Bone Jack (16 page)

But it was more than that. Tom Cullen’s death was the reason Mark was running with ghosts and making crazy threats to kill the stag boy. He was at the heart of everything Mark had done, everything Mark would do, and yet he was dead and gone, an absence around which chaos swirled. Ash wanted to stand at his grave. He wanted Tom Cullen to be just Mark and Callie’s dad again, just Dad’s best friend again. A real person who had lived and died.

The main street was closed when they got there. Traffic cones and detour signs stood at either end to keep out cars. A crowd was already gathering, a mix of locals and tourists. People were setting up food stalls and souvenir stalls decked out with T-shirts, baseball caps, mugs and key rings, all bearing the stag’s head emblem. The new local economy, selling tat to tourists looking for a bit of Merrie Olde England.

They left the car in a lay-by and walked towards the churchyard. Through the gate under the wooden arch, along the stone path that wound among the graves. Ash stopped at Tom Cullen’s grave, a shiny rectangle of polished granite with gold lettering cut and painted into it.
Beloved father to Mark and Callie
. There were still flowers on the grave, withered and dry, their colours faded.

‘I was scared of him,’ said Ash. ‘He never smiled. He hardly ever spoke except to tell us what to do.’

‘He wasn’t always like that,’ said Mum. ‘He used to be great fun. A bit wild until he married Ella and they had the kids. He loved being a dad. He took those kids all over the mountains, taught them about wildlife and nature. He knew the name of every plant and every bird and bug, did Tom. Your dad used to say he knew the name of every pebble, too. Then Ella got sick and died.’

Ash had a brief flash of a dark-haired woman with laughter in her eyes. ‘I don’t remember her very well,’ he said. ‘Just what she looked like.’

‘Mark was only eight when she died so you must have been seven. It seems such a long time ago. Tom was heartbroken and all alone out here with two young kids to look after and a farm to run. He kind of withdrew into himself. He wouldn’t accept any help, but he should have. He needed it. The kids needed it. I guess by the time the foot-and-mouth hit, he was already at breaking point. He didn’t have anything left for another crisis.’

‘Dad told me he feels guilty for not being there to help him.’

‘Dad was thousands of miles away,’ said Mum. ‘Risking his life and serving his country.’

Ash nodded. He gazed down at the dead flowers. There was something tucked in among them, catching the sunlight. He crouched and picked it up. Card inside a clear plastic sleeve. He turned it over.

It was a small photograph, one he’d never seen before. He recognised the setting straightaway though: the upper slope of Stag’s Leap. It was a sunny day and Tom Cullen was standing with a dark-haired little girl on his shoulders, her hands clamped over his eyes. They were both laughing. Next to him, smiling broadly, stood Ash’s own dad and in front of them were two boys, four or five years old. Mark, sturdy and brown, smiling at something or someone outside the frame. And Ash, slighter and more serious, watching Mark.

‘What’s that?’ said Mum.

He showed her the photograph. ‘Were you there as well?’

‘I expect so,’ she said. ‘When your dad was home on leave, we sometimes used to take picnics up there with you kids. Ella, Mark’s mum, was always taking pictures. This must be one of hers.’

Ash tucked the photograph back among the dead flowers.

They walked slowly back to the road.

‘You go and do whatever it is you have to do before the race starts,’ said Mum. ‘I’ll go home. See what’s going on. I’ll make sure your dad gets here. I promise.’

Ash nodded. He watched her walk back to the car, wave, drive away.

Then he drew a long breath and headed for the Huntsman Inn.

TWENTY-SIX

There was a TV crew in front of the inn. The camera trained on a shiny-faced reporter sweating in suit and tie, adjusting his smile. ‘Today I’m in Thornditch for the historic Stag Chase,’ he said. Then said it again and again, as if he was stuck on loop.

Ash slipped past the TV crew into the car park next to the inn. Bunting strung between the trees. Starlings squabbling in the high boughs. The air was already glassy with heat. Outside the inn, Morris dancers leaped and turned and clacked sticks like swords. Bells jangled below their knees. A man dressed in a shaggy costume of foliage skipped chaotically around them, then stopped and lifted his arms like boughs. He stared in Ash’s direction, eyes bright and curious in a leafy mask.

At the edges of the crowd, the hound boys prowled. They were already kitted out in their long black shorts, vests, masks of paint-stiffened cloth. They struck poses for photographers. Howled and strutted for attention.

Rupert Sloper, the Master of Hounds, came round the side of the pub. Quick, anxious movements. His belt high and tight around his pot belly. His round pink face shone with sweat. He scanned the crowd, the hound boys, until he spotted Ash. He waved and hurried over. ‘There you are!’ he said. ‘You’re late. I was starting to think you weren’t coming.’

‘Sorry,’ said Ash.

Sloper stared at him, annoyed.

‘Family stuff,’ said Ash. ‘I couldn’t get away.’

Sloper’s expression softened. ‘Ah. Your father, I suppose. I heard he was home and not quite himself …’ He stopped, cleared his throat. ‘I trust everything is all right now.’

Ash shrugged. ‘I’m here, aren’t I?’

‘Yes, yes, you are,’ said Sloper. ‘Good. Well, this way then.’

He led Ash through a side door, along a gloomy corridor, into a small windowless room that smelled of stale beer. A bare light bulb gave out a harsh white glare. A table and a couple of chairs stood in one corner. A blotched mirror on the wall.

‘Your kit’s on the table. I’ll wait outside the door while you get changed, then I’ll need to brief you about your destination.’

The secret destination, known to the Master of Hounds and soon to Ash as well but not to the hound boys.

Ash pulled on black knee-length shorts and a dull reddish-brown vest top. Then the half-mask, made of stiffened cloth, pale brown smudged with black in rough approximation of a stag’s face. No antlers. He’d get to wear the antler headdress only if he won the race.

Last was a small backpack. Inside it were two bottles of water, a few energy bars, a tiny compass, plasters, a whistle for emergencies, an Ordnance Survey map.

His reflection gazed back at him from the mirror. In the mask, he seemed only partly himself. The other part was already the stag: wild, fearful, exhilarated.

He went back out into the corridor where Sloper was pacing and waiting.

‘All set?’ said Sloper.

Ash nodded. He watched Sloper through the eyeholes in the mask.

‘Right then,’ said Sloper. ‘We’re nearly done. Ready for your briefing?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Your destination is Black Crag. If you don’t know where it is, check the map in your pack. It’s marked on there.’

‘I know where it is.’

‘Right. Good. At the summit of Black Crag, there’s a cairn. It’s a stack of stones, sort of cone-shaped, not quite as tall as you. Lift the top stone and underneath you’ll find a pendant with a leather thong threaded through it. Put it around your neck and then get back here without getting caught by the hounds. That clear?’

‘Yes,’ said Ash. ‘Head for Black Crag, retrieve the pendant from the cairn, get back here without getting caught.’

‘Simple enough,’ said Sloper. ‘Good.’

Then came the safety briefing.

Drink plenty of water. There’ll be extra on Black Crag, for if you need it.

Stay within the circle marked in red on the map.

In the event of injury or getting lost, stay where you are and wait for rescue. Blow the whistle once every two minutes to help the rescue team locate you.

If you’re not back by 4 p.m., rescue teams will be sent out automatically to search for you.

‘Don’t take risks,’ said Sloper. ‘We don’t want any broken bones or dead bodies.’

‘I’ll be careful.’

‘Good lad. The horn will sound at ten sharp.’ Sloper checked his watch. ‘That’s in another ten minutes. You’ll set off first. Then you’ve got thirty minutes to get as far away as you can before the horn sounds again and the hounds set off after you.’

Ash nodded.

‘Ready then?’ said Sloper.

‘Ready.’

He followed Sloper out into the bright sunlight. The hound boys circled and bayed, a wild excited ululation. They kept their distance, followed Ash with their eyes as they paced, already moving like predators.

Ash’s stomach tightened.

They’re just boys, he told himself. Boys in stupid masks. But they were more than that, he knew. Not just boys any more but actors in an ancient drama played out year after year for centuries. They were hounds and he was a stag and they would do everything in their power to hunt him down.

And he would do everything in his power to stay ahead of them.

He scanned the crowd again for Mum and Dad. No sign of them anywhere.

Disappointment hollowed his chest. All this work and effort, all those months of training, and Dad had just hidden away like a loser. There was no point in running the race if Dad wasn’t there to see it, there to meet him at the finish. He might as well rip off the mask, walk away, go home, go out into the mountains, go anywhere but here.

The hound boys yowled and paced and panted.

Beyond them, onlookers pointed cameras at him.

One of the hound boys came closer. He skirted Ash like a wolf. Head down. Long slow strides. He looked different to the others. His mask was bone-white and blood-red. Arms, shoulders, legs streaked with charcoal and clay.

He stopped, stood with hands on hips and stared at Ash. Then he laughed.

Ash knew that laugh.

‘Mark,’ he said.

Above the clamour of the hounds he heard Sloper’s voice over the tannoy, calling everyone to their places for the start of the race.

‘You came then,’ said Mark. ‘You’re going to be the stag boy, even though I warned you not to. I gave you a chance. Whatever happens now, it’s on your head.’

‘You’re not going to kill me,’ said Ash. ‘You’re not even going to catch me.’

Mark came closer, leaned into him. His breath hot against Ash’s ear. ‘We’re going to tear you apart, Ash Tyler,’ he said. Then that singsong, whispery chant: ‘Earth and stone, fire and ash, blood and bone.’

Ash shoved him, as hard as he could. Mark staggered back theatrically, then straightened. He stood there, laughed again. Then he turned away and went back among the circling hound boys, matching his pace and voice to theirs.

A musical blast ripped through the air, tailed off into a trembling wail. The hunting horn.

The crowd fell silent. All eyes on Ash.

And no sign of Dad.

Tears hot in his eyes. Everything – all his training, his dream of victory and Dad waiting proudly at the finish – would be for nothing if Dad wasn’t there. He might as well just walk away. They’d watch and mutter and wonder about his reasons, his lack of character. Sloper would trot after him, all in a fluster, pleading with him. They’d blame him for ruining the day. But they couldn’t stop him.

Run away from the race, from home, from Mark, all of it.

What then, Ash Tyler?

They’d get another boy to run, one of the hounds. Then maybe Mark really would go through with his plans, kill the stag boy in the belief that he could bring back his dad from Annwn, the Otherworld. He could tell Sloper, warn him about Mark’s threats. But no one would believe him. They’d think everything was just the usual pre-Chase pranks, and Mark would laugh and agree with them and the Stag Chase would go ahead with or without him.

Besides, this was his responsibility. He was the stag boy. He was going to run this race for Dad, even if Dad wasn’t there to see him do it.

He drew a slow, deep breath. Squared his shoulders and crossed to the starting line. Stretched, hopped from foot to foot, shook the tension from his body.

Sloper touched his arm. ‘You remember what I told you and take care out there, lad. Remember it’s just a race. Three more blasts on the horn now and you’re away.’

Ash nodded.

The first blast sounded. The second.

The third.

TWENTY-SEVEN

Ash ran.

His legs felt like jelly. His chest was so tight he couldn’t catch his breath. The faces in the crowd blurred. The cheering, whooping and clapping zoned into white noise.

He ran out of the car park, along the high street, past morris men and jugglers, hot-dog stalls and an ice-cream van and a stall selling stupid fake antlers attached to Alice bands.

The crowd thinned to nothing. Its clamour sank away behind him. He pushed the mask back over his head so he could see properly. He heard the steady thump of his heart, the wild song of his blood, his own sharp, shallow breaths. Beyond these, there was stillness, silence, space, and now he settled into his running, strong and steady.

He ran under the wooden arch that led into the churchyard, past Tom Cullen’s grave, past the gnarly yew tree and a bramble-grown corner. Then he ducked through a leafy tunnel in the tall beech hedge and came out into bright sunlight. The sun at his back. He chased the long shadow of himself along the footpath through the fields to Tolley Carn, ran around it, skirted the tarn, headed into the folds of mountain and valley beyond. Here was where he’d throw the hounds off his trail, lose them among the creases and dips and humps of the lower slopes, hide in the gullies and behind rock stacks and crags. He’d keep to the little tracks, half hidden by gorse and bracken, stay below the skyline.

He was fast. He was silent. He was stealthy as a fox.

He headed west, along one of the faint and ancient footpaths spun like cobweb over the land. He slithered down a slick of tired grass to a dry streambed. Ran between ranks of tall reeds with seedheads like loose cotton-wool balls. The air like warm soup.

In the distance behind him, the thin rising wail of the hunting horn. The hound boys would be setting off now, running flat-out to catch up with him before he got too deep into the wild land.