The Jack Hansard Series: Season Two

Episode 5.2

I fished two pairs of rubber gloves from my trench coat. 'Wear these.' Next, a set of kilner jars and two cast iron ladles, courtesy of the knockers' fine smithing. 'And now we reap our rewards. But very, very carefully.'

'Talkin' to someone used to shifting soil without collapsin' a tunnel, twpsyn.'

Nevertheless, I winced while watching her awkwardly manhandle a too-large jar under one arm and precariously scoop up piskey dust with the other. I grit my teeth and set to work, hoping that my colleague wouldn't inadvertently turn into something gruesome next to me.

The dust had an oddly slippery texture. It wouldn't sit in the ladle as you'd expect a powder should, but sloshed slightly – or glooped, perhaps – over the sides, to make our efforts even more precarious.

A glint of crimson caught my eye and I looked up. Suspended in the middle of the clearing was a ripe, red fruit about the size of a football, hanging like a gigantic uvula from the cluttered branches overhead. It pulsed with a soft glow, and my penchant for metaphor switched its likeness to a quietly beating heart.

It was also the only fruit I'd seen in this otherwise verdant dell. So, logically, there was only one thing it must be.

'Ang,' I whispered, and nodded to the ripe appendage.

She grimaced. 'Looks disgustin'.'

'It's our ticket out of here, if we want to keep the Maidens on side.'

'What's your deal wi' them, gwas? Ye in the habit of courting big lumps o' stone?'

'I'll tell you some other time,' I muttered. 'But what's important is they'll do anything to make their tedious eternity feel more alive. They exist in an endless party just to make infinity seem a little less monotonous.'

'That's what the booze were for?'

'Easier to tolerate mind-numbing boredom while drunk, I suppose.'

She jerked round suddenly, staring into the dark overgrowth.

'What's wrong?'

'D'you hear that?'

'What?'

She turned back with a frown, eyes darting suspiciously from branch to branch. 'Like a slitherin' sound. Best not be snakes here.'

'I doubt it, if that bird was anything to judge by. Come on, let's finish this quickly and get out of here.'

I filled my jars as hastily as I dared. In retrospect, I realised I had never agreed exactly how much piskey dust Quiet Eyes should receive, only that I'd come away having promised a 'sizeable amount'. If just a pinch was enough to severely ruin your day, then surely several pints of the stuff was a potentially devastating quantity.

No time to dwell, I reminded myself. I'm not in the habit of pondering the purpose of my wares after they are sold. Why start now?

The jars nestled snugly back in my large inner coat pockets. I expected them to be pull me down, but the piskey dust seemed to weigh nothing. That would make the next part easier.

I found a slim tree that looked reasonably sturdy and also extended towards the middle of the clearing. I clambered up and out onto an overhanging branch, gripping it with my knees. Below me, the carpet of piskey dust leant a deceptively pretty factor of peril to my climb.

The clearing was only a few metres wide I figured I could reach the hanging fruit with ease. But it's funny how distance changes when your life (or at least, your human shape) is on the line.

I wriggled my way to the end of the branch, which dipped precariously as I lay full-length wrapped around its thinnest section. The pulsing fruit was only an arm's length away.

Ang watched me impassively from below. 'Don't fall,' she said helpfully.

I could reach it with the crowbar, I was sure. I glanced down at Ang. 'Be ready to catch!'

Her expression dissolved into consternation. 'Wait, gwas–!'

Thwack!

'Just like cricket,' I said, as the branch supporting me snapped.

For a long second I was the equivalent of a cartoon character paddling on thin air. Only when it turned into several continuous seconds did I realise that my coat, hooked on the end of the branch, was the only thing keeping me from falling the last three feet into the well of piskey dust.

'Ang! Help!'

She picked herself up, having been bowled over by the fruit, and scowled at me. 'Help yeself, ye bloody great coc oen.'

'Ang, this isn't the time! Unless you really want to be the one scraping me up as a pile of goo afterwards!'

'Deserves it, ye do–' She was interrupted by a rumbling in the trees. We both went still. The sound travelled along the branch holding me; I felt it as a tremor in my shoulders and prayed for my life that it didn't judder my coat off its perch.

It died away.

'What were that?' Ang said quietly.

'Don't talk!' I hissed. 'We don't want to catch his attention.'

'Whose–'

'Shh!'

'But gwas–'

'No.'

'Behind you!'

I twisted myself – stupidly – to look, dislodging my coat as I did.

And then I had all the breath knocked out of me, as a woody vine caught me round my stomach and squeezed. Then it yanked me backward.

I landed hard in ferns and stinging nettles, and caught sight of many twisting tendrils of ivy creeping toward my face.

Desperately huffing for air, I swung wildly with the crowbar – which, oh no . . .

I'd dropped it when I was grabbed. It was lost to the pool piskey dust now.

Meanwhile, I felt like I was being swallowed by a bush.

The ferns crowded on top of me while more creepers wrapped around my torso and pinned my arms. Serrated fronds dragged across my skin; tough like limbs rather than leaves. I struggled, but like with a rat caught by a python, it only made them squeeze harder.

The sound of fast approaching Welsh curses persuaded me to freeze and keep still for five seconds longer. A stem was just tickling its way up my left nostril when Ang crashed into view, wielding her iron ladle like a sword. A few wide swings threw the ferns aside – immediately the vines loosened their grip, shrinking away under the taste of the iron.

Ang jumped on my chest. She pulled me up by the lapels and roared: 'We gotta go!'

'Hang on,' I puffed. My ribs felt bruised. 'Steady now. You just watch for any more cocky vegetation while I get my breath, okay?'

'We got bigger problems, gwas.'

Over her shoulder, I got a glimpse of the Bigger Problem.

'Shit,' I squeaked. 'Let's run.'

* * *

Author's Note

A very fraught section here - and it's only going to get worse! How's the pacing so far? I'm aware this is a very action-heavy episode compared to others. Less context and inner monologue from Hansard.