Aickman's Heirs

by Simon Strantzas

  #

  The carriage brought them all back to the house, but during the journey, William found it hard to say anything to his brother. He tried to put it down to their father’s presence but even once they were left alone back at the house, Stephen seemed distant. He regarded William’s invitation to play with no more than a polite amusement. His attitude had cooled to something a little aloof, a little indifferent and William’s plans for the afternoon were dismissed before they could be described.

  “I don’t think so,” Stephen had said. “Besides, father and I are busy this afternoon.”

  It was only later that William discovered their father had invited Stephen to join him on an afternoon shooting expedition.

  On seeing his face, Stephen had laughed.

  “Nothing too grand,” he said. “Not yet. Father bought me a 12-bore and thought I might try it on some rabbits or magpies. Something to practice on before a real hunt.”

  But it did sound too grand to William, it sounded far too adult to consider. The father he knew would never invite him on such a trip, he would never buy him a shotgun of his own. William had never wanted such a thing until that moment. It surprised him: a jealousy which made his hands curl into impotent fists. He retreated to his room, hoping his temper might cool, but in the garden outside, he could hear Stephen’s voice as he passed under his window. He didn’t hear what he was saying or who he was speaking to, but there was excitement and enthusiasm there which William felt desperately excluded from.

  He lay on his bed and put his hands to his ears.

  He waited until they were far gone before he got up again. Maybe he could run away? Maybe he could go for a walk. The house felt inexplicably crowded and he yearned for the quiet he had become accustomed to. He pulled on his coat and boots and ran downstairs.

  As he passed the library, he saw someone inside. He saw immediately it was Miss Frith, but she seemed unaware of him standing, watching her from the doorway. It was her posture which was strange to him. She faced the shelves, her back turned to him, her arms were outstretched and her hands were poised on the spines of the books. Her head was dipped and she simply stood there; silent and still except for a small convulsion of her shoulders as though she was expelling a sudden chill. For a moment, William thought she might be crying.

  He edged away slowly and cut through the staff wing to the rear door.

  #

  The snow had not fallen with any great volume or consistency that winter, but a good inch had settled during the night, covering the front lawn evenly from corner-to-corner. Now that Stephen was home, its appeal had thawed and the snow remained pure and undisturbed through neglect rather than deliberation.

  The far end of the lawn bordered a ragged copse where the boys had once played together. The trees had shed their leaves and the bare branches were spiked like fish bones. The season had diminished them following a decadent summer and now they were a mass of stark grey verticals, fading into a pale damp haze. Between them, the snow lay more thinly, with only disparate patches of white glistening amongst the layer of yellow-green mosses, made vivid by the winter.

  A narrow trail led deeper into the trees. It followed the line of the culvert which marked the edge of the family’s land but William followed it without paying attention. He’d walked this route so often, he needed no path to lead the way.

  When they’d been younger, William and Stephen would play together in the culvert, lining their tin soldiers along its edge. Stephen’s would always be the British, leaving William with either the French or the Boers, but William had never objected. He gave his French soldiers voices as they keeled over in the mud: Screams and wails; falsetto mon dieus which made his brother bend double with laughter.

  They had played lengthy campaigns in those days. Neither had much of an eye for military strategy and when the charge was sounded, numbers on both sides would fall until only two remained standing, one on each side. The end game would stretch on and on. The two survivors would take off around the grounds, fencing, flying, ducking, weaving. They would scale trees and rocks. They would fall and miraculously recover, and only when the brothers would tire of the game would history prevail and Napoleon would fall to Wellington. The summer days stretched long and as the dusk began to gather, they would search through the mud for their fallen redcoats, gathering them in fistfuls and carrying them home.

  William caught sight of something in the snow which snapped him back to the present. Alone at the edge of the path, there was the print of a bare human foot, toes clearly defined in the crisp, compacted snow left behind.

  William stooped low to examine the find, then looked about him, searching for movement amongst the trees. But he could make no further sense of it than the fact it existed, pointing away from the house, deeper into the copse.

  Now, for the first time, he looked at the track he’d been blindly following and saw he wasn’t the first to walk it since the snow had fallen. A trail ran along it both ways, up to the border of the woods, and then back again; twin furrows etched in the snow, each erasing and confusing the other. The feet which made them had dragged in both directions, and the way the snow had softened in the vague afternoon sun gave no evidence that the same feet had left the print as well.

  William kicked through the undergrowth until he uncovered a stick heavy enough to intimidate and light enough to wield. He struck it solidly a few times, scattering the dusting of snow it had acquired and—satisfied it was not rotten through—he hefted it in both hands like a club.

  With that, William was on a hunt of his own. He didn’t need his father. He certainly didn’t need Stephen. He’d been patiently learning to occupy his time over the past four months and he was damned if he would allow himself to appear as upset and betrayed as he felt.

  The tracks led doggedly along the edge of the culvert, detouring briefly only when the low wall which ran along the other side became exposed to the surrounding farmland. As William neared the southernmost boundary of the copse, he held his club out before him.

  In the summer of the previous year, the boys had eavesdropped on the groundsmen’s conversations about news of the peasant uprising against the Tsar in Russia. The boys had built a fortress at the far end of the culvert as the backdrop for an ill-considered attempt to re-enact the drama. They had not really understood what was happening or why, but both had agreed it sounded exciting. Even when their game had been discovered, and they each had received a sound thrashing for their troubles, they also agreed it had been worth it.

  In the intervening year, the fortress had been slowly reclaimed by the untended woodland as though the peasants had breached its defences after all. The rot had set in, but its shape had weathered better than William had anticipated.

  ‘Fortress’ was a generous term for such a ramshackle construction: low woven walls plastered with wet mud and leaves; a poorly knitted grass roof and foundations augmented with piles of stones they had stolen from the culvert walls.

  William could see the remains ahead of him: the stones had mostly toppled into piles, and the grass roof was gone entirely, but two of the woven walls still remained, propped against each other like a narrow tent. Cords of ivy climbed up through them, knitting them to the ground and lending them the air of something more permanent. They were not the walls the boys had built over a year ago, but walls which had been borne out of them.

  And behind them, a shadow moved. The shadow of a figure, shredded through the twisted leaves.

  Despite himself, William took a sharp intake of breath—a fine huntsman he would make, giving himself away like that. The figure froze at the sound. Its reply was a low, animal-like whimper.

  Emboldened by what he took to be a display of weakness, William advanced.

  “Come out,” he said. “You can’t hide in there. I can see you.”

  Closer, the figure appeared to be trying to prevent itself from moving, but the task was beyond it. It shivered uncontrollably in the cold, and the walls of the
fortress shivered with it.

  William slowed. This was no adversary. It was something far too wretched to fight back. Some hermit, maybe, or one of the children from the village who had become lost.

  William lowered his branch and reached for the fortress wall with his hand.

  “I won’t hurt you,” he said and immediately regretted how it sounded like a sign of weakness of his own.

  But the figure didn’t move as he pulled the wall aside. The mat of vines and branches gave easily, folding downwards to reveal what was hidden behind it as though it were concealed by nothing more substantial than a thin curtain.

  It was a boy, or at the very least, the remains of one. He cowered in the ditch, shivering with the cold and his hands were held high, his forearms crossed, covering his face. His clothes were ragged and filthy; his feet were bare, the flesh shredded with angry sores. He stank as though he’d been living in a latrine and William gagged with revulsion and took a step back in surprise.

  Startled by the sudden movement, the boy lowered his arms and looked up with wide, terrified eyes which William knew all too well.

  It was Stephen. It was unmistakably Stephen. And it was not the Stephen who had returned, but the Stephen who had gone away. The fear and anger which had haunted his eyes on the day before he left for Greyhurst were still there; they had grown over the months, become wilder: An expression of wordless horror carved onto ruined features.

  William barely managed a breath. It was impossible, but it was too real to be anything other than true. And so, when he said Stephen’s name, it was not a question.

  Stephen’s head bobbed up and down, the motion jerky and mechanical. Sounds came out but they were disconnected and senseless. William stared at the boy, his thoughts a confused clutter of conflicting possibilities. He took another step backwards, dropping the branch in the path.

  “Wait,” Stephen managed. It was a torturous syllable. It sounded as though it had been coughed up from somewhere dark and hollow. William waited, but although Stephen was desperately trying to say something else, more words didn’t come, only tears and further splintering breaths.

  William looked back down the path as though there might be something, someone there capable of advising him. But he was alone with only the uniform ranks of pale winter trees standing silent and impassive around him, waiting his command.

  He knew he had to do something. He had to get the boy somewhere warm, somewhere safe.

  This understanding granted him resolve and he stumbled down the side of the culvert, his feet sinking into the brackish mud and loam which clogged its length. He tried to ignore the shock of cold as the black ditch water crept up around his shoes.

  Closer, he could see Stephen was in a worse state than he’d first thought. His clothes were torn and mottled with grime. His skin was sallow, the whites of his eyes looked like red cracks in crusted yellow cream. A weak hand reached out and when it touched William’s, the coldness of it came as a blow. William withdrew. He felt the chill more strongly himself, it burnt the tips of his ears and fingers; it gathered, heavy at his chest. For a selfish moment, he half-believed Stephen’s touch had infected him.

  “Please,” Stephen said.

  William swallowed hard, cementing a decision which had already been made. He stepped forward, crouching low. He held his breath tight and hated himself for it. The thinness and sharpness of his brother’s shoulders appalled him and he felt Stephen spasm at his touch.

  “Can you stand?”

  Stephen didn’t respond. His eyes were closed, his gaunt face tight with pain. William tugged at him, feeling the body give around the bones as though the two were barely connected. He found himself surprised by the weight of him. But it was a dead weight, like something pinned in the mud. Stephen’s eyes opened wide and unfocussed, staring upwards at the wavering treetops circling above. His mouth opened wider still, a wordless, soundless exclamation which made William let go and stagger backwards.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. It didn’t seem enough. “I’ll get help.”

  It was cowardly, but the alternative seemed far worse, and he would be faster alone. He shrugged out of his coat and pressed it around his brother’s skeletal shoulders.

  “I’ll come back soon,” William promised, impatient not to waste any more time. “I’ll bring back help, I promise I will.”

  Stephen’s eyes found him again, they stared at him, feral and unblinking. He stammered something which didn’t quite make sense and William backed away further, feeling wretched as he did so.

  “I’ll be as fast as I can,” he said. He clambered up the bank of the culvert and ran.

  It was as much as he’d planned. He knew he could not deal with this on his own. For Stephen’s sake, it wouldn’t be fair if he tried. He needed someone else. He needed someone like Briggs. Briggs could carry him, he thought. His father would get Briggs to help. He ran on, the tender, lifeless branches whipping at his face, snatching at his feet.

  He broke out of the copse and into the garden. He didn’t even stop for breath and ran headlong across the lawn, leaving a scuffed and slipshod trail through the perfect snow he’d been saving. He rounded the corner of the east wing and immediately collided with someone coming from the other direction. The surprise, rather than the impact, sent him sailing into a heap on the icy path.

  Disorientated and shocked, panic overwhelmed reason and he yelled out.

  A hand reached down and dragged him back to his feet.

  “Watch where you’re going, old man,” Stephen said, more irritable than angry. He looked every inch the country gentlemen, all the way down to the pair of mournful looking rabbits strung together, hanging at his side.

  William stared at him while Stephen patted the snow from his shoulders, applying his attention to the more stubborn muddy marks which streaked his shirt.

  “Heavens, you look like you’ve been in the wars,” Stephen said. “Does Frith know you’re out without your coat? She’ll give us both hell if she finds out.”

  The thought appeared to remind him of something that amused him and for a moment, his smile was genuine, unrehearsed.

  “You’re not still spending time in that ditch?” he said. “Mon dieu. I need to have words with Frith about the accent she’s been teaching you. Yaxley, the French master at Greyhurst said I had it all wrong. Makes us sound like peasants, he said.”

  William said nothing. Having already seen and recognised the Stephen in the woods, he imagined the impostor—because this Stephen must surely be the wrong one—would be obviously monstrous in comparison. But both Stephens looked the same. The brother standing before him looked normal and reasonable. He looked healthier. His cheeks were pink with the smart of the cold, his eyes lit with a flat amusement. If he was alien to William, he was only made that way by experiences over the past few months which William had no part in.

  “Something’s eating you,” Stephen said, studying him. “What is it?”

  William remained silent, and for his efforts he felt his brother’s hand tighten around his shoulder.

  “Don’t be childish,” Stephen said. “What is it? What have you done?”

  There was something in Stephen’s tone which was familiar enough to make William doubt himself entirely.

  “There’s a boy in the woods,” he said. “He’s hurt.”

  It only sounded like a betrayal once he’d said it out loud. His throat felt sharp and sore as though something inside of him had torn loose.

  Stephen stared at him.

  “A boy?” he said. “Show me.”

  “No. Where’s father? We should get Briggs and—”

  “Don’t be foolish; show me where the boy is.”

  For the second time that afternoon, William found himself backing away from his brother. But this time, he couldn’t have explained why. Maybe he’d got it all wrong. He remembered the smile Stephen and their father had shared at the station. Would it make any difference if he insisted on speaking to his fat
her alone? The outcome would be the same, he would only waste more time and the boy in the woods, whoever he was, didn’t have time to squander.

  Nevertheless, it was with considerable reluctance that William led the way back into the copse. The path he’d followed was still there, its clarity muddied by his own trail which criss-crossed it. He scuffed his feet as he walked, obscuring it further. He hoped looking petulant would distract Stephen from what he was doing.

  For his part, Stephen remained quiet. He’d left his brace of rabbits hanging over a low branch at the garden-end of the copse and walked behind William, his footsteps precise and silent.

  William tried to hide his nerves with noise. He started talking to cover himself and found he could not stop. Everything which had been building up within him for the past four months, everything he’d wanted to tell Stephen when he returned, it all came spilling out, uncontrolled.

  Here were his precious anecdotes, polished and perfected. Here were his facts reimagined into fables. Tales of exploration and adventure that had never happened; gossip from the village he had never heard; friends he had never been permitted to make.

  Here were the stories he’d practiced to himself in the hours and days he’d spent alone. He had been saving them, just as he’d been saving the freshly fallen snow on the lawn, but now Stephen was finally here, he cast them about him as they walked, his voice loud and clear to carry the further. They were no longer stories, no longer boasts or lies. They were distractions, they were warnings, they were lost to the mud and the snow.

  The culvert was empty when they reached it, and while the disturbed snow could have been made by any creature in panic, there was nothing to suggest it had been made by anything so specific as the boy William had seen.