Phil Rickman - Crybbe

Two middle-aged women walked across the square talking in low voices. They stopped talking as they walked past Goff, but didn't look at him, nor Mr. Kettle, nor each other.

Then they went rigid, because suddenly Arnold's head was back and he was howling.

'Jeez!' Goff sprang up. The two women turned, and Mr. Kettle felt he was getting a very dark, warning look, the women's faces shadowed almost to black.

'Arnold!' With some difficulty – beginning to think he must have a bad spring under his own house, the way his rheumatism had been playing up lately – Mr. Kettle got down on his knees and pulled the dog to him. 'Sorry, ladies.'

The women didn't speak, stood there a moment then turned and walked away quickly as the howling subsided, because Mr. Kettle had a hand clamped around Arnold's jaws. 'Daft bugger, Arnold.'

'Why'd it do that?' Goff asked, without much interest.

'I wish I knew, Mr. Goff.'

Mr. Kettle wanted some time to think about this. Because for a long time he'd thought it was just a drab little town, full of uninspired, interbred old families and misfits from Off. And now, he thought, it's more than that. More than inbreeding and apathy.

He unclamped the dog's jaws, and Arnold gave him a reproachful glance and then shook his head.

There were lights in some town houses now. They lit the rooms behind the curtains but not the square, not even a little, folk in this town had never thrown their light around.

'OK?' Goff said, feet planted firmly on the cobbles, legs splayed, quite relaxed. Wasn't getting it, was he? Wasn't feeling the resistance? Didn't realize he was among the descendants of the people who'd pulled up the stones.

Mr. Kettle was getting to his feet, one hand against the wall, like his old bones, the brick seemed infirm. The people here, they cared nothing for their heritage.

And their ancestors had torn up the stones.

Goff was just a big white blob in the dim square. Mr. Kettle walked to where their cars were parked in a little bay behind the church overhung with yew trees. His own car was a dusty VW Estate. Goff had a Ferrari.

'Come to dinner, OK?' Goff said. 'When I've moved into the Court.'

'You're going through with it, then?'

'Try and stop me.'

'Can I say something?' Henry Kettle had been thinking about this for the past fifteen minutes or so. He didn't much like Goff, but he was a kindly old chap, who wanted at least to put out a steadying hand.

'Of course.'

Mr. Kettle stood uneasily in the semi-dark. 'These places.. .' he began, and sucked in his lips, trying to concentrate. Trying to get it right.

'I suppose what I'm trying to say is places like this, they – how can I put it? – they invites a kind of obsession.' He fell silent, watching the buildings in the square hunching together as the night took over.

A harsh laugh came out of Goff. 'Is that it?' he asked rudely.

Mr. Kettle unlocked his car door and opened it for Arnold 'Yes,' he said, half-surprised because he'd thought he was going to say more. 'Yes, I suppose that is it.'

He couldn't see the dog anywhere. 'Arnie!' he called out sharply. He'd had this problem before, the dog slinking silent away, clearly not at ease, whimpering sometimes.

He hadn't gone far this time, though. Mr. Kettle found him pressed into the churchyard wall, ears down flat, panting with anxiety. 'All right, Arn, we're leaving now,' Mr. Kettle said patting him – his coat felt lank and plastered down, as if he was the first dog ever to sweat. This was it with a dowser's dog – he'd pick up on the things his master was after and, being a dog and closer to these matters anyway, his response would be stronger.

Slipping his hand under Arnold's collar, Mr. Kettle led him back to the car and saw Goff standing there quite still in his white suit and his Panama hat, like an out-of-season snowman.

'Mr. Kettle,' Goff took a steep breath. 'Perhaps I ought, explain. This place… I mean, look around… it's remote, half-forgotten, run-down. For centuries its people lived from the land, right? But now agriculture's in decline, it doesn't provide extra jobs any more, and there's nothing here to replace it. This town's in deep shit, Mr. Kettle.'

Mr. Kettle couldn't argue with that; he didn't say anything. Watched Max Goff spread his hands, Messiah-style.

'And yet, in prehistory, this was obviously a sacred place,' Goff said. 'We have this network of megalithic sites – a dozen or so standing stones, suggestions of a circle or a henge. And the Tump, of course. Strong indications that this was a major focus of the Earth Force. A centre of terrestrial energy, yeah? Do you see any signs of that energy now?'

'People pulled the stones out,' Mr. Kettle said.

'Precisely. And what happened? They lost touch with it.'

'Lost touch with what?'

'With the life force, Mr. Kettle! Listen, give me your opinion on this. Whaddaya think would happen if…?'

Max Goff walked right up to Mr. Kettle in the ill-lit square and looked down at him, lowering his voice as if he were about to offer him a tip for the stock market. Mr. Kettle felt most uneasy. He was getting the dead-sheep smell.

'Whadda you think would happen,' Goff whispered, 'if we were to put the stones back?'

Well, Mr. Kettle thought, that depends. Depends on the true nature of leys, about which we know nothing, only speculate endlessly. Depends whether they're forgotten arteries of what you New Age fellers like to call the Life Force. Or whether they're something else, like paths of the dead.

But all he said was, 'I don't know, Mr. Goff. I wouldn't like to say.'

How old was the box, then?

Warren Preece reckoned it was at least as old as the panelling in the farmhouse hall, which was estimated to be just about the oldest part of the house. So that made it sixteenth century or so.

He was into something here all right. And the great thing, the really fucking great thing about this was that no other bastard knew about it. Lived in this house all his life, but he'd never had cause to poke about in the chimney before – well, you wouldn't, would you? – until that morning, when his old man had shouted, 'Put that bloody guitar down, Warren, and get off your arse and hold this torch, boy!'

Piss off, Warren had spat under his breath, but he'd done it, knowing what a bastard the old man could be when a job wasn't going right.

Then, standing in the fireplace, shining the torch up the chimney – the old man on a step-ladder struggling to pull the crumbling brick out – a bloody great lump of old cement had fallen away and broken up and some of the dust had gone in Warren's eye.

'You clumsy bastard. Dad!' Warren fell back, dropping the torch, ramming a knuckle into his weeping eye, hearing masonry crumbling where he'd staggered and kicked out. If he made it to college without being registered disabled through living in this broken-down pile of historic crap, it'd be a real achievement.

'Come on. Warren, don't mess about! I need that light.'

'I'm f… Hang on, Dad, I can't flaming see.' Hunched in the fireplace, scraping at his gritty, watery eye.

And it was then, while picking up the torch – flashing it on and off to make sure the bulb hadn't broken when he'd dropped it – that Warren found this little tunnel.

It was no more than a deepish recess in the side wall of the fireplace, about eighteen inches off the ground. Which would have put it on a level with the top of the dog grate, when they'd had one. Must have been where he'd kicked back with his heel, hacking off a cob of sixteenth-century gunge.

Warren shone the light into the recess and saw what looked like carving. Put a hand inside, felt about.

Hey, this was…

'Warren! What you bloody doing down there, boy?'