by Sara Crowe
He pulled on his trainers. He’d promised Mum he wouldn’t run today and he was still tired so he took his bike. The bike was faster anyway, a mean-looking hardtail he’d bought two summers ago after saving up for a whole year. He rode on the lanes and the main walking trails, then along the old drovers’ paths. He stopped. This was where he’d found the wolf-dog, he was sure of it. Nothing there now, no sign that the wolf-dog had ever existed. But that didn’t matter. He remembered the spot well enough. That dip in the path. That steep bank. Corbie Tor itself.
And in the valley below, the thorn trees and stony ground where Bone Jack’s bothy was.
He left the bike at the side of the path and climbed up onto the higher ground above it.
Ahead stood a lone figure, silhouetted against the sky.
Callie.
He frowned slightly, wondering what she was doing out here, where Mark was.
She started heading north and he followed. The air so still that every sound he made seemed huge. The crackle of the dry heather underfoot, the rasp of his breath.
Callie reached Corbie Tor and vanished around the other side of it.
Ash followed.
Now he heard voices. Callie’s voice and then Mark’s. Ash stopped and listened. He couldn’t make out their words but he heard a gentleness in Mark’s voice, a kindness that Ash had almost forgotten he was capable of.
He went closer, saw them walk out from the shadow of Corbie Tor and onto the lower path. Mark half naked, clay daubed, his hair sticking up in stiff spikes. He looked like some wild warrior from the ancient past, and Callie, with the mountain breeze tugging at her hair, seemed no less wild than her brother.
There was a closeness about them Ash had never really noticed before. He saw it now, in the way they moved with the same loose, easy strides, and the way word and gesture shifted between them, subtle and somehow secretive.
Suddenly he felt like an intruder. Callie had told him to stay away, to let her talk to Mark alone. He should go.
He turned to leave, started walking back towards where he’d left the bike. Then he stopped, annoyed with himself. He was part of this madness too, caught up in everything just like they were. He had every right to be there with them. There were things he needed to know, questions he just couldn’t let go.
So he called out to them and Mark glanced back and the spell broke.
They waited for him to catch up, watched him blunder towards them through the bracken.
Callie glared at him. ‘I told you not to come.’
‘I wasn’t looking for you or Mark,’ said Ash. ‘I thought you’d be at his camp in the woods, not out here.’
‘So why did you come here?’
‘I was looking for the places we read about in that book. I was curious. It’s not important though. If you want me to go away, I’ll go.’
She scowled at him. ‘You might as well stay, now you’re here.’
They walked on in silence, following Mark.
The sun bright in Ash’s eyes. The salt taste of sweat on his cracked lips. Midges danced about him. He swatted them away and tried to catch Callie’s attention again but she avoided looking at him. He understood. She was here for Mark, not for him.
They stopped.
Gorse, bracken, heather. A high thread of skylark song.
‘What now?’ said Ash.
Mark pointed towards a spike of rock Ash had never seen before, jutting from a bed of heather. It was maybe three metres tall, solitary, bleak. The standing stone mentioned in the book he and Callie had looked at in the library. It had to be.
‘Is that what you came to find?’ said Mark.
Ash nodded. ‘The standing stone, yeah.’
They went up to it.
At first all Ash could see was pitted, weather-worn stone, scabbed with lichen. Then he ran his fingertips over the sun-warmed surface and from the rough contours a shape started to emerge.
Antlers. A stag’s head. And not just a head. He could make out a torso and limbs as well. A figure that was half man, half stag. It felt wild and powerful.
Mark laughed. ‘Do you know what it is?’
‘Of course I know what it is,’ said Ash. ‘It’s a stag boy.’
‘Well done. Why do you think it’s here, on this stone?’
‘I don’t know. It’s ancient. Some sort of marker, maybe a religious thing. Something to do with the Stag Chase. I don’t know.’
‘It’s where they used to sacrifice the stag boys, in the early days. They’d drag them here, cut their throats and their blood would run down the stone into the earth. Later on, when the holy men came and preached against human sacrifice, they stopped bringing the stag boys here. They chased them off the Leap instead, or threw them off. Far from the priests’ prying eyes. That’s where the Leap gets its name from. Stag’s Leap, the stag boy’s leap.’
‘How do you know all that?’
‘I just know,’ said Mark.
Ash looked at Callie. She didn’t look angry any more, just tired, defeated somehow, her face drawn and her eyes bright with tears.
‘The old days are gone,’ said Ash. ‘No one is sacrificed these days. It’s just a race now.’
‘Most of the time it’s just a race,’ said Mark. ‘Not this year though. You know. You’ve seen things. You know.’
‘I don’t know what I’ve seen, not really. All I know is that a few things have happened that I can’t explain and there are a lot of old legends and ghost stories about dark stuff from the past.’
‘Dark stuff from the past,’ said Mark. ‘That’s right. That’s why you’ve got to pull out of the Stag Chase. I’m serious, Ash. Pretend you’ve torn a muscle or something. They can find another stag boy. There’s still time.’
‘This again.’ Ash blinked the sunlight from his eyes. ‘What do you want, Mark? Why are you doing all this?’
‘I told you. I want my dad back. I want everything to go back to the way it was.’
‘What about Callie? What about what she wants?’
‘I know what’s best for my own sister.’
Callie lifted her head. Her face was pale, her grey eyes dark and fierce. She glared at Mark. ‘This isn’t best for me,’ she said. ‘All this – it’s crazy. No one’s going to be killed. Nothing’s going to bring Dad back. He’s gone. This is it, this is all we’ve got. The three of us, and Grandpa. And Grandpa’s ill. We should be with him, we should be helping him. Not standing around out here in the middle of nowhere, talking about killing stag boys.’
‘Callie—’ Mark took a step towards her but she backed away.
‘I can’t listen to you any more,’ she said. ‘I can’t listen to all this talk about Dad, about killing people. Stop it. You have to stop it.’
She retreated further away from them.
‘Callie,’ said Ash, ‘it’s OK. Please don’t …’
But she wouldn’t even look at him. Instead she turned, ran off up the path.
Ash started to follow her but Mark stopped him. ‘Let her go. She doesn’t get it.’
‘Doesn’t get what?’ said Ash. ‘That you think if you paint yourself with clay and kill rooks and murder the stag boy then that’s going to bring your dad back? No one comes back from the dead. No one. Even if you really do kill me or some other stag boy, it won’t bring your dad back.’
‘You’re wrong,’ said Mark. His voice was quiet and deadly serious. ‘You can bring people back. There’s a way. Blood for blood, life for life.’
‘What way?’
Mark glanced towards Bone Jack’s bothy in the valley below. ‘Him,’ he said. ‘Bone Jack. The guardian of the boundary between life and death. Get past him and you can get past death itself.’
‘So what’s the big plan?’ said Ash. ‘You’re going to sacrifice the stag boy and Bone Jack’s going to let you bring your father back from the dead? That’s insane.’
Mark’s eyes glittered. ‘You don’t even know who Bone Jack is, what he is.’
�
�He’s just a man,’ said Ash, even though he didn’t believe it. ‘He’s just a weird man, a hermit who lives in the mountains.’
‘He’s a shaman. He moves between the land of the living and the land of the dead. He’s thousands of years old and he shapeshifts. He’s a man, he’s a bird, a thousand birds.’
‘He’s just a man,’ said Ash again.
‘He’s much more than that,’ said Mark. ‘You know it as well as I do. He’s much more than a man, but when he shapeshifts, when he breaks apart into rooks, then I can get at him. I kill his rooks, a few here, a few there. Every time I do it, he gets weaker. When I take the rooks and make them mine, I take his strength. And when I’ve taken enough of it, I’ll be able to do what he can do. I’ll go into Annwn, into the realm of the dead, and I’ll bring back my dad.’
‘So that’s why you’re really out here? Waiting for Bone Jack to shapeshift so you can kill some more rooks, take his power and travel to the land of the dead? Do you know how crazy that sounds?’
‘I don’t care how it sounds.’
‘How do you kill the rooks anyway?’
‘Catapult,’ said Mark. ‘Remember how we used to practise hitting empty tin cans? I was good at it. I’m even better now.’
‘Mark,’ said Ash, ‘you’re ill. You should come home with me. Please, come home with me.’
‘I’m not ill,’ said Mark. ‘I’m not going anywhere. You know I’m not crazy. You know what I’m saying is true.’
Ash looked away from him, looked beyond the standing stone. There was something else out there, further along the path, a familiar shape silhouetted against the sky.
He went towards it.
The stag’s head, the one Mark had worn as a headdress when he’d dressed up as the stag god. Stuck on a pole. Its eyes gone, eaten away. Its coat dull, matted with dried blood. Flies droning around it.
Ash turned away from it and walked back towards Mark. Mark smiled weirdly, eyes flint-hard. Ash watched him smirk and swagger, pleased with the shock on Ash’s face.
‘I’m going to run in the Stag Chase,’ said Ash, suddenly cold with fury. ‘I’m going to run for my dad. I’m going to run all your ghosts into the ground. You can’t stop me.’
He kept walking, left Mark behind. He climbed up Corbie Tor. He looked down across the valley to where Bone Jack’s bothy stood among the thorn trees.
On the ridge beyond, dark birds gathered like a storm cloud. They flowed and eddied in the warm air, flapped apart, drew together again, closer now, denser, wings touching, melting into each other until the flock became a shadow, an outline. The silhouette of a man in a long coat, a wide-brimmed hat.
Ash glanced down to where Mark had been standing but Mark was nowhere to be seen. Run off to find Callie, Ash thought.
He was alone except for Bone Jack, the wild man, the shapeshifter, dark against the skyline. Ash watched him stride away until he couldn’t see him any more.
Then, without knowing quite why he did it, he ran downhill towards Bone Jack’s bothy.
TWENTY-THREE
Ash stood outside the bothy. He didn’t have a plan, didn’t know what to do, what he was looking for. Something, anything, that might give him an edge.
The bone strings in the doorway rattled in the breeze. Beyond them was deep shadow. Just like last time, except now the filthy windows were blank and there was no blurry face staring through at him.
He listened. All he heard was the slow slide of his own breathing, the whisper of the breeze among the thorn trees, bird chatter.
No sign of Bone Jack.
He pushed through the bone strings into hot dusty gloom. Sweat prickled on his skin. He stopped just inside, waited for his eyes to adjust to the dark. Taut threads of sunlight cut through the grime on the windows. The tiny skulls on the bone strings threw weird shadows against the back wall.
Now he could make out shapes in the gloom. A small table with two chairs. A woodstove with a stack of firewood next to it. A pile of blankets and furs at one end of the room.
It seemed more like a den than a home.
Something moved, fluttered and flapped. A tiny bird, a wren or something. It shot past him, out through the bone curtain.
He went further inside. A fox skull on a shelf, an old army knife, five stones set out side by side on the table. He picked one up, felt its weight and balance. Leaf-shaped, shiny, cool against his skin. A flint arrowhead.
Next to the arrowheads was a book. It was small, bound with old soft leather. He opened it. The thin pages were so fragile that he imagined even the gentlest touch of his fingertips might tear them. Something written on them, a poem, handwritten in inky lettering.
‘You again, lad,’ said a voice behind him.
Ash spun round, still clutching the book. Fear shook through him.
Bone Jack in the doorway, silhouetted against the bright sunlight outside. ‘What is it this time? Another sick wolf? Thieving? Snooping?’
Ash shot a panicky glance across at the nearest window, briefly wondered if it would break if he hurled himself against it.
‘I saw you over yon with the girl and the painted boy,’ said Bone Jack. ‘The crazy boy who’s been killing my rooks.’
‘He’s killing them to take your power. You could stop him. You should stop him.’
‘I can’t stop him. Things has to play out as they will for the living. It’s not for me to interfere.’
His eyes sharp and cold and pale as ice.
‘Are you human?’ said Ash. The words rushing out, taking him by surprise. ‘Or something else? A spirit or a myth thing, like Taliesin or the Green Man?’
‘They’re just names,’ said Bone Jack. ‘Names and stories.’
‘OK,’ said Ash. Fear twisted inside him. Suddenly he wanted to get out of the bothy but Bone Jack was between him and the doorway. He took a deep breath to steady his nerves. ‘I came here to find some answers, that’s all. There are ghosts in the mountains. I’ve seen them. There was that wolf. And Mark’s saying he’s going to kill the stag boy and bring his dad back from the dead and somehow it all seems to have something to do with you.’
As he spoke, he took a step towards the door. Legs heavy as wood, sweating so much his shirt was sticking to his back.
Bone Jack stayed where he was, blocking the only way out.
‘It ain’t about me,’ said Bone Jack. ‘It’s about the dying land and the old ways.’
‘That’s what Mark said. The old ways. Life for life. The stag boy’s life in exchange for his dad’s.’
‘The dead stay dead,’ said Bone Jack. ‘Only ghosts come back.’
‘Like those hound boys?’
‘Aye.’
‘Why have they come back?’
‘They’re here every year, every Stag Chase. Most years there’s nowt much to them. But now the land’s sick and its darkest dreams are rising from it like mist. The sicker the land is, the stronger they get.’
‘What do they want?’
‘Blood and death is what. It’s all they know. How to hunt, how to kill.’
‘Why don’t you stop them?’
‘They ain’t strong enough yet.’
‘I don’t know what that means.’
No response. Bone Jack’s face was hidden in the shadow under the brim of his hat and suddenly Ash couldn’t catch his breath. The gloom pressed in around him, thick with ancient dust, and all he could think about was getting outside, into fresh air and sunlight and limitless space.
‘I’ll go now,’ he said. His voice was a croak. He took a small step towards the door, then another. ‘I’m sorry I disturbed you.’
He kept his gaze low, kept moving, slow tiny paces.
And Bone Jack stepped aside to let him out.
Ash kept walking until he was halfway across the clearing. Then he stopped, his fear fading in the sunlight. He looked back at Bone Jack.
‘I don’t know what to do,’ said Ash. ‘What should I do?’
‘Hold to your own,
lad.’
‘What does that mean?’
But Bone Jack had already turned away, retreated into the gloom behind the bone strings.
Ash ran on through the trees and up the slope back towards Corbie Tor. Halfway, he stopped.
He was still holding the book he’d picked up in the bothy.
He sat on a slab of rock and stared at it. There was a faint trace of lettering on the cover, so faded that he could barely make out the words. He angled the book into the sunlight, squinted at it, spoke its title out loud: The Battle of the Trees.
He’d come across that title before. Where? He trawled his memory. Then it came back to him. He’d seen it when he’d looked up Bone Jack online and learned about his connection to those other mysterious wild men of the mountains. Taliesin, he thought. The Battle of the Trees was a poem written by Taliesin.
The breeze gusted, hot and dry.
He opened the book and started to read.
I have been in a multitude of shapes,
Before I assumed a consistent form.
I have been a sword, narrow, variegated,
I will believe when it is apparent.
I have been a tear in the air,
I have been the dullest of stars.
I have been a word among letters,
I have been a book in the origin.
I have been the light of lanterns,
A year and a half.
A poem about shapeshifting.
The breeze blew harder, lashed tears from his eyes and tore at the tissue-thin pages. Ash slammed the book shut and shielded it from the wind with his body. But it broke into pieces in his hands. Shreds of paper danced like flakes of ash across the mountainside. Nothing left in his hands except a few limp scraps of old leather.
Gone. Just the echo of the poem in his mind.
I have been in a multitude of shapes …
Birdman. Shapeshifter.
Bone Jack.
The wind dropped. He stood up.
