Hyddenworld: Spring Bk. 1 (Hyddenworld Quartet 1)

by William Horwood

  Jack came out of the shadows, headed back around the bonfire, and up to the house, feeling very uneasy.

  When he looked back from the terrace there was nothing to see at all, but the pathway of candles leading to . . . what?

  The bonfire?

  Something waiting to happen?

  Jack cocked his head to one side, listening hard. But there was nothing to hear but the chimes’ occasional stirring, the last flapping of a pigeon in the trees, and a squirrel or two, awake nearly too late, hurrying across the woodland floor.

  He went inside.

  43

  BONFIRE

  They finally set the bonfire alight at eleven.

  Mrs Foale had produced some sausage rolls and mince pies in memory of Arthur, washed down with the sweet sherry he also liked.

  ‘It’s what we always have at bonfires,’ whispered Katherine, making a face.

  The fire took easily, and within twenty minutes was giving out enough heat to combat the chill night air. By a quarter to midnight the heat was so great that it forced them to step back.

  ‘We don’t have need for chants or incantations tonight,’ said Mrs Foale, mysteriously. ‘The spirits are present without them. What will be, will be.’

  No, indeed they didn’t. The fire and the roaring sound of it, the nearby tinkling of the chimes on the restless air, and the sparks shooting up through the branches towards the sky, they combined to say it all.

  Katherine quietly slipped away from them and went up to the house to fetch the gold plastic urn containing her mother’s ashes. She carried it back down the candlelit path, approaching the fire as close as the heat would allow, and then began scattering its contents into the flames.

  ‘Ashes to ashes,’ she murmured.

  The fierce heat almost sucked them out of the urn, and they dispersed like a stream of tiny, red-orange stars, twisting and turning upwards with the flames, up towards the treetops now clearly lit by the blaze, and then beyond, till one by one each tiny particle was lost among the bright stars in the sky.

  ‘Goodbye, Mum,’ whispered Katherine after the last spark was gone and the real stars were all that was left. ‘You’re one of them yourself now.’

  ‘Goodbye, Clare,’ said Mrs Foale.

  Jack just stared at the night sky, the warmth of the fire on his face and chin, the cold air of the night on the back of his neck, glad to be alive, glad to be in Katherine’s company, but still wary of the shadows all about.

  Somewhere, distantly, a church clock struck midnight.

  ‘It is the end of one day and the beginning of the next,’ said Mrs Foale softly. ‘Wherever you are, Arthur, and whatever’s happened to you, I pray you’re safe and will soon come home.’

  She went over to the entrance of the henge, as she had done earlier, perhaps to say another quiet prayer. She stood there, a lonely figure against the darkness, the firelight flickering over her.

  ‘She’s missing him so much today,’ remarked Katherine, ‘and it’s getting worse for her all the time. Mum’s death has simply opened the floodgates of her own loss.’

  ‘Then,’ said Jack, so quietly she hardly heard him, ‘we’d better get him back.’

  He went and fetched some garden chairs, to make things more comfortable. Soon Mrs Foale rejoined them, and they had another glass of sherry each.

  They began to talk then, sharing memories, revealing their hopes.

  Gradually they all fell silent, the firelight flickering in their eyes, each in different ways fearful of the future, which felt ever more uncertain the more they thought about it.

  Mrs Foale got up. ‘I’m beginning to feel cold, so I think I’ll go inside,’ she announced. ‘Why don’t you two stay here and enjoy the last of the flames.’

  They sat there in silence in the dark, Jack finally allowing himself to relax, his earlier wariness dying away with the bonfire and the guttering candles. All was warm and mellow, and quiet, the occasional final flame and stirring ember seeming as soft and muted as the darkness had become.

  The night was now alluring, deep and shining dark, with only the sharp call of a tawny owl to break the silence. They felt content then, the ritual of farewell to Clare performed, the Summer come, all three of them safe here, their beds awaiting them. The spirits of the night were now benign.

  ‘Jack,’ began Katherine suddenly.

  He turned away from the fire to look at her, and reached out a hand instinctively.

  She took it, her mouth opening to speak . . .

  But suddenly there was a stirring in among the trees to one side of the henge. It was the movement of a person, swift and alien.

  ‘Jack . . . !’

  Katherine was suddenly frightened, Jack tense. It was the same quick tread he had sensed earlier.

  ‘Did you hear that?’ she whispered, moving nearer to him.

  He nodded. ‘I’ll check it out.’

  ‘No, don’t. Stay with me. Please—’

  But Jack was already up and heading towards the pair of conifers. There he pulled out his torch and shone it around.

  There was nothing to be seen, yet something . . . something was wrong.

  Jack’s heart began to thump.

  Then unexpected movement to one side.

  ‘Jack!’

  Katherine had now heard it too, and was pointing into the trees nearby.

  Lowering his torch so as to allow his eyes to readjust to the darkness, he set off in the direction she had pointed in.

  ‘No, Jack, don’t go . . .’ whispered Katherine urgently.

  But it was too late. He was in among the trees and out of sight.

  She stood up, uncertain whether to follow after him or to stay in the light of the dying fire.

  Jack paused to look back.

  ‘I won’t be long,’ he called out, not registering how still she had suddenly become.

  ‘I’ll be right back. Just stay there.’

  Jack headed further in among the trees, his eyes keenly searching the flickering shadows.

  ‘I’ll just check it out,’ he murmured, leaving her further behind.

  44

  LOST

  The moment Jack was gone, icy shadows began to encircle Katherine.

  The fire seemed to dim, as if she saw it through a veil. The cold deepened until suddenly any warmth that remained in the air was sucked right out of it, so that she began to shiver and feel deeply afraid.

  The shadows grew thicker, closer and colder, continually shifting so that she could not quite make them out. She turned this way and that to try to escape them, and found herself stumbling away from the bonfire towards a tree, which she bumped into painfully.

  Though her feet scuffled through dry leaves, they made no sound.

  Jack! she tried to say, but no sound came.

  Then the shadows began re-forming into something more solid, something malevolent.

  But her voice just would not work and she could not call for help.

  The cold felt like fingers digging into her, grasping and gripping at her clothes and flesh, pulling her in a direction she did not want to go.

  Their cold presence shivered inside her, swirled through her head, pulled harder and harder at her to make her go the way they wanted.

  ‘No!’ she tried to shout. ‘Jack!’

  But the icy shadows had frozen her mouth and tongue until, unable to make a sound, she had not even strength to turn his way any more.

  Jack heard nothing of Katherine’s muted cries, though her silence was ominous.

  All he could do was stand totally still among the trees, where he thought he had heard a sound, trying to stop his staccato breathing being heard.

  He was certain he sensed someone nearby, just as he had earlier. Now, whoever or whatever it was, the feeling was much stronger and more malevolent.

  Jack circled around, pushing his hands up against the icy shadows that seemed to surround him as if to get them out of his way, tugging at them to dislodge them from his he
ad, eyes wide open on a night that had changed to a nightmare he could not understand and which put fear deep inside him.

  Another sound of cracking twigs followed by a brief caressing movement slithering across his face, like fingers that meant to harm; a swirl of chilling air sliding past him.

  Jack focused and his mind became his own again.

  Sensing something, he turned sharply, saw a shimmer of blackness before him. The shadow slowly shifted, and then darted suddenly across at eye level. He tried to follow its further movement between the trees, but lost sight of it almost instantly. He stepped forward in an effort to catch sight of it again, hoping his feet would not cause the snapping of twigs or rustle of dry leaves, but the shadow moved faster still and was gone.

  He grabbed the moment to reorientate himself and it was the acrid scent of the bonfire on the breeze that finally pointed him in the right direction. He turned his head further and spotted the lights of the house off to his left and, having recovered his bearings fully once more, he realized that each step he was now taking took him ever further away from Katherine.

  When another shadow stopped in front of him, Jack lunged at it angrily, but found it was nothing of substance, though the air it occupied felt bitterly cold.

  ‘Jack!’

  As he finally heard Katherine desperately calling his name, he immediately turned back, regretting at once that he had left her. But just then he felt a shudder in the air, saw a vibration of light, then a definite movement right across his line of vision that left him blinking.

  He stopped, momentarily disorientated once more, feeling as if a sleight of hand had taken place, a trick of some kind: a clever stunt by a stage magician who, by waving his hands, makes an object disappear though those watching know it must surely still be somewhere near.

  ‘Katherine?’ he called out, uncertain in which direction now to turn.

  He sniffed for the direction of the fire, turned again to check where the house was, and then, ignoring the trickster shadows, he ran back through the trees towards the bonfire.

  ‘Katherine . . . ?’ he shouted.

  But there was no reply.

  Jack got back to the bonfire and stared in bewilderment at the spot where he had left her, finding it impossible at first to take in the fact that she had disappeared. He had been gone only moments. Surely he would have noticed any movement away from the bonfire. This was inexplicable.

  ‘Katherine!’ he called again, running over to her chair as if, by just touching it, he could magically bring her back.

  Still she did not appear.

  ‘Where are you?!’ he yelled.

  He paused again and focused, then realized that something made the situation a thousand times worse. He could feel her presence somewhere nearby, so near that if only he could see where she was, he could easily reach out and touch her.

  It wasn’t so much that she had disappeared. Instead, she seemed to have become invisible to him.

  He turned a full circle but still she wasn’t there. All he could see were the same shifting shadows he had noticed earlier, circling him constantly but never quite within reach.

  His breath came painfully now in fits and starts. He called out her name yet again, resisting for the moment all temptation to run back to the house and find Mrs Foale, because he was sure Katherine was still here, nearby, somewhere close. If he went back inside, the chance of finding her might be gone for good.

  He forced himself to stand still and focus.

  He had heard her call his name once, so maybe she would again.

  He heard nothing.

  Finally he ran back to the house, quickly, checked she wasn’t in the kitchen or up in her own room, then looked in on Mrs Foale who was sitting in the library. Before she could say anything he was off again, back into the garden.

  Katherine was still nowhere to be seen.

  Mrs Foale had been surprised when Jack appeared fleetingly in the library and then darted away again.

  She shook her head in puzzlement, stood up and went to the library door.

  ‘Jack?’ she called after him, but he was already gone.

  ‘Katherine?’ she tried.

  No reply. Her eyes widened.

  She reached the conservatory doors in time to see Jack running back towards the bonfire.

  ‘Jack!’

  He didn’t hear her.

  Something was wrong, very wrong, and it was something Arthur had warned her might happen. But not yet, not now, surely not tonight . . .

  When Jack reached the fire again, he knew at once that something had changed. The chill he had felt before had begun to disperse and the shadows were clearing in the direction of the henge.

  High above the trees, the moon was a glaring crescent so bright that the one remaining candle still alight on the ground between the trees was dull and listless by comparison.

  Yet it caught Jack’s eye as it feebly flickered and guttered, seeming to want to keep itself alive but now struggling to do so. Jack had the terrifying sense that Katherine, like this candle, was now reluctantly fading away and would soon be gone.

  A tiny, vicious little breeze swirled at his feet, stirring the ashes of the near-dead bonfire, catching at an ember or two to make them glow again and send up a swirl of smoke which, as if carried by a spirit of ill-intent, billowed up into his eyes, shot up his nose and stung the back of his throat.

  It was then, as he backed away, dabbing at his eyes, and wondering what he could still do to find Katherine, certain she was not yet so far away that he could no longer help her, that he thought he saw something definite again.

  The smoke that the breeze on the embers had created turned into black, shimmering shadows, which tore away from him towards the two tallest trees, causing the final candle in its jar to burn more brightly.

  He looked harder and thought he saw shadows rise up between the trees, whirling thick and more substantial, shaping into something, pulling at something, straining to get it into the henge.

  Then he distinctly heard her voice again, a cry of distress receding from him.

  ‘J . . . a . . . c . . . k . . . help . . . me . . .’

  ‘Katherine?’ he called out urgently, taking a few steps towards the sentinel trees. ‘Where are you? I can hear you but I don’t know where you are. Katherine!’

  He ran towards the trees leading into the henge, sure now that was where Katherine must be – certain, too, that the time to reach her was running out.

  Before the last candle goes out, he told himself, because its guttering flame seemed to symbolize that she was still there, alive and needing his help.

  It’s going out, like Katherine is, he told himself wildly. The flame’s abandoning this place, and she’s going too, she’s being taken now. They . . .

  Everything slowed down.

  Four steps, three steps, his hands reaching towards the rushing, swirling shadows, as they pulled away at last from his world and withdrew into the henge beyond.

  Two steps more, Jack straining, reaching out, shouting her name again, knowing she was there almost within his grasp.

  Just one more step . . .

  But then it was too late.

  The last candle suddenly extinguished, the swirling shadows were finally gone, and all that remained were the last embers of the fire behind him and, ahead, the shimmer of moonlight across the open space within the henge, the silence of the cold night air. Where he was sure Katherine had been there was now impenetrable dark.

  45

  INTO THE HENGE

  When Katherine found herself finally overwhelmed by the shadows and pulled into the henge, her yielding to them on the one hand gave her new strength on the other.

  For one moment she found the strength to cry out again for Jack’s help, and that was the single cry he heard. Then she realized she must not call his name again, because if he heard, and followed her, he might be taken also.

  She decided to kick out at the very last of the burning candles as
a way of warning him of the danger of following her inside the henge.

  Seeming to sense her intent, the shadows began pulling at her yet more urgently. No . . . you . . . won’t . . . stop . . . me! she screamed silently, and with a final effort made them falter and her foot connected with the jar and, as the candle went out, hot wax spattered her ankle, which made her more angry still.

  But on her own behalf she could no longer act at all.

  They had her now and she was drawn inexorably on, only able to look back passively and watch the last part of Jack’s search for her as he reached that same dead candle, stared down at it, then back at the bonfire, and then back again in her direction, though seeming to look right through her and not knowing which way to go.

  I’m here, Jack. You’re looking right at me . . .

  Things began to slow, the sounds of the world she knew started to fade, and her anger to be replaced by a mounting sense of despair, of helplessness and finally of a grief worse than any she had ever felt before, including even that for her dead mother.

  They held her firmly, but ceased dragging her onwards, keeping her there in the henge gateway from where she had to witness Jack’s bewilderment. They seemed to want her to watch these last moments as if, now that they had her in their control, they wished her to suffer.

  By then, it was not of herself she thought, but Jack. The first time these dark forces had tried to kill him he had only been hurt because he tried to rescue her. Now history threatened to repeat itself and this time he would surely die, because it was him they wanted, not her at all. She was no better than bait, and he the fish.

  She felt herself pulled further and further away from where he stood hesitating at the entrance.

  Go back! she wanted to shout at him as they led her deeper into the labyrinth of their dark intent and towards the trees on the sinister side of the henge. Go back!