Summer's Dark Waters

by Simon Williams

  But maybe I should just trust her.

  The boy’s voice faded slowly away, until Joe could hear only the faint sounds of wildlife and the distant hum of traffic over in the town.

  Trust her, he told himself.

  “Someone is telling me to come here,” he said, looking across at Amber.

  “Who would tell you to do that?” she frowned.

  “Someone... in my head,” he told her reluctantly. “There’s a voice, I can’t understand the words properly, but I just know that it’s telling me to come here...”

  “Oh Joe.” She gave him a look of dismay that made him wish immediately that he hadn’t said anything. His heart sank as she continued, “Please, you really need to talk to someone about this and get some help.”

  “It isn’t like that.” He shook his head. “It’s real. I’m not making it up. I should have known you wouldn’t believe me.”

  “I know you’re not making it up, I didn’t say that, what I meant was...”

  “It’s real.”

  Amber stared at him. “Come back with me,” she said eventually. “Let’s go back home, I mean to my place, and then maybe we can talk about all this, but you really need to talk to an adult, someone who knows what to do, because I honestly can’t think what I’m supposed to do about all this.”

  She paused, suddenly realising that she’d started to babble and say too much in a hurry. It was something she did when she was nervous or if she felt that a situation was getting out of control- and this one definitely was.

  “You don’t believe me,” he accused her.

  “Joe, I’m scared,” she confessed. “I believe that you believe it, but I’m worried about you and I don’t know what to do. I should have told someone about all this instead of coming with you and not telling anyone.”

  “You promised me,” he said flatly.

  And I wish I hadn’t, Amber thought miserably. She couldn’t think what to say to him, but Joe was staring across the lake, looking utterly lost in his thoughts once more.

  Or is he listening to that voice in his head even now? Amber wondered. The idea sent a chill through her.

  She felt helpless, trapped in her situation. If she told someone about what Joe had just said then he would probably never forgive her, and all sorts of things would happen to him. But if she didn’t tell anyone, what sort of harm might come to him? She couldn’t watch over him all the time. What if he started to get really ill and his behaviour got worse?

  All I can do is try to convince him that he needs to get help, she thought. I have to try, even if it means losing my best friend. I’m scared that I’ll lose him anyway if I do nothing.

  “What does the voice say?” she asked suddenly.

  Joe didn’t look as if he had heard her, so she cautiously touched his arm. He suddenly flinched, and looked at her as if he’d just woken up and found himself sitting by the lake.

  She repeated the question. “I just know that it told me to come here,” he said, “but I can’t understand a word it says.”

  “As if it’s speaking in a different language?” Amber asked him.

  Joe shook his head. “No, it’s as if it’s English, but something is stopping me from understanding the words. Like there’s some sort of interference.”

  They sat for a while longer. The sun began to hover lower over the tree line and the shadows it made grew longer. Amber couldn’t help but shiver at the sight of the dark areas between the trees. I don’t think I ever liked this lake, she thought, although I couldn’t say why.

  She thought back, remembering that a few other children at school had mentioned the lake from time to time and made up some stories about it. She was old enough to know that those stories couldn’t possibly be true of course, but that didn’t stop them being scary.

  She remembered one story in particular, about a creature that had the same shape as a man but the face of a horrible monster with sharp teeth and hot breath that smelled of blood. Amber thought that was the scariest one of all, because from a distance or maybe with the hood of its coat up, it might appear to be just an ordinary person.

  Then she started thinking bad thoughts about how some people might really be monsters even if they didn’t look like them. Maybe a monster in real life is just a really bad person, Amber thought. I know there are enough of them around. I watch the news.

  “It’s gone completely,” Joe said suddenly, making her jump.

  “Can we go back home?” she asked. With all her thoughts of monsters and people who hid the fact that they were monsters, Amber badly wanted to leave. She would have to be back before it got anywhere near dark anyway, and she knew that Joe would as well, or her dad and his aunt would start asking questions about where they had been, even more so after Joe swimming in the lake. Her stomach growled as she glanced at her watch and saw that it would be dinnertime soon.

  Joe said nothing. He got up and walked with her through the woods and back across the open field. Amber felt a lot calmer once they were back in the town with its lights and houses and familiar noises. She said goodbye to Joe and then jogged back to her house, hoping that he would remember to call her if he felt that he needed to return to the lake.

  Amber still had no idea what to do about Joe. Maybe all this will go away, she thought later as she sat watching television without really paying any attention to the programme. But she didn’t really believe that any of it would simply go away. From the little she knew about illnesses like this, people usually got worse and worse unless they were treated, and even then sometimes they would get worse anyway.

  Why would he suddenly get better when she was the only person who knew about his problems?

  Chapter 5

  Joe felt even more tired than usual that evening, and he went upstairs and straight to bed after dinner. The air felt warm and stuffy so he kept his window slightly open, but despite the light breeze outside and his exhaustion he still found it difficult to get to sleep at first.

  When Joe eventually did fall asleep, he dreamed that he was back at the lake, by himself.

  Part of him knew that he was dreaming, but he also suddenly had the idea that this dream could somehow tell him something about the lake and the voice, and maybe unlock the whole mystery.

  He looked around and noticed that the lake was so calm that he couldn’t even see a single ripple on its surface. The reflections of the trees and the sky were perfect. You never get days like this, he thought to himself.

  After a while he began walking along the path that led around to the other side of the lake before turning away from the lake altogether, towards a deeper, thicker part of the woodland. Soon the path disappeared altogether but he carried on walking anyway, stepping over fallen branches and thick, cruel-looking brambles. Every now and then a thorn would scratch his leg, but he didn’t feel any pain. He didn’t feel anything much at all except a need to walk as far into the heart of the woods as he could. He had no idea what he would find there or even if he would find anything.

  After a while the trees became so close-set and the cover of the leaves so thick that even though it was daytime in his dream Joe couldn’t see the way ahead very well. He walked through a kind of green darkness. Then he saw in front of him a huge tangle of brambles, ivy, holly and all sorts of other plants, twisted so tightly together that it looked as if there could be no way through, and that all these plants had pulled one another tightly together just to stop anyone getting past. You don’t want to go deeper into the woods, they seemed to say, as Joe listened to the sighing of the summer breeze in the treetops far above.

  Yes. I should go back, he thought as he looked at all the spikes and prickles that stood in his way, but even as he turned around he saw that the way back looked a lot more choked with plant life than it had before. Old rotten trees that had fallen down blocked his path, and in the distance he saw a few old moss-covered stone walls, as if ancient buildings had started to appear from out of the earth. They definitely had not been there
before. The brambles that he had managed to push carefully aside or step over on his way here now looked much bigger, their thorns like great big needles jutting out from thick, swollen stems.

  Joe felt confused by these changes but not entirely frightened. That part of him that knew this was a dream, no matter how real it might become, spoke to him and somehow reassured him.

  He turned around again to look at the thick and knotted plants in his way. After a while he stepped forward, and to his surprise the thick tendrils of bramble and ivy and other plants moved aside slightly, allowing him just enough room to squeeze through. After a moment he stepped forward and carefully made his way through the tangle. I hope it doesn’t start to close in around me, he thought. But luckily it didn’t. If anything the plants seemed to shrink back even further as he passed through.

  Then he saw a boy of around his own age up ahead, sitting on the ground and leaning against a tree. His head was bowed and his chest moved up and down rapidly, as if he had been running quickly and was now resting.

  Joe crept closer. The boy didn’t appear to have seen him. His hair, which was black and about shoulder length, hung over his face, so not much of his features could be seen.

  As he walked closer still, Joe suddenly realised that the boy was whispering to himself. He stopped walking towards him and listened, trying to make out the words. After a while he heard them more clearly, but they still didn’t make any sense.

  I know his voice, Joe thought suddenly.

  It’s the same voice I heard in my head when I was by the lake. But even now when he’s here in front of me I still can’t make out what he means.

  Joe took a step back, not sure whether he ought to be afraid or not.

  The boy looked up suddenly, his eyes bright and intent. Joe stumbled backwards, recognising them.

  They were the same eyes that had stared out from his reflection in the mirror the other day.

  Joe sat bolt upright in bed, awake and alert, breathing far more quickly than he had thought possible. His heart beat so strongly and swiftly he could feel his pulse throughout his body. He didn’t feel tired at all. He felt as if he could jump out of bed and run ten miles and still not get tired. A secret switch had suddenly turned on inside his body, flooding it with a strange energy that he could never have imagined.

  That felt so real, he thought, and he shivered despite the warmth of the still night air. Now I’m certain that he really does exist. He’s out there somewhere and I think he’s trying to ask for my help.

  Joe glanced at the window, and for a moment imagined the boy from his dream standing outside and staring up at it or even climbing the wall of the house.

  Stop imagining it, he thought. You’re just making things worse.

  Even so, for a moment he thought about closing the window.

  Chapter 6

  The following morning Joe rang Amber. She had only just finished her breakfast, although she didn’t have much of an appetite at the moment because she was still worried about Joe and what to do about him.

  “Can you come with me?” he asked straight away.

  “Okay,” she said, throwing a quick glance towards her dad, who was working on his laptop in the living-room and wearing a frown of deep concentration.

  “I’m just going out to play,” she said as soon as she had hung up.

  “Be back in time for lunch, won’t you?” her dad said without looking up from the screen.

  “I will,” she said, wondering at the same time how long it would take. She couldn’t make him suspicious by being late back, but she couldn’t leave Joe by the lake either. I think this is all getting too complicated, she thought, and sighed. She still couldn’t think what the best thing to do might be and there was no way she could get advice from anyone.

  She met Joe just inside the field and they headed on towards the woods. “It isn’t the voice this time,” he said to her. “Well, not exactly. I need to find someone. I need to find the boy who speaks to me.”

  “Joe, I don’t think he exists,” Amber said, and when he looked at her she immediately wondered if she had said the wrong thing.

  “I’m not making him up,” Joe said quietly. “Is that what you think?”

  “No, of course not. I know that you think he exists.” Amber shrugged helplessly. “Joe, what if he’s just a voice?”

  “How can someone be just a voice?”

  And how can a voice in your head be a real person? she silently answered, but she decided not to say that. Arguing with him wasn’t going to get her anywhere.

  “Maybe you’re right,” she said reluctantly, and that seemed to satisfy him.

  They walked on into the woods, and this time Joe took a path that led alongside the lake and then away from it into an area that lay thick with brambles, nettles and other plants. The path was narrow and it didn’t look as if anyone used it very often.

  “Why are we going this way?” she asked, carefully picking her way through clumps of nettles as high as her waist.

  “This will be where we can find him,” Joe said simply.

  And what do we do when we don’t find him? Amber wondered worriedly. How long will you wait for someone who’s never going to turn up?

  The path became narrower and more overgrown, and less sunlight made its way down to the woodland floor as they pressed on. It was a warm day once again, but Amber found herself shivering a little as they pressed on through the shadowy woods, swatting away flies and midges from in front of her eyes.

  Joe stopped so suddenly in front of her that she almost walked into him. “There he is,” he whispered, and pointed up ahead. Amber looked and to her shock she saw a boy about their own age, sitting at the foot of an old oak tree.

  But that could be anyone, she thought suddenly, and wondered if Joe might have pointed to whoever he saw first, no matter who it might be, claiming that that person was the owner of the voice.

  Joe walked on towards the boy a little more slowly, as if he might be worried about scaring him away. After a while the boy looked up, and Amber thought he did look a bit scared. The oddest thing was that he looked at her rather than Joe, and seemed to be confused about something.

  “Who is she?” he asked Joe, who looked taken aback at first and then answered, “She’s Amber. She’s my best friend. You can trust her.” Then he looked lost for words, perhaps even amazed that he had said anything at all.

  “I couldn’t understand what you were saying, when you spoke to me,” Joe said, and when the boy replied, Amber’s sense of shock only deepened. This boy really had spoken to Joe inside his head somehow!

  “Something was getting in the way,” the boy said. “But it doesn’t matter now. We’re lucky that the dream worked. I had no other choice.”

  “I had a dream last night. That’s why I knew to come here,” Joe said to Amber as if that might make as much sense to her as it apparently did to him. But it didn’t. Amber found herself struggling to keep from laughing out loud at the strangeness of this whole situation. How could any of this be possible? Might it all be some trick that Joe and this boy had thought up together for some reason?

  No, she decided. Joe wouldn’t do that. He never plays tricks on anyone.

  But if it isn’t a trick, then that must mean it’s all real, that this boy somehow was able to talk to Joe inside his head, and somehow even affect his dreams!

  And that can’t be possible.

  Amber stared doubtfully at the boy. He looked strange. Really strange, almost as if he had been brought here from another world or at least another time. She couldn’t work out where he was from by his accent, which wasn’t like any other she had ever heard. His clothes were all wrong, somehow- his shoes looked like those simple, held-together-with-string shoes that people might have worn long ago. His hair was a mess- it looked as if it had been cut with a knife rather than a pair of scissors.

  “Which school do you go to?” she asked him.

  He glanced back at her. “I don’t go to scho
ol. That’s not why I’m here.”

  “So you’re homeschooled then?” Somehow Amber doubted that.

  He shook his head.

  “What about your family? You do have family, don’t you?”

  “No. Not for a long time. I’m the last one.”

  Amber didn’t know what to make of that. She looked at Joe, who just shrugged.

  “So what’s your name?” she asked him eventually.

  “Mark,” he said.

  “Mark?” Amber thought that was a bit of an odd name. Who called their children Mark these days? One of her dad’s friends was called Mark.

  “I don’t understand any of this,” Amber said, frowning as she tried to work it all out. “I mean, how long have you lived here? What do you do in the winter? It must be too cold to hide here then, so where do you go?”

  He stared at her for a moment, but to Amber it was as if he looked right through her as if she wasn’t there at all. “I don’t feel the cold,” he said finally. “I can see it, but I can’t feel it.”

  Amber stared at him. “Really? So you stay here all winter, even when it’s frosty or snowing?”

  “I don’t feel the cold,” he repeated.

  “Where are you from?”

  “It’s difficult to explain. It doesn’t really matter where I’m from. It just matters that I’m here.”

  “Right.” He’s lying about everything, Amber thought. He must be. Everyone feels the cold. Maybe he’s from a children’s home or something and doesn’t want to say, and that’s why he won’t say where he’s from.

  Maybe he ran away.

  She didn’t know whether to feel suspicious or just sorry for him. Maybe he’ll tell us in his own time, she thought, if I stop asking him so many questions. I don’t suppose I’d like it if someone I’d only just met kept asking me things.