‘What we’re actually looking for is a village called Holly End,’ said Rosey, anxious not to get sidetracked. ‘Is that somewhere nearby?’
The landlord’s brow furrowed in thought, causing his eyebrows to collide alarmingly like two wrestling caterpillars. ‘No, I think you’re wrong there,’ he replied after some thought. ‘There’s nowhere hereabouts by that name. There’s a Hill End,’ he added hopefully, ‘about six or seven miles east of here, out by Ilmington – maybe that’s what you’re looking for.’
‘Cheers – we might give that a try.’ But it was as they’d suspected. He took a long swallow of his pint and turned back to Bex. ‘People’s memories may be long,’ he said out of the landlord’s hearing, ‘but it seems they’re also selective. I suppose we’re walking from this point on.’
‘Skates on, Dad.’ She headed out to the carpark.
‘All in good time,’ he said to himself. This bitter was very good indeed. ‘All in good time.’
***
The left the Shed at the Seagrave Arms and continued on foot.
The line of Ryknild Street began as a farm road, which was easy enough to follow, but as it climbed higher it degenerated into a track of thick grey-yellow mud which clagged and clung to their boots. They were soon amongst the winter-dripping ash and birch trees above the village, and the difference in their ages quickly became apparent: Rosey, whose own slow ramblings in the fields outside Halesowen had been mostly in stubborn defiance of his bad back, found himself stumbling breathlessly, while Bex, who literally walked for a living, powered upwards in great yard-eating strides that he wouldn’t have though possible for one so small.
She stopped, waiting for him to catch up, and used the time to conduct another dowse. She braced herself for the jolt, but nothing happened. The rods swung randomly, listlessly. Something was wrong. ‘That can’t be right,’ she murmured, puzzled.
‘Don’t worry about it,’ panted Rosey, resting against a tree. ‘It happens to us all at one time or another.’
‘No, this is serious. I’m not getting anything. It’s like the ley isn’t there anymore. Maybe we’ve strayed off it somehow.’
‘Maybe it was never there in the first place.’
‘Not helping!’ she rebuked him. ‘No, we’re on the line, I’m positive of that. There’s something weird going on here.’
Ironically enough, he thought, but he didn’t say it. This was her territory.
They eventually emerged onto a narrow lane that bordered the far edge of this small wood. On their side, trees clustered thickly right up to the road’s verge, overhanging a mossy stone wall. On the other, the path continued over a stile into rolling fields and bare hedgerows. A little way off to their right the road forked, marked by a leaning cast-iron signpost which Bex approached with the air of someone completing a pilgrimage. The roadsign said simply: The Narrows.
The world was silent, the sky a hard white, and the temperature had dropped considerably. Their breath plumed.
‘Feels like it’s going to snow,’ gasped Rosey and then concentrated on regaining the ability to breathe.
‘It’s here,’ she whispered. ‘It’s very close. I can feel it. Can’t you feel it?’
He could certainly feel something – beyond the burning in his lungs and the chill in the air there was a sense of hushed expectation, a preternatural stillness, as of the pause between inhalation and exhalation, when life hangs in the balance and whole worlds can be spun into being or lost forever.
She shook herself. ‘I have to see this Kiftsgate Stone,’ she announced and set off down the lane in the opposite direction.
‘What?’ he called. ‘The one that was stolen sixty years ago?’
‘Cynic!’ she yelled back.
A few hundred yards further on, in the woods to their left, they found a small clearing just on the other side of the stone wall. Had it been summer and the trees full of green growth, they might not have spotted it, but in the dead of winter there was nothing to obscure the three-foot wide pit which showed where something large and heavy had been dug out of the earth a long time ago. It looked like the puckered scar of a traumatic wound. Bex’s hands were shaking as she took out the dowsing rods again and tried to get some kind of reading from the site, but once again they remained stubbornly apart.
‘Still nothing?’ he asked.
She shook her head, confused and irritated – and most of all, scared. ‘This isn’t right. This can’t be right. It was there, back at the crossroads, definitely there. But now…’ She climbed over the wall and into the clearing, walking to and fro around the hole in the sodden leaf-mulch, trying the rods at all angles, still without success. ‘Now it’s like it’s disappeared completely. This is just wrong. Something should be there.’
Rosey climbed over to join her. ‘Whatever used to be here was stolen a long time ago,’ he reminded her, ‘before you or I or anybody involved in this was born, so I’m not sure how this helps us.’
‘Because it’s all connected, don’t you get that yet? There are no coincidences! Everything’s connected. You, me, the earth, the stone, Dodd, Andy, that bloody sign back there – all of it. Not because it just is, but because we make it like that. We make the connections, the human link, human souls and thoughts and actions. Can’t you see that?’
‘I can see that we’re stuck, and that you obviously feel very strongly about this, but it seems to me that shouting at a hole in the ground isn’t going to do us much good. We need to stop charging around on a wild mystical goose chase and do this properly. If the village existed there will be records, relatives of people who lived there…’
But she wasn’t listening. ‘You’re right,’ she said, half to herself. ‘Shouting at it’s no good at all.’ The answer had come to her so neatly and obviously that she couldn’t believe it was a coincidence. It simply couldn’t be that easy, could it? ‘We have to heal it; that’s what we have to do.’
She pulled from her rucksack the three-foot long iron stake. She’d brought it along in the hope of somehow returning it to Andy, as a symbol perhaps of whatever strange control he had over the narrows – a control which she now knew was simply an accident of circumstances rather than something innate and unreachable by her. And why not her? He’d done nothing more to earn it than be in the wrong place at the wrong time as a child, whereas she had made this world of shadows and shortcuts her life. He could be dead, for all she knew. In which case the responsibility fell to her anyway, but only because she chose it. Even if there were no more Narrowfolk left to defend, then so be it: she’d fight for herself, which was all she’d ever done in the first place.
She took the stake, and with as much strength as she could muster drove it deeply into the damp earth at the centre of the pit.
And the world around them changed.
4 The Rimwoods
The first thing that happened was that it began to snow.
There were no warning flurries of sleet; it was immediate – the temperature plummeted, and large drifting flakes started spiralling out of a windless, white void all at once. It grew darker as the clouds started to shed their weight, or else it was because the lane was suddenly narrower, and no longer asphalt but hard-packed earth, rutted and crusted with frozen puddles. The wood was thicker and more wildly overgrown than ever, completely burying the stone wall and thrusting right up against the lane’s edge.
A hundred yards further along, where before there had been only unbroken trees, there was now a small gap and a trail leading down into the dripping gloom.
Bex caught Rosey’s look. His eyes were shining as excitedly as hers.
Then it all began to fade again.
‘Quick!’ she yelled, and they ran for the gap.
The zone of briefly-awoken earthpower which had sprung out of the pit was contracting back towards the sta
ke at its centre. She could see the edge of it rippling towards her, asphalt erasing the hardpacked lane and the wildwood subsiding as the bubble shrank and reality flooded back to reclaim its rightful territory. Within moments, it would reach the gap and the trail which she was certain led to Holly End.
She ran harder, gasping for breath, and not for the first time wished that she didn’t smoke so much. Fifty yards, a dozen paces. Behind her, Rosey shouted for her to wait, wait for him, but there was no way she was going to do that. She couldn’t even afford to sacrifice what little speed it would cost to look back and see how far behind he was.
On the other side of the trail’s entrance were two big scraggly birches; she watched as the furthest was wiped out and replaced by a fencepost and another yard of tame stone wall.
Twenty yards.
Ten.
She threw herself forward, falling, feeling gravel bite into the side of her face and something like a warm wave of pins and needles slide through her. Rosey’s despairing cry was suddenly cut off by silence.
The almost-silent hiss of snow sifting through bare branches.
***
Bex sat up. She was at the very threshold of a narrow dirt road which wound away through tangled woods, and there was no sign of Andrew ‘Rosey’ Penrose anywhere.
She pulled her woolly hat down low to the line of her eyebrows and gathered up her rucksack. Of the stake, there was no sign. She wondered if Rosey had found it, trying to imagine the gulf that lay between the world she’d left and… well, whatever this was. She’d walked some deep narrows in her time, but this was something else altogether. What would he do? Hang around and try to find another way in (through? across? between?) How long before he gave up and went back to the van? For another thing, it was getting colder by the minute. Even under the shelter of the trees, the snow was beginning to stick. She was going to have to find Holly End quickly, whatever it was like or whatever might be there, if only to simply find shelter.
She set off along the woodland track.
At first she made reasonably good progress – the track was level and hardpacked, having obviously seen regular use, and she soon saw the reason: several hundred yards further there was a gleam of metal amongst the trees. Approaching cautiously, she discovered that the track widened into a small clearing, where an expensive-looking car sat partially covered with a heavy tarpaulin. Bex knew nothing about cars, but its wheel arches were mud-spattered, and the exhaust still felt warm to the touch, so she thought it couldn’t have been there much longer than a couple of hours. This must be Barber’s car. It briefly crossed her mind to try breaking in, but she didn’t want to risk setting the alarm off.
It also looked like something bigger had been parked next to it, because the ground was churned by deep tyre tracks which were now filling with snow. Why stop here and swap vehicles, though?
The reason soon became clear as she pressed on – beyond this clearing the track angled downhill and narrowed into little more than a rutted trail, treacherous with potholes. Her snowy woodland stroll turned into an uncomfortable frozen stagger as, no matter how careful she was, her feet strayed into ankle-deep puddles and her hands were numbed and scratched raw from clutching for support at sodden branches.
She guessed that she was descending the same hill that she had climbed earlier with Rosey, or whatever was analogous to it here, but she couldn’t recall it being this high. Even allowing for the fact that the Narrows were always wilder, it was still taking an awfully long time to get anywhere. The Narrows were supposed to shorten distances, not lengthen them, and despite her eyes’ evidence that the track ran straight both behind and ahead of her, she couldn’t shake the impression that she’d actually been twisting and turning a serpentine route downhill without realising.
The effect of all this was so disorientating that when she finally came out of the trees and saw Holly End spread out before her, she didn’t immediately take in what she was seeing. When she did, all the breath left her body in one awestruck ‘Oh, wow!’
Holly End lay several miles distant and still further down: a picture-postcard English village of snow-covered roofs and lazily-smoking chimneys, complete with church steeple. It nestled in a landscape of white, glittering fields and a handful of farmhouses, neatly patchworked by hedgerows, with the whole valley occupying a shallow bowl surrounded by low wooded ridges. Above the protective hills was a completely circular band of thick snow-cloud, but over the valley the sky was the transparent blue of morning. Despite what her watch said, it was incontestibly morning: a pale midwinter sun had just risen above the girdle of cloud, and a light mist clung to the dips and hollows. It was quite simply one of the most beautiful sights she had ever seen in her life.
It was also terribly, terribly wrong. She couldn’t pin down exactly what it was which made her feel that – just that something about the village set her Narrowfolk senses squirming.
By rights, from this vantage point she should have been looking north over the Vale of Evesham towards Stratford-upon-Avon, but that looked to be still well over the horizon. The Narrows, as she understood them, were called that because that was exactly what they did – they narrowed the distance between points in the real world by diving down under them. What she saw now was the exact opposite of that: a landscape folding out beyond the confines of its physical geography and occupying more space than existed for it in reality. The girdle of cloud around it was exactly like Walter’s Fane. A building was one thing. This, on the other hand… she couldn’t begin to comprehend the scope of power or ambition necessary to pluck an entire valley out of the world. She felt like a stone-age girl who had just been shown the pyramids.
Nor could she square the beauty of this place with what she knew of its master. How could this be the stronghold of a person like Barber? Carling had obviously been…
Something struck her hard in the middle of the forehead.
It hit with a sudden, stunning force that slammed her into the back of her own head, spreadeagled and paralysed against the inside of her skull, hearing only a dull ringing noise. The world had stopped.
She had just enough time to think ‘Shit, that felt like…’ before it happened again.
This time the world went away completely.
***
‘Oh, cracking shot, Ted!’ yelled Sam, and he ran forwards, whooping like a red Indian.
‘Sam!’ Ted called sharply, and the younger boy pulled up short. ‘Be careful. He could be shamming.’ Sam grinned back and carried on at only a slightly more restrained pace.
Together, the stood and looked down at Bex’s inert form.
‘Is he dead?’ Sam asked breathlessly, excited and a little awed at being this close to an actual Rousler.
‘I don’t think so.’ Ted knelt and peeled back the woollen hat which had cushioned Bex’s forehead from the full force of his slingshot. A large bruised lump was already starting to appear. As they examined their captive, a horrible suspicion began to grow.
‘Te-e-e-ed,’ said Sam carefully, ‘are you sure this is a Rousler?’
‘What else could it be?’ he snapped irritably. Sam knew that this meant he was scared too.
The face below the hat was that of a young boy – probably little more than Ted’s own age, but pierced in a barbaric fashion with metal studs through the eyebrows and nose. His clothes were similarly outlandish: a thick army coat with dozens of pockets, even down the sleeves, at least three scarves, rainbow-striped fingerless gloves, a pair of badly abused jeans patched with a hundred different types of curtain fabric, and heavy army boots which, despite being covered in mud, could clearly be seen to have big yellow daisies painted on them. This was not the feral, ravening figure which the stories had lead them to expect from a Rousler. This looked more like Andy Pandy after too much cider.
‘I think it’s a girl,’ Sam conti
nued, and with rising horror: ‘Ted, you just hit a girl!’
‘Well how was I to know?’
Sam gave a low whistle. ‘Cripes.’
‘But who is she and how did she get in?’
‘We have to tell Professor Barber. He’ll know what to do.’
‘Hmm.’ Ted checked her pulse and her breathing again, like he’d been taught to do. She was getting cold. ‘We’d better get her to Rabbit John first before she catches her death. Come on.’
They hoisted her up with an arm slung around each of their shoulders and her head lolling between them, and slight though she was, it still proved awkward since the trail was narrow for three abreast.
‘You hit her twice, you know,’ Sam reminded him.
‘Yes, thank you, I had noticed. I think we can spare Rabbit John the details, don’t you?’
‘You are in so much trouble.’
‘Oh, shut up.’
5 Holly End
Andy lay bound and gagged on a pile of army surplus blankets in the crypt of St Kenelm’s church. It wasn’t just blankets though; piled on every side were crates, cartons, and boxes of ex-military supplies: tools, medicines, freeze-dried food and gallons of diesel in huge metal drums. There was enough to keep a small community going for years. Evidently that had been the point.
He couldn’t remember how long it had been since Barber had dumped him here. Couldn’t think very clearly at all, as a matter of fact. There was something very close by – possibly in the church grounds – which was singing with ley energy of such intensity as to be physically painful. It was pitched beyond his range of hearing but at the frequency of his very bones, turning them into buzzing tuning forks; he ached all over as if with ’flu.
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