The Standing Water

by David Castleton

  ‘Raise your hand,’ Jonathon said.

  I brought my hand up so its palm faced him.

  ‘Repeat after me,’ Jonathon said. ‘I swear I will do all I can to help get that gauntlet and help kill Mr Weirton.’

  I spoke those words back to him.

  ‘And if I do not,’ he went on, ‘let Marcus pull me into this pond and let me never again see daylight or feel fresh air on my face.’

  I said those words as my heart’s boom shook through me, but no tugs, splashes or sweeps came from that water. There was just the quiet land around us, the occasional call of a bird drifting across it, the odd hum of a car down on the main road.

  ‘So please help us in our mission and please help kill Mr Weirton, amen.’

  ‘Amen,’ I echoed.

  I trudged from that pond – each punch of my heart pumping relief through me. Now Jonathon walked into the pool. He turned, stood still, raised his hand, started reciting the same vow – something we’d cobbled together from various prayers, TV cop shows and court dramas, spending ages in his shed with our pencils poised over paper. Jonathon toppling, crashing into the water, his face white and hands outstretched as he was pulled beneath – I fretted this might happen with each nervous breath I sucked. But he was able to finish his pledge, wade from the water unharmed. He strode up to me.

  ‘All right?’

  ‘All right,’ I replied.

  ‘So let’s go.’

  Our next stop was the Old School. We didn’t want to linger there as it wasn’t far from Davis’s and adults walking or driving past to his shop might have got suspicious had they seen our mud-caked boots. And, of course, we didn’t plan to stay too long in case we saw the teacher with her cane. We lobbed in some sweets for the ghosts of the kids then we raised our palms and said our vow together.

  ‘Oh poor ghosts of the children in the school, we vow we will do all we can to get that gauntlet and kill Mr Weirton. Please use all your powers to help us. And if we do not keep our vow, may we end up in here with you, chased by the ghostly teacher forever. Amen.’

  With that we threw some more sweets in, and walked down our patch of town’s main street till we came to the gap with the witch’s hand.

  ‘Do you reckon it’ll be there today?’ Jonathon said.

  ‘Hope so,’ I said. ‘Wasn’t last time we looked, but it’s magic, isn’t it? Sometimes it’s there and sometimes it’s not. Wanna have a look?’

  ‘Maybe you first,’ Jonathon said.

  ‘No, you.’

  In the end, it was me. I stared down into that space. Sure enough, the hand was there – black, withered, its evil radiating from its curved fingers. How powerful the whole witch must have been! I wondered what had happened to the rest of her. Gazing at that fearsome object, I raised my hand, palm backwards so it faced Jonathon.

  ‘Repeat after me,’ Jonathon said.

  I did – asking the hand for help in killing Weirton, allowing it to curse me if I should show cowardice or do anything to betray our aims. After Jonathon had made the same pledge we walked – swiftly – from that gap and back down our main street. This was the point at which things got harder. We needed to find our way to Salton – and we’d never been outside our part of town unaccompanied by adults. We couldn’t go down the High Street – which was at least familiar – in case some old biddy out shopping or gossipy neighbour spotted us and told our parents, whose disapproval would soon reverberate from our backsides. But Jonathon had stolen a town plan of his dad’s and worked out what he thought was a quick route to get us to the gates of Salton. We walked down a long street of houses: grey, their paint flaking, gates lopsided, gardens bumpy. As I was wondering who could live in such strange dwellings, Jonathon piped up.

  ‘Know what those are? My mum says they’re called council houses.’

  He wrinkled his nose.

  ‘She says common people live in them.’

  ‘What does she mean by common?’ I asked.

  ‘Dunno. Guess there must be a lot of them.’

  We came out by the Big School. I gawped at its huge buildings, its vast playing fields. In just over a year, Jonathon’s brother and Darren Hill would go there. Our little school hummed with legends about the place – that there were giant kids as big as teachers, the things those giants would do to the first years. Still, not even the most gruesome of those stories sounded as bad as what Weirton did to us – let alone what he might have done to Marcus and Lucy. Jonathon checked his plan; we trudged down a couple more streets, and soon stood before Salton’s threshold. I looked at those aged gates, the worn lions that topped them. Again, it seemed to me those gates marked the divide between two very different territories: the more everyday world of Emberfield and the ancient and haunted realm of Salton. Of course, Emberfield had its scattering of spooks, its fair share of legends, but this was nothing compared to Salton, where the air seemed thick with ghosts and curses, where the ground shrouded so many bodies and bones. I swear as I stepped through those gates, the air’s very texture altered.

  We passed the mildewed woods, the furrowed field, and soon stood on the bridge over the Bunt. The murky water gurgled beneath. The knight’s breastplate had gone, probably carried off downriver long before, its journey started by its collision with the brother’s head. I thought of my dreams of following that stream as it widened, of letting it lead me to new lands, but that day all I could see was the steep v-shape it sliced through the flat fields running off to the horizon. Jonathon was staring down at the water, face serious, lower lip trembling.

  ‘Can’t believe I pushed my brother off here!’ he said. ‘Poor old Craig – he’s still got that scar to thank me for! I should’ve shoved Weirton instead – it would’ve been a perfect chance!’

  ‘Don’t worry,’ I said. ‘We’ll get him with that gauntlet. Or at least with your robot if we can’t do that.’

  But I did worry about one thing. I looked up at the sky. Swirls of grey, bulbous masses of white drifted across blue. Surely it would be easier now for the Lord to fling down a fiery bolt – scorch a mark onto Jonathon for the sin of sibling slaying. It would be an apt place – the exact spot where he’d committed the deed. I’d heard legends that in the past they’d sometimes hung people at the scenes of their crimes so I supposed this would be a similar thing. But no lightning streaked from the heavens. I suggested we moved on before the Lord got tempted to shoot some down.

  We came in view of the farmhouse Henry VIII haunted. My heart boomed as we raised our hands. Jonathon recited the vow first and I repeated it, begging that dread king to help us get the gauntlet, begging that man who in life had proved so expert at bumping people off to help bump off our teacher. We promised he could take his spectral axe to our necks if we in any way chickened out or failed to kill Weirton. Next we came to the land that had been owned by the Knights Templars. The sun was raising mist from the dew-wet ground. As that mist drifted and hovered, I was reminded of how the knight’s curse still floated over, infused the air around Salton and Emberfield; how it still spread – even after so many years – its feeling of melancholy and evil, eeriness and foreboding over our land, our town. As we watched that malevolent mist hanging above the fields, we raised our hands and spoke our vow, asking the Knights to use their potent magic, their secret knowledge of God’s mysteries to help us topple our tyrant, just as they’d defeated despots and bullies in the past. Of course, we allowed them to curse us – just as the knight had his lady – if we should prove unfaithful to our pledges or lack the guts for our mission. As we finished our vows, a jolt jerked my spine’s base and a shiver rushed up my backbone – as if the Knights had heard us and a magic spark had jumped the chasm of ages.

  ‘Wow!’ I said to Jonathon. ‘Did you feel that?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I felt kind of weird after saying that vow.’

  ‘Yeah –’ he shrugged ‘– it is a little spooky here. Let’s get going.’

  We walked along the path, betwe
en its barbed-wire cordons, till we came to the bit of land where the Scots soldiers slept. We looked over the quilt of green that shrouded them as sheep munched on it. All of course remained unturned, unsullied by spade or plough. Just the sheep let their disrespectful droppings fall, but that was sheep for you. At least we humans showed some reverence: reverence which meant we wouldn’t have to cope with rampaging spectral hordes, their ghoulish banners and transparent scraps of tartan fluttering as they hurled phantom spears, threatened us with see-through swords, flung ghostly fire on our dwellings. These thoughts made my heart resume its doleful bang; more shivers jerked through me. Jonathon and I stared at the land for some moments before we raised our palms.

  ‘Repeat after me,’ Jonathon said. ‘I promise to do all I can to get that gauntlet and kill Mr Weirton. And if I do not, or if I am in any way a coward, let all the ghosts of the soldiers lying here rise up and haunt me for the rest of my days. Amen.’

  I repeated the vow, Jonathon said it in turn, and we moved away, letting our Scots friends sleep. I thought of how great it would be if we could get all those ghosts on our side, thought of the power their sheer numbers would give us. We now approached the wood from which the top of the water tower poked. I remembered my ideas about that strange structure.

  ‘Hey!’ I said. ‘That’s the water tower! See that spike on top – it punctures the clouds and sucks the water down to stop Emberfield getting too much rain. It could be like Noah’s Flood here if we didn’t have it.’

  Jonathon said I was wrong, said his dad had told him the tower just pumped water from underground into a tank so the farmers could have some stored for their animals.

  ‘Why would anyone’ – I glanced around me at the mist, at the boggy plains stretching away – ‘need to store water in Emberfield?’

  ‘Dunno,’ said Jonathon. ‘But you know what grown-ups are like. Bit dim sometimes, aren’t they?’

  He thought for a moment.

  ‘Could maybe do both things together,’ he said, ‘suck water down from the clouds so we don’t get flooded then keep it to give to the farm animals. Maybe I should draw up a plan.’

  ‘Yeah,’ I said, ‘though the grown-ups would probably be too dim to follow it. Couldn’t imagine any of them being able to make your robot.’

  Speaking of dim grown-ups, we came out of that patch of trees, saw the church and castle, and walked towards the gate that led over to them – pausing by the stone which commemorated the Drummer Boy.

  ‘Yeah,’ I said, ‘adults really can be dense. Imagine making a little lad go down a dangerous tunnel – sort of thing Weirton would do!’

  ‘Idiots!’ said Jonathon. ‘And now the poor Drummer Boy has to stay down there forever!’

  ‘Do you hear him sometimes at night?’ I said. ‘I do – I hear his beats rattling across the land.’

  ‘I’ve heard something like that sometimes,’ Jonathon said, ‘but I’m not sure if it’s the Drummer.’

  ‘It is! What else could it be? Anyway, let’s make our vow.’

  We each placed a hand on the Drummer’s stone, raised our opposite palms. Jonathon spoke the words, which I said after him.

  ‘Oh, Little Drummer Boy, please help us get that gauntlet and help us kill Mr Weirton. And if we don’t or if we bottle out, may we die and have to live forever in your cold dark tunnel. Amen.’

  When we’d said our oaths, we stood for a little while, hearing nothing but the coos and calls of birds, the moos of a distant cow. Just as we were about to leave, a soft sound welled up – a quiet patter, with the odd clank behind it. I trembled; my heart raced as that patter swelled and grew, becoming a determined roll of thuds, clunks and rattles. It was much louder than what I’d heard in my bedroom. It must have been coming from under our feet, from that tunnel. It got louder still – jerking the air, seeming even to quiver the leaves and twigs on the trees.

  ‘It’s him!’ I shouted. ‘He’s playing for us – it shows he agrees with what we want to do!’

  Jonathon nodded, grinned.

  ‘Are you still not sure if it was him you heard?’

  Still smiling, Jonathon shook his head. After a few minutes, the drumming began to fade, falling back to a low patter then petering out the way the songs did on Weirton’s radio. Jonathon and I just stared, grinning at each other as my heart bashed joyfully.

  ‘Brilliant!’ I said. ‘He definitely supports us and I’m sure all the other spooks do too! Come on, let’s get to the church and grab that gauntlet.’

  We walked through the gate and were soon teetering across the marshy fields. I looked for the clumps of grass that marked the drier patches, but still a couple of times my leg plunged into an unseen bog and a churned mass of mud and dung splurged over the top of my wellie. I sucked an anxious breath as I spotted the two horses that had troubled us last time. They stood on the castle’s knoll, swishing their tails, their big liquid eyes tracing our steps. I didn’t know what I’d do if one trotted up to us, snorting angry air, baring its teeth, but those horses just stayed on their hillock, watching us resentfully. I remembered how Weirton had locked stares with the stallion, slammed his fist into it, and I felt a surge of admiration for the headmaster. He’d been so brave that day! Guilt rose about wanting to kill the man who’d saved us from that beast. I forced myself to remember the teacher’s outrages – the beatings, the humiliations, the white-faced weeping kids being lowered after his thrashings. Anger frothed up to drive away the guilt and I pressed on to the church. We walked under the metal arch that crowned the graveyard’s entrance, and again I had a feeling we were stepping out of one world and into another – entering the church’s holy precinct in which lay the blessed dead, their souls protected by the good magic that seeped from the church building, by all the sacred ceremonies that went on in there. Jonathon and I paused for a moment in the graveyard. I looked around me at the sombre yews, the worn and slanting stones, the humped and tussocked ground; I saw the tap under which Weirton had soothed his hand after his heroics. Jonathon moved towards the church and I knew I had to call out to him.

  ‘Wait a minute! Before we get the gauntlet, there are a couple of things I need to say.’

  ‘Yeah?’

  ‘We’ll need to be careful.’

  ‘How do you mean?’

  Jonathon looked at me; suspicion screwed up his features. I strove to keep my face innocent – there was no way I could imagine stealing that gauntlet on my own.

  ‘Well, I just forgot to tell you, Davis said people need to watch out because that gauntlet has a way of trying to slip itself onto the hand of whoever has it.’

  ‘What!? But that would mean –’

  ‘Yeah, exactly, you’d die.’

  Jonathon’s lips trembled.

  ‘That’s it!’ he said. ‘I’m off! I’ll just rely on my robot!’

  He strode towards the gate.

  ‘Wait a minute!’ I called after him. ‘You can’t back out now! Not after we’ve made all those vows – you know what’ll happen if you break them!’

  ‘Yeah,’ Jonathon shouted back, ‘but when I said those oaths I didn’t know –’

  ‘And there’s another thing about the gauntlet.’ I prayed this would persuade him. ‘If you po-ssess it, it protects you against all robbers, violence and murder!’

  ‘Yeah?’ Jonathon stopped, turned to face me. ‘So even if we don’t put it on Weirton’s hand, Weirton won’t whack us, so we won’t end up like Lucy or Marcus?’

  ‘Yeah –’ my relief sighed out with that word ‘– though we should still try to kill him for the sake of the other kids.’

  ‘Kids like my brother,’ Jonathon said, ‘remember how he looked after his last walloping? But still maybe my robot –’

  ‘Your robot’s a good idea, but … it might take a while to make. I think in this case magic would work quicker than science.’

  Jonathon nodded, though his lips still quivered. We walked to the church. In the porch, we sat on the cold stone benches.
We tugged off our wellies – they were so mud-caked we decided we’d rather not risk leaving any footprints in God’s sacred dwelling that could be traced to us.

  ‘But,’ Jonathon said, ‘maybe we shouldn’t leave the boots here. Just in case any adults come and they get sus-pic-ious.’

  A strange feeling told me his caution might prove wise. We hid our wellies in the graveyard, nestled in tufts of grass between a headstone and the church. We crept back to the porch – the path’s gravel pricking through our socks – and I reached out to push the mighty oak doors leading into the church’s main part. The doors didn’t move.

  ‘Damn!’ I said. ‘Didn’t think they might be locked!’

  I pushed again – the doors had just been stiff; now they creaked ajar. As I walked through them, I again felt I was passing over a threshold – this time into the extreme holiness of the church. We saw the dread altar, the gauntlet hanging ominously before it. There were the rows of ancient pews, the lettered flagstones marking the graves of those lucky enough to be buried inside the church, the tall arched windows letting in the weak light of Emberfield’s summer. Near the wall to the altar’s left was the tomb of the knight and his lady, their effigies stretched above the boxes that held their bones. It was towards those figures we now walked – walking across that chilly floor, through the church’s eerie quiet, through the air that seemed dense with the weight of its holiness, infused with its sacred smells of musty hymnbooks and old stone. We got to that tomb. The couple lay in peaceful slumber, the knight’s sword at rest, their white hands clasped in everlasting prayer.

  ‘Do you think he was one of King Arthur’s knights?’ I asked.

  ‘Probably,’ Jonathon said.

  ‘You know King Arthur’s coming back,’ I said. ‘He’s not really dead, just sleeping. And when England really needs him, he’ll wake up!’

  ‘Shame he can’t come back to help us against Weirton,’ said Jonathon.

  We stared at that sculpted knight. It really did look like he was just asleep. I felt bad about placing my hands on his tomb, but I begged his ghost to forgive us. Our vow was for a noble purpose – to fight cruelty and oppression, just like the knights of old used to. They’d battled evil ogres and we ourselves had one to defeat. I laid my palm on the statue; felt the cold, cold marble. Our vow echoed through the church. Jonathon spoke the last bit.