Kit's Wilderness

  I turned and turned, trying to see them true, but then Askew spoke, and there was silence, just Jax’s growls.

  “Down, boy!”

  His voice had deepened. His face had darkened. His shoulders were broader. He wore heavy layers of dark clothes. His head hung forward, his hair was filthy and wild.

  “Askew.”

  “Mr. Watson.”

  “Where you been, Askew?”

  “Away.”

  “Your mother’s ill with worry. Your baby sister . . .”

  “And him?”

  “Him, too,” I said. “He wants you home again.”

  “Ha!”

  I trembled. I saw the tiny faces, peeping over at us from the river’s edge, heard the thin breathing again, the fearful whispers.

  “I’ve come for you, Kit.”

  “Me?”

  “You. You’re the only one.”

  I stared, pulled my coat close again.

  “You see them,” he whispered. “Don’t you, Kit?”

  The eyes above the frozen snow, watching, goggling. The hiss of their breath, their whispers.

  “You do,” he said. Jax growled.

  “Yes,” I whispered.

  “And you see other things. Things that don’t exist for other eyes.”

  “Yes,” I whispered.

  He stepped toward me. “This is because you’re dead, Kit. You see through the eyes of the dead. Here you are, among the dead.”

  “Askew, man. That’s stupid.”

  A murmur from the children.

  “Kit Watson,” they whispered. “Christopher Watson, aged thirteen.”

  Askew laughed. “Remember, Kit. John Askew, aged thirteen. Christopher Watson, aged thirteen. Written in stone beneath the trees. It waited for you.”

  “It was long ago, Askew.”

  “Things from long ago keep coming back and coming back. The earth can’t hold its dead. They rise and watch us. They draw us to them.”

  “Askew, man.”

  “What brought you here to Stoneygate, Kit?”

  “My grandma died, and . . .”

  “Death drew you back. Death called you to it. Christopher Watson, aged thirteen. Even your gravestone waited for you, just as it waited for John Askew, aged thirteen.”

  He leaned forward, gripped my wrist.

  I gripped the ammonite.

  “I want you to come with me, Kit. Come with me. Come and properly play the game called Death.”

  “Askew. Let me go.”

  “I could show you things, Kit. Things that’d give you all the stories you’ll ever need.”

  His grip tightened. The dog growled. The children whispered in fright. He started to pull me.

  “This is why you’re like me,” he said. “Because we know about the darkness of the past, because we know about the darkness of the dead.”

  “Yes,” I said. “But we also know about the light of the present, the light of the living. We could play the game of Life together, Askew. Be my friend. Come back to Stoneygate. Come back to the living.”

  He grunted like a beast. He pulled me tighter. I felt the violence in his grip begin to overcome the yearning in his eyes.

  “You!” he whispered. “Bloody you!”

  I struck him with the ammonite at the center of his brow. I struck again. He reeled backward, blood already flowing to his face. I started to run, slithering and sliding on the snow. I heard the dog running at my heels. I gripped the ammonite, prepared to strike again; then Askew called:

  “Jax! Leave him!”

  I leapt the fence, hurried to the gate. I stood there, heard his deep voice following me:

  “I’ll call you, Kit Watson. You know that, don’t you? And when I call, I know you’ll come.”

  Turned, looked back, saw nothing but moonlight on frozen snow.

  I tiptoed back into the house, into my room.

  Lak’s mother crouched against the wall. She sighed with the relief of my return. She held the stones out, formed the silent words, Bring him home.

  Midwinter’s Day, last day at school, end of the winter term. The year’s shortest day. The longest night was soon to come.

  Allie was bright and thin in green leggings and a bright red coat. She’d gelled her hair and it stuck out in spikes around her grinning face. She danced in the snow at my side.

  “Well?” she giggled. “Well?” She stood with her hands on her hips and grinned and grinned.

  “Yes,” I said. “You were brilliant. Bloody brilliant.”

  “Ha! Hahaha! And I terrified you all, didn’t I?”

  “Yes, Allie.”

  “Haha! And you couldn’t take your eyes off me. You couldn’t take your great goggling eyes off me. Could you, Mr. Watson?”

  “No, Allie. We couldn’t. That’s right.”

  “And I was best when I was evil, wasn’t I? When I turned good again at the end you wanted me to go back and be evil again so you could be terrified again. That’s right, isn’t it, Mr. Watson?”

  “Yes, Allie.”

  “Hahaha! I was brilliant! And tonight I’ll be even brillianter! Won’t I, Mr. Watson?”

  “Yes, Allie. You will.”

  “Jeez, Kit! I love it! I just love it!”

  I watched her cartwheeling and skipping. I walked on toward school. She gripped my arm.

  “I’ll do it, you know,” she said. “I’ll really be an actress one day. You’ll see me on the telly. You’ll say ‘That’s Allie Keenan. That’s my friend.’ “

  I nodded. “And I’ll write a play for you,” I said.

  Her eyes widened. “Yes!” she said. “What about?”

  “Dunno. Stoneygate.”

  “Stoneygate! You’re joking!”

  “Yes. Stoneygate. I’ll call it The Game Called Death. It’ll start in Askew’s den. It’ll be winter. He’ll be a dark heavy brute and you’ll be a glittering life force and somebody like me’ll be in between you both and all confused. You’ll work magic and conquer death and bring everybody out into the light. Something like that.”

  “Jeez, Kit.” She clapped her hands. “Then we’ll both be famous!” And she cartwheeled again in the snow.

  “Askew came back last night,” I said.

  “Eh?”

  “Last night. After the play. I went out and met him by the river again.”

  “Jeez, Kit.”

  “Unless I dreamed it. Unless I just imagined it.”

  “He’s not dead, then?” she said.

  I shook my head. “Didn’t think he was. Didn’t believe all those stupid stories. He’s a big daft brute, that’s all.” I held her arm. “Nobody else knows,” I said. “You aren’t to tell anybody.”

  “Why should you care what anybody knows about him?”

  “There’s more to Askew than there seems,” I said.

  She shook her head. “Caveman. Lout. That’s all.”

  “I think he needs some friends, Allie.”

  She just stared at me; then she shrugged.

  “Not much chance of that then, eh? Anyway, got other things to think about than him.” She posed again, hands on hips. “Alison Keenan, actress, life force, aged thirteen.”

  We walked on again toward school.

  “You’ll come to see me again tonight?” she said.

  I shrugged.

  “You will, Kit? Won’t you? When you’re there I’m stronger.

  “Yes,” I said.

  But I didn’t look at her. I already thought that there would be other purposes for me tonight.

  A useless day. The teachers all distracted, the kids all wild. We pulled Christmas decorations from the walls. We ripped old notes out of files and stuffed them into black trash bags. Girls wrapped tinsel in their hair and linked arms and sang carols and giggled and danced. Out in the yard, the games were crazier than ever: kids slid in great struggling bunches on their backs across the ice, yelled threats and curses at each other, shrieked like demons, pummeled each other with huge handfuls of frozen snow
. The sun hung low above them, following its lowest, meanest path of the year. In the hall at the heart of the school the actors rehearsed The Snow Queen yet again, preparing to make Midwinter’s performance the best of all. I moved through the classrooms and corridors like a ghost. I was silent. I couldn’t join in. I could hardly think. I kept wanting to run, to disappear from this place. I knew that something was hunting me, watching me, biding its time before it leapt to capture me and carry me away.

  I met Allie at lunchtime. She wore the silver on her face and all she could talk about was the play. She told me how brilliant it would be, how brilliant she would be.

  “You’ll come again?” she said. “You will, Kit, won’t you?”

  I closed my eyes, shrugged. “Yes,” I muttered.

  “You’ve got to, Kit,” she said. “I need you to. You don’t know how much I depend on you.”

  I looked past her, through the plate glass windows that lined the corridor. Beyond the wild kids in the yard I saw Askew’s mother at the gates with her baby in her arms. She peered in, seeking her boy.

  “You will, Kit, won’t you?” said Allie.

  She gripped my arm. I pulled away from her.

  “Oh, Allie,” I said. “Why’s it always you you want to talk about? Why’s it always precious bloody brilliant you?” And I ran from her, back toward the depths of the school.

  He was waiting for me in a dark place, a place where two windowless corridors crossed, a place that had been lit by Christmas lights that now lay tangled among pine needles on the floor beneath a naked tree.

  “Watson,” he hissed. “Christopher Watson.”

  He stood half hidden by the tree. Pale hair, pale face, pale voice. Bobby Carr. “Kit Watson,” he hissed.

  I said nothing, just halted, stared at him.

  “Yes,” he said. “You. Kit Watson.”

  I heard the screaming from the yard outside, the weird squeaky music from the hall. It came from miles away, years away.

  “He wants you.”

  “Eh?”

  “Eh? Eh? He wants you. He’s sent for you.”

  I couldn’t speak, couldn’t think.

  “Now,” said Bobby. He stepped out from beside the tree. “Now,” he said.

  He stood beside me, skinny and pale.

  “He said you’d come, Kit. He said he knew you’d come.”

  I looked back to where I’d come from. I saw a bunch of fifth-graders in tinsel and baubles rampaging out into the light.

  “This way,” he whispered.

  And I followed him, through the corridor, through a back door, past the kitchens, past the waste bins, out into the yard, across a steel-pointed fence, out into the wilderness. I stared back at the school, saw Askew’s mother, in the yard itself now, moving with her baby through the knots of frantic kids.

  “This way,” he said. “Don’t look back.”

  He led me out of the wilderness toward Stoneygate’s fringes, past ancient pit cottages, past The Fox, Askew’s potholed cul-de-sac, out into the hawthorn-hedged lanes, on to the slopes of the hills that stretched upward to dark distant moors and an icy sky. The snow crunched and crackled beneath our feet. Unseen birds screeched as if in panic. We didn’t speak apart from Bobby’s “This way, this way, don’t look back.”

  The sun already fell toward the west. Midwinter’s Day, the shortest day, the longest night to come.

  The hawthorn lanes gave way to open land, ancient tussocky paddocks and fields with ruined dry stone walls around them. Our feet broke the hard surface of the snow. We waded knee-deep, struggled upward, clothes sodden, icy water seeping into our bones. I turned once more, saw the rooftops of Stoneygate, dark lines of coal smoke rising vertically from them. Heard the children’s distant squeals.

  “Don’t look back,” said Bobby, and we turned away, into a narrow valley. Bare thornbushes clustered around a thin stream. There were little frozen waterfalls, great gashes in the banks made by playing kids and ancient miners. Stone and soil and the roots of heather and shrubs all entangled. Followed the stream uphill, felt the ice deepening its grip. Looked back, saw nothing, just the frozen slopes we’d followed, the gash of this valley. Came to a flatter area, a broad bank by the stream that faced a steep rocky slope with twisted hawthorn trees before it.

  Bobby paused there, watched me. The sun was already behind the valley’s edge. We already stood in darkening shadow. The longest night had already begun.

  Bobby glanced at his watch, smiled at me.

  “’S’all right,” he told me. “This way.”

  We walked to the hawthorn, twisted through the dense branches, ripped our clothes and skin on the thorns, came to the head-high hole in the rock, the entrance to the ancient drift mine. The boards that had once covered this place were propped against the rock. KEEP OUT was written on them. A skull and crossbones was printed on them. DANGER OF DEATH.

  Bobby grinned again.

  “This way, Mr. Watson,” he whispered, and he led me into the dark.

  Pale light filtered from the entrance as we stepped inside. I saw the low arch of bricks over our heads. Then bare rock walls, bare rock roof, a few twisted pit props and lintels. Other pit props had given way, and the tunnel was blocked by heaps of rubble where the walls and roof had fallen in.

  Bobby’s face bloomed as he clambered over the first heap and turned to me. “This way, Mr. Watson.”

  There was a narrow gap before him that would lead us further into the dark. I stood still. What was I doing there? There was nothing to stop me from going out into my life again.

  He sniggered.

  “It’s taken a hundred years for this lot to fall in,” he said. “Mebbe it’ll last another hundred years or more.”

  He scrambled through the gap. His feet disappeared; then his face was there, grinning back at me. “Frightened, Mr. Watson?”

  “He’s really in there?”

  “Really. Really, really, really.” He reached his hand out. “Want a pull, eh?”

  I gritted my teeth and scrambled after him, crawled through the gap, slithered through into the deeper dark. He waited for me there, squatting on the rockfall.

  “Brave boy, Mr. Watson,” he whispered.

  Our voices hung in the dead still icy air. There was a smell of coal and dust and damp. My soaked trousers clung to my flesh. I trembled, thought of home, of the warm kitchen. I told myself, “Don’t do this. Go home.” But I knew that there was no turning back, that I was both driven and drawn into the darkness that lay before us. I reached into my pocket, gripped the ammonite.

  “That’s the hard bit, Mr. Watson. It all gets easy now.”

  I said nothing.

  “Scared?” he whispered.

  I heard the snigger in his voice. “Just take me to him,” I said.

  He moved on. “Keep low,” he told me. “Watch the fallen rocks.”

  I knocked my head and shoulders against lintels, pit props and rock. I tripped on rubble. I kept my eyes on Bobby before me, his low stooped figure, tried to follow in his tracks. Then we saw it, a frail flickering light from further in.

  “Look,” he whispered. “You see?”

  “That’s him?”

  “That’s him.”

  I shuddered, moved more quickly through the shadows toward the light, then stood stock-still. The black snarling dog stood silhouetted against the flames that burned at its back. Then Askew’s voice, “Down, Jax!” Then Askew’s own silhouette, his bitter laughter.

  “Mr. Watson,” he whispered. “Do come in.” He laughed. “Didn’t I say I’d choose the time and place?”

  The tunnel opened out here, before dividing into two. The small fire burned at the center. Hawthorn branches and pit props were heaped against one wall. There was a bucket of melting snow beside the fire, two skinned rabbits on a metal plate, skewers and forks, a small axe, a sheath knife, a packet of cigarettes. There was a heap of blankets. The dog crouched, watching me, teeth and eyes glittering, saliva drooling from its lo
ose mouth.

  “Make yourself at home,” said Askew.

  He squatted by the fire. He threw a handful of hawthorn twigs into the flames and in the sudden flare I caught sight of the beasts and demons grinning from the walls, the scratched-in names. He leaned his face close to the flames and lit a cigarette.

  “Askew,” I said. “This is lethal. If there’s gas around . . .”

  “Kaboom!” he whispered. “Kaboom! Great flash of fire and light and we’re all gone.”

  Bobby giggled.

  “Worm,” said Askew.

  We faced each other across the flames. I saw the congealed blood on his brow. There was a scarf of rabbit skins around his throat. His hair was matted and wild.

  “I knew you’d come,” he said. “There’s something in you, not like the rest of the rabble. I knew you’d come.”

  “Your mother’s searching for you, Askew.”

  He lowered his eyes.

  “She cries and carries the baby everywhere and searches for you.”

  “Thinks I’m dead, eh? Mebbe how it’ll all turn out. Mebbe better that way.”

  “Come back with me, Askew.”

  He threw more wood into the flames. He loosened his shirt. There were animals and faces painted onto his chest. He wore a necklace of coal fragments, wizened hawthorn berries, rabbit bones, a tiny animal skull. He lifted the skinned rabbits with his filthy hands, skewered them, hung them between stones across the fire. He grunted and whimpered.

  “Uh. Uh. Ayeeeee.”

  Laughed at me.

  “Caveman,” he said. “That’s what they used to say, what I used to hear. Bloody caveman. Uh. Uh. Ayeeee. Now they’re right.”

  Bobby laughed again and Askew leapt at him, pressed him to the earth and knelt over him. He reached out, grabbed the axe, held it high above Bobby’s head.

  “Ayeeee!” he called. “Ayeeee! Die, you worm!”

  He brought the axe down, then paused, with the blade an inch away from Bobby’s face. Glanced at me.

  “Mercy. Caveman shows the worm some mercy.”

  He glared into Bobby’s eyes.

  “Now go,” he whispered. “Tell no one. If you do, I’ll find you. Jax will rip you limb from limb.”

  “Limb from limb,” repeated Bobby in a tiny trembling voice.