The Whispering Road

by Livi Michael

  Then something happens. Suddenly I'm not staggering and stumbling along any more. I get into a kind of rhythm and my feet go faster and faster. I look across at Annie and she's keeping up too, all her teeth bared in a wild grin. It's like Travis said; my feet are telling me where to go.

  We're running with the pack, their dog smell filling my nose along with all the smells of the forest – and the strangest thing happens. I start to feel like I'm one of them, one with all the pounding muscle and shaggy fur. Faster and faster we go and I don't want to stop at all. I want to put back my head and howl.

  Time vanishes and I don't know how long I've been running, but I do know I don't want to stop. I could go on forever, bent nearly double, my feet skimming the earth, and when the trees get thinner and the light grows I'm almost disappointed.

  Dog-woman slows down and the slowing down seems to go on forever. I can feel my feet again and I start to straighten. We come to a stop, all of us, in a shaggy, panting mass, and I want to find my voice, to say ‘That were great’, but I've no voice left. We stand in a kind of clearing, and the light's really bright now, I can hardly see. Dog-woman sniffs the air, then she raises her finger and points.

  ‘That way,’ she says.

  We look down a long slope and there are the first roofs of houses. Just one or two at first, the smoke curling up from them, then more and more, until in the distance they all huddle together round a big steeple. The town.

  I look at it and feel afraid somehow, of the mass of houses. How long is it since I've been in a house, other than the workhouse?

  Dog-woman sniffs the air again. ‘Snow coming,’ she says. ‘You go now. Hurry.’

  I look around. It's a bright day, very bright; broad bands of sunlight across the fields. But there is a whitish tinge to it though, not like summer. She could be right.

  ‘Best get going then,’ I say, turning back to Dog-woman. But Annie's already there, holding up her hand to touch Dog-woman's withered, shaggy face. And Dog-woman bends down and down so that Annie can reach, and the next thing I know is she's planted a great lick on Annie's forehead.

  Disgusting.

  But all Annie says is, ‘Angel,’ looking up into Dog-woman's bent eyes. And I could say something but this time I don't feel like laughing. I don't feel fear or pity, not after that run through the woods. I swear when I look in her eyes that I can see something in them, like the memory of a star. Though if heaven's full of angels who look like that, I think I'd rather go to hell.

  Anyway, I cough to break up the touching scene and say again,’ ‘We'd best be going then,’ and, ‘Er – thanks, and that.’

  Dog-woman straightens and says, ‘Dog-woman not go where people are. You go now. Do not trust people in houses. Not safe. Stay nowhere long.’

  Just like Travis, I'm thinking.

  She nods at us again, gazing earnestly at our faces, then turns, her dogs gathering about her quick and smooth in a grey flow, and without looking back she disappears into the forest behind. Just like that. One moment we're looking at her and the next she's gone.

  Whooff!

  8

  Snow

  Annie's dragging her steps behind me. Seems like she's cut up about leaving Dog-woman, like I was about Travis – though that seems a long time back now. Well, that's life for you, I suppose. People coming and going. Thistlefluff in the wind.

  Talking of which, sure enough, hardly have we set off than the first flakes of snow come down. Tiny feathers they are at first, drifting this way and that, like they haven't quite made up their minds and what's the hurry anyway? And as soon as they touch something, grass or branch, or my arm, they disappear – pouf! Like that.

  Then more of them come down but I'm not worried. They look so pretty, dancing around in the yellowish light, that I'm too busy looking at them to think of where we're going. We start whirling round with them, catching them on our tongues. Annie's dancing and clapping, trying to catch a snowflake in her palms.

  Soon it stops being fun. The light vanishes and more and more snow comes down. When I look up the sky's dead white, and big flakes of snow look dark against it, hurtling down.

  Back into the forest, is my first thought. We need shelter. Annie seems to have other ideas though, and she starts pulling me along a different track, through a field.

  ‘Eh,’ I say. ‘Where are you off to?’

  Annie doesn't answer but keeps tugging us on, through a hedge, then a ditch, then by the side of another hedge that's tall, for shelter. I don't argue. I don't want to go back through the forest, or spend any more time with Dog-woman, even if she has just saved our skins. I'm surprised that Annie doesn't, though.

  All the time I'm worrying about the snow because I know the kind of storms that can fly up, burying travellers or freezing them to death. We've had snow up to the windows of the workhouse before now, but this storm starts clearing almost as soon as it blows up. Thank you, I'm saying silently, because I can see again through the flakes. We have to find some shelter, though.

  We're trudging alongside the road now, but a field away. The snow dies down to a few flakes but it's hard work on this path, since it's already started piling up. Sometimes we sink in it up over our feet, but in parts it's hard and icy and we slither along easily enough. Annie's pace never slackens and she grips my wrist as though she knows exactly where she's going.

  Naturally, she hasn't thought of telling me.

  ‘Annie,’ I say. ‘Where are we headed?’

  No answer. But I'm out of breath now, with a stitch in my side the size of a poker. ‘Hold up,’ I say, slowing down. ‘Where are we going?’

  For answer Annie just tugs my wrist hard. Then she pants out, ‘Got to – keep – up,’ between her teeth.

  At first I think she means that I've got to keep up, but then I see that she's staring ahead, with that same fixed stare she had in the cave. Enough to send the willies through you. I dig in my heels hard and pull her round.

  ‘Annie,’ I say very stern. ‘What's going on?’

  She tries to twist back but now I'm holding her wrist, and her eyes roll right back in her head.

  ‘Hurry,’ she moans.

  I've had enough of this. Seems like all my life Annie's been trying to spook me out. I brace myself and hold on tight.

  ‘Hurry!’ Annie says again, in that funny voice not like her own.

  I tug her arm. ‘I'm not hurrying anywhere,’ I say, ‘until you tell me what's going on.’

  Annie struggles and strains but I'm doing my bump on a log bit by now, same as she did in the forest, and in the end she gives up, shivering.

  ‘Lost them,’ she says in a small voice that's definitely hers.

  ‘Lost who?’ I say, and when she doesn't answer I shake her again.

  ‘It's them, innit?’ I say suddenly. ‘That boy and girl.’

  Annie still doesn't answer, but I know I'm right. ‘We're following them?’ I say, shaking her again for good measure. ‘Why are we following them, Annie? Do you know where they're taking us? Eh? Have you asked?’

  Annie stares at the snow, breathing hard.

  ‘I mean,’ I carry on, ‘how do you know they're not leading us straight to hell? Are you trying to take us with you?’ I say loudly into the silent air. ‘Because we're not coming! We'e not going to hell today, if it's all the same to you.’

  Annie finally looks up, her eyes full of light from the snow. ‘Not hell,’ she says, and her voice is raspy again. ‘Manchester.’

  This time I grab her shoulder and shake her in earnest. ‘Are they talking to you?’ I say, furious now. ‘What are they saying?’

  ‘Hurry,’ Annie says, and points.

  She's pointing upwards, into a copse of trees. And there, though it might just be the snow, for one second I think I see two flickering lights that quickly fade.

  Fear catches in my throat. ‘If you think I'm following two boggarts through the snow,’ I say, ‘you're wrong.’

  Annie twists round to look at me. �
��Hurry,’ she says.

  And just because I can't think what else to do I let her tug me along.

  ‘Hurry,’ she says.

  And that's how we come to one of them man-made waterways I've never seen before. A canal.

  It's amazing – the water all still and flat like a mirror. Hills, sky and trees all upside down in the surface. I bend over and something leaps back at me, making me jump backwards. I bend forward and there it is again. Horrible. Then I realize it's my head with the hair all stuck up like a nest.

  ‘Annie, Annie! Look at my head!’ I shout, and I run along the path looking at it, for I've never seen it before – only I can't make out my face, it's too dark.

  Someone came up with this – turning a river into a road! All that flat, still water going on for miles. And a pathway either side so that horses can pull the boats.

  I'd be more amazed if I wasn't so cold. Seems like I've been cold for so long that I can't remember warm.

  My thoughts run on like this, getting jumbled. Tall trees on the banks drop their reflections on the water making it darker yet, and the reflections are all broken up with patterns of ice. Like my thoughts are all broken up with not knowing where we're going, or what to do when we get there. So I just keep going, with Annie in front, and soon the canal opens up into a wide pool. And there are some barges, tethered up to great iron rings in the pathway, and covered over. Something else I've not seen before, but I've heard about them. Some of the tramps in the workhouse used to work the barges, legging them through tunnels.

  Everything's so still that it doesn't seem natural – water that doesn't run, boats that don't move. But then as we get up to the wide part, we can hear voices, singing and laughter. And there, in a clearing, is the gable end of an inn.

  Traveller's Rest, it's called. Sounds good to me.

  A couple of horses and carts are tethered up outside. I'm not feeling brave enough to try the front door so we slink round the back. Kitchen door's open and there's the juicy smell of ale and meat. We cross the yard with its stacked-up barrels and stand in front of the open door. Dogs start barking inside. Soon a man appears, face like a shovel.

  ‘What do you want?’ he says, but not as if he wants to know. ‘No beggars here – be off!’

  ‘Water, please,’ I say, but he scowls till his eyes disappear.

  ‘Did you hear me?’ he bellows. ‘Beggar off, before I set dogs on you!’

  A dog thrusts its nose through the doorway and we scuttle backwards across the yard. He goes in again, dragging the dog back and cursing. Slams the door. So much for begging.

  When the barking dies down and I think he's gone, we try again. This time I send Annie. I've seen a fat maid, throwing out slops.

  ‘Go up to her, I whisper,’ ‘and bob down a bit, like a curtsy. Say, “Excuse me, Ma'am, could I trouble you for a little food and water for myself and my brother who's sick… no – dying.” Say you need a glass of water for your dying brother.’

  I've heard them begging at the workhouse.

  Annie looks up at me like she might refuse, but when the maid comes out again I bundle her in.

  This doesn't work either. Just as the maid's leaving the kitchen Annie bobs out at her from behind the barrels, glowering like a boggart. The maid drops the water, Annie forgets to curtsy. ‘Food,’ she says, and the maid shrieks like a steam engine.

  ‘Save us!’ she cries, running back indoors, and all the dogs start barking again. I hear her screaming, ‘Help, help,’ and I grab Annie by the neck and we run off.

  We hide in a clump of bushes while I think what to do. Because this close to food, I don't want to give up. I stare hungrily at the shut gate. What was it Travis said? Food's easy to come by. And I said, You mean you can get food just by telling a story? And I thought, though I didn't say, Any fool can tell stories.

  So this is it, I'm thinking. Story time.

  We make our way round to the front of the inn. Someone else is hitching a wagon up and another bloke arrives with a bundle on his back.

  I've always told stories. Kept the kids in the workhouse up all night. Somehow, that's different to walking into a full pub and trying to get strangers to listen.

  You've got to walk in looking brave.

  I take two steps forward then stop, looking about. There's an outhouse with a door on a rusty hinge. ‘You'd best wait here,’ I say to Annie, and she grabs my arm but I shake her off.

  ‘No use begging,’ I say, as much for my benefit as hers. ‘Folk just drive you off. I'm going to try my luck with a story.’

  She doesn't say ‘No, don't’ or ‘It in't safe’, or owt like that, just looks at me with her milky face. I feel sick to my stomach. Still, what can they do? They can only chase us off again.

  I shove Annie into the outhouse. ‘I'll be right back,’ I say, though I'm hoping I won't be. Not without food.

  I take one step towards that door, then another.

  I'm Jack the Giant-killer, I'm thinking. I've killed the giant with one head, thinking of Old Bert, I've killed the giant with two heads, thinking of Young Bert and master, And now all I've got to do is to walk in through a gaping doorway and tackle one with hundreds of heads.

  That's what it feels like.

  No one's seen me yet. I could still run away.

  Nowhere to go but forward, that's what the matron used to say at the workhouse, when I didn't want to go before the board.

  I clear my throat and square my shoulders and walk in through the door of that pub.

  It's dark inside, gas lights burning. Walls and ceiling are painted black to hide the damage done by flaring lights, and the windows are tiny. More than dark, though, it's smoky – there's a dull smoky fire and everyone's smoking long clay pipes. It's hard to see anything else and I'm glad of it, for I can walk right past the bar and no one notices. Men are crowded round tables.

  I don't know where to start or who to pick. My eyes are stinging in all this smoke. It gets up your nose into your throat – and suddenly I'm coughing. I try to choke it back so no one notices but it gets bigger, and next thing I'm bowking for all I'm worth – just like the tramps on a winter night.

  Someone turns to me from one of the tables. ‘Now then, what's all this?’ he says, then, ‘Eh, Seth, your customers are getting younger!’

  There's an apron coming towards me through the mist, all greasy with food. Suddenly I'm caught. ‘Why it's the beggar boy – I thought I'd seen you off.’

  It's Shovel-face – the man who chased us off before. He's got me by the scruff of the neck, which isn't helping me speak. I can't even deny I'm begging.

  ‘Hold on a minute,’ the man at the table says. ‘Give the lad a drink.’ And from nowhere a jug of ale is thrust under my nose.

  There's cries of ‘Give over’ and ‘Leave off’, but I grab the jug and slug the ale down before the landlord wrenches it away. Tastes bitter.

  ‘You'll not waste good ale on the likes of him,’ he thunders, shaking me as though he wants me to throw it all back. ‘He's only come here begging!’

  ‘I've not!’ I squeak, trying to free my neck. ‘I… I've got a story to tell!’

  The smoke clears a bit and the face of the man at the table looms through it – a long, weather-beaten face, big faded eyes and a nose that looks like it's been hammered out of shape.

  ‘A story, eh?’ he says. ‘I like a good tale. Put him down, Seth – you don't know where he's been.’

  Landlord shakes me even harder. ‘I'll not have beggars in my pub,’ he growls.

  ‘He's just told you,’ says Bent-nose, ‘he's not begging. The lad's got a story to tell. Put him down.’

  The landlord hardly looks minded to do as he's told, but there's general cries of ‘A story, a story’ and ‘Give the lad a chance’ and ‘Put him down’, so with a final shake he drops me back on to the floor. I slip on something and Bent-nose holds me up.

  ‘Now then, young'un, what do they call you?’

  And suddenly I'm aware of about a
hundred faces, all bent towards me. And I haven't got a clue what I'm going to say. I can only gawp at them like a loon.

  ‘I hope this tale's a good'un,’ one of them says. ‘He's taking long enough to tell it.’

  And all around me I can feel interest draining away, like ale from a jug. Any minute now, they'll let Shovel-face haul me off. Bent-nose lets go of my arm and turns away.

  Suddenly I know I can't let it happen. Maybe the ale that I've slugged down is helping. I shrug my shoulders back and lift up my head.

  ‘My name's Jack,’ I say, in a loud voice that doesn't even seem like my own. ‘Jack the Giant-killer.’

  They're looking at me again now but I daren't look back. I stare at the wall above their heads. And all of a sudden I know what I have to do. I put one foot on the rung of Bent-nose's chair and bound on to the table, knocking several glasses sideways. There's cries of ‘Hold up lad!’ and ‘Steady on’, but I take no notice. And Bent-nose is clearing the glasses to make room.

  ‘The land's full of giants,’ I say, staring round. ‘Terrible plundering monsters, eating the sheep and the cattle, destroying the grain. Everyone's miserable, but they won't do owt about it – except for me. And I'm only ten year old.’

  I stare at their faces now, breathing hard. They're all listening.

  ‘There's one giant,’ I say very low, ‘who's worse than all the others. So tall that he can walk from one hill to another in a stride, and make all the earth shake.’ I stamp on the table. ‘He's eaten up everything – all the sheep, all the cattle, and now he's started on the children. He lives in a cave on the hillside, and it's littered with bones. And one day, he eats one of my friends.’

  There's some good-humoured jeering at this but I won't let it put me off. I'm making this up as I go along, for one thing I've learned is that you can't tell the same story twice.

  ‘That's it! I think. He's gone far enough. And I lie awake that night thinking up a plan. And the next day I pick up a pickaxe and a shovel, a lantern and a horn, and I set off to the giant's cave. And when I get there, it's dark.’