. There are parts I don’t remember, and parts that come to me complete, and they all get mixed in together to create a new whole that both comforts and unsettles me.
Afterwards, the night seems be listening to me, wondering if I’ll dare say more. I feel watched. I feel vulnerable. I crawl into my tent, a triangle of scant protection, and make myself tiny in my sleeping bag, with my backpack beside me.
I am a hero, I remind myself, over and over again. This is only the beginning.
My folk had grandfolk, and they had grandfolk before them, and the grandfolk before that were the first people to come to this place and decide it should be a village. They had left the city behind, chasing a dream of a quieter life where hard work amounted to simple pleasure.
Little did they know, when they came to this spot, that it was already the home of a breathing man.
The breathing man slept in the rocks that they cracked open and the wood that they split apart to make their houses. They woke him with their destruction, thinking only to clear a space for themselves, not realising they were destroying the home of one who lived there already.
He shuddered awake, and seethed. He came to the villagers and breathed by each delicate ear in turn, and that cold breath changed them. They realised they were isolated, in a dangerous land they did not understand. They began to argue, and thought of returning to the city.
But a creature had followed them from the city. It was a cha. The cha were an ancient force in the world, long misunderstood. They could be mischievous and powerful, or they could be small and keen to help. This cha decided to help. It turned itself into three things: a pebble, a box, and a road.
The pebble bore its likeness, and to hold the pebble gave one the feeling of safety and connection.
The box was a solid silver cube that was topped with a button. To press the button gave one the feeling of perspective, realisation, singularity.
The road was a long path that the cha danced upon, and the breathing man saw the road and the dance, and found his feet at the threshold of the village before he could think twice. The Horned Road called to him. It gave him, as it gives to all it calls, the chance of adventure.
He set off after the capering cha, and neither ever came back.
The villagers rejoiced. Then they realised that some of their children, the very bravest and boldest, felt the pull of the dance too. They were sad, but they let the children go. They thanked the cha every day, and never forgot its good works.[3]
[1] The introduction of this hugely important concept to this document – cha – finds no immediate parallel in contemporaneous documents. Cha can refer to tea, a drink found in earlier ages that formed trade links across the colonised world. Repetition of the word (cha cha cha) creates a dance move dated to the islands/archipelagos of Cuba (nation-state – NST50978612) in the 1950s. Is the dance of the Horned Road the cha cha? Quest narratives often have strong links to embarrassment/torture that must be overcome, and public dancing could be both celebration and ritual humiliation. This is often found in Western visual creations of the age. Movies! Dance offs, dance competitions, learning to dance, a great big dance at the end. The body moves, expresses. One becomes two, pressed close, chest to chest. Two become a crowd.
[2] How solitary existence must have been during childhood back then, with no connection to a streamed consciousness applied at birth, to grow with, learn with, become indivisible from. I am a we – so much of a we that we think of ourselves as I.
My favourite childhood toy was a soft rag with felt eyes. Not in a shape, not anthropomorphising, not human but a movable, mutable rag that I could bend into any shape I liked, understanding so early on that it was about skin comfort, softness on the largest organ of the body. With the smell of lavender sunk inside, it was a delight. But it did not have the added responsibility of shielding me from loneliness, or imagination. I’m glad of that, but also certain that it means my experience of living is nothing like Fairly’s experience, or any of the true humans who predate me.
[3] This section correlates with what I know of folk tales/urban myths/warnings. Well-documented examples along similar lines can be found in, for instance, The Pied Piper of Hamlin (Hamelin) and Cyber Weirdo (CHH38561006). These tales are truly chilling. Anything can be taken away in this age at a moment, even personal dignity. Sometimes I read the old documents under the horror tag, and wonder how they all thought up such horrible stuff. The age makes the individual, I suppose.
