Cumbrian Ghost Stories

by Tony Walker

  He heeled the rose and the honeysuckle into the dirt with his boot. “You cook when I tell you to cook.” He let go of her hand and then, as if an afterthought, he struck her across her face. “You do what I tell you when I tell you, bitch.”

  Rebecca felt the pressure of tears, but she would not let them come. She put her hand to her cheek to feel the heat of his blow and the throbbing of the pain. She bowed her head. Then he lifted his foot and with it, shoved her into the hovel.

  By the area she used for cooking was fresh meat. It didn’t look like the usual crow or rabbit that he managed to catch.

  “What’s this?” she asked.

  “Pork.” He was grinning smugly.

  “Where did you get the money for this?” she said.

  “I didn’t need money. I got it from the butcher’s wife. Meat for meat.” He threw back his head and laughed.

  Rebecca felt her stomach turn. She saw her father’s knife that she had brought back into the kitchen days before. She wouldn’t make the same mistake this time. She would wait until he was sleeping.

  She saw there were also fresh vegetables and a bottle of foreign wine. Gowan had brought them all back from the fair at Hawkshead.

  “More gifts?” she said. Her voice was cold.

  He guffawed. Then he said, “So many ladies. So many things they want to give me.”

  “And did you kill them?”

  His eyes narrowed. “No, not kill them. Sent them back to their husbands bruised and torn, but I didn’t kill them.”

  Her voice was icy. “How do you decide whether to rape or kill?”

  “Rape is a nasty word, Rebecca,” he whispered. He came closer. “But be honest, you always preferred it when I was rough.”

  She tasted bile in her mouth. He ran a finger across the cheek he had recently struck. He was smiling.

  She turned. “I’ll cook,” she said.

  He grunted. “Pour me wine.” Then he went to sit on his chair outside, as the afternoon became evening.

  She fried the pork with vegetables. She was tempted to oversalt it but he would notice that. Instead, she spat in it though it gave her no satisfaction. Revenge for her father would need deeper injury than that.

  She brought him the food as he sat outside, boots kicked off, shirt open to the sun that filtered through the yellowing leaves. Crows called from the branches of the oak behind the hovel. The rooks prepared to go to roost.

  “Sit with me, Rebecca,” he said, motioning a tree stump near where he sat on the sheepskin-covered chair.

  She shook her head.

  “Sit,” he snarled.

  “I have work to do in the garden; I need to weed the onions and garlic.”

  He snorted. “Go, weed the onions. Wash the dishes and then get in my bed to make it warm for when I come to you.”

  Without answering, Rebecca turned and went towards the small vegetable plot that she had so lovingly tended for him. As she passed, she stooped and picked up the wilting honeysuckle and the broken rose in a quick movement so he should not tell her to drop them and throw them away. She went out of his sight to where the garden was. There with her hands she scooped two holes in the damp earth and placed the plants in them. She stood them so they propped each other up, but they were sad and drooping and she knew they would die. It was the act itself. She had not thought to do it, some unconscious impulse had caused her to pluck them and carry them and plant them here.

  Somehow, it seemed like something she should do to give herself hope. And when she had scooped the soil back into the holes to support the plants as best it could, she bowed her head. She prayed, “Mother of the Forest, though I no longer even believe in you, help me in my need. If you are there, help me in the way you know best. Deliver me from the power of Gowan Fell.”

  And then she heard a sound, opened her eyes and turned and there he was standing behind her, a look of cruel mockery on his face. “Praying to your silly wood spirits are you? I will never release you from my power until you are dead. And when you die, it will be because I have a better maid, and I will kill you with my own hands.”

  He grabbed her long blonde hair, and he yanked her to her feet backwards, stumbling. Then he kicked her forward and when she fell, he grabbed her upper arm to drag her into the hovel. Once in the hove,l he said, “Wash my plates. And when you’re done, take off your clothes.”

  He went over to the bed and stood by it, pulling off his trousers. She washed his plate but kept an eye on him and when he pulled his shirt over his head and could not see; she took the knife and put it in the pocket in her woollen dress.

  He stood there naked. “Done?” he said.

  She nodded.

  “Here,” he said pointing to his feet. She walked towards him.

  “Take off your dress,” he ordered.

  She quietly disrobed, but dropped the dress and the knife it concealed close enough to the bed so she could grab it without stretching.

  She stood there bare in front of him. He looked her up and down. She moved to cover her breasts and her pubis but he pushed her arms away.

  “You are mine to look at.” Then he snorted. “Not bad. I can see why I chose you.”

  He gestured to the bed. “Get in.”

  She knelt and then got into the bed. Before he got in with her she said, “Gowan, did you ever love me?”

  “I only love myself,” he said.

  “But you said that I was special, that I was the one.” Her voice sounded weak.

  He laughed and said, “Girls should never believe what men tell them.”

  Then he lay on her. Her forced her knees apart. She put her arm between her teeth and bit so she would not cry. She knew she would have to endure this. Then, when he slept, she would kill him.

  When he had sated himself and was snoring, his arm drooping out of the bed, Rebecca lay awake. She monitored the sound of his breathing to make sure he slumbered. Then she inched her hand towards the dress and the knife within it. She moved it an inch, and he stirred. So she waited. Then when his breathing deepened, she moved again, her fingers crawling over the cool hard clay floor like a spider. She found the rough edge of the woollen dress and pulled it towards her with her finger ends. Then he turned and muttered. She stopped and his breathing grew heavy again. This time she dragged the dress and when it was close enough, she felt for the opening of the pocket. She reached in and felt the wooden handle of the kitchen knife. The wood was smooth. Her heart became electric with fear and hope. Her breathing grew more rapid.

  She closed her finger ends on the knife haft, and then without warning he struck her heavily on the forehead. “Sleep bitch,” he said. Her vision flashed yellow and blue from the blow. She withdrew her hand, bit her lip and waited.

  Outside the sky was dark. No moon rode the clouds yet. Later it would rise, but no longer full. He breathed heavily. And she waited. He turned over and his arm flopped. She waited still. Then his chest rose in a regular rhythm and his snores came repeatedly. Her hand drifted towards the knife, and she clasped the hilt. She brought it to her chest and still she didn’t move. She lay there with the knife in her hand staring at the dark ceiling. If any help was coming from the gods, then this was the time — some miracle to stop her from having to kill. But she realised that was just cowardice.

  She wanted him dead; she wanted revenge — she was just too scared to do it herself. She waited still as if divine intervention was on its way. She heard the wind in the trees outside. She held her breath and then turned on her left side; the knife clasped in her right hand. Her hand was sweaty on the grip. She held it so tight her fingers started to go numb and then quietly she raised it. She would stab him in the throat.

  She saw his dark shape beside her. He was on his back. She could see his nose and beard silhouetted. She took the knife high and brought it down with all her strength. But before it struck, she held it back. She gasped. She was no killer. But he was. He woke out of sleep instantly and smashed her hand away, sending the bla
de spinning into the dark room.

  Then he heaved her out of bed, lifting her with both hands and throwing her across the room. She smashed into the table and she knew she was injured. He covered the ground in an instant. He picked her up with both hands and raised her to slam her against the turf wall of the cottage. He held her there while he drew his head back and butted her - breaking her nose. The pain flashed through her and blood ran down the back of her mouth and from her nostrils, making it hard for her to breathe. She threshed her head this way and that but he had her by the throat.

  “You whore,” he snarled. “That’s what I get for trusting you.”

  Then he dropped her. She fell heavily to the ground. “You’re lucky I need someone to clean for me. But from now on you’ll be wearing a rope round your ankle to stop you getting up to any mischief.” He took her and bundled her naked out of the door, back to the dog pen. “And this is where you’ll always sleep.” He shook his head, as if in regret. “To think I let you share my bed,” he said. He threw her into the pen and roped the door shut. “I’m just too good natured,” he said. Then he spat. “You won’t take advantage of me again that way,” and he turned and walked away.

  The pain in Rebecca’s nose was like someone digging a hole in her face with an axe. She couldn’t sleep because of it and she saw the dawn crawl up through the trees to the east. Inside, Gowan Fell slept on. She heard him snore. She gripped tight onto the wooden poles that made up her cage. Half-congealed clots of blood came out of her mouth and she gingerly wiped them away to avoid jolting the broken bone. Her own dried blood smeared her chest. She bowed her head against them. Gowan Fell had won and her father would lie their rotting in the wood with no one to revenge him.

  He opened the door of her pen around mid-day. “Cook,” he said.

  “I have nothing to cook with.” Her voice sounded strange because he had broken her nose.

  Seeing the mess, he said, “Wash your hands before you touch my food.” He prodded her to the door of the hut. Inside, there was a ewer of stream water that she herself had carried. She would have to fetch more for him later. While she washed her hands and tried to clean her face, he made a rough loop of rope and pulled it tight around her right ankle. He tied the other end to the cruck that held up the hovel, bedded deep in the ground. She couldn’t move it.

  He threw her a dead rabbit. “Skin that.”

  “The knife...” she said.

  He stooped and picked it up from the floor where it had landed when he knocked it out of her hand. “You should know by now Rebecca, there is no weapon that will allow you to best me. If you try to misuse the knife again, I will break your fingers one by one and then I will snap your wrist. Do you understand?”

  She nodded. Her nose was agony.

  “Can I put my dress on?” She asked.

  He shook his head. “It suits me to watch you naked.”

  So she skinned the rabbit. She said, “I need onions, from the garden.”

  He grunted, displeased, but then untied the rope. He watched her as she went into the garden and followed her as she went to the vegetable patch. There, to her amazement, the honeysuckle and the rose were growing. They had rooted overnight in some miracle and grew twisted around each other. She gasped.

  “What?” he said.

  “I stepped on a stone. It hurt.”

  “Weakling.” He laughed, but he accepted the explanation. She gathered some onions from the dirt and brought them back to the hovel under his watchful eye. Just as she turned the corner, she glanced back at the rose and honeysuckle, unable to believe they were growing where she’d planted them.

  She made him food, and he ate it greedily. He offered her none.

  She asked, “What about me? I must eat if I am to work.”

  He shook his head. “Not yet. You’re not hungry enough yet,” and he sent her naked back to her pen.

  The pain in her nose was still there but had lessened so she got some sleep. The next few days were the same until it was time for him to put on his fair clothes and go back to Hawkshead hunting for women. He made her cook him porridge for breakfast, sweetened with honey she had collected from a bees’ nest in the tree near the little hill before he imprisoned her. He was there in his finery and she still naked, covered in dirt with the remains of her smeared blood on her face and chest. He let her scrape out the porridge bowl and sneered as she gobbled it hungrily.

  It was then that there was a knock at the rough door of the cottage.

  “Who’s there?” snarled Gowan Fell.

  A woman’s voice answered. “I am looking for the charcoal burner.” Rebecca saw the interest in Gowan’s face when he heard a female voice, though she knew he had no time for women he considered unattractive and would treat them badly.

  “I am the charcoal burner, Gowan Fell,” he said, and he opened the door.

  A young woman with orange red hair and green eyes stood there. She was of medium height but slim. Rebecca saw Gowan’s eyes measure up her figure. He smiled. He must like what he saw, she thought. The woman wore a white gown. Rebecca wondered how it was not covered with mud and moss from being in the wood. The woman looked first at Gowan and smiled. then she glanced around the room and met Rebecca’s eyes. Rebecca put her hands to cover herself and she looked down. What must this beauty think of her standing, naked, dirty and bloodied, with black eyes and a livid purple bruise across her face? But the woman said nothing.

  Gowan stepped outside and half closed the door. Rebecca couldn’t see them now but she could hear. He said, “And what does a lady in her fine clothes want with a charcoal burner?”

  “My father sent me with an errand. He owns a smokery in the village and has contracts with Lowthers to provide them smoked meat. But our usual supplier let us down so he sent me here to find you.”

  “He sent a pretty thing like you into the forest on her own?” Gowan flirted with her. “He was risking something valuable.”

  Rebecca heard the woman laugh. “I’m not frightened of the forest, Gowan Fell. I was born here. It cares for me.”

  “It’s not the Forest, you should be frightened of,” said Gowan Fell.

  “Then what?”

  “Me.”

  She laughed again. “And what harm would you do me, Gowan Fell?”

  He said, “Only what you secretly want me to do.”

  The woman laughed again, but lower. “So you are interested in my father’s contract?”

  “I’m more interested in his daughter.”

  “You’ll have to woo me,” she said.

  “I can do that. I have what all women want.”

  “We shall see about that. Can you sing me a song?”

  He laughed. “I’m no bard. I’m a real man not a song maker.”

  “Can you make things with your hands from wood?”

  “No, but I can break them easily enough.”

  “In the village they say you have a secret,” she said.

  “Oh?” Rebecca could hear the self-love in his voice. He would think it was a compliment.

  “Yes,” the woman said, “They say you are one of the Folk.”

  Gowan paused but did not deny it, then said, “And you would like that - to be taken by a wolf?”

  She said, “Come for a walk with me.”

  “Where?”

  “There is a place where the two streams meet, where the oak gives way to the ash. There is a stone shot with crystal that stands in the water.”

  “I know it. But I won’t go there. That place is full of witchery.”

  “Walk some way into the woods with me then. There is a place before that one, where we can lie down.”

  “I like the sound of that. Let’s go.”

  Rebecca heard the eagerness in his voice.

  “But the girl,” the woman said, “The one you keep naked in your hut. Will she be safe?”

  “Safer without me than with me,” he said. “Besides, she is just a maid. If anything happened to her, you could take her
place.”

  Rebecca didn’t hear the woman’s reply, but she heard Gowan Fell’s laughter as he followed her into the forest.

  Even with them gone, Rebecca was still stuck - tied by her ankle. She couldn’t untie the knot because he’d made it fast with his beast strength. But then she remembered her father’s knife. In his eagerness to be with the woman, Gowan had forgotten it was there.

  The rope was long enough to get to the table where the knife lay. She cut the rope with the knife, found her dress, and put it on. She took Kirsten’s dolly from where it lay in the dirt and she stuffed it in her pocket. She gazed at her dead father’s knife in her hand. She’d been a fool to trust her own strength and cleverness when she’d try to kill him. She knew now she couldn’t beat him on her own. She thought of running home. There she would get men of the hamlet where her mother and sister were and she would tell them that Gowan Fell was a wolf and that he murdered women and he had killed her own dear father. Then they would return with fire and strong as he was, he couldn’t beat all of them.

  But then she thought of the poor woman. She might just be another foolish girl, but she was not safe in the woods with Gowan Fell, no matter how clever or strong she thought she was. He was a beast and his strength would overcome her. Rebecca couldn’t leave her to suffer as he’d made her suffer. She began to run to her own hamlet to get help. But she had not gone far before she realised that she could not get to the hamlet and get back with help before Gowan would have done what he wanted to the woman. So when she got to where the paths split, instead of running home, she went into the woods. The knife was in her hand. Rebecca knew she had to try to save the girl, even if she died in the attempt.

  So she ran as quietly as she could along the woodland path towards the crystal stone and the confluence of the two streams. And then she heard laughter, both a man’s and a woman’s. She slowed down and went quietly. She shifted the knife into a downward grip, the better to stab him with, but her hand was shaking and she doubted she could do it. She thought of just grabbing the girl and pulling her after her to safety. But he was fast. He ran with a wolf’s speed. She feared he would catch them, but she could not let another innocent suffer at his hand.