Beneath

He stood in the shadows, breathing quietly, utterly still, watching.

Watching her.

He knew her so well, though he had never spoken to her. He knew everything he needed to know about her. He’d watched her with her family, with her friends.

He wanted her for himself.

Should he do it now?

He hadn’t expected her to come here today. Should he do it now? He wasn’t ready. And it was too soon after the boy. But it was such a chance. It might be a long time before a chance like this came again.

He would deal with the consequences.

Very carefully, he began to edge towards her.

Jess stood by the pool. It looked as it always did, brown water reflecting the sky, a rustling border of reeds, and birch and alder trees growing almost to the water’s edge along one side, and a little boggy meadow of rushes at the other. She breathed deeply, glad to be away from the noise and bustle of home.

A couple of mallard ducks landed on the water nearby, disturbing the reflection of the clouds, and she moved round the edge of the pool to get a better view of them. She stood for a few minutes, watching them dabble for food.

She ought to go back. There were chores waiting for her back on the farm, but it was so peaceful here, with no one telling her what to do.

Reluctantly, she turned to go. As she did so she glanced down at the ground. She paused. There were footprints – no, hoof prints, in the mud at the water’s edge.

It took her a few seconds to realise why they looked odd. The horse was unshod. Strange… That would mean it was wild, and she’d never heard of any wild horses in the area, now or in the past.

A cloud went over the sun and the ducks flew up without warning, making Jess jump. Her heart beat fast.
Idiot
. They were only ducks, most likely frightened of their own shadows. But still, the familiar woods seemed suddenly threatening.

A twig cracked among the trees behind her. She turned sharply, scanning the woods for a sign that someone was there. The breeze ruffled the leaves and for a second she thought she saw a shadowy figure in the undergrowth.

Heavens, girl!
Jess told herself.
Get a grip on your mind and stop imagining things. Just because Donald went missing doesn’t mean the place is suddenly full of monsters.
All the same, she turned on her heel.
Best get home
.

There was a noise from among the brambles at the far end of the pool. She froze. Had she imagined that too? It had sounded like a growl.

“Hello?” she called, trying to keep control of her stampeding imagination. No one answered. Or at least, no one human. The growl came again. Surely it was too deep for a dog?

Genuinely frightened now, Jess edged towards the path that would take her home, never taking her eyes from the bramble patch.

She was sure she could see a flicker of movement behind the tangled stems. Something big; something dark.

As she reached the path and backed along it, the brambles became silent and still. Jess took a deep breath. Whatever it was, it had gone.

And then, without warning, something crashed through the trees nearby. She caught a glimpse of a black shape leaping past her, too fast to see properly. Panic consumed her, and she ran blindly. She must have veered off the path; branches tore
at her face and clothes, for a moment she lost her sense of direction. She saw the line of the path again and threw herself towards it, breath sobbing, terrified to glance back for fear of what she might see.

Behind her, a violent flurry of noise ended in a splash, then silence, and suddenly Jess was out of the trees and in open air on the heathery hill.

She kept running until her eyes were streaming and her lungs were raw. She glanced back every few seconds now. There was nothing behind her but the empty hillside.

The farm came into view. Jess forced herself to slow to a more normal pace, trying to convince herself that it was stupid to have been so frightened. After all, what had she really seen or heard? Something in the trees – well, that was most likely a deer. Something big and dark and growling among the brambles – a stray dog.

She opened the gate to the farmyard, then walked quickly to the kitchen door and let herself in.

She was safe.

The kitchen was empty. Jess downed a cup of water and told herself off for being foolish. Everyone was on edge, but she had tried not to be swept along by the tide of unease.

From the window, she spotted her father coming across the fields, and went out to meet him, hoping he’d have some good news.

“Anything?”

Ian shook his head. “Not a sign. They’ve called off the search.” Ten-year-old Donald had gone missing from the neighbouring village a few days before.

“What could have happened to him?”

“He must be dead. Maybe a wolf took him.”

“But wolves don’t attack people – not here, anyway,” said Jess.

“They might, if he was already hurt.”

“But they wouldn’t be this far down the valley in summer, surely?”

For a moment, she thought he was going to shout at her, but when he spoke, his voice was quiet. “Just leave it be, Jess. Likely we’ll never know what happened to him.”

He walked wearily off towards the barn, leaving his daughter staring after him, wondering what he wasn’t saying. When she went back into the house, the click of knitting needles from the main room told her where her grandmother, Ellen, was. Jess checked her shoes for mud and went in.

“Hello Gran.” She planted a kiss on the old woman’s soft cheek. “Father’s back.”

“Is there any news?”

“No.”

Ellen shook her head. “It’s no wonder. Ian knows they’ve been searching in the wrong place.”

“What do you mean?” Jess asked.

“The footprints, of course.”

“What footprints? I thought there was no trace of Donald at all?”

Her grandmother drew in her breath sharply, as though realising she’d said more than was wise.

“No… no, of course not. Pay no attention, child, I’m thinking of the one that disappeared last year. What was his name?”

“Aidan. But I don’t remember any talk of footprints when he disappeared either.” Jess skewered her grandmother with a look and waited.

The old woman put down her knitting needles with a sigh. “The men found footprints leading to the water’s edge down at Roseroot Pool.”

Jess felt the hair on the back of her neck prickle.
Coincidence
, she told herself.
That’s all. And an overactive imagination
.

“Are you talking about Donald or Aidan?”

“Both of them.”

Jess digested this in silence for a few seconds.

“But Donald was a good swimmer. He and Ashe sometimes swim there. Used to swim there,” she corrected herself. “And Aidan could swim too. Surely if they did find footprints they checked the pool?”

“I’m sure they did. But they didn’t find anything, of course.”

Jess was still thinking out loud. “It doesn’t seem very likely, does it, that they would both fall into the same pool and drown a year apart when they could both swim?”

Ellen opened her mouth to reply, but at that moment Jess’s mother, Martha, came in, and she stopped abruptly. Jess had the strangest feeling that Ellen had said something she shouldn’t have.

Next morning after breakfast, Jess helped load the cart with the farm produce to take into Kirriemuir: cans of milk, eggs, butter, cheese, some smoked eels and a pail of blaeberries she’d gathered the day before. The berries were the most important thing as far as she was concerned: because she had picked them herself, she got to keep the money they brought.

Her mother came out of the house waving a piece of paper.

“You forgot the shopping list. And the money.”

“No, I didn’t. I was just coming back in for them. Anyway, Arnor would have given me credit and I could have guessed what to buy.”

Her mother rolled her eyes.

“Martha?” Ian’s voice came from the house, calling his wife.

“Coming,” she called back, then to Jess, “Get on with you then – and don’t be all day. I know what you and Freya are like when you get talking.”

“Yes Mother. No Mother. Goodbye Mother.” Jess blew a kiss and flicked the reins and the cart moved off.

She let the horse choose its own pace, which could best be described as an amble. Peace at last. For the next while at least, she was in charge of herself.

The track pushed between the edges of the fields and joined the road into town that skirted the forest. Jess had thought she might meet someone else heading for Kirriemuir, but the road was empty.

Suddenly the horse stopped dead and Jess’s mind came back to the present with a jolt.

“What did you do that for, you stupid beast? Get on.” She clicked her tongue and flicked the reins, but the horse ignored her, raising its head to sniff the air and making a little whickering sound.

“I said, get on!” She tried again and this time the horse moved off as though nothing had happened.

Then she had the oddest sense that someone was watching her from the shadows under the trees. She turned round to look back, half expecting to see a deer.

Nothing.

Jess had this feeling of being watched from time to time in the woods and occasionally on the farm itself. She’d assumed everyone else had the same feeling until the day she mentioned it to Freya and was met by a look of blank incomprehension. She didn’t mention it again.

“Fool,” she muttered to herself now. “You’re as bad as the horse.” And then her eye was caught by a flash of movement between the trees.

Something glossy and black. The turn of a head. The swing of a tail. A horse?

Then it was gone.

Jess thought about the strange hoof prints by Roseroot Pool. Perhaps there really was a horse running wild somewhere out there. But surely someone else would have seen it?

By the time Jess reached Kirriemuir she had almost convinced herself she must have been mistaken about the horse. She drove slowly through the narrow streets, stopping to talk to people she knew, chickens fluttering out of the cart’s way every
so often. A blast of heat from the smithy washed over her as she went past, along with the reek of singeing hoof.

She tethered the horse to a rail in the square and went to see if there were any new signs on the big tree that served as a noticeboard.

There were two handwritten notices – a bull for sale, and a litter of deerhounds – and above those, a big printed sign.

That was certainly new, though from the date, it had taken a while to get here from Edinburgh – it was nearly August now.

She’d better remember to tell Father. He’d want to take part. The wolves had been growing bolder over the last few wintersrs, even taking livestock close to farm buildings. Folk had started to bury their dead under cairns of stones – there were stories from further west about wolves digging up bodies. There had been one wolf hunt in the area already this year. No one would object to a couple more, especially if they paid a bounty.

Jess walked back to Arnor’s shop. There was a wolf’s head mounted over the door, getting mangier by the year – it had hardly any fur left on its muzzle now – but Arnor wouldn’t hear of removing it.

It was known locally as the Summer Wolf. Twenty years ago, when Arnor was only nineteen and newly arrived from Norway with his parents, it had terrorised the area for almost three months. It had taken sheep and calves, killing for pleasure as much as food. Then it killed two young children, and every
man in the area set off to hunt it down.

It was Arnor who had tracked it and managed to kill it – a huge, black-pelted male. His reputation was made. He’d killed other wolves since then, winter wolves, like everyone else, but the Summer Wolf was unique.

He came out now to help Jess unload the cart: a big man, with blond curly hair and a beard. He always reminded Jess of a friendly bear in clothes, if such a thing could exist.

“Good day Jess. What have you brought today? Plenty of milk, I hope. Eel – that’s good: we’re short. Blaeberries – they’ll all be sold today.”

“Freya!” he called into the shop doorway. “Jess is here. Stop admiring yourself and come out here to help.”

“Coming!” came the reply from the depths of the shop. Freya appeared a few seconds later, a tall girl with creamy skin, blue eyes, and honey-coloured hair in a braid that came halfway down her back: the local beauty, and well aware of it.

“Hello Jess,” she said. “Wait until you see what the cloth merchant brought from Dundee yesterday.” Then her attention was caught by something on the cart. “Mmnn… blaeberries. My favourite.” She picked out a few of the biggest berries and popped them in her mouth.

Jess slapped Freya’s hand in pretend outrage. “Stop it! They took
ages
to pick. You should be paying me for them.”

Freya laughed at her and picked up the pail. Jess took the eggs, while Arnor brought in the heavy milk cans.

Freya pulled Jess to the back of the shop. “Come and see.”

Jess let herself be towed along. She wasn’t nearly as interested in clothes as Freya was, but a novelty was a novelty, and always welcome.

“Look.”

The bolts of fabric set out on a counter at the rear of the shop caught Jess’s attention properly.

“Aren’t they beautiful?” said Freya in a daze of pleasure. “I want them all.”

She gazed at them hungrily, as though they were edible: lengths of wool and linen dyed a clear red, and the green of new bracken shoots, and the startling blue of a kingfisher’s wing.

Freya picked up a length of blue wool. “What do you think?” She held it against herself and walked over to the shop’s only mirror to admire the effect. “Do you think it would suit me?”