The ruins slipped away, into a fold of the valley. By the time they joined the road again, only the church tower was visible. Athelgar stared back towards it.
‘How can there be a church without a flock?’ he asked.
Fran shrugged. ‘We had a war. Fifty years ago … They used it to train soldiers, and destroyed it. Then broke their word. They never gave it back.’
He frowned. ‘Small wonder that the place is not at peace. Were they hirelings from across the sea who did this?’
Fran gave a small, bitter smile. ‘No. They tried blaming the Americans … but it was British troops destroyed the place. On purpose. Their own people.’
‘The warriors of the King?’
She thought about it. ‘Yeah.’
He walked a little way along the road, then turned again. His face was difficult to read. Was it anger glinting in his eyes – or pain? ‘I came back with the hope the land had changed,’ he said. ‘At last.’
‘Oh no,’ said Fran, and shook her head. ‘It hasn’t changed at all.’
The road led south and west, across the uplands of the range. The clouds had massed above it, like great heaps of slate and slag; but a buttermilk sky still showed on the horizon.
Fran plodded onward, lost in thought: the ache of her feet was scarcely getting through. The road stretched out ahead of them – so long, and still no turning. The empty heath-land rustled in the wind, made bleaker by the shadows of the clouds.
Athelgar touched her shoulder, and she stopped. ‘See,’ he said. ‘That dragon is still hunting.’ His voice was low – but calm enough, considering.
She looked, and saw a helicopter, perhaps two miles away. A double-engined Chinook, quite familiar. She followed its course, and realized it was circling.
His touch became a grip. ‘We must find shelter.’
‘No, it’s all right. Um … It’s sort of a ship that flies. Those things going round, like windmill sails … they lift it through the air.’
He nodded gravely, staring at the thing. The chopper dipped into the valley, where its clatter was redoubled; then rose back into view again and curved towards the south. It felt like they were standing at the centre of its orbit. The clear sky silhouetted it; then murk became the backdrop once again. A crimson light was flashing, on and off.
Athelgar watched, fascinated. ‘It makes signals.’
‘Not to us.’
They tracked it over Imber Firs, where Cruise had lurked before; past Strip Wood, like a dark Mohican haircut on its hill; and finally it veered away, and faded in the grey haze to the north.
‘Men have grown wise,’ said Athelgar softly.
Fran let that pass without comment.
The end of the hike came suddenly, and caught her by surprise. The road began descending, turned a comer – and the Heytes-bury vedette was up ahead. The walk had been interminable, yet now it seemed cut short. Fran stopped beside the barrier; the dull green sentry hut was locked and empty. Beyond, the road ran down to meet a farmer’s sloping fields, and turned into another country lane.
As soon as she stopped moving, the weariness caught up. She felt her legs solidify like lead. She leaned against the grassy bank, and looked at Athelgar.
‘How far are you going?’
‘No further. I will turn again. No hand shall be against you from here on.’
She blinked at him; then looked back up the road. The thought of all that emptiness they’d come through … She swallowed, looked away again. Maybe not so empty, after all.
‘What about me?’ she murmured.
He gave her a sidelong glance. ‘The road is hard and grievous, Lady Frances; and many lifetimes longer than today’s.’
‘Meaning what?’ she asked. ‘That I should go home and forget it?’
He looked at her full on, and then spoke grimly. ‘You know the Ravens’ calling: death and terror. Our way is paved with corpses. It is no road for one like you to walk.’
Chastened, she moved back a step – but couldn’t keep from staring. ‘You think I can run into you, and then just walk away?’
‘Always shall we need your prayers. Watch over us in spirit. But with us, in the flesh, you may be harmed.’
But even as he spoke the words, his eyes were full of need – like somebody who’d had his fill of wandering alone. She stood there, gazing up at him, and felt a rush of feeling: delayed reaction, bursting through at last. Not disbelief, or even fear, but sheer exhilaration – the like of which she hadn’t felt since roaring down the highway after Cruise.
But even more exciting was the sense of being called. The heady thrill of Heaven’s Field. My Lady. Come with me.
She’d never felt so honoured – or protected. The violence that he’d talked about seemed mythic and unreal. Whatever journey he was on, it led to magic places. If the shadows were still out there, she could face them at his side.
She raised herself, and took hold of his coat. ‘I want to come.’
‘So let it be,’ he said after a pause. ‘There are things which I must seek amid the downland. Give me leave to see the way is clear, then come to me again.’
Swallowing, she eased away. ‘When?’
‘When the moon is round.’
Her heart was really thumping now. ‘And … where do I find you?’
‘There is a hamlet I have passed through, called Tils-Head. The downs are all around it. Seek me there.’
Fran nodded, knowing Tilshead well. She hadn’t a clue when the next full moon was. Perhaps Lyn had an almanac or something.
A silence fell between them, almost awkward. The parting of the ways, she thought – and felt it like a wrench.
‘Going to see me to the road?’ she asked.
He nodded, and they crossed the line together: followed the leafy lane towards the grumbling main road. The windswept downland fell behind, and neither of them looked back. Though every instinct warned her that she should.
3
‘I’m going to be quite late,’ she said to Lyn. ‘Expect me when you see me, I should think.’
‘Oh Fran … Are you all right?’
‘Yeah,’ Fran said, and realized she was grinning. Euphoria fizzed inside her, like she hadn’t felt for years. Top of the world – on tiptoe. Later would be time enough to think about the drop.
‘I’ve missed the bus from Heytesbury,’ she gushed, ‘that’s all. I’ll have to walk to Warminster, and catch the train from there.’
‘Is it far?’
‘Not very.’ Though the way her swollen feet felt now, she’d have a job to manage half a mile.
‘So how did it go?’ Lyn asked, still sounding anxious.
‘Really well. I think I’ve worked it out.’ She peered out through the glass of the telephone box. Across the busy A-road, at the mouth of the lane, his figure was just visible: still watching.
‘I’m so glad, Fran. I’ve been thinking about you lots today.’ Fran could hear the relief in her friend’s soft voice, and picture it on her face. Her love for Lyn just added to the inner glow she felt. But her stare remained fixed on the dark shape in the lane.
‘I’ll tell you more about it when I get back,’ she promised. Though not everything, of course. Least of all the part that would make Lyn think she’d flipped her lid completely.
She talked, and gazed at Athelgar – until he turned away. Back towards the range, and all its ghosts. With clouds now over everything, the evening had come early. The lane was full of shadows, and they sucked him in at once.
II
SLEEPERS
Do your nightmares tear you apart?
Do you wake up screaming, shouting in the dark?
Do the demons keep you awake?
Does the clock tick more slowly with every breath you take?
THE LEVELLERS
Dear Craig
Hellooooo, gorgeous! Sorry that I haven’t been in touch. I hope you had a good flight back. I’m really missing you.
I know you’re wondering how things went, down on the Plain. Well, I walked across the Imber range, from Bratton down to Heytesbury. I took the ‘American Road’ (of course!) – right past the place where D-Flight got ambushed by their own blokes back in February 89. The mission when you asked me out, in case you don’t remember.
I’m on a bit of a high at the moment (have you noticed?!). I’ve got things sorted out at last – more than I dared hope. Have you ever felt there’s more to life than any of us dreamed! I won’t go on about it, though. You’d really think I’d lost it if I did.
Lynnie sends her love. She’s thinking a lot about her brother Martin at the moment. The family’s lost touch with him, and she just got a card at Christmas time. He didn’t give his address – nor a reason why he simply upped and went. The silence is the worst bit: the not knowing. I hope that I can cheer her up. She’s done so much for me.
Write soon!
Love,
Your pinko commie peacenik girlfriend
Frannie
PS. What do you mean, the Air Force checks your mail??
CHAPTER I
Fiends and Ashes
1
Martin woke abruptly, with the dusk.
The gloom had seeped in silently, and caught him unawares. The bedroom was engulfed in it, the furniture submerged. The double bed, his life raft, was awash.
Panic clenched his muscles; he almost struggled upright straight away. Then slumped, as he remembered where he was. The dull, familiar room took shape again. Gloom clung to the wallpaper like filth. Only the window showed some light – a segment of colourless sky. From where he lay, the rooftops almost masked it.
Everything was in its place. The digits on the bedside clock were bright and reassuring. But the coldness in his limbs took several moments to recede. He felt as if he’d woken with a spider on his cheek.
He sat up stiffly, swinging his legs off the bed. The change in equilibrium made his empty stomach churn; he waited with his head down while it settled. Muzzily he rubbed his face; felt bristles rasp and chafe against his palms.
The flat was very quiet. The dusk had flowed right through it, soaking in. A couple more hours before Claire got back: sighing her way through the door and switching lights on. She’d find the place deserted, yet again. It would be full dark by then – and he’d be out there, in it.
Martin stretched inside his slept-in clothes; then got to his feet, and walked through to the bathroom. The cold tap knocked and shuddered as he filled a glass and drank, rinsing out the fetid taste of sleep.
A dim shape peered towards him from the mirror. He switched on the light and met it face to face. He was looking pale, his eyes half-sunk in shadow. They had a slightly mournful cast: it made his grin engaging, in a way that women liked. But when he was expressionless, like now, his stare was sombre.
The beard was five days old. His fingers reached above it, brushed the small scar on his cheek. A tiny nick of callused skin. He realized it was itching.
Still healing, after all these years.
Lyn had done that. He’d just turned five, but remembered every detail. At seven she’d been insufferable, a spoilt little brat: always bossing him around, as if two years made any difference. They’d been fighting in the playroom and she’d thrown a building block. The gashing pain had made him cry; the blood had made him bawl. But even through his tears, he’d seen her horrified white face, and known he was the winner after all.
He’d had to have a stitch, and been the centre of attention. Mum had fussed and held his hand, while Dad waited in the corridor with Lyn. She was going to get what for when they got home: that spiteful hope had kept his tears in check. But Dad had seemed to think that she’d already learned her lesson. And when Martin had emerged and seen her waiting – all big, scared eyes and tear-stained cheeks – he’d realized that he didn’t want to see her this upset. Her fear was there for him, he sensed, as much as for herself.
Naturally, they’d fought again – but never quite as fiercely. From that day on, it sometimes seemed, they’d started drawing closer.
Lyn.
He savoured her name in silence – then swallowed it. A lump in his throat, then a dull ache in his stomach. But there was no point wondering what Lyn was doing now. Tonight, of all nights, he could do without the niggling dilemma: whether to get in touch, or keep his distance.
He killed the light again. The dusk, already thicker, closed around him. He went back to the bedroom, and walked over to the window. His heart began to thud against his ribs.
The sky was pale and clear outside. There would be stars tonight.
2
The house was on the corner, just down from the junior school. The orange streetlight bathed its bricks, which made it seem less menacing – at first. But even from across the road, he could see where smoke had blackened it: freakish shadows underneath the lamp. The chipboard in the windows stood out clearly.
The Burnt House – that’s what everybody called it. The kids had told him so. On winter nights they hurried past it, straggling in groups. A ghost was boarded up inside, and that was gospel. A little boy’s ghost – burned black.
Martin looked both ways. Nothing was coming; but still he hesitated.
He’d been working as a cleaner when he picked the story up. Some of the kids had been talking in the corridor: clearly trying to dare – and scare – each other. Intrigued, he’d slowly mopped his way towards them, feeling his breathing tighten as the pieces made a whole.
‘Someone went in there, right? Went in there, and they found him, and he’d been trying to crawl under a door. Something in the room had scared him so much … he was trying to crawl under the door.’
He’d ventured to intrude, and they’d been happy to include him. ‘Do you believe in ghosts at all?’ a fair-haired boy had asked him.
‘Yes,’ he’d told them solemnly. ‘I do.’
Or something like them.
So they’d told him what they knew about the Burnt House. Different people had subtly different versions; there were elements of urban myth developing already. But he didn’t doubt the truth behind it all. The knowledge seemed to suck his stomach dry.
He’d wondered if the tale they told was giving them bad dreams. Perhaps, with some of them, it was – but they kept on coming back to it. Their growing minds could stretch to fit. But Martin had felt nauseous for hours.
The house looked unassuming in the daytime, despite the sooty marks around its windows. The sheets of board were blank and bland – screening off the gutted depths within. But the first time he’d walked past it, he had sensed the void inside. The place was light-proof: sealed against the day. Tonight, by sallow streetlight, it seemed so full of darkness it might burst.
The sound of footsteps reached him, coming up towards the corner from the south. The railway arch was back that way, an unlit lane beyond it. He turned his head uneasily – then breathed out as he recognized her shape.
She paused at the junction, spotted him, and crossed: relief had put a spring into her step. He didn’t blame her. The Burnt House was the last place you would want to get stood up.
‘Hello,’ said Martin drily.
Lucy smiled. ‘All ready, then?’ Now that they’d met up, she seemed quite perky.
‘Yeah,’ he said, encouraged. ‘Thanks for coming.’ He glanced towards the house again. ‘Romantic, isn’t it?’
Looking, she laughed softly. Eighteen now, with college in the autumn. She had a pleasant, snub-nosed face and short dark hair. Claire – who didn’t know – would be suspicious: naturally. But Lucy was a friend, and nothing less.
He’d met her at a vigil in a local, ‘haunted’ church: the sort of thing he would have jeered at once. Like many of the ghost-watchers, she had a sceptic’s mind: always on the lookout for an easy explanation. And yet she felt the mystery, like he did. She had a real scientist’s awe for that.
He felt he could see eye-to-eye with someone who’d enjoyed The Selfish Gene. He’d heard about the Burnt House and had called her. He didn’t want the group along, with all their paraphernalia. Their vigils were too organized. They made the dark too safe.
‘So what are you expecting?’ she had asked him.
‘To see if something’s in there. To get close.’
She’d hesitated. ‘We’ve nothing to record it with.’
‘Maybe not,’ he’d murmured. ‘But we’ll know.’
They went in round the back way, under cover of the over-grown garden. The back door had been forced before, presumably by squatters. It occurred to him to wonder just how long they’d stuck it out. A night, perhaps. Or maybe less than that.
The dark inside was choking – like a foretaste of extinction. He flicked his torch on quickly and played it around. The kitchen was bare, its walls begrimed, but the damage here was minimal. The seat of the fire, for once, had been elsewhere.
A foul smell still lingered in the air. The stench of stuff corrupted by the flames.
Grimacing, he looked up towards the ceiling. The plaster and paint had cracked like a drought-ravaged field. The light-fixing was gone, the flex protruding. It hung in the penumbra of the beam. He moved the light away, and glanced at Lucy.
‘Okay?’
‘I’m fine,’ she murmured calmly.
He led the way in deeper, hearing brittle cinders crunch beneath their boots. The fire had swept the front room and the hall. The walls looked black and oily in the beam; there were traces of a pattern in the rags of wallpaper. The ceiling had collapsed, exposing skeletal charred wood. The ruin of an easy chair still squatted in the corner.
Lucy had her own torch out: she shone it up the stairs. The gloom up there absorbed the light completely.
‘It started up there?’ she asked – almost whispering now.
He wet his lips and nodded. ‘In the bedroom.’
The glow of her torch slid down onto the staircase. ‘Reckon it’s safe?’
The stairs looked fairly dodgy, but he wasn’t sure she’d meant them. ‘Let’s … just wait for a bit.’
‘And see what happens?’
He waited for her to turn her head; then nodded grimly. ‘Yeah.’
She shrugged. ‘Is it all hearsay, then? Or has anyone actually seen it … heard it?’
‘Well, one of the girls claimed she heard something knocking on one of the window boards, when she was running past one night. She always runs past the place, she says.’
‘Could have been anything, then. Or anyone.’
‘That’s what I thought. But one thing’s for sure, she’s scared of something. They all were, underneath their smiles.’
‘And one child was killed in the fire here, right?’
‘Right. About a year ago, I think. But there’s more to it than that … or so they said.’
She clicked her torch off and came back into the shell of the front room. ‘Oh yes? You didn’t tell me that.’
‘It isn’t nice,’ he muttered flatly.
‘No …’ she said. ‘I don’t suppose it is. Well, you’ve obviously been saving it, so better tell me now.’
He let the torch beam sink, and pool between them.
‘This is what they said, all right? The little boy who lived here kept having bad dreams. Someone was coming to get him, you know the kind of thing. Anyway, one night he wakes up screaming: says that someone’s in the bedroom, running fingers through his hair. So his mother comes, and gets him settled down. Then half an hour later, he’s screaming again. So she goes to him again. And it’s a demon, apparently. A demon keeps appearing in the room. She gets him off again. And then, on her way to bed, she decides to look in on him … and when she gets to the door, and touches it, it’s hot.’
‘Oh, Jesus,’ Lucy whispered.
‘So she opened it, of course she did, and the fire was just let loose. She and her husband got out with severe burns. The boy died in his room.’
She stared at him; then brushed her mouth, as if to wipe a sour taste away. ‘Bloody hell.’
‘Yeah.’
‘Any … cause for the fire, do they know?’
‘Not that I’ve heard. Could have been an electrical fault … or something.’
‘Or something. Yeah.’ She looked up at the ceiling. ‘So what do they reckon is haunting here? His ghost? Or … whatever might have killed him?’
‘Maybe both.’ He paced around; then looked at her again. ‘My dad told me a story once. A legend of King Arthur, ’cause he’s into all that stuff. They were caught in some place, his knights and him – besieged by burning ghosts. And when the ghosts were stabbed, they lost their shape, becoming fiends and ashes.’
Lucy’s smile was wry enough; but her shudder didn’t look entirely faked. She watched as he unstuffed his bag and spread a tattered blanket on the floor. They both sat down. She’d brought her Thermos flask. Pouring a cup, she paused and glanced around.
‘You can’t feel anything, can you?’
He hesitated. The house itself felt looming, ghastly, steeped in its despair. But nothing seemed to move within its walls. He shook his head.
‘Neither can I,’ she said, and gave a wan little smile. The perkiness had died away long since.
By midnight, he’d worked up the nerve to try and broach the subject.
The Burnt House was still dormant, but its aura felt increasingly oppressive. A claustrophobic itch had started nagging: as if the place was sealed again, and they were trapped inside. He glanced more than once at his propped-up torch, almost willing himself to see it flicker.
The past – his past – was creeping up: the atmosphere congealed to give it shape. He knew he’d talk before the night was out. Like the onset of a stomach ache that has to end in sickness. And this would be a purging, too – and maybe a relief.
He glanced at Lucy. Their small talk had subsided, but the silence was companionable enough. He’d never breathed a word of this to anyone before; he wasn’t sure how even she’d react.
So begin at the beginning. Building-blocks.
‘What’s your theory, then: on ghosts?’
She looked at him over the plastic mug. ‘I thought you knew.’
‘After-images and such?’
She shrugged. ‘Or psychic echoes. Call them what you like. I think they’re just a way of seeing into the past. Not sentient at all.’
‘And not things that can hurt you.’
She shook her head.
‘So what about demons, then?’
‘Doesn’t that imply a Christian view?’
‘Other religions have them. Evil spirits.’
‘Active agents, you mean; rather than passive images?’
He nodded slowly, thinking of the burning room upstairs. The house had always felt unsafe, but now the air of dull threat seemed to grow.
‘Maybe,’ she conceded – and looked at him quizzically. ‘Why?’
He glanced around; then back at her. ‘I think I might have called one up, one time.’
Lucy straightened up. ‘What, in a seance or something?’
‘No, I was at home and it was the last thing on my mind. I never believed in things like that.’ Restless now, he clambered up as if relieving cramp.
‘But now you do?’ she murmured.
He looked around, and nodded.
‘So what happened?’
‘I don’t know. I was looking at something in one of my dad’s old books; just stringing names together in my mind …’ He wet his lips. ‘Dubhe and Merak; Alioth. Mean anything to you?’
‘No, but they sound like mythical names. Forgotten gods, or something?’
He gave a small, tight smile and shook his head. ‘They’re the names of stars, that’s all: the stars in the Plough. This was just a picture of a medieval star-chart. One that was used for magic of some kind.’
She frowned at that. ‘So … what was it like? This thing that came.’
‘There were more than one,’ he said.
‘You saw them?’
