The Fetch

by Robert Holdstock

  Carol scampered off, back to the house, but Michael remained in the quarry, and in his mind’s eye he started to reconstruct the walls of his castle.

  He had believed that Chalk Boy had gone for ever, but he was just hiding. What Michael couldn’t understand was why he had given Carol a present, and what that strange feeling of flowing had been. What was Chalk Boy trying to do?

  The quarry was dead again, the brief opening of the tunnel to Limbo was closed. Try as he might, there was no contact, and the evening was drawing in. Carol had been back at the house for twenty minutes, and tea would soon be ready.

  But before Michael could leave the pit, he heard someone running towards him, through the scrub. Carol’s voice was distant. She sounded upset. Michael reached for the rope ladder up the chalk face, but a moment later he heard his mother call to him sharply.

  He turned to face her. She was sweating and red in the face, her hair wild, her eyes wild. She ran up to him and he yelled, backing away as she reached for him. He had thought she was angry, but she simply screamed at him.

  ‘Where did it come from? Where did it come from? Michael. Michael! Where did you get it?’

  She shook him by the shoulders, her fingers digging painfully into his flesh. He struggled in her grip, but she didn’t let him go. Tears were flowing from her eyes, her mouth was wet. She kept repeating, ‘Where did it come from? Michael! Help us! Help us please!’

  ‘Let me go …’

  ‘Michael! Tell me. Tell me!’

  He was shocked by the vehemence in the woman’s voice, then cried out as a hand slapped across his face. Again he was shaken violently, his body hitting against the chalk.

  ‘Get us something. For God’s sake, get us something pretty! We’re going to have to sell the house. There’ll be nothing left for us. Michael! Michael!’

  ‘I can’t!’ he wailed through the distress and despair that flowed over him. Above him, Carol was sobbing. She was trying to get a grip on the rope ladder and shouting at her mother to leave Michael alone.

  Michael was vaguely aware that the woman who was fighting him was in hysterics. Whereas once he had bitten her hand, now he just stood still and let the flow of words, her screams and her anguish, pass over him, not touching him. His shadow came out of his body, crawling over the greying chalk, emptying him, making him invisible. The grip upon his shoulders ceased to hurt.

  ‘There are no pretty things. There is no gold. There’s nothing there,’ he said dully, and was half aware that no sound had come from his mouth.

  A scream, then, and the violence stopped. A shocked face, suddenly ashen, turned up to the sky.

  Carol had slipped. Half holding the rope she tumbled down the chalk pit and struck her mother. The two bodies fell heavily, and Carol cried loudly, holding out a hand skinned red and raw with rope burn. One of the fingers was bent awkwardly and gently her mother put the joint back into place, weeping quietly and kissing the girl’s hand.

  ‘I’m sorry, love. I’m so sorry …’

  She picked her up and carried her, weeping. ‘I’m so sorry – I thought he could help us—’

  Crying, hugging, needing, leaving …

  ‘Oh darling. I’m so sorry …’

  Abandoned again, Michael climbed the rope to the woods and watched as his mother led Carol gently back to the house. He followed across the field, stood in the kitchen staring at the sandwiches ready for tea, listening to the soothing voice in the front room.

  Later, Carol came to his room. Her hand was bandaged and in a small sling. Unexpectedly, and firmly, she gave Michael a kiss (he rubbed it off at once, frowning) and offered to play Scrabble with him, but he wasn’t in the mood.

  ‘Then I’ll read you a story,’ she said.

  He shook his head, staring at her darkly.

  She blinked at him through her glasses, her mouth working as she tried to think. ‘I know. I’ll paint you a picture. I can still paint with my other hand.’

  He nodded. ‘Paint me a picture of what you saw in the pit.’

  She looked blank for a moment, then frowned. ‘I can’t,’ she said.

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘It was just a shadow by the sea. There wasn’t anything there.’

  ‘What about the chalk boy? The white boy?’

  ‘I just saw sea. And a shadow. And felt someone holding on to me round the neck and crying.’

  ‘Crying?’

  ‘It sounded like you. Crying.’

  ‘I don’t cry!’

  ‘Yes, you do. I’ve heard you. It makes me sad.’

  ‘I don’t cry!’

  ‘Yes, you do. Anyway, that’s what it sounded like. And it felt like someone trying to hold on to me. But I can’t paint that.’

  ‘Never mind,’ Michael said grimly. ‘Has Mummy found out what’s inside the doll?’

  Carol looked uncomfortable. ‘It’s a human bone with a tooth in it. She said it was the spirit of the doll, and probably wasn’t meant to be played with by a girl at all. It was probably used by an old man, a witch doctor, or an old woman. She said it’s African. It’s probably magic.’

  Michael said nothing, but turned away from the girl and stepped up to the window, looking out over the night fields to the moongleam on the sea.

  After a few minutes he said, ‘Chalk Boy is dangerous. Don’t go back to the quarry.’

  ‘But I want to give Mummy some more magic dolls.’

  Michael turned and went over to his sister, leaned down to her and with all the seriousness of a big brother said sternly, ‘Chalk Boy is not your friend. He’s not my friend either. He’s dangerous …’

  ‘Mummy said there isn’t such a person as Chalk Boy … Mummy said it’s all you. Your talent. She said you’re just inventing Chalk Boy to disguise your cyclic talent.’

  ‘Psychic talent,’ Michael corrected.

  After a moment Carol whispered, ‘Can’t we just get one more doll for her?’

  ‘Not even one.’

  ‘But Mummy says we’ll have to move into a caravan unless we get some money.’

  ‘I know exactly what Mummy and Daddy say about money. But they don’t believe in Chalk Boy. And I do.’

  ‘He’s your imaginary friend.’

  ‘He’s a very real ghost. He lives in Limbo. He’s trying to escape from Limbo, but I’m not going to let him. And he’s trying to hurt you. And I’m not going to let him do that. And I’m not going to let them hurt you either. Or me.’

  Carol looked suddenly terrified, her eyes widening and moistening. ‘Are you going to run away from home?’ she asked anxiously.

  Michael watched his sister control her tears for a moment, then shook his head. ‘No. Not from home.’ He straightened up and smiled. He looked around the room, at the pictures and photographs, the golds and silvers of precious antiques, the horses and glasses and swords and shields that lined the walls on paper. And in the middle of them: the golden chalice, with its studded reds and greens of precious jewels. He went over to the Grail and placed his hand against its picture, then quickly tore down the poster and crushed the paper in his hands. ‘Doesn’t look like that anyway!’

  He turned and kicked the ball of paper against the window. Carol watched him impassively, her legs dangling over the side of his bed.

  ‘No, I’m not going to run away,’ he said. ‘I’m going to rebuild my castle. I’m going to hide in my castle. No one will be able to find me, only Chalk Boy. And you, if you want. When I’m there, you can come and visit me, and bring me food. I won’t let you into the castle itself. It’s too dangerous. But I shall depend on you. But only you, no one else. Do you understand?’ She nodded nervously, gaze fixed on his.

  ‘Good,’ he said, and added with a sudden laugh, ‘No one will ever get into my castle again … They’ll look for a hundred years, but they’ll never get in! Never. They’ll only see the shadow, only the shadow. Nothing but the shadow. They’ll be in Limbo, and I’ll be watching them. And laughing!’

  PART FIVEr />
  The Totem Field

  TWENTY-FIVE

  In the early evening, with the light going, the boy moved away from the white wall of the chalk quarry, slipping slowly into the green shadows of the scrub wood that filled the centre of this ancient pit. Above him, the rim of the quarry was a dark, broken line of trees, stark against the deepening sky. He could hear a voice up there, his mother coming towards that edge to find him. He knew he had to hide.

  He slipped deeper into the bushes, crawling between tall, tangling blackthorn and crowding gorse, merging with the green, his chalk-covered body swallowed by the leaves and bark, so that he was lost within the undergrowth, creeping along the twisting tracks he had marked out over the years.

  His name was called again. His mother was very close to the deep quarry. She sounded agitated, her voice distant but clear in the calm evening air.

  He froze and watched the spiky line of the pit-edge wood against the sky. Then he moved on, touching the heart-shaped fossils he had carefully laid down on the trails. He picked up a chalk block and used it to whiten his body further, rubbing hard against his skin, his face, then crumbling the skin of the chalk and smearing it through his hair.

  His name … the voice quite anxious now.

  The breeze from the silent farmland beyond the quarry curled in through the ‘gate’ to this place, his castle, the open end where men had once approached to work the chalk. It stirred the gnarled branches of the alders and thorns, whipped the bright gorse, eddied in the pit.

  A new shadow appeared above him, against the sky, a figure that peered down and crouched low.

  He froze and closed his eyes, knowing that the gleam of light would reveal him.

  He sensed the shadow move. Earth and chalk rattled from the edge, tumbling down, to crash and spread within the quarry.

  ‘Michael?’

  It’s coming back. I saw it again. Leave me alone. It’s coming back …

  He turned his head, denying the name. The figure prowled above him, searching the greenery below, scanning the white chalk of the pit.

  ‘Come on, Michael. It’s time for supper. Come on …’

  He tried to draw more deeply into the white shells that covered him, into the ancient sea, into the dry dust of the creatures that had formed this place; hide me, hide me. It’s so close again. I saw it. Hide me.

  He imagined the sounds of earth movements, the dull, deep echoes that would have passed through the heaving chalk waters. The feeling soothed him. The shadow called again.

  ‘It’s time for supper, Michael. Come on. Come home, now.’

  The sea in his mind caught him. The trees in the pit shifted in the current. He floated through the chalk sea, grasped the branches of the gorse and thorn that waved in the gentle evening light.

  It was coming closer. He couldn’t go home now. He had to wait. The shadow on the rim of the pit would have to wait. It was coming back. And that was what she wanted, wasn’t it?

  And from above, his mother’s voice, harsh and angry:

  ‘Can you hear me, Michael? Michael! It’s time to go home!’

  The words struck him like a hand.

  Old memory surfaced to hurt him. He stood up from his hiding place and listened to the sudden shout of outrage, the woman’s voice, shocked by his appearance: ‘What have you done to yourself?’

  With a sad glance backwards, Michael began to walk out of the pit …

  He was on the hot, stinking beach! The waters of the vast sea drew back then parted spectacularly. The dark body of the creature thrust up and out of the ocean, towering high above him as he screamed and ran back, stumbling on the dry, coarse sand. The monster came down on to the shore, water streaming from the grey-green weeds that draped its head and heaving body.

  Another creature followed, rising like a dark cloud from the sea’s edge, blocking sun, blocking light, groaning as it fell, shaking the earth. The stench of rotting weed was overpowering.

  Around him, the shadow of Chalk Boy moved with lightning speed. It was before him, then behind him, and Michael felt the sharp nip of teeth on the back of his neck as the not-here shape struggled to hide. He ran, then, with the shadow of Chalk Boy like a trailing cloak around him.

  He saw the whirling pool of darkness that was a tunnel home and raced for it, as the shoreline shook, and the screaming shapes rose higher above him, shedding water from the wrack that encased them. In the tunnel he saw the glitter and gleam of crystal, and as he stumbled through the twisting space, and sensed the chalk pit and his mother’s voice, he saw the vessel ahead of him, the face of the Fisher King watching him, etched on the glass, arms raised as if in welcome …

  The Grail! It was there, so close!

  But Chalk Boy laughed, and dropped away, and as Michael felt the world of Limbo slip back into the past, he saw the shadow on the sand, passing between the heaving, feeding masses of the giant creatures, fleeing into his hole up on the hill of the sandstone caves.

  The vision of the Grail faded, but Michael was triumphant …

  He looked up at the silhouette of his mother. He watched her grimly, ignoring her angry shouting. The smell of sea-wrack was like an old friend. His body still shook with the encounter.

  It was coming back! It was coming back!

  He ran from the quarry, reaching home before his mother and locking himself in the bathroom, here to draw out the long spikes of blackthorn which had bled so profusely over the chalk skin that had for so long been his hiding place.

  TWENTY-SIX

  The note was passed to Michael at the beginning of the class with Mr Hallam. Mr Hallam was a brusque if genial man with a heavy Scots accent. He always reeked of tobacco and wore a brown, lab-technician’s coat. He tolerated a great deal of disturbance when he was writing on the blackboard, or the overhead projector, but could be spectacularly angry with no prior notice.

  Michael was not alone in being slightly afraid of him, but particularly enjoyed the sense that Mr Hallam was interested in him, especially in his stories.

  The class today was a discussion session, centred around stories, or objects, or facts, the pupils had found out during the week.

  Today, Michael wanted to talk about the Grail. Mr Hallam had approved, and there had been laughing and teasing from one side of the room, where the younger Hanson boy sat.

  The note that reached Michael five minutes after Mr Hallam had started to talk about King Arthur, read simply, ‘They’re going to get you after school. They want a Roman coin in payment. Run for it.’

  The note was anonymous, but he recognized the crudely disguised handwriting. Graham Peake sat dumb and downcast, staring at his notebook, his cheeks slightly flushed. He wanted to be Michael’s friend, but Michael had no friends, and resisted all attempts at contact.

  Still, he was glad of Graham’s warning.

  Mr Hallam eventually asked Michael to come to the front and talk about the Grail. Steven Hanson and his friends went very quiet, watching Michael, then signalling aggressively with their fingers.

  Michael had drawn the image of the Grail on a sheet of perspex. He sat at the projector and positioned the drawing, and Hanson laughed out loud.

  ‘Looks like a fish with fingers. Fish fingers!’

  A ripple of laughter, a crusty response from Mr Hallam, and a stern minute’s instruction to everybody to take these things more seriously. ‘After all,’ he said in his growling accent, ‘they’re a part of our heritage. Folklore and myths are the source of all human behaviour, so why don’t we give the wee lad a chance, let him show us his ideas. We can disagree with him afterwards if we feel the need, but in the proper fashion of debate, with courtesy, and interest and fairness of thinking.’

  Mr Hallam had a way with words, and a way of smothering resistance. He turned back to Michael and pointed a finger. ‘The floor is yours again, laddie. Let’s see what you have for us.’

  Michael’s enthusiasm, based on the vision of the Grail, was in the form of a re-depiction of the vessel
which had been present at Christ’s Last Supper. He declared that he believed the cup to have been made of glass, that it was more like a vase than a chalice, held between the hands and passed around the table; not a golden cup at all. Mixing and mingling his misunderstood mythology, he showed how the face of the Fisher King had been inscribed into the crystal.

  ‘This is all very interesting, of course,’ Mr Hallam interjected irrelevantly from the side of the room where he was watching the talk. ‘We should remember that an early symbol of Christianity was the fish. Not that I’m a great expert on these things, of course, but perhaps the wee lad has something here …’

  The wee lad waited for his moment again. He talked about the Wasteland, and the Quest for the Grail—

  ‘Laddie, why exactly was he called the Fisher King?’

  The question from Mr Hallam interrupted Michael’s thoughts and he frowned. Mr Hallam seemed genuinely interested. ‘I’m confused, son. Educate me. But I’m most interested in what you have to say.’

  The class laughed, and Hanson was a disruptive influence, this time ignored by the teacher.

  ‘Fishers of Men,’ Michael said in a low voice. It was all he could think of. His image of the Fisher King was a man, tired, sad and alone in his Fortress, waiting for the blight to rise from the land. He had no idea why he had been called Fisher King. All he could think of was the Church lesson that so often referred to Christ saying, ‘Henceforth you shall all be fishers of men.’

  Mr Hallam seemed duly impressed and content with the answer.

  ‘But he doesn’t look like a king. Not the way you’ve drawn him there. This is no criticism, you understand, merely a search for greater understanding. But the lad drawn there looks like a Prince. He has a young face. Even if a fishy one.’

  ‘He’s the king,’ Michael said hoarsely. ‘Jesus looked on him when he drank the wine. The face of the fish and the king in the glass.’

  Mr Hallam seemed amused. ‘I don’t remember reading that in my Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. But I’m sure you’re right.’ He quickly calmed the restive and giggling class, then added, ‘So tell us, young Michael. D’you know where this Grail was taken by the bold knight who found it?’