‘Yes, OK.’ Harry nodded wildly. ‘They’re here, see – just here, under this pile of stones.’
‘Shift the stones,’ snapped Hopwood. ‘Hurry up.’ He squeezed a dry cough out of Christa. Harry bent, picking up stones, throwing them aside. He cared nothing for the bones, only his mother. The councillor watched closely, his glistening face next to Christa’s frightened one. The cloud veil slipped from the face of the moon and there, suddenly, was the pale glint of bone. With a snarl, Hopwood threw his hostage to the ground and stood over her, the branch raised high against the moon.
‘No – don’t!’ croaked Harry. ‘You’ve got the bones – you promised.’
‘Hah!’ Hopwood barked a laugh. ‘I promised nothing. It’s ladies first, then brats.’
He raised the club as high as he possibly could. Mother and son closed their eyes.
EIGHTY
‘EEEEEAAGH!’ HIS MOTHER’S scream shocked Harry’s eyes open. Blood and splintered bone she’d be. A pinkish pulp, pulsating.
He blinked and gasped, unbelieving. She was whole, propped on an elbow. She hadn’t screamed – her assailant had.
The shade of Hettie Daynes stood over its bones, on nothing. It made no sound and its gaunt features were impassive, yet its fury seemed to crackle on the air, directed at the hulk that grovelled whining in the mud as though impaled on that thin, accusing finger.
‘I’m sorry,’ babbled the councillor. ‘So sorry for . . . everything. Yes that’s it, for everything. Stop pointing, don’t look at me like that, do you know who I am?’
It seared him, that fury. Dammed for a hundred years in dim green silence, it poured like lava through his shuddering carcass. He wept and wailed and beat his head on the mud while the shade looked on, unmoved.
‘Harry?’ whispered his mother. She was kneeling now, starting to get up. ‘Do you see her?’
He nodded. ‘Yes, Mum.’ He couldn’t look away. ‘She’s guarding her bones,’ he murmured, ‘and her baby’s. She always has.’
The spectre did not react to their voices, they might not have been there at all. But Reginald Hopwood heard, and lifted a mud-streaked face. ‘Get her off me,’ he croaked. ‘Please. Make her go.’
‘She isn’t touching you,’ said Harry. ‘She can’t, and she wouldn’t if she could. Get up, she won’t even move.’
As the councillor shifted to obey, Harry noticed that the four of them were no longer alone. The mist had thinned to the point where the shore was visible, and there in a line stood Stan Fox, Steve Wood, and his sister in her dressing gown. From the reservoir’s west end, wearing fluorescent jackets, came the policemen Bethan had called. A torch beam swung, skimmed the mud, came to rest on the unhappy councillor.
Hettie Daynes faded and was gone, this time for ever.
EIGHTY-ONE
THEY BURIED HER bones in a corner of the churchyard, under the bare branches of a shapely beech. The tree had sprung from a nut hidden there by a squirrel in the month of Hettie’s death, though nobody knew that.
Everybody was there. Well – nearly everybody. Reginald Hopwood had resigned from the council and had left the village at once. In fairness, it must be pointed out that he was blameless in the matter of Hettie’s death: if we were to be held responsible for the deeds of our ancestors, we would all have bloody hands. He was a difficult man to live with though, and Felicity had chosen not to go on trying. She and Carl were still at Hopwood House, but they were busy packing and sent flowers to represent them. Oh – and The Big Issue man wasn’t there. We don’t shun unwed mums any more, but we have other outcasts and the shame is ours, not theirs.
Steve Wood and Stan Fox published a brilliant piece in the Echo about Hettie, her ghost and her murderer, with snapshots by Bethan Midgley. This had the short-term effect of making Bethan and her three friends famous in the village, and the long-term effect of killing off once and for all the expression daft as Hettie Daynes.
Time has passed. The diggers and dumpers have finished their work and departed. Swollen by winter rain, streams and rills have refilled Wilton Water to its fringe of reeds. The ruined mill lies underneath its dark surface, but now no ruined spectre stands upon it.
A stone marks the place where Hettie sleeps with her unborn child, cradled in the roots of the beech. On the stone these words appear:
Hettie Daynes
1868 – 1885
A Hand and a Heart
About the Author
Robert Swindells left school at fifteen and worked as a copyholder on a local newspaper. At seventeen he joined the RAF for three years, two of which he served in Germany. He then worked as a clerk, an engineer and a printer before training and working as a teacher. He is now a full-time writer and lives on the Yorkshire moors.
He has written many books for young readers, including many for Random House Children’s Books. Room 13 won the 1990 Children’s Book Award and Timesnatch won the Junior Category of the 1995 Earthworm Award. Abomination was shortlisted for the Whitbread Award and won the Sheffield Children’s Book Award. His books for older readers include Stone Cold, which won the 1994 Carnegie Medal, as well as the award-winning Brother in the Land. As well as writing, Robert Swindells enjoys keeping fit, travelling and reading.
Also by Robert Swindells
Abomination
Blitzed
In the Nick of Time
Nightmare Stairs
Room 13 and inside the Worm (omnibus edition)
Timesnatch
THE SHADE OF HETTIE DAYNES
AN RHCP DIGITAL EBOOK 978 1 407 04197 1
Published in Great Britain by RHCP Digital,
an imprint of Random House Children’s Publishers UK
A Random House Group Company
This ebook edition published 2012
Copyright © Robert Swindells, 2012
First Published in Great Britain
Corgi Childrens 2012
The right of Robert Swindells to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
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The Shade of Hettie Daynes Page 11
