CHAPTER 2
Ben lived with his Aunt. His Dad was dead and his Mum, a mystery. He knew little about her. She had abandoned him. His Dad, her husband, had been killed. When this news reached her, she packed a single suitcase, walked out of their home and vanished.
At first, his Grandmother took care of Ben, but when age and illness took her away, he, along with his Grandmother's house, became his Aunt's inheritance.
No mentioned of his Mum ever came Ben's way; no record of her existence was ever displayed. Ben gave her no time and rarely a thought. If cracks appeared in his inner world that allowed his Mum to creep inside he hated himself, he always wanted her gone. To him, she had vanished and so must remain just that, gone forever, erased from history and time itself.
Darkness chased him back to the house other people called his home. He could have taken a shortcut through Bromlow Wood, but fear of the Wood and all the creatures that hid inside drove him to take the long way round.
On reaching the house, he stopped outside and coughed as hard as he could. His Aunt always demanded silence. Her face would scowl and tighten with every cough she heard. To her the sound was physical, it scratched her skin and scraped her bones.
Finally, with his cough purged, he crept through the door and entered the cottage. His Aunt, who sat at the kitchen table, fixed a hateful stare on him.
‘Where have you been?’ She demanded, but as Ben was about to stutter a reply, she cut back in, 'No, don't! Don't bother! I don't want to know. There is your bread, take it, eat it and keep yourself quiet! Don't you dare make another sound!’
She turned her thin, sour face away and continued to eat her dinner. Twice a week, on Sundays and Wednesdays, all Ben was allowed to eat was a thin slice of bread wiped with a smear of beef dripping or butter. His Aunt, however, cooked herself the best food of the week. This, she claimed, was her right: to live, twice a week, as well as she could have lived if the burden of Ben was not a weight locked around her neck. Sometimes, at night, after drinking a liquid from a bottle she kept hidden, which Ben knew was alcoholic even though she pretended it was tea and drank it from a delicate, flowery cup, she would look at Ben and say,
‘What am I now, a beast of burden! And who can love such a thing as that?’
Ben knew better than to offer a reply; his only option was to remain perfectly still and bow his stare to the floor. Stillness was her weapon; she imposed it on Ben as she imposed it on herself.
He observed her body; it was stiff and deliberate. Although her frame was slight, he believed his Aunt to be monstrously strong. He could see a great tension, a powerful force, that she somehow managed to hold contained within. He pictured the wind, the sea, the wild chaos of nature trapped within her, controlled, imprisoned, by this woman, the master. He imagined her, cane in hand, beating a stormy ocean into obedient stillness while the wind watched, trembling. With such forces trapped inside her, she often looked ready to burst. He thought, hoped, that one day she would leap out of her armchair and run fast away without ever being able to stop - her perfect posture left sitting stiffly in the chair as if a snake skin, shed and discarded. The tension within her, a spring wound infinity tight, would propel her ever on. He began to think there may be a button somewhere on her person that if pressed would release this force and her. He quickly concluded her nose was the button so he would sit staring at it desperately wanting to give it a smack.
Ben and his Aunt rarely spoke, not properly, they never showed concern or interest in each other. Ben was a ghostly presence, as silent and as invisible as he could possibly be. He knew he was her unwanted duty, that her reputation in the village, or rather her fear of losing it, was all that kept him just about fed and nearly warm.
Every Sunday she would cook herself a glorious roast dinner, with a sponge pudding and custard to follow. Leftovers always remained, which she displayed smugly and guarded fiercely. Sometimes, if the roasting pan had been left out and unwashed, he would scrape clean the fat and dripping and salvage the shards of crispy meat and roast potato that had stuck to the bottom of the pan.
After dinner, she would sit by the fire in a comfortable armchair. If the night was cold, Ben was allowed to sit behind her on a wooden dining chair, just close enough to steal some warmth from the fire. The only sounds that dared defy the silence were the crackling of the fire and the slow, monotonous tapping of knitting needles, which was a sound that numbed Ben into a sort of madness. It seemed stuck in the present, never destined to move on. Even the room's only clock, a travel clock - the sadness of which was not lost on Ben, although he had promised, if ever he was able, to take the clock on a trip to faraway lands - had lost its tick to the doom of silence.
Ben would sit and let his mind play with the magically bright and colourful flames - the sole providers of animation - they seemed so gentle, so calm and graceful, but Ben knew they were quick to rage. He willed them to grow, to stand tall and powerful, to grab his Aunt, to dance her around the room in a furious blaze and then, when she had fallen exhausted, to ram her up the chimney and use her as a brush, to push her repeatedly through soot and dirt, to choke her as he felt choked or to leave her stuck in the flue so that she became smoked like a kipper. He could then sell her to monsters as a tasty treat. At a penny a pound he would become rich and renowned, a purveyor of the finest quality smoked Aunt.
He longed to be as fire is then nobody would touch him again. He could be gentle and warm or, if provoked and fueled, rage and destroy.
Hidden away on a desk in the living room was a 365 day calendar - with a small, tearable page for every day of the year. Every night, just before his Aunt retired to bed, she would rip the current day's page from the calendar and throw it into the fire where the dying embers would puff it out of existence via flames and smoke. Ben believed this brought a curse to the house, to him and, more tolerably, to his Aunt. He thought it was bad luck to reveal a new day before the current one had ended, even worse to destroy the current day before a new one had begun. In the summer, when a page had been thrown on to a cold or unlit fire, he would sneak downstairs, recover the page and, quite literally, save the day. This, he hoped, would make time his ally in the war against his Aunt. He would imagine thousands of pages flying off the calendar and streaming into the fire. Days, months and years would rapidly pass, and his Aunt would age accordingly right before his eyes. The flames, which he believed were already his ally, would fend off disease, illness and even death and so enable his Aunt to become so incredibly old and shriveled that she would turn into a substance not dissimilar to that of bark. Ugly things that creep and crawl and slime their way around would then infest her and use her for a home and or food.
If the evening cold was tolerable, Ben would go to his bedroom, climb into bed and simply dream or, now that he had found his Dad in the library, read a book until blinded by night. When his Aunt discovered him reading a book he had brought from the library, her reaction startled him. Instead of snatching the book and confiscating it, which is what Ben imagined might happen, she laughed. A strange, joyous shriek erupted from within her as a surge of relief enveloped her.
‘Books!' she proclaimed. 'Do you think my brother read fiction? Do you think he had the time or the need? Never did he! Never! Because he was a real man! Too strong, in body and mind, to cower behind the pages of such a book! Pity him! Look at you. You, his waste! Pity him! Look at you, thin of life. What chance you? Tell me that! What chance have you to become anything of him?’
Liberated from a nagging doubt, a victorious wail burst from her. Ben watched and listened impassively. On this occasion, her laughter and words failed to harm him. He knew his Dad was a man of adventure, and such men always have a need to discover and read books - fact and fiction. A need exists inside of them to be taken away to other worlds and times. They need mountains to scale and deserts to cross, those that are real and those that appear in their dreams and on the page. Men of adventure need to feel wonder and awe. An opened book is an opened eye, whi
ch is why magnificence and miracles find them first. As they live, they write their own adventure. Anyway, as she laughed and spoke her hateful words, his Dad was at home in the library lost in a world of myth and monster, reading the night away.
One Sunday night became another; life continued the same. Ben would return from the library into silence, hunger and chill. The books he brought home to read sustained him. But then, that day, after running from the lake, from the monster and the boys who dared to cross the stepping stones, he returned to the house and entered a gale of fury and noise.
‘Coward! Pity your my brother's name! How he would hate you now!’ His Aunt screamed.
A house was nearby, Mr Willis was home, he could have helped just like Captain Briggs, who by chance had stumbled across the scene. If only he had heard Ben call for help, he could have raced to the lake, gotten there sooner and done more to save the drowning boys.
‘I was frightened.’ Ben said, his empty stomach tightening with a sick, anxious feeling.
‘Too scared to speak, to shout? To think, like a normal boy!! Do you know the shame you have brought on this house? The shame you have brought yourself, on me and on my brother!
‘There’s a monster in the lake. You can’t disturb it.’
She slapped his face, her rage uncontrolled.
‘A monster! And now a ghost! Let us hope he haunts you! A boy, dead, on your puny hands!’
He ran away, turned and fled upstairs. A desperate hope drove him to find somewhere alone. He reached his bedroom door. Footsteps pounded up the stairs. He tried the door; his Aunt had locked it. He froze, panicked, and felt so very small. The footsteps stopped. His Aunt's voice grabbed him and pulled tight around the throat.
‘Before you do as your nature intends, before you run away and hide like the coward you are, I want to show you something. Now follow me!’ She said, her anger controlled, contained, but still seething within. Footsteps descended the stairs, pulling Ben in their wake.
Downstairs, in the sitting room, His Aunt stood by the fire. Ben entered the room, she lunged towards him and grabbed the book he had brought from the library.
‘These are no good for you.' she said. 'This world is real, hard and real! You should face it like I have to face it! What right have you got to escape, to go lost in your own little world. Hardship is what you require, a heavy dose of the real world so understand this, from this day on, these books are gone!’
She tossed the book into the fire.
‘No!’ He cried.
‘Then save them!’ She replied.
She stepped aside as if giving him permission to plunge his hands into the scolding flames and save the book and the others he could now see, from burning in the flames. He hesitated; she laughed a contemptuous, spiteful laugh.
‘No, not you! Never you! And I know they’re not yours, but let me tell you this, I do not care. Let the owner demand them back, let you fail that request, let you pay for them! Pity my brother, how he would hate you now!’
She walked towards the door and without turning to look at him spoke.
‘The key to your bedroom is on the mantelpiece. Use it. get yourself away from me! And never bring another book into my house again!’
Ben was left alone, staring at the fire. He could see the flames were wrong; he could see them twist in agony as they devoured the books. He could hear their screams, crazed at having no choice.
How could he now face his Dad? How could he return to the library empty handed? He knew the library was one, like a brain he thought, and part of that brain was burning in the fire; memories were being lost. The library would hate him now. His Dad too. And the boys, what could he think of the boys? He had warned them not to disturb the monster. He knew there was a real danger but to run away, to once again live while followed by death.
He entered his room and again locked the door. Under the blankets, in darkness, he neither felt safe nor scared, just barely there, his mind and body both blank and numb. Here he remained until deep into the night, when suddenly he realised what he needed to do.
He sat up and threw the blanket away. Moonlight rushed to stoke a frightful memory. He looked to the window; a full Moon hung in the sky. Whatever is bad is made worse at night when the Moon hangs full in a cloudless sky. This, Ben knew. He had seen himself, a person turned mad and crazed with rage while dazzled by the power of the Moon. But still, he knew he had to go, alone, into the darkest depths of night.
He put on his shoes, left then right, as he always did. Then placed Stanley, his threadbare teddy, to sit at the window, as he always did before leaving the house.
‘Shout if you see anything coming,’ he whispered into Stanley's ear.
He then made his bed. If he got this wrong, he would not return. A messed-up bed is always a sign of a wrong waiting to happen.
Fully dressed, he crept towards the bedroom door. He knew his Aunt would be sound asleep, anchored to the bed by a belly full of Sunday dinner and the drink she called her medicinal tea. Still, he moved with caution as every house has hidden gaps and mysteries. As a dog has fleas, human spaces also hide creatures that live on and feed off supposedly larger, stronger and more capable beasts.
He inched silently through the house; he knew the sore points where a touch would elicit a crack or a creak. The stairs bent his way; the kitchen hid its delicious, hurtful odors of a Sunday dinner denied; the back door made only a whisper, 'good luck,' it said.
Outside, he paused, only the garden stood between him and the rest of the world - a world at night and cursed by the light of the Moon. As he wrapped his scarf around his mouth and nose, to protect from the cold and to muffle his cough, he walked to the coal shed and opened the door. On the coals inside, sat his football, which for several years had been his most treasured possession.
The football was resting, for the final, the tenth re-match, was only a day away. Ben picked it up as if cradling a dying pet, but he knew he had to do it, he knew what he had to do.
'The final's off. Its been called a draw,' he whispered to the football.
'There's a bigger game now. You've been promoted. You're not with me anymore. I'm out, relegated. You'll be better off. It's a bigger game now.'
The football was a real, true friend to Ben. His Aunt would not allow it in the house, if she had, it would have slept in his bed. A kindly man, called Dr Green, had bought it for him as a present. The reason for this, Ben never knew. He did, however, considered it the best medicine ever prescribed, and the only medicine that helped soothe the terror born in him that night had he first met Dr Green.
He went as quickly as he could over fields, roads and lanes. His scared eyes, as wide as the Moon was full. The lake was no more than a mile away, but the stillness of night seemed to reach into time and act as a brake. His progress felt labored, strangely slow. He knew the route well but felt lost and forgotten. Nothing chased him or hid to jump out, no monster or even the wind. Was he too much of a coward to be a prize? Too thin and hungry, for even a snack? Too hated and reviled to scare or tease? All were true, he thought. Even monsters, creatures and things have turned their backs on him tonight.
With the lake in sight, Ben stopped, scared to get too close. On the surface, the Moon touched the Earth and was born a twin again. Would the boy, Mark, feel the light or would his sunken world always be as night? So many questions packed Ben's mind. No answers came to stop them. He imagined Mark deep beneath the water. What was he now, a ghost, a memory made flesh? The monster and Mark, and who knows what. What brew was the lake? What else had fallen, trapped? No place for a boy, he thought. At least his Dad had become a man.
Books had told Ben things he did not understand: that everything happens for a reason, that all is destined to be, but also, God is dead, that chaos propels and twists every single beat of time. Too many voices, too much noise. Life was confusing, a strange, unknowable mess. The only thing Ben knew as fact was that every boy in every world should have their own football.
He placed his own down on the ground, stepped back ten paces, then stood preparing to kick.
Twenty metres stood between him and the lake. Did he have what it took to score? If ever he needed to be like his Dad, to prove the son was as the father, this was the moment to shine. Here, amongst a hostile crowd he stood alone, the only player from the visiting team. But he was the boy that played away every day, who had no team, no home.
The football held his stare. No dreams, no fear, he knew only the now. A final cough cleared his lungs. A single step took him beyond return. A sprint to the ball, a kick released, foot and ball connected. The kick felt clean and sounded true. The ball charged high as if sucked up into the night. Ben watched, with only hope to hold him. Finally, a goal was scored, but no victory won. The ball splashed down, caught on the surface of the lake, held between two worlds. Nature remained silent and still, and Ben remained alone.
With the cold beginning to hurt him, he hurried away, his breath wheezing, his lungs struggling. He could have returned to his bed but instead he chose to climb to the top of Callow Hill. Dawn, he thought, was soon to break, and to see this happen could only bring good. He knew the brief moments between night and day would bestow peace and calm all those who had opened their eyes to see it.
Callow Hill was no ordinary hill, but a dormant warrior too: a million spirits, slain in battles to protect these lands, now joined and united as one. When needed, they would rise again, a single being, to fight for the defense The Earth. Ben could not remember how he knew this, it just sat there in his mind - a warrior man, a vast mass of earth and rock, only called into battle when men and boys had failed.
Ben reached the summit and sat on the cold, damp grass. He felt the highest in all the world, the closest to the Moon, the next to be dazzled by its power. The lake, a chameleon and glossed by the Moon, seemed only a surface. He wanted to grow, to rise a giant. He would plunge an arm into the lake and turn it inside out. In fact, turn everything inside out, life and death inside out.
An owl broke the silence; a single tweet warmed the air. Ben looked hopefully, but he knew the owl was never there. His stare fell still. In the distance, he knew of a building that stood hidden. It jumped from the night to be seen clear in his mind.
On a night like this, cursed by the light of a full Moon, a woman had come to his Aunt's cottage like a spirit possessed, her thoughts demanding of her the theft of a boy. She crept, invisible, into Ben's room. Four years had passed to thin it dream-like in his mind, but he still remembered how she plucked him from his bed, how he felt trapped, lost in an unbreakable shell, desperate to struggle, to kick and fight and call for help while all the time being mute and rigid with fear.
'Hush,' she whispered to him. 'I come to do right. I come for right.'
The look in her eyes, as if this act would save her from all the troubles of life. What pact had she made, and with who, Ben thought.
She placed a chain and pendant round his neck; the pendant was one half of a whole: a gold snake, its body entwined, its mouth swallowing its tail. He was given the top half - the bejeweled head, red ruby eyes glaring, mouth wide open engaged in the act of devouring itself. The lower half, the woman wore. Ben glanced it round her neck, the chain tight against her throat as if choking.
'If I fail,' she whispered, clasping the chain to his neck, 'still know me. Please, forever need me. You can us together, complete us; the true power of eternity!'
In his memories, she took him cradled in her arms. They floated silently through the house then out into the garden where a gang of men jumped into the fray and fought to set him free him. Amongst them stood Dr Green, a peacemaker, who Ben remembered calling for restraint.
The woman attacked like the wildest of animals, feral and without fear for herself. Her only weakness was Ben, when he fell from her arms she paused; she needed to know he had come to no harm. He had not, but the men took the advantage and hit her to the ground.
His Aunt rushed him into the cottage, her hands pressed against his ears to deafen him. He managed to steal a final look at the woman. She, too, was being dragged away, her teeth tearing the hand that gagged screams.
His Aunt led him straight to his bedroom and told him to sleep, to forget everything that had happened, to call it a nasty dream. For once, he thought she was right, but before he crawled back into bed to cower and hide, he ripped the chain and pendant from around his neck and threw them out of the window. The next morning a panic set in, the pendant and its curse were still far too close. He went looking, he wanted to take them far away, but he never did; they remained fastened to him, a weight around his neck.
Ben never saw the woman again and was never allowed to mention her or what had happened that night. Dr Green came to visit twice each made awkward by Ben's Aunt whose hostility towards him was obvious to any and all.
Ben thought the woman had been bundled away into the building that stood hidden beyond the trees. He had heard people call it a hospital but he knew the truth, its purpose: a prison for the maddest of things; for angels fallen and wronged; for the monsters who had violated the Pact of Earth Monsters, People and Chimps.
Ben continued to stare through the darkness to see the building crisp in his mind. He felt no fear, or anger, just sadness and as always, alone.
A brilliant, uncluttered dawn began to break. A mist rose from the lake as if a tear from a glistening blue eye. He knew his football had been taken, now to be loved by another boy.
At his bedroom window spying his Aunt walk away. She held a wicker basket, he a tatty carousel spinning top toy. With his Aunt still visible, he dropped the toy and stamped on it repeatedly breaking it beyond repair. He took the mangled pieces to the dustbin and buried them among the waste. He knew the curse would intensify although he hoped it would ease once the binmen had taken the rubbish away.