Darkhenge

Don’t be sorry at your catch.

Though I’m weak

My words hold wonders.

THE BOOK OF TALIESIN

Rob came in quietly and closed the door. He wheeled the bike into the garage, then went into the kitchen and opened the fridge. His heart was thudding from the ride back against the wind; he was soaked and shivering. Pouring orange juice, he drank it thirstily, leaning against the sink.

It was 8:35 pm.

The kitchen was quiet. Rain pattered on the windows and the tabby, Oscar, came in through the cat flap, eyed his empty plate and then Rob with a green glare. Rob couldn’t take the guilt; he found a can and dumped cat food on the plate, then as he climbed the stairs, his father’s key turned in the lock.

“What happened to you?” John Drew came in and stared.

“I got wet. On the bike.”

“Just come in?”

He nodded. His father dropped into a chair and loosened his tie. “I don’t suppose there’s anything to eat?”

“Haven’t looked.”

“Mail?”

“On the table.”

Upstairs Rob washed and changed, tossing his soaked jeans onto the heap of dirty clothes in the basket. There were so many the lid wouldn’t go down. What was Maria doing all day? What had she left for dinner? Last week she’d taken huge offense at his father trying to be tactful. “I’m from Napoli!” she’d stormed. “I know about Italian cooking. What you know, eh?”

His father had had to admit he knew nothing, absolutely nothing, but it was too late. Since then she’d left them the blandest of British: soggy fish and chips, deadly steak and kidney. But her fits of pique rarely lasted more than a week, so there might be pizza. Her pizza was legendary.

He ran downstairs; his father said, “It’s lasagne. We’re forgiven.”

Rob shrugged; he’d had it for lunch at the pub, but he didn’t say anything.

The oven was lit; already the smell was making him realize how late it was. He set the table.

“Good day?” his father asked.

Rob hardly knew what to say. “So-so. Got some good studies at Avebury. Then it rained.”

“Dan?”

“Mad. Thinks he’s a seventies rock god.”

His father laughed, checking the oven.

“What about you?” Rob muttered.

“Oh, some tiresome technical hitches with the stage. There’s a touring opera production of Tosca due to open tomorrow and their battlements are too big for us.” He wrapped the tea towel around his hands and juggled the hot plates to the table. “Get stuck in.”

As they ate, Chloe’s unspoken name lay between them, like the flowers in the vase on the table. It lodged in Rob’s throat like an unchewed morsel. They lapsed into silence, and then dumped the dishes in the sink. While his father put the news on, Rob went upstairs. The door of Chloe’s room was ajar.

He stared at it.

It was always kept closed.

Perhaps Maria had been cleaning in there, though she wasn’t supposed to. It wasn’t to be touched. His mother insisted.

Rob pushed the door, very gently, and it opened, making that familiar little creak on the bottom hinge. He went in.

It smelled of her. That sickly scent she always used to splash on, which he used to complain about, make out it choked him. The row of cuddly toys sat on the pillow, and posters of boy bands, already going out of fashion, were neatly aligned on the walls. Her clothes were in the wardrobe, but he didn’t look in there. There were limits on how far his control could go, and he knew it, and never crossed them. Her school bag hung on the back of the door. There were books in there with her sums and essays in them. Her useless drawings.

It was far too neat for a thirteen-year-old girl. Before the accident the room had convulsed, clothes had come and gone in heaps on the chair, a pile that grew and shrank each week, each day; papers and diaries had opened and closed, books had had bookmarks travel through them; glitzy makeup and bath stuff in fancy bottles had been new, then spilled, half empty, gummy, thrown away; CDs had blared and strummed.

Now it was still.

As if a Pause button had been pressed, and the room held in flickering stasis, without sound or movement to disturb the faint dust on the sill. As if the room had become a chamber in that castle in the story Chloe had always liked when she was small, where the princess slept for a hundred years behind the briars and the tangled trees, just as she was sleeping now, while everyone else carried on, and got older.

He heard a car pull up, and went to the window, careful not to be seen. It was his mother, and there was someone with her—Father Mac, probably. Rob stepped back, and turned. Then he saw the photo of the horse. It was stuck on the side of the wardrobe, askew. A white horse, just like Callie. Like the horse at Falkner’s Circle.

All at once, hearing the door open below and the voices, the memory of what he had seen that afternoon swept over him with its terrible, first jagged shock. He had seen his sister riding. It had been Chloe.

He sat on the bed, as if his legs had weakened.

How could it have been?

Something hard was under the covers. He put his hand under the sheets and tugged it out. It was a journal, purple with stars on the front.

CHLOE’S DIARY it said on the front in felt pen. KEEP OUT. OR ELSE.

Elastic bands kept it shut.

For a long time he looked at it, the childish letters, the silly stars. Then he slid the bands off and let the book fall open on a page.

It’s happened again. I drew a picture of Callie and he made fun of it. He snatched it off me and ran downstairs with it. Dan was there, and I could have DIED. I could hear them giggling about it. I hate him.

Rob hardly breathed. It hurt to breathe.

He remembered the stupid drawing, all out of proportion, and yes, he had snatched it and she’d been furious but … it had been a joke.

She always took things too seriously.

He snapped the book shut and shoved it back. Then he got up and went downstairs.

His father was watching Newsnight and talking to Father Mac; his mother was in the kitchen making a cup of tea. She brought it in and glanced at him quickly. “Hullo, sweetheart. I hear Maria is speaking to us all again.”

Rob nodded. His mother looked tired, but as glamorous as ever. Her makeup was perfect, her pale blue cashmere top casual and expensive. He didn’t know how she kept up the pretense. He said, “How’s Chloe?”

Her eyes widened. Father Mac’s hand made the briefest of pauses in its stretch for the tea. John Drew stared intently at the screen.

“The same.” His mother kept her voice steady. “Her eyes flickered. Just after seven. They said it was a muscular spasm. Otherwise, the same.”

They were silent; he nodded. Chloe was always the same. She had been the same—unmoving, her head lolling, fed intravenously—for three months and eight days. She would always be the same, which was why he couldn’t ask anymore.

He turned away. “I might be getting a job.”

The stillness shattered; they all moved at once. Father Mac took the cup, his father got up and went out, his mother flicked the television channels.

“A job?” the priest growled. “Who’s that desperate?”

“As an archaeological artist.”

“Sounds impressive. What do they pay?”

“No idea.” He sat down. “Actually, I don’t know anything about it, but it might be interesting.”

Father Mac nodded, drinking. “Something a bit different for the portfolio.”

“That’s what I was thinking.”

They were doing what they always did. Making a conversation up, acting it out before his parents. Reassuringly normal. His mother was the actress, but now she sat there tired and subdued, like an audience at a boring play. Their whole life was a play, a pretense at normality, he thought, getting up to see Father Mac out.

“You get straight to bed, Katie Mcguire.” The priest took the remote control in his big hands and turned the television firmly off. “Tomorrow’s another day.”

She looked up at him, her eyes red rimmed. “How many more days? How many, Mac?”

Gently, he shook his head. “Trust the Lord, Kate. Trust him. We’ll get her back.” He paused a moment, his gray-stubbled face hard, his eyes steady. Then he called, “God bless, John!”

Out on the porch, Rob breathed in the night air. The darkness of the garden was soft with smells: wet grass, lavender, honeysuckle. Bats flitted, tiny dark flutters around the roof. His godfather came and stood next to him, a big clumsy shape that took out a cigarette and lit it. The lighter made a sputter of sound, a cobalt blue flame. It threw shadows on the priest’s face, moving hollows, darknesses. It would be good to draw him like that, Rob thought, to get all the edginess and danger that was in him.

The lighter went out; Father Mac started to walk down the drive. “So. Is this job at Avebury?”

“Not really. There’s some sort of new dig toward East Kennet. I might not go—it’s just an idea.”

“You go.” Mac turned at once. “If they think you’ve got something to fill your days, that’ll help them. Remember our deal, Robbie. Problems to me, normal face to them. Untroubled. Supportive. Your mother’s acting the biggest part of her life right now. Woman deserves an Oscar.” He smoked rapidly, his weight crunching the gravel on the winding drive. Behind him the trees were dark against the sky. Just before the road he turned. “That reminds me. What’s wrong?”

Rob grimaced. “Apart from the obvious, you mean?”

“Apart from that.”

“Nothing.”

“You look a bit … askew.”

“What?”

Mac snorted. “Knocked sideways.”

Rob smiled, alarmed. The big man was so sharp. It was as if he felt what you were thinking, picked up some sort of invisible vibe. For an instant Rob was ready to blurt it all out, about the girl on the horse who had been Chloe riding Callie, the horse that was dead now, that had been killed in the accident. For a second he was desperate to be reassured, to be told it couldn’t have happened, that it wasn’t real. But Mac wouldn’t say that. Mac would smoke and consider and say something deep that would keep him awake all night, wondering. So instead he opened the gate and laughed. “Think I’ve joined a New Age tribe.”

Mac groaned.

“People of the Cauldron, they call themselves. Waiting for a master to come down and lead them.”

“He’s already been. Hasn’t anyone told them?” Mac ground the cigarette butt out and tapped Rob on the shoulder. “Don’t you get mixed up with that guff. Well-meaning but totally confused, most pagans.”

Going through the gate he took a few steps and turned. “Did he turn up?”

“Who?”

“This guru.”

Rob shrugged. “Yes. His name’s Vetch.”

Father Mac looked at him a moment in disbelief. “Vetch. Very green.”

“What?”

“It’s the name of a plant. Better than Nettle, I suppose.” He snorted. “Or Hemlock.”

Watching the heavy figure wave and walk off up the village lane, Rob thought of the red-haired girl’s wide, astounded eyes. Whatever Darkhenge meant, Vetch had spoken the word they had been longing for. They had crowded around the stranger, talking, questioning, demanding explanations, but he had said little else, smiling wanly and standing there swaying slightly, exhausted, as if at the end of some long journey. And all the time, even when the tribe escorted him toward their dilapidated tents and vans, he had looked beyond them at Rob. A secret look. As if they shared something.

Glancing down at his hand, Rob flexed the fingers, feeling again the man’s wet, slippery grip. In the darkness he let himself think it.

The man had changed shape. Swallow, hare, fish. And so had the woman hunting him.

Wind stirred the trees, dripping spatters of rain, so he turned, and saw the lights were on in his mother’s bedroom. Against the rise of the downs the house was big and dark, holding all its sorrow tight, reclusive in its vast garden, and beyond it the sky faded from palest lemon to cobalt blue in a watercolor wash without boundaries.

The bedroom light went out.

Rob hurried back. On the way he passed Chloe’s old swing.

The wind rocked it, gently, back and forth.