Coombe's Wood (27 page)

He glanced over with a brief smile, and then looked back at the floor. “Near the woods. Come.”

He marched past Izzy, and down the hall. Izzy slipped on her trainers and followed, running after him down the stairs and outside, trying to catch up. He headed for the fallow field across the way. By the time she reached it, Izzy was panting. Amras turned, with an air of impatience.

He planted his hat firmly on his head, and grabbed her hands. Izzy baulked, but managed to not pull back entirely. Before she could open her mouth to query his need to hold onto to her, he spoke.

“Close your eyes.”

Izzy looked at him dubiously.

“No harm will come of you. You need to trust me,” Amras said.

Against her instincts, Izzy obeyed, and screwed her eyes shut.

“Now imagine you are standing on ice,” Amras said. “Then imagine you are skating across the ice.”

She moved her legs stiffly. Stubbly grass rustled beneath her feet, and she took a few sliding steps. He tugged on her arms, and she stopped.

“Now look.”

She looked around. They’d moved across half the field in the few seconds her eyes had been closed.

“How on earth did we do that?” she cried out, turning to Amras, and daring a smile.

“Want to do it again?”

Izzy frowned, then whispered, “But how did we do that? Was that magic?”

Amras’s laugh was deep and melodic.

“What’s so funny?”

“No magic, Izzy. Merely concentration, and knowing what to do.”

He still held onto her.

“So anyone can do this?” Izzy asked, fighting the temptation to pull her hands away.

“Anyone. But unless a person is taught, they will never be able to accomplish such things.”

“Oh,” she said, fair enough. It all sounded like baloney, but she’d travelled right across the field. That was a fact. And her son was half-elf. Anything could be possible. “Can I try again?”

Amras smiled. “Just close your eyes. Later, you can try it with your eyes open. Sometimes, a human can’t do fast-walk with their eyes open – their mind won’t allow it. It looks wrong to them.”

She closed her eyes and seconds later, opened them to find we were on the other side of the field once more. “What if someone drives past?”

“People only see what they think can be. Just as we elves live unnoticed, so too shall you fast-walk without comment.”

Izzy frowned again.

“They simply will not notice you.”

Izzy shrugged. “Oh,” she said. “That explains everything. Excuse me, while I try to control my sarcasm, but…”

“Again?” He cut her off, and pulled at her gently. She snapped her eyes closed and fought against a mild sensation of vertigo.

They traversed the field three more times, before Amras invited her to open her eyes. “Open them just as we start moving. It’s important that your brain realise this is possible. I understand a blurring of your vision might help.”

As instructed, the second they began to move, she lifted her eyelids and peered between her eyelashes. The trees and bushes that grew at the edge of the field flashed past. She no longer felt the stubbly growth under her feet. Instead, the ground acted like a sheet of wet glass, and she slipped across, held up by the tall elf at her side. Suddenly, panic flared. She dug her heels into the dirt, tripped a little, but kept going, Amras pulling firmly. Her heart pounded, and her head filled with static, she could not be moving so fast. She wanted to open her eyes, to see what was really happening. A vision came to Izzy, of a motorcycle-style crash, of her skittering across the field on her back. With this thought, she kept her eyes half-lidded, and forced a self-imposed fuzzing of the surroundings as they flew unnaturally past.

The motion ended. Amras stood aside, watching.

“This time,” he said, “keep your eyes open right from the start. But remain unfocused.”

Izzy slid forward, still holding onto Amras. There was no build-up of speed. They were standing still, and then flashing across the grass. Izzy allowed her eyes to focus, and the feeling of unreality left as the world sharpened. Amras was directly in front of her, fast-walking backwards. And the speed was exhilarating. She drew a sharp breath.

They sped in a long sweep across the field. Skating, he released one hand, and turned with the precision and style of a professional ice-skater, so he faced forward. He directed her along the edge of the field, near the hedgerow.

Izzy found the hardest part was separating the rapid movement from their relaxed, slow movements. She and Amras stood ramrod straight, holding hands, like lovers at a skating rink, their feet hardly relating to the speed at which they travelled. She thought she had it, when her stomach rolled, the movement suddenly became too much. She tried to catch Amras’s eye, but he was focused on their path along the edge of the field. She fought against nausea, and opened her mouth to ask Amras if they could stop, when the elf let go.

Izzy stumbled, hovering between throwing up and falling. Then she found stability, and a wonderful calm filled her, quelling the sickness. She slid across the field – until a rock underfoot reminded her of her inexperience. She stumbled to a halt, waving her arms out at her sides to try and regain her balance. With difficulty, she took a few tentative steps, to be sure she still could walk naturally. Her legs wobbled, and she over-stepped, like she’d just come off an extended bike ride.

Fast-walk already seemed so natural, she could hardly believe she’d needed to be taught.

“It’s a matter of over-riding learned behaviour,” Amras said. Once again, it seemed he could read her thoughts. “As a result of accomplishing fast-walk, you will now find that your everyday slow-walk is almost silent.”

“What do you mean?”

“Walk, and listen.”

Izzy took a few slow steps, to test the theory. As he’d explained would happen, her feet did not even rustle in the grass.

Izzy took a long stride.

She said, “It feels like baby steps.”

“You’ve done well. Joe insisted you would be a good pupil.” He took a step back. “I will see you in a few days. Practice until then.”

Amras glided into the distance.

Izzy shook her head, took a few fast-steps, and arrived at the gate to the field a second later. A couple more steps and she found herself stood in front of the block of flats. She walked slowly up stairs, somehow not wanting to waste her new skill. She listened for the shuffle of her trainers, but her steps were silent.

Feathers must have been watching out – he surely couldn’t have heard her coming – but he came bursting out from his flat, his face glowing with excitement.

“Feathers, oh God. I am
so sorry
about Sunday,” Izzy said.

Feathers wrapped her in a warm embrace.

“That’s all right, Izzy.’ He kissed her cheek, his bristles tickling her skin. ‘I totally understand. Everything will be fine. You’ll see.”

He led her into his flat.

This time, it was she who resisted.

“I need to go home, Connor seems to have got himself a girlfriend. I want to make sure he’s home. And alone.” She pulled away.

“Oh, okay. I just have to get something.”

Feathers disappeared inside his flat, and returned with an old looking, leather-bound book.

“Any sign of you-know-who?”

Izzy shook her head. “I’ve been worrying about him, but there was no sign. Bastard.” She opened her front door, and went inside.

“So you say.”

“But, you know who did visit me today?” Izzy locked up behind Feathers. “Amras. He showed me how to fast-walk, like that thing you did the other night when you took me to the Village Hall.”

“Hey, Mum,” Connor called from his room.

“Hi, Connor,” Izzy said, and peered into his room. He lay sprawled across his bed, reading a book.

“Hey there,” Feathers called over her shoulder, and walked back into the kitchen.

Izzy followed him in.

Feathers placed the old book with care in the centre of the table. “So you met Amras,” he said. “What did you think of him?”

“Not very good around humans,” Izzy said, sitting down. “Or was it me? He couldn’t look me in the eye, and kept fiddling. He was a little better once we got outside. But I went so fast, Feathers, like the wind!”

Izzy grabbed Feathers’ hands. Learning something so fundamentally against all taught beliefs, had lit a fire of excitement. She wanted to go out right then, and zip across the fields all night.

“It’s a high, isn’t it?” Feathers smiled, then released one of her hands and fingered the cover of the book. “I went to Madam Tulia’s today.”

“Madam Tulia’s? Connor was there the other day, got the Dangerous Book for Boys. It’s because of that, he wants a fishing rod now.”

Feathers fingered the tissue thin pages, with their smooth golden edges. “I was looking at the sci-fi section. This was tucked behind some old magazines.”

He pushed the book across the table. The book was so heavy, Izzy needed both hands to lift it. She sniffed the air as if the musty smell was that of a fine wine.

On the inside, the title read, ‘
The Life and Times of the People of Cedham
’.

“When’s the copyright?” she asked, scanning a dense page of information. “Is this right?” She looked up.

“Yup,” he said. “And Sam let me have it for three pounds.”

“Three quid? But it’s two hundred years old!”

“A little less than two hundred, but the interesting thing is
…
this.” Feathers flopped through the pages, stopping where a bookmark lay hidden. “Read that.”

Izzy began, but the text was tiny, and the style so dense the sentences were almost impenetrable.

She looked up. “Tell me, what does it say?”

“This book is all about the life of the people of Cedham in 1817. I bought it weeks ago, I thought it would be fun to read. And it has been. But then they went through a little of the history, the myths and legends in the surrounding countryside.”

He took the book back, found a few lines, and pointed. “It says that a beast inhabited a small wood, and that to walk there alone was to incur certain death.”

Izzy scanned the lines where Feathers held his finger. “Beast? Do they describe it any further?”

“No, but I haven’t finished, either. At the time of print, they said a person hadn’t been taken in twenty-score years. The author said a murder was due, and that all children were to be warned, and that signs had been put up around the copse to warn vagrants away.”

“Well, we knew that the murders had been going on for some time, I think Joe told me that.”

Izzy glanced up, and thought a flash of jealousy crossed Feathers’ face at the mention of the old elf. She should tell Feathers about her meeting him that afternoon. That Connor’s father was an elf.

“When was the last disappearance?” she asked. “Do you know?”

Feathers shook his head. “I’ll look it up at work tomorrow on the net, well, at least see if I can find anything.”

“Can you do something for me?” Izzy asked.

“How can I help?” Feathers closed up the book.

“Can you come with me on my rounds.” She ran her fingers along the leather binding. “I don’t really want to go on my own.”

Feathers gave her a hug. “Come on. I’ll keep you safe.”

After Feathers had left and Connor had gone to sleep, Izzy lay in bed, her eyes fixed on the ceiling. She’d checked the front door twice, to be sure it was securely locked. She had also tested each window, and the glass door to the balcony. But she had an image of George scaling the building in the dead of the night. He’d climb onto her balcony, and creep past her rocking chair. Then pulling down on the handle, his ugly face would register surprise as the door opened silently, and he’d creep inside. But everything was locked up tight. And yet she still couldn’t sleep.

She rolled over, towards the wall, and closed her eyes. There’d been a note fixed to her door when Feathers and she returned from her rounds. Poppy still couldn’t find Sidi, her pretty script smudged by what looked like tear drops. Tomorrow she’d drive Poppy around the village, and see if they could find the pup. At a faint noise, probably cooling pipes, pulled her from her thoughts, and Izzy opened her eyes again.

She caught sight of the shadow of someone walking past her bedroom door. There were no lights on in the flat, nothing to cause a shadow. She watched the shadow grow on her wall. Izzy rolled back over quickly, grabbed the torch from under her pillow, and searched the dark. She was alone in the room. She got out of bed, wielding the torch, and closed the door with a soft click. She should explore the flat, make sure George hadn’t found a way in. The torch moved as she tightened her fist repeatedly. She’d checked the flat three times. Sleep was more important. She tried again to close her eyes, this time facing the door.

Half an hour passed before she climbed out onto the cold floorboards. She’d almost dropped off. A dream had been taking her away, when she heard a shuffle.