The Whispering Road

by Livi Michael

  Now you might think that's an easy question, but the fact is I don't know. We used to get visitors at the workhouse, looking for apprentices, and whenever they asked the master of the workhouse how old I was he changed the story to suit them.

  ‘He might look small but he's nearly fourteen,’ he'd say. ‘Old enough to work on a building site. And feel those muscles.’ Or, ‘Oh no, ma'am, he's no more than eight, very biddable, easily trained.’

  So it's anyone's guess how old I am; somewhere between eight and fourteen, and Annie a couple of years younger. So now when Travis asks me I just glare at him.

  ‘Ten, eleven maybe?’ he says. I shrug. ‘Old enough,’ he says, nodding as if to himself and I want to ask, ‘For what?’ but I won't give him the satisfaction. ‘All over England there are boys and girls just like yourselves, tramping the country. Better to be on the road than inside – you can't trust people in houses. They'll buy and sell you and you'll learn to be slaves, not free. You've got a chance now, to earn your freedom.’

  He stands up then as though he's had enough, and dusts the mud off his breeches.

  ‘Where are you going?’ I ask, still bitter, but he doesn't answer. I want to beg him to tell us more, about when he first took to the road as a child; I want to run by his side begging for stories – but Travis isn't like that. I can't beg or plead with him any more than with a tree. Already his eyes are focused on the far distance, unravelling the road like a spool of thread. I feel a sour pain at leaving him but it seems to me he doesn't feel anything at all. There's nothing left to say, though, so I resort to muttering, ‘I suppose that's one way of getting rid of us – bringing us here.’

  Travis unslings his bundle. ‘Take this,’ he says, holding out his tinderbox, ‘and this.’ He takes out the rabbit that he killed.

  Now I know this is a big thing – a traveller won't give up his tinder. But I won't take anything from him so he lays them gently on an old tree stump and it's Annie who steps forward and slips her hand in his. ‘Thank you,’ she whispers, and I see Travis's face change, quick as shade. But he just nods and slings his bundle back across his shoulders.

  ‘Don't trust houses,’ he says to us. ‘Or people in them.’ He tightens a knot in the rope round his pans. ‘Look after your tools,’ he says, and looks for a moment as though he might say more, but then changes his mind. He nods his head once more at Annie and turns his back.

  I watch him for a minute then take one or two running steps after him. ‘Where are you going?’ I call after him, and, ‘Eh, Travis – where are you going?’ When he doesn't answer I stamp my feet and shout, ‘What's to stop us following you, eh?’

  But I know the answer to that one. For starters he walks too fast, his great stride lengthening into the road, arms swinging. For another thing we have to keep ourselves hid, like he said, in the forest. Still, I can't take my eyes off him as he walks right out of our lives, a solitary broad figure, shaggy in his skins, the brown of his clothes and hair already starting to blend with the brown of the moor and the road.

  I try to go on feeling angry but I just feel hollow inside, like there's a Travis-shaped space inside me. I watch him till my eyes blur, but I'm not crying. I rub them and watch some more. You don't need to know some people for long to know that you'll never forget them. Travis was like that.

  5

  Forest

  A few steps into the forest all the light disappears, like it's been snuffed out or swallowed.

  I hold Annie's hand and she holds mine. Twigs crackle under our feet and great trailing branches brush us and make a whispering sound as if no one has ever passed there before.

  We go further and the trees crouch nearer.

  Everything looks like something else.

  The stump of a hollow tree looks like a bear… holes in the tree trunks make ugly mouths at us as we pass… the pattern of moss on the trees looks like faces…

  Annie trips. She stumbles over a branch, but gets up without a word. I pull her along, trying not to listen to the stories my feet are telling me. It's all right having your feet tell you stories, but not if they're ones you don't want to hear.

  It's stuffy, with a dim, musty smell – of things growing without light or air. We trudge on and our breathing is loud in the silence. I wish we made less noise, that I couldn't see faces wherever I look. Or rather, wherever I don't look.

  Then a pattering begins, like a pattering of falling leaves only sharper, over our shoulders. First one way, then another. It takes a few moments to realize that it's only rain, falling without ever reaching the forest floor, but it sounds like nothing so much as the patter of tiny, fast feet, in front, behind, and to all sides. Annie's face whitens and I suck in my breath and hurry on.

  The path gets more tangled, so we can hardly follow it. First Annie trips over something, then me. Something darts out ahead of us, close to or far away I can't tell.

  I understand now, about the forest, how you could wander in and not find your way out again, lose your sense of time and place. Already I don't know how long we've been here or how far we've come. The forest has swallowed us up.

  The pattering increases till it sounds like hail on the dry leaf carpet spread all around us. It sounds like running, like the whole wood's running hard, chasing, closing in on us. We begin to run too, losing the track as we weave away from fallen branches and sudden holes.

  The third time Annie falls she lies still. I don't want to talk, because I feel like things are listening, so I try to pull her up but she won't budge.

  ‘Get up,’ I hiss, and the trailing branches quiver and shake. Annie says nothing, crouched over, breathing hard. I kick at her and tug, but she's gone heavy like the bole of a tree. ‘Move!’ I hiss.

  She shakes her head. Her whole body's quivering. ‘Rest,’ she says.

  That's the last thing I want to do. I squat down by her side.

  ‘Come on,’ I whisper. ‘We've got to keep going.’ Don't know why I'm whispering, except for the feeling that something's listening. I shake her shoulder. ‘Annie,’ I say.

  ‘Rest.’

  I'm tired too, and hungry, but I don't want to stop here. I think of Travis's tinderbox, and the rabbit, but I can't think of lighting a fire in here.

  ‘Come on,’ I say again, but she turns her face away.

  ‘What is it?’ I say, getting annoyed.

  ‘Them,’ she says, or rather, whimpers, and she raises a finger and points behind.

  Now that makes me wild. As if we don't have enough problems in this haunted hole without Annie going daft on me again. I pull her hair and she scratches me, so I dig my fingers into her shoulder. ‘Shut it!’ I hiss and, ‘Get up now, or I'm leaving you here!’

  I can feel Annie's bones, and the muscles between them, clenched and quivering, but I pull her head up by the hair, then seize her wrist. She stumbles back to her feet, and I haul her along.

  It's not likely that I'd leave her and plough on through the forest on my own, and she must realize that because she's not helping. It's like tugging a dead weight but I plough on anyway, no idea where, through all the whispering and pattering of the forest.

  One thing I know I don't want is for Annie to tell me what she's talking about. Whatever it is, I put it down to the bump on her head. Even so, I need her to co-operate, so I remember the story that always makes her listen.

  It's about our mother, and the night she left us at the workhouse. I can't have been more than four years old, Annie still toddling. The woman without a face knocked at the big door until the master opened it. I can remember his face, worse luck. And I can remember our mother crying, and Annie clinging like a burr.

  I'll have to leave thee now, but I'll come back for thee, she told us. However far I go, however long it takes, I'll be back for thee. Dost hear me? And she took off a trinket from round her neck and put it round Annie's, who was crying loudly. Look after your sister, Joe, she said. Them were the last words she spoke before the door slammed shut on her.


  I've told that story over and over, till I don't know how much of it's real. But Annie's still got the necklace. It's just a piece of string with a few wooden beads and half a coin on it – if it'd been worth something they'd have taken it off us, but Annie screamed and spat when anyone tried.

  ‘Do you remember, Annie?’ I say, and she nods like she always does, following me quietly now, listening. ‘What?’ I say. ‘What do you remember?’ and she answers as she always does, ‘Warm smell – like milk.’

  Well, at least she's got that much to remember our mother by – some wooden beads and the smell of milk. More than I've got. Because she never did come back for us, of course. In the end I gave up waiting, but Annie never. So now all I've got is a memory without a face. And Annie.

  I'm pulling her along, telling her all this, and what I can remember about the long walk up to the workhouse. It was snowing, my mother carried Annie all the way, she fell over twice and I thought she wouldn't get up again; and I get the feeling that the trees are listening, bending forward because I'm speaking so quiet. I try not to look at them, but in the end my voice dies away to a mumble. Annie tugs my arm, ‘Go on.’

  ‘No.’

  She tugs again. ‘Go on.’

  ‘Not now.’

  I've got this empty feeling, like an ache, like I always get when I tell this story, but Annie can never have enough of hearing about the time before the workhouse.

  ‘More,’ she says. I clench my jaws together and shake my head. She shakes my arm. ‘Why?’

  ‘Because,’ I say. But I know she won't give up without a reason, so although I don't like saying it I nod towards the trees. ‘I feel like they're listening.’

  Annie stands stock-still so suddenly I nearly fall over. ‘Yes,’ she says. ‘Listening.’

  She doesn't mean the trees…

  That's it. I've had enough. I turn round to face her square on. Her face is all white and staring.

  ‘Go on then,’ I say, hands on hips. ‘Get it over with.’ And when she doesn't say anything I say, ‘Tell us,’ and my voice cracks out like a shot through all the pattering.

  Annie bends forward, mumbling so that I can hardly hear. ‘Two,’ she whispers. ‘Boy and girl.’

  ‘Who are they?’ I say, still loud, though all the hair's prickling at the back of my neck. Annie nods fearfully over her shoulder. ‘Behind,’ she says very low.

  I look but I can't see anything, just the twisted fingers of trees.

  ‘There's no one there,’ I say scornfully though my heart's thudding a bit. ‘You're talking through you're a*se as usual.’ And I'm about to pull her on again but she says, ‘Light hair, like straw, the boy has. Blue fingers. And a pattern like bilberries – here.’ She traces an outline across her own cheek and over the eye, though she's still not looking. Her eyes are fixed and staring a long way inside.

  There's no one like Annie for putting the scunners on you. People used to shout at me for scaring all the other kids with my stories, but Annie – she'd put the fear of God in a stone. I remember once when there was a big plague at the workhouse and all us kids were shut in together, sick and well alike, sweating and puking. Annie got sick and I thought she'd die but instead she kept having these fits, crying and trembling, and when she called out a name everyone knew that kid'd be dead by morning.

  There's nowt like a bit of prophecy for making you popular – she were nearly lynched twice. Old Meg who'd been in the workhouse nearly thirty year'd cry and scream if Annie went near.

  ‘Keep her from me,’ she'd screech. ‘Old Nick's halfwit spawn!’

  One way or another it weren't much fun, trying to look after Annie. But the thing that shut most people up was that she was right, most of the time. I remember once, an apothecary bloke – Kaberry or Kewberry his name was, came up to the workhouse with some potion or other and Annie looked at him with her huge eyes and pointed and said, ‘Bitter.’

  ‘You what?’ he says.

  ‘Your mother,’ says Annie.

  ‘What're you talking about, lass?’

  And then Annie's throat worked and her voice changed and she said, ‘It was a bitter medicine that you give me, son.’ And you should've seen his face. He ran off looking as sick as a dog. Then another time we had a rough-looking fellow come to stay and Annie wouldn't go near him; she hid her face when he walked by. He had a girl's arms clinging round his neck, she said and, sure enough, after he'd gone, constabulary came looking for him. He was wanted for strangling his niece.

  Oh, I could tell you lots of stories of Annie scaring everyone to death. She hasn't done it for a long time though, and I can only think that the blow on her head's set her off again. But right now, in the thick of an evil forest that seems half alive, it's all we need.

  ‘A boy and a girl,’ I say. ‘Well, what do they want with us then?’

  She doesn't answer, so I say it louder. ‘What do you want, eh?’

  Nothing.

  Annie says, ‘They won't tell you.’

  ‘Why not?’ I say. ‘Can't they talk? They've followed us all this way but they won't talk?’

  Annie shakes her head.

  ‘Very friendly, I'm sure,’ I say, kicking a large twig out of the way. ‘If they're going to keep us company you'd think they'd talk to us at least.’

  ‘They're whispering,’ says Annie.

  ‘Well, speak up, can't you?’ I say loudly, then suddenly I'm shouting, ‘SPEAK UP!’

  Then we hear the howling.

  Annie clutches me and I nearly fall over with fright. One howl, then another, closer. Coming our way.

  I freeze solid all the way through.

  One howl joins another and soon they're coming at us from all sides.

  I find my breath. ‘Run!’ I gasp, and set off pulling Annie, who doesn't need to be pulled any more. Both of us are running for all we're worth.

  We don't know where to run, because the howling's everywhere. But we run anyway, stumbling over tree roots, branches whipping our faces. Running through a black forest, with howling ghosts behind us.

  We don't get very far before a monstrous form appears. Huge and shaggy with yellow eyes and teeth. Wolf, not ghost. Snarling.

  I fling the shovel at it and we run the other way. So much for looking after my tools. Then another one appears, then a dog. Lips curled back, growling. Then another dog. We stop dead in our tracks. Fresh meat for starving hounds. I stare at the biggest one and he stares right back at me.

  ‘Rabbit!’ I say to Annie, then, ‘Annie – give them the bloody rabbit.’

  For a minute I think she might be too scared to hear. Then slowly, too slowly, she pulls the rabbit out from under her skins and throws it to the nearest hound.

  We don't stop to watch him eat it – we're off. Running in the one direction that's clear of wolf, and they're bounding after us, and any moment I think I'll feel their hot breath on my neck and their teeth ripping out my throat. But still I'm running blind.

  The good thing about panic is you can't keep it up for too long. It'll either kill you or wear off. Soon, even with the blood pounding in my head, I realize that these hounds could've had us by now – we're not that fast. They're running with us. I can't tell how many. Six maybe, or eight. As soon as we try to run in one direction they close us off, snarling; when we run in another they let us pass.

  Taking us somewhere, I think, and I'm not sure if that thought scares me more or less.

  They're not all wolves. Two of them are, maybe, but the others are huge dogs, shaggy and lean. One of them presses up close whenever we falter, and another, the first one we saw's still holding the rabbit in his jaws. That much strikes me as strange, that he hasn't eaten it, but I've no time to think, for my breath's bursting in my sides and I can hardly see. Just behind me Annie's staggering and whimpering and I'm willing her not to fall over.

  Then, just as I'm beginning to think I can run no further and I'll fall over dead, save them the trouble of killing me, there's a parting in the trees. We stop
before it and the big grey hound nudges us on. Into a clearing, and in the middle of the clearing there's something squatting, like a weed-covered boulder. But as we stumble in it moves, rising up, taller and taller, into a shaggy, grey figure with wild, white hair. Somewhere between woman and hound, wall-eyed with long yellow teeth that she bares in a kind of smile as the hounds nudge us towards her. Her voice rasps out like it's unused to speech.

  ‘You've come,’ she says.

  6

  Dog-woman

  I've lost my shovel, or I'd fling it at her. But she doesn't attack – just looks at us with her head cocked to one side.

  ‘Sit,’ she says. Annie's already collapsed against a fallen branch and I can't think what else to do so I sit down the same.

  The woman-beast, whatever she is, is squatting again, and the hounds are all over her, licking her face and I swear she's licking theirs. They're making husky, whimpering, greeting noises at one another and I can't do anything but stare, thinking I've gone mad. I've been running so far I've run clear out of my own mind and straight into one of Travis's stories.

  Dog-woman is shaggy and wild, just like Travis said. She's got some kind of ragged weeds on her, but mainly she's dressed in her own hairy skin. At the end of her long bony feet there are curving yellow nails, like dog's claws, and her movements aren't human. She picks up the rabbit that the grey hound has dropped for her and sniffs along its length before starting to tear it apart and eat it, just as it is. Then she stops with her mouth full and looks over to us.

  ‘Hungry?’ she growls.

  Not now I'm not. I look at Annie, but Annie only huddles closer to me. Helpful-like.

  Dog-woman bounds over and I can't help but stiffen. Then she checks herself and stands up, so that she looks more human.

  How tall is she? Taller than Travis. Taller, maybe, even than Old Bert. She tears a chunk off the rabbit with her yellow hands and drops it at our feet.

  ‘Eat,’ she says.

  I look at Annie again, and Annie looks at me. I'm wondering how to refuse. Then I remember the tinderbox.