by Tim Lebbon
“Mind Mandy doesn’t jump out on you,” Jesse muttered. Nikki giggled to herself as she reached the corner. He’d mixed sarcasm and innocence just right so that Jazz could not quite be sure of what he meant. Yes, she liked Jesse. He was a good guy.
She rounded the corner and walked alongside The Hall. There was only a narrow grass verge between the building and the roadside, and she kept her eyes down, looking for signs of their mysterious watcher. She recalled the strange prints in the snow a couple of days ago, though now they had gone and there was no chance that any new ones could distort, mutating from normal to something abnormal. The Devil, her mum had whispered. Funny. Annoying. Depressing. Sometimes she wished her mum would just calm
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down and enjoy life instead of worrying about what happened when it ended.
There was no traffic on the road. There were a few birds singing around her, and the distant purr of an unknown engine, but other than that her footsteps were the only sound. She could not even hear Jesse pushing his way between the shrubs and the corrugated wall of The Hall on the other side.
She passed the window where Jazz had said he’d seen a face-looked down, checked the ground, saw no footprints in the mud-and rounded the second corner.
Brand stood fifteen paces from her. He was at the far edge of The Hall, back pressed into the hedge where it bulged out, apparently trying to extend its domain and creep along the end of the building in a vain attempt to reach the road. He was staring at her, smiling, his long hair tied back in a pony tail. He had two dark bruises on his face-one on his cheek, the other at the side of his mouth-and a cut across the bridge of his nose.
Some bastard’s been picking on him, Nikki thought, but instantly realized what nonsense that was. No one could pick on Brand, he was just not that kind of man, he was strong and capable, and anyway, she guessed that the other person was probably looking a lot worse-
“You’re a very sexy girl, Nikki,” he said, though his mouth did not move.
“What?” She’d imagined it, she must have, although it had been his voice.
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Then he did speak. “You’re a very sexy girl, Nikki. And you play bass well.”
She smiled, but it didn’t feel right. She shrugged. She was useless, hopeless, not knowing what to do or say.
He turned and walked behind The Hall.
“Wait!” she shouted, running to where he had been, slipping in a mud-puddle and banging her shoulder and head on the wall as she went down, feeling the cold mud suck at her leg and hip, seep into her shoe. “Wait!” She scrabbled in the puddie, trying to stand. Pain flared in her head and she was sure she’d cut herself. She paused, listening for Brand pushing his way through the undergrowth, but there was nothing. He was waiting there for her. Standing just around the corner, listening to her shouting and cursing, probably giggling behind his hand, maybe even smelling her blood …
Nikki stood and walked the last few paces, swinging herself around the corner and wincing as errant twigs plucked at her cheek and neck.
There was no one there. The bushes and trees pushed up against The Hall, branches and creepers actually appearing to penetrate the outer shell and disappear inside, though she had never seen any sign of them within.
Brand was not there.
She’d been here as a little girl, hiding under this very tree as her mum and dad looked for her, called, cried and called again, and she had only come out when it had started to rain. The memory came back hard and fresh and sad. It was the first and last time she had run away from her
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parents. Eight years old. She’d never seen such pain, relief, anger and terror on their faces.
Brand was not there.
He had been standing at the corner, smiling at her … talking to her … and now he was gone.
Jesse pushed his way through the undergrowth, cringing as it scratched at his face and hand. “Bloody hell… I must be mad.” he said.
“Were you here just now?” Nikki gasped, realizing how crazy it sounded.
“Huh? Taken me a lifetime to get through there.”
“I saw someone.”
“Who?”
Who? Nikki shook her head. Not to deny that she had seen him-because she had-but simply to dismiss the conversation.
Nikki took a good look at the hedge. There was no way Brand could have pushed through there, no way, not without making a noise and not in the time it had taken her to find her footing and turn the corner. And Jesse would certainly have met him. She scanned the hedge, the tangle of bare branches holding clots of rotting leaves, the thorns and the twisted stems that had been growing for maybe a hundred years, denying anyone access … let alone such a tall, big man.
At any moment she expected to see him staring back.
“Nikki?”
“Huh?”
“You alright? You look like you’ve seen a ghost. And your head’s bleeding a bit. You didn’t did you? See anything?” For the first time Jesse
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looked afraid, a fear that encompassed rejection and loneliness as well the more immediate threat. Perhaps Nikki shouldn’t have been ignoring him. She knew how things were with Jesse.
“I’m fine, Jesse. Thanks.” She wiped her forehead and her hand came away smeared red. Not much. Just a scratch. It had felt worse at the time. “I’m going to go through this way.” She nodded past him, wondering what the fuck she was doing and realizing the truth instantly: she was making sure. If Brand was not here, then she was seeing things, hallucinating … fantasizing? Actually finding him hiding back there would be less scary.
“Rather you than me.” He squeezed by her, and did he cop a feel? Did his hand brush along the top of her thigh and across her crotch as he tried to negotiate the tangled roots and mud and bed of rotting leaves?
Nikki shook her head. Now she was paranoid. “Beat you back to the door!” she said with a smile, but as she turned from Jesse the smile dropped away instantly. Just what the hell was she doing?
She pushed into the hedge, levering the first big branch away from the wall of The Hall and slipping through. She scratched her arm and cheek straight away, bringing morse-lines of blood to the surface. It isn’t far, she kept telling herself, not far at all. She was glad that there were no windows on this side of The Hall, otherwise she may see Mandy staring out, giving her the finger, rapping on the window to scare her. Or perhaps it wouldn’t be Mandy. Maybe Brand
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had reversed the situation and was inside The Hall right now. Waiting for her to return. Brushing Mandy’s cheek with the back of his hand …
She tried to push through faster but the hedge thwarted her efforts. It reminded her of a picture book she’d had as a kid, the story of Sleeping Beauty and how her castle had been overgrown with rose plants to deny anyone access, a prehistoric forest climbing the walls and joining above the roof. Her dad had sat beside her and read through that book a hundred times, and it was always one of the final pictures that stuck in her mind: the valiant prince hacking through the gnarled trunks and stems in his search for the sleeping princess. His quest was to wake her with a kiss.
Would she feel different about things, she wondered, if Brand were to kiss her?
She was halfway through-it would take the same time to go both ways, now, a couple of minutes at least, too far in for anyone to help her if something went wrong, if someone reached out and grabbed her ankle or brushed her throat with a blade-when she heard his voice.
“Sexy girl.”
Nikki jumped, gasped, caught her breath and felt her heart take a few wild leaps. She looked over her shoulder, her hair catching on a branch as she did so, and when she turned back Brand was standing right in front of her. He’d pushed through from the other end, his face was scratched in several places, his hands-one resting on the mold-covered wall of the building, the other holding back a heavy branch so that he
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could look at her-were criss-crossed with bloody
trails. But he was totally unconcerned. He looked as much at peace here as anyone could anywhere.
Sexy girl, he’d said. And now, however much Nikki had been thinking about him, whatever illicit thoughts had entered her mind as she lay awake at nights, she was scared.
“How did you get here so quickly?” she asked.
Brand shrugged. “I know shortcuts.”
There was no way past him. She could go back the way she had come by turning her back … but that was something she would not do.
“What are you doing here? What do you want?”
Brand smiled and stepped closer, letting the branch fall back into place and lock them in together. He stood inches away, looking down into Nikki’s upturned face, breathing at her, his breath stale and old like a bedroom in the morning. Oh God … she could reach out and touch him …
“I’ll be around for a few days,” he whispered, filling her head with his voice. “Your father and I have a bit of business to discuss, all hush-hush, don’t tell anyone, it’s on the quiet. And especially don’t mention it to your old man… he’d go mad!”
“My dad?”
Brand nodded. “So you’re alone this afternoon? In the house?”
“Mum and Dad are in work.” Nikki felt a peculiar tingle in her chest, fear and apprehension and a buzz of excitement. Was he making a pass,
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planting suggestions? “Jazz is coming back with me, though.” It was a lie made true as soon as she said it. She’d had no intention of asking Jazz back … but now she would. For the whole afternoon. Not because she thought he could protect her from Brand, but simply for the company.
“Will you fuck him?”
She felt herself reddening, her cheeks flushing and her belly growing warm at the thought. A man talking about sex in such a frank way was not something she was used to. The realization brought home just how young she really was, and it scared her a lot more because of that. Mostly, she thought of herself as an adult. Right now she was simply that little girl behind The Hall once more.
“Maybe,” she said, pleased with the answer.
“He’s a waste of space, you know.”
“What?”
“Your boyfriend, Jazz. A waste. Something useful could be occupying the space he takes up. Breathing his air. Having his … energy.” Something had changed with Brand … perhaps his eyes were darker or his scar paler.
Nikki shook her head, flitting from excitement back to fear in an instant. She was breathing hard with the effort of trying to keep up, trying to figure out what he wanted, where he was coming from, just why he was here at all.
“I could free that space,” Brand said. He leaned forward so that his lips were an inch from her forehead, hovering above where she had cut herself. “A moment of your time, sexy Nikki, and maybe I’ll do it for you. Hmmm, that could scar.”
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Something touched the cut. It may have been his breath, or perhaps the tip of his tongue, a cool touch on the dribble of blood still seeping out. She recoiled.
He turned away.
“See you around.”
Then he pushed between the hedge and The Hall and was gone.
Nikki tried to follow but branches snagged her clothes, holding her back. It took her a couple of minutes to force her way through to the front of the Hall, panicked moments filled with conflicting emotions and ideas, feelings in a pot brought to the boil by Brand … and then left to cool naturally, spewing their heat into the air, settling with a cold greasy fear on top.
Jazz was standing where she had left him. He glanced up as she emerged, eyes widening slightly at the sight of her bloodied skin. She leapt into his arms. He staggered back in surprise.
“See him?” she asked quietly. “Did you see him?”
“Jesse said there was no one there,” Jazz said, breathing cigarette smoke into her face.
“Your parents in?” she asked, trying to keep her voice level, burying her face into his neck so that he could not see her wide eyes.
“No. Dad’s in work and Mum-“
“Let’s go to your place for the afternoon, then.” She felt him tense slightly, then he held the back of her head and nuzzled into her neck. Yes, she thought defiantly, I am going to fuck him. She pulled away and looked around. If she
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had been expecting a rebuke, it did not come.
Ten minutes later they had packed their gear, left Jesse and Mandy behind and were screaming along the road back to Jazz’s place.
Nikki held on tight.
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Chapter Five
Of course, the footprints had not left her mind for one minute.
Megan was good at keeping her thoughts internalized, not opening herself up to analysis and criticism. God knew her every move, every thought, each and every image that flitted across her mind was there for Him to see, so if there were any apologies to make she would make them to Him. True, sometimes she felt the need to share her thoughts, that’s what family was for, but the more private ones-and there had been many of those lately, some darker than normal, some more secretive-remained hidden. Her mother had told her that this was the best way to be. She had been sparing in her advice, but the one thing she had insisted upon was that Megan need not bother other people with her own
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fears and woes. Keep them inside, she had said. Handle them yourself. They’re your thoughts and yours alone, that’s why God gave you your imagination and your inner workings. Keep them to yourself, and to Him.
So she had listened to her mother and slowly, over the years, built a screen around herself. It was invisible, this screen, constructed of secrecy and silence, and it was mirrored on the inside so that when she looked she saw herself staring back. Nobody else could see it, though Dan knew for sure it was there. He tried to scale it, tunnel through or ease his way around without her knowing, but Megan would smile and whisper softly that nothing was wrong, everything was alright, there was no need to worry because if there was anything wrong she would tell him.
That was where the very idea of the screen fell down. Because it made Megan lie. It made her say that things were well when they were not. It forced her to smile when she was crying inside, laugh when she felt like screaming.
It repressed everything … and then she had truly found God. There was no hiding things from Him. He knew it all. He was, in a very real way, the sink for all her fears and anger, all the secret, silent terrors she felt but was too afraid to share, even with Dan.
Sometimes she slipped a little, and then she saw what damage could be done. “I want to move back to the city,” she had said. Tension. Anger. Yes, just one tiny crack in her defence and their love was on the line. But occasionally things just had to be said.
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“Going to lunch,” Megan said to Charlotte.
” ‘Kay.” Charlotte was painting her nails, her usual lunchtime pastime. Megan wondered when the girl found time to do anything, such was the effort she made getting ready.
She left the office and breathed in the crisp air, enjoying the sense of cold spreading into her lungs, the cool prickle on her tongue. There was a small mound of unmelted snow against the wall outside, and she glanced at it as she passed by. No prints, thank God. No prints in there. But she certainly had not forgotten those devilish hoofprints spread across her garden, lined over the roof in an arrogant display of ownership where none had been granted. She offered up a prayer and closed her eyes as she zipped up her coat.
Megan looked back at the patch of dirty snow, afraid that from a different angle she would see a print punched deep down, the shreds of skin at its bottom begging her to pick them up …
She had a choice of what to do for lunch. There was Magenta’s, the little village cafe, but that was likely full of kids enjoying their last free weekday afternoon before school started again after Easter. She may even bump into Nikki and Jeremy in there. She’d embarrass her daughter just by existing in the same room as her, and she
had no wish for a confrontation, however pleasantly adorned it may be. Or she could go to the pub in the square, sit in the corner with a basket meal and read the paper while the old folk drank halves and stared into the past where it stained the dark ceiling timbers.
Or she could go to church. And so thinking,
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she realized that this was what she had needed all morning.
Tall Stennington was somewhere between a village and a small town. Its residents referred to it as a village, its businesses-the solicitor’s she worked at amongst them-preferred the term town. Better for business. There was the old part, with buildings dating from three hundred years ago or earlier, cottages whitewashed every couple of years, winding roads really too small for vehicular traffic, a village square taken straight from a postcard, cobbles fighting in vain against the encroaching influence of Tarmac roads, walls leaning drunkenly, giving the impression of imminent collapse even though they had probably been that way since before she was born. Then the newer part of town, with council houses surrounding a small business park, a whole slew of tastelessly built offices and shops snaking out from the village square to the main road, and the new, post-modern church.
This was where Megan was headed.
Tall Evangelical Church was built of redbrick, had a roof four times as high as its external walls and a blue neon cross that, when lit, was visible from way outside the village. It was a true blot, and there was much gossip of how it had received planning permission, rumors ranging from a huge back-hander to the local authority, to the planning officer in question’s unusual relationship with the vicar and his wife. For Megan, its appearance did not matter. The signs outside, exhorting devotion to Jesus, held no import for her. The color of its walls, the carefully
