Kiss her now.
‘Nicola. We’ve only known each other for a couple of days. But I really like—’
‘There’s my mother!’ She waved to a white-haired woman along the path. ‘We’ll be right there!’
The woman didn’t answer. She simply retreated into the shadows as if the sunlight wasn’t to her liking.
Nicola paused. ‘What’s that you were saying, Tom?’
‘Uh . . . nothing much. Come on, we’d best not keep your mother waiting.’
Nice timing, Mrs Bekk.
They headed in the direction of where the woman had stood. Soon they were immersed in a deep lagoon of shadow beneath the trees. Meanwhile, Nicola’s mother had already reached a cottage that seemed to bulge with the weight of red tiles on its roof. The place looked ancient.
Welcome to the Witch House . . .
Perhaps the most imposing part of the property was the stone archway set in the garden wall. The structure must have been ten feet tall.
Tom Westonby gazed up at the yellow stonework that arched over the path. An image had been engraved into one of the huge blocks. The thing was so old that the carving had been eroded to the point that whatever was depicted there consisted of seemingly random, curving lines. There were a dozen or so circles within the image. If anything, the carving resembled a whale (or some kind of bulky creature, anyway) with lots of legs – part whale, part crab? Strange.
‘What’s that?’ he asked.
‘The family dragon. You’ll meet him later.’
Nicola took his arm and drew him under the archway as if afraid that he’d suddenly change his mind about entering the eerie house in the wood.
TEN
Nicola made the introduction. ‘Tom, meet Helsvir. Helsvir, this is Tom.’
He looked in the direction she pointed. Above the front door of the ancient house, which seemed to be on the brink of ruin, was an oblong tablet of stone. This bore another engraving of the creature. The tablet must have been protected by the overhang of the roof, because this image hadn’t been so badly weathered.
‘Hello, Helsvir. How you doing?’ He didn’t mind Nicola’s little bit of whimsy about meeting the family dragon. In fact, her subtle wit made her even more likeable.
Substitute ‘likeable’ with ‘desirable’. He desired the curves of her body beneath that clingy orange T-shirt.
‘Helsvir is an old Viking word,’ she was saying. ‘It means “eternally protecting the favourites of the gods”.’
He smiled. ‘Helsvir means all that?’
‘And a heck of a lot more. Vikings were very good at cramming plenty of meaning into single words, or even into a carved symbol.’
‘Your Helsvir looks pretty awesome.’ He studied the carving. The vertical lines at the bottom of the bulky body were legs. The circles had pairs of dots inside. Some kind of wings? Or fins? ‘I’ve never seen a dragon like this one. All those legs? It must have scuttled round like a crab or a beetle – or at least it would have done in your ancestors’ imaginations.’
‘Our family are very proud of our dragon.’
‘And why not? All I had for a pet was a boring goldfish.’
She caught hold of his arm; her expression was serious. ‘When you meet my mother, don’t make fun of Helsvir. In fact, it’s best not to even mention it.’
‘Oh . . . kay,’ he said thoughtfully. ‘If that’s what you want.’
Her grip tightened on his arm. Suddenly, she looked uneasy. ‘Tom.’ Her voice dropped to a whisper. ‘My mother gets anxious when she meets strangers. Sometimes she comes across as being a bit, well . . . odd.’ She sighed. ‘My mother’s crazy, really. Cuckoo. Oddball. Sorry to be so blunt. It’s better that you know she’s nuts from the start.’
‘OK.’ He wasn’t really sure how to respond to a statement like that. He glanced at the cottage, expecting to see the woman’s face rammed up against the glass, her mad, staring eyes blazing at him. Of course, there was no one there. ‘I’m sorry to hear that she’s not well.’ Does that sound sympathetic, or crass? But what do you say in a situation like this, when the girl you really, really fancy has just confessed that her mother’s a nut-job?
Nicola gave his arm a friendly squeeze. ‘Don’t worry. Maybe I exaggerated the part about her being crazy. She doesn’t swing from trees. And she’s never chewed the table legs, or gargled with frog-spawn.’ She gave a shy smile. ‘I didn’t want to say anything about my mother earlier because I was afraid you wouldn’t come over tonight.’
‘I’m sure it’ll be fine.’ Being with you is fine, he thought. ‘I won’t mention the dragon.’ He drew his finger across his lips as if zipping them shut.
‘Good. Anyway, now I’ve introduced you to the family dragon, it’s time to meet my mother. There’s no symbolic link, by the way.’
Nicola kept her arm linked with his. Instead of entering the house through the front door, she guided him to the back. The building was so old it had a magical quality. As if it had slowly grown out of the earth. The walls were of local stone, so the cottage resembled the craggy outcrops in the woods. The weathered roof tiles were an evocative mottling of reds and mossy greens. They had a striking, organic appearance: something like reptile scales. Tom found himself thinking that those tiles could have been the skin of the family’s legendary dragon. Part house, part monster. A dwelling from a child’s fairy tale.
The windows were small and very deep-set in the thick stone walls. Hardly any paint remained on window frames or doors: years of hard, driving rain had stripped everything down to bare wood. This cottage needed far more restoration than Mull-Rigg Hall. The Bekk family might have one hell of a funky dragon, he thought, but they haven’t got any money. They’re living in a wreck.
He glanced round the overgrown flower-beds. Some of the plants had been trampled flat. The Mad Mother’s doing? He pictured her rolling about the garden, eyeballs bulging, while furiously chewing nettles. The image was a cruel one. Even so . . . he couldn’t help but wonder if it might be accurate.
‘Don’t you get lonely out here in the forest?’ he asked.
‘We like living far away from other people,’ she replied in a matter-of-fact voice. ‘We’re safe here.’
‘Safe from what?’
Instead of replying, she opened the door to a rustic kitchen. ‘I’ll introduce you to my mother. If she says anything that seems strange, don’t worry. It’s just her way.’
Tom followed Nicola into the eerie old house. His gut feeling told him that things were about to get extremely interesting.
ELEVEN
They sat in the living room. This had the same rustic charm as the kitchen. All the walls were a pristine white. Tom noticed that not a single one of those walls was straight. The ancient stonework bulged outwards as if fists were being pushed into a soft material from the other side. Rather than being any sign of collapse, though, those bulges in the masonry appeared to be part of the construction. The massive thickness of stonework suggested that the place might have served as a fortified dwelling hundreds of years ago.
The kitchen and living room were scrupulously clean. There were bunches of yellow and blue flowers in vases on the window sills. Even better for Tom, a delicious aroma of freshly baked bread drifted on the air. He liked the homely feel of the place.
Nicola’s mother sat in an armchair. Of slim build, with a pleasant face and white hair that fell about her shoulders, she didn’t look like the demented crone that Tom’s imagination had supplied. She wore a cream blouse and black skirt that wouldn’t be out of place in any home or office. There was nothing obviously oddball about her.
Nicola pushed back a strand of her pale, blonde hair. ‘Mother. This is Tom.’
‘Oh?’
‘Tom Westonby,’ Tom added. ‘From Mull-Rigg Hall. Pleased to meet you.’ He held out his hand.
Mrs Bekk stiffened in the chair. Her features tightened as if she’d experienced a stab of pain. She didn’t hold out her own hand. In fact, she pus
hed her fists down by her side against the chair cushion.
‘Mother, this is Tom Westonby. You asked to meet him.’
Mrs Bekk hissed, ‘There’s no food. Your friend should go home now.’ She shuddered as if Tom’s presence in the room revolted her. ‘Send him away.’
‘Mother. There is food. You baked bread this afternoon. I got the cheese from the farmer’s market, remember? The Wensleydale?’
‘It’s gone mouldy . . . There’s green mould all over it.’
‘There isn’t any mould.’ Nicola spoke with loving patience. ‘It’s a gorgeous piece of cheese.’
During this, Tom found his eye drawn to the fireplace. With it being a warm evening, there was no fire. What he did notice, engraved there in the stones at the back of the cavernous fireplace, was another picture of Helsvir. The Bekk family obviously loved their family dragon. There were pictures of the creature everywhere. Tom knew a diver who wouldn’t go into the water if he didn’t have his lucky shamrock with him. Tom guessed the dragon picture operated as a good luck charm for the family. He glanced round the old, worn out furniture. Pity the dragon’s stash of magic had all been used up. Nicola must live with her mother out here in near poverty.
At this point Nicola crouched down to hold her mother’s hand. She murmured reassurances.
At last, the older woman nodded. ‘We don’t get visitors, Mr Westonby.’
‘Tom . . . Please call me Tom, Mrs Bekk.’
‘Seeing a stranger in the house gets me het up.’
‘Het means hot and bothered,’ Nicola explained. ‘In this part of Yorkshire we still use a lot of old Viking words.’
Mrs Bekk’s shoulders drooped as she began to relax. Her daughter had managed to calm her. ‘I baked bread,’ the woman said. ‘We have wild strawberries, too. Nicola picked them.’ Without putting any knowing emphasis on the words, she added, ‘Nicola was excited that you were coming tonight.’
‘Mother.’ Nicola pretended to gently scold her mother. ‘Don’t be giving Tom the wrong idea.’
‘You were singing in the bathroom. You never sing in the bathroom.’ Mrs Bekk turned to Tom. ‘So you’re Barbara Gibson’s nephew.’
‘That’s right. My mother’s her sister.’
‘Owen? The boy Owen . . . Barbara’s son?’
‘Yes?’
‘Is he still alive?’
Tom masked his surprise at the question. ‘Yes. Owen lives with my parents, Mrs Bekk. It was his tenth birthday recently. Owen inherits Mull-Rigg Hall when he’s an adult. Until then, my parents plan to live there. That way Owen grows up in a place he knows, and he can still go to school with his friends.’
‘I find myself thinking about Barbara a lot. She died so young . . . and to leave a child without parents? Tragic . . .’ Mrs Bekk’s voice tailed off, and she lapsed into brooding silence.
Nicola gently steered the conversation away from bereavement to another topic. ‘I was telling Tom that our family has lived here for over a thousand years.’
This must be a favourite subject of the mother’s, Tom thought, because she started talking quite happily about the Bekk family history.
‘The cottage is called Skanderberg. That’s the name of the town in Denmark from where our family came. You’ve heard of the Viking Gods Odin and Thor?’
He nodded.
She patted the arm of the chair beside her, inviting him to sit. ‘And so you should know them. Certain days of the week are named after Viking gods. Wednesday is Odin’s Day. Thursday – Thor’s Day. Well, Tom, twelve hundred years ago, Thor picked up my ancestor Guthrum Bekk and carried him through the sky all the way from Denmark to this valley in England. Thor showed him that the fertile land here would produce so much food that mortal children would never starve. So the god ordered Guthrum Bekk to bring his family to the Lepping Valley and build a farm.’
Tom nodded, listening politely. He wanted to please Nicola rather than the mother. He knew that seemed such a calculating action. But he found himself calculating how long it would be before he could plant his first kiss on Nicola’s soft lips.
Mrs Bekk talked in a low, rhythmic voice. Despite him pretending to be polite at first, he found himself drawn into the family legend of Viking gods and warriors.
If anything, this reminded him of lessons when he learned about the history of the Vikings, or the Norse people as they were sometimes described. He knew that the Vikings had terrorized England over a thousand years ago. That they’d stormed ashore from their longships. Legends also revealed them to be bloodthirsty pagans that plundered the monasteries and gruesomely slaughtered the monks, often inflicting something called the Blood Eagle; this involved hacking apart the ribcage so the ribs could then be pulled back to resemble blood-soaked wings. Not all the invaders returned to their homelands in Norway, Sweden and Denmark. Huge numbers settled in England. Plenty married local girls. ‘So proving that love is the most formidable conqueror of all,’ proclaimed the history teacher. Then she’d pointed out children with blonde hair and blue eyes, and made this surprising claim: ‘What you probably didn’t know is that there are still plenty of Vikings in England, or at least their descendants are here. As likely as not, you’ll find Scandinavian DNA in these children.’
Meanwhile, Mrs Bekk plaited her fingers together as she continued her tale. ‘Guthrum Bekk sailed with his wife, brothers, sisters, and their children to England. They weren’t an invading army. They were a family intending to peacefully settle in this valley. When Guthrum arrived he was scorned by the Christians who lived in Danby-Mask. They sent their best fighters to challenge Guthrum to a duel. Guthrum had fought many battles in the past. He was a brave warrior, but now he dreamt only about living peacefully. So he made a bargain with the Christians. He explained he could dam one of the valley streams to make a deep pool that would never dry up in even the worst of droughts. He promised the villagers that they could take fish from the pool and use the water to irrigate their crops when the rains didn’t come. The villagers agreed. But they were scheming behind my ancestor’s back. They pretended to become friendly, and all the time they were planning to attack Guthrum Bekk’s farm, steal his cattle, and murder his family.’ She held up her finger. ‘And every Bekk mother tells their children this blood history. It is so important that every generation of our family knows. Our survival depends on the secret of what happened next.’
‘Mother. I’m not sure that Tom is interested in all the gory details.’
‘That’s OK, Nicola. I’d be interested to hear it.’ Again he said this to please Nicola. Yes, it’s manipulative; yes, it’s calculating. But my motives are good. In fact, my motives are romantic. He tried to suppress the words LUST and SEX that were hotly circling his mind.
‘On Midsummer’s day Guthrum went to pick strawberries. He planned to take baskets of fruit to the village as a gift. He’d make a gesture of friendship to his neighbours. Guthrum’s five daughters went with him to help with the harvest. While he was away, the villagers struck. They killed everyone in the farm. Then they set fire to Skanderberg.’ She pointed to the walls. ‘You can still see the burn marks on those stones. Even if you paint over them they’ll come through the new paint within the day. They’re the black tear-stains of the house as it witnessed the death of Guthrum’s wife and sons.’
‘I’m sorry,’ Tom said. ‘That sounds like a terrible massacre.’
Mrs Bekk’s voice rose, growing clearer. Harder. ‘Guthrum swore revenge. Even as he dug the graves, Thor whispered into his ear. Thor told Guthrum not to bury the dead but to gather them up and heap them into a pile in the ruins of the house. Guthrum did so. And that night Thor breathed life into the bodies. Then he wove their limbs together to make a single living creature.’
‘The dragon?’ Tom made the deduction. ‘Thor turned the bodies into Helsvir.’
Mrs Bekk fired out the words: ‘Yes, the corpses of my ancestors became Helsvir. The dragon isn’t like the fairy-tale dragons that blow fire out of their mouths
. Helsvir is the Viking war-snake! A sacred weapon of vengeance!’
‘Mother.’ Nicola’s voice held a warning note. ‘Don’t get yourself worked up.’
Mrs Bekk rose to her feet. ‘Helsvir struck Danby-Mask. A whirlwind of vengeance. He smashed down the doors, and he tore the murderers apart. Helsvir killed the betrayers. Then he became our protector. We tell our children these facts so they can sleep knowing that a dragon stands guard at this house.’
‘That’s an amazing story,’ Tom said.
‘Story? Story! That is the sacred blood history of our family!’
‘Mother, please—’
‘Without Helsvir those bastards from Danby-Mask would have destroyed our family years ago. The villagers are always plotting against us. They want us dead!’
‘Mother, stop this.’ Nicola took hold of her mother’s arm. Once again she tried to calm her. By now, though, the woman’s face had turned a fiery red with anger. Her eyes blazed.
‘Tom Westonby. It’s important you hear this. I’ll tell you the rest of our history.’
‘Mother, please!’
‘Guthrum lived. So did his five daughters. They were all grown women when Danby-Mask butchered our family. Thor went into their beds at night. The god fathered their children.’
‘That’s enough, Mother.’ Nicola’s voice rose. ‘You’ve got to stop saying these things.’
‘But Mr Westonby hasn’t heard the best part! The most vital, significant truth!’ Her tone was gleeful; she laughed as she shouted the words: ‘Do you know who Nicola’s father is, Tom?’
Tom stared at her, not knowing what to say.
‘Twenty-four years ago, Thor came into my bed, too. He made me pregnant with Nicola. That’s why you will never get her into your bed, Tom Westonby. Yes! I’ve seen that hungry look in your eye.’ Her laugh became a roar of pure joy. ‘That’s right, Tom! Nicola is the daughter of a living god! It’s her destiny to wipe that Christian village from the face of the earth. Then Nicola will destroy you! She’ll feed you to the dragon, Tom Westonby. She’ll feed you to his many heads!’