‘Elliot.’
I turned at the sound of my name. Rain was pouring, the sky thick and angry. Thunder roared; I pressed my hands over my ears to think, what had just happened. I no longer saw the stone walls or arches of the priory.
‘Over here.’
I spun to find the voice but lost my footing and fell to my knees. My hands sank into the wet mud. I tried to push myself up. I knew something wasn’t quite right as I brought my sticky palms up to my face, then stared down at my legs.
‘Down here.’
I forced myself to stand, my legs shaky, my mind confused. I shielded my face from the hammering rain with my arm and looked beyond. The oak tree: I could see it on the hill’s incline.
I ran, my feet tripping over themselves as the momentum carried me off. Jolted when my foot caught something hard, I propelled forward, smashing to the ground. My hands scrambled over the wet grass, fumbled through the mud. I dug my fingers down to grab the object. Weighty and slick, it slid easily into my hands. I gripped it and pulled the thing up, wiping the dirt off with my sleeve. In the flash of sheet lightning, I saw its shiny surface. The harsh, sudden light cast the landscape into daylight, bright and vividly white. I was holding the round mirror from my childhood. I lifted it to my face. Saw the boy I had been.
‘Here!’
Oliver stood in the tree’s shadow, the enormous leafy boughs low, dripping heavy from the rain. His pyjamas soaked through, his hair stuck to his brow, he pointed to the ground, insistent, his face pleading. I stepped closer to something small, half-hidden in the earth. I reached down, dug my fingers, found a handle, gripped it, and pulled it free. An axe. I held it up in front of me.
Oliver nodded.
I shook my head. ‘We can’t chop it down. Not with this.’
‘Not only with the axe, champ. With faith, too,’ said another voice, soft and deep. I felt his hand on my shoulder long before I could think, wonder, or even reason.
‘You can do it,’ Oliver said. ‘We can do it together.’
With Oli at my side, I gripped the axe, not once looking behind us. If I did, I feared the spell would break.
I glared straight up into the thick boughs, rain dripping from the sodden foliage. The skies continued to roar. I swung the axe high over my shoulder, my arm shaking with adrenaline. Allowing momentum to take it, I brought the axe down hard on the trunk with a loud thwack. It split. I raised it again. This time, lightning struck the highest branch when the blade hit the tree. There was a flash, a sizzle as it kindled—another axe blow, followed by a firebolt that lanced the tree's centre and flamed the core. Over and over, I raised the axe and brought it down harder than the previous strike. My chest burned. My hands channelled forty years of grief, anger, hatred into every fierce blow.
The tree sputtered, hissed as flames gradually took grip, smouldering the wet bark and twigs. Leaves burned, and acorns burst and pop. The growing flames engulfed it all. From inside the trunk, a deep growl reverberated over the ground, and from under our feet, the roots shook. The tree split, a cavernous gash in the bark that splintered the whole oak in half. Roots ripped from their beds, shredded the earth around as the two halves of the tree fell to the ground in opposite directions, awash with flames and sparks.
I looked at Oli, his face small and fragile, just as I remembered him. He smiled with trembling lips.
‘That’s enough.’ Dad’s large hands pulled us both back, and Oliver pushed his hand in mine, squeezing it tight.
‘My boys, look at you two. You did it.’
† † †
It was over the moment I accepted the Priory’s invitation. I’d never be allowed to leave Hardacre. I had escaped once, but not again. It was a small price to pay after so many had paid the same before me.
We live in perpetual summer now. Winter has left Hardacre, though I still feel the frost gather beneath my feet if I remember that winter for too long. Those are the moments I stand my ground. I make fists and feel the young boy in me stamp his feet and wield that axe.
I stand at the great door, flung wide open, and look out over the gardens lush with the season. The grass is abundant with daisies today, bright white with yellow middles. The colour feels familiar, like a soft mantle around my shoulders.
Some memories come and go, like the ghosts that stand on the drawing-room’s threshold every so often. I wait for them to come in, invite them to sit with me by the fire. Not all of them are conscious like my grandmother. Those others have staggered around in their own misery for centuries, and now the Priory has settled from floor to rafter, the time boundaries have shifted.
They may trust me in time. Their stories are full of history, theirs, and mine. They are all Hardacres.
After all that’s been said, after all I’ve seen, maybe this is just a good old-fashioned ghost story.
This one was mine. Perhaps it’s time to tell theirs.