Page 16 of Bonetide

A sound behind me in the thicket.

Not a footstep, exactly. More like…pressure. The slow shifting of weight on wet ground. Like someone moving carefully and trying not to, a physicality caught mid-motion.

I freeze.

I listen.

The thicket has gone fully silent now. The wren is gone. The drip is gone. I barely hear the stream. There is just my own breathing, very loud in my own ears, and the slow shifting somewhere behind me in the trees.

I do not turn around.

I have read a lot of horror novels in my life and they are unanimous on this point: you do not turn around. If you do, that’s when you see that red-eyed pig thing in the window.

I take a step forward. The boots make their squelch, suddenly extra loud. The shifting behind me does not match my pace. It’s slower. It’s continuous.

It’s stalking.

Oh god.

My heart starts to feel too big for my chest as I try to control my breathing. I take another step. Another. I am almost at the stream.

If I can get over the burn, out of the thicket, and into the open ground, I will be fine. This is not a logical thought of course. This is folklore-thought. If I cross the running water, I will be safe.

I cross the burn at a stride, now out of the thicket. The slope opens in front of me, the cottage two hundred meters down, the boat shed below it, the bay below that.

I run.

I absolutely should never run. My hips are tight and my body has not done a sprint in years despite the fact that I know I need to work out regularly, and I’m wearing Wellingtons that fit like a child wearing her father’s shoes.

But I run anyway.

The boots are a catastrophe. I am galumphing down the slope like a Clydesdale in a hurry, gait askew, every step landing with a wet thud, my basket bouncing on my arm, flowers spilling. I see a splash of yellow as gorse hits the ground. I see the foxgloves go. I don’t stop; I don’t look back. I make it perhaps fifty meters before I lose the basket entirely, tipping off my arm and the rest of the flowers go, scattered across the grass, the wicker bouncing once and rolling into a tussock. But I keep running. By the time I reach the cottage, I’m shaking from head to toe. My breath is sawing in my chest; my right boot has come half off my heel.

I get to the door and hurry inside. I slam it shut and lock it. I stand there panting, my palm against the door, and listen for whatever was pursuing me out there.

I listen for a long time.

But I hear nothing.

Nothing, and then, from a distance, a wren starts singing again, somewhere up in the thicket, and the world resumes.

I sit down on the floor, because my legs are not going to hold me. I pull off the wellies. My right ankle is rubbed raw where the boot came loose. My tights are torn. There are twigs in my hair. The basket and most of the morning’s work are scattered in a long line up the slope behind me.

I’ll go back for the basket later. Probably. Maybe.

I don’t move from the floor for a while, leaning against the solid door.

I am still on the floor when the knock comes.

Knock, knock, knock.

Three even raps on the front door that reverberate against my spine.

A scream strangles in my throat, my fingers curling into my sleeves.

I don’t get up. I don’t think I even can get up at this point. I’m sitting on the floor in a torn pair of tights with my heart hammering and a cold sweat down my back, and I know there’s a man at my front door, and the man at my front door is the man who has just been moving through the thicket behind me. I’m sure of it, as sure as I’ve been of anything.

The man from the castle had been chasing me, he chased me all the way here and⁠—