by Katie M John
“Do you fancy ditching the school bus tonight? I’m happy to give you a lift. I’ve got some errands to run in Heargton village.”
Well that was left-field, the internal piped up. Fox was silenced by surprise. An embarrassing tension hung between them. Will was asking a perfectly innocent and friendly question (yeah, right!) and Jeremiah watched the event unfold with a strangely intense curiosity. He’s asking you on a date!’ Fox shook that thought away as quick as if she’d just picked up a burning coal.
“I um…” Fox’s throat felt thick and she coughed, “I’m sorry, I’ve got… tutorial after school.” Will’s face made an unexpected fall. When did all this Will weirdness start? Then she was back-peddling, “But it’s only for ten minutes, if you can wait that long?”
Will cracked a smile that looked like an expression of relief. “No problem! I’ll meet you at half-past. That should give you plenty of time.” They left and Fox found her head travelling fast towards her waiting palm.
He’s going to wait for you for half an hour - that’s dedication! Fox heard her inner voice collapse into its own weird little laughter but she wasn’t sharing the joke. I think I’ve just agreed to a date with Will! What the…
Fox didn’t really have a tutorial after school and now she had to somehow find a way of making it all look authentic. That was the problem with lies, they always came back and bit you on the backside. She’d agreed to meet Will in the common room, hoping that by half-past, everybody else would have left. The last thing she needed was the college rumour-mill to start clicking. Fox decided the best course of action would be to head towards the History rooms and hang out there for ten or fifteen minutes before heading towards their meeting place. That way, she could almost convince herself she hadn’t been lying. She hated liars.
This plan was all going well, until she bumped into Jeremiah. God knows what he was doing (waiting for you, her internal teased) but he was sat on the staircase newel post, chomping down on a peach. Rather than offer the usual greeting you might expect between acquaintances, he looked at her and continued to eat his peach. Well this is awkward! Fox thought, resenting the fact he was making her now fluster out some form of non-lame greeting; one that showed no hint of attraction or irritation, or…
“What are you doing here?” she blurted in the hostile tone that had become default where Jeremiah was concerned.
Whether it was his general arrogance or that he just wasn’t very emotionally intelligent, Jeremiah shook off her hostility and flashed her a smile before cryptically replying, “I was curious.”
He returned to his peach and sucked the remaining flesh from the nut.
“Curious?” Fox asked with an involuntary screwing up of her face. “About what, exactly?”
“Curious as to whether you really did have a tutorial or whether you were just trying to brush Will off.”
He popped the nut of the fruit into his mouth and then retrieved it with juice-covered fingers. Fox found herself staring at him, and she wasn’t sure if she was revolted or fascinated by him. Jeremiah continued playfully,
“I don’t exactly understand why you’d want to brush him off. I mean he’s a handsome guy, and clearly from our walk around the school today, he could have his pick of girls — and yet, he seems to have chosen you.”
Fox’s mouth gaped wide with incredulity. Even the internal had been silenced by Jeremiah’s audacious rudeness. She tried to form a stinging, witty retort but words turned to fluttering butterflies in her head and all she could manage to pluck from the chaos was,
“What the hell has any of this got to do with you?” She felt on fire from the chest up and was so seething with anger that she honestly thought she might just go and push the cocky bastard from his post. Hopefully he might crack his head open! the internal, finally alert, added for good measure.
She could see him watching this reaction and it wasn’t what she had hoped for. He looked completely unaffected. He tipped his head slightly to one side and said, “As I said, I was just curious.”
She stormed past him, desperate she might accidentally-on-purpose cause him to fall, but he didn’t. She heard his voice call up the stairs after her, “By the way, it’s Monday so all the staff are in their meeting.”
Fox stopped but continued to look towards the top of the stairs. She knew he was about to make the death blow and put her into checkmate. She didn’t want to give him the satisfaction of seeing her face as he did.
“So it’s strange your teacher would have arranged a tutorial knowing they wouldn’t be able to make it, isn’t it?” he asked.
Fox reached for the banister. She’d have to turn down the stairs and walk past him. There was no other way out. What the hell is this jerk’s problem? the internal asked. Fox had no answer. She had never in her whole life been treated so… viciously… yes, that was the word, Jeremiah was vicious. But why? Why is he picking on us - I mean you - me? Jeez, now I have a split personality! Let’s just thump him and get out of here!
Fox took in a deep breath, planted a large smile on her face and turned, trying to aim for perfect composure as she walked down the stairs.
“Why, of course,” she started to walk down the stairs, her jaw clenched. “It’s Monday, my mistake, the tutorial is on Tuesday. How silly of me.”
She’d never felt so relieved to feel a door handle in her grasp. She pushed open the door and called out without looking, “See you later,” and then dropped her voice to add, “asswipe” as she stormed off across the quad.
She was still fuming when she reached the common room. On seeing her, Will leapt to his feet and almost knocked over his can of coke.
“Everything okay?” he asked.
“Fine!” she replied sharply. Will visibly winced and she felt bad about taking it out on him.
“Sounds like you could do with a cuppa?” he offered.
The internal sprang into life, So it isn’t just a lift then?
“Tea?” he asked.
Fox was about to say no, but that would somehow mean Jeremiah was winning (not that she knew quite how).
“Yes,” she let out a small laugh. “Tea would be lovely. Sara’s does the best tea and cake in the village.” Fox smirked. “Well, to be fair, it is the only teashop in the village.”
“Sara’s it is then.” Will picked up his bag and led the way out towards his car.
They spent the journey from Fallford to Heargton chatting easily about music and their plans to go to The Green Man Festival in the summer. The festival, known by the locals as The Green was the major highlight of the year, and it was thanks to the sudden influx of yearly festival-goers, that most of Heargton’s shops and businesses managed to survive the rest of the year. It had started as a small folk festival in The Green Man pub but had soon outgrown it; it now took place in the clearing of Raven’s Wood, in the grounds of the old Asylum, which nestled at the bottom of the Heargton Ancient Burial Mound. As a result, the festival attracted just the right clientele for Moonstone.
The old Asylum, known as the Rookeries Hospital, had been built by the Ravenheart family on their lands, purportedly, as a charitable act of kindness towards the villagers. It had been a maternity hospital and general medical center when it had first been built, but within a very short time, there was a terrible fire in which tens of people had been killed. When it was rebuilt, it opened as a lunatic asylum. Buried deep in Raven’s Wood, you’d think it would not have been possible to hear the howls of the insane, but when the wind blew their cries up over the trees, they travelled deep into the heart of the village. They were dark times for those who lived there. There were those in the village who believed some of the patients had never left its walls. Ever since she was little, Fox had been told the wind that rattled through the high-topped pines of Raven’s Wood were really the screams of ghostly lunatics. Despite being old enough to disbelieve local fairytales, she could never suppress a shiver when she heard that low, mournful sound.
Dark superstitions ha
d cloaked the village of Heargton from its earliest times. The cruciform village had sprouted because of the ancient burial ground to the west of the village. It sat between the river and Raven’s Wood. At the center of the village was a communal well, with water that sprang from a deep rock spring. Lay lines ran through the village from northwest to southeast and from northeast to southwest, meaning the Crossroads and the Heargton Well sat at a crossover point. The whole village vibrated with an ancient and powerful energy. It was no coincidence Ravenheart Hall, the Church, Coldstone House, and Meadowsweet cottage, all sat directly on top of lay lines. Unfortunately, it was no coincidence that The Rookeries also sat right on top of the lay line transit either.
There were those who believed the Ravenheart family had never intended for the original hospital to survive; rumour was, they’d set the place on fire themselves in order that the lunatic asylum could happen through stealth. There was a strange and dangerous energy that went with lunacy, and coupled with the natural magnetic energy of the lay-line intersection, it created a powerful cocktail just waiting to be harnessed.
Heargton was a ghost hunter’s paradise. The ancient energies acted like a giant cobweb, ensnaring the souls of poor unfortunates. On the road to Fallford, the north exit from the village, the ghost of Highway-Man Bob Tassack spent his time causing numerous car accidents every year. He seemed to have a particular axe to grind with red cars. There had been three fatal crashes (each one involving a red car) in the last eighteen months and each had happened at exactly the same spot. A shrine of faded flowers and photos slipped into plastic wallets marked the place as a creepy reminder of the fact that each time the parish council had cleared the memorials, another crash had taken place the very next day. Out of cynical-superstition, the last lot of memorials had been left to decay naturally, and so far, so good.
Then there was Coldstone House, at the far southern boundary of the village, reputed to be one of the most haunted places in the county; if you didn’t count The Rookeries Hospital, The Green Man Pub, St.Ursula’s churchyard, or Ravenheart Hall, of course. Most of the villagers, including Will laughed it all off as hocus-pocus rubbish, but not the Meadowsweet sisters, they knew all of the myths surrounding the lay lines were true – and so did Carmen and her father; that’s why they had settled in Heargton.
The winter afternoon was dark but fortunately, it was still too early for the ghost of Highway Bob to be out on the Fallford Road so Will managed to get them safely to Heargton, despite his car being red. Fox kept him company as he ran his errands, which involved dropping off a parcel at the vicarage and picking up a jar of honey from the health food store for his grandfather. Then they headed to Sara’s. By now, it was dark, and the warm yellow light of the tea-shop was softened into a welcoming glow by the condensation fogging the windows. With the setting of the sun, the day had turned bitter cold and the warmth of the tea shop hit Fox like a blast as she tinkled the bell of the door. It was busy. Sara’s was a popular meeting point in the village, especially on nights like these when promise of her homemade apple pie and continental hot chocolate made a welcome relief from the winter greys. There was only one table left, right in the back corner, which meant all of the villagers had a good eye-full of the middle Meadowsweet on a date with a handsome young man! Fox huddled Will into the corner and made her way to the counter to place their order.
She shrugged it off. She’d known when she’d suggested Sara’s it was hardly going to be discreet. Sara was one of mum’s closest friends. As the only female business owners in the village, they’d become comrades in arms on the Parish Business Forum. Sara was also a regular customer at Moonstone. She believed in angels. Her belief came from a desperate hope. All three of her baby girls had been born sleeping. Their little graves stood in a sad, tidy row in St. Ursula’s churchyard. The thought they’d been carried to heaven in the arms of an angel made the pain a little more bearable for her. Nobody from the village ever mocked her for her belief, nor joked about the hundreds of angels scattered all over Sara’s Tea Room. Everybody respected the strength it must have taken for her to get up every morning and put a smile on her face – and if it was the strength of the angels, then they were welcome to the village.
Sara smiled conspiratorially at Fox as she poured the tea from the giant pot. “So, who’s the hunk?” she whispered.
Fox cast an involuntary glance towards Will, who, as if on cue, was running his hair through his straggly hair like he was on some posh underpants advert. She blushed and let out a laugh. “Him?” she said with the most dismissive tone she could muster.
“Are you on a date?”
“No!” Fox said a little too passionately, before dropping her voice and mumbling, “I don’t think so.”
Sara laughed. “I think he might think you are.”
“Nah, we’re just friends,” Fox said, waving her hand in the air.
“If you say so!” Sara gave a wink and turned her attention to the milk.
Not a date? If it looks like a date, and it sounds like a date then… the internal chimed.
“It’s not a date. I don’t even fancy him!” Fox muttered under her breath.
“Pardon?” Sara asked distractedly.
“Nothing! I was just… talking to myself; do it all the time!”
“Here you go. Want anything else to go with that? How about some warm scones?”
If Satan had been carrying a tray of Sara’s warm scones when he tried to tempt Jesus in the desert, then it would have all turned out very differently. Before Fox could answer, two fat cheese scones were slapped onto a plate and the tray shoved in her direction.
“It’s on the house!” she said through a smile.
“Thanks.”
“Enjoy!”
Will had been busying himself rummaging through his satchel looking for his lost phone. He smiled when Fox set down the scones and he put his satchel on the floor, offering her his undivided attention. A slightly awkward atmosphere settled between them.
“Well, this is… nice!” Will offered by way of conversation.
Fox wasn’t really sure what reply to make. She didn’t want it to sound as if this were all more significant than it was. She didn’t get the chance to worry for long.
Blinding lights flashed in her eyes and there was the echo-sound of yapping dogs and men shouting; lots of them. They were searching for something. Everything screamed desperation. Fox felt the hard wooden table gripped in her hands but it was no longer that – she now held something else in her hands: a large metal torch. Her foot hit something on the ground, and she knew without looking it was the wretched doll with her broken face. It was almost the same vision she’d had earlier, only small things had changed. The voices of the men were now joined by another voice, a woman’s, and she was calling out,
“Has anybody seen Martha? Anybody? Please! Please! She still hasn’t come home and the police… the police…”
“Fox! Fox can you hear me?” Will’s voice travelled through the chaos and pulled her back into the room. Something was terribly wrong. With her back to the door, she hadn’t seen Martha’s mother come into the tearoom, calling out.
“I thought I was…” Fox didn’t finish as Martha’s mother’s pleas came again.
“Please – does anybody know where my little girl is?”
Sara shot around from the counter and swept Mrs. Paisley up in her arms, guiding her to a chair and sitting her down. The whole teashop stopped their chatter to watch the unfolding drama.
“Mrs. Paisley, Annie, slowly now, tell us what’s happened?”
Mrs. Paisley was crumpled on her chair, sobbing heavily into one of the napkins, making her words difficult to follow. “She went with that lad, Jack… Saturday. Nobody’s seen her since.”
Sara wrapped her arms around the woman’s shoulders and soothed her. One of the village women, who wore a purple coat and matching hat, left her seat and made her way around the back of the counter to pour a cup of tea from the large tea-pot o
n the side. She hurried back, placing it into Mrs. Paisley’s quivering hands.
“I don’t know what to do,” Mrs. Paisley said, looking up into Sara’s eyes. Sara choked back her own tears as she saw the greatest of a mother’s fears – loss. “Please help me,” Mrs. Paisley wept.
Sara breathed in deeply. The angels were at her shoulder and they whispered to her; told her things only she could hear.
“What did the police say?” Sara asked, trying to ignore the message they’d delivered.
“The police found her mobile out at the abandoned railway station. What was it doing there? Oh,” she whimpered. “Something terrible has happened; I can feel it.”
Sara didn’t let on that the terrible, gut-wrenching feeling Mrs. Paisley was experiencing was the angels speaking to her, and they weren’t offering her good news. The purple-clad lady crouched down and took Mrs. Paisley’s hands between her own.
“Now, now, Annie – no such thing. You know what girls are like at that age. Goodness, when I think back to the worry I put my own mother through.”
Fox watched in fascination, unable to imagine the lady in purple ever being younger than the smart seventy-year-old lady now offering comfort.
Fox cleared her throat and plucked up the courage to interrupt the mothers’ circle to ask the distraught Mrs. Paisley, “Where did they go on Saturday?”
The whole teashop turned towards Fox, surprised by the sound of her voice. Mrs. Paisley took a moment to stare at the pretty girl before recognising her as one of Martha’s school friends.
“They went out towards May Hill. There was a party. Did you go?” she asked, suddenly lifted by the hope of any connection.
Fox shook her head and Mrs. Paisley dropped her shoulders, turning her attention back to the women who attended her.
“I didn’t want her to go. I begged her not to go. We argued. Oh, horrible things were said.” Mrs. Paisley collapsed into a heap of sobs.