The spring after that, Lindsome’s parents returned, refreshed from travel but baffled and scornful of the personal and legal complications that had evolved in their absence. At the conclusion of the affair, the judge gave them the property deed to Apsis House. They wanted to know what on Earth they were supposed do with such a terribly located, wolf-infested wreck, and told Lindsome that she would have it, when she came of age.
The day she did, Lindsome attempted to sell it, but nobody could be persuaded to buy. She couldn’t even give it away. The deed finally sat unused in a drawer in her dressing table, in a far-away city in her far-away grown-up life, next to the tin of cosmetic power she used to cover up a long, ugly scar upon her arm. Her husband, to whom she never told the entire truth, agreed that the property was probably worthless, and never suggested that they visit Long Hill or take any action regarding Apsis House’s restoration. Nor did their three daughters, once they were grown enough to be told the family legends about mad Uncle Albion, and old enough to understand that some things are best left where they fall.
And besides — now that Lindsome knew what it was to have and love a child, she couldn’t bear to interrupt what might still move up there, within that blooming forest of thorns. If they were both intact, still, the least Lindsome could do was give them their peace; and if they were not, Lindsome could not bear the thought of finding one of them alone, endlessly screaming that desperate, lonely scream, until however long it took for Albion’s sturdy handiwork to unravel.
As Chaswick had said, Uncle Albion was a brilliant man.
It could take a very long time.
CALL OUT
Steve Toase
Opening the field gate, Malcolm sensed something born wrong sheltered in the old cattle shed. The sickly sweet smell of decay spread across the hillside. Round his feet, half-blind, featherless jackdaws cawed. Malcolm hesitated, not wanting to cross the grass, to make those final steps on this late-night call out. Bill Hoden had already started over the field. He lifted up his left hand and beckoned Malcolm on, holding a damp cigarette between two remaining fingers.
“Never seen owt like it, Veterinary. Not in fifty years of farming. Knew something wasn’t right when it hit the cobbles. Birth waters scorched the floor stone-white clean.” He coughed and spat a mouthful of phlegm into the mud.
“How was the mother?”
“Cooked from the inside out. Like she’d been in one of those microwave ovens.”
Malcolm pulled his coat tighter.
Bill undid the padlock on the double doors. The broken boards scraped on the floor. Malcolm waited for Bill to go first, but the old hill farmer just stood there.
“Aren’t you going to show me the animal, Bill?”
Shaking his head, Bill stayed exactly where he was.
“Seen it once. Don’t need to see that again.”
Malcolm noticed an old leather-bound book under Bill’s arm, King James in faded gold on the cover.
Reaching into a pocket for his torch, Malcolm stepped into the shed. The smell was worse now. As a country vet, he was used to rot. Hoof infections, orf, or abscesses, his work year was filled with the scent of decaying flesh. This was something else. Like bathing in abattoir waste.
Inside, the temperature rose, first to a pleasant glow, then more furnace-intense as he walked deeper inside. His eyes stung and his throat gagged.
Hilary had taken the phone call, scribbling the details on the Welcome To Yorkshire writing pad and shouting up the stairs. Malcolm had come down, wrapped in a towel, roughly drying his hair. Squinting to decipher her writing, he read the note, making out Bill’s name and the farm, Crop Hill, underlined three times.
“You haven’t written down what the problem is,” he said, walking to the living room door.
Turning the sound down on the TV, Hilary turned round on the sofa.
“Bill never told me. Before you say anything, I did ask. He just said for me to get Veterinary up to the farm fast.”
Malcolm sighed, already getting cold, and went upstairs to find some warm clothes.
Using an old cloth handkerchief, Malcolm covered his face and walked deeper into the barn. The remains of the mother slumped in the corner, steaming in the cold, limbs half-gnawed.
None of his training had prepared him for this. None of his training had prepared him for being a rural vet full stop. He’d learnt how to recognize ringworm and deliver a calf. Learnt about anatomy. But his studies never covered how to translate Swaledale dialect and how it differed from Wharfedale, or how to keep your fingers working at three in the morning in a fierce moor wind. No, you picked that up as you went along. He wiped his forehead and turned the torch on. The light caught on the air. The bulb faded until the flimsy filament glow was the only thing visible and he remembered not picking up the newly charged batteries before he’d left the house.
He could hear the creature breathing, creaking out each broken lungful of air.
Malcolm creased his ammonia-burnt eyes. The beast’s hide was sticky with amniotic fluid, membrane caught between yellow teeth. Fur tar-black, apart from the ears, stained clot-red.
Malcolm started breathing again — shallow, though. He knew what waited in the corner. Not from Stickland’s book on anatomy or Cunningham’s Veterinary Physiology, but tales told over pints of sour beer, in polished wood taprooms.
Only a handful of days had passed from arriving in the Dales for him to hear the first tales of bargests, the red-eared, shape-changing hell hounds that skulked the stones of Troller’s Gill and the streets of Thirsk. There were stories of them hunting travellers across High Moss and carrying trusting cattle herds into tannin-stained water. Of course, they were just one of a cast of thousands, alongside boggarts, giants, cursed chairs, all used to scare children to bed and incomers from the fields. He’d paid these folk stories little attention. His countryside was one of dirt tracks and distemper, not hell hounds and hauntings.
Malcolm could do nothing here apart from become food. He kept the creature in line of sight and backed up to the door, reached behind him and pushed. The thick planks gave, then held.
“The door seems to be stuck, Bill,” he said.
“Not stuck, Veterinary. Locked.”
“Well, unlock it, then.”
“Can’t do that, Veterinary.”
“What do you mean, you can’t do that? Open the door, Bill,” Malcolm said, trying to keep his voice even.
“Got family to think of. Yon beast needs feeding,” the farmer said, pausing. Through the boards, Malcolm could smell tobacco burn as Bill sucked on a hand-rolled cigarette.
“Stop messing about, Bill. I’ve got family, too. Open this door,” Malcolm said. The creature’s eyes started to open.
“Not my problem,” Bill said.