The ravening, p.31
The Ravening, page 31
He’s in my head, and he’s trying to push me out, Holly. At first it was just now and then, but the longer he’s there, the stronger he’s got, and now it’s every night. Every time I close my eyes.
I know what he wants, obvs. A new body. He’ll take me over. That’s his plan. I don’t know what’ll happen to my mind or soul or whatever then. I don’t know if I’ll go out like a light, or if I’ll be chucked out of my own body so I’m like a ghost, or if I’ll be trapped inside it, just having to watch everything he does, forever.
Cos it will be forever, if he gets his way: he’ll use my body to get a new generation going, and then he’ll perform the Rite of Cronos and be immortal again.
But before he does all that, he’ll do something else. He’s going to kill you.
At first she’d thought they were just bad dreams. She’d be standing in ashes – a mixture of the soft grey powder of the Greylands and something blacker, grittier and coarser: smashed-up charcoal, burnt wood. The air had stunk of smoke and worse.
The first couple of dreams – on different nights, weeks apart, near the end of the previous year – had been nothing more or worse than that. She’d dismissed them as echoes and nightmares. But just over a month into the new year, she’d dreamt of it again. The beginning of February: the old feast day of Candlemas.
The dust had been greyer, with only the odd blackened smut and stump remaining, but a faint, rotten scent she recognised had permeated the fading odour of the smoke.
And then there’d been laughter, and water had poured up through the ground, swirling and icy and pulling at her ankles – filling the world, trying to drown her.
Thankfully, her instincts had been good: she’d turned and run till she reached ground still unaffected by it – the Greylands, she saw, had reclaimed all but the very heart of the Bonewalker’s forest, the remnants of the grove itself. She’d willed a great high rock out of the dust, an island to serve as sanctuary.
She’d woken, then, and been safe for a while.
But a fortnight later, she’d dreamed again, and in it the waters rose to flood her island. She’d willed a boat into being then, and escaped across the now seemingly endless sea.
A fortnight after that, in early March, she was there again and now the sea was rougher, stormier, full of jagged rocks. She’d reshaped the boat into a larger vessel; in another fortnight, she’d had to shape that, in its turn, into a battleship. But the storms smashed her onto reefs and shoals, buckling the hull as fast as she could repair it. She’d woken as she’d begun to sink, gasping for breath, to find herself standing in her own kitchen. She’d been sleepwalking. She hadn’t understood why. Not then.
It was only a week before the next dream came; finding herself on the bridge of her sinking battleship once more, she’d reshaped the vessel into a submarine and dived beneath the waves to avoid the storm. But in the next dream, less than a week later, something followed her down and attacked her there. She’d woken kneeling up in bed that time, looking down at Holly as she slept.
It was mid-April by then, and the next fortnight passed in safety. But on May Day Eve the dream returned: the seabed rose, forcing the submarine out of the water, stranded and helpless and trapped in the thick ooze that covered the ocean floor. The mud had hardened around it like cement, inexorably crushing the hull; she’d made her escape just in time, and that had been when she’d woken up – standing in the kitchen again, this time in front of the open knife drawer.
After that the dreams became more frequent: de Lavoie was getting stronger while she weakened, and more aggressive as his triumph approached. She never saw him, but could always feel him – his spite, his gloating, his mocking laughter. Winged monsters had chased Jenna across the plain of dried cracked mud; when she’d found a hiding place, other monsters had come burrowing up from beneath. It had taken all her wits to escape them, but she’d nearly been lost for good.
And then, three nights ago, she’d woken to find herself standing over Holly with a knife in her hand.
You and me, Holl, we’re the only ones who know, and he won’t have to worry about me much longer.
My arm was coming up, and I didn’t think I could stop it, but I managed, in the end – just. Or maybe it wasn’t me at all: he hasn’t tried since then. Maybe he realised first things first. He needs to take over properly, make sure he gets away with it. Last thing he wants is to end up in prison – locked away for years, till I’m all dried up and menopausal.
I’m the only one who can stop him, Holl. You, with all your love – there’s nothing you can do here, sweetheart. And I’m not risking your life too. I’m not. I’m the only one who can stop him, and I’m gonna lose, Holl. Not yet, but soon.
The dreams had returned each night since, and she’d woken this morning knowing the final outcome was no longer in doubt. It wasn’t if, but when: de Lavoie had centuries of experience on his side, after all.
She’d hoped to have her cake and eat it, kill the beast without sacrificing herself in the process, but that wasn’t to be. Her only triumph would be the Bonewalker’s final extinction, and Holly’s survival.
But Jenna found she could live – as it were – quite happily with that.
I didn’t want to do this. I really didn’t. But I’ve got to, and it’s got to be now, or it’ll be too late.
So I’m gonna go somewhere. Alone. I don’t want you finding me afterwards. Or trying to stop me, because it’s got to be this way, Holly. I’m sorry – I am so fucking sorry – but it’s got to. But it’ll be somewhere I’ll think of you. Somewhere we should’ve gone together when we had the chance, before all this kicked off.
I love you, Holl. I love, love, fucking love you.
And I’d stay with you forever if I could.
But I can’t.
Jenna x
Once she’d decided, she felt at ease: all that remained was the how, when and where. The when was simple enough: today, before she slept again. She puzzled over the how a little longer, briefly wishing she still had the Walther – now at the bottom of a Manchester canal after having been thoroughly wiped clean of fingerprints – but found her solution soon enough.
The where was knottier. Almost anywhere would have done, but she wanted to ensure Holly wasn’t the one to find her.
Tough shit on the poor stranger who does though, eh?
In an ideal world she’d do it in some wilderness, so she’d disappear entirely and never be found, but Jenna wanted to die somewhere that at least offered her a memory of happiness. She considered Didsbury, but it was too close to home, there were too few places with the necessary privacy, and too few memories of it that included Holly.
In the end, though, she found her answer: the last place she’d known happiness before it had all begun. The last time she’d let her fears stop her.
Holly had said it was a beautiful place, with a view to marvel at. So be it. Jenna would see it before she died.
She went into her studio and packed everything she’d need. She carefully wrote her note, folded it and left it on Holly’s pillow. And then, a few minutes after 7am, she’d tiptoed downstairs on stockinged feet, walking boots in hand, and softly, softly let herself out – deep sleeper though Holly was, it was better not to take the chance today – and got into her car.
Jenna drove sedately at first, not wanting to draw attention. The journey passed without incident until Bala, where sudden spasms set in in her hands as she exited the town; they kept stiffening on the wheel, then jerking, trying to wrench it round.
U-turn. He’s trying to take me back home.
Jenna didn’t want to believe it – didn’t want to believe de Lavoie’s influence could be that strong while she was awake – but shortly afterwards, grogginess set in. She greyed out for what seemed a second, then resurfaced to discover she’d been driving back the way she’d come for nearly fifteen minutes. She swerved the car around, so hard, and with such anger, that the Aygo had nearly fishtailed off the road into a ditch, then drove back to Bala.
She was shaking from shock, but also, she realised, hunger. She found a café and ordered a bacon roll; she mustn’t delay unnecessarily, but it would be all too easy to go off the road again, the state she was in. If she crashed, death would be slow and painful. Or worse, she’d be knocked unconscious, and de Lavoie could take control for good.
And that she could not, would not, allow.
The condemned woman ate a hearty breakfast, eh?
Her eyelids kept drooping. She was tired, near exhausted from the past week’s nightmares, which could only help de Lavoie. Jenna bought three espressos, downing each one fast, one after the other, then a latte with caramel syrup to drink in the car, and to dispel their bitter taste.
She was still shaky and frightened, but that wouldn’t change anytime soon. There was no telling when Holly would wake, no telling how long Jenna had before Holly came after her. No telling whether she’d said too much in her letter, if Holly could guess where Jenna would go. Because however conclusive the arguments, however ineluctable the logic, Holly would never accept that Jenna had to die.
She got in the Aygo and drove, grinding her teeth from the caffeine rush.
At last she reached Barmouth, the May sunshine glittering on the blue estuary. Part of her ached to carry on into the town. One last drink on the Quayside. But even a brief delay might be all de Lavoie needed.
No time for that. No leisurely hikes across the hill. You want to do this, do it now and do it fast, by the shortest route.
The voice was right. Of course, it would’ve been righter still to point out that by that logic, everything she’d done this morning was madness, giving de Lavoie more rope to hang her with. But mad or not, it was one last defiant gesture to both the Bonewalker and brute necessity, and she’d make it. If she was to die, she was choosing the when, the where and the how.
And besides, it wasn’t easy to kill yourself, however badly you needed to.
She reached Porkington Terrace and parked up, then took her knapsack from the passenger seat and, out of habit, locked the car behind her.
The sun was bright and hot in a clear blue sky. Gulls called. All else was still. Jenna started up the Panorama Road.
There was the farmhouse, there was the footpath, and there, beyond both, were the woods covering the shoulder of the hill.
She’d bought a bottle of water in Bala and stowed it in her pack. She’d drunk most of it, because she was sweating hard, the sun beating down on her scalp. She poured the last of the water over her head, feeling it soak her hair. Don’t go passing out from heat stroke, babe. That’d never do.
A path led between two stone walls to a gate. Beyond it were the woods, the trees looming tall and green. She hesitated for a moment, but she wasn’t afraid anymore. That, at least, was gone.
She walked to the gate and went through. The woods and their verdant smell enfolded her. There was another gate to her right and a path leading up through the trees, between shelves of mossy rock on her right and wooded slopes below to her left. The worn sign pointing to it read PANORAMA.
Jenna went through the second gate and followed the path, taking in the stillness and beauty of the place. Something else the Bonewalker had robbed her of, now returned, just before the end.
And then, at last, Panorama itself.
From the topmost point of the hillside, looming over the Mawddach Estuary, the view extended miles out to sea: on a clear morning, Holly had claimed, you could make out the long arm of the Llyˆn Peninsula extending across the top of Cardigan Bay, and Anglesey off the end of it.
Today there was a thin haze along the horizon, so Jenna couldn’t see if that was true, but she could still see far out to sea and down the coast as well. If she turned she would see the Mawddach winding inland, the creeks weaving through the green mudflats. Purple heather on the rolling hills, each side of the blue water. The bare rock and scrub grass that she stood on.
Its breadth and beauty struck the breath from her. This had been Holly’s gift: spurned at the time, now belatedly accepted. And it was all Holly had said it would be.
Moments of grace, she’d told de Lavoie. She’d meant moments like this.
Down beside the Mawddach, cars moved along the A496 like little bright beetles. One of them might even be Holly.
Too late to do any good.
Jenna hoped so, anyway. But in any case, she’d already delayed far too long.
Back in the woods, she climbed over a low stone wall to descend the wooded slope below the path, just till she was out of plain sight. After that, it was a matter of finding the right tree. It didn’t take her long to locate a tall oak with a thick branch just high enough off the ground and a fallen trunk lying beside it.
Best crack on, then.
Jenna unzipped her knapsack, took out the coil of rope and threw it over the branch. She let it drop to the ground, then wound one end around the bole and pulled to raise the noose to the correct height. The slipknot was already tied; Jenna stood on tiptoes on the fallen tree so her face was level with the noose, then got down and fastened the rope tight.
All ready, then?
She stood in silence, warm light dappling her face. The trees whispered.
“I don’t want to go,” she whispered back.
I know, babe.
Jenna breathed out. “Yeah,” she said.
But she couldn’t move. Then she found herself pivoting on her heel, facing back towards the path. Greyness flooded the edges of her vision, trying to encroach. She took a step up the slope, away from the noose. And then another.
No, she thought. The next time she said out aloud. “No. No. No!”
She threw the hardest punch she was capable of at the nearest tree to her. Something cracked in her left hand. White pain speared up her arm and she cried out, gasping; her eyes were full of tears and she couldn’t move all her fingers, but when she turned back towards the fallen tree, there was no resistance. Her body was hers again.
How long for?
Jenna took one last deep breath, then released it. For a moment, she thought fear would paralyse her, but then she moved, stepping lightly up onto the fallen tree, reaching for the noose and fitting it – a little clumsily with her injured hand – around her neck.
“Sorry, Holl,” she said. Bitterly inadequate, but the best she could do. And then she jumped as high as she could. Her weight pulled her back down groundward. The rope snapped taut, and the noose bit into her throat.
65.
Holly sagged against the low stone wall overlooking Orielton Woods, heaving for breath.
Easy. Walk, don’t run. Can’t help Jenna if you give yourself a cardiac.
She couldn’t help Jenna if she arrived too late, either.
Assuming you’re not already.
“Fuck off,” she croaked.
She pushed herself away from the wall and carried on, but this time she walked. Her thighs ached and throbbed. She shambled on, wiping sweat from her eyes, till the farmhouse and the Panorama trail came into view.
Hope you’re right, Holl. If not–
“Oh, fuck off,” she said again.
Holly stumbled along the path. Sheep bleated nearby. She smelt crushed grass, heather, sheep shit. A spring trickled nearby. She went through the two gates and into the woods, plodding through the trees towards the summit. She walked faster now; the ground wasn’t as steep. But her thighs still ached, and she was still too out of breath to shout Jenna’s name.
She stopped, leaning on a low stone wall to get her breath back, silent, letting her breathing slow. If she hadn’t, she wouldn’t have heard it.
A creaking sound, rhythmic and slow. Of course, trees often creaked, especially in the wind. But there was no wind this morning. She’d wished for it more than once on her uphill climb, to cool her down as she’d burned and sweated.
Creak, creak–
Steady, rhythmic, back and forth. Like something swinging on–
On a rope.
“Oh fuck.” Holly clambered over the wall and scrambled down the slope. As she did, she heard something else: a gagging, choking sound. And then she was in among the trees, and saw.
“You silly little girl,” said de Lavoie. “Couldn’t even break your neck.”
Jenna didn’t bother answering; she just hung in the air, above the trees, looking down at the swinging, twitching body as its hands gave a final spasm and then fell away from the noose.
“Choking,” he said. “Slow and painful. As you deserve.”
And yet she felt no pain, any more than him: she was outside it all, watching that final, bitter victory.
“It could all have been so much better,” he snarled at her. “It didn’t have to be like this. We could have both had what we wanted.”
“Liar.” She was aware de Lavoie was nearby, but struggled to perceive his form. She was only dimly aware of her own. She no longer had a body, after all: that was twisting on a rope below her. She had something instead now, but wasn’t sure exactly what. To the extent she could perceive it, she did so in terms of arms, legs, head and eyes, but knew that wasn’t the reality, just the closest terms of reference available. “You’d have killed Holly, and me. And you’ve had your time. Not just yours, either. How many people’s time have you had? Well, it’s all gone now.”
De Lavoie snarled. She was beginning to make him out: a sort of swirling distortion, an amorphous airborne stain. At times it seemed about to become a face. One moment she almost saw the man who’d visited her at Stonebrook; the next, the Bonewalker – both the mass of shadows inside the cowl with its pale glowing eyes, and the reptilian skull she’d seen at the very end. “Centuries,” he whispered. “I’d seen so many centuries. Knowledge. Memories.”
“Nothing of worth,” Jenna told him placidly, knowing it was true – although even if it wasn’t, it gave him no rights over her life or body, or anyone else’s.
