‘So there’s no truth in all this?’
‘I didn’t say that, lad.’
Ellis waits, wanting more.
The older man stares into the dwindling flames, lips pursed, contemplative. Then, ‘Booth’s right. Best not to speak of it.’
‘Why would the land be cursed?’
But Bestwicke won’t be drawn. ‘That’s enough, lad. It’s time I turned in.’
Ellis realises that Ravens has not come back. He gestures to the door. ‘Where’s he gone?’
‘Best not to ask,’ Bestwicke says, raising a brow. ‘Best not to know.’
Ellis stands anyway, stretching his legs, and wanders to the doorway.
‘Come back inside, lad. Leave ’em to it.’
He hears something above the crackle of flame and the buffet of wind – a scuffling, voices.
He follows his instinct, taking a few steps away from the fire, eyes adjusting to the dark. He’s certain now: he can hear a voice, a female voice. He knows it’s her.
‘I said no, Henry. Not now. That’s not why I came.’
He rounds the corner of the barn and sees them – two figures pressed up against the wall.
‘You’re drunk,’ she says.
‘That’s never stopped you before.’ Ravens holds her by the waist and pushes against her, trying for her mouth with his.
She struggles. ‘Leave me be . . .’
‘What’s the matter? I thought you’d be pleased to see me again.’
‘Just . . . not tonight.’
‘Come take a drink, then. That’ll warm you up.’
‘I told you, I’m not here for that.’
She pushes at his chest and Ravens sways, takes a step backwards. Ellis sees that the man’s breeches are unlaced and pulled open – that he’s ready for her.
‘What’s the matter with you, woman?’ Ravens moves closer again, hands on either side of her, so she cannot escape.
Ellis steps forward, making a crunch in the dirt, and the pair of them snap their heads in his direction.
‘Christ, man, get away!’
Ellis says nothing, just stands and stares.
Then she ducks beneath Ravens’s arm, out from under his grip and slips away. Ravens curses but makes no attempt to stop her.
As she comes past him, refusing to meet his eye, she gathers the flaps of her coat about her, but not before he glimpses the white fabric of an unlaced nightgown and a sliver of silvery skin.
Chapter 8
The lambs come thick and fast. For the next few weeks Ellis goes to bed late and wakes early. Life shrinks to nothing but the touch of slick new bodies, the stench of blood and sheep shit, days measured in the rapid pulsing of tiny heartbeats.
Some time towards the end of March, the murk lifts to reveal a pale blue, cloud-streaked sky. He’s woken by the chatter of starlings in the beams of the hayloft and is out with the dawn. The air is sharp and bright, smelling of damp earth and dew-soaked grass. Green weeds nose their way through the soil. Crows squabble in the copse. Hens scratch and chuckle, skittering from beneath his feet as he makes his way to the byre. He has come to treasure the brief snatches of time when he’s alone: early mornings and wakeful nights.
He leans on the willow gate, watching the new mothers feed their young. Two newborns that must have come in the night, still bloodstained and unsteady on brand-new legs, try to suckle, tails wagging. He notices one ewe, standing alone in the corner, pawing the ground – it’s her turn this morning. He counts them. Pauses. Counts again.
He walks the length of the fence, checking for gaps.
She and Garrick come out of the house and make their way towards him.
Garrick greets him with a nod.
There is no point in hiding it. ‘There’s two missing, a ewe and her lamb,’ he tells them.
He waits while Garrick takes this in and runs his eye over the sheep in the byre. Mercy stares at him, suspicious. No doubt she’ll find a way to blame him for this.
‘Have you checked the fences?’ Garrick asks.
‘No breaches. The gate was tied fast.’
‘Did you keep a watch in the night?’
‘Of course.’
They are silent awhile. He knows what they are both thinking: thieves. But no sheep thief worth his salt would be satisfied with one old ewe and her newborn – more likely passing vagrants, desperate for meat.
‘I’ll check on the fell, in case they got out somehow,’ she says to Garrick, nodding towards the paining ewe. ‘You look to things here. I’ll take Bracken.’
‘Take Ferreby too,’ Garrick says. ‘Cover the ground faster with two.’
She does not reply. She glances dismissively in his direction, then stalks off to fetch the dog.
‘Go with her,’ Garrick says quietly. ‘Do as she asks and she’ll warm to you in time.’
They spend a couple of hours searching the land above the Hall. No conversation passes between them. For the most part, she is too far distant to speak, so he watches carefully and takes his cues from her.
Long morning shadows begin to shrink. They check every ditch and beck that criss-crosses the fell side, flowing down to meet the stream in the valley bottom. In one lea he finds the skeleton of a hare, bones stripped and curd-white, and a scattering of feathers where a fox has taken a bird. But there’s no sign of the ewe or her lamb.
She leads him up onto the moor top. The ground is hard going here, sodden with the last of the melting snow, the sleeping heather rising in thawing clumps to turn and snap ankles. On the crest of the hill the ancient circle of pale, weathered stone stands sentinel over the moor.
Mercy is ahead of him. He sees her start at a sudden flurry of wings: a curlew rising from the undergrowth, its call unearthly. The dog runs after it, snapping at the air, a streak of tan fur. When the creature reaches the stone circle it stops, sniffs at something on the ground, then yelps, bounds away and back again.
Mercy beckons. He picks up his pace.
The dog has found the lamb. Its small body is torn almost in two, oily guts oozing, though the flesh of its shoulders and hindquarters seem untouched. Its eyes are closed, tongue lolling in a twisted smile. It might be comic if it weren’t so grotesque.
But one lamb looks much like another. ‘Are you sure it’s yours?’ he asks.
She nods. ‘Bracken knows the scent.’
He looks about, taking in the wide sweep of hillside and valley, the waste of moorland, and beyond that, on all sides, miles and miles of fell and dale. Below, the Booth land falls away, stretching back down to the fields, dotted now with tiny white specks of fleece. Lazy peat smoke rises from the chimneys of Scarcross Hall. There is no sign of the mother. He’s found the remains of plenty of lambs before, mostly just a few bones to tell their fate.
‘If a fox took it, why bring it up here?’ he says. ‘I’ve never seen a lamb taken like this and not a good part of it eaten.’
‘Maybe something disturbed it.’
‘Don’t seem right to me.’ He wanders away, searching for the mother. A lone fox could not take a full-grown ewe.
She crouches by the body, studying it, the colour drained from her cheeks. The dog is close by, eyes fixed on the lamb, ears flattened.
‘No sign of her,’ he says, shielding his eyes as the sun emerges from behind a cloud. ‘What is this place?’
‘We call it the White Ladies.’
Slowly, he paces the circle, touching each stone as he goes, running his fingers over the lichened surfaces. He has seen it before, of course, but never this close or in brightness and understands now why it is so named. Thin spring sunlight catches tiny white flecks in the gritstone, making a pale gemlike glisten. He leans against the tallest, pushes it to test its purchase. One of the slabs has toppled and lies flat. He goes there and climbs on top of it
to get a better view. Up here, the wind is constant.
‘Do the sheep graze here?’
‘Yes. It’s common land.’
He turns slowly, making a full rotation.
From here he can see down the scar of the coffin path, past the crossroads to the dark snake of track that leads to the village and after that, far beyond sight, to the soot and clamour of Halifax and Leeds. He notes the smoke from Garrick’s chimney, snug against the fell-side, and the budding green sea of new leaves on the trees in the valley. In the distance, hills fade to purple and blue, disguising the point where land and sky meet. Here and there, he makes out dwellings: small farms, cottages, weaving huts, other folds with new lambs. The world, shrouded in winter by fog, cloud and rain, is revealed, but from up here it feels distant and apart. There is a silence despite the wind, a stillness that is uncanny. He realises: there is no birdsong.
He sits, leans back on his hands and watches her. She stands, still staring at the lamb. It’s a common sight – they will always lose newborns to foxes – but she is clearly unnerved.
She walks over to him. ‘My father used to tell me that the circle was built by sprites – for who else could have magicked these great stones up here?’
He nods slowly, waiting for her to go on.
‘Through his stories he tried to make it safe for me, but this place has a bad reputation. Most folk won’t come up past the turbary fields.’ She looks at him as if challenging him to ask questions. ‘This stone . . .’ She reaches out and flattens a palm next to his leg. ‘We call it the Slaying Stone. They say the pagans used to make sacrifices here and the spirits of those poor dead folk still haunt this place. They say the terrible things they did then opened a path for the dead.’ She pauses. He senses sadness in her reflection. ‘Bad things have happened here. And people have seen strange things by night. Lights, and suchlike.’
‘Have you ever seen such a thing?’
‘Once or twice.’ She hesitates, studying him from the corner of her eye, considering whether to go on. Then, ‘I’ve seen lanterns burning up here at midnight.’
‘Just lads up to no good, surely.’
‘No. They move too quickly, too fast for it to be done by one of us. And they’re a strange colour – bright white, almost blue, like the sparks from a smith’s hammer.’
She stands awhile, watching as the dog sniffs tentatively at the mauled body of the lamb, then creeps away with its tail between its legs.
‘That coin – the one you found in the barn. My father found it up here. He found three of them, in fact.’
He recalls Bestwicke’s tale: three frozen dead, three golden coins. He says nothing.
‘I must know if you told me the truth that day. Did you truly find that coin in the barn?’
He stares into the sky. ‘What reason would I have to lie?’
She frowns, then climbs up onto the stone and sits next to him. He can hear the rhythm of her breath above the whispering wind. He watches clouds whip across the sky and pockets of sunlight spiral across the distant hills, lighting them many shades of ochre, tan and deep peaty brown. The dog is sitting some yards from the carcass, eyes fixed upon it, as if it cannot be trusted to stay put.
To the east, far off by the crossroads, he sees a procession of men, women and children begin to make their way up the coffin path.
‘What are they about?’
She follows his gaze and her composure falters: confusion, then a curse. ‘It’s Cross Day. I’ve been so busy with the lambing, I forgot that Easter comes early this year.’
‘What do they want with us?’
‘They’re beating the bounds of the parish. They’ll take the coffin path past Scarcross Hall, as they do every year. Do they not do the same where you’re from?’
He considers. ‘Perhaps. Why do they call it the coffin path?’
‘It’s the path they use to bring down the coffins from the dwellings on the moor. It leads to the church in the valley. You would know that if you went on Sundays.’
He doesn’t miss the scornful look she throws him.
‘And it’s the path they used to bring the coffins down from Scarcross Hall. You’ve heard the stories, I suppose . . .’
‘Some.’
‘And what do you make of them?’
‘You’re better placed than I to know the truth of them.’
‘A careful answer, Master Ferreby.’
He waits, enjoying the sound of his name on her tongue. Then, ‘If we’re to work together all summer, I’d have you call me Ellis.’
She glances at him in surprise. Perhaps he has stepped too far. But then she inclines her head – a small gesture of assent – before turning away.
They watch as the little band takes the path from the crossroads and begins to wind up the hillside towards the Hall. Ellis spies the pastor from the village at the head of the procession, black-clad and sombre, carrying a wooden crucifix. Behind him, the men of the parish, dressed in their Sunday coats, snowy collars and tall hats. Their wives follow, in dusty skirts and lime-white caps. A gaggle of children run and dance to the clamour of tambourines.
Mercy squints, frowning against the sun. He sees the moment that her eyes cloud and her frown returns. ‘I must go back,’ she says urgently.
She climbs down from the stone and calls the dog to heel. The creature, still staring at the body of the lamb, whines.
‘Why hurry?’ he asks.
‘I can’t see Father. He should be with Pastor Flynn. Every year they pass by to give a blessing at the Hall and he likes to lay on bread and ale outside the gate, but he’s not given instruction this year. It’s important to him . . .’
She whistles to the dog and it slinks slowly towards her.
‘You’ll stay here and bury that . . . thing.’ She waves a hand in the direction of the body.
‘Why not leave it for the foxes – let them finish what they began?’
‘No. It must be buried.’
‘I’ve no spade.’
‘Then find a way,’ she snaps, her usual terseness returned. She begins to walk away but then stops, turns back. ‘And you’ll not mention this to anyone. Not even Ambrose. We found nothing. Is that clear?’
He does not understand why something so commonplace should be hidden – he knows the dangerous power of secrets – but this is a chance to prove the value of his word. He nods. ‘And the ewe?’
‘Keep looking. No doubt you’ll find her.’
But she knows as well as he they’ll not see that animal again.
Chapter 9
When she comes to him and asks him to take the letter to the pastor, he considers it a promising sign. Perhaps she’s beginning to trust him. Though he knows he has little choice – he cannot refuse an order from the mistress – he’s pleased to accept the errand, for it will give him some time away from Bestwicke and Ravens. Time to think.
She tells him he’ll likely find the pastor in his cottage at the edge of the village. He understands from Bestwicke that Pastor Flynn adds to his meagre living by tutoring and has a passion for the education of the rougher sort. In the free school along the valley – endowed by godly merchants in Halifax who rely on the local weavers for cloth – he strives to teach the children their numbers and letters. They’re lucky to get them at all, most of the cottagers preferring their offspring to farm crops or work looms from an early age. Ellis imagines the battles that Flynn must fight on his ill-fated crusade. Though he usually has little time for men of the cloth, he’s disposed to suspend judgement for this one. As a man who understands the value of letters he knows life could have gone so differently had one kindly soul not done the same for him.
The coffin path takes him from Scarcross Hall to the crossroads, where he pauses. A tall boundary stone marks the place, slanted, like a drunkard leaning outside an alehouse. On its easte
rn face he traces the indentations that show the direction of the village and, opposite, the tilted S H that points back the way he’s come. To the south a little-worn path drops sharply into the valley, its destination hidden by trees. Worn letters are carved into the stone, though they are so weathered it’s hard to make them out: perhaps a D, perhaps an H. He does not know what this could signify – another hall, another village, or some other place long abandoned and forgotten. The fells are scattered with decaying remains of the past.
The north face of the stone is blank. He runs his fingertips over it to find any trace of lettering that has been worn away by a hundred years of storm and gale. Nothing. There is nothing to the north except the wild sweep of moorland, all mud browns, mossy greens and black peat, and the rise of the hill to the moor top where, on the horizon, he can make out the stark uprights of the standing stones. The path that way is narrow and overgrown, barely wide enough for a packhorse to pass, winding away for a short distance to be lost between rising clumps of heather.
Over the stones the sky is overcast, low clouds moving in. He thinks of the dead lamb and of stories he has heard about the place and shivers at a breath of cold, rain-damp air. He feels suddenly that he should not linger there.
When Ellis reaches the falls, he stops. Nature is kinder in the valley and spring has come sooner. The rocks are bright with patches of primrose yellow and sea-green moss. Beneath the trees the ground is scattered with crocuses, bright amid last year’s rotted leaves. The sweet echo of a cuckoo resounds – the first he’s heard this year. Ordinarily, these things would calm him, but nothing will quiet his mind.
He sits awhile on a boulder by the bank of the stream where he first saw her, listening to the burble of water. Barely a month has passed since that day. He marvels at how so brief a time, so quickly flown, can also seem so long. He almost cannot remember a time before he knew her, has forgotten what it was like not always to have the image of her in his mind.
The Coffin Path_'The perfect ghost story' Page 6
