Jan Siegel - Prospero’s Children

Hesitantly, half afraid for herself, half nervous of inducing fear, Fern held out her hand. The animal sniffed, then licked. The wicked incisors were less than an inch from her fingers, yet she felt curiously at ease. ‘Did he send you here?’ she asked softly. ‘Do you come from Ragginbone? Are you a Watcher too?’ And then, as an afterthought: ‘Are you on guard?’

The yellow eyes returned her questioning gaze with a steady intensity.

‘It was inside the house last night,’ Fern went on, progressing from the preliminary introduction to a tentative pat, then to stroking the thick ruff. The fur was damped into rats’ tails as if the dog—she was definitely a dog—had been outside a long time. ‘I don’t know what kind of creature it is: it moves like a hound, only it’s too big for any species of hound I know. Ragginbone recognised it. He said it couldn’t come in without being invited, but it did, and I think…I think Alison must have let it in. She arrived yesterday, and that’s the first time it’s been inside the house.’

The dog accepted Fern’s caresses with a quiver of uncertainty, a dignified restraint. Fern received the impression—she could not say how—that she was, not alarmed, but slightly unnerved, an aloof outcast unaccustomed to such demonstrations. This is ridiculous, Fern told herself. First I talk to a rock, now it’s a dog. ‘I don’t suppose you really understand,’ she said aloud. ‘There’s probably a natural explanation for everything that’s happened. My imagination’s running away with me. Only why now? That’s what’s so confusing. I’m too old for fairytales and anyhow, when I was a child I never let my fantasy take over. After my mother died, when I saw my father cry and I knew she was really gone, I was afraid all the time. I used to lie in bed at night seeing a demon in every shadow. I told myself over and over: there’s nothing there. There are no demons, no dragons, no witches, no elves, no Santa Claus. There are no vampires in Transylvania, no kingdoms in wardrobes, no lands behind the sun. A shadow is only a shadow. I made myself grow up, and put away childish things. I thought the adult world was a prosaic sort of place where everything was clear-cut, everything was tangible; but it isn’t, it isn’t. I don’t know who I am any more. I’m not sure about anyone. Who are you? Are you a dog? Are you a wolf?’ The yellow stare held her; a rough tongue rasped her palm.

‘Cancel that question,’ said Fern. ‘There are no wolves in England now. I have to go. Take care.’ A strange thing to say to a dog, but then, Fern reflected uncomfortably, the entire one-sided conversation was strange. She hurried down the path almost as if she were running away.

At the gate, she glanced round to find the dog at her heels. ‘You can’t come in,’ she said, wondering why the words disturbed her, tapping at something in the back of her mind. Her companion, undeterred, slipped through the gate behind her before she could close it. Reaching the back door, Fern turned with more determination. ‘I’m sorry,’ she began, but the dog stood a little way off, making no attempt to cross the threshold. Fern noted that she did not bark, or wag her tail, or do any of the things that dogs normally do. She simply stood there, waiting. ‘Would you like some water?’ Fern said, relenting. And: ‘Come on then.’ The animal slid past her in a movement too swift to follow, lying down beside the kitchen stove with her chin on her paws. And in the same instant something clicked in Fern’s head and she knew what she had done. For good or evil, she had invited the outcast in.

Later, when Fern had had her morning bath, she found the kitchen unoccupied and the back door ajar. The latch was old-fashioned, the kind that an intelligent animal might be able to lift with its nose. On the outside, however, there was an iron ring which required the grip of a hand. Fern, in a deviation from her usual policy, resolved to see that the door was left slightly open at all times.

It was a difficult day. Fern did not feel she could continue her search for the key with Alison in the vicinity, so she and Will escaped to the vicarage, where Maggie Dinsdale made them sandwiches and Gus drove them up onto the moors for a picnic. Back at Dale House, they found Alison in the barn with a measuring tape. She and Gus shook hands and exchanged pleasantries, thus disappointing Will, who confided in an aside to his sister that if she had been a witch she would surely not have been so friendly with a vicar. ‘Don’t be idiotic,’ Fern responded. ‘Next you’ll expect her to wear a pointed hat.’

Supper was happily brief: Alison retired straight afterwards claiming she wanted to work on her picture. Will, going up to her room later with the excuse of an offer of coffee, reported that she had brought her own television. That settles it, ‘he concluded.’ I don’t like her. Why can’t she share it with us? That isn’t just selfishness, it’s…it’s sadism . We must have a TV. Speak to Daddy about it.’

‘Mm.’

‘Do you know, when I opened the door she switched it off, as if she couldn’t bear me to see it even for a couple of minutes? I think she’s got a video too. I wish we had a video.’

‘Maybe she was watching something she considered unsuitable for little boys,’ Fern suggested unkindly.

They fell back on Mah Jongg and a plate of Mrs Wicklow’s biscuits, becoming so engrossed that it was almost midnight when Fern glanced at the clock. ‘Are you going to sleep in my room again?’ Will asked, not looking at his sister, his voice carefully devoid of any wistfulness.

‘I don’t think it’s necessary,’ Fern said. ‘Put something against your door, though—something heavy. You can bang on the wall if you really need me. I feel it’s important to…well, act nonchalant. As if we haven’t noticed anything out of the ordinary. Then either she’ll think we’re unobservant, which means she’ll be underestimating us, or she’ll be as baffled as we are. She’s behaving as if there’s nothing going on; so can we.’

‘Do you suppose Mrs Wicklow was right,’ Will said abruptly, ‘when she said she’d seen Alison before?’

‘Yes,’ said Fern. ‘Yes, I do.’

‘Can you put a short wig over long hair?’

‘I think so. Actresses do it sometimes. I’m sure they do.’

This ought to be very exciting, ‘Will remarked.’ I just wish I wasn’t scared. Are you scared?’

‘Shitless,’ said Fern coolly, going over to the back door. The vulgarism was unusual for her and Will grinned.

‘What are you doing?’

‘Leaving the door open.’

‘ What ? If that creature comes—’

‘Our prowling visitor,’ she pointed out, ‘can already get in: we know that. I want to be sure—’ She hesitated, changed her tack. ‘I’m like Mrs Wicklow. I want to let in the air.’

‘Bullshit.’

‘And don’t use that kind of language.’

‘But you said—’

‘I’m sixteen,’ said Fern haughtily. ‘I’m allowed.’

They went upstairs still squabbling, falling silent, by mutual consent, at the foot of the second flight. Fern mounted a few steps, but there was no sound from Alison’s room. The low wattage lighting favoured by Great-Cousin Ned did not reach far, and the upper landing was swathed in shadow. She could see Alison’s door but it was firmly closed and she hoped the sense of oppression which seemed to emanate from it was the result of pure fancy and overstrained nerves. She stole quietly back to her brother and the two of them went to their respective beds.

For all his apprehension, Will fell asleep quickly; but Fern sat up, reading by torchlight so no betraying gleam could be seen under the door, her senses on alert, half fearful, half in a sort of desperate expectancy. More than an hour passed while she tried in vain to concentrate on the story, unable to restrain herself from regular glances at her travelling clock: the luminous hands seemed to snail around the dial, spinning out the minutes, dragging her down into slumber. A brief shower battered on the window, until a rush of wind swept it away. When the snuffling finally started, she had almost given up. Her body jerked upright on a reflex, snatching her cheek from the pillow; her breath was caught in her throat; her eyes dilated, though there was nothing to be seen. She switched off the torch and retrieved the book, which was slipping floorwards. In the corridor outside she heard the sniffing moving closer, hesitating at Will’s door, progressing on to hers. There was the familiar ragged panting, the not-quite-noiseless footfalls, the sudden scrabble of claws on wood. And then silence. A new silence, invading the passageway, tangible as a presence. The snuffling and the clawing had ceased, the panting changed into a low snarl, a soft, dark noise on the edge of hearing, rising slowly to a growl, a sound neither feline nor canine but somewhere in between. Fern thought she had never in her life heard anything so totally evil. Then came a sudden rush, the skidding of paws on bare board, the swish of bunching drugget, a clamour of snapping, worrying, grumbling, an ugly yowl. Heavy bodies seemed to be struggling and writhing; a crash told of an overturned table, a shattered vase. Yet throughout Fern was convinced it was the intruder who made most of the noise: the challenger was mute, with no voice to cry defiance or pain. She heard a scurrying as of something bent on escape: one set of paws fled towards the stairs, chasing or being chased, and then quiet supervened. Out in the garden there was a howl of baffled rage, maybe of fear; but it died away, and only the wind returned, droning among the chimneys, and under the eaves. Fern had grown used to the wind; they had become friends. She lay down, smiling faintly, heedless of the damage she envisaged outside her door. A name came into her mind, clear and certain as a call: Lougarry .