Chapter 2: The Hidden People

A fantasy novel

Author’s note: This is Chapter 2 of my second novel, The Hidden People, a fantasy story with a romance element; but if it sounds like something you’d enjoy, please read on.

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As they walked to the Pickles’ house, their breath misting in the cold, Henny stopped and pointed at the old churchyard across the road.

“Well,” he said.

Jo looked in the direction he’d pointed. She’d never noticed the well before, but it looked ancient, worn into cobbled smoothness by weather and rain, although the roof and winding mechanism looked much newer—perhaps nineteenth century. There was a design carved on one of the stones, but it was so weathered that Jo wasn’t quite sure what it was. Maybe a face?

“It is a well,” she agreed with Henny.

Despite Henny’s apparent desire to linger and stare at the well, Simon and Jo grabbed him by each arm and pulled him towards the row of terrace houses across the road. Miss Pickles would not thank them if they were late home. Jo was under no delusions: finding someone who would put up with the three of them as tenants had been a boon, and despite the downsides of living with the Pickles, she did not want to risk losing their tenancy. It was far cheaper than any other equivalent rental place, maybe because the Pickles’ house smelled of mothballs and stale nicotine. Mr Pickles had given up smoking long ago, but the ghost of his cigarettes remained, ingrained in the furniture and walls.

When they got in, Miss Pickles came bustling down the stairs. She was a thin woman with a long nose: she reminded Jo of an anteater.

“Shoes off, shoes off!” she said.

Obediently, Jo and Simon took off their shoes and helped Henny take off his, then put them on the neatly ordered rack by the front door. Miss Pickles had put their names on the rack. Simon placed his shoes a little crookedly; Miss Pickles immediately rushed up and adjusted them. Jo could not work out whether Simon had done this deliberately to annoy Miss Pickles or if it was unintentional.

The carpet was covered with clear rubbery plastic covering that had gone yellow with age. Even though they had removed their shoes, they were never allowed to step on the carpet. It was one of the strange things about living here; but Jo reflected that she’d lived in odder places.

Then Miss Pickles handed out labelled coat hangers and they all took off their jackets and she hung them in the hall cupboard. Only then were they allowed to go upstairs to their rooms.

“Corned beef,” said Miss Pickles. “That’s what’s for dinner.”

“Thank you,” said Jo. They trooped upstairs to their rooms on the third floor. Simon and Henny shared a bedroom, and Jo had a separate tiny bedroom.

Jo treasured this small space of her own. She closed the door, and stripped off her t-shirt, grabbed one of Simon’s old shirts and put it on. Then she inspected her face in the small mirror on the dressing table and made a face at herself. Short-cropped dark brown hair; thin angular face with pale skin; large brown eyes, unusually tilted and shaped; but she had none of Simon’s exotic good looks, or Henny’s handsome grandeur. She never tanned, ever.

While Jo was profoundly grateful for a clean, decent home in which to live, she was less enthusiastic about Miss Pickles’ choices in décor. Next to the mirror was a china statue of a shepherdess holding a lamb. The shepherdess had improbably bright yellow hair, cornflower blue eyes, a big pink bonnet and matching pink dress. She was seated and had a crook leaning by her. On her lap was a lamb with a slightly desperate open-mouthed expression. Jo had always thought like the lamb looked like it wanted to escape but was stuck in the chintzy pink lap of the shepherdess.

“You and me both,” she said to the lamb. “I wish I could escape too.”

Then she clapped her hand over her mouth and made the sign Mama had taught them, a ring with her forefinger and thumb, which she then broke with the other forefinger, to break the wish. She couldn’t stop herself, even though she wasn’t sure whether Theywere real or not. But she and Simon had discovered that They sometimes seemed to respond to random wishes. The manner of response was not always welcome, which was half the problem. Jo had hated the man who’d hit Henny; but she would never have wished him dead in a motorbike accident. Their mother, on the other hand, would probably have cursed the man, performed one of the strange little rituals she’d taught them, and possibly threatened to kill him, depending on her state of mind at the time.

Jo went to the bathroom. As she sat on the toilet, the ancient flowery pink and orange shower curtain rustled a little. “If you’re there, you’re not allowed to look,” she said quietly. It took her a while to be able to go after that—the feeling of being watched would not leave her—then she washed her hands and her face and went downstairs.

Mr Pickles was in the dining room, looking jolly, his round face shining. “Hello, my lass,” he said to Jo, and touched her in the middle of the back. Jo wished he wouldn’t—she didn’t like being touched by strange men—but there was no malice or bad intent in it.

“Hello Mr Pickles,” she said dutifully.

“How was the café?” said Mr Pickles.

“A nasty customer sent back his coffee twice. Otherwise, it was fine.”

Then to Jo’s relief, Simon came in, followed by Miss Pickles. Simon regaled everyone with a tale of someone who had bought an extraordinary number of washing baskets; all the baskets in the supermarket and wondered what the man had needed them for.

“I suppose that person had a big family?” said Miss Pickles doubtfully.

“It didn’t look like it,” said Simon. “It was just the one man. But you never know—”

Henny came in, looking slightly confused, one finger in his ear.

“What’s up?” said Jo.

Henny took his finger out of his ear. “Music.”

They listened. Other than the usual sound of cars going past, Jo couldn’t hear anything. Simon looked at her and shook his head.

“Is it one of those times when you get a buzz in your ear, Henry?” said Miss Pickles, practically. “One of those high pitched buzzes? I do dislike that.”

“I believe they call it tinnitus, Mavis,” said Mr Pickles.

“But it’s not tinny, Horace?” said Miss Pickles. The conversation was diverted into an argument between Mr Pickles and Miss Pickles about the origin of the word and Jo forgot about Henny’s complaint.

They sat down to dinner, while Mr Pickles said a prayer. Jo had been rather shocked when they first moved in—none of them had been familiar this ritual. Miss Pickles was shocked by this in turn and had given them little leaflets. Because the Pickles were nice people, and Jo didn’t want to hurt their feelings, she politely read them, and kept them in a stack on the bookshelf. She did not want to confess that she did not fully understand what they were talking about, or who half of the people in them were. Miss Pickles seemed satisfied, so she left it at that.

In any case, Jo and Simon had decided that they could abide hiding their superstitions, being given leaflets, and saying prayers, in exchange for a safe place to live. Prior to this, the longest they’d lived in the one place had been two months. Something had always happened and their other landlords had asked them to move on.  

The corned beef was rather salty and chewy—Miss Pickles was not a very good cook—but when Jo had attempted to help with cooking, she’d managed to make the oven malfunction and blown up a sandwich press. Henny didn’t seem to care that the corned beef was chewy and devoured several helpings, but then Jo thought he must be used to the food he got at his special school.

After that, Mr Pickles made them hot milk. “It’s what our dear departed Mother and Father used to do for us.”

Henny didn’t drink his milk. He got up again and said, “Music.”

“There isn’t any music, Henny,” said Simon.

“Music,” insisted Henny, looking around the room and in the bookshelves.

Jo knew that Miss Pickles got really upset if any of her ornaments or books were disturbed, so she got up swiftly and grabbed Henny’s arm. “Let’s go upstairs, Henny?”

Simon took her cue and they took Henny upstairs.

“What’s this nonsense about music?” Simon said to Henny, when they’d led him to their shared bedroom.

“Henny hears!”

Jo strained as hard as she could. There, just on the edge of hearing, was a high pitched noise. Maybe there was a tune to it?

“It’s the tinny thing,” she said to Henny. “Really, don’t worry about it.”

“Henny find Mama!”

Simon put his hands on his hips. “No. You are going to bed, Henny. And when you wake up in the morning there shall be no more of this nonsense.”

Henny pouted, but acquiesced. They got into their pyjamas, and Jo turned out the light and climbed gratefully into bed: her feet were always sore because she spent all day standing. She thought she’d find it hard to sleep, but she fell asleep almost instantly.

Later, she woke. The power had gone off and the clock by her bed was not showing the time. Jo had a sudden prickling feeling in her toes and fingers. Click, thunk. Someone had opened and closed the front door.

She was no longer drowsy. She put on one of Miss Pickles’ hideous pink towelling dressing gowns and slippers, got up, and looked out the small grimy window in her room. Everything was dark and still, although the moon was almost full, so she could still see. A large person, outlined in silhouette, walked down the road.

She picked up her mobile phone and was relieved to discover that it was behaving itself today, and had decided to work. She turned on the torch function, and ran into her brothers’ room. Henny’s bed was empty, although the sheets were still warm. She shook Simon awake.

“Whaaa—?” Simon looked blearily at her, his face half lit by the moonlight from the window. Suddenly, he looked beautiful—alien—almost otherworldly. The moment passed. “What’s up, Jo?”

“Henny,” hissed Jo. “He’s not in his bed. And the power’s gone out and I just saw a large man walk down the road.”

“Shit.” Simon jumped out of bed, grabbed a coat out of the cupboard, and jammed on some slippers. “Are you sure?”

“Look at his bed,” Jo hissed quietly.

Simon swore again and picked up his phone as well. “He’s gone. What now?”

“We go down the road and see what he’s doing,” Jo said. “But we have to be careful not to wake the Pickles. I don’t think they’ll thank us. We’ll get thrown out of another house.”

They crept quietly down the stairs into the dark sleeping house, through the fug of mothballs. The night silence was punctuated by the bandsaw snore of Mr Pickles. Jo found it strangely reassuring to hear such a normal sound.

Simon winced as he tripped down the stairs and made a huge din. They paused. But no one stirred, and the snore kept going, so they crept down to the front door. The front door was ajar.

“Better not close it in case we can’t get back in,” Jo breathed in Simon’s ear.

Outside, it was icy cold and still, and all the streetlights were extinguished. Jo very carefully lifted the latch of the red garden gate and they looked up and down the street.

“Power’s out,” Simon whispered to Jo, his breath misting. Their feet crunched on the slightly frosted footpath, but at least they could see Henny’s footprints and track where he had gone.

He wasn’t far. He was at the well, looking over into it.

Jo ran into the church yard and grabbed Henny by his striped pyjama shirt. “What are you doing?” she hissed, realising that her oldest brother was not wearing a coat.

“Music,” said Henny, pulling at the grating over the top of the well. “Listen.”

They paused. Jo wondered if there was a sound like high pitched skirling pipes, just beyond the range of what she could hear. Or was it Mama, singing, like she had when they were little? Maybe it was the wind, or maybe she was imagining these sounds because of Henny’s suggestions? She really wasn’t sure. All she knew was that she didn’t like this—the maybe-music just out of hearing, the power outage, and Henny’s strange obsession with the well.

“Come back to bed now,” Simon commanded.

“No,” said Henny, bracing his feet—and unfortunately, he was remarkably strong and stubborn when he chose.

“I’m cold,” Jo said, which was true. “I’m really cold and scared.”

Henny turned to look at her, his face eerie in the torchlight. “Henny’ll look after Jojo.”

“Henny will look after Jojo by coming back to bed,” said Simon, sternly.

“Henny found Mama! Mama’ll look after us ‘gain.”

Simon shook his head. “Don’t be ridiculous. Mama’s not down that stupid well, Henny. Mama’s in hospital, because she’s sick in the head.”

Eventually, after some effort, they coaxed him back home and got him back up the stairs. Jo was shivering, but she didn’t think it was just from the cold.