Darkly Wood

by Power, Max

  “You caught me!” Benjamin interrupted her and she liked that he didn’t pretend to be cleverer than he was. “You’re right, I think. That one is a chestnut although someone did tell me that the trees here were mainly oak and sycamore. I was just trying to sound like I knew what I was talking about. After all, I am supposed to be showing you around!”

  Once again, they found themselves laughing together. It was nice. Benjamin was nice. Something suddenly occurred to Daisy and the thought just came from nowhere. It was typical Daisy. Once a notion struck her, off she would go. She stopped laughing.

  “I found a book!” Daisy announced, completely and almost rudely changing the subject. Benjamin didn’t seem to mind. She was distracted by her latest thought so off she went.

  “It’s full of creepy stories about this place” she told him somewhat excitedly.

  “Ah!” was all that Benjamin said and he kicked the grass absent-mindedly with his right foot, hooking his arms behind his back.

  “What do you mean Ah?” she asked managing to sound offended.

  Benjamin took a few paces away from her before he sat down on the stump of a long fallen tree. Daisy noticed that it was damp and it looked like it could be crawling with all sorts of creepy crawlies, but Benjamin didn’t seem to care. He sat there anyway.

  “The stories.” he simply replied, although his tone sounded slightly odd. “Everyone in Cranby knows the stories about this place.”

  “Yeah the stories! Lord Darkly, Libby and the others, are they true?” Daisy asked, intrigued and pleased that he knew of them.

  Benjamin looked at her and thought for a moment. She didn’t know what was coming. He stood up and walked over to her. Then he took her hand which quite surprised Daisy. It was the second time she had felt the touch of his hand and Daisy felt a little giddy. He led her forward until they stood at the very edge of the Wood and then he released his gentle grip on her fingers.

  “Look!” He instructed her. “Look into the Wood.”

  It seemed an odd request and just as she had done moments before, now it was Benjamin who seemed to be changing the subject. Nonetheless, Daisy did as he asked. At first, all she saw were the beautiful trees that marked the boundary around the edge of the Wood, to the left and to the right. There seemed nothing unusual about this place. It was a forest. She looked at Benjamin, puzzled.

  “Walk a few paces in,” he told her, “stand beneath that chestnut tree out of the glare of the sun and look. Look closely.” He pointed at a rather enormous Horse Chestnut tree.

  Daisy thought he was behaving strangely and snaffled a little laugh, half snorting, half giggling at the embarrassment of the moment, but Benjamin seemed quite serious. He stood there looking at her with a serious face, waiting. She felt a little silly and was afraid that he might be trying to make a fool out of her. Daisy wanted to trust him.

  “Go on!” He urged her gently and this time, without knowing why, trusting him, she did as she was told.

  Daisy walked forward a few paces, tentatively looking back at Benjamin with a bemused smile on her face, until she was completely beneath the shade of the tree and out of the sun’s direct light and warmth. She looked deeper into the Wood as Benjamin had asked and noticed that the large trees at the edge of the Wood, quickly thinned out into smaller thinner based trees and there were lots of brambles, hawthorn and thorny bushes competing to fill the spaces in between. But there was more. She had to squint to focus, but as her eyes adjusted to the darkness that closed in beyond the first layer of trees, there seemed to be an impenetrable wall of thick woody brush, unlike anything she had ever seen just beyond the first wall of trees. It was, as though someone had built a forest fortress to keep everyone out, to keep them from finding what secrets lay at its heart.

  The day was warm and bright, but Daisy began to feel darkness close in around her and an icy chill crept along the forest floor about her ankles. She felt goose pimples on her arms even through her hoody and for some unknown reason, she became a little frightened. Daisy turned to speak to Benjamin but he had disappeared. She whipped her head left and right, but he was gone. Daisy felt a surge of panic and in an uncharacteristic reaction, took flight. Without hesitation, she ran the few yards back into the sunlight and out of the clutches of the imposing Wood. It was instinct that drove her and her instinct was good.

  “Daisy May!”

  He called her by her full name and she instantly turned toward the sound of his voice. Benjamin was standing a little further along the path at the edge of the Wood, with his hands in his pockets. He hadn’t disappeared. Benjamin had just moved a few paces out of her eye line through the trees. She hadn’t seen him in her panic.

  “You alright?” he asked in a concerned voice and walked towards her.

  Daisy was panting. She had only run a couple of steps but that wasn’t the reason for her breathlessness. It was fear that took her breath away, or at least that’s what she hoped it was. Daisy touched her jeans pocket and felt the reassurance of the shape that told her she hadn’t forgotten her inhaler. For the moment she was alright. Hopefully it wouldn’t be needed. For some reason she felt embarrassed to take out her inhaler in front of Benjamin. Usually, Daisy didn’t care who saw her use the inhaler, but somehow she didn’t want Benjamin to see. Daisy tried to compose herself as she felt a little silly.

  “I’m fine,” she answered trying not to show her fear.

  Benjamin could have said many things but he chose his words carefully.

  “Tell me now. What do you think?”

  “What do I think?” Daisy didn’t get the question. She was still trying to recover from her little fright, still trying to compose herself.

  “What do you think?” He repeated before elaborating, “About the stories? What do you think about the stories now Daisy May?” He went further, “Now that you’ve looked inside?”

  She looked at him with suspicion. He pushed her a little for an answer, as he walked towards her.

  “You asked me if the stories were true.” Benjamin walked with a confident swing of his arms. “I’m not sure. People say they are, but some of them could just be folklore and the rest? Well, who knows?” He stopped walking and brushed the tips of the long wild grass that grew hip high at the edge of the wood. “But step into the wood, just off the path a little and you can feel it, can’t you?”

  Though he looked calm as he gently brushed the top of the long grass, Benjamin’s voice gave something away. He sounded a little excited. Benjamin seemed to like the idea of the stories. It was something that they had in common and having only just met, that was something to hang onto. New friends are exciting, but it can be hard work. A common interest always makes life easier. Daisy liked the stories too and she certainly had felt something back there beyond the tree line.

  “Well it is a little scary!” she admitted.

  Benjamin laughed.

  “A little scary! You should have seen your face a minute ago.” He made a mock frightened face.

  “Yeah I know but,” she answered, “it all seems a little well...” She couldn’t find the words. Benjamin found them for her.

  “A bit - Little Red Riding Hood?” he suggested.

  It was a funny thing to say, but he was right. The whole notion was somewhat hard to swallow. She knew what he meant though and answered him with her own comparison.

  “They’re a bit - Hansel and Gretel?” The joke exchange was nice light relief. He walked right up to her.

  “Don’t be silly” he said and for the third time she felt his hand on hers as he took it with confidence and held it for the briefest of moments as he said, “they were brother and sister.”

  There was a moment where Daisy looked into his eyes and it was a wonderful moment. She could have stood there staring into those beautiful sad eyes forever, but Benjamin broke the moment. He let her hand go and turned his back on her, skipping a few paces away forced to bring his knees up high in the long grass before turning to Daisy and teasing.<
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  “Race you to the top of the hill?”

  He turned again and began to run, but Daisy didn’t move. She could still feel his hand on hers and her heart was thumping so fast, that her head rushed with blood. After her stunned moment of hesitation, Daisy was about to take off after him but something stopped her. There was a sound, a voice, calling softly. It was ever so distant and faint but there was no doubting the sound of her name. The voice sounded familiar but was too soft to recognise, almost a whisper on the breeze and she instinctively turned towards the direction of the sound.

  For the second time in the space of a few minutes, Daisy felt goose pimples run up and down along her arms. This time however they ran right down her spine. As she turned her head, she caught a movement, just the barest sight of a boy. It was the same boy she had seen once before on the day of her arrival to Cranby. She hardly had time to catch a glimpse of him, though she felt certain it was him as he stepped out of the light and into the dark recesses of Darkly Wood, not twenty feet away from where she stood.

  “What is it?”

  The sound of Benjamin’s voice made her jump out of her skin. He had come back and he was standing at her shoulder, concern in his voice, a little breathless. When he had turned to see if Daisy was following him, Benjamin had seen her frozen to the spot and knew that something was wrong. He immediately ran back to see what was the matter.

  Daisy didn’t answer at first. She looked at him and her face was white with fright. Benjamin was shocked at her countenance. He put his arm around her, an act that a moment before would have caused her to perhaps faint with excitement but now seemed to be barely a comfort, at least initially. He squeezed slightly as if to say, ‘You’re OK, I’m here’ and she felt the blood return to her face. Daisy turned and pointed to the spot where she had seen the boy disappear into Darkly Wood and Benjamin followed the line of her arm, seeing nothing.

  “There!” she told him. “There was a boy just there.” She left her arm outstretched and looked from the empty space where she was pointing to Benjamin’s face and back again.

  “A boy?” he seemed confused as to why there should be something wrong with someone sharing the Wood with them on that day. She could see his confusion.

  “I’ve seen him before,” she tried to explain, “He wanted me to follow him.” Her words meant nothing to Benjamin. “There’s something not right. We have to go after him.”

  It was an odd thing to say, but Daisy was not acting in a very normal manner. Benjamin wanted to ask her to wait a moment, to relax and compose her thoughts before doing anything. He didn’t understand what she had seen. He had seen nothing, but he knew about Darkly Wood and he didn’t want her to go rushing off half-cocked.

  Benjamin was sure it was nothing more than Daisy’s imagination playing tricks on her, but he was afraid that it was something else. They had been drawn together these two, Benjamin was aware of the attraction but he felt in his heart that there was a deeper purpose to their meeting. Benjamin Blood believed in fate. He knew of fate. Bad things happen to good people he had once read and now, quite suddenly, Benjamin had a sense of foreboding like nothing he had felt in years.

  Destiny was not cast in stone. Sometimes it felt like it was for Benjamin, but he had to believe that nothing seemingly predetermined, could not be changed. He knew he had to stop Daisy from running off into the unknown, chasing shadows. Benjamin did not know why, but he was certain that only bad would come of this. So he wanted to stop her but before he could do or say anything, Daisy May Coppertop ran to where she said she had seen the boy vanish. She ran hard and fast, straight into Darkly Wood. Destiny it seemed was looming.

  CHAPTER EIGHT – ABEL

  Reverend Abel Gloom was crazy. Not wild and fun crazy. He was just plain crazy. No one really knew for sure if he was actually a man of the cloth, or if he just pretended to be, but there was one thing everyone was sure of and that was the indisputable fact, that the man was insane.

  He arrived in Cranby in 1989, and took up a room at the only lodging house in the village which was owned by Mrs. Joan Lowly. Mrs. Lowly was sixty eight years of age and a widow of twenty years. Her husband Walter had been a carpenter, too fond of drinking and smoking for his heart to last much beyond the forty eight years that it did. One of the most significant things about the woman was her dedication to her faith. Mrs. Lowly was a fierce Christian woman. No one doubted nor challenged her faith and her strict belief in Christian Charity.

  In other circumstances, Abel Gloom would have not have got one foot inside Mrs. Lowly’s door. It was his dusty cassock and white collar, frazzled and scuffed though they were, that saw him greeted with open arms at her lodging house. That he was somewhat deranged was immediately obvious to all and sundry but he was, as far as anyone could tell, (though many doubted) a genuine man of the cloth.

  According to Abel himself, he was not quite right lately. There had been years spent on missionary work, in the all sorts of strange and wonderful sounding places that had, by all accounts affected him somewhat. He had and this was from his own mouth, been unusually distracted and somewhat under the weather since his return. He was on what he called forced sabbatical, to get his head right. Besides, he seemed to have plenty of money to pay his way and after all, Mrs. Lowly couldn’t turn away a man of the cloth, no matter how ‘unusual’ he might be.

  “Sure weren’t most of them a little odd anyway” she would say as well as, “and who am I to judge.”

  Nonetheless, it wasn’t long before he began to stretch her patience to the limit. Initially he pretty much kept himself to himself. Unusually, he made Mrs. Lowly promise to never enter his room. He said that he was a very private person and as he was obsessively clean (His words and hard to believe given his outward appearance) the reverend said there would be no need for her to trouble herself. Mrs. Lowly found it hard to disagree with any member of the clergy, even a mad one and so she reluctantly agreed. It was a tough thing for her to do, for she was a woman with a particular interest in other people’s business despite her Christian ways. Not cleaning his room left little room to snoop, although she certainly would not have seen it that way. She took a healthy interest in her guests welfare that was all.

  Most of his time was spent away from his lodgings. He would take long walks, quite often up around Darkly Wood and he would disappear from one end of the day to the other, whenever he took off. In the evenings he would generally return for dinner and regale the poor woman with strange stories of his trips abroad. Mrs. Lowly was a modest woman whose furthest travels had been the occasional day trip to the sea-side. She had no interest in travelling to foreign countries. She just never had such ideas. Foreigners were fine in their place. She liked things to stay the same. Foreign lands were full of foreign people and foreign foods. No, abroad was not a place that she would have an interest in going. Mrs. Lowly didn’t like change.

  His stories, had they just been confined to the general description of the places alone, would in the overall sense of things have been quite exotic to her, all by themselves. But Abel Gloom went much further when he recalled his time in the missions. His tales were filled with stories of leprosy and plague. Stories of hunger that would break the heart of the hardest of men and frightening recollections of more frightening encounters with armed men and boys who fought without mercy or morals, in wars that seemed to have no beginning and no end. The reverend’s face always lit up when he told his stories, but by the same token, it darkened considerably when he spoke of the people he had seen suffer, particularly the children. Many thought it was perhaps these things that he had witnessed the horror and the terror, which marked him out as a little different. When his audience saw the change in him as he recounted the bad times, they could forgive his eccentricities.

  Each night after dinner except on Sundays, Abel took himself off to the local hostelry, ‘The Black Hound’ where he would repeat his encounters to the mainly male clientele who kept each other company in the bar. Abel seeme
d to like the company of men. It was perhaps not unusual for a man of his profession. Abel was always a little awkward around women. It was simply the way he had been brought up and educated. Women rarely factored into his life apart from his mother who, in herself was quite a distant woman. He spent little time in a parish before going on missionary work and his engagement with the fairer sex always left Abel a little uncomfortable.

  Nonetheless, it was not an obvious problem and few would have guessed that he had any discomfort in this area. Outwardly at least, Abel was at home in the company of all equally. He was so very eccentric and perhaps that helped disguise his misogyny. Ultimately the men whose company he sought out in the pub all liked him. They each thought he was crazy to a man, but he was an entertaining lunatic and his stories were truly exciting to listen to. Abel had a way of drawing you in and his voice was a story teller’s voice, deep and resonant. They could listen to him all night and indeed often did. Mad or not, there was no one who could tell a tale like Abel Gloom.

  What was most amazing about his stories was that they seemed to be never ending. Occasionally he would begin a story that he had told before always beginning with the words, “Did I tell you the one about...” or “Have I told you of the time...”

  If he had told that particular story before, someone would remind him that he had and instantly he would begin another completely fresh story. It was quite an incredible thing. His memory seemed infinite and his ability to conjure up something that had happened twenty years before in such great detail was awe inspiring. Most suspected that there was an element of exaggeration at times, but none suspected the terrible, painful truth.

  After the pub, Abel would sometimes go straight home a few sheets to the wind, often singing his way up the street and then up the stairs to bed. Sometimes he didn’t come home and Mrs. Lowly would sit up all night worrying about him. Although she would always ask the next day, she would never find out where he had been. Abel was not just a master story teller; he was also the master of evasion. Every now and then, he was found asleep the morning after a session in the pub in someone’s out house, or on a door step and he gradually became a source of gossip and speculation among the loose-lipped class of women that inhabited the town.