by Simon Clark
Wilkes howled. Writhed. More hooks embedded themselves in his top lip, in his eyelid, in his fingers, and the soft flesh of his belly. When he imagined the intolerable pain could not possibly get any worse that’s when it became even more excruciating. The waters of the River Severn rose inch by inch, wave by wave. For a while, he could keep his head above its surface by pulling back against the cruel barbs that worked so hard to hold him down. Eventually, as night at last fell, drowning the scene in absolute darkness, the tide covered his face. As he screamed a lungful of bubbles out underwater, he recalled images of the autopsy conducted on the grey-skinned corpse. The one with the cut above the eye, the grazed elbow, the dozens of puncture wounds. He wanted to scream again in absolute terror as he finally understood that those injuries now perfectly matched those on his own body, only by this time his lungs had filled with a water so cold it seemed to flow through his veins to freeze his heart.
Victor carried Archer in his arms, as Laura, bearing a lantern, led them out into the courtyard. Jay walked with them. Once more the boy appeared lost inside himself. His face lacked any expression whatsoever. Exhausted, they made their way toward the castle door that swung to and fro in the breeze.
Before they left the castle Jay stood in the doorway. His large eyes fixed on Victor. ‘You’re all evil. My reason for being here was to make you all suffer and then die. I am vengeance . . .’ He frowned.
‘But you don’t believe that any more, do you?’
‘I must punish.’
Softly, Laura said, ‘Jay, I know you’ve realized that is wrong.’
Jay was deep in thought. He never even flinched when drops of water fell from the battlement on to his face.
Victor said, ‘A man came all the way from Africa to tell us that the only way to stop you hurting people was to put you in danger. I’ve come to understand he was wrong. I reject his suggestion – reject it absolutely. Because I learned that you’ve changed, Jay, since you arrived on the island.
‘When you were younger you didn’t understand the power you have; you couldn’t stop yourself using it to cause hurt. You thought you were getting revenge for the way your family and their neighbours suffered. Now, I truly believe you can reject that urge, just as I rejected the advice to make you suffer in order to kill this power you have. You are growing up, Jay. Just as children learn to control their temper, so you’re learning how to control this destructive force inside of you. You tried to do good things for the islanders by making their dreams come true. Only it went wrong because you’re not mature enough to know that when we wish for something to happen it isn’t always a good thing if it does. We must be careful what we wish for. Even miracles can turn bad.’
He paused there with Archer sleeping in his arms. Laura had nodded her approval as Victor spoke, so taking a breath he pushed on. ‘Probably one of the biggest challenges we face as we grow up is learning how to handle our emotions, and knowing how to take control of our actions, and accepting responsibility for the things that we do. Right now, your power is stronger than it ever has been before. It’s time for you to be strong enough, and mature enough, to take control of that power. And then decide how you use it. Do you understand?’
Jay nodded. ‘I thought everyone was evil, and they must suffer.’ He sighed. ‘But Victor isn’t evil. Neither are you, Laura. Both of you risked your lives to help Archer and me.’ The breeze whispered across the battlements.
Victor said, ‘We did what we thought was right.’
‘I took you to the sinking ship. On board the N’Taal you were prepared to die with the baby if you couldn’t save her.’
Still holding the sleeping Archer in his arms, Victor said, ‘So what now? More of the same? Are you still going to carry on hurting everyone you meet?’
‘I want this thing to go. I want this power out of me.’ Jay took a stuttering breath as if a pain had suddenly lanced through him. ‘I’m trying to push it out!’ He screamed.
Laura held up the lantern to light his face. ‘Jay, what’s wrong? Are you hurt?’
‘It’s leaving me . . . Laura, I can feel it going.’ His eyes glistened. ‘Get out, get out, get out!’
With that final screamed ‘get out!’ the boy sagged back against the door frame. His facial muscles went slack, his mouth hung open, while his eyes seemed to stretch impossibly wide. In the unsteady light it appeared to Victor that he beheld the features of an old African man, then they changed into those of a young woman, then morphed into youth, then a girl – all African. For maybe as long as a minute Jay’s face strobed furiously as the faces of strangers raced from his head. Old men, old women, middle-aged, youthful – Jay disgorged images by the dozen.
The doomed refugees from the N’Taal? Victor didn’t doubt it for a moment. Their ghostly residue was being ejected from Jay’s frail body. As he used all his willpower to exorcize them from his soul they screamed out in dismay, frustration and rage. They knew that Jay, the vessel of their wrath, their vengeance weapon, had defeated the curse.
The last to leave was an old woman. Her face overlay Jay’s like an ancient mask. Her bloodshot eyes glared at Victor. Her nostrils flared as her mouth yawned wide to reveal teeth so rotten they’d become yellow splinters embedded into crimson gums. That last scream, which erupted from her lips, was the sound of the stricken ship tearing in two, the howl of the soon-to-die passengers, the anger and the despair of the loss of innocent lives everywhere. The sound shook the huge walls of the castle until stones were shattered by its violence.
Then . . . gone. Silence. Calm air filled the yard. A sense of peace.
Jay slumped against the doorway, utterly spent. His entire demeanour changed now he’d purged himself of that inbuilt craving to wreak terror and destruction.
There was nothing beyond that. For a moment Victor half expected to see shrieking phantoms stream away into the sky; however, the clouds had slowed until they moved above them in a way that could only be described as serene. When he examined Jay’s face again, he wondered why he’d ever used the world ‘elfin’ to describe him. Jay was just a little boy. An eleven-year-old child who was so tired all he needed was to go to bed.
Victor’s eyes met Laura’s. He knew an understanding had passed between them. What the next few hours would bring he didn’t know. Only it was time to get the children home. But as he carried Archer back through the forest in the direction of White Cross Farm he felt something leave him, too. For Jay what had left him had been the Vengeance Child – the demonic force that had possessed him from infancy. For Victor, what slipped from his mind now was the obstacle that had prevented him from grieving over Ghorlan. Tears came, but they weren’t bitter. This was the release that he’d been waiting ten long years for. Despite everything, he could look into himself and see that an old wound had, at long last, begun to heal.
Epilogue
September
In warm sunlight Victor headed toward White Cross Farm. Jay walked alongside. They’d been to check on a colony of bats that roosted in the castle tower.
‘The numbers are increasing.’ Victor was pleased. ‘And they’re a rare species of horseshoe bat.’
The boy grinned. ‘But no vampire bats.’
‘Thankfully not. If we wind up with vampires we’ll have to rename the place Dracula’s Castle and start selling garlic ice-cream.’
Jay paused to appreciate this perfect September evening. Birds swooped high overhead as they picked insects out of the sky for their evening meal. After a moment he said, ‘Tell me again what happened about the car in the dungeon.’
‘I’ve told you plenty, Jay. All that’s in the past.’
‘But when I wake up on a morning I sometimes think I’ve dreamt it. I know I’ve got to make it real in here.’ He touched the side of his head.
Victor watched the swallows, too, as he decided what should be told and what shouldn’t. ‘There was an epidemic on the island.’
‘Caused by Mayor Wilkes, not me.’
‘That’s right,’ Victor said. ‘You were in no way to blame.’
‘They said I caused things like that. Curses and bad stuff. They called me a “little witch”.’
‘But they don’t any longer, do they?’ The pair continued along the woodland path. A Saban Deer watched them from the shadows, its blue eyes like flashes of electricity. Victor shook his head. ‘No, it was Mayor Wilkes. He tried to infect the herd with disease. Instead of making the deer sick the virus mutated then infected us.’
‘How many died?’
‘Nine died of the illness. Though there were others who died accidentally, or simply vanished. Anyway, once the doctors knew the outbreak was a strain of gastro-enteritis they could fly in drugs to treat it. And those big shots of vitamin B we were given every day.’ Victor smiled. ‘It was a week before I could sit down without shouting ouch.’
‘Sometimes I dream that I see Mayor Wilkes lying on a kind of metal table and he’s all red here.’ Jay touched his chest. ‘Was that real?’
‘The night we found the car in the castle, Mayor Wilkes drowned.’ Victor omitted reference to the fact that Wilkes was found entangled in fishing lines the next morning. In his body were forty-eight steel hooks. One look at the man’s face told everyone that he’d died in terror. He also omitted mention that Ghorlan had finally been given her funeral. Or the days afterwards Victor had entered a dark despair that had been a long, uphill climb to emerge from.
As they crossed a meadow to the farm Jay scratched his head. ‘I worry I’ll have to leave White Cross. I get really scared.’
‘We’re running the farm as a place for children to stay as long as they want to.’
‘It’s a foster home?’
‘That’s the official title. But nobody can take you away from here if you don’t want to go. You can live here until you’re a grown-up. It’s your decision.’ Victor opened the gate. ‘I did warn Archer about that goat.’
Jay tutted; it was a typical boyish thing to do when someone of his age saw a younger one making an apparent mess of things. ‘Archer still likes Wilkes more than people, then Wilkes goes and eats his T-shirt.’
Archer was protesting, ‘No, Wilkes, let go, it’s mine.’ At last he pulled the garment free, then joined Victor and Jay for the walk back to the house. Archer folded his arms as he called back at the goat, ‘Do that again, Wilkes, and I’ll smack your bottom!’
‘Kids.’ Jay sighed. ‘Are you coming sailing with me later?’
‘All right.’ Archer examined the teeth marks in his sleeve. ‘But don’t splash me.’
After they entered the house Jay paused in front of the television, which showed footage of war in South-East Asia that left thousands of people facing famine.
Jay stared, his expression growing angrier by the second. ‘You know what? It’s wrong that governments don’t do enough to help all those who are going hungry.’ His voice grew deeper. ‘One day someone will come along and make the politicians pay; they’ll make them suffer for the bad things they’ve done.’ Fury set his eyes alight. ‘Maybe I . . . if I remember how . . .’
Archer cried, ‘Wilkes has followed us back!’
The goat trotted into the lounge to hungrily eye the sofa cushions.
‘Jay! Help me get him out . . . before he poops on something.’
As if by magic Jay’s anger vanished. Both boys laughed happily as they helped one another tug the recalcitrant, four-legged Wilkes out of the house. As the pair giggled, and shouted advice on the best way to get the goat back to his pen without it eating any soft furnishings, Victor walked down to the broad waters of the River Severn.
On evenings like this, when the sun was low and golden, it made silhouettes of figures on the shore. So, sometimes, he found himself thinking he saw Ghorlan waiting for him by the water’s edge.
Tonight, he saw a lone figure standing motionless on the shingle. The woman waited for him to approach before she softly spoke. ‘Lou always insisted that this island could change how people think.’ She smiled at him. ‘Six months ago I couldn’t have imagined my life would have changed so much. Especially that I’d be standing here, wearing a new ring on my finger.’
Victor smiled back. ‘Sometimes, every now and again, we really do get what we deserve.’ With that he kissed his wife . . . and he knew that everything was going to be all right.