Kit's Wilderness (3 page)

I
t was Allie Keenan who helped to draw me in. I walked through the gates one afternoon and saw Askew’s group gathering there. There was Bobby Carr, the others, then Allie standing silent on the fringes. She saw me watching and she grinned. She was in my year. She lived behind us in one of the houses by the green at Stoneygate’s heart. One morning she’d run to catch up with me as I walked to school.

“Name’s Allie Keenan,” she said. “Knew your grandma. Used to baby-sit me sometimes when I was little. Led her a dance but she loved it really.” She laughed. “She used to tell me about her precious little Kit. Perfectly behaved, she used to say. Not like one little madam I could mention.”

We walked on together.

“Perfectly behaved,” she said. “Is that still true? Was it ever true?” She watched me and grinned.

“Dunno,” I said.

“Certainly the proper gent in class,” she said. “Or is that just the new boy’s way?” She kept on watching me, kept on grinning.

“Dunno,” I said. “Dunno what to say.”

“Ha. Butter wouldn’t melt, eh?”

We kept on walking.

“She was so lovely, though,” she said. “Must have been awful for you. We were all so sad when she passed away.”

Allie was little and thin and got into trouble for the lipstick and eye shadow she wore in school. She wore red shoes and yellow jeans. In class she giggled at the teachers and hunched over her books and scribbled fast and frantic stories filled with dragons and monsters and maidens in distress. In classes she hated, like geography, she stared out of the window and picked her nails and daydreamed about being in a soap on television one day.

“So?” asked Mr. Dobbs, the geography teacher one day. “So, Miss Alison Keenan, what have you learned of terminal moraines in the last half hour?”

Allie blinked, refocused, pondered.

“Forgive me, Mr. Dobbs,” she said. “But I simply fail to see the relevance of the subject to a person of my inclinations and ambitions.”

For that she was given detention, and a warning letter was sent home.

The morning after I saw her at the school gates we walked together again to school.

“You’re one of John Askew’s friends,” I said.

She looked at me, her lips tight shut. “Hm,” she said.

“I saw you with the others, at the gates.”

“Hm,” she said again. She quickened her step.

“Okay. You’re not, then,” I said.

I let her get ahead of me, but she hesitated. “Why d’you want to know?” she said. She turned and stared right at me.

“Dunno,” I said. “There’s something . . .”

“Something! He’s just a brute. He’s a caveman.”

“I talked to him.”

“And he grunted back, I bet.” She just watched me, hands on hips.

I chewed my lips. I wanted to tell her that I saw how brutal Askew might be, but that I felt drawn to him. I wanted to tell her that I’d begun to believe what he said was true: that I was like him, that he was like me. I thought of what my grandpa said about the pit, that he was terrified of it, but that he was driven to it. But as she stood there with her eyebrows raised and her head tilted to the side, I knew she’d just laugh and scoff.

“Listen,” she said. “From what I’ve seen of you I don’t really think we’re the thing for you.”

I looked away.

“Mr. New Boy,” she said. “Mr. Perfectly Behaved.” She tapped her foot and pondered. “He’s a caveman,” she said again. “You know that, don’t you? If you don’t know how to deal with him, he’ll cause you all kinds of bother. You stick to your homework and your stories, Mr. New Boy.”

I shrugged.

“He’d have you for breakfast,” she said. She pondered again, then shook her head. “Look at you,” she said. “Somebody’s got to protect you, haven’t they?”

Then she turned and danced away.

I
woke with a start in the middle of the night.

“There he is! After him, lads! There he is!”

It was Grandpa, calling out.

Then silence.
Just one of his dreams,
I thought. I smiled, turned over and began to sleep again.

“Aye! Aye! Again! Follow him, lads!”

The wall beside me trembled. I heard how he twisted and turned in his bed.

I pulled a shirt and shorts on, tiptoed out, tiptoed to him, sat on his bedside. His legs kicked and his arms jerked. He was panting, gasping for breath.

“Grandpa,” I whispered. “Grandpa.” I spread my hand over his brow. “Grandpa.”

His eyes opened, stared, reflected the light from the moon that shone in through his window.

“Aye, that’s him!” he said. “After him! After him!”

I held his shoulder, shook him gently. “Grandpa. Grandpa.”

He blinked, shook his head. “Eh? What’s that?”

“It’s me, Grandpa. Kit.”

I leaned across and switched the bedside lamp on.

He stared again, seeing me now. He let out his breath in a long sigh.

“Kit. It’s you, Kit.” He shook his head again, squeezed his eyes and smiled. “Ach. And we almost had him that time.”

He laughed and eased himself up, leaned back against the headboard. He glanced at the clock and grinned.

“Old blokes and lads should be asleep at this time of the night, eh?” He pressed a finger to his lips. “They’ll have our guts for garters, Kit.”

“Who was it?” I whispered.

“Little Silky.”

“Silky?”

“Called him that ’cause of the way the lamplight fell on him. ’cause it made him shine like flickering silk as he flashed through the tunnels before our eyes. A glimpse, and then he’s gone.”

“A ghost?”

“Little lad in shorts and boots that many of us seen down there. Sometimes just looking at us from the deepest edges of the dark, sometimes slipping past our backs as we leaned down to the coal.” He smiled. “If ever a lamp went out or a pitman’s bait was pinched, that’s Silky’s work, we’d say. Little mischief, little Silky. A glimpse, and then he’s gone.”

He smiled again. His eyes looked deep into the past, deep into the pit.

“Some said he’d been trapped down there after one of the disasters. One they’d never been able to get to. One of those that never got taken out and buried. Not scary, though. Something sweet in him. Something you wanted to touch and comfort and draw into the light.” He smiled. “Ask any of the old blokes left round here and they’ll tell you about our Silky.”

He stroked his chin.

“Sometimes chased him, like in the dream, but never got to touch him.”

Someone stirred in another part of the house.

Grandpa switched the light off. “Guts for garters, Kit,” he whispered. “Back to bed, eh?”

We looked at each other, faces blooming in the moonlight.

“Used to leave out biscuits for him, cups of water,” he whispered.

“And he took them?”

“It seemed he took them.” He smiled again. “A thing of brightness,” he whispered, “deep down there in the dark.” He squeezed my arm. “Often wonder if he’s down there still,” he whispered. “Night, son.”

“Good night.”

I tiptoed back to bed, back to sleep.

I lay a long time with the moonlight flooding in on me. I saw him from the corner of my eye. He shimmered in the moonlight in the corner of my room.

“Silky!” I whispered.

I tried to focus on him but he just kept shifting to the edges of my vision. I reached out to him but he faded into the dark.

“Silky,” I whispered as I fell asleep.

“Silky!” I called as I entered my dreams. He was there, flickering in front of me. He started to run, and I followed him. Sometimes he stopped and turned and watched me and I saw his shorts, his boots, his skinny body, his gentle face. All that night I followed him.

“Silky!” I kept calling. “Silky! Silky!”

He ran all night before me, flickering through the endless tunnels of my dreams.

I
t was late afternoon, the day the clocks went back. I was wandering alone. I found them gathered by the school gates. Allie, Bobby, a little crowd of others. Beyond them, the dark figure of Askew lurched toward the river with Jax at his side. I paused, my heart thudded, my palms were soaked. Allie saw me standing there. She pursed her lips and turned away. I went toward them, stood at the fringes. They watched me, suspicious.

“Who asked you?” said Wilfie Cook through his teeth.

Bobby grinned. “’S’all right,” he said, in his high soft voice.

Askew disappeared. We waited.

“Okay,” said Bobby, and the group moved out across the wilderness.

I trailed behind. I kept slowing, hesitating, kept telling myself to stop, to go home. Allie strode at the front of the group and didn’t look back. The slope steepened. We waded through the long grass above the river and came to the den. When we were all gathered there, dead still and dead silent, Jax barked and Askew’s hand appeared and drew the door aside. He looked up into our faces. His eyes met mine and he grinned.

“Come inside,” he said.

I was the last to go down. I crouched like the others against the wall. Askew slid the door shut. He lit the cigarette, he poured the water.

“There’s a new one come to play our game,” he said. All of them but Allie stared at me. I saw the excitement in their eyes, heard the sniggers. The cup of water in my hand trembled.

“He’s chicken,” whispered Louise.

There were giggles, then Askew whispered, “Silence!” He looked around the den. “What should we do with him?” he asked.

“Skin him,” hissed Bobby.

“Needles down his fingernails,” said Louise.

“The Voodoo Slits,” whispered Dot.

Allie looked down, down.

Askew snorted.

“What must we really do?” he said.

They breathed in and waited for his voice to lead them, then they spoke together.

“We must welcome him,” they said.

“What must he keep?” said Askew.

“The secret,” they answered.

“What must he give to us?”

“Life.”

“What do we promise him?”

“Death.”

He leaned toward me; his heavy body loomed in the candlelight.

“Do you agree,” he said, “to keep the secrets of this gathering, to tell no one of our game?”

I glanced at Allie. She made a face, poked her tongue out at me, looked away.

“Yes,” I said.

“Drink the water,” Askew whispered.

I took the jug from him with trembling hands and drank from it.

“Smoke the cigarette.”

I took the cigarette and drew on it.

He smiled. “And now the knife.” He held it before my eyes. “Kiss the knife.”

I kissed the cold steel. He pressed the point against my lips.

“Understand,” he whispered. “If you break our trust, the mad dog Jax will tear you limb from limb.”

“Limb from limb,” the others whispered.

“This is Kit,” said Askew. “The new one. Any damage done to him is damage done to all of us. Will we avenge him?”

“We will avenge him,” they whispered.

He smiled deep into my eyes.

“One day, Kit Watson,” he whispered, “you will see your name written on these walls. You will join the long list of the dead.”

He touched my cheek.

“Your name will be written here, just as it’s written on the tombstone.”

I stared past him to the names. At the head of the list was written “John Askew, aged thirteen.” Many of those beneath were already worn away by trickling water; then there was an empty space.

“Now,” he said. “Let us play the game called Death.”

He laid the knife on the glass and set it spinning.

It didn’t point at me that day.