THE NARROW ROAD that traced the left side of the hill above Millstream provided a useful shortcut to the nearest town of Frampton Cotley. However, most people did their best to avoid it. On the rare occasion that someone travelled along it, when it really had been unavoidable, they always behaved in the most unusual ways. Take last Thursday for example, when poor old Mrs Foggerty, the churchwarden, had left it late to get to her doctor’s appointment. There wasn’t enough time to take the main road around the hill, so she picked her way through the lanes, where she came across a fallen tree.
By this time, the only other option was to take the road she had been avoiding. She turned back and took a left, then left again onto the road. She stopped, closed her eyes and whispered a prayer. Then she pushed the car into first gear and put her foot to the floor. When the engine was screaming at her to change, she put it into second and, once again, put her foot to the floor. She did the same in third, throwing the Nissan Micra around the corners like it was a rally car until she eventually reached the main road into Frampton. She took a deep breath and drove on at her usual 35 mph.
The reason for this rather peculiar behaviour was what the locals referred to as the old Smyder house.
When the postman had been told to stop delivering there and the little Smyder boy had stopped coming to school, the villagers assumed the family had moved. Village gossip changed from why the boy was such a bully to who, after centuries of Smyders, was going to buy the house next, but it never went on the market.
One day, Mr Taylor, who had had his eye on the property for years, decided to go up there and take a look. When he returned, his wife asked him what on earth had
happened to make him look so pale and shaken. He told her what he had seen. He said the first thing he had noticed was how many cats there were. Scattered amongst the grass, under the bushes, lying on the window ledges and shed roof, they were everywhere. Then he spotted the little boy crouched in the middle of the lawn. He called out and asked where his parents were, but he didn’t move so he went over and crouched down beside him.
He was turning a jar with something furry inside around and around. At first, Mr Taylor thought there was a mouse inside the jar, although admittedly a rather large one, but on closer inspection he realised it was the paw of a cat, and worse, it was teeming with insects. Every time the boy turned the jar, the insects were squashed against the glass, dotting it with gooey brown smears.
A smell like rotten cabbage crept up his nose and wrapped itself firmly round his throat, and he gagged. He wondered if it was the paw, but it appeared to be coming from the boy himself. He stood up, pressing the back of his hand against his nostrils, and looked back at the house to see an old man staring out of the downstairs window. He waved with his other hand, but the man didn’t move.
The boy took a tissue from his pocket, unscrewed the lid of the jar and stuffed the tissue inside. He pulled out some matches, lit one and threw it into the jar. The tissue caught alight easily. The boy placed it on the grass and sat back, watching the insects running around in all directions. Some made it out and some didn’t. When the tissue had burnt out, the boy stood up and stared back towards the house. The stench of burning hair and flesh seeped into Mr Taylor’s nose. He could taste it on the back of his tongue, causing his tongue to fold inside his mouth involuntarily, as if to stop him swallowing the smell. He ran back across the lawn to his car, reversed out onto the road and sped down the lane away from the house.
Mrs Taylor suggested they alert social services to the fact that the poor boy was still living there and no longer going to school and that clearly something wasn’t quite right. But Mr Taylor pointed out that they knew nothing about the family and didn’t like to interfere. His wife was adamant that they had a duty to at least inform someone who could check it out, so Mr Taylor agreed to sleep on it and decide in the morning.
