Beneath (3 page)

“No. Look.” She pointed back towards the brambles.

There was a black horse at the edge of the bramble patch, close to the pool. A pure black horse, with a long tail and a flowing mane. It had neither saddle nor bridle, and watched them warily from blue eyes, the like of which they had never seen in any horse.

They stared at it, mesmerised. The horse tossed its head and they saw that its long mane was snarled on the bramble thorns, as Jess’s hair had been.

“The poor thing,” breathed Freya. “It’s stuck.”

She started towards it.

“Careful, Freya,” said Jess. For some reason, her heart was beating fast. She was frightened though there was nothing to be frightened of. She handled horses every day. Still she hung back, and tried to catch Freya’s hand to stop her.

“What’s wrong, Jess?” Freya turned to look at her briefly. “We can’t leave the poor thing trapped like that.” She shook off Jess’s hand and walked forward, talking softly to the horse to calm it as she approached. It tossed its head again and pawed at the ground.

There was something
… Something nagged at Jess’s mind; a memory that refused to make itself clear.

“Hush now,” Freya was saying to the horse. “We’ll soon get you free. Be still.” She reached out a hand to begin untangling the horse’s mane.

Although only a few feet away, Jess couldn’t understand what she was seeing.

“Be still,” said Freya, and reached out to free the horse… and was suddenly, impossibly, on its back.

Freya stared at Jess, uncomprehending.

“What are you playing at, Freya? Get down,” Jess yelled, inexplicable panic overtaking her.

“I can’t,” said Freya. “I can’t!” she shouted, eyes wide with fear, hands knotted in the horse’s mane, no longer held by the snarling thorns.

Jess lunged towards the horse, but it danced sideways out of her reach, making for the pool.

“Freya, get down!” she screamed.

“I can’t, I can’t,” Freya shrieked. “Help me, Jess!”

The horse reached the edge of the pool. It didn’t stop, but trotted purposefully forward, water splashing silver under its hooves.

Freya twisted desperately, looking back at Jess as she was carried away, the water rising from hoof to hock to wither as the horse took her further from the edge.

“Freya!” Jess screamed.

The horse paused and turned to look at her, then leapt forward again towards the centre of the pool and plunged below the surface of the water, taking Freya with it.

Without thinking, Jess floundered into the water after her friend. She swam to where the horse had disappeared, took a breath and dived below the surface. The water was cloudy and greenish, but Jess could see enough to know that there was no trace of horse or girl. She surfaced and dived again and again until she was half drowned, until at last she admitted defeat and dragged herself out of the pool.

Freya was gone.

As he watched her with the other girl he thought about the moment when he’d decided that he had to have her for himself.

It had been about a year ago, just after the first boy was taken. She’d looked round once as he watched her, as though she sensed his presence. The wind blew a strand of brown hair across her mouth and she stroked it away with her fingertips.

It was as though he’d never seen her properly before. He stared at her as though he was staring at the sun, unable to look away although he knew he would be blinded.

It was then he knew he had to find a way to take her.

And now he had her.

Ashe was the first to spot Jess stumbling drenched towards the farm.

“You went without me,” he shouted angrily. “You went without me. You should have waited.”

As she got closer and he saw more clearly the state she was in he said uncertainly, “Why are you wet? Where’s Freya?”

Jess didn’t answer. She’d run as much of the way as she could, and she was saving her breath for someone who could help. She ploughed on past Ashe towards the kitchen door.

He ran to reach it first, yelling as he did so.

“Mother! Mother, come here. Quick, it’s Jess.”

Martha appeared in the doorway, floury to the elbows, and stared at the half drowned apparition that was her daughter. She hurried towards Jess.

“Jess, what happened?” Her eyes searched the rest of the yard. “Where’s Freya?”

“Roseroot Pool,” Jess gasped, and saw her mother’s eyes widen in shock. “There was a horse… It took her under the
water.” She collapsed into her mother’s arms as Martha, struggling to keep her voice calm, spoke to Ashe.

“Fetch your father. Hurry.”

Ashe looked at her face, and at Jess, and ran.

Martha led Jess into the kitchen, sat her down and went to fetch a blanket. By the time she came back, Ian was striding towards the door. She wrapped the blanket round her shivering daughter.

“Tell your father what happened.”

Jess gathered her shaky breath.

“We were picking brambles at the end of Roseroot Pool. There was a horse with its mane caught on the thorns. Freya went to free it. I don’t know what happened then… she was on its back and she said she couldn’t get off and then it took her down into the water. I went after her. I dived under, I kept diving, but I couldn’t find her. I couldn’t find her.” Her voice cracked and she covered her mouth with a hand.

Above her head, her parents exchanged a look of alarm.

“I’ll send someone to town to tell Arnor, and the rest of us will go straight to the pool. Take care of Jess.” He bent to kiss his daughter’s wet head. “You did everything you could, Jess.”

He was shouting instructions to the two farmhands before he was properly out of the house.

“I want to go with them,” said Jess, rousing suddenly. “I can show them where to look.”

“No,” said Martha firmly. “No, Jess. Leave this to your father. There’s nothing more you can do. Come on, let’s get you dry and warm.”

Despite Jess’s protests her mother led her upstairs and changed her wet clothes for a nightgown, towelled her hair dry and made her get into bed. She couldn’t stop shivering, and Martha brought a hot bottle for her feet, and an extra quilt.

“They’ll find her,” said her mother, but Jess knew she was wrong.

When she woke, at first she couldn’t remember why she was in bed in the middle of the day. Her grandmother smiled at her from the chair near the window.

And she remembered.

Jess sat bolt upright with a gasp.

“Freya! I have to go and help them look. How long have I been asleep?” She was already halfway out of bed.

Ellen rose and, coming over to the bed, gently pushed Jess back down.

“But…”

“There are plenty of people out there already. You’ll only distract them – they’ll worry about you if you go into the woods. You’re to stay in the house.” Her tone of voice suggested that there was no point in arguing.

“Can I at least get up?”

“Of course. You’re not ill.” Her grandmother gave her a searching look. “How clearly do you remember what happened?”

Jess shuddered. “I’ll never forget.”

She told Ellen her story. The old woman listened intently without interrupting.

“Freya’s dead, isn’t she?” Jess said finally.

“We don’t know that,” said Ellen. She sighed. “Up you get. The men will be hungry when they get back. I’m sure your mother could do with some help.” She kissed Jess on the brow and went out of the room.

As she dressed, Jess paused often to look out of the window for any sign that the searchers were returning, but there was nothing. She went downstairs, following the sound of voices to the kitchen.

“It’s happening again,” Ellen’s voice said. “Why will no one listen?”

“Leave it be, Ellen,” said Martha in a strained voice. “Ian and the others are searching. There’s nothing else to be done. You swore you would never mention all this… rubbish about
horses in front of Jess and Ashe. Now Jess is spouting the same nonsense.”

“I didn’t speak of it to her,” Ellen sounded angry. “I made a promise to you and I’ve kept it.”

“What are you talking about?” Jess said, coming unseen into the room.

Guilty silence enveloped the kitchen.

“Never mind,” said Martha, forcing a smile. “It’s nothing. How are you feeling?”

“I’m fine. But I want to know what you were saying.”

“It was nothing that concerns you.” Martha came across to where her daughter stood. “Jess, Arnor will want to talk to you. We’ve told him what we know, but he’ll want to hear it again from you.”

Jess nodded. “Is he here now?”

Martha shook her head. “He’s out searching with the others. Oh, Jess, you can imagine the state he’s in. Freya was all he had.”

“You’re talking as though you already know she’s dead.”

“I’m sorry. I don’t mean to. We don’t know that.” Martha pointed to a number of jars and bowls on the table. “Come on, it’s better if we keep busy. The men will all need to be fed when they get back. Can you make some dumplings to go in the stew?”

Jess nodded and rolled up her sleeves, glad of the distraction.

It was dark before the men came back. They’d searched the pond and the surrounding woods as best they could, but all they had found were the girls’ abandoned baskets of brambles and mushrooms, now sitting sadly in a corner of the kitchen.

Arnor stared blankly at them, as though they might hold some clue to what had happened to Freya, dismissing offers of food and drink with a shake of his head.

After a while, Ian led him to the sitting room, signalling Jess to follow them.

“Arnor wants you to tell him what happened.”

She nodded and swallowed, her mouth suddenly dry, then began. When she got to the end of her story she waited for the inevitable questions.

“But why would Freya get on a horse?”

“I don’t know. I didn’t see her do it; she was just suddenly on its back. And she kept saying that she couldn’t get down.”

“And you saw… you saw her go under the water?”

Jess nodded mutely, close to tears now.

“I’m sorry. I tried and tried, but…”

Arnor looked at her properly for the first time, a look so bleak that she could hardly bear it.

“It’s not your fault, Jess. I know you tried to help her. Whatever has happened, it’s not your fault.”

Released from that terrible, grief-filled room a few minutes later, Jess went up to her bedroom, closed the door with shaking hands and sat on the bed staring out into the darkness.

“It’s the shock,” said Ian when she’d gone. “She doesn’t know what she’s saying. I’m sorry you had to listen to that. Her mind must have pushed away what really happened, and put this tale in its place.”

Arnor nodded absently.

Freya was picking brambles, dropping them into a bucket behind her. Jess wanted to stop her, but she was stuck in the thorns. They even pinned her lips together so she couldn’t open her mouth to warn Freya.

As the brambles fell into the bucket they changed, becoming part of something infinitely dark that was forming inside it, growing and pushing its way out until it was a horse, black as soot, black as midnight. It stood behind Freya, water dripping from its mane, until she turned and smiled at it and put her arms round its glossy, arched neck. And then she fell, impossibly, upwards on to its back. The horse reared and Jess
saw that it had no shoes, and managed to open her mouth and scream.

And she woke.

She was trapped by the twisted covers of her own bed, sweating with fear. She unravelled herself from them as best she could and fumbled to light a candle to chase the shadows back into their corners.

Jess kept seeing the horse in her mind’s eye: the real horse, not the one from the dream. But the dream was right, the horse hadn’t been shod. It had nagged at her memory at the time and now she knew why – the hoof prints she’d seen at the edge of the pool after Donald had disappeared hadn’t had shoes either.

There shouldn’t be any wild horses in these woods. But hadn’t she had a glimpse of one – maybe the same one – that day back in the summer?

Why would it carry Freya – and maybe Donald too – into the pool? Horses didn’t behave like that. They threw people; they didn’t carry them off and dive underwater with them.

Jess remade her ravaged bed, then got back in and pulled the covers up to her ears. She lay thinking. She knew what she had seen, but it didn’t make sense.

Was she sure that the horse had gone into the pool with Freya on its back?
Yes
. That it had dived under the water and taken Freya with it?
Yes
. Was she sure that it hadn’t emerged again with Freya when she was in the pool diving to look for her friend?
Yes. No. Yes.
She’d have seen or heard it happen. There would have been a trail. The searchers would have followed it. Freya would have been found.

So they’d never emerged. That meant that they had drowned. But why hadn’t they been found? The men had searched for hours. Weren’t bodies meant to float?

It didn’t make sense. That was the only thing she was sure about.

The search went on all the next day, but was no more successful.
Jess brooded in her room, unwilling to talk to anyone if she didn’t have to, pretending to sew when her mother came in to check on her.

Late in the afternoon, she escaped to milk the cows, glad of their reassuring warmth and bulk and smell. She leaned into them, listening to the milk hissing into the pails.

She carried the milk to the dairy and found her grandmother waiting.

“Are you sure about the horse?” Ellen said without preamble.

“Yes, of course,” replied Jess, puzzled.

“They were talking this morning as if Freya just fell into the pool and drowned.” Jess stared at Ellen in disbelief.

“Do they think I’ve lost my mind? Or that I made all this up? Is that what
you
think?”

“No.” Ellen looked her in the eye. “I believe every word you said. But don’t be surprised if no one else mentions the horse again. It’s easier for them that way.”

“What do you mean?” Jess started to ask, but her mother came in just then and Ellen gave a quick shake of her head that said, clear as words,
not now
.

Jess tried several times that night to talk to her mother and father about what had really happened to Freya, but somehow they always turned the conversation in another direction or found something they had to do that couldn’t wait.

Finally, Jess’s patience snapped.

“Why won’t you listen?” she shouted. “Don’t you want to know what happened?”

Ian shot a glance at Martha.

“We do know what happened. Freya drowned. Stop upsetting yourself with this tale. I don’t want to hear any more of it.”

No one searched the next day. Ian went back to town with Arnor so that he wouldn’t have to go into the shop or house alone yet. Life on the farm returned, outwardly at least, to something like normal, though Jess and Ashe were forbidden to leave the farmyard alone for the time being.

Which made no sense,
Jess noted as she swept the kitchen floor,
if Freya, as people said, had simply drowned
.

Ellen appeared in the doorway, a cloud of white wool in her arms.

“You don’t mind if I borrow Jess to help me pin out this shawl, do you?”

“No, of course not,” said Martha, busy making bread at the big, scrubbed table.

Jess followed her grandmother upstairs and they began to pin the gauzy shawl out. She was sure that wasn’t the only reason she was there, and waited impatiently for her grandmother to speak.

“The horse was black, you said?” Ellen said suddenly.

Jess nodded.

“What about its eyes?” Ellen said, watching for her reaction.

Jess gave a start. She hadn’t said anything about its eyes, she was sure.

“They were blue,” she said quietly.

Ellen closed her own eyes for a moment, then opened them as she spoke again.

“You deserve the truth,” she said. “Even if those other fools choose not to see what’s in front of them. Sit down, lass, and I’ll tell you what really happened to your friend.”

Jess sank down on the window seat as her grandmother settled herself in the chair.

Ellen tried to decide where to begin.
At the beginning of course, you old fool,
she chided herself silently.
How else will it make sense?

“When I was young – a year or two younger than you are now – a boy and a girl disappeared near the same pool, a few
months apart,” she began.

“The boy – he was Ashe’s age – disappeared first. There was a search of course, but no sign of him was ever found. There were no tracks to follow; the weather had been too dry. There had been a gang of children playing hide and seek in the woods and it had been Euan’s turn to hide, so it was a long time before they realised he was missing. One of the other children said they’d seen a blue-eyed black horse near the pool a little while before, but none of the adults listened to her. They never found out what happened to Euan. A girl – I can’t remember her name after all these years – went missing about nine months later. Same place, and this time there were footprints and hoof prints – unshod hoof prints – mixed up at the pool’s edge.