by Sara Crowe
In his mind, he heard Bone Jack’s voice again. Hold to your own, lad.
‘What did you mean?’ Ash said, out loud.
Perhaps Bone Jack had meant that he should make his own choices and stand by them. Or that he should take care of his own – of Mum and Dad – and leave the rest alone. But maybe Mark and Callie were his own too.
Every answer only seemed to lead to more questions. And maybe none of it mattered anyway. Maybe the only thing that mattered was the one thing he could do: run.
Only tomorrow to get through and then it would be Sunday, the day of the Stag Chase. Until then, he’d sleep, chill out, play computer games, load up on carbs, keep his head down. Then on Sunday he’d run. Everything was simple when he ran, just muscle and bone, rhythm and focus and the lie of the land. Nothing and no one would catch him. He’d outrun them all. Mark, the hound boys, the ghosts. He’d leave them all trailing in his wake. He’d run his race his own way, and Dad would be waiting for him at the finish line. It would be all right. He just had to run and everything would be all right.
A movement below in the valley caught his eye. Rooks, flapping up from the thorn trees.
The air thrummed with their wing beats. They scattered across the land, night-black rags tossed on the wind, and he watched them until they were gone.
TWENTY-FOUR
That night, Ash slept deeply, dreamlessly. When he woke, the house was quiet. These days, it was nearly always quiet. Almost two weeks since Dad came home, and the silence and tension almost seemed ordinary now. Mum either in the garden or out somewhere. Dad curled up in the dark in his room. A new normal they’d all somehow fallen into, learned to live with.
He glanced at his alarm clock. Just gone eight thirty. Saturday morning.
The Stag Chase tomorrow.
Excitement and fear burned through him. He rolled out of bed, got dressed, went downstairs. He stopped on the landing and knocked softly on the door to Dad’s room. No response, but he switched on the light and went in anyway.
The bed was empty and unmade. Sheets trailing to the floor. The rucksack slumped against the wall, still spilling clothes. The air sour with sweat and dread.
Dad was next to the window, squatting on his heels with his back to the wall. He was twitchy. He kept sniffing as if he had a cold. Rubbed his hand over his face again and again. In the hard white light, he looked grey and ill.
‘What’s wrong, Dad? What are you doing down there? Dad? Are you OK?’
No reply.
Ash picked his way through all the junk to where Dad was. He pulled back the curtains and opened the window. Fresh air, sunlight, and a rush of birdsong.
‘Shut the window!’ hissed Dad. ‘Shut the curtains.’
Ash stared at him. ‘Come on, Dad. Get up. Please get up, Dad.’
‘Shut the window,’ said Dad again. ‘Shut the curtains.’
Silently Ash did as he said. He switched off the light, closed the door behind him. He trembled and felt sick. As if the world had tilted and everything had rearranged itself in ways he couldn’t understand. Something gone wrong, gone askew, throwing everything out of kilter. He had to put it right but he didn’t even know what it was, never mind how to fix it.
He went outside. He sat on the doorstep and stared at the sun until it burned away everything, land and sky and memory.
A car came along the lane, pulled up. A door slamming.
Footfalls crunching on the gravel drive.
Ash turned his head, blinking, his eyes still full of fierce sunlight.
A silhouette against the sun glare. Featureless, a shadow. Ash squinted at it.
The figure came closer, shimmering like a dark mirage. ‘I’m looking for your mother,’ it said. A woman’s voice. Ash stood up, lost his balance, caught himself.
‘Is your mother home?’
‘No. I don’t think so.’
‘Well, don’t you know?’
Now the dazzle faded from his eyes and he could make out a bulky outline, a fluffy halo of honey-coloured hair. Then he knew who she was and panic flared inside him.
‘You’re her,’ he said. ‘Grandpa Cullen’s next-door neighbour.’
‘Mrs Hopkinson,’ she said. ‘And I need to talk to your mother.’
It had to be about Mark and Callie. And it was Ash’s fault. He’d told her his name and she’d known who he was and where he lived, even though he’d lied to her. She’d realised that it meant Mark and Callie couldn’t be living with relatives in Thornditch after all.
Now here she was. And he had to get rid of her.
‘Mum’s not in.’
‘We’ll see, shall we?’
She went to the door, rang the bell.
They waited.
‘I told you,’ said Ash. ‘She’s not home.’
Then the door opened. Mum in her floppy hat, secateurs in her hand, looking from Mrs Hopkinson to Ash and back again.
‘I need to talk to you,’ Mrs Hopkinson said. ‘About Mark and Callie Cullen. In private.’
Ash caught Mum’s eye, willed her to understand, not to say something that would have search parties scouring the mountains. Mum frowned slightly, then waved Mrs Hopkinson inside and closed the door.
It was half an hour before Mrs Hopkinson left. Ash watched her go, listened to her car drive away. Then he went to find Mum.
‘What did she want?’
‘You know what she wanted. She’s worried about Mark and Callie. Apparently Mark told her that they were staying with relatives here in Thornditch, then you turned up in Coldbrook looking for them and she worked out they couldn’t possibly be in Thornditch after all.’
‘So what did you tell her?’
‘I told her that Mark must have thought they were coming to Thornditch but that they’d gone to stay with some other relatives instead, further away.’
‘You lied to her?’
‘I’m not proud of it,’ said Mum. ‘She’s just concerned, that’s all. She came all the way out here because she’s worried about them. She’s a nice woman. I don’t like lying to her. I don’t like lying to anyone.’
‘So why did you?’
‘Because those kids have been through far too much already. If she reports them as missing, social services will get involved and they’ll come looking for Callie.’
‘What about Mark?’
‘Mark is sixteen, a few months older than you. Legally he’s old enough to leave home. But Callie is only fourteen. They’d come for her and take her away. That child has suffered more than her share of loss and upheaval lately.’
‘Thanks, Mum.’
‘Don’t thank me,’ she said. ‘This is a serious matter. I lied to Mrs Hopkinson and Callie is out there somewhere fending for herself. I don’t like lying, and if anything happens to Callie, it will be my fault. So next time you see her, I want you to get her to come and talk to me so we can sort something out for her. OK?’
‘OK.’ He hesitated. ‘Mum?’
‘What now?’
‘I went into Dad’s room earlier. He’s crouching in there, in the dark, by the window.’
‘I know,’ she said. ‘He’s been like that for a few hours. He’s having a bad day.’
‘He’s not going to make it to the Stag Chase tomorrow, is he?’
‘We’ll see. He might have a better day tomorrow.’ Her face softened and she smiled. ‘What about you? Are you ready for the race?’
‘Yeah, as ready as I’ll ever be.’
‘You’ll be fine. I know you will.’
He looked at her and felt a million miles from her. She knew nothing about Mark’s threats or spectral hound boys with murder in their eyes or Bone Jack. To her, the Stag Chase was just a race and all he had to worry about was running. And that was how it had to be. If he’d told her even half of it, she’d think he’d gone as crazy as Dad and then she’d have nothing, no one to turn to.
So he smiled and said, ‘Yeah, I’ll be fine.’
‘Any plans for today?�
� she said.
He laughed. ‘Big plans to play computer games, eat a lot of carbs, lounge around and sleep as much as I can.’
‘You’d better get on with it then,’ said Mum.
Ash was sure he’d lie awake half the night, fretting about the race, about Dad, about Mark. Instead he fell into a deep, black, dreamless sleep almost immediately his head hit the pillow.
Then something woke him. He lay in the moon-washed dark, his eyes wide open, his heart racing.
It came again, a thud, then a grunt of breath.
He got out of bed, opened the curtain and looked out.
He expected to see hound boys gathered outside again. But this time there was only one boy out there in the moonlight, bone-white under a ragged black cloak and with the monstrous stag’s head upon his shoulders.
Ash knew it was Mark, in his stag-god guise, but still his heart quickened and a chill ran through him. A thin pain threaded along the cuts on his chest, as if the ghost of the knife was retracing its bloody path across his skin.
Mark didn’t look up. He raised one foot and brought it down hard, then the other foot, again and again, slowly at first, building to a steady rhythm. He raised his arms and the cloak hung from them like half-opened wings. Then he danced, circling like a huge grotesque bird. He didn’t look up. Whatever this was, it wasn’t meant for Ash’s eyes.
So what was it? Maybe a pre-Stag Chase ritual. Maybe something else.
Ash pulled on a T-shirt and went downstairs.
By the time he got outside, Mark was gone.
He’d left the stag’s head behind, propped upright in the middle of the moon-silvered lawn. It seemed to watch Ash from the inky hollows where its eyes had once been. Bone gleamed through its tattered hide. The stench of death hung in the still night air, corrupt and sickly sweet.
He couldn’t leave it here for Mum to find in the morning. She’d freak. But he couldn’t shove it under the hedge like he’d done with the sheep skull. The antlers were too big, too unwieldy, and the hedge wouldn’t hide the stink of it anyway.
Breathing through his mouth to avoid the smell, he grasped the antlers and lifted. It was heavy, strapped to a clumsy wooden structure that Mark must have added so he could position it on his shoulders, the stag’s head raised above his own. Ash held it at arm’s length and tried not to think about the putrefying flesh and the likelihood of maggots, or about Mark, so far gone in his madness that he could bear to wear the foul thing.
He carried it into the lane, then swung it up over the hedge into the field opposite the house. It crunched down somewhere in the darkness beyond, among nettles and foxgloves.
He went back to the house, headed straight for the kitchen. He took a clean cloth from the cupboard under the sink, ran it under the hot tap and squirted hand-wash gel all over it. He washed his hands, his arms, his legs, everywhere the stag’s rotten head might have touched him or dripped putrid filth on him.
A door opened upstairs, the pad of footsteps on the landing then coming down the stairs. Mum. She must have heard him moving around.
Quickly he dried himself with a tea towel then opened the fridge and pretended to root around inside it.
The kitchen door opened and he blinked owlishly at Mum.
‘It’s two o’clock in the morning,’ she said. ‘What are you doing in here?’
‘I couldn’t sleep,’ Ash said.
‘So you thought you’d come downstairs and make yourself a snack, I suppose?’
He grinned sheepishly. ‘I was hungry.’
‘You shouldn’t eat this late at night, especially when you’ve got a race to run in a few hours’ time. Come on, back up to bed with you.’
He shut the fridge door, followed Mum upstairs. ‘Try to get some sleep,’ she said. ‘And if you can’t sleep, at least get some rest.’
Back in his bedroom, he glanced out of the window again. The night was still, silent except for the fluting call of a tawny owl. It was as if Mark had never been there.
Ash lay down on the bed and closed his eyes. He was too tired now to worry any more about Mark or anything much. He felt weirdly calm, detached from everything. He knew the feeling wouldn’t last but for now he let himself drift with it. Morning would come. The Stag Chase would go ahead. And what would be, would be.
TWENTY-FIVE
He slept until seven, woke to a jabber of voices on his radio alarm. For a few minutes he didn’t move, just lay with his eyes wide open, staring at the patterns of hazy sunlight playing across the ceiling. This was it. The day of the Stag Chase. Today anything could happen, glory or disgrace, life or death.
Glory. Let it be glory.
He got out of bed, pulled on his tracksuit and running shoes, went downstairs.
Mum was in the kitchen.
‘Morning,’ he said. ‘Where’s Dad?’
‘He’s not up yet, love,’ said Mum.
‘But he knows, right? He knows it’s the Stag Chase today?’
‘Yes, he knows. He’ll come down soon, I’m sure.’ But she didn’t sound sure. ‘Sit down and I’ll get you some breakfast,’ she said. ‘Come on. Stop worrying about Dad.’
‘Right,’ said Ash. He sat at the table. Mum put a bowl of porridge in front of him. Now he felt sick, nerves jumping like grasshoppers in his stomach. He forced himself to eat, gluey spoonful after gluey spoonful. Then a slice of toast spread with peanut butter and honey.
Quarter to eight and still no sign of Dad. Ash couldn’t settle. ‘I’ll go wake him up,’ he said.
The dark room again. The clogged air. Dad hunched on his side in the bed. Even before he spoke, Ash knew Dad wasn’t going to make it. Today was another of his bad days.
‘Dad,’ he said, ‘it’s the Stag Chase today. You’ll be there, won’t you?’
Dad grunted.
‘You promised, Dad.’
‘Let me sleep,’ said Dad.
‘It’s all you do,’ said Ash. ‘Sleep and mess things up.’
He shut the door hard behind him. Went downstairs, outside. He sat on the garden bench next to the wall, gazed with unfocused eyes above the trees to Tolley Carn, already smudged with heat.
Mum came out and sat down next to him. ‘I thought we could go for a drive. Then I’ll drop you off in the village in time for the race.’
Ash shook his head. ‘I don’t want to go.’
‘For a drive or to the race?’
‘Both.’
‘You’ll regret it if you don’t run. Probably for the rest of your life.’
‘I don’t care.’
‘Yes, you do. You’ve spent months training for this. And I know Dad hasn’t got his act together yet today, but he’s so proud of you. He’ll be there when you race. I know he will.’
‘How do you know?’
‘Because I know how much he loves you.’
Ash sighed. He was acting like a brat again. And she was right. She was nearly always right. ‘OK,’ he said. ‘You win.’
‘I win an hour in a car with a sulky teenager,’ she said. ‘Great.’
He smiled in spite of himself.
They went out along the mountain roads. Mum didn’t talk and Ash watched through the window as the land scrolled past like film scenery, mountains and valleys carved by vast forces of ice, water, wind, sculpted over billions of years. So ancient it seemed it must always have been there, must always have looked like this. But Ash knew it owed its very form to change, to the slow forces of the elements that shaped it. Nothing stayed the same for ever, not really. Not people, not families, not even the land itself. All you could do was hold on as best you could.
They stopped on the road halfway up Owl Cry Ridge, got out of the car, sat on a patch of scratchy brown grass. The breeze was cool against Ash’s skin.
‘Feeling any better now?’ said Mum.
Ash nodded. ‘Yeah. A bit.’
‘He’ll be OK, you know. Your dad. It’ll take time and there’ll be ups and downs, but he’ll get there.’
‘Do you really believe that?’
She smiled and shrugged. ‘Most of the time.’
Ash watched a distant kestrel pause in the sky then drop like a stone into the heather. ‘Why?’ he said. ‘Why him? I don’t get it. Other soldiers come home and they’re OK.’
‘Some soldiers come home in body bags,’ said Mum. ‘Some come home with arms or legs missing, or in wheelchairs. Your dad came home with post-traumatic stress disorder. There’s no why about it. Some soldiers get it and others don’t.’
‘He’s scared,’ said Ash. ‘He’s jumping at shadows all the time. He’s scared of everything.’
‘Your dad is one of the bravest men I know,’ said Mum.
‘Maybe he used to be,’ said Ash. ‘But he’s changed. He’s like a completely different person. I don’t get it.’
Mum was quiet, gazing across the valley into the distance, something frozen and faraway in her expression.
‘Is he always going to be like this?’ he said.
‘No, not always. People with post-traumatic stress, well, it can come and go. And if they get help, counselling, maybe medication for a while if they need it … it’s manageable. They can recover, lead normal lives.’
‘I keep getting angry with him,’ said Ash. ‘I know he can’t help it, I know he’s ill, but I still keep thinking that if he wanted to, if he really loved us, he’d get better. He’d get help. He’d go and see that counsellor. He’d try. But he isn’t trying. He just shuts himself up in his room and I don’t know what to do.’
‘You don’t need to do anything,’ said Mum. ‘Just run your race and then we’ll take things one day at a time.’
She got to her feet. ‘Come on. It’s time we headed back to Thornditch.’
Ash nodded, stood up.
‘Anything else you’d like to do before the race starts?’
Ash thought for a moment. ‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘I want to go to the churchyard.’
Mum raised her eyebrows. ‘The churchyard? What for?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Ash. ‘I suppose because Tom Cullen saved Dad’s life when Dad was the stag boy. It just feels like something I should do, before the race. Pay my respects.’
