All stories

Daniel was the summer child. He was found by the farmer in the July of 1936, sitting in the middle of a meadow on the outskirts of the village. Nearby was on a sack in which there were some carrots and a jar of strawberry jam. He was a big fat baby sitting upright, playing with his dirty toes and giggling. The farmer called him Danel, local dialect for the runt of a litter of pigs.

It was not apparent where he came from and no amount of notices in the local paper, or postcards in the post office window could bring forth a parent. The local copper knocked on doors in all the villages within a 10 mile radius but no one was forthcoming.

After a week or so with the farmer Danel was taken to stay at the vicarage, and then spent a bit of time with the pub landlord. Between them the village took it in turns to feed and clothe him as he grew like a giant rhubarb.

Danel became a gentle young man, big and strong but not very bright. He went to school but never managed to learn much. He spent most of his time in the class room colouring with the crayons. He loved their colours and their waxy smell

Every summer in July the villagers went back to the spot that he was found in case someone should come to claim him. Over time it became the traditional village summer picnic.

In the summer of 1956 when Daniel was 20 he went on a mystery tour to Cheddar caves. The caves frightened him. When the guide told them about people living in such places and doing cave paintings with soot and blood, Danel started to cry. He couldn't stand to think of people living in the dark and not having crayons. He ran out of the cave and was only found 2 hours later in the local park bandstand, sitting playing with his toes. He made the coach late and the vicar told him off.

In the hot June of 1976, a woman appeared in the village. No one knew her. They all wondered if she was Danels mum come for him. She stayed a few days in a room above the pub and left without saying anything. Danel never even noticed. As far as he was concerned everyone was either his mum or dad, brother or sister.

Danel never married and he never owned a house. He lived with whoever had room for him. He never had a job but worked hard for whoever needed him. He had few belongings and never learned to read.

In the summer of 2016 aged 80, he sat quietly at his picnic. It was a warm day and peewits flicked across the downy farmland. Daniel watched the jammy faced children play. He watched the old people laughing at their own jokes and fanning themselves. Having known nothing of the internet, mobile phones, sat navs or computers, Danel looked at the tracing paper trees in the lowering evening light, giggled and took one last jam sandwich.

Her brothers were bigger and stronger, and they could climb longer and better.

But not higher.

She looked down upon them from her eagle’s perch. She did their eagle call and their bronzed faces winked from far below. Were they waving back, or were they shaking their fists?

No matter.

A moment later she was through the crack in the rock, through the opening where they had decided the god of the sky must live. This crack in the rock was tight, and her body – slight as it was – almost completely cut out daylight from behind. But not in front. She could see a glimmer, and it drew her onwards, deeper and further, walls of rock harsh against her skin.

With a suddenness that was dazzling she popped into the light. She had emerged at the bottom of a mighty fissure in the rock, the sun at just the perfect angle to sear its rays from the top to the very bottom. This grew gradually wider until she was unable to touch the walls on both sides.

She paused, entranced by the paintings. These were old, mere black lines showing bison and aurochs, showing them herded into pits for the slaughter or over the edge of a cliff. How old were these paintings? How many summers and moons had they seen? Life without arrows and spears? Madness.

From the skin pouch at her waist she took one of her fire blacked sticks sharpened to a point. She would come back to this place and do it properly, she would bring rock pigments mixed with pig fat, pictures in glorious red and green, but for the moment it would do, simple lines etching her symbol of the eagle onto the rock.

---

Despite his own sensible advice to get some rest before the dawn, Ed had barely slept a wink. How could he sleep, with Franny gone into a cave and not come out? Driving past the bandstand in the early morning dark he was flush with fear, Franny’s giggling laugh on the journey into town when the satnav told them to turn right – did the driving man just say the bar steward word?

Ed had to tell himself to breathe as he abseiled down into the fissure; slow and steady, don’t land too heavy and break an ankle. That would be no help. Waiting at the bottom were the first two rescuers, white faced and gloomy. They played the lights of their head torches over the whitened bones they had found.

Ed looked from face to face, then roared with laughter.

‘She went in yesterday! Good God, these aren’t her bones.’ He knelt for a closer look. It was surely the skeleton of a child, bones flensed of flesh by the ages. Ed said, ‘These bones look ancient.’

He made his way down the fissure, calling for Franny, rewarded at last by the flicker of movement. When hugged his little girl to his body there were free tears down his face.

‘Oh, my darling, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry you had to spend the night in this place all alone.’

Franny broke the hug. Her spirits were good despite the long night in the cold.

‘It’s all right, Daddy, I wasn’t alone. Eagle Girl was with me. And guess what, she is a better climber than her brothers too.’

They met in the evening by the bandstand, every Tuesday. He had extra code club and she had extra band practice. They walked and talked. Sometime they held hands. Then it was twice a week and it became harder to give excuses. After a few weeks they knew they would have to think of something else.

She suggested a camping trip. He wasn't sure; code club didn’t really do countryside, but perhaps a geotagging exercise exploring satellite GPS wifi beacon navigation. She could see his mind racing through the possibilities for his fictional event. She thought her chest would burst with the ragged ocean of feelings that swelled inside her, as she watched his brain whirl and soar. The plan was made and they left, both heads twisting and turning, unable to look away for too long.

Eventually with s clothes, first aid, motherboard and soldering iron packed as full as the lies he fed his parents, he walked to the bus stop, every step alternating heavy with hope and fear that she would be there

She was sat, beer in her small rough hand. Small rough rucksack on one shoulder. A rare smile as wide as the road before them. She didn’t think he’d come and tried to hide her relief.

Later they walked through the forest, hand in hand, free from parents, school, judgement. Eating his meticulously packed lunch, drinking her beer. Every tender moment drawing them closer. As evening closed in she asked where he wanted to camp. He asked her where the tent was. She laughed. Then they both realised at the same time, as the summer sun, embarrassed, slinked away.

Night came, cold and frosty with an atmosphere matched by their silent walk back through the forest. After a while they admitted the path had disappeared and it began to rain. He was exhausted, terrified and teary eyed. Desperately he ventured the quiet idea of a cave to her sloped, sullen back a few yards ahead.

The wind whipped the branches into a fury and the blinding rain cut into them like needles until finally they saw a deeper dark of an entrance. Dark but dry.

She was annoyed at herself for forgetting the tent, for being angry, for not bringing more clothes and for ruining it all as usual. He was scared of the storm, the dark, his feelings, of her embarrassment of him, of not knowing what to do.

Cautiously he suggested they could make a fire from his soldering iron, gas powered. She gave him a smile that warmed him more than any flame. She made the fire. He watched as she laid wetter wood out to dry. Watched her use the dry moss first, then feed it bit by bit. Her brave, intelligent face shifting in the shadows, changing constantly but always heart stoppingly beautiful.

He noticed then in the new light, markings on the wall. Scratches and colour here and there. Ancient, perhaps undiscovered, traces by the faint brush of his fingertips. He called her over, explaining the meaning and how they were made. Of course she laughed to herself, unable to look away from his rare, unashamed enthusiasm, his eyes on fire with their possibilities until he caught her watching him and shyly quietened.

They sat close and talked for hours, unplugged and released. Their hands edging closer until they touched and held. Then when there was nothing left to say, they turned and kissed. Clumsy, unsure but with a fire that lifts them spinning into a perfect, endless summer night.

The late-afternoon sun is relentless through the car window and if the sat nav takes them down one more wrong turn, Sophie will scream. Ben does another u-turn, their third, past the same park bandstand, the two-pump petrol station; the whey-faced locals, who watch their confusion in mute, unhelpful silence.

Finally the right dirt track, the markers that match the directions, the promised circle of rustic cottages and wildflowers.

Annie comes to meet them. She is an ancient, long-haired witch of a woman with laughter lines and a mischievous glint in her too-blue eyes. Her laugh, as she greets them, tinkles like the dozen wind chimes strung up in her trees.

“Welcome! You must be Sophie and Ben. Or is it Ruth and Luke?”

“We’re Sophie and Ben - The others will be here later.”

Sophie smiles through the stiffness in her legs and follows Annie through the garden.

“If you need me I’m usually in the garden” She calls back to them, with that laugh again. “And there’s a beautiful walk, to fill time ‘til your friends arrive. There’s a lovely old farmhouse in the woods behind us. It’s a perfect evening stroll.”

“Sounds nice” Ben smiles “Fancy it, Soph?”

She doesn’t, but nods anyway. They unpack and set off. The evening is fresh and cool after the heat of the car; there is lavender and honeysuckle and dappled sunlight.

But in the woods the atmosphere changes. It is heavier here and the smell of flowers becomes sickly, and cloying. The shadow of the farmhouse emerges suddenly, a looming giant in the deepening dusk.

Lovely it is not. Holes in the walls gape, like mouths of broken teeth, fixed in a rictus grin, blinded windows stare in wordless horror into the gloom. The crumbling chimney points a crooked, spindle-fingered warning, but Ben is intrigued.

Sophie struggles to keep up as he darts through nettles to reach the splintered door frame. Before she can reach him, he is inside.

It is darker in here, and strange. Waning light seeps through the windows. A rusting bed frame in the corner, scattered debris and filth. Strange markings gouged into the walls, ragged and violent; some like letters from an alphabet Sophie has never seen, others like stick figures in cave paintings, though she can’t tell what they show.

“Ben?”

Footsteps heavy on the rotting staircase, creaks and groans from the floorboards above.

But then Ben is there, beside her at the foot of the stairs, pale and frightened, plucking at her sleeve to draw her away, but she is frozen, peering into the shadows above.

Overhead the footsteps stop and a tinkling laugh drifts down, like the falling of broken glass. They are trapped with it in the darkness.

---

When the car stops at the end of the dirt track Annie comes to meet them.

““Welcome! You must be Sophie and Ben. Or is it Ruth and Luke?”

“Aren’t Sophie and Ben here yet? They were supposed to arrive yesterday -”

“Well it’s so easy to get lost here. I’m sure they’ll turn up. In the end.”

She laughed, a strange, chiming laugh

“Let me show you your cottage. If you’d like a walk before your friends arrive, there’s a lovely old farmhouse in the woods. It’s a perfect evening stroll.”

[Story removed for contest entry. Good luck!]