Skull in the Wood

by Sandra Greaves

  It must have been a minute or two before the moon cleared and my heart rate slowed. I didn’t waste any time in heading back down the path, though I managed not to run. But I admit I wanted to, pretty badly.

  Uncle Jack was still on the sofa, dead to the world, and Tilda hadn’t come back yet. I tried to have a bath in the freezing bathroom upstairs, but the water ran cold before it reached about ten centimetres. In the end I gave up and sloped off to bed. To be honest, I was totally done in.

  Even though I’d turned my nose up at it earlier, I was quite glad of the crochet cover because it was freezing in my room too. There was an ancient radiator but it didn’t seem to be pumping out any heat. In the end I put my socks back on, and a jumper over my pyjamas. I lay there shivering for a while, listening to the sounds outside. First an owl – I’d never heard a real one before but you can’t mistake it. Then something flying over, making a huge racket – a sort of low honking bark. More geese, I supposed, like the ones I’d just seen up on the tor. That, or a huge pack of flying dogs. Everything was blurring together now. And in seconds I was asleep.

  4

  Tilda

  A Sunday’s no different on a farm – you still have to get up and feed the animals, but that obviously hadn’t occurred to Matt. His door was firmly shut. Making sure of his beauty sleep, I thought crossly. I gave Jez her food and a bit of a cuddle. Then I put out mash for the chickies and wheat for the geese, and changed their water and saw to the puppies. Finally I came back inside to get the breakfast ready.

  It’s times like this when I really miss Mum. She used to cook us bacon and eggs on Sundays, sometimes with pancakes and maple syrup. There was always a fire in the grate and Radio 4 in the background, and she’d make a point of taking us out on nature walks even though Dad usually had to do stuff on the farm. Since she died, a lot of that’s been up to me, and I’m not much good at any of it. Dad says I am, but I know he’s just trying to make me feel all right.

  Anyway, I thought I’d impress him and scramble some eggs. Some of the hens are still laying well, even though it’s nearly November now. I sell quite a few at the farm gate when we have a glut, to make a bit of extra pocket money, along with sweet peas in the summer – Mum’s favourite. I wished she could have seen them this year. But then, I wished a lot of stuff, all the time. I wished she’d stayed home that day of the accident. Nothing was fair. The worst thing of all was that I was finding it harder and harder to remember her face any more. But it was no use feeling sorry for myself – I had to be strong for Dad and Kitty.

  This morning Kitty was eager-beavering away in the kitchen and she helped me get everything ready. Then Dad came in, starving as usual because he’d been out in the fields. I got the eggs to a perfect consistency, not too hard, not too soft, and doled them out. City boy hadn’t bothered to make an appearance yet, but I put his on a plate, too. If he couldn’t get up on time he could just eat it cold.

  I was glad I’d found an excuse to disappear last night with my friend Amy, and today I decided that the less I saw of Matt the better. Then Dad hit me with it: Matt was asking about Old Scratch Wood, so I was to take him out and show him around – no wriggling out of it. I said I was busy, but Dad wasn’t having any arguments. He did his super-stern face and said it was either that or no pocket money, so I knew there was no point moaning.

  It wasn’t till we were finishing up our coffee that city boy showed. No apology or anything – he just walked in, yawning, sat down at the table and said hi. Like he expected someone to jump up and run around after him. Well, it wasn’t going to be me.

  ‘Your breakfast is over there,’ Dad said, pointing at the range.

  Matt looked a bit surprised but went and collected his eggs – nicely congealed, I noted. Dad said he was sorry but he had to go out again, and was Kitty going to help him?

  ‘Are you mucking out the chickies?’ she said.

  ‘Only the best jobs for you, darling,’ said Dad, and she jumped up and shot out of the door after him.

  So now it was just Matt and me. Great.

  ‘Apparently I’ve got to take you to Old Scratch Wood,’ I said.

  Matt sounded bored. ‘Don’t strain yourself,’ he said. ‘I’m not that interested.’

  ‘Well, Dad told me you were really keen. He says I’ve got to show you around now you’re here. It’ll have to be later, though. I’ve got stuff to do. Farms take a lot of work. Speaking of which, there’s plenty of washing-up.’ And I left him to the dishes.

  Round about midday, I shoved together a couple of pasties, some apples and a bar of chocolate. Then I had an idea. I ran upstairs, pulled something out from the back of the wardrobe and stuffed it into my rucksack. I smiled to myself.

  Jez knew she was going on a walk – she’s superintelligent like that – and started barking away, so I went to get Matt. He was sitting in his bedroom staring out the window. Pathetic. But he came down when I called him, and he even asked if he could borrow Dad’s spare boots. I’d been kind of hoping he’d forget – the moor would have completely ruined his precious trainers.

  We left the puppies for Dad to walk – they’re just too much of a handful right now. They’ve got so big, and they’re not properly trained like Jez is, because they’ll be acting as a pack when they go off to the Hunt. Dad quite likes having them, all the same – he says it’s only neighbourly, what with the kennels being so near.

  Gabe was hanging around again as we went out. I tried to give him the swerve but he headed straight towards us with his pitchfork in his hand, like the grim reaper or something. He had his music on and I could hear the tinny sound of Black Sabbath, the rubbish old heavy metal band that seems to be the only thing he ever plays.

  ‘Hi Gabe,’ I said cheerily. ‘How’s Alba getting on with the salsa dancing?’

  This was a bit cheeky of me, I knew. Gabe’s wife Alba has started going out twice a week to the village hall in a short skirt and it’s been driving Gabe mad. He didn’t take the bait, though.

  ‘I know where you’re off to, Tilda Parson,’ he said, taking out his earbuds. ‘And I know perfectly well you don’t pay any attention to what I say. You haven’t got the sense you were born with.’

  ‘Don’t panic,’ I said, stifling a giggle. ‘We’re just going to look round the edge, and then we’re coming straight back.’

  He stared at me, then put the earbuds back in and shambled off towards the back yard.

  Matt wasn’t looking happy as we trudged through the front gate and out on to the moor. I bet he really hates walking. He probably spends all his time on the smelly old Underground.

  It’s quite a long way to Old Scratch Wood. We went past Long Field on the farm track, then the field that isn’t ours any more, with Far Field behind it. I asked Matt if he wanted to see the sheep, but he wasn’t interested, so we crossed over the road that goes to Widecombe and on to the bridle path that cuts round Thieves’ Tor. I’m used to going everywhere on foot with Jez, but Matt kept moaning about it, asking me how long till we got there, like a kid in the back of a car. He’s so annoying.

  The moor’s fine so long as you know where you’re going and stick to the footpaths, but only if it’s good weather. Loads of people have got lost when the fog’s come down, and frozen to death, or strayed into mires and been sucked down under the mud. Dad says, ‘Pay the moor respect, and she’ll let you alone,’ and insists I always carry a compass. I told Matt this, and he laughed his head off.

  ‘Yeah, well, if you’re so clever, take a landmark now and we’ll see how well it holds up,’ I said.

  Matt shrugged and locked on to the road behind us and the tor in front to get his bearings. Then I led him over a few hillocks and off the bridle path. We tramped through the soggy tangle of bracken and stunted gorse bushes. They were blooming yellow even though it was late in the year.

  ‘Kissing still going strong, then,’ I said, and then felt my cheeks turn hot as Matt stared at me.

  ‘When the gorse is not in bl
oom, then kissing’s not in fashion,’ I mumbled. ‘It’s an old country saying. Don’t you know anything?’

  ‘Sorry, I must have been away when they did turnip-farming at school,’ said Matt.

  ‘OK, then, tell me where we’ve just come from?’

  Matt turned round. The road had disappeared from view behind the hillocks. It looked as if we were miles from anywhere. He glanced at the tor, then did a double take. There were now two tors in the distance. The stacks of grey stone rose up on either side of us, and the bridle path was nowhere to be seen.

  ‘Wow,’ said Matt. ‘That’s pretty strange. I could have sworn that was the tor we were aiming at.’ He pointed to the right-hand one. ‘But I don’t know. Wait. There must be traffic, surely.’

  We both listened. No cars. The wind whistled round our ears. Small birds twittered from hiding places among the heather stalks. Jez sniffed around, but didn’t find anything.

  ‘That way,’ Matt hazarded. I laughed.

  ‘Wrong,’ I said. ‘That’s our tor over there – the higher, fatter one. That’s Thieves’ Tor. The other one is Hunting Horn Tor. The road’s back over there.’

  Even I couldn’t find the path we had left, so I led him all the way up to the grey stone stacks. The road reappeared down below, exactly where I had said it was.

  ‘Point taken,’ Matt mumbled.

  ‘Wait until the fog comes down,’ I said. ‘Then it doesn’t matter how many landmarks you have, you’ve no chance of finding your way. Unless you’ve got Jez with you, of course. She knows everywhere round here.’

  ‘So you fall into a bog and if you don’t die of hypothermia, you wake up to find you’re looking straight into the red eyes of the Hound of the Baskervilles,’ said Matt. ‘I know. I’ve seen Sherlock Holmes on the telly.’

  ‘Exactly. So pay attention.’

  Matt glanced at me, suddenly serious.

  ‘Do you think it’s OK to go to Old Scratch Wood, then?’ he asked.

  ‘Of course it is.’ I looked at him. ‘Why? Gabe’s got you rattled, has he?’ I started to laugh. The idea was hilarious.

  ‘Yeah, all right,’ he said. ‘Maybe it is sort of stupid. But this place creeps me out. There’s something strange about it . . .’

  What a total killjoy. ‘Oh, get over yourself,’ I said. ‘Stop being such a wuss. Anyway, it’s another half an hour to Old Scratch Wood, so save your breath, you’ll be needing it.’

  We walked on for a while, Jez nosing around ahead of us. Matt looked really hacked off, but he didn’t have a choice – he was far too much of a townie to find his own way home. I was having a good time, though. For late October, it was great weather, cold and bright and clear. I love the moor even when it’s raining – you can still see birds and animals if you know where to look – but days like this are brilliant. All over the place clumps of dead bracken were glowing orange in the faint sun.

  Far away across the moor, a horn sounded two long blasts.

  ‘Wow, the Hunt must be out,’ I said. ‘What a perfect day for it.’

  Matt stared at me as if I was mad. I turned my back on him and scanned the horizon for riders. Nothing – they must be too far off. Shame. But maybe a good thing too – Matt would only have been snotty about it. I whistled to Jez and tramped on.

  When Old Scratch Wood finally appeared, it was a grey-purple mist on the side of a valley with a rushing stream at the bottom. You can just see it in the distance from the back of our house, but up close it’s really strange. As we drew nearer, the mist formed into a tight mass of leafless trees, silver against the grey sky. For some reason, we both slowed our steps and began walking on the narrow footpath at the side of the valley. Even Jez quietened down, suddenly glued to my heel.

  Only when we were right at the edge of the wood could we make out the oaks’ true shapes – stunted, twisted forms, like cartoons of trees drawn by someone with an evil imagination. I’d forgotten how much I disliked the place. Mum’s car accident happened somewhere near here, though I don’t know exactly where. But it wasn’t just that, it was the wood itself. The outer trees were blue-grey with lichen covering every bit of them. Deeper inside the wood, they all had bright green ferns sprouting from their limbs. Every inch of the ground was writhing with mossy growths on boulders and broken branches.

  ‘So this is what ancient forest looks like,’ said Matt. His voice sounded unnecessarily loud in the silence.

  I shivered, though I don’t think Matt noticed. ‘This is supposed to be the devil’s favourite place on Dartmoor,’ I said. ‘That’s what Old Scratch means. It’s another name for the devil.’

  ‘Well, if the devil seriously wanted to hang about on earth, I reckon Dartmoor would have to be his first choice,’ said Matt.

  There he went again. Insulting where I lived, like it was nothing. I plonked myself on a rock.

  ‘Sit, Jez,’ I said. She stared at me with disappointment in her brown eyes, but sat down obediently. Then I turned to Matt.

  ‘This is as far as I’m going. You go in by yourself. If you dare.’

  ‘You’re not serious, are you?’

  ‘Yes, I am.’ I took a bird book out of my rucksack and began to leaf through its pages. Jez settled down beside me, her black nose on my knee.

  Matt stared at me, confused.

  ‘OK,’ he said at last. ‘I’ll meet you out here when I’ve had a look.’

  ‘Watch out for the adders, then.’

  ‘Yeah, right.’

  I didn’t look up, and he stared some more, then turned and started clambering over the boulders into the forest, his hands scratching for holds on the dank moss. Above him the stunted trees dripped fronds of lichen. I sat still until he disappeared from view. Then I helped myself to a pasty, put the bird book into my pocket and scooted round the perimeter of the wood with Jez to a tiny path I vaguely remembered, which led into the centre. I delved into my rucksack, fished out the special item I’d brought with me and put it in my pocket.

  OK, city boy, I thought. It’s show time.

  5

  Matt

  I’d never seen so much moss in my life. The boulders were covered in it, and everywhere there were huge broken branches wrapped in disgusting green fur. I had to grab the stones because they were so slippery underfoot, so I kept getting a handful of the stuff – wet and cold and repulsive. Up above my head were blue-green clumps and fronds of lichen that looked like they’d been there since time began. Ferns hung from limbs like long hairy curtains. And the trees weren’t just short, they were practically horizontal, the branches splayed out low and creepy like twisted arms and hands. It was insane. I’d never seen anything like it.

  My imagination was going berserk. I could almost feel the trees eyeing me, as if they were about to bend down and fold me into their trunks. I shook myself. It was all getting a bit Lord of the Rings. I knew I was being dumb – they were only trees. Weird ones, yes, but just trees. At home, the only green spaces I ever saw were the London parks. I’d been in forests before, of course – I’d done the whole mushroom-gathering, squirrel-watching, oh-look-at-all-the-lovely-rotting-timber thing when I was a kid with my mum and dad, and wasn’t exactly thrilled by it then – but never on my own. That was why Old Scratch Wood was giving me the creeps, I told myself. I just wasn’t used to it.

  I gritted my teeth. I wasn’t going to pop out after two minutes only to have Tilda sneering at me. Instead I scrambled deeper into the wood, looking for a path or a clearing. After all, it couldn’t be that big – we’d seen it from the top of the valley and it wasn’t exactly Sherwood Forest. Uncle Jack had said that most of it had been cut down over the years, and it was true there wasn’t much left. It looked like you could probably walk round the whole thing in less than half an hour.

  The trouble was that inside it all seemed very different. Darker. Denser. And a whole lot scarier.

  I didn’t quite know how this had happened. If anyone had said to me, Hey Matt, fancy a walk on your own through this
ancient wood that’s apparently one of the devil’s favourite places? I’d have told them to get lost, and fast. But spend an afternoon with my pain of a cousin and suddenly I’m knee-deep in prehistoric jungle while she’s sunning herself outside with Jez. To my surprise I found I was missing the hairy hound.

  The worst thing was, it was my fault. Gabe had told me not to go to Old Scratch Wood. So like an idiot, what do I end up doing? I had to give it to the old nutter, he was dead right about this one. I couldn’t think of anywhere I’d less like to be.

  But I wondered why he’d gone on about this place. He’d said something about omens. Birds, was it? Back then it had sounded crazy, but now I wasn’t so sure. All round me there were rustlings and twitterings. And now I’d started noticing, I could see two crows perched on a low branch ahead of me. One of them flapped its wings and let out a rasping call. For a second I could see its black tongue protruding. Were they watching for me? I thought of the black bird that had flown into the car when I first arrived and felt a tingling at the top of my spine.

  And then there was the strange word Gabe had used when I first met him – the gabble thingy. I wished I knew what he meant.

  Stop thinking like this, I told myself. Just chill out.

  But I was getting myself well and truly spooked. In the thick of this repulsive wood it felt like something horrible could happen any moment.

  All at once something hooked into my hair. I jumped about a foot, hit my head against a branch and got a load of the disgusting lichen all over my face. I tore at my hair and untangled the furry twigs from it, then made myself stand still until my breathing slowed. Just a branch.