Dark Spell

by Gill Arbuthnott

  “I just want you to be happy,” Julia said.

  “I know.”

  Chutney Mary wound herself round Callie’s ankles in a show of solidarity. Sometimes Callie felt as though she had more in common with the cat than with her mother.

  ***

  Anna turned the car into the drive that led to East Neuk Cottages.

  “Have you arranged to see Callie yet?” she asked.

  “Yeah. I’m meeting her in the village this afternoon – if we manage to get the car unloaded in time.”

  “Don’t moan. You’ll be glad when you see all the food I brought. Remember trying to buy stuff at the village shop last year?”

  She stopped the car in front of their cottage and went off to get the keys. Josh lounged against the bonnet, gazing at the enormous expanse of blue sky, and the duller metallic blue of the sea beyond it. They were far enough from the road to have lost the traffic noise, and apart from the sound of a tractor engine somewhere in the distance, there was only hot, blue silence.

  It felt like the start of a proper holiday.

  ***

  Two hours later, Josh set off to walk into the village. On the way he passed The Old Smithy, where George and Rose, Callie’s grandparents, lived. Callie lived near the beach.

  Josh arrived in the square, where they’d arranged to meet, and sat on a bench to wait, watching the passers-by from behind his sunglasses. After five minutes he saw a girl walking towards him. She had short, spiky brown hair and wore cut-off denim shorts, a t-shirt that was far too big for her and flip-flops. It was a few seconds before he realised it was Callie. He’d been expecting jeans and wellies and a long brown braid like last summer.

  She sat down beside him and smiled at the expression on his face.

  “Hello,” she said.

  “Hello. Wow. You look… different.”

  She ruffled her hair. “Yeah. Well… Thought I’d try something new.”

  “It’s… actually, it’s okay. It suits you.”

  “Beach?” Callie jumped up, and looked Josh up and down as he got to his feet, taking in his board shorts and Superdry tee. “Your hair’s longer.”

  He pushed it out of his eyes. “Mum’s always on at me to get it cut.”

  “My mum’s on at me to grow mine again.”

  Parents. Josh and Callie grinned at each other, the ice broken, and began to meander down to the beach.

  When they got there, they found the little car park above the dunes crowded with cars, and an ice-cream van parked at a precarious angle on the grass verge. They bought 99s then looked for a place away from sticky, squabbling children on the sand. Josh gave a family with an Alsatian a wide berth and he and Callie settled themselves against a hummock of red rock.

  “I’d forgotten you’re scared of dogs,” Callie teased.

  “Not scared. Just… cautious. They’re all still wolves, I reckon, just waiting for their chance.”

  Josh watched the waves running in.

  “I’ve got a body board with me, but the waves aren’t really big enough,” he said.

  “They will be when the wind goes round to the east. It’ll change in a couple of days. It’s really good then – cold, though, even when the weather’s like this.”

  “Do you want to give it a go tomorrow?”

  “It’ll be too calm. The next day should be better. We could go into St Andrews instead, or have you got plans?”

  “No plans. It’s supposed to be a holiday, but Mum’s brought her laptop.”

  “Another book?”

  Josh nodded. “Some art thing she’s editing.” He wondered now why he’d been nervous of seeing Callie again. Shuffling himself away from the rock, he lay down with a groan of pleasure. “I love it when it’s hot. I’ll have to go and live in Spain or Greece or somewhere when I leave school.”

  He squinted up at Callie. “Why did you cut your hair?”

  She shrugged. “Fancied a change. And I thought I should give everyone at school something new to talk about.” She couldn’t quite keep the bleakness out of her voice.

  “Ah. So you haven’t suddenly got interested in the stupid stuff that everyone else likes and made loads of friends then?”

  Callie snorted. “As if.” She twisted round to lie on her stomach, staring at Josh, who had his eyes closed. “If I was at school with you in Edinburgh, you’d think I was weird too. You wouldn’t talk to me.”

  Josh opened his eyes and his mouth quickly, then stopped to think before he spoke, uncomfortably aware that there was some truth in what she had said.

  “You’re right. I probably wouldn’t. Sorry. Back home – in school – I’d be one of the idiots who’s interested in stupid stuff, and tries to look cool. It’s just easier that way. Or at least, it’s hard to stop once you start.” He grimaced. “You probably wouldn’t want to speak to me there anyway. But I don’t have to worry about all that stuff here. I’m on holiday from trying to be cool. I can just be me, and you,” he smiled, “you’re always… you.”

  “You’re not weird anyway,” he added hastily. “You just know weird stuff. You’re okay. And you fit here really well. You’re part of the place.” He shook his head, laughing at himself. “That sounds really stupid.”

  Callie was staring at him intently.

  “What?” he asked.

  “What if I’m weirder than you think?” Her heart was beating faster as she said it, and she felt the familiar tingling in her palms. She tried to push it down, concentrating her gaze on a pile of seaweed nearby.

  Josh raised his eyebrows. “What do you mean?”

  Callie saw a wisp of smoke rising from the seaweed and stared at the rock in front of her instead.

  “Nothing. It doesn’t matter.”

  ***

  In St Andrews the next morning there was a queue almost to the front door of Janetta’s Ice-cream Parlour, although it wasn’t even ten o’clock. Josh didn’t mind, though: it gave him just enough time to decide what flavours to have. Coffee. And raspberry. And a fudge finger stuck in the top.

  He and Callie wandered past the cathedral ruins at ice-cream-licking speed.

  “Oh no,” Callie said suddenly, coming to a halt.

  “What?”

  “The girl walking towards us, smiling. She hates me.”

  “She looks friendly enough.”

  “Trust me, she’s poison.”

  “Hello, Callie,” said Evie, beaming. “How are you? Having a good summer?” Her eyes were fixed on Josh all the time she spoke. “Aren’t you going to introduce me to your… friend?”

  “Evie – Josh,” Callie said, with a marked lack of enthusiasm. “Well, we’d better be off.”

  “I’m having a party next Friday. Why don’t you both come?”

  “Sorry, I can’t,” said Callie without hesitation.

  “Well then, Josh, why don’t you come on your own? Starts at eight. Callie knows the address.”

  “Umm… thanks.”

  “Must go. See you then, I hope. Your ice cream’s dripped down your top, Callie.”

  Josh, watching Callie’s expression as she stared at Evie’s retreating back, half expected the other girl to spontaneously combust.

  “Not one of your best mates, then?” he said.

  “You could say that. She would have ignored me if you hadn’t been here. Never mind her. She’ll be off to have her nails permed or her hair massaged or something. What do you want to do?”

  Josh shrugged. “Dunno. Don’t mind really, only not shops.”

  “Not even the cake shop?” She flashed a smile.

  “I’ll make an exception for that. Might leave it till a bit later, though.”

  “We could go to the castle.”

  “Okay.”

  Callie led Josh down a narrow lane and as they emerged at the other end he saw the ruins of St Andrews Castle across the road, straight in front of him.

  He started to cross, but Callie caught his arm.

  “Just a minute.” She pull
ed him a few paces from the end of the lane. “Look.” She pointed at the ground.

  Josh looked. She was pointing at a circular metal plate in the pavement just in front of someone’s front door, like a manhole cover, but peppered with small holes.

  He looked at Callie questioningly.

  “What? St Andrews’ most famous manhole cover?”

  Callie smirked. “Just wait. It’ll make sense in a bit. Come on, let’s go in.”

  Josh paused at the gate to read the notice about ticket prices and started to fish in his pocket for money, but Callie shook her head.

  “You won’t need money.”

  Puzzled, he followed her into the entrance building.

  Behind the ticket desk stood an elderly lady, watching with a gimlet eye as two tourists picked up and put down one souvenir after another. She looked as though she was trying to will them to leave, Josh thought and, just as he did so, they both put down the tea towels they’d been admiring and went out of the door at the far side of the shop.

  When Josh glanced back at the ticket lady he could have sworn the smile she wore was one of triumph, but it couldn’t be, of course.

  “Hello, Bessie,” Callie said to her.

  “Good morning, dear. How are you? And this must be Josh, I suppose?”

  Callie nodded. “Josh, this is Bessie Dunlop. She’s a friend of Rose’s.”

  “Hello. Nice to meet you,” said Josh automatically.

  “Are you going in?” Bessie asked.

  “Yes, please, Bessie. I’m showing Josh the sights and it must be at least two years since I’ve been round the place. Does Josh have to pay?”

  Bessie made a tutting noise. “Of course not, since he’s with you. We can’t treat him like one of these pesky tourists. They get everywhere you know, Josh, cluttering the place up. It would be much quieter without them. Still, I suppose they keep me out of mischief.” She exchanged a glance with Callie that could only be described as conspiratorial, then looked round to check there were no inconvenient tourists bearing down on them. “Coast’s clear. In you go.”

  “Thanks, Bessie. See you later.”

  The castle was four sides of a ruin round a central square of daisy-spotted grass, all perched right on the cliff edge.

  Josh wandered round, reading the information boards to work out what the various crumbling walls had been.

  “How old is it?” he asked Callie.

  “I can’t remember when it was built, but it was destroyed in the sixteenth century.”

  “By the English?”

  “No, the French. Some tourists in Pitmillie asked George about it once and when he told them about the French destroying it, they asked him what sort of aircraft they’d used.”

  Josh burst out laughing. “Seriously? In the sixteenth century?”

  Callie nodded, grinning. “Some people just don’t get history properly.”

  They looked over the cliff edge, trying to imagine what it must have been like to watch a fleet of ships come to destroy you.

  “Come on,” said Callie, pulling him away, “I want to show you something.”

  She led Josh to one corner of the ruin, where a flight of steps disappeared down through the grass and underground, for all the world like a giant rabbit hole.

  “A dungeon?” he guessed.

  Callie shook her head and stood aside to let him go first.

  At the foot of the stairs was a tunnel bored into the solid rock, with a handrail on one side and lights cutting through the gloom at intervals. The roof was so low that Josh had to bend almost double.

  “What is this place?” he asked as he shuffled along uncomfortably.

  “Wait till you get to the ladder, then I’ll explain,” Callie said mystifyingly, creeping along behind him.

  “I hope it’s not far,” Josh groaned as he bashed his head on the roof yet again a couple of minutes later, but just as he spoke, the top of a metal ladder came into view.

  Josh climbed down the slippery treads and found, to his relief, that he could stand up properly at the bottom. He listened to water dripping from the roof as he waited for Callie to join him.

  “Okay. What is this place?”

  “The castle was under siege and the people outside got fed up, so they started to tunnel in under the castle wall. This is their tunnel.” Callie gestured round them. “But the people inside found out, so they dug a tunnel to intercept the one coming in. The first bit – where it’s really low – is that tunnel. Come on, let’s go to the end.”

  They had to go carefully: this part of the tunnel was much wetter, trails of moisture on the walls shining in the weak light, and the floor was very slippery.

  Josh reached up to the roof. The surface was velvety-soft – not at all what he had expected. When he looked at his fingers they were black, and he realised that the roof was caked with soot.

  As he stretched to touch it again, a vivid picture suddenly formed in his mind, of what it must have been like down here for the men who had dug it out.

  No light but guttering candles and lamps. The stink of tallow and cheap lamp oil. The noise, endlessly repeated, of picks and hammers on rock. The constant drip of water. The fear of rock falls…

  “Come to the end,” Callie said, breaking in on his thoughts.

  The tunnel ended in a flight of stone steps that must once have led to the surface but had long since been blocked off. Above Josh’s head, thin shafts of sunlight speared down into the dim tunnel in a circular pattern that looked strangely familiar.

  “Recognise it?”

  What was it?

  He went up the steps so he could look more closely.

  “The manhole cover!” he realised suddenly. “We’re under the pavement across the road.”

  They turned to go back. The lights seemed dimmer somehow – must be because they’d been staring at the sun coming through the grating, thought Josh.

  “What happened when the two tunnels met?” he asked.

  “There was a battle, of course… well, a fight at any rate. I don’t suppose there can have been enough people down here for a proper battle. It must have been terrible, though – no room to fight properly, nowhere to run, no escape.”

  Without warning, the lights went off.

  4. WHISPERS IN THE DARK

  Callie gasped, heard Josh beside her draw in his breath sharply. Around them was utter darkness.

  “Power cut?” said Josh.

  There was a pause before Callie answered. “Must be.”

  Their voices were swallowed by the dead air.

  “Wait until I get to you,” Josh said.

  Callie had been at the bottom of the steps when they were plunged into darkness, but he was two – or was it three? – steps above her.

  He groped forward with his feet, feeling for the edge of each step, arms outstretched, trying to find Callie.

  The silence was oppressive now, no sound but the drip of water.

  “Josh?” whispered Callie.

  “Here,” whispered a voice to her left, and then, “Here,” said Josh much more loudly, but on her right.

  Imagination. Stop it.

  “I’ve got my hands out. Stand still so I can find you,” he went on.

  Callie gave a little gasp as something touched her left wrist, and a second later Josh bumped into her from the right.

  “Sorry.”

  “Okay.” She sounded breathless.

  “We can wait until the lights…”

  “No!” exclaimed Callie vehemently, clutching his hand tightly. “Let’s go.”

  They shuffled forward like cartoon zombies, arms out in front of them so they wouldn’t blunder into the rock walls.

  “What?” said Callie suddenly.

  “What?” Josh echoed.

  “You said my name.”

  “No I didn’t,” Josh insisted. Callie clutched more tightly at his hand. “You all right?” he asked.

  “Fine,” she said in a strained voice.

  Cal
lie.

  You have come to us.

  Callie stopped dead. “Did you hear that?”

  “I didn’t hear anything.” There was a clang as Josh bumped into the ladder.

  You’re imagining things, Callie tried to tell herself. Don’t be stupid. There’s only you and Josh down here. No one else. Nothing else.

  “Do you want to go up first?” Josh asked.

  “Yes!” She couldn’t keep the fear out of her voice.

  Something brushed, moth-soft, against her cheek, and she failed to suppress a scream.

  “Callie, what is it?”

  Callie.

  You are ours.

  Panic overwhelmed her. She dropped Josh’s hand, flailed for the cold metal of the ladder and scrambled up it, heedless of anything but the need to escape the darkness, escape the whispering voices that were suddenly all around her.

  You belong with us…

  We are angry…

  So frightened…

  Stay in the black dark with us…

  Always…

  We long for the light…

  So much anger…

  We long for the air…

  We belong with you…

  Callie…

  “Callie!” Josh yelled. He felt for the ladder and pulled himself up.

  There was a glimmer of grey here, not light, but a lessening of the darkness. He could hear Callie whimpering ahead of him, and make her out as a vague crawling shape on the floor of the passage just ahead of him. He reached forward to touch her and the lights came back on.

  Blinded, he threw up his hands to shield his eyes.

  “Callie, are you okay?” he asked, but there was no sound but his own voice, and when he opened his eyes properly there was no one there.

  Josh hurried up the tunnel. How had Callie got out so fast, so silently? He was relieved when he emerged into air and light and saw her sitting against a wall, knees hugged to her chest, face chalky white.

  “Are you okay?”

  Callie nodded, hugging her knees tighter to disguise the fact that she was shaking uncontrollably. She couldn’t have stood up if her life had depended on it.

  “It was pretty creepy, the lights going out like that.” He gave her a sideways glance, watching for some reaction. “What happened to you down there?”