by Helen Grant
I guessed that the distances I could see from here would take me hours to cover by foot, and as I could not see the town Grandmother talked about, it must be further still. I would be exposed out there, once I was too far away from the forest to dodge back into the safety of its deep shadows; I would be like the rabbit that streaks across an open space, heedless of the watching buzzard.
You’ll have to go in the end, I reminded myself. I knew that was true. But which way, exactly?
I stood there for a while, simply staring, and at last I heard something that roused me from my deliberations: a droning sound, the sound of an engine. I knew it was that because it reminded me of the noise Grandmother’s Austin made. But there was no car coming up the road towards me. The sound was coming from overhead.
I looked up and saw an aircraft high above me, moving parallel to the border of the forest. Instinctively I backed into the undergrowth, away from the treeline.
Did it see me?
The droning sound intensified; it was right over me. I stayed perfectly still, my heart thudding. Then the sound changed in tone and I realised that the plane had flown on; very quickly it left me behind, the sound of the engine diminishing as the distance between us lengthened. When at last I dared step out into the open and look for it, the plane was a mere black speck in the sky, and soon after that, it had vanished.
It was enough for me, though. My nerve was broken. There was something sinister in the way that the one thing to interrupt the dead quiet of the scene was this machine with its monstrous drone. Was it possible that it had actually been looking for me? At any rate, it must have been looking for something. I could think of no other reason that it would patrol this unpopulated landscape.
At last I turned back into the forest and began to trudge back to the house. My hands fidgeted and burrowed like rodents in my pockets; I chewed my lip until I felt the coppery taste of blood on it.
Grandmother, nagged my conscience relentlessly.
Think first, said common sense. Find a map in the library – at least know which way the town is, and how far, before you try again. I walked on, my head bowed.
An unexpected voice spoke up from the recesses of my mind. Arm yourself next time.
That idea took me by surprise, but as I considered it, I could see the sense. Amongst all the other things stored at Langlands there were several hunting rifles. I knew how to load and fire one, because Grandmother had shown me. She had had some idea of supplementing our diet with game, although we had never carried it through; her eyesight was no longer good enough to shoot, and I had flatly refused to kill anything. Frankly, I didn’t believe I could shoot a person with it. It might, however, deter anyone from attacking me.
With these and other thoughts, I occupied myself as I toiled my way back up through the woods to Langlands House. It seemed to take very much longer than the walk down had done. I ate the apple without very much enjoyment; I was starving now, but it was rather soft. As I came within sight of the house, I threw the core into the undergrowth, and as I turned to walk on, I heard the sound of a vehicle approaching.
Grandmother, I thought immediately, with a great rush of incredulous relief. I turned to look down the track behind me, eager for a glimpse of the familiar black Austin. The car was not visible yet, but even as I moved back and forth to peer past the clustered trees, another thought occurred to me.
Maybe it’s not Grandmother.
I thought of the aircraft I had seen following the line of the forest border. The feeling of joyous relief drained away in an instant. I stood for a moment in the middle of the track, torn between the desire to stand my ground and see who it was, and the urge to run. The sound of the engine grew louder; the vehicle must be in sight any moment now.
I broke and ran for the house. I was tired after walking for so long in the freezing air, but now panic gave me a new energy. Gravel crunched under my feet as I sprinted for the front door, my winter coat flying out behind me. I dared not glance behind me. I was afraid of what I would see.
My boots slapped on the flagstones as I raced into the protection of the stone porch. The sound of that engine was so close now that I knew it could only be seconds before I heard tyres on the gravel in front of the house.
The keys, the keys!
My hands were numb with the cold; fishing the keys out of my pocket and fitting the right one into the lock was a fiendishly difficult manoeuvre, made worse by the shrinking time frame left to complete it. I could have screamed with frustration as the key jittered uselessly around the keyhole, my fingers refusing to obey me.
The key turned just as I heard the crunching sound I dreaded. I opened the door just far enough to slip through the gap, then closed it again as slowly and carefully as I dared; the sound of it slamming now would be fatal.
Outside, the engine died. A moment later I heard the crisp sound of a car door closing. I turned to race for the staircase and then I thought:
Lock the door.
I slid the key into the inside lock, by some miracle managing it first time, and turned it, praying that the click it made was not audible outside.
There were footsteps outside in the porch – more than one set of footsteps. I heard voices – unmistakably male ones. Now I knew this wasn’t Grandmother. I didn’t try to move; the sound of the boards creaking might give me away. Better to stand stock still, barely breathing for fear of making a sound.
I nearly didn’t lock the door. The thought made me feel sick with horror. I imagined the occupants of the car pushing the door open easily and invading the house. I couldn’t have hidden from them; every step you took inside Langlands House made the boards shriek under your feet. It would be as bad as running the gauntlet of a thousand tell-tales, all screaming There she goes! Wherever I’d gone, they could have followed me easily.
A thunderous knocking on the door almost made me jump out of my skin. I’d known they would try it, but there was a vehemence in the blows that made me quail.
I didn’t move. I was invisible behind the door; as long as I stayed silent they could not know I was there unless they actually broke it down.
“Hello?” shouted someone, and after a pause: “Is there anyone there?” There was a muffled consultation, then more knocking and shouting.
My mouth was dry, my legs felt weak beneath me and I longed to sink down onto the floor but dared not. If they did think of breaking the door down, I would have to try running for it.
Eventually, I heard their footsteps recede away through the porch and crunch onto the gravel, but it was too soon for relief; there was no sound of car doors opening and closing nor of the engine firing up again. Evidently, they had not given up. More probably they would try the kitchen door, or peer through some of the ground floor windows.
Who are they?
That was the question. Whatever they were doing here, I thought it had to have something to do with whatever had happened to Grandmother. It was too big a coincidence that she should vanish and that strangers should come calling as soon as the track was clear of snow again. After all, nobody ever came to Langlands–
I put a hand to my mouth then, to choke back a gasp. We had had visitors, of course. Supposing the two outside were Tom and the older man, Neil McAllister, come back again? It seemed more likely than that two strangers would come and bang on the door so boldly. I remembered that last day they had been at Langlands, the day Tom and I had so disastrously confronted each other. After the men had gone, Grandmother and I had found an instrument left in the room where they had been working; Grandmother said it was a spirit level. Perhaps they had come back for that, although it would be very strange to come for it after all this time.
Now I had to know. It occurred to me that I could see them. On the first floor there was a turret window that the architect of Langlands had fancifully designed to look like an arrow slit, even though the house had been bu
ilt long after bows and arrows had been abandoned as a means of defence. It was narrow enough, and the turret itself dark enough, that I could almost certainly look out without being seen from outside. I could at least settle the question of who was out there, and then decide what exactly to do about it afterwards.
I crossed the tiled hallway soundlessly and then began the hazardous task of climbing the wooden staircase without making too much noise. Every long drawn out creak and groan of the ancient timber made me cringe. If anyone were standing right outside the front door, he must have heard me; there was nothing for it but to pray that the men were still walking around the drive. But there was no reaction, no further knocking.
At last I reached the safety of the turret and looked out through the window. From here, I could not see the vehicle parked outside. All that was visible was a section of Langlands’ grey outer wall, and a slice of the gravel drive bordered by trees. I waited for what seemed like a long time, and then I detected a flicker of movement right at the very border of my line of vision. A moment later the men stepped into view, and I saw with a cold thrill of horror that they were strangers, and both of them were in uniform.
I stepped back smartly from the window, into the shadows. It didn’t matter that the window was too narrow and dark for them to see me inside it; I didn’t dare risk it.
Soldiers.
The uniforms were black, and bulky – armoured against injury. The faces beneath the peaked caps were grimly unsmiling. I had not noticed weapons but I guessed they must be armed, and I was certainly not going to hazard another look.
Grandmother was right, I thought. It’s not safe out there.
I was not sure if I was safe in here, in the house, either. The doors were solid oak, but there were plenty of windows that would be easily broken if someone really wanted to get in.
I waited in silence for one of two things: either the sound of the car engine as the men made to leave, or the sound of breaking glass downstairs. I waited for so long that I was able to track the motes of dust that I had disturbed when I entered the turret as they drifted lazily down through the strip of sunlight from the window. At last, I heard the car doors closing, and then the engine start up; moments later the vehicle had crunched away over the gravel and was gone.
It was a long time before I went downstairs.
Christmas passes, then January. We’re into February now and I still think about Langlands a lot more often than I’d like. What I saw up there – or thought I saw. The girl in the weird old-fashioned dress.
There are no such things as ghosts.
That’s a fact, right? There are people who believe in them, but there are also people who believe in astrology and Elvis still being alive and doughnuts being found on Mars.
But if I didn’t see a ghost, what did I see? That’s the question, and there’s no good answer. Hallucinations are not a good thing to have. They’re either a sign of your brain giving way or else taking too much of something. It wasn’t the second one, so that leaves something wrong with my brain.
Nothing else has happened since that day. I haven’t seen zombies shambling down the High Street or anything, so I’m hoping nothing’s seriously wrong with me. Still, it’s there at the back of my mind. She looked so real. As real as I am.
I try not to think about it, because it’s a mystery I’m not going to solve, but it still bugs me. Then something happens that makes me think about it all over again.
I’m in the town, paying in cheques at the bank for Dad, and when that’s done I start walking back up the street towards the spot where I’ve left Mum’s little car.
About a third of the way up the hill, the street opens out into a square. A couple of months ago the town Christmas tree was here, and the whole square was lit up with coloured lights. Now all that’s gone, and since it’s a freezing day, you’d think people would be in a hurry to get from one side of the square to the other and into a nice warm shop, but looking ahead I see a small group of people standing around something.
As I get level, I see someone’s on the ground. I can’t help looking. It’s a small town, the same old faces, so there’s a good chance it’s someone I know. And it is. Only it’s not someone from the town.
It’s old Mrs. McAndrew, from Langlands.
I stop and stare, and right away I’m sure: she’s dead. She’s not injured or anything, not that I can see. She just looks totally still and lifeless. Like a block of something, wood or stone.
Or meat, I think, revolting myself.
Her eyes are slightly open but all you can see is white, like the white part of a fried egg. That makes me feel slightly queasy too.
I guess I’ve made some kind of sound, because a woman turns around and looks at me.
“I’ve called the ambulance,” she tells me.
A couple of other passers-by slow down to see what’s going on, and eventually the same woman starts telling them to move on and stop staring, to give the old lady some room. She’s one of those people who like to take charge; she’ll probably tell the ambulance crew off when they get here for not managing it in a shorter time. There’s nothing I can do: in fact, there’s plainly nothing anyone can do for Mrs. McAndrew, so I walk on in the end.
Inside I feel strange. I’ve just seen a dead body. I expect they’ll say she died in hospital or dead on arrival or something, but anyone could see it was all over.
I have no reason to mourn Mrs. McAndrew. I worked for her for a few days but I didn’t really know her. And it’s not like she was tragically young. She was ancient.
Still, it’s sad that she was all alone in that big gloomy house, that she didn’t have anyone to share her life with. I wonder if there was anyone she loved, or trusted. If there was, she died without them. Nobody holding her hand, just a bunch of strangers standing around staring.
Langlands, I think. What will happen to that?
I suppose someone will inherit it, though they’ll have to be found first. Hard to imagine anyone being thrilled about it: a crumbling old place with no proper heating or lighting, not even a phone line. In the meantime, though, the old house will just sit there, cold and silent, rotting away in the middle of the forest.
And that’s when I decide to go there.
I was afraid for a while, and then I was angry. It was a strange, all-encompassing anger, like the droning of a cloud of wasps. I was angry with Grandmother, unreasonably, for leaving me alone; I resented the uniformed men who had trespassed in the grounds and forced me to hide; I hated the War – the bloody, bloody War.
I was angry with myself, too. My foray to the edge of the forest had done nothing but endanger me. I had been afraid to go further, and I had achieved nothing.
Next time, I would go armed.
I found the hunting rifles and a box of cartridges. I loaded one of the rifles as Grandmother had taught me, but I didn’t dare practise firing for fear of drawing unwelcome attention to myself.
It was a beautiful object, made of highly polished wood and finely engraved metal, but it was also deeply ominous, a work of craftmanship designed for death. It felt like a dangerous intruder in the house; to handle it was to risk being infected with the desire to kill. I hoped that if it ever came to a confrontation between me and someone from the outside, it would be enough to show them the weapon – that I would not have to fire it.
Later, I searched the library for maps of the area. There was nothing that showed the Langlands estate and the town, so I spent some time poring over different maps and trying to work out where they overlapped. It was a difficult task, because the maps were frustratingly inaccurate. The best one of Langlands, for example, the one with the largest scale, showed things that did not exist at all, such as a small lodge down by the gate on the edge of the estate. There was no building there. This made me wonder whether I could trust any of the information on the maps.
I f
ound the town and deduced that if the map were accurate as regarded distances if not details, it would be possible to walk there. It would take me some hours but I thought it could be done, if I left at first light and went quickly.
Should it be done, though? That was the question.
I had no idea what I would be walking into. For Grandmother to go to the town and not come back said that whatever was happening there was not good, and she herself had urged me to continue with things as they were. On the other hand, I was running out of all sorts of things; I could manage without sugar if I had to, and I could wash my things with ordinary soap instead of flakes, but once all the flour was gone, that was an end of making bread.
There was something else, too. It wasn’t as though my happiness depended on being with other people. It had always just been Grandmother and me, apart from stolen glimpses of the very rare visitors to the estate, and the awful encounter with Tom. But I thought that if I spent too long entirely alone, never hearing another voice, never seeing a face that was not painted onto canvas or framed by the gilt edges of a mirror, I would begin to lose my mind. Already I felt as though parts of my inner self were fragmenting, crumbling away; I was lingering too long over the maps and plans, not making a definite decision about what to do, my energy dissolving into apathy. I let a day pass after my excursion to the edge of the forest, and then another. Rain came, and then biting wind. It was not a good time to go, but if I did not make a move soon, there would never be a good time.
Tomorrow, I said to myself as I stared out of the kitchen window at trees buffeted by the wind. Put on your warmest things, take the gun and some food to keep yourself going, and walk to the town. Don’t bother trying to decide a plan now; keep to the trees and hedgerows; keep away from busy roads; don’t be seen until you come to the edge of the town. Watch, see what’s going on, and make up your mind then.
