Excerpt from Nonesuch by Francis Spufford, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

Meruzababel, read the first line on the paper. "Me-ru-za-ba-bel," she said out loud, thinking to herself, Abracadabra. Hocus-pocus. Honestly, girl, what do you expect to achieve?

The rest of the ... spell, she supposed you would have to call it, made a diminishing triangle.

Eruzababel

Ruzababel

Uzababel

Zababel

Ababel

Babel

Abel

Bel

El

L

She said it all, hesitating over how to sound the last line.

"Luh," she said. "Lah? Ell?"

Nothing happened. The letters swam. It was really very dark now. She sighed and rubbed her eyes. When she opened them, it was if anything darker, suddenly darker. And looking to see why, she found that the giant granite head of the Mariner statue that gave the Mariner Building its name had turned, and was blocking the window as it gazed in at her.

It had had only rough stone dimples for eyes. Now, it had opened stone lids, and pupils of black marble as big as coffee saucers regarded her. Black circles, within crystal-blue circles, within eye-whites of marble again. The eyes glistened, but like rainwater on a pavement. That was the awful thing: that the statue had begun to live, yet without turning into flesh, or anything like it. It was still stone, still cold, still hard. Muscles were not making the expression on the huge face, but some mineral stirring. Yet she could read it. A furious, weary contempt.

The mouth of the statue opened with a creak. Behind it a gullet deepened, literally deepened as she watched, a flue burrowing away down into the stone dark, to give the Mariner something it had no need for, except to obey her command. No breathing had ever happened in those depths; no swallowing or digesting. On the inner surface of the mouth, ribbed like a cavern, a pale bloom like frost came and went.

At the far end of the corridor, she heard Mr. Seaton turn his key in the door of Cornellis & Blome.

"What," said the Mariner, and its voice was like a glacier grinding on a cliff, "Do. You. Want."

She could feel her pulse in her jaw, a throb under her ear.

"Tell me where all past years are," she said.

But that was much later.

Excerpted from Nonesuch by Francis Spufford. Copyright © 2026 by Francis Spufford. Excerpted by permission of Scribner. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.