The Crowfield Curse Read online

  William hesitated for a few moments. His heart beat a little more quickly with the first stirrings of fear. What if the stories he had heard about the Whistling Hollow were true? What if he heard the strange whistling sound that local people believed called up the Wild Hunt? It was all too easy to imagine the pack of ghostly hounds, red eyes glowing, jaws gaping, as they chased terrified victims through the wood to tear their immortal souls from their bodies and carry them off to hell.

  William swallowed a couple of times and licked his dry lips. It would only take a moment to throw the trap into the pool at the bottom of the Hollow. Then he would make a run for the safety of the abbey as if all the demons in hell were hard on his heels. Did he have the courage to do it? He glanced down at the trap and saw the dried blood and tufts of brown fur caught between the iron jaws. He felt a surge of anger and decided he had no other choice.

  He picked up the trap and held it cradled awkwardly against his chest. It was heavy and the iron was painfully cold. The trap was crudely made but effective. As far as William could work out, an animal only had to step on a thin iron plate to release the jaws. Then the saw-toothed edges would clamp shut, hard and fast, cutting through flesh and snapping bone. The animal would have no hope of freeing itself, and the trap would be a dead weight on its injured limb, making escape virtually impossible. Pain and loss of blood would soon leave the creature weak and helpless. William felt the sting of angry tears and blinked them away. To do that to a living creature was too cruel for words.

  William knew where the Hollow was, though he had never seen it for himself. The first time he had gone to Weforde with Brother Gabriel, to sell the abbey’s surplus vegetables at the Wednesday market, the plump little monk had warned him never to venture near it. The monk had crossed himself several times and prayed aloud until they were safely past the dense thicket of bushes and holly trees that hid the Hollow from the track.

  “This is an unholy place, boy,” Brother Gabriel had told him. “Step off the track between the Boundary Oak and the sighting stone above Weforde Brook and you’ll be lost. The devil himself walks the woods hereabouts and he is always on the lookout for Christian souls.”

  William had wondered what was to stop the devil from merely walking out onto the track and helping himself to the souls there.

  “And if you hear whistling in this part of the wood,” the monk added, giving William a hard stare, “run, boy, and don’t look back.”

  William set off along the track. The sharp edges of the trap dug into his arms, and he had to stop every now and then to shift it to a more comfortable position. Before long, he reached the huge old Boundary Oak, marking the westernmost limit of abbey lands. Beyond it, the track turned sharply away to the left. Small scraps of rag were tied to the branches of nearby trees and bushes as a warning to unwary travelers not to stray from the track, on peril of their souls.

  William paused to take a few deep, steadying breaths before pushing his way through the tangled branches of a hazel thicket. He glanced around all the time, alert for the first hint of danger. Fallen branches littered the ground — good kindling for the most part, but left to rot where they fell. It seemed that none of the locals were desperate enough for firewood to risk coming here.

  Holly bushes grew abundantly in this part of Foxwist. Clusters of scarlet berries weighed down the branches. William wondered why they hadn’t been picked clean by birds. Now that he thought about it, he noticed there were no birds. In the distance he could hear crows cawing, but close by the wood was silent. No birdsong, no small rustlings from some animal in the undergrowth, nothing to disturb the absolute stillness. But it was not a peaceful silence. It wrapped itself around William like a cold shadow and he shivered. He quickened his pace, not wanting to stay there a moment longer than he had to.

  An ancient yew tree stood like a dark-cloaked sentinel in the gloom, guarding the wood. Fear twisted in the pit of William’s stomach. The atmosphere around him had changed subtly. He felt as if something was watching him with baleful, hostile eyes.

  William couldn’t turn back now. The trap seemed to carry with it the spirits of the creatures that had died in its grip. William was determined that it would never harm another animal. It would lie in the water at the bottom of the Hollow and rust away to nothing.

  A breeze swayed through the undergrowth. “There will be other traps, other deaths,” it seemed to whisper.

  William’s heart leaped in fear and he stared around, wide-eyed and terrified. There was nobody there. He could not be sure if he had really heard the words, or if they had been inside his head. In spite of that, the feeling of being watched grew stronger by the moment. It took every shred of courage he could muster to force himself to start walking forward again.

  Why didn’t I just take the trap back to the abbey? he thought. What made me think coming here was a good idea?

  On the far side of the yew, the ground sloped downhill. The scrub thinned, and he could see a shallow, marshy pool of water at the bottom of the slope. This was the Hollow. He knew it; he could feel it.

  It was noticeably colder now. William’s breath clouded on the still air. Frost silvered the reeds around the pool and the water’s edge was frozen over with a crust of blue-white ice, leaving just a circle of dark water in the middle.

  Hesitantly, William made his way toward the pool. His hands were clammy, making it awkward to keep hold of the trap. He could feel sweat trickle between his shoulder blades. His heart seemed to be trying to beat its way out of his chest, making it difficult to breathe. Doing the right thing is not always the easy choice, he thought grimly.

  An old hazel tree grew on the edge of the pool and spread its branches out over the water. There were several moss-covered stones beneath its twisted roots. Water trickled between them.

  What magic stopped the spring from freezing over in the middle of November, when the rest of the land was held tightly in winter’s bleak grip?

  The center of the pool was a black mirror that reflected an upside-down world. The water might have been knee-deep, or it might have been bottom-less; there was no way of knowing. But William had the oddest feeling that if he fell into the water, he would find himself sinking down into that shadowy otherworld.

  He did not like this place, not one little bit. It did not want him here, either. He was an intruder, an outsider. If he stayed much longer, it would make him wish he hadn’t.

  With a huge effort, William threw the trap as hard as he could, out over the ice, toward the dark heart of the pool. There was a loud splash as it hit the water and sank beneath the surface.

  He stepped back from the edge and watched the ripples die away. The water became still again. A movement of cold air touched his cheek and he turned quickly, grabbing a branch of the hazel tree to stop himself from falling backward onto the icy margin of the pool. For a heart-stopping moment, he had the feeling that someone was standing close by. He could not see anything but he felt a presence so strongly he could almost touch it.

  “This will not be forgotten.” The whispered words had no more substance than a breath of wind through branches.

  William went hot and cold with terror. Forcing his shaking legs to move, he turned and ran.

  CHAPTER

  THREE

  William left the bundle of firewood in the woodshed near the barn. He could hear Brother Martin, the abbey cook, clattering about and swearing in the cellarium next to the kitchen, and he quickened his step. If the monk caught sight of him, he would be trapped in the kitchen for the rest of the morning, cutting up vegetables for dinner, and he would not get a chance to ask Brother Snail to help the hob.

  William hurried out into the cloister alley. Through one of the large arched openings overlooking the cloister garth, he saw Brother Snail, digging in an herb bed below the bare branches of a walnut tree. He was thirty-one years old and the youngest monk at the abbey, though at first glance he did not look it. He was small and thin, with pale skin stretched tightly
across his bones and a hunched back. His real name was Thomas, but he had been known as Snail ever since his spine had begun to curve and set like stone when he was fourteen years old, the same age William was now. He worked slowly, using the light wooden shovel Edgar, the carpenter in Yagleah, had made especially for him.

  William watched the little monk for a couple of moments and could almost feel his pain with each slow stab of the shovel. If William had time later, in between his other daily tasks, he would help with the digging. What would take Brother Snail most of the day to do, William could finish in an hour.

  William glanced around. Two monks sat at their desks in the north walk of the cloister, close to the door into the church. In spite of the cold numbing their fingers, they were engrossed in their work, copying the psalter loaned to them for the purpose by Sir Robert de Tovei of Weforde, and they took no notice of William.

  He made his way over to Brother Snail, his feet crunching on the gravel brought up from the river to cover the narrow pathways between the herb beds.

  “Will,” the monk said, looking sideways and up at him with a smile. “Shouldn’t you be busy in the kitchen?”

  “I’ll go there soon,” William said, “but first I need your help with something.”

  Brother Snail looked a little surprised, but he leaned on the handle of his shovel and nodded. “Very well. What is it?”

  William hesitated for a moment. “I rescued a creature from a trap in Foxwist Wood. He’s badly injured. Can you come look at him?”

  The monk frowned and wiped the earth from his hands on his faded and much-patched black habit. “A trap!” he said angrily. “Not again! I will speak to Abbot Simon about this.” He stopped and his mouth hardened into a straight line. He had spoken without thinking.

  William knew Brother Snail would not talk to the abbot about the trap. What would be the use? Everybody knew Abbot Simon was hanging on to life by a thread and he no longer knew where or who he was. Traps in Foxwist would mean nothing to him.

  “I will speak to Prior Ardo,” Snail said quietly. Ardo might be sour and humorless, but he had taken over the running of the abbey and was doing his best to keep it on the right side of hunger and poverty. “Where is it, this animal of yours? And what is it? A hare? A fox?”

  William took a deep breath and said, “Neither. It’s not any kind of animal; it’s a hob.”

  The monk stared at him for several moments, a startled expression on his face. “A hob?” he said at last. “Are you sure, Will? A hob?”

  William nodded and watched the monk anxiously. Had he made a mistake in trusting Brother Snail? Would he consider the hob to be a creature of the devil, not to be tolerated on holy ground?

  “And how do you know that it’s a hob?”

  “Because he told me he was,” William said cautiously.

  “I see.” There was a thoughtful expression in Brother Snail’s light blue eyes. “There used to be hobmen in Foxwist and up on Gremanhil, according to the old stories,” the monk said, keeping his voice low and glancing over at the two monks busy at their desks, “but I thought they had long since gone. What are his injuries?”

  William felt a surge of relief. Brother Snail believed him, and more important, he was not crossing himself and calling down the wrath of God on William’s head for daring to bring such a creature to the abbey. That was definitely a good sign. “A broken leg, a deep wound, and he has lost a lot of blood.”

  “Where is he now?”

  “In your workshop.”

  “Come with me, Will. If anyone asks, you are helping me with something urgent, but don’t mention the hob.” The monk set off along the path with surprising speed and a curious sideways gait. William hurried after him.

  “Is the trap still in the wood?” Brother Snail asked as they left the abbey behind and headed across the vegetable garden toward the hut. Peter Borowe and his basket of vegetables had gone.

  “No. I got rid of it,” William said. “I took it to the Whistling Hollow and threw it into the pool.”

  Snail stopped abruptly. William almost collided with him.

  “You did what?” the monk said, turning to stare up at him with a worried frown. “Don’t you know how dangerous it is to go anywhere near the Hollow, William? Haven’t you been warned often enough?”

  William felt hot color rise to his cheeks. “I wanted to make sure nobody would ever be able to use the trap again. It seemed the best way to do it.”

  “And you don’t think whoever set the trap has others? Or that you could have brought it here and hidden it in a shed?”

  William shrugged one shoulder and looked away. “I didn’t come to any harm,” he muttered.

  “Maybe so, this time,” Snail said, setting off again, “but the local people avoid that place for a very good reason, Will, and you were foolish to disregard the warnings.” The monk was quiet for a moment, then asked, “Did you see or hear anything while you were there?”

  “I . . . I’m not sure,” William said hesitantly.

  The monk stopped again and turned to stare at him, head to one side, looking for all the world like a small and inquisitive bird. He tucked his thin hands into the sleeves of his habit and waited for William to continue.

  “I thought I heard a voice,” William began. He told the monk what had happened and how he had felt he was being watched. It seemed little enough now, in familiar everyday surroundings, but fear still shadowed his mind.

  The monk frowned. There was a look in his eyes that made William wonder if he knew more about the Hollow than he was saying.

  “Have you ever been there?” William asked, watching the monk’s face closely.

  Snail did not reply at first. He gazed into the distance and seemed troubled. At last, he looked back at William. “Many years ago, not long after I came to live at Crowfield, I had cause to go to Weforde,” he said. “Some matter of a message from the abbot to Sir Robert. I stopped to look for plants along the way and forgot the time. When I realized I wouldn’t have time to deliver the message and get back to the abbey before dark, I did a foolish thing. I took a shortcut through the woods. My path took me down into the Hollow.” The monk stopped, and William saw him shiver. It might simply have been the cold, but William had the feeling it was more than that.

  “It was a wet autumn day and the ground was boggy near the pool. There was a tree growing out over the water.”

  William nodded. “Above the spring, a hazel tree.”

  Snail looked surprised, as if he hadn’t expected William to have noticed such a detail. “Yes, that’s right. Its leaves had turned color and it looked as if someone had hung gold coins from every branch and twig. I remember it so clearly, because the leaves in the rest of the wood were a dull brown, and the hazel tree shone like a beacon in the gloom.” He paused for a moment and smiled faintly at the memory. Then his eyes clouded again. “I looked back when I reached the far side of the Hollow. I saw something by the pool. It was just a misty shape, but I had the feeling it was watching me. I have never been so frightened of anything in my whole life, Will. I had the distinct feeling I should not have been there and that I was not welcome.”

  William nodded again. “That’s what I felt, too. What did you do?”

  Snail smiled thinly. “I ran.”

  William grinned. “Me, too.”

  “And I never took a shortcut through the woods again,” Brother Snail finished. “And neither should you. Stay away from the Hollow, Will. You might not be so lucky next time.”

  “Lucky?” William repeated, puzzled.

  “You’re still alive.” Snail turned and set off again, shuffling along, his head bowed between humped shoulders. It was hard to imagine him as a young man, still able to run.

  “Have people died there?” William asked in alarm.

  “All I know is that people have sometimes gone missing in Foxwist. Maybe they’re dead, maybe not, but whatever the truth of it is, I think you had a narrow escape, Will. Be grateful for that an
d don’t go near the Hollow again.”

  “The figure you saw, was it a ghost, do you think?” William asked, falling into step beside the monk.

  “I doubt it.”

  “Oh? What was it, then?”

  “Something as old as the woods and the hills,” the monk said quietly, turning to gaze across the river, toward Foxwist. “I believe it was here long before the abbey and Weforde and Yagleah, and will still be here long after they’ve gone. I don’t have a name for it, Will, but I believe it was the spirit of the place.”

  William shivered. He did not realize places could have spirits. He glanced around uneasily. The world was beginning to feel far stranger and more dangerous than he had ever imagined. His life growing up in the mill at Iwele had been much simpler than his life at the abbey.

  They reached the workshop and Snail lifted the latch. “Perhaps the hob will be able to tell me what it really was,” he said with a quick smile at William.

  “If he’s still alive,” William said grimly.

  “Well, let’s find out, shall we?”

  CHAPTER

  FOUR

  Brother Snail kept a lantern on a shelf inside the door, along with a tinderbox and a couple of spare tallow candles. He lit the stub of candle inside the lantern and looked around the workshop. “Where is he, then, this hob of yours?”

  It was some moments before William spotted the creature, huddled between a basket of logs and the hut wall. “Over there.”

  Snail frowned as he peered into the gloom. “Where?”

  William crouched down beside the basket and held out a hand to the hob. The creature shuffled forward awkwardly and grabbed William’s fingers. As gently as he could, William helped the hob out of its hiding place.

  The creature seemed weaker now. There was a trail of blood on the floor where it dragged its leg. William heard Brother Snail gasp. He glanced over his shoulder. The monk was staring down at the injured creature, his eyes wide with shock. It seemed the monk hadn’t fully believed in hobs until that moment.