The screams continued. Two voices sounding their anguished fury.
Owen leapt up, disorientated but desperate to end the horrible din. It was close, but not upstairs.
He slammed on the light and found shoes to slip on. Owen stumbled downstairs, flicking on every light switch he passed, urgently needing to push back the darkness. All the time the screams assaulted his ears, and kept the images of the twin children dangling, dying before an audience vivid in his mind.
He had to make it stop.
Owen nearly tripped over a box of tiles in the disassembled kitchen, but he noticed at the last second and jumped it before flinging open the back door.
Here, the noise was a piercing pain.
The reassembled skulls of Faith and Fred sat on the doorstep, screaming.
Owen reeled as reality crashed into disbelief.
They continued to voice their anger to the heavens.
Panicked, he ran over, gathered them up, and stepped back into the kitchen.
They fell silent instantly.
Breathing hard, he stood inside the threshold and looked out the door at the forbidding night. A chilly breeze swept past his bare ankles.
He glanced down at the skulls cradled in his arms, and walked through the doorway into the yard. Their cries pealed out again.
Owen marched back into the kitchen and laid the skulls upon the small, paint-stained table he was using until the room was kitted out properly.
The skulls locked their protests behind their teeth.
For a long time Owen stared at the de-fleshed heads and pondered his next move. Finally, he scooped them up, carried them to his bedroom, and put them back in their cage.
He covered it again with the thick cloth and returned to the kitchen to brew coffee and wait for the dawn.
* * *
Bald Jim didn’t discuss the previous day’s events with Owen again, although he asked about the plaster on his forehead. Owen described falling over the box of tiles in the kitchen during a midnight foray for snacks, and Bald Jim promptly moved the obstacle and lectured Owen on tripping hazards. Satisfied he had taught Owen a lesson, Bald Jim and his crew got back to work, moving through the tasks on their schedule. They had weeks of work left to do, and every day there was a new minor crisis or bill to pay. Owen had little time to dwell on the skulls’ unnatural behaviour, but whenever his thoughts idled their cries reverberated in his mind.
He startled when a table saw shrieked, thinking it was the skulls again, but instead it was the reassuring sight of Roger, wearing protective earmuffs, cutting floorboards. He thought of the twins’ skulls, sitting covered in his bedroom. Listening to a new generation of people readying the house for occupation. He considered all the various families they had haunted, until they were boarded up. How many people had they eavesdropped upon? How many people had gone about their daily business unaware that the dead twins spied upon them?
That evening he drove to The Adder’s Knot in the nearby hamlet. It was a small but well-appointed pub that had made some concessions to the twenty-first century. It had wi-fi and a good local cider, but the few regulars in that night were elderly couples and bachelor men who were territorial about their seats.
Thaddy was in his sixties with a huge pock-marked nose and red cheeks. He eyeballed Owen as soon as he entered, and moved along the varnished oak counter to greet him.
“What’ll it be?” he asked, a touch gruffly.
Owen ordered a soft drink, and quickly added, “And whatever you’re having for yourself,” once he saw Thaddy’s spectacularly bushy eyebrows rise in surprise to meet his unruly hair.
“You’re Spencer’s nephew?”
“Ah, great-nephew. Owen, pleased to meet you.”
Thaddy placed the glass clinking with ice in front of Owen. “Not a drinker?”
Owen considered being evasive but guessed Thaddy wouldn’t abide bullshit. “Yeah, I’m sober. It doesn’t agree with me.”
Thaddy nodded solemnly as he poured himself a whisky. “A man should know his limits.”
Owen imagined this was a subtle warning that The Adder’s Knot wasn’t a place for a heart-to-heart. Instead they discussed rugby for an hour.
Eventually they got onto the subject of local legends and folk tales. Thaddy had a couple of whiskies in him and the customers had thinned out. There was only a tiny wizened man in a cap nursing half an ale at a table in front of the telly.
“Spencer knew plenty about local history,” Thaddy said. “He was an old git – rest in peace – but he liked reading.” Thaddy shook his head as if this was a shocking habit. “He even wrote a couple of pamphlets.”
“What?”
Owen had only met Uncle Spencer once, when he was ten, so he knew little about him.
“There’s got to be some of them knocking about in his – your – house. Library might have a copy. Spencer was right proud of them.”
Thaddy rose stiffly from his stool behind the bar and reached for the hanging bell. He rang it twice. “Time, gents! Finish up, please.”
Owen drove through the deserted, hedged lanes to his house, and after a quick sandwich headed up to bed. He tugged back the cloth to peer into the jail and check on the prisoners.
They didn’t appear to have moved. They made no sound.
He sat down in front of them, cross-legged, and told them all about his pub outing.
* * *
That night he dreamed of Faith and Fred as children, living with their mother in a small house on a farm near a copse. The children played in the woods in a little lean-to they built, and in it they hung a variety of trinkets and tokens they had found or crafted. Fred had a talent for carving figures in wood. They were uncannily like the subjects he chose: a badger, a crow, a toad, his sister and his mother. Their woodland father. Faith’s voice was unearthly, divine. When she sang, the birds marvelled.
The twins devised special games and chants. They charmed the moths and snails. They played with their huge, grey cat, which was a cunning mouser. She often brought them mauled birds and rodents as offerings. The children buried them in a little graveyard they created and erected twig crosses as markers. They conducted their own burial rites in their green cathedral, singing odd hymns with angelic voices.
And when the little family visited the village, which was rarely, a stream of whispers followed them.
* * *
Owen woke up, his head muggy, his shoulder tender, and his mood poignant. He knew some of the tragedy waiting for the family. They just wanted to be left alone. Why couldn’t people let others be?
Later, to the tune of hammering and banging, Owen dug through the boxes of books and knick-knacks he had earmarked for charity shops. He hadn’t looked too closely at any of their titles since to his eyes they were a bunch of boring history books, a subject he’d failed in his GCSEs.
He almost missed the slender volume despite his thoroughness. It was slotted inside a large hardback book about the history of the Viking invasion. It had a woodcut print on the cover depicting a couple of crooked imps playing the drums and fiddle for dancing hags in pointed hats. It was titled Tales of Vanished Villages and there was his grand-uncle’s name: Spencer Creaser.
Owen brewed a mug of coffee, heavy with milk, and retired to his bedroom to read. He’d left a corner of the cage uncovered so Faith and Fred could get some air while he was out of the room. He pulled the cloth back further so the pair had a better view. He showed them the book.
“Spencer was an author. Fancy that.” He felt strangely proud of the man. As if his relative’s literary achievement somehow opened a possibility for his future. Like he could have that same talent in his veins.
He read the preface, in which Spencer credited his grandmother for his interest in history and folklore: She had a story for every croft and bole, and none were the same. She collected the skeins of the past and wished them rewoven.
Owen regarded the index. One category was “Fairies, Boggles, and Wee Folk”. But t
he section that arrested him was “Screaming Skulls”.
Much to his surprise there were several examples. Skeletons that were restless and loud in graveyards were disinterred and returned to their homes, and over time, most of their bones were lost, until only the skulls remained.
Some of the early peoples of England were head-hunters and kept skulls as trophies. Many cultures consider them the receptacle of the vital spirit. The practice of pilgrimage to visit decorated saints’ bones in jewelled reliquaries remains popular. In other lands they are brought out each year, to be fed and feted. Sometimes they communicate prophecies or act as guardians of ancestral knowledge. To hear their voices is a sign of someone attuned to a peculiar realm.
Owen looked up from the pages and regarded the skulls. They looked back at him. He frowned. What a shite superpower.
He skimmed through the stories until he spotted an entry that caused his pulse to speed up: Caldwere Farm.
It is said that Caldwere Farm became the property of a widow of striking beauty, who had twin children called Faith and Fred.
Owen blinked and read the words again. They were real. He glanced over at the skulls in their draped shrine. From below he heard a barrage of hammering, and voices raised. Something shifted, as if the house’s axis had moved minutely. “That’s got it,” he heard Tall Jim shout. Then all was quiet again.
Owen returned to reading.
The family lived quietly, a day’s walk from the seaside village of Withensea (long since fallen into the waves). The children played in the woods and rarely went to church. In the evening lights were seen flickering through the close-knit trees. Strange songs floated on the air. They had an eerie way of speaking as one and were reported to ask impious questions. As innocents, they must have been damned by their mother. Something had to be done to save them.
Their mother was taken, tested, and confessed to being in league with Satan. She was hanged, and the local magistrate, Obadiah Creaser, ensured the twins witnessed their mother’s wrecked form led up to the gibbet and her neck stretched.
Obadiah was granted guardianship of the children and their land, but no amount of godly care could reform their wildness. The girl was particularly obdurate. The Magistrate prayed privately with her every evening, but the child’s screams of defiance were heard by all in the fine new farmhouse he built upon the land.
Several people testified that she became wanton and led her brother into terrible betrayals against God’s natural order. During their trial the twins protested this vehemently, although the girl was no longer a maiden. Seven years after their mother’s hanging, the twins were dragged up before the village and hanged by the same noose.
Owen stopped, his face wrinkled with revulsion. This man, Obadiah, was an ancestor who had profited from a terrible abuse of his position of authority. Owen did not want to look upon the twins again, so he returned to the final paragraphs.
Faith cursed Obadiah and all his line from the gallows. “You, who swore to care for and shelter us, will never be quit of us now. We shall call out your sins to the Almighty forever.” Their bodies were buried, unmarked, outside the graveyard, but people nearby complained of rending screams every night, until finally the exhausted neighbours gathered, dug up the decaying twins, and dumped them on Caldwere Farm.
Over the years only the skulls survived. The Creasers never declined, but never prospered. And each time a relative attempted to sell on or destroy the skulls, they returned to cry their bloody truth until they, and their caretakers, returned home.
Owen gasped, and glanced at the skulls. He knew he could not remove them. But, surely he could leave them? He had been considering digging a special grave in the cellar, where he could bury them so he could move on.
He knelt in front of the two skulls and placed his face close to their hard features.
“I didn’t do this to you! You can’t take it out on me.”
They regarded him silently. Judging him, Owen felt.
He flipped the cloth back over their cage.
“It’s not my fault!” he hissed at them.
He stood up too fast and his head ached.
You will take care of us.
Owen froze.
You, or another.
His breath hitched in his chest, and he took a step back, as if he could evade the thought.
“No,” he said, softly.
You’ll hear us always, lad, no matter how far you run. We’ll sing our special songs. The ones that charm snakes and spiders. That attract ill luck and ill will. You’ll come back.
You, or another.
He had planned to sell the house and split the money with Poppy. And then he’d travel and move somewhere far from those who knew his old, weak self. He’d be a fresh person, someone freed from expectations and old stories.
It felt as if giant chains had fallen from above and landed upon his shoulders to anchor him in his past. He would be fastened forever in fucked-up, irresponsible Owen.
He dropped to the floor with a thud.
Owen reached forward with unsteady fingers and drew the curtain up.
Inside their shadowed cell the two skulls gleamed with pleasure.
“Please,” he entreated.
You, or another.
THE BLACK FAIRY’S CURSE
KAREN JOY FOWLER
She was being chased. She kicked off her shoes, which were slowing her down. At the same time her heavy skirts vanished and she found herself in her usual work clothes. Relieved of the weight and constriction, she was able to run faster. She looked back. She was much faster than he was. Her heart was strong. Her strides were long and easy. He was never going to catch her now.
* * *
She was riding the huntsman’s horse and she couldn’t remember why. It was an autumn red with a tangled mane. She was riding fast. A deer leapt in the meadow ahead of her. She saw the white blink of its tail.
She’d never ridden well, never had the insane fearlessness it took, but now she was able to enjoy the easiness of the horse’s motion. She encouraged it to run faster.
It was night. The countryside was softened with patches of moonlight. She could go anywhere she liked, ride to the end of the world and back again. What she would find there was a castle with a toothed tower. Around the castle was a girdle of trees, too narrow to be called a forest, and yet so thick they admitted no light at all. She knew this. Even farther away were the stars. She looked up and saw three of them fall, one right after the other. She made a wish to ride until she reached them.
She herself was in farmland. She crossed a field and jumped a low stone fence. She avoided the cottages, homey though they seemed, with smoke rising from the roofs and a glow the color of butter pats at the windows. The horse ran and did not seem to tire.
She wore a cloak which, when she wrapped it tightly around her, rode up and left her legs bare. Her feet were cold. She turned around to look. No one was coming after her.
She reached a river. Its edges were green with algae and furry with silt. Toward the middle she could see the darkness of deep water. The horse made its own decisions. It ran along the shallow edge but didn’t cross. Many yards later it ducked back away from the water and into a grove of trees. She lay along its neck, and the silver-backed leaves of aspens brushed over her hair.
* * *
She climbed into one of the trees. She regretted every tree she had never climbed. The only hard part was the first branch. After that it was easy, or else she was stronger than she’d ever been. Stronger than she needed to be. This excess of strength gave her a moment of joy as pure as any she could remember. The climbing seemed quite as natural as stair steps, and she went as high as she could, standing finally on a limb so thin it dipped under her weight, like a boat. She retreated downward, sat with her back against the trunk and one leg dangling. No one would ever think to look for her here.
Her hair had come loose and she let it all down. It was warm on her shoulders. “Mother,” she said, softly en
ough to blend with the wind in the leaves. “Help me.”
She meant her real mother. Her real mother was not there, had not been there since she was a little girl. It didn’t mean there would be no help.
Above her were the stars. Below her, looking up, was a man. He was no one to be afraid of. Her dangling foot was bare. She did not cover it. Maybe she didn’t need help. That would be the biggest help of all.
“Did you want me?” he said. She might have known him from somewhere. They might have been children together. “Or did you want me to go away?”
“Go away. Find your own tree.”
* * *
They went swimming together and she swam better than he did. She watched his arms, his shoulders rising darkly from the green water. He turned and saw that she was watching. “Do you know my name?” he asked her.
“Yes,” she said, although she couldn’t remember it. She knew she was supposed to know it, although she could also see that he didn’t expect her to. But she did feel that she knew who he was – his name was such a small part of that. “Does it start with a W?” she asked.
The sun was out. The surface of the water was a rough gold.
“What will you give me if I guess it?”
“What do you want?”
She looked past him. On the bank was a group of smiling women, her grandmother, her mother, and her stepmother too, her sisters and stepsisters, all of them smiling at her. They waved. No one said, “Put your clothes on.” No one said, “Don’t go in too deep now, dear.” She was a good swimmer, and there was no reason to be afraid. She couldn’t think of a single thing she wanted. She flipped away, breaking the skin of the water with her legs.
She surfaced in a place where the lake held still to mirror the sky. When it settled, she looked down into it. She expected to see that she was beautiful, but she was not. A mirror only answers one question and it can’t lie. She had completely lost her looks. She wondered what she had gotten in return.
* * *
There was a mirror in the bedroom. It was dusty so her reflection was vague. But she was not beautiful. She wasn’t upset about this and she noticed the fact, a little wonderingly. It didn’t matter at all to her. Most people were taken in by appearances, but others weren’t. She was healthy; she was strong. If she could manage to be kind and patient and witty and brave, there would be men who loved her for it. There would be men who found it exciting.
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