I tried it again. I tried it twice more and the same thing happened each time. For the fourth time I ended up coming down the lane towards the church. I was sweating now it was hot and white everywhere and so quiet and I was furious. I was furious with myself I was furious with the place I was furious with the fucking church and the fucking moor. I was almost out of water. I felt like crying and I wanted to sit down.
I decided to go and sit in the church and get my breath back and consider. It would be cool in there and silent and I could drink my water. There might be a tap somewhere. I could fill up my bottle and try again. I went through the lych gate and down the tree-lined path to the church’s main door. I tried the iron handle and the heavy wooden door opened. When I walked in the cold stillness enveloped me. It was a relief. There was nobody else there.
I went and sat in the front pew before the altar. I drank the last of my water and I breathed slowly until I began to cool down and calm down. I watched the quiet light coming in through the stained glass window. The church calmed me. The ancient silence the cold stone the smell of dust. It was a well of nothingness and I drank from it until I was as still as the air it enclosed. I sat there for perhaps twenty minutes. Nothing happened at all there was just the great stillness of the old stone cradling me. When I felt like I had recovered I went exploring and behind the altar to the left I found a small room with a sink in it. I filled my bottle. Before I left I bowed my head. You have to bow your head to something.
The heat and the whiteness and the silence descended on me as soon as I opened the church door again. I stood in the centre of the lane and looked and listened. Nothing. I wondered what to do. I had thought this lane was asphalt but now I saw that it was dust. It was the fourth time I had stood here and I was tired. My legs were aching and my head was throbbing.
There was a field by the church which I felt had once had ponies in it. There were no ponies now. I stood by the silent hedge and gazed into the empty field where the ponies had been. I had no idea how I kept getting lost. I had been returned here again and again. My mind was clouded so much had been shaken. Now I wondered if I had the strength for another attempt to find the town. What if I got lost again? Time was passing and my body was aching.
If I headed back now over the moor I would probably make it back to the farm. If I lost myself a few more times on the way down to the town I didn’t know what I would do tonight. Perhaps it was best to go back to the house to sleep and try again tomorrow. Maybe tomorrow it would not be so hot maybe tomorrow I would remember which way to go maybe tomorrow things would come together again I would not be floating like this above the ground my mind floating above the ground like a spirit like a will-o’-the-wisp like something from the otherworld.
And then I saw a movement. In this still white empty place there was a shift. From the corner of my eye perhaps a hundred yards or so down the lane I saw something come out of the hedge bank and cross the road. It was big and long and dark. It seemed to be a couple of yards in length it was low to the ground and it was black. It was some kind of animal. It seemed to come out of the thorns on the top of the stone wall that edged the lane and jump down onto the road. I turned towards it instinctively I swung around but it was faster than me and by the time I was looking in its direction all I caught was its long blackness disappearing into the hedge on the other side of the lane.
Whatever it was it had seemed to walk on air. It made no sound. I stood there hot and floating above the ground and I tried to pull my mind around to get my mind to fix itself onto what it had seen and to consider it. I was tired I was dazed it was a strange day but this had been real I thought. Some big black animal had crossed the road ahead of me.
I stood there for some time. I waited for minutes I don’t know how many but I heard no sound and I saw nothing more. Whatever it was did not come back there was no sound no movement anywhere. But where could it have gone? On the other side of the hedge bank into which it had seemed to disappear was a patch of open moorland. There was broom and heather and bilberry all over it and small thorn trees and scrub but I had not seen it cross the moor. Was it still in the hedge? Had it followed the wall on the other side of the hedge bank out of my sight? Was it somewhere in the scrub or the heather? Was it waiting for me? Was it dangerous?
I started to move. There was nothing else to do I couldn’t stand there all day I had to move and I wanted to go home. My leg was so stiff now my side was so sore I had walked too far today I had pushed myself too hard. I loped forward slowly. I kept listening but I heard nothing and I saw no movement. If I had seen it what would I have done? If some monster some great black animal had come out of the hedge in front of me what would I have done? I could barely walk by now. But nothing came. I kept moving forward slowly towards the place where it had crossed the road.
I reached the point it had crossed at and I saw then that it had not been in my mind. There were marks on the road. They were faint but they were there. They were the prints of a big animal. They were so far apart. I squatted down with difficulty and I reached out and touched one. I brushed my hand across its dust and it was as real as the thing that had made it. Something had crossed here. Something had walked ahead of me and here were its marks.
I was afraid now. It had been so big. But there was nothing here it had gone. I could feel there was nothing here. If anything had wanted to pounce on me I supposed it would have pounced by now and I was so tired. It felt like my last reserves of adrenaline my last reserves of strength had shot through me when I saw what I had seen and now they were ebbing away. It was all I could do to keep upright. But I knew the way home from here I knew that at least. There was nothing to do but start back. I turned and I began walking back up the lane.
It took me hours to get back. It was probably late afternoon or early evening when I arrived. My legs were throbbing and my head was throbbing. I drank a couple of pints of water but I wasn’t hungry. In any case there wasn’t much food left. I had no interest in food I was exhausted I was broken and tired to my bones to my cells but I didn’t want to sleep. All I could think of was the animal.
What had it been? It had been black I was sure of that and it had been big. Long. It had left footprints. What had it been? On the table in the stone room was a small pile of books. One of them was a guide to the wildlife of the British Isles. I sat down and flicked through the section on mammals. There was nothing that matched what I thought I had seen. It was far too big and long and black to have been a badger or a fox or even something rare like an otter or a pine marten. It had been nothing like any kind of deer. It had been steady rather than nimble and low rather than tall. There was nothing bigger. Humans have been in this place long enough to have killed off anything that threatens us. There are caves underneath this land with old bones in them. Wolves hyenas elephants rhinos lions they were all here once when this place was a forest and their bones still rattle around down there on the black banks of the underground rivers when the storms are in spate. But they are all gone now. So what had I seen?
In the same book I looked up the tracks I had seen on the road. I knew before I did it that it wouldn’t help. They had been very faint prints on a dry dusty road and it had been hard even to make out their shape. I was pretty sure of their size though and there was nothing in the book that resembled them. Like the thing itself the prints were too big to fit with anything we had managed to name and number and draw a picture of.
The only other possibility I could think of was a dog. It could have been a Labrador or a sheepdog or even a wolfhound. Something big. But it hadn’t moved like a dog and what little I’d seen of it had seemed to be a completely different shape. And when a dog bounds into a hedge it usually makes enough noise to scare off every living thing within thirty yards. And dogs don’t just disappear they are too clumsy and noisy they come leaping back out again with their tongues flapping. And if it was a dog where had its owner been? I hadn’t seen anyone. All dogs had owners I was sure of that.
/> It was not a dog. It was not a deer or a badger or a fox. It was not a muntjac or a pine marten or a mink. It was something else. It was something that was not in any of the books and I knew this even as I went through the ritual of crossing out the possibilities to placate the insistent demands of my forebrain. I sat at the table with the wildlife book open in front of me and I felt little shivers of fear crackling through my body like electricity. It seemed like a fear much older than reason. It was as if something had been triggered.
I was tired as hell. I stumbled over to the bed and pulled myself into the sleeping bag. I was seizing up again. I would need sleep. I was going to go back tomorrow. I wanted to see it properly. I would not try to go to the town again. I had no interest in the town. I couldn’t think what had interested me about the town at all. There was nothing for me there. The search was somewhere else. I would not go to the town I would go again to the lane by the church and I would sit quietly behind a tree or in a hedge or behind a wall and I would watch and wait until I saw it again. I would see it again and then I would know.
I woke the next morning with a deep irritation inside me. I opened my eyes and some anger was coiling and uncoiling itself in me like a great worm. I felt it in the pit of my stomach I felt it rise through my navel it burnt along the lines of the scratches down my chest. I couldn’t tolerate my physical pain as I had the day before. The pain in my ribs the pain in my knee the pain in my head which never stopped all of it angered me it twisted me around a stick and held me over a fire. I was shifting inside my own body it was like some giant itch I wanted to throw it all off and run. I wanted to scream I wanted to burst out of my small self into the world ablaze. I closed my eyes and saw my mind straining at the bars lashing out at the world all of the smallness and stupidity. I saw it all finally crushed all the people flattened the glory of the end of it all. Skyscrapers falling oceans overcoming the defences the silence descending. I didn’t want this stillness now I didn’t want this warm white stillness I wanted to be the wild man naked in the rain the raging monkey tearing at the flesh tearing at the fucking red flesh. I wanted to rage smash things throw them break through tear it all up bite bite bite until all was torn all was hanging down loose and dripping all was pain all was broke.
I lay in the sleeping bag and watched the crescendo rising and falling fermenting and turning around and around. I didn’t know why it was here or what it had come for. Maybe I had walked too far yesterday maybe it had just been too much. I got out of the bed slowly and moved across the room and when my injured leg caught on the chair I kicked the chair hard across the room and cracked one of its legs. That made me angrier and I swore furiously at myself. There was no food left in the house apart from some soft sprouting potatoes but I still didn’t feel hungry I just wanted water. The water level in the jerry can was low and that made me furious. Why the hell hadn’t I filled it up? The whole thing was just fucking ridiculous look at me here in this fucking place it was fucking ridiculous who was I what was I doing I was sick of it all I was so sick of it. I was sick of myself and my broken body and this giant itch this giant coiling worm I wanted to burn it all down take myself away jump from the roof and fall. That would be a response. That would be some fucking response.
I sat on the cracked chair and breathed deeply until I was calmer. The giant worm was still in there but I tried to let him be. I took the jerry can and went out of the door into the yard. It was as warm and white and silent as it had been for weeks. I went through the gate and down the bank of the combe to the pool where I collected my water. The pool was clear and still and I filled the can from the little trickle of water which became a waterfall when the rains came. I was surprised at how low the stream was.
I went back into the house sat down and drank four or five cups of water. I wasn’t hungry but I thought I should eat. There were a couple of crusts of stale bread next to the sprouting potatoes. I couldn’t be bothered to get the stove going to cook the potatoes so I just ate the bread. I nearly gagged on it. It didn’t do anything about the itch. I still wanted to explode and take everything here with me. I still had no idea why.
But I had work to do. It didn’t matter how I felt I had work to do. I packed a couple of the books into the rucksack I filled the water bottle I put on my boots and I walked out into the heat. I followed the same path I had followed the day before up the stream and onto the moor over and down again towards the lane. The day before I had turned inward as I walked. I had felt every step I took I had experienced my own motion the warm air upon me everything that I was. Today I had no interest in myself. My only interest now was in the land around me. Still nothing moved still I heard no birds. If anything moved at all then I would see it instantly. But I saw nothing all the way to the church.
Of course there was nothing in the lane. I knew as soon as I arrived that I was wasting my time and I was angry with myself for coming. I had seen an animal. Why would I see it in the same place twice? I stalked up and down the lane impatiently looking for signs but I found nothing. I couldn’t find the prints I had seen yesterday. I was hot and angry. I took out my water bottle and drank some of it. I breathed deeply again. My chest rose and fell but the itch clung on like a tick.
I kept going. As I had crossed the moor I had made a plan. I would be systematic about this. I was going to find this thing. I walked down the lane for a further half-mile looking for tracks. Then I climbed painfully over one of the hedge banks and followed it up again on the other side of the hedge looking for marks or shit or black hairs or anything at all. I did the same with the hedge on the other side of the lane. Nothing. I fanned out over the fields then and I walked each field on both sides of the lane. At my slow pace it must have taken me a couple of hours to scan the area around the spot where I had seen the thing. I walked around all the fields over the scrub and the sparse heather around the bent trees over the grasses and the plantain. Nothing. No prints no shit no hairs. No sound no sound at all anywhere.
I wanted to go into the church. I wanted to be entombed by the cold stone to get out of this heat to sit in an empty pew and ease myself. I wondered if I could work the anger and irritation out of me and have the old stale air of that place carry it away through the stained glass and out into the whiteness. I wanted to go in but I stayed outside. I had come here to watch. I sat down with my back against the trunk of the ancient yew in the churchyard. From there I could see out onto the lane to the place where I had seen it and for some way on either side. If it came back here I would not miss it.
The yew must have been centuries old it was hollow at the centre and the wood I was leaning on had been twisted and gnarled by the ages. Its green needles were thick above me its berries scarlet. I drank more water. I said nothing to myself or to the tree or to anyone I could dream of or think about. I just sat and watched the lane and the hedges and the fields and nothing happened for hours or what I thought must have been hours. I had no watch and so time was nothing not even a concept time was nothing and nothing happened. When you sit like this you realise that nothing has its own energy that it moves that nothing can happen like an event or an episode. Nothingness extends itself emptiness moves and when you stare into it things happen to you. I sat with my back against the yew and I looked across the churchyard wall over to the lane. Inside me the worm was still coiling though it was moving more sluggishly since I had settled down.
At the end of the hedge where it curled around the corner of the lane and disappeared out of my sight was a tree. It must have been fairly young it had a thin trunk and its slender angular branches hung over the lane. There were no leaves on it so it was hard for me to tell what it was. Maybe a beech maybe an oak. If you sit looking at anything for long enough then everything else fades from your vision and all you have is what you are staring at. I was staring at a small knot above the biggest branch on this tree. Its trunk was black and it was bare in the white heat and suddenly I saw what terrible things trees are. They sprout up from the Earth they reach
out in all directions they reach out for you they will smother you they will never stop growing and dividing and colonising. They are so fecund there is no stopping them. Chop them down burn them they always come back up they stretch to the sky these thin green fingers they are indescribable. They are just waiting there waiting everywhere for us to fall and then they will come back and they will grow over everything they will suck it all in and take it up to the sky in their thin fingers. Their roots will wrap around all that we were and our lives will rot down in their litter and theirs will be a silent Earth of roots and leaves and thin grasping and there will be no place for us in their world at all.
Then I remembered a man who would go out every morning and look at his trees. I didn’t know who he was or where I remembered this from but it felt like a memory and it came to me as I stared across at this tree in the lane. He was an old man he wore a tweed jacket and a flat cap and he planted trees. Perhaps they were fruit trees. I remembered that this man whenever I passed he would be in his garden walking slowly between the trees shuffling between them and inspecting them looking at every leaf turning the blossoms over smelling them sometimes. What goes on in the head of a man who looks at trees like that? He did it for years perhaps he had always done it perhaps he is still there doing it now. What went on in the head of someone who could do that same circuit every day for years forever? Why couldn’t I do that? Who was he that I was not? Today the thought of his circuit the thought of his silent circuit of the trees filled me with horror. How much I hated trees how much I feared things that grew. I was surrounded by trees surrounded by things that grew surrounded by this horrifying green abundance and it all wanted to swallow me and it was so silent so slow it spoke no language I could understand. How I hated it how I hated it and how I wanted to run.
I stopped looking at the tree. I found myself back in the churchyard leaning against the yew but now the church seemed to loom behind me like some presence. Now that I was aware of it I couldn’t put it beyond me I wanted to turn to look at it to make sure it wasn’t moving towards me coming to claim me. Now the church felt like a threat. What if God was a tyrant? The Bible’s God is a tyrant he destroys worlds because people won’t obey him he flies into rages and floods everything he burns down cities he slaughters children he hands down rules which must be obeyed by all and for eternity. He sent his son to die for us and he demands our gratitude for this though we never asked for it he demands that we gather in squat stone buildings and sing his praises if he is not to flood and burn us again. God the Father of all the men who feared their fathers over the centuries all the men who built up his church and who feared their fathers and whose sons feared them.
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