by Polly Crosby
The plank walk in front of me split in two directions, and I paused, unable to decide which way to go. As I stood there, a low rumble emanated from within the reeds. The wind dropped down, stirring the thin stalks, and for a split second the reeds parted. I peered into them. Deep within, a dark shape crouched, waiting.
The growl came again, and without thinking I took off. Something began crashing through the reeds behind me, but I dared not look back in case I lost my footing. I ran and ran, following the planks, twisting and turning through the reeds, until eventually I couldn’t run anymore, and I slowed to a stop, my lungs screaming, and turned to face whatever was behind me.
All was still. I dropped my hands onto my knees in relief, trying to get my breath back. When I stood upright, the windpump was in front of me, as if it had been waiting all this time.
I climbed up the wooden steps that led to a grass bank next to the pump, checking over my shoulder every few seconds for movement. From the top I could see across the reedbeds, and I scanned them for a dark shadow, a flattened area, anything to prove the panther had been there, but there was nothing. If Stacey had been with me, she would have laughed at me, mocking me for imagining things that weren’t there. But she wasn’t, and without her I couldn’t shake the feeling that something, somewhere was out there still, watching me.
I turned back to the mill, trying to put the panther from my mind. It was a huge, tall building, terrifying in its height, rising up, fat and round out of the reeds like a dormant monster. The sails looked tired and worn, rather like those in the book after my constant agitation. Despite the brisk breeze, they weren’t moving, but they groaned quietly. There was a small window halfway up. It looked dark inside, the antithesis to the pretty images in the window of Dad’s picture. I wondered whether if I swung the sails into action, a kaleidoscope of pictures would whir by in glorious Technicolor.
The mill was surrounded by a moat not unlike that of Braër, but the tiny, rickety plank of wood that acted as a bridge across it appeared far less inviting than our solid bridge at home. It looked like someone had thrown it across to gain entry. The heavy door stood partially open. Was it the swish of reeds I could hear, or the scurrying of rats inside?
I stood for some time, trying to work up the courage to go in. Eventually, I placed my foot on the thin plank. It wobbled and then settled. There was only enough space to put one foot in front of the other, and I grabbed at the reeds, foolishly hoping they would help keep me upright, and began the slow walk forward.
Halfway across, the plank wobbled precariously again, and I stood as still as possible, trying not to look down at the dark water below. Eventually I reached the other side, clinging to the door and turning to see how far I had come. It occurred to me that if the plank were to fall in now, I would be stuck, marooned at the windpump forevermore.
I pushed the door open and stepped inside. It took a while for my eyes to get used to the dark. I heard a scuttling, and something ran over my foot, making me jump.
As the light from the door filtered in, I began to make out huge cogs and great wooden beams. In one corner, the remains of a staircase wound upwards. It looked charred, as if someone had tried to burn it. There wasn’t much room to move: the machinery took up most of the space, and I backed against the wall, feeling its friendly curve encircle me. I put my hands to it, grateful to touch something solid, and my fingers found a strange collection of bumps in the brickwork. I crouched down, feeling for the strange patterns, waiting for my eyes to get used to the dark.
Letters began to form underneath my fingers, words scratched into the bricks.
R O M I L L Y, I spelt out, a strange prickling at the back of my neck as I recognised my own name.
This is it! I thought, this is a clue! I frantically rubbed at the letters, trying to see what words had been written.
R O M I L L Y K E M P
I reached further along, my brain buzzing at the thought that my name existed in a place I had never stepped foot in before. I felt further along, working out the next word.
L O V E S
I scrambled along the floor on my knees, my hands furiously scrabbling in the dark.
C O C K
I dropped my hands to my sides. What did it mean? This wasn’t a clue from my father, it was graffiti. Cruel words written about me by people searching for the treasure.
I was getting used to the dark now. All around me my name was coming into focus, dancing in front of my eyes. I walked around the windpump, my hands reaching out to touch my name wherever I saw it. Words had been etched onto the wooden joists that hung low across the room; there were words scratched into the brickwork; words painted on the floor.
DEVON TREASURE SEEKERS, one read, carved into the wood.
WE’RE GOING ON A TREASURE HUNT, WE’RE GOING TO FIND A BIG ONE, proclaimed another, winding its way round the curved wall.
I turned round and round in the little room, the words spinning around me.
SIMON AND TINA WOZ ’ERE
IV FOUND THE TRESSURE SO U CAN ALL BUGGER OF
WHERE’S THE GOLD MR KEMP?
Someone had painted, I ROMILLY in large, looping letters around the base of the huge cog in the centre of the room. Someone else had added, BUT WOULD YOU SHAG HER THOUGH?
I crouched down in the small space, feeling very alone. This wasn’t the mill in the book. It was cold and dark and scary. I let out a little sob, running my hands through the dust on the floor.
With a shaking finger I wrote, ROMILLY WAS HERE. Then I stopped. I could hear something outside. An assured tapping of footsteps, as if someone were walking the plank. I jumped up, just in time for the door to burst open, the silhouette of a large woman blocking out the light.
‘Oh!’ she said seeing me standing there. Her mouth, just visible in the grainy dark, formed a perfect o. ‘You gave me a shock. I didn’t expect anyone to be in here. Are you looking for the treasure too?’
I nodded, rubbing my message out with my toe.
‘I didn’t think I’d get over there—’ she nodded back to the plank, ‘—I fear I may have cracked the bridge a little. Not to worry though, Bob’ll help us if we get stuck. He’s out there, doing a spot of bird-watching. There’s the chance of an egret apparently.’
She walked into the room, the light still blocked by her impressive bulk. Taking a torch from her rucksack she clicked it on and shone it round the walls.
‘Looks like plenty of people have been here before us,’ she said. ‘Oh dear, they do say some thoughtless things, don’t they?’ She kicked at an empty beer can on the floor. ‘That poor little girl. I think some of them forget she’s real.’
‘How can they forget?’ Dad sometimes forgot about me, of course, but that was different. He was Dad.
‘Well, I suppose nobody really sees her, do they? There’s that photo in the back of the books, but apart from that…’
‘Maybe she’s a ghost,’ I said, thinking how I sounded like Stacey, and then, ‘Do you think the treasure’s real?’
‘I can’t see why not. I think Tobias Kemp would have told the press by now if it wasn’t.’
‘I can’t find it, and I’ve been looking for years.’
‘I expect it’s like the Pools – someone who’s never had a thought to finding it will dig it up one day, oblivious to all the hard work we’ve put in – just like that chap from Leeds who won a million the other week. Never played before.’
‘That’s not very fair.’
‘Life isn’t fair, is it? Look at that poor little girl, her name scrawled all around us.’ She shone her torch around again. My name flared from the darkness. I patted my cap nervously.
‘How do you know she’s poor?’ I said.
‘Well, I bet she never asked for any of this. Rumour has it she doesn’t even go to school. He keeps her locked up in that house day in, day out. I’ve a mind to report him to social services.’
‘Who?’
‘Tobias Kemp. From what I hear, he’
s a bit of a prima donna. And she’s got no mum around to care for her, poor pet.’ The woman tutted.
‘Betty?’ A voice from outside echoed across the water.
‘That’ll be Bob. Are you coming out with me?’ She pulled a small trowel out of her pocket. ‘I like to dig, whenever I find somewhere like this. Just in case. You want a go?’
We stepped outside and blinked in the light. Bob was standing on the other side of the bridge, a pair of binoculars on a strap round his neck.
‘I thought you’d got lost,’ he said.
‘I was just chatting with this boy. He’s a treasure hunter too.’
‘There’s no accounting for taste,’ Bob said in a bored voice, and turned away, putting the binoculars to his eyes.
We edged round the thin stretch of grass that ringed the windpump, Betty teetering every now and again, her round shape not conducive to delicate climbing.
‘Now, my logic says that if we find a place where the treasure might be, we may as well dig anywhere nearby. I never dig too often though – it’s like picking wild flowers: one is enough. And I always put back the earth I’ve uncovered. I’ll go first.’
She bent down on creaking knees and tucked the shovel into the earth. A sod came away, soft and crumbly. Together, we looked into the little hole it had made.
‘Doesn’t look promising, does it?’ she said. She replaced the earth and handed the trowel to me. ‘Your turn.’
I looked around. We were on the far side of the pump. Far off to the east, Bob was standing, binoculars to his eyes. Four silver-white birds flapped lazily through the sky.
The windpump soared above me. There was no graffiti on its brickwork here. I took the shovel from the woman and crouched down. The scoop sliced satisfyingly into the earth, and for a second my stomach clenched in the hope of finding the treasure. I lifted the trowel and looked into the hole that it left behind.
‘You’ve got something,’ Betty said, her wiry curls getting in the way, and before I had a chance to move, her pudgy hand had flown in and pulled out something small and shiny.
‘Well, will you look at that.’ In her hand was a tiny, hard-shelled insect, shining like real gold. ‘Isn’t it beautiful?’ she said.
And it was. It was a perfect oval, its shell a metallic, all-consuming yellow gold.
‘It just goes to show, there’s treasure in nature too,’ the woman said, placing the little insect in my hand, where it began to walk, exploring the crevices of my skin. Then, with a slow whir, its shell opened and two little wings extended, and it was off, flying lazily up into the blue of the sky. We watched it until it disappeared.
‘Don’t forget to replace the soil now, there’s a good boy.’
I patted the soil down. A single blue flower was growing out of the grass that I had dug up. I hoped I hadn’t killed it.
After we had navigated the plank of wood (‘You go first, dear. Bob can rescue me if it all goes wrong’), I said goodbye to the woman and waved to the man, who was far away now in the distance.
In the garden, my head humming from all that I had seen and heard at the mill, I sank down by the moat and dipped my feet into its chill water. The garden was still busy, but no one seemed bothered by a boy in a cap sitting by the water. A silvery clinking heralded Dad’s approach.
‘I thought it was you under that hat,’ he said, towering over me, beaming. ‘Are you incognito? Good plan, good plan.’ He sat down next to me with a huff of satisfaction. ‘They’re loaded, those nice tourists,’ he said, putting his hand in his pocket and swilling the coins around. ‘All I did was show them the mobiles and make them a cup of tea, and I got twenty pounds for my trouble.’ He began rolling his trouser legs up. ‘Look at these forget-me-nots,’ he said, examining the tiny blue flowers half hidden in the grass.
‘Beatrice brought them when she came to visit.’
‘Of course.’ He dipped his toes in the moat and let out a sigh. ‘That hat suits you. I hope you haven’t chopped all your hair off underneath. I need to make a start on the next book soon, and everyone’ll get confused if I start painting a boy.’
I grinned up at him, and suddenly his eyes widened as he looked at me.
‘Where’s your mole gone?’ he said, leaning towards me so quickly that I nearly toppled into the moat.
‘I didn’t want to look like me.’
He lifted his thumb and rubbed hard at my cheeks, wiping off the paint. When he had finished his breath rushed out in an audible whoosh. He studied my mole for a moment, then he stood, his legs dripping, and walked back to the house, the money in his trouser pocket clinking.
I looked down at the bank, and put a hand to my cheek to calm the sting. Leaning over, I inched forward to see my reflection in the moat, curious to see how different I looked with my mole covered up. But Braër’s high wall cast a thick black shadow over the water, and all I could see when I looked down was an eerie silhouette that had no eyes and no mouth, and yet managed to stare right into me, penetrating to my very core.
Seventeen
In the spring before my thirteenth birthday, I dressed up as a clown and accompanied Dad to the village pub. Dad pushed the door open and I stomped in in my oversized shoes, my clown’s wig falling over my nose. I had never been inside before. The carpet was a swirl of reds and greens. It stuck to my shoes as we made our way to the bar, the plastic handle of the collection bucket digging into my hand.
I could see men leering at me through my blue nylon hair as we walked, raising their glass tankards to their lips. The pub smelt of eggs. At the bar, Dad ordered a pint, and an orange juice for me. He handed it to me in the bottle, a thin straw bobbing in its neck.
‘Don’t mind if my daughter collects for Comic Relief, do you?’ he said, attempting to sound local and friendly, but sounding like the posh Londoner he was. The landlord eyed me, his hand resting on the beer pump. A film of grease coated his face and slicked back his receding hair. I could see oily finger marks on the beer pump too. I had a feeling there would be a sheen of it on the top of Dad’s pint, like petrol on water. He dropped a twenty pence piece into my bucket. It landed on the others, shiny and slippery. My fingers contracted in disgust and I resolved to wear gloves to count the money.
The pub dog, Bert, thrust his huge snout into my crotch as I walked past him. He was a large, overweight boxer, a guard dog that turned into a pathetic baby when you rubbed his belly. A pair of fat, hairless testicles swung between his back legs. He was known in the village as the local Romeo, the father of many litters of accidental puppies. He was allowed to roam free, leaving fat, squelchy poos in his wake, the result of the many chips shoved into his salivating chops by inebriated customers.
Dad found a seat by the window while I made my way round the pub, shaking my bucket and trying not to trip up on my huge shoes. The tip of my painted red nose was just within my sight, and I kept squinting at it, my eyes crossing.
‘So this is where Tobias Kemp hides his treasure, is it?’ one man slurred, putting his hand into the bucket and stirring his fingers through the coins. I left his table before he could put any money in.
A man at the bar dropped a five-pound note in. ‘Is that Romilly Kemp under there?’ he said, trying to look under the long blue curls of the wig. ‘My daughter loves your books. Here, could you sign this?’
He handed me a beer mat and grabbed a biro from the bar. It had been a while since anyone had asked me to sign anything, and I grinned at him, enjoying the feeling of being recognised. I scrawled my name. The signature looked disappointingly ordinary, the ink coming out in gluey blobs, and I made a mental note to carry a proper fountain pen around with me, just in case.
As I started back to Dad, I felt the soft grip of the man’s hand on my arm. ‘You couldn’t give us a clue, could you?’ he was talking under his breath. The grip on my arm tightened. ‘It’s just, my daughter, she’d be made up if I could help her find the treasure.’
I could smell the beer on his breath. ‘I don’t kn
ow any more than you,’ I said, pulling my arm away, but his grip tightened.
‘Rumour has it the treasure’s hidden in your bedroom,’ he said, fingering the beer mat I had written on, looking at my signature. ‘Beneath that big old bed of yours, that’s what I heard. Don’t you find it weird that everyone knows exactly where you sleep?’
I pulled my arm away again, and this time he let go, raising his hands innocently.
‘Better be careful no one comes and searches for the treasure in the middle of the night,’ he said, watching me as I made my way back to my dad.
As I hurried back, I passed a man reading a newspaper by the fire. It was open on the table, and a familiar phrase caught my eye.
SHADOWY FIGURE PROMPTS INVESTIGATION INTO TREASURE HUNT AUTHOR, it read.
‘Excuse me, could I have a look at that page, please?’
The man handed the paper to me without comment, looking at me strangely. When I took it, I saw why: the page opposite had a picture of a woman with no top on. I felt my cheeks burn red, and I ducked my head and walked away quickly, finding a spare table to read it at.
It was a short article, with no real information at all: the public were concerned about the shadowy woman in Dad’s books, and one person had voiced the opinion that Dad might have murdered someone, and that was what he was hiding in his books. The paper quoted a psychologist as saying that it was probably an image of his mother, who had died when he was young. It took me a moment to realise they were talking about my grandmother. I’d never met my grandparents on Dad’s side, but I had assumed they were alive somewhere out there. I didn’t know how I felt, knowing at least one of them was dead. Surreptitiously, I ripped the page out of the paper, naked breasts and all, and scrunched it up. On my way back to Dad, I dropped it in the fire.
I slid into the seat beside Dad, thinking about the third book. I had found the shadowy woman as soon as the book arrived. She was on the first page, in the distance as before. She still had her hands to her face, but this time her knees were also bent, as if she were sinking to the ground.