Uncle Montague's Tales of Terror (2 page)

'Perhaps.' Uncle Montague gave a little shrug.

'The point is they respected the forest and they respected trees - feared them - worshipped them.'

'How did they worship them, Uncle?' I said, taking a biscuit and noticing that the sugar was already gone.

'In many ways, I am sure,.' he said. 'The Roman historians tell us of sacred groves, of oak trees splashed with blood -'

'Blood?' I said, spluttering a little on my biscuit.

'Yes,.' said Uncle Montague. 'They tell of sacrifice - sometimes human. The Celts were partial to taking the heads of their enemies as trophies in battle. To them, the hanging of the heads on an oak was probably as festive as the hanging of baubles on a Christmas tree is to your dear mother.'

I raised a doubtful eyebrow on both counts and Uncle smiled.

'But why worship a tree?' I said.

'I can think of many things less deserving of worship,.' he replied. 'Look at how long some trees have been alive. Think of what they have seen. Why, there are yew trees in churchyards that may be more than a thousand years old - older still than the ancient church nearby. Their roots are in one millennium and their branches in another. And who cannot stand in awe when they see a great oak or ash or elm standing alone like a mournful giant?'

He tapped his fingertips together and I saw his wolfish smile in the shadow. 'I know a story about just such a tree,.' said my uncle. 'Would you like to hear it, Edgar?'

'Very much so.' After all, that was why I was there.

'It may be a little frightening for you.'

'I don't mind, Uncle,.' I said with more courage than I felt, for I was like someone who, having been hauled to the highest point of a fairground ride, was beginning to have second thoughts.

'Very well,.' said Uncle Montague, looking into the fire. 'Then I shall begin . . .'

The garden was enclosed on all sides by a high stone wall that was splashed and speckled with yellow, grey and cream-white lichen. To the east this wall housed tall gates of dark wood that opened on to a long gravel drive. To the west the wall had a smaller opening. Set between two fiercely spiked shrubs was a scratched and weathered, arched, bottle-green door with a heavy wrought-iron hoop to lift the latch that held it shut.

Beyond this door was a pasture of about two acres, bordered by the garden wall itself on one side, a hedge of hawthorn, hazel and dogwood on another, and a wooden post and rail fence on the other two. Almost in the centre of this pasture was an enormous and very ancient tree.

Joseph's father had proudly pointed the tree out to him as he took Joseph on a tour of their magnificent new house and grounds. Joseph's father was not given to great shows of emotion and seemed to save all his passion for his work, which Joseph did not fully understand, save that it was something to do with money and the making of money. But as he showed Joseph the tree his father seemed unusually sentimental.

He put his arm around Joseph, awkwardly but tenderly, and said, 'Do you see that tree, son? The old elm? What a giant! Isn't it marvellous? It must be hundreds of years old. The things it must have seen, eh?'

Joseph had to admit that the ancient elm really was rather marvellous. Standing there in the centre of the pasture, it looked like an animal in a paddock, or rather like a zoo animal in its enclosure - penned, but not in any way tame.

'I've got something for you,.' said his father. 'I hope you like it.'

He handed Joseph a small blue box which, when opened, revealed a shining gold pocket watch.

'Oh!' said Joseph. 'Is that really for me? Thank you, Father.'

'Go on,.' he said with a smile. 'Put it on. But don't lose it for God's sake. It was damned expensive.'

With a little help from his father, Joseph threaded the watch chain through the button hole of his waistcoat and tucked the watch into the pocket, where it ticked satisfyingly next to his ribs.

Joseph's father went back to London the following day. He had rooms near the City and spent most of his time there, coming back to the house at weekends. Because Joseph was away himself, at school, this arrangement did not usually affect him. But though he rarely missed his parents while at school, he was embarrassed to find himself holding back tears as he waved his father goodbye at the end of the drive.

'Come on,.' said his mother, understanding something of the sadness in her son's eyes. 'Let's take Jess for a walk.'

So Joseph, his mother and Jess, the family spaniel, set off through the garden gate and across the pasture. There was a stile at the bottom, leading on to a footpath across some common land and through a lovely wood of oaks and beech and sweet chestnut.

The grass in the pasture had yet to be cut. It was long and blond, hissing with crickets and spattered with blood red poppies. Towering up above it all was the mighty elm.

Jess ran a zigzag, sniffing path, as she so often did, but today the tree seemed to demand her special attention. Joseph noticed for the first time that there was a cave-like hollow at the base of the tree and it was this that particularly interested her.

The spaniel sniffed the air and approached the hole cautiously, peering in, her ears alternately cocked for any noise and then held back against her head. Joseph could hear her whimpering quietly, as though she were mumbling under her breath.

Joseph and his mother smiled as they watched Jess inching her way forward. Her ears suddenly cocked again and she tilted her head to one side. She seemed to have heard a noise inside. She took a step forward and leaned tentatively into the hole.

Suddenly she gave a strange strangled yelp that almost sounded like a human scream of panic. It was so startling in its oddness that Joseph and his mother both flinched. Jess jolted backwards from the tree and tore off across the pasture as if pursued by a demon.

When she got to the garden door she could not get through because the door was heavy and opened outwards. She whined and howled and scrabbled at the door, scratching the wood and digging the earth beneath it in a frantic effort to escape. Joseph ran back calling her name. When he reached her and tried to calm her down, she turned, wild-eyed, and bit him.

Jess had never bitten Joseph, not even as a puppy, and he could see that she barely recognised him. She seemed to have no room in her mind for anything other than the overwhelming urge to escape. He opened the door for her and she bolted, skidding on the gravel of the drive as she sped through the gates and away down the road.

'It's all right, Joey,.' said his mother. 'Don't worry. She'll come back.'

But she did not.

It had been a long time since Joseph had cried, but he cried for Jess. Playing with her was one of the things he most looked forward to when he came home from school for the holidays. His mother said they must not give up hope that she would turn up safe and sound. They placed adverts in the local newspaper offering a reward but heard nothing.

When Joseph's father returned from London a week later he took his son for a walk in the pasture. He told him that Jess might not come back and, were that to be the case, then they would get another dog. But Joseph did not want another dog. He wanted Jess.

Joseph's father crouched down, looked into the hole at the tree's roots and reached into it with his hand.

'No!' said Joseph with more force than he had intended. His father retracted his hand immediately.

'What is it?' he said.

'There . . . there . . . might be rats or something,. ' said Joseph. In truth he did not know why it had panicked him so to see his father put his hand into the hole, but though his father chuckled and ruffled his hair, he did not return to the hole and asked Mr Farlow, the gardener, to put poison down it.

Joseph's father returned to London as he always did, and Joseph fidgeted about the house until his mother shooed him out. Eventually he found himself in the pasture again, standing in front of the tree.

The desire to climb the tree came suddenly, without any prior thought on the subject, but as soon as it did, the impulse was overwhelming.

As he was looking for a way to begin, he noticed something written on the tree. CLIMB NOT had been crudely gouged into the bark, though it must have been many years ago, for the tree had healed around the wound of the words so that they were ancient scars in its elephant hide.

This discovery, though interesting, did not detain Joseph for long. It clearly did not apply to him, as the writer and intended reader must be long dead.

But no sooner had Joseph grabbed the very first branch than a voice behind him made him jump.

'I wouldn't do that if I were you.' It was old Mr Farlow. 'Heed what's writ there.'

'What?' said Joseph.

'I know you read it, lad,.' he said. 'I saw you. Heed it.'

'I'm not scared,.' said Joseph. 'I've climbed lots of trees.'

'Not this one. You know what they say about elms, don't you, boy?' said the old man with an unpleasant smile. '"Elms hateth man and waiteth." So keep away!'

Joseph turned and stomped away back towards the house and sulked for several hours, refusing to give his mother any clue as to what was bothering him. That night he watched from his bedroom window as the crown of the elm tree shook like the mane of a giant lion, black against the indigo night, roaring in the wind. Joseph would show that old fool.

By asking his mother a succession of apparently innocent questions over breakfast the next day, Joseph discovered that Mr Farlow did not come to work on the gardens on Thursdays. That was two days away, and Joseph awaited the arrival of Mr Farlow's day off as keenly as if it had been both Christmas Day and his own birthday rolled into one. His excitement surprised him - frightened him even - but he seemed to have no choice but to give in to it.

On Thursday afternoon he dashed out of the house unnoticed, ran all the way to the elm and stood gasping for breath in its shadow. After gazing up into the branches above him, he set about climbing.

Joseph quickly discovered that the tree was going to be harder to climb than he had expected, but this only made the climbing of it more of an adventure. Even when he missed his footing and slipped, scraping his knee on the grizzled bark and almost falling, he felt the pain to be a sign of his commitment to the climb.

He reached a branch about thirty feet from the ground and could find no way of continuing. He tried to reach a branch above him, but looking down he lost his nerve and could go no further. He took out his new watch. It was getting late.

Reluctantly Joseph climbed down, trying to retrace his route, vowing to return the following Thursday to continue the climb. He jumped the last few feet, landing with a soft thud on the ground.

As he landed he had the strangest impression that there was a muffled echo of his landing, that something beneath the earth had flinched or flexed. The hole at the tree's base seemed darker and more impenetrable than ever. He took two tentative steps forward, leaning to peer in, but found that he could not make himself go closer.

He walked back across the pasture with a carefree gait that was completely feigned. In reality he was resisting an impulse to run. He was almost at the door in the wall, when he turned round quickly, half expecting to see something - he did not know what - standing behind him. But there was nothing there but the tree.

The following Thursday his mother had invited some of the ladies from her watercolour class for coffee and Joseph had to say hello to them all and smile and be cooed at before he could make his escape. The day was dull and overcast, but the feathery grey clouds were high and would not bring rain. Joseph was the only thing moving as he strode purposefully across the open pasture towards the tree.

Joseph edged past the hole without looking in, and began his climb. He was surprised at how easy he found it this time as he quickly scaled the height he had reached the previous week.

When he reached the branch that marked the highest point of his earlier climb, he straddled it and sat feeling content and looking about him for signs of where he might find footholds for the next stage. He looked at his watch. It was only eleven o'clock. He had plenty of time.

It was then that he caught sight of the writing.

There, scratched into the trunk of the tree, where the branch he was sitting on sprung away from it, were the words, CLIMB NOT. They had been scratched into the bark in exactly the same way as the ones at the base of the tree. But these appeared to be freshly made.

Joseph stared at them and, suddenly feeling as if he were being watched, he looked about him, out across the pasture. There was no one there.

Mr Farlow must have done this, Joseph was sure of it. The old man had warned him off climbing the tree after all. But could he really have climbed the tree at his age, however easy Joseph had found it?

Joseph suddenly laughed to himself. Of course! The old man did not need to climb. He had a ladder. Joseph had seen him at the top of a ladder the week before, pruning a climbing vine on the garden wall.

Then Joseph became angry. How dare that old man tell him what he could and could not do? What concern was it of his? He did not own this land - Joseph did. Or at least his parents did, and that amounted to the same thing after all. Instead of the words on the tree putting Joseph off, they became a spur for him to renew his struggles with even greater effort.

Joseph looked at the lettering of the words and smiled smugly. Why, the old fool could barely write; Joseph could have made a better job of that when he was four years old. And what had he used to make the letters anyway? Joseph had seen and admired the old man's knife that he kept in a sheath on his belt, but these words seemed to have been scratched with a nail or a hook rather than cut with a blade, as they were rough and jagged. Joseph felt the letters with his fingers. Whatever he had used it was certainly sharp, for the scratches were deep and the wood was as hard as stone.

Joseph saw that if he could crouch on the branch he was sitting on, he might be able to reach a branch that would then support him enough to stand and continue the climb. It was a precarious manoeuvre and, had he slipped, a broken arm would be the least he might expect in the resulting fall to the ground far below.

But Joseph managed to ease himself up on to the branch and, sure enough, he could reach out and grab a smaller branch above and pull himself up safely to a standing position.

From here the route suddenly seemed straightforward and Joseph climbed with ape-like ease, hauling himself from branch to branch with barely a pause to see where his next foothold would be. In no time at all he was pulling himself up to sit astride the very last set of branches that formed a kind of basket or crow's nest high up at the top of the tree.

Joseph whooped with triumph and gazed out at the view, out across the pasture towards the tiled rooftop of his house, which he now looked down upon. Looking to the west, he could see over the hedge to the fields and woods beyond and was able to discern very clearly the regular bumps and hollows that formed the imprint of a deserted village. The buildings were long gone, but their ghostly outlines could be detected through the blanket of soil and grass. He could even see now that the pasture, too, had markings in it. There were round markings every now and then and, stranger still, what seemed to be the remains of a pathway leading directly to the tree itself.