by Paul Finch
More steps and just as Ghedi was beginning to despair of ever reaching the bottom, thinking that he would simply dash further and further until he reached Hell itself, there was the deck. Out and moving faster now, rifle swinging behind him, something crashing down in his wake, heat on his back, the smell of flame and fat bubbling, flesh roasting and burning, and Ghedi screamed now, no longer the maker of fear and terror but made of it, the little traveller again, helpless and lost and afraid. Back to the rope and down, he thought, and hope the others see me, come in close to catch me before it does, or before I fall.
The others . His friends, who teased him and mocked him but who had been the only people he had been able to rely on since it had happened, since the day Ghedi had been untethered from the life of his birth, the others who had taken him in and given him bed and food and safety, of a sort.
Ghedi stumbled, spinning and falling in one ungainly stutter of movement and came to a rest with his back against the cargo container facing back up the stairs. His rifle yelped and spat, his finger jerking on the trigger without instruction, sending tiny bolts of fire spraying across the stairs and careening across the deck.
There was nothing there.
The air in Ghedi's lungs felt curdled, thick and clotted, making breathing difficult. He tried to take in a breath, failed, sucked again and hitched, drew hard and finally something in his chest popped as though a bubble of mucous had risen to the surface and finally worked itself loose. There was nothing there, no fires no shadows nothing chasing him down the steps. It must be the drugs, he thought, a bad batch cooked up with poison and bile at its heart.
He risked a glance behind him, back along the deck. Erasto and Labaan's grappling hooks were still clinging to the rails, the ropes dangling from them threads connecting him to the ocean and the boats and his life beyond.
Past them, in the centre of the deck, Labaan was standing, head bowed and with his back to Ghedi.
He was shaking, a violent shudder that seemed to consume his whole body so that he was bouncing, shoulders spasming and hands hanging at his sides and flapping like boneless crabs. Ghedi dragged himself to his feet, using the container to steady himself as he rose. He felt full of sickness, the toxins of his unspent fear gathering at his joints and in his stomach. He started along the deck towards Labaan, watching as the man's movements grew more and more pronounced, his arms and legs now dancing spastically, a vicious palsy that eventually dropped him to his knees.
Still he shuddered, faster and faster.
As he came around Labaan, Ghedi caught a glimpse of the man's face; his eyes were wide and weeping tears of blood, rolled back to complete whiteness, blind and staring. His mouth was open, tongue protruding, a fat saliva-dressed worm questing forth into the daylight, its end squirming back and forth. He was shaking so fast now that he blurred, his edges collapsing into the brightness, his core dark and indistinct, and then he pitched forward and was suddenly still.
Ghedi prodded him with the barrel of his gun; Labaan didn't move. He prodded again and then, when there was still no response, he crouched and leaned in to see if he could detect inhalations or exhalations. Nothing. Was he dead? Ghedi prodded again, trying to roll Labaan over.
Veins bulged under the skin of Labaan's scalp, crawling down his face and neck and disappearing into his shirt. His arms and legs were tensing now, clenching, becoming rigid. Smoke drifted out from his short hair and from the skin of his neck, the smell of it bitter, reminding Ghedi of something Labaan had once said, something about electricity, about electrocution, about his fear. The man's arms and legs were stiff now, skin a mass of swelling veins, no longer shaking but somehow vibrating, banging against the deck in a rapid, violent tattoo and then someone called Ghedi's name.
It was a voice filled with love and pain, reaching out to him through smoke and the sound of wood expanding in flame and then something emerged from between two containers, ahead of him now, something that could not possibly have been hiding in the gap it came from, something too wide and too long, something that shouldn't be able to move but was, gliding like a snake to fill Ghedi's vision and his nose and ears, filling his whole head with its impossibility and its reality.
It was almost burnt flat now, its walls crumbling, the roof gone, and they were dead, had to be dead, but still Ghedi heard them screaming from within its raging heart, could see their shapes at the window burnt scrawny and he hadn't meant to, had only been playing with the stove and the paper, hadn't meant to make the flames come. Please, he thought and then said the word aloud and then there was no more travelling and no more words and the house came to him and the heat placed its arms around him and his father's voice spoke his name.
BEHIND THE WALL
Thana Niveau
Julie closed the door of the house, shutting out the world. The removal men would be here soon enough, filling the rooms with all her possessions, but for now she savoured the emptiness. She felt hidden and safe.
After a while she spoke, her voice echoing in the bare room. "Well, what do you think, Sam? Did I do okay?'
Her husband didn't answer, so she answered for him in her head.
It's perfect. We could have been so happy here together .
Tears burned her eyes, blurring the room. The rest of her life stretched out before her like a long and desolate road now that Sam was dead. She couldn't stay in the home they'd made together, couldn't face each day in a place where memories assaulted her everywhere she turned. She needed a fresh start, one without constant reminders of her partner of almost twenty years. Finding her own place to live had been a surreal experience. At times it had felt oddly transgressive. Weird and wrong. Sam should be here with her. She shouldn't be alone.
She'd grieved for weeks and weeks, eventually alienating casual friends with her bottomless depression and morbid preoccupations. The ones who truly cared did their best but at last she succeeded in shutting them out too, pleading with them to understand. She didn't want to be around anyone who'd known them as a couple; the reminders were just too painful. It was all she could do to get up each morning and remember to breathe, to live. Alone.
And now she was here.
Strethkellis was a strange-sounding place, with something ancient and esoteric about it. It was a village where Sam had stayed occasionally when he was on the road in Cornwall for business. He hadn't liked to stay in nearby Truro so he'd found a secluded little village to use as a base instead. He loved it for its peace and quiet, its isolation.
Julie had never been there. But when she finally began to pull herself together and realised she needed to start again, it was the name that kept coming up in her mind. She had to get away and it was a place with a connection to Sam. So she went there.
The village was as strange as its name. A narrow, winding road led into a hilly wood crowded with enormous trees. They closed over the road like a tunnel, hiding the sun until they opened out again at the picturesque glade where the village sprawled. A rustic stone marker was almost entirely obscured by thorny bushes but the name was there in chipped black letters: STRETHKELLIS.
It was larger than she'd imagined, with a scattering of cottages and several larger houses arranged around a village green with a pub called the Bird in Hand at one end. It looked like an old coaching inn, with a central cobbled courtyard decorated with potted plants. She gazed up at the windows above the pub, remembering the first night Sam had rung her from here and wondering which room he had stayed in. The view he'd described from the window was every bit as idyllic as he'd claimed. And he was right: it was quiet. The only sounds Julie heard were songbirds twittering in the trees and ducks splashing in the pond.
Naturally, she had expected the locals to be unwelcoming to an outsider but they were nothing at all like the surly peasants she'd anticipated. They treated her like a long-lost relative returning to her ancestral home. She had fallen in love with the place at once, just as Sam must have. And the fact that the charming Little Owl Cottage had just go
ne on the market only further convinced her that this was where she was meant to be. Perhaps it was Sam's last gift to her.
The cottage was peculiar, small enough to be cosy but with an absurd number of rooms, many of them no larger than a closet. But its quirkiness was part of its charm. The rooms were like spaces on a shelf that needed filling, or a jigsaw puzzle that needed someone to put it back together.
"I miss you, Sam," she said, stroking the pale blue wallpaper.
I'll always be here , she thought she heard him say.
****
"How are you settling in, dear?"
Julie jumped at the voice, startled out of her unpacking. It was like coming out of a trance. Her elderly neighbour was standing there, holding an old-fashioned picnic basket with a tea towel draped over it.
"Oh, Mrs Trevenan, it's you."
"Yes, yes," the older woman laughed, "only little old me! My, but you've been busy, haven't you?"
Julie looked around her at the chaos. Books, pots and pans, books, bathroom stuff, books, clothes and more books. She'd been at it for hours, relishing the simple but laborious task of taking things out of boxes, finding homes for them and then flattening the boxes. It was the best distraction in the world and she'd made a considerable start in just a few hours.
"I thought you might like a cup of tea," said Mrs Trevenan, brandishing a teapot under a flowery pink cosy. "Your front door was open."
Julie couldn't believe that was true but if the woman had knocked and got no answer she might have assumed it was okay just to wander in. It seemed like that kind of village. Back in Taunton Julie might have bristled at the intrusion but the lure of tea was too tantalising to refuse.
"That would be lovely," she said, relenting. "There's a table and some chairs around here somewhere."
"Right by the window," Mrs Trevenan said, nodding with approval at the arrangement in the breakfast nook. "Charlene-she lived here before you-had bird feeders in the apple tree. We used to sit here for hours watching them."
The image was so serene Julie made a mental note to get a bird feeder for herself.
"I've also brought some gingerbread. I just took it out of the oven."
She held up a small plate and Julie inhaled deeply. Was there anything in the world more heavenly than the smell of freshly baked gingerbread? It was a nostalgic breeze all the way from her childhood. Her eyes threatened to water and she chided herself for her mawkish sentimentality. The last thing she needed in her life right now was a surrogate mother. But perhaps she could do with a bit of companionship.
Julie smiled. "Mmmm, you said the magic word. And it just so happens I found all the kitchen stuff a little while ago." Although she didn't doubt that Mrs Trevenan could have pulled an entire dining set from her picnic basket.
She had to open several cabinet doors to find where she'd stashed the coffee mugs but eventually she found them and she sat down for the first time that afternoon. The tea was unexpectedly strong and the gingerbread was every bit as delicious as it smelled.
"Have another piece," the old woman said, pushing the platter across the table.
"Are you trying to fatten me up?" Julie laughed.
Mrs Trevenan frowned slightly. "It won't do you any harm, pet. You're thin as a rail."
"Yes, well…"
Over the past few months Julie had wondered whether her appetite would ever return. Without Sam nothing felt or tasted right. There was a hard little knot in her stomach, as though her intestines had been tied together. The pain came in waves, overwhelming her and then subsiding only to return again even stronger. Then, after a while, her emotions seemed to desert her entirely. It was if she'd finally run out of tears. Even music lost its ability to move her. She had drifted through endless days, feeling nothing, seeing nothing.
"Julie?"
She came out of the fog, blinking. Mrs Trevenan was staring at her.
"Oh, I'm sorry," Julie said. "It's just… Sam. My husband. He-he died last year and I'm still not… Well, I don't know if I'll ever be…"
"It's all right, dear. I understand completely. It was just the same with me when my Harold went." The old woman sighed and sipped her tea.
Julie didn't say anything. She was grateful not to hear the same old platitudes again. ( I'm sorry for your loss. He's at peace now. You're in my prayers.) She certainly would never say them herself. She gave a slight smile of understanding and swirled the dregs of her tea.
"Which room are you going to wall up?"
For a moment she wasn't sure she'd heard the old woman right. In her mug flecks of tea leaf circled like a school of tiny fish, coming together and then spinning out to the sides of the mug before settling again at the bottom. She looked up, confused.
Mrs Trevenan smiled. "Most people choose one of their smaller rooms but I picked our bedroom. I even left the door in place. Sometimes I knock on it when I walk past." She gazed out the window in dreamy reminiscence. "Oh, look! There's a goldfinch. You almost never see them this time of year."
Julie shook her head, confused. "Pardon me, but what did you say?"
"The goldfinch. You almost--"
"No, no, before that. About a wall?"
Now it was the old lady's turn to look puzzled. "Well, I asked you which room you were going to wall up." At Julie's baffled look, realisation dawned in her face. "Oh, I see. I assumed that was why you'd moved here."
"No, I came because Sam had been here before and said it was lovely. He was right. But he never said anything about walling up rooms."
"Of course not, dear. He hadn't lost anyone, had he?"
"I'm afraid I'm the one who's lost, Mrs Trevenan."
The old lady patted her hand with a grandmotherly smile. "Strethkellis is a very ancient place," she said, "with very ancient customs. And here, when someone dear passes, we wall off a room for them to stay in. Then they're always with us."
Something fluttered uneasily in Julie's stomach. She thought of the many tiny rooms scattered throughout Little Owl Cottage. Were all the homes here like that? Built with extra rooms to house the dead? Her skin suddenly felt cold.
"But Sam… He's… Well, he's already buried. Back in Taunton."
Mrs Trevenan stared at her for a few seconds, then broke into laughter. "Good heavens, no! I didn't mean we preserve our loved ones' remains."
"Then what did you mean?"
"Our custom is simply to wall off a room. We only leave the spirit of the dear one inside it and it becomes their room. That way we know they're still here."
Julie didn't think that sounded any less morbid. "You mean like a shrine?"
"Not at all. You see, you can't go in the room once you've closed it off. Some people leave a door, like I did, but it's sealed shut. I know my Harold is there, behind it, with me forever. And when it's my turn someone will break down the wall and I'll join him there." She smiled as she nibbled a slice of gingerbread.
The kitchen suddenly felt very cold. Julie wondered if every house in the village had a walled room.
As though reading her mind Mrs Trevenan said, "The Hollisters sealed off the entire garage when they lost their boy because that's where he used to play his drums. And Martin Evans at the Bird in Hand, he gave the best room in the pub to his wife Sylvia when she passed. That was almost twenty years ago. Do you know, people have stayed in the room next door to it and claimed the place is haunted." She laughed brightly. "Can you imagine?"
Julie could, all too well. She thought of the old custom of covering the mirrors in a house of the dead so the spirit of the departed wouldn't be trapped in the house. This seemed like the very opposite. There was something slightly delusional about it. Everyone wanted to believe their loved ones were still with them in spirit, but who wanted to imagine they were trapped in a secret room?
"Are you all right, pet? You look a bit pale all of a sudden."
"No, I'm fine, Mrs Trevenan. Just tired from unpacking." She forced a smile and finished her tea in one long swallow. It had gone cold
and the dregs felt like dust in her throat.
But the old woman saw right through her. She took Julie's hand in both of hers, peering intently at her. "It's not a morbid fantasy, you know. It's simply a tradition in this part of the country. I think you'll find it as comforting as we do."
Julie nodded absently. She didn't like the presumption that she would naturally do it because it was the custom of the village. "I think I'd better get back to work," she said. "Thank you so much for the tea and gingerbread."
Mrs Trevenan smiled as she rose and collected her things. "You're more than welcome, my dear. If you ever need anything, you know where I am. Pop round any time. The door's always open."
"Thanks," Julie mumbled. She didn't doubt the woman kept her door unlocked in the hope that someone would wander in for a chat. She didn't doubt that that was yet another custom of this strange village. She couldn't help but wonder how many others there were.
****
Julie kept to herself for the next few days, unpacking and setting up the cottage. She made sure the doors were locked, although three different people had pushed notes through the letterbox welcoming her to the village and inviting her round, and one lady had left her a basket of fruit from her garden. They were so aggressively friendly and welcoming that Julie began to feel guilty about her reclusive behaviour. She'd driven thirty miles to the nearest supermarket for groceries rather than buy her food in the small village shop but she knew she wouldn't be able to keep that up. Besides, wasn't that the whole point of coming here? To get away from her previous life and start a new one? She resolved to accept the next invitation she got, however it came.
As it turned out, she was meandering along a little path at the end of the village, enjoying the birdsong, when a black Labrador came bounding out of the woods. The dog wagged his tail frantically and ran right up to her as though delighted that she had come here just to see him.
