Skull in the Wood

by Sandra Greaves

  ‘And can’t you at least try to get on with Paul?’ Mum said quietly.

  I said nothing.

  ‘He thinks you’re terrific. He thinks what you did was very brave. Foolhardy, but brave.’

  This was truly lame. Like he gave a monkey’s about anything I did. Mum registered my silence.

  ‘Matt, I care about him. I care about him very much. Don’t you understand that?’

  I looked away. She reached for my arm, but I shook her off.

  ‘He’s a jerk, Mum. A total jerk. Only you’re so stupid that you can’t see it.’

  She stopped sharply. Across the field a couple of crows screeched, then wheeled off.

  ‘Don’t you dare talk to me like that!’ Mum’s face had gone bright red. ‘It’s time you started realising the world doesn’t revolve entirely round you. You only ever think of yourself, and I’m getting fed up of it. You need to start growing up.’

  I was furious now.

  ‘Grow up yourself!’ I yelled. ‘It’s you that’s behaving like a stupid teenager with that pillock. And I’m not having him in our house any more.’

  ‘Well, you’ll have to get used to it,’ said Mum. Her voice was flat. ‘Because as soon as I get a divorce from your father, we’re going to get married.’

  I stared at her, open-mouthed. She moved towards me and I backed away.

  ‘Oh God, I’m sorry, sweetheart,’ she said. ‘I didn’t mean to tell you like that. I’ve been so upset about you and I’ve been up all night. I’m not thinking straight. I’m so sorry.’

  I could hear her voice shaking, but I didn’t care.

  ‘It’s this place,’ she said. ‘Everything always goes wrong here. Rose and I were always fighting. And now you and me.’ She looked away. ‘You’ve got to understand that your dad and I are never getting back together again, darling. And Paul is a lovely man. He makes me happy, Matt. You should just give him a chance to get to know you.’

  My head was a black swirl of evil-beaked birds, screaming and stabbing. Blindly I pushed away Mum’s hand.

  ‘That’s never going to happen,’ I said. ‘Not ever.’

  Hot tears filled my eyes and threatened to spill out. Half running, half stumbling, I found my way back along the field and headed for the farmhouse. I raced upstairs to my room and banged the door.

  It was probably an hour or so later when Kitty tiptoed in.

  ‘Matty,’ she said, softly. ‘Are you coming down? Your mum’s going now.’

  ‘Who asked you to stick your nose in?’ I said. ‘Just get out of my room and leave me alone!’

  Kitty’s smile disappeared and she backed out fast. I stuck my head under the pillow. When there was another knock, I ignored it. At last I heard the muffled sound of voices in the hall, then the front door opening and closing. Paul’s voice boomed out a goodbye. Then the car crunched down the yard.

  Good riddance, I thought. I hope the gabbleratchet gets him.

  18

  Tilda

  Matt’s in a huge strop about something. He’s even managed to make Kitty cry, and that’s really hard to do. She asked me if Matty didn’t like her any more, and I had to tell her of course he did, that he was just upset. Honestly. After all the trouble we went to with the cake and everything.

  It must have been something his mum said. She was all tight-lipped and quivery after she came back from their walk, then she whispered something to Paul, and he put his arm round her and got louder and jollier, like he was trying to snap her out of it. Anyway, when she couldn’t get Matt to open his bedroom door, Aunty Caroline decided she’d better go.

  ‘Give the boy some space,’ I heard Paul saying to her. ‘Don’t push him. He’ll come round eventually.’

  So in the end she and Paul said goodbye and drove off home to London. She can shop till she drops for all I care.

  I dished out the casserole Dad had made – a no-show from Matt again – and we ate in near silence. Dad was all quiet because of Aunty Caroline, and I decided not to tell him about the stag. He’d only worry.

  I thought of that photo we’ve got in the hall of Mum and Aunty Caroline when they were both young. Mum’s about Kitty’s age in it, and Aunty Caroline must be eleven or twelve. She has her arm round Mum, but neither of them looks very happy. Suddenly I sprinted out and picked it up. I was right: Aunty Caroline was wearing a dark velvet dress, and I could just make out the little raised leaf pattern on it. Could it be the same as the scrap of velvet we’d found in the box with the skull? Did the skull have something to do with Mum and Aunty Caroline?

  Just what was going on? With Alba acting so strange earlier on, it had begun to feel as if everyone knew except me. I needed to clear my head. I whistled to Jez and we went outside.

  It was beginning to get dark – time to put the chickens to bed. In the back yard I persuaded the two that were still up to go inside their shed, then shut them in. All the time, little velvet leaves danced inside my brain. I stopped still and shut my eyes. It was way too much of a coincidence.

  Then I heard it. A kind of heavy thud. I glanced around the yard, but couldn’t see anything. But there it was again. It was coming from the direction of the tractor shed.

  Jez whined softly. I put my hand to the fur on her neck and peered into the doorway of the shed. Straining my ears, I could hear creaking and scrabbling noises that moved up the back wall, followed by a big thump.

  Something was on the roof.

  My hand pressed down on Jez’s fur, willing her not to bark. I could feel her spine tense, but she kept quiet. She really is the cleverest dog in the world. I held on to her tightly, stepped back outside and forced myself to stare upwards. Nothing.

  Then I saw it. A dark figure was moving on top of the roof. In one hand it was raising a hammer. In the other hung a limp black shape. For a moment I thought my heart would stop.

  All at once I realised what it was.

  ‘Gabe!’ I shouted. ‘What on earth are you doing up there?’

  Jez must have understood. Her spine relaxed and she barked a hello. The figure that was Gabe shuffled over to the front of the shed and peered down. I could just see the top of his ladder sticking up at the back. Evidently that was what the thud had been.

  ‘Is that you, young Tilda?’ He held the limp object behind his back.

  ‘What’s that you’ve got there?’ I asked. Now that my pulse was slowing I could afford to feel angry. A sigh floated down on the cold evening air. Gabe held up his arm again. From his hand dangled a black bird. It was dead – very dead.

  ‘Shot a crow,’ he said. He spread out a wing, splaying its long dark feathers.

  I stepped back. ‘Yeah, I can see that – just about. And what are you doing with it?’ Sometimes Gabe is so weird he almost frightens me. And now was definitely one of those times.

  Gabe knelt down so that he could lean over the edge to get closer to me. The crow flopped beside him, one wing outstretched.

  ‘I’m going to be nailing him to the roof. Keep the harbingers off, maybe.’

  I shuddered. It was a horrible idea, yet it made a strange kind of sense. A dead crow will keep off other crows. Maybe this one could see off whatever was hounding us.

  ‘Will it work?’ I asked. My voice sounded small.

  ‘Can’t say. But it’s worth a try. Anything’s worth a try. You go on in now.’

  He lifted his hammer and started banging. I tore my eyes from the roof and took a couple of steps away. Then I remembered the photo. Gabe was around at the farm when Mum and Aunty Caroline were young. He and Alba knew something. And I needed some answers.

  ‘Gabe,’ I said. ‘What has Aunty Caroline to do with a curlew skull?’

  The banging stopped.

  Gabe came to the edge of the roof. He stared down at me.

  ‘You know, then,’ he said.

  I nodded mutely.

  ‘Alba told me you’d got the skull. It’s all happening again.’

  ‘What do you mean, Gabe? Tell me. I’ve
had enough of not knowing.’

  He crouched at the top of the roof. For a minute he was silent.

  ‘You get rid of it now,’ he said at last. ‘It’s bad news, believe me. I don’t know how you got hold of it, but just you put it back where you found it.’

  I stood in the yard and felt a wave of panic surge in my chest.

  ‘No,’ I whispered. ‘I won’t. It’s mine. And I love it.’

  ‘You’re just like your mother. Reckon this was a waste of time.’ Gabe kicked at the pinioned crow, then tramped to the back of the shed and started down the ladder.

  In a moment he was standing in front of me, the hammer clenched in his fist.

  ‘Don’t fret, young Tilda,’ he said, and his voice sounded suddenly gentle, as gentle as my mum’s when she used to tuck me up in bed at night. ‘We’ll just have to wait and see what happens. And hope for the best.’

  The moon was up at last, and casting strange shadows.

  ‘I don’t know what you mean,’ I said. But deep inside, I did. There was no denying it any more. Something bad was coming. Only how could it pos sibly be any worse than what my family had already been through?

  A nasty thought occurred to me, and before I could stop myself, I asked the question that was echoing in my mind. ‘Is it you, Gabe? You’re not the gabble ratchet, are you?’

  His eyes seemed to see straight into my forehead. He gave a short laugh. ‘Don’t be daft, girl. Gabbleratchet’s an old country word, isn’t it? Gabble, from the noise the geese make. And ratchet, well, that’s an old word, too. It means hound.’

  I believed him. ‘Are you sure you can’t do anything?’ I said.

  ‘Reckon not. There’s too much bad.’

  ‘And the gabbleratchet?’ I didn’t look at him. Even saying the word made me tremble now.

  ‘That I don’t know. Best to keep on hoping.’

  I shook my head, suddenly angry again. Jez moved closer into me.

  ‘Hope doesn’t get us anywhere, does it?’ I said. ‘It’s never got us anywhere.’

  ‘Don’t you be saying that,’ said Gabe. ‘There’s always hope. Nothing’s happened yet, and maybe it won’t. Come on now. Best you go on in directly and get some rest. I’ll walk with you to the door. Mind you lock up.’

  The three of us trudged slowly up to the house. Gabe waited until Jez and I were inside, then turned and walked back down the yard towards the main gate. I shut the door and bolted it twice. Then I made sure the back door was locked and went round all the rooms downstairs to check that the windows were shut too.

  Dad was fast asleep in an armchair with all the farm accounts scattered round him. Jez made straight for the fire, stretched out and closed her eyes. I wanted to wake Dad, but he looked so peaceful I couldn’t. Instead I went upstairs. There was no sound from Matt’s room and his door was firmly closed. I looked in on Kitty. Dad had put her to bed and she was sound asleep, her red-gold hair a mass of fluff against the pillow.

  ‘Fly away,’ she murmured, and I stroked her head. Then I crept out and into my room.

  The skull was there waiting for me. I put my pyjamas on and brushed my hair, then picked it up and carried it over to my bedside table. For some reason I wanted it near me.

  Bad things might be coming . . . but at least the skull was beautiful. And maybe, just maybe, it had once belonged to my mum.

  19

  Matt

  The geese are flying high over the waves. A string of them, a massive V that forms and reforms as new ones lead the way. The sky is filled with their clamour. My head is filled with the echo of it – whistling, honking, crying, screaming.

  The sea changes colour. Now it’s green and brown and grey, and the geese fly over tors and fields dotted with tiny sheep. I’m with them, riding the sky, flying at their side. ‘Come on,’ I shout. ‘Come on.’ There are geese above me, too, wings outstretched and feet tucked beneath, and I’m riding in their slipstream and whistling through the air, pressed so close to them I can feel the warmth of their down. I want to stay with them, join their wild free flight. If this is the gabble ratchet, I’m sticking around.

  But now there are other birds with them – crows and curlews and silent-flying ones I don’t recognise that flit like bats on long, pointed wings. And above me the geese are growing, their white breasts darkening and their eyes turning huge and red. They’re something else now – I can see black fur and teeth and drool-flecked jaws, and I sense bellies empty as stones and a hunger that drives them. They’re hounds of hell, and I can’t look at them any more, can’t risk a glimpse. They’ll tear me to pieces and leave no trace for anyone to find. I’m running before the gabbleratchet, and I know that it’s gaining on me.

  In and out of the stream of creatures weave others. Crazed hares, leaping by their side. Deer with delicate hooves and bloody antlers, pounding across their path. The grinning skeletons of sheep and pig and cow, with gaping jaws and black holes for their eyes. And I’m running before them all, and I can feel hot breath on my neck, and the hot wet slaver of their tongues lands with burning spatters on my skin.

  They’re hunting. And I am the prey now. I am the quarry.

  Suddenly they’re upon me and I’m in the centre of the pack. Black fur presses against me. And I’m running for my life, running with all the breath in my body, with the darkest creatures of the night behind me in full cry.

  I feel the wildness in my limbs. My legs and lungs are filled with the cry of the hunt and the rush of the wind and the dizzy stuttering stars. I take a bugle from my pocket and raise it to my lips and blow, a high-pitched note that trembles and takes flight. And the bugle is a skull, the skull of a curlew, and the sound of the bugle echoes in my brain and fills the night sky.

  ‘Tally-ho,’ I shout, and I laugh, and the laugh is a baying that rises from my throat.

  The wild hunt is running mad, and the trees are rushing up to meet us, small stunted trees that open their arms and usher us in. Inside the wood it’s quieter. The creatures mill in a pack, pacing and growling. They lick their lips as I go by. Green fronds brush my hair as I walk into the heart of the trees.

  The standing stone draws me in. It is quiet now. But I’ve seen the gabbleratchet, and now I must pay.

  My skin burns. I can almost smell it burning. And more than the entire world I want to go on living. I’ll do anything. Anything.

  Suddenly I know there’s a bargain to be made.

  And I know that I’ll make it.

  I try to think. Nothing.

  Then the black oil of my thoughts melds into a shape. Paul has caused all this. It’s his fault. If anyone has to die, it should be him. And if he dies, maybe . . . maybe everything will go back to normal with Mum and Dad.

  I stammer and shift my feet. Then I stand up straight.

  ‘Paul,’ I say, and my voice sounds clear and strong. ‘I’ll give you Paul.’

  Laughter rings out in the heart of Old Scratch Wood.

  But the bargain is made, and now they’re in flight again, spinning and howling and yelping and slavering. I’m pulled behind them out of the trees and through the air, swept past the wood and into the open sky.

  All at once I’m falling. It’s a sharp steep drop, as high as a mountain, and I’m hurtling down and down and my life is whirling through the air. Mum’s perfume. Dad taking me for my first sail. Paul. A wedding. Fragments. And I’m falling, falling, and the ground is rising to hit me like the marble slab of a morgue. Five seconds. Four. Three. Two . . .

  Then I wake, sweating and whimpering on my bed, and hugging the crochet cover to me for dear, dear life.

  First light was creeping through the curtains, weak and grey and furtive, but still light, and I was grateful. The sash windows banged in their frames as the wind tried to force its way in. I couldn’t bear to stay in my room a minute longer. There was too much in my head that I didn’t want to remember. I got up, threw on yesterday’s clothes and headed downstairs.

  No one was up yet, and I pac
ed around the kitchen making as much noise as possible in the hope of waking Uncle Jack or Tilda. No one stirred, though. In the end I decided to go and feed the animals. I needed to be doing something, anything, rather than sitting brooding. And at least it would impress Tilda.

  It was miserable outside. The wind tugged at me as if it was planning to dismember my body and hide the evidence. I wished I’d stuck on a coat and a woolly hat, and maybe a pair of gloves as well. You’d think I’d have learned that by now, but clearly not. Not this morning, anyway.

  I looked in warily at the cow and its calf in East Barn – there was no way I was going to risk a repeat performance of the other day. Right on cue, the huge cow shifted about and stamped her foot. I closed the door fast and left her in the dark.

  Even the chickens seemed agitated. When I let them out, they scattered in all directions and wouldn’t even come back when I shook out some grain. The cockerel flew straight up on to the henhouse roof and sat gazing at me as if I was his worst enemy, though to be honest I was quite glad he was safely out of the way. Then two dumpy chickens raced off into the distance, flapping their wings madly in a doomed attempt to take off. It should have been funny, but it wasn’t. Something was definitely spooking them.

  And now I was pretty sure I knew what it was.

  20

  Tilda

  I heard Matt scream in the night – at least, I think it was him. The wind was making a total racket and the house was creaking and shifting, so it was hard to tell what was inside and what was out. I never like it when it does that. And I thought I could hear birds calling, but I probably imagined that bit. I stuck my head under the covers and hoped for the best, and when I woke up again it was morning.

  Dad was already up and gone when I came down. I was the only one around. The wind was still whistling and the sky was as grey as the slates on East Barn. All the time my brain was buzzing with worries – the velvet dress in the photo, Alba’s face when she saw the skull, Gabe’s sudden alarming kindness.