I lift my gaze from its surface. Away from the noise of the water, slap slapping on the mill-wheel paddles. The quick rush of the current in the mill-race. The creaking groan of the great oak axle slowly turning.
From here I can see the kirkyard, blue-black in the distance. A blurred outline of trees.
Stones, carved and still.
Waiting.
Waiting in the darkness.
And in that darkness something moves.
CHAPTER XXIII
I’m running. My chest is tight and sore. Breath rasping and whistling in my lungs. Branches whip against my face. Brambles tear at my legs and arms. There is a voice screaming. Out loud. The sound ripping through the trees, screaming and screaming.
It’s my voice.
‘Amy! Amy!’
Now I’m at the back dyke and the solid wooden fencing has been torn aside. Blasted apart as if some careless giant had passed by and trodden on it. I stare at the wood, not splintered or broken, but melted. Dissolved and warped. Curled aside to make a small space. Space enough for a child to walk through. What could do that? What power is there that would leave that mark?
I hesitate, feeling the first great lurch of fear for myself.
‘Amy?’ I cry out.
Beyond me the gaping dark of the cemetery.
There is a soft shudder in my head. A strange flicker which fastens on my fear. Nothing calling for me this time. No whispers in my face tonight.
Why?
Because Amy is in there. With one child captive, there is no need for two.
I hurl myself at the open space and the barbed wire comes up to meet me, scratching through my skin, dragging at my clothes to pull me back. The thick bristles are embedded in my jacket and I’m caught fast, struggling on the ground. I unzip the front of my anorak, and draw out my arms. I leave it there and crawl forward to the foot of the dyke.
Blood on my hands and fingernails as I scramble to the top. Then I jump over and sink down knee-deep on the other side, my legs heavy with clogged and slimy liquid. I raise one foot, looking down, expecting to see thick viscous mud clinging there.
Nothing.
Then the next leg.
Nothing.
But I am sinking. The ground falling away beneath me. I am dropping down and it will close over my head and suffocate me.
I shake my feet. Must get this substance off them. I stare at them, each one. Just as that poor mad dog had done.
Then I shake my head desperately, trying to cling to my reason. Is what I see real? Or is there something there which I cannot see?
White ash blowing in the wind. Blowing and shifting. Changing, yet never moving. Remaining the same. Ash from a burning fire.
I lower my head and move my mind. Out and away.
Done it so often. In the class with Warrior Watkins. Can do it now. Switch off. Shut up. Close down.
There! Now!
I break the connection. My fear is my own and I will control it.
Nothing here. Nothing. The tree is gone. The tarpaulin remains.
So . . .
Down there. Underneath some broken earth and roots.
What?
A flutter again in my brain. A small fan of wind to stir up the deep-rooted fears of the unknown.
The chest was there. I knew it. Though whatever had been in it was out now. Drifting around, seeking . . . more power.
Whispers.
Someone singing. The frail, halting voice of a young child I pivot round, slowly. Very slowly.
Amy is sitting not so far away on the grass playing with some small stones, running them through her fingers. Clinking them together like beads.
‘Amy,’ I call softly.
She raises her head to me. Eyes glazed and feverish. ‘Solomon,’ she cries happily. ‘Look what I’ve found.’
Now that I am closer to her I can see that they are coloured glass beads. Burning and glowing with a strange deep fire within. Blue and red and green they flash under the moonlight.
Glass beads.
No! Not glass!
Ah! I see them now! Excitement surges in me as I realise she has found the treasure! Whatever it was. It had been hidden in the box. It had taken a small child to unearth it.
And we have it! Even if the reward was only a fraction of the value, it was wealth. Money! I would be able to get away. To do what I wanted. I move forward to touch them. To hold them in my hands, dribble them down through my fingers, feel the smooth sides, touch the sharp edges.
Amy smiles a welcome. ‘Want one?’ She offers me a handful to choose from.
I reach out . . .
And down . . .
Then.
Amy picks up one jewel with her other hand and places it in her mouth. My hand halts, suspended in the void.
Amy stretches her hand out further to me. ‘The pink one tastes nice,’ she says.
A coldness creeps upon me. Along my arms, bare in my tee shirt. Through my body, into my bones.
Amy does not see diamonds and rubies as I do. It is sweets which lie in her hands, not precious jewels.
We each see what we want to see.
The workmen on that last evening in the graveyard. Joe, reaching out for gold. Gerry had sought to find his friend. And Amy, drawn in the same way any child would be tempted. By sweets.
Now I could see them too. I must have been mistaken. They were sweets. In her hands, on her lap, strewn beside her on the ground. Different little boxes with shiny paper. There is the smell of chocolate, the taste of aniseed and liquorice on my tongue.
I should have some too.
I hunker down in front of her and carefully, with my hand underneath hers, I flick them away, across the grass.
‘See?’ I say lightly, heart crashing inside my chest, ‘Pretty pebbles. That’s all.’
We both watch the stones fall and scatter.
There is a deep hiss of anger in my head. I shut it out.
‘Come on,’ I say, taking her hand. ‘Your mum’s waiting for you.’
She looks around her, reluctant to leave.
‘She’s here, my mum’s here,’ she says, getting up slowly. Too slowly.
‘No, Amy,’ I reply firmly. ‘She’s not. She’s at home. And that’s where we’re going now.’
She’s almost on her feet. ‘But I want to stay. To hear the end of the song. Please, Solomon?’
‘What song?’ I hold out my arms to her.
‘The lady’s singing it again. Just like Mummy does. Can’t you hear it?’
Yes. No. NO!
‘No,’ I say. ‘I don’t hear anything.’
‘But she’s there. Can’t you see her?’ says Amy.
‘Where?’ I ask.
She smiles at me and whispers, very softly.
‘Behind you.’
CHAPTER XXIV
Slowly, I turn. Icy air melts through the hair on my head. On the ground the white ash drifts gently. My eyes stare, blinking, focusing.
‘I’ve had enough of this,’ I say aloud, and I do not recognise my own voice. ‘Where are you?’
The ash is cloudy vapour, a thickening mist.
‘Show yourself,’ I demand.
‘I will,’ breathes a voice in my ear. ‘I will. Though first be sure that you truly want to see me.’
A rustle behind me. I spin around quickly.
Amy sits alone, playing with her fingers. She murmurs a strange little song to herself. I decide what to do. I will lift her quickly and run. Away from here, from this part of the cemetery, as fast as I can. To the gates. I bend to pick her up.
‘No!’
It is a screech.
‘She’s mine.’
I turn for the second time and sheer blind terror freezes me motionless. The tarpaulin rips back from the open grave and up out of it the lid of the chest crashes open. The fog pours in and down, and a rank smell fills the night.
A figure crawls out and rises above me. I feel my guts disintegrating, my mind breaking in terror.<
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Beside me Amy laughs. ‘See, Solomon, the lady.’
I look wildly at the child. She is smiling and reaching out her hands. For the faintest second I see what she does. A gentle floating figure of a woman, stretching out her hands and humming a lilting tune.
And then the lips are drawn back from yellow teeth bared in an evil snarl. Like a mad black dog. The watchman’s dog.
My whole body is shuddering as I try to get control.
‘What happened to the first workman,’ I stutter. ‘The one whose name was Joe?’
An arm reaches out and I stagger backwards. I see what I knew I would see. An arm with a deep cut sliced right across its wrist. Torn flesh and pus oozing from the wound. Drops of blood drip on the ground.
‘The one whom first I called?’ The voice hisses in the trees. ‘I have him. As I will have you.
‘Bowels. Brain. Blood and Bone.
‘All.’
Joe’s figure lurches towards me, a sickly smile on its curdled face.
‘No!’ I hold up my arms to fend it off.
Like an Impressionist painting, it dissolves into a thousand different brush strokes. Then into small particles which now drift away into the ash, dissipating among the gravel paths.
I must move. I know this. I have to try to get away.
The juddering of my arms and legs means that I can barely walk, but I must. One foot in front of the other. Shaking all over and crying with fear.
‘Amy,’ my voice a ragged tear in the night. ‘Amy, you have to come with me.’
‘No,’ she smiles at me.
‘No,’ says another voice inside my head.
‘Yes.’ I’m more determined now. ‘Yes. What do you want with her, anyway?’ I ask desperately. ‘She’s only a child.’
A child. A sick child. A little girl. Professor Miller’s daughter.
‘The miller’s daughter,’ I say aloud.
‘Not my fault.’ The whisper echoes round the graveyard. ‘The miller himself to blame. He moved the river flow. Changing the course of running water is an evil thing to do. And a curse laid on cannot be easily lifted.’
‘You cursed them all,’ I shout. ‘A malefice.’
There is a sharp cracking sound and the branch of a tree comes down, narrowly missing my head.
‘I know!’ I scream out. ‘I know it all! They burnt you and you cursed them.’
The gravel on the path gathers before my eyes, collects and whirls at me, rattling on my face, scoring at my eyes.
I laugh like a crazy person. ‘You were guilty. Most of them weren’t. But not you. You were evil. Are evil.’
Something moves in my mind. A veil lifts. I step back. It advances towards me, within me.
‘Know this.’ It speaks inside my head. ‘This has not come to pass by human design. I decided my time was now. The river will flow again as once it did. I’ve waited long for this. Years and centuries of reaching out, trying to grasp hold. Building my strength slowly. Touching other minds. Drawing first from visitors here, and then they came no more.’
I try to shut the voice out. Close off part of my mind. No use. It seeps in, like mist through a crack.
‘Then into my orbit came youth. Drunken and drugged, but with untapped minds. It was so easy. I have gained a huge store.’
‘I am not afraid,’ I whisper to myself. ‘I am not afraid.’
‘Afraid? Afraid?’ In the night air, a cackle as would freeze blood. Then there were eyes with the voice that I could hear all around me. Eyes which held mine. Hypnotic, drawing, drowning. The speech was slow and distinctive.
‘No, not afraid. Not afraid. Terrified.’
The eyes changed. My world was spinning, hopeless and helpless. A voice spoke out, a woman’s voice, clear and pure.
‘EMOC DLIHC.’
And in my mind the runes unravelled. Whatever detached and singular part of me that could read the mirror writing.
‘No, don’t, ’ I ordered Amy. ‘Do not go. Stay with me.’
Silence. Sudden and complete. Outside and in. I, with my mixed-up word order had understood the command.
I seize my chance in the small space I had been given. Grasping Amy firmly by the wrist I drag her to her feet. She is heavy, reluctant to leave. Her body weight doubled, trebled by her unwillingness.
‘Please,’ I beg. Already I feel its return. Evil gathering its forces against me. ‘Please, Amy, come with me.’
‘Solomon!’
Someone calls my name. Right in my ear.
‘Solomon!’
Long red fingernails grab my arm and dig into the flesh.
CHAPTER XXV
‘Solomon!’
The yell is from Ms Talmur who is standing beside me on the grass.
‘How did you get here?’ I gape at her, swaying on my feet.
‘When you didn’t come back to the police station I went to your house and spoke to your father. He didn’t know where you were, but I guessed you would be here.’ She looks around her wildly. ‘There is something terrible going on. Isn’t there?’
‘It’s here, all around us. Some awful evil thing.’ The words are gabbling out of my mouth. ‘I think it was burnt and the ashes buried in a chest under the rowan tree.’ I have to speak louder now to be heard. A wind has gathered. It is shaking the trees, howling through the branches.
‘Dear God! What is that?’ Ms Talmur grabs my arm again.
It is more than the noise of the wind that we hear. The howling is horrendous, a terrible baying noise, blocking out all other sounds, filling us up, tipping us towards madness.
‘Let’s try to get out.’ Ms Talmur’s teeth are chattering. She reaches out to Amy.
The child looks up. Her eyes are turned back in her head, her face deathly pale. Ms Talmur takes her hand. There is a hard laugh, and the child is wrenched from her. Ms Talmur is thrown aside. She screams and falls back awkwardly, cracking her head on an upright stone. Fear fills my heart. She lies broken on the ground, like a snapped-off flower stalk. I run to them, and then shout into the wind and noise.
‘You have had enough. You have killed two people. You don’t need any more. Let the child go.’
‘I can’t.’
There was a flicker there. I sensed a hesitation.
‘Why not?’
‘It is not for you to know.’
Somewhere in the labyrinth there is a closing off. So . . . What was there? A weakness?
I could only think to repeat what I had said.
‘Let her go.’
‘NO!’ It is a howling cry. ‘I need her.’
Need. Need? Why need? What is it that you must have?
There is an agitated jumble in my head. But I will not let go. ‘I will not let you take her,’ I shout out.
‘You,’ the voice states in deep derision, ‘you. What are you?’
Don’t listen. Don’t listen. Don’t listen. Don’t.
‘You are a stupid, lazy and ignorant boy.’
And it’s Watkins that I hear. Him and every other teacher whose class I’ve been in.
‘Thick-skulled, dim-witted, pudding head,’ the belittling abuse goes on. ‘Slow, backward, remedial, stupid, stupid, stupid.’ The vile spittle streams out.
I stop then all right. That familiar creeping sensation of complete worthlessness. Humiliation. The sure and certain knowledge that no matter how hard I tried, no matter how well I did, it would never be good enough. I falter.
‘Thick. Dull. Senseless. Dim-witted. Glaikit. Stupid.’
The sneering solidifies on me like congealing grease.
Stop, please stop. Make it stop. God. Anyone. Make it stop.
‘How many times have I told you? Can’t you remember anything? Stupid. Stupid. Stupid.’
I am standing in a pool of pee on the gym hall floor.
Stand in the corner. Stand in the waste bin. Stand off. Stand up – so that everyone can point at you. Stupid, stupid person.
I stumble on the grass. My head hangs low
. I crumple to my knees. Amy whimpers. And that pathetic sound pulls me back.
‘Solomon, don’t cry.’
She floods me with strength.
‘Whatever you are, YOU are nothing.’ I think the thought deep inside my reason. ‘You cannot be. And you will not be. You feed on hatred, greed, despair and frustration. But you do not exist as you once did. Why do you need the child?’
Innocent, pure, untouched.
‘Not for you to know or understand.’
More revenge? It cannot be just that.
And suddenly I do know.
It was its other half. To be complete it needed a child’s innocence, untouched, unsullied by the world. Her uncorrupt body and mind. To complete the circle. Then and only then could it walk the earth again. Walled in its tomb the soulless spirit languished. Joe had been consumed, with all his imperfections. Now the balance was needed to complete its release.
The knowledge gives me power.
‘You will not have her.’ I crawl towards Amy. If ever bravery was needed, it was needed now. ‘You will NOT have her.’
‘Then I will take her.’
I feel its presence now, deep inside me. Cold. Colder than any tomb.
‘Beyond you. Past you. Through you. I will take her.’
And the thing before me, and in me, stretches out to suck me in.
I turn and grab Amy. I have no strength to lift or carry her. I wrap my arms about her and hold her fast.
There is a singing in the air. The wind drops and the leaves of the trees move in harmony. Beautiful music. The branches dip and sway in tune. I shut my mind off from it. I see the fog and the dark still night. Feel the cold through to my bones. Smell the dank reek of rotted flesh.
Amy strains against me, struggles with an extraordinary power. She unfastens the grip of my fingers one by one. Frees herself from my grasp. I’m going to lose her. Whatever bewitchment is on her I cannot hold her to me.
Or can I?
‘Amy.’
She is on the path now, a few paces distant. Walking towards the open grave.
‘Amy.’ I call again, softly. ‘Remember the story I was telling you last night? You fell asleep before I finished. Don’t you want to hear the end?’
Whispers in the Graveyard Page 9