Like Father

by Nick Gifford

  The jangling sound of sitar music drifted across from the marquee. David must have put one of his CDs on.

  No sign of Cassie. He didn’t know if she would be here today or not. He hadn’t seen her to ask.

  “Come on, they’ll be wondering where we’ve got to,” said Danny, heading down the slope towards the marquee.

  ~

  The marquee was lined with trestle tables displaying the flowers and vegetables entered in the village show. Giant cabbages and leeks sat side by side with fussy arrangements of late spring flowers and handicrafts. Off on another set of tables Warren was giving away bags full of Hope Springs produce – all organic, and accompanied by a leaflet outlining the courses and activities on offer at HoST. There was a children’s art show at one end of the tent, and at the other were tables and chairs where HoST were providing refreshments.

  “How did we do it?” complained Won’t. “We get the car parking just when people are arriving, and now we’re working on refreshments just as lunchtime’s coming up... Someone has it in for us.”

  Danny got stuck in behind the scenes, ladling coriander soup into bowls, emptying the used grounds from the coffee machine and refilling it.

  Again, he lost himself in the routine activity. He even found himself humming a little tune as he worked.

  He stopped, panicking, when he recognised the tune. One of Oma’s – one she must have learnt from Hodeken.

  Nothing.

  Just the buzz of voices, the pleasant wash of sitars and tablas ... in his head: silence.

  Later, he saw Cassie standing in the queue with her parents.

  She may have spotted him. He didn’t know. He concentrated on what he was doing.

  “Hey, Danny. Would you fetch some more rolls from the kitchen?” called Luce, across the food preparation area, late in the afternoon. “We’re running out. Jade’s up there. She’ll sort them out for you.”

  He went, glad to escape the heat of the gas stove.

  Outside, the sun burnt down, harsh and bright.

  He cut across the main lawn, through the stalls and the crowds. Lots of people had settled down on the grass to picnic. David was strolling through, juggling and balloon-modelling for the children.

  It reminded Danny of childhood visits to the south coast at the height of summer. Ice creams and slot machines and those heaving, hot crowds. Those trips had always been fun.

  Round the back of the Hall, he mounted the steps to the kitchen.

  Jade was there, dusting icing sugar over another tray of cakes for the refreshments. She hadn’t noticed him come in.

  Danny looked around at the chaos of the kitchen. Pots and pans everywhere. Three black bin-liners full of rubbish. People had been working here since the crack of dawn, he knew.

  “Hi,” said Danny.

  Jade started, and looked around.

  “Gave me a fright,” she said, flicking a strand of hair away from her eyes.

  Danny let his eyes roam around the kitchen again. “I was looking for more bread rolls,” he said. “But...”

  She grinned, pointed. “There, by the pastries. Under the cloth.”

  Danny went over and lifted the corner of a sheet of muslin. There was a tray stacked with rolls: white, wholemeal, some flecked with herbs.

  “What d’you reckon? I made them last night.”

  “They look good.”

  He tucked the cloth back over them, and slid the tray out to make it easier to pick up.

  “Couldn’t get the door, could you?”

  She went over, reached out for the handle, and then paused. “You need to get rid of him, you know,” she said, in a friendly, reasonable tone.

  Danny stopped, and looked at her.

  Her wide, dark eyes stared at him intently. Her lips were slightly parted, as if she was about to add something.

  “Rick,” she said, finally. “You need to get him out of the way.”

  “I...”

  He wanted to barge past her, run like hell, but he had the tray, the rolls. He had a job to do. He couldn’t just...

  “Do it, Danny. It’s gone too far now. You have to get rid of him.”

  He was pressing up against a work surface, as far from her as he could be without actually backing off into the kitchen.

  Her eyes...

  Jade’s eyes had gone pale, the irises tiny black dots. The whites of her eyes, so pure before, were now a tapestry of fine red blood vessels.

  As he watched, the smooth skin of her face became tough, leathery, landscaped with lines and lumps and tiny, hairy growths.

  And her mouth! Now it was a narrow slit, the lips almost vanished, the teeth small, yellow, crooked.

  Suddenly he was aware that there was a kitchen knife on the work surface behind him. Black handled, with a long, wedge-shaped blade. He wanted to reach for it. Protection.

  He felt dizzy. He felt a madness rising.

  He was clutching the tray so tightly its edges felt in danger of breaking his skin.

  He needed to stop this. Stop it now.

  He struggled to breathe, and looked again at the grotesque creature before him.

  “Trust me,” it said, and Jade’s voice had become higher-pitched, nasal, more penetrating.

  And then she leaned towards the door, pulled at it, stepped back, and she was Jade again, and outside the spring sunlight flooded the yard behind the Hall and birds sang from high in the trees.

  He stumbled past her, out into the fresh air.

  He crossed the yard. It had been part of a playground at one time. There were lines painted onto the tarmac, partly rubbed off now.

  He rounded the corner of the Hall and normality struck him like a blow. The sunshine, the people picnicking on the grass. The marquee, down the slope by the lake.

  They would say today had been a great success, he knew. A coming together of village and Hope Springs. It might even become an annual event. They couldn’t always guarantee this kind of weather, though.

  He shuddered.

  His mind was flitting from thought to thought like a butterfly, never resting, always avoiding the one thought, the memory – a snapshot image lodged in his head.

  Of Jade. Of not-Jade. Her tiny bloodshot eyes, her age-worn skin, her stubs of yellow teeth. Jade, but not Jade.

  Hodeken.

  Danny cut through the herb garden, onto the lawn.

  The first stall was the tombola. There was a great big wicker basket full of folded tickets, and all around it prizes, with tickets stuck to them. Clay pots of Hope Springs honey. Giant bars of Fair Trade chocolate. Bottles of last year’s perry and cider from the orchards. An envelope containing tickets for the Grafton-on-Severn cricket festival. A complete round cheese from a local farm.

  “Go on,” said Sharmila from behind the stall. “Any number ending in a five or a zero – guaranteed a prize.”

  He looked at her, and saw that she was watching him with small eyes that were netted with blood vessels, talking to him through a thin-lipped mouth set in a leathery, wrinkled face.

  “You know you have to,” she went on. “Get rid of him. How can you get back to the life you want with mad Rick in the way?”

  Danny turned, and walked away.

  Through the crowds, he held the tray before him as if it might ward off the demon that was haunting him.

  He refused to look at anyone as he passed, but then, “Danny, trust me,” said a woman who stood right in front of him, blocking his way. She was a large woman, with billowing black hair. She leaned towards him as she spoke, and she stared at him with Hodeken’s eyes, set in a plump, puffed up version of Hodeken’s face.

  Danny looked down, stepped around her, carried on.

  From the corner of his eye, he saw someone. Sunil, he thought, watching him through his small spectacles. Watching him with Hodeken’s eyes.

  “It won’t be long now, Danny,” he said with Hodeken’s voice. “We’ll get things back to normal. You just need to do your part.”

 
They formed a channel for him. Straight across the lawn, a gap opened up, lined on either side by staring faces, staring eyes. Each person, as he passed, was momentarily transformed. Features distorting, twisting, lines carving themselves deep on each face in turn, hairy growths popping out across the skin, eyes breaking out in a lacework of blood vessels.

  “It’s okay, Danny,” said one, as he passed.

  “Trust me,” said the next, acquiring Hodeken’s features just as its predecessor returned to normal.

  “It won’t...”

  “...be long now. You...”

  “...just need to...”

  “...do your part.”

  “Get...”

  “...rid...”

  “...of...”

  “...him.”

  He threw his hands in the air and the tray went flying. The muslin cloth caught the breeze and drifted over heads like a kite, and bread rolls flew into the air like fireworks, raining down on the crowd moments later.

  And the knife.

  He had been carrying the knife he had spotted in the kitchen. Gripping it tightly under the tray. Bringing it with him.

  He watched it shoot up, blade flashing in the sunlight. Then it flipped, at the height of its flight, and fell to the ground, blade plunging to its hilt in the soft turf.

  He stared at it, his breath snatched from his lungs.

  He couldn’t remember picking it up, but he knew Hodeken wanted him to have it. To be prepared.

  He looked up, and they were all watching him.

  He ran.

  He pushed past them, through them, not caring who it was in his way, just desperate to get past them, beyond them. Away.

  He came to the track into the growing plots, and Luke stood there with a garden fork held out like some kind of weapon. A small group was gathered around him, waiting for him to continue his explanation of the principles of growing vegetables by the cycles of the moon.

  “Go on, Danny,” he said, in a high-pitched voice. “Get rid of him.”

  The group of onlookers nodded, as if he had simply been explaining that you should always sow peas by the light of a new moon.

  Danny turned, ran on.

  By the lake, David was explaining to another group how Hope Springs’ waste was processed and cleansed by a sequence of reed-beds.

  He paused and nodded to Danny. “Not long now, Danny,” he said through yellowed stubs of teeth. “You just need to do your bit.”

  Danny ran, his head bursting. Behind him, he could sense a babble of voices, of demands, swelling up, trying to swamp him.

  He cut through the willows and came to the stream.

  He hesitated, looking back, fearing that he was finally going to crack at any moment.

  He took a run and jumped over the stream.

  And there was silence.

  The babble had cut off, just like that. The pressure ... gone.

  He landed, staggering forward, and caught himself against a low stone wall.

  He stopped, and listened, but there was nothing.

  He remembered trying to find out more about Hodeken. Searching the internet for ways to banish him. Iron crosses and bells were said to give you some degree of protection from evil beings. As did daisy chains and ... jumping across running water!

  That was what he had done.

  Could he really have banished Hodeken that easily?

  He doubted it. But at least it had cut off the tormenting babble, the mad sequence of images.

  20 On the cards

  Can we talk? Danny Schmidt

  He sat with his back against the crumbling grassy bank, and tossed small pieces of stick into the stream at his feet. He hadn’t known where to go. He had to be away from Hope Springs, away from the people, and he felt safer by the moving water.

  He no longer felt as if he was cracking up.

  He had already cracked.

  He just had to hold the pieces of himself together somehow, now.

  Cassie. Whatever it was that was happening – whether it was all inside his head or not – she was the only person he knew how to talk to.

  His phone buzzed.

  Where? ...C

  Slowly, he thumbed in a response.

  By the stream. Where we talked family names. D.

  Ok ...C

  ~

  “Thought you’d be down at the fete, trying to convince us yokels you’re not really a bunch of devil-worshipping, sandal-wearing, bearded weirdos.”

  She came and sat down next to him, her knees drawn up under her chin.

  “I was, but...”

  “What?”

  “Didn’t you notice anything odd?”

  She looked at him, head tipped to one side, an eyebrow raised. “‘Odd’? You mean odd odd, not just Hope Springs odd? No, nothing. What did I miss?”

  He shook his head. “Never mind,” he said. “I think it was just me.”

  “So,” she said, poking at some exposed mud with a stick. “Let’s get this straight. It’s like, you phone me, you get me to make excuses to my parents so I can slip away here, halfway up this blooming great hill and find you in your little hiding place. All that, just so you can tell me not to mind, it’s just you, forget about it. Have I got that right, or am I missing something, Danny Schmidt?”

  He lay back and stared up at the deep blue of the sky.

  “Way back,” he said. “When... you said you were just normal, just a normal girl trying to make yourself sound interesting. Remember?” He paused, then added, “We’ll I’ve worked it out. You’re not normal at all. Not ordinary. You–”

  “Ho ho! So you don’t just get me up here to tell me nothing. Oh no, you get me up here to tell me I’m abnormal! Boy, when you dig yourself a hole you dig yourself a big and a deep one, don’t you? What are you going to tell me next? That I have BO and a face like monkey’s arse? Go on, Danny, keep going. I can hardly wait!”

  “That’s not what I meant.”

  She smirked, and poked her tongue out at him.

  “You see inside things. That’s what I mean. Or something like it. You have insight. You know a lot about ... stuff.”

  “That’s not hard,” said Cassie. “It’s not special. I’m interested in things. I want to find out how the world works. How people work. So I find out. I look for answers. I think about things.”

  “But you know the right questions to ask.”

  She threw her stick towards the stream, but it got caught in some nettles. “Maybe,” she said, “but I can’t throw straight, can I? I tell you, Danny Schmidt, you don’t talk much, but when you do you sure know how to talk.”

  She leaned back on one elbow, so that she was looking down at him, blocking out part of the blue of the sky.

  “Okay,” she said. “So you’ve smooth-talked me. You probably think you’ve wormed your way back into my good books. What now? Are you going to tell me what’s going on?”

  “That chatroom was just the start,” he said, struggling to work out how to begin, how to explain something he didn’t really understand himself. “This sounds mad...”

  “So do most things, when you really think about it. You and me: we’re just a bunch of chemicals talking to each other. How mad is that? Go on: what’s been happening?”

  “Hodeken... he’s been talking to me. Haunting my dreams. Sitting at the back of my mind. Nagging away at me. Taunting me. That’s what they do. I looked it up on the web. Kobolds taunt people, wind them up. It’s been driving me mad.”

  “Why? Why would he do that?”

  “Some kind of pact with my family,” said Danny. “Made in the Second World War. Maybe it even goes back beyond that and the war just stirred it up again. Hodeken sees himself as some kind of protector for the family. He won’t let go.”

  Danny raised an arm, and pressed his forearm across his eyes. “He works out what needs to be done and then you have to do it for him or he drives you mad with his tricks and his taunting. I can’t let that happen, Cassie. I can’t let myself l
ose control because of a voice in my head. It happened to Dad. I have to be stronger than he was, but I don’t know if I can be.”

  He felt her hand on his chest, pressing softly, soothing.

  “So... it’s in your head, is it, Danny Schmidt? It’s all in your head? Do you think you should get some help?”

  He felt a flash of anger. Why had he thought he could talk to her? She didn’t understand!

  He concentrated on his breathing, but it was hard.

  Eventually, he answered her.

  “No,” he said. “It’s not that simple. I thought it might all be in my head until today. But at the Open Day he was there. Actually there. He took people over, one by one. Possessed them, so that their faces turned into his and they spoke with his voice. Nagging at me, taunting me.”

  “What happened? What did you do, Danny?”

  “I ran. I ran and I jumped over the stream to get away from them all and then suddenly it stopped. It’ll be back though. I know he won’t leave me alone now.”

  “How do you mean, ‘stopped’?”

  “Everything went silent all of a sudden, as soon as I jumped the stream. I read something about it somewhere, when I was trying to find out more. I was looking for ways to get rid of Hodeken, and I came across something that told you how to ward off evil: bells, daisy chains, a self-bored stone, whatever that is – and jumping over moving water! I didn’t plan it, I just did it. It was the quickest way to get away from all the madness.”

  “Okay then, I’ve got it. You wear bells in your ears, a daisy chain in your hair and you live by a stream. That should do it.”

  She had sat up as she spoke. Now she was leaning forward and rubbing at the dried dirt with a plimsolled foot.

  Danny sat up, too, and watched her. “What is it?” he asked. “What are you doing?”

  She stood and went over to the stream, then squatted to peer into the water. Squinting back at him, she said, “You said a self-bored stone. Come on.” She beckoned to him to join her. “Let’s look for one.”

  He stood, and went over to the edge of the water. Kneeling in the dried mud, he stared into the swirling current. The stream-bed was lined with pebbles and larger stones, some of them furred with green algae that shimmered in the flowing water.