The Guardian of Twin Oaks
by Valeriya Salt
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Table of Contents parts: 1, 2, 3, 4 |
part 2
The road to the village led uphill, and Elsse was grateful to the inspector for giving her a lift to the pub. God knows how long this investigation will continue. No way he’ll allow me to go. She shot an annoyed look at Inspector Lydgate. He’s young. She glanced at his copper-red hair without a hint of grey and clean-shaved chin. Of course, he wants to close this case as soon as possible and move on with the promotion. Twin Oaks must be a pretty dull place.
Inspector Lydgate made an attempt to break the uneasy pause and started to ask her about her job, but Elsse stayed focused on her thoughts and replied at random.
What a terrible death! Slashes, scratches... something from a horror movie. The events of the last night were spinning in her exhausted mind. Who on earth could do it to the tiny old lady? Her enemies? Did she have any? Her relatives? Why? To hog her small business? The only one thing is clear here-whoever killed Mrs. May wouldn’t hesitate to... do it to me as well. She swallowed her emotions back.
Inspector Lydgate’s old Ford climbed the hill, and the whole village with its endless fields lay like a patchwork carpet in front of them. A few short snaky streets led to the main market square in the centre. An ancient church with a dark spire, several tiny shops with the local produce, postcards, and hiking equipment. Twin Oaks appeared to have no difference to any other English village where the life passed lazily and without surprises.
‘Oh, this is a bit unusual.’ Elsse smiled for the first time in the morning. ‘I see the citizens love cats.’
The sculptures of all shapes, sizes, and made of all types of suitable materials represented a massive feline in its best: sleeping on a bench, sunbathing on a shop’s windowsill, hanging down from a low café’s roof, relaxing under a tree. Cats were everywhere.
‘They remind me of my Rasmus.’ Elsse sighed.
Inspector Lydgate chuckled. ‘This is Zephire, a phantom guardian of pits.’
‘A phantom guardian? I didn’t know cats lived in pits.’
‘Just a local legend,’ Inspector Lydgate continued. ‘There was a decent size pit here, near Twin Oaks, which was closed some eight, ten years ago. With the new high-speed railway coming, the local miners claimed Zephire is unhappy now.’
‘So, who is he? Some kind of a pit’s ghost?’
‘Sort of. They believe they felt the light breeze in the shaft and saw two massive green eyes.’ He waved. ‘Told you, it’s just a legend and another reason to decorate the village to attract more tourists.’
Elsse wanted to ask something else, but the next moment, his car stopped in front of the two-storey traditional cottage.
He nodded to the pub. ‘Here we go.’
* * *
The broadband connection was pretty good in her new place, and Elsse managed to call an urgent online meeting with her colleagues in Leeds. She didn’t want to go into all the details of her unexpected disappearance and show her fear, still less did she want to explain to the local bosses she was under investigation for murder now, so she kept the meeting as short and informative as possible. God knows how much crap I’ll be in for when the police make an official inquiry. She sighed, closing her laptop and reclining back to her pillows.
The inspector’s words about the ghost with massive green eyes, her visions, her nightmares... What if they were not nightmares? These thoughts kept on swirling in her mind when she didn’t notice falling asleep.
* * *
Elsse opened her eyes and looked around. It started to get darker in the room. I must’ve fallen asleep for a few hours. She shot a look at the round clock on the wall. Half past five. She got changed and went downstairs to the pub where the locals had already been queuing at the bar and occupying tables for dinner. She joined the line for a drink, catching curious looks from the pub’s staff and regular customers.
By the time she placed her order, all the tables in the pub had been occupied. Elsse went outside to find a place to sit. Two of the three long wooden tables were occupied by loud hikers with even louder kids and unruly dogs. So she had nothing else to do but to take a seat at the only vacant table under the dark mass of an old yew tree. Waiting for her dinner to come, she noticed a wooden Zephire smiled his wide smile from the pub’s windowsill. Her wait wasn’t long, though.
‘Oh, ehm... excuse me, luv. Is this vacant here?’ A tall gentleman in his seventies shifted on his feet, pointing at the empty bench in front of her. ‘Ah, this place is getting busier and busier every time. Nowhere to sit even at the bar.’
‘You’re welcome.’ Elsse made an inviting gesture.
The man put his drink on the table and nodded in gratitude. ‘Derbyshire will be busier than London soon.’ He sighed, taking a seat. ‘You can’t imagine what’s going on in summer here. No place to park a car. Hikers from Sheffield and Manchester are everywhere.’
‘I can imagine.’ Elsse squeezed a tired, polite smile.
‘I’m Edward Blyth, by the way,’ he continued. ‘But everybody here calls me Farmer Ted. I’ve been farming in this area for more than forty years. This place has changed a lot ever since.’
‘Elsse Moen,’ she replied with a nod.
‘Ah, you must be this engineer from Norway the whole village is talking about.’
‘Not an engineer, a land surveyor.’
‘I’m sorry, luv. You must be going through a rough time. What happened to poor Agnes... Agnes May is unbelievable.’
Elsse opened her mouth to express how quickly the news was spreading, but Farmer Ted continued, ‘Don’t worry, luv. Eli will sort this mess out. I’m sure.’
‘Eli?’
‘Yes, Eli. Elijah Lydgate, the chief inspector.’
‘Of course.’ Elsse nodded. ‘He helped me today with my car and accommodation.’
‘He’s a nice lad, very clever. He went to the university,’ Farmer Ted continued. ‘Sometimes good education and common sense don’t work well, though. Sometimes you need something more than just an exceptional diploma.’
Elsse frowned. ‘And what is that?’
‘A gut feeling maybe?’
If it was a hint, she definitely didn’t understand it. They kept silent for a few seconds.
The food had arrived, and Elsse was ready to dig her fork and knife into her steak when she noticed something big and white passed by the yew tree. A car? She turned. The white Land Rover. Her heart sunk. She continued staring at the car with tinted windows, which stopped straight behind the yew.
‘What’s that, luv?’ Farmer Ted asked.
‘Ehm... nothing.’ Elsse shifted on her wooden bench, stretching her hand for a sauce and trying to look as calm as possible. She shot a glance back.
The Land Rover vanished without a trace.
‘I heard about your local legend.’ She broke the long pause first, nodding to the wooden sculpture of Zephire on the windowsill.
‘Ah, Zephire. He’s a guardian of pits.’ Farmer Ted sounded serious, not a shadow of a joke in his voice. ‘The locals don’t respect him anymore, and this disrespect cost us dearly.’
‘I don’t quite follow.’
‘Yes, a guardian of the local pit. Believe it or not, but the pit led to another, much darker place.’ Farmer Ted lowered his voice and moved closer to her. ‘When the pit was closed, nobody disturbed Zephire and he, together with the others, could live without fear. Now, when the high-speed railway is on its way, the pit will be filled in. Zephire has already made his statement.’
‘What statement?’ Elsse thought she might’ve been lost in translation or the old man was just out of his mind.
‘Two road engineers disappeared in these woods about six months ago,’ Farmer Ted continued. ‘No bodies were found. Nothing. They both were foreigners, so the police assumed they went back home. Apparently, they haven’t crossed the border. They worked on a construction site for the high-speed railway line just a few dozens of miles away from here. Now, poor Agnes.’ He sighed.
Elsse frowned. ‘Do you really think that—?’
‘This is when you need your gut feeling. A fancy diploma, skills, and theoretical knowledge, everything is useless here.’ Farmer Ted shook his grey head and focused on his drink.
Elsse said nothing. The cold wind, coming from nowhere, made her wrap tighter in her long black coat.
‘Oh, the wind is picking up. Not a good sign,’ Farmer Ted mumbled under his breath.
‘Why? What’s going on?’
He didn’t listen. Rising from his chair, he took the last rushed sip of his beer and left half of the dinner untouched.
‘Wait, please, Mr. Blyth.’ She touched his sleeve. ‘Do you think it was Zephire, who attacked Mrs. May? Who is the Rabbit Man? Why’s he following me? Why has he brought me here?’
His faded eyes stared at her for a second. ‘You’re a land surveyor, aren’t you?’
‘Yes, I am. I’m working with a company in charge of the high-speed railway construction.’
‘Oh, luv, be careful.’ He exhaled. ‘My gut feeling tells me you’re here for a purpose.’
* * *
Life is leisurely, expensive but extremely boring here. Elsse sat on the edge of the bed in her tiny room. A perfect place for farmers and well-off pensioners from nearby Sheffield or Manchester who move here from the cities for fresh air and calm scenery. What is a guy like Inspector Lydgate doing here?
A polite smiling face and deep green eyes emerged in her mind when she reclined on the pillows and tried to forget her disturbing conversation with Farmer Ted. Oh, girl... here we go. Fantasising about the guy when your ass is in danger? A cold chill ran down her spine when Mrs. May’s dead body emerged in her mind.
The early dusk covered the fields soon, and the full moon appeared from behind the clouds’ veil.
She yawned, glancing outside again. I should be grateful he didn’t put me in police custody, though. It’s better to be bored here than in jail. The whole mood of the scenery reminded her of the outskirts of her native Bergen. At least, we’re surrounded by the sea and mountains there. A sudden warm but sad memory squeezed her heart. For the first time in the last three years, she thought about Norway with warm sadness. She shut the thick curtains and went for a quick shower, then straight to bed. As soon as her head touched the pillow, she drowned in a deep, undisturbed sleep.
The wide sheet of the brightly illuminated M1, the rows of street lamps, vanishing in the darkness far ahead, the low noise, the weird hum continued to follow her. It sounded like electricity running inside pylons.
The next second, she found herself in the middle of the dark wood, surrounded by the humming buzz. A tunnel? Elsse noticed an arch in the mass of a hill a few metres in front of her. What is this place?
A vibrating sound of her phone made her jerk, and she woke up, glancing around the dark room in confusion. ‘Damn! Three in the morning,’ she grumbled, shooting a look at the round clock on the wall. ‘Who in their right mind..?’ She stretched her hand, picked up her mobile phone, and stared at the screen. An unknown number? Strange. ‘Hello,’ she replied finally.
A second, another one. No answer, just a vibrating, purring noise.
Elsse hung up and put her phone on the bedside table, then... she noticed it. A cloudy black mass in the far corner of the room and the eyes, the two green flashlights, stared at her from the corner without a blink.
‘What the...?’ She screamed, but the cloud crossed the room soundlessly and, the next second, towered in front of her.
Elsse made a fruitless attempt to get up from the bed, but all her body became paralysed with horror.
‘Hello, Elsse,’ an unfamiliar soft male voice said.
‘Who’s that?’ she mumbled, still unable to move.
‘You know me. Although we haven’t been introduced formally yet, you know enough about me,’ the entity continued, purring. ‘Please, don’t panic.’
‘Are you... Zephire?’
‘Yes, I am.’
‘Did you...’ she stammered. ‘Did you kill the poor old lady?’
‘She was too nosey and too eager to stop me. Bad things can happen to those who push this project forward, you know.’
‘What project?’ Elsse cried. ‘What do you want from me?’ She felt tears in her eyes, but couldn’t wipe them.
‘You can help me. You can help all of us.’
‘That’s why your freaky friend, the Rabbit Man, has brought me here? Who’s he?’ she shouted the last words.
The purring intensified, and it seemed filled the whole space around her, reverberating not only in her eardrums but in the whole body. The cloud moved closer, and Elsse felt Zephire’s grave-cold breathing on her face.
‘What do you want from me?’ she screamed.
A deafening bang and... the whole world went dark.
That was a rather bizarre nightmare. Elsse rubbed her eyes and got up from the bed.
The round clock on the wall showed half past eight, but the dusk didn’t want to leave the room. The rain had been pouring down the whole morning.
She opened the curtains and only then noticed a large lump of black fluff on the floor. She picked it and frowned. Looks like some kind of hair?
* * *
Copyright © 2022 by Valeriya Salt
