The Hollow Tree

by James Brogden

  ‘God knows where Dad got this from,’ said Tom. The prefab was the cleanest, he told them, and when he showed Rachel inside it made her wonder what the caravan was like. He’d cleared up the worst of the mess, but it still bore obvious signs of having accommodated itinerant young seasonal workers with no responsibilities, high spirits and dubious hygiene practices. The interior walls were made of plywood, and some of the light fittings were so ancient they were actually made of Bakelite.

  The first thing she did was open a window.

  ‘There’s mains water and power on an extension from the office,’ Tom explained, showing them past the small kitchen. ‘And a full canister of camping gas for cooking and hot water. Lounge is through there. There’s even a bath.’ He opened a door onto an avocado-coloured bathroom with a short bath, a rubber shower attachment which fitted over the taps, and a sink, all of which looked like they gave worse than they got. ‘Chemical loo, main bedroom here, spare at the back.’

  ‘Let’s hope we don’t need to be here long enough to have to actually use any of this,’ Rachel said.

  ‘Me and the lads will stay in the caravan next door. But you know I’m not happy about it.’ Annabel had been extremely reluctant to accept Tom’s original suggestion that he stay in the prefab with them, but he’d grudgingly acquiesced to the peculiar aura of almost regal authority which she bore about her.

  ‘I know,’ said Rachel. ‘But you’re literally only a few metres away and I don’t think either of us is going to be falling asleep, somehow.’

  When he’d gone, Annabel busied herself redrawing her patrin on the front door and hanging the others in the windows, and then started cleaning the prefab while Rachel checked her newsfeeds. The obelisk murder was everywhere, the absence of any new information filled in with endless vox pops of dog-walkers and residents saying How Terrible It All Was and How You Just Didn’t Expect This Sort of Thing Around Here, along with lurid click-bait sensationalism and conspiracy theories in which the original Oak Mary mystery featured prominently. The famous photos of her skull were shared and re-shared and gained thousands of likes as the competing theories about her identity were trotted out, none of which seemed to bear any relation to the young woman humming to herself as she swept floors and scrubbed surfaces.

  The case for ‘Mary’ being a victim of witchcraft, or even a witch herself, Rachel read, is too wonderfully lurid and sensational to bother with anything so inconvenient as a total lack of evidence, either of witchcraft having been practised in the area, or of gypsy communities living locally. Why would a coven of witches pick such a heavily frequented part of the hills, popular with day-trippers, for any kind of ritual, never mind human sacrifice, when there are many more obscure patches of woodland within easy reach? As to the presence of gypsy communities – either Romani or Irish Traveller – wartime census data gives us no reason to believe that these people settled anywhere other than the Black Country districts traditional to them.

  There was a lot more like this on the Hollow Isle website, and Rachel lost herself in the maze of links and references. The Oak Mary mystery went a lot wider than a simple historical curiosity; there were poems, stories, and even fan art. A play had been taken on a short-lived but critically well-received national tour, and a long-running BBC detective series, set post-war, had used the ‘spy’ theory of Mary’s identity as its narrative hook. Spy Mary had been played by a little-known actor at the time who had subsequently gone on to star in a string of successful Hollywood blockbusters, and Rachel was looking up her profile on IMDb when the realisation hit: Mary was a celebrity, of sorts. Not film-star famous, obviously, or as well known as the victims of Jack the Ripper, but still a celebrity in the sense that she had a public, online identity quite separate from her true one, which in any case was non-existent. Look at stars like Bowie and Prince, she thought, changing their names, appearances, even their sexualities like a painter choosing a palette, assembling identities out of art and pop-culture references. Who had they been in their private moments? Had they ever lost their sense of themselves and had to turn to other people’s stories about them to anchor their identities? If there is an afterlife, the celebrant at her dad’s funeral had said, it exists in the stories told about us by those we leave behind.

  Even if she could provide incontrovertible DNA evidence that Annabel was the body in the tree, people still wouldn’t believe it. She decided not to trouble the body in question with what was happening in the digital world. The real one was proving to be dangerous enough.

  * * *

  There was a blackened patch of ground between the caravan and the prefab where fires had been lit, and as the afternoon drifted into early evening the men brought over some wooden pallets and began breaking them up for firewood. Callum set up a tripod of metal poles over it with a length of chain and a hook hanging from the apex, and from this he hung a large cast-iron pot. Rachel, who had some experience of pulling things out of thin air, marvelled as he also produced onions, carrots, celery, potatoes, half a dozen different kinds of herbs and spices, and a large Tupperware box of raw lamb. There he paused. ‘I take it neither of you is a veggie?’ he asked, eyeing Rachel and Annabel with suspicion. They both said no. ‘Thank Christ for that.’

  Annabel took the chopping board and knife and started cutting up the vegetables.

  ‘Here, what d’you think you’re doing?’ Callum protested.

  ‘Making supper, what else?’ she replied.

  ‘Oh no you’re not, not with my knife.’ He reached over and took it out of her surprised fingers. ‘There’s only one chef around here and that’s me.’

  Annabel burst out laughing.

  ‘Oh and what’s so funny, exactly?’

  ‘You’re cooking! Over a fire!’

  ‘And?’

  ‘Well – you’re a man!’

  ‘I should feckin’ well hope so!’

  ‘She has somewhat traditional values,’ explained Rachel.

  ‘She sounds feckin’ Amish if you ask me. Well, she’s more than welcome to do the washing up if that’ll make her happy. In the meantime, keep your hands off my meat and two veg, thank you very much. Go and do some knitting or something.’

  The stew that Callum produced could have given a decent restaurant a run for its money, and the five of them sat back with full bellies and firelight on their faces, finding it hard to believe that there could be anything beyond the range of the flames that meant them harm. As conversation drifted, Annabel began to sing; it was soft and low, and in a language none of the others understood, and carried such a weight of melancholy that they found themselves haunted by it long after it was finished, each staring into the glowing embers, lost in their private thoughts.

  ‘What was that?’ asked Jeev.

  ‘Just a song my pop used to sing while we were travelling. It’s called the Romani Rai. It’s about the road and the sky and being your own man.’

  ‘It’s one of the most beautiful things I’ve ever heard.’ Jeev’s eyes were shining.

  Annabel blushed.

  Callum shoved Jeev sideways. ‘Give over, you big girl! Come on, you miserable feckers, let’s get this camp sorted out.’

  They decided to split the night into thirds, with each of the men taking a couple of hours to stand watch by the fire. When Rachel objected that she and Annabel were as capable of sentry duty as any of them, Tom took them out of earshot of the other men and pointed out that Annabel was the one they were supposed to be protecting, that as far as they knew Rachel was the only one that could hurt the lesh, and that having either woman alone was therefore not a good idea. Rachel couldn’t fault his logic.

  As she and Annabel were sorting out their sleeping bags in the prefab’s main bedroom, Rachel said, ‘I still think we should have let Tom sleep in here with us.’

  ‘Why? Do you want him to get hurt?’

  ‘God no!’

  ‘The lesh just wants me. It has no reason to go for anyone else unless they get in its way.’r />
  ‘You mean like that kid who it tore apart at the monument? It didn’t seem too picky then. What’s to stop it carving its way through everyone else before it gets to you?’

  ‘I don’t want to sound callous, Rachel, but if that’s what it’s going to do then we can’t stop it. If Tom were here he would want to defend us and then it most definitely would carve its way through him. Believe it or not this is the closest thing to keeping him out of harm’s way that I can think of, short of telling him to go home, and do you honestly think he’d do that?’

  ‘Never.’

  ‘Well then.’

  They busied themselves with their bedding in silence until Rachel said, ‘Annabel?’

  ‘Hmm?’

  ‘This is going to sound stupid.’

  ‘Probably. Say it anyway. I could do with a giggle.’

  ‘Cow. No, I mean back there, when you were singing – and last night, when you met Tom…’

  ‘Yes?’ Annabel stopped unrolling her sleeping bag and looked at her.

  ‘Did you… did you cast a spell on those men?’

  Annabel laughed. ‘What, because I am ze mysterious Gypsy Vitch?’

  ‘You’re right. It was stupid. Forget it.’

  ‘There are no such things as spells, Rachel.’

  ‘But there is magic.’

  Annabel considered this. ‘There are talents. If there are things you can do that nobody else can, like making something appear out of the air or making a man like you, is that any more magical than singing a song or cooking a nice meal?’

  ‘In that case, ladies and gentlemen,’ Rachel said, climbing into her sleeping bag, ‘prepare to be astounded as I demonstrate my uncanny talent for lying awake all night fretting about things I can’t control.’

  24

  ATTACK

  OAK MARY’S THREE DEATHS HAD WATCHED THE CAMP from the treeline since before nightfall. Twenty-four hours of fear and rumour about the murder at the obelisk had energised all three of them; the Green Man’s arm had healed and he was restless, shuffling from one foot to the other.

  ‘You’re afraid,’ the Small Man said, smiling.

  ‘I got you here,’ growled the Green Man. ‘Get me inside and we’ll see who fears who.’

  ‘So we’re agreed, then,’ said the Dark Man. ‘You draw the woman out, I neutralise her. You keep the others out of the way,’ he added to the Small Man.

  ‘Neutralise,’ snickered the Small Man. ‘Are you actually trying to sound like a cheap gangster? I still don’t see why we can’t just kill them all and have done with it.’

  ‘The more shades we make the more complicated it gets. We are already three when we should be one. How many deaths do you want to be?’

  ‘All of them, of course!’ grinned the Small Man. ‘I want to be the death of the whole world! Your problem is that you lack ambition.’

  ‘Very well, on your own head it is, then. You will have to answer for it.’

  ‘Not to you, though, brother.’

  The Green Man growled with impatience and sloped off into the trees.

  Once he was safely out of earshot the Dark Man turned to the Small Man. ‘Do you think he suspects?’

  ‘No!’ scoffed the Small Man. ‘I doubt that he’s thinking of anything much at all. Mary is the gypsy witch, he is her death, and he’s got the scent of her blood in his nose. He’s like a dog after a bitch in heat.’

  ‘Good then.’ The Dark Man drew his gun and moved towards the buildings.

  * * *

  All Callum knew was that Tom’s wife’s friend was being menaced by some dickhead of an ex-boyfriend and that the police were too useless to do anything about it; an assessment of the police that he wholeheartedly shared. He couldn’t see how the dickhead in question would have been able to find them all the way out here in the middle of nowhere, but crazy-jealous dickhead ex-boyfriends had a tendency to discover these kinds of things. The good news about them being out in the middle of nowhere was that any headlights coming down the road wouldn’t be there accidentally. That was why his attention – such as it was at three in the morning – was focused on the front gate to the yard, and not on the trees behind him, which was the direction his attacker came from.

  He was sitting cross-legged in front of the fire with his crossbow in his lap, and the first he knew about it was a heavy metallic click and something like the end of an iron bar pressing into the back of his head.

  ‘Yes, it’s a gun,’ said the accented voice of a man. ‘I doubt you were expecting that.’

  Callum froze.

  ‘Spit into the fire,’ said the voice.

  Callum didn’t know what the fuck was going on but he did as he was told, and spat into the embers.

  ‘You hear that sizzling sound?’ asked the voice. ‘That’s the sound your brains are going to make if I have to blow them out through your face. Nod if you understand.’

  Callum nodded. He could feel his bladder threatening to let go. ‘Listen, man—’

  The end of the barrel pressed harder, forcing his head down and forward, closer to the heat of the red-hot coals.

  ‘We are not here for you,’ said the man. ‘If I were you I wouldn’t do anything to change that. We only want the girl.’

  We?

  * * *

  The Small Man watched his companion drag the whimpering prisoner away with amusement. ‘Here,’ he offered. ‘Let me.’ He took hold of the human by the scruff of the neck.

  The Dark Man observed the knife in his other hand, and his lip curled. ‘You call it ambition – it’s bloodlust, plain and simple.’

  ‘You know what they say, to thine own self be true,’ the Small Man grinned.

  ‘Dress it up any way you like, it’s still unnecessary butchery.’ All the same, the Dark Man relinquished his captive. ‘But be quick about it, at least.’

  ‘Ja, mein herr.’

  The Small Man dragged the human into the bushes. His cheeriness had evaporated. ‘Plain and simple,’ he muttered. ‘I am neither of those things, brother.’ Safely out of sight, he flung the human down and waved at him with his knife. ‘Go on, bugger off. Get.’

  The human hesitated, obviously suspicious of a trap.

  ‘Go! Find a way to help your friends before I change my mind!’ He advanced a step with the blade and the man took to his heels.

  * * *

  The Green Man wedged a large length of fence post against the door of the caravan where the other two men were sleeping. Meanwhile the Dark Man inspected the symbols chalked on the door of the prefab with interest. They carried something of the same kind of charge that the monument graffiti did; no doubt they were intended to protect those inside from occult threats, and judging from the way the Green Man was hanging back and squinting sidelong at the door as if at something which blinded or burned, they were working quite well. But not against him, because he was not the gypsy witch’s death, nor was his small brother. They had no power over her, and so she had none over them.

  ‘Get me in,’ growled the Green Man.

  The Dark Man smiled and swiped the palm of his hand through the protective sigils, smearing the chalk, then turned to the Green Man with a wave of his pistol barrel. ‘After you.’

  * * *

  Despite being so tired that her eyeballs felt like marbles swivelling in sand, Rachel had thought she would be too stressed to sleep. Instead she was surprised to find herself dreaming that Tom was talking close to her ear, low and urgent: ‘Wake up, girl! Wake up!’

  She snapped awake, squirming into a sitting position. Other than the sleeping form of Annabel, she was alone. Her phone told her it was just after three. She parted the curtains a finger’s width and saw the low red glow of the fire between the caravan and their prefab. There was no sign of anyone sitting at it. She couldn’t remember who it should have been; maybe they were patrolling the yard, or having a whiz in the bushes. Maybe not.

  She shoved Annabel awake none too gently. ‘Wake up.’

  An
nabel knuckled sleep from her eyes. ‘What?’ When she realised what time it was she began cursing in Romani.

  ‘Never mind that,’ hissed Rachel. ‘Shut up and listen. Or use your Sight or whatever. Is it here?’

  Annabel scowled. ‘The Sight doesn’t have an on-switch, you know. Where are the men?’

  ‘I don’t know. What do we do?’

  ‘Trust to the patrin. And if they fail, we trust to your Touch. The lesh knows who it’s up against now, and it will be afraid.’

  ‘Fuck that,’ said Rachel, and reached for her phone.

  * * *

  Tom was dragged out of sleep by the buzzing of his phone. He blinked at the screen, first registering the time and then the caller.

  3:07.

  Rachel.

  Panic was an adrenaline spike to the heart, yanking him fully awake and he clutched the phone to his ear. ‘Rache! Are you okay?’

  Her breathing rasped down the receiver as if she had her phone cupped in her hand, trying to shield it. ‘I don’t know,’ she whispered. ‘I think…’

  Then there was a tremendous crash of splintering wood and a scream, both in stereo: from the phone at his ear and from outside, barely metres away.

  ‘Rache!’ he screamed, then ripped open his sleeping bag and leapt for the door, slapping Jeev to wake him up as he passed. He tore at the door handle. It moved, but the door didn’t. Something was jamming it closed from the outside.

  Then the screaming began in earnest.

  * * *

  ‘Annabel!’ called the Green Man. ‘Anna! I know you’re in there!’

  Annabel squeezed her eyes shut and wrapped her arms tightly about herself. ‘Sweet Mary Mother,’ she groaned. ‘It’s got his voice too.’

  Rachel knelt close and laid her hand on Annabel’s cheek, forcing her to look up. ‘It’s going to be okay,’ she said, with considerably more confidence than she felt. ‘He can’t get in. And if he does I’ll rip something off him a bit more precious than his bloody arm.’