by Sara Crowe
‘This looks like the best one,’ said Callie. ‘A History of the Thornditch Stag Chase by Sybil Ingham. There has to be something useful in this.’
It was more like a pamphlet than a book: thin, with a battered green cloth cover, published in 1910. Callie opened it and turned pages. ‘Most of it’s about the nineteenth century,’ she said. ‘There’s just a short section at the front about the origins and early history.’
‘Better than nothing,’ said Ash. ‘What does it say?’
She took her time, read it through carefully. Then she pushed the book across the table towards him. ‘Read it yourself.’
He read.
The earliest known record of the Stag Chase is a reference to boys running in ‘Thorn-ditch’s Wyld Hunt’ in a 13th-century poem. However, some archaeologists suggest that the stag’s head carved on a standing stone near Corbie Tor locates the race’s origins in the Dark Ages or earlier. According to oral tradition, the Stag Chase was once a form of human sacrifice in which the stag boy, if caught, was killed by the hounds as a blood offering to the gods. If true, this practice was abandoned or outlawed during the Middle Ages, though local lore has it that occasional blood sacrifices were still made for some centuries after.
‘Right,’ said Ash. ‘The human-sacrifice stuff is more or less the same as Mark told me, that night you took me to see him in the woods. What about that bit that mentions a standing stone with the stag’s head carved on it? I’ve never even heard of it. Have you? Near Corbie Tor, the book says. I haven’t heard of that either.’
‘I’m not sure,’ she said. ‘I think it may be somewhere northwest. I bet Mark would know.’
‘Is there anything about Bone Jack?’
‘I don’t know. I only read that section you just read, on the origins of the Stag Chase. It doesn’t mention him there.’
He turned more pages, skim-reading. Most of the book was about the Stag Chase in the nineteenth century, as Callie had said, and most of that consisted of dull lists of the names of stag boys and notable hounds. But there were pictures too, pen-and-ink drawings of mountain scenes, a twisted hawthorn tree, a hare poised at the edge of a field.
His breath caught in his throat.
Bone Jack.
The floppy wide-brimmed hat, the eyes at once intense and faraway. The gaunt face.
There was no mistaking him.
‘That’s him,’ said Ash. ‘That’s the man I met in the mountains, the one who was at Mark’s camp. But this book is old, really old.’
‘Yeah, published in 1910.’
‘Over a hundred years ago. But I saw Bone Jack yesterday, in the woods, and he looked exactly like he does in this picture.’
Callie drew a long breath. ‘This is all so mad,’ she said.
‘Yeah, I know. But I really did see him. I’ve seen him three times. Twice hanging around the woods where Mark’s camp is and once when I found the wolf-dog, like I told you. That picture is of him. It’s exactly him.’
‘Does it say anything about him?’
‘A bit. It says the picture is of a hermit who lived wild in the mountains.’ He looked up from the book. ‘I looked up Bone Jack online. There wasn’t much about him, just a bit in an online encyclopedia that said he was a local version of some other mythic figures, wild men who lived in forests with birds and beasts. He’s a bit like them. He lives wild. He has the rooks, and that wolf-dog.’
‘Was it a wolf or a dog?’
‘I don’t know. Bone Jack said it was a wolf but I’ve never seen one in the flesh and it was in such a state anyway, starving and plastered with dried mud. It could have been, I suppose.’
‘So where did it come from? There aren’t any wild wolves in Britain any more, so if it was a wolf, it must have escaped from somewhere.’
‘Yeah, I asked him about that too.’
‘What did he say?’
‘He didn’t really tell me. He just seemed to think it shouldn’t have been there at all.’
‘OK,’ said Callie. ‘So let’s say there really was a wolf in the mountains, even though wild British wolves died out hundreds of years ago. And there are ghost hound boys out there too. And there’s Bone Jack, whom you saw yesterday looking exactly the same as he does in a picture in a book published over a hundred years ago. The wolf and the ghosts and Bone Jack are all ancient, from another time. They shouldn’t be here. They should be dead and gone. So why are they here? Why now?’
‘I don’t know. But it’s not just now. I told you, my dad saw things twenty years ago when he was the stag boy.’
‘OK. But it doesn’t happen every year, does it? Sometimes people tell stories about seeing ghosts up on the mountains, like the stories my dad and grandpa used to tell to me and Mark. But this isn’t stories. This is real. So why now?’
‘I don’t know. It could be something to do with Mark. Maybe he’s summoned them.’
‘I don’t think so. He’s crazy but he hasn’t got magic powers or anything. He’s just my brother. But maybe it’s not about powers. Maybe it’s about the land and its history.’
‘Mark said something like that,’ said Ash. ‘Something about the land being sick with foot-and-mouth and drought, no sheep in the mountains any more, everything withering and dying. He said that’s why the old ways are coming back. The sicker the land is, the stronger its ghosts get, or something.’
‘It makes sense, I suppose,’ she said. ‘Weird crazy ghost-story sense anyway.’
‘Ghost sense,’ said Ash. He smiled at her. ‘So what do we do now?’
‘That’s it for today, I suppose. Tomorrow I’m going to find Mark. Whatever he’s got himself into, I have to get him out of it.’
‘I’ll come with you.’
She shook her head. ‘No. I have to find him on my own.’
‘Why? I’m caught up in all of this, too. I want to know what’s going on.’
‘I know, but he’s still angry with you. He might talk to me about it, but he won’t do it if you’re there.’
Ash scowled but deep down he knew she was right. Mark would put on an act if he was there, make threats, swagger around like he did the night Callie had taken Ash to his camp. ‘OK,’ he said at last. ‘You go. I’ll stay away. But promise me you’ll tell me exactly what he says.’
‘I will. I promise.’
They put the books back on the shelves and stopped to thank the librarian on their way out. ‘Did you find what you wanted?’ he said.
Ash nodded. ‘Yeah, we found out a few things.’
‘Good. I expect I’ll see you on Sunday at the Stag Chase then. I hope you have a good race, leave the hounds in the dust.’
‘Thanks,’ said Ash. ‘I’ll do my best.’
They left the library, walked back to the high street.
Callie stopped. ‘I’ll head off now. I’ll look for Mark in the morning.’
‘Where will you stay tonight? You could come back to ours, only—’
‘Yeah, your dad. I know. I couldn’t stay with you anyway. There’d be too many questions.’
‘Where, then?’
‘I haven’t decided yet. Not back to Grandpa’s house. It’s too risky now Mrs Hopkinson suspects something. Maybe back to the farm.’
‘Your farm?’
She looked away, wouldn’t meet his gaze.
‘The farm’s all boarded up,’ he said.
‘There’s a way in round the back,’ she said. ‘It’s OK, seriously. It was our home.’
‘Yeah, I know, but …’ He felt cold and sick inside at the thought of her spending nights there, alone in that silent house in the vast mountain darkness, only metres away from where her dad hanged himself. ‘It’s creepy.’
‘I know it’s weird,’ she said. ‘But everything’s so weird anyway that it doesn’t matter.’
‘Callie …’ he said. He was about to say that he’d come with her, stay with her so she wouldn’t be alone, but she was already backing away from him. Another step, then another, then she t
urned and was lost in the throng of shoppers.
Ash stood for a few long moments, watching the crowd where she’d disappeared. Then he headed back to the bus stop.
TWENTY-ONE
Midnight. Two more days until the Stag Chase. Ash tossed and turned in his bed, half awake, half dreaming. He dreamed the stag boy was in his bedroom. Clay-daubed skin like cracked stone, charcoal making hollows of his eyes, the dark gash of his mouth. ‘Earth and stone,’ the stag boy said. Singsong, his voice soft as a breeze, as cold as death’s breath. ‘Fire and ash, blood and bone.’
Behind the stag boy, shadows gathered. They loomed above him, folded over him like a black wave. A tide of pitiless dark. The boy sank away into it as if he was drowning.
‘Wait for me!’ said Ash. But his mouth wouldn’t open. The words jammed in his throat. He flung off the bedsheet and stumbled across the room to where the stag boy had been. Followed him into the deep darkness. Then he was pushing through leaf and twig. Underfoot there wasn’t carpet any more; instead he walked barefoot on the dry leaf litter of a woodland floor.
No sign of the stag boy. Nothing except the dark shapes of trees, a star-scattered sky, moonlight.
He emerged from among the trees onto a stretch of scrubby, stony land. He stopped and stared. He’d been here before. The shallow, shrunken stream. The thorn trees. Bone Jack’s bothy.
The windows were dark. He went closer. A chill wind rattled the bone strings in the doorway. Beyond them, someone or something moved in the gloom.
The face at the window. Pale, blurred.
The quick beat of his own heart, his blood singing in his ears.
He went closer.
No one there.
A movement nearby. Wing beats, then soft footsteps.
Bone Jack stood in front of him. ‘You shouldn’t be here, lad. Go home.’
Then all of it was gone, blacked out in a blink.
He was standing in his own bedroom, facing the wall.
The cry of an owl in the trees.
He went to the window, looked out.
Below on the lawn stood a silent pack of masked hound boys. Their heads were tilted upwards. From behind their masks, they watched him.
He stepped back. Crouched down, below the level of the windowsill, crept forward again, peered out around the edge of the curtain.
The hound boys were gone. There was just moonlit grass, the black trees beyond it. Nothing to suggest they’d ever been there.
Shivering, he got back into bed. He thought about Callie, out there alone in the night. He thought about Mark, clay-painted, wearing the stag’s head, cloaked in bloodied rook skins. He thought about Dad.
Fear burned through him like a fever. The bedsheets stuck to his sweat-slick skin.
Night crowded in, hot and heavy, pressing down on him. He hardly knew if his eyes were open or closed. The darkness around his bed filled with footsteps, whispers, a rain of leaves falling slowly and silently. Ghosts calling to him and he had to follow, he had to, but he couldn’t move. ‘Come with us,’ they said. ‘Come with us.’ His body was a dead weight, his chest so tight he could barely draw breath. With a huge effort, he sat up.
Nothing under him except empty darkness, and he was falling. He clawed at empty air, his throat filled with screams.
He hit the rocks hard. Felt his flesh bruise and tear, his bones shatter, the hot rain of his own blood. A hiss of air escaped his lips.
He heard Bone Jack’s voice again. ‘Go home,’ it said. ‘Stay home.’
His eyes snapped open.
Daylight. He was lying on his back in his bed, his arms flung out wide, the sheet twisted around his legs.
And leaves in his hair. He sat upright, frantically brushing them away.
A knock at the door, then it opened and Mum came in. ‘Ash?’ she said. ‘Is everything all right?’
He fumbled with the bedsheet, pulling it up to his chin so she wouldn’t see the dressings covering the cuts on his chest.
‘Yeah, everything’s fine,’ he said.
His voice thin and scratchy. His skin still so hot. Bits of dead leaf scattered on the bed, on the floor.
‘You were yelling,’ said Mum. ‘And I thought I heard someone else’s voice in here with you.’
Ash glanced around the room. Just in case. Mum had heard something, someone. But what? And how? He must have cried out in imitation of Bone Jack’s voice, playing Bone Jack’s part in his own nightmare. Or else, somehow, Bone Jack had really been here, in the room and in his dreams at the same time. ‘There’s no one here,’ he said. ‘It must have been the radio alarm.’
‘The radio alarm,’ she said. ‘Right. But I definitely heard you yell out. Did you have a nightmare or something?’
‘Uh, yeah, I suppose I must have.’
‘Want to talk about it?’
He shrugged. ‘I can’t really remember it. I dreamed I was falling.’
‘I get those dreams too sometimes.’ She crossed the room and opened the curtains wide. Sunlight poured in. She didn’t seem to notice the dead leaves on the floor. ‘Lots of people do. It’s something to do with going to sleep too quickly and your mind and your body getting out of sync. It feels like you’re falling, then you jerk awake again.’
‘Sounds right.’
She sat on the edge of his bed and pressed her cool hand to his forehead. ‘You’ve got a bit of a temperature,’ she said.
‘It’s nothing. I’m OK. It’s just hot in here.’
‘You’ve had a lot to deal with lately, what with all your training and Dad coming home and then seeing Mark again.’
‘Yeah,’ said Ash. ‘I suppose so.’
‘You should take it easy now until the race. You need plenty of sleep and good food. Mum’s orders. No more of these punishing training runs. You’re supposed to wind down your training before a big race anyway, so a couple of days of rest won’t hurt.’
He looked at her. Her angular, almost beautiful face. The delicate shadows under her eyes. She looked tired and sad.
‘Mum,’ he said. ‘The other night. Dad went out, really late. I followed him.’
‘He went out?’ Worry creasing her forehead. ‘What night was this?’
‘The night before he took me out fishing and had a meltdown on Tolley Carn.’
‘Why didn’t you tell me this before?’
‘I don’t know. Because you were already so worried, I suppose.’
‘You don’t need to protect me, Ash. In fact, I’d rather you didn’t try. I need to know what’s going on, no matter what it is. Where did he go? What did he do?’
‘He went to Stag’s Leap first, then the Cullen farm. He just stood there, at the gate, staring at the house. Then he saw me. I think he knew I was there all along actually but he didn’t let on. We walked home together. He seemed OK, just a bit down, that’s all.’
Mum gave a small, sad smile. ‘It’s not so strange,’ she said. ‘Not if you think about it. Tom and him, they went back a long way. They were close friends when they were boys. Like you and Mark.’
‘Yeah, that’s what Dad said.’
‘He misses Tom more than he lets on. Did he tell you that Tom once saved his life?’
‘Yes. He said something happened on the Leap when he was the stag boy, and Tom pulled him back from the edge.’
‘It won’t always be like this, you know,’ Mum said. ‘Things will get better, I promise.’
‘Yeah,’ he said, turning away from her. ‘But when, Mum?’
She stood up, went to the door. ‘I still think you’ve got a touch of fever,’ she said. ‘Try to get some more sleep, then rest for today. No more running until the Stag Chase. Promise me?’
‘OK,’ he said. Closing his eyes, already drifting towards sleep again, Mum’s voice mingling with half-formed dreams.
TWENTY-TWO
He heard the door click shut as Mum went out. Heat wrapped around him like a warm, wet blanket. Even with the curtains drawn, with his eyes closed, the
re was an aching brightness. He tossed and turned and couldn’t get comfortable.
A tinny crackle of music from the radio downstairs. A dog barking in the distance.
A rook flying straight at the window, beak the colour of iron, claws hooked out.
He sat bolt upright.
No rook at the window now. Nothing but pale sky.
He got dressed, carefully rolling his T-shirt down over his bandaged chest. Then he went downstairs to the kitchen. The house was quiet and felt empty, though he knew Dad was almost certainly upstairs, shut in his darkened room as usual.
Sometimes it felt as if his dad was slowly ceasing to exist, his presence fading a little more every day.
Ash glanced at the wall clock. Two o’clock in the afternoon.
By now, Callie had probably found Mark, talked to him. Ash thought about going to Mark’s camp again to look for them, but he knew instinctively that it was a bad idea. Callie had told him to keep away and she’d be furious if he barged in. When she was ready, she’d tell him all about it. He just had to trust her and wait.
He remembered the book they’d looked at in the library, the reference to a standing stone with a stag’s head carved into it, and to somewhere called Corbie Tor. Landscape features he’d never heard of before, never knowingly seen.
He made himself a sandwich and went back up to his bedroom, eating as he searched online for Corbie Tor. It didn’t take long to find it, in an article on an antiquarian maps website. An ‘obsolete archaic place name’, the article said. At least that explained why he’d never heard of it before. He clicked on a link and an image of an old map opened up. It was clumsily drawn, a crude sketch of the mountainous region northwest of Thornditch. But it was accurate enough for him to work out where Corbie Tor was.
He’d been there before, without knowing its name. The rocky outcrop he’d climbed when he’d found the wolf-dog, above the valley where Bone Jack lived.
He could go there again this afternoon, look around, see if he could find the standing stone. It probably wasn’t important, probably didn’t mean anything or have any sort of significance, but it was another piece of the jigsaw puzzle. And there was a chance he’d see Bone Jack again out there too. The thought made him edgy but he didn’t care any more. The Stag Chase was the day after tomorrow and he wanted to find out whatever he could before he ran.
