Authors: Karl Beer
Crik
CRIK © 2015 Karl Beer
Cover © 2015 Karl Beer
All Rights Reserved
This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Printed in the United Kingdom
First printing, 2015
For my Dad for sharing his love of books
My Mother with love and admiration
For my Wife, Helen for always believing in me,
My guiding light
11. STAY AWHILE …. I’LL KEEP YOU FOREVER
17. GREY DIRECTIONS FROM A BLACK HEART
20. HELLO, GOODBYE, AND HOW WE GOT THERE.
29. A GLIMMER OF GOLD IN THE MORNING
31. WHEN THE DEAD WALK THE WOLD
39. WHAT GOES UP, MUST EVENTUALLY COME DOWN
YIN AND YANG
The Hanging Tre
e
dominated the skyline. Sat astride two stone hills it loomed over the other trees in the valley. A tall figure, with slumped shoulders and a hunched back, contemplated the ancient wood as he stepped along the country lane. Bark, like cracked leather, funnelled the rain into thousands of small tributaries. Twisted gnarled roots formed a canopy over the path, offering respite from the downpour. Hunching down, the traveller entered the tunnel. Wood thrummed to the sound of the pounding rain. Leaning against the cold rock that supported the tree, the figure scanned the bent boughs through the nest of roots. Generations of children from the nearby village had played unmercifully on the branches. Tied to the tree hung a long knotted rope. With each gust, the rope swung into the air, threatening to loop over a branch, or snag the many scraggly twigs adorning the outer appendages. Despite a hundred bowed branches, some falling so low from the trunk they appeared broken, the old wood remained strong. Leaves rustled as the traveller found what he sought. Swinging from an upper branch, well away from where the children played, fell another rope, its weave frayed by the passage of time. A spark of lightning illuminated the noose that gave the tree its name, and its true purpose.
Grunting, the traveller pushed away from the wet rock and stepped from under the roots. Rain went through his worn white shirt, peppering skin as thick and gnarled as the Hanging Tree he left behind.
Past the hangman’s tree, the slopes disappeared into a wide valley, surrounded by other, less impressive trees. With all the rain over the last weeks, the foliage had grown thick, darkening the woods even during the day. They shepherded the valley, with only a high snow-capped mountain visible over the dense canopy.
A fast river cut close to the wood before turning inward across the gentle rolling hills. The water met the road at a stone bridge, where the roiling depths frothed with furious abandon beneath the arch. On the far bank, stood an aged pub, a sign above the door, showing a frothing pint of ale, identified both the pub, and the village that came into sight, as Crik.
Despite the small size of the village, the cemetery on its outskirts held far more occupants than most towns. Various sized and shaped tombstones sat atop a high hill, surrounded by stone woodland creatures. Granite foxes, hawks, and an occasional wolf, occupied this high ground. Simple sticks, with names long faded from the wood, peppered the poor soil closer to the riverbank. After floods, it was common to find an arm protruding from the ground, even a whole corpse drifting with the current. An epitaph of the buried person resided beneath their name, "Jack Smill, hanged by mistake". Another read, "Here lies Margery Bremp, she said she’d live to see a hundred, but died at ninety nine instead".
The village, sitting alongside so many graves, took on an unwarranted gloomy persona. All the homes were in good repair, and the gardens, both front and back, tended with care, the hedges neat and trim, and the grass not too long. Two roads intersected at a cross within the village. The larger, better-paved road, led from the Hanging Tree. A house stood at the end of the shorter road, its white boards pale in the darkness, with four windows downstairs and a further three above. Heavy curtains, pulled tight against the continuing downpour, darkened two of the larger upstairs windows. Inside the highest window, set within reach of the curved roof, and its overflowing gutter, shone a gentle light. Despite the dim glow, it gleamed conspicuously in the darkened village.
Behind the window sat a boy, staring out at the rivulets of water streaming down the glass. Tracking individual droplets wind down the pane, he muttered under his breath. His count reached eleven when another spark lit up the sky. The storm was getting closer, not fading. At his elbow, the candle, already short, dripped red wax on the small saucer.
Heaped around the desk where he sat was an assortment of oddities and discarded toys. Everything from taxidermy animals, to miniature battlegrounds, where elves fought goblins amongst huge war engines constructed from twigs and twine. Landscape paintings, featuring mountains, fields, and wooded glades, dotted the walls. Pencil drawings of exotic creatures, both real and imagined, covered every other available surface. Amongst the clutter on the floor, and on his bed, were scraps of black and white comics. A fearsome image of a crazed bear attacking a half dressed man holding a small knife, peered up from the floor. In the next panel, the man stood over the dead predator, his knife jutting from the wild animal’s neck.
Turning from the storm, he studied a small framed picture of a handsome man with a proud moustache. His father’s image meant less to him than it once had, the man sketched in charcoal was only that, a sketch in his memory, with time as the eraser. Although he never knew who drew the picture, he knew his mother had written “To Jack,” in the bottom right corner. It was his name, but his friends called him Yin. The flickering light from the candle revealed Yang.
Yang moved stuffed sparrows and a robin to a high shelf, where they peered down with gold-speckled eyes. Displeased by having the small birds in place of honour, he replaced them with a barn owl. Satisfied with the owl, Yang sought something else to rearrange. In bored amusement, Jack watched Yang stuff a field mouse into the gaping jaws of a grey fox. Yang made Jack unique in the village, though not the oddest member of their small community, for Yang was Jack’s shadow. Without doubt, no one else had ever had such an independent shadow, and he was sure Yang’s ability to move things around was particular to him. While a light shone, Jack was never alone; something that brought trouble down on him nearly everyday, for Yang, being a mischievous sort, often did things that got him into trouble. Noticing Jack’s attention, Yang spread his fingers across the wall. Three of the elongated fingers striped a curved shield. Jack thought Yang held his hand in greeting, before noticing the black insubstantial fingers closing off one at a time. Only two shadowed fingers remained when Jack realised Yang counted. As the hand closed into a fist, a flash of white light enveloped the room; illuminated, Yang grew to giant proportions. Standing upright, his hair spiked around his head, Yang lifted one stiff arm and then fell on the bed. Patting his head, Jack felt his mop of sandy hair flat against his skull.
Tired of his shadow’s antics, he returned to his vigil in time to see movement down in the street. The lack of streetlamps in the village spoiled his chance of identifying the stranger. Only the white cloth the figure wore, standing in stark contrast to its surroundings, gave him any guidance. Close to Bill’s house, beside the rosebush Bill’s grandparents had planted the summer before, leaned the stranger. From the size of the white shirt, he knew the stranger dwarfed anyone in the village. At once, he recognised one of the woodland folk, who grew to immense size, lurking outside. Scared, he doused the candle, dispelling Yang, who had come wandering over to look. With the dying light, a row of pale houses bloomed in the night. Below, the figure grew more distinct, revealing for the first time a large sack slung over a humped shoulder. A hand, far larger than the proportion of the arm, swept great clumps of wet dirt onto the road.
Jack hoped his night vision improved before the Wood Giant found what he looked for. Eager to see, he rested his head against the cold glass, the thumping rain tickled his brow. The Giant, oblivious to Jack’s scrutiny, continued with its digging. Briefly, Jack thought the long fingers, coated with earth and torn grass, was the Giant’s shovel. No matter what it looked for, Bill’s grandparents would be furious come morning when they saw the damage wrought to their beloved roses. Especially Grandma Poulis, whose scathing tongue, had touched many in Crik, particularly himself, who had the misfortune to carry Yang along with him. Looking down, he did not think the Giant cared what Grandma Poulis would say or do.
As the storm worsened, the thunderous downpour hid the sounds of the excavation. Heavy rain pummelled the collection of homes and made a river of the road. Returning lightning brought the misshapen features of the Giant into vivid detail. The light afforded him only a moment to inspect the long face of the Giant, yet the vision remained secure in his mind’s eye, where he groped for every detail. Woodland folk had no hair, only branches as fine as silk, dotted with growths of red and gold leaves covering a high-rise brow. From the numerous tales his mother told him, Jack knew the longer the branches and the fatter the leaves the older the Giant. Even from the distance he sat from Bill’s house, he saw ropes of tangled leaves dropping down below the open shirt. He turned his attention to the black eyes. An unblinking cluster, scattered over the cheekbones, varied in size, some no larger than coat buttons, while others equalled a prize-fighter’s fist. Looking at each orb swayed him from wariness, to full comfort. Each eye portrayed a different emotion. One deep-set eye surrounded by great rings of thoughtful conjecture, instilled calmness, and great introspection. Another, above the skin, scrutinised with a maddening keenness that placed him at nerves end. Brown skin, with many cracks and growths, appeared thick and rough, not at all like the smooth skin of smaller people, whose joy of running and bathing contrasted the Giants’ fondness of darkened dells and rocks. Twisted roots dangled from the long face. Jack’s mother had told him, the roots, hiding the mouth, siphoned minerals out of the rock water they drank. She later said, when threatened they could pull back the roots, to uncover their mouths. His probing for a description of the mouth went unanswered, his mother had never seen a Giant with the roots pulled back, and she knew no one who had. He felt disappointment again as the roots remained in place over the Giant’s chin.
Finished with its digging, the Giant pulled a sack from its shoulder to place it on the cobblestones. Surprised, Jack saw the bottom of the bag bulged with hidden content. He had it wrong, the Giant did not dig to find something; it dug to leave something behind. The neck of the sack, tied with thick cord, flopped over to one side. With slow measured movements, the Giant first regarded the hole, then Bill’s house, and finally the sack itself. Continuing to tilt its head the Giant remained unhurried, not troubled by standing at the centre of the village.
The humped back made it difficult for the Giant to lower itself to work at the cords; eventually the thick fingers loosened the knots, and the neck of the sack opened. Bending did not come easy to the wood folk, preferring as they did to stand tall and proud, and move as little as possible. Jack, prepared to see what lay within the bag, felt his stomach sink. The colossal hand, which delved inside, withdrew, obscuring the object it carried behind fingers as broad as the root of an oak tree. Taking its time the Giant moved the mysterious object to the expectant hole.
Shifting position, Jack accidentally knocked over the picture of his father. In hopes of gaining a better advantage, he never noticed the cracked frame. Frustrated, he scrambled atop his desk, planting his hands and face against the topmost edge of the glass.
Taking less time to cover the hole than it had to dig, the Giant, after retrieving the empty bag, walked from Grandma Poulis’s rosebush. The huge form marched down the street, toward Jack’s house.
Alarmed, Jack wanted to jump away from the window, only his great curiosity kept him at the glass. As far as he knew this was the first time one of the woodland folk had ever entered Crik, and for it to leave something behind, only made the adventure more appealing. The Giant carried on in its lumbering gait; its broad and powerful legs more squat than tall, reminded Jack of the foundations of a house.
Just beyond the shelter of Jack’s home, it stopped. Tipping back its head, the Giant peered up at the highest window. Unblinking eyes held Jack prisoner. Scared witless, Jack locked his gaze with the Giant. The pointed fence circling his home only managed to reach the Giant’s knees, offering no barrier to the night prowler, and the front door would not withstand one knock from the dirty hands swaying at its sides. His hurried breath fogged the window, obscuring the Giant for seconds while the white mist dissipated to a small area before his open mouth.
What felt an hour, certainly only took a few minutes; after watching Jack, the Giant continued on its way, leaving behind the frightened boy. Unwilling to light the candle to have Yang with him, for fear of the light bringing back the Giant, Jack sat down at his desk to wait for dawn.
