Crybbe (AKA Curfew) (6 page)

   
Mr. Kettle tried to follow Arnie's
gaze, thinking maybe the dog had caught sight of a badger ambling out of the
hedge. But all he could see was the yellow of the headlights thrown back at
him.

   
He rubbed at the windscreen.
'Bugger me, Arn, that mist's come down quick tonight, boy.'

   
But there was nothing moving in
the mist. No noise, no lights, no badgers, not even tree shapes.

   
Only the Tump.

He was up in the highest field now, but at the bottom end by the wood,
the lambing light at his feet, the grass wet and cold, the sweat on him
mingling with the mist, the spade handle clammy with it. He didn't care; he'd
never felt like this before.

   
Warren scraped the earth into
the hole and pulled the turf back over it, slamming it down with the spade,
jumping on it, getting it tight so nobody would know. Not that anybody came here;
only the sheep, and the old man once or twice a year.

   
Beneath the turf and the soil
and the clay was the old box, buried good and deep, with the Stanley knife
still inside it. It seemed right, somehow, to leave the knife in the box.

   
Or it seemed
not
right to put his hand in the box and
take the knife out.

   
Not with the other hand in
there.

'Where did that come from?'
   
The dog snarled.

   
The Tump was off-centre in the
mist. But it shouldn't have been there at all because he'd passed it, he must
have, couple of minutes ago at least.

   
'Now just you sit down, you
daft dog.' And then he looked up at the Tump and said suddenly, softly, 'You're
not right, are you?'

   
At that moment Arnold was
thrown to the floor, as, without warning, the car lurched off to the right, the
steering wheel spinning away so fiercely it burned the palms of Mr. Kettle's hands
when he tried to hold it.

   
'Oh no you don't, you bugger.'
Addressing, through his teeth, neither the dog, nor the car, for he should have
been half-expecting this, bloody old fool. Wrenching at the wheel, as the black
mound rose up full in the windscreen.

   
From behind his seat, the dog's
growl built to a yelp of terror.

   
'I know, I'm sorry!' Cursing
the part of him which responded to nonsense like this; mad as hell at his
bloody old, slowing body which no longer seemed to have the strength to
loose it out.

   
Arnold cringed on the floor
next to the back seat, shivering and panting. Then Mr. Kettle felt the bumps
and heard the clumps under the car, and knew what must have happened.

   
'We're in the bloody field!'

   
Common land. Unfenced. Flat and
well-drained enough where it met the road to offer no obstacles to car wheels.

   
No obstacles at all, until you
got to the humps and ridges.
   
And then the wall.

   
They said the wall, which almost
encircled the mound, had been built centuries ago of stones taken from the old
castle foundations. It was not high - maybe five feet - but it was a very'
thick wall, and as strong and resistant as ever it'd been. He'd never thought
about this before, but why would they build a wall around it?

   
Behind the wall, the Tump
bulged and glowered and Mr. Kettle's faculty started leaping and bounding the
way his body hadn't managed to in thirty years.

   
The wild senses were rising up,
leaving the body hobbling behind and the old car trundling across the field,
going its own sweet way.

   
And something in Henry' Kettle,
something he used to be able to control, locking into the Tump's wavelength
with a long, almost grateful shudder. As if it was going home.

   
Going back, rolling down.

   
'Silly young devil.' Mr. Watkins
chiding him when he rolled over and over, down from Clifford Castle, coming to
rest at the feet of the stern old man. 'One day you'll learn respect for these places,
boy.'

   
Mr. Watkins, face in shadow
under his hat.
   
One day you'll learn.
   
But he hadn't.

   
Hadn't been able to connect
with it at all when he was up there with Goff, looking round, seeing where the
Tump stood in relation to the stones.

   
Had it now, though, too bloody
much of it, filling him up, like when they'd sent him to the hospital for the
enema, colonic clean-out, whatever they'd called it, pumping this fluid through
his backside and he could feel it going right up into his insides, terrible
cold.

   
Something here that was cold
and old and dark and . . .

   
. . . was no home to be going
to.

   
'Oh Christ, Arnold,' said Mr.
Kettle. 'Oh Christ.'

   
Knowing it for the first time.
Why they must have built a wall around it. Knowing a lot of things about the
stones and the leys and why Mr. Watkins had not . . .

   
Knowing all this as the car went
over a ridge in the field - maybe one of the old ramparts when it had been a
castle - and began to go downhill, and faster.

   
'I can deal with this, don't
you worry!' 'Course he could.

   
Nothing
psychic
here. Understand
that
.

   
Stamping down on the brake -
frantic now - but the car going even faster, ripping through the field like a
tank. A muffled bump-clank, bump-clank, then the rending of metal and the car
ploughing on like a wounded animal, roaring and farting.

   
In the windscreen, the trees on
the Tump were crowding out of the mist, a tangle of black and writhing
branches, spewing like entrails from a slashed gut, the centremost trees suddenly
flung apart as if blown by a sudden gale, as if the wind was bursting out and
over the mound like a fountain of air.

   
And he could see it.
He could see the wind . . .

   
And as it rushed down, it took
the form . . .

   
nothing psychic, nothing psychic, nothing . . .

   
of a huge black thing, a dog . .
. hound . . . bounding down the mound and leaping at the car, an amber hunger
smoking in eyes that outshone the headlights because . . .
   
'. . . you're bloody
evil
. . .'

   
Arnold screaming from behind. Not
barking, not whimpering, but making the most piteously distressed and upsetting
noise he'd ever been forced to hear.

   
All the time thinking - the words
themselves forming in his head and echoing there - I've seen it. It was there.
I've seen Black Michael's Hound.

   
And when the illusion of the
wind and the thing it carried had gone he saw the headlight beams were full of
stone.

   
Nothing to be done. Bloody old
fool, be thought sadly, and suddenly it seemed he had all the time there was to
ponder the situation and realize he hadn't touched the brake pedal, not once. The
car having automatic transmission - only two pedals - what had happened was his
foot had plunged down hard, time and time again, on the other one.
   
The accelerator.

   
Well he did try to pull the
stupid foot off, but his knee had locked and he saw through the windscreen that
the thick, solid stoic wall was being hurled at him by the night, and the night
would not miss.

   
There was a hollow silence in
the car and that seemed to last a
very
long time, and Mr. Kettle could feel Arnold, his faithful dog somewhere close
to him, quiet now. But his eyes'd be resigned, no light in them any more.

   
Mr. Kettle put out a hand to
pat Arnold but probably did not reach him before the impact killed both
headlamps and there was no light anywhere and no sound except, from afar, the
keening song of the old stone.

A few minutes later the electricity was restored. Bulbs flared briefly, sputtered,
died and then came back to what passed, in Crybbe, for life.

   
Business had not been
interrupted in either of the two bars at the Cock, where, through past
experience, a generator was always on hand. When the lights revived,
closing-time had come and gone, and so had most of the customers.

   
Few people in the houses around
the town realized the power was back, and the wavering ambience of oil lamps,
Tilley lamps and candles could be seen behind curtained windows.

   
One electric light blinked back
on and would remain needlessly on until morning.

   
This was the Anglepoise lamp on
Fay Morrison's editing table. She'd unplugged the tape-machine before going to
bed but forgotten about the lamp. All through the night it craned its neck over
her desk-diary and a spiral-bound notepad, the one which often served, unintentionally,
as a personal diary, especially when she was feeling angry and hopeless.

   
Across the page, in deeply indented
frustration, the pencil lettering said,

. . . we'd tear your bloody hand off. . .

PART TWO

Although I have been able to divine water and
do other
simple things of that kind for many years ... I had not
thought that this faculty might be related to the formation
of ghosts.

T. C. Lethbridge,
Ghost and Divining Rod
(1963)

CHAPTER I

No, no . . . don't hold him
like that. Not so tightly. You're like a nervous kiddy riding a bike.'
   
'Oh, sorry. Like this?'

   
'Better. Don't think of him as an implement - he's an extension of your
arms. Be comfortable.'

   
'I think I've got it. What do I do now?'

   
'Just walk across towards the tree - and don't be so nervous, girl.'

   
'Well, I've never done it before, Henry. I'm a virgin.'
   
She thought, shall I leave that?

   
Nah. Maria will only chop it.
She'll think I'm trying to be clever. Too clever for Offa's Dyke Radio, God
forbid.

   
Fay marked it up with a white
Chinagraph pencil, sliced and cut just over a foot of tape with a razorblade
cutter, spliced the ends, ran the tape again.

   
Crunch, crunch. Rustle, rustle.

   
'All right, now, Fay, ask yourself the question.'

   
'Huh? Oh, er ... is ... Is There Any Water Under Here? I feel a
bit daft, to be honest, Henry. And there's . . . nothing . . .happening.
Obviously haven't got your natural aptitude, if that's the word.'

   
'Course you have, girl. Anybody can do it as really wants to. It's
not magic. Look, shall I help you?'
   
'Yes please.'

   
'Right, now, we'll do it again. Like this.'
   
'Oh, you're putting your hands . . .'

   
'Over yours, yes. Now relax, and we'll walk the same path and ask
ourselves the same question.'

   
'OK. Here we go. Is there any . . . ? Fucking hell, Henry!'
   
Laughter.

   
'Caught you by surprise, did it?'

   
'You could say that.'

   
Pause.

   
'Look, Henry, do you think we could do that bit again, so I can
moderate my response?'

   
Fay marked the tape. Fast
forwarded until she heard her say, 'OK, Take Two', made another white mark
after that and picked up the razorblade.

   
Shame really. Never as good
second time around. All the spontaneity gone. 'Whoops' had been the best she
could manage the second time, when the forked hazel twig had flipped up dramatically,
almost turning a somersault in her hands, near dislodging the microphone from
under her arm.