Chapter 14

Evenings. The wind-down of the world. After a hectic day, a breath is taken, inhaled into vast lungs, followed by an hour’s long exhalation. Stresses are washed away. Tension evaporates. Whilst the day gives motion and the night brings rest, evenings are a pause. A time, if not for reflection, then one for paying no heed. Television diverts the attention. Alcohol drowns it. Lovemaking thrusts it away.

Evenings can also be the threshold to something more.

Mrs Kettering’s cottage sat at the far end of Elderbank Lane, a narrow, straight road framed by hedgerows so overgrown they seemed determined to devour the spaces between them. Edmund followed her with unsteady steps. The cold air was sharp against his throat, making every inhaled breath feel like it might prompt the taste of blood from the resultant cuts. With every footfall, his chest hummed, reminding him what settled there was quiet but ever present. It kept pace with him, matching him step for step. A game played by young friends enjoying a stroll.

Mrs Kettering glanced back at him more than once. Her gaze was nervous, as if she was unsure if he’d still be there, or somehow gone. Taken.

“Keep close,” she muttered.

He did, though her hurried gait caused his recalcitrant feet an issue.

The forest loomed behind the rooftops, peering over its domain. It was barely visible in the gathering dusk, but Edmund felt it nonetheless. Its presence rested between his shoulder blades, spurring him on. He felt as if the lower half of him was drunk from the numerous alcoholic draughts his upper half had not imbibed. He wanted to yell at the trees and the woman to wait. Pause. Give him the chance to follow and to ignore, though he wasn’t sure which would receive which command.

When they reached her cottage, she ushered him inside and bolted the door behind them. The action was sharp and practiced. Almost ritualistic, especially when she touched the wood and closed her eyes for a moment.

“Sit,” she said, turning to point at a worn armchair beside the smouldering hearth.

Edmund lowered himself into it, though every part of him wanted to move – to pace, to run, to claw the feeling his chest with bare hands. He felt as if he must be trembling with anxiety but, when he looked down at himself, he was still.

Mrs Kettering lit a lamp, an old fashioned, ornate one with a well-worn base and yellowing glass dome, then paused, listening.

Silence.

She pulled a poker from the utensil stand by the fire and prodded the coals. They crackled faintly, the embers too tired to respond with any real sparks. She exhaled slowly, expunging the air from outside, then added fresh coal to the hearth. To Edmund, she had only smothered what little life had remained there.

“It shouldn’t follow you here. Not easily.”

“That’s no comfort,” Edmund said, staring at the just used poker.

He had the urge to grab it and hold it over the woman, commanding her to tell him… anything at all. He resisted. She was trying to help, and he knew that was something he needed urgently.

“It wasn’t meant to. Comfort is no defence. No weapon.” She pulled a blanket from the back of the sofa and wrapped it around his shoulders, whether he wanted it or not. “You’re freezing.”

He hadn’t noticed, but she was right. He’d begun to actually tremble and his fingers were pale. He pulled it tighter, burying his hands in its folds.

“Why me?” he asked. “Why is it doing this? I came here to relax. For a break.”

She settled onto the opposite chair, leaning forward. The lamplight cast shadows beneath her eyes, making them look sunken.

“From what?”

He didn’t answer.

“You feel things,” she said softly. “More than most. The forest senses that. It can tell when someone is carrying too much. Grief, guilt, longing. It feeds off the cracks those things leave behind, even when you think they’ve been patched up, which rarely happens, anyway.”

Edmund swallowed. He shook his head.

“I’m not… I haven’t…”

“You are. You have,” she said, not unkindly. “Anyone can see it.”

A long silence followed.

He stared at the floorboards. They curved slightly, warped by age and damp. There were irregular gaps between them, and he wondered what might have fallen through over the years. Or who. The house felt old, with decades drawn into the walls like insulation. It felt sturdy. Safe.

“You said the forest seeped into the walls of the pub,” Edmund said. “Has it seeped in here too?”

Mrs Kettering frowned, and he heard saliva suck between her teeth.

“Not in the same way.”

“Meaning?”

She hesitated, watching him, then stood.

“Come with me.”

She led him through a doorway he had to bend to pass through, a narrow hallway and, finally, to a small back room.

At first glance it looked like a nature lover’s pantry -or a fairytale witch’s. Shelves were lined with jars, the contents of which bore little resemblance to anything he might have been able to identify. Bundles of herbs hung upside down from hooks next to dried roots tied with string. A wooden chair, as aged as the floorboards, and seemingly made of the same material, was piled with dusty books. A blanket was clumped in one corner. There was an indentation on top of it, as if a small cat or dog had recently been asleep there. On a table, scattered with chopping boards and knives and cut off vegetable tops, was a simple vase. It contained a small bunch of daffodils, which Edmund didn’t think were in season. They looked to have been in situ for a little too long and were lilting slightly. Still, they added energy to the room, which he was in need of.

The wall at the far end was out of place.

It was reinforced with crisscrossed wooden slats. Nails were driven deep. Multiple bells hung, as if waiting for Sunday service to close so they could herald its ending. Charcoal symbols were scrawled between and on the panels. Circles and intersecting lines surrounded runes carved with a breathless, hurried hand.

“What’s this?” he breathed.

“It’s a boundary,” she said in a manner that implied he should be fully aware. “This wall backs onto soil. Roots run beneath it.”

Edmund swallowed, and his ears popped from a build-up of pressure he hadn’t felt.

“And the markings?”

“Wards. They keep…” She paused, glancing to the floor to scoop up her thoughts. “My mother taught me. Her mother taught her.” She traced one of the markings with a trembling finger. “This house was one of the first the forest tried to claim.”

The words filled Edmund with a cold weight, the one she obviously carried being shared with him.

“Tried?”

Mrs Kettering nodded, then shrugged.

“My grandfather heard voices in these walls when he was a boy. Whispers. Laughter. Crying, sometimes. He said he could hear the house breathe at night.”

“What did his parents say to that?”

“He was a boy. A child. Imaginative.”

Her eyes steeled, and he resisted the urge to ask more. Instead, he brought the conversation back to the present.

“And now?”

Her eyes softened.

“Now, it watches.”

Edmund shivered. Had he known the answer she would give? Did he already know the answer to his next question?

“Watches what?”

“You.”

He tensed. Sometimes, he thought, a question should remain unasked, particularly if the answer is unwanted. His mouth disagreed.

“Why me?”

She turned to him, her expression grim

“Because you’re new. You’re interesting to it. And, because you touched a marked tree. Because Terry found you. Because you heard a child’s voice in the walls.”

Fresh meat, she was telling him.

“But…”

“And,” she continued, “because it’s already inside you. It was before you arrived”

The warmth in his chest prodded him gently, agreeing. He wrapped the blanket tighter.

“I didn’t want this. I don’t want it.”

“Nobody wants it, even though they do.” She paced the room, her arms folded and her fingers tapping against her sides. “The forest is patient. It doesn’t hunt. It doesn’t need to. All it needs to is wait.”

Edmund felt the truth of that. The forest was, probably, ancient. What was time to such a…?

A faint creak echoed through the room. Mrs Kettering froze, and Edmund looked around, seeking its source. The creak came again, long and drawn out. Something heavy shifting across curled floorboards.

But not in the pantry. Not in the floor. Above them, in the ceiling.

Edmund stepped closer to her.

“Is there someone upstairs?”

She shook her head and opened her mouth to speak, but had to close it again and lick her lips.

“No,” she whispered.

They listened, both looking up, both moving closer to each other.

Another sound, now that of a slow footstep.

Then another.

Mrs Kettering snatched a small lantern from a hook. Its flame flickered as if it was being woken from a slumber, then stood to attention in preparation to illuminate whatever dark corners it might be aimed at.

“Stay behind me,” she instructed.

Edmund’s bravado prompted him to insist on leading the way, but she was already on her way. He hurried to catch up. She led him back into the hall and towards a staircase just past the room’s entrance. Every step she took was careful, controlled. Edmund’s heart hammered against his ribs as he tried to match her stealth.

At the top of the stairs, the landing was dark. The air was noticeably colder here. He could see his breath.

Mrs Kettering raised the lantern. Its light revealed a landing with closed doors on either side. The wallpaper was peeling, holding onto the walls because it didn’t know what else to do. Falling to the floor would have been inconsiderate. Untidy. The floorboards, naturally, bowed.

They listened.

Silence.

Then…

A faint shuffle from her bedroom.

“It shouldn’t be able to cross the threshold.” Mrs Kettering’s voice was low, fraught.

“Shouldn’t?” Edmund hissed.

‘Shouldn’t’ was a long way from ‘couldn’t’, and he had hoped for stronger protections from residents who were used to the dangers around them.

She ignored him and pushed the door open. The room was empty, but the window was open. Curtains billowed inward, breathing like lungs.

“Oh, no.”

Edmund stared at her.

“What?”

She pointed to the floor.

Dirt, scattered in a trail across the floorboards. Dark, still damp soil, as though freshly unearthed. Their eyes followed the trail from the window…

To the wardrobe.

“Leave it,” he pleaded. “Just leave it.”

Mrs Kettering stepped toward the wardrobe, her hand raised.

“Don’t,” Edmund begged. “Please. Let’s leave it.”

But she pulled the doors wide.

The wardrobe was empty. Only coats and shoes and dust occupied the small space. She sagged with relief, her breath pluming as she sighed, and began to turn back to him.

Something moved behind the coats. A soft rustle.

Her eyes widened, and she grabbed his arm.

“Run.”

Edmund didn’t think. He darted into the hall as something slammed inside the wardrobe, rattling the doors, causing the room to shake. Mrs Kettering pushed him, spurring him on, and they fled down the stairs. She threw open the front door, shoving him outside.

“Go!” she yelled. “Get back to the pub! Now!”

“But you…”

“I said go, Edmund!”

He ran.

He didn’t look back. He didn’t consider stopping or helping. The air burned his lungs, but he kept moving, sprinting through the quiet streets, until the Black Swann came into view. Only when he reached the door, did he hear it.

The whisper.

Not from behind him or from the forest. From within his own chest.

Edmund…

Soft, slow and patient.

Satisfied.

As if whatever had come through the window had followed him after all.