by A. Sparrow
I pulled up to a man carrying a trombone case.
“Excuse me sir, but how would I get to Springboig from here?”
“Springboig? You’re practically there already. It’s butt up against Barlanark. Just keep going the way you’re going to Shettleston. Pass the rail station and go over the tracks. Hang a right at the circle. And there you’ll be. Springboig.”
A woman walking a terrier came up behind him and both she and the dog gave me stern looks.
“What he just told you will take you to Springboig Road,” she said. “Is that what you’re after?”
“I was actually looking for Budhill Avenue.”
“Then you’ll want to go left not right at the circle,” said the woman.
“True,” said the man. “Right would be the continuation of Halhill to Barlanark. Shirley, how goes the old man? I heard he was admitted to the hospital.”
“He’ll live. Unfortunately,” said the woman, dryly.
“Um … thank you both very much!”
I roared away from the curb, pleased with how smooth everything was going. This was going to be way easier than finding Karla’s old place in Rome. What a difference it made actually speaking and understanding the local language. And I had no trouble with that here, no matter how thick the brogue.
I found Budhill Avenue right where they said I would, amidst a blocked crammed with all sorts of little businesses as well as the Springboig Post Office. Number seventy-seven was just beyond a small park. My palms were getting slippery now.
I sat there idling on the bike for a few moments, before pulling into a drive that led to cobbled lot out back. I had no lock or chain so I tucked the motorbike behind a large bush, hoping no one would notice it right away. This was not the kind of neighborhood where unsecured property stayed put very long.
Number 301 was accessed up a staircase off the alley. The outer door was ajar. I took a deep breath and started up the creaky stairs, worried that Karla would be mad at me for coming up to Glasgow. I hoped she didn’t slam the door in my face.
But if she missed me a tenth as much as I missed her, she would fly into my arms and not let go. Or at least I would get to see the briefest flash of joy in her eyes before the scolding began. A guy could only hope.
I knocked three times. I heard a chair scrape, a muffled shout. The door opened. A man stood there, his sandy-brown hair combed in a sweep across his forehead. He wore a broad smile, accentuated by a boyish face, glossy and devoid of stubble.
“Yes?” he said. “Can I help you?”
“Hi … um … I’m a friend of Karla’s … Karla Raeth? I thought she might be staying here. Am I in the right place?”
“Oh yes. Most certainly. You are in the right place. Come right in. I’ll fetch her for you.”
I stepped inside. The apartment was dark. The shades were drawn. The lights were off. Something didn’t feel right. I was a second away from turning around and leaving.
Someone sat at the kitchen table with their back to me, head slumped forward, dreadlocks obscuring their face. Was that Linval?
The guy grabbed my hoodie and hauled me forward. I tripped and stumbled into the side of a sofa. He slammed the door shut, tripped the lock and set the latch. A tall man emerged from the pantry. His eyes had a crazed Charles Manson gleam to them; his beard, a skunk stripe down the middle.
Chapter 5: Brynmawr
The Stagecoach bus from Abergavenny let them one block away from Brynmawr’s market square, which was in truth, a semi-circle. Dazed from their naps, they wandered at random through the tidy town center, struggling to orient themselves. Hunger drew them into a place called Pat’s café where Karla bought a pasty for them to share.
“So where are we going to sleep tonight?” said Isobel, her eyes still heavy.
“I don’t know,” said Karla. “Hopefully James’ floor, if he has the space.”
“Do we even know how to get to his farm?”
“No, we don’t.”
“You should have gotten the directions from Sturgie.”
“I didn’t dare call him, not with Papa after us. He’d be incriminated.”
“Then you should have kept in touch with James.”
“Izzie! Enough with the should-haves!”
“I’m sorry, but we would be in less of a pickle right now if we had just run away with James.”
Karla expelled her breath in frustration. “You know I wanted to get back to Root. Being with James interfered with that.”
“Wanted? Does that mean you’ve changed your mind?”
Karla gazed down at her feet. “I don’t know. Glasgow was nice, while it lasted. But finding Frelsi has been my dream ever since I learned of it. Free souls get to live forever, Iz. Forever!”
“Stuck in a horrid place like that? I wouldn’t exactly call that living.”
“Oh? And what we had in Inverness was any better?”
“Inverness is history,” said Isobel. “We’ve broken free. We have new lives now.”
“But for how long? You realize as a minor, when they find you they will make you go back to him.”
“Who’s going to find us? It’s going on six weeks and we haven’t been bothered.”
“We can’t count on that, Izzie. The law could catch up with us any day now.”
“And so what if they do? I’ll just tell them what Papa did to us. They’ll put him in jail. Then we find ourselves a nice foster home with a family that goes to church only on holidays.”
“It’s not that simple. You don’t think I’ve tried to turn him in? Once, I went to the constabulary and told them everything. They didn’t believe me. They just nodded their heads and rolled their eyes. When I was done, they just drove me back home … to him! Papa was all smiles and sweetness until they left. And then he beat the crap out of me.”
Isobel looked determined. “Then we stay on the move, like gypsies. Maybe we go to Switzerland, go see Grandpapa.”
“Not a chance,” said Karla.
“Why not?”
“Because he’s a cold-hearted, selfish pig. If we go anywhere, we go to Roma. James said he liked it there.”
Karla got up from the table and went up to the counter where a woman was wiping the fingerprints off a glass display case with a spritz of ammonia.
“Pardon me, ma’am. But we are trying to find a certain farm … a goat farm.”
“A goat farm is it? Which one are you after?”
“They make … cheese … there.”
“Well, they all make cheese. That’s why they raise goats in the first place. Do you happen know the name?”
“I am sorry. I do not.”
She reached into a refrigerated case and retrieved two small white rounds of goat cheese and handed them to Karla. “Could it be one of these?”
One bore a crude drawing of a prancing goat, the word Merlin in a swirly font. The other depicted ruins with Cwm Gwyrdd Farm printed in an arc around the top of the label.
Karla just stared at them blankly. Neither name rang a bell. “There’s an American boy who might be staying at one. His name is James Moody. Would you happen to know him?”
“Sorry, I don’t,” said the woman. “The only Americans I see come through here are tourists.”
“Well, I guess then, we’ll just have to go and see both. One at a time.” She held up both cheeses to Isobel. “Izzie, pick a cheese.”
“Um … the one with the unpronounceable foreign name.”
“That’s not foreign, my dearies. On the contrary, it’s Welsh.”
“Really?” said Isobel. “You guys have your own language down here?”
“Well, it is a bit moribund, but it’s still spoken widely.”
“So what does ‘kawum ga-word’ mean?” said Isobel.
“It’s actually pronounced more like ‘comb queer duh,’” said the woman. “It means green valley.”
”Is it far from here?” said Karla.
“Oh, not at all. You can actually walk it. Y
ou go down to the roundabout and take the Blaen-Afon Road east out of town. It’s a couple kilometers down on the right. You’ll see a metal gate and dirt track going up the hillside. Don’t be alarmed by the nasty old forge and those slag heaps. The farm’s just beyond. Personally, it’s about the last place I would have chosen to raise goats, but that’s Renfrew for you. He bought the land for a pittance, and God bless him, he’s making it work somehow.”
“Thank you!” said Karla. “Come Izzie. Let’s see how prescient you are.”
***
They made the turn onto Blaen-Afon and trudged down the pavement, pulling their little suitcase behind them. They passed through a light industrial zone before breaking out into the countryside.
“This is a long way to walk on a lark,” said Isobel. “What do we do if this is not the right farm?”
“Worst case, we catch a ride back to town, have another pasty, find a place to sleep. But I bet all the goat farmers all know each other. Someone is bound to notice an American like James.”
“Can we stay at a hotel?”
“Not with our present funds. I was thinking more in terms someone’s garden shed.”
“Phooey. I hate camping.”
They passed empty fields, recently stripped of their hay. Low hills, devoid of trees, stretched away to the south and west.
“I’m sure glad we stayed in Glasgow,” said Isobel. “There’s absolutely nothing down here. It’s a blasted wasteland.”
“I kind of like the wide open spaces. I find it romantic.”
Isobel smirked. “You’re just happy to be seeing James again.”
Karla couldn’t deny it. There was a bounce to her gait, a zinging in her nerves that couldn’t be explained any other way.
“I’m missing Gwen terribly,” said Isobel.
“You are not to contact her. Understand? Not until I give the okay.”
“Understood.” Isobel sighed. “But it’s going be hard. I bet it was her dad who snitched on us. He and Papa always seemed to get along, even though they’re mainstream—Papists, as Papa calls them.”
“If it served his interests,” said Karla. “It wouldn’t surprise me if Papa consorted with Wiccans.”
***
They came to the ruins of an old foundry and casting house. One row of stone arches vaguely recalled a Roman aqueduct. From the look and condition of the place, it had to be ancient. How long had the Welsh been making steel?
They slipped through a gate and started up a dirt track. A white nanny goat looked down on them from atop a scrubby heap of slag. A pair of kids frolicked around her.
The main farmhouse sat among a grove of oaks and alders up the hill. Behind it sprawled a tidy array of barns and sheds.
“Why are these goats not with the others?” said Isobel. She pointed to the herd scattered across a far hillside.
“Maybe they were ostracized for their beliefs.”
There was a time not long ago that Isobel would have taken her sarcasm seriously, but she was not the gullible tyke she once had been.
“I see. So even goats can be Sedevacantists.”
“These look more like Wiccans to me.”
A man hobbled out of a barn carrying a sheath of papers. He was a curious looking fellow, with a massive head of hair, a broad and ruddy face and bristly eyebrows. One of his legs seemed to have no knee joint. He had to swing it wide to take a step.
Isobel took Karla’s hand. She wasn’t exactly shy, but Papa had bred in them a natural suspicion of strangers.
On spotting them, he stopped in his tracks and turned to greet them. A wary smile formed on his face.
“How can I help you ladies?”
“Well, this might be a long shot, but … we have a friend, an American by the name of James, who—”
“Aye, I know James. He works for us.”
A thrill rose up in Karla. “Is he here? Can we see him?”
“Well, he’s not here right now. He’s taken a few days off. We’re not expecting him back till Sunday night.”
A young woman stepped onto a porch and tossed a bucket of water over the rail. She paused at the sight of Karla and Isobel, put the bucket down and came striding over.
Her strawberry-blonde hair was braided tight along her back. She wore little or no makeup over features that were already somewhat coarse. Thick, arched eyebrows framed sad eyes. “Are you … Karla?”
“How do you know my name?”
“James speaks of you. I thought he had gone off to see you. What are you doing down here?”
“He … what?”
“He’s gone up to Glasgow. Just this morning. Did he not contact you?”
Isobel squeezed Karla’s hand. A deep dread spread its fingers through Karla’s core and clenched her heart in its fist. Billows of dizziness wafted through her skull.
“Oh, God! Help him!”
Chapter 6: Edmund
“You! Stay down!” said Edmund, his shotgun pointed at my head. “Do not even attempt to move.” He had an odd accent, clipped and precise, faintly German.
The shotgun had an intricately carved stock and filigreed etchings along the barrel. It was the same one Isobel had used to subdue that bounty hunter in Inverness Station.
I knelt, palms flat on a dingy carpet, staring at a shriveled, baby carrot that has escaped from someone’s salad. I had an urge to bolt and force his hand, but that other guy was standing in front of the door. I was a rabbit surrounded by coyotes, heart still pattering but as good as dead.
Edmund strode forward, keeping that long, dark barrel pointed at me. “Who are you?”
“My name is James.”
“You are an American. How do you know my daughter?”
“We were … um … pen pals.” L lied because the truth was too hard to explain.
“Impossible. I screened every piece of mail that came to us. What is your full name?”
“Moody. James Moody.”
“Are you a Christian, James? Do you accept the Lord Jesus Christ as your Saviour?”
“No,” I said, without hesitation, and he smacked the side of my head with the barrel of the shotgun, knocking me flat on the floor.
“So brazen!” said the other man, brandishing the fretted neck of an electric guitar like a club. “Can you believe this one? How appalling!”
“What are you, then? An atheist? A Jew?”
“Neither,” I said. “I don’t pretend to understand how the Universe works.”
“Faithless bastard,” said Edmund. “Get up. Slowly! Sit at the table, hands behind the chair.”
The smiley man hauled me to my feet and shoved me into a sort of kitchenette. Linval, dreadlocks disheveled, was already seated at the table, his wrists duct-taped together behind him. His lip was torn and bleeding. Tears streaked his cheekbones. His chin quivered.
“Do you know this boy?” said Edmund, as the smiley one taped my ankles to the chair legs.
“No,” I said.
“You are lying.”
“No, I’m not.”
“But you do know Karla?”
“Yes.”
“How? And don’t tell me you were only pen pals, because I know that is a lie.”
“We both suffered from … depression. We met at this place … where depressed people go.”
“Here? In Glasgow?”
“No.”
“In Inverness? Really? How did she find the time to see a counselor?”
“You did let her out to run chores, Ed,” said the smiley one. “Maybe while she was out and about.”
“I had her on restriction. And she was never tardy, Joshua. I made sure of that.”
“What can I say? Your girls are clever ones. They obviously figured out that we were coming.”
“I still don’t see how they could have known. Unless Gwendolyn—”
“No. There is no way she could have known. She had no idea her calls were being monitored. And my brother may not be one of us, but he sympathizes with our cause.
He would have never spilled the beans to her.”
Linval had this weird look on his face. He hadn’t said a word since I entered the apartment. I suppose I should have been terrified, but I didn’t get the sense that I was in any imminent danger. I had the impression that the shotgun was just for show.
In Edmund I saw a concerned father who was a little bit too overzealous in pursuing his runaway daughters. He was a creepy enough guy, and I didn’t envy Karla and Isobel for having had to share his house, but I didn’t exactly see a monster here. But then again, Karla had implied he had done bad things to her and Izzie, things that she had never fully explained to me.
“These counselors,” said Edmund. “Who were they? Volunteers? Social workers? Did they work for the health service?”
“There were no counselors,” I said, as the smiley one peeled another strip of tape off from the roll and wrapped it around my wrists.
“But you said—”
“I said I met her at a place where depressed people go.”
“What do you mean? A support group?”
I sighed. “Kind of.”
Edmund rubbed his hands nervously down the length of the shotgun. “This is serious, more serious than I thought,” he said. “They may not have informed the authorities directly, but the girls have been talking. There are infernal forces at play here. I feel them!”
“Lord, have mercy!” said the smiley one, bowing his head.
“We need to know who and what is involved in this,” said Edmund, his creepy eyes flashing wide. “We need to take them to a consecrated space.”
He opened the refrigerator and removed a carton of milk. He poured two glasses and reached into his tweed coat for a plastic bag full of a bluish pastel powder. He placed a heaping spoonful in each and stirred. The milk turned a bright fluorescent blue.
He squeezed my nostrils shut with a calloused thumb and forefinger, tilted my head back and held the cup to my lips. “Drink up, boy.”
Chapter 7: Jessica
Mr. Boyle, the owner of the farm, seemed to find it hilarious that the person that James had gone off to see had shown up on his doorstep. He had no idea what perils James had exposed himself to by going north. But Karla didn’t share her worries with Renfrew or the staff.
She kept telling herself that he would be fine. Papa had never met James so any chance encounter would be harmless. Knowing nothing of her whereabouts, James would probably wander aimlessly around Glasgow center, scanning crowds in hopes of spotting a familiar face. It was doubtful he would go anywhere near Springboig. Why would anyone?