his shirt pocket, and started to read. In early June, 1816, astronomers had noticed a highly unusual configuration of stars in the Northern hemisphere. It was a configuration that had first been mentioned in Old Norse writings in the year 505, although the same pattern had been discovered painted on the walls of caves in the Belgian Ardennes, and these had probably dated from several hundred years BC . The Norse name for the configuration, in the old twenty-four-rune alphabet, was The Harbinger of Cold. Its appearance was said to be a warning that the world was going to be punished for some unspecified sin.
The morning after the stars’ appearance, at eight a.m., snow started to fall on most of the north-east and parts of northern Pennsylvania. The Danville North Star in Vermontreported snowdrifts up to twenty feet, and spring crops all across the United States were devastated.
The freeze was even worse in Europe, where blizzards crossed Britain and France, crops failed, and thousands died. One strange by-product of the icy summer of 1816 was that the poet Percy Bysshe Shelley and his wife Mary were forced to stay indoors in their villa near Lake Geneva, where Mary whiled away the time by writing Frankenstein . And Frankenstein’s monster, in the end, leaps on to an ice-raft in the Arctic Ocean, and disappears into the darkness.
The next time the same pattern of stars appeared was on the night of 14 April 1912, when it was sighted over the North Atlantic Ocean by Robert Philips, the first officer on board the Mesaba . He drew a rough picture of it in his diary, which would have been forgotten for ever, if 14 April hadn’t seen one of the greatest disasters in modern history, the sinking of the White Star liner Titanic .
The encyclopedia’s entry concluded, ‘Although there is insufficient scientific evidence to prove it, the appearance of this particular pattern of stars always seems to presage freakishly cold weather conditions; and widescale death.’
Seven
Jim drove down to Pico Boulevard shortly after nine fifteen. The evening was still uncomfortably hot, and his room-width windshield was splattered with insects. There were rumbles of thunder far off to the south, and lightning danced across the horizon like stiltwalkers.
Pico Villas was a shabby 1960s building with a concrete courtyard and a concrete flying saucer planted with dried-up yuccas. Jim pushed open the door to the stuffy, stale-smelling lobby and found the button marked “Hubbard”. He pushed it and waited for an answer.
Eventually, he heard Henry Hubbard’s voice say, suspiciously, “Yes?”
“Jim Rook, Mr Hubbard. Sorry if I’m a little late.”
“That’s all right. Come on up. Third floor, second on the right.”
Jim stepped into the elevator. It was so cramped that he was glad that he was alone. It was lined with wood-patterned Formica, too, which made it feel like a vertical coffin. It seemed to take hours to groan its way up to three; and even when it did, it remained motionless, with its doors still closed, for almost fifteen seconds. Then, with a convulsive shudder, it opened.
Henry Hubbard was waiting for Jim with his apartment door open. He was a tall, rangy man, with bristling white hair and a face that looked as if it had been eroded by yearsof icy-cold winds. His eyes were pale green, and his nose was large and pitted. He was very clean-shaven, as if he had just come out of the bathroom, and he smelled of Hugo Boss aftershave. He wore a green checkered shirt and pale-blue jeans, with a wide leather belt.
“Mr Rook? Henry Hubbard. Glad you managed to find us.” He gave Jim a strong, dry handshake.
“Jack home yet?” asked Jim.
“He shouldn’t be long. He’s meeting some of his friends from college. I believe they’re forming some sort of support group. They’re getting themselves together to talk out their emotions about what happened to young Ray Krueger today, and Jack seemed to be very keen to be part of it. I
The morning after the stars’ appearance, at eight a.m., snow started to fall on most of the north-east and parts of northern Pennsylvania. The Danville North Star in Vermontreported snowdrifts up to twenty feet, and spring crops all across the United States were devastated.
The freeze was even worse in Europe, where blizzards crossed Britain and France, crops failed, and thousands died. One strange by-product of the icy summer of 1816 was that the poet Percy Bysshe Shelley and his wife Mary were forced to stay indoors in their villa near Lake Geneva, where Mary whiled away the time by writing Frankenstein . And Frankenstein’s monster, in the end, leaps on to an ice-raft in the Arctic Ocean, and disappears into the darkness.
The next time the same pattern of stars appeared was on the night of 14 April 1912, when it was sighted over the North Atlantic Ocean by Robert Philips, the first officer on board the Mesaba . He drew a rough picture of it in his diary, which would have been forgotten for ever, if 14 April hadn’t seen one of the greatest disasters in modern history, the sinking of the White Star liner Titanic .
The encyclopedia’s entry concluded, ‘Although there is insufficient scientific evidence to prove it, the appearance of this particular pattern of stars always seems to presage freakishly cold weather conditions; and widescale death.’
Seven
Jim drove down to Pico Boulevard shortly after nine fifteen. The evening was still uncomfortably hot, and his room-width windshield was splattered with insects. There were rumbles of thunder far off to the south, and lightning danced across the horizon like stiltwalkers.
Pico Villas was a shabby 1960s building with a concrete courtyard and a concrete flying saucer planted with dried-up yuccas. Jim pushed open the door to the stuffy, stale-smelling lobby and found the button marked “Hubbard”. He pushed it and waited for an answer.
Eventually, he heard Henry Hubbard’s voice say, suspiciously, “Yes?”
“Jim Rook, Mr Hubbard. Sorry if I’m a little late.”
“That’s all right. Come on up. Third floor, second on the right.”
Jim stepped into the elevator. It was so cramped that he was glad that he was alone. It was lined with wood-patterned Formica, too, which made it feel like a vertical coffin. It seemed to take hours to groan its way up to three; and even when it did, it remained motionless, with its doors still closed, for almost fifteen seconds. Then, with a convulsive shudder, it opened.
Henry Hubbard was waiting for Jim with his apartment door open. He was a tall, rangy man, with bristling white hair and a face that looked as if it had been eroded by yearsof icy-cold winds. His eyes were pale green, and his nose was large and pitted. He was very clean-shaven, as if he had just come out of the bathroom, and he smelled of Hugo Boss aftershave. He wore a green checkered shirt and pale-blue jeans, with a wide leather belt.
“Mr Rook? Henry Hubbard. Glad you managed to find us.” He gave Jim a strong, dry handshake.
“Jack home yet?” asked Jim.
“He shouldn’t be long. He’s meeting some of his friends from college. I believe they’re forming some sort of support group. They’re getting themselves together to talk out their emotions about what happened to young Ray Krueger today, and Jack seemed to be very keen to be part of it. I
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