Where Monsters Lie Read online

  ‘OK,’ I said, and we walked out into our dusky garden, heading for the rectangular hole next to the hedge.

  Droplets of water clung to bare branches, suspended and still. It was as though the whole garden was waiting for us to begin.

  Dad lowered the bundle into the hole.

  ‘Can I stroke him?’

  ‘Yes, of course,’ he said, but as I made to pull the rags away, he yelled out, ‘Effie, stop!’

  ‘What?’ I said.

  ‘Don’t do that – you don’t want to see.’

  My hand wavered there for a moment or two, and then Dad reached forward and gently pulled my hand back.

  ‘Come on. Help me with the soil,’ and we covered him up with spade after spade of wet, dark earth until we couldn’t see him any more.

  Even as I was lifting another load of earth on top of Buster, I wanted to reach out and pull away the material so that I could see his dear old face just one last time.

  But I didn’t.

  I stood by Dad, helping him fill in the hole until there was no more soil left and the rain started to fall quietly around us again.

  ‘Let’s get back in, Effie,’ Dad said. ‘Before we get drenched.’

  ‘Dad?’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Was the hutch closed when you found Buster gone? Or was the door open? I was sure I shut it.’

  ‘It . . . it was . . .’ Dad rubbed at his beard as though he were deciding something. ‘It was open, love. The bolt must have loosened or something.’

  ‘It was my fault,’ I said.

  ‘Well . . .’

  ‘I didn’t do the latch up properly. It must have been me.’

  ‘It’s no one’s fault, Effie. It was just an accident. That’s all.’

  I didn’t answer.

  ‘It’s not your fault, love,’ Dad said again. ‘Come on, let’s go in. Warm up.’

  ‘In a minute, Dad.’

  ‘All right, love. If you’re sure.’

  I stood out there for a while after Dad had gone in. The rain soaked through my coat and through my jumper and my shirt, but I didn’t mind. In a funny sort of way I wanted to feel cold and wet because that’s what it felt like in my head at that moment. Shivery, shaky and chilled.

  I wished I had pulled back the old blanket to see Buster one last time. Without seeing him, it didn’t feel like a proper goodbye; I hadn’t been able to say sorry.

  I knew Dad wanted to protect me, but what he didn’t realize was that because I hadn’t seen Buster, my mind filled in the blanks. My brain threw up dark images that unnerved and frightened me, and I spent many sleepless nights wondering what had happened to Buster.

  But losing him was only the beginning.

  Can you imagine being kept in a cage? Seeing the world only through bars?

  Sometimes I feel like I am trapped in one. It’s invisible, but I know it’s there. I want to break down its door. Run free. See the world double, triple before me.

  But how can you escape from a cage that you cannot see? And what if that cage is the safest place to be?

  Chapter Four

  The next day Finn arrived at my house early, before I had even finished breakfast. It was the Christmas holidays and so we didn’t have to go off to school.

  I knew it was him as soon as I heard the precise knock-knock, knock-knock on the door.

  ‘Finn!’ I shouted, getting up so quickly that I knocked the kitchen table, and for a moment Mum and Dad’s cups of tea and all our breakfast things quivered slightly.

  ‘Careful, Effie,’ Mum warned as I dashed to the door.

  I flung it open, and despite everything that had happened the day before, I couldn’t stop smiling when I saw him.

  Finn and I are almost exactly the same height, so sometimes when we are standing opposite each other, as we were just then, it feels like I am looking in a mirror. We have the same colour eyes, a sort of hazel brown, and though my hair is much longer than Finn’s, his flops over his forehead just like mine does.

  ‘Wotcha Effie,’ Finn said.

  ‘Wotcha Finn,’ I said back. That was how we always greeted each other. I can’t even remember how it started now, but it always made us smile each time we said it.

  ‘Fancy a walk?’ Finn asked.

  ‘Yeah, definitely. Give me a sec. Want to come in?’

  Finn watched his breath smoke in the cold air and nodded.

  Before Mum and Dad spoke, I said in a rush, ‘Just going for a quick walk with Finn – won’t be long,’ and ran upstairs to get my boots and coat.

  ‘Not so fast, Effie,’ Mum said when I came back down. ‘You need to finish your breakfast first.’

  I grumbled a bit but sat down and chewed vigorously on the lukewarm piece of toast that was still left on my plate, while Finn showed Mum a cone that he had picked up on his way over.

  ‘Where are the pair of you walking to?’ Mum asked.

  ‘Perhaps to the—’ Finn started, but I interrupted him.

  ‘Just round the village,’ I said vaguely. I knew that was the only place Mum wouldn’t object to.

  ‘Stay clear of the loch path today, it might be slippery,’ she added.

  ‘I said we’re only going round the village,’ I said, more sharply than I meant to.

  Mum didn’t answer but took a swig from her mug even though it seemed to be empty.

  ‘Can I go now?’ I asked when I had swallowed my last mouthful of toast.

  Mum pursed her lips together as though about to object, but then she nodded and I ran from the table, eager to escape into the cold, frosty lane with Finn.

  ‘How are you doing?’ he asked me once we’d left the house.

  ‘I just can’t believe I left the hutch open. I feel so stupid. I just hope that . . . that it was, you know, quick . . . that he wasn’t in pain . . .’ My voice died away.

  We stomped companionably together up the path that led to the village. The nice thing about being with Finn was that I didn’t need to speak for him to understand me – or the other way round. He knew instinctively that I couldn’t talk about Buster, and I knew that he understood why I was feeling so wretched.

  We looped through the village and quickly ran into Mr and Mrs Daniels, who were on their way to see the Lamb family with something to help with baby Colan’s teething. Everyone knew everyone’s business in Mivtown, whether they wanted to or not.

  ‘It’s one of our old Mivtown secret recipes,’ Mrs Daniels said as she explained where they were going. She tapped the small, folded brown paper bag in her hand. ‘It worked on the pair of you when you were teething bairns.’

  We nodded, and when they asked us where we were going, mumbled something about stretching our legs.

  ‘Shall we go to the loch?’ I said, once they were out of earshot.

  Finn looked at me slightly mischievously. He’d heard what Mum had said about the loch path as clearly as I had. Without saying a word, he took the fork that led towards it. He was as drawn to it as I was. It was our favourite part of Mivtown.

  We rounded the corner past Rosemary Tanner’s cottage, and the loch opened up before us. It was a sight that I would never tire of: it lay across the land, silver and silent, a mirror to the sky. The water looked so grey and still, it seemed as though it was solid and you could walk across it if you tried.

  I had always had the feeling, perhaps because of the legend that I had grown up with, that there was something hidden within it, and that if we looked closely or long enough, it might give up its secrets. Maybe, just maybe, one of the monsters from the legend would rear its head.

  As we always did, we stood there for a moment, unmoving. We watched the ripples travel across the water in their seamless, rhythmic way, and for the first time since I had discovered that Buster was gone, I felt a sense of calm sweep over me.

  ‘See anything?’ Finn asked.

  ‘Nah,’ I replied. The loch stretched out before us, unreachable and unknowable. ‘I don’t think we’ll ever see anythin
g from here, not by the edge. We need to get to the centre – we need a boat.’ I was joking really, thinking aloud.

  The only person in Mivtown who owned a boat was Mr Daniels, and it was locked up in the outhouse in his garden. Once, he and Mrs Tanner had offered to take us kids out in it, but our parents refused, thinking the waters were too deep, too dangerous.

  But Finn turned to me, enthused. ‘That’s it! We could make one!’

  ‘Make one?’ I said doubtfully.

  ‘Not a boat exactly, but a raft. I’m sure we could do it.’ Finn’s hazel eyes gleamed with excitement. ‘What do you think?’

  ‘OK,’ I said. ‘Let’s try.’

  He scrabbled around in his pockets and produced a piece of paper and a pencil, and started listing different ways to make the raft.

  There was a moment there, as I watched him, my oldest and closest friend, hunched over the little piece of paper, his brow furrowed in concentration, scribbling away, when I completely forgot what had happened to my dear Buster.

  Chapter Five

  ‘Effie, Effie.’ I could hear Mum’s voice, but it sounded very far away – as though she, or I, were in a tunnel, a distance between us. ‘It’s time to get up. Come on now, love. Wake up. It’s the Tindlemas.’

  I blinked my eyes open; the glare of my bedside lamp hurt my pupils. Mum’s face came into focus before me. She had pushed her hair behind her ears, so I could see her large brown eyes looking at me, a little concerned. It was black and still outside.

  ‘We don’t have to go,’ Mum started to say, which made me sit up, dizzy but awake. I looked over at the alarm clock on my bedside table. It read 11:35 p.m. in glowing red numbers, and seeing that, I tried to rouse myself. There was not much time before we had to be there.

  ‘I’m up,’ I said. ‘I’m coming.’

  ‘Are you sure? You look half asleep.’

  I yawned noisily and rubbed my eyes to make them open more fully. I’d never been allowed to go to a Tindlemas before; I didn’t want to miss it.

  It was the second night after the offering. At midnight at Tindlemas, all the villagers walk around the loch by candlelight. According to the legend, it’s to check that the offering has kept the monsters at bay. Finn and I had never been allowed to go before because our parents thought we were too young – although at least one person from every family has to go; last year I had begged my dad for details about it.

  ‘I don’t see what the fuss is all about. Maybe we should all stay at home,’ Mum had said, but Dad had raised his eyebrows at her and said, ‘Remember the MacGails?’

  Apparently, once they had gone away on holiday and missed both the night of the offering and Tindlemas, and the oldies were so angry with them that they stopped talking to them for a full year. Even though the other adults might not believe in the legend like the oldies did, they would rather go along with it than enrage them.

  This year, Finn’s parents, Kathleen and Rob, had said that Finn could go to Tindlemas, and so I had pestered Mum and Dad until at last they had relented – on the condition that Mum came with me and I held her hand the whole way round the loch. Dad was going to stay at home with Tommi.

  I was hoping she would forget about the hand-holding thing once we got out there, but as soon as we left the house that night – bundled into so many jumpers and coats and scarves that I wondered if I would be able to walk at all – I felt Mum’s tight clasp around my palm.

  ‘Remember, Effie, stay close to me.’

  The cold air stung my cheeks, making me feel properly awake, but I didn’t reply; the only sound was the stomp of our footsteps down the road towards Finn’s. As we got closer, I broke away from Mum’s grip and ran to their door, hammering on it with my gloved fist.

  I could hear Finn shouting, ‘Effie’s here,’ and then there was a scramble and some laughter, and Rob and Finn threw open the door to us. I could see Kathleen behind them putting on a hat.

  ‘Right, ready!’ she said brightly.

  I ran into the hall and hugged Finn, Rob and then Kathleen in turn, only noticing afterwards that Mum lurked awkwardly in the doorway as though unsure that she was welcome. But before I could dwell on it, Kathleen started ushering us out and Mum said, ‘Let’s go,’ in a friendly sort of way, and we spilled out of Finn’s house and started walking towards the loch. The stars were bright, clustered together in little groups, as we were.

  ‘Effie,’ Mum said warningly when I started walking ahead with Finn. ‘Remember what we said.’

  She held her hand out to me, and reluctantly I took it and fell into step with her.

  We didn’t talk much – maybe because it was so cold. It was the sort of cold that makes you forget what it was like to be warm. I could feel my steps become heavier as it seeped through the thick pair of socks I was wearing under my boots, numbing my feet and legs.

  Rob led the way with the larger torch, which sent a strong white beam darting across the path before us; Finn had a smaller one that he angled backwards so Mum and I could see. It was still difficult to make out where you were going though, and in the darkness and the silence I wondered if we would ever get there.

  Then I saw them – the glow of lanterns in the distance – and we hastened towards them. Even from afar, I could see the warm yellow glow of the flickering candles. The light was much dimmer than our torches and cast soft shadows around the group and the darkness that lay behind them. The loch.

  I thought I felt the air get colder as we approached the loch. It was barely visible in the darkness, and I suddenly thought that we would not be able to tell where the bank ended and where the loch began; how easy it would be to fall into its waters, to sink beneath its surface.

  Then I remembered that Rosemary Tanner knew the path that snaked along the loch edge – she walked around it three times a day – and told myself that I was just being silly, scared; that it was perfectly safe. But when I looked out into the darkness where I knew the water lay, I couldn’t help but shiver.

  The oldies were there, of course, handing out lanterns to everyone, and at least one person from each family had come. With a slight stab of annoyance I saw that the Wells boys were there, even though they were younger than Finn and me. Everyone was chatting, and I don’t think they saw us coming because Rosemary Tanner gave a gasp of surprise when she saw us.

  ‘Well, I never,’ she said, and I remember thinking that I didn’t really understand what she meant. She stood beside Mr Lamb, who looked like he didn’t want to be there, lantern in one hand, the black book she always carried with her under her other arm.

  ‘Hello, Kathleen, Rob,’ said Old Bill, striding over and bringing us a lantern to share. ‘Young ’uns – Finn, Effie. And Tori – welcome.’

  He held out the lantern to Mum, but she didn’t make a move to take it – unwilling, I think, to release my hand. In the end, Rob stepped forward to take it.

  ‘Hiya, Bill,’ Kathleen said. ‘Good night for it.’

  ‘We haven’t had a night this clear for a good few years,’ Old Bill said.

  ‘Seen any monsters?’ Finn asked, and for just a moment I felt Mum grip my hand a little more tightly.

  ‘No, nothing stirring tonight. But we’ll do the walk anyhow.’

  ‘Are you warm enough, Effie?’ Mum asked me all of a sudden.

  ‘Yes,’ I replied, though I could no longer feel my toes.

  ‘It was really freezing last year,’ Rob said.

  ‘That’s right,’ Old Bill agreed. ‘We almost had to call it off because of the snow.’

  ‘I remember,’ Kathleen said. ‘You think this is cold, kids!’

  She laughed loudly, but not quite loudly enough to mask Rosemary Tanner’s voice, hushed yet high-pitched, speaking to Mr and Mrs Wells. ‘There’s a first time for everything, but I didn’t think I’d live to see the day she came to a Tindlemas.’

  Rosemary Tanner’s talking about Mum, I thought. I looked at Mum’s face, but it was shadowy, unreadable. I couldn’t tell if she had
heard.

  ‘Come on, Rosemary,’ Old Bill said quickly, gruffly. ‘Let’s get this show on the road.’

  Everyone started off around the black loch, but Mum didn’t make a move.

  ‘Come on, Mum,’ I said, pulling gently at her hand. ‘We’ll be at the back. We’ll be behind everyone else.’

  She began to walk, but by then we were already trailing behind the group.

  Chapter Six

  Sometimes Mum and I fell out over the smallest things: maybe I was late home from the bus, or had left my plate on the table because I had gone out to meet Finn.

  ‘Effie, how many times do I have to tell you?’

  ‘Sorry-Mum,’ I would mumble, the words slurring together as though they were one.

  ‘You can’t just run off like that . . .’ Mum’s voice would begin to rise. She would tuck her short fair hair back behind her ears, and then her large brown eyes would fill with tears. They would start to stream over her slightly pink, flushed cheeks, but she would make no move to wipe them away.

  ‘Sorry-Mum, sorry-Mum.’ I hated seeing her cry, but nothing I said could stop her tears. They trickled down her chin and fell onto her lap like raindrops, making a damp circle that looked like a stain.

  I would look away so I didn’t have to see her tears; tears that I had caused. Tommi never upset her like I did – though I tried as hard as I could not to.

  I remember very clearly the day Mum and Tommi weren’t in when I got home and decided that I would go to Finn’s, rather than sit in an empty house. I left a note for Mum, telling her where I was. I wrote it out carefully on a piece of paper ripped from my school notebook; I told her to call when she needed me home. I thought long and hard about the best place to put it, and ended up leaving it out on the kitchen table, held in place with a couple of mugs in case it flew away.

  Mum never rang Finn’s house. We started playing a board game where you had to go round a maze collecting things; it took a long time, and so I ended up having dinner with them – beef stew with buttery circles of carrots and a crispy-skinned jacket potato.