These Our Monsters Page 7

  The other stones are the tall one’s daughters. They can’t all have been daughters really, if once upon a time she was a human, because there are far too many. They’re grey and white, like the rock all around the valley. Thicker. Colder. It’s obvious she is the special one. She stands outside the circle, like a leader – a person in charge. She’s probably the size of eight of you, standing on the shoulders of each other. About halfway up, she starts to lean over, like she’s bending down listening to someone smaller, and when you stand underneath it makes you feel safe. It was Aunty Ro who first told you about what happened. She was once a village woman with tremendous powers. She could speak to the wind and heal people and help them have babies and stop rain spoiling people’s vegetables. She was dancing on the moor. Other women, the daughters, were all dancing too. They were having a party and not going to church. A wizard who also believed in God saw them and was so angry that he put a spell on them. Their fingers and toes went stiff. Their arms and legs and eyes became hard. They froze. Aunty Ro said that’s the way it is for women. They’re stopped. It seems like a common story that some of the other circles have it too. Powerful, dangerous people: turned to stone.

  In December, a few days before Christmas, Aunty Ro goes and leaves bits and bobs beside the tall stone. Tomatoes from the Co-op and bags of sage. Two oak trees have been planted inside the circle and Aunty Ro ties red ribbons on the low branches. Lots of people do it. They come in vans and camp along the road by the cottage garth. Ed thinks it’s ridiculous. Shag-vans, he calls them. The circle-worshippers make little fires on the moorside and sometimes, if it hasn’t rained for a long time, they accidentally set fire to the gorse. TJ hates that. The last time it happened he came running out of the hut and banged on the sides of the vans. Fucking hippies, he shouted, fuck off back to where you came from. I’m the one who makes the fires! I’m the one who makes the fires! Your mum ran out and apologized to them. She’s good at calming things down, but it doesn’t always work. If TJ is out of the hut, it means he’s angry enough to not care about anything.

  The circle-worshippers never want to fight anyway. They wear big velvet cloaks and purple dresses or leather trousers. Some of the women have bare boobs, even if it’s frosty or raining. The things they leave against the stones are odd and quite grotty. Babies-in-tummies photos, where the babies look like submarines or moon-heads, tampons, rabbit tails, bundles of feathers, sticks and string made into dollies. They often try counting the stones too – you’ve seen them – but they never concentrate, or believe. They’re like people reading the weather forecast rather than people getting wet or blown around. You could tell them: it’s like unlocking a lock. The key has to be exactly right, not one missing bit or an extra tooth. They don’t really expect the tall stone to speak or the daughters to be released. They’re waiting for 3 o clock, when the sun sinks in her vee, so they can go and do what they do in their vans.

  There’s a secret. A hidden, underground stone. You know where it is, in the far bank near the farm, not really part of the circle anymore. One day it occurred to you it would be there, like a memory, and you dug down with a stick through the spiny grass and pebbles and roots and earth. It took a long time, but your mum was asleep after work and you were bored. After a while the stick started to scrape against something. You cleared a big gap and shovelled out the soil with your hands. There it was: pale as bone, with a waterhole in its surface like an eye looking up at you. There was such a strange feeling coming off it, shuddery, like an echo, and a smell too, like coal, or fireworks.

  So, it’s sixty-eight altogether, not sixty-seven. You thought about leaving the hidden stone uncovered, but didn’t, because that was the first time you tried the count and got it right and the tall one whispered. All she said was, no, don’t show them. So you shoved the earth back over the lost daughter. You went home with your nails black and grazes on your knuckles, and even though you could hear your mum talking about TJ on the phone to Aunty Ro, sounding as upset and worried, as usual, you felt really, really happy.

  When you count the stones, you reach down and pat the bank too. You try to do it in a way that seems you’re not doing it, like checking a shoelace is tied, in case anyone sees. After sixty-eight, clockwise, and sixty-eight backwards, you put your ear against one of the carved spirals, where it fits really well. You close your eyes and wait. It might be seconds or a minute or even longer. Sometimes there’s nothing, just blocked, shell-ear sounds. Sometimes there’s a sigh, then she speaks. Her voice is soft and insidey, like thoughts.

  It’s a bit like your mum’s voice, when she’s handling TJ. Quiet, calm, gentle. You’ve seen her confront him, in the garth, or out on the moor. If he almost can’t hear what she’s saying, he has to concentrate on her, and stop bashing and throwing things. He has to come closer, which makes your head rush with panic, but your mum stands very still. It’s part of taming wild things – trusting that they won’t kick or kill. Your mum can’t touch TJ, and she doesn’t try, but when they’re nearer together it’s as if something gets remembered, from when he was a little boy and they loved each other. She calls him Trevor. He gets confused instead of angry. He starts to rub his head and arms and to wipe at his eyes. It’s gone now, your mum will say. It’s gone. All of a sudden the storm dies, and TJ will go back into the Nissen hut, or get on his bike and pedal away as hard as he can.

  She’s brave, your mum. Or maybe she’s doing something dangerous that she shouldn’t be too.

  It’s a big surprise when one day the tall stone whispers: help him. You know straight away who she means, because when she speaks your brother’s face is in your head. You keep your ear against the spiral and wait in case there’s something more. But the tall stone is silent. You go home wondering what she means. You go up to your bedroom to think. These days, you never really see TJ, especially not in summer when the garth grass is high as a jungle, his vegetables are ripe, and he doesn’t really need anything. You don’t go near the hut unless your mum asks you to leave a cup of tea and a plate of biscuits on the wood stump outside the door on your way to school. The hut is mostly quiet. Your brother stays up late and sleeps into the day as far as you can tell. Sometimes there’s a radio playing, or gunfire and games on his computer, or some kind of horrible scratchy music. Mostly the tea’s still there, full, with a white skin floating on top, when you come back from school, and the biscuits have been nabbed by birds or rained soggy.

  The Nissen hut is being swallowed by bushes, trees, and ferns. The metal corrugation is covered in bright moss, vines and dark yellow lichen. It’s like it almost doesn’t remember it’s metal. There are systems TJ has for securing the doors and windows. The dugout tunnel entrance is round the back, behind blockages of wooden panelling and trees, in a private area where he grows and makes and burns things.

  You’ve not seen inside for a long time. Last time you saw, when TJ was sick from a deep cut on his leg and needed antibiotics, you went in with your mum and had a nosy. There was a stereo and the old television propped on a trestle table, the battered laptop that school had bought him, a cold box and a Calor gas heater. There was a manky rope hammock tied up from the roof and in it books and magazines were in tipping-over piles. On a wall shelf was a row of jam jars with yellowy water inside, going from light to dark. A school photograph of his old class was taped to the wall, and you knew that one of the girls in the middle row of red cardigans used to be his girlfriend. Samantha. Samantha Fay. Her dad is headmaster at the secondary school in town. TJ had fitted a tiny log burner with a smoky black chimney. There were some boards over the earth floor. The old crocheted blanket from his bedroom was on a mattress, faded and dirty, and it was this blanket that made you feel saddest. The whole place was like a den – better, because it was properly fixed, and worse, because it was actually his home. It smelled like socks and mushroom soup and oil.

  When your brother first took over the hut your mum was able to go and get his washing now and then. Your old dog Barns would g
o and sniff and scratch at the door and was sometimes let in. Sometimes you were let in too, just for a minute, if you didn’t ask many questions or touch anything. The garth hadn’t been barricaded up yet, and you could see what TJ was doing with the rainwater barrel, or when he was hammering structures and roping things. When he was building bonfires or cooking fish from the river. On really cold nights he might come back into the cottage for a few hours and sleep curled up on the sofa in front of the fire. He might pinch some milk from the kitchen in the morning, and talk to you a little bit, about his ideas, how the world was wrong, wars that had happened in the past and that would happen in the future, which was all fairly scary but interesting. Or he might leave a note of things he needed your mum to get for him. Phillips-head screwdriver, paraffin, extension cable. Other things he asked your mum for, she didn’t get, and she would tut and sigh and put his notes in the bin. For a while, he was almost like part of the family, half moved out, but still like the TJ who used to bike you around and give you his old Lego, swing you between his legs, and babysit when your mum and dad went out to the pub.

  Not anymore. He isn’t coming back inside the cottage probably ever. Weeks go by with no sign of him. If you catch sight of him skulking between trees or on the road he looks much older than eighteen. He looks lean and sly as a pack-hound. A few times people have tried to sort him out. An intervention, Ed called it one time. He tried having a man-to-man chat out in the garden, telling TJ he should take his exams, or get a job and contribute, or move out properly. You’ve got to be better than your dad, wherever he bloody is. Everyone has to help with the lifting – everyone should put their hands under the stone, son. You’re acting like a mad prince out here. TJ got very angry, told Ed he was a cunt, and slammed the door of the hut. Your mum had been standing awkwardly by the cottage and she asked Ed to leave. Fine, said Ed, but he’s taking advantage of you, Chrissy, and it’s only going to get worse. Your mum smiled tightly. You don’t understand the arrangement, Edward. There were loud thumps from the back of the Nissen, like TJ was hurling bricks at the wall. You’ve tried before too. When Barns died of tummy cancer you stuck an invitation to the funeral you were having on the hut door. TJ didn’t come.

  You know he goes out at night though, because his bike is sometimes chained up in a new place in the morning. What he does, where he goes, you’ve no idea. Scavenging maybe. Looking for lumber or rooting in local skips. No one talks about him much in the village, at least not when you’re there, or when your mum’s there. Probably they don’t want to hurt your mum’s feelings. Lost, is what you’ve overheard them say. He’s a lost one, even though everyone knows exactly where he is. At school sometimes they say stupid things about survivor TJ or psycho Trev. You heard Florence trying to explain it to the new girl, Lorin. Florence was slouching about like a gorilla with her jaw slack and her eyes crossed, then she pointed at you. Her bog-eyed crazy brother. Either Lorin didn’t understand or didn’t care, because she walked away and sat on the carpet ready for the register.

  Deep down, they’re scared. They’re scared of the idea of him, a big wild boy living in a shed, and sometimes you even feel a bit proud. He’s much older than your friends’ brothers and sisters and much more unusual. Mostly you try to feel nothing. Deadheart. Dead-head. Then it can’t bother you. The fact he turned into a bogeyman who started shouting at you too. Piss off, Monny, just piss off, you little bloody bint. You don’t talk about it with your mum, and she only talks about it when she has to. Like after the council was called by a neighbour complaining about planning permission. Or when the social worker was coming. When she tells you to get your coat and bag for school and take out the tea and biscuits. Leave this for your brother on your way, she says. Like it’s a normal thing to do. Saucer of sugar-water for the bees, bucket of vegetable peels for the hens, plate of digestives for Trevor.

  But the tall stone has powers and she’s always serious. You know that. So the next time your mum asks you to take over the tea, you don’t scoot off straight away. You put the mug down on the stump, take a breath, and knock very softly on the Nissen door. Bing-bing-bong. You don’t really want him to hear. You wait. He doesn’t answer, of course. You wait a little while longer and then knock louder – a bit too loud. The metal door dooms under your knuckles. There are rusty scabs all over it. Your heart is really going fast and there are little clicks in your throat, like a grasshopper on your tonsils. It’s not even possible to imagine what TJ might say if he comes. But there’s no sound inside.

  You step back and count to ten, which seems a reasonable number. Chaffinches scrap and squabble in the lane. A tornado jet throttles overhead. The wind is starting to haw down from the hills, snapping the laundry on the line, and your achy elbow knows it’s going to rain. You wait. He might be looking through the dirty blacked-out window at you. He might be quietly undoing the lock. There’s mould and moss in the door seal. Maybe he’s only using the underground passageway now or the back window. Maybe he’s asleep or right at the other end of the garth hauling wood. You want to run away, but the tall stone’s whisper is in your head. Help him. She only says important things. Like, father’s dead or show her the lump. You’re about to put your hand on the handle – not to open the door, you wouldn’t dare go in without your brother saying so – just to feel. Then you notice what he’s done. Pieces of broken glass have been glued all over it. Big clear shards. It looks beautiful and horrible, a kind of spiny, see-through, junk anemone. Why would he do that? Why would he, when a child could have put their hand there and cut it right down to the bone?

  You know why. The same reason he tried to make the garth fence electric and asked your mum for a hunting rifle and a ream of industrial pigeon spikes. The same reason he hangs dead animals up along the hut roof. Not rabbits and pheasants that could be eaten, but a cat, long and thin, its head busted open on the road. Or a hawk, stood dead in a perch on the top prong of the Nissen, its talons wired to hold it. He doesn’t need Stay Out signs or an Alsatian. He’s got his own mind. He’s in his own world and has become someone else, crazy, careless. You look at the lethal door handle. And there’s that feeling you try not to have anymore. An ache and no air, like after a punch in the chest. This is why it’s better to not care either, to go rock-hard, so what your brother does doesn’t hurt, even when he’s not actually touching you.

  You leave the tea and biscuit plate on the tree stump and walk away. Your eyes are prickling you can feel your mouth forking down. You walk halfway along the road towards the village. Then you turn and run back. You take the digestives off the plate and hurl them onto the moor as you walk to school, one by one, as hard and far as your arm can throw.

  School’s OK, most of the time. You can forget about home for a while. It’s two-thirds of a mile from the cottage and you measure it on your step-watch. You’re allowed to go by yourself now, but if the weather’s bad your mum drives you in the Honda. The dinners all look the same, with melting cheese tops and chips or beans. The loos have wee all over the floor and by the end of the week the coats in the cloakroom next door sometimes smell of wee. The building backs onto the woods so deer look over the fence and nibble the vegetable garden the Year Threes grow. Afternoons when you’re outside doing forest school and looking at frogs or leaves are the best.

  In class there are only two boys and there are twelve girls – thirteen now Lorin has started. Mrs Callahan is new too. She came halfway through the year when Mrs Cole got sick. Your class is called Blackbirds. All classes have bird names. Jays, Doves, Blackbirds, Swallows. Owls are the oldest and wisest. After Owls you’ll have to go to the other school in town – the one your brother used to go to. Hopefully they don’t remember him. He stopped going when he was fifteen.

  Mrs Callahan is nice. She wears bright coloured shoes or glittery boots. Today she notices your hot cheeks. How are you, Monny? Did you run all the way? Pardon, you say. She repeats the question. Then you say, good morning, Mrs Callahan and no. You put your water bottle in the b
ox by the name trays and get the books out of your book bag. You sit in the library corner pretending to read. You can feel Mrs Callahan looking over. Probably she’ll come and check on you in a minute. Earlier in the year she started doing The Nest with one of the other teachers. The Nest is a quiet little room near the headmaster’s office where there’s extra help for children having trouble learning or where bothering things can be talked about. To help any fledglings not yet flying, it says on the door. You went twice to talk about concentration problems and it was fine. You told her about the circle being near your house. You told her about the tall stone whispering, and that you’d been to Castlerigg and Swinside and Mayburgh, and even down to the Nine Ladies with Aunty Ro, and that you thought maybe all the stones could speak, if they used to be people, and maybe they could talk to each other. Like a kind of stone telephone. Mrs Callahan said she was glad you’d enjoyed learning about those places. She showed you a book of legends and in it there were more stories, about petrified knights and sleeping armies, spells that kept the stones from being freed. She said some things that made you feel better. She said that there was lots of pressure these days for children to seem special and different and that was because grown-ups have forgotten to have any imagination. Things that seem miraculous to grown-ups about children are actually just normal. You didn’t talk about TJ and you don’t know if Mrs Callahan knows about him or not. Probably she does.

  You don’t talk to Florence when she comes into class. She’s wearing a new sequin T-shirt and she tries to show you how the pattern changes colour when you brush it with a hand. The rainbow goes from pink-red-orange to blue-green-purple. Do you want to have a go? The thought of touching sequins, of touching anything pointy and scratchy, makes you feel sick again. You shake your head. Florence goes to show Bethany. That’s the way it works with the three of you. It’s tricky. Someone is usually left out. Sometimes the left-out one is chosen by the other two, sometimes, like now, number one chooses to be not part of the three. How it will be for the rest of the day is often decided when one of you is picked by Mrs Callahan to take the register to Mr Benning’s office and has to choose a register partner. You glance over. Florence is standing with her chest and tummy stuck out. Bethany brushes and brushes the T-shirt. So what, you think.