Aubrey and the Terrible Yoot

by Horatio Clare

  The Yoot had asked him what sort of Christmas he could offer Aubrey – did his wonderful son really deserve such a tortured man hanging around him, ruining Christmas, killing everyone’s happiness?

  ‘The sooner you get it over with, the sooner Suzanne and Aubrey will be able to start their new life!’ the Yoot told him. ‘Come away, Jim, this has gone on too long now. It is time for you to be brave. You must do the right thing for your family.’

  ‘Alright,’ Jim said, at last. ‘Alright. They will be better off when I am gone. I know they will be terribly sad at first but at least it will all be over. And Suzanne and Aubrey are all that matters. It is true – it is time I got out of their way.’

  In the early evening Jim pulled on his coat.

  ‘I’m just going for a walk,’ he said to Suzanne. She and Aubrey were making Christmas decorations.

  ‘Oh!’ Suzanne said, surprised.

  It was not much of an evening for a walk; the clouds were low and heavy with snow and there was an eerie yellow light in the sky. ‘Wouldn’t you like to stay and give us a hand instead? Look what Aubrey’s making!’

  Aubrey was covered in glue and glitter, coloured tissue paper and tinsel.

  ‘I AM THE HUMAN CHRISTMAS TREE!’ he boomed at his father. ‘LAY YOUR PRESENTS AT MY FEET OR I WILL CLIMB DOWN YOUR CHIMNEY!’

  Jim laughed, weakly.

  ‘See? They are so happy, just the two of them,’ the Yoot whispered in Jim’s ear. ‘The only sad thing here is you… Help them, Jim! Leave them to their happiness. Take your misery away!’

  ‘Very good, Aubrey,’ Jim said, ‘You are the best human Christmas tree in the world.’ He hugged Aubrey hard and kissed him. ‘Well done, darling,’ he said to Suzanne. ‘You’re wonderful. You’re so kind and – just – you’re the most … I love you. I love you both so much.’ Now he kissed Suzanne and hugged her too. ‘Just going for a little walk,’ he said. ‘Things will get better. I know they will. Don’t wait up for me. I need a good long walk. I love you…’ he said, and before they could say anything else, with his heart breaking in his chest, and his sobs held back, but only just, Jim hurried out of the house.

  Jim rushed down the lane. He was crying, the tears running hot down his cheeks.

  ‘Well done, Jim!’ the Yoot whispered to him. ‘You’ve done the hard part! The rest is easy. And remember - this is all for them - you’re doing it for your wife and your son.’

  Now the Yoot began telling him where to go.

  ‘Take the path which goes along the edge of the wood, and follow it straight up to the moors.’

  Jim strode along as fast as he could go. His nose ran and tears filled his eyes. He was sobbing so much he weaved from side to side, but the Yoot kept driving him on.

  Aubrey and Suzanne carried on making decorations but they were both a bit quiet now.

  ‘Dad doesn’t look too good,’ Aubrey said, after a while.

  ‘No,’ said Suzanne. ‘Poor man. But he’s trying so hard. I am very proud of him.’

  ‘Me too! And he’s supposed to take exercise…’ said Aubrey.

  ‘Yes,’ Suzanne agreed. She was frowning, but she made an effort and smiled brightly. ‘Yes, exactly! And he’ll sleep well when he’s had a good walk. Now, who wants some hot crumpets, dripping with butter and honey?’

  ‘Yay! Crumpets!’ Aubrey sang out, and the two of them smiled at each other.

  Suzanne went into the kitchen and put the crumpets in the toaster.

  Aubrey ran upstairs to his room and stared out of the window at the wood. His heart was beating fast, there was a pulse in his chest and a hot feeling in his stomach. Something was wrong.

  Suzanne took the crumpets out of their packet. She fitted four of them into the toaster and pushed the rack down. She stared out of the kitchen window. The night was closing in. There were no birds in the garden. Everything was still but the wind.

  Something’s wrong, something’s wrong, something’s wrong, ran Aubrey’s thoughts like a chant. Something’s wrong…

  And suddenly he knew what it was.

  The Yoot is here, he thought, wildly, I can feel it – the Yoot has come. It’s out there in the wood or on the moor: it’s close. The Yoot has come for my dad.

  Downstairs the crumpets popped out of the toaster but Suzanne did not even notice. She was filled with a sense of terrible worry as she stared at the gathering dark. She suddenly wished, desperately, that Jim had not gone out.

  ‘Aubrey!’ she shouted.

  ‘Mum!’ Aubrey yelled, and he was charging down the stairs, jumping them three at a time. He burst into the kitchen. ‘Dad’s in trouble! We’ve got to find him! We’ve got to get him back!’

  You will remember that when she needed to move fast Suzanne could pretty well jump over houses. Before he had drawn three breaths, it seemed, Aubrey was no longer a human Christmas tree: he was being bundled out of the front door, wearing his coat, shoes and hat. He had an impression of his mother zipping around the room; she seemed to have three pairs of hands, two of them dressing him, two dressing her, and two grabbing her keys, a torch and her telephone. In less time than it will take you to read this sentence, Suzanne had noticed a bottle was gone, which prompted her to fly up to the bathroom, see that Jim’s pills were gone too, dive back down the stairs, pour a lot of salt into a plastic bottle, fill it with water and sweep Aubrey out of the house.

  ‘We have to hurry,’ she told him. ‘I’m going to carry you, OK?’

  Suzanne lifted him up into a piggyback; now they were hurtling down the road.

  Aubrey knew his mother had been a marathon runner before he was born. She could sprint, too: she always won the Mothers’ Race on Sports Day at school, crossing the finishing line with a wave and a smile, not even panting. But he had never seen her in action like this. Below him her feet were pounding, faster and faster. In seconds they reached the end of the road where three paths divided. One went into the trees. One went down to the stream. The last path ran along the edge of the wood up toward the moors. In the car park, where the paths began, Aubrey could just make out a magnificent pheasant in the gloom. It shouted ‘KOK-KOK!’

  Suzanne paused. ‘Which way do you think he went?’

  Aubrey did not hesitate. Ever since he had told Athene Noctua that he would fight the Yoot he had had a sense of it, out there somewhere. Now he could feel it like the heat of a fire, close.

  ‘Up!’ he cried. ‘Take that path! Along the edge of the wood!’

  ‘KOK-KOK!’ crowed the pheasant, bobbing at them.

  In his mind, Aubrey heard it say, in a clucky rush, ‘About fifteen minutes ago, one man, one Yoot, going for the moors – be quick!’

  They were off again. Suzanne swerved up the third path. Her feet leapt from rock to rock. As the path became steeper she seemed to go faster. Soon the wood was thinning and fields rolled by on either side. Now they were into the upper part of the wood, the trees and bushes swirling around them in a dark blur. Night was coming down, the darkness gathering huge and fast.

  Suzanne was breathing hard but she did not slow down. Her torch clicked, the light dancing wildly in front of them as she ran on and on, and up and up, as the path became steeper and steeper and the trees hunched low. It was a wild ride for Aubrey. Bouncing around on his mother’s back was like riding a flying horse. Suzanne’s arms clamped the backs of his knees and she held him tight.

  At the top of the wood the path flattened. Ridges and shoulders of land folded away into nothingness. They had reached the moor.

  The moor is wild country, haunted with winds which have lived here since the beginning of time. In all those centuries, Aubrey felt, no one had ever come up here on a night as grim as this.

  Suzanne stopped. She was panting.

  ‘Where now, do you think?’

  Aubrey closed his eyes. He shut out the cold and he shut out the moans of the wind. He felt as though the monster was all around him now, like a beast circling, just out of sight. Its presence was stronge
st … to the left, he was sure of it, ahead and to the left.

  ‘Somewhere left, sort of diagonally,’ he said.

  ‘Six hundred metres, to be precise, diagonally left,’ said a gentle, female voice in his head.

  ‘Who are you?’ Aubrey thought back.

  ‘My name is Lepus,’ said the voice. ‘I’m a hare. Excuse me for not showing myself. I am rather shy. Your father is in a dip in the ground that way – go fast! Go like a hare!’

  ‘Six hundred metres diagonally left!’

  Aubrey cried, ‘Quick Mum, go!’

  Suzanne had no idea how Aubrey could be so certain but she believed him completely. The moor was covered in heather stalks and tight-bunched whinberry bushes, so she could not sprint. But she went as fast as she could without falling, picking her way by the light of the torch, stumbling, slipping, striding and leaping across the great wastes of the moor. Her torch was a tiny glint in the vastness of the dark.

  CHAPTER 11

  A Battle of Life and Death

  They found Jim exactly where Lepus had said they would. He was lying curled up next to a rock at the bottom of a gully. Aubrey shouted, desperately, ‘Dad!’

  Suzanne’s torch lit up Jim’s huddled shape, with his knees drawn up to his chest. He was wrapped in his coat, his chin tucked down on his chest. He lay utterly still. The bottle was in his hand, half empty. The pill bottle was there too. Pills lay scattered on the ground.

  Suzanne put Aubrey down and thrust the torch into his hand. She bent over her husband.

  ‘Jim!’ she shouted. ‘JIM!’

  She put her finger to his neck, just below his ear, searching for his pulse.

  ‘He’s alive,’ she panted.

  ‘Dad!’ Aubrey shouted. ‘Wake up!’

  Suzanne spoke calmly and clearly. ‘Now Aubrey this is not going to be pleasant but I have to wake him up and make him sick – we need to get those pills out of him. Stand there and shine the torch on him. You’d better not look – close your eyes.’

  But Aubrey could not do that. He stared as Suzanne shook Jim hard by the shoulders. She shouted, ‘Jim! JIM! WAKE UP! Open your eyes – OPEN YOUR EYES! Look at me! JIM! OPEN YOUR EYES AND LOOK AT ME!’

  As she shouted Suzanne slapped Jim’s face – once, twice, three times.

  ‘Come on, sweetheart,’ she cried, ‘Aubrey and I are here! We’ve come to wake you up! WAKE UP!’

  At first Jim made only the slightest sound, a little grumble. But as she slapped him and shouted his name he groaned more loudly, and now his eyes blinked open. In the light of the torch he stared up vacantly. He looked like a very young baby, as if he could not really see.

  ‘Yes, yes, good man! Very good! Look at me, darling – that’s right. Come back to us now, come back – say something Jim – say my name.’

  ‘Shuzzz…’ Jim mumbled. ‘Shuzzam, Aubee…’

  ‘That’s it darling! You’re coming back, you’re waking up, aren’t you?’

  ‘Feelshick,’ Jim mumbled, ‘shleepingills.’

  ‘I know love, I know. Now, let’s sit you up…’

  Suzanne hauled him up until he was sitting. He slumped forward as if his head was very heavy.

  ‘Right, now, this is going to be horrible and it is going to save your life. I want you to drink this, and I want you to swallow it.’

  Suzanne held the bottle of salty water to Jim’s lips and began to pour it in. Jim shook his head and the water spilled, but Suzanne clamped an arm around his neck, tilted his head back and shouted, in a voice so stern and commanding that Aubrey jumped, she yelled, ‘SWALLOW ALL OF IT NOW!’

  Jim’s eyes widened at her tone and the taste, and he looked dazed, but he began to swallow and swallow obediently … two, three, four glugs he managed, and then an appalled looked crossed his face.

  He wrenched himself free of Suzanne’s grip, rolled onto all fours, and he began to be stunningly sick.

  Jim heaved, Jim spluttered, Jim retched and Jim hurled. He spewed, he puked and he threw up. Jim barfed, Jim chundered and Jim blew chunks. As soon as she saw her patient was responding to treatment, Suzanne switched to Aubrey; she knelt beside him, gently took the torch from his hand, put her arm round his shoulders and turned him away from his father.

  She hugged him tight.

  ‘We did it, darling!’ she said. ‘We found him in time – you found him in time, you extraordinary boy. You’ve saved him, you know – he could have been anywhere – I would never, ever have found him without you. How on earth did you know he was here?’

  Behind them Jim was still vomiting, but less violently now, and in between being sick he was making other noises – not weak mumbles, but sounds like ‘Yuk!’ and ‘Eiuw! Disgusting … oh goodness … errk!’

  His voice was clear and he was very much awake.

  Aubrey did not answer his mother at first. Tides of feelings surged through him. He had never been so relieved. Part of him felt dizzy with thankfulness. And he was shocked at everything that had happened, from the dreadful moment in his room when he realised the Yoot was attacking, to the wild race through the wood on his mother’s back, to the terror of seeing Jim huddled up in the dip, and the violence of Suzanne’s life-saving treatment, and the sight of his father being sick. And below it all, Aubrey felt in the centre of his being an anger like nothing he had ever known.

  Aubrey’s anger was like the bright flame in his heart. The Yoot had tried to kill his father. It had taken Jim to the edge of life and nearly, so nearly tempted him to his death. The battle was well and truly joined now.

  ‘You’ve had your shot, Yoot,’ Aubrey thought. ‘Now it’s my turn. The time has come. We’ll have it out tonight. I’ll meet you wherever you want, but I will meet you, and then we’ll see what you’re made of…’

  He took a deep breath.

  ‘He’s going to be OK is he, Mum?’

  Jim spoke from behind them.

  ‘I’m going to be just fine, Aubrey Boy.’

  They turned around. Jim was standing up. He was using the rest of the salty water to clean his hands and face.

  ‘I don’t know what came over me,’ he said, slowly. ‘But I know I will never, ever, do anything like that again. You’ve saved my life. Both of you. I am so sorry I frightened you. I will never be able to apologise enough, or thank you enough … I haven’t got the words. When I heard your voices I knew I wanted to come back – I wanted to live. I will always want to live, thanks to you two. I know I haven’t been well, but I know I am the luckiest man in the world tonight. Aubrey, Suzanne, darling, you … you bring me back to the light.’

  Aubrey and Suzanne looked at him. They were full of so many feelings they did not know what to say.

  ‘Group hug!’ shouted Suzanne, and they rushed together and clung tight, the three of them, there in the dark dip in the moor.

  ‘Now,’ said Jim, ‘does anyone have any idea how we get back to Woodside Terrace?’

  Suzanne laughed. ‘Aubrey does!’ she said. ‘He seems to know all sorts of extraordinary things.’

  Aubrey took their hands, one on each side, and led them all the way home.

  CHAPTER 12

  Face to Face with the

  Terrible Yoot

  After lots of Suzanne’s homemade soup, which was more like a steaming sweet stew, and hot baths, the family went to bed. For the first time in ages Aubrey heard his parents laughing in their room.

  Suzanne had been calling Jim a ninny, a nit and a nincompoop, and Jim had been hugging her, and picking Aubrey up and whirling him round and chattering about what a hero he was, and what a superwoman his mother was: being so near death had given him a real shock of life.

  Aubrey had not been ready to join in with his father’s high spirits, but he smiled to hear them both as he lay in bed. His mother and father were safe. But now his smile faded, and his anger leapt up like a blaze. It was time to meet this thing, whatever it was.

  From the moment they had found Jim, the Yoot’s presence had seemed to
vanish. You would have thought it had never existed. But the boy was not going to let it get away as easily as that. As his tired body slipped towards sleep Aubrey’s mind spoke out to his enemy.

  ‘I know you can hear me, you disgusting bully,’ he thought. ‘You are lurking somewhere, plotting your next attack. I am Aubrey Rambunctious Wolf and I call you to fight me tonight! Answer me, answer me if you dare! I’ll fight you here, I’ll fight you there, I’ll fight you in your horrid lair!’

  There was a pause, like a listening silence. Aubrey held his breath. Now a faint sound came – a laugh, a low laugh, coming closer.

  ‘You call the meeting,’ said a syrupy voice, which seemed amused, ‘but I decide where we have it.’

  ‘Go on then!’

  ‘I choose … the Desert of Misfortune,’ came the voice, as if it were gloating.

  Immediately Aubrey was floating up into dreamscape. Far below he saw his house and Woodside Terrace and Rushing Wood, but he could see the wood’s shapes changing as he watched, the trees becoming taller and darker, and growing mighty now, becoming great pines and firs with mountains behind them, their peaks all glittering with snow and starlight.

  ‘The Enchanted Mountains!’ Aubrey exclaimed. They were so beautiful that he longed to swoop down and land there, but now they were falling away, smaller and smaller they shrank to white rumples, and faster and faster he flew over dark plains down to a lacquer sea, a sheeny, oily sea which rushed below him at a thousand miles a moment, until the darkness ahead lightened as if dawn were galloping towards him, the light leaping over a shoreline of rocks with the sun behind them, and now sea and shore were far away behind him and he was crossing sand, ridges and valleys of sand: everywhere he looked was sand, scrub and desert. The sun had climbed faster than a bouncing ball, right up to the top of the sky, and Aubrey began to come down, down, fast at first, then slowing as he descended, until he landed with a thump, and found himself in the middle of a boundless world of sand, sky and white, burning sun. In all the silent and blazing lands around him only the desert grasses moved, trembling in the wind.