The Dark Between the Trees by Fiona Barnett

Author:Fiona Barnett
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Science Fiction
Publisher: Solaris

CHAPTER TWELVE

The Charcoal Burner’s House

Nine men crept towards the little clearing with the hut in it, as the day edged towards twilight. Sam Harper stayed to the back of the group. He kept turning around to check behind them—Davies was far out of sight by now, left propped up against his tree, and although that stung, he wasn’t what Harper was looking for. Something had been light for a moment and then wasn’t again, like the reflection of sunlight on water. There was no water, of course; they had left the stream far behind by now. Maybe that hadn’t been such a good idea after all, but it was by the by. His eyes were playing tricks on him, probably, but at any rate it made the hair stand up on the back of his neck, and he looked back, now and again. Like Lot’s wife, tempting fate.

As the ones ahead of him approached the clearing, Byrne said to Stiles, “Do you know who lives here?”

But Stiles shook his head. “I’ve never heard of anyone living in this place at all.” His voice trembled but he seemed now to be trying to pull himself together.

“Strange spot for a dwelling,” said Taylor. For some reason they were all keeping their voices low. It was only the home of a charcoal burner.

“Go in ahead,” said Thatcher to Stiles, and pointed his pistol at him to push the boy forwards. But perhaps Stiles was braver than they had given him credit for, or perhaps he wanted to put space between himself and the rest of them, because he nodded once, and went forward alone.

The rest watched as Stiles made his way up to the clearing, putting more weight on his right leg than on his left, picking out a path between scrubby patches of bracken and ferns. It was barely two hundred yards away, maybe even less than that. When he reached the edge of the clearing proper he paused and looked around, then beckoned the others forward. They edged closer.

“Is anyone there?” he called out in a reedy voice, when he was only a few yards from the entrance to the hut. He didn’t sound like the rest of them, Harper noticed: he was leaning on his accent, the fact that he was from this same county. There appeared to be no answer, or at least none that was audible to the assorted onlookers. But whatever Stiles had heard—if anything—did not seem to dissuade him: he went boldly up and rapped on the wooden door with his knuckles. The sound of it echoed slightly, or maybe it was just incongruous and they were listening out for any least sound from that direction.

The door itself was not barricaded, but nor did it creak when it was opened. He called out to them: “It’s alright! You can come, it’s empty.” And they did, moving toward him without any longer troubling to be quiet.

The little hut was furnished in such a way that it appeared

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