Coombe's Wood (9 page)

“You must have said something, then?”

She stared at him, unsure why this was so important to him. “I said, ‘Isn’t that
dreadful
. I will never, ever drive there again.’” Izzy laughed, as Feathers’ mouth dropped open. “Of course I didn’t say that! What I wanted to say was, ‘You’re this side of crazy, just like my good friend Feathers, and I’ll drive where I like, thank you very much.’”

“Oh,” he said.

“Not that I think you’re crazy
…
” She cleared her throat. “Sounds really harsh
…
”

“You wouldn’t be the first to tell me I was loopy.”

“Why – because you believe in fairies?”

“Or because people think I am a fairy. Anyway, the haunted woods business might be a fairy story,” he said with a grin, “but the old road is sometimes closed, that’s true. Take my word for it.”

“All right. Fairy ’nuff.”

Feathers laughed. “Quite a wit, aren’t you.”

“Not usually,” Izzy said.

“Must be something in the air, then.”

“It’s the fairy dust.”

“Elves. Oh, and they’re real, but maybe the haunted woods is a bit much,” he said, and nudged her with his elbow.

At the end of the road, down in a little valley, the pub came into view. It sat on the edge of the road, with a tiny lane at the side that wound back up the hill towards another part of the village.

“There it is,” Connor shouted, and ran off.

“Want to hear about the pub?”

“Sure,” Izzy said.

“Look at that low part of the pub, the bit closest to us. That was the first part of The Queen Vic, built in 1789. It’s used as the dining hall now. The first extension was built in 1850, when the brick works were bringing in workers, and they needed somewhere to quench their thirst. That’s the main part of the building, there’re a few rooms up there, for bed and breakfast. Stan lives in the attic. Back there,” he pointed to the rear of the pub, “is the last bit, with the thatch. That was built in 1950. It’s the kitchen.”

“Stan?”

“He’s the landlord.”

“The different parts don’t match,” Izzy remarked as they drew closer.

“And watch out for the ghosts.”

“Ghosts?” She looked up at the windows. Didn’t ghosts like to watch the living?

“There’s a young boy dressed in rags who wonders in and out of the dining hall, and a young woman who goes up the stairs in the main building. Apparently, she lived there about 1890, and died during childbirth. She’s looking for her child.”

Izzy kept glancing at the windows as they walked the last few yards. The curtains didn’t even twitch. Disappointed, she walked up the path to where Connor waited for them, cross-legged on a grassy patch by the front door, watching a bumblebee dance around the clover. As they passed under a beech tree, Feathers bent to touch the petals of a plant that looked almost like a bluebell to Izzy, but with creamy white flowers.

“White Helleborine,” he said, “an orchid. Can you see the yellow markings on the lip?” He rested an open bloom between his fingers. “It likes the chalk in the soil, and the shade.”

“It’s pretty, delicate. I didn’t know orchids grew in England.” She bent down and sniffed at another. “Connor,” she called, watching Feathers as he caressed the flowers. Connor jumped up off the ground, and jogged up to Izzy.

“Hi Mum.”

“You do like it here, don’t you, Connor?”

She ruffled his hair. It had grown long, and curled into chestnut ringlets to frame his face. His glasses had thick lenses, which made his eyes seem even larger than normal.

“It’s much better than where we were.” Connor looked up with a smile.

“Come along, then,” Feathers called from the door. “Roll up. Proper grub inside.”

The breeze sucked tendrils of smoke out of the pub. They wafted around in the air currents, swirling around Feathers’ head before fading to nothing.

Inside, the main room was wide and dark. Great oak beams, that had been stained black, crossed the ceiling like giant caterpillars. Columns in awkward places blossomed like tree trunks from the ground, dividing the room.

Connor ran across the uneven floor and sat down on an ingle-nook bench. He looked back and grinned.

“What do you think?” A broad smile stretched across Feathers’ face. “Hi Stan,” he called to the hulking barman. “This is Izzy.”

Stan boomed, “I take it that’s young Connor, then?” He squeaked a tea towel round the rim of a pint glass. “Nice to meet you both.”

Her mouth dropped open for a moment. “Hi,” she said finally, the sound of her voice distant. “I see we’ve been talked about?”

“Yup, we’re all under instructions to recommend our local pet sitter. Here for some lunch?” Stan held out three menus. “Inside or out?”

As if on cue, Connor threw back his head and sneezed.

“Outside, please,” Izzy said. “More breathing space for my son.”

“Connor,” Feathers said. “Why don’t you go out into the garden? Find a nice table in the sun, and we’ll be out after we’ve had a drink.”

“Sure.” Connor ran off out of the smoky room and through the back door that he must have spied earlier.

“Izzy, I’d like to introduce you to Dave.”

Dave shifted along his bench into the shadows as they approached, then looked up through lowered eyelids, as if gazing at them from a far-off place

Tufts of tobacco-tinted hair, highlighted with streaks of white, ringed his mottled pate. With one hand, he clung to a pint glass, a freshly lit pipe in the other. He took a draft, and then rested the pipe on a clay ashtray.

“Nice to meet you,” he said, his voice rippling gently.

Dave’s hand was surprisingly dry and firm, and as Feathers took up the space next to him, Izzy slipped into the seat opposite.

“Well,” Feathers said. “I heard tell you know the story behind Coombe’s Wood. The young lady and I would like to hear it.”

Stan leant up against the counter, squeaking at the rim of another pint glass. He stacked it in a space above the bar, and tucked the towel into his back pocket.

“Mind if I join you?” Stan said, and sat down on a stool at the end of the table.

“How long will this take?” Izzy asked, turning in the general direction Connor had left by.

“I wouldn’t worry about your young man, he will have found Oliver, whose parents are over there.” He indicated to a young couple huddled at a small table, clutching glasses and deep in conversation.

“Thanks
…
” Izzy nodded, uncomfortable in this crowd of new faces, all who seemed to know so much about her.

“I can tell you about the woods,” Dave said, knocking his pipe against the ashtray. “If you like. I heard it all, you know, from Harold, the old timer who used to live in Honeycomb Cottage. He was one of the oldest residents of the village, lived in Cedham all his life. Used to come in here. Before your time of course, Stan.” He waved a hand towards Stan who was on his way back to the bar. “Of course he’s pushing up daisies, has been for years. I was only a young man at the time. Got him drunk on gin, and the whole story came tumbling out as it does when the tongue’s been loosened.”

“What goes around comes around, eh Dave?” Feathers nudged the old boy with his elbow as Stan started filling glasses at the bar. Pints of lager appeared for Feathers and Izzy, then a whisky for Dave and a half for himself.

Izzy leaned forward and caught Dave’s bleary eye. “So what’s in the woods?”

“Not much now I suppose. Just a few ghosts of times past, but I wouldn’t go there alone.” He slurped loudly from his unfinished pint, his beady eyes firmly fixed on the tot of whisky.

“Why wouldn’t you, Dave?” Izzy asked, smiling.

He swivelled around, emanating alcoholic fumes. “You drive through the woods.”

He stated it. This was a fact he already knew. She waited, not sure if she was required to respond. Izzy cleared her throat.

“It’s the fastest way to get through this village,” she finally said.

“So, you haven’t heard about the disappearances, then.” He paused dramatically, before taking a luxuriously slow drink of his beer.

“What disappearances?” Izzy looked at Feathers, then back at Dave. “This is all a conspiracy to frighten naïve newcomers to the village, isn’t it?”

“Well, now,” Dave set down his empty glass, and proceeded to push it slowly to the middle of the table. “No conspiracy. But I am telling you, on my mother’s grave, there have been many uncounted disappearances. All of people who go through the them woods.”

“In a car, on foot, on horseback?” Feathers prompted. Stan stood up, and returned to the bar, taking Dave’s empty with him.

“Anyone on foot,” Dave said quietly. “Or not. It’s hard to say.”

He sighed, snatched the shot glass and swallowed the whiskey in one gulp. He slammed the glass down with a sharp bang. Dave stayed poised – one hand wrapped around the shot glass. Izzy looked him over, his puffy features, the way he’d squeezed into a cheap suit. Was there a Mrs Dave? Just as puffy?

After a slow shiver, he came alive again. He lifted his pipe and said, “The story started some time during 1865. This is the year that John Coombe came screaming and wailing into this world. He grew up to be what might have been called the village idiot, or maybe simple. Those that lived in Cedham tolerated him. They ignored his wandering around the village, and his examinations of the factory.”

“Factory?” Izzy asked.

“They used to make bricks up on the hill, the village grew up around it, because of the work. Most regular folk were employed there. The ones that didn’t were the very wealthy, with horses and carriages to get them to town or beyond. For everyone else, there was a bakery and a general food shop on the main road, just up from here.” He waved a hand. “It’s all gone now. Converted into houses that sell for sickening sums.

“Then one day during the year 1890, a girl disappeared. She was a daughter of one of the factory workers, and although a fuss was raised about Eliza, it wasn’t until the child of one of the upper class folk disappeared that the police sat up and took notice.” Whiskey Dave had not yet released the shot glass. He turned it slowly between his fat fingers as he spoke.

“The missing boy, Joseph, was searched for, but no one could find a clue as to where he’d disappeared to. Then a third person vanished. This time, it was the fourth daughter of the priest. Violet was apparently a stunning girl with waist long red hair and a voice that made the village stop fiddling with their bibles and listen. A lark, that was what Harold said, she sounded like a lark.”

“Old Harold couldn’t have heard her.” Stan was back, leaning against the customers’ side of the bar, and eyeing the shot glass.

“Apparently he was but a lad, maybe five at the time. He could remember her at the church opening her mouth, and how everyone stopped and listened. She was eighteen years old. Her father was remarkably forward thinking for the time and she was to be sent off to college. I think it was mathematics that she wanted to do. But it might have been music. She was apparently very good at any instrument put before her.

“With Violet’s disappearance, the whole village went completely crazy, houses were searched, gardens were examined, out buildings turned over. No one was beyond questioning. Neighbours eyed each other suspiciously and arguments and old grievances were loud and aggressive. Then one last person disappeared.

“Some of the men folk had taken it upon themselves to search methodically through the surrounding the land. There were less fields then, and they spread themselves thin throughout the woodlands.”

Whiskey Dave finally released his glass. Immediately, Feathers motioned Stan for refills. Izzy found she had emptied hers. So engrossing was Dave’s tale that she hadn’t noticed. Shifting on the bench and ignoring an instinct to check on Connor, she waited for Dave to start again.

“Cheers, Feathers,” Dave said, raising his pint glass.

“Welcome.” Feathers leaned forward as did Stan. It seemed they were all eager.

Licking his lips, his glass already half-empty, Dave began again. “A man called William was searching alone, the next man maybe a mile away on either side. He was inside a particularly dense patch of trees, walking along an underused lane that was little more than a path. Although it was sunny that day, the rays could not penetrate the dense foliage. William didn’t walk out of the woods that day.

“Fortunately, others knew where William had been searching. So when Doris, who was William’s wife, rang the church bell late that night, a mob rapidly assembled as the bell tumbled men from their beds. They went in force into the woods, armed with lighted torches and whatever weapons they could find.

“Doris didn’t sleep, walking from one room of sleeping children to another, watching the sun break into a blood red slash across the fading night. She prayed constantly, silently, eyes full of tears and a belly full of fear. She already knew that William was dead, she just didn’t know how.

“The villages went in shouting, baying for blood, they came out quiet, tired, some with blood stains on their clothes. Eight of them had paired off and each carried what could be called a body between them. The corpses had been ripped to shreds by the attacker, so that it took a proper look to guess which body belonged to whom. They were laid in the church until someone with the proper authority could come and collect them. In the hall, the males of village collected and argued and presumed who or what could have done such a thing. The females meanwhile were drawn to Doris’ cottage, coming in twos and threes to offer sympathy.”