Darkly Wood II

by Power, Max

  Woody hit the ground running and the debate was over. They ran, this time Daisy in front, straight into the narrow semi-enclosed track and pumped their arms and legs knowing their lives depended on it.

  The second they were committed, both women regretted their decision. It wasn’t the lashing they took from the loose hanging thorny stray branches that caused their regret. It was the sense of claustrophobia, and the narrowing of their options. One thing quickly became clear. If they didn’t reach the end of the spikey tunnel quickly, Woody would catch up and Rose in particular was all too aware of his closing presence.

  The path veered left ahead of Daisy and she had to slow slightly to avoid her momentum throwing her into the savage undergrowth at the bend. Her deceleration forced Rose to slow and Woody lunged at her, pouncing almost cat-like through the air, taking a gamble on the connection, knowing the slightest contact would bring his prey down. But Daisy May had made the bend in the path and Rose dropped her shoulder to swerve, turn and follow.

  Woody hadn’t slowed. He had put everything on making the connection with Rose and as she disappeared to his left, the momentum of his leap slammed him into the Hawthorn. As ever, instinct was all that mattered. He didn’t care so much for the pain and tore himself back out through the savage thorns that ripped at his body in his effort to extricate himself from their clutches. It was like stripping himself from barbed wire.

  He looked along the path and up ahead it veered right. Daisy and Rose were already out of sight. He took off after them and the thumping in his head, the now ever present, thump, thump, thump, felt like it might take over and his head was a ball of pain. It didn’t matter. Whatever it was that caused the sound was the same thing that drove him on. He knew somehow, that he had to catch his prey and then, only then would he find relief. The more severe the pain, the louder the noise, the more he was driven to succeed.

  Woody had one huge advantage over the two women he pursued. He knew every inch of Darkly Wood. He knew how it reacted to strangers, he knew what to expect. Woody was safe in the knowledge that up ahead, the girls would discover a clearing and that far from it being heir escape route, it would be their cage. He reached the next bend in the track and up ahead just a few feet away was the clearing just as he had expected. But there was something completely unexpected waiting for him there and Woody came to a shuddering halt.

  He crouched, sucking in deep breaths, breathing out with a loud hissing noise. In and out, in and out, his bent back rising and falling as his lips curled back over his teeth. What he had expected to see was Daisy and Rose and indeed they were there just to his right. They were standing absolutely still, panting as he was, but not paying him the slightest bit of attention. Instead, their focus was on what stood to his right.

  For a moment, they glanced at him in unison and then looked away, once more focussing on something even more surprising. Woody was drawn also to the focus of their attention. Standing there, in the dank clearing, stood Holly Coppertop. There was a gap of perhaps twenty yards between Holly and her mother and grandmother and they were all standing completely still facing each other. But it wasn’t Holly that took Woody by surprise.

  Standing beside her with the blade-like nail of his index finger, ever so gently pressed to Holly’s throat and smiling, was another Woody. There was no other way to describe what he saw. His virtual twin was staring straight back at him and he stood up straight to examine the creature. It wasn’t possible. How could this be?

  The smile departed from the new Woody’s face and he hissed a threatening hiss, a warning to back off, to leave him with his prize. The sound changed in Woody’s head. Thump, thump, thump, thump. It slowed. He hissed back and flexed his claws, not sure what to do. The sound fell away to almost nothing. Thump……..Thump. Something bad was coming; something new and Woody felt an unfamiliar feeling, something he certainly had never felt before. Thump.

  Woody looked at Daisy May his familiar prey and he looked at Rose. There was something wrong with the picture. He looked at Rose and then at his new mirror image. The feeling was overwhelming. It grew from the pit of his stomach and shivered up his spine. Something bad was about to happen and Woody, for the first time that he was aware of, felt afraid. Fear is a strange master. For a creature completely unfamiliar with the consequences of ignoring it or over-reacting to fear, Woody simply felt lost and confused.

  CHAPTER THIRTY ONE – AND BABY MAKES THREE

  The inconvenience of courtship was not a thing that sat well with Wormhold. Ladybird was such a divine little creature that most men would happily spend their days and nights wooing her, just in hope.

  Wormhold didn’t believe in hope. Once he believed in love and what drove him to have his ladybird was akin to love, but it was a twisted relation. He would say that it was love. In his head, it certainly felt that way. Wormhold however had been twisted by time and the things he had done. There was evil in his heart and love could not truly peacefully coexist with the malice and bitterness that festered there.

  Ladybird was under his spell, it hadn’t taken much. He came and went as he pleased, luring her in but he could have her anytime he wanted whenever the time felt right. There was something wrong in his own mind however. There was something missing. Regardless he decided that after a month of courting, if courting it could be called, he would have his little prize.

  For her part, it was all very confusing. Every moment she shared with Wormhold, her heart soared and in his absence the pain grew more and more intense with each new parting. There was something awful about the depth of her desire and it secretly shamed her. When she received a love note to meet him at the hay barn, there was not a moment where she felt she should not go there. To go there would be inappropriate. To meet a man alone at night for what was surely to be a passionate tryst, was foolish to say the least but Ladybird was never in doubt.

  The barn stood alone at the entrance to the quarter field. She had no idea why it was called that, but for a girl like Ladybird, such trivia didn’t warrant deeper examination. It was almost dark as she approached the barn, dark enough so her walk from the big house would go unnoticed but bright enough for her to see her footfall. There was a moon in the clear evening sky and she knew no extra light would be needed for her return.

  Wormhold was standing in the entrance. Her heart shifted and her face flushed. He looked imposing and dark and a tinge of unexpected fear, slid under her shield. Goosebumps rose and fell across her bare forearms like waves on the sea and when she reached him, Wormhold just stood there, looking down on her as if he was angry.

  She placed her arms against his chest and leaned into him, expecting Wormhold to wrap his arms around her, but he stood tall and unmoving. He looked at her tiny face framed by those delicate curls. Her infectious smile unable to beguile this one, strange man and it slowly left her face. He took her hand and led her inside, his strong, long strides forcing her to skip barefoot behind to keep up as he pulled her along. With the same abruptness, he stopped, turned and clasped her face between his two powerful hands. She half-smiled again but this time it was a fearful smile. Something was wrong and Ladybird felt the darkness possess her.

  What followed changed her completely. It was not love that possessed her in the barn that night. What vileness took him over she could not comprehend. How he used her, what despicable, twisted hatred she saw in his eyes terrified her. Wormhold took the object of his desire, his need, his want and dispensed with all that was good in her soul. He stripped it back, held her kindness in his hand then spat upon it. He cast her heart into the filth of the barn floor and stepped upon it, holding his foot on the throat of her hope, pressing slowly down until all she could taste was despair.

  When he had finished with her, Wormhold simply walked away without a single word. She had seen the hatred in his eyes and wondered how she had not seen it before. It was always there she realised. What he felt for her could never have been love, only a malicious hatred. How she had been blinded was not
important. The physical pain that he inflicted upon her was quite savage, yet it paled beside what he had done to her spirit.

  Claudette stood up. She spoke the name out loud as though it was important to claim it back.

  “Claudette.”

  Ladybird had been the name her wonderful father had given her and the name that Wormhold used for her also. It was no longer a name fit for her she knew that. She was no ladybird now. The beauty was gone forever; the free-winged, flitter of a girl was a thing from another life. She had a new life now and in her new life, she would be Claudette again. It felt as though Wormhold had taken everything else from her that night. She would keep her name.

  Claudette told no one about what had happened in the barn that night. How could she. It was as much her fault as anything else. She was foolish to have allowed herself to be compromised and alone with a man in such circumstances. Every day that passed was filled with remorse, regret and self-loathing. He disappeared from her life that night. At times she thought he might never return. There was neither word nor explanation. She no longer ached for Wormhold, no longer missed him or waited with anticipation for his return. But after eight long months, he did finally return.

  Rain fell heavily on the fields and in the quarter field, Claudette stood still and silent, soaked to the skin like a statue. She had felt his return and needed to be outside. It was an unexplainable knowledge. She hadn’t heard from him, seen him nor had she heard word from anyone else of his return. Claudette simply knew he had returned. The rain was unimportant and she raised her face to feel its cool wet relief, hoping it might cleanse her. She didn’t hear him coming but knew he was there behind her before he spoke.

  “I have not come for you.”

  The statement was so simple. He spoke in a calm deeply resonant voice and it was the voice of detached, uncaring coldness.

  “I know.” Claudette didn’t turn, but she looked down at her feet. They were bare as always and she considered that soon her baby would be born and her child, just like her, would enjoy the freedom of a shoeless existence. Babies fought against shoes, she thought and her thought allowed her to smile for the first time in months. She was picturing her baby in her arms, all fat and wriggling, cooing and gurgling and in her mind’s eye, she held and kissed its tiny feet.

  “I will give it a good home. A good life and you will be free of your burden of shame.”

  Claudette felt a cold draught on her back, but it was not the wind or the rain. The cold became sharp and stung until it possessed her. Her head was filled with rage and she spun to face him, unafraid. She raised her hand to slap his face and filled her swing with all the power she could muster. Wormhold barely flinched and snapped his hand up to catch her tiny arm in mid-flight. All of her power was like a wisp of a summer breeze against his might. Claudette felt the strength drain from her and he let her arm go.

  “Two weeks.”

  As he said the words, he remembered what he had said to Cathecus all those years ago. It resonated with him. Back then he had offered Cathecus two days, but it strangely felt the same. With nothing more to say and with no hope of resistance from Claudette, Wormhold simply turned and walked away in the falling rain.

  Claudette sunk to her knees in the soft wet grass. It was very cold and soon Christmas would be upon them. Was he letting her have Christmas, her last one before returning? No it wasn’t so; Claudette knew he had no kindness in him. Christmas was nothing to that creature. It was irrelevant and no doubt the timing of his return had nothing to do with Christmas.

  Her baby would be born by then, that was his reasoning. It seemed impossible for her to know, but she believed in her heart that Wormhold knew. That was the purpose of his visit. He was going to come back after the baby was born. He was not planning to see her again before it was due. Claudette buried her face in her hands and cried. Tears fell into her cupped fingers as rain soaked her neck. She knew that her life meant nothing now. When the tears were exhausted, she slowly got to her feet and walked across the quarter field towards the barn, to the place where her nightmare had begun. Claudette decided there and then that it would be the place where it would end. Wormhold’s words stuck with her.

  “Two Weeks.”

  Claudette’s mind saw complete clarity as she recalled the words and she knew what had to be done.

  CHAPTER THIRTY TWO – WHEN TWO DAYS HAVE PASSED

  Two days can pass quickly or they can take a lifetime to pass. For Cathecus Flincher, those two days dragged and dragged. He worked with barely a moment to rest, completing the headstones for Wormhold, left only with a sense of hopelessness, desperate to save his family.

  Every hour he took a break. He sat by his family’s side, kissed their cold faces and listened for their soft breath. But nothing ever changed. There were still bloodstains on the floor and wall from Henry’s horrific murder, but Cathecus had cleaned as best he could, changing the bed clothes and burying the good doctor beneath the shed at the gable end of the house.

  He still didn’t know why he had done that, but when Wormhold just left him there what else was he to do. Cathecus knew he couldn’t tell anybody about what had happened. Who would believe him and besides, Wormhold had demanded that he finish his task and not dealing with what had happened to the doctor would prevent him from doing that.

  No one called. It was fortunate really for if they had, Cathecus would surely have blabbed. He was never a good liar so he worked away from the lane, close to the house at the back and he hoped that no one would disturb him. Not long before just a short time back in fact, he would have prayed as he worked. He would have prayed with all his might, pleading with his Lord to help him and his family, but Wormhold had taken that from him too. God was missing from his life now. What God could forsake him this way? Cathecus chose to ignore God rather than hate him.

  Almost to the hour, four neat, perfectly finished headstones with their names carved in perfect lettering were laid out in a row by Cathecus Flincher. He looked at them side by side and felt he was going crazy.

  Cathecus Flincher

  Caroline Flincher

  Finius Flincher

  Petunia Flincher

  “I was beginning to doubt you Mr. Flincher.”

  Cathecus spun around to see the imposing Wormhold leaning in, studying his workmanship. He stepped forward and Cathecus stepped aside without speaking. Despite their weight and with surprising ease, Wormhold lifted each one slightly off the ground as though weighing the stones, then he ran his gloved index finger across the edge of each one and he fingered the lettering.

  “It all looks so simple eh Cathecus? People don’t understand or appreciate the work, the craftsmanship, the care and the love that goes into such a piece. If only they knew the simpler the stone, the more perfect the detail needs to be. You are indeed a fine craftsman.”

  “Give me back my family.”

  Cathecus made the statement quite plainly, but while his tone was soft, there was menace in his voice. He had done all that was asked of him and now he would stand his ground despite what he had witnessed Wormhold do to Henry.

  Wormhold adjusted the scarf about his face, tucking it in tightly to his neck. He walked over to Cathecus and stopped when he was almost pressing against him. The menace of his presence was incredible. For the first time, Cathecus saw up close, the face of the man who controlled the fate of his family. Wormhold appeared bigger somehow. He towered now over Cathecus and the stench caught in his throat. It was quite a thing, that smell.

  His senses were almost overwhelmed but he couldn’t move. He wanted to wretch, to turn away and breathe clean air but he was trapped in the hold of this man by some unknown force. When he looked beneath the unkempt, scarred eyebrows, the steely eyes beneath looked through and past him. It was a cold frightening stare. Wormhold leaned in and spoke in almost a whisper through the thick scarf.

  “I will set your family free.”

  Cathecus expected more as Wormhold just held his position and sta
re. There was such a long silence and the odour was now becoming overwhelming. He wanted to throw himself to the ground to escape it but he felt powerless to move. Eventually Wormhold simply stepped back, turned his back on Cathecus and returned to the stones.

  “Tonight you will sleep. When you wake up tomorrow, the stones will be gone and your family restored to you.”

  He walked very slowly away clasping his hands behind his back as Cathecus gulped fresh air to replace the putrid air that had consumed him moments before.

  “Wait!”

  Wormhold stopped and turned to see what it was that Cathecus wanted, knowing exactly what it was and ready to twist the knife.

  “That’s it?” Cathecus needed to know why this had all happened.

  “Ah.” Wormhold walked back over towards Cathecus but this time he stopped short.

  “I wondered if you’d ask. There is one other thing.”

  Cathecus knew it. There had to be more. After everything he had been put through, this strange man was never just looking for the four headstones. It made no sense. He had to have a purpose and Cathecus was about to find out what it was.

  “You will never see me again Mr. Flincher.”

  Cathecus visibly dropped his shoulders as the statement seemed to take some of the tension from them.

  “I thought you’d like that news.”

  Wormhold smiled and began to pace back and forth.

  “But I will need you to do some work for me.”

  The silence that filled the air took over everything. It held time and space as Wormhold watched confusion take hold. Only when he realised that Cathecus had no answer did he continue.

  “Every now and then, I will leave a note for you. On the note will be a name, perhaps a date, nothing more. You will prepare a headstone for me, much like the ones you have already made for me. The stones will be left just here as these are one week to the day from the day I request them in my note. When you come down the morning after they are complete, they shall be gone, simple really my hard working friend.”