Blackbriar

by William Sleator

  Philippa reached over and patted Danny’s wrist. “I’m sure you’re going to love it in the country,” she said. “Don’t sulk like that.”

  “I’m not sulking,” he said, drawing away his hand. “I’m just wondering what’s going to happen when Mr. Bexford finds out about this.”

  “But what can he do, darling? He’ll never find us.”

  “I’m sure he’ll get in touch with the school.”

  “They won’t even know you’re gone until winter holidays are over, and by that time they’ll never be able to trace us. And anyway, I’m going to educate you, so they really have no reason to object. Cheer up! It’s ridiculous for someone of your age to be so worried. I’ll be held responsible, after all. Just look at the whole thing as an adventure.”

  The tenements had finally fallen away, and the winter landscape outside was beginning to shake off the city grime. A black frozen river twisted between brown hills, occasionally spanned by a crumbling stone bridge. Groups of barren trees stood naked under the heavy sky, as if huddling together for warmth; but the clusters of fir trees that seemed to be everywhere gave the scene an uncanny feeling of green.

  Danny and Philippa gazed out of the windows, absorbed by the open landscape, by a sky not hidden behind buildings and smoke. But Islington did not care about the sky, and poked restlessly about the floor of the compartment. Suddenly he leapt up onto the young lady’s lap and crouched there, staring intently into her face. She coughed, and shifted about, and tried to look away from his burning eyes. But, fascinated by this new human being, he did not move.

  She coughed again. “Excuse me,” she said, “but your cat . . .”

  Philippa turned from the window. “Islington!” she barked. “Islington, get down! Bad boy!” The cat spun around, hesitated, and jumped down. Philippa picked him up and shook him gently. “Bad boy!” she said. “Bad, bad boy. I’m so sorry,” she said to the young lady, without a trace of apology in her voice.

  “It’s quite all right,” the lady said, brushing silvery hairs from her blue coat. The elderly couple looked at each other, then into their laps.

  The train rumbled and shook. A tiny stone village rushed by. No one said a word.

  “He’s hungry,” Philippa said suddenly. “That’s what’s wrong with him. Poor thing, cooped up in this compartment. Danny, get down that box up there on the left. It has the food in it.”

  Swaying, Danny stood up on the seat. He stretched to reach the heavy box, and barely managed to set it down next to her without dropping it. Philippa dug into the box and finally unearthed a round plastic dish with foil over the top. She uncovered the dish and set it on the floor near her feet. A rank, fishy smell filled the compartment. The young lady looked away, dusting her nose with a white handkerchief. But the elderly couple were watching Islington. He sniffed at the fish, poked it with his paw, and tasted a bit. But soon he turned away restlessly.

  “I know,” Philippa said. “He has to go to the toilet.” Danny quickly turned and stared out the window. He tried to keep sulking, but it was almost impossible not to laugh. Philippa, in a very business-like manner, covered the fish and put it away, then spread newspaper on the floor between her and Danny. The young lady and the old couple could not keep their eyes away, and watched, transfixed with horror, as Islington circled around on the paper, then settled down comfortably.

  But in a moment he was up and walking around again, and the paper was clean. There was an audible sigh of relief from the other side of the compartment. Philippa folded the paper, and then held Islington on her lap, stroking him.

  The train began to slow down, and came to a stop beside a small wooden platform with a slanting tile roof above it. One or two ruddy-cheeked people with steaming breath stood about on the platform, searching the train windows for expected faces. In a moment they were joined by their friends, there was a distant, unintelligible shout, and the train creaked to a start, slowly gathering momentum. More fields flashed by, and then suddenly a gray, walled castle clinging to the pinnacle of a steep hill. Below it a wide river ran past a timbered inn and a small cluster of wooden houses.

  Danny found that he was fascinated by the scenery. Why did it seem so beautiful, so mysterious? It was only farmland, but to him it was a wilderness. Were those the eyes of a wolf pack glittering behind that clump of trees? Perhaps that bristly shape was a wild boar, sharpening his tusk against a pine. A hut with a sagging roof became the abode of a wizened hag, mumbling incantations over a cauldron. And who knew what strange creatures roamed in the darkness beneath the trees?

  He felt a soft, warm weight in his lap and involuntarily shrank back. Philippa was digging into the box by her side and had put Islington out of her way for a moment. Danny sat uncomfortably, trying to touch the cat as little as possible. He knew that Islington shared his distaste; but somehow he felt that the cat, as he did, passively submitted to this unwelcome contact simply because it was expedient. It would have made everything more difficult for either of them to object.

  Philippa took out two round, hollow pieces of Syrian bread, a bag filled with pieces of chicken, and another with cucumber and tomato slices. She closed the box and laid the food on top, then brought Islington back into her lap. Leaning over, she whispered to Danny, “I wonder if the other people will mind.”

  “Do you really care?” he whispered back. “After the spectacle you made with Islington . . .”

  “That was different. I just feel awkward eating in front of people and not offering them some.”

  “Offer them some, then.”

  “After the way she treated Islington?”

  “It was your idea to eat. If you didn’t want to, why did you take out the food?”

  She handed Danny one of the pieces of bread and opened the two bags. Rocking with the motion of the train, they began to stuff the bread with the chicken and vegetables. It wasn’t easy, but eating them was even more difficult. Tiny pieces of chicken, tomato seeds, and juice dropped to the floor. Danny could not keep his eyes from slipping frequently to the other side of the compartment, but the others seemed to be ignoring them. Islington, at least, was having a good time knocking the scraps about.

  They passed many stations, the train stopped many times, and the others had all left before they heard the conductor call out “Dunchester!” and the train again began to slow down. There was a brief but chaotic time of scratches and grunts, draggings, liftings, pantings, and hysterical commands. They suddenly found themselves amid piles of crushed baggage on a tiny, unfamiliar platform. The train creaked around a hill and was gone.

  3

  The man from the local garage was supposed to meet us with a car,” Philippa said.

  They had dragged the luggage through the small, dusty waiting room and out to the front of the station. It was on a narrow cobblestone street across from a few little shops. There was a butcher shop with big slabs of red meat in the window, a whole pig, and a row of feathered birds hanging upside down above them. Next to it was a bakery with a window full of cakes and rolls. As they watched, a young girl set out a tray of steaming, freshly baked bread.

  Danny sat down on a suitcase. “As long as we’re waiting,” said Philippa, “I might as well dash across the street and pick up some food.” She dropped Islington into his lap, slung her handbag over her shoulder, and went into the butcher’s. As he struggled with the squirming cat, Danny watched her through the shop window chatting with a white-haired man in a big white apron, who talked and laughed as he sawed off pieces of meat, plucked down strings of sausages, and wrapped them in brown paper. But suddenly the man stopped smiling. He seemed to have a serious expression on his face, and Philippa seemed to be at a loss for words. When she came out of the shop she gave Danny a strange look from across the street and darted into the bakery. There she talked to the ladies behind the counter, and they too suddenly became oddly serious. When she came back to the station, loaded down with parcels, she seemed slightly nervous.

  “Wh
at did they say to you?” Danny asked.

  She remained standing, clutching at the packages of food. “It’s the strangest thing,” she said. “They were all the pleasantest people, so much friendlier than people in London shops. And the food seems so good, and the prices are so low! But when I told them we were going to be living in the little cottage up on the ridge—they call it Blackbriar around here—they suddenly got all worried and strange.”

  “But why? What did they say?”

  “They hardly said anything. They wouldn’t. The butcher just said, ‘Oh, so you’re living there, are you,’ and refused to say another word. Naturally the ladies in the bakery were more talkative, but all they said was that no one had lived there for years and years, and everyone talked in this secretive manner. I mean, I would expect people to have some superstitions about an empty, secluded place like that. But why wouldn’t they say anything about it?”

  “Now it’s beginning to sound interesting,” Danny said. “I hardly dared to hope that the place would be mysterious. I wonder if it’s supposed to be haunted or something?”

  “You seem to be taking it very lightly.”

  “But this might actually make it bearable here.”

  “You wouldn’t be so happy about it if you’d seen their faces.”

  “And also,” he went on, “we’re bound to find out what it is about the place, from living there and everything.”

  “Yes,” Philippa said, “I’m sure we are.”

  It was late afternoon, and very cold. In the fading light, the little street seemed almost deserted. Above the row of shops they could see high hills disappearing into the distance, and black groves of trees silhouetted against the darkly glowing sky. Somewhere, on one of those hills, in one of those groves, was their new home.

  Two headlight beams swept across the darkened store fronts, and in a moment a clattering truck pulled up beside the station. A small but sturdily built man jumped out, leaving the lights on and the motor running, and stepped quickly up to them. “Hello,” he said, holding out his hand. “I’m Albert Creech, from Creech’s garage. Sorry I’m late, but it’s hard to know when this train’s going to arrive. It’s never been on schedule yet.”

  “Oh, that’s all right, Mr. Creech,” said Philippa, beaming as she shook his hand. “This is—a pupil of mine, Danny Chilton.”

  “Pleased to meet you, Danny,” said Mr. Creech, and shook his hand. “Shall we load all this stuff into the van, then?”

  Mr. Creech supervised, and in a few minutes everything was packed tightly into the back of the little truck. Philippa sat in the front with Islington on her lap, and Danny reclined against soft canvas bags in back.

  “It’s a pity you got here in the dark,” said Mr. Creech, as they rolled off down the street. “You won’t be able to see what Dunchester looks like.” In the glow of the headlights they could catch only brief glimpses of wooden shop fronts, cobblestone pavements, and the stone buttresses of what must have been a large cathedral. In a moment the town was gone completely. Thick black shapes of trees rose up on either side of them, and the only thing they could see distinctly was the few feet of dirt road ahead.

  “Is the Land Rover you found ready for us, Mr. Creech?” asked Philippa. “I’m rather eager to get to the cottage as soon as possible.”

  “The car’s ready, but you certainly won’t get up there tonight.”

  “We won’t?” Philippa said. “Why not?”

  “You’d never get up to that place at night if you’ve never driven there before. Why, the road only goes part of the way up the hill. After that you have to drive through a large field, and a bit of forest. With no roads. If you tried it tonight, you’d never make it.” He turned for a second to Philippa, then back to the road. “I hope you know what you’re getting into, ma’am,” he said quietly.

  “I thought I did. But now things are beginning to look a little different. I knew it was isolated, but not inaccessible. And . . . Mr. Creech, is there something wrong with the place?”

  “Why do you ask?”

  “Well, the people in the shops seemed . . . surprised that I was going to live there. I might almost say afraid. Is there some superstition surrounding it?”

  “Oh, don’t take any notice of what they say. Those townsfolk never set foot outside the city walls. They couldn’t tell an owl from a pheasant. They’re just suspicious of the place because it’s so far away from everything else. They’re afraid of the outdoors, they’re afraid to be far away from other people.”

  “Is that all, Mr. Creech?”

  “Well,” he said, and then paused, concentrating on the road. “I suppose . . . there’s the tumuli, you know. That’s the only thing I can think of.”

  “The tumuli? What’s that?”

  “They’re these . . . mounds. But they’re all the way at the other end of the ridge.”

  “But what are they? Why are people afraid of them?”

  “I wouldn’t say people are afraid of them, exactly. They just don’t go near them very often. Supposedly they are the burial mounds of three Druid kings. They’re at the narrow end of the ridge and you can see the whole country from there. It’s a beautiful place. But, there is a strange feeling about it. As though—as though nature, the outdoors, something, was close around, was stronger there than anywhere else. I’m not good with words. But, to me, it’s a feeling I like. And I’d think you two would like it as well, if you want to live so deep in the country. But you can understand why town people would stay away.”

  “That doesn’t sound so bad, does it, Danny?” Philippa said, turning around to him.

  “It sounds all right,” he said, but he could tell by the expression on her face, and the tone of her voice, that she thought Mr. Creech was leaving something out.

  “By the way,” she said, turning back, “where are we going to stay tonight, since we can’t get up to the cottage?”

  “Oh, I’ve arranged that for you. My old folks have a big house across the road from my garage. There’s plenty of room there. They’ve already made up the rooms for you. All your gear will be safe in my van overnight. In the morning we can load it into your Land Rover, and you’ll get a good early start. In the daylight.”

  Danny lay in the back and watched the black shapes move by. His eyes had become adjusted to the darkness, and he could make out where the hills ended and the sky began. He was drowsy, the canvas bags were soft, and he had wrapped a thick blanket around himself. He felt warm and comfortable, so that it was very easy to imagine the distant hills not as dreary, uncomfortable places, but as a mysterious and intriguing new world. Perhaps this won’t be so bad, he told himself. At least I don’t have to go to school; she may even let me sleep late.

  He, too, felt that there was something strange about the place that Mr. Creech did not want to tell them, but he was glad of it. Adventure can seem very attractive to someone who has no idea at all what it really means; and Danny, who had always been taken care of and had never made a decision in his life, knew less about it than most. As he began to drift toward unconsciousness, visions of his life in the country floated haphazardly through his mind. Barefoot, he would creep silently through the forest without disturbing a twig. The deer would become his friends. He would learn the language of the wolves, and teach them to do his bidding. Soon he would never live in the house at all, but would make his home among the trees and in rocky grottos. For miles around, people would whisper about the strange “nature boy,” a strong yet faun-like creature, not really human, more like some archaic god . . .

  Suddenly they turned and the lights flashed over a pair of old gas pumps. The truck drove into a high-ceilinged garage, littered with tools and reeking of gas, and came to a stop.

  “Here we are,” said Mr. Creech, and hopped out.

  “Danny, bring that little brown bag,” said Philippa. “That’s all I need for tonight.”

  Danny carried two bags and Philippa held Islington, who was irritably beginning to wake up, st
retching his claws and shaking himself. With the motor off, the silence swelled suddenly around them. Mr. Creech pulled down the garage door and locked it. “I suppose the food will stay fresh in this cold,” Philippa said.

  “There’s plenty to eat inside,” said Mr. Creech. “It’s just time for supper.”

  Mr. Creech’s beaming pregnant wife and his tiny little girl soon joined them, and they went across the road to the Creeches’ old, shingled Victorian house. Inside it was dim and warm. Real wood fires burned in each small room. The meal was tasteless and very heavy. There was shepherd’s pie, boiled cabbage, and bread pudding for dessert. Mr. Creech’s daughter took a rapid liking to Islington, who reluctantly allowed her to play with him under the table until after dessert, when the little girl emerged with a long scratch on her arm and was given another helping of pudding to ease the pain.

  No one said a word about the cottage, almost as if, Danny thought, they didn’t want to spoil the evening by mentioning it.

  4

  In the morning the sun was bright, but there was a high, cold wind. Philippa was eager to see her Land Rover, a kind of jeep, which Mr. Creech had found for her. It was a sturdy little car, the roof and sides made of one sheet of canvas strung over metal poles. It had four-wheel drive, and was the only kind of vehicle, Mr. Creech said, that could get up to Blackbriar. Philippa was enchanted with it. Though it was old and a bit rusty, and the canvas tended to sag, there was a feeling of solidness and security to it. The license plate said LIL, and so Philippa decided that Lil would be her name.

  They quickly loaded everything into the back and lashed the canvas down tightly. Philippa sat in the driver’s seat, and Danny sat next to her, clutching Islington, who writhed uncomfortably.