by Adam Carter
“Daisies, daisies,” the woman behind the till said as she searched a window display. “Orange ones do you, sir?”
“And yellow, if you have them.”
“And red,” Moya said.
The woman returned with all three colours and marked up the price. “Anything else I can do you for, sir?”
“No thank you. Ah, I just realised I don’t have any money. Do you extend credit?”
“Only if I know your face, sir. You new to the village?”
“Not at all, my good woman. I’ve just been away for a while. I live in Barley Street, the house with the stone dog outside.”
“Really? Sure, I’ll extend you credit. It’s just a bunch of flowers, if you disappear on me. Just remember, now you’re back, to use my shop for your groceries and essentials.”
“I will, madam. And thank you.”
“Where have you been, sir?” she asked as she bound them in paper. “If you don’t mind me asking, that is.”
“I’ve been away at war.” He motioned to his mangled arm. “Invalided out.”
“I’m sorry. We should look after our soldiers, that’s what I always say.”
“Then you are a very sensible woman.”
Crenshaw departed the shop with a lighter heart, glad to have at last found someone decent to talk to. Also, the flowers smelled divine.
He noticed Moya was not smiling.
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing. Just wondering whether that woman could have been any more obvious.”
“Obvious? About what?”
“Nothing, forget I said anything.”
He had no idea what had got into her, but it did not matter. He was home, he had flowers, and he was about to meet his long-lost wife.
Everything in the world was good.
He led Moya down familiar streets until he finally arrived at Barley Street. There was no sign, there were never any road signs in the village, but everyone knew it as Barley Street. Crenshaw had only an inkling as to why it was called Barley Street. That there had one time been a prominent figure of the community named Mr Barley was without doubt, but there was no evidence that he had lived in this street. There was a building which had been knocked down when Crenshaw had been a child, and his mother had always told him this had been used in the production of beer. Over his years growing up, Crenshaw had heard even more stories. Perhaps none of them were true, perhaps they all were. Whatever the origins, Crenshaw did not see that it mattered any. The past was a good thing to fondly look back upon, but it was never a good idea to wallow in it.
“Which one’s your house?” Moya asked.
“There. A few houses down.” From where he was standing he could see the gate leading to his house. There was a stone dog outside, and he was glad to see some things at least did not change. The fence itself had been replaced and the front garden had become overgrown. He supposed Maria had not bothered much with it, which was just like her. Pushing open the gate, he noticed the house looked pretty much the same. The windows had been replaced, the door had been given a darker varnish, but the bricks and mortar were the same. This was his house, where he and Maria had spent long happy years.
Jobek Crenshaw was finally home.
As he approached the door, Crenshaw was flooded with a multitude of emotions. He had not felt this excited in far too many years, but he was also nervous – terrified even. Would Maria have remarried? Even if she hadn’t, would she care to have him back in her life? Would she even remember him? He recalled when he had first met Maria, when he had asked her to go to the village dance with him, and realised he felt exactly the same way now as he had back then. That he who had marched boldly into so many battles should quail at the thought of facing the woman he loved was laughable.
Taking a deep breath, he knocked on the door and waited.
After a few moments, the door creaked inwards. There was a man standing in the doorway and Crenshaw’s gut instantly tightened. The man was aged somewhere in his fifties and regarded Crenshaw and Moya with a little confusion. “Yes?” he asked.
“Who are you?” Crenshaw demanded. “You’d better be a decorator, because at the state of what I can see from the front you’re certainly not a gardener.”
“Decorator?” the man asked. “What are you talking about? Who are you?”
“Where’s Maria?”
“Maria? Who’s Maria?”
“She lives here.”
“I live here.”
“Maria lives here. I’m her husband, now where is she?” Crenshaw thought that would have made the man take a step back in shame, shock or fear. All that happened was that his frown deepened.
“There was a Maria who lived here,” he said slowly. “But not for years.”
“Years?”
“She sold the house to me. I don’t know what happened to her. You say you’re her husband?”
Crenshaw could hear the words, but they had no meaning. All he could see was a man standing on his doorstep, preventing him from reaching his wife. “Maria!” he said, trying to shove past, but the man immediately used the door as a barrier. “Maria!”
“She’s gone,” the man said, trying to keep the door on him. “She’s been gone twenty years.”
Twenty years.
Crenshaw stopped, his entire world freezing. This man, this stranger, was saying that twenty years had passed. That was impossible – impossible! Yet as Crenshaw looked about him, he could see the new fence, new windows. There was a tree across the street which had not been there before, the ivy across Mildred’s house had been more overgrown than ever; and there were the changes. Tanner’s house entirely gone, the new shop with the pleasant woman, all this talk of using your own basket to walk around the shop. And the well, the well which had been transformed into something beautiful.
Twenty years.
The daisies fell silently to the ground
A gentle hand touched his shoulder. “Joe, you OK?”
He looked at Moya and felt his eyes trembling, his body on the verge of collapse. Across the front garden, beyond the stone dog which was a permanent fixture of the village, people were watching the commotion. He was creating a scene, and Maria would not like that on her doorstep.
“I’m sorry,” the man in the house said, and seemed genuine.
Crenshaw allowed Moya to lead him from the house, from the garden, to somewhere quiet. His life had ended in a second, but it was not over. Twenty years may have gone, but even if that was true Maria would still be somewhere. She had to be somewhere.
How old would she be now? How old was he? He seldom saw his reflection but always figured five years in prison had aged him prematurely. Now he knew they had been twenty years, it all made sense to him.
“Someone must know of Maria,” he said. “I’ll ask around. Tanner seems to have gone, but Mildred may still live here … lots of people must still be here. Twenty years isn’t so long.”
And so Crenshaw asked, and must have seemed a wild man to those he met. Moya tempered his questions so they did not appear the ravings of insanity, but an hour later they were no closer to finding Maria than they had been before entering the village. After so long, Crenshaw found he could put no names to faces, and no faces to names. Mildred had died three years earlier and Crenshaw had never known the sons who had not been born prior to his incarceration. Those rare people he did speak with whom he supposedly knew from his past life, he could not be certain of their identity, for just because someone claimed to be Billy Miller, how could Crenshaw have been certain that the face he no longer recognised did indeed belong to that name? That the village could have been populated now by hundreds of liars was a foolish possibility he was more than willing to entertain.
Finally, Moya took him to a small park area and seated him on a bench with the intention of calming him. But all Crenshaw said was that he did not recall this park and nor could he bring to mind what should have been there in its stead.
“I think if your wi
fe was here,” Moya said kindly, “you would have found her by now.”
“Then you believe these liars?”
“I believe more time has passed than you think, yes. I believe the years of listening to souls being tortured, the years of playing mind games with Asperathes to keep you sane, the years of watching him collect bootlaces without purpose have taken their toll. I think there’s a lot about your imprisonment you’ve made yourself forget, Jobek, and consequently you’ve lost more years than you could ever realise.”
“And what do I do now, Karina? Where do I find Maria? This was supposed to be the end of my search, not the beginning.”
“I wish I had an answer for you. But I …” She paused, and he could see whatever she was going to say did not come easily for her. “I think we should check the graveyard and hope we find nothing.”
It was a sound suggestion, if not a good one, although Crenshaw stiffened at the idea. It was not something he had not himself considered, although had refused to allow himself to commit to it. It seemed, however, the living were not giving him his wife: perhaps the dead would be more responsive.
The graveyard was nearby and Crenshaw scanned the headstones with far more trepidation than he had used when speaking with the villagers. Half an hour of searching revealed nothing, and Crenshaw was not certain whether his spirits should have been lifted or deflated.
At last, he collapsed against an ancient stone, exhausted, his resolve all but broken.
Beside him, Moya did not have any words of comfort.
Then, directly ahead, he saw a grave. The stone had crumbled, the words were faded, but as he scrabbled across the ground to kneel before it he could see it was unmistakably what he was after.
Crenshaw, the headstone read. Here lies Crenshaw.
“She’s gone,” he said, bowing his head. “Maria’s gone.”
“Crenshaw? Jobek Crenshaw?”
His head snapped up. There was an elderly man approaching, hobbling on a stick. He was garbed in black attire, with a white collar and a grizzled face with bright, cheery eyes.
“Father Rollins,” Crenshaw said, at last recognising someone. Father Rollins had been old when Crenshaw had left and now he was positively ancient, but his eyes and friendly smile could never be changed by time. If the grave had not been enough proof, this was all Crenshaw needed to understand that twenty years truly had passed him by.
“I knew it was you, Jobek,” the old priest cackled. “We all thought you were dead, lost in the wars.”
“Father,” he said, rising to shaky feet. “How did it happen?”
“How did what happen?”
Crenshaw motioned to the grave.
“Oh. A bit awkward now, I suppose, what with you standing there and all.”
“Awkward, Father?”
“It’s not often a man can be said to have one foot in the grave and for it to actually be true. Or for someone to walk over their own grave. Do you feel a shudder, Jobek?” He laughed again, although Crenshaw was only confused.
He looked back at the stone, which he now noticed bore no forename. “This is my grave, Father?”
“Like I said, we thought you were dead.”
“And what of Maria?”
“Ah.” Here his face fell. “Well, you were gone a long time, Jobek. She remarried, moved on.”
“She sold her house twenty years ago.”
“I never said she waited for you. Looks like it may have been the right decision, though, if it took you this long to come back. Has it really been twenty years?”
“So I’m told. Where did she go?”
“I don’t know. She left all that time ago, probably didn’t want to be here should you return. Sorry, that was callous of me.”
“Jobek,” Moya said, taking his hand in hers. “Jobek, Maria’s gone and even if you could find her she wouldn’t want you. I know that’s hard for you to hear, but you have to face reality.”
It certainly was difficult to hear, but it was also the truth; and, after so long, Crenshaw knew he needed to start facing the truth.
“Thank you, Father,” he said. “It was good to see you.”
“You’re leaving, I take it?”
“There’s nothing for me here.”
He gripped Moya’s hand tighter but found he could not offer her a smile. Not yet anyway. Leading her out of the graveyard, he walked back towards the bridge which would lead him out of his village. It was no longer his home – now just a collection of houses which no longer held any meaning for him. He did not look back.
CHAPTER TWELVE
More than six months passed. During that time Crenshaw and Moya had attempted to build a better life for themselves. Neither of them had anyone else, their pasts were something they did not want to talk about, so all they had left were their future prospects. Crenshaw still dreamed about owning a farm, but doubted he would ever be able to make it happen. He was no longer even certain of his age, and did not like to think about it. He and Moya had travelled for some time, eventually settling in a sea port. Crenshaw was able to find work at the docks, tying off boats and helping to load cargoes. His mangled arm at first put off prospective employers, but he soon proved himself entirely capable of lifting more with his one good arm than any other man could with two. He spent his days shirtless and in the cool sea breeze had very quickly turned his already muscular physique into that of a tanned he-man. Moya, for her part, found employ as a herbalist, and from their shared home she would sell poultices and ointments, but never strayed into the realms of love potions. They had both had quite enough of such things.
Life for Crenshaw and Moya was simple, but happy, and Crenshaw imagined he could live in such a fashion until the end came.
Returning home one evening from a hard day’s labour, Crenshaw found Moya worried about something and he asked what was bothering her. At first she would not tell him, said it was nothing, but he insisted and it was with relief that she told him.
“Someone came to buy some herbs today,” she said. “Nothing magical, just spices for his dinner. While he was here, he mentioned something. Just gossip, nothing he was accusing.”
Crenshaw bristled at the word. “And?”
“Baroness Thade. She’s angry again.”
“Baroness Thade is always angry.” They had discovered some time ago that the baroness had indeed survived the attack upon the castle. From what they had pieced together through gossip, the attack by the three heroes had not gone as well as expected, for they had been repelled. Having slaughtered most of the baroness’s soldiers, they had been set upon by some of her more beastly defences, although the details of that were sketchy at best. Some claimed the baroness kept a bestiary beneath her castle, others that she was in communion with dark beings of a nether-dimensional hell.
Whatever the truth, the heroes faced far more than they had expected and had fled. Since that day, the baroness had been eager to locate them, going so far as to hire bounty hunters and distributing the likenesses of the three heroes to all corners of her domain.
“He told me there was a picture up in the sheriff’s office,” Moya continued. “So I went to take a look. Here.” She drew something from her pocket and handed it over. Crenshaw unfolded the paper. It was a notice regarding the three wanted criminals, with notes about their appearance and rough sketches of each rogue.
One of the pictures looked remarkably like Crenshaw. Beneath the picture was a description of a ‘well-muscled man with a right arm useless and distorted through injury’. The picture of Moya did not look too far off, either.
“They still think it’s us?” he asked.
“You did admit it to their captain of the guard.”
“She has a good eye for detail.”
“She’s also hunting us down to kill us.”
Crenshaw said nothing to this, but folded the paper and put it away in his own pocket. At last he said, “You worry too much.”
“That wasn’t the only copy, Joe. When word gets to
these bounty hunters that there’s a man working the docks who matches this description, they’ll come for you, for us.”
“And what would you have us do?” he asked calmly, almost wishing the baroness would come for them so they could end this once and for all. “We can run until we’re dead, Karina, or we can move on with our lives and not let it get to us. We have a life here and if we run we’ll be running forever.”
“At least we’d be alive.”
“That’s not living.”
“Then we should fight.”
“Fight the baroness?” He laughed. “What, become the people everyone thinks we are? Why? What would that achieve?”
“Notoriety. Maybe people would be too afraid to bother us.”
It was an argument Crenshaw saw no point in having, so he left the debate on a neutral ending. It was something they could discuss, he told her, but right at that moment he was tired and the only thing he wanted was to sleep.
When morning came, Moya made no mention of the conversation of the previous night and Crenshaw hoped she would just forget it had ever happened. If someone came for him at the docks, he would deal with the situation then. He did not see the need to provoke the situation. Certainly no one he worked with or for ever mentioned the matter to him, or even looked at him warily. There were many old soldiers who had suffered terrible injuries, so even his scrawny arm was not something he was necessarily worried about being noticed.
That day he went to work as usual. There was a shipment of sugar coming in and Crenshaw had been assigned to unload it. Sugar was always heavier than one expected and he loved watching some of the less experienced workers trying to lug two sacks over their shoulders as though they thought they were hauling feathers.
“Youngsters,” Boris laughed as he sat with Crenshaw, eating their brief lunch while they watched others work. Boris was a man even larger than Crenshaw, but it was debatable as to who was stronger. The two often arm-wrestled and wagers were placed at even odds. Boris’s extra muscle was balanced by Crenshaw’s strength in his one good arm, plus the fact that Boris was made to wrestle with his left arm. So far they had arm-wrestled fifty-six times, and the result of their matches was so close neither man cared to know the actual tally.