‘I’ve seen the place you’re talking about,’ he said. His tone had changed. The flirtation had gone. ‘It’s a very old site, and possesses echoes of... shall we say earth power? Sometimes that can make you see things which normally would be invisible. Perhaps that was what you saw tonight. An echo, a memory, ideas made into pictures. Perhaps even just a stray dream.’ He was aware that his own presence in Little Moor might conjure such things.
‘Really!’ Barbara said. ‘Are you interested in things like that? I must admit I am. Interested, but scared!’ She laughed.
‘Oh, there’s nothing to be scared of,’ Othman said, sipping his steaming hot coffee. ‘It’s a matter of interpretation. Someone else might have seen fairies dancing on the hill tonight. You saw young girls who turned out to be crones. Perhaps that’s an interesting message from your own subconscious.’
Barbara disliked the implications in that. She laughed falsely. ‘It’s more likely to have been some New Age types who got chased off by my dogs. I just wasn’t expecting it.’ Othman made no comment.
‘So, how did your day go with the Winters?’ Barbara asked, partly to change the subject, mostly out of curiosity.
‘Very enjoyable.’
‘They seem to have taken a shine to you.’
‘They are interesting people.’
‘Oh, yes, absolutely.’ Barbara sat down again. She felt safer now, talking about someone else. ‘I feel sorry for them, actually. Can’t help feeling they’re wasting their lives, rather, stuck here in the village.’
‘They seem to think they’re outsiders, regarded as a bit peculiar.’
Barbara frowned and shook her head vigorously. ‘Oh no! At least, I don’t think of them that way. As a matter of fact, I find them very interesting too. Lily is a creative girl. I intend to encourage her.’
Othman laughed, a reaction with which Barbara was not altogether comfortable. Did he think she was a busybody?
Later, Othman lay in his bed, musing over the evening’s events. He’d been gentle with the Winter twins, remaining only a spectator on their love-making, even though his body had ached to plunder and possess. He’d left the house before they’d finished, letting himself out quietly. Lily had seen him go, but had said nothing; her eyes glazed as she travelled the haunting plane of physical ecstasy. Tomorrow, he might call on them again.
Barbara Eager, Othman knew, was a ripe fruit for plucking. Still, he did not intend to gather the harvest himself. That would be too easy. He’d have to sniff around, see what was cooking in the slow-burning fires of village life. In the meantime, he’d prime her, wake up her senses a little. He’d met so few people yet. The Winters were into the things that interested him, and could clearly be encouraged. Then there was the old house, Long Eden, abandoned by its owners, with a secret story to tell. Something was certainly going on in the village, which must be why he’d been drawn to it. Old women cavorting in the woods? He thought of the crone he’d met in the Post Office, her strange remarks. He felt he was working out a riddle and the answer was just hovering on the edge of his perception. Tomorrow he’d apply himself to its solution.
Chapter Eight
Monday, 19th October: Little Moor
Lily awoke feeling uneasy, a headache already needling her temples. She was alone in the bed. Owen must have crept out earlier without disturbing her. This perhaps indicated he too must be feeling strange about the previous night’s events. They had never actually slept together all night before. After Othman had gone, they’d clumsily made their way upstairs, still kissing, still caressing, to fall upon the bed in Lily’s room. She had never, in her life, wanted Owen so badly as last night. It seemed nothing could satisfy her.
Now, even the simple recollection of what she and Owen had revealed to Othman made Lily’s face go red. She felt sure something more than sex had occurred. She and Owen had been influenced in some way. Why had she felt the compulsion to make veiled remarks about her relationship with Owen to Othman? She’d never spoken of it to anyone before, and had believed she never would. In her dream on Saturday night, Othman had transformed into a beast. Perhaps there was an important message there for her. The man was dangerous, she thought. He was an Opener, a type of person Lily’s mother had once warned her about, who could charm people’s secrets from them and then use the information against them. Last night, the knowledge that Othman was watching her with Owen had only enhanced her desire. She remembered how she’d thought about Othman on her walk back from the Post Office on Saturday, and how, in her dream, she’d fallen into his open arms from the sky. What would it be like to touch him intimately? Half in dread, half in anticipation, Lily had a feeling she was soon going to find out.
When she went downstairs, she discovered Owen had gone out. The kitchen had a desolate air. In the parlour, she found their clothes lying around, amid the empty wine glasses. How could she ever face Othman again? What if he told someone about what had happened?
Listlessly, Lily tidied the house in a desultory manner. Then she sat down at the lace covered table beneath the parlour window, with an empty writing pad before her. When she’d talked to Barbara Eager about writing something, she hadn’t been that serious. Now, she felt compelled to write about what was happening to her. She would turn it all into a fairy-story. She began to write.
There was once a girl, who lived below the mountains...
She paused, tapped her lips with her biro, wrote:
She had been asleep for a thousand thousand years...
Oh, that had been done before too many times. The enchanted sleeper. Yet, strangely, that was how she felt. She had been asleep, and her dreams had kept a peculiar reality at bay. Now she could feel it creeping up on her. She would give it the face of a monster.
Peverel Othman rose early and took a stroll down to the Post Office to buy a newspaper. Monday morning: the village felt deserted. The day was overcast, yet warm; the air smelled of autumn. Othman liked the seasons of spring and autumn, with their sense of change, of birth and death, more than florid summer or the black clutch of winter. Excitement came with these turning times, and the possibility for wonders. The human spirit, deep in its sanitised nest of mundane life, stirred and twitched, roused instinctively by the vibrations in the air, of potential and power. Othman himself felt powerful that day. His body felt liquid about his bones. His bones felt like tempered steel.
Again, when he entered the post office, there was a sense of a conversation being hushed. The woman behind the counter stood very still, her eyes fixed on the crone, who was hunched on her stool. It seemed his entrance had brought tension with it. Othman sauntered over to the counter to inspect the paltry array of papers. ‘Dull morning,’ he remarked.
The post mistress made an effort. ‘Perhaps it’ll brighten up later.’ She beamed rather wolfishly at Othman.
Othman picked up a paper. ‘I’ll take this.’
‘Thirty pence, please.’
While this exchange was taking place, Othman was aware of a furtive, rustling movement emanating from the stool of the crone. He glanced to find her standing, stooped and swaying, just behind him.
‘Mother,’ began the post-mistress.
Leaning forward, the old woman extended a bony paw to Othman’s arm, pinching the material of his shirt between thumb and fore finger. Her neck craned out like an old buzzard’s. Othman noticed the fine, papery nostrils twitch. She was smelling him.
‘Mother!’ the post-mistress hurried out from behind her counter, and took hold of the old woman’s shoulders in her hands, in an attempt to drag her away from Othman. He could see the crone’s eyes were alight with a weird excitement.
‘She has her days,’ said the daughter. ‘I’m sorry about this.’
‘It’s quite all right.’ Othman tucked his paper beneath his arm. Before he could leave the shop, the old woman struggled free of her daughter’s hold.
‘I want it back!’ she cried. ‘Give it back to me!’
Othman thought she mean
t the paper. He raised his brows at the post mistress and waved the paper aloft, as if to defend himself from the advancing, tottering crone.
The post-mistress shook her head. ‘Please, I don’t mean to sound rude, but could you leave now? She has turns, you see. I do apologise.’
Othman found himself pressed up against the door, and felt behind his back for the handle. This was absurd. The old hag was looking at him as if she was about to attack and devour him. He could easily strike out and floor her, but knew that would perhaps not be looked upon as kindly by the daughter. What a lunatic! The old bag should be locked up. He could even smell the crone now: a sweet sickly odour combined with the aroma of piss. She opened her mouth to display an uneven array of peg-like teeth, then made a lunge for him. Othman opened the door and stepped through backwards. The crone fell onto hands and knees before him, and began to crawl towards him, drool hanging from her gaping lips. ‘You must give it to me: the sweet, sweet liquor,’ she croaked. ‘Give me back what is mine, the thighs, the dainty feet.’
The post-mistress had hurried out after her mother. Othman did not wait around to see how she would cope with the demented hag. Without another glance, he headed back towards The White House. What a strange episode. In the midst of a private, amused thought about the vagaries of human dotage, a realisation came to him. He stopped walking. Was it possible? Was it? He glanced back, noticed the post-mistress still dragging her clawing, mewling mother back into the shop. Give it back to me... What had she recognised in him? Othman narrowed his eyes, and sniffed the air. Had he missed something about Little Moor, something vital? Perhaps it was his imagination, but he thought now he could detect a sub-note to the perfume of autumn, a smell of blood and cedar. Someone had been here before him. Grigori. One of his own kind.
Eva Manden managed to wrestle her mother back into the shop. Why was it the old woman seemed to have such strength when it was necessary to curb her behaviour? ‘Let me go, you bitch!’ cried the crone, and struck her daughter across the face.
Eva backed away, leaned against the closed door. ‘Get on your chair, you witch!’
‘Let me after him, girl! You can’t stop me!’
‘I bloody well can!’ Eva said in a low voice. ‘If you come near me, I’ll kick you! Get on the chair!’
Mumbling, the old woman crab-walked back to her stool, muttering muted obscenities.
Eva rubbed her cheekbone, which was still smarting from the blow. She pushed back her hair. Perhaps she should close the shop for the day.
‘You can’t stop it,’ said the crone in a mocking tone. ‘I know how much you want to keep me like this, want to see me die, but you can’t! They’re back.’
Taking a deep breath, and glancing quickly to check her mother really had sat down again and wasn’t waiting to make a break for it, Eva went back behind the counter. She felt shaken and ashamed. ‘You’re being stupid, Mum. That young man’s just a tourist, a guest at The White House. You made a right fool of yourself. Now he’ll think you’re senile.’ Which you are, Eva amended silently.
The old woman champed her meagre teeth together. ‘Oh, he knows,’ she said. ‘He knows all right. And he’ll be back for me now. Soon.’
‘Rubbish!’ Eva tidied the papers on the counter. Her mother laughed, a particularly evil sound. ‘Be quiet!’ Eva snapped, thinking, don’t let her rattle you. She’ll get worse.
Eva noticed a stream of liquid had begun to run across the wooden floor. The old woman was grinning malevolently. I feel tired, Eva thought, too tired to cope with this. Her mother hadn’t deliberately wet herself for months. When she did, it was always a petty act of spite. Eva knew the old woman was not incontinent. Now, she’d have to close the shop and take her mother into the back so she could be changed and cleaned. The task repulsed her, yet a mindless, uncontrollable sense of duty made her keep on doing it. Without uttering a word of censure, she led the old woman through the bead curtain into the house beyond. Silently, she fetched clean clothes, and ran warm water into a bowl for washing. The old woman said nothing, merely wriggled around on the kitchen chair, making odd noises to herself. Eva applied herself to the task of cleaning her mother’s body and changing her clothes. It was pointless to complain, and she wouldn’t give the woman the satisfaction of seeing she was annoyed or even upset.
‘I want to go to the centre,’ wheedled the old woman as Eva eased her into a clean skirt.
Damn her, Eva thought. Her mother could read her mood, sense how edgy Eva was. Today was a good day for asking favours, especially if the favour involved getting the old woman out of her hair for a few hours.
‘It’s too late,’ Eva said. ‘Everyone will be there by now.’ She knew her argument was a sham. Even though it made her uneasy letting her mother get together with all the other oldsters in the village, she just needed some respite today.
‘No it’s not. Ring Perks. She’ll send someone to fetch me.’ There was no hint of age in the woman’s voice now. She sounded strong and cold.
Eva paused, wanting to refuse so badly, but knowing that soon she would relent. She eyed the old telephone sitting on the shelf beneath the window. The respite would be short-lived. Whenever her mother went to the centre, she came back unmanageable and weird.
‘Ring her,’ said the crone. ‘You selfish little cow. I know you want to get rid of me, but you’d cut off your nose to spite your face and make me sit here all day.’
Eva filled the mop bucket with water and added detergent. ‘I have to clean up your mess first,’ she said.
‘Ring now,’ said the old woman.
Eva glanced at her mother. There was steel in the ancient eyes now, and something more. Eva suppressed a shiver, put down her rubber gloves. She picked up the phone.
Verity had had a pleasing day. Daniel had gone to school, her father had been closeted away in his study, no doubt composing bad poetry for his muse, Barbara Eager, and she’d had the whole house to herself. Cleaning had been a pleasure. Raven had accompanied her from room to room. He had not demanded affection or even come too close to her, simply flopping down on the floor near each doorway and remaining there until she’d finished tidying the room. She felt his presence in her life had stemmed the bad dreams from the past, because there had been no recurrence of the nightmares of Saturday morning. It was odd how safe she felt with the cat in her room. And yet, before Saturday, she had never felt unsafe. Peculiar. Now, Verity was steeling herself for her brother’s arrival home from school. Mrs Roan was already preparing dinner and, her tasks accomplished for the day, Verity wandered into the kitchen, with the intention of sharing a cup of tea with the woman. Raven came at her heels. Mrs Roan looked up from her potato peeling at the kitchen table, and smiled at Verity.
‘Hello, Mrs Roan. Would you like a cup of tea?’
‘Yes please, Miss Cranton.’
Verity liked the formal relationship she had with the woman, the hint of gentility. She performed this ritual of the tea every day.
‘Oh, what a big cat!’ Mrs Roan remarked as Raven followed Verity to the sink.
‘Yes, isn’t he.’ Raven had not met the cook yet; he’d been asleep on Verity’s bed the previous day while the woman had performed her work.
‘I didn’t know you had a cat, Miss Cranton.’
‘Well, I’ve only just got him,’ Verity answered.
‘Was he expensive?’
Verity was very reluctant to admit that Raven was a stray. Mrs Roan might know his true owners, even though she hadn’t yet appeared to recognise him as belonging to someone else. ‘Yes, he was,’ she lied.
What breed is he, then?’
‘Oh — er — Sumerian,’ Verity answered airily. ‘It’s a new, long-haired breed, part Oriental, like the Somali, I suppose.’
‘Somali?’ Mrs Roan looked doubtful. ‘Don’t know what that is, but you’ve a handsome devil there, no mistake.’
‘Mmm. I suppose my father hasn’t told you yet, but he’s invited a few people over to dinner on
Wednesday.’
‘Oh, that’ll be nice.’ Mrs Roan’s eyes lit up at the prospect of preparing a spread. To her, cookery was an art.
‘Well, I shall have a think about the menu, and let you know tomorrow.’
‘Can I ask who you’re inviting?’
Verity hesitated, and then, realising village gossip would do the rounds soon enough, so as to render a lie embarrassing, said, ‘The Eagers from The White House and the Winter twins.’
‘The Winter twins?’ There was surprise in Mrs Roan’s voice, Verity noticed, but also something else. It was a kind of awe.
‘Yes, that’s right. My brother’s friendly with the boy.’
Mrs Roan laughed. ‘It’ll be a lark for them — going out to dinner.’ Verity could tell from the woman’s tone that she approved of the arrangement. Odd.
‘Actually, I don’t know the Winters that well.’
‘Lily is a fine girl, and Owen, well he’s a bit of a lad, I know, but a rascal rather than a bad ‘un.’
‘Oh, is that what he is?’ This last remark was delivered sotto voce as Verity poured the tea. ‘Perhaps you could pick me up some cat food tomorrow, Mrs Roan. I’ve been feeding Raven on chicken and tinned tuna.’
Mrs Roan laughed again, apparently in a frolicking good humour. ‘Oh, you mustn’t do that. He’ll get a taste for it. They say a cat is a man who’s forgotten his shape, and a taste of the good life might jog his memory.’
‘Oh, do they say that? I’ve never heard it.’ Verity glanced down at Raven, who was eyeing the milk jug speculatively.
Daniel Cranton was worried. He had not seen Owen, or any of the others, since Owen had left Low Mede on Saturday morning. Although Daniel knew Owen always went to The White House on Saturday nights with his sister, and Bobby and the others excluded him from their activities when Owen was absent, Owen normally called on Sundays. He liked to drive out onto the moors, where he and his friends would drink cider out of plastic bottles. Generally, not all of the group could make the Sunday excursions, due to shadowy family obligations, which they’d rather not own up about. Quite often, Owen would end up driving out with Daniel alone, which Daniel much preferred. Although Sundays were strictly kept for drinking and idle chatter, Owen’s conversation was always more interesting when the others weren’t around. Yesterday, Owen hadn’t called. Because of the way he’d felt after Friday night, Daniel was at first relieved, but by five o’clock he was wondering if he’d done something to offend Owen. It was unlike him not to maintain the routine. At half past five, Daniel had telephoned the cottage, and Lily had answered him. She’d sounded surprised he’d called, but then Daniel had only ever rung the cottage twice before, and on both occasions Owen had answered. There was a frost in Lily’s tone as she curtly informed Daniel that Owen was out. Daniel had wanted to know where he’d gone, and with whom; his words were stammered and his face went red as he spoke. ‘Someone we met last night,’ Lily had answered, ‘a guest at The White House.’