Dark Terrors 3: The Gollancz Book of Horror

The Lost Boy Found TERRY LAMSLEY

Emma must have been watching out from the window on the first floor and shouted down to the boy. The front door of the house opened before Daniel had reached the garden gate. Marc stepped out, glanced at his father without giving any gesture of recognition, then trudged towards him with his shoulders hunched and his head bent forward, staring at the ground a yard ahead of him. Daniel stopped to wait for him. In spite of the heat of the day his son was wearing the expensive designer-branded woollen hat he had brought him for his birthday on his last visit. The choice of present had been unfortunate; Daniel now thought it made the boy look foolish.

‘How’re you doing, Marc?’

‘Fine, Dad.’ Marc thrust a white plastic box forward. ‘My lunch,’ he explained. ‘Mum said don’t buy me any more of the sort of food you gave me last time.’

‘You told her about that?’

‘I had to. She asked.’

Automatically, Daniel turned and looked up towards his wife’s window. He could just see her, standing well back in the room, with her hands clasped together under her chin, as though she was cold. He waved, but got no response.

‘A bit of fried chicken every now and then won’t kill you, Marc,’ Daniel observed, as they walked down the street.

‘Mum said there’s no need to eat animals. It’s cruel.’

Daniel didn’t want to get dragged into that. ‘The car’s parked around the corner,’ he said, ‘as close as I could get. The town’s very busy.’

‘It always is on Saturday. You usually come on Sundays.’

‘I thought we’d do something different today,’ Daniel said carefully, anticipating opposition to this proposal.

‘You mean we can’t go bowling?’

‘We’ll give it a miss for once. The weather’s so fine. We’ll drive out into the country.’

The boy was silent then, but Daniel could sense his disappointment. As they drove away, to change the subject, he said, ‘How are your eyes now? No more headaches, I hope?’

Marc had had minor eye surgery a few weeks earlier. Daniel had been working in Scotland at the time, and hadn’t been able to visit him in hospital.

‘They’re okay. I can see for miles. And they say I won’t have to wear those thick glasses again. That’s why I’d rather have gone to the Indoor Sport Centre. I wanted to see if it made my bowling better. I bet I could beat you nearly every time now, Dad.’

‘You did pretty well before.’

‘But you were better.’ Marc reached out towards the radio. ‘Can I have some music?’

Daniel nodded resignedly. After all, the boy had taken his disappointment about the bowling quite well, and his reason for wanting to play games was a good one.

The car filled with yelping, thudding, electronic pandemonium.

From then on, conversation was out of the question.

Half an hour later Daniel had driven deep into the countryside and was following his inclinations, rather than map directions. He had more or less lost his way, though he didn’t want to admit that to Marc. When the boy, taking advantage of his newly improved vision, pointed out a limestone village, gleaming in the glaring sun, that had come into view a couple of miles ahead, Daniel drove towards it automatically, as though it had beckoned to him, and he was unable to resist its allure. It was the only point of interest in an otherwise featureless landscape. It seemed to be hovering a little way in the air, like a vision or mirage, but it sank back into its surroundings as they got nearer. The narrow lanes Daniel found himself negotiating to get to it were maze-like and confusing, but he navigated his way through into the little community at last, after a deal of twisting and back-tracking, and stopped the car at the first opportunity. He turned off the blaring radio at once, and clambered out of the car into an austere silence that was almost a shock.

The village was backed on three sides by hump-like hills, the lower slopes of which were divided into mutton-and lamb-infested fields enclosed by low stone walls. Ahead, a substantial, if somewhat squat looking, eighteenth-century house and an even older pub stood at right angles to each other, apparently blocking the way, though a sign indicated that the road turned left between them. A broad, deep stream slid smoothly alongside the street. Tiny houses, each with its own natty bib of garden at the front, clustered round the dusty parking space where Daniel had come to a halt, and others similar climbed one side of the slope the car had just descended. It was a picturesque setting, and the whole village had a neat, compact, scaled-down, almost toylike look about it.

‘This’ll do,’ Daniel said, leaning back into the driver’s door. Marc showed no sign of wanting to get out. He was gazing out at the clear, shining water of the nearby stream with a peculiar expression, as though the sight of it slightly annoyed him.

‘Is this where you wanted to come, Dad?’

‘I had nowhere in particular in mind.’

‘But there’s nothing here. What are we going to do?’

‘We don’t have to do anything. Just take a look around.’

Marc pulled his hat lower down his brow, said, ‘I’m thirsty,’ and hauled himself out of the car reluctantly, huffing like an old man. Daniel noted how overweight the overgrown boy still was, in spite of the health-food and vegetarian regimen his mother imposed at home. His big face was waxy, and beginning to go spotty. He was at the awkward age, changing inside and out. In less than two years he’d be a teenager, but he looked like one already, and a troubled one at that. Daniel wanted to tell him to take off the ridiculous hat, but he had only himself to blame for that, and Marc seemed proud of the thing, so he let it be.

The nearby pub looked shut. ‘A village this size is bound to have a shop that’ll sell us a can of Coke,’ Daniel stated optimistically, still feeling he had, perhaps unjustly, for selfish reasons, deprived his son of his ten-pin bowling. ‘Let’s go and find it.’

Marc grunted noncommittally, but did as he was bidden. As they ascended into the village, Daniel, who liked to think of himself as a countryman (because, thirty-seven years earlier he’d been born in a very remote part of England) was aware that he, in his sky-blue jacket and black shirt, and Marc in his baggy bad-boy town clothes and big, clumsy trainers, probably looked an odd and out-of-place pair. Not that there was anyone to pass judgment: nobody else was visible on the streets.

The village was made up of a number of large, ancient, characterful buildings linked together by clusters of small cottages and undistinguished terraces of minute nineteenth-century farm workers’ houses. These dwellings were tightly packed together: uncomfortably so, as though their inhabitants had been reluctant or unable to extend the boundaries of their community into the fields beyond. The streets were narrow, with many sharp turns. There were few people about, and they had a preoccupied, self-contained air, and hardly seemed to be aware of the two visitors as they passed.

Marc spotted a small shop down a side road, but it sold only faded arty-crafty souvenirs and dried flowers, and was shut anyway. It looked as though it had been shut for ever.

‘I wouldn’t like to live here,’ he moaned. ‘Would you, Dad?’

Daniel had to admit not. ‘But it makes a change,’ he insisted. ‘A bit of peace and quiet.’

In fact, the last remark was an understatement. The village was perfectly silent. No dogs barked, no human voices could be heard, no traffic disturbed the peace, no birds sang, and the few people they encountered moved without sound, as though they walked on shoes shod with velvet soles. The only audible noises were those made by Daniel and Marc, and they too soon grew quiet, hushed by the awesome taciturnity of their surroundings.

In the centre of the village they came upon what seemed to be a walled-off field, though it could have been an ancient village green, with what at first sight appeared to be some kind of ornate monument set in a hollow in the centre. This land, occupied in one corner by half a dozen seedy-looking sheep and their lambs, was more or less trapezium-shaped, and had a single point of entry and exit — a narrow lych-gate, like the entry to a churchyard, in the centre of the shortest of the two roughly parallel sides.

Daniel and his son emerged from the village at a point very close to the gate which, on inspection, they found to be held shut with a tightly wound chain and padlock.

‘Do you think that’s meant to keep the sheep in or us out, Marc?’

Marc missed the irony, and looked confused. Daniel smiled, and gave the gate a shove. The sound of the chain links grinding against the wooden gatepost tweaked the nerves of the sheep who raised their heads and stood still as statues for seconds, before sinking back into browsing complacency.

‘What’s that thing out there in the middle, Dad?’

‘Not sure. A war memorial for people from this place who died? That sort of thing. I can’t think what else it could be.’

‘It looks as though someone’s been throwing paint at it,’ Marc observed. The object was criss-crossed with streaks of red and green.

‘Vandals. That could be why they’ve padlocked the gate.’

‘That’s silly. It would be easy to get over the wall.’

‘Or the gate,’ Daniel agreed. A mischievous note in his voice appealed to Marc.

‘Shall we, Dad?’ he said, encouragingly.

‘Why not?’

For some time now Daniel had felt the urge to make a gesture of protest at the oppressive, silent stillness around them: to metaphorically wave two fingers at the village and its invisible or indifferent inhabitants, and it seemed to him that the padlock offered an opportunity to do something of the kind. Nevertheless, he felt rather foolish as he put his foot on one of the cross-bars of the gate and lifted his other leg over the top. He sat astride the gate for a moment, wondering if he had gone too far, but it was plain from the expression on Marc’s face that his son thought he had not gone nearly far enough. Daniel realized there was no going back, if he wanted to retain the scrap of outlaw credibility he had so easily acquired, so he dropped down to the ground on the other side of the gate, making room for the boy to follow him.

‘Lots of people come here anyway,’ Marc said.

The unmown grass in the field was inches high. Ahead of them a well-worn path, that had obviously been trodden recently by many feet, stretched towards the middle of the enclosed area.

They walked on in silence, through the intense quiet.

The field naturally inclined towards the middle from all directions but as they got nearer to the object of their excursion it became obvious that the structure, whatever it was, protruded out of the centre of a steep-sided, circular pit about thirty feet across and five feet deep.

When they reached the edge, Daniel saw there were dozens of different sets of footprints in the dust around the rim. Marc tumbled awkwardly down into the pit and moments later, feeling some small, unaccountable misgivings, Daniel followed him.

The thing itself, when they got close to it, was rather disappointing. Inside a six-foot circle of extraordinarily thick iron railings were entrapped a number of broad tree trunks that had all been severed just above head height. The railings had been there a long time because, over the years, the sides of the trees had bellied out between the constricting iron uprights in huge bark-splitting blisters that were uncomfortable to contemplate. Up out of the centre of the tight cluster of stunted trees extended what was in all probability a sculptured form representing the top half of a human being. This figure was posed with one arm stretched down, as though taking hold of the top of one of the trees to push itself upwards. Its other arm, bent, and half-raised, was held aloft in what could have been an appeal for help, or a gesture of despair, anger or even triumph. It was impossible to be quite sure if the figure was exactly human, because the whole thing was overgrown by a complex network of thorny tendrils, like briars, that concealed every inch of its surface. Two overgrown lumps on its back suggested to Daniel that it could originally have been the representation of an angel, with wings that had broken off at the base, but nothing about its posture was in any way conventionally angelic.

What had seemed, from a distance, to have been streaks of paint, were in fact strips of torn, brightly-dyed red and green cloth, tied together with yards of ribbon, that had been wound round the edifice in a way that looked entirely haphazard.

Daniel was gazing mystified at all this when Marc called out from almost under his feet, ‘There’s something down here with writing on, but I can’t read what it says.’ The boy was crouching down, peering at something close to the ground on one side of the — ‘monument’ — Daniel could still think of nothing better to call it. He went and stood next to his son.

A stone tablet, like a simple, unornamented gravestone, was trapped behind the iron railings. The thrust of enormous pressure from the swollen trees behind had cracked it diagonally in two places, and shifted the sections upwards and apart. Close to, it was possible to see some kind of inscription had been cut deeply in the stone. Daniel squatted down to try to make out what was written. ‘I can read the letters, but it doesn’t make sense. It’s foreign, isn’t it Dad?’

‘It must be, I guess, but God knows what language that is.’ A lot of the individual letters were hidden behind the railings, and the surface of the stone had flaked away in places, but, from what remained, it was obvious to Daniel that the original must have been almost unpronounceable.

‘—jabber-jabber-jabber,’ Marc chanted, in exaggerated mockery. ‘Try reading it aloud, Dad. It makes your tongue hurt.’

Daniel grinned, but didn’t take up the invitation. He’d given up trying to decipher the memorial message, if that was what it was. Finding solutions to pointless puzzles didn’t interest him.

Marc reached up, took hold of the stump of a lopped-off branch of one of the trees, clambered up on to the horizontal iron band through which the tops of the railings protruded, then started cautiously tugging at the tendrils that encrusted the half-emerged figure.

‘Watch out for thorns on that thing up there,’ Daniel warned, sure that the plant that covered it was some kind of briar.

‘It’s okay. There’s no problem. They all grow inwards.’

‘What? Are you sure?’

Marc didn’t like it when his father doubted his word. ‘It’s true,’ he protested, tearing away whole sections of the plant with the tips of his fingers. ‘See for yourself. All the spikes point towards the middle.’

Daniel climbed part of the way up until his face was close to the lowest sections of the briar-like growth that seemed to sprout from around the base of the figure they concealed, and saw that the boy was right. ‘That’s unusual,’ he observed. ‘Plants like that grow spikes to protect themselves — against cattle, or people like you and me, for instance, who might want to root them out and destroy them.’

‘With all the thorns pointing that way,’ the boy said thoughtfully, ‘it’s as though they’re trying to keep something in, down there between the trees.’

Daniel grunted noncommittally. His arms, supporting most of his weight, had quickly grown tired, and he dropped back to the ground. Marc, however, climbed higher until he stood on the crest of the ‘monument’, held on to the upraised arm of the enclosed figure, and yelled out joyfully, as though he had attained the top of an Alp.

Almost at once, to his and his father’s surprise, his call was answered: someone yelled back, in what could have been elation. Daniel and Marc twisted round to face the sound.

Because he was standing chest-deep in the pit, and the ground around him rose in all directions, Daniel couldn’t see much more than the slope of the field in front of him, a stretch of the wall that enclosed it, and the tops of a few trees beyond. Whoever had shouted was presumably on the other side of the wall, some distance back, and thus out of his sight.

The shout came again, sounding louder and sharper.

‘Who’s there? Can you see, Marc?’

The boy, still clasping the upraised hand of the statue, was up on tiptoes, bending towards the sound. ‘I think it’s a woman.’

‘Are you sure? It sounds like a man.’

‘I know. But if it is, he’s wearing a dress.’

‘What kind of dress?’

‘Green and red. Very long and loose. The wind’s flapping it about, like a big flag.’

‘There isn’t any wind, Marc: there hasn’t been all day.’ Daniel started to climb back up to join his son.

The voice called out again.

‘I think it’s shouting at us, Dad.’

‘Whoever it is wants us out of here,’ Daniel decided.

‘He doesn’t sound unfriendly.’

‘Even so, I think we ought to go.’

Daniel had hauled himself up almost to the top of the monument and turned in the direction his son had been looking. He saw, some distance beyond the wall, what seemed to be a large article of clothing that had been blown off a washing line by a gale, flapping and fluttering towards him. It was almost impossible to make out the human shape that must be in there somewhere. Some of the movements indicated the actions of hidden arms and legs, but the head remained invisible.

Marc, alarmed by the anxiety in his father’s voice, made a hasty move to climb down, then seemed to panic. The lower sleeve of his jacket had become entwined in the briars surrounding the part of the statue he had been trying to uncover.

‘It’s got me,’ he said. ‘It won’t let go.’

He snatched and tugged wildly at the plant, calling out to his father for help. A section of the briars suddenly snapped, causing him to lose balance. He toppled down against Daniel, and the pair of them, with nothing to cling to, slithered down the sides of the trees to the ground.

Neither was worse than shaken by the fall. Marc got up at once and, without speaking, ran off towards the gate. Daniel looked back towards the wall. A section of green and red striped fabric billowed over the top briefly, then vanished. Daniel waited to see if it would reappear. When, after half a minute, it hadn’t, he shrugged, and trudged out of the pit in pursuit of his son. He was angry now, for allowing himself to become so flustered by what was probably some local eccentric in fancy dress, and cross with Marc for overreacting. They must both have looked very foolish to the character in the striped gown, whoever it was. He was half inclined to seek out and confront the culprit, but then remembered the peculiar way that person’s garments had swirled about in air that was totally still, and thought again.

Marc was waiting for him on the other side of the gate, inspecting the damage done to his jacket.

‘That wasn’t a good idea, Dad. We shouldn’t have done that.’

Daniel noticed his son avoided his eye. He said, ‘Well, no harm’s done.’

As if he wasn’t too sure about that, Marc plunged his hands into his pockets and hauled his shoulders up closer to his ears in a truculent gesture. ‘I’m hungry now,’ he complained. ‘Can we go and eat?’

Daniel realized he’d left the packed lunch his ex-wife had provided in the car. The heat in there would not have done it any good.

‘Let’s get back,’ he said. He pointed down a different street to the one they had taken into the village. ‘I think if we go down there, it should be a short cut.’

Marc was clearly not enthusiastic about this proposal, but he said, ‘Can we go then, Dad? Away from this place. Please?’

‘Okay,’ Daniel said, finally defeated.

‘That wasn’t a short cut,’ Marc complained a quarter of an hour later. ‘We’re lost, aren’t we?’

‘You can’t really say that, in a little village like this, but, yes, we seem to have lost our bearing at the moment.’

‘We’ve been walking twice as long as it took to get to that field already.’

‘It just seems like that because you’re hungry.’

‘And thirsty.’

Daniel decided not to admit that he was too.

An elderly man was coming slowly towards them: the first pedestrian they had seen for some time.

‘Ask that bloke the way back to the car,’ Marc urged.

They stopped and waited for the man to reach them. His movements were circumspect and indecisive. At the last moment, when he was about six feet away, he must have sensed their presence, and he looked up. His face shocked them both. He was very old, bent and tiny: his features seemed half obliterated by time. His nose was almost flat, like a partly raised flap in the centre of his face, but had huge nostrils; his lips were so thin and withdrawn as to be virtually absent, and his round, creamy eyes looked blank. He was screwing up his eyes to get the two figures in front of him in focus. His contorted expression would have been comical if it had not also indicated that he was confused and alarmed. Assuming the man felt threatened, and aware that Marc looked intimidating, like the archetypal hooligan, Daniel made his face look friendly.

‘Excuse me,’ he said. ‘We’re trying to find our car. I left it near a pub down by the river.’

The old man shook his head as though Daniel’s words were outrageous, incredible.

‘No, no,’ he said. ‘I’ve nothing to say to you. Off you go. Carry on.’

Marc moved a couple of steps towards him. ‘We’re lost, mister,’ he explained. ‘We don’t know where we are. We just want to get out of here.’

‘I can’t help you.’

‘But you live here, don’t you?’ Daniel said. ‘You’re a resident?’

The man made no answer to this. ‘Go up to the church,’ he said. ‘You’ll find someone there who’ll show you where to go.’

Daniel was becoming annoyed. ‘All we need is directions to our car. Which way is the river?’

‘You don’t understand,’ the man said. ‘The river runs all around.’

Marc was about to speak again, but Daniel waved a hand to stop him. ‘Okay,’ he said, ‘we’ll go to the church. We’ll ask there. Where is it?’

‘Keep walking the way you were going,’ the old man said, as though it was obvious. ‘You’ll see it.’

Repressing his anger at the old fool’s discourtesy, Daniel pushed Marc ahead of him. The man cowered away as they passed. Daniel looked back after they had gone a little way and saw he was feebly fiddling with the latch of a gate. ‘I knew he was a local. Ignorant old bugger.’

They trudged on uphill for five minutes before they heard people talking nearby. It was a relief to have the vast, seemingly solid silence broken by something other than the sounds of their own feet. The voices called to each other quietly but urgently, as though instructions were being transmitted over small distances. There were also various tappings and frutterings: work, of some kind, was in progress.

A short footpath leading off the road to the right pointed towards the apparent source of these sounds. A high, thick hedge concealed this place, but a lych-gate, very similar to the one Daniel and his son had climbed over earlier, offered ingress to whatever lay beyond.

Marc, panting and sweating from the uphill climb, dropped down on a grass verge and stretched out on his back. ‘I need a rest, Dad,’ he said.

Daniel saw the boy’s damp, swollen face and worried again about his physical state. At that age, he was sure, he could have walked all day and thought nothing of it. He hoped Marc’s flabby, flaccid condition, and resentful, peevish attitude were things he would grow out of soon. He said, ‘Take it easy for a while, then. I’ll go and see what’s happening over there, and try and find someone with enough sense to tell us how to find the car.’

‘Okay.’ Marc clasped his hands behind his head and shut his eyes.

This second gate was half open. As Daniel pushed it wider and passed through, a little old lady, sitting next to it at a green baize-covered card-table, rose out of the chair beneath her as if to welcome him. Daniel returned her polite smile, but came to a halt when she held up a hand to restrain him.

‘You are just a little early,’ she said, speaking slowly and precisely. She gazed along the length of some shadows stretching across the ground towards her, thoughtfully, as though she were making some calculation. ‘We are not quite ready for you yet. We don’t start until ten past two.’

That seemed a peculiar time to start anything. Automatically, Daniel glanced at his watch and saw it was one fifty-six. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said, ‘but I didn’t realize. Some kind of event is about to take place, is that it?’

‘Of course.’ The woman turned and indicated the area behind her. ‘As you can see,’ she added.

Daniel looked beyond her and found he had entered a large private garden. The design was basic, with a long rectangular stretch of sloping lawn, surrounded on all sides by hedged beds of the usual domestic flowers, leading away towards an unattractive two-storied modern red-brick house. A row of trees formed a curtain behind this dwelling, through which could be seen sections of what was probably an even uglier, off-white, and apparently featureless building beyond. A thin tower attached to this edifice rose a good way above the trees that surrounded it.

On the lawn, at various points, there was orderly activity. A number of stalls had been set out and a group of men were putting the finishing touches to the erection of a big sun-faded green canvas tent; stretching the final guy-ropes and hammering home tent pegs to secure them. Members of a small brass band were emerging from a side door of the red house and forming a cluster at the far end of the garden, blowing gently into their instruments and resting sheets of music on flimsy metal stands. The musicians, male and female, were buttoned tight into old-fashioned, cheerful-looking, but probably uncomfortably hot jackets with wide, vertical red and green stripes. Each one wore a red cap.

‘There’s going to be some kind of fête or bazaar,’ Daniel observed. ‘Good! I hadn’t realized.’

Feeling quite pleased with the way things were turning out, because, at such an event, there were bound to be stalls where he and Marc could buy cakes, sandwiches and tea or maybe even, in the tent, beer to drink, Daniel said, ‘I’ll wait then, since it’s only a few minutes. My son’s over there,’ he explained, unnecessarily.

‘Yes,’ the woman said. ‘I know. We saw you both from a long way off.’

‘Did you?’ Daniel wondered about the ‘we’ since the woman was alone and none of the other people assembled in the garden could have seen his approach up the hill through the gate in the tall hedge.

The woman gave him another tranquil smile.

‘We have been observing your progress,’ she said, giving her quizzical expression another twist, and Daniel remembered the peculiarly dressed figure Marc and he had seen, that had called to them when they had climbed the ‘monument’. Presumably, word of their presence had spread that way. It must be a very lonely village indeed, he reflected, where news of such a non-event was instantly turned into hot gossip.

Daniel went back to where he had left Marc, who seemed to be asleep. The sun shone full on his face, but he’d only been there a few minutes, so Daniel knew he was unlikely to come to harm. The child was rarely in the open air, and strong sunlight might even help clear up his acned complexion.

Daniel sat down himself, leaned back against a tree, and enjoyed, for the first time that day, some contentment.

Back in the garden, very softly, the band began to play. They experimented with the first few bars of some jaunty, folky tune then fell silent again.

It was odd, Daniel reflected, that there were no people making their way towards him up the hill: one would expect the population of the dull little hamlet to turn out in force for any kind of diversion. He wondered if most of the village was in fact uninhabited: many of the houses did have a look of shut-up vacancy. Perhaps most of them were second homes, used by the well-off only occasionally, or untenanted holiday cottages. He had heard of cases where whole villages had become depopulated because most of the properties had been bought up by outside investors. This idea made him feel a little better about his experiences since he had arrived at. Where? He realized he didn’t even know the name of the place! Anyway, the deep, awesome silence, that still surrounded him on almost every side was no longer quite so inexplicable and disturbing. It was, of course, quite natural, and only-to-be-expected, if the village was almost deserted.

Just before ten past two Daniel roused Marc and told him what was about to happen. The boy, who had not attended a similar function before, seemed nervous at the prospect. Daniel did his best to explain what lay before them as they wandered to and through the lych-gate that now stood wide open. Daniel offered a handful of change to the waiting woman, but she said there was no entry charge.

As father and son stepped on to the lawn, the band struck up with audible enthusiasm. Daniel was mildly surprised to find that they seemed to be the only visitors so far. In fact, there were fewer people about than there had been earlier, when he had watched some of the last-minute preparations for the event. Perhaps the helpers he had seen then had withdrawn into the marquee to refresh themselves: he could hear the murmur of voices from that direction.

The first stall he came to was covered in tumbling heaps of White Elephants. Daniel paused dutifully as he passed, but hurried on when the over-anxious assistant stooped to retrieve various articles he dislodged when he clumsily lifted a faded lampshade at the bottom of one of the piles of sad junk. He bought five tickets at an instant raffle of bottles of wine and spirits and bathroom soaps and medications, but won nothing, then moved on to a book stall covered in old, valuable looking volumes mostly in a foreign language. The printed words looked to be in the same language as the inscription on the base of the monument, or whatever it was he and Marc had discovered. He wanted to ask about this, but the stall was unattended: a tin with a slot cut into the top, next to a small sign saying CONTRIBUTIONS GRATEFULLY ACCEPTED acted as a receptacle for self-assessed donations. Daniel nearly purchased a book, out of curiosity, but it was surprisingly heavy, as though its leather bindings concealed lead covers. He decided he did not want to be burdened by it for the rest of the day, put it down, and moved on.

Next was some kind of game he couldn’t understand, but had a go at nevertheless. The rather glum, shifty-looking man behind the trestle table told him, when asked, it was called ‘Lost and Found’. It involved a large number of brightly covered cards spread over a white sheet, and a vertical board, nailed to the trunk of a nearby tree, on which had been drawn a diagram of baffling complexity. Daniel paid the man fifty pence, and was told to select three of the cards and turn them over slowly, one by one. On the reverse of the first was written ‘LOST’. The man took it from him and, referring to the design on the board, traced a path along the centre of it with his finger. When he came to a stop, he turned and said, ‘Very good, sir: excellent,’ and reached out for the second card. Daniel was slightly dispirited to find, as he handed it over, it also had ‘LOST’ on the back. The man seemed to cheer up a little when he saw it, however, and turned eagerly back to his chart. He used two fingers to plot converging courses this time, and gave a grunt of what sounded like triumph when the tips of them came together at the top right-hand corner of the board. He actually smirked at Daniel then, and said, ‘And the next one sir? Is it going to be third time lucky?’

‘I hope so,’ Daniel said, trying to smile back. But his heart sank as he turned the final card, because he was sure he was going to see the word ‘LOST’ again.

He was wrong.

‘“FOUND”,’ he read aloud, sounding absurdly relieved. ‘There you are,’ he added as he handed the card over, as though some kind of bargain had been struck.

‘And there you are, sir,’ the man said as he accepted it. This time he hardly consulted the board: after glancing at it in mild puzzlement for a second, he stabbed a finger towards a point in the centre of the design, then held up the card — and called out, ‘Congratulations — well done. You’ve won something, sir.’

At this, quiet clapping sounded nearby. Daniel glanced around and saw that more visitors must have entered the garden. Half a dozen or so close by were watching him, nodding their heads sombrely in approval, and bringing their hands carefully together.

‘Would the boy like to choose a prize?’ the stall assistant asked, looking almost jovial now. He held out a box full of objects identically gift-wrapped in gold and silver paper, like birthday presents.

Marc, who had been standing some paces back from the table in an attempt to disassociate himself from his father’s activities, shook his head and tugged at his hat with both hands in embarrassment.

‘You’re all right,’ he muttered awkwardly, ‘I’m not bothered.’

‘Oh, come on, Marc.’ Daniel was aware of the small audience around them, and anxious to move on to where they would not be the centre of attention. ‘Pick one out, and we’ll go and find something to eat. Let’s get on.’

For a moment it looked as though the boy was going to refuse to comply. At the first sight of rebellion the stallholder’s face took on an impatient, intolerant look. He stepped forward and thrust the box towards Marc, who gave way immediately. He blushed, snatched the nearest prize, and held it out to his father. Daniel grabbed his arm and steered him away towards the big tent.

‘Don’t you want to see what you’ve won?’ Marc asked.

‘We can open it later. If it’s any good, you can have it.’

‘It’ll just be rubbish,’ Marc complained. ‘Something useless.’

‘You never know,’ Daniel said, aware, however, that his son was right. They would probably end up throwing his ‘prize’ away.

They had to walk around the tent twice before they found the way in. The entrance was a flap that hung closed and almost invisible in the dark shadows cast by the descending sun. Daniel pulled it aside and peered in.

About a dozen small, stocky men were gathered together at one end of the marquee, drinking beer from disposable plastic tumblers. They stood in a line along a makeshift bar, with their backs towards the two newcomers. They were talking quietly but somewhat excitedly to each other with the easy familiarity of the long-acquainted. Locals, Daniel thought, probably village-born: they’d be sure to be able to tell him how to find his way back to his car. He stooped and stepped into the tent, then turned and waited for Marc to join him.

The air inside smelt of old canvas and trampled grass, and was cool, sharp and agricultural. The boy entered suspiciously, glancing covertly about him as though he feared he might be entering a trap. Daniel smiled sadly at this display of adolescent unease, and wished he could say or do something to quell his son’s excessive self-consciousness and irrational and seemingly habitual anxiety.

A couple of the men moved aside as Daniel reached the bar, but not very far, as though they were none too keen to make way. They seemed incurious about the visitors, and otherwise ignored them. Daniel postponed asking about his car for the moment, and bought a pint of pale, soapy looking beer for himself and cola for Marc. There was no food on offer. They sat at a skimpy table some distance from the other drinkers, on metal chairs with thin legs that dug into the ground under their weight.

‘That sinking feeling,’ Daniel thought ruefully. He sipped his beer. It was flat but sharp, like brine. Undrinkable. So far, the day had been a failure: Marc would certainly have preferred to have stayed at home. They should have gone bowling, as usual. Marc was simply not interested in the countryside: to the city boy, it was like a foreign land, and a hostile one at that.

‘Looks as though they’re going to put on some kind of play,’ Marc said, after he had observed the assembled men for a while. ‘Two of them are wearing masks, I think.’

Daniel turned and followed Marc’s line of vision, towards four of the men at the far end of the bar. They were standing very close together and bending forward so their faces were hidden.

‘The two in the middle,’ Marc said, speaking very quietly. ‘You won’t be able to see them from where you’re sitting, but I can, just.’

After tugging his chair out of the soft turf Daniel edged closer to his son. As if aware of his stratagem, the men bunched even closer, though they were still looking away and could not have caught the movements behind them.

‘Perhaps they’re mummers, Marc,’ Daniel suggested. ‘Amateur actors. They perform old folk plays,’ he explained, when he saw the boy’s look of incomprehension. ‘A bit like pantomimes, that sort of thing, with lots of fooling about.’

‘Their masks aren’t very funny. They’re weird. They look like fish.’

Daniel nodded. ‘That’s about right. Probably goes back to nature worship — giving thanks for the creatures of the field and stream. Or maybe it’s religious, what they call a mystery play — Noah’s Ark, and the animals going in two by two.’

‘I didn’t know he had fish on board.’

‘Well, perhaps not,’ Daniel admitted. ‘The Flood wouldn’t have troubled them, I don’t suppose. Though some of them might have got stranded in some strange places when the waters went down.’

Marc shrugged. He was still studying the four men. ‘The others aren’t wearing masks.’

‘They may put them on later. I expect your face gets hot under one of those things on a day like this.’

Marc grimaced and pushed his half-empty glass of cola to the centre of the table. ‘You were going to ask the way to the car.’

‘Yup; you’re right. We should be going.’

Feeling, nevertheless, rather irresolute, Daniel rose again from his sunken seat and approached the person nearest to him at the bar.

‘Excuse me.’ He tapped the man lightly on the arm, then repeated the request for directions he had made to the elderly pedestrian earlier. There was no immediate response, though the man tensed, so Daniel knew he had made some kind of contact. He remained where he was, aware that he loomed rather over the assembled company. He deliberately laid a hand on the counter where he knew it would be seen by the person standing beside him, and drummed his fingers hopefully on the beer-soaked wooden surface. At last the man swivelled round from the hips, looked up, and gave Daniel a hard stare. He had a raw, red face, cracked at angles around the nose and mouth like old leather, and tiny, round eyes: very tiny eyes, Daniel thought, and felt himself gasp as he looked into them. About the same size and shape as his thumb nail, they were as insensate and uncomprehending as stones, and shone brightly, as though they had been polished. Daniel dropped his own gaze away from them at once, down to the man’s mouth, that was slowly opening.

Nearby, someone began to chatter in what sounded like a foreign language. The man next to Daniel, speaking backwards over his shoulder, answered in the same tongue. The men exchanged a few short sentences, their voices clicking and clucking like angry chickens, or so it seemed to Daniel’s ears, then both fell silent. The person Daniel had originally addressed turned back towards his companion then, deliberately, in a gesture positively dismissive of himself, Daniel thought.

He was annoyed with this treatment, but alarmed as well. At first, he had half-suspected the men were speaking in made-up gibberish, to make fun of him, but the absolute lack of any sign of humour in their expressions; in their lack, indeed, of recognizable emotions on their faces at all; and the absence of any motive to mock him that he could think of, made him doubt the truth of that surmise. And the man’s little eyes! Those utterly strange crystalline eyes that had registered absolutely nothing when they had been turned towards him, as though he had been invisible!

Except to turn to look at him, the man had totally ignored him, though he suspected he was the subject of the exchange of speech that had then ensued.

Now feeling almost desperately in need of the simple information he had been seeking, Daniel was tempted to move down the line of men and try again with someone else. Then he remembered Marc’s observation that some of those at the far end were perhaps wearing masks. It occurred to him that the person he had just approached, seen from some distance, might have been thought to have been wearing a mask too, so rigid had been his features. He leaned forwards over the bar and looked down its length, along the front of the line of men, who were all a good six inches or more shorter than himself, in an attempt to get a better angle to take a look at them individually. As he moved, they did too, as though they were joined together by wires.

No, Daniel thought — not quite like that: more like a shoal of fish dipping and turning away through clear water in formation, with perfect coordination, as though they could read each other’s thoughts and intentions!

And, by implication, his, as well.

Though none of them had been looking in his direction, they had changed position in such a way, and so expertly, that he could not see any part of any one of their faces.

He experimented one more time, pushing himself even further forward, with the same result. Each of the little men at once adjusted his posture so as to conceal his own and his nearest companion’s features.

They’re all wearing masks, Daniel thought. Or none of them are. That’s what they’re hiding. None of them have real faces!

He stumbled back away from the bar and spoke Marc’s name sharply. The boy jumped to his feet in consternation at the tone of his father’s voice.

Daniel grabbed his son and hauled him towards the exit flap, which, as they approached it, bulged towards them as someone pushed through into the marquee from the outside. A figure emerged rather hurriedly. A man about five feet tall, his head thatched with layers of short grey hair, with a long, bone-thin, but otherwise normal, mobile face, stood just inside the tent in front of Daniel and Marc. He was not so much clothed as enwrapped, or self-enshrouded, in a full-length cape of some dark, drab material he gripped close about him, and through which only his head and scrawny wrists and hands protruded, his feet being hidden by folds of cloth that trailed the ground around him. The man barred their way by his presence, but there was nothing overtly threatening about him. He held out both hands in front of him at waist height in what could have been a gesture of benediction, then moved one hand further forward purposefully. Somewhat reluctantly, Daniel took it and shook it. The man smiled broadly, arching his eyes in a way that gave him a slightly ludicrous, even clownish, look.

‘Welcome, welcome,’ he gushed, in a high, buzzing voice. ‘It’s good of you to come and support our little gathering. I hope you’ve been having fun.’

Fun? Daniel looked the man in the eyes searching for signs of mockery, or, at least, of irony. He saw none.

‘We just happened to be passing through,’ he explained, ‘and stopped to take a look round. We didn’t come specially to attend this. event.’

The man shook his head sorrowfully. ‘We get so few visitors here,’ he complained. ‘It’s such an out-of-the-way spot. We are, all of us here, in some sense, refugees from the world, if the truth be known, and perhaps a little too isolated. It’s only rarely that anyone discovers our existence, and comes amongst us. When we are discovered, and someone wanders into our community from outside, it’s always a time of great excitement for us. And sadly, very sadly, nobody ever comes back. It’s such a difficult place to find, and people like yourself forget about our existence so easily, so quickly.’

Daniel thought the man must be exaggerating wildly, and wondered if he was quite right in the head. The sample section of the population he had met seemed anything but excited to see visitors.

‘We got lost, actually. Found this place by accident.’

‘Quite so.’

‘Then we mislaid our car.’

‘Really!’ The man made it sound like a clever thing to do.

‘I’d appreciate some help,’ Daniel admitted. ‘Some directions.’

‘Of course you would,’ the man agreed. ‘I can understand that.’

‘We searched about, but seemed to be going round in circles.’

‘Well, yes; you probably were. It’s a maze of a place, our village. It couldn’t be more difficult to find your way about. It’s almost as though it had been designed to confuse.’ All this was said in a cheerful, matter-of-fact way, but was hardly helpful, Daniel thought.

‘We parked the car by the river,’ he said. ‘If you could point us in that direction?’

‘No problem at all.’ The man smiled benignly. ‘The simplest thing in the world.’ He had released his grasp of the huge cloak he was draped in when he had shaken hands. Gradually, it had fallen loose around his neck to reveal a dog-collar. A grubby, grey and frayed dog-collar. ‘The only difficulty is, which part of the river?’ he continued. ‘It flows all around, you see.’

Daniel had heard that before. ‘It can hardly flow all around,’ he protested.

‘I assure you it does,’ the reverend gentleman insisted. ‘Quite literally so. Round and round and round.’

‘Dad!’ Marc sounded angry and impatient. Daniel turned towards him. The boy pulled a crazy face, tapped his left temple, and inclined his head towards the man in the dog-collar.

The vicar saw this, and grinned brightly. Slowly, with smooth motions, he placed his hands together across his chest as though he was about to pray, audibly took a deep breath, then abruptly reached forward and thrust out his hands so the tips of his index fingers just touched Marc’s forehead in the centre, directly above his nose. The boy stood fixed to the spot for a moment, then he gasped and reacted belatedly by jerking his head back seconds after the contact had been made. Daniel turned towards the priest to protest at what could have been an aggressive action, but, as he did so Marc dodged swiftly round the figure in front of them and exited through the flap in the canvas. Daniel, after a brief hesitation, followed him. The vicar, who made no attempt to obstruct either of them, followed Daniel.

Marc was almost running now, past the front of the red brick house close to which the now absent band had been playing. Daniel had no choice but to pursue him. Unabashed, the man in the cloak trotted beside him.

‘I think the boy must be anxious to visit hallowed ground,’ he said. ‘He’s heading in that direction. Your son, I assume?’

Daniel grunted in acknowledgment of this fact.

‘A fine lad. He’ll find plenty to amuse him in our place of worship if he’s interested in that sort of thing.’

‘He isn’t. Not even slightly. As far as I know, he’s never been inside a church in his life.’

‘Really?’ The little man seemed to sneer, then took command of himself and forced his face back into its customary expression of excessive good humour. ‘Well, I suppose there must be many young people like that nowadays. We are all regular attendees here, of course. We’re holding a service very soon, as it happens. I’m on my way to prepare for it now. I hope you’ll join us.’

‘I’d rather be on my way out of this place.’

‘But your son has other ideas, I think.’

‘You’re wrong. I’m certain he hasn’t the slightest interest in your bloody church.’

‘We shall see,’ the vicar said amiably, apparently unoffended by Daniel’s deliberate rudeness.

Ahead of them a bare, gaunt, ugly building had become visible through the trees at the back of the garden. Its walls had a sickly green colour, and it had a red tiled roof. At first it looked nothing like a church, but Daniel saw that its windows were of stained glass, and that it was situated at the edge of a tiny graveyard containing perhaps a couple of dozen weather-worn tombstones. Then, with a shock, he realized why the bleak, slab-sided building was so lacking in ecclesiastical charisma: the outer surface of the walls had been coated with what looked like cement. To keep out the damp, presumably. Pale green moss or lichen had grown over most of this cladding, creating an unpleasant, messy, musty effect. Daniel thought, as he drew nearer to the place, he could detect a concomitant odour of damp rottenness in the air. A tall tower, like a fat chimney with many unglazed windows, was attached to one corner of the building.

Marc disappeared briefly behind some shrubbery, then re-emerged near a gate in the fence at the back of the garden. Here he paused briefly and looked back, then slipped through the gate into the graveyard beyond.

Two slender, stooping, darkly dressed figures came out of the church and stood close to the porch in front of the open door. They were looking towards Marc as though they were expecting him to arrive at that moment: had, indeed, been waiting for him. This was somewhat disconcerting, but there was nothing very alarming about their appearance: from their movements they seemed to be a rather frail, elderly couple. Vergers, probably, but the sight of them caused Daniel’s heart to trip in a sudden and poignant surge of apprehension. For no obvious reason, he was suddenly concerned for his son’s physical safety. He came to a stop, to consider his position.

He found he was still holding the prize he had won earlier. The thing had come partially unwrapped, and he was able to see what it was; a model of the object he and Marc had discovered soon after they had arrived in the village, that he had decided was some kind of monument. About fifteen inches long, it was well made, with very finely worked details, he noticed, even down to the lettering on the broken stone tablet at the base. It was made of some yellow metal that shone like gold. The figure emerging from the base, stripped, in the representation, of the clinging briars that masked the actual object, was rendered with fastidious care. It appeared to be that of a victorious warrior, and certainly not an angel. The projections on its back could have been rudimentary wings, though they more resembled fins. Its minute face pulled tight in an expression of gleeful, vindictive triumph, snarled up at Daniel, baring its tiny sharp teeth. Its one raised fist appeared to stab the air victoriously. It looked somehow familiar, and it took Daniel a few moments to realize it could have been a portrait of the seemingly demented clergyman as a much younger man. He considered hurling the ugly thing away, but something made him finally reluctant to do that, and he rewrapped it as best he could and stuffed it upside down into his pocket.

The vicar, meanwhile, had marched on towards the church, presumably to participate in the forthcoming service he had mentioned. There was no sign of Marc now, or the two old people who had positioned themselves outside the building, and the vicar, well ahead and striding swiftly, would soon reach the church himself. Daniel started after him, but he knew there was no hope of catching up with the man before he vanished inside. As he entered the graveyard he heard a loud noise in front of him and assumed the vicar had slammed the door shut behind him. Daniel guessed it would be locked when he reached it, and found he was correct in that assumption. He rattled the latch, twisted the big iron handle, and thumped the solid, heavy wooden door with the palm of his hand, to no effect.

He was used to the idea that many country churches were kept locked most of the time for fear of burglars, but he had never heard of anyone shutting in the congregation! He suspected there were people inside, though he had not actually seen anyone enter. Probably a large proportion of the population of the village were gathered there. And where else could his son have gone, unless he was hiding behind one of the gravestones? No: Daniel was sure the boy had long since grown out of such foolishness: at his age, he was too self-conscious and insecure to play infantile pranks.

It occurred to Daniel it would be a good idea to walk round the church to see if there was another entry. He soon discovered there was not, and found himself again confronting the door that was closed to him. Resisting the desire to try to force an entry, and realizing that would not be possible without the aid of a battering ram, he flung himself down on a nearby wooden seat, folded his arms, and glared angrily down at the ground in front of him. Then he noticed something he had missed before: on the paving stones on either side of the little porch that fronted the church, positioned just about on the spots where the two old people, the vergers, had been standing minutes earlier, were two dark patches of what at first he assumed was water. Curious, and with nothing better to do, he went over and squatted down to inspect one of the damp places. If it was basically water, it was mixed with something else — something that glistened slightly, that had a greenish hue a similar colour to the lichen that grew on the cement-clad walls of the church, and that had a pungent, bitter odour. There was a hint of ozone in the smell, and something else far more unpleasant. The liquid, whatever it was, was drying out quickly in the glare of the sun but, if it had come from the two old people, they must have been dripping wet: absolutely soaked in the stuff! And how they must have stunk! He would not have liked to be in an enclosed space with them.

Inside the church, for instance.

Daniel was now very concerned about Marc. Why had the vicar allowed the boy in, and shut him out? The man had invited them both to the service.

Then Daniel remembered that the dog-collar round the vicar’s neck had been worn almost threadbare, and was filthy.

Somewhere back in the garden the band began to play again. After a few seconds Daniel noticed the sound they were making was getting louder, and guessed they were on the march now, and heading towards the church. He stood gazing in their direction rather nervously, waiting for them to appear through the trees.

Daniel had left the gate that gave access to the churchyard open when he had passed through it. A man with a drum was the first of the musicians to reach it. He then came to a Halt. Small, thickset and ungainly, swaying slightly as he marched on the spot, he looked as though he was stewing inside his tight, thick uniform. His sweat-slicked face was mottled with poppy-red blotches and his angry little eyes, staring furiously at Daniel, looked as though they might crack and burst, like chilled eggs dropped in boiling water. The man whacked both sides of the drum in a way that suggested barely controlled fury with two leather tipped, dumbbell-like sticks, producing enough sound to drown out most of the noise made by the rest of the band, who, visible now, and approaching at a funereal pace, were still some way behind. From the position the man had taken, and his commanding, threatening posture, it seemed to Daniel that he had deliberately taken it upon himself to act as guardian of the gate: a sentinel who would not let anyone in or out. The fellow seemed to be challenging Daniel to try to pass through, if he dared!

Unable to allocate a cause for this behaviour, Daniel stood his ground, staring mildly back at the drummer and grinning awkwardly in bafflement at the man’s inexplicable and inappropriate aggressiveness. If he thought his grin might have some mellowing effect, he was wrong. The musician’s chest rose at the sight of it, his chin came up, and his whole figure seemed to expand and grow taller with pride — or was it triumph.?

Daniel’s smile froze slowly on his face as the rest of the band caught up with their leader, lined up behind him and began to march forward towards the church, because behind them, he saw, were many more people, also advancing towards him. They were spread out among the trees, and, looking around, Daniel saw they formed an arc as far as he could see: an arc that was almost certainly a section of a circle of men and women stretching all around the graveyard. By the time the possible significance of this fact had registered in his mind, Daniel found he was partly encircled by a second, much closer, arc of people, formed by members of the band. He had not given the musicians any attention before because he had no ear for, and was therefore unable to get pleasure from, music of any kind, but now, he realized, some of them were more than a little peculiar looking. Their faces were partly concealed by the brass instruments they were playing, so it was not possible to detect exactly what was wrong with the features of many of them, but the distortions were greater than one would expect from the normal effort required to produce notes, he thought.

The drummer now stood directly in front of Daniel, about ten feet away. His unrelenting pounding of the instrument was deafening at that distance: Daniel felt each beat like a blow against his own chest. The din made the ground beneath him quake and his knees shake, and even seemed to affect his bowels and stomach. The sounds the rest of the band were making were awful too, to his hearing, and had a worse effect on him than music normally did. Then he realized it wasn’t just the faces of the players that were strange; their instruments were unconventional, too. The valves were surely longer and thinner, the brass tubes twisted in over-ornate curves, and the bells pointed down and around in ways unlike other trumpets and trombones he had seen before. He could not be certain, because he didn’t trust his own ears, but he thought the range of tones produced was different to those obtained from normal instruments.

These reflections were driven from his mind when the entire band started to march forward, closing ranks as they did so, forcing him to back away towards the church. They advanced in a determined rather than menacing way. With the exception of the drummer, who continued to scowl directly at him, they had their eyes almost shut, and seemed to be concentrating totally on the production of the sounds they were making. Nevertheless, Daniel did feel menaced. He made some effort to brave it out and held his ground as long as he could, until they were close enough for him to reach out and touch. Then, trying to maintain as much dignity as possible, he turned and retreated.

Arid found himself moving towards the welcoming face and the outstretched arms of the priest. The man stood just in front of the now wide open door to the church. The musicians suddenly seemed to run out of steam. The music they were playing fell apart in discordant tatters as, one by one, in quick succession, they stopped playing. Within seconds a shocking silence returned — shocking, that was, to Daniel, who had been beginning to think the noise would never stop.

Into the silence, the priest said, ‘You look troubled. I hope our celebrations have not over-excited you. Perhaps you would like to enter our little sanctuary for a while, until you regain your composure.’ His voice was deadly calm, cold even, undermining, to some extent, the authenticity of his benign expression.

Daniel badly wanted to see inside the church, out of curiosity now, and because he expected to find Marc there, but, now he was invited to enter the building, he was reluctant to take up the offer. He felt totally confused by the circumstances he found himself in, in fact, and wanted to come to some understanding of recent events, within himself, before embarking on any further action.

He shook his head vacantly, as though he hoped to toss his disordered thoughts into some more meaningful pattern, then looked about him again. The people who, minutes earlier, he had seen advancing through the trees, had all reached the churchyard wall, and had come to a stop there. There were dozens of them and they formed a barricade through which Daniel knew he would not be able to pass without violence, if their intention was to obstruct him. And what other purpose could they have? They stood in silence, watching him patiently, but alertly, as though they were keen to see what his next move would be.

He was sure, now, that some preordained event, incomprehensible to, yet vitally involving, himself, had been set in motion, perhaps unconsciously, by his own actions.

He was anxious to understand the nature of his predicament.

It occurred to him that the only way he could discover what his part in this ritual was to be was to submit himself to the expectation and requirements of the people surrounding him. Reluctantly, he decided he would also have to put himself in the hands of the priest, who, his instincts told him, he could not trust. He could see no other option.

As he marched towards the vicar, who stepped back eagerly to let him pass, he noticed the man’s robe had fallen open at the front. Under it, he was wearing more ornate apparel: a flowing, silky vestment of vertical red and green stripes that billowed and squirmed around his stationary body as though it had a life of its own.

It was chilly, and darker than Daniel expected, inside the church. Instinctively, he knew he was not alone there, though as far as he could make out the few rows of narrow pews were empty. Very little of the bright sunlight outside passed through the filters of deeply coloured glass at the windows that were themselves partly covered by the green mould that clung to the outer walls.

A large number of ancient banners, draped apparently haphazardly from the rafters, hung down almost to the floor along the length of the aisle, forming a kind of maze. The fabric of the banners, embroidered with faded heraldic designs of great complexity, was ancient, tattered and rotten. Daniel had to push layer after layer of this dank material aside as he attempted to make his way towards the front of the church. Somewhere ahead he could hear water lapping, and twice he heard a gentle splashing sound that seemed quite out of place in such surroundings. Something large, he thought, was moving slowly and cautiously about in deep water somewhere in front of him: something that was perhaps aware of his presence in the building.

When the sound was repeated a third time, Daniel, who judged he was about halfway down the length of the church, stopped and called Marc’s name. There was no answer but, seconds later, he heard the creak of a door, and someone took a few hasty steps across the right hand corner of the church. Daniel called out again, his voice so loud now it startled him, then tried to run forward through the dangling confusion of banners to try to catch a glimpse of whoever was ahead of him. After a few moments, from the same distant quarter of the church, he heard a door slam shut. He scratched impatiently at the draperies that hindered him and concealed his view ahead, tearing some of them from their fixtures on the rafters. They fell behind him slowly and clumsily, with anguished sounds like heavy sighs, filling the air as they descended with a deeper, choking mustiness that entered Daniel’s nose and mouth and eyes. Brought to a halt by this polluting filth, he hawked and spat to clear his throat and wiped his eyes, in bewilderment as much as irritation. He was no longer quite sure which direction he was facing. He seemed to have walked a long way, at least the length of the church, as far as he could estimate from his memories of the size of the exterior of the building, and he wondered if he had turned back on himself. The sound of splashing, now sounding behind his left shoulder, seemed to confirm this suspicion, and he swivelled round and set off in that direction.

Seconds later he jerked one of the draperies aside and found no more ahead of him. He had reached an open, empty space at the end of the church. He’d expected to find some kind of altar there, but there was nothing of the kind apparent in the gloom. A splashing sound from somewhere near by drew his attention down to ground level and he saw he had come close to the edge of a large, rectangular pool of murky water. Ripples were spreading out from a point near the middle and lapping against the crudely cut stone sides of the pool, disturbing a crust of tiny grey-leaved plants that floated over the greater part of its surface.

After gazing at the steadily expanding ripples for some moments, Daniel dropped to his knees and dipped his cupped hands into the tepid water. He stooped forward and flung some of it over his face to clear away the dust and muck that had gathered there as he had made his way through the maze of curtains. The water, though refreshing, tasted foul on his lips, and had the same slightly offensive smell as the patches of dampness left by the old people who had been waiting for Marc outside the church.

Daniel was about to call out his son’s name again when he heard the boy’s voice shouting. It sounded muffled, from a long way off. The cry seemed to come from the sky. It took Daniel a few seconds to understand that the boy must somehow have found his way up into the tower. He shouted, ‘It’s all right, Marc. I’m here. Stay where you are. I’ll come and get you.’

An answering call, that sounded even further away, was incomprehensible, but it proved his voice had been heard. Marc would at least be reassured to know he was there.

Daniel looked around for some way into the tower. A single door, hard against the right hand side of the pool, was the only possible way into other parts of the building. It was accessible by a narrow path, about a foot wide, that surrounded the pool on three sides. Daniel ventured along it sideways, finding he had to slide his back along the wall because otherwise his wide shoulders threw him off balance. In spite of his feeling of urgency, he moved cautiously. He was very sure he did not want to tumble into the water and find himself in the company of whatever else it contained.

His disappointment at finding the door was locked and totally unresponsive to the small amount of leverage he was able to exert against it, from his precarious position, almost overwhelmed him. In frustration, he kicked it with his heels and thumped it with his fist, but didn’t even get the satisfaction of hearing it rattle on its hinges. At last, he squirmed back along the ledge and slumped to the floor by the side of the pool and stared down into its depths. He noticed something he had missed before: at one point a set of steep stone steps descended below the surface. The water was clearer than he had thought, and he was able to count down to as far as the seventh step before the rest became a blur.

Then he heard Marc’s voice calling again, sounding more demanding now. He decided to get out of the church to try to find some other way of getting to the boy. There may be some way up to him from outside. At least he should be able to see and talk to Marc through one of the tiny windows at the top of the tower.

Instead of pressing back through the ancient drapery, Daniel edged his way back along the wall of the church, much as he had along part of the perimeter of the pool. This sideways method of locomotion enabled him to locate the main door of the church without difficulty and he burst through it with some aggression, determined to deal with the vicar and whoever else might be waiting for him outside in whatever way he had to. He was ready for violence now.

It was perhaps fortunate, then, that he found nobody there to oppose him. All the people who had been gathered around the church, including the shabby clergyman, had withdrawn, vanished. He could hear the sound of the band some distance away, the piping and droning of their music becoming fainter as he listened.

He paced some yards away from the tower, turned, looked up, and shouted for Marc. Almost at once, the boy’s face appeared, framed in the highest of the narrow windows. ‘I’m all right, Dad,’ he called. ‘Don’t worry.’

‘Can you get down, Marc? Can you see any way out?’

‘I don’t want to get out. I like it here. They’re going to look after me. They want me to stay.’

‘What are you talking about, Marc? I don’t understand. Who wants you to stay?’

Marc stepped back a little from the window. ‘You know. You saw them — the people who live here.’

Daniel found he was almost inarticulate with anger. He spluttered as he spoke. ‘I don’t care what they want. You’re coming with me, if I can get you out. I have to take you home.’

Marc shook his head. As far as Daniel could see, the boy looked happy. That, in itself, was annoying.

‘I’m never going to leave this place, Dad,’ Marc said patiently, as though Daniel was the child and he the father. ‘And there’s no way you can make me. Get out yourself, while you can. They’ll let you go now, at once, but they might change their minds at any minute. And I warn you, if they do, they can be terrible. ’

Daniel remembered the tiny, round, stone-cold eyes of the people he’d come close to, and shuddered. He became afraid. The calm tone of his son’s voice scared him, too.

‘I can see a long way from up here,’ Marc said, in a nonchalant, dreamy voice. ‘It’s true about the river running all around. It’s a very wide river. The village is surrounded by water in all directions, as far as I can see.’

Daniel concluded that either he or Marc was mad. In an effort to cling to his own sanity, he shouted, ‘Never mind all that. Can you see the car?’

‘Of course I can. Very clearly.’

‘Where is it?’

Marc held his hand in front of his face and pointed. ‘There. Where we left it.’

‘How do I get to it?’

‘Just follow the path beyond the gate. Takes you straight to it, Dad.’

Daniel found he believed the boy unquestioningly. The car would be where he said, at the end of the path. The thing to do now was to get out, and come back later with reinforcements to set Marc free. There was nothing that he, Daniel, could do alone, in the face of his son’s stubborn rejection of his offers of assistance.

‘I’m going, then, Marc, but don’t worry — I’ll be back soon. I’ll bring help.’

He thought he heard Marc laugh in an easy, light, and totally uncharacteristic way, but the boy made no further comment. He waved his hand, and stepped back into the tower. Daniel didn’t wait to see if his son would reappear. He ran off down the path as quickly as he could, as though he feared he might be pursued by.

He knew not what.

He found the car easily, as Marc had said he would, and drove out of the village without trouble.

Heading back towards the town from which he had collected his son earlier that day, Daniel’s heart and mind were full of slow-burning anger, outrage and confusion. He felt some mean but astonishingly skilful trick had been played on him. And he felt tormented. Somewhere, at that moment, he was being laughed at, he was sure: his defeat and consequent retreat were being mocked by the inhabitants of the village whose sleight-of-hand vanishing trick had deprived him of his son and, at the same time, his dignity and self-respect. What promises had they made to Marc? What had they offered him that had captivated the boy? What had they got to give that he hadn’t?

He was determined to get his revenge. Even though, as far as he knew, no actual crime had been committed, he would report Marc missing to the police and force them to investigate every building in the village, drive out the inhabitants from wherever they were hiding, and compel them to return Marc to him.

And, if any harm had been done to the boy.? Daniel’s mind winced away from the thought. He would try to deal with that eventuality, if and when he had to.

For a while he couldn’t decide if he ought to go to his wife first, before he involved the police. Then he realized that he was late in returning the boy: Emma would have become concerned about Marc’s whereabouts a long time ago, and may well have informed the police herself. She may even have thought that he, Daniel, had snatched their son away: he had never concealed his dissatisfaction, contempt even, of the way she had brought the child up, or his own conviction that he could have done a much better job of it!

Daniel found he had been driving very slowly, almost in a daze. He shook himself awake and put on some speed, suddenly keen and anxious to confront his wife. He wanted to see how she would react when he told her the news. Would she blame him? Would she hate him? Both these things, probably, and more. Daniel felt the beginnings of something like joy stirring inside him, which increased along with the exhilaration of speed as he drove faster and faster. At one point it occurred to him that if he made one sharp movement of the steering wheel to the left or right he would hit one or other of the high walls he was passing on either side — and he would undoubtedly the instantly, and in a spectacular way. He gave this exciting possibility all his attention for a while, but, by the time he had decided whether or not to take action one way or the other, the walls were miles behind him, and the impulse had passed. He drove more steadily then, until he arrived outside the house where Emma had her flat.

He was surprised that she did not answer the door at once when he rang the bell. Had she not been looking out of her window, as she had been when he had called to collect Marc, watching for his return? He couldn’t believe she would have been able to control her anxiety to that extent.

Maybe she had gone looking for him? She knew he had taken Marc bowling each time he called, and had no reason to believe he had not done so on the present occasion. The thought nagged him for the next minute, until Emma did appear.

She stood well back behind the open door. Her puffy, chalky face shone like a misty moon in the darkness of the hallway. She looked at Daniel in silence, wearing her usual expression of pained irritability, softened to some extent now by something like sorrow or pity that was just perceptible in her eyes and the line of her mouth.

‘What is it this time, Dan?’ she said. ‘What’s happened to…our son now?’ She sounded like a tired nurse forced to deal with a difficult patient.

Daniel shook his head and made a helpless gesture with his open hands. ‘I hardly know how to explain it. We went for a spin out into the country, because of the weather, and found this village. Marc got — taken up by some people there. Religious maniacs, I think: something like that. I’m not sure if he went off with them because he wanted to, or if he was kidnapped. ‘

Emma took her turn at shaking her head. ‘Anyway, he won’t be back. Is that the idea?’

‘Of course he’ll be back. We must go and find him. I’ll call the police. With their help. ’

‘Oh, no, Dan. Please don’t do that. Not the police. I couldn’t bear to go through all that again.’

‘Again? What do you mean again?’

‘You forget, Dan,’ Emma said sorrowfully. ‘You do forget. I envy you that, if nothing else. Because we’ve been through this so many times before. But, as I said, you don’t remember.’

Daniel, swaying slightly from the hips as though he were giddy, stared almost shamefully down towards his boots, like a reprimanded child. Then he seemed to take courage and glanced up into Emma’s eyes. He turned away at once from what he saw there, and began, slowly and thoughtfully, to massage his temples with the fingers of both hands.

‘You don’t seem to understand, Em,’ he said, slurring the penultimate word like a drunk. ‘I tell you the boy’s gone.’

‘He has, Dan. That’s true, I know.’ Emma’s hands were mobile too; her clasped fingers twisted restlessly together against her chest, inches below her chin. ‘He’s long gone.’

‘And those people have him now,’ Daniel continued, with quiet desperation. ‘They were so small, and they seemed harmless, but I realize now they were evil, malevolent. They lured me there somehow, because they wanted Marc. God knows what for. We’ve got to save him. We have to try.’

‘It’s much too late, Dan.’

‘Why do you say that?’

‘Because I can’t take much more of this. It gets worse every time, because you have a different crazy story every time. They get crazier, in fact. I don’t want to listen to any more. I’m scared I might crack, and end up like you.’

Daniel blinked foolishly, and gave her an uncomfortable, mirthless smile. ‘You’re angry, Em. I can feel it. That’s okay. I expected it. But believe me, what happened to Marc wasn’t my fault.’

Emma retreated a few inches back behind the edge of the door. ‘I know, Dan. I know. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said what I did just then. I’d better go now, before I say something to hurt you. Please leave me alone, and please don’t go to the police. They won’t find Marc, and nor will you, so forget everything that happened today.’

‘You don’t want me to do anything, Em?’

‘Just go home. Get some rest. You look terribly tired.’

Daniel’s body twitched, as though he had received a shock. ‘That’s right. I am.’

‘Will you be okay driving?’

‘Sure.’

Something seemed to have passed out of Daniel. His face had emptied and left him looking totally vacant. He was suddenly compliant. To Emma’s relief, he raised a hand in a gesture of capitulation or valediction, and turned and shambled off towards his car. She watched him pass through the gate before she shut the front door and trudged upstairs to her flat.

She knew the rest of the day would be hard for her. As soon as she was back in her room she phoned a friend and almost forced her out for an evening meal. Emma was determined that she would not to be alone with her memories of the one child she had conceived, but lost ten years ago.

There was a small parcel in his pocket. He took it out, glanced at it, and set it down between the handbrake and the driver’s seat. Where had he got that from? Gift-wrapped in gold and silver paper, it seemed somehow familiar. Before driving away, Daniel absentmindedly reached for it, picked it up again, and made an effort to remember where he had seen it before. For some reason, he expected it to be quite heavy and hard, but it wasn’t either. Whatever it contained was light and soft.

Daniel held the package up in front of him to give it a closer look. He saw the paper was creased and frayed, and partly faded — by sunlight, presumably, so, it had been around for some considerable time! When, after some moments, he still could not identify it, or recall whence it had come, he fumbled it open, rolling it in his hands and pressing with his thumbs to tear the paper to reveal what was inside.

He was mildly surprised to find it contained a fanciful, rather ridiculous woollen hat: the kind currently favoured by streetwise kids.

The price ticket was still attached. Obviously, it had never been worn.