14. THE HOLLOW TREE

For Chantelle, things take an unexpectedly dark turn

Chantelle was half way home along the leafy lane that was known to the locals as Durnley Bottoms when the wild sirens of an ambulance, complete with its array of blue flashing lights, made her stand back and let it pass.

“Now who can that be for?” she wondered. She’d long enjoyed her lonely walks down the Bottoms, and occasionally had gone as far as she could before it petered out into no more than the kind of track a family of rabbits might struggle to force their way along. Nobody lived down there and it was rumoured that the old witch Griselda Entwhistle occasionally convened a coven of her own kind, to perform spells and the like and create potions out of spring-water and magic, and rumours like that kept most decent folk away.

In fact, to her certain knowledge the only habitation was the home of the old, old man who had proposed marriage to her and explained it by saying he needed a son to inherit what he claimed was a great wealth. She didn’t believe him, of course, not about the wealth anyway, and her doubts were reinforced when he’d showed her a small empty chest.

She’d left him not so long ago and he’d been well, but there was that woman who claimed to be his daughter, a rough creature if ever there was one. She was a woman with violence written large across every expression on her care-worn face. Had something happened back there? Had she disarmed him and turned his pistol onto him, filling his ancient flesh with scorching lead, or had he shot her in a frantic attempt at warding her off.

And should she go back and see what was what?

No. That was out of the question. She was expected home and if she was much later her folks started worrying.

They’d worried a year or so back when she’d been late home on account of a boy. Chantelle had the odd boy friend, but mostly she preferred her own company when she was out and about. She was able to use her imagination, tell herself stories, become who she wanted to become, sing her little songs, but David had captivated her. He was her sort of boy, clever, witty and imaginative, and he had filled her mind with stories that had made her forget the time. And always his chatter was believable, the sort of thing that encouraged her own mind to venture along paths that common sense told her weren’t there.

And because of David and his tall stories she had been late back home and could see the worry on her mother’s face when she rolled home two hours late. It was then that she vowed not to do it again and she even bought herself a second-hand watch from a flea market in Brumpton town centre when there was an antique and pre-loved fair.

She looked at her watch. Yes, she was late, but not too late. But she most certainly wouldn’t have time to nip back and check that the old man was alive and well. Reluctantly, she continued on her way home.

David would have built it into a story of derring-do and they would have wandered off to see what was what. He might even have ventured to hold her hand, kiss her even if things seemed to be too exciting, but David wasn’t around any more. His folks had moved on to pastures new and taken their very reluctant son with them.

It was only when he was gone that she wondered whether she had loved him. It was a grown up thing, was love, and she was on the very verge of being grown up. That, though, was above a year ago and now she actually was grown up, at fifteen, though not grown up enough to marry an old man who wanted a son.

So she continued on her way home, and more blue flashing lights came into sight, racing towards her from the direction of town..

This time it was a police car in a hurry and for a second time she stepped back to allow it safe passage on the narrow lane.

Something was afoot. That much was obvious, and whatever it was might be dangerous. She pushed the desire for her to investigate to the back of her mind and hurried on towards home. If, she reasoned, there was something that involved the police then it most certainly would be best avoided.

The day had started beautifully with a warm breeze and a clear blue sky, but what starts as one thing can rapidly change to another, and she was still probably half a mile from home when a sudden squall of rain from a cloud that hadn’t been there five minutes earlier forced her to seek for shelter.

She knew just about every inch of Durnley Bottoms and so it took her mere moments to squeeze between two elders into a small scrubby patch of land where little had a chance of growing because rain hardly ever penetrated that far through dense foliage. She’d sheltered here before, and once she’d come there with David. They’d carved their names into the flaking bark of the stunted remains of a long dead hollow tree, and on that occasion had sworn mighty oaths regarding something precious and secret. She’d forgotten what that something might be, but she remembered the way they’d seriously sworn that oath as they carved away.

Their initials were still there, barely discernible, and she smiled as she remembered how serious David had been.

It was as she was smiling that she saw something that shouldn’t be there. In the hollow of that tree, and shining like gold, was a pile of treasure.

She plunged her hands in and pulled something out. It was a key. Then she felt deeper into the hollow tree and fetched out more keys, all shiny, all with little tags on them, and all very, very secret.

It was here that David had kissed her after they had sworn a powerful oath. She smiled at the memory, at the way it had made her feel, being kissed by a boy for the very first time.

Her shorts had fairly deep pockets, but they weren’t deep enough to hold all those keys. There were far too many of them, but she pushed as many as she could deep into those pockets and looked out at the Durnley Bottoms.

The rain had stopped already, so she hid the remainder of the keys back into the shattered stump of the old dead tree, and continued on her way home.

She was almost there when she noticed a police car outside her home. They didn’t have visits from the police, not her folk. They were decent, law-abiding people.

“What’s going on?” she asked when she saw two policemen talking to her mum and noticed the very serious expression on her face.

“Why did you do it, Chantelle?” asked the anxious woman, “why did you kill the old man?”

© Peetr Rogerson 13.12.19