by Sam Haysom
He trailed off awkwardly and looked away from his grandmother’s gaze. She didn’t say anything for a few moments and James stared at the floor, bracing himself. But when she next spoke, her voice was softer.
‘All I’m saying is it’s hard to be the new boy. And I’m sure he’ll come out of his shell once he gets to know you all.’ She paused. ‘If he’s anything like his father, he’ll be quite the charmer.’
James glanced up at that and his gran smiled at him. ‘What do you mean, charmer?’ he said.
‘Oh, nothing.’ She picked up her magazine, but the smile stayed on her lips. ‘I just mean Tim’s dad has been quite the hit with the ladies over at the church. He always has them giggling over coffee and biscuits after the Sunday service.’
She glanced up at James and winked, and in that moment he’d made the swift decision to end the conversation right then and there by agreeing to invite Tim round that very weekend. Having your gran smiling about someone’s dad was bad enough, but James thought that wink had been downright uncalled for.
So sure enough, that Saturday, Tim had come over. He was just as quiet as before at first, but James’ gran wasn’t wrong – after a few rounds of multiplayer on TimeSplitters he was laughing along with the rest of them. He was good, too. Said he’d never played before, but after only a couple of games he had Gary convinced he knew some kind of cheat code that he wasn’t telling them about. James chatted to him a bit on his own in the kitchen later when they went to get some squash, and although Tim could be a bit vague at times – he seemed to get awkward if you asked him too much about himself – James came away realising he was starting to like the kid. As James’ gran might say, he had potential. He wasn’t as much fun as Matt and Tom, exactly, but when he did talk he had this cool way about him that even Gary didn’t seem to have an answer for, and—
‘Oi James, you still there?’ Matt’s voice in the telephone cut through his thoughts. James realised he must have been doing what his gran liked to call ‘space staring’, and he blinked. For a moment he couldn’t remember what Matt had called him about.
‘Sorry, what were you saying?’
‘I said I’m fed up with listening to Mum bang on about this walking trip. I think I’ll head along.’
Right. The walking trip.
‘I don’t think I’ll go,’ James said quickly.
‘How come?’
‘Well, where do you want me to start? Mainly, I don’t fancy the idea of having to put up with Gary for a whole four nights. And besides, I’m not even sure I could walk 60 miles. In case you hadn’t noticed I’m not exactly as fit as the rest of you guys.’
The words came out sounding angrier than he’d meant them to, and Matt was silent for a moment before answering.
‘Let me and Tom handle Gary,’ he said. ‘You know what he’s like, he never means to be a dick. At least I don’t think he does,’ Matt paused, ‘and think how cool it’d be if we start walking now and then we do end up making the team in a year or two? Then we’d all be ripped, I reckon.’
In spite of his annoyance, James found himself grinning.
‘I know Mr Stevens is a bit of a nerd, but he seems like he’d be pretty organised about what we can and can’t do,’ Matt continued. ‘If anyone’s struggling too much I bet he wouldn’t force them to do anything they didn’t want to.’
James knew Matt was in persuasive mode –That boy’s gonna grow up to be a lawyer or a politician, James’ gran had said in the past, and James thought she might have a point – but he could feel himself being swayed nonetheless.
‘I dunno.’
‘It would make your gran happy though, right? She seems to love Mr Stevens.’ Matt paused, and when he next spoke there was a smile in his voice. ‘And besides, don’t pretend you don’t like the idea of sharing a tent with Beth Jacobs one day if we make the team. Christ, I know I do.’
And that had been that. Several weeks later and here he was, sat around a campfire watching as Gary and Tom marked routes on their maps with black marker pens, and starting to seriously wonder how he was going to walk 60 odd miles with a backpack triple the size of his school rucksack.
Gary stuffed his map in his pack and yawned. The light had seeped out of the sky, and the campsite was falling silent as families and couples around them headed into their tents, or lowered their voices to the hushed whispers that seemed appropriate in the huddled silence of the moor.
To his right, Matt fidgeted and changed position. Mr Stevens cleared his throat.
‘You never know Gareth, you might be glad of that map over the weekend if we somehow get separated.’
He had a half-smile on his face and James knew he was joking –making a dad joke, as Matt sometimes said when one of the teachers at school tried to join in with their banter – but James suddenly found himself thinking about something Gary had whispered to him on the journey down, as they sat shoulder to shoulder in the backseat of Mr Stevens’ minivan.
You ’ d better stick with me out on the moor, Tramper. You wouldn ’ t want to end up like all those kids that went missing.
James had grinned and ignored him at the time, knowing what Gary was doing and that he wanted James to bite. But now the words drifted back to him.
‘What should we do if we get separated?’ he asked. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Gary grinning at him, but he kept his eyes on Mr Stevens.
‘Oh, I shouldn’t think we will, James,’ Mr Stevens smiled across the fire, ‘but it’s always best to be prepared, don’t you think?’
James nodded and Gary stifled laughter.
Mr Stevens frowned slightly.
‘I know it sounds silly, boys – and let’s be clear, the chances of anyone getting lost on this trip are almost non-existent – but it can happen and it does happen.’ He paused and rearranged his glasses as he glanced at each of them in turn. ‘I’d much rather everyone had a route marked down and knew the basics of navigation.’
James could see Gary fiddling with his shoe laces out of the corner of his eye, but Mr Stevens had the attention of both Matt and Tom now. James looked at him and noted the calm, serious expression on his face.
When he’d first met Mr Stevens he’d been reminded of someone he couldn’t quite place, and it was only now – watching as Mr Stevens took a compass from his pocket and held it up so it caught the light from the fire – that James made the connection to a teacher he’d had back in junior school.
Mr Parker, he’d been called. He’d taught science.
Mr Parker had been one of those adults that had a strange command of the classroom which only became apparent when someone crossed him. He didn’t look like Mr Stevens physically – he wore glasses but he was shorter and much fatter – but he’d had a similar presence that was hard to put your finger on until you got to know him.
James remembered that some of the boys had tried messing around in Mr Parker’s class, and how quickly Mr Parker had straightened them out, pulling them into line with his firm voice and hard stare. He’d looked kind of nerdy on the outside – permanent sweat patches and a podgy build, someone Gary probably would have rinsed in the playground – but there was an edge to him hidden not too far below the surface.
James thought Mr Stevens was a bit like that.
‘–and that’s how you take a bearing boys, does that all make sense?’ James blinked and realised he hadn’t been listening to a thing Mr Stevens had said. The man’s brown eyes flicked over to him, and James forced himself to smile and nod.
‘Does that make sense, Gareth?’
Gary was halfway through muttering something inaudible when a sudden wind kicked up and shook the fabric of their tents. The fire spluttered. James heard a shriek from the other end of the campsite, and then distant laughter.
He glanced round at Matt, who gave him a reassuring smile.
‘Isn’t there a storm forecast for Saturday night?’ said Gary. James turned to look at him and saw a smile on his face. He was looking at Mr Steve
ns but James knew he was directing the comment at him.
Mr Stevens frowned again. ‘I’m not sure about a storm,’ he said. ‘There may be some wind and rain forecast, but I haven’t seen anything to suggest it could be worse than that.’
Gary feigned concentration. ‘I thought I read something about a storm,’ he said. ‘Wasn’t there a storm the time that family went missing out on the moor?’
‘Oh shut up Gary,’ said Tom. But he had a grin on his face and James could tell the last thing he wanted Gary to do was shut up.
‘No, I’m serious!’ Gary raised his eyebrows. His eyes were wide with surprised innocence. ‘My dad told me about it before we left. Something about a whole family getting lost out here back in the ’50s or ’60s or something. I think they got caught out in a storm.’
Gary looked around at them all. His eyes lingered on James for a moment but he didn’t smile.
‘That’s not the only thing I heard, either,’ he continued. ‘After what Dad said I looked this place up on the internet, and there’s all sorts. Teenagers turning up drowned. Kids coming out here and going missing. There’s a whole forum talking about a witch that they say was burned at the top of one of the tors back in the olden days. Really bad stuff.’
James tried his hardest to remind himself what Gary was doing, but when he glanced over at Matt to share a grin or a roll of the eyes he saw his friend wasn’t even looking at him. He was staring into the fire, listening, his face yellow in the flickering light.
Tom was still grinning.
‘I heard some stuff about that too,’ he said. ‘My uncle used to come walking down here when he was younger, and he said there were stories the locals used to tell in pubs about people seeing a woman out on the moor at night.’
Gary nodded. ‘That’s right. They said in the forum that she’d appear on the moor to people that got lost, and that she’d be standing there in a white dress and waving and—’
‘No, that’s not quite right.’ James felt relief at the sound of Mr Stevens’ voice. Despite his best efforts to ignore Gary he was growing more and more aware of the chilly night air and the wailing rush of the wind flapping through the tents around them. He wanted Gary to shut up but he knew that if he said anything he wouldn’t hear the end of it for the whole weekend. Although Gary had barely looked at him as he spoke, James knew this whole stupid speech was for his benefit. Gary was trying to scare him. Probably something he’d been planning for days before the trip as a way of keeping himself amused.
Mr Stevens cleared his throat in the silence. Gary stared at him expectantly. Mr Stevens took off his glasses, looked at them, and then placed them back on his face.
‘You’re not quite right there, I’m afraid,’ he repeated. ‘There is a story about a woman who they believed was a witch, but she wasn’t burned at the top of any tor. She was murdered by someone local.’
The boys were silent now. The wind picked up again, moaning through the hills in the distance, and James shivered.
Mr Stevens glanced at his watch. ‘Well, we’ve got an early start tomorrow morning, boys, and we should probably be thinking about—’
‘Aren’t you going to tell us about the woman?’ That was Tom. He was staring at Mr Stevens with his lips slightly parted in expectation, and James could have kicked him.
Matt was still looking into the fire and didn’t say anything, but Gary spoke up again. ‘Yeah, come on, you can’t start a story and then not tell us how it ends.’ He still had the ghost of that predatory grin on his face, but now he looked genuinely interested, too.
James thought about just getting up and going to bed, but dismissed the idea.
Tim was looking up at his dad with an expectant expression on his face. Mr Stevens cleared his throat.
‘Okay, well I suppose a quick story before bed wouldn’t hurt.’ He gave a small smile and looked around at them. ‘It’s a bit grim though, I warn you now, so you’ll have to promise you won’t get me in trouble with your parents if I tell it to you.’
He paused and looked on as Gary and Tom shook their heads. His eyes moved over to James for a second, and he smiled before adjusting his glasses and staring back into the fire.
‘It’s just a story, at the end of the day,’ he said. ‘But it’s one quite a few locals around here enjoy telling of an evening, and I wouldn’t be surprised if one or two of them believe it. The man I heard it from is a local historian. He works over at Plymouth University, and the moor’s history is his area of expertise.
‘It’s a dark history, too. You were right about that Gareth. There have been disappearances over the years, and I believe I may have heard something about the family you mentioned, although I’m not sure that happened during a storm. I think they just vanished.’
He paused and readjusted his glasses.
‘The woman you were talking about – the one some people say was a witch – was called Emily Brown, and she worked on a farm not too far from the moor in the 19th century. It must have been around the 1830s or 1840s, and although many of the laws relating to crimes associated with witchcraft had been repealed by then, there was still a lot of violence towards—’
‘Dad.’ Tim’s voice was so sudden it actually made James jump. He’d been staring into the fire, focused on the sound of Mr Stevens’ voice. The story, despite its grim subject matter, was strangely hypnotic. It reminded James of an audiobook called Spooky Tales for Sleepovers he’d stolen from the library when he was eight years old, one he’d kept under his pillow and brought out when his parents went downstairs to watch TV. That had been scary, too – it had given him nightmares for weeks, he remembered – but it had also had a strange pull that made it hard to turn off.
James blinked and pulled his gaze away from the fire. Tim was staring up at his father, a slight frown on his face. The others were staring at Tim, waiting to see what had caused the interruption.
‘Dad, maybe we should be getting to sleep,’ said Tim. ‘It’s late, and we’ll need to get up at six tomorrow if we want to keep on schedule.’
Gary started to say something but Mr Stevens held up a hand and he fell silent.
‘Timothy, when someone’s telling a story, don’t you know that it’s very rude to interrupt them?’ Mr Stevens didn’t raise his voice – if anything it grew quieter – but there was a firmness to it that made James think once again of his junior school teacher Mr Parker.
‘Dad, I—’
‘No. I’ve started my story now and you’ll be respectful enough to listen to it until I’m finished.’
Tim stared at his father for a moment longer before dropping his eyes. None of the boys said anything, but James thought he saw Gary grin out of the corner of his eye.
Mr Stevens frowned and went back to staring at the fire.
3
‘Emily Brown worked on a farm, and she got into something with the wife of a man who owned a different farm on the other side of the village,’ continued Mr Stevens. ‘The woman hated her, apparently. There are different theories about how their feud started: some say Brown was having an affair with the woman’s husband; others think it was nothing more complicated than a simple case of jealousy. Brown was young, after all – probably about 17 or 18 when this happened – and by all accounts she was beautiful. Long red hair, freckles. Green eyes.’
James stared into the fire and all of a sudden he could see her. A slim beauty with hair that flickered and jumped in the wind like flames, the type of girl he sometimes conjured up in his mind after everyone was in bed and he was sure his gran wouldn’t come barging in on him.
‘Whatever it was,’ said Mr Stevens, ‘this farmer’s wife had a terrible grudge against her. And back then, if you had a problem with someone, sometimes the easiest thing to do was to start a rumour about them.’
He paused and glanced up from the fire, looking round at the boys.
‘The thing is, with Emily Brown it wasn’t even that hard. She was known in the village as something of a recluse �
� she never attended church or came out to the pub or village fetes, and she’d turned down several of the local men when they’d expressed an interest in her.
‘There were already strange stories about her family, too. She’d moved to the village when she was about 12 or 13 to live with her uncle, who owned the farm she worked on, and some people said her parents had been killed in a house fire over in Somerset. Others said it was Dorset and they’d drowned at the beach. No one seemed to know the exact story.
‘Anyway, this farmer’s wife – for whatever reason – had it in for Emily. She’d lived in the village her whole life and she was well-known and well-liked, so one day she walked into the Horse and Hare – that was the local pub, if I’ve not got it wrong – and got chatting to some of the locals. Gossiping, really. She asked them what they thought about Emily, and then she said she was worried about her. Said she’d seen her wandering on her own, late at night. Said that one night she’d been woken up by a strange sound, and when she’d looked out of her window she’d seen Emily out in one of their fields, standing completely still and staring up at the house. As if she knew the farmer’s wife was there and she was waiting for her to come to the window.
‘Obviously most people were sceptical, but then the farmer’s wife got some support from a local lad in his twenties – probably one of the men Emily had turned down, that would make the most sense – who said he’d seen her out wandering on her own at night, too. Out wandering with a cat following along at her heels. Said he’d seen her talking to the cat too, and although he knew a lot of people spoke to their pets it looked a whole lot stranger when it was the middle of the night and the girl was out on her own.
‘He made a joke out of it, apparently, and a lot of the men had laughed, but not all of them. There were men in that pub who were suspicious by nature; ones who’d seen their crops fail after a bad run of weather, or come out in the morning and found sheep lying dead with their throats chewed out by animals. Religious men, and ones who knew stories about women like Emily Brown. Women from other villages who’d been caught in bizarre night-time rituals. Women singing and dancing around fires, or doing unnatural things with animals. Stories that were fine when they were told by men passing through from Cornwall or Hampshire, but not so fine when they were springing up in their own village. No, not fine at all.