The Ocean at the End of the Lane(25)

She was floating above me now, and she reached out her hands.

Every move she made, everything she did, was strobed by the tame lightnings that flickered and writhed about her. Her fingers opened like flowers in a speeded-up film, and I knew that she was playing with me, and I knew what she wanted me to do, and I hated myself for not standing my ground, but I did what she wanted: I ran.

I was a little thing that amused her. She was playing, just as I had seen Monster, the big orange tomcat, play with a mouse – letting it go, so that it would run, and then pouncing, and batting it down with a paw. But the mouse still ran, and I had no choice, and I ran too.

I ran for the break in the hedge, as fast as I could, stumbling and hurting and wet.

Her voice was in my ears as I ran.

‘I told you I was going to lock you in the attic, didn’t I? And I will. Your daddy likes me now. He’ll do whatever I say. Perhaps from now on, every night, he’ll come up the ladder and let you out of the attic. He’ll make you climb down from the attic. Down the ladder. And every night, he’ll drown you in the bath, he’ll plunge you into the cold, cold water. I’ll let him do it every night until it bores me, and then I’ll tell him not to bring you back, to simply push you under the water until you stop moving and until there’s nothing but darkness and water in your lungs. I’ll have him leave you in the cold bath, and you’ll never move again. And every night I’ll kiss him and kiss him …’

I was through the gap in the hedgerow, and running on soft grass.

The crackle of the lightning, and a strange sharp, metallic smell were so close they made my skin prickle. Everything around me got brighter and brighter, illuminated by the flickering blue-white light.

‘And when your daddy finally leaves you in the bath for good, you’ll be happy,’ whispered Ursula Monkton, and I imagined that I could feel her lips brushing my ears. ‘Because you won’t like it in the attic. Not just because it’s dark up there, with the spiders, and the ghosts. But because I’m going to bring my friends. You can’t see them in the daylight, but they’ll be in the attic with you, and you won’t enjoy them at all. They don’t like little boys, my friends. They’ll be spiders as big as dogs. Old clothes with nothing inside that tug at you and never let you go. The inside of your head. And no books, and no stories, ever again.’

And I realised that I had not imagined it. Her lips had brushed my ear. She was floating in the air beside me, so her head was next to mine, and when she caught me looking at her she smiled her pretend smile, and I could not run any longer. I could barely move. I had a stitch in my side, and I could not catch my breath, and I was done.

My legs gave way beneath me, and I stumbled and fell, and this time I did not get up.

I felt heat on my legs, and I looked down to see a yellow stream coming from the front of my pyjama trousers. I was seven years old, no longer a little child, but I was wetting myself with fear, like a baby, and there was nothing I could do about it, while Ursula Monkton hung in the air above me and watched, dispassionately.

The hunt was done.

She stood up straight in the air, three feet above the ground. I was sprawled beneath her, on my back, in the wet grass. She began to descend, slowly, inexorably, like a person on a broken television screen.

Something touched my left hand. Something soft. It nosed my hand, and I looked over, fearing a spider as big as a dog. In the light of the lightnings that writhed about Ursula Monkton, I saw a patch of darkness beside my hand. A patch of darkness with a white spot over one ear. I picked the kitten up in my hand, and brought it to my heart, and I stroked it.

I said, ‘I won’t come with you. You can’t make me.’ I sat up, because I felt less vulnerable sitting, and the kitten curled and made itself comfortable in my hand.

‘Pudding-and-pie boy,’ said Ursula Monkton. Her feet touched the ground, illuminated by her own lightnings, like a painting of a woman in greys and greens and blues, not a real woman at all. ‘You’re just a little boy. I’m a grown-up. I was an adult when your world was a ball of molten rock. I can do whatever I wish to you. Now, stand up. I’m taking you home.’

The kitten, which was burrowing into my chest with its face, made a high-pitched noise, not a mew. I turned, looking away from Ursula Monkton, looking behind me.

The girl who was walking towards us, across the field, wore a shiny red raincoat, with a hood, and a pair of black wellington boots that seemed too big for her. She walked out of the darkness, unafraid. She looked up at Ursula Monkton.

‘Get off my land,’ said Lettie Hempstock.

Ursula Monkton took a step backwards and rose, at the same time, so she hung in the air above us. Lettie Hempstock reached out to me, without glancing down at where I sat, and she took my hand, twining her fingers into mine.

‘I’m not touching your land,’ said Ursula Monkton. ‘Go away, little girl.’

‘You are on my land,’ said Lettie Hempstock.

Ursula Monkton smiled, and the lightnings wreathed and writhed about her. She was power incarnate, standing in the crackling air. She was the storm, she was the lightning, she was the adult world with all its power and all its secrets and all its foolish casual cruelty. She winked at me.

I was a seven-year-old boy, and my feet were scratched and bleeding. I had just wet myself. And the thing that floated above me was huge and greedy, and it wanted to take me to the attic, and when it tired of me it would make my daddy kill me.