Каарон Уоррен - The Best Horror of the Year Volume Ten

Eddie shook his head. “I’m afraid not, it’s intensely private.”

“Really?”

“You could wind with one of them yourself, Ross. You could wind with Sissiol; she’s ready.”

I felt my stomach lurch, and I put down my fork and drank some water. I glanced at my brother over the rim of the glass. It was as if all his anxiety had vanished; he seemed almost noble. “When are you going there again, Eddie? I need to know because we did have a plan once about how we were going to deal with this house.”

“You needn’t worry, Ross. I’ve discussed the matter with the household, and they’ve agreed I should carry on with the work, and visit them at night time.”

“They’ve agreed , did you say?”

“Yes, Ross. They’re generous like that.”

I stared at him. When did I lose him? What happened that I didn’t see?

I stood in the hall for a long time with Mr. Ratchetson as if he couldn’t quite bring himself to lead me into one of the rooms. In the end, we went to the kitchen, where he, with painful slowness, prepared some foul-smelling coffee. I was happy to see him reach for a bottle of whiskey and with badly shaking hands, pour a tot into each chipped mug.

“I could see from the outset that your brother was in danger,” he told me. “He’s the anxious type, isn’t he?”

“You were telling me how long those women have been down there in the wood, Mr. Ratchetson, and I didn’t quite catch what you said. I think you might have been joking, but seriously, has the family been there a long time?”

“Family, you say?”

“Yes, mother, father, children,” I said loudly.

Mr. Ratchetson shook his head. “That’s not the way it is with them.”

“Well…”

“It’s just women always.”

“A cult of women, then.”

“What’s that?” he asked, turning to face me.

“Just women in the cult,” I repeated. “You say my brother is in danger. Can you tell me why?”

“My guess would be that they’ve already got to him. I don’t know how close you two are; you were always together when you were boys, so he might let you in on a few things.”

“Eddie said the women knew you, is that right?” Mr. Ratchetson drew in a deeply-wheezing breath and laughed, and at the end of it his mouth was still open. “It was their house you told us to avoid when we first met you, wasn’t it?”

He nodded and his reptilian eyes blinked and stared, blinked and stared. “Your brother will be for a winding,” he whispered.

“He is, Mr. Ratchetson. He’s going to be wound… winded… to one there called Carboh.”

“So, it’s her turn now, is it?”

I stood up, and taking my mug to his kitchen window, looked out at the dark line of trees and the track that led down to them. I felt as if I was getting nowhere with the old guy. “You knew my parents, Mr. Ratchetson, right?”

“Nice pair.”

“Yes.”

“She was in some danger though.”

“My mother?”

“Lovely woman.”

“How in danger, Mr. Ratchetson.”

“Billy.”

“Pardon.”

“You’re old enough now to call me Billy.”

“Okay, Billy. My mother…”

“All that hair, you see.”

“She cut the whole lot of it off, one day.”

“I know. It was my advice. Lovely woman.”

“You advised her to cut her hair off?”

“Competition with those in the wood, you see. They were taking too much interest in her. Following her to the brink. I used to see them hankering to get at her. She started going in there to pick berries and fungus. I told her. I said they feasted their eyes on her.”

“The brink?”

“The wood’s edge. They don’t come out farther.”

“But she was okay, my mother?”

“One time they chased her hard. She came hurtling out of there and fell down by my garden gate. I thought she was going to explode with terror. I looked over yonder and the one called Domescia was standing as boldly as you please just under that first tree with the split trunk. They think they’re camouflaged you see. They think if they stand against the trunks, they can’t be seen. But I got used to picking them out, living here so close by.”

I went to the old man’s cupboard and brought out the whiskey. He was shivering badly and I was feeling nauseous. I poured a good glug-full into our mugs and sat down opposite him at the table. “It would seem,” I said, “that Domescia has a daughter or granddaughter also called Domescia. I’ve met her, her and Carboh, the one my brother is interested in.”

“No. There’s just one Domescia. You say he likes the one called Carboh?”

“Yes, and when I was in their house…”

I saw Mr. Ratchetson blanch. He swallowed hard several times with an alarming amount of effort, and lowered his head. “I told you to walk on by if you came across that house, you stupid young idiot.”

“We found it by accident down a plaited path, and Domescia and Carboh where there watching us from the shadow of a tree. My brother was drawn to them more or less on the instant.”

“Thought he would be,” the old man murmured, “he’s just the type.”

“What type, Mr. Ratchetson?”

Oh, you know; a wastrel with big ideas and a lot of self-regard. They’re the ones who fall the fastest. But I’m warning you, they can get just about any man if they’re minded to.”

“How would you know what my brother’s like, Mr. Ratchetson?” I whispered.

“Well, it’s plain on his face and in his expressions, is it not?”

“I didn’t think it showed,” I answered. “Anyhow, are you saying other men have got themselves involved in that cult?”

“Cult, you say—what gives you that notion?”

“Weird stuff happened when we went to visit them,” I mumbled. I wanted to talk again about my mother, and it was as if Mr. Ratchetson realised that. He stared at me for a while, and reached his ancient hand across and rested it upon mine lightly.

“Your mother, Ann, was stubborn, that was the trouble. I believe she even befriended those creatures for a while. I think they laid in wait for her and wanted to play with her hair. But she got frightened of them, especially the mother, whose own hair dragged along the ground for a foot or so behind her. There was a time when your father had to go in and pluck her back from them—the winders had set about her on the forest path one afternoon when she’d gone in there for wood, and they were lashing her with thorny branches until she bled.”

“Christ Almighty, Mr. Ratchetson… . Christ Almighty.”

“That’s what I used to say too. Not that church would’ve done any good where the winders are concerned.”

“Winders?”

“Yes, because of what they do… the foul stuff they do in the wood.”

“Do other people round here know about them?”

Mr. Ratchetson shrugged. “I don’t go talking to people in town, so I couldn’t tell you. Maybe some do, and maybe some don’t. You should get your brother to leave.”

“I’ve tried. He doesn’t want to. I can’t force him. If that sort of life is what he wants, why should I stop him anyway?”

I sat bewildered at Mr. Ratchetson’s table, and for a good while neither of us spoke again. “But my mother was okay in the end, wasn’t she, so maybe Eddie will be too,” I said finally. I stood up to go, as I sensed rather than saw the coming of the dark and the walk back to our house was a bit of a stretch. I was feeling frightened. Mr. Ratchetson looked upwards into my face, but all I could see in his eyes was pity.

I cursed myself on the way home; I’d asked the old guy far too many questions and come away with hardly any answers. “… because of what they do… the foul stuff they do in the wood,” is what he’d said, and I hadn’t pressed him on the point. I stopped on the track and looked back at his weathered old house, but could not bring myself to return and bother him further.