Old Joachim was the foulest old man you ever could wish not to meet.
Foul-tempered, foul-mouthed and foul-smelling. But he was the only miller within a long day’s ride, so he was never short of business.
Day and night the mill wheel turned – even on Sundays, when honest, God-fearing folk shut up shop for the day and went to church.
The only small pleasure Joachim got out of life was from playing chess, though he had to play against himself, since none of his neighbours could stand being in the same room with him long enough to get to checkmate.
Late one night, he was sitting over the chessboard, puzzling over a problem he’d cut out of the newspaper (and maybe he would have solved it quicker if he hadn’t already been halfway down the bottle on the table beside him) when a knock came at the door.
There stood a young trapper, almost as filthy as Joachim himself, his hair wild and long and his clothes of poorly cured buckskin reeking of some sort of animal scent. Still, any God-fearing soul would have asked him in, since there’d been signs of a marauding beast prowling the area: a sheep mauled here, a dead cow there. It wasn’t safe these days to be out after dark.
Joachim was about to shut the door, when the stranger, looking past him at the chessboard said, ‘Do you fancy a game?’
‘You play chess?’
‘Just a little.’
‘Come on in!’
He turned out to be a pretty good player. Not so good that old Joachim didn’t beat him three times in a row, which pleased the old man no end.
‘What’s your name?’ said Joachim.
‘Jean-Loup,’ said the stranger.
Soon, word got around that old Joachim had taken on assistant who was as foul-smelling and foul-tempered as his boss. Not so foul-mouthed, maybe, but only because he didn’t speak much. His was more a brooding sort of ill temper. The way he looked at you! Made you nervous of turning your back.
Still, he and Joachim got along pretty well.
Christmas Eve came. Everyone was off to the church, in spite of their fears that that marauding beast was still somewhere around. What was it? A bear? A wolf? A wolverine? The tracks seemed more wolf-like than anything, but they always seemed to peter out, lost among the footprints of too many searchers.
Still, there was safety in numbers. Off to church they went for the midnight service.
At the mill, life went on as usual. The millwheel kept turning. Joachim and Jean-Loup sat playing chess, drinking all the while.
Then, in the silence that followed the church bells ringing out at midnight, Joachim put down his glass and said, ‘Listen!’
Jean-Loup shook his head. ‘I can’t hear anything.’
‘That’s the point! The mill wheel’s stopped.’
It happened from time to time when a branch brought down by the river got caught up in the works.
‘Come on!’ said Joachim, grabbing his axe. ‘Bring the lantern.’
Jean-Loup stood in the doorway, looking up at the bright, full moon. ‘Why can’t it wait till morning?’
‘Because I say so! And I’m the boss.’
Joachim soon found what the problem was: a branch, as he had thought. ‘Bring the light closer, so I can see what I’m doing.’
There was no answer but a low growl from above and behind him.
Looking back up the steps, he saw, not Jean-Loup, but a great, grey, wolf-like creature. There was something about its eyes that was almost human. Something strangely familiar.
‘Jean-Loup!’ roared Joachim. ‘Help me! Where are you?’
The creature growled again, gathering itself. Then, it sprang.
Joachim lifted his axe and managed to get in a swing at the creature’s left foreleg before it slammed into him, knocking him backwards. He hit the frozen ground and everything went black.
He woke to find himself tucked up in his own bed, with Jean-Loup bending over him, sponging his face with cold water.
Joachim was about to thank the young man for saving his life when he noticed a rough bandage tied round Jean-Loup’s left forearm, the blood already seeping through.
‘It was you!’ he whispered. ‘The beast that attacked me. Jean-Loup – the loup-garou – the werewolf!’
Jean-Loup said nothing, only gave him that look with those feral eyes – the look that made you afraid to turn your back.
Joachim must have passed out again.
When he came round, Jean-Loup had gone.
I wish I could say old Joachim was a reformed character after that, but he was still just as foul-smelling, foul-mouthed and foul-tempered as before. At least he did talk to his neighbours more now. After all, he had a story to tell to anyone who’d listen. And there was something that always puzzled him, a question to which he still hadn’t found an answer. ‘I don’t know why he let me live,’ he’d say.
But if anyone suggested it might be because he’d been kind to the young man, ‘Kind? Me?’ he’d scoff. ‘It’s not in my nature!’
The Forest People
New Zealand
They are the patupaiarehe, the fair-skinned ones, who live deep in the forest, creatures of mist and shadow. Some say they are the people who were here before the Maori came. Some say they are nothing but a memory, yet they still have power. Power to steal away a man’s shadow and what is a man without his shadow? Without his shadow he’ll fade away and die.
The patupaiarehe were much on the young warrior’s mind as he set up camp for himself that night. Somehow, he’d managed to get separated from the rest of the hunting party. He’d tried calling out and several times, in the distance, had thought he heard voices calling back, but they didn’t sound like any voices he knew, nor any human voices at all, so in the end he kept quiet.
He’d find his way home easily enough come daylight.
So he rigged up a shelter beneath a cliff overhang and built a small fire, wishing he had some of the game they’d killed so he could cook himself some supper.
Still he could hear those strange voices in the distance, like something between human speech and birdsong.
He wrapped himself in his cloak, lay down and tried to sleep.
Soon they came, the patupaiarehe, whispering on the night wind, tumbling along on the evening mist, flickering through the shadows thrown by the fire.
He told himself they were just curious. What harm could they do him anyway, so long as he cast no shadow for them to steal?
So he curled himself up very small in his shelter under the cliff and pretended to be asleep.
Soon as they got bored, they’d go away.
He fancied he could feel their shadow-fingers stealing over him, light as moths in the dark.
His fingers strayed to the greenstone tiki he wore round his neck. A beautiful thing it was, so intricately carved, passed down from generation to generation, along with all the memories of his kinship group. Holding the tiki always made him feel braver.
The whispering voices grew louder, more insistent.
Was this what they wanted? The tiki? The most precious thing he owned?
It was heavy price to pay for trespassing on the territory of the patupaiarehe, but it seemed they’d be content with nothing less.
With a prayer for forgiveness to his ancestors, he eased the tiki on its cord from round his neck. He withdrew a stick from the rough shelter he’d built and hooked the cord around it. Then carefully – very carefully, so as to cast no shadow – he held the stick out until the tiki caught the firelight.
At once, the patupaiarehe clustered round it like excited children – whispering, singing, leaping and dancing.
Gradually, their voices faded.
When the warrior dared to open his eyes again, it was morning.
And there was the tiki, lying beside the ashes of the fire. Had it all been a dream? He picked up the tiki and held it so it caught the sunlight.
He looked down at his shadow. There it was, safe and sound. There was the shadow of his arm outstretched, his hand holding… nothing.
Then he began to laugh. This was a story to tell his children and his grandchildren, along with all the other tales passed down with the tiki through the years. What good was the tiki itself, he’d ask them, to the people of mist and shadows? In the end, all they’d stolen was its shadow. And here was the tiki itself as proof. ‘Hold it up to the light,’ he’d say, ‘and you’ll see.’
The Goblin Pony
Britanny
‘What are you doing, Grandmamma?’ said Yann.
‘What does it look like? I’m bolting the doors and fastening the window shutters to keep us safe from harm.’
‘But it’s Hallowe’en!’ said Erwan. ‘We were going out.’
‘The only place to be on Hallowe’en,’ their grandmother said wisely, ‘is here indoors by the fire. Hallowe’en is the night when spirits walk and witches weave spells and dead men rise from their graves. And the wild hunt of the old gods rides the storm clouds in search of souls to carry off to the lost land of Lyonesse under the sea. So you stay here, my dears, and keep your old grandmother company. Cheer up! It won’t be so bad. I’ve chestnuts to roast and toffee apples and a fresh batch of gingerbread warm from the oven.’
But, from their bedroom window, the boys could see the bonfire burning on top of the cliff, the figures dancing round it.
When they opened the window they could hear the sound of music from the village inn, where Yann knew the landlord’s daughter, Barbara, would be waiting.
‘Well, are you coming?’ said Erwan.
‘Try and stop me!’ said Yann.
Out of the window they went, one after the other, climbing down the ivy-covered wall and they set off down the path towards the lane.
There – what a stroke of luck – stood a pony, quietly cropping the grass at the place where the path met the lane.
‘Looks like Le Pen’s pony’s got out of his paddock again,’ said Yann.
‘We’ve no time to take him back now,’ said Erwan. ‘We’ll miss half the fun.’
‘We’ll take him back in the morning,’ said Yann. ‘Meanwhile, he can give us a ride.’
So up they got and off they trotted till they came to the village inn, where Barbara, the landlord’s daughter was waiting.
‘Up you get!’ said Yann.
‘My! We’re travelling in style tonight,’ said Barbara. ‘Isn’t this Le Pen’s pony?’
‘Looks like it, doesn’t it?’ grinned Yann.
‘Is there room up here for my sister Ann, too?’
‘Of course there is!’
‘There’s plenty of room!’
‘Up you get, Annie!’
Off they jogged again, back down the village street, until they met Pierrick and Padrig running hell for leather the other way.
‘Help us!’
‘Help us!’
‘The widow Breck says she’ll have our guts for garters!’
‘That’s if old Markale doesn’t catch us first!’
Since Pierrick and Padrig were known as the two local jokers and Hallowe’en is also known as Mischief Night, it was clear they’d been playing some practical joke that hadn’t gone down too well.
‘Up you get!’ said Yann, digging his heels in the pony’s ribs to try and make it go faster.
On trotted the pony at the same pace as before and not a bit put out, it seemed by the number of riders on his back. No, not even when they picked up two hitchhikers on the way, which made eight in all – Yann, Erwan, Barbara, Ann, Pierrick, Padrig and after them Little Eric and Fat Paol who’d been neither of them looking forward to the climb up to the clifftop.
Le Pen’s pony, safe in his field, was surprised to see the mirror image of himself trotting past on the road below with so many riders on his back.
Well, rather him than me, he thought. And went back to cropping the grass.
It was when they reached the crossroads that the trouble came. Instead of taking the path to the clifftop, the pony turned towards the sea. He picked up his pace, from a trot to a canter, then to a gallop, heading straight towards the seashore.
‘Stop him!’ cried Barbara.
‘I can’t!’ yelled Yann. ‘Jump, if you can!’
‘We’re going too fast!’ shouted Erwan. ‘We’ll break our necks!’
‘I’d jump if I could!’ cried Fat Paol, ‘But I seem to be stuck!’
‘Me too!’
‘Me too!’
Into the sea ran the goblin pony, with Yann, Erwan, Barbara, Ann, Pierrick, Padrig, Little Eric and Fat Paol stuck fast to his back, deeper and deeper until the waves covered them.
‘I did warn them,’ said Grandmamma, when those who’d watched from the clifftop came and told her the sad news. ‘I warned them but they didn’t listen. That’s young people nowadays. They just don’t listen. Ah, well, they do say the lost land of Lyonesse isn’t such a bad place to end up. Would anyone like a piece of gingerbread?’
The Haunting
British Isles
For as long as she could remember, she’d dreamed the same dream. The dream was of a house. It was like no house she’d ever lived in and yet it felt like home. In her dreams she walked through its rooms, admired the pictures, fingered the books in the library, savoured the cooking smells in the kitchen, or wandered in the garden. Sometimes she just sat: enjoying the feeling of peace the house always gave her.
Sometimes it was daytime there, sometimes it was night. After a while it made no difference; she knew every stone of it so well that she could find her way by moonlight.
Sometimes the furnishings were different, the pictures and the ornaments, but always the layout of the rooms was the same. Sometimes, looking out at the garden, it seemed that the trees were taller now than when she’d first dreamed of this place. Just as she was, of course. It was as if she were living two separate lives, but the dream house was where she belonged.
When she told her sisters about it, all they said was, ‘What’s wrong with our house then?’
‘Nothing,’ she said.
‘Don’t you like it here?’
‘I like it fine. It’s just not…’
‘Not what?
She shook her head. She couldn’t explain it.
When she grew up and married, she never told her husband about the dreams she still had of her perfect house. She didn’t want to hurt his feelings. All they could afford on his wages was a small flat in the centre of town.
At last he got offered promotion – that’s if he didn’t mind moving to the firm’s head office across the water in England. He didn’t mind a bit. The extra money he’d earn meant they’d be able to buy a house of their own.
House after house they looked at but none of them was just right, until they came to the very last one on the list.
As she got out of the taxi she gave a little cry.
‘Are you all right?’ said her husband. ‘You’ve gone very pale all of a sudden.’
‘Yes, yes,’ she said. ‘I’m fine.’
‘Let’s go and look inside, then,’ he said.
The door was opened by the estate agent, who seemed surprised to see them.
‘Are we too early?’ said the husband. ‘Were you expecting someone else?’
‘No, no,’ said the man. ‘Quite the opposite. Let’s start in the library, shall we?’
But she’d already found the right door and was running across the room to check the view from the window to see if it matched the one in her dream, which it did, exactly. She ran her fingers over the empty shelves, remembering the books that used to fill them.
The estate agent smiled to her husband, ‘Perhaps your wife would like to lead us the rest of the way?’
And she did, through the dining room, the sitting room, the breakfast room and the kitchen, then down to the cellar and up to the bedrooms. Every single thing was as she remembered it from her dream.
‘It’s as
if you’ve been here before,’ said her husband.
‘I have,’ she said, ‘in my dreams. But I never thought this house was real.’
‘I never thought you were real,’ said the estate agent. ‘I’ve stayed in this house many times in the past. Sometimes I’ve seen you wandering through it, though I don’t think you ever saw me. The last people to live here were afraid the place was haunted. But I don’t think you will be troubled by ghosts. May I be the first to say, ‘Welcome home’?’
Jacob and the Duppy
Jamaica
It was late when Jacob set out for home that night. He’d had a good day at the market, sold all his produce, and so he decided to treat himself to a drink or two. And when a man’s got money in his pocket and is in the mood to celebrate, he’s never short of friends willing to lend a hand.
It must have been gone midnight when the bar owner’s wife finally turned them out so she could get a bit of shuteye.
Jacob went back to where he’d left the cart (the donkey patiently waiting all this time), climbed up on the driver’s seat, and they set off for home.
What with the gentle swaying of the cart and the quiet rumble of the wheels on the empty road, it wasn’t long before Jacob was as sound asleep as a baby rocked in its cradle.
The donkey plodded on. She knew the way as well as he did: probably better, since she always did the full stretch with her eyes wide open.
Suddenly, she stopped. So suddenly that Jacob nearly toppled clean off the cart.
‘What’s the matter?’ he mumbled. ‘Are we home already?’ Then, seeing nothing but darkness all around, ‘Come on! Stop playing games. Let’s get on home.’
The donkey didn’t budge.
Then, peering deeper into the dark, he saw what was holding them up. A man was standing there, slap-bang in the middle of the road.
‘Lost your way in the dark?’ said Jacob.
The man didn’t answer.
‘Do you want a lift?’
Still no answer.
‘I can take you as far as my place. That’s a mile or so down the road. If that’s any help to you…’
Goblins and Ghosties Page 4
