Chapter 7

Expectations fill us when we’re about to see something, one or where for the first time. Our brains fill in the blanks that exist because of lack of knowledge, to allow us the gift of pre-experience. Images, smells and sounds are supplied by our imaginations, helpful little devils that they are. Sometimes, it’s an accurate conjuration. Often, it’s far removed from the reality.

More commonly, there’s a mix of the two, with common sense and curiosity arriving at an impasse. Neither can fully take the lead, so they have no choice but to put their differences aside and settle on a compromise.

Then, we have hopes dashed or fulfilled once it becomes reality.

If Edmund had been asked, before arriving in Black Thickett, what he expected from a village this size, he might have suggested predictable things, his mind basing the ideas on preconceptions. Films, books, stereotypes. The locals would be friendly. There’d be an old pub, filled with the regulars who’d been there decades, sitting at tables that could do with more than a swift spray and wipe. A small shop, with elevated prices, would sell bread that went stale too quickly, and chocolate bars that were three months past their Best Before stamp. There could even be a small playground with a squeaky swing and a slide.

He would not have expected the profound quiet he found now. An uneasy, listening kind of quiet that waited for him to speak first.

Which he didn’t.

Instead, he walked. It felt safer than stopping or opening his mouth.

As he rounded a bend, the village hall came into view. It was a squat, brick building with a sagging roof. Four windows broke up the wall on his side, yet he could see nothing through them. They were not dirty or obscured by the random stacking of junk. They just didn’t want to reveal what lay inside. A noticeboard, similar to that by the pub, displayed posters for past events no one had bothered to remove. It was as if this and the building were both remnants of a more active time, when the community would happily come together and celebrate the pleasure of being a community.

He skimmed the signs for events such as a charity jumble sale. Choir practice. Line dancing sessions. Missing person.

That last one placed a hand around his throat, and he looked quickly away, releasing the grip.

Someone sat against the low stone wall outside the hall. At first Edmund thought it was a child, but as he drew nearer, he realised the hunched, narrow figure belonged to a teenager. He estimated fifteen, maybe sixteen. Too skinny for his frame. His shoulders tucked in as if protecting something fragile within himself.

Tom?

The name arrived in Edmund’s mind before recognition. Mrs Pollitt’s voice echoed faintly.

One came back wrong.

Tom, if it was him, didn’t look up as Edmund approached. His gaze was fixed on the ground, where he was pressing his fingertip against something on the ground. Ants bustled around a discarded section of banana. The boy was calmly killing them, one by one, fascinated, while those remaining ignored the towering assassin above them and the death scent released by their fallen comrades. His trainers were dirty and scuffed, and his jeans were torn at both knees. His non-lethal hand clutched a battered sketchbook.

A woman hovered beside him. She was middle-aged and had worried eyes, the kind that had learned to expect the worst before it happened. Her arms were crossed tightly over her chest. Her face was creased with a concern that had not let go for so many years, it had become the norm.

She nodded stiffly at Edmund.

“Tommy,” she said without warmth. “Say hello.”

Tom didn’t move.

Edmund cleared his throat gently to pre-empt his own greeting.

“Hello, Tom,” he said brightly. His voice sounded too jolly in the dead air.

No response. Not even a flicker of acknowledgement. The woman sighed and touched Tom’s shoulder lightly. To Edmund, the gesture looked almost fearful rather than caring.

“He doesn’t talk much, anymore.” Her voice cracked on the last word, a hitch of breath showing more emotion than her demeanour suggested she had. “He used to talk all the time.”

Tom’s hand twitched. His grip tightened on the sketchbook. His hand paused over the ants.

“He draws instead,” the woman continued, offering Edmund a thin, apologetically hopeless smile. She didn’t mention the insects. “All the time. Things he shouldn’t know. Things no boy should know.”

She touched him again. Her hand was a loose fist, making the contact come from a knuckle. She was defensive, as if prepared to make the fist firmer, should the need arise.

“Show the man what you drew today.”

Tom resisted at first. He wiped his finger on his jeans and, using both hands, pulled the sketchbook closer to his chest like a shield. Eventually, reluctantly, he opened it and pushed it towards Edmund.

The first drawing, detailed and showing talent for one so young, was simple, though unsettling. Trees bent inward, their trunks unnaturally curved, their branches reaching like fingers. Edmund felt a beat of discomfort.

He turned the page.

The second was of a boy, smiling too widely. Edmund recognised him.

The missing boy.

Edmund forced air into his lungs as pity twisted inside him. Pity tangled with a colder sensation. A sense the boy had glimpsed him before they’d ever met.

He turned the page again.

The third drawing was of him.

This was no approximation or semblance of a man that could be any one of a thousand. There was no guesswork or estimation in the hair or jaw lines. Him. Standing at the forest edge where he’d been only that morning. Even the posture was identical. The slight forward lean. The hunched shoulders.

The chill spread through Edmund as his body’s heat retreated deep within to hide.

“How did he…?”

Tom snatched the sketchbook back before he could finish. His breathing quickened, shallow and fast. The woman reached out to him, but he jerked away.

Edmund lifted his hands, palms out. It was meant as a gentle sign. Don’t worry. All is well.

“It’s okay. Really.”

But it wasn’t.

Tom flipped to another page with frantic energy that tore the top edge of the portrait, then thrust the sketchbook forward again.

The fourth drawing was darker. Messier. Angrier. Charcoal smudges obscured the background, but Edmund could make out darker shapes. Tall and imposing like stretched silhouettes. In a smudge free space at the centre, which made the rest appear deliberate, stood Edmund again.

But this time, something loomed behind him. A shape he couldn’t fully interpret. Not a person. Not an animal. It was vast and formless, oozing from a mind that tried, and failed, to depict something it couldn’t properly contain.

A low, frightened sound escaped Tom’s throat.

The woman stepped forward and prized the sketchbook from her son’s shaking hands.

“That’s enough,” she said, tucking it tightly under her arm, preventing the images from escaping.

She looked at Edmund, her expression strained.

“Tommy hears things. Since… since he came back.” She assumed he knew about the boy. She probably thought everyone knew because, in her world, everyone did. “He hears things in the trees. Laughing. Whispers.”

“Whispers?”

She nodded slowly. Her gaze drifted toward the distant treeline, drawn there by need and accusation.

“Voices that aren’t there. Or maybe they are.” She looked back at him. He could feel she wanted to turn to her son but was unable to. “Maybe he brought some of them back with him.”

Tom pressed his hands to his ears and moaned, blocking out the words – or the whispers.

Edmund crouched slightly, keeping his distance but bringing himself closer to the boy’s height. He was aware of the psychology in such a move. How it helped with focus and connection, removing perceived threats. He’d used it before when…

No…

“Tom. Did you see something in the forest?”

Tom trembled. Tears welled in his eyes, and he blinked to hold them in place, fearing the indication that he wasn’t the strong boy he knew he must be. He opened his mouth.

A sound scraped out from the back of his throat. It wasn’t a word, nor even a syllable. Just a choked breath that snapped halfway, as if his voice had been stolen from him and the space where it had lived now hurt.

His mother winced. No, she flinched.

Edmund felt sympathy tinged with dread. The same dread the woman’s face expressed.

Tom lifted a shaking finger and pointed at Edmund. Then toward the trees. Then back at Edmund. He dropped his hand to his knee, breathing heavily. Panting.

Edmund swallowed.

“Me?”

Tom nodded, the movement tiny and terrified. His eyes darted about, jumping from Edmund to the ants to his hand and back again, seemingly unable to fixate on any one thing.

The woman stepped between them quickly, and crouched low in front of her son, her back to Edmund.

“I think you should go. He can’t… This… this isn’t good for him.”

Edmund stood. Gravity had thickened around him, making everything feel heavier than it should. He knew nothing like that had really happened, but even bringing his hand up to run his fingers through his hair took effort.

“I’m sorry,” he murmured. “I’ll go. I didn’t intend…”

He didn’t finish the sentence. He wasn’t sure what he hadn’t intended, so had nothing to end with. She said nothing and didn’t look around.

Tom curled into himself, rocking slightly. He was muttering quietly.

Edmund backed away slowly, then turned, putting one foot in front of the other because it was all he could do.

But as he walked, he couldn’t shake the image.

The figure behind him in the drawing.

The way Tom had pointed.

The fear in his eyes.

And worst of all, the unshakable knowledge that whatever the boy had seen in the forest had already seen Edmund, too.