FRIDAY THE 13TH – APRIL 2018Nine granite megaliths set in a perfect circle. On one of them sits Viola Kendrick, teeth chattering, lips smudged red. The wet of the stone has leached through the quilting of her mother’s long coat. The fleece of her pyjamas beneath is damp against her skin.
Below, in the jagged coves, the sea grumbles and it booms.
Through the morning fog strides a spirit, becoming more real with every step it takes towards her. It is dressed, improbably, in a police uniform – a yellow reflective jacket.
The spirit stops – in the centre of the circle next to the tenth stone. There is a hole carved in the heart of this stone and, for a moment, Viola believes her visitor will do it – get down on hands and knees in the soil and crawl through that ancient O. Performing this action cures you, no matter the ailment; that’s what they say. But the spirit remains standing, surveying this undiscovered territory, claiming it with a nod of the head, then, with a shrug, giving it away again.
‘You’re not a real policeman,’ Viola calls out.
This is her warning shot, but Dot is a traitor. She tugs on the red lead, eager to greet this visitor with her sandpaper tongue. The spirit steps closer, offering a hand.
Dot is assuaged; Viola won’t allow herself to be.
‘Not real, eh?’ He stops his coddling of the dog to pat down the stiff, goose-filled fabric of his glowing jacket. ‘I seem like the genuine article to me.’
‘You shouldn’t be here,’ she tells him.
He steps closer still. ‘You called me here.’
‘I called you, but I thought… I thought you would send…’ Who did she think he would send? ‘Someone else.’
‘What?’ He grins. ‘The local constabulary? The boys in blue?’
‘You shouldn’t be here.’ On this, she is clear. ‘Men aren’t allowed in the circle. It brings on a terrible fury.’
The sea below obliges her with a thunderclap. The standing stones drift in and out of the mist like hallucinations. The imposter grins wider, baring a weaselly spread of small, sharp teeth. From his inside pocket he pulls a notepad and licks at the tip of a pencil, only because the act of doing so seems to entertain him.
‘Come on then,’ he prompts, ‘I don’t have time for your tricks. First ship of the year arrives at lunchtime. What’s this all about?’
‘I told you,’ says Viola. ‘And it’s no trick.’
Still, he grins.
‘What are you even doing here,’ he asks, ‘at this hour of the morning?’ It is the tone her father once used – weary, amused. What idea have you got into your head now, Vee-vee?
‘I’m walking my dog,’ she tells him, indignant.
‘Right.’ He makes marks in the notepad, his eyes dancing from the page to Viola and back again. ‘Out here last night with the Eldest Girls, were you?’
She shakes her head.
He snorts. ‘Offering your naked selves to the gods?’
‘No!’
‘Begging for the devil to give you a good seeing-to?’
‘No!’
Viola begins to tremble and a low, sonorous hum reverberates through the morning air; a sound only she can hear – and seemingly Dot, who begins to whine. Viola gathers the shivering dog onto her lap, not caring about dirty paws on her mother’s coat.
‘The girls won’t let you join in, eh?’ He sticks out his bottom lip, mocking her. ‘Ah, what a shame.’
Viola squeezes her eyes shut, finds power in the thrum of the earth to bring them back to the meat of their conversation.
‘I’ve found a body.’
‘You said. Deer, is it? Badger? Big brown bear?’
She shakes her head, no acknowledgement of his joke, and watches as his smirk twitches, then falters. Panic strikes at the cords of his neck.
‘It’s not…’
Viola’s turn to grin. ‘No. It’s not her. She doesn’t come up here anymore.’
He licks his lips, the way an animal does after a fright, and returns to the distraction of his notepad. Viola knows his thoughts. There is no body. Viola is playing her games again. She experiences his process of judgement as if it is her own, feeling it absolutely. The weapon rests firmly in her hand – let’s say it’s a rock – and she holds onto it for a moment, considering its weight, the damage it could do. Then, she throws.
‘It’s one of your brothers,’ she tells him, ‘the body.’
The pencil freezes, suspended above paper. The notepad droops and Viola can see what is there on the page – not words. He has drawn an inelegant sketch. Of her.
She tips her head towards the beginnings of Cable’s Wood, where, with closer attention, he will see the white snowdrops and yellow colt’s foot wearing petals of uncharacteristic red.
‘What happened?’ he asks.
Viola shrugs. ‘How would I know?’ She waits for his gaze to return from the trees, adding: ‘Maybe the devil gave him a good seeing-to.’
The sea growls; it gasps. The mist has thinned and Viola can see for certain that she is in the presence of no spirit, just a man. He can see what Viola is too – what she always has been – just a girl.
‘I don’t have any brothers,’ is how he chooses to reply.
‘No?’ asks Viola. ‘Are you sure about that?’