A Hand in the Dark

I hadn’t liked the look of the man from the start. Piggy sort, ate too much dinner. But people who know your name get a sort of power over you. They reckon they can stride up behind you when you’re out for a walk, put their hand on your shoulder and all that.

Well, I just ran. He ran too. Beyond a fallen tree the path had slipped away into the burn and there I lost my footing and went crashing into the brambles. I heard his heavy feet coming up fast. But at the very moment he would have been on top of me I realised he had stopped dead.

A sparse presence laid a hand on my head, urging it down. I looked up to see her stretch a bow, then her hand dropped gracefully against her cheek as she let go. I read an Agatha Christie where one Ancient Egyptian shot another – twang! Agatha Christie had obviously never seen a man killed with a bow and arrow because it doesn’t go twang, it goes swish-snap, like somebody being caned. They don’t die like they do on the telly either. They flap about frantically on their backs, then they give a sort of slithering sob and go out like a fallen ember.

She dropped her bow and a moment later I heard her dragging the body off the path. ‘Help me!’ she hissed. I got up and lifted the man’s feet. A few metres up the slope the bracken gave way and swallowed the man whole, snatching the boots out of my hand. I crouched staring after him. Over the blood surging inside my ears like the water in the gorge behind me, I heard a muffled splash.

I looked up at my protectress. She was a brown slip of a thing, narrow faced like an African woodcarving, dressed in a rough light brown tee-shirt which came halfway down her bare legs.

‘What have we done?’ I gasped.

‘He was a very bad man. I’ve been watching him for weeks. People think nobody sees what goes on down here.’

Putting her long fingertips on my shoulder she stepped past me to go and pick up her bow. Then, raising her hand to me, she stepped sideways and disappeared. 

I panicked and ran all the way back to the caravan. Me Mam was there, doing baked beans on the Gaz. She looked at me funny-like but she didn’t ask what was wrong. She knew I’d not tell her. 

‘Don’t go off with any strange men,’ she said later, out of the blue. 

‘No, Mam.’ 

She was a fine one to talk. 

The next day was bright and sunny and I went back along the Glen. It was as if nothing had happened. I was planning to follow the burn all the way to Frosterley. They told me it went underground at one place. But in a big open space strewn with rocks I felt drowsy and clambered over the rough ground until I was hidden from the path.

Scores of rabbits came out from behind the rocks and hopped around lazily. I wished I had a gun. I lined up my thumbs and said ‘blam!’ Somewhere near at hand a bird kept up a constant stream of twittering. I put my head back against a rock and shut my eyes, letting the sun seep through my eyelids. A dandelion head bounced off my cheek and I sat up suddenly. 

There she was, sitting just above me, swinging her bare feet and smiling. As soon as I smiled back she slithered down to sit beside me, showing her skinny thighs. Then she pulled her tee-shirt over her knees. 

‘Got over your fright?’ 

‘Yes. But won’t they be out looking for him?’

‘He doesn’t come from around here. Nobody will find him. Nobody will even miss him.’

I thought what huge soft brown eyes she had. Dropping my gaze she sighed and lay back, crossing her arms behind her head. I caught a whiff of pine forests on a sultry evening. 

‘What’s your name?’ she said. 

With a pang of fear I thought, you shouldn’t go telling your name to strangers. ‘David,’ I said. It was a stupid lie. I could almost hear the man calling my name again. ‘Gary – come here, Gary!’

She regarded me gravely. But she only replied, ‘Then you must call me Emma. How old are you?’ 

‘Eleven.’ That was the truth. 

She looked the same age as me, but she didn’t say and we sat in silence. ‘Aren’t the rabbits tame,’ I exclaimed. ‘They’re coming up almost to my feet. I’ve never known that happen before.’ 

‘That’s because I’m here.’ 

I laughed. ‘Do you look after rabbits, too?’ 

‘Not normally. The birds do that. They warn the rabbits if there’s any danger.’ 

‘Really?’ 

‘Yes. There’s a blackbird over there, scolding away at you. She thinks you’re going to shoot them.’ She let out an accomplished trill and the bird shut up. 

‘Are you on holiday?’ 

‘Kind of. We’re here for the whole summer, me and Mam. The caravan’s all she’s left with.’ 

The smile went from her face like the sun going in. ‘No dad?’

‘Oh, I’ve had lots of dads.’ I was far too casual. ‘They come and go. There isn’t one at the moment, but me Mam keeps trying.’ 

‘Why did you come here today?’ 

‘I was going to follow the stream right down to Frosterley. I want to see where it goes.’ 

Gazing up at the clouds she said in a dreamy voice, ‘There’s nineteen paths along Rocky Glen. But only three of them are open to the sky…’ 

I got up on one elbow and goggled at her. 

‘Do you scare easily?’ she asked. 

‘No,’ I lied. I knew I wouldn’t if she was with me. 

That afternoon I saw a dark world I had never imagined was there. Some of the tunnels were man made, a deserted city beneath the fell. Others were carved by the stream itself, just the right size for a boy and a girl. Emma flitted through the caves like a living tree root. She couldn’t hide her delight in having someone to show them to. And as for me, who’d never held more than an electric torch in the dark, to have a flaming brand to hold was a thrill in itself. 

But somewhere in that tangle of caverns a body lay. I kept thinking it would rise up and come after us and lay a sodden hand on my shoulder. Once I tripped and the torch fell in some wet and went out. It was only Emma’s fingers holding mine in the utter blackness that stopped my heart bursting out of my chest in shrieking terror. 

I lost all sense of direction, but when I emerged blinking through a screen of matted ivy, I found myself in a place I had never seen before. Cliffs scowled down at me on either side. 

‘Where are we?’ 

‘Harehope Quarry. A hundred men and boys lived by this burn once and mined it for lead and spar. This whole valley is man-made, except for the burn winding down the middle between the weeping willows. It comes back out of the ground over there. Nobody knows where it’s been. But I know.’ 

Next morning I bolted my breakfast and hurried back to the Glen with hardly a word to Mam. I waited for ages among the rabbit rocks but Emma didn’t come. At last I walked with heavy steps over the footbridge, meaning to stroll back towards the caravans. Over the bridge, in a lovely natural garden, gorse sprouting among the stones, I stood before what looks for all the world like a secret gate in the rock. A naked white tree cast its shadow over the gate and me. My thoughts felt their way along unexplored paths just below the surface of my mind. 

Wiry fingers crept into my hand. I turned round to gasp into Emma’s sunny face. ‘Where’ve you been?’ I accused. 

‘I’ve been watching you for hours.’ 

‘That’s cruel. I’ve waited for you all morning. Why didn’t you call out to me?’ 

‘You don’t have to rush back, do you?’ 

‘Me Mam’s not expecting me.’ I couldn’t stop looking at her mahogany eyes. 

‘That’s good,’ she said. Without warning she slipped her tee-shirt over her head. As I guessed, it was all she was wearing. She was like an ash sapling in bud. Throwing the tee-shirt in my face she scrambled down to the water’s edge and plunged in. 

Bollihope Burn goes over a limestone pavement at that point, before tumbling into a wide, placid pool, perfect for swimming in. I didn’t dare follow her through the rapids, but I saw she was making for the pool and there I joined her, slipping out of my clothes at the water’s edge. 

‘Someone will come!’ I hissed. 

‘There’s nobody for miles,’ she replied with absolute conviction. 

We splashed and swam for hours. Her brown limbs gleamed in the dappled sunlight and scorched marks in my mind. I had been too young to start thinking about a girl’s body, but from then on I’d shut my eyes at night and picture nothing else. 

There wasn’t a day throughout July and August I didn’t see Emma. Sometimes me Mam wanted us to go out somewhere and meet Someone Nice, but I pretended to be sick and stayed in my berth with the curtain drawn until she was gone. Then I hurried off down the Glen. 

Far too soon it was all over. That afternoon I knew we’d have to go back to Byker the next day, me to start school on Monday, Mam to find somewhere permanent. I thought of asking Emma to run away with me. 

‘Have you ever been to Newcastle?’ 

She gave me a look as if I’d said ‘Have you ever been to Baghdad?’ We were shooting toadstools on a rotten log with her bow. She told me she never shot anything possessing feelings. Except that one time… I tingled to the touch of the bow, thinking how it had killed a man. 

Dusk fell and I couldn’t bring myself to say goodbye. As I faltered she took my arm. ‘Have you any biscuits in your caravan?’ 

Stripped of the woodland’s cloak, Emma just looked a scrawny kid with a bow over her shoulder. Mam would say ‘Where’ve you dug her up from?’ Fortunately she wasn’t in, but as usual she’d locked the caravan. I was good at getting my bedroom window open with a wiggle. Emma was as light as an armful of dry bracken as I slipped her inside to unlock the door. 

I opened up the biscuit tin for Emma. She dug down for the last Jammie Dodger, then she sat on the edge of the built-in seat nibbling it and carefully catching all the crumbs. Voices outside. I jumped to the sink window and peered over the sill. It was the people in the caravan opposite, but they didn’t look my way. Turning back to Emma – she’d gone. She must have fled through my bedroom window.

It was only when I crept desolate into bed that night that I discovered any sign she’d been. Hidden in the bed were her bow with three arrows and a little pouch with long drawstrings twisted out of grass. Her name was on the bow, scorched in curly pokerwork, and of course it wasn’t Emma. Actually I couldn’t say really what it was, but it looked like Dyann or Vyviann if you glanced at it quickly. 

I tried to keep it hidden but me Mam soon found it and broke it up. ‘You could hurt someone!’ 

If she only knew.

I wore the pouch next to my skin and I never got any colds all winter, but the following spring it fell to bits. I put it on the fire and it flared up mauve and was gone. I thought I saw her face. 

Now, five summers later, me Mam’s got a new caravan, at Stanhope this time. Dad’s been with us a couple of years now. We get on champion. Most days Mam and Dad go off together, which suits me fine. One sunny afternoon I took the bus to Frosterley and walked up Rocky Glen. It was quiet and empty. I knew she wasn’t there.

First published in VOLCHIN & Other Stories, by Clark Nida.